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NEWS&ANALYSIS Eric Lundquist: Up Front Golden-oldie lessons Vendors and prognosticators are either wringing their hands looking for the next big thing or worrying that IT has become a lowpriced commodity to be purchased like electricity or paper clips. They could learn a thing or two from mainframes, pay phones and backhoes. Here’s why. The mainframe business has been predicted to die ever since IBM developed the Model 704 in 1957. Full-time venture capitalist and part-time Fortune columnist Stewart Alsop predicted that the last mainframe would be unplugged in 1996. This month, IBM once again proved Alsop’s and others’ predictions to be ludicrously off the mark by introducing the z990, code-named T-Rex. The advance of Intel-based microprocessors and Microsoft software was supposed to be the equivalent of the cataclysmic asteroid impact that wiped out the dinosaurs. It has been little more than a summer meteor shower. Why do mainframes continue to inhabit the planet? That they work as advertised is probably the immediate answer. The stories about old mainframes still cranking out reports and doing financials on some proprietary program written in the 1970s are legion. A second reason is that if you are willing to invest—say, about $1 billion over four years—you can make a mainframe that looks a lot like what IBM is selling. “We continue to invest in those features and capabilities our customers are asking for,” Peter McCaffrey, IBM’s director of product marketing for the zSeries of mainframes, told me. Combining the reliability and scale of mainframes with recent developments such as Linux has created an alluring platform for e-commerce. What’s more, working on a platform that pundits are forever declaring extinct has proved motivational to IBM engineers. “Every once in a while, they have a good laugh over it. In the end, it drives our engineers to constantly reinvent the platform,” said McCaffrey. 26 eWEEK n MAY 26, 2003 Now, pay phones. They are ubiquitous and yet underused in this era of cell phones. When Intel introduced its wireless chips under the Centrino label, it produced a movie, ostensibly humorous, that included a spoof on pay phones. Now, Verizon is striking back by adding wireless hot-spot capabilities to its pay phones. Starting in New York, Verizon is making hot-spot access for 802.11-enabled devices free for Verizon Internet access customers. This is a smart move for Verizon and a challenge to all those venture capitalists who were betting on the vendors of equipment you’d need to be wirelessly logging on at McDonald’s as you scarf down your Big Mac. Philip Nutsugah, executive director for broadband wireless at Verizon, said the company intends to have 1,000 pay phone hot spots in New York by year’s end. Now take a guess what the following quote refers to. “Every feature was designed with productivity, serviceability and reliability in mind.” No, it’s not Scott McNealy trying to persuade you to buy more Solaris, and it’s not Bill Gates contending he finally has the security thing under control. The quote was part of a press release for the new John Deere 710G backhoe introduced in January and replete with new features and technologies. In a 1997 article on HotWired.com titled “50 Ways to Crash the Net,” security expert Simson Garfinkel included buying 10 backhoes as one of the 50. That’s because, back then, critical Internet backbones too often ran through underground cables, which too frequently fell victim to the digging of backhoes. When a backhoe blade sliced through a cable and cut off Internet access to a big chunk of Boston on May 13, I started to wonder if backhoe technology is evolving faster than the physical security of the Internet. I tracked down Garfinkel, now going for his doctorate at MIT. While it might take more than 10 backhoes to do the job now, the physical security of the Internet’s routers, name servers and associated hardware remains far too vulnerable for the elevated threats the Net faces, Garfinkel said. “There ERIC_ LUNDQUIST@ZIFFDAVIS.COM Why do mainframes continue to inhabit the planet? That they work as advertised is probably the immediate answer. is a very high risk of physical damage. People tend to forget about physical security,” he said. Part of progress is the illusion that we leave some things behind. But some golden-oldie technologies stick around for a reason. They’re good at what they do. Still, that backhoe technology remains one step ahead of Internet architects should give us all pause. ´
Security: Government DHS revamp on tap IN WAKE OF CRITICISM, CYBER-SECURITY TO GET HIGHER PROFILE By Caron Carlson IN WASHINGTON After months of escalating criticism from the IT industry that the Bush administration is devoting insufficient resources and attention to cyber-security, the fledgling Department of Homeland Security is already restructuring to give network safety a higher profile. The organizational changes, due to take place over the coming months, will show that the executive branch is taking cyber-security seriously, according to Charles McQueary, undersecretary for science and technology at the new department. McQueary addressed lawmakers here last week at a hearing of the House Committee on Science. The session took on a very un-Washington, almost-surreal quality as legislators chided civil servants for not chasing after enough funding for cyber-security research and development, and civil servants answered that there is plenty of money already being spent. “We’re not lacking for funds,” Anthony Tether, director of the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, told the committee. “I funded every idea that’s come forth in this area this year. We’re more idea-limited right now than we are funding-limited.” Acting on ramped-up industry lobbying, legislators took to task the DHS, DARPA, the National Science Foundation, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology for not seeking out or setting aside adequate funds for cybersecurity. The preoccupation with national security since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, was expected to unleash a torrent of government spending on IT goods and services, but the federal funds have not been as forthcoming as the industry had hoped. According to committee Chairman Sherwood Boehlert, R-N.Y., there have been complaints from throughout the research community that the DHS is not focusing on solving network vulnerabilities and that DARPA is operating under reduced resources. “It’s impossible to conclude that far more needs to be done,” Boehlert said, DHS’ Ridge (center) and DARPA’s Tether (right) are tuning out Boehlert’s complaints that cyber-security gets short shrift. NEWS&ANALYSIS directing DARPA’s Tether to “enlighten us as to why we’re moving in the wrong direction.” Most of DARPA’s resources are directed at classified projects, according to Tether, who said that a peek at the agency’s classified budget would make lawmakers more comfortable with the funding level. “We’re not concerning ourselves [with] the commercial networks,” Tether said, adding that DARPA is focused on solving problems that the private sector currently does not confront. The military faces threats from “attackers whose life depends on taking the network down,” he said, and projects are under way to make those networks increasingly wireless and peer to peer. “We’re really far ahead of the commercial world in this regard,” Tether said, adding that a prototype military network with 400 nodes to use for simulated attacks is in the works. Last week, DARPA sent its data mining report to Congress. Following public outcry over the research last year, the agency changed the project’s name from Total Information Awareness to Terrorism Information Awareness. When President Bush disbanded the President’s Critical Infrastructure Protection Board earlier this year following the resignation of its chairman, Richard Clarke, responsibilities for cybersecurity were transferred to DHS Secretary Tom Ridge. However, the subject was not given a sufficiently high profile or a sufficiently high-ranking executive to satisfy the industry. Turning the tables and taking a shot at the private sector, federal research officials told the Science Committee last week that if there is less-than-optimal attention devoted to cyber-security today, it is a result of problems in industry, not the government. “As a nation, our greatest vulnerability is indifference,” said Arden Bement, NIST director, citing recent surveys indicating that private enterprises “don’t really see themselves as a target.” “They just haven’t quite stepped up to ANDERSON the plate,” said Bement, in Washington. ´ STEPHEN MAY 26, 2003 n eWEEK 33
Page 1 and 2: VOLUME 20, NUMBER 21 n $6 NEWSPAPER
Page 3 and 4: MAY 26, 2003 CONTENTS NEWS&ANALYSIS
Page 5 and 6: NEWS&ANALYSIS LATE NEWS Microsoft t
Page 7 and 8: NEWS&ANALYSIS FRONT OFFICE Oracle e
Page 9 and 10: NEWS&ANALYSIS Network analysis: Fas
Page 11 and 12: NEWS&ANALYSIS SERVERS StarView remo
Page 13: NEWS&ANALYSIS Face to Face: Clark M
Page 17 and 18: Software links backup, SRM CA, VERI
Page 19 and 20: Storage: OS upgrade Bigger, better
Page 21 and 22: NEWS&ANALYSIS SPARC workstation is

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