Articles in “December 2007” from Datamation Blog

On the front of its web site, Network World has a list of its top 10 stories of 2007. Many involve less-than-mission-critical topics, such as 10 network-iest movies of all time. But the third item on the list -- 12 IT skills that employers can't say no to -- struck me as particularly useful to IT pros and their careers (not that there's anything wrong with Top 15 USB geek gadgets). Among the 12 IT skills that Network World says employers find invaluable are:

Machine learning (off to a dull start) Mobilizing applications (that's more like it) Wireless networking Project management General networking skills Open source programming

The entire list can be found here, but the one I found most interesting (or perhaps surprising) was "Digital home technology integration". The Computing Technology Industry Association (CompTIA) even has developed a certification for this digital home technology integration, which a CompTIA executive called "the hottest and most vibrant market we've seen in a long time."

Over on Internetnews.com, Sean Michael Kerner has done a bang-up job in summing up the big happenings in 2007 regarding open source and Linux. It was a huge year for open source, both technology-wise and patent-wise. Kerner writes:

2007 is a year that will long be remembered in the open source and Linux communities. It was a year in which the twin underpinnings of what makes open source successful and what could serve to destroy it made the headlines. On the pro side, Linux made major technology advances this year and a key new license emerged for open source. On the flipside patents and intellectual property issues continued to threaten the survival and success of the open source ecosystem.

But before you say it was the year of the Linux, keep in mind that, as Kerner writes, 2007 was not, however, the year of the Linux desktop, though Linux did make some inroads in the consumer space. Dell began selling Ubuntu Linux and Wal-Mart offered Linux PCs on its shelves. On one of the sites I edit, Intranet Journal.com, any open source story we ran got huge eyeballs, as they say, which was eye-opening to me and other editors. Theres passion in them thar open source hills. What a difference a year makes, and Im open to what happens with open source in 2008.

Warning sounded over 'flirting robots' Microsoft pulls plug on potty-mouth Santa How Your Creepy Ex-Co-Workers Will Kill Facebook Your Computer Thinks You're Lazy Cops: More Smoke Toad Venom to Get High White House Mum On Destroyed CIA Tapes* * Just kidding. This one's no surprise at all.

They're calling it a "sophisticated cyber attack," but the phishing expedition that enabled hackers to break into Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee relied on a disarmingly simple strategy -- tricking unwitting email recipients into opening a malicious attachment. Fortunately for the hackers, there are plenty of unwitting email recipients around, including employees working at federal facilities that store sensitive and classified information on their networks. Not so fortunate for the rest of us. In a statement emailed to Oak Ridge employees, Laboratory Director Thom Mason said:

"...hackers potentially succeeded in gaining access to one of the laboratory's nonclassified databases that contained personal information of visitors to the laboratory between 1990 and 2004."

That personal information of the lab's visitors includes not only their names and dates of birth, but Social Security numbers. Then Mason explains:

"...thieves made approximately 1,100 attempts to steal data with a very sophisticated strategy that involved sending staff a total of seven 'phishing' e-mails, all of which at first glance appeared legitimate."

I wonder. One of the emails apparently purported to be a complaint from the Federal Trade Commission. Why would it sound "legitimate" to an Oak Ridge employee that the FTC was filing a complaint against the lab? I've received that FTC email many times in the past; I've never once been tempted to open the attachment. Just like I've never been tempted to open the file attached to the many fake eBay messages I've received telling me a bidder has a question on the item I'm selling. Supposedly several investigative agencies are looking into the data breach. Who knows if we'll ever find out what really happened, but on the surface is sure seems as though security policies at Oak Ridge regarding attachments were ignored or (even worse) never established or communicated. And what about the lapse in perimeter security? The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California reported similar phishing attacks in October and November that were thwarted by its network defenses. What did Lawrence Livermore do that Oak Ridge failed to do? And how many more security breaches are waiting to happen at federal agencies?

Links to a bunch of tech-gift lists, of course!...

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