Episode 0008, 07/27/2007
Title: WiMax, Deep Packet Inspection, & Spear Phishing
Welcome to Course Technology's Coursecast of the WEEK, Episode 8, recorded July 27, 2007.
This is Ken Baldauf bringing you this week's technology news and information targeted at college students.
This Coursecast is brought to you by Course Technology. Check out www.course.com for innovative textbooks and creative electronic learning solutions for higher education.
Story 1 - Faster Cell Phone Internet Access is On the Way
Three big companies have partnered to provide the next step towards 4G cell phone technology. 4G is the pie-in-the-sky dream of instant on-demand access to information, communications, and media anywhere, anytime. The new partnership involves Sprint Nextell, which will provide the cellular telecom infrastructure, Clearwire Corporation, which will provide the wireless technologies, and Google, which will provide the software. The new cell phone service will be based on WiMax technology. WiMax is the next generation of wireless Internet access following Wi-fi. Wi-fi is the technology that provides wireless Internet access at coffee shops, hotels, airports, and college campuses. While Wi-fi requires the installation of access points every couple hundred feet, WiMax can send and receive high-speed signals across many miles. WiMax will provide Sprint Nextell cell phones with Internet connection speeds that rival high-speed residential Internet services, many times faster than what is currently implemented over cell phone networks. Sprint Nextel WiMax subscribers will be able to use custom designed software from Google to surf the Web, send and receive e-mail, chat and instant message, access maps, and access other Internet services. Google is also developing "location-assisted services" which will use the location of the cell phone to provide maps, directions, and information about nearby businesses. The new Sprint WiMax Internet service will be available in Chicago, Washington and Baltimore by the end of the year, and available to 100 million people by the end of 2008.
Source: Google to offer Internet portal for Sprint's WiMAX network (Ars Technica), Sprint Partners with Clearwire on WiMax (Newsfactor)
Story 2 - Deep Packet Inspection
New technology is being implemented by the telecom companies that reveals what is in the data packets that travel over their networks. Deep Packet Inspection devices are designed to study each data packet as it travels over the Internet to determine what type of data it carries. These new devices can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars and can evaluate a million simultaneous connections analyzing every packet of data in real time, without slowing down the network traffic. For example, a packet may be categorized as being part of a Web page, or a movie file, or a music file, or a voice communication, or an email, or a virus. The device can go deeper and judge a packet to be part of a movie from YouTube, or music from iTunes or Limewire, or a message posted to Twitter. The device is considered both demon and angel in the incredible power that it will provide the telecom companies. Deep Packet Inspection could mean the end of Internet-spread viruses and spam, It could make it impossible to use the Internet to illegally distribute copy protected intellectual property such as music and movie files. It could also be used by the telecom companies to implement a tiered network providing faster service for some types of packets while slowing down others. For example, a recent study has revealed that 20 percent of broadband Web traffic is YouTube videos. At peak hours, the telecoms may decide to throttle back the YouTube packets to provide faster speeds for other Internet traffic. If left unchecked, such technology would also make it possible for telecoms to invade the privacy of Internet users, and gain an edge over competition by unfairly restricting Internet access.
Sources: Deep packet inspection meets 'Net neutrality, CALEA (Ars Technica)
Story 3 - Phishing for College Students
Researchers at Indiana University found it shockingly easy to trap college students with Phishing Scams when including information from social networking Web sites. You'll recall that Phishing Scams trick users into providing private valuable information by luring them to fraudulent Web sites. These researchers sent Indiana students e-mail that appeared to come from one of their social network "friends". The email says, "Hey, check this out" and provides a link to a phony Web site that asks the students for a university username and password. The researchers sent the same e-mail out to a control group but rather than from a social network friend, it came from a fictitious person at the University. 16 percent of those in the control group gave up their username and password, while a whopping 70 percent of those receiving messages supposedly from friends gave up their username and password.
This type of phishing, sometimes called "spear fishing" is becoming increasingly popular. In spear phishing, rather than sending out masses of emails in hopes of getting a few bites, custom designed messages are sent to specific individuals. When it comes to links included in e-mail, it pays to be distrustful.
Source: Phishing for clicks in social cliques: shockingly easy (Ars Technica)
New Briefs
Well, that's it for this WEEK'S Coursecast. Links to this WEEK'S stories and many more news and information resources are provided at the CourseCast Web site at http://coursecasts.course.com. Until next time have a great week and be sure to take advantage of the Power -- of Technology!