Daily News Archive

Please note that The Daily News is publishing (hopefully) twice a week for the foreseeable future due to time constraints.

Tuesday, March 14th

"The very essence of human progress is applying new knowledge in new ways, continuously making the old way of doing things obsolete. Organizations don't make progress, people do. The organization is just a vehicle for human cooperation. Its form adapts as the needs of the people adapt, and peoples' needs change with the progressive acquisition and application of new knowledge.” -- Francis Gouillart and James Kelly

 

The Picks of the Day

Police blotter: Ex-employee faces suit over file deletion

“Inevitably, perhaps, IAC sued. The relevance for Police Blotter readers is that the company claimed that Citrin's alleged secure deletion violated a federal computer crime law called the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.”

http://news.com.com/Police+blotter+Ex-employee+faces+suit+over+file+deletion/2100-1030_3-6048449.html?tag=html.alert

 

McAfee update exterminates Excel

“An error in McAfee's virus definition file released Friday morning caused the company's consumer and enterprise antivirus products to flag Microsoft's Excel, as well as other applications on users' PCs, as a virus called W95/CTX, Joe Telafici, director of operations at McAfee's Avert labs, told CNET News.com.”

http://news.com.com/McAfee+update+exterminates+Excel/2100-1002_3-6048709.html?tag=html.alert

[This is an example of how automated updating may not be all that advantageous, then again, what are the risks of the alternatives in this case?  There’s no easy answer.]

 

Why The Web Is Hitting A Wall

“Despite its popularity among teens and techies, and its use in most offices, the Internet is far from ubiquitous. In fact, 39 million American households still do not have Internet access. That means only 64% of households are connected, according to a recent survey of 1,000 people by Dallas researcher Parks Associates. An even bigger surprise is that the growth of the Internet in the U.S. has stalled.”

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_12/b3976103.htm?campaign_id=rss_magzn

 

IT Process Improvement

itSMF ITIL Introductory Overview

This is a PDF copy of the itSMF’s complimentary introductory pocketbook.

http://www.iiiedu.org.tw/industry/temp/itSMF%20Overview%20Pocket%20Guide.pdf

 

Aligning COBIT, ITIL and ISO 17799 for Business Benefit

“This briefing is the result of a joint study initiated by OGC and ITGI, in recognition of the growing significance of best practices to the IT industry. itSMF also supported the study.  The intention is to explain to business users and senior management the value of IT best practices and how harmonisation, implementation and integration of best practices may be made easier.”

http://www.isaca.org/Template.cfm?Section=Downloads3&CONTENTID=22490&TEMPLATE=/ContentManagement/ContentDisplay.cfm

 

Legal and Regulatory Compliance

Opposition Builds to Earnings Guidance

“House Committee on Financial Services plans hearings on guidance as 'part of a wider review into the clarity of corporate reporting.'”

http://www.cfo.com/article.cfm/5622026?f=alerts

 

Good Strategy Can Ease Compliance Headaches

“Modern IT managers face a nightmare of mandates from government agencies and beyond, including Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX), HIPAA, and domestic and international privacy laws and security directives. Compliance with the regulations has created such a headache for companies that many international operations have de-listed in the U.S. to avoid having to comply.”

http://www.iseriesnetwork.com/content/f3/index.cfm?fuseaction=news.viewArticle&webID=1001&newsID=5021&issueID=5659&articleID=52259

 

Security and Risk Management

The Journal of Risk Intelligence

“The importance and potential of enterprise risk management (ERM) loom large in this Issue. The articles provide insight on the challenges and rewards of “best-practice” risk management including risk technology, integrated risk management methodologies and processes. Good ERM can deliver value-creating compliance!”

http://www.bettermanagement.com/partners/promo.aspx?L=13725

 

Leveraging Risk Management

“In the business world, risk is everywhere - fires, natural disasters, exchange-rate fluctuations, changes in interest rates, credit ratings and commodities prices. It's the wild card that can upset even the most carefully crafted business plan”

http://www.bettermanagement.com/library/library.aspx?l=13699

 

Serial Restaters: Nortel Finds Errors

“The announcement comes a month after the company agreed to settle lawsuits stemming from a prior accounting scandal.”

http://www.cfo.com/article.cfm/5620512/c_5621196?f=alerts

[As some of you may know, I have a rather unique sense of humor.  I read the title of the article and almost fell off my chair laughing.]

 

Human Error / Safety

TV taken to task on health news

“Local television news airs plenty of health stories, but they're often short on context and sometimes contain harmful errors, a study says.”

http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2006-03-12-tv-health-reporting_x.htm

 

Deadly bird flu in Myanmar and Cameroon

“The deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu was detected for the first time in poultry in Myanmar and Cameroon, officials in the two nations said, in the latest sign of the disease's expanding range in Africa and Southeast Asia.”

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2006-03-12-birdflu-cameroon_x.htm

 

Jumbo jet applies for firefighting job

“An Oregon-based aviation company has spent $40 million to convert a Boeing 747 into a firefighting air tanker that can deliver a monster payload of water or chemical retardant on forest and grass fires.”

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-03-12-supertanker_x.htm

 

WHO Presents Plan to Contain Bird Flu Spread

“The World Health Organization says it hopes to head off an avian flu pandemic by containing or slowing the disease in humans before the virus can spread.  The U.N. Health Agency has presented details of a proposed new rapid response plan approved by 70 public health experts this week.”

http://www.voanews.com/english/2006-03-10-voa60.cfm

 

Outsourcing / Globalization

What if your outsourcer is acquired?

“Whatever your opinion about the Bush Administration's handling of this transaction, you should realize that any outsourcing deal can be at risk to having a major, unexpected and possibly negative change in who is ultimately controlling service delivery.”

http://www.networkworld.com/newsletters/asp/2006/0227out1.html?fsrc=rss-outsourcing

 

Components of an outsourcing contract, Part 1

“In last week's newsletter I discussed assignment clauses in contracts. This is only one minor, albeit important, section of an outsourcing contract. So I thought it would be good to provide an overview of the common parts of an outsourcing contract for those who may be facing this for the first time.”

http://www.networkworld.com/newsletters/asp/2006/0306out1.html?fsrc=rss-outsourcing

 

US Companies Eye Indian Skills

“’What American companies have now realised is that the talent pool in India is now on par with the United States.’ says Mr Bajpai.  ‘Now, Indian skills are being used for innovation and design.’”

http://www.offshoreoutsourcingworld.com/blog/_archives/2006/3/10/1812339.html

 

Economics / Business / Misc.

Use two monitors for greater productivity

“Researchers at Microsoft found that workers increased their productivity 9% to 50% by adding a second or third monitor.”

http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2006-03-12-tv-health-reporting_x.htm

 

Making It Work By Not Doing It All

“Xerox R&D chief Vandebroek just focuses on what's important -- at work and at home”

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_12/b3976098.htm?campaign_id=rss_magzn

 

How Much Are Execs Really Paid?

“Compensation specialists say pay packages for top executives and the rules for disclosing them are so complex that even they have a hard time figuring them out. Coming up with a total price tag means assigning a number to every benefit and sorting out what portion of a stock option grant belongs in this year's paycheck, vs. last year's or next year's.”

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_12/b3976106.htm?campaign_id=rss_magzn

 

Thursday, March 16th

"The obscure we see eventually; the completely apparent takes longer.” -- Edward R. Murrow

 

The Picks of the Day

Bird Flu: Profitable or Problematic?

“At a business luncheon in Boston earlier this year, Dell Inc. chief executive officer Kevin Rollins ruffled a few feathers when he commented that a bird flu epidemic might actually stimulate profits for the computer maker. He observed that during the 2003 SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) virus outbreak in Asia, Dell's direct-to-customer sales in the region increased because people were quarantined or stayed home.”

http://www.cfo.com/article.cfm/5622066?f=alerts

[Definitely, there are groups already making a ton of money on the whole issue.  Roche is making so much money that they are worried what the profits are signaling.]

 

Security Breach Compromises Citibank Cards

“Although Citibank has remained tight-lipped as to the reason behind its recent debit card problems, it is now emerging that a security breach of Citibank's ATM network via a retail store server may be responsible.”

http://www.smoothwall.net/information/news/newsitem.php?id=980

 

US cops collar ATM fraud ring

“US police have arrested 14 people suspected of involvement in widespread ATM fraud that has forced a number of US banks to reissue debit and credit cards over recent months. The suspects are all accused of manufacturing counterfeit cards using stolen credit card details. Most of the arrests happened over the last fortnight.”

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/03/14/us_atm_fraud_arrests/

 

IT Process Improvement

Higher Availability Future: Autonomic Computing or Recovery Oriented Computing?

“It is fascinating to me that so many smart people can disagree on the best future approach to higher availability infrastructure. The autonomic computing crowd led by IBM is touting self-healing and self-regulating computing systems. On the other hand the recovery oriented computing (ROC) folks led by researchers at Berkeley and Stanford declare failures are inevitable.”

http://weblog.infoworld.com/ittroubleshooter/archives/2006/02/higher_availabi.html

 

Toward Recovery-Oriented Computing

“Recovery Oriented Computing (ROC) is a joint research effort between Stanford University and the University of California, Berkeley. ROC takes the perspective that hardware faults, software bugs, and operator errors are facts to be coped with, not problems to be solved.”

http://www.cs.ust.hk/vldb2002/VLDB2002-proceedings/papers/S25P01.pdf

http://www.fdis.org/02/ROC_FDIS2002.ppt

 

Legal and Regulatory Compliance

Compliance costs hits future investments

“National Australia Bank Ltd director of finance and risk Michael Ulmer said regulatory demands such as Basel II, new international reporting standards, Sarbanes Oxley and anti-money laundering have impacted on the financial services sector's investment in the payments system.”

http://www.theage.com.au/news/Business/Compliance-costs-hits-future-investments/2006/03/14/1142098449259.html

 

Foley’s 2006 Private Company Study shows organizations adopting SOX standards as “Best Practices”

“The third annual study conducted by Foley & Lardner LLP, The Impact of Sarbanes-Oxley on Private & Nonprofit Companies, reveals that private organizations are continuing to adopt aspects of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act as a set of best practices, despite the fact that it runs contrary to the intentions of Congress in developing the Act.”

http://www.foley.com/features/feature_detail.aspx?featureID=121

 

SEC chief speaks about exchange regulation

“The rapidly changing landscape of the markets, with big stock exchanges transforming into for-profit businesses, means that regulators must re-examine the system of U.S. exchanges' self-regulation, the government's top securities regulator said Tuesday.”

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/1310AP_SEC_Exchanges.html

 

SOX Under Siege

“The [Free Enterprise Fund] suit is just one of a number of efforts to either overturn Sarbanes-Oxley or change how it is enforced. Pressure has been mounting for a year on the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to alter how it enforces corporate governance rules, particularly on smaller public companies—some complaints coming from within the SEC itself.”

http://www.redherring.com/Article.aspx?a=16043&hed=SOX+Under+Siege

 

Security and Risk Management

The enemy within the firewall

“Employees are now regarded as a greater danger to workplace cyber security than the gangs of hackers and virus writers launching targeted attacks from outside the firewall.  That is the perception of 75 per cent of Australian information technology managers who took part in an international IBM security survey.”

http://theage.com.au/articles/2006/03/13/1142098393208.html

[Thank you Wayne!!  It definitely shows the need to do good pre-hire checks.]

 

Here’s an American article citing the same study and 74% of US CIOs saying the same thing:  http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/business/technology/14091433.htm

[At least the article explains it was a multinational study:  “IBM interviewed 601 U.S. CIOs in the health-care, financial, retail and manufacturing industries in December and January. The company also interviewed more than 3,000 CIOs overseas.”]

 

Chief Security Officers Reveal Business Continuity, Resiliency & Disaster Recovery the Top Security Business Concern in 2006; In Stark Contrast, CSO Magazine Survey Finds CSOs Investing In Compliance, Not Recovery

“Yet while business preservation and disaster recovery top the list of business priorities, the money isn't on the table: the top factor driving security investment in 2006 is regulation and compliance (43%), with only 5% of respondents ranking risk of financial loss as a top priority and a mere three percent 3% investing due to security concerns about the threat of terrorism and war.”

http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/index.jsp?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20060314005643&newsLang=en

 

Proving Your Disaster Recovery Plan Works

“Basically, there are four kinds of tests available for a contingency or disaster recovery plan: (1) the blink test; (2) audit assessments and structured walk-throughs by ‘independent experts’; (3) component tests; and (4) ‘pull-the-plug’ exercises.”

http://www.enterpriseitplanet.com/security/features/article.php/3591336

 

Human Error / Safety

Who Made Money From The Bird Flu?

“The avian flu has turned out to be profitible for U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who has already cleared over $5 million in capital gains by selling some shares in Gilead Sciences, the biotechnology firm that developed the drug Tamiflu, while he was serving as a board-member for that enterprise reports an article in the London Independent.”

http://www.freemarketnews.com/WorldNews.asp?nid=9303

 

IMF: Bird Flu Pandemic Could Temporarily Hurt Global Economy

“The International Monetary Fund says a global bird flu pandemic is likely to hurt the world's economy significantly if it is severe. But it predicts that the consequences would be temporary. The global financial agency is encouraging businesses to develop emergency plans to deal with a pandemic.”

http://www.voanews.com/english/2006-03-13-voa44.cfm

 

Outsourcing / Globalization

The Economics of Outsourcing

“Outsourcing is a central element of globalization, and policymakers need to understand its economic basis if they are to develop effective policy responses. The practice of outsourcing should be understood as a new form of competition, and responding to it calls for the development of policies that enhance national competitiveness and establish new rules governing the nature of global competition. “

http://www.counterpunch.org/palley03142006.html

[Hmmmm.... Read and draw your own conclusions.]

 

Outsourcing suppliers increase demand for skilled IT staff with management skills

“Much of the demand is for senior IT staff with the skills and experience needed to take over the running of major projects, said Paul Smith, managing director for offshore software at recruitment firm Harvey Nash.”

http://www.tmcnet.com/usubmit/2006/03/14/1456603.htm

 

China’s VC Future

“The story on China has just begun, a VC says. Let’s hope they rewrite the chapter on regulators.”

http://www.redherring.com/Article.aspx?a=16004&hed=China%e2%80%99s+VC+Future&sector=Capital&subsector=VentureCapital

 

Economics / Business / Misc.

Microsoft's labor troubles

“Microsoft (Research) employees are growing more and more disillusioned with stagnating salaries and an increasingly contentious review system that they say is unfair, according to a recent report in WashTech News. That's led to more defections by senior engineers and growing dissatisfaction among rank-and-file workers, the report said.”

http://money.cnn.com/2006/03/13/technology/microsoft_employees/index.htm?cnn=yes

[Interesting, but bear in mind that a labor union funded the study.]

 

Pushing the Internet Into Space

“Through a project called the interplanetary internet, Hooke and networking guru Vint Cerf, co-creator the internet's TCP/IP protocol, have been working for the past six years to develop a standard for communicating in disconnected environments, where an uninterrupted two-way dialog isn't possible. The approach is called delay-tolerant networking and relies on communications technologies designed for use in remote places like deep beneath the sea or out in space.”

http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,70377-0.html?tw=rss.technology