Indian ban on spurious mobile phones found inadequate

The Indian government has asked mobile service providers not to allow calls on their networks from mobile phones without proper International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI) numbers from Dec. 1, citing security reasons. The IMEI number is used by GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) networks to identify mobile devices. The order, however, has a glaring loophole as it does not provide for the blocking of calls from phones that use "clone" IMEIs, said Pankaj Mohindroo, national president of the Indian Cellular Association (ICA), a trade body that represents mobile handset makers and other mobile technology vendors. It is used by operators to block a stolen phone from using the network.

The Sept. 3 order from India's Ministry of Communications & IT only refers to phones that have no IMEI numbers or have a sequence of 0s in place of the IMEI number, or "non-genuine" numbers that are not, in fact, IMEI numbers. Clone IMEIs are those that have been issued to registered handset vendors but have been copied on to phones of dubious origins, Mohindroo said. ICA has told the government that handsets that have clone IMEI numbers should also be banned in the interest of security, Mohindroo said. A large number of mobile phones that are sold in India are either spurious or unbranded, often sold at low prices without bills or warranty. The use of mobile phones without proper IMEI numbers is seen by the government as a threat to the country's security, as terrorists have been found to use mobile phones extensively. A large number of consumers have bought these phones because of their low prices.

In a letter to service providers in April, the Ministry of Communications & IT recognized that some of the users of phones without proper IMEIs were "genuine innocent subscribers." Using software would be a far more attractive option than to have to throw out the phones, said Sridhar T. Pai, CEO of Tonse Telecom, a firm that researches the telecom market in India. The government approved earlier this year a Genuine IMEI Implant (GII) proposal from service providers that programs genuine IMEI on mobile handsets. Pai added that he had not evaluated the software yet. Operators have delayed implementing the ban because customers are their key assets and they will not do anything that will upset these customers, Pai said. Banning of the use of phones without adequate IMEI numbers has been delayed because of lack of clarity from the government and also because of a slow response from service providers that had earlier been ordered to block calls from phones without proper IMEIs from July 1, according to analysts.

The Cellular Operators Association of India, an association of GSM mobile operators, was not available for comment, but an official said in private that its members would be able to meet the Dec. 1 deadline. Phones with fake IMEI numbers are to be detected by reference to the IMEI database of the GSM Association (GSMA). The database of the GSMA will be able to detect fake IMEIs, but will not detect phones that have clone IMEIs, unless there is also a device management program that reveals the specification of the device, Mohindroo said. The Sept. 3 government order has expanded the ban to include mobile phones that have fake IMEIs, besides phones that have no IMEIs or a string of zeros in place of the IMEI. It has ordered service providers to make provisions in their Equipment Identity Register (EIR) so that calls from phones from all three types of defaulting phones are rejected from Dec. 1 by the networks. The EIR will then have to check whether the IMEI matches with the original device to which the number was issued, he added.

Can mainframe use really grow?

Some industry observers still like to kick dents in the mainframe saying it's not the corporate platform of the future but the Big Iron seemingly takes the licks and keeps on ticking. Only IBM mainframe users were included in the survey population, IDC noted. Case in point: According to a study out today of 300 end users by researchers at IDC nearly one-half of said they plan to increase annual spending on mainframe hardware and software over the next five years.

Network World Extra: How to really bury a mainframe Many mainframe users reported that they can plan another wave of investments in the System z platform over the next 2–5 years, citing the system's high availability, reliability, and security for mission-critical applications as major drivers, IDC stated. "Customers continue to collect dividends on their System z investments, which makes future investments much more palatable, even in difficult economic times," said Tim Grieser, program vice president, Enterprise System Management Software in a release. IBM has engaged in some price cutting to make some of these processors more palatable though. The study says IBM's strategy of building specialty processors for the mainframe, such as the Integrated Facility for Linux (IFL) System z Integrated Information Processor (zIIP) for ERP and CRM transactions and z Application Assist Processor (zAAP) processors for Java and XML transactions are key to ongoing success of the platform. According to a Network World article IBM has cut in half prices for some specialty Linux processors. Another source said the price changed from $90,000 to $47,500 for IFLs running on the System z Business Class mainframe. IBM acknowledged "new pricing" for the IFL processors, but did not offer specific numbers.

And IBM's mainframes haven't been immune to the economic downturn. Still all is by no means rosy in mainframeland. This summer IBM reported that System z mainframe server revenue decreased 39% year-over-year in the second quarter, while overall company revenue declined 13%. IDC however says the mainframe will benefit down the road from these new processors which will require additional mainframe-related database and storage facilities to handle new workloads. Another recent study raised an ever-increasing issue – retiring mainframers. However, while today individuals still train to become commercial pilots, the number of IT professionals going into the mainframe arena is fast disappearing. One study by system vendor Shoden found that 96% of respondents working for financial businesses said that they are concerned to some degree that with cloud computing and SaaS they will not be able to retain the necessary skills to operate and maintain legacy environments such as IBM mainframe or AS/400. The study said in the manufacturing sector, 88% of IT decision makers admitting to being concerned, while across all the markets polled, the average comes in at a staggering 83%. The retail, distribution and transport sectors come in just a little lower at 80%. The study went on to state that mainframe technology is as old as the Boeing 747 and, like the iconic aircraft, it is still the default workhorse for many of its original adopters.

A similar study funded by CA found that Financial Services organizations are leading the drive to tackle the shortage of mainframe skills in Europe where 60% of financial service firms use the mainframe for administering their critical data. In the CA study it found 57% of financial services organizations said an easy-to-use Web-enabled GUI would help close the skills gap.

Skype Founders Sue eBay: What's Going On?

The founders of Skype are suing eBay for copyright infringement, a move that could block eBay's deal to sell a majority stake in Skype to a group of private investors for $1.9 billion. The sale was seen as a big failure because the company was not able to further monetize the potential of the VoIP service in the years to come. eBay purchased Skype back in 2005 for $2.6 billion, but failed to acquire Joltid, the company supplying the core technology behind Skype, also owned by the founders of the VoIP software. So eBay sold a 65 percent stake in Skype two weeks ago to an investment group for $1.9 billion, managing to get back some of the money it invested initially.

At the core of the suit is a peer-to-peer technology called "global index", which is used by Skype's software to route calls over the Internet instead of traditional phones lines. But it's not all good for Skype, as Skype's original founders are now suing eBay, seeking damages for copyright infringement. This technology is owned by Joltid, which is still owned by the founders of Skype. Now moving to the U.S. courts, Joltid is seeking an injunction against Skype, which could affect Skype's operation. As if it wasn't complicated enough, eBay licensed "global index" from Joltid for continued use in Skype, but Joltid terminated the license in March and have been battling eBay in U.K. courts ever since.

The trial could jeopardise the closing of the Skype sale to the private investors, who are also named as defendants by Joltid. What's even more ironic is that that the money Joltid is using to sue eBay is probably the money they got from eBay when they sold Skype. While eBay is working on its own technology to replace Joltid's, Skype could be forced to close down its operation if Joltid wins the trial.

HP adds Snow Leopard printer drivers after customer complaints

Hewlett-Packard has added support for an additional 38 printer models or printer series to Snow Leopard, delivering on a promise made shortly after the release of Apple 's new operating system when angry users complained that older devices didn't work after upgrading. According to HP, 38 DeskJet, OfficeJet, and LaserJet drivers were added to those made available on Aug. 28, when Apple launched Snow Leopard . Although a list showing only the new drivers has not been published on either Apple's or HP's Web site, the complete list available on the former has been updated to include the new drivers, said Rick Spillers, a member of HP's Mac Connect team. On Thursday, Apple posted a printer driver update for Mac OS X 10.6 , aka Snow Leopard, but did not call out the specific drivers added to the 51MB driver download. Among the newly-supported printers are the HP 910 inkjet printer, the DeskJet D1300 series, the OfficeJet 5500 series and the LaserJet M1120. Almost immediately after Apple started selling Snow Leopard, users who upgraded began griping on the company's support forum that their long-reliable printers were not being recognized by the new OS. Others became angry when an HP representative told them they should buy a new printer if a driver wasn't available for Snow Leopard.

HP 1280 working!!!" crowed another user, "omarz," in a message Thursday. "I just update[d] to Snow Leopard 10.6.1 and now suddenly it was detected and it's working!" A driver for HP's PSC 1200 series was one of the 38 included in yesterday's update. After Thursday's update by Apple, several users reported on the same support forum that they were now able to use their formerly-bricked printers. "Today, I downloaded all the update software for printers and Mac [Snow Leopard], and everything now works fine," said someone identified as "AndyGump" on the same thread where users complained two weeks ago. "Incredible! HP's Spillers recommended that users update to Mac OS X 10.6.1 before applying the separate driver update. "Make sure that the printer is turned on and connected via [a] USB cable before launching Apple Software Update," said Spillers in an e-mail reply to questions. Apple built support into Snow Leopard for some printer makers' all-in-one devices, adding the functionality to the Image Capture application. Spillers also said that there has been confusion about how owners of HP all-in-one devices - which both print and scan, and in some cases also fax, documents - get their hardware to work with Snow Leopard. "The other interesting thing I've found is trying to educate customers on the new scan interface for HP inkjet All-in-Ones that we've integrated with Snow Leopard," he said. HP has posted instructions on how to use its all-in-one printer/scanner hardware with Snow Leopard on its customer support site.

Looking at the [support] forums, it seems that HP is the only print vendor really participating ... not sure I see much input from other print vendors." Snow Leopard users can manually download the HP driver update from Apple's site, or install it using the Mac's integrated update service. Spillers also took a shot at HP's rivals. "In general," he said, "HP did a great job providing full updated 10.6 drivers for almost all of our products, including LaserJets going back 10+ years.

Palm Pre readies app store e-commerce beta test

Palm is about to launch a beta test of an online system for selling and buying webOS applications. That means the "end of free" for Palm Pre users.

So far, the limited number of webOS applications on the Palm App Catalog (which is still in beta) are free downloads. The planned e-commerce capability for the catalog is essential for creating an incentive for developers to write software for the webOS platform. Users will be able to use credit cards for application purchases, according to Palm.

Slideshow: From Palm Pilot to Palm Pre: a brief history 

The handset maker Tuesday invited developers to apply for the beta test via e-mail, submitting a description of the application, price tag and other details along with the application itself in a .ipk file attachment.

Palm will consider whether to include them in the e-commerce beta test, due to start in mid-September. Later this year, the payment capability will be opened to all developers, according to Palm's blog.  

The blog post gives details about how to submit applications via e-mail for consideration.

The dearth of official webOS applications, and the spark of user innovation, has led to a rising tide of "homebrew" or unauthorized applications, which can be loaded on the Pre by a couple of techniques. Initially, hackers found a way to load an application via an e-mail attachment without needing root access to the operating system. But Palm closed that option with the webOS 1.04 release.

Many of the homebrew applicationss are utilities and simple games. PreCentral.net has both homebrew forums for the Pre and a new homebrew application gallery.  

During the upcoming App Catalog e-commerce beta test, software writers initially will be able to charge a one-time fee for their application to Palm users in the United States., who can pay by credit card and then download the application. No mention was made whether the beta or final versions will support online micropayments via such services as PayPal. The developers will keep 70% of all revenues, less any applicable sales tax.

The blog post lists some of the evaluation criteria Palm will apply to software submitted for the beta release: the application should be "useful and engaging to users;" the UI must have an "appealing design" and conform to Palm's guidelines; the applications must be native webOS programs, not browser-based, and leverage key features of the platform, such as multitasking and background operation, location services and so on. Finally, Palm will give preference this time for applications with good performance and minimal drain on the smartphone's battery.

Follow John Cox's wireless blog.

10 ways your voice and data can be spied on

Attackers seeking to do harm or mischief to networks work with an ever expanding arsenal of tools that sometimes seem to be the stuff of spy fiction, but they are all too real.

10 cutting-edge spy gadgets 

Here are 10 cloak-and-dagger ways, legal and illegal, to secretly tap into networks and computers to capture data and conversations.

1. Wireless keyboard eavesdropping: Remote-exploit.org has released an open source hardware design and accompanying software for a device that captures then decrypts signals from wireless keyboards. The device uses a wireless receiver that can be concealed in clothing or disguised as a common object that could be left on a desk near a PC to pick up signals.

Called Keykeriki, the technology targets 27MHz wireless keyboards to exploit insecurities that remote-expoit.org discovered earlier. The company plans to build and sell the hardware.

2. Wired keyboard eavesdropping: Electromagnetic pulses that keyboards make to signal what key is being hit travel through the grounding system of the keyboard and the computer itself as well as the ground for the electrical wiring in the building where the computer is plugged in.

Probes placed on the ground for the electric wiring can pick up these electromagnetic fluctuations, and they can be captured and translated into characters. The potential for this type of eavesdropping has been known for decades, and many experts believe spy agencies have refined techniques that make it practical. Andrea Barisani and Daniele Bianco, researchers for network security consultancy Inverse Path, are presenting their quick-and-dirty research on the topic at this year's Black Hat USA conference in the hopes of sparking more public research of these techniques.

3. Laptop eavesdropping via lasers: Bouncing lasers off laptops and capturing the vibrations made as keys are struck give attackers enough data to deduce what is being typed. Each key makes a unique set of vibrations different from any other. The space bar makes an even more unique set, Barisani and Bianco say.

Language analysis software can help determine which set of vibrations correspond to which key, and if the attacker knows the language being used, the message can be exposed, they say.

4. Commercial keyloggers: Early keyloggers were devices attached in-line with keyboards, but they advanced to software tools that grab keystrokes and store or send them to an attack server. Commercial versions have the software loaded on memory sticks that can dump the software on a computer and then be reinserted later to download the collected data.

5. Cell phones as remotely activated bugs: Software loaded onto certain models of cell phones can silence the ringers and cut off the light displays that would normally be triggered when calls are made to them. The caller can then listen in on conversations in the room where the phone is located.

According to press reports, the FBI received court permission to use this technique to spy on suspected Mafia members in New York.

6. Cell phone SIM card compromise: If attackers can get possession of a cell phone briefly, they can use commercially available software to download and read SIM cards and their store of phone numbers, call logs, SMS messages, photos and so on.

For instance PhoneFile Pro is software on a USB stick that claims to enable both the download and the display of the data.

7. Law enforcement wiretapping based on voice print: Phone company voice switches include software that can search all conversations going through it for voices that match sets of voiceprints. Whenever the switch makes a match, it can trigger a recording of the conversation and alert law enforcement officials, says James Atkinson, an expert in technical surveillance countermeasures.

The feature is designed to support communications assistance for law enforcement (CALEA) - the law that requires phone companies to provide wiretapping access under court order to specific communications traffic.

8. Remote capture of computer data: Under a sketchy technique called Computer and Internet Protocol Address Verifier (CIPAV), the FBI has remotely tracked down data about individual computers.

Details of the technology have never been publicly revealed, but they were used to track down high-school students who sent e-mail bomb threats.  CIPAV grabs IP and MAC addresses, running processes, visited Web sites, versions of operating systems, registered owner and logging of computers the target computers connect to. It is believed the software that does this is dropped in via exploiting instant messaging.

9. Cable TV as an exploitable network: Because most cable TV networks are essentially hubbed, any node can monitor any other node's traffic, says James Atkinson, an expert in technical surveillance countermeasures. By and large security is rudimentary and the encryption used could be hacked by someone with basic technical skills and readily available decryption tools, he says.

10. Cell phone monitoring: Commercially available software claims to capture cell phone conversations and texting. Attackers need to get physical access to the phone to upload the software that enables this.

There are several commercial brands on the market, but there are also online complaints that the software doesn't work as advertised or is more complicated to use than the vendors let on.

Prankster admits faking Google Chrome OS screenshots

File this under: Don't believe everything you see.

The anonymous blogger who earlier today posted "screenshots" of an early build of Google's Chrome OS has admitted he faked the images.

Before he confessed, however, numerous blogs and Web sites - from Engadget to Neowin.net - took the bait and accepted the screenshots as legitimate. Computerworld blogger Seth Weintraub was also duped.

The screenshots were accompanied by a backstory in which the blogger said he worked for a company that supplied parts for Acer, and had witnessed a demo of an early version of Chrome OS, the Linux-based operating system that Google announced yesterday.

"I was the last to leave the room and the Google Rep seemed to forget his privacy," the blogger wrote. "I happened to have my Mini-Cam with me and took these medium quality shots. I am sorry I couldn't get better. They were all taken in less than 10 seconds. Adrenaline was rushing like crazy."

Almost immediately, some readers called out the images as phony. "If these shots were real, and you really were putting your job on the line, you wouldn't say 'I was the last to leave the room,'" pointed out a commenter named, appropriately enough, "fake," in a message posted about three hours later. "It wouldn't be that hard to figure out who you are, would it? What's more, which Google rep demos a new OS on a kitchen bench?"

The prankster, who has not revealed his name, came clean about eight hours after his original post. "I am sorry if you beleived [sic] it. It was a really bad attempt. You all are smart people. I never planned on it getting this big. But it did," the blogger wrote. He included a video clip that illustrated how he created the bogus screenshots.

With interest in Chrome OS off the charts, it's not surprising that bloggers, reporters and users were fooled into thinking that the images were legitimate. News of the operating system, which some have said poses a long-term threat to Microsoft but not necessarily to Apple, was featured prominently yesterday on sites that generally don't follow technology news closely.