International Beat

Holidays Bring Little Cheer to Millions of Netsurfers in Europe, Asia

2008-12-30T16:31:55Z

The year-end holiday season is the time for cheering and merrymaking for almost everyone around the world. But for millions of Internet users in countries as diverse as United Kingdom to UAE, and India to Japan, this year's holidays may be ending as a damp squib. That's because repairs of SeaMeWe 4 ( which is one of the three major undersea cables - the other two are SeaMeWe 3 and FLAG Europe Asia cable) that snapped on December 19 and was being repaired, broke again a day after Christmas at a different place about 240 miles way from where it was being repaired.

What is worse, the repair of that break is not expected to be complete before January 4 or 5 because the repair ship is now sailing somewhere else and will take at least until December 31 to even reach the location of the new breakage.

"Although the other two cables have been bearing much of the traffic leads, connectivity and connection speeds of millions of Internet users in India, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Taiwan, Yemen and another half a dozen countries including UK are suffering," said an Internet Association Industry source.

According to reports quoting sources at France Telecom, the company that is undertaking the repairs, SeaMeWe 4 (Short for South East Asia-Middle East-Western Europe 4 cable) snapped again between Italy and Egypt due to an underwater earthquake on Dec. 26, a day after traffic had been restored following the December 19 breakage.

SeaMeWe 4, along with the other two cables, carry as much as 75 % of the Internet traffic between Europe and the Middle East and Asia. Repeated snapping of these cables highlight the fragility of the submarine cables that carry voice and Internet traffic thousands of miles between continents. The Flag and Sea Me We cables were also cut in January this year allegedly due to accidental anchoring of a ship, or an undersea earthquake, although there was also a suspicion that the damage could have been a sabotage.

Ruling out sabotage this time round though, a France Telecom spokesman said, "It is unlucky, but cables can always snap." However, is it really just bad luck? Consider this; the SeaMeWe cables broke thrice this year - the latest being twice within the same week. And that's not all; between end-January and mid-February this year there were reportedly eight cuts of other cables, all unexplained like those of the Flag and SeaMeWe cables. Barring one, all of them have occurred in waters near predominantly Muslim nations.

Hmmm.... food for thought maybe!

Web Attackers Tarnishing 'Reputed' Websites

2008-12-24T16:22:28Z

The recent discovery by Websense Security Labs, a California-based security research firm, of cyber criminals paying the search engine Google to host their malicious websites is certainly one of the most unnerving examples of how dangerous e-crime is becoming. But perhaps the scarier part of the new face of e-crime is the fact that it has evolved from simple spam or phishing attacks to organized criminal activities where investments are made to create a trap for luring unsuspecting users.

It has also taken the specter of web terrorism, say some experts, and this can make surfing the web even frightening. Admittedly, how else can you describe the plight of clicking on a sponsored link as part of regular surfing only to be led to sites created by cyber-criminals for malicious purposes? And especially when such links are sponsored links hosted by no other than "reputed' and 'trusted' websites like Google and Yahoo.

In a starling revelation a week ago, Websense said that in its weekly surveillance of millions of web sites, it spotted a download site offering a popular utility bound with malware. This which infects the computer that downloads the software and forces the user to pay $40 to clean it up. (Visit the link http://securitylabs.websense.com/content/Blogs/3264.aspx for details.)

Apparently it may look like just another smart money-making move of e-criminals, but according to Elad Sharf, the security researcher of Websense who discovered this malware, this is an offence of serious proportions because it demonstrates "how the reputations of legitimate and popular applications and online services are being abused to serve and help malware authors to spread malicious software."

He adds, "Everybody has favorite applications and tools. When it is time to find and download a copy of an application, Google is often used to help locate a download site."

And that's what makes this discovery terrifying. Indeed it is not a novelty anymore that the volume of legitimate web sites getting compromised with malicious code continue to surpass the number of sites created by attackers specifically for malicious purposes. Increasingly, cyber-criminals have started latching onto on web sites that all trust to launch their attacks on unsuspecting web surfers.

Websense says attackers have become sophisticated enough to take advantage of flaws in traditional security measures and bypass reputation-based systems to increase their attack effectiveness.

According to Websense the strategy to attack legitimate Web sites with good reputations worldwide with data-stealing malicious code has reached massive proportions. For instance, in the first half of 2008, more than 75 percent of the top 100 web sites with seemingly "good" reputations were compromised by attackers. This represented a 50 percent increase over the last six months.

Some of the sites named by Websense include MSNBC, ZDNet, Wired, and United Nations. In addition to these sites, says Websense, email spammers are also taking advantage of the reputation of popular email services like Yahoo! and Gmail to bypass antispam systems.

Websense Security Labs found spammers using sophisticated tools and bots to break the "CAPTCHA " systems that were developed to keep email and other services safe from spammers and other malicious activity. Microsoft Live Mail, Google's popular Gmail service and Yahoo! mail services were all compromised by this breakthrough method.

Subsequently, spammers have been able to sign up for the free email accounts on a mass basis and send out spam from email accounts with good reputations. With a free signup process, access to a wide portfolio of services and domains that are unlikely to be blacklisted given their reputation, spammers have been able to launch attacks on millions of users worldwide while maintaining anonymity.

"Clearly, these are terrifying developments," says Kaustubh Dhavse, Deputy Director (ICT practice) Frost & Sullivan. "For a simple user like you and me, it is getting increasingly difficult and scary to use the web. After all if trusted websites like Google and Yahoo can be compromised, who knows what may be lurking inside all the unknown links that a web surfs clicks everyday."

Hackers Now Ride on Antivirus Software for Snooping

2008-12-17T16:52:30Z

Having exploited scores of security measures adopted by experts to make IT networks secure, hackers have started riding on antivirus software as well to sneak into computers and networks.

iViZ, an Indian information security company that offers penetration and vulnerability testing for Applications and Networks has just discovered a new technique that hackers and e-criminals are using these days to break into computers -- crashing the antivirus software itself.

iViz says hackers have developed codes that can make antivirus software crash and create a loophole in the network, which then can be used to nestle a malicious code in a computer. The company says that so far, it has spotted 6 popularly used antivirus software products, both commercial and open source, which hackers have been able to break into. These are AVG, F-Secure (F-Prot), Sophos, ClamAV, BitDefender and Avast.

Explaining how hackers trespass a seemingly secure system and break into it by exploiting its antivirus software, Bala said that an attacker crafts an email with malicious payload first and sends it to the target user. As the vulnerable antivirus software scans the email, the malicious code crafted specifically to exploit that antivirus, either crashes the antivirus software or executes an arbitrary code, to go around security and implant another malicious code into the computer.

"Once this malicious code is nestled in a computer, the attackers can use it to steal information or cause a denial of service 'condition," said Bala Girisaballa, vice-president (head of product management & marketing), iViz

A dedicated research team at iViz, which conducts extensive research on attack techniques and checks robustness of applications and networks stumbled upon the vulnerabilities by trying to penetrate networks protected by popular commercial and open source antivirus software products.

Using a variety of file fuzzing techniques, the team discovered abnormal behavior in these products while handling complex or unusual executable header data, especially in the case of executables packed with 3rd party packers like UPX, FSG etc.

Multiple bugs were found in those six antivirus software, some of which proved to be vulnerable enough to make the antivirus itself a back door for hackers. "So far we have come across six that we have named, but there may be more which we haven't been able to identify yet," says Bala. "The makers of the affected antivirus software vendors have been informed. Many admitted [the problem] but we have also faced denial."

According to iViz, although home computers are affected most by this breach, companies and businesses, as well as government departments are also highly susceptible to its risks.

Indeed, e-criminals always manage to remain a step ahead, don't they? And their turf keeps expanding not sparing even the big-daddy security experts. For instance, yesterday, in another shocking revelation Microsoft announced that there is a security flaw in its Internet Explorer 7, the world's most popular Web browser.

This flaw, like those in antivirus products allows criminals to take control of computers and steal personal information. "We are actively investigating the vulnerability that these attacks attempt to exploit," Microsoft said in a statement. "We will continue to monitor the threat environment and update this advisory if this situation changes."

Microsoft added that about 0.2 per cent of Internet Explorer users have already been affected by the flaw.

Poster by Oliver Hammond. Creative Commons License Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.0 Generic.

Albania Mulling Nationwide WiMAX Network

2008-12-12T17:08:00Z

Driven partly by the urge to become a more developed country before ascending into the NATO next year, and partly by the ambition of becoming a Cyber Hub of South Europe, Albania is seriously mulling a nationwide WiMAX network that could start rolling out as soon as in the next six months.

According to sources close to the development, the Government has decided to invite private players for setting up the infrastructure, instead of investing in it directly. However, to support the project in this 11,000 square mile country, the government may trade out assets like WiMax license, tax incentives, and even access to the government buildings.

"The government is still formulating its plans and strategies, but Albania has committed itself to making broadband universal in the country in the belief that a nationwide broadband network will lead to extensive economic enhancements and development." said a noted telecom advisor, who is working as a consultant to the project, requesting anonymity.

The Government is also planning to be the anchor tenant of this network through its e-school imitative, the Education Network of Albania, or, ENEA. This is a centralized organization under the ministry of education that addresses, supervises and controls Albania's education sector. One of ENEA's biggest projects currently is to get the country's 2,700 odd schools connected through a broadband network, which would also be used for e-government and commercial applications.

ENEA plans to invite the private sector to roll out the network, against which it will assure the network owner, the business of the broadband connectivity to all its schools.

"The project has recently started and many alternatives are being worked out; we're not sure which one of all alternatives will be selected. All I can say right now is in the next few months (that is before the NATO 2009 annual meeting) things might be a bit more concrete," said an official from the office of Information Society directly under the Prime Minister of Albania.

To help the country to come out from the "shackles of communism" president George Bush urged the 26 member countries NATO in April this year to include Albania (and Croatia) within its fold.

According to the US, Albania has overcome war and hardship to built peaceful relations with its neighbors, and should be included in the NATO to assure its citizens that NATO members will be at its side when the country is threatened by any other nation.

With the US backing Albania's inclusion, experts expect that Albania could become a NATO member in the Organization's annual meeting in April next year.

However, ENEA also says that the network is crucial for enabling Albania to transition to the new, knowledge-based, network-driven economy. "Presently there's an insufficient networking infrastructure in Albania slowing down what otherwise is a fast-growing economy (about 6% GDP growth per year)," says an internal policy document of ENEA.

Despite the fact that the county was Internet-enabled as far back as the mid-90s, Albania remains the most backward country in the region and in Europe, say experts. "Internet connection is not only slow, but is also expensive," says a country resident.

'The WiMAX network will represent the most valuable national asset and will serve as a platform for a multitude of viable networking solutions ranging from IP voice to IPTV to e-government to commercial mission-critical applications for the industry," says the ENEA document.

As per the document licenses for WiMAX would be offered through an auction process to be conducted in three phases.The first auction to be held early next year will be for Durres-Tirana-Kavaja (Albanian cities) circle. This will be followed with a license for the Shkodra-Elbasan-Vlora circle, and then for the rest of the country.

Photo by ILMOTOREDIRICERCA. Creative Commons License Attribution 2.0 Generic.

Cyber Terrorism Grips India As Well

2008-12-04T16:26:02Z

India may be the most vulnerable place in the world now for physical terror attacks, but experts who trawl the Internet to track terror trails in cyberspace say that the country is equally vulnerable to cyber terrorism.

In fact, they say that even as physical hits by the bombs and guns are intermittent, for over two years terrorist organizations have been hitting India continuously through the Internet with their radical Islamist propaganda . And the impact of that onsought is no less agonizing than the thousands who have been killed so far by the terrorist bombs and guns.

The propaganda using the Internet is intense, and encompasses not only websites but also blogs, Web 2.0 -- like the Orkut -- and other areas of the cyberspace, including email groups and even recorded messages left as voice mails.

Cyber attacks can come in many forms. However it is the anti-Indian propaganda, or what some call "radical Islamist propaganda," that dominates.

"The hatred they are spreading is often hard hitting. But unfortunately there's nothing much India can do because much of it escapes the authorities' notice," says Alok Mukhopadhyay, associate fellow, at the New Delhi-based Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, an independent think tank on issues of national and international security.

"The propaganda is almost always in Urdu or Arabic which few in India can follow," he said. "The other problem with regard to particularly radical Islamist websites is that,these sites are hosted from developed countries in the EU like Germany, Spain, Italy, France and the likes, where such websites are not under close scrutiny of the respective governments."

Mukhopadhyay has done a research on radical Islamic organizations in Europe and their discourses on South Asia. He adds that yet another problem is that the radical Islamist websites also come in various European languages and keep on changing their web interfaces, fearing imminent ban by the authorities. "The clever use of cyberspace then, makes tracking of propaganda all the more difficult." he says.

According to experts the biggest impact of cyber terrorism is that it has been able to spread its hatred or radicalism far and wide, as well as attract followers from all walks of life succeeding in converting them to insurgents.

"Close examinations reveal that most of the websites are designed to target Internet users in the age group of 16 to 26 years," says Mukhopadhyay.

This form of 'radical Islamism', he adds, intensified by a media revolution, communication technology and, specifically, through the Internet, has deeply influenced the minds of many young Muslims around the world.

"Sadly, most perpetrators of terrorist incidents or persons involved in hatching conspiracies are young and belong to the Muslim community; many of whom do not have any terrorist antecedents at all. Neither is it a fact that all of them are poor," says Mukhopadhyay.

Indeed, many instances have shown that the persons involved in such activities were not only educated and from sound economic background but also had promising lives and careers.

Nevertheless, according to Cyber Society of India (CYSI) raging a passive ideological war is not the only form of cyberterrorism India suffers from; the country is also attacked routinely by terrorist hackers who snoop into government owned websites and personal computers for monetary gains.

This is why CYSI feels that besides ramping up the country physical security infrastructure, the government also needs to ramp up the country's ICT infrastructure to prevent cyberattacks.

Through a recent plea to the IT ministry, CYSI has called for development of a comprehensive, integrated security system to address security concerns of India's ICT space. Urging the government to take proactive measures, CYSI has also called for a revamp of the country's IT ACT of 2000 to make it effective for the current challenges India faces in the cyberspace.

Online Shopping Making Inroads in China's Rural Fujian Province

2008-11-24T15:41:43Z

China may now be a country with the largest Internet user population as well world's No. 1 mobile market. However, when it comes to e-commerce, particularly business-to-consumer (B2C), it is still in its infancy. For instance B2C market accounts for less than 1 percent of the total e-commerce market and so far, the only place where consumer-related online commerce that has performed well has been online gaming led by companies such as Shanda and Giant Interactive.

Experts say that one reason why e-commerce hasn't taken off yet is that despite impressive potentials, merchants in China have not yet applied e-commerce as their principal channel to grow their business and therefore pave the way for e-commerce as a whole.

But the other important inhibiting factor has been the fact that Chinese Internet users fear fraud and generally have low trust of B2C commerce. Consumers, say experts, usually prefer to limit themselves to only large companies or brands.

But that may be changing. With the government and authorities trying their best to push China's merchant to adopt IT for doing business, and consumers shedding their online fears, B2C e-commerce is picking up fast. According to China Internet Network Information Center's (CNNIC) latest Internet Development Report, with the growth of Internet, use of practical applications such as online shopping is becoming popular as well, as the China's netizens are increasingly drawing the Internet out of the virtual world and bringing it close to their real life.

CNNIC said that currently with about 63 million Internet users using the Internet for online shopping, close to a quarter of its population use the Internet for B2C e-commerce. And although Shanghai is the only city where most of the e-commerce transactions still happen, slowly online shopping is spreading to their regions as well.

Clearly a number of companies, from local companies to global biggies, are making a beeline in China to cash in from the new opportunity. And the latest one to join the fray is Nokia Siemens Networks, (NSN) one of the leading global enablers of communications services.

NSN announced today that in collaboration with Fujian Mobile -- a subsidiary of China Mobile Group -- the German-Finnish telecommunications infrastructure giant is running an "innovative" e-commerce platform in the Fujian Province of China that promises an important link between rural consumers and urban businesses.

According to Josef Lorenz, head of innovations, NSN this project is unique in the sense that it sets up an e-commerce platform in the existing shops in the rural areas where its residents can visit to buy goods online. "This will help them buy products for which they either had to travel or could not get at all," says Lorenz.

Fujian, situated along China's southeastern coast with population of approx 40 million, is one of the first cities in China to be classified as a Special Economic Zone. However, according to Lorenz, despite being an important economic zone, Fujian has no significant e-commerce platform primarily due to lack of connectivity and the absence of a payment link.

For instance, according to rough estimates, while the average Internet penetration rate is about 27 percent in urban China, its reach in rural Fujian is about 7 percent.

'Which is why the uniqueness of this model is not so much in the application but in the business model," says Lorenz, adding that this e-commerce platform provides an integrated end-to-end service, which contains an online Catalogue Sales Platform (CSP), on which merchants from even a far away Chinese city can upload their products for marketing to rural customers. The service is delivered to villagers through local entrepreneurs or retail stores, who provide shared Internet access to the online shopping platform

"This platform shopping model challenges traditional ways of conducting business and purchasing goods in remote locations -- villagers gain access to a wider selection of reliable consumer products and urban suppliers are provided with a new sales channel reaching the mass market in villages," adds Lorenz.

NSN, says that this platform has been a pilot project for the past 5 months in 4 Fujian villages But in about a year's time, it should see a roll-out throughout the province.

"When done, this platform will open new doors for villagers and retailers in Fujian province," says Lorenz, adding that the main objective of the project is to establish a new business model for rural e-commerce, where, using ICT, rural Chinese people can get better access to their needs in life, at better prices. "ICT then can become more efficient and improve wealth and lifestyle in China," he added.

Besides, says NSN, this project will also enable small and medium-sized retailers and distributors to improve their business efficiency, and offer a wider product range. In addition, it could spawn potentially powerful new business model of Business to Business to Consumer (B2B2C) services that will help Chinese merchants to improve local presence in rural areas.

Earth buildings in Yongding County, Fujian Province, China. By David Reid. Creative Commons License Attribution-Noncommercial 2.0 Generic

ITU Addresses Burning ICT Issues in High-Level Meeting

2008-11-19T17:09:48Z

Usually the High-Level Segment (HLS) meeting of the ITU - the Geneva, Switzerland-based United Nations leading agency for information and communication technologies that acts as the global focal point for its 191 Member States and more than 700 Sector Members - is an annual event that provides its Councilors with an opportunity to exchange views on issues of emerging trends in the ICT sector.

But this year's HLS segment meeting held over two days on November 12 and 13, was particularly notable for drawing attention and addressing two of the most burning issues in the cyberworld today: ensuring that the online world is a safe place to work and play, and the role ICT can play in the critical area of climate change.

ITU feels that climate change is emerging as a profound challenge because it is transforming the face of the world. ITU believes that Information and communication technologies (ICTs) can play a critical role in combating climate change through mitigation of its effects and the reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Not least is the fact that the growing use of ICTs contributes to global warming, For example, the many billions of mobile phones, often left to charge overnight. But moreover, ICTs are also a key part of the solution, in monitoring, mitigating and adapting to climate change.

But, points out the ITU, while ICT contributes around 2.5 percent of Green House Gas emissions, with 40 percent of this deriving from the energy requirements of personal computers and data monitors, plus a further 23 percent from data centers, it also has the potential to assist the remaining 97.5 percent of the global economy in reducing its emissions through such things as telework and teleconferencing.

Another area that ITU feels requires immediate attention is the alarming rate of the growth of crimes conducted online. While elders always warn children about whom to speak to and where to go in the world of bricks and mortor, too few are aware that children need to exercise a similar level of caution in the cyber world.

In this year's HLS meeting, ITU launched a new and "a significant" initiative to safeguard children, whom it considers the most vulnerable users of the Internet. Called the Child Online Protection (COP), this initiative brings together partners from all sectors of the international community with the aim of creating a safe and secure online experience for children everywhere. While the virtual world offers unlimited opportunities in many respects, it is also the hunting ground for cybercriminals and paedophiles.

According to ITU the world moves forward towards an all-inclusive information society it must also ensure that children everywhere can enjoy the benefits of ICTs while being protected from the risks posed by inappropriate use. And in that regard, "It is vitally important that children across the world can go online safely and ITU's Child Online Protection initiative is a significant step in that direction," says Rob Conway, CEO and Member of the Board of the GSMA.

COP has an impressive agenda (keep an eye out for an indepth analysis of this initiative in the feature section to be published soon) and aims to be a platform for global cooperation as well as to coordinate efforts behind protecting children online and make them more effective and accessible.

Underscoring its importance ITU also plans to hold the first World Congress on Child Online Protection in 2009 in Geneva.

Photo by Mikey G Ottawa. Creative Commons License Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic

First Global Cybersecurity Initiative is Ready for Take-off

2008-11-07T15:18:52Z

The International Telecommunication Union's global cybersecurity agenda that has been in the making for the past 18 months will finally see the light of the day in a few days from now.

The ITU -- the United Nations agency for information and communication technologies -- has announced that in this year's meeting of its 46-member council, to be held in mid-November, it will operationalize its Global Cybersecurity Agenda (GCA). This aims to provide ITU's 191 member nations with the expertise, facilities and resources to enable the global community to effectively address the most serious forms of cyber threats.

Launched on 17 May 2007, GCA is an ITU framework for international cooperation for crafting and implementing solutions to enhance confidence and security in the information society.

According to Geneva-based Alexander Ntoko, head of the Corporate Strategy Division, ITU, although there are many large, or even global-scale initiatives on cybersecurity, there isn't yet one that builds an international framework of cybersecurity principles and best practices that countries around the world could follow, maximizing and coordinating efforts to stamp out cybercrime.

"There was a feeling that more needs to be done and much more could be done." says Ntoko, "And GCA stems from exactly that realization."

He adds that GCA is unique in the sense it aims to link all existing initiatives and provide an overarching framework for consensus, which will allow a coordinated set of actions to strengthen cybersecurity on a global basis.

For effective implementation of this agenda, ITU has also tied up with International Multilateral Partnership Against Cyber-Terrorism (IMPACT), a Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia-based organization that claims to be the first global public-private initiative against cyber-terrorism.

In the high level meeting of the ITU council -- which is something like a board meeting of a company -- scheduled for November 11th and 12th, "the IMPACT-GCA" initiative will be ratified

The collaboration is aimed at building synergies to provide: real-time analysis, aggregation and dissemination of global cyber threat information; early warning system and emergency response to global cyber threats; and training and skills development on the technical, legal and policy aspects of cybersecurity.

GCA will be housed and operate from the IMPACT Centre in Kuala Lumpur, but it will also maintain ITU's 'virtual showcase' in its headquarters in Geneva, from where it will expand and evolve over time to increasingly provide services in ITU's GCA.

"The IMPACT-GCA collaboration is notable because it will result into the first early warning system for cybercrime," says Ntoko adding that the council meeting will also reveal the responsibilities and the action plan of the IMPACT-GCA collaboration.

Besides launching the IMPACT-GCA collobaroation, the November's meeting is also significant for the fact that it will announce ITU's first online protection plan for children. "As many as 60% of children and teenagers use online chatrooms regularly, and evidence suggests that as many of three-quarters of these may be willing to share personal information in exchange for online goods and services. In some countries, as many as one in five children may be targeted by a predator or paedophile each year. These trends are increasingly true in many emerging and developing countries as well," says ITU.

Photo of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia by Ville Miettinen - Creative Commons License Attribution 2.0 Generic

France's Booming Online Banking Falters on Security Measures

2008-10-24T17:43:10Z

France may have emerged as a country with one of the world's most developed online banking markets but as far as online security goes, this country surely has a long way to go. How else can you describe the online security of this country's financial system where even the President can find that his personal bank account has been hacked by cyber criminals?

Early this week, France's online security systems received quite a jolt when the French Cabinet revealed that online hackers managed to break into the personal bank account of President Nicolas Sarkozy, and "swindle" some money -- not a large sum though. The government admitted that this incident demonstrated that the country's online banking security is not perfect.

Amusing as this incident may look on its face, it is nevertheless a serious breach, especially considering that close to half of France's Internet users access their bank accounts online. Additionally, Europe's online banking also has its highest adoption rate in France.

Just the day after the Sarkozy bank account embezzlement was reported, comScore -- who claim to be a leader in measuring the digital world -- released a report on the French online banking sector. This, in essence, said that France is one of the world's most developed markets for online banking.

comScore found that of the 37 global markets, France ranked fourth in penetration of online banking, with 46 percent of French Internet users accessing online banking sites in August 2008. Countries ahead of France are Canada (64 percent), the Netherlands (51 percent) and Sweden (47 percent).

With an average of 6 usage days and 7 online banking visits per visitor, comScore said French Internet users also exhibited high frequency in accessing online banking sites. Clearly, as says Herve Le Jouan, Managing Director, comScore Europe, online banking has emerged as "an important business sector in France, with one of the highest adoption rates in Europe," and "with competition in the online banking sector in France already fierce, marketers need to ensure that they meet their needs online, and ultimately capitalize upon the growing popularity of the sector."

But have the French banks and the other eCommerce players in that country realized that? It doesn't seem so if reports that are available on the website of Bank of France, the country's central bank are any pointers to that problem.

For instance in a report on Internal Security Standards, Bank of France said, "The Bank found that reports from a number of large institutions showed that internal standards lacked proper support, often being limited to control points for transactions handled by their branch network."

Of course one can argue that the situation was what it used to be since that report was published in 2006. Still, not much may have improved since then. For that matter, an IDG News Service report warned even last year that French banks and merchants are not putting in place anti-fraud technology to catch bad online transactions.

According to Marc Andries, head of the oversight division for the Bank of France, the country's central bank, who was quoted in that report saying that some banks, deterred by high deployment costs, don't even have some basic security measures in place, such as a password authentication system.

Of course, a big reason why online security measures are lacking in France is that its online users themsleves are not highly security conscious and are often reluctant to use even passwords. "French customers are somewhat exceptional in that they show medium adoption rates (of security) despite having the most concerns," said Thomas Meyer, the author of a Deutsche Bank study on online banking in Europe, released last year.

Still, it is strange that unlike in USA, where the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council, which supervises U.S. financial institutions, mandated that all banks implement a double-layered authentication system at the least, the France's central bank imposes no such binding.

According to Andres -- as quoted in the IDG report -- the Bank of France does not dictate how banks should strengthen their security or what technology they should use.

But perhaps the Sarkozy incident will change all that now. Reports suggest that it has rattled the powers that be with Luc Chatel, secretary of state for consumer affairs, admitting that the French government has realized no one is safe from Internet fraud and that more work needs to be done to tighten Internet banking security in France. Additionally, according to the national crime agency, the country has seen a 9 percent rise in Internet fraud offenses this year.

Meanwhile, this incident should at least come as an eye-opener for the close to 14.8 million French Internet users who visited at least one online banking site in August 2008. Interestingly, most of these users are matured enough; consumers in the 35 - 44 year age segment and those 55 years and older visit online banking sites most frequently, says comScore.

Photo Arka Roy. Creative Commons License Attribution-No Derivative Works 2.0 Generic

Thriving Demand Spawns Updated E-crime Software

2008-10-17T16:53:52Z

What do creators of a software application used by criminals do when their product gets so popular that it starts attracting worldwide attention? Simple; just declare themselves bankrupt and go underground until the hoopla dies. And then come back with a new version to make up for the lost business.

That's exactly what has happened with Neosploit - the most notorious and most advanced infection kit used by online criminals to infect computers with malware for extracting sensitive information remotely.

Neosploit first surfaced in the e-crime scene in 2007 and was sold undercover over the Internet through blogs and ICQ sites to online criminals. But unlike its infamous predecessors such as MPack, Icepack and WebAttacker, it was far more advanced. For instance, say experts, Nesploit could hunt out vulnerabilities in operating systems like Windows and Linux and launch attack codes automatically. Besides it also had sophisticated statistical analysis and management tools.

This is why it gained popularity so rapidly: within a year not only were criminals but also almost everyone concerned with online security were downloading it -- some for e-crime use, while others wanted to crack how it worked to take counter-offensive actions. Then in an ironic twist, e-pirates started circulating a pirated versions to cash in on its demand.

"Its notoriety even attracted the attention of many federal security agencies around the world that started tracking it to pin down its users," says Ian Amit, director of security research at the Tel Aviv-based information security company, Aladdin Knowledge Systems.

Scared by this attention, Neosploit's creators adopted a smart survival strategy. They announced on a website in July that Neosploit was facing financial problems due a draught of orders and is going out of business.

According to RSA FraudAction Research Labs -- first to notice the announcement -- the creators said; "Unfortunately, supporting our product is no longer possible. We apologize for any inconvenience, but business is business since the amount of time spent on this project does not justify itself."

The announcement also added, "We tried hard to satisfy our clients' needs during the last few months, but the support had to end at some point. Now we will not be with you, but nevertheless we wish that your businesses will prosper for a long time."

Interestingly, so convincing was that announcement that Computerworld, while reporting the shutdown, said Neosploit "has been retired from service by its criminal creators, most likely because it was priced too high compared to the competition."

"But in hindsight it seems it was just a clever tactic to escape attention because they were underground for just a few weeks," explains Amit who discovered in August that Neosploit was not only back in circulation, but had come out with an enhanced version called Neosploit 3.1.

It was indeed a smart move because no one in the security industry anticipated that a newer version of Neosploit would be doing rounds. "In fact, when newer attacks that contained the signature of Neosploit were noticed a few months back, even the largest of security vendors thought that it was some other new hacking software," says Amit.

Amit believes Neosploit creators actually planned to create a newer version of Neosploit but since they didn't want to attract any more attention, they simply went out of circulation for a while. "My guess is when they came back, they did it equally surreptitiously because the newer version of this software is not available for downloads though the earlier used bogging or ICQ sites. Quite probably Neosploit 3.1 is selling though direct selling channels now," says Amit

Neosploit's re-introduction is a truly notable instance of how the huge demand from the cybercrime world is forcing cybercriminals to come up with innovative strategies to beat the system. The profitability of developing newer versions in Neosploit's case not only compensated them for going underground and losing a few week's or month's business It also allowed the infamous software to move from established, but compromised distribution channels to others and still thrive, says Amit.

Nevertheless, now that Neosploit's resurfacing has been identified, it will be easier for the security industry to identify some of the unsolved attacks of the past few months and even predict newer attacks, says Amit.

Meanwhile, digging for the spoils of Neosploit 3.1 has led Amit to yet another significant discovery -- the existence of the biggest organized e-crime operation ever. But that's another story which I will cover in greater detail soon as a feature in Digital Communities. So keep an eye out...

OLPC Restructures to Reenergize its Laptop Campaign

2008-10-02T15:29:27Z

Having failed to achieve the ambitious target it had set for itself during its formation in 2005, OLPC seems to have embarked upon a corporate restructuring strategy to reenergize its famous one-laptop-per-child concept.

According to Satish Jha, President and CEO of the recently formed OLPC India, the Boston-based foundation OLPC has set up region-focused operations in various parts of the world to give an impetus to the proliferation of the concept under an "organized format."

Already OLPC has been divided into about 4 broad divisions, with a CEO in each responsible for crafting and implement ambitious growth strategies in their respective regions. These are OLPC Europe, OLPC China, OLPC India, and OLPC Ibero-America and The Caribbean.

OLPC Europe is headed by maverick Belgian entrepreneur Walter De Brouwer -- as President and CEO -- who is most known for forming the European company Starlab, the first private blue sky research laboratory. OLPC's website says that OLPC Europe will function with the cooperation of Foundation Roi Baudouin, a NGO that assists in funding and setting up of investment syndicates for least developed countries, newly industrialized countries and failed states. This division also has Matt Keller of the World Food Program as a Director with the responsibility of introducing and distributing the XO laptops in Europe, Middle East, and Africa.

Similarly OLPC China, headed by Anthony Wong -- the ex-honcho of China Telecom -- is charged with promoting OLPC's mission in China and South East Asia. And Satish Jha has taken up the responsibility of XO's penetration in India, coupled with a few other regions in Asia that are outside the domain of OLPC China.

OLPC Ibero-America and The Caribbean -- headed by Rodrigo Arboleda --, as the name suggests, will look after all the Spanish-speaking countries in the Americas, Brazil, and the Caribbean region, while the whole of North America would be under OLPC's president and COO, Charles Kane. Additionally, according to Jha, OLPC has also roped in Jorge Castañeda, the "very powerful and influential" ex-foreign minister of Mexico to promote XO in the newly industrialized federal constitutional republic.

In each of these regions according to Jha, OLPC will work with partner organizations if required to achieve its objectives. "OLPC still believes that there is a huge potential for XO globally and for it to be able to tap that potential, OLPC had to create a corporate format."

But that doesn't mean that these divisions and the OLPC Foundation will function as a company. "We are not hardcore businessmen," says Jha. "We are evangelists; we are organizers. We will act as managers to oversee the entire distribution framework of the concept while leaving the implementation and many other related functions to partners who are experts in their domains."

Ever since its launch, with a brazenly ambitious target of providing 100 million laptops by 2008 to the children of all the developing countries -- and thereby changing the face of third world education systems from a paper/slate-based system to a screen-based one -- OLPC has not only failed to achieve its target but has suffered from a multitude of setbacks, some of which almost threatened to send OLPC to the brink.

The setbacks were serious. Starting with doubling of the cost of an XO-from the $100 estimated initially to current cost of around $200, to the challenge of a similar low-budget computer for developing countries launched by Intel, to the exodus of key officials from the project, this project has faced rough times.

However, OLPC's most daunting challenge was -- and continues to be -- its acceptance globally. Although the concept received glowing reviews at the time of launch, few governments around the world were willing to bet on it. In fact, in an admission of OLPC's disappointing track record, Negroponte even told The International Herald Tribune last year that he had "to some degree underestimated the difference between shaking the hand of a head of state and having a check written."

Consequently, against the targeted 100 million XOs, OLPC has been able to ship about a million so far.

Nevertheless, it appears Negroponte and his current team remains determined to turn around OLPC's fortunes. "We are doing all that it takes to achieve our goals," says Jha who is stationed at the OLPC headquarters in Boston. "Starting from re-structuring OLPC as an organization, to roping in some of the most influential heads of operations, to even tying with world's top names for manufacture (Qunta of Taiwan to manufacture XO) and distributing XO (with Amazon.com for its Get-One-Give-One program that starts in November) OLPC has adopted a renewed strategy to aggressively promote the concept again globally."

And that thrust will start from China and India, adds Jha. "China and India are our biggest markets," he says.

OLPC India plans to distribute "three million XO laptops in India in the next 12 months" and engage "all the state government, large companies, social foundations, and NGOs to give a new thrust to the OLPC agenda in India."

The cost of the XOs in India is going to be fairly high -- at about $300 each. But that's because the XOs will come with additional features like a camera, USB ports, and even a CDMA modem for wireless Internet connection, says Sumit Chowdhury, of Digital Bridge Foundation, the NGO in India that launched XO on its own about a year back. It is now one of the implementation partners of OLPC India.

According to Chowdhury who is the CIO as well of Reliance Communication, one of the largest telecom service providers in India, the CDMA (USB) modem that The Digital Bridge Foundation has "specially developed" for XO, "not only connects the XO to the Internet wirelessly, but also turns the XO into a phone -- a first in the world so far."

Although Anthony Wong couldn't be reached to comment on OLPC's China plans, Jha said that China's potential is as big as India's, since "just like India, every fourth child in the world is a Chinese."

Even so, the question that still remains (despite the renewed thrust, potentials, et al): can the XO really reach the target that OLPC India ( and OLPC China as well for that matter) has set for themselves? Only time will tell.

Photo by Jarrett Campbell. Creative Commons License Attribution 2.0 Generic

Indian Govt. Claims to Have Decrypted Blackberry Data

2008-09-24T15:59:44Z

The ongoing tussle between India's security agencies and the department of telecom (DoT) on one side and BlackBerry's maker Research-In-Motion may be resolved; at least that's how it looks.

According to local reports, the Indian government has finally been able to decrypt the data on BlackBerry's local networks, a feat that has come after over six months of acrimony between the country and RIM. The DoT and security agency National Technical Research Organisation (NTRO) have conducted successful tests on local service providers like Bharti Airtel, BPL Mobile, and Vodafone-Essar networks for interception of Internet messages from BlackBerry to non-BlackBerry devices. And interestingly, this has been achieved not without the consent of RIM, but with its help.

According to an NTRO source -- who has requested anonymity -- the Indian government have successfully tested the decompression techniques that have been worked out on "some Blackberry" service providers' networks although the Indian government haven't started cracking the networks yet.

If these claims are true, they not only mean that all email messages and SMSs sent out of Blackberry handsets in India would be under government surveillance (and thus no longer be exclusive for the users), but I believe it would also be the first instance for a government being able to snoop on Blackberry data.

RIM's security policy that does not allow any third party or even the company to read the information transferred over its network, is one of the most redeeming feature of Blackberry, making it one of the world's most popular communication tools.

BlackBerry, the revolutionary push email service, has faced a number of controversies in its decade of existence. But perhaps never has Blackberry faced the ire of a country's government for the commercial arrangement it has with telecom operators of the country.

Six months back, the DoT clamped down on RIM for entering into a "routing arrangement" -- and not a "hosting arrangement" as required under the Indian law - with the Indian BlackBerry service providers.

A routing agreement allows communications between BlackBerry owners in India to be hosted on servers outside the country, thereby bypassing the networks of Indian mobile operators and directly hit RIM's servers in Canada. In a hosting agreement the data resides on servers of Indian BlackBerry service providers. Since a routing arrangement does not lawfully allow India's national security agencies to intercept BlackBerry data, DoT wanted either the Indian service operators to create a mirror image of all emails and data sent on these devices in India, saving it for a minimum of six months, or, for RIM to move its servers to India.

DoT believed that Blackberry had emerged as a "security threat to the country," because communications through BlackBerry devices could not be intercepted by anyone. Thus, it could become a favorite tool for terrorists.

But neither RIM nor the Indian telecom operators were willing to accept these conditions, and the growth of Blackberry in India was in a state of limbo as the industry feared that the DoT might ban Blackberry services outright.

Nevertheless, even as NTRO sources claim encryption solution that India has worked out is solely for the security agencies' use -- and not to be shared with any others -- the moot question is whether India is justified in insisting on snooping on BlackBerry data?

According to local Cyberlaw expert Pavan Duggal, although the Indian IT Act 2000 does extend the power to intercept information to the Government, it is not clear whether the law allows for such sweeping surveillance.

Moreover, "Right from consumer banking transactions to enterprises exchanging data between different offices to government organizations -- all use encryption technology in one form or the other," says Alok Shende, the India-based Head, IT & Telco, Datamonitor. "Any initiative to dilute the right of business and consumers to use encryption technology will perforce lead to increased vulnerability for businesses on one hand, and loss of privacy to consumer on the other."

Meanwhile, what is clear though is that the warring factions -- DoT, NTRO, etc and RIM -- have indeed been able to work out a truce of some sort. Two more service providers -- Reliance Mobile and Tata Teleservices -- expanded Blackberry's market in India by launching their services with the latest Blackberry handsets.

Photo by Phil Robinson Creative Commons License Attribution-Noncommercial 2.0 Generic

Fastest Growing Mobile Market Fails on Broadband Penetration

2008-09-05T16:24:30Z

With over 270 million subscribers -- that's the second largest after China -- and adding almost 9 million each month, India may have wowed the world by becoming the fastest growing telecom market. But, in terms of another major development indicator, broadband penetration, India still has a long way to go -- a very long way to go in fact.

According to the International Telecommunication Union's latest study on Asia-Pacific Telecom scene, at close-to-zero level of broadband penetration India is far behind most economies of the Asia-Pacific region. "India's success in telecom revolution is restricted to just mobile phone growth and that too in the voice segment while the country has very little to showcase in fixed line and Internet access, or high-speed broadband," says Vanessa Gray, the author of the report, entitled Asia-Pacific Telecommunication/ICT Indicators .

For a country that is the considered to be a global hub for IT/ITeS services and the world's back office, it is indeed strange that Internet penetration remains one of the lowest in the world. But for Gray, that is not really a surprise.

"There is a very strong link between income level and broadband penetration simply because broadband infrastructure is expensive," she says. "The per capita income of India [at about $1000] then doesn't allow the country to spend much on growing the broadband infrastructure and a low income level is also the reason why Indian government has a limited amount of influence on broadband penetration as well."

The other is big problem is the dispersement of population. About 65 percent of Indians still live in rural areas that suffer from very poor infrastructure -- like roads, electricity, etc -- and "that makes it very difficult to increase the level of broadband penetration," she says.

Moreover according to Rajesh Chharia, president, Internet Service Provider Association of India, "The dismal penetration could be attributed to a slew of other factors like government policy failures, inadequate of fixed line infrastructure, a barely profitable ISP business, and low domestic PC penetration."

Nevertheless, in terms of Information and Communication Technologies, Asia-Pacific is mind-boggling in many ways. It is home to almost half of the world's fixed telephone lines, and with over a billion mobile cellular subscribers, the region has the largest mobile phone market share globally. The other areas in which the region stands out most are, advanced Internet technologies including broadband Internet access and mobile data communications.

According to Gray in the region's high-income economies in particular, ubiquitous access is progressing through a competitive race to provide ever faster fixed broadband access. Operators in Hong Kong and Japan for instance have launched one-Gigabits per second broadband and triple-play services aimed at the residential market, featuring applications such as Internet telephony and television.

And Korea, which already leads the world in terms of the percentage of households with fixed broadband access, has also emerged as world leader in fibre optic connections, which is essential for supporting the next generation of ultra-high speed Internet applications.

ITU says that the Asia-Pacific region is the world's largest broadband market with a 39 percent share of the world's total at the end of 2007. In terms of broadband access, Asia-Pacific has made remarkable progress in the past few years, with subscriber numbers growing almost five-fold in five years: from 27 million at the beginning of 2003 to 133 million at the start of 2008.

But like India, not everyone in the region lives in the ultimate high-speed Internet access experience; and the contrast is stark.

"The regional broadband divide is striking, with poor economies having a close-to-zero broadband penetration, compared to that of rich economies where one in four persons is a broadband subscriber," says Gray

The gap in available broadband speeds between rich and poor countries is as wide as broadband penetration. In Japan, Korea and Hong Kong for example, the minimum advertised broadband speed is faster than the maximum broadband speed in Cambodia, Tonga, Laos and Bangladesh.

As far as India is concerned, the good news is that the low level of penetration is not going to last long. That's because, India has just released spectrum for rolling out 3G and WiMAX services-the next generation wireless technologies -- and those services are expected to start in about 6 months. "A lot might change once India launches its 3G network because that will help broadband penetration over the much cheaper mobile phone to spurt," says Gray.

Moreover, the 3G roll out will also encourage new operators, including foreign ones, to enter the Indian market. And that in turn could "stimulating competition, liberalizing the broadband business even further to make broadband access cheaper for higher broadband penetration," says Pradeep Baijal, a former telecom regulator.

American Software Meant for the Deaf Can Help All

2008-08-29T16:35:17Z

Mobil ASL, the software that the University of Washington has just developed for deaf and hard-of-hearing Americans may be the first software that enables an American to use sign language over mobile phones. But thanks to its unique features, this software may also be ideal for the developing world as well.

Discussing the significance of this development Eve Riskin, the principal investigator, who is a professor at the Washington University and a part of the team that developed this software explained, "The software is tailored for American Sign Language. But since it is based on cutting edge technology, it could be modified for use for any sign language because all sign languages basically have similar gestures."

According to Prof. Riskin, the biggest challenge of transmitting sign language -- which the deaf use to communicate with each other -- over cell phones is not to compress the video of the gestures of sign language compact enough to be transmitted and received over cell phones, but rather to use an algorithm simple enough for a cell phone to do the real time encoding and decoding fast enough.

"Cell phones posses far lower hardware resources in terms of processor speed and memory, and that is a big hurdle for video communication over cell phones," she said.

Riskin added that the advantage of Mobile ASL lies in a sign language encoder designed by the team that not only adheres to the ITU compression standard -- new H.264/AVC -- but also nearly doubles the compression ratio. Consequently, the software can compress the gestures tight enough to make it comprehensible on low-resolution video.

"This is why we feel that the new software would a big help for people in the developing world because all developing countries suffer from poor bandwidth problems" says Riskin. "And even if some of them do have access to faster networks, they are usually very highly priced for most."

Which isn't to suggest that Mobile ASL is not a significant development for Americans as well. "A lot of people are excited about this," said Riskin. That's because, even as faster networks are becoming more common in the United States, such networks are still not fast enough for high rates of data transmission, and that means that there is still a need for software that can operate on slower systems.

Moreover, faster networks are not available everywhere and they also cost more. "We don't think it's fair for someone who's deaf to have to pay more for his or her cell phone than someone who has hearing," feels the team.

Of course, cell phones often have become indispensable for the deaf, just as they are for others - even if text messaging was the communication underpinning for the deaf. That, according to many deaf users, was very limiting, to say the least. For one, text messaging doesn't allow one to communicate rapidly one's native language. And more importantly, it is slow and does not convey emotions at all.

"Video is much better than text-messaging," says Jessica DeWitt, a UW undergraduate in psychology who is deaf and is a collaborator on the Mobile ASL project. However, low data transmission rates on U.S. cellular networks, combined with limited processing power on mobile devices, have so far prevented real-time video transmission with enough frames per second that it could be used to transmit sign language.

So, that brings us to the next question; is the software ready to hit the market? Not just yet.

"It is still in its research stage and not ready for prime time. Work is still on to make it user friendly. But after that we would like a cell phone company to pick it up and release it over the cell phone system," says Riskin.

"The team is already in discussion with a major cellular network provider that has expressed interest in the project," she said, adding that it may hit the market in about 18 months.

And what if the talk fails? "No worries," says Riskin. "We will throw it on the web and turn it open source for anyone to modify it for prime time use."

For that matter, the team is also working to a future version that will incorporate custom tools to get better quality and a feature that will identify when people are moving their hands, to reduce battery consumption and processing power when the user is not signing.

India hopes to woo Africa with Pan-African e-Network.

2008-08-25T13:51:40Z

The Indian authorities, may claim that the Pan-African e-Network is an extension of the "south-south cooperation" idea, but undoubtedly a major objective of this ambitious ICT project -- to be set up totally by India --, is to woo the resource-rich African nations to ensure a steady supply of resources for its voracious economy.

In fact, a big reason why India is implementing this project with gusto is to remain in step with China. As a resource-hungry nation, India too is wooing Africa in a big way for the same reason. This includes showering the continent with gifts by way of brick and mortar socio-economic infrastructure.

Although mooted in 2004 by the former President of India A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, the Pan-African e-Network faced the usual red tape and delays -- which is so symptomatic of India- for close to four years until the final green signal came from India's Ministry of External Affairs in March 2008. However, within three months of receiving the "mobilization advance," Telecommunications Consultants India Limited (TCIL), the government -owned telecommunication engineering company that is executing this project, has kicked off the first phase.

According to TCIL, the first Hub Earth Station started operation in Dakar (capital city of Senegal) on 31st July, which is a "major step because it marks the commencement of the project." This station is now connected to India data centre of TCIL which in turn is now in the process of hooking up 12 specialty hospitals and 7 universities in India with 5 universities and "at least" 5 hospitals in Africa.

While mooting this idea Kalam said that the objective is to bridge the digital divide in Africa and develop the continent's information and communication technologies by eventually connecting all the 53 countries. He also added that for India, which is funding this $135 million project completely, it is nothing but a part of "south-south cooperation.

The idea of "south-south cooperation" that started evolving around late 1990s is based on a simple realization that developing nations need not seek the help of developed nations in the rich north to find appropriate, low-cost and sustainable solutions to their problems. Instead, it makes sense to seek solutions in other developing countries, which may possess far more cost effective solutions. For instance, if Africa doesn't have the resource and knowledge to dig out its vast reserves coal or oil, it could go to India or China for help instead of going to say USA, from where the cost of importing the required expertise could be much higher.

However, even as India says that this project "continues the tradition of
India's close partnership with the countries of Africa in their developmental efforts aimed at the well being of their people," there is also a hope that the effort will bear fruit in the long run.

"We expect that in the long run this project will not only improve the cultural relationship between India and all African countries, but it will also help the growth of trade and commerce, and industry between India and Africa," said an official from the Ministry of External Affairs, requesting anonymity.

For India, it is indeed very important to cultivate better relationships with the resource-rich African nations. Like China, India's scorching economy (which is growing at about 8% a year and is considered as one of the fastest) too is hungry for everything starting from food to oil, and Africa could play a crucial role there.

But while China with its ambitious Africa strategy has been showering Africa with almost everything ( starting from building roads, to providing free food, clothes, medicine and the likes) in return for lucrative partnerships with its oil and mineral companies, India has been lagging far behind.

With the Pan-African e-Network project though, India may score a brownie point after all. Not only will this be Africa's biggest ICT project ever, but it will be funded totally by India, which will include setting it up on the African side as well.

The e-Network project entails linking 53 African nations (although about 30 countries have signed up so far and about 6 have been linked yet) by a Satellite and Fiber Optic Network that would provide communication and connectivity among the African nations and India.

The network is meant primarily for Tele-education, Tele-medicine, Internet, video-conferencing and VOIP services, but TCIL sources say if a country wants, the network could also be used for e-government and administrative functions.