Broadband Internet Speed test

Electronics retail chain Radioshack and broadband phone sensation Skype (recently acquired by Ebay) signed an agreement today, for Radioshack to distribute Skype certified hardware and software in 3500 of its stores in the US.

Skype, a peer to peer VoIP service provider, will gain exposure in the large late-adopters crowd among the US shoppers. With live salespersons explaining what VoIP and Skype is all about, the deal will bring the technology one step closer to people who prefer to shop in brick-and-mortar shops.

Radioshack, with its 7000 outlets in the US, is one of the most recognized brands in electronics retail in America.

“Skype is looking at innovative retail channels for distribution, and with 94 percent of the U.S. population living or working within five minutes of a RadioShack, we see them as an ideal partner through which to offer consumers access to Skype accessories” said Saul Klein, Skype’s vice president of marketing.

Skype, which has signed up 20 to 30 times more users than other broadband phone alternatives, offers software to allow users to call other computers or phones. It works like a music file-sharing service and needs no central network switches as Vonage does, making it cheaper to operate.

Radioshack provides a missing link by supplying phone headsets or handsets that most consumers will require to make calls, which cost only a few cents per minute or less for long-distance or international calling.

Google has been buying lots of dark fiber, a cheap commodity in the post Internet bubble era. According to Robert X. Cringely, Google is now putting together a Data-Center-in-a-box, cheap enough to be placed on virtually every street corner of the world, interconnected with all that previously unlit fiber.

So why buy-up all that fiber, then?

The probable answer lies in one of Google’s underground parking garages in Mountain View. There, in a secret area off-limits even to regular GoogleFolk, is a shipping container. But it isn’t just any shipping container. This shipping container is a prototype data center. Google hired a pair of very bright industrial designers to figure out how to cram the greatest number of CPUs, the most storage, memory and power support into a 20- or 40-foot box. We’re talking about 5000 Opteron processors and 3.5 petabytes of disk storage that can be dropped-off overnight by a tractor-trailer rig. The idea is to plant one of these puppies anywhere Google owns access to fiber, basically turning the entire Internet into a giant processing and storage grid.

While Google could put these containers anywhere, it makes the most sense to place them at Internet peering points, of which there are about 300 worldwide.

Cringely goes on about Google Web Accelerator, world wide Internet TV using Google infrastructure and how Google will own Web 2.0 with no competitors worth mentioning (Micro-who-now?).

Interesting read no doubt.

Fiber to the Home (FTTH) or Fiber to the Premises (FTTP) refers to a broadband telecommunications system based on fiber-optic cables and associated optical electronics for delivery of multiple advanced services such as the tripleplay of telephone, broadband Internet and television to homes and businesses.

Fiber-optic technology deployment costs are decreasing, making this technology a competitor to existing services. KMI Research forecasts that the total FTTH market for equipment, cable, and apparatus will reach $3.2 billion in 2009.

Two competing FTTP technologies are Active FTTP and PON (Passive Optical Network) architectures.

Active FTTP networks utilize equipment in neighborhoods (usually 1 equipment cabinet for every 400-500 subscribers). This neighborhood equipment performs layer 2/layer 3 switching and routing, offloading full layer 3 routing to the carrier’s central office. The 802.3ah standard enables service providers to deliver 100 Mbit/s full-duplex over a single singlemode fiber to the premise. Service providers using Active FTTP technologies include SureWest, iProvo, Grant County, UTOPIA, and Broadweave Networks.

PON FTTP networks on the other hand avoid the placement of electronics in the field. PON networks use passive splitters to distribute fiber to individual homes. One fiber is optically split into 16, 32, or 64 fibers (depending on the manufacturer) which are then distributed to residential or business subscribers. In PON architectures, the switching and routing is done at the carrier’s central office. Service providers using PON include Verizon (FiOS) and several greenfield development networks.

Resources:
Fiber to the Home Council
FTTH Blog

From the Wikipedia article on Fiber to the Home/Fiber to the Premises

Alien Loves Predator is a very funny web comic, spoofing the Alien Vs. Predator franchise. It depicts the famous Alien (Abe) and Predator (Preston) characters, set as roommates in present day New York City.

The latest strip has some nice spam related fun in it.

Keylogger programs that record passwords and other typed-in text are increasing, according to data from iDefense.

The programs are an increasingly popular tool among identity thieves, the security company said Tuesday. Reports to iDefense, and its own research, indicate that the number of keylogger variants unleashed this year is set to rise 65 percent over last year, reaching nearly 6,200 in total, the company said in a statement on Tuesday.

Each variant could lead to anything from a few to several thousand infections, Ken Dunham, senior engineer at iDefense, said. Keylogger software typically tracks keystrokes on infected computers and is used to try to steal sensitive information such as user names and credit card data.

The biggest problem with keyloggers, which silently relay data to attackers, is that they often go undetected, easily slipping past firewalls and antivirus software, iDefense, a division of VeriSign, said.

“There are so many victims because so few know the risk or the early warning signs,” Joe Payne, vice president of VeriSign iDefense Security Intelligence Services, said in a statement. “You simply can’t stop what you can’t see.”

Early warning signs can include slow performance of a PC, a spike in pop-up messages and other problems.

Computers can become infected with keyloggers in a variety of ways, such as through downloading spyware or e-mail attachments, or through a visit to a chat room or simply to the wrong Web site. The programs typically exploit flaws in Web browser software, including Microsoft’s Internet Explorer.

iDefense said keyloggers are typically spread by organized cybercrime rings, which have used them in the past to conduct large-scale money transfers to fund criminal activities. The programs have grown exponentially since 2001, when the firm detected just 275 of them.

From an article on ZDNet.