Qué gran noticia: "GSMA names Barcelona as Mobile World Capital"

Y cómo es una nota de prensa de la misma GSMA, me limito a transcribirla, creo que es una excelente noticia para todos...

"The GSMA has announced that Barcelona has been selected as the Mobile World Capital from 2012 to 2018. According to the association, the Spanish city saw off close competition from a final shortlist that also included Milan, Munich and Paris. As the Mobile World Capital, Barcelona will be home to the Mobile World Congress for at least the next seven years and will also “develop a range of other programmes and activities that will span the entire year and will benefit not only the citizens of Barcelona, Catalonia and Spain, but also the worldwide mobile industry.” This includes the Mobile World Centre – "exhibitions which meld culture and technological innovation, facilities for the development and incubation of mobile solutions, and retail and hospitality venues” – and the Mobile World Festival, targeted at the general public and encompassing sporting events, music and art festivals, film awards, applications and technology fairs.

Next year’s Mobile World Congress will remain at the current Fira venue, but from 2013 it will move to the new Fira de Barcelona Gran Via. According to estimates from the Barcelona Candidacy, the Mobile World Capital will generate, in the first year alone, more than EUR300 million, along with thousands of part-time jobs. Based on Barcelona's assessments, the economic impact could reach EUR3.5 billion over the seven years of the Mobile World Capital. The GSMA began its search for the Mobile World Capital by first evaluating 30 cities, narrowing the list to six candidates in August 2010 (the four cities that made the final shortlist, as well as Amsterdam and Cologne) and then identifying a final four last January.

34 reasons why Bad guys are winning!

A good article I have read in ComputerWorld. Here comes a summary with this 34 reasons:

1. The game is rigged in favor of the bad guys: To avoid breaches, the good guys have to succeed 100% of the time. The bad guys only have to succeed once.


2. TCP/IP, the underpinning of the Internet was never designed with security in mind. Ditto Ethernet, the underpinning of almost all local area networks.


3. Internet User Guide: There is no User Guide to the Internet that lays out briefly and in simple language the obvious mistakes that should be avoided. Neither hardware manufacturers, nor ISPs, nor operating system vendors have bothered to offer a helping hand to their most clueless users. A pamphlet would be plenty.
   If it only covered the most basic things, that would still be a huge step up. Things like the dangers of clicking links in email messages or that when you are prompted to install software there's a good chance it's a scam. Mac users are just learning this last point the hard way. Welcome to the club. Back in February 2010 Microsoft employee and security expert Roger Grimes wrote: The majority of the risk is due to end-users intentionally executing socially engineered Trojans that show up as fake antivirus software, malicious video codecs, fake patches, and needed software drivers. Yes, good patching and strong passwords also help, but Trojan horse programs that your end-users (or friends or family) get tricked into installing are by far the most popular, successful threat.


4. The FROM address of an email address is easy to forge (see prior point) and too few people know this.


5. People are gullible.


6. SSL, the technology behind secure web pages, is a sham.


7. Home WiFi: People use WEP on their home WiFi networks. That Verizon continues to employ WEP for new customers is shocking. It should be illegal. WEP encryption is easily broken, unlike the two newer schemes WPA and WPA2. That said, even WPA and WPA2 can be hacked if the password is weak.


8. Public WiFi: People use unencrypted public WiFi networks without a VPN. You don't spit into the wind, you don't tug on Superman's cape and you shouldn't use unencrypted public WiFi networks without a VPN. It opens up a slew of potential problems.


9. Some files/data should never be accessible over the Internet. Yet, they often are.


10. The IT field changes very quickly: When faced with a medical problem, we often deal with a doctor with 10 or more years of experience in their specialty. Very few programmers have that much experience in the development environment they use. For example, no one on the planet has 10 years experience coding Android apps. Inexperience inevitably leads to rookie mistakes.


11. Too many corporate executives have no technical savvy. This leaves them susceptible to scams and handicaps their ability to judge the importance and effectiveness of the computer security at their company.


12. Small businesses have no computer techies on staff which makes them ripe for online banking fraud. Brian Krebs did a series of articles describing many instances of this.


13. Economics dictates that software will be buggy: Developers are paid to write applications that work and, often, that are finished ASAP. That applications are totally and completely bug free may not be the highest priority. For one thing, it delays roll-out. For another, not every developer is up to the task. Steve Gibson discussed this briefly on his Security Now! podcast (episode 302, May 26, 2011). The topic was Donald Knuth, the author of TeX. Gibson called him "an artist of software" and marveled at how bug free TeX turned out to be, despite being a massive system. According to Gibson, Knuth ... wrote it in a language that he knew .. and wrote it very carefully ... Now, is that a commercial practicality? No. I mean, he would have been fired by any employer.


14. Software will always be buggy even without economics: Programming is still an art and one best done by the fewest possible people. How many great works of art in a museum were done by a large team working together? Large applications, written by teams of developers, are especially likely to be buggy, either due to communication failures or the inclusion of less skilled developers.


15. Popular software: When software gets brutally popular (think Windows, Flash, Adobe Reader and Java) bad guys devote time and effort to finding bugs that can be exploited. Many times on this blog I suggested avoiding software that has a bulls eye painted on it's back.


16. Bug fixes: The process of installing bug fixes (politely known as patches) to software applications on Windows and Macs is disgraceful, with each application forced to roll its own self-update scheme. It's anarchy. While large corporations can spring for software that installs bug fixes company-wide, smaller organizations and consumers suffer. Thus many, if not most, personal computers are running software that is missing patches to known bugs. I used to recommend Secunia's Online Software Inspector, but it requires Java and I'm hesitant to encourge the use of Java as flaws in old versions are frequently exploited by bad guys.


17. Nothing prevents a program from advertising itself as doing one thing, but when it's installed doing something else too.


18. Windows does not do a great job of defending itself. For example, Patchguard, UAC, DEP and ASLR have all been defeated, at times, by bad guys.


19. Least privilege: Both Windows and Macs have a concept of limited/restricted users and administrative users. Think of it as adult users who can do anything and child users who are restricted from messing up the guts of the system. An important defensive computing tact is to run with the least privileges necessary. Practically speaking, this means logging on to the computer as a limited/restricted user most of the time and only logging on as an administrator/adult when necessary. But, both Windows and Macs default to using administrative level logons, a big security mistake. At the least, Windows XP users should consider DropMyRights. Windows 7, which I hate with a passion, does a great job of running as a restricted user. An explanation of this belongs in the fictional Internet User Guide.


20. Windows autorun: Microsoft keeps trimming it back, but it still exists in Windows 7. It should be thoroughly, completely and totally disabled. Microsoft does not offer this as an option. I did back in January 2009. The technique I described then still works and is still necessary in Windows 7.


21. Motivation: Sometimes, perhaps often, the bad guys are more motivated than the good guys. Maybe its the potential for a huge payday, a sense of pride, the desire for respect from their peers or a sense of nationalism (it has been suggested that some hacking is state sponsored).


22. Bad guys rarely get caught.


23. Competent techies: When hiring nerds, it's hard to judge technical competence. Computers are a new and fractured field. Plus, as noted above, programming is still an art rather than a science.


24. The good guys may not be perfect: Some good guys are not well trained for the task at hand. Some are optimists (only a pessimist will think of everything that can possibly go wrong and plan for it). Some are lazy. Some are intellectually challenged (think boss's brother-in-law). As noted in the first point on this list, the good guys only need to fail once for the house of cards to fall. Then too, some good guys are not good guys at all - it only takes one rogue techie to undermine the good work of their honest techie colleagues.


25. SQL injection: If anything points up the imperfect nature of developers, it's SQL injection, a way of hacking into websites. SQL injection is totally preventable (I say this having worked with databases for many years). That it succeeds, is a mark of sub-optimal application developers. Perhaps lazy, perhaps ill-trained, perhaps an honest oversight here and there, or maybe just under the gun to finish a project as quickly as possible.


26. The bad guys are constantly getting better, both in the sophistication of their software and their scams. They also adapt to pick on the weakest link in the security chain. For example, as Windows got better at keeping itself updated with bug fixes, the bad guys moved on to attack other popular software (Java, Flash, Adobe Reader).


27. Not enough sandboxing: Sandboxing refers to putting a virtual wall around an application to insure that it does not harm the rest of the system. My favorite Windows sandboxing utility is Sandboxie. It can prevent the permanent installation of malicious software on Windows PCs. It does not prevent malware from getting onto a computer in the first place, and the malware can execute if not caught by standard antivirus software. But Sandboxie can prevent malware from permanently residing on a Windows computer. It does not get nearly the attention it deserves. Highly recommended.


28. Antivirus software: Speaking of antivirus software (for Windows), any single product offers flawed protection. Many computers with up to date antivirus software get infected anyway. And, even if an antivirus application detects malware, that doesn't mean it's cleanup of the infection will be perfect.
    For better detection, occasional scans with a different antivurus program are the way to go. Better still, an occasional scan with software that runs off its own bootable CD is the best approach. Microsoft just released their Standalone System Sweeper and many antivirus vendors, such as Avira and Kaspersky, offer something similar. Yet, how many people do this?


29. Google: Bad guys trick Google into listing malicious web pages and images near the top of search results. My defense against this is Web of Trust, a free browser plugin available for Firefox, Chrome and Internet Explorer.


30. The C programming language refuses to die.


31. Newer operating systems (found on smartphones) can remotely disable applications that are determined to be malicious. This is not possible on the older systems used on personal computers.


32. Computer and network security may not get the attention it deserves at companies. This is understandable as it's not an income producing area. Like insurance, it costs money and returns nothing, at least nothing immediate.
    It has been all over the news recently that Lockheed-Martin's network was attacked and somewhat breached. What I find interesting about the story is that as a result of the attack, Lockheed-Martin "took swift and deliberate actions" to increase their network security. Really? If there was any company that should have the best possible computer security its Lockheed-Martin. Yet, even they weren't giving security sufficient priority.


33. All security schemes need constant care and feeding. Automated tools only go so far. But monitoring takes more time/effort/expense than many companies are willing to endure.


34. Judging by the stats I get, virtually no one reads this blog.

El proteccionismo de la India

India ha ordenado bloquear el servicio de "Push-email" de NOKIA. Es un golpe duro para la compañía finlandesa, ya que este fascinante país, que he tenido la ocasión de visitar hace unas semanas, es uno de sus mercados más importantes. Y no están para muchas fiestas... La alianza que han realizado con Microsoft no dará frutos inmediatos... La India es muy proteccionista. RIM (Research in Motion) mantiene un litigio también con el "Department of Telecom". La razón es la misma: o los servidores que prestan el servicio de push-email están en la India, o se habilitan servicios de monitorización del contenido del correo, por motivos de "seguridad nacional" (números de teléfono, identidad del dispositivo, IDs de los emails, IPs y palabras "clave"). Y tenían de plazo hasta el pasado 31 de marzo... Recuerdo hace unos día que leí en un periódico Indio que Ikea estaba haciendo "puntos" allí con iniciativas de responsabilidad social, para intentar levantar la prohibición al despliegue de tiendas. ¿La razón? La fábrica no está en India. Es otra medida más en la línea de protección a la economía... Pero deseable también: la riqueza se queda ahí, y no se deslocaliza ni se van los ingenieros (uno de cada tres en el mundo es indio), ahí tienen trabajo de sobras... ¿Lección a aprender? No lo sé, no soy nada partidario de prohibir, obligar, etc. Pero un cariño más grande a nuestras empresas por parte de todos no nos vendría mal...

Queridos Reyes Magos:

No sé si me he portado bien, pero bien sabéis que lo intento. Mis padres dicen que lo importante es intentarlo. Levantarse siempre y volverlo a intentar. Por ello, y a pesar de mis faltas y defectos, os pido:

1. Brotes verdes. Compré en Francia una lata de brotes verdes que se calientan en el microondas. Pero no son esos, no. Os pido de los que habla la gente, para que vuelva a animarse la economía, y, sobre todo, que no nos creamos que estamos peor de lo que realmente estamos.
2. Creatividad. De esta crisis saldremos creando cosas, productos, servicios, INVENTANDO. Y no hablo de lo que hablan los políticos, de "tener una idea". No!. Hablo de crear PRODUCTOS MUNDIALES, de que tengamos la creatividad, el coraje y, sobre todo, el soporte económico para volver a crear compañías o productos de impacto mundial. Dentro de las compañías existentes, y creando nuevas. Pero hay que pensar en GLOBAL. Como aquello que decía aquel eslogan tan actual: "Think globally, but act locally!".
3. Buen humor. Que no lo perdamos. Cada día es un regalo, una oportunidad para ayudar alos otros, para disfrutar, para aprender, para emocionarse, para contemplar lo que nos rodea y dar gracias a Dios. Sonreid!
4. Crecimiento. ¡Hombre!, como en las cartas de antes, voy poniendo lo difícil para el final, para que los Reyes se la lean entera. Hay que volver a crecer. Pero para ello, deberemos hacer los deberes. Todos. Papá estado ayuda, suple, pero no es el que tira del carro. No debería, a no ser que pensemos en modelos "Unión Soviética" (estuve allí hace tiempo y no os lo recomiendo).
5. Libertad. Seguimos subiendo el listón. ¿Por qué hay gente que tiene la manía de prohibir cosas? La libertad es lo que distingue al ser humano de un animal, su capacidad de ELEGIR su camino. Si nos la limitan, somos menos humanos. Así lo veo yo.
6. Caridad con los más necesitados. No están muy lejos. Busca. A veces es sólo escuchar a una persona mayor, o a esa persona tan "pesada" que nos carga. Con pequeños gestos, cambiaremos el mundo.
7. Y la más difícil, me la guardo para mí. La escribiré en un papel y la dejaré en la cima de los "fantasmas", ya sabéis dónde es...

Gracias por todo. Y si traéis carbón, será bienvenido. Hoy hace frío... Mucho frío. Aunque, como decía mi abuela, estos inviernos no son como los de antes.