NEW STANDARD ON INTER-CLOUD COMPUTING (Source_ITU@WebSite)

Cloud computing experts have reached first-stage approval (‘consent’) on a standardized framework for inter-cloud computing, an architecture whereby cloud service providers (CSPs) benefit from the services or resources of partnering CSPs to satisfy customer needs as dynamically as possible.

Recommendation ITU-T Y.3511 “Framework of inter-cloud computing for network and infrastructure” describes the framework for the interaction of multiple CSPs that might underlie the fulfillment of a single CSP’s service contracts with its customers.

The standard describes the possible relationship patterns among multiple CSPs – namely ‘peering’, ‘federation’ and ‘intermediary’ – based on several inter-cloud computing use cases and the consideration on different types of service offerings. It continues to introduce the concept of ‘primary’ and ‘secondary’ CSPs; the primary being the CSP required to fulfill a service contract with a customer, and the secondary the most immediate CSP that interworks its services and resources with other partnering CSPs to aid the primary CSP in its delivery of services. Building on these concepts, the interaction of CSPs in federation and intermediary patterns is discussed in-depth and Y.3511 concludes with the derivation of functional requirements for inter-cloud computing.

Although not integral parts of the Recommendation, Y.3511 also provides three annexes which detail “Use cases from the inter-cloud perspective”, “Use cases from telecom and non-telecom providers’ views”, and “Abstract service offering models for inter-cloud computing”.

Nine other standards found consent at SG13’s meeting:

• ITU-T Y.1903 “Functional requirements of mobile IPTV”
• ITU-T Y.2254 “Capabilities of multi-connection to support enhanced Multimedia Telephony (eMMTel) services”
• ITU-T Y.2253 “Capabilities of Multi-connection to Support Streaming Service”
• ITU-T Y.3032 “Configurations of node identifiers and their mapping with locators in future networks”
• ITU-T Y.3045 “Smart ubiquitous networks – Functional architecture of content delivery”
• ITU-T Y.3033 “Framework of Data Aware Networking for Future Networks”
• ITU-T Y.2065 “Service and capability requirements for e-health monitoring services”
• ITU-T Y.2064 “Energy saving using smart objects in home networks”

Apple and Google App Stores Are Vulnerable

Too many apps in Apple and Google app stores have been targeted for hacking. The security experts point out that financial apps on Android are the most vulnerable. In most cases, applications have been hacked and uploaded to 3rd-party stores or Google Play in a bid to capture credentials from consumers, or to operate maliciously, or to defraud the app’s creator by removing adware elements.

Security experts admit that hacked apps are showing up in various storefronts, like Cydia, in a decrypted state, so by definition the software has been hacked. The specialists have seen multiple examples where there has been some tampering with the original code. In the meantime, financial apps are a particular concern, because people trust them with sensitive data, like bank account numbers and passwords. It was found that 23% of sample iOS financial apps had been hacked and reposted, as well as 53% of Android financial apps.

As you know, Android users are able to download apps from 3rd-party stores through setting on their devices, while iOS users have to “jailbreak” their device to do so. In other words, they voluntarily use a hacking attack to give themselves the equivalent of “root” privileges for installing software. Thus far, iOS 7 hasn’t been jailbroken.

However, even Google’s official Play store itself can be a source of malware and hacked applications. A few months ago BlackBerry had to halt the rollout of its BBM app for Android because a hacked version appeared in the Play store before the official one and had been downloaded over a million times. The experts also warn that it’s easy for people to upload a “Bank of America” app onto Google Play and use freely available data about the bank, while fooling users. It is believed that Google Play isn’t a vetted app store, having a lot of cruft, while in the Apple Store users are almost certain to see only legitimate apps. So, hacked code is not a significant problem in Apple’s App Store, as the company vets all apps before uploading them onto its App Store. As for Google, it will remove apps only after the complaints emerge or if they are detected as having malware. Both Google and Apple platforms have a “kill switch” that is able to retrospectively delete malicious installed apps from the devices.

Bitcoin Is Not a Currency of a Future

An expert on digital currencies from Ernst & Young claimed that Bitcoin doesn’t have to replace normal currency to have a future. The expert described a number of myths around the currency, one of which was its position as a replacement for “fiat” money.

Fiat currency is essentially currency the government decrees to be legal tender. And Bitcoin was obviously not created as a replacement for fiat currency. There are many people talking about how Bitcoin is going to take over, or how it doesn’t have the properties lending to it being used widely. The currency was really created to be used in electronic commerce and for micro transactions. If you remember this, the future risks for the currency take on a different shape. At the moment, many experts are concerned with such problems as price volatility and the deflationary nature of Bitcoin. Since there will only ever be 21 million Bitcoins, it has led some to fear that the currency will have a “deflationary” element, leading to each unit getting more valuable over time.

Deflation is usually blamed for the “lost decade” in Japan, and Ernst & Young emphasized that it adheres to the mainstream economic view that mild positive inflation is healthy for a national currency. However, when talking about using Bitcoin as an ecommerce tool, deflation seems to be not necessarily problematic.

Instead, the experts highlighted problems of speed and fraud control as the most pressing priorities for the virtual currency. To prevent fraud, the Bitcoin network has to “confirm” transactions every ten minutes. This is one of the weaknesses with Bitcoin – the problem is that you generally have to wait for 5 to 6 transaction confirmations before making sure that your money hasn’t been spent twice, which can take up to 40 or 50 minutes.

Some businesses have decided that speed is worth the risk. One pub in London takes Bitcoin and accepts unconfirmed transactions as payment, for example. However, not every retailer is able to that – especially if they are selling goods more expensive than beer.

Ernst & Young believes that there are definite possible gains in Bitcoin, in terms of lowered transaction costs. On the other side, there are also some significant negatives, in terms of accountability and how to deal with anonymous users and how to regulate in the market.

YouTube Advertising Revenues Estimated to Grow 50% in 2013

Google has never revealed the scale of profits YouTube makes since acquiring the video streaming service for $1.65 billion seven years ago. However, the analysts and researchers still can take guesses. The latest estimates were made by eMarketer – it predicts that the gross ad revenues of the service will increase over 50% to $5.6 billion this year, which is more than 10% of Google’s total revenue.

Even after the company has paid ad partners and video creators their percentage, its net ad revenues are still predicted to reach almost $2 billion in 2013, up 65% compared to last year’s $1.18 billion. The researchers have also broken out YouTube’s net ad revenues in the United States, estimating that the figure will reach $1.08 billion, $850 million of it coming from video ads. Thus, YouTube gets 1/5 of all US video advertising revenues for 2013.

Of course, all these estimations are all guesswork, but eMarketer claims that it is based on “hundreds of datapoints and studies about YouTube revenues, ad impressions, rates, usage and other information received from research companies, investment banks, Google reports and interviews with industry executives.

Those interested can compare eMarketer’s analysis to other numbers: for example, in May 2013, Morgan Stanley predicted that the company’s gross revenues would reach $4 billion this year, while Barclays thought it would be $3.6 billion. Recent report by analyst firm Wedge Partners also suggested that YouTube accounts for about 10% of Google’s revenues (which corresponds with eMarketer’s analysis), which if the Google’s 4th quarter matched the average revenues across the previous quarters would result in approximately $5.7 billion of YouTube revenues for the year as a whole.

Still, it all remains guesswork, and Google is very unlikely to announce the real figures anytime soon. It is worth noting that the $1.65bn Google paid for YouTube seven years ago (a sum which shocked many people at the time) looks like something of a bargain today.

The company’s public statistics for YouTube reveal that the service attracts 1bn people watching over 6bn hours of video per month, and 80% of its traffic is coming from abroad. 40% of its viewing time is consumed by mobile devices.

2/3rd of Web Traffic is Bots

The security outfit Incapsula has found out that about 62% of all website traffic today is generated by bots. There was a 21% rise on 2012 figure where bots accounted for a bit over 50% of the traffic.

Of course, some of those automated software instruments are malicious, but the rapid growth in traffic was for good bots used by search engines to crawl sites to index their content. Other types of bots are employed by analytics companies to provide feedback about how a portal performs, or by others to carry out specific tasks like helping the online archive preserve material before it’s removed.

The security company observed almost 1.5 billion bot visits within a 3-month period from the 20,000 websites operated by its customers. Regardless of the overall growth in bot activity, the company pointed out that many of the traditional malicious uses of the tools are now less common. There had been a 75% drop in the frequency spam links were being automatically posted.

In addition, it had seen a 10% drop in hacking tool bot activities. Those include the use of code to distribute malware, steal credit cards and hijack and deface sites. Another new trend was an 8% growth in the use of so-called “impersonator bots”. This classification includes software which masquerades as being from a search engine or other legal agent and manages to fool security measures. Such bots are custom-made to carry out a specific activity like a DDoS attack, forcing a server to crash taking a site or service offline by flooding it with traffic or to steal corporate secrets.

The developing good bots show that the legitimate services were sampling the net more frequently, which can allow search engines to add breaking news stories to its results quicker, for instance.