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 New Numbers For Intel Processors
Processor manufacturers have long tried to tie performance to clock speed. Today, you may see desktop PCs with Pentium 4 processors ranging from 2.2GHz to 3.4GHz (and higher). Although this approach has worked well for many years, it's no longer appropriate to gauge processor performance as a plain function of clock speed. Other factors, such as cache size, Hyper-Threading, and multiple processor cores, are having a more profound impact on overall performance, making it more difficult to select processors.
Today's designations can be quite confusing because only a letter distinguishes processors within the same family. For example, the latest Pentium 4 (with different manufacturing processes and cache sizes) is only dubbed "E." Intel is expected to start phasing in a new processor-numbering scheme along with the release of their 90nm Dothan chips for notebooks in mid-May. Reports suggest that Dothan chips will fall into a 700 series, Pentium 4 chips will receive 500 series markings, and Celeron chips will get 300 series designations. Each new feature or attribute of a given chip will receive a new number. This new numbering scheme should make it much easier to distinguish similar chips.
Wi-Fi Gridlock A Growing Problem
Wireless access has shown great promise in both home and business applications, letting mobile users work at a variety of convenient locations without the hassle of physical connections. Wi-Fi access requires the use of access points, but access points are somewhat limited by a small number of channels and are easily impaired by interference from other devices operating on the 2.4GHz band, such as cordless phones and microwave ovens.
Some analysts see serious trouble with the explosive proliferation of access points and hotspots, especially in urban environments, and predict that a practical limit of wireless access may be reached in some congested areas as early as this year. Analysts say that the best long-term solution is to increase the 2.4GHz band to allow for more channels.
Intel Speeds Up Fibre Channel
Fibre Channel is a high-speed serial data transfer architecture that has been widely adopted for SANs requiring very high bandwidth. Fibre Channel uses optical fiber to connect devices, and current Fibre Channel loops can achieve data rates of 1Gbps to 2Gbps. Intel is doubling this speed to 4Gbps by introducing two new optical transceivers. The added bandwidth opens potential applications for video and high-speed graphics and helps to support new requirements for file retention and security. Both new transceivers operate on the current 850nm multimode optical fiber uses in most enterprise networks and should be available in the second half of this year. 
by Stephen J. Bigelow
Weed It Out
Intelligent Filtering Products Help Cut Down On Spam
Slogging through dozens (sometimes hundreds) of unwanted email messages each day drains valuable time and productivity from enterprise employees, not to mention wasted network bandwidth and storage demands. But spam has grown beyond a simple nuisance. Those pesky ads for medications, mortgages, and pornography have now become a preferred media for powerful network attacks. Consequently, administrators are placing more emphasis on identifying and blocking spam.
Open The Can
Some users define spam as being sent randomly from bulk email systems. Other users broaden the definition to include any unwanted messages, even if it's from an organization that you know and currently do business with. Yet, Geoff Webb, director of marketing at FutureSoft, says that the problems are identical no matter how you define spam. "Handling and dealing with email takes time and resources, and when that email is unwanted and unproductive, that's time and resources that have been wasted. For enterprises, this is a large problem. Mail servers and network infrastructure costs money and so, of course, does employee time. As the volume of unwanted mail grows, it consumes more and more disk space, network bandwidth, and user time."
But spam is doing far more than simply wasting time and resources. Webb says, "There has been an increasing number of spam-related attacks, where spam is used to deliver a payload far more sinister than ads for herbal Viagra substitutes. We see this becoming the preeminent concern in the mail security industry at the moment, and with good reason." Unsuspecting users often open spam, allowing malicious attachments to execute and spread.
Take Steps
With the looming problem of spam not likely to abate anytime soon, the discussion turns to prevention: stopping spam from flooding and infecting your network. Teaching users how to combat spam is important. Webb offers the following tips: "Don't open attachments that you aren't expecting without verifying them. Don't click on links in unsolicited mail. Always read the licensing agreements for software you download because you never know when you might be agreeing to allow your PC to act as a mail or ad server for some third party. With some basic knowledge and self-discipline, at least that part of the equation is solvable now."
Beyond user training, email filters can be employed to identify and reduce spam. With a success rate of around 98.5%, DynaComm i:mail uses a series of filtering layers to catch incoming spam. Webb says, "We can stop [spam] before it even enters the network by refusing to receive mail from known spam senders published on available blacklists. We also use what's called heuristic analysis, where we look at a number of different indicators in the way the mail is being sent, even before we start examining the content. Once the mail arrives, DynaComm i:mail uses content categories to match portions of the mail to known words or phrases using Boolean logic and regular expressions. This gives a high degree of accuracy to enable the software to decide what type of mail it actually is. Finally, DynaComm i:mail also uses an advanced Bayesian analyzer. This approach relies on computing the probability for a message being spam, based on statistical methods. The Bayesian analyzer essentially ‘learns' what should be rejected and what should be kept as it is used."
DynaComm i:mail can be applied in any size of organization with its own mail server and will work under WinNT/2000/XP Pro/Server 2003. It is upgradeable as new users are added. Pricing starts at $5,865 for 250 users.
Legislative Leverage
We'd like to think that such regulations as the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 would reduce the amount of spam traffic, but there's more spam than ever. "Across the board the industry has seen the quantity of spam mail increase since the CAN-SPAM Act went into effect. While legitimate organizations are careful to follow the guidelines, the reality is that most already were behaving responsibly. It's the bulk spam senders and the infected zombie clients that are going to continue to send mail regardless of this kind of legislation," says Webb.
Spam will keep coming until we have the tools and training needed to overcome it. "Spam mail is sent for one reason only and that's because it makes economic sense to sell that way. Once it becomes too difficult to reach the target audience, then the volume of spam will fall. That's some way off yet, but applying strong antispam technology and practicing good email security habits will make a significant difference," says Webb. |
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