On Friday, April 20, the new iPad will arrive at market in South Korea, Brunei, Croatia, Cyprus, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Malaysia, Panama, St. Maarten, Uruguay and Venezuela. Friday, April 27, will see another wave of releases, with the device shipping in Colombia, Estonia, India, Israel, Latvia, Lithuania, Montenegro, South Africa and Thailand.

So, by the end of the month, the new iPad will be available in some 56 countries. Not bad for a six-week rollout. Certainly, it’s a marked improvement over last year’s launch of the iPad 2, during which Apple was able to ship to only 39 countries in about five weeks, thanks to supply-chain constraints.

Networking giant Cisco Systems said today it will acquire NDS — an Israeli firm that specializes in software that delivers video and interactive entertainment to TV set-top boxes in a secure manner — for about $5 billion in cash plus the assumption of debt.

NDS is 51 percent owned by Permira, a private equity firm, and 49 percent owned by News Corp. (which also owns this Web site). Word of advanced talks on the deal were first reported today by the Israeli business newspaper Calcalist (in Hebrew), and then summarized by Israel’s English news service Ynetnews.

Cisco shares are getting whacked in pre-market trading. As of 8:33 am ET, the shares are indicating down 22 cents, or more than 1 percent, to $19.98 a share.

NDS had traded publicly on the Nasdaq until it went private in 2009, and Ynetnews says the current talks peg the company at a valuation of about 35 percent north of what it was trading for at that time. Founded in 1988 by a group of scientists, it was acquired by News Corp. in 1992 for $15 million, and first listed its shares on the Nasdaq in 1999. In 2009, News Corp. teamed with Premira to buy out the shares for $3.7 billion, and delisted it from Nasdaq.

Word of the talks also come at an interesting time for Cisco, what with those recent rumors that it has been mulling an exit from the set-top box business. Set-top boxes carry a relatively low margin in the 30 percent range, which doesn’t do anything good for Cisco’s overall gross margin, which is north of 60 percent.

Rumors popped up in various outlets that the business was on the block, fed in no small part by the fact that Cisco sold off its set-top manufacturing operations to Foxconn last year, as part of its larger reorganization. CEO John Chambers slapped that idea down pretty hard during the last earnings call, saying Cisco remained “totally committed to the set-top box business.” Now we know why.

The press release is below:

Cisco Announces Intent to Acquire NDS

Acquisition of NDS Will Expand Cisco’s Ability to Transform How Service Providers and Media Companies Worldwide Deliver Next-Generation Video Experiences to Subscribers

SAN JOSE, CA and LONDON–(Marketwire -03/15/12)- Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO – News) today announced its intent to acquire NDS Group Ltd., a leading provider of video software and content security solutions that enable service providers and media companies to securely deliver and monetize new video entertainment experiences.

NDS uses the combination of a software platform and services to create differentiated video offerings for service providers that enable subscribers to intuitively view, search and navigate digital content anytime, anywhere and on any device.

The acquisition of NDS will complement and accelerate the delivery of Videoscape™, Cisco’s comprehensive platform that enables service providers and media companies to deliver next-generation entertainment experiences. Acquiring NDS will broaden Cisco’s opportunities in the service provider market, expanding its reach into emerging markets, such as China and India, where NDS has an established customer footprint.

Under the terms of the agreement, Cisco will pay approximately $5 billion, including the assumption of debt and retention-based incentives, to acquire all of the business and operations of NDS. The acquisition has been approved by the boards of directors of both companies.

The acquisition is expected to close during the second half of calendar year 2012, subject to customary closing conditions, including regulatory review in the United States and elsewhere. The net impact to Cisco is expected to be accretive to EPS in the first full year on a non-GAAP basis.

Highlights/Key Facts

Cisco’s open, standards-based Videoscape platform, which spans the cloud, the network and end-user clients, is a key part of the company’s overall video strategy to deliver TV experiences that make access to content more visual, mobile and social for consumers, while protecting and enhancing the value of content for service providers and media companies.
The addition of NDS’s leading software solutions, such as the end-user viewing client and content security solutions, combined with its systems integration expertise, will accelerate the delivery of the Cisco Videoscape platform.
This acquisition reflects Cisco’s increased strategic focus on video, one of its five foundational priorities, and its investment in software and services revenue streams and competencies.
This acquisition underscores Cisco’s commitment to its “build, buy, and partner” strategy to grow through a combination of organic innovation, targeted acquisitions and strategic partnering.
In terms of valuation, on a forward-looking basis, the acquisition is generally in line with the earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) multiples paid when NDS was taken private in 2009, and is within the multiples ranges for comparable deals, including Cisco’s acquisition of Tandberg.
A significant portion of NDS’s software, services and content protection business is recurring, with long-term contracts, typically with an average duration of approximately five years.
Prior to the close, Cisco and NDS will continue to operate as separate companies. Upon completion of the transaction, NDS’s global operations, including sites in the United Kingdom, Israel, France, India and China, and its approximately 5,000 employees will join the Cisco Service Provider Video Technology Group (SPVTG), led by Senior Vice President and General Manager Jesper Andersen.
Dr. Abe Peled, NDS Executive Chairman, will be named Senior Vice President and Chief Strategist for Cisco’s Video & Collaboration Group, of which SPVTG is a part. Dr. Peled will report directly to Marthin De Beer, Senior Vice President, Cisco Video and Collaboration Group.

Quotes

John Chambers, Chairman and CEO, Cisco

“Our strategy has always been driven by customer need and on capturing market transitions. Our acquisition of NDS fits squarely into this strategy, enabling content and service providers to deliver new video solutions that leverage the cloud and drive new monetization opportunities and service differentiation.”

Dr. Abe Peled, Executive Chairman, NDS

“Cisco and NDS are helping drive the transition that will enable service providers and media companies to offer new revenue-generating video experiences. NDS’s open software video platform and services are highly complementary to Cisco technology, and together we are uniquely positioned to enable service providers to deliver fresh and exciting multi-screen video services to their customers. A key component of NDS’s success has been our open software and services model, working with a wide range of set-top box manufacturers to enable greater choice for our customers; following this acquisition this strategy will continue and expand the choice of hardware solutions available to service providers worldwide.”

Dave Habiger, CEO, NDS

“This is a transformational opportunity for not only NDS and Cisco, but also our service provider customers and their consumers. Together we make the connected vision a reality.”

Investor and Media Events:

John Chambers, Cisco’s Chairman and CEO, Ned Hooper, Cisco’s Senior Vice President and Chief Strategy Officer, and Abe Peled, Executive Chairman of NDS, will host a joint investor call on March 15 at 6:00 a.m. PDT to discuss the proposed transaction. The dial-in number is 517-308-9354 (international) and 800-619-2472 (United States). Conference call replay will be available from 10:00 a.m. PDT, March 15, 2012, to 4:30 p.m. PDT, March 30, 2012 at 203-369-3287 (international) and 800-469-5424 (United States). The replay also will be available via webcast from Thursday, March 15, through April 13, 2012 on the Cisco Investor Relations website at http://investor.cisco.com.

John Chambers and Abe Peled will host a joint Web-based video press conference on March 15 at 9:30 a.m. PDT. Members of the media are invited to watch this live webcast by clicking here. Please note that online registration is required. A broadcast replay will be available within 24 hours. For more information on this announcement, please visit newsroom.cisco.com.

RSS Feed for Cisco: http://newsroom.cisco.com/dlls/rss.html

Tags / Keywords:

Cisco, NDS, video, service provider

About Cisco

Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO – News) is the worldwide leader in networking that transforms how people connect, communicate and collaborate. Information about Cisco can be found at http://www.cisco.com. For ongoing news, please go to http://newsroom.cisco.com.

About NDS

NDS Group Ltd. creates the technologies and applications that enable pay-TV operators to securely deliver digital content to TV STBs (set-top boxes), DVRs (digital video recorders), PCs, mobiles and other multimedia devices. Over 90 of the world’s leading pay-TV platforms rely on NDS solutions to protect and enhance their business.

NDS’ VideoGuard® is the world’s market-leading content and service protection solution, deployed in 125 million pay-TV households. VideoGuard conditional access (CA) and digital rights management (DRM) technologies safeguard pay-TV service revenues exceeding $50 billion. NDS middleware, which enables a host of advanced services for subscribers, has been deployed on 214 million devices. NDS DVR technology, centred around XTV™, is a leader in the global industry with 47 million units deployed. (Deployment figures as of 31st December 2011).

Headquartered in the UK, with over 5000 employees, NDS remains committed to investing in technology and development with over 75% of its employees dedicated to pioneering work at development centres in France, India, Israel, Korea, UK and US.

Cisco and the Cisco logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Cisco and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and other countries. A listing of Cisco’s trademarks can be found at www.cisco.com/go/trademarks. Third-party trademarks mentioned are the property of their respective owners. The use of the word partner does not imply a partnership relationship between Cisco and any other company.

NDS is a registered trademark or trademark in the U.S. and certain other countries. All other trademarks are property of their respective owners.

It has been almost two years since the infamous and mysterious computer worm known as Stuxnet was first detected by a team of researchers in Belarus.

Opinions on this vary, but the worm that is said to have caused explosions at certain nuclear installations in Iran is thought to have set that country’s alleged nuclear energy and weapons ambitions back by as much as two years.

The fascination persists. Although no one has ever taken official responsibility for it — the leading suspects in its creation are Israel and the U.S., acting together or independently — Stuxnet is widely considered to have been the most successful and innovative weapon of digital warfare ever seen.

And though numerous media accounts have, with the help of anonymous sources, filled in some of the narrative around its development, the subject of the covert cyber campaign against the Iranian nuclear program has generally remained outside the attention envelope of mainstream TV audiences.

That will change Sunday night when CBS’s popular television news documentary show “60 Minutes” turns its attention on Stuxnet, and the concept of offensive cyberwar generally.

If you’re not familiar with the particulars of Stuxnet, here’s a brief explanation: It’s a sophisticated worm that experts say required several months and millions of dollars to design. Via long-since-patched vulnerabilities in Microsoft Windows, it is designed to burrow its way into specialized industrial computers called programmable logic controllers, made by the German industrial company Siemens. These PLCs sit between conventional computers and industrial machinery like factory equipment, generators and centrifuges used to create nuclear fuel. PLCs and systems like them are widely used and, in many cases, not well secured, in part because they were never designed to be connected to the Internet.

(I first wrote about it at my last job in 2010 in stories found here and here.)

The story goes that the worm was first introduced to Iran via infected flash drives that were dropped around the outside of certain targeted facilities. The worm was carefully programmed to target a specific installation and to remain inert until it found its target. When it did, it seized control of some 1,000 Iranian nuclear centrifuges at Natanz, about 200 miles south of Tehran. While displaying seemingly normal operating conditions to workers there, the centrifuges were forced to spin out of control and effectively destroy themselves.

In a preview video released today (embedded below), “60 Minutes” correspondent Steve Kroft appears to get a tour of the U.S. Cyber Command, the military nerve center for U.S. cyberwar operations. And, in what’s likely to be considered a not-so-subtle message in certain circles, as you see Kroft getting his tour, it’s hard not to notice the screen behind him. Plus, his host shows a Google Maps image of Iran with lots of orange dots on it.

The report, for which CBS presumably got a lot of cooperation from the Pentagon, comes not long after the Obama Administration officially declared cyberspace as a theater of war. That means, the military can conduct both defensive and offensive operations, and that an attack on certain computer systems by other countries or terrorists is essentially equivalent to an attack against U.S. territory, property and people.

It’s not the first time that “60 Minutes” has tackled the subject of cyberwar. In 2009, it first introduced TV viewers to the concept of using digital weapons to seize control of industrial infrastructure in order to sabotage it, including some once-classified footage of a test at the Idaho National Lab where a generator was destroyed using nothing more than computer code (although the same report contains references to a 2007 power outage in Brazil which Wired has said wasn’t caused by digital saboteurs after all, though CBS has said it stands by its reporting.) Aside from that, CBS’s older report serves as something of a lead-up to tomorrow’s story on Stuxnet.

It will be interesting to see if “60 Minutes” has unearthed anything new on Stuxnet that fills in more of the picture surrounding its development and use. Neither the U.S. nor Israel has ever acknowledged any involvement in its creation or use. But Israeli officials have occasionally been described as “breaking into broad smiles” when asked about the subject. It will also be interesting to see if the program asks any important questions about the state of cyberwar post-Stuxnet. It’s pretty safe to assume that other parties have learned as much as they can about how it was created and how another worm like it might be created again.

What’s impossible to guess is where the next target is.

Update: I added a link above to a Wired story that disputed some of CBS’s reporting on the 2007 Brazilian blackout. In short, Wired says the real cause of that blackout was poor maintenance and not an attack by hackers, although CBS has said it stands by its reporting on that subject.

Here’s the short preview of tomorrow’s “60 Minutes” report.

“Samsung Electronics is aware of a recent news report in Iranian media regarding an advertisement aired by HOT cable network of Israel,” Samsung said in a statement to AllThingsD. “This advertisement was produced by HOT cable network without Samsung’s knowledge or participation.”

Iran is apparently none too happy about the ad, with lawmakers reportedly considering a ban on Samsung products, under the assumption that Samsung was responsible for the ad.

Samsung, however, was responsible for a poorly received Galaxy Note ad that aired during Sunday’s Super Bowl, with the Twittersphere not taking too well to either the spot or the device.

Here is the Israeli ad in question:

This time the target is Cotendo, a company that uses a network of 30 data centers distributed around the world to put video content physically closer to consumers, and thus speed up delivery, especially to mobile devices. The acquirer is Internet concern Akamai, which says it will pay $268 million, plus the assumption of unvested options.

Cotendo had been reported to be the subject of a bidding war between Akamai and rival Juniper Networks. Breathless reports at the time, sourced to enthusiastic Israeli newspapers, valued Cotendo as high as $350 million. The deal will close during the first half of 2012.

Even at the lower price, the deal marks a nice exit for several U.S.-based venture capital funds. Cotendo raised $7 million from Sequoia Capital and Benchmark Capital in 2009, and then another $12 million in a round joined by Tenaya Capital last year. In June, it took a $17 million strategic investment from Juniper and Citrix Systems.

Cotendo had grown into an Akamai competitor, with a reputation for being faster at some things than Akamai, and also cheaper to boot. That made it an obvious Akamai target, given its history of acquiring rivals — usually after suing them. In 2005, it took out Speedera Networks for $130 million, after a contentious patent lawsuit between them. Akamai had sued Cotendo last November. So the next time Akamai sues someone, set your stopwatch, because the defendant may be the next one to be acquired.

Akamai’s statement on the deal is below:

Akamai to Acquire Cotendo

Combined technology and teams expected to help accelerate pace of innovation in cloud and mobile optimization

CAMBRIDGE, MA and SUNNYVALE, CA – December 22, 2011 – Akamai Technologies, Inc. and Cotendo announced today that the two companies have signed a definitive agreement for Akamai to acquire Cotendo.

Helping to mitigate the challenges of operating in a hyperconnected world, Akamai provides a secure platform over which businesses can engage users across the Web, mobile, cloud, or a mix of public and private network environments. Cotendo offers an integrated suite of Web and mobile acceleration services. The combination of the two companies’ technologies and teams is expected to increase the pace of innovation in the areas of cloud and mobile optimization.

“As we look to accelerate growth across the dynamic landscapes of cloud and mobile optimization, we are excited to be joining forces with Cotendo,” said Paul Sagan, president and CEO of Akamai. “Cotendo’s technology, partnerships and people are a strong complement to Akamai. Together, we believe there is tremendous opportunity for our combined technologies as enterprises embrace the move to the cloud and seek solutions for an increasingly mobile world.”

“The Cotendo team is very proud of our accomplishments in delivering proven and effective solutions for accelerating Web and mobile assets. By combining our innovative technology and employees with Akamai, we expect our customers and partners will gain access to a comprehensive, global platform and wider portfolio of leading-edge services supported by some of the most experienced providers in the industry,” said Ronni Zehavi, CEO and co-founder of Cotendo. “We look forward to working with Akamai in an effort to create the strongest offering in the industry.”

Founded in 2008, Cotendo is headquartered in Sunnyvale, CA, with a technology center in Israel. Cotendo currently has approximately 100 employees, with over 50 based in Israel.

Under terms of the agreement, Akamai will acquire all of the outstanding equity of Cotendo in exchange for a net cash payment of approximately $268 million, after expected purchase price adjustments, plus the assumption of outstanding unvested options to purchase Cotendo common stock. The closing of the transaction, which is subject to customary closing conditions, including regulatory approvals, is expected to occur in the first half of 2012.

Apple isn’t commenting and is officially treating all this as rumor and speculation (it rarely comments on acquisitions, anyway). But the deal is being reported in Israeli newspapers, and the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tweeted a welcome message to Apple today, which sure feels like confirmation. So I’ll proceed under the assumption that the reports of this acquisition are true.

Welcome to Israel, Apple Inc. on your 1st acquisition here. I’m certain that you’ll benefit from the fruit of the Israeli knowledge.

December 20, 2011 3:55 am via webReplyRetweetFavorite

@IsraeliPM

The PM of Israel

That makes this a cause for celebration. With the Anobit buy, Apple is now the latest member of the Flash Madness Club, which I created over the summer, in the wake of the Fusion-io IPO and other activities by notable flash-technology companies like Violin Memory, Pure Storage and Qwilt.

So why is Apple willing to throw down a reported half-billion dollars on this company? It’s because flash memory has a fundamental problem: As it ages, its ability to store data wears off. This problem is sometimes compared to the semiconductor equivalent of Alzheimer’s. Individual cells on the flash-memory chip lose their ability to store the individual ones and zeros that make up the pictures and music and other data they may be storing, especially after millions of read-and-write operations — the act of putting data on the chip and then loading it from the chip for use. After a lot of heavy use — this can vary depending on the chip — the chips begin to suffer problems with “endurance.”

As flash starts to show up in data centers and PCs and other places beyond consumer gear like iPhones and iPads, this becomes a more important problem. If your iPad gets old enough to suffer data-endurance problems, it’s a pretty simple matter to replace it. But in the more rigorous world of an enterprise data center, where millions of reads and writes will be done on a chip daily, data endurance is a potentially very expensive problem. In the enterprise, a solid-state drive is considered suitable only if it can stand up to five full-drive write cycles, where the drive is filled to capacity and then erased every day for five years.

Anobit’s solution to these problems involves techniques known as memory-signal processing and the use of some secret-sauce memory-processing error-correction algorithms, plus some management tricks for moving data around a flash chip in more efficient ways, in order to make them last longer.

It’s also the sort of problem that a company like Apple — which is the world’s largest consumer of flash memory, and has been for several years — would want to solve. Think of the many places where Apple uses flash — the iPad, iPhone, iPod, MacBook Air and Apple TV. And those are just the products we know about, so far. Flash can’t help but appear in many more products.

On top of that, flash technology plays a significant role in Apple’s data centers. Fusion-io, the company that builds flash-based insert cards that speed up garden-variety servers, has named Apple as a significant customer, so there’s plenty of flash inside Apple’s facilities in North Carolina. Flash endurance can’t help but be a problem Apple might face with its iCloud service, for example.

Israel has a big connection to the flash industry. SanDisk’s founder, Eli Harari, is Israeli; a few years back SanDisk acquired an Israeli company called Msystems, which, if my memory serves, was the first to popularize what we now call a thumb or keychain drive. So, historically, there have been a lot of useful innovations on flash memory that have come out of that country. Supposedly, the deal calls for Apple to open a research center there, so it will get the benefit of ongoing innovations on flash. Chances are it’s going to need a few.

I’ve asked Apple for input; last week, when news of the potential deal first surfaced, the company declined to comment.

If this is a done deal, it would follow an M&A pattern that Apple has pursued for some time. Though the company has enormous cash reserves, it has generally made smallish (by its standards) deals for technology vendors it is already using — in this case, it is using Anobit’s flash memory chips in its iPads, iPhones and MacBook Airs.

But Apple spends much more cash — billions a quarter — locking up inventory for the raw components than it uses in its gadgets, like flash memory or display screens.

The technology, which comes from Israel’s eyeSight Mobile Technologies, will be part of a new Vega LTE line of phones due to hit the market in November. Gestures are useful, eyeSight says, at times when touch input is impractical, such as when driving or wearing gloves.

Among the functions able to be done via gesture will be answering calls and playing music.

A YouTube video shows the technology in action, with a woman — hands covered in batter — using a wave of the hand to answer the phone.

Microsoft developed its Kinect technology using a mixture of in-house development as well as technology from at least two other Israeli startups — PrimeSense and 3DV Systems.

EBay says it has acquired the technology and team behind the Gifts Project, a social commerce platform that enables multiple friends to pitch in — or contribute a particular sum — toward an item for a birthday or other event.

The Gifts Project has been powering eBay’s version of the concept called Group Gifts for almost a year. The Tel Aviv-based company is backed by angel investors and Gemini Israel Fund and Index Ventures.

Going forward, the Gifts Project will become eBay’s Israel Social Center, which will focus on building social shopping platforms and product features for eBay Marketplaces. The Gifts Project’s employees will remain with the company, including co-founders Ron Gura, who will head up the Social Center; Matan Bar, who will become head of product; and Erez Dickman, the head of engineering.

The Gifts Project will report to eBay’s new VP of social commerce, Don Bradford, who joined eBay in May after working at both Microsoft and Yahoo.

Along with several other major retailers and start-ups, eBay has conducted a handful of experiments to determine what social commerce is, and how best to leverage shopping on social networks, like Facebook.

So far, eBay’s social efforts have been limited.

Besides group gift-buying, eBay has been developing ways for a consumer to log in to his or her Facebook account on eBay’s homepage and get product recommendations based on past purchasing habits. Another feature expected to launch sometime this year will allow users to post multiple products to their Facebook pages, to get their friends to vote on which item they should buy.

Earlier this summer, Christopher Payne, the head of North America for eBay, told me: “Social is a top-level initiative. It’s something that leaders are spending a considerable amount of energy on.”

Besides social commerce, mobile has also been a high-level priority for eBay and PayPal. The company has acquired Milo, which aggregates the availability of products in retail stores; Zong, which is a mobile payments provider; and Where, a mobile advertising company.

Jive CEO Tony Zingale told me that Jive has been working closely with OfficSync for some time. Office workers spend so much of their time working on documents in Microsoft Word, PowerPoint and Excel that it’s a logical place to add the kind of collaboration tools that are the cornerstone of what the social enterprise is all about. “We’ve built deep integration that brings Jive and Office close together,” Zingale said.

The next move, Zingale said, which will come in the third quarter of the year, will be to use OffiSync’s technology to link Jive with that other foundation of office life, Microsoft Outlook. “Email is the place where so much content is created and stored, it is the collaboration system,” he said.

Zingale wouldn’t disclose financial terms of the deal, though he did say that OfficSync is being bought out completely. It was founded by two Israeli brothers, Oudi and Roy Antebi, both Microsoft veterans. Oudi, the CEO, ran marketing campaigns for Microsoft Office and Sharepoint, both in Israel and then at headquarters in Redmond. Roy, the CTO, lead a development team in the Microsoft SQL Server division.

OfficSync is backed by investments from GTD Capital, a Seattle-based venture capital firm, and Vertex VC, an Israeli fund.

Its also Jive’s second acquisition in as many moths. In April it acquired Proximal Labs as it was just getting out of the gate itself. And in March it sent a pretty strong signal about its intentions toward going public sooner rather than later when it added four directors, all of them with public company experience.

I asked Zingale if last week’s IPO by LinkedIn had caused him to consider quickening his pace toward filing an S1 with the SEC. “Obviously we were very interested observers,” Zingale said. “Clearly we’re very riveted by the benefits of being a public company, but I can’t say anything specific about our plans.”

Jive has something important in common with LinkedIn. One of its investors is Sequoia Capital which has invested a combined $27 million, leading a Series A funding round in 2007 and a Series B in 2009. Kleiner Perkins got in on the action leading a $30 million Series C last year.

I can’t remember a year during which computer security stories jumped so readily from the tech and business pages to the front page.

The year 2010 was bookended by two such cases. It opened with Google’s disclosure that it had come under attack in China, an apparent attempt to penetrate the Gmail accounts of certain activists and journalists.

It ended with the WikiLeaks affair, which stemmed from the alleged theft by an Army private of classified documents stored on a government network.

And let’s not forget in mid-year came the story, as fascinating as it was sobering, of Stuxnet, a computer worm developed by parties unknown–although the smart money is on Israel–that penetrated and ultimately damaged equipment used in the Iranian nuclear program.

Computer hacking–which has for too long evoked images in the public mind-set of teenagers in basements taking digital joyrides–has finally revealed itself to everyone for what it has long been for those in the know: The domain of espionage, sabotage and possibly warfare.

In Google’s case, the attacks upon its systems raised questions about where it draws the line with authorities in Beijing about such matters as freedom of speech. When the attack was first disclosed, Google publicly mulled shutting down its operations in China.

Then in protest, it stopped censoring its search results, giving mainland Chinese access to the same search results available to residents of Hong Kong. Beijing responded by blocking access to Google’s site.

Finally, Google and China came to a new agreement, and Google appeared the loser in the battle of wills.

Computer security is one of those things that companies and governments say they take seriously, but never really seem to get a grip on, judging by the results.

In any case, there is no firewall or software in existence that could have prevented Bradley Manning from stealing the documents that he is alleged to have given to WikiLeaks. As a low-level Army intelligence analyst, he was a trusted insider who had access to this material in the course of his day-to-day job.

So, it was not technology that failed. The failure was one of internal policies that allowed him access to data not relevant to his position.

Any employee of a midsize company can see how wrong that is. Human-resources documents are limited only to those who work in that department. The same is true of people who work in the legal office, business development department and so on.

But it apparently didn’t occur to anyone in government to limit the access to what became the WikiLeaks cache to people who worked only for or closely with the State Department.

If it turns out that thousands of companies are better at protecting their business secrets than the U.S. government is, then it’s not for nothing that the Central Intelligence Agency task force investigating the WikiLeaks affair bears the initials “WTF.”

Something similar was true of Stuxnet. One of the reasons the attackers, whoever they are, succeeded was that they used several so-called “zero day” vulnerabilities in Windows.

These are undocumented weaknesses that hackers save up for special occasions as a way to open a back door into a computer and then insert a troublemaking payload, like a worm. Zero day exploits are a fact of life, and once spotted in the world, they’re usually patched.

The Stuxnet attackers used as many as four zero day exploits as a way to get their worm into targeted computers. Microsoft, to its credit, made short work of fixing them once they came to light.

Even so, the Stuxnet worm burrowed its way from Windows machines into industrial control computers known as SCADA systems, which are widely used to run factories, power plants, pipelines and all sorts of other infrastructure essential to modern life.

The worm was designed to find a specific target: The systems controlling a set of as many as 1,000 centrifuges at the uranium enrichment facility in Natanz, and make them spin faster than they were supposed to.

The ability to attack industrial computers and cause them to do things they’re not supposed to do has been a lingering fear among security experts for years. Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy in 2007 looked at the potential for attacks on SCADA systems and proved that it was possible to seize control of an electrical generator and then make it destroy itself.

They also found that many of these systems are connected to the Internet for what seem like good reasons: Convenience and cost savings. But these connections have also opened them up to the same kind of attacks that rattled the Iranian facility in Natanz.

Another Stuxnet-like worm, the thinking goes, could be used to bring down a power grid, or poison drinking water, or shut down an oil or gas pipeline. The good news is that such an attack is expensive–Stuxnet, by one estimate, cost $10 million to create–and requires a lot of specialized insider knowledge.

The bad news is that the Stuxnet source code is circulating in the wild for anyone to study. And as the WikiLeaks case shows, there are often insiders willing to take part in criminal schemes.

The other bad news? Securing these systems won’t come cheap.

If history is any judge, there will likely be a barrage of computer security companies that try to spin these incidents into opportunities to make a sales pitch. That’s what security companies do, after all.

But they usually miss the point. How can you plan for a vulnerability you’ve never seen? How can you stop an otherwise trusted insider from abusing their access to sensitive information? Both are fundamentally difficult problems for which there are no easy answers.

Spending money on last year’s security vulnerabilities is like preparing to fight the last war: Circumstances inevitably change, and they certainly will in 2011. New kinds of attacks will arise, and they will catch their targets by surprise.

And the public, like the CIA, will reasonably ask, “WTF?”

The unvarnished fact is that the networked society to which we’ve become accustomed in the last several years has a soft, vulnerable underbelly.

And the more we rely upon it, the more people with a combination of advanced technical skills and repugnant motivations are going to look for ways to turn it against us.

Some will do so as a means of making a personal profit. Others may see it as a way of advancing a political or ideological agenda.

But others will want to use theirs skills to do serious harm to innocent people on a large scale.

And the events of 2010 point the way to a world where that’s a more realistic scenario than it ever was before.

The virtual mirror kiosks are designed to be easy to use. A person stands in front of the screen and an internal camera takes a picture. Then the person scans the bar codes of various cosmetics—such as mascara, foundation, eye shadow, blush and lip gloss—and each automatically appears on the appropriate part of the face. A list on the right side of the screen reminds the person what products she is virtually testing. The user can print out the image, send it by email, or post it on Facebook.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

The Ministry of Communications said the ban was instituted earlier this week because the iPad’s Wi-Fi wireless technology was built to the U.S. standard, which allows stronger signals than those allowed in Europe and Israel.

“This device’s wireless strengths violate Israeli law and will overpower other wireless devices in Israel,” ministry spokesman Yechiel Shavi said.

Mr. Shavi said once Apple releases a version of the device built according to European wireless specifications, the ban will be reversed. An Apple spokeswoman said the “iPad complies with international industry standards for Wi-Fi specifications.”

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“‘On Wednesday we clean up Qatanah, and on Thursday, god willing, we come home,’” he wrote, according to the Israeli paper. He also posted details such as the time and place of the planned operation. The soldier was reported by his friends, court-martialed and sentenced to 10 days in prison, the Associated Press writes, adding that the Israeli military is “cracking down on soldiers’ use of social networking Web sites.”

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AOL has taken another step closer to selling off its ICQ instant messaging service, culling seven bids to four “serious” ones, said sources close to the situation.

The price for the service is hovering just under $200 million, several sources said, with one bid higher.

An AOL spokeswoman declined to comment.

BoomTown reported news of the sale of ICQ by AOL (AOL) in November, part of a deleveraging of units from the newly independent Internet company as it focuses more on its content and advertising business.

While other reports a month later said the sale was closer to completion than it actually was, the process is proceeding in a more traditional manner, with bidders making proposals to AOL’s investment bankers, Allen & Co. and Morgan Stanley (MS).

Sources said that the solicitation of bids is now over and that there are four “serious” ones, which one person close to the situation described as a “U.N. of buyers.”

Translation: The bidders are likelier to be international Internet companies rather than from the U.S.

That’s because ICQ–which has 40 to 50 million active users across the globe–has a stronger overseas business, especially in Germany, Russia, Eastern Europe and Israel.

While I could not get the exact names of those left in the running, the most obvious possibilities include:

Russian investment group Digital Sky Technologies, which has invested in both Facebook and social gaming site Zynga; China’s huge Tencent-owned QQ instant messaging and gaming service; Naspers, a multimedia giant known as the MIH Group and based in South Africa; Seznam, the largest Web portal in the Czech Republic; and, perhaps, Yandex, Russia’s leading search engine.

In the U.S., some felt Google (GOOG) would be a bidder for ICQ, though it was Yahoo (YHOO) that apparently made a much lower offer, which took it out of the running.

In any case, the price will likely be much lower than what AOL paid in 1998.

The then-powerful AOL acquired ICQ, which was one of the most explosive online communications tools, for $287 million, with another $120 million in earnouts for the team. It was part of a Tel Aviv, Israel, start-up called Mirabilis.

But ICQ’s popularity in the U.S. lagged compared with rival services from Microsoft (MSFT), Yahoo and Google. In addition, Facebook and Twitter have become major players in the status-update space.

AOL’s AIM service, in contrast, is quite strong, typically clocking in as one of the top instant messaging properties.

ICQ is still based in Israel with about 100 employees and is moderately profitable. Bidders, sources said, are now talking with the ICQ team as part of the process.

Come Thursday, three of the country’s largest wireless carriers–Cellcom, Orange and Bezeq Israel Telecom–will be peddling the Apple (AAPL) device. They’ll be asking 800 shekels for it, about $210 after a subsidy Bank of America Merrill Lynch figures is somewhere around 2,000 shekels. That’s pretty steep, but as the research house notes, the carriers will more than make up for it with new data revenue. Merrill predicts 300,000 iPhones will be sold in their first year at market in Israel, 3.5 percent of the country’s total mobile phone sales.

“We think it is unlikely to have a major impact on subscriber numbers or market share but that it will be positive for data revenue,” Bank of America Merrill Lynch analysts wrote. “Also as the three leading players are all offering iPhone we do not anticipate large-scale customer migration from one carrier to another or that any single player will be overburdened with marketing expenses. The immediate impact of the handset subsidy will be felt in lower profitability, but the companies will benefit in the long run from an average-revenue-per-user uplift due to higher data usage, subscription fees and the sale of the iPhone-related services.”