Cisco has released the Cisco Borderless Access architecture with lower-cost Catalyst 3560/3750-X Series and 2960-S Series switches. Part of Cisco's Borderless Networks architecture, the new Borderless Access switches offer 10-gigabit Ethernet and power savings of as much as 50 percent. The new Cisco switches will compete with ProCurve.


Cisco on Wednesday released a new network Relevant Products/Services architecture that promises secure wired and wireless communications Relevant Products/Services, energy Relevant Products/Services management, and optimized video-application delivery -- all at a lower cost. Dubbed Cisco Borderless Access, the latest version of the company's Borderless Networks architecture includes a new series of fixed-switching product lines: the Catalyst 3560/3750-X Series and 2960-S Series. The new lines come with lower prices than traditional Cisco switches.

As part of the product announcement, Rob Soderbery, senior vice president and general manager of Cisco's Ethernet Switching Technology Group, noted that communications, collaboration Relevant Products/Services and entertainment are fast becoming digitized and connected. This trend, he said, is not only loading networks but also changing them.

"Switching and routing are the foundation for innovation that will bring the next generation of the Internet to life," Soderbery said. "Cisco's strategy is to deliver greater value within its core networking Relevant Products/Services offerings and, in turn, provide customers with a more cohesive, architecturally sound IT infrastructure Relevant Products/Services to support the new Internet."

Building on the Borderless Vision

Borderless Access builds on the Borderless Networks vision Cisco rolled out last October and the Cisco Secure Borderless Networks announcement earlier this month. The Borderless Networks architecture works to, as Cisco put it, "help businesses connect anyone to anything, anywhere and anytime in a highly secure, reliable and seamless environment."

The new Catalyst 3750-X and 3560-X enterprise-class stackable and stand-alone switches offer high-performance Relevant Products/Services switching with 10-gigabit Ethernet. Cisco also introduced StackPower, a power Relevant Products/Services-interconnect technology that brings power resiliency to a stack of Catalyst 3750-X Series switches. Cisco said a single 1,100-watt power supply can provide power to four switches and the mission-critical endpoints attached to them to help ensure business continuity.

Meanwhile, the Catalyst 2960-S Series offers more access portions and performance than previous models, including FlexStack stacking for increased availability and performance, 10GE uplinks, and EnergyWise capabilities. Cisco said it has optimized the switch to offer as much as 50 percent power savings.

No More Dwarfs

"These products are tactically important in that Cisco did have a pretty big hole in its product line. Cisco is known as a premium-priced vendor, and the company didn't have a stackable Cisco product that appealed to the value buyer," said Zeus Kerravala, a vice president at Yankee Group. "I know that's where ProCurve has been giving Cisco problems, so this helps address a lot of short-term tactical issues."

Kerravala called the new switches "reasonably priced products" that offer newer Cisco feature sets that integrate well into the Borderless Network strategy. Until now, he said, companies that bought into the Cisco vision and needed a product that could fit a smaller work group or branch office had to face a tough decision: Either overspend on the higher-end product or use a different feature set. The new switches help Cisco compete in an evolved competitive landscape.

"Five years ago we used to talk about Cisco and the seven dwarfs. The dwarfs for the most part are all dead. 3Com was the last of them, and they are now part of HP. So instead of their competitors being Foundry, 3Com and Nortel, it's Brocade, Juniper, HP, and IBM Relevant Products/Services through their OEM relationships," Kerravala said.

"Cisco can't just outmuscle dwarfs anymore. They've got some serious competitors, and because of that they need to start building a broader range of products. That's what these switches do. It's not as fun as the product that changes the world, but it addresses a more immediate need."

Information about covert investigations by the FBI and other law-enforcement agencies using social networks has come to light. Via social networks, investigators can check alibis, police tweets, and gather personal data from postings and photos. Cybersecurity experts say investigators should be able to go undercover online, with limits.


The Feds are on Facebook. And MySpace, LinkedIn and Twitter, too. U.S. law enforcement agents are following the rest of the Internet world into popular social-networking Relevant Products/Services services, going undercover with false online profiles to communicate with suspects and gather private information Relevant Products/Services, according to an internal Justice Department document that offers a tantalizing glimpse of issues related to privacy and crime-fighting.

Think you know who's behind that "friend" request? Think again. Your new "friend" just might be the FBI.

The document, obtained in a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, makes clear that U.S. agents are already logging on surreptitiously to exchange messages with suspects, identify a target's friends or relatives and browse private information such as postings, personal photographs and video clips.

Among other purposes: Investigators can check suspects' alibis by comparing stories told to police with tweets sent at the same time about their whereabouts. Online photos from a suspicious spending spree -- people posing with jewelry, guns or fancy cars -- can link suspects or their friends to robberies or burglaries.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a San Francisco-based civil liberties group, obtained the Justice Department document when it sued the agency and five others in federal court. The 33-page document underscores the importance of social networking sites to U.S. authorities. The foundation said it would publish the document on its Web site on Tuesday.

With agents going undercover, state and local police coordinate their online activities with the Secret Service, FBI and other federal agencies in a strategy known as "deconfliction" to keep out of each other's way.

"You could really mess up someone's investigation because you're investigating the same person and maybe doing things that are counterproductive to what another agency is doing," said Detective Frank Dannahey of the Rocky Hill, Conn., Police Department, a veteran of dozens of undercover cases.

A decade ago, agents kept watch over AOL and MSN chat rooms to nab sexual predators. But those text-only chat services are old-school compared with today's social media, which contain mountains of personal data Relevant Products/Services, photographs, videos and audio clips -- a potential treasure trove of evidence for cases of violent crime, financial fraud and much more.

The Justice Department document, part of a presentation given in August by top cybercrime officials, describes the value of Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, LinkedIn and other services to government investigators. It does not describe in detail the boundaries for using them.

"It doesn't really discuss any mechanisms for accountability or ensuring that government agents use those tools responsibly," said Marcia Hoffman, a senior attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

The group sued in Washington to force the government to disclose its policies for using social networking sites in investigations, data collection and surveillance.

The foundation also obtained an Internal Revenue Service document that instructs employees on how to use to use Internet tools -- including social networking sites -- to investigate taxpayers. The document states that IRS employees are barred from using deception or creating fake accounts to get information, a directive the group says is commendable.

Covert investigations on social-networking services are legal and governed by internal rules, according to Justice Department officials. But they would not say what those rules are.

The Justice Department document raises a legal question about a social-media bullying case in which U.S. prosecutors charged a Missouri woman with computer fraud for creating a fake MySpace account -- effectively the same activity that undercover agents are doing, although for different purposes.

The woman, Lori Drew, helped create an account for a fictitious teen boy on MySpace and sent flirtatious messages to a 13-year-old neighborhood girl in his name. The girl hanged herself in October 2006, in a St. Louis suburb, after she received a message saying the world would be better without her.

A jury in California, where MySpace has its servers, convicted Drew of three misdemeanor counts of accessing computers without authorization because she was accused of violating MySpace's rules against creating fake accounts. But last year a judge overturned the verdicts, citing the vagueness of the law.

"If agents violate terms of service, is that 'otherwise illegal activity'?" the document asks. It doesn't provide an answer.

Facebook's rules, for example, specify that users "will not provide any false personal information on Facebook, or create an account for anyone other than yourself without permission." Twitter's rules prohibit its users from sending deceptive or false information. MySpace requires that information for accounts be "truthful and accurate."

A former U.S. cybersecurity prosecutor, Marc Zwillinger, said investigators should be able to go undercover in the online world the same way they do in the real world, even if such conduct is barred by a company's rules. But there have to be limits, he said.

In the face-to-face world, agents can't impersonate a suspect's spouse, child, parent or best friend. But online, behind the guise of a social-networking account, they can.

"This new situation presents a need for careful oversight so that law enforcement does not use social networking to intrude on some of our most personal relationships," said Zwillinger, whose firm does legal work for Yahoo and MySpace.

Undercover operations aren't necessary if the suspect is reckless. Federal authorities nabbed a man wanted on bank fraud charges after he started posting Facebook updates about the fun he was having in Mexico.

Maxi Sopo, a native of Cameroon living in the Seattle area, apparently slipped across the border into Mexico in a rented car last year after learning that federal agents were investigating the alleged scheme. The agents initially could find no trace of him on social media sites, and they were unable to pin down his exact location in Mexico. But they kept checking and eventually found Sopo on Facebook.

While Sopo's online profile was private, his list of friends was not. Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Scoville began going through the list and was able to learn where Sopo was living. Mexican authorities arrested Sopo in September. He is awaiting extradition to the U.S.

The Justice document describes how Facebook, MySpace and Twitter have interacted with federal investigators: Facebook is "often cooperative with emergency requests," the government said. MySpace preserves information about its users indefinitely and even stores data from deleted accounts for one year. But Twitter's lawyers tell prosecutors they need a warrant or subpoena before the company turns over customer Relevant Products/Services information, the document says.

"Will not preserve data without legal process," the document says under the heading, "Getting Info From Twitter ... the bad news."

Twitter did not respond to a request for comment for this story.

The chief security Relevant Products/Services officer for MySpace, Hemanshu Nigam, said MySpace doesn't want to be the company that stands in the way of an investigation. "That said, we also want to make sure that our users' privacy is protected and any data that's disclosed is done under proper legal process," Nigam said.

MySpace requires a search warrant for private messages less than six months old, according to the company.

Facebook spokesman Andrew Noyes said the company has put together a handbook to help law enforcement officials understand "the proper ways to request information from Facebook to aid investigations."

The Justice document includes sections about its own lawyers. For government attorneys taking cases to trial, social networks are a "valuable source of info on defense witnesses," they said. "Knowledge is power Relevant Products/Services. ... Research all witnesses on social networking sites."

But the government warned prosecutors to advise their own witnesses not to discuss cases on social media sites and to "think carefully about what they post."

It also cautioned federal law enforcement officials to think prudently before adding judges or defense counsel as "friends" on these services.

"Social networking and the courtroom can be a dangerous combination," the government said.

USB charger from Energizer uses software that contains a Trojan, according to US-CERT. The software was apparently developed outside the U.S. and may have been giving hackers access to PCs since 2007. An analyst said trust in the Energizer bunny may have led many consumers to install the DUO USB charger malware even with a warning.


Some Windows Relevant Products/Services PC users may hope the Energizer bunny didn't keep going and going. It turns out the Energizer DUO USB battery charger is a vehicle for attacks on PCs, according to the Department of Homeland Security's Computer Emergency Readiness Team.

US-CERT researchers said Friday that the software that installs with the Energizer charger contains a Trojan horse that gives malicious hackers a back door into Windows machines.

"An attacker is able to remotely control a system Relevant Products/Services, including the ability to list directories, send and receive files, and execute programs. The backdoor operates with the privileges of the logged-on user," US-CERT said. "Removing the Energizer USB charger software will also remove the registry value that causes the backdoor to execute automatically when Windows starts."

A Trusted Source

Although the fix seems relatively easy for consumers who are aware they have been infected, the path in was also straightforward. Rob Enderle, principal analyst at the Enderle Group, said consumers were probably not expecting the Energizer software to carry a malicious payload.

"Typically in a Windows 7 or even a Windows Vista install, if you mess around with ports you should get a warning," Enderle said. "Because consumers got the software from a trusted source, chances are you'll bypass the warning and go ahead and install it because you think you are only installing the battery monitor. This is a nasty piece of work."

Enderle questioned the origin of the software, noting that Trojans seem to make their way into programs when the software is developed outside the U.S. Chances are, he said, the software was developed in China or some other foreign country.

What's So Unusual?

Symantec also investigated the Energizer malware and discovered that the Trojan listens for commands on port 7777. That by itself is not so unusual, the company said, but Symantec researchers were surprised that the file was being distributed by Energizer as part of a USB charger-monitoring software package.

Symantec wanted to know how long the file was available to the public. The compile time for the file is May 10, 2007. Although it's impossible to say that the Trojan has always been in this software, Symantec's initial inspection leans toward this conclusion. Symantec also discovered the file was inserted into the package with the creator's knowledge and the USB charger doesn't need to be plugged in for the Trojan to be functioning.

"We also saw from the manufacturer's web site that the software is not distributed with the physical USB charger itself and, instead, it must be downloaded separately from the site. This may mean that fewer people installed it than bought the charger," said Liam Murchu of Symantec. "Whether this Trojan functionality was intended or not is unclear, but if it is intended behavior it would be very suspicious; I certainly wouldn't want my USB charger to download and execute files without my knowledge, or indeed send my files to a remote location."

Intel is aiming its Core i7-980X Extreme Edition processor at the gaming market, but it also has clear applications for business. The 32nm, six-core i7-980X Extreme Edition makes a powerful portable workstation for engineers and salespersons, and it offers high-definition video output. Entrepreneurs and small businesses may want the technology.


Intel this week offered a preview of platforms using its Core i7 Extreme Edition processor. Although the company is aiming the processor heavily at the gaming market, analysts said there are also clear business applications for the processor.

Code-named Gulftown, the i7-980X Extreme Edition processor is the industry's first 32nm, six-core processor with 12 computing Relevant Products/Services threads. Intel introduced the i7 family last September with its exclusive Turbo Boost technology and Hyper-Threading Technology.

Turbo Boost is built into the latest-generation Nehalem micro-architecture and automatically allows processor cores to run faster than the base operating frequency if the chip is operating below power Relevant Products/Services, current and temperature Relevant Products/Services specification limits. Hyper-Threading Technology, along with Turbo Boost, works to increase performance Relevant Products/Services of both multi-threaded and single-threaded workloads.

Portable Workstation Benefits

"The Core i7 chip has a special sensor built into it. If it detects that an application that would benefit from high throughput is launched, it can actually boost the clock speed and throughput of the chip by about 10 to 15 percent," said Charles King, principal analyst at Pund-IT. "So if you've got a graphics application where you need an extra oomph, the Turbo Boost can give you that extra kick-start to get a little bit better performance."

This is a clear win on the gaming front, but King said it also shines in the portable workstation market. With a Core i7 chip featuring Turbo Boost, engineers can take their workstation on the road without losing speed or productivity. A second business application for the Core i7 is support for HDMI high-definition video output in notebooks. King pointed to Dell's Vostro 3000 laptops, announced last week, as a prime example.

"If you are an executive or high-end salesperson who's going out on calls, this gives you the ability to run sophisticated graphics applications, high-def video, and other kinds of tools that could be useful for executive or sales presentations," King said. "The i5 will support HDMI output as well. So it's not absolutely necessary to have the i7. But if you are looking for crisp performance and crisp graphics at the same time, then the i7 is a good choice for not a whole lot more money."

Beyond Gaming

Initially, King thought the market for the i7 and the notebooks would be relegated to the gaming space. Although this is a key target for Intel, there is also potential with what King calls "ultrafancy executive laptops and portable workstations."

"I think we are going to be seeing OEMS like Dell and others that recognize that it's not just well-heeled executives that want to be able to run applications and utilize sophisticated graphics," King said. "There's a real opportunity for vendors to reach out to entrepreneurs and small businesses that see the value in that type of technology either as a product development tool or a sales tool."