SOA in the Cloud Expo

Skill at computing comes naturally to those who are adept at abstraction. The best developers can instantly change focus—one moment they are orchestrating high level connections between abstract entities; the next they are sweating through the side effects of each individual line of code. Abstraction in computing not only provides necessary containment, but also offers clear boundaries. There is also something very liberating about that line you don’t need to cross. When I write Java code I’m happy to never think about byte code (unless something is going terribly wrong). And when I did board-level digital design, I could stop at the chip and not think much about individual gates or even transistors. It is undeniably important to understand the entire stack; but nothing would ever get done without sustained focus applied to a narrow segment. Cloud is the latest in ... (more)

Startup Debuts with Encryption for Cloud Computing

Israel-based startup Porticor launches this week with technology aimed at giving enterprises a way to encrypt data held in cloud computing services, including those from Amazon and Rackspace. Porticor Virtual Private Data is focused on protecting data at rest in cloud-based computing centers where customers rent disk space or servers, says Gilad Parann-Nissany, Porticor’s co-founder and CEO. What Porticor is doing that’s distinct is relying on a so-called “split-key†method in which the service to encrypt and decrypt doesn’t work unless both pieces of the key are together. The ... (more)

JBoss Enterprise Application Platform Achieves Security Certification

Red Hat on Thursday announced that JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 5.1.0 and 5.1.1 have been awarded Common Criteria certification at Evaluation Assurance Level 4 (EAL4+) under the Common Criteria Evaluation and Certification Scheme (CCS). Common Criteria is a set of internationally approved criteria for evaluating and certifying the information security of IT products and information systems, and EAL4+ is the highest assurance level that is recognized globally by all signatories under the Common Criteria Recognition Agreement for this category of solutions. This certificat... (more)

Maxthon Mobile Adds 'Quick and Easy' Screenshot Capture to Easily Save, Send and Share Full Screengrabs and Pictures

SAN FRANCISCO, February 17, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Maxthon (http://www.maxthon.com), a global software and web services company, announces the release of a new screen grab utility for Maxthon Mobile. With this new plug-in, users can easily take snapshots of entire web pages, save them on their Android phones, or upload to social media sites like Facebook and Twitter. Users can download the latest version of Maxthon Mobile at http://www.maxthon.com/maxthon-mobile/ "This plug-in for Maxthon Mobile adds another level of utility and convenience to mobile browsing," says Jeff Chen, CEO ... (more)

The Keys to the Cloud Security Kingdom

Posted by Michael Vizard 16-Feb-2012, on IT Business Edge There’s obviously a lot of concern about cloud security these days, which is a little surprising given the general availability of encryption technologies. But even encryption technologies require some additional security because no one can really be safe from an insider who decides to go rogue. As it is, cloud providers don’t provide a whole lot of visibility into the security controls they do put in place, and no one has any insight into the background of the employees who might work for any cloud service provider, let a... (more)