Does the Internet Need a ‘Kill Switch’?

A proposed bill could effectively give the president an Internet “kill switch.”

Senator Joseph Lieberman has proposed the Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act (PCNAA), a bill that would give the president the power to control or even shut down the Internet in emergency situations. Citing the need for cybersecurity, Lieberman said in apress release that the U.S.’s “economic security, national security and public safety are now all at risk from new kinds of enemies — cyber-warriors, cyber-spies, cyber-terrorists and cyber-criminals.”

The bill requires that U.S.-based companies such as Google and Yahoo, as well as broadband providers and software firms, comply with any and all measures that the government sees fit in an emergency.

Technology trade association, TechAmerica, has already expressed worry at the level of control the bill would grant the president if passed — levels that could have “unintended consequences.” Other countries are also decrying the bill, fearing the impact on their own security if the U.S. were to shut down essential parts of the Internet.

Hackers can force a jet's crash: British report

A new breed of cyber terrorists has the capability of breaking into a plane's sophisticated on-board computer systems and forcing it to crash, a security document warned.

They could also target critical infrastructure such as nuclear power stations and electricity supplies, reports the Daily Mail.

These hackers can be engaged by terror cells and foreign states to cause maximum damage, British Prime Minister David Cameron's long-awaited National Security Strategy report said. The cyber threat makes it possible for a potential hijacker to carry out his attack without boarding the plane.

Officials confirmed that these computer-generated assaults, which involve individuals creating software viruses or rogue computer programs and emails, could bring down passenger planes. "We don't want to wait until planes are falling out of the skies before we address the issue," an official said.

Attacks in cyberspace can have a potentially devastating real-world effect, the document said, adding that military, industrial and economic targets, including critical services, could feasibly be disrupted by a capable adversary.

HCL Technologies bets on cloud computing

HCL Technologies plans to have new technologies such as cloud computing become nearly $300 million business over next five years, as part of the company's new initiative to incubate next big opportunities and compete better with multinational rivals apart from larger Indian software firms including TCS and Infosys.

As part of the new initiative, HCL has formed a unit called 'ecosystem and business incubation organisation', which has already identified five new ideas with potential to become $100 million businesses in three years, and almost $300 million in five years, said Anant Gupta, HCL Technologies' senior corporate vice president and head of the company's growing infrastructure services division.

"We are making organisational changes to ensure that we prioritize on new, path-breaking and disruptive things. It's difficult to say whether all five will succeed but it's a good probability to go with the HCL Comnet model. I would be happy if three out of five succeed," said Mr Gupta. "Each of these business ideas need to become $100 million in 3 years, and if that's the threshold, our expectation is to have them become $300 million in five years," he added.

For years, Indian software firms such as TCS, Infosys and HCL have served customers develop and maintain their complex business systems. Now, in order to grow revenues from newer areas, these companies have started identifying the next opportunities. Cloud computing is surely one of them.

Unlike, short term application development projects that expire after a few months, services based on cloud computing model require customers to pay subscription fee, year after year, ensuring a more predictable revenue stream for vendors such as HCL.

"Cloud is still cloudy. One way some companies are buying models like cloud is by consulting and assessment, and these are smaller, $2-5 million in size. But after assessment, it leads to execution and operations," said Mr Gupta.

He added that such engagements are 10-15 % of the total business HCL currently gets. "So, we are doing 7-10 such engagements. From a true cloud perspective we may have another year to go in terms of including the charge back," he added.

Larger rivals Infosys and TCS already have focussed strategies for addressing the cloud computing market. While Infosys plans to have a third of its total revenues coming from new services, including cloud computing and platform-based offerings, over the next few years, TCS—the biggest Indian software vendor, is hoping that such offerings would fetch 10% of incremental revenues in next few years.

Global customers such as Philips and Citibank are realizing that cloud can help cut costs because it allows them to avoid upfront software licensing and IT infrastructure investments by paying vendors such as HCL and TCS on pay-asyou-go model, and access services related to HR, finance and procurement.

Research firms, including Forrester, say the new model helps customers squeeze costs by up to 30%. According to Forrester, including a standard software foundation, will cut costs for clients by an additional 20-30 % on top of the 15-20 % savings of a traditional BPO solution.

HCL plans to address industrial clusters for wooing cloud computing customers. "Attacking clusters is our big strategy, we don't want to be a B2C player, neither do we want to be a small and medium player. We want to focus on communities and clusters, help them with hardware, software and applications," Mr Gupta said. After some of the ongoing cloud computing pilots are successful in India, HCL will target other markets of Brazil and China.

"Currently we are experimenting with some clusters. These clusters could be a network of associations, an auto component ancillary. Early next calendar year is when we will take some of them to the global markets," he added.