What Is IrDA?

This is an acronym for Infrared Data Association. The group has been in existence since 1993, helping to set communications standards in a very specific field – infrared technology for communication over small distances. But even in this seemingly limited field there is a lot of activity for organizations like IrDA.

Infrared devices have improved considerably through the years. One of the original uses was with TV remote control units that sent the beam in one direction – to the television set. IrDA has been part of the program that set new standards for devices that work in both directions. New uses include: digital cameras, cell phones, wireless printers etc.

Two factors have combined to make infrared devices inexpensive – reduction in size and mass-manufacturing techniques. One of the standards set in this area of technology is distance for infrared devices to cover – three feet. In practice, however, some reach up to 10 feet. Signals may travel quite a bit faster in the near future, though some are now equal to the speed of a parallel printer port. IrDA speeds range from 9600 bps to 4 Mbps.

IrDA specifications include IrPHY (Infrared Physical Layer Specification), which is the foundation for standards in this area. Requirements are set for distance, modulation, speed and angle. Above this basic guideline are Infrared Link Access Protocol or IrLAP and Infrared Link Management Protocol or IrLMP. The IrLAP standards are similar to protocols used for finding and connecting computers, but apply to IrDA devices. IrLMP includes methods for discovering data channels, among other information.

IrDA has also set optional protocol descriptions for IrDA devices that may work with a LAN (local area network). Among these optional standards are those that cover data interference and use of cell phones and the personal digital assistant (PDA). Uses include paying for everyday services such as mass transportation.

If this isn’t enough to explain what IrDA is, think of the organization as helping create a structure for efficient radio communication, but in a specific area. The devices using IrDA standards use a tightly focused beam of light in a narrow spectrum. Compared to the speed of some electronic signals, infrared devices communicate in the range of trillions of hertz. *Hertz is the standard used for measuring cycles per second.

Some of the more common uses for infrared are: laptop computer connection to other devices; PDAs; digital cameras; cell phones. The user of a laptop computer might send a document to a nearby printer without having to connect by USB or other cable. Personal calendar and business schedule information may be transferred from one computer to another, possibly from a PDA to a computer.

To ensure that these connections work well, organizations such as IrDA must set minimum standards, allowable standards and protocols for specific connections. Manufacturers must construct microchips specifically for infrared devices, basing their design on standards from groups such as IrDA. Technology may allow devices to communicate over distances of more than 10 feet. In some uses, connections may be made up to a mile away.

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What Is CDMA?

If you want to understand digital communication, wireless technology and multiplexing you need to get a handle on CDMA or Code Division Multiple Access. The major difference between traditional communication systems and CDMA is that CDMA employs spread-spectrum multiplexing (various frequencies) to send audio signals.

Interference is significantly reduced with this technology. Requiring a specific code to transmit and receive further enhances signal integrity. CDMA was the popular option for personal communications because a number of users could communicate in the same signal spectrum without interference. This has now become the standard for wireless telecommunications. CDMA competes with Global System for Mobile communication or GSM, the standard for a large portion of the world.


Full understanding of CDMA and its uses is only possible if we also know about Frequency Division Multiple Access or FDMA and Time Division Multiple Access or TDMA. A close look at the full titles shows that separation is achieved in a different way with each process. FDMA divided or separated users only by frequency. It was necessary to carefully select a frequency to take noise and adjoining frequencies out of the audio.

With TDMA, users had to literally take turns using a particular frequency. The separation was provided by using the frequency at different times. Both TDMA and FDMA were in common use in the past but they have now been pressed aside by CDMA. One of the problems for business and military communications was the requirement to take turns – not always a possibility in certain situations. Nor was it possible to devote a lot of time to finding just the right frequency.

Code division protected the integrity of military communications, for example. The receiving station could get the message because of the unique code within the spectrum. Because of the spread-spectrum factor, multiple users could communicate on the same channel, essentially sharing the air. One of the things that make CDMA so “usable” for the mobile Internet is the separation of data through intrinsic codes. This has established CDMA as the standard in the mobile world.

As mentioned earlier, CDMA competes with GSM as a communications standard because GSM is the world standard outside of the United States and Canada. It is a fact that GSM has the lead in global communications coverage. In addition, this technology seems to be the method of contact in the rural United States.

Those who want to know a bit more about the details of coding that allow multiple users should look into digital sequencing that is provided at random for individual conversations. CDMA was first used during World War II and has become the standard half a century later. There have been some patent issues involved with CDMA but most of those have been resolved in recent years. A company called Qualcomm was at the forefront of these issues. The technology provides outstanding audio quality during calls while making relatively low demands on batteries. In addition, CDMA requires fewer cell sites than TDMA and GSM.

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British teen arrested over CIA, US Senate hacking

LONDON — British police working with the FBI arrested a 19-year-old man over attacks by a hacker group on businesses and government agencies including the CIA, US Senate and Sony, Scotland Yard said Tuesday.

The man, named in reports as Ryan Cleary, was detained on Monday at a house in the suburban town of Wickford in Essex, southeast England, in connection with a month-long global rampage by the Lulz Security group.

He was being questioned Tuesday at a central London police station.

"Yes, the arrest is in connection with the Lulz Security attacks. We believe this to be a significant arrest," a police source confirmed to AFP on condition of anonymity.

But the group played down the arrest in a posting on its official Twitter account. It has announced previous hacking attacks on the same account that turned out to be genuine.

"Seems the glorious leader of LulzSec got arrested, it's all over now... wait... we're all still here! Which poor bastard did they take down," said the posting.

In a statement, Scotland Yard said its specialist cyber-crime team had arrested the man in a "pre-planned intelligence-led operation" on suspicion of computer misuse and fraud offences.

"The arrest follows an investigation into network intrusions and Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks against a number of international businesses and intelligence agencies by what is believed to be the same hacking group," it said.

DDoS attacks overwhelm websites with traffic, making them sluggish or unresponsive.

"Searches at a residential address in Wickford, Essex, following the arrest last night have led to the examination of a significant amount of material. These forensic examinations remain ongoing," the statement said.

British police had been "working in cooperation with the FBI" in the run-up to the arrest, it added.

The latest in a series of hacking groups to gain public prominence, Lulz knocked out the CIA's public website, cia.gov, for about two hours last week using a DDoS attack and also hacked into the US Senate's public website.

The group has also released tens of thousands of user names and passwords stolen from Sony and other sites, and on Monday Lulz targeted the website of Britain's Serious Organised Crime Agency.

British authorities said Tuesday they were investigating whether information from the country's 2011 national census had been hacked.

"We are aware of the suggestion that census data has been accessed. We are working with our security advisers and contractors to establish whether there is any substance to this," the Office of National Statistics said in a statement.

But Lulz later said on Twitter that it was not responsible, adding that it had itself been the victim of a hoax statement.

In an online manifesto posted last week, Lulz -- whose name is a derivative of the text shorthand for LOL, or "laugh out loud" -- said they were staging the attacks for their own entertainment.

"You find it funny to watch havoc unfold, and we find it funny to cause it," it said.

"For the past month and a bit, we've been causing mayhem and chaos throughout the Internet, attacking several targets including PBS, Sony, Fox, porn websites, FBI, CIA, the US government, Sony some more, online gaming servers," Lulz said.

Lulz last week denied reports that it was in conflict with the hacker group Anonymous, which gained notoriety last year with cyberattacks in support of controversial whistleblowing website WikiLeaks.

Anonymous in May posted Ryan Cleary's personal details on the Internet after accusing him of trying to hack into its chatrooms.

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Teenager arrested on suspicion of hacking

U.S. Government Website Hacked

A teenager has been arrested in the UK in a joint Scotland Yard and FBI probe into the hacking of websites.

The man, named locally as Ryan Cleary, 19, was arrested in Wickford, Essex. Police have not identified him.

Scotland Yard said the raid followed a series of distributed denial of service attacks.

It comes days after hackers from a group called Lulz Security (LulzSec) attacked a number of websites both in Britain and the United States.

Scotland Yard would not say if Tuesday's raid was connected to LulzSec but said it had been a "pre-planned, intelligence-led" operation.

Computer examined

However, BBC security correspondent Frank Gardner said the Metropolitan Police's e-crimes unit had confirmed the raid was linked to the recent intrusion attacks on the websites of the CIA and Britain's Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca).

It says the teenager's computer was being examined for data linked to Sony, which recently came under cyber attack.

Mr Cleary was arrested under the Computer Misuse Act and Fraud Act and is being questioned at a central London police station.

Earlier a Scotland Yard spokesman said: "The arrest follows an investigation into network intrusions and distributed denial of service attacks against a number of international business and intelligence agencies by what is believed to be the same hacking group.

"Searches at a residential address in Wickford, Essex, following the arrest last night, have led to the examination of a significant amount of material. These forensic examinations remain ongoing."

Mr Cleary's mother spoke to BBC Essex and confirmed her son had been arrested at 0330 BST on Tuesday.

She said he had been obsessed with computers since he was 12 and added: "Computers were his world."

An FBI spokesman said it had no comment "at this time".
'Online laughs'

When Lulz Security, or LulzSec, first appeared in May, the group portrayed itself as a light-hearted organisation, bent on creating online fun and Lulz (laughs).

But LulzSec is said to have been planning to establish itself as a rival to Anonymous, the hacking group embroiled in the WikiLeaks fallout.

LulzSec initially targeted US broadcasters PBS and Fox and gaming firms.

But the Twitter page @LulzSec then declared its intention to break into government websites and leak confidential documents.

LulzSec is also suspected of hacking into CIA, Sony and NHS websites.

Gary McKinnon, an unemployed computer programmer who allegedly hacked into Pentagon and Nasa computers, has been fighting extradition to the US since 2002.

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How does Wikileaks get information?

WikiLeaks has been firing up popular imagination by suggesting that the impending leaks will have serious consequences on the world. Its strategy is to get and post on the Internet secret documents flying out of the wraps of governments and businesses. In getting hold of damaging details about the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, the organization has been apparently assisted by a rogue U.S. Army Private, who downloaded secret cables in their thousands and handed them over to Assange's fledgling organization.

Army intelligence analyst Bradley Manning, who was arrested last spring, had described the cables as documenting years of secret foreign policy and “almost-criminal political back dealings.”

“Hillary Clinton and several thousand diplomats around the world are going to have a heart attack when they wake up one morning, and find an entire repository of classified foreign policy is available, in searchable format, to the public,” he had boasted in an online chat with a former hacker and associate.

Some experts have tried to explain how Manning was able to gain access to the secret cables in their thousands. It has been pointed out that the U.S. military had recently introduced an information-sharing initiative called Net-Centric Diplomacy which allowed insiders to gain access to classified information.

Under the new initiative, a subset of State Department documents are published through a Secret Internet Protocol Router Network, or SIPRNet, which is supposed to be Pentagon’s Secret-level global network. The information available on this network is accessible to authorized American military service personnel.

Manning, who is believed to have downloaded a cache of documents and passed them on to WikiLeaks, gloated before he was nabbed: “Everywhere there’s a U.S. post, there’s a diplomatic scandal that will be revealed."

“It’s open diplomacy. World-wide anarchy in CSV format. It’s Climategate with a global scope, and breathtaking depth. It’s beautiful, and horrifying,” he said.

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U.S. Government Website Hacked

WASHINGTON (WUSA) -- Their motto is "laughing at your security since 2011." But, the federal government is not laughing.

www.Senate.Gov was hacked Sunday, by Lulz Security. This is the same team of hackers who are responsible for security breaches at Sony, Nintendo, even the FBI.

"This may be a game for them but they are not going to have people looking after them," said cyber security expert and former FBI agent Scott Aken.

The company tweeted early Monday night that they were "releasing their Bethesda and Senate.gov double surprise releases."

On its website, the company listed codes and dates taken from Senate.gov.

The Sergeant at Arms says the network firewall prevented the hackers from gaining access to any vital information.

He says the only information seized was already public. Still, the Senate is working to beef up security. The weakness has been identified and the problem has been fixed.

Lulzsec also says the usernames and passwords of gamers from Bethesda Softworks were hacked. Aken says they are identifying weaknesses.

"To date, they haven't levied any harm on companies but they are exposing vulnerabilities," he said. "Companies need to work on these vulnerabilities and penetrate their systems like a hacker would."

Aken says nearly seven of their 10 companies have had similar security breaches in the last year.

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Easily Monitor and Web Server Analysis using The Webalizer

Features of the Webalizer:

* Is written in C to be extremely fast and highly portable. On my 1.6Ghz laptop, it can process close to 70,000 records per second, which means a log file with roughly 2 million hits can be analyzed in about 30 seconds.
* Handles standard Common logfile format (CLF) server logs, several variations of the NCSA Combined logfile format, wu-ftpd/proftpd xferlog (FTP) format logs, Squid proxy server native format, and W3C Extended log formats. In addition, gzip (.gz) and bzip2 (.bz2) compressed logs may be used directly without the need for uncompressing.
* Generated reports can be configured from the command line, or more commonly, by the use of one or more configuration files. Detailed information on configuration options can be found in the README file, supplied with all distributions.
* Supports multiple languages. Currently, Albanian, Arabic, Catalan, Chinese (traditional and simplified), Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Finnish, French, Galician, German, Greek, Hungarian, Icelandic, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Latvian, Lithuanian, Malay, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese (Portugal and Brazil), Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Slovak, Slovene, Spanish, Swedish, Thai, Turkish and Ukrainian are available.
* Unlimited log file sizes and partial logs are supported, allowing logs to be rotated as often as needed, and eliminating the need to keep huge monthly files on the system.
* Fully supports IPv4 and IPv6 addresses. Includes built-in distributed DNS lookup capability and native Geolocation services.
* Distributed under the GNU General Public License, complete source code is available, as well as binary distributions for some of the more popular platforms. Please read the Copyright notices for additional information.

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