BT Trustwise — Enabling eCommerce Through Trust

The eCommerce market is expanding rapidly and offers tremendous opportunities to BT and its customers. BT is well placed to exploit these opportunities with its combination of trusted networks and eCommerce capabilities. 'Trust' is a key component in enabling eCommerce services across the complete eCommerce delivery process. The provision of certificates to users of the Internet is vital to establishing trust. BT' partnership with VeriSign has quickly enabled BT to offer a wide range of high-quality certification products and services.BT' certification service, Trustwise, has been delivered in three phases. Phase 1, launched in July 1998, enabled customers to enrol for free Class 1 individual certificates and Class 3 Web server certificates. Phase 2, launched in October 1998, extended the certificate product range and improved resilience and scalability. Phase 3 will involve the transfer of a significant part of the certification service from VeriSign to BT. BT plans to develop the service to provide a wide range of additional eCommerce products, and to use certificates to enhance other BT services. Trustwise has provided a firm foundation on which BT and its customers can build their eCommerce business.     

Creating an effective security risk model for outsourcing decisions

Globalisation has had a fundamental impact on the way that business is conducted and approaches to sourcing work have evolved. Outsourcing is here to stay and the proportion of worldwide spend in this market-place will continue to rise. BT’s security community has successfully introduced a new risk model and supporting process to identify the key risk factors applicable to outsourcing, namely, specific environmental conditions, the number of third party personnel involved in the contract and the level of ‘trust’ given to these personnel. The importance of protective monitoring and audit regimes is highlighted from both a compliance and assurance perspective — and is being used to create effective engagement with outsourcing partners to raise security thresholds and discuss security issues. Globalisation, coupled with the requirement for more open networks, will continue to increase in the future and result in corporate infrastructure fragmentation and the breaking down of traditional boundaries. At the same time, approaches to security must also evolve — moving the focus from the infrastructure to the client, application and eventually the data level.     

Iceland Internet Shopping

Iceland's Internet shopping service is currently rated as the top on-line supermarket in the UK. It received a five-star rating from the IMRG and achieved the 'Top Consumer eCommerce Site' award at Microsoft's 'Digital Britain Awards'. Within just eight weeks of launching on 4 October 1999, the service had taken over £1M and had increased Iceland's order-delivery revenue by 40%. Moreover, the average basket size proved to be seven times higher than the average in-store basket. Several months on, order rates continue to increase. So much has the Internet impressed Iceland that it has changed its company name from 'Iceland Frozen Foods' to 'iceland.co.uk'. Such is the impact eCommerce technology can have on a company, where the business has the infrastructure to deliver.The technology powering Iceland's eCommerce site is BT Syncordia Solutions' eRetailing suite, developed at Adastral Park. This paper describes the system and summarises the business benefits already realised.     

An Introduction to Electronic Commerce

eCommerce is set to revolutionise the way we do business. The companion papers to be found in the themed section of this edition outline some of the major technologies that underpin eCommerce. This paper sets the scene.     

Delay sensing for long-term variations and defects monitoring in safety–critical applications

The impact of parametric variations on digital circuit performance is increasing in nanometer Integrated Circuits (IC), namely of Process, power supply Voltage and Temperature (PVT) variations. Moreover, circuit aging also impacts circuit performance, especially due to Negative Bias Temperature Instability (NBTI) effect. A growing number of physical defects manifest themselves as delay faults (at production, or during product lifetime). On-chip, on-line delay monitoring, as a circuit failure prediction technique, can be an attractive solution to guarantee correct operation in safety–critical applications. Safe operation can be monitored, by predictive delay fault detection. A delay monitoring methodology and a novel delay sensor (to be selectively inserted in key locations in the design and to be activated according to user’s requirements) is proposed, and a 65 nm design is presented. The proposed sensor is programmable, allowing delay monitoring for a wide range of delay values, and has been optimized to exhibit low sensitivity to PVT and aging-induced variations. Two MOSFET models—BPTM and ST—have been used. As abnormal delays can be monitored, regardless of their origin, both parametric variations and physical defects impact on circuit performance can be identified. Simulation results show that the sensor is effective in identifying such abnormal delays, due to NBTI-induced aging and to resistive open defects.     

Risk management — visual IDS countermeasures

As most major organisations increase their reliance on the Internet, they find the facilities and services made available to them in the area of eCommerce also bring a number of associated risks. The organisations may be exposed to tangible loss of revenue and also to intangible loss of reputation. Companies are now looking for ways to minimise these risks by implementing risk management solutions. The main risk associated with on-line commerce is having intrusions into sensitive company information such as company secrets, billing information or employee details by unauthorised users (disgruntled employees, hackers, industrial espionage). After the identification of such risks we look at deploying countermeasures (CMs) to help minimise their consequences. Many more organisations are now deploying CMs in the form of intrusion detection systems to help protect their networks by identifying unlawful entry — however, this comes at a price. It is now very easy to collect too much data. In this paper we present research into making this identification process easier by making use of interoperable visualisation tools.     

The eCommerce Revolution

This paper looks ahead to the mid-term and longer-term effects of the eCommerce revolution. We are in the last few years of the domination of the industrial economy — soon the information economy, or network economy, will take its place as the main engine of wealth. The underlying trends that are driving this revolution are discussed and guidelines offered for success in the new commercial world. Often these guidelines seem counter-intuitive and against conventional commercial wisdom.The paper describes how customer and business relationships are being re-formed by Internet technologies, why the revolution is an all-pervasive irresistible force, and how it threatens previously profitable industries, while creating a multitude of new ones.Perhaps the most fundamental change for companies will be the advent of supply networks, an alternative to traditional, linear supply chains. For consumers the most fundamental change will be the increase in their buying power. The new role of advertisers, the importance of trust, the threat from 'Big Brother', and the changes in the global economy are all examined.There are four main sections that look at issues for companies, customers, network-economy trends, and finally, a section that describes why some companies are at risk.     

Analog Sinewave Signal Generators for Mixed-Signal Built-in Test Applications

This work presents a technique for the generation of analog sinusoidal signals with high spectral quality and reduced circuitry resources. Two integrated demonstrators are presented to show the feasibility of the approach. The proposed generation technique is based on a modified analog filter that provides a sinusoidal output as the response to a DC input. It has the attributes of digital programming and control, low area overhead, and low design effort, which make this approach very suitable as test stimulus generator for built-in test applications. The demonstrators—a continuous-time generator and a discrete-time one—have been integrated in a standard 0.35 μm CMOS technology. Simulation results and experimental measurements in the lab are provided, and the obtained performance is compared to current state-of-the-art on-chip generation strategies.     

基于信任列表的可信第三方跨域认证模型

目前国内已有31家获得电子认证服务许可的第三方认证机构（certification authority,CA）,跨CA的信任和验证日益迫切。针对该问题,提出了一种基于信任列表的可信第三方跨域认证模型。该模型依托公钥基础设施（public key infrastructure,PKI）所提供的数字证书等安全服务,通过引入新的信任机制更好地管理和控制了可信根证书列表,既避免了传统信任列表模型的诸多缺点,又能够有效实现多CA互信互认。为支持这一跨信任域模型的实际运行,设计了相应的工作流程和多CA认证方案,并开发了多CA应用支撑模块,以及就其中的关键技术问题进行了详细论述。分析表明,该模型能够让应用系统灵活地动态兼容不同CA所颁发的数字证书,且在认证效率、安全性、实用性以及应用改造等方面均具有明显优势。      

Security risk mitigation for information systems

Security risk mitigation is a salient issue in systems development research. This paper introduces a lightweight approach to security risk mitigation that can be used within an Agile Development framework — the Security Obstacle Mitigation Model (SOMM). The SOMM uses the concept of trust assumptions to derive obstacles and the concept of misuse cases to model the obstacles. A synthetic scenario, based on an on-line system, shows how the SOMM is used to anticipate malicious behaviour with respect to an operational information system and to document a priori how this malicious behaviour should be mitigated. Since the SOMM is conceptually simple in deployment, its use is well within the capacities of the users who form part of an Agile Development team and crucially it should not take up a significant amount of development time.     

Cellular mobile — the generation game

Cellular mobile is at an important crossroads — with the industry still in the process of attempting a transition from the dominant second generation services of voice and messaging, to data-based services such as music download and gaming. Third generation technology has rolled out slowly in Europe and has yet to make much of an impact on the market. Against this backdrop, the cellular industry is now moving towards defining fourth generation mobile for introduction in 2012–2015. The emergence of new, non-cellular systems, such as WiMAX and WLAN are confusing the timeline and evolution of cellular systems with a heated debate about what constitutes a ‘4G system’. In addition, some people view convergence as the next generation of mobile with less emphasis on raw connection speed and more on access to the same services over a range of access technologies and devices. In this paper we critically examine these and other views of fourth generation mobile (4G) and identify the key technological, standards-related and commercial issues that will drive the evolution of 4G over the next few years.     

’Knowing me, knowing you’ — Using profiles and social networking to improve recommender systems

The Internet has not only brought us more information and choice, but has also increased the burden of making a choice. Recommender systems aim to address this problem by providing personalised recommendations in areas such as music, films or books. Research on recommender systems has focused on improving the matching algorithms. The research presented in this paper takes a user-centred approach. Since recommendations are usually presented as lists of items, without explanations or justifications, users struggle to find out how appropriate recommendations are for them. Our research has shown that the relationship between advice-seeker and recommender is extremely important, so ways of indicating social closeness and taste overlap are required. We thus suggest that drawing on similarity and familiarity between the user and the persons who have rated the items can aid judgement and decision making. This was tested in an experiment, which carefully controlled familiarity, profile similarity and rating-overlap between the user and those rating items. The results help us understand the decision-making processes in an on-line context, and form the basis of a usercentred recommender system approach. We suggest that recommender systems can be improved by combining the benefits of social networking applications — such as explicit networks of trust — with the matching capabilities of recommender systems.     

Evolving Systems Beyond 3G — the IST BRAIN and MIND Projects

Systems beyond 3G — using IP to combine 3G, wireless LANs and other access technologies — will offer users much greater flexibility and choice for mobile communications in the medium term. The IST projects BRAIN and MIND have developed outline solutions for key technical and business barriers to the development of systems beyond 3G. In particular, MIND and BRAIN have designed an all-IP mobile access network, with QoS and mobility support, designed new middleware components and protocols to support seamless hand-over between heterogeneous access technologies and proposed QoS for wireless LANs. The key results of the BRAIN and MIND projects are presented in this paper. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Fixed access network technologies

Telecommunications operators around the world are facing flat or declining revenues in their traditional services and expanding commercial and political demand for ubiquitous broadband access. This creates two opposing pressures — to cut costs radically and to invest heavily in new technology. The traditional fixed access network is central to both of these issues and this paper describes the technology that is being developed to meet these challenges.     

Trust and security in virtual organisations

Technologies such as Web Services and grid computing are making it technically possible for companies to co-operate more closely, coupling their automated business processes and sharing resources dynamically and flexibly. They should make practical new business models in which small specialist companies with complementary capabilities combine flexibly to provide a range of services currently only within the scope of large corporations. A coalition of enterprises co-operating in this way is termed a virtual organisation (VO). Achieving the benefits of co-operation while retaining agility, autonomy and security remains a significant challenge. This challenge is being addressed by TrustCoM, a research collaboration involving Atos Origin sa, BAE Systems, BT, CCLRC, ETH, HLRS, IBM, Imperial College London, King’s College London, European Microsoft Innovation Centre, NRCCL, SAP, SICS, SINTEF, the University of Milan, and the University of Kent. TrustCoM will provide a conceptual and architectural framework for secure and flexible co-operation plus methods and tools for implementing it in a variety of business contexts. Two practical test-beds are being constructed as part of the project — one set in the aerospace industry, and the other concerning provision of tailored composite eLearning services by a consortium of training service providers. An important concept to emerge from TrustCoM is the VO virtual hosting environment or shell. This is an implementation of the kernel of the TrustCoM framework operated by a hosting service provider as the nucleus around which a community of enterprises may form. A community hosted by the environment — typically operating in a particular industry or application domain — must be bound by agreements, conventions and procedures that facilitate co-operation. The joining process involves federating the new SME’s platforms with the core platform, agreeing to contracts, registering services, and so on. The environment incorporates facilities to support VO formation and secure operation, including trust-enhancing and policy enforcement mechanisms. This paper describes the main concepts and features of the TrustCoM framework as used in a virtual hosting environment.     

Delivering nanotechnology to the healthcare, IT and environmental sectors — A perspective from the ‘London centre for nanotechnology’

Nanotechnology research is booming worldwide, having an impact on multiple sectors and with a general belief that medical and biological applications will form the greatest area of expansion over the next decade, driven by an attempt to bring radical solutions to areas of unmet medical need. What is true in the USA is also being fulfilled in Europe, though generally at a significantly lower investment level, even for ’large’ capital infrastructure and interdisciplinary centres. Against this, the UK and its European partners are following the maxim ’small is beautiful’ and are attempting to identify and grow academic research and commercial businesses in areas that traditional nanotechnology developments out of engineering or physics find challenging. Thus, University College London and Imperial College, in a major joint project linked to other centres of excellence both in the UK and in the rest of Europe, are building upon their internationally competitive medical and hard-matter research activities to focus on and develop nanotechnology as a major sector of research activity. The two universities together form one of the largest centres of biomedical research outside the USA. A novel approach to commercialisation has been taken, exemplified by the establishment with government and private equity funds of a ‘Bionanotechnology Centre’ — this will act as a portal for UK industry to access specialist skills to solve issues relating to developing nanotechnology-based medical applications, for example, for environmental screening, diagnostics and therapy. This paper reviews our academic and business strategy with examples from our current research portfolio, biased towards medicine as the London Centre for Nanotechnology’s most rapidly growing area.     

The Future of Work — Understanding the Role of Technology

The twentieth century has seen many major changes in the nature of work and its role in people's lives. Organisational change has been driven by dramatic changes in the economic and social climate during this period. This is happening at an increasingly rapid rate as we enter the new century. This paper reviews current trends in the world of work. It will focus on the increasing dispersal of the workforce and how communications technology makes possible working arrangements which were previously unthinkable. BT aims to design future products and services which address the real needs of people working in the future. This is being tackled by building up a fundamental understanding of the issues affecting relationships between individuals and organisations, and the potential impact of computer-mediated communications technology on these relationships. This paper focuses on the work that has been done to understand the issue of trust, a key element of the way that people relate to each other at work. This research has culminated in the definition of a theoretical model of trust which has been used to analyse two particular practical studies — a long-term flexible working trial and a series of trials with innovative desktop conferencing tools.     

Exploiting MIMO Technology for Optimal MBMS Power Allocation

In mobile networks, the provision of rich multimedia services, such as Mobile TV, is considered of key importance. To this end, Multimedia Broadcast/Multicast Service (MBMS)—that was introduced in the Release 6 of Universal Mobile Telecommunication System (UMTS)—is envisaged to play an instrumental role in the proliferation of mobile market. The reason behind the design of MBMS was the need to provide multiple users with the same data at the same time in 3GPP (3rd Generation Partnership Project) cellular networks. Still, MBMS performance is limited by the base stations’ transmission power. As an aftermath, efficient power allocation techniques should be implemented so as to ensure the mass provision of multimedia applications to mobile users. This paper proposes a novel mechanism for efficient radio bearer selection during MBMS transmissions. The proposed mechanism is based on the concept of transport channels combination in any cell of the network. Furthermore, the mechanism exploits the performance enhancements emerged from Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) antennas and manages to efficiently deliver multiple MBMS sessions. The proposed mechanism is thoroughly evaluated and compared with the radio bearer selection mechanisms proposed by 3GPP.     

Packet data messaging over TETRA: network performance analysis

In this paper, we address various aspects of packet data transmission in terrestrial trunked radio (TETRA) networks giving particular emphasis on the performance of applications transmitting small messages between a number of radio terminals and a fixed server. The utilization of such applications is constantly increasing in public safety networks and so does the need to dimension and configure TETRA networks to meet their reliability, delay and loss requirements. We present simulation results for a variety of practical scenarios such as loading the packet data channel (PDCH) with different mobile station (MS) populations engaged in transmitting packet data (PD) at various rates. We quantify key performance indicators of the PDCH such as packet delay and packet loss rate. Furthermore, we provide an in-depth analysis of the impact of non-PD MS population—i.e., the loading of main control channel (MCCH)—on the average packet delay. Our results provide an insight of how network loading parameters interact with the protocol performance and may help in dimensioning and planning TETRA networks, and in particular, in determining the number of PD terminals that can be supported in a cell for a given traffic profile and QoS requirements.     

Signal Assignment Model for the Memory Management of Multidimensional Signal Processing Applications

Many signal processing systems, particularly in the multimedia and telecom domains, are synthesized to execute data-dominated applications. Their behavior is described in a high-level programming language, where the code is typically organized in sequences of loop nests and the main data structures are multidimensional arrays. Since data transfer and storage have a significant impact on both the system performance and the major cost parameters—power consumption and chip area, the designer must spend a significant effort during the system development process on the exploration of the memory subsystem in order to achieve a cost-optimized design. This paper presents a memory allocation methodology for multidimensional signal processing applications, focusing on the problem of efficiently mapping the multidimensional signals from the algorithmic specification into the physical memory. In a first phase, two previous mapping models are implemented within a common theoretical framework, which is advantageous from both the point of view of computational efficiency and the amount of allocated data storage. Different from all the previous mapping models that aim to optimize the memory sharing between the elements of a same array (creating separate windows in the physical memory for distinct arrays), this proposed mapping model exploit—in a second phase—the possibility of memory sharing between the elements of different arrays. As a consequence, this signal assignment approach yields significant savings in the amount of data storage resulted after mapping.