Neowin.net

Thanks Slashdot for this neat story... The biggest problem with getting connectivity has always been the "last mile", but according to Cisco, this will become a dead issue, with the release of information on their LRE (Long Reach Ethernet) project.

Thanks to a new innovation by Cisco Systems, things like high-speed Internet access, video streaming and IP Telephony are going places they previously couldn't. Hugh Barrass, Technical Leader, and his team of engineers at Cisco created the Cisco Long-Reach Ethernet (LRE) broadband networking solution—the industry's first end-to-end product line for delivering 5-15 Mbps performance over existing Category 1/2/3 wiring. With Ethernet-like performance that reaches up to 5,000 feet, LRE enables simultaneous voice, video and data applications without the need to rewire.

"If you consider the fact that most buildings are wired for voice not data, the market opportunity for LRE is quite vast" said Barrass. "By offering Ethernet-like speeds over regular phone wire, at reaches up to 5,000 feet, and co-existing with phone traffic, LRE brings rich, advanced services such as next generation video-on-demand to places it has not gone before."

The video in the Cisco article has some interesting features. The presenter downloads/views internet content over 4000ft of telephone wire, then ends up using some "barbed wire" just for good measure!!!

News source: Cisco - The Innovation of Long-Reach Ethernet

"Home users have generally been the least prepared to defend against attacks," Carnegie Mellon University's CERT (Computer Emergency Response Team) Coordination Center warns. "In many cases, these machines are then used by intruders to launch attacks against other organizations."

Viruses and worms - which are viruses that don't need human intervention to multiply - make up a large part of the new threats to home computers. In the past year, users' computers have been infected with malicious programs with catchy names like Code Red, Nimda, SirCam, Anna Kournikova and others that could be spread through Internet e-mail or surfing.

Antivirus firm Message Labs reported that it detected one virus per 370 e-mails in 2001, double the rate of the previous year.

The potential damage from hackers is also growing.

Several years ago, virus writers were content to simply destroy data on a computer.

Now they can imbed malicious programs that spy on users or steal their identity, use personal computers to attack other systems and use your e-mail address book to unwittingly infect the computers of friends.

Even the most savvy users have been victimized.

An FBI cybercrime researcher's computer infected with the SirCam program sent out official documents that spread the virus - to the bureau's embarrassment

The federal government is trying to better educate and insulate home users, hoping it will slow the spread of Internet viruses or worms that could slow the entire Internet and its e-commerce.

The outbreak of the Code Red Internet worm last summer sparked an unprecedented show of force from government and private industry.

"We've never seen a virus before that would not affect end-user machines at all, it just jumped from one Web server to another," Hypponen said. "It really made Code Red more like a weapon than anything else."

Although home computers were not affected, the message government and private security experts want home users to take from that threat is that computer maintenance needs to become as routine as locking your house and car.

Home users need to routinely update their antivirus and Internet firewall software against the latest threats and check for software fixes that software makers provide for free.

"If you've got a system out on the Net and it's not patched, there's a very high degree of likelihood that literally in a matter of hours you'll be popped," warned Amit Yoran of computer security firm Riptech.

New technologies will be at risk to hacking this year, Yoran cautioned. Wireless networking, which is now so cheap and easy to use that consumer models are growing popular, is especially vulnerable.

"The standard itself is insecure," Yoran said. In a large-scale test of urban wireless networks done by Riptech, experts couldn't find a corporate network they couldn't break into.

"What we're faced with is widespread adoption (of wireless networks) throughout corporate America and throughout consumer markets and people haven't really thought through how to protect," he said.

With more and faster computers on the horizon and no sign of hackers giving up their pursuits, home users will have to take security more seriously.

"They think if they don't have any secrets, they aren't a target," Hypponen said. "But it's not like that at all."