BIZTECH

Justice Ministry reckons ICTA's role vigorous

Assessing its contribution to cybercrime prevention :

Justice Ministry Secretary Suhada Gamlath said that the Justice Ministry has received substantial strength from the ICT Agency of Sri Lanka in its efforts against cybercrimes.

He said this during his keynote address as the guest of honour at the inauguration of the two-day international workshop on a 'Cooperation Against Cybercrime in South Asia,' jointly hosted by the Council of Europe and ICTA.

Speaking further during the keynote address on the occasion at the launch of the workshop held at Hilton Colombo Residence recently, Justice Ministry Secretary commended the contribution made by the staff of ICTA, in particular its Director and Legal Advisor Jayantha Fernando towards the formulation of the Computer Crime Act, No 24 of 2007.

Pointing out the need for further endeavours the Secretary said, "Since the Act was certified by the Speaker on July 9, 2007, there are 194 investigations ongoing under this Act. However no indictments have been filed to date. But this is not unusual.

This is the experience in many countries. Hence the need of further collective effort at domestic, regional and international level to give teeth to this piece of legislation especially through further work on electronic evidence as well as training for judges and prosecutors", the Secretary said. ICTA Chairman Professor P W Epasinghe said, "For countries of South Asia as for societies in other regions of the world information and communication technologies provide unprecedented opportunities for social and economic development. However, as societies rely on ICT, at the same time they become vulnerable to risks such as cybercrime. Cooperation at all levels such as, public-private, international is a crucial element of the response.

"In Asia a number of countries, such as India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka have taken or are in the process of taking steps, including the strengthening of their cybercrime legislation in line with the Budapest Convention on Cybercrime and of relevant instructions such as units responsible for high-tech investigations or incident response to face the challenge.

In Sri Lanka ICTA not only helped in the formulation of legislation but also established expert units, such as Sri Lanka Computer Emergency Response Team (SLCERT).The aim of the workshop is to enhance the capacity of the countries of South Asia to cooperate internationally against cybercrime".

While Hon Justice R K S Suresh Chandra Judge of the Supreme Court was a Special Guest of Honour, Telecommunication and IT Ministry Secretary Nimal Atukorala, Solicitor General Priyasath Dep, President's Counsel, Head of Economic Crime Division of Council of Europe Alexander Seger and ICTA Director and Legal Advisor Jayantha Fernando also participated at the occasion.

The participants in the workshop included representatives from South Asian countries, Bangladesh, India, Maldives, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. These participants came together at this workshop to enhance their capacity for cooperating against cybercrime.

The workshop provided an ideal opportunity for assessing the cybercrime legislation of countries concerned. Compatibility of cybercrime legislation with international standards is a pre-requisite for international cooperation. Therefore assessment of this compatibility of participating countries was among the specific objectives of the workshop", a senior ICTA spokesman said.

The participants shared their experience and promoted international police and judicial cooperation including accession to agreements such as the Budapest Convention on Cybercrime. ICTA spokesman said that another specific objective of the workshop was to promote the inter-agency and public cooperation at domestic levels.

Speaking further on the type of participants, the ICTA spokesman said that participants included representatives from each of the above-mentioned countries with responsibility for the subject.

Spelling out the areas under the subject the ICTA spokesman mentioned cybercrime legislation, high-tech crime investigations, international police and or judicial cooperation and incident response (Computer Emergency Response Team [CERT] or similar).

Speakers and representatives of countries other than the South Asian countries mentioned above, including parties to the Budapest Convention were also present and shared their relevant experience.

Facebook makes data centres cheaper

Facebook on Thursday presented an Internet-obsessed world with a gift - greener, cheaper data centers to more efficiently power online services.

The social networking star custom-designed hardware, power supply, and architecture of a new US data center that is 38 percent more power efficient and costs 24 percent less than the industry average.

Schematics and designs for Facebook's revolutionary data center in the Oregon city of Prineville were made available to the world as part of an Open Compute Project announced by founder Mark Zuckerberg.

"We found a lot of stuff mass manufacturers were putting out wasn't what we needed, so we customized it to better fit social applications," Zuckerberg said during a press conference at Facebook's campus in Palo Alto, California.

"We are trying to foster this ecosystem where developers can easily build startups."

A shift to hosting software applications as services in the Internet "cloud" is driving enormous growth of data centers globally, according to Graham Weston, chairman and founder of US computer network hosting giant Rackspace.

Cheaper data centers should translate into lower costs for Internet startups that typically rent computing capacity, providing a "turbo-charge" for innovation, according to Dell computer vice president of server platforms Forrest Norrod.

"Facebook's design is really a leap forward, because it is much simpler, cheaper and greener," Weston said. "I think it's the biggest reduction in server infrastructure cost in a decade."

San Francisco-based social game sensation Zynga is looking to use Facebook's technology in its data centers, which host popular online games such as "FarmVille" and "Zynga Poker."

"We think it is going to make a big difference in how we bring play to the Internet," Zynga chief technology officer Allen Leinwand said while taking part in the Facebook press conference.

"It's time to stop treating data centers like 'Fight Club' and demystify what is going on in there," Facebook vice president of technical operations Jonathan Heilinger said in a playful reference to a film based on secret gatherings for bare-knuckle matches.

Other Internet firms such as Google build their own data centers, but haven't made designs freely available as Facebook has at the website opencompute.org.

Developing countries where outdated and inefficient data centers are common could be prime beneficiaries of the free Facebook technology.

India, China and other countries are racing into an Internet Age that demands data centers, Dell's Norrod noted. "There will be the opportunity for Internet companies in the developing world to take a leap forward, jumping over the past 15 years of learning," Norrod said. "That's going to happen."

Computer makers Dell and Hewlett-Packard along with chip companies Intel and Advanced Micro Devices worked with Facebook to develop the data center technology.

Facebook engineers hoped to get feedback and ideas to improve the designs.

"It is like the launch of the (Toyota) Prius, only you gave people the plans on how to make the Prius," said Intel data center group general manager Jason Waxman. "There are a lot of places around the world that could benefit from this kind of information."

AFP

Education Ministry, Intel agree to enhance maths, science education:

Tried and tested world programs to benefit SL students

With the objective of empowering the next generation of Sri Lankan students, Intel and the Education Ministry signed two memorandums of understanding that are intended to strengthen science and maths education in Sri Lanka.

As part of the first MoU, Intel hopes to see its skoool e-learning program, which is currently available in English, be made available in a Sinhalese language version. In addition, Intel and the Education Ministry expressed a shared desire in the second MoU to see the Sri Lanka Science and Engineering Fair (SLSEF) take place again this year.

The two MoUs aim to give Sri Lankan students the opportunity to develop and showcase their maths and science skills, and to strengthen the use of technology in the classroom. The agreements were signed in a ceremony at the Mahinda Rajapaksa College, in Homagama, in a ceremony that was attended by Education Minister Bandula Gunawardena, Education Ministry Secretary H M Gunasekera, Additional Secretaries of Education Anura Dissanayake, Hemantha Prematilake, Intel's Sales and Marketing Group Vice President John Davies and Intel's World Ahead Program General Manager and Country Business Manager, Intel Sri Lanka Indika de Zoysa and other officials.

Intel's skoool program, initiated in 2007, offers teachers and students e-learning tools and resources that are designed to be more engaging and improve the learning process. Making these resources available in Sinhalese, in addition to the existing English version, will make them accessible to more students in Sri Lanka.

Speaking at the event, Education Minister Gunawardana said, "The insight gained through these programs will enable these teachers and their students to improve their level of knowledge. These programs have been tried and tested across the world and will go a long way in enhancing our students' level of knowledge in the fields of mathematics and science and technology. I have no doubt that these students here stand to benefit from this website as it provides various tools that will eventually make them better learners in due course."

"This is a good opportunity for students to enhance their education through the use of technology and showcase the results. Ensuring that local communities benefit from technology is an important step towards building a brighter future for Sri Lanka.

The Sri Lanka Science and Engineering Fair (SLSEF) is held in December each year. The competitors for this fair are selected from the Science Research Project competition of the National Science Foundation (NSF) of Sri Lanka and the annual Junior Inventor of the Year (JIY) competition held by the Institution of Engineers Sri Lanka (IESL). The ten best projects from these are brought together to compete at SLSEF. The winners of this local competition go on to vie in the world's largest pre-college science competition that brings together thousands of young scientists who share ideas, showcase cutting-edge science, and compete for scholarships.

Through the Intel World Ahead Program Intel works with technology industry partners, education leaders and government figures to provide opportunities to those in developing communities that would otherwise not be available.

Intel has committed US$1 billion over a period of five years to support the program, whose objectives include training an additional 10 million teachers in the use of technology in education, with a potential to reach another one billion students.