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ZigBee will be in your home sooner rather than later.

ZigBee is a set of application and security standards that build on the physical and MAC layers defined in IEEE 802.15.4 standard. Its main application is for monitoring and control environments. This contrasts with Bluetooth, which is really a cable replacement technology, and WiFi which is a broadband mobility technology.

Zigbee is characterized by
1. being very memory/processor unintensive (requiring an order of magnitude less memory to run compared to Bluetooth),
2. having very low duty cycle (and thus very long primary battery life measured in years),
3. supporting static and dynamic star and mesh networking across thousands of nodes, and
4. delivering tens of Kbit/s over a range of 70 meters.

The first security system earned Zigbee Certified Product status back in February. The core of the system is The Hub that plugs into your power and broadband modem and monitors all the other sensors in your home: alarm detectors, motion sensors, and (panic) Buttons. As a customer, you get a Keyfob (much like your car remote) and website access letting you monitor and manage your home from anywhere.

There are many products today, not just in home management, but also in energy efficiency management, and in building and industrial automation.

I can see Zigbee applications feeding into wired and wireless in-building and public network environments, and providing users wherever they are or however they are connected with a window into these applications (e.g. as in the home management security system described above).

Cloud computing has been around for years, originally as timesharing..

But the difference this time is the wide-open Internet and the dominance of Windows-based computing.

Concerns range from protecting data privacy to inter-company collaboration.

Most of all, don't assume quick fixes or simple prescriptions.

What years of experience has taught us is that the answer will lie in a myriad of security products and capabilities.

Don't get bitten!

Quite a scary story on how easy it is to snoop in on new Passports with RFID chips.

One should ask what were governments thinking in exposing their citizenry to identity theft in this fashion?

But the cat is out the door as Passport have a 5 or 10 year life and I can't imagine a recall once a more secure solution is developed.

Anyone with such a Passport, or driver's license or whatever, should consider a shielding envelope, as came with my US-Canada Nexus card.

According to data recovery firm Kroll Ontrack, human error is the number one cause of data loss.

Some of the most memorable mishaps:
1. A customer "washed away" her data after putting her USB memory stick through a washing machine cycle.
2. A scientist was fed up with his hard drive squeaking, so he drilled a hole through the casing and poured in oil. The hard drive was completely destroyed, (but he did stop the squeaking).
3. A photographer noticed that ants were living inside his external hard drive, so he sprayed it with insect repellent. The ants died, along with his data.

It's not just about technology;)

"Business executives are extremely concerned (and rightly so) that their organization may be the next publicly disclosed data breach story in the Wall Street Journal." That's how I led off a recent article, co-authored with Jon Oltsik of the Enterprise Strategy Group, on network access control (aka secure network access).

Secure network access authenticates users wanting to access the network, performs endpoint health checks, and authorizes network and application access based on role-based policies.

Network access control tied to one vendor's switching platform has been used as part of a lock-in strategy by network vendors. In a hyperconnected world, the last thing you want is a 'closed' access control strategy.

We, at Nortel, are taking a very different 'open' approach, which has been recognized with a Gold Award from SecureNetworking.com.

Our approach, just released as Nortel SNA 2.0,
• provides a common architecture across environments (LAN, WLAN, VPN),
• supports Nortel and non-Nortel switches (including those from Cisco and HP),
• works across desktop platforms including Windows, Linux and MacOS, IP phones and printers,
• seamlessly integrates with Microsoft Network Access Protection on both the client and server sides, and
• adheres to the Trusted Computing Group's Trusted Connect specifications.

So enhance your security while opening up to multi-vendor solutions.

Almost forgot! Did I mention that independent testing has also found the energy consumption of the Nortel SNA 4050 is 63% less than that of the Cisco solution (Clean Access 3310 Manager and Server)? Why am I not surprised? The Cisco energy tax is pervasive.

This has got to be one of the slickest and simplest security solutions for remote users, that I have seen.

Just plug in your Nortel Secure Portable Office USB key into your Windows PC, and
...... your user identity is authenticated using Aladdin Knowledge Systems eToken strong authentication and password management,
...... a secure VPN connection is established,
...... your PC is virus scanned, and
...... you are presented with a menu of authorized network applications you can access.

No pre-installed software, no URLs to remember, and your corporate policy moves from paper to the field while incurring a very low TCO.

Check it out yourself and let Nortel Global Services do the rest.

Some of the largest and medium-sized U.S. airports report close to 637,000 laptops lost each year. Wow, this figure has got to make you think.

Combine this with the IDC prediction that the number of worldwide mobile workers (many with laptops and many more with smart phones) will reach 1 billion - including nearly 75% of the U.S. workforce - by the end of 2011... and you should have serious concerns.

Clearly, protecting data on laptops, PDAs and smart phones is of tantamount importance to businesses.

Hyperconnectivity comes with its security risks.

The answer lies in corporate policies, device data encryption and network-based data-based storage, and in combinations of these.

By the way, check out this VoIP security blog, primed by the security group in the Nortel CTO.