Millions for Saudi ID Cards
LaserCard Corporation has received a follow-on purchase order valued at $2.9 million to supply secure identity cards for Saudi Arabia’s national ID program. This brings the total orders received for this program to $4.7 million since April 1. The $2.9 million order calls for the continued supply of optical smart cards to be issued via approximately 40 issuance offices in cities throughout the Kingdom. Deliveries are expected to be completed in the September quarter. Since the inception of the Saudi National ID Card project in 2003 through March 2008, LaserCard has supplied approximately $16 million of cards, software, hardware and services for the program.
“We are pleased to see the continuing development of the Saudi National ID program and are proud that our optical memory technology, whose digital security has never been compromised, is making a contribution to the nation’s security,” said Bernard C. Bailey, chairman of LaserCard’s board of directors. “We look forward to continuing our close relationship with the Saudi government and our local business partners in ensuring the further consolidation of this vital homeland security project.”
LaserCard has defined the Middle Eastern region as an area of strategic focus for the growth of its secure ID solutions business. The company recently expanded its business activities in Saudi Arabia through its German subsidiary, Challenge Card Design GmbH, which signed a previously announced $8.4 million contract with the Golden Chip Company late last year to deliver a turnkey card manufacturing facility.
GCC Piracy Stabilizes
The Fifth Annual BSA and IDC Global Software Piracy Study has revealed the biggest increase in global piracy in four years, jumping by three percentage points to 38 percent in 2007. BSA emphasized that the rapid growth of the IT industry in countries with weak copyright enforcement and expanding Internet access have largely contributed to the global trend. Despite the increasing prevalence of software piracy, the study showed that the GCC region has improved its anti-piracy performance through initiatives such as smart government policies, effective enforcement, end-user customer education and vendor legalization programs.
Of the 108 countries covered by the global piracy study, 67 were able to improve their piracy ratings, with only eight reporting increases in piracy, although many of these countries had exceedingly high piracy ratings. The Middle East and Africa region maintained its piracy rating at 60 percent for the second straight year. The UAE once again posted the best rating in the region at 35 percent. For other GCC members, Saudi Arabia’s piracy rate was 51 percent, Qatar had 54 percent, Bahrain 57 percent, Oman 61 percent and Kuwait 62 percent.
According to the study, global losses to piracy in 2007 totaled nearly $48 billion, an increase of $8 billion over the previous year. Countries with the worst piracy rates were Armenia at 93 percent, Bangladesh at 92 percent and Azerbaijan 92 percent. It should be noted that a high piracy rate doesn’t necessarily translate into the highest monetary losses to the global software industry, although it does seriously discourage local developers and halts localization efforts by international developers.
Prior to the 2007 report, global piracy had been relatively stable as it stood at 36 percent in 2003 and remained at 35 percent for the next three years before the increase in 2007. The study also showed that 261 million PCs were shipped to consumers in 2007, a 16 percent growth. Nearly 700 million PCs were installed with new software, resulting in $80 billion in sales of PC software, which was an increase of 18 percent.
Students Views on Privacy
In an effort to get teenagers to think about privacy issues the Privacy Commissioners of Australia, Hong Kong, New Zealand, Canada, the Northern Territory, New South Wales and Victoria have launched an international privacy competition and have encouraged secondary school students resident in Australia, Canada, Hong Kong and New Zealand to enter. Prizes include a video camera and gift vouchers to the value of approximately $3,000. The competition closes on July 25, 2008. Details are at www.privacyawarenessweek.org
“Our Offices have chosen to target secondary school students as this group is one of the main users of social networking sites and they appear to give away a significant amount of personal information via this medium,” said Karen Curtis, the Australian Privacy Commissioner, on behalf of the Commissioners. “We are keen to understand whether or not privacy is something students consider in their daily activities, and to encourage them to start thinking about the information that they disclose and the impact that this may have on their life.”
The international competition is hosted by the Asia Pacific Privacy Authorities (APPA) as part of Privacy Awareness Week, 24-30 August 2008. Privacy Awareness Week is an annual promotion to raise awareness of the importance of protecting privacy. As part of the competition, students are invited to create a video about any aspect of privacy, such as their opinion of its relevance in today’s society, how it does or doesn’t affect them in their daily life, or perhaps the influence that the Internet has had on privacy.
Securing Some Attention
Security isn’t an area that is usually marketed with humor. That’s why AlterPoint Solutions is getting some attention with its latest presentations. Its B-movie-themed demonstrations give a humorous view of network management “Horrors.” With low budgets, tight production schedules and melodramatic story lines, the job of managing today’s enterprise network can feel like the starring role in a B-movie horror film - so the presentations are pretty close to the mark. At a recent industry security event, AlterPoint’s presentations included:
*Attack of the Compliance Auditors (You Never Know When They Will Strike!)
*Forbidden Configuration Changes (Threaten to Destroy the Network!)
*The Creature from Beyond the Firewall (No Data or Device is Safe!)
*Invasion of the Network Budget Snatchers (No Budget is Safe from These Monsters!)
Perhaps if IT security companies marketed their products using some street smarts instead of mind-numbing jargon, managers would be interested to learn a bit more about network security - rather than just considering it a budgetary black hole.
