“Intel is collaborating with Facebook to redefine the future of mega-datacenters,” says Justin Rattner, Intel’s chief technology officer (CTO). “By using Intel’s new 100-Gbit per second (bps) silicon photonics technology, compute, network and storage systems can increase bandwidth, with fewer cables and greater power efficiency, compared to today’s copper based interconnects.”

Today, each server has its compute, networking and storage resources aggregated in the same rack to reduce the distance copper interconnections must travel between them. In contrast, next generation mega-datacenters will disaggregate resources into separate compute, networking and storage racks. These are interconnected by Intel’s 100-Gbit per second optics — at a fraction of today’s cost and power consumption.

At the Open Computer Summit 2013 (Jan. 16-17, Santa Clara, Calif.) Quanta Computer unveiled an early prototype of Facebook’s new disaggregated rack architecture. The design used distributed 100Gbps input/output Ethernet switches connecting arrays of Xeon and ultra-low-power 22-nanometer Atom “Avoton” system-on-chip (SoC) processors to networking racks and server-farms.

Supercomputer Interconnection Fabrics Based on Silicon

For the past decade, Intel has been developing all the necessary silicon-photonic components to bring down the cost of supercomputer-caliber fiber-optical interconnection fabrics. Doing permits the selection of architectural features based on performance and energy efficiency, rather than on minimizing the amount of copper used in the interconnect. Intel now has emitters (lasers), electrical-to-optical converters (modulators) and detectors (photo diodes) all made from inexpensive silicon, rather that the exotics gallium-arsenide compounds used in supercomputer-caliber interconnection fabrics today.

After developing the separate components, Intel has spent the last two years perfecting the architecture so it can handle the entire interconnection task with inexpensive silicon components. The company is now delivering engineering samples of its new photonics receptacle to the Open Computer Foundation, in cooperation with optical-fiber maker Corning and the owner of the world’s first photonic-enabled mega-datacenter, Facebook. 

Open Computer Project (OCP) Seeks Standardization

“Developing in the open and contributing to the Open Compute Project will accelerate the pace of innovation,” says Frank Frankovsky, vice president of hardware design at Facebook and chairman of the Open Compute Foundation. “With these technologies, the entire industry can close the utilization gap that exists in today’s system designs.”

Besides lowering the cost of ownership, extending the lifetime of each type of resource–since they can be upgraded separately–disaggregated mega-datacenters also eliminate performance bottlenecks while shrinking the datacenter’s footprint and lowering its power consumption, according to Frankovsky.

Intel and Facebook are both founding members of the Open Computer Project (OCP) and are working together with others to standardize OCP boards for Xeon and Atom processors as compute resources, smart-storage resources and other devices capable of using Intel’s photonic receptacle.

10 people have been arrested for their involvement in spreading the ‘Yahos’ malware and its multiple variants, which infected more than 11 million computer systems. The ‘Butterfly Botnet’ – responsible for driving the malware attacks – steals credit card numbers, bank account details and other personal identifiable information belonging to the user of the compromised device.

The FBI said the attacks caused over $850 million (£527 million) in damage to its victims.

Facebook appears to have been instrumental in resolving the incident, with its security team providing “assistance to law enforcement throughout the investigation by helping to identify the root cause, the perpetrators, and those affected by the malware,” says the FBI. Yahos targeted Facebook users from 2010 to October 2012, giving the social network the intelligence to see how victims were being attacked and supply tools to remove these threats.

The ten arrests included individuals in the UK and US, as well as Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, New Zealand and Peru.

Despite the damage already caused, the investigation represents a coup for the FBI and US Department of Justice. Alongside their international counterparts, the organisations are fighting to bring down figures that estimate 1.5 million people are hit by cybercrime every day, with consumer cybercrime costing £69 billion a year. But in our recent analysis, experts involved in the sector told ITProPortal that cybercrime policing remains completely inadequate.
by Will Dalton,

Facebook is now rolling out encryption technology to all users.

“As announced last year, we are moving to HTTPS for all users,” Facebook’s Shireesh Asthana wrote in a blog post. ”This week, we’re starting to roll out HTTPS for all North America users and will be soon rolling out to the rest of the world.”

HTTPS, or Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure, keeps data encrypted as it travels between your web browser and servers and is mostly used for things like banks and credit card company web sites.

Initially, Facebook used HTTPS whenever your password was sent to the social networking site. In an effort “to keep your data even more secure,” Facebook said in January 2011 that it would provide the option to encrypt an account at all times. At the time, the company said it hoped “to offer HTTPS as a default whenever you are using Facebook sometime in the future.”

Facebook gave app developers until 1 October, 2011 to support HTTPS. “We feel that HTTPS is an essential option to protect the security of Facebook accounts, and since Apps on Facebook are an important part of the site, support for HTTPS in your app is critical to ensure user security,” Facebook said last year.

A similar option is available for Gmail, Hotmail, and Twitter.

As Facebook noted last year, enabling HTTPS might make the social network a tad sluggish.

“Encrypted pages take longer to load, so you may notice that Facebook is slower using HTTPS,” Facebook said.

by Chloe Albanesius

Social media giant, Facebook, has revealed that it needs to raise approximately $5 billion though an extra share sale later this year for covering a tax bill on behalf of its employees.

The proposed sale of shares is actually a byproduct of the benefit its early executives and near about three thousand rank-and-file-employees are likely to earn once the company goes public.

According to the initial public offering Facebook filed with the US regulators, the combined value of shares owned by the former as well as present executives and employees of the company will stand at over $23 billion. The figure is larger than the overall valuation of Yahoo! in the stock market.

“Around half of the stock benefits that Facebook has handed to its employees since 2005 are set to vest six months after it goes public, meaning that workers will be able to sell the shares,” read a Financial Times report.

“Though the event will also trigger an immediate tax bill though the event will also trigger an immediate tax bill,” it added. Facebook is planning to cover this bill from the company’s funds.

Facebook has been subjected to some severe criticism, for the high level of control that the co-founder as well as chief executive, Mark Zucherberg will enjoy after the company’s initial public stock offer.

Institutional Shareholder Services, a known proxy advisory firm, in a recent report has commented on the dual class stock structure that will give Zuckerberg more rights to vote, as compared to the public shareholders. This will make Facebook emulate Zynga, along with other such organisations.

The firm noted that, “Facebook appears to have taken the same outdated dance lessons as many other recent tech sector debutantes,” reported Wall Street Journal.

In the regulatory filings, Facebook has been identified as a “controlled company” which means that above 50 per cent of the power, for electing directors, has been held by only one person, corporation or a group. A Facebook spokesman has refused to make any comment on these findings.

Facebook expects developers to come up with thousands more applications

The online social network firm unveiled more than 60 new apps that users can share on their Facebook profiles, known as their Timeline.

Users can already share the music they are listening to or news articles they are reading.

But this latest development expands the number of apps significantly.

Tech watchers have described the activity as “frictionless sharing”. Once users sign up for the apps, they will automatically share your activity through Facebook.

The company, tipped for a $100bn initial public offering, is looking for new ways to get people to spend more time on the site – which will attract more advertising.

The latest apps include Ticketmaster, movie review site Rotten Tomatoes, and Foodspotting. But developers are expected to create many more apps.

“We think that thousands of applications will be built on this platform in the coming weeks and months,” said Carl Sjogreen, Facebook director of platform products, at the launch of the apps in San Francisco.

Timeline is a feature that Facebook says can turn users’ personal profiles into virtual scrapbooks.

It can over the years catalogue aspects of the user’s life and preferences, from travel to favourite books.

There will be security settings available so that users can limit who will be able to follow their activities.