PM: India developing 'new model' for global integration
London: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has welcomed foreign direct investment into India in a meeting with top CEOs of Britain.

He also said that India is working on a "new model" to integrate itself with the increasingly interdependent global economy.

Singh also said privatisation as an ideology was not acceptable.

"We do not accept privatisation as an ideology. We do not take ideological view of privatisation but take a pragmatic view and, wherever it serves national purpose, we will pursue privatisation" he said.
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World Bank consultants to be part of Plan panel
London: The Planning Commission has made it clear that foreign representatives from World Bank and other multilateral agencies will continue in its consultative committees set up for mid-term appraisal of the 10th Five-Year Plan.

Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission Montek Singh Ahluwalia was talking to reporters on board Prime Minister's special aircraft on way to London last night. Ahluwalia is a member of the high-level delegation accompanying Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to New York.

The mid-term appraisal will be completed by December-end and then sent to the National Development Council for its consideration. Asked about strong demands from Left parties to drop these representatives from the consultative bodies, Ahluwalia, said the Government position has been explained to them and they have shown a better understanding.

He said these representatives were on committees relating to agriculture, water resources and transport with the primary objective to share their vast experiences in various countries.
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Symantec releases bi-annual Internet security threat report Cupertino, USA: Symantec Corp., the global leader in information security, has released its newest Internet Security Threat Report. The sixth bi-annual report provides analysis and discussion of trends in Internet attacks, vulnerabilities, and malicious code activity for the period of Jan. 1, 2004 to June 30, 2004.

Key Findings
Increased threats to e-Commerce: During this reporting period, e-Commerce was the single most targeted industry, with nearly 16 percent of attacks against it. This represents a 400-percentage increase from the four percent reported during the previous six months. This rise may indicate a shift from attacks motivated by notoriety to attacks motivated by economic gain. This possibility is further illustrated by an increase in phishing scams and spyware designed to steal confidential information and pass it along to attackers.

Attacks against web application technologies are increasingly popular: Web application technologies are appealing targets for attacks because of their widespread deployment within organizations and the relative ease with which they can be exploited. Web applications allow attackers to gain access to the target system simply by penetrating one end-user's computer, bypassing traditional perimeter security measures. Nearly 82 percent of documented Web application vulnerabilities were classified as easy to exploit, thereby representing a significant threat to an organization's infrastructure and critical information assets.

Short time between vulnerability and exploit: According to the report, the time between the announcement of a vulnerability and the release of associated exploit code was extremely short. Symantec data indicates that over the past six months, the average vulnerability-to-exploit window was just 5.8 days. Once an exploit has been released, the vulnerability is often widely scanned for and quickly exploited. This short window leaves organizations with less than a week to patch vulnerable systems.

Rise in Bot networks: Adding to concern about the short vulnerability-to-exploit window is the growth in bots (short for "robot"). Bots are programs that are covertly installed on a targeted system, allowing an unauthorized user to remotely control the computer for a wide variety of purposes. Attackers often coordinate large groups of bot-controlled systems, or bot networks, to scan for vulnerable systems and use them to increase the speed and breadth of their attacks. During the first six months of 2004, the average number of monitored bots rose from under 2,000 to more than 30,000 per day — peaking at 75,000 in one day. Bot networks create unique problems for organizations because they can be remotely upgraded with new exploits very quickly, which could potentially allow attackers to outpace an organization's security efforts to patch vulnerable systems.

Increase in severe, easy-to-exploit vulnerabilities: Symantec documented more than 1,237 new vulnerabilities between January 1 and June 30, 2004, an average of 48 new vulnerabilities per week. Seventy percent of these vulnerabilities were considered easy to exploit, and 96 percent were considered moderately or highly severe. Consequently, organizations must contend with an average of more than seven new vulnerabilities per day, and a significant percentage of these vulnerabilities could result in a partial or complete compromise of the targeted system.

Attack Trends
— The Slammer worm was the most common attack over the past six months, with 15 percent of attacking IP addresses performing an attack related to it. Gaobot and its variants were the second most common attack, increasing by more than 600 percent over the past six months.

—Overall, the daily volume of attacks is decreasing due to a decline in Internet-based worm attack activity over the first six months of 2004. e-Commerce received the most targeted attacks of any industry during this period; small business received the second most.

—The United States was the top attack source country with 37 percent, down from 58 percent in the previous six months. Other countries rose accordingly, indicating that attack activity is becoming more international.

Symantec has some of the most comprehensive sources of threat data in the world. The findings of the Internet Security Threat Report are based on data from Symantec Deep Sight Threat Management System and Symantec Managed Security Services customers as well as from 20,000 security devices deployed in more than 180 countries.

Symantec is the global leader in information security providing a broad range of software, appliances and services designed to help individuals, small and mid-sized businesses, and large enterprises secure and manage their IT infrastructure. Symantec's Norton brand of products is the worldwide leader in consumer security and problem-solving solutions.
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Samsung introduces 667MHz mobile application processor
Seoul, South Korea: Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., has announced a mobile application processor with speeds of 667MHz. This mobile application processor is expected to enable diverse multimedia content in 3G mobile handheld devices such as smart phones and PDAs.

By introducing a structured custom design methodology at the integrated circuit design and evaluation process levels, Samsung was able to increase the speed of its mobile application processor.

To further support seamless real time video images and high-density multimedia services, the mobile application processor carries up to 64 Kilobytes of cache memory.

The new technology includes all the computing characteristics of current mobile processors with an embedded vector floating point co-processor enabling simultaneously computing of irregular decimal points along with fixed numbers. Design engineers implementing this technology will see enhanced graphics, 3D gaming and digital audio features.

Key Technology Features
Core: ARM1020E; Core Clock: 667MHz @ 1.35V: Bus Clock: 133MHz; Six Pipelines; Multi-layer Bus Structure for Multimedia
Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. is a global leader in semiconductor, telecommunication, digital media and digital convergence technologies with 2003 parent company sales of US$36.4 billion and net income of US$5.0 billion.
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Samsung reveals industry's first 2-Gigabit DDR2 SDRAM
Seoul, South Korea: Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., has announced the industry's first 2-Gigabit (Gb) DDR2 SDRAM utilizing 80-nanometer (nm) process technology. The high density DDR2 solution will enhance server and workstation performance and enable faster deployment of memory intensive applications like real time video conference, remote medical service, two-way communications, and 3-D graphics.

Samsung developed the DDR2 SDRAM using an advanced 80nm process technology, overcoming the industry expectations that 2Gb DRAM manufacture would require sub 65nm circuitry.

The new DRAM technology breakthroughs include a 3-D transistor technology, recess channel array transistor (RCAT), and a new concept architecture process. First introduced 2003, RCAT is a technology unique to Samsung that reduces transistor area space by implementing a 3-D structural design, increasing the integration level for higher density on a given area.

To address the high performance features of the DDR2 specification, Samsung adopted a double poly gate technology, 20-angstrom level ultra thin oxide film process, and a triple-layer metal circuitry. The high speed process technology coupled with the feasible 80nm technology also advances the time-to-market availability of the new DDR2 device.

Market research firm Gartner Dataquest forecasts that DDR2 technology's market share will grow from 11 percent this year to 50 percent by year-end 2005, making DDR2 the mainstream DRAM product.

Samsung plans to launch mass production of the 80nm process, 2Gb DDR2 SDRAM in the second half of 2005. The 2Gb DDR2 devices meet fine-pitch ball grid array (FBGA) package specifications for DDR2. Even without modifications, the devices can directly drive module density levels of Gigabyte (GB) scale; 2GB, 4GB and 8GB.

Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. is a global leader in semiconductor, telecommunication, digital media and digital convergence technologies with 2003 parent company sales of US$36.4 billion and net income of US$5.0 billion.
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Samsung develops industry's first 60-nanometer 8-Gigabit NAND flash memory
Seoul, South Korea: Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., the leader in advanced semiconductor technology, has announced that it has developed the industry's first 60-nanometer (nm) 8-Gigabit (Gb) NAND Flash memory device for data storage medium, such as low-density mobile hard disks for mobile appliances. The industry has seen densities grow from 256 Megabit (Mb) in 1999, to 512Mb in 2000, 1Gb in 2001, 2Gb in 2002, 4Gb in 2003 and now 8Gb in 2004.

Samsung's advanced 60nm process technology is two thousandths the width of a piece of human hair, and achieves approximately 30 percent reduction in cell size over the 70nm 4Gb NAND Flash memory developed last year. The result is the world's smallest 0.0082um(2) per bit cell size.

The key to development at such high densities and fine circuitry design is a 3-D cell transistor structure and high-dielectric gate insulating technology that minimizes the interference level between cells. In addition, by utilizing the most widely used KrF lithography technology bit cost is reduced by 50 percent.

Samsung is further enhancing its technology base by introducing its new multi level cell (MLC) technology in the 60nm process technology. The new 8Gb MLC NAND flash memory broadens the company's flash memory portfolio, meeting increasing market demand for efficient and cost effective non-volatile storage devices. MLC technology also offers designers a competitive choice for low power, small form factor storage solutions that enable low-density mobile internal hard disks (HDD) for compact mobile applications.

The 8Gb NAND flash memory will allow designs of up to 16Gigabytes (GB) of storage on a single memory card. Those 16GBs of memory translate into storage of up to 16 hours of DVD quality video or 4,000 (five minutes per song) MP3 audio files.

The company is focused on accelerating production of advanced devices with 2Gb NAND flash production shipping over 10 million pieces per month to date in 2004. Samsung expects to launch mass production of the 4Gb NAND flash by the first quarter of 2005. This year Samsung expects to double volume of NAND sales and account for 65 percent global market share.

Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. is a global leader in semiconductor, telecommunication, digital media and digital convergence technologies with 2003 parent company sales of US$36.4 billion and net income of US$5.0 billion.
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