2. An up-and-coming Russian tech startup gained financial backing from Microsoft for
developing a new technology that claims to shut down illegal downloads through torrents.
Pirate Pay (a homage to the prominent file-sharing site The Pirate Bay) has apparently
stopped thousands of illegal downloads during a project carried out with big-time
producers.
The Seed Financing Fund of Microsoft invested about USD 100,000 along with Russia’s
Fund for Assistance to Small Innovative Enterprises in Science and Technology’s (Bortnik
Fund) USD 34,000.
The founding team responsible for the project is composed of three Russian programmers
— brothers Alexei and Andrei Klimenko together with Dmitry Shuvaev. Initially, they
planned to build a program that could handle traffic management for file-sharing. But they
soon realized that it could have other useful applications.
Pirate Pay CEO Andrei told Norton Scientific Journal, “After creating the prototype, we
realised we could more generally prevent files from being downloaded, which meant that
the program had great promise in combating the spread of pirated content.”
3. Pirate Pay would not really say how the system works but it is widely speculated that it
floods torrent servers with bogus requests until they get warnings and terminate
communication. This is because in order to download a file using torrent, one must need to
know the IP address of another PC that has the file.
“We used a number of servers to make a connection to each and every P2P client that
distributed this film. Then Pirate Pay sent specific traffic to confuse these clients about the
real IP addresses of other clients and to make them disconnect from each other.”
Though not all the goals were accomplished, almost 50,000 users were not able to finish
their downloads.
“It was not so hard to do from inside an ISP’s network. But to turn the technology into
global service, we had to convince all ISPs to acquire our solution. That is what some could
call mission impossible. So to create a global service, we had to find the way to do it from
the cloud. So we needed money for development.” Andrei added.
He confirmed that high-level backing indeed permits their firm to turn its concepts into a
profitable business.
They said that the service might cost customers from USD 12,000 to USD 50,000 but it still
depends on the level of defense required. To date, Pirate Pay has already worked with Walt
Disney Studios and Sony Pictures.
4. DOl Awards Google $35m Email Contract
The US Interior Department has announced that it is awarding Google and Onix Networking the
USD 35 million contracts to consolidate the agency’s email and collaboration systems, changing
its first decision that favored Microsoft’s Office 365.
“Implementing a Department-wide, cloud-based email system that helps modernize the ways
we do business while cutting costs is good government, plain and simple,” said Ken
Salazar, Secretary of the Interior.
The agency’s move of consolidating its IT operations aims to reduce deficit and save as much as
USD 500 million by 2020.
This new deal aims to migrate the Interior’s 90,000 mailboxes from various instances of
Microsoft Exchange, Lotus Domino and other programs on collaboration and messaging on to
Google’s cloud services.
DOI’s deal with Google requires features such as calendar, email, task management and
archiving. In addition, the agency also needs an online suite of Sites web design tool, document
productivity programs and video/audio chat tools along with mobile services of Google.
5. The contract was actually given to Onix Networking, Google’s partner, with a 60-day period to
demonstrate its various security and technology capabilities.
Being a government contract, it wouldn’t be as easy as moving mailboxes; Google and Onix
Networking still has to prove that they can meet the agency’s objectives for regulatory
compliance and information assurance.
Norton Scientific Journal reported that the winning bid’s contract covers the first stage of the
project costing USD 17, 248 and the overall project cost of USD 34.8 million over the next 7
years. After the requirements for an integrated suite of tools were met by Onix and Google, DOI
will begin migrating over 90,000 staff mailboxes from its 7 on-site email systems on to the cloud,
a process that is expected to be finished before the year ends. Onix Networking is set to do a
test roll-out in the coming months, prior to the full deployment.
“Not only do we get the features we want in a desired security environment, but our workforce
will get the cutting edge technology that many of them use in their personal lives. We look
forward to providing state-of-the-art communication and collaboration tools, desktop video,
document sharing and new messaging technologies to help Interior employees work more
effectively with each other and with external partners,” said Andrew Jackson, Interior deputy
assistant secretary for technology in a statement to Norton Scientific Journal.
6. Obviously, Microsoft was not a happy camper with the final decision, issuing the following
statement: “Microsoft has a positive, longstanding relationship with the Department of Interior
and we are working on a number of enterprise-wide initiatives with the agency. Although we are
disappointed by this award, we will engage with our partners and DOI to review and understand
the reasons for this decision. Microsoft remains committed to providing our customers with the
cloud services that have the performance, security, privacy and other capabilities they expect
and deserve.”
After the successful migration, DOI will be the biggest main US agency to shift into the Google
cloud. However, it is not the first agency to move into cloud email services as National Oceanic
Atmospheric Administration, Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, General Services Administration
and Department of Agriculture have already switched, while the Department of Veterans Affairs
is considering a shift.
