The disappearance of cash – advances in payment technology

Speaker: Tim Lambertstock, Technology Strategy Manager, Voca

Abstract: The ever increasing use of cards and electronic payments has done little to reduce the use of cash, particularly for low-value payments. This talk will discuss how some recent and forthcoming advances in technology could change this. Topics covered will include contactless and mobile payments enabled by near field communications (NFC) and the UK faster payments scheme aimed at internet bank payments.

Description: Low-value payments usually refer to retail transactions which would normally be made in cash, typically for amounts less than £10. The recent agreement on standards for near field communications (NFC) technology – a specific type of RFID – may revolutionise the way in which such payments are made. NFC chips can be embedded in credit, debit and pre-pay payment cards as well as mobile phones and can communicate with readers in shops, vending machines and entrance gates. This talk will describe the current state of deployment of this technology and the impact that it may have on consumer behaviour. This talk will also look at the way in which the UK Faster Payments service, that will be introduced during 2007, has been used to overcome limitations in legacy bank systems to enable Internet bank customers and businneses to be able to make immediate payments.

Speaker bio: Tim joined Voca (then BACS) in 1999 to lead the development of the vision and architecture for a major programme to upgrade the BACS payment service. The first phase – BACSTEL-IP – went live in late 2002 and migration of customers from BACSTEL was completed at the end of 2005 with the core mainframe systems shut down in July 2006. For the last three years, he has been mostly involved in developing new products and services that leverage Voca’s trusted but bank-neutral market position and technology. This has included work on innovative payment methods, the financial supply chain and security. Prior to joining Voca, Tim spent over 20 years in various IT strategy and management roles. He is a member of the BCS and sits on the Oxfordshire Branch Committee.

Climate Prediction and Digital Preservation: Predicting the Future and Preserving the Past

Introduction

This is a Joint Session with North Wales & Chester Branch, with presentations given at RAL and DL, brought together using a video conference link.

The presentations on Climate Prediction and Digital Preservation will be given by senior consultants from Tessella Support Services, a consultany which uses a unique blend of scientific, engineering and It skills to solve the most complex technical and business problems.

Abstract

Two of the biggest problems facing society could be Global Warming and Loss of Digital Data. This presentation will address some of the issues involved, and potential solutions.

One presentation will review the climateprediction.net project; the world's largest experiment to try to produce a forecast of the climate in the 21st century. To do this, people around the world give time on their computers – time when they have their computers switched on, but are not using them to their full capacity.
Keith Norman will look at the background to the experiment, and how software is helping scientists to understand the global climate.

The second presentation will consider some of the issues surrounding Digital Preservation: ensuring that the digital information we create and store today will continue to be accessible for as long as we may need it. Industry commentators have raised the prospect of a 'digital dark age' stretching from the late 20th to the early 21st century, as huge amounts of digital information are at risk of being lost.
Peter Lloyd will discuss the problems and some of the solutions based on experience assisting a number of clients throughout the world.

Press Release

Climate Prediction and Digital Preservation: Predicting the Future and Preserving the Past

Venue: CCLRC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Chilton, Oxfordshire; CCLRC Daresbury Laboratory at Daresbury in Cheshire
Date: 26 October 2006, 7:00pm for 7:30pm

The British Computer Society presents two talks on how information technology is being used to predict the future and preserve the past. The first talk reviews the climateprediction.net project; which is the world's largest experiment to attempt to forecast the climate of the 21st century. The second talk, on digital preservation, looks at how we can ensure that the digital information we create today will continue to be accessible for as long as we may need it.

This session is one of the first by the BCS to be based in two locations – with one talk at CCLRC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Chilton, Oxfordshire, the other at CCLRC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Chilton, Oxfordshire. Attendees at each site will be able to attend both talks via the use of a video link. The Oxfordshire and Chester & North Wales branches of the BCS are organising this event, with the talks being given by senior consultants from Tessella Support Services.

In order to predict the world's climate for the 21st century it is necessary to run sophisticated computer models that require vast amounts of computer processing power to run, so extremely long runs on supercomputers would be needed to get meaningful results. climateprediction.net, developed by a partnership between the Universities of Oxford and Reading, the CCLRC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, Tessella, the Met Office, and others, distributes a version of the model to tens of thousands of members of the public for running on home and office PCs. Each model has a different set of parameters, and runs in the background for several months on each PC,
returning data to a central server. In this way it is possible to create a distributed, single purpose, supercomputer at a very low cost which has a processing capacity much greater than any existing supercomputers. Dr Keith Norman from Tessella will present this talk, looking at the background to the experiment, and how software is helping scientists to understand the global climate.

Technology is now changing so fast that standard business computers of two decades ago are consigned to museums. In this context, industry commentators have raised the prospect of a 'digital dark age' stretching from the late 20th to the early 21st century, as huge
amounts of digital information are at risk of being lost. The second of the talks will explore the issues surrounding Digital Preservation and how we ensure that the digital information we create and store today will continue to be accessible for as long as we may need it.
Peter Lloyd of Tessella will discuss the problems and some of the solutions based on experience assisting a number of clients throughout the world.

Admission is free, and open to non-members, but you must register for this
event as spaces are limited. Please register your interest in an e-mail to events-cnw@bcs.org.uk. The event starts at 6:30pm at both locations with coffee and sandwiches, with the talks proper beginning at 7:00pm.

Notes for editors

Established in 1957, the British Computer Society (BCS) is the leading body for those working in IT.

With a world-wide membership now over 50,000 members in over 100 countries, BCS is the qualifying body for Chartered IT Professionals (CITP).

BCS was incorporated by Royal Charter in 1984. Its objects are to promote the study and practice of computing and to advance knowledge of and education in IT for the benefit of the public. BCS is also a registered charity.

BCS is licensed by the Engineering Council to award Chartered Engineer status (CEng) and Incorporated Engineer status (IEng); and more recently by the Science Council to award Chartered Scientist status (CSci).

Founded in 1980, Tessella specializes in the application of innovative software solutions to scientific, technical and engineering problems, and its offices within the UK, US and the Netherlands have built long-term relationships with organizations at the leading edge of the scientific and engineering world. Tessella is vendor independent and recommends 'best of breed' solutions, whether this involves custom software development or off-the-shelf solutions

Further information

General background on Grid Computing Grid Computing or more specifically on ClimatePrediction.net.

Further background on Digital Preservation is summarised at Preserving Access to Digital Information

Committee owner: Brian Day

Extending existing applications for secure mobile use – how tough can that be?

Wireless Security for the Enterprise

by Stef Coetzee

Significant gains are being promised to businesses by extending the reach of an enterprise and providing wireless access to applications that were previously available only via internal LAN access or occasional dial-up by mobile field workers, telecommuters, and business partners. However, as with most technology advances, remote access via wireless networks also creates substantial security risks for those who are unprepared – whether using wide area wireless (provided by wireless carriers such as Orange, O2, Vodafone or T-Mobile) and/or wireless LANs (either installed and operated by an enterprise or in hot-spots).

When enterprises add mobile access via wireless networks (Wireless LAN or Wireless WAN (Wide-Area Networks) to their remote access methods, user authentication and data security become significantly more complex and challenging than they are on wired or tethered networks. Data traversing a wireless environment is vulnerable to corruption, eavesdropping, and unauthorized access. Traditional VPN (Virtual Private Network) technologies such as IPSec and SSL may seem to solve the security problems, but they are not designed to work over wireless networks. They are slow and crash frequently – if they work at all.

This talk takes a look at the issues against a backdrop of industry trends and business drivers. It explores traditional approaches to offering secure remote access solutions and evaluates them against the criteria for a mobile, secure, remote access solution that provides strong encryption and industrial-strength security specifically for mobile workers using wireless networks. It will look at the balance between a user-transparent solution that does not deomand user training, distraction or intervention together with the facilities required to lower IT support and management costs. It will conclude with a shopping-list of required features needed to offer a mobile VPN that is optimised for WWAN, WLAN or any other IP-based network mobile workers use for remote access, including home networks, dial-up, and public and private hotspots.

The Machine That Enjoys Christmas: Whither Machine Consciousness?

by Igor Aleksander

Committee owner: Sheila

Abs: I shall look at progress in AI and the way in which some recent efforts have turned towards computational models of consciousness. I shall demonstrate some of our own work on visual consciousness based on brain modelling. This includes a consideration of emotions – so the machine might indeed enjoy Christmas!
— /Sheila Lloyd Lyons (2006–04–07 14:22:15)

Viruses and Malware, How many more threats are there?

Speaker Stuart Taylor, Manager SophosLabs UK,

Stuart has spent the last 9 years working in the labs at Sophos Plc. During his time there, he has seen the virus threat grow from a handful of new viruses each month to approaching 5000 new threats each month. Stuart has been at the forefront of the fight against an ever increasing range of threats which has necessitated growing
SophosLabs from a few people in the UK to a 24 x 7 operation over 3 continents. Prior to joining Sophos Plc Stuart graduated from Aston University in Birmingham with a degree in Electrical and Electronic Engineering. He has worked as a software engineer, mainly working with embedded processors, in industries such as fork lift truck automation, defence, air traffic control systems and in the music industry, writing software for mixing console for recording studios.

Synopsis:
In the last 10 years the number of threats has increased 10 fold with approximately 5000 new threats being seen every month. The presentation will cover the rapid rise in the number of threats and the changing nature of those threats. It will discuss some of the issues faced by both vendors and consumers in protecting themselves against this global problem. The presentation will look at some of the myths surrounding protection and explore the reality of providing a rapid response against the unknown threat.

Committee owner: Geoff

PhD Open Evening

Short presentations by three or four PhD students.
Prize for best paper.

Committee owner: Brian Read

Note: not scheduled as part of the 2006/7 programme.
Superseded by session on Secure Distributed Healthcare:

http://www.oxon.bcs.org/program2006–7.htm#Feb

Visit to Unipart RFID lab

The RFID-enabled supply chain

Date: 22 March 2007
Time: 19:30 (coffee and biscuits from 19:00)
Venue: Unipart Logistics, Unipart House, Garsington Road, Cowley, Oxford OX4 2PG http://www.unipartlogistics.com/
Speaker: Visit to Unipart Advanced Logistics Centre
Numbers are restricted and those intending to attend will need to register in advance to avoid delays at Security (this site is busy 24X7)
[we'll need to agree how to handle registrations – I can probably do this by e-mail to tim.l unless Adrian has any clever ideas via the website. In fact we are limited to 50 people, so this should not be a problem]

AdrianWalmsley /04.08.2006 13:15/ Probably easiest to use a simple form which generates an email

Abstract: Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) has attracted huge interest as a technology, particularly within logistics, but suitable applications and the cost-benefit is only starting to become clear. We have been given the rare opportunity of a hosted tour of the facility that Unipart has set-up in Oxford to test the impact and benefits of RFID deployment in terms of strategy, people and process.

Description: Unipart Logistics has set up a dedicated centre to improving business process through the use of RFID technology. The 100,000 sq ft facility, called the Advanced Logistics Centre (ALC), developed and perfected over five years, is a 3D, large-scale model that replicates the end-to-end supply chain, linking raw material supplier to the final customer. The ALC encompasses all supply chain business steps and processes, IT functionality, and IT infrastructure. This enables the business community to simulate new, advanced logistics processes and technology in a real-world but risk-free environment, to test the impact and benefits of RFID deployment in terms of strategy, people and process. Underpinned by SAP’s RFID platform, the system uses Intermec’s RFID readers and printers. The ALC simulates a real-life environment, complete with raw materials, picking systems, pallets and supermarket shelves complete with real goods, to create a physical representation of the cost benefits of RFID technology throughout the supply chain.

Committee owner: Tim

Branch Visit

A day trip to see Concord at Filton
Committee owner: TBD

Ruby On Rails

Our speaker on this interesting and hot topic is Jonathan Conway of Agile Evolved : cv and abstract below.

CV

Jonathan Conway is the Director of Agile Evolved, a Ruby on Rails consultancy based in London.

After being a staunch Java purist for several years, Jonathan stumbled upon Ruby on Rails in August 2004 and was immediately impressed by the simplicity and productivity gains offered by this new web development framework.

He was so taken with Ruby on Rails that he left his job as the Technical and Team Lead for Netengines Worldwide Ltd to startup his own company specialising in Ruby on Rails development, training and support.

Before being enamored with Ruby on Rails, Jonathan had worked on several diverse projects ranging from online financial portals, real-time trading applications for Java enabled mobile devices and even rich user interfaces utilising Javascript and the DOM years before it became the “in thing”.

Abstract

Ruby on Rails is the new darling of the web's digerati and has taken the web development world by storm. It can be found to power a large proportion of the latest and greatest of the Web 2.0 world, but why is this?

The talk will cover the following topics:

• A brief overview of Ruby on Rails
• Ruby as an aesthetic language
• Ruby based DSL's and their use within Rails
• Beautiful testing with Rails
• Javascript-less Javascript with RJS

More info

As the Rails home page says, Ruby on Rails is an open source Web framework that's optimised for programmer happiness and sustainable productivity. It lets you write beautiful code by favouring convention over configuration.

Screencasts and presentations and more info in the Ruby on Rails wiki

See aso the Wikipedia entry

Our January 2006 speaker, Peter Gradwell, is providing Ruby on Rails hosting

Joint session with the BCS OSSG

Committee owners: Adrian and Farough

Congestion Charge Project and AGM

A talk on the technical and management challenges of the Transport for London Congestion Charge project.
See http://www.rpa.org/ra/summary_turner.html for a summary of another talk he has given on this subject.

Speaker: Derek Turner, CBE.
Derek was Transport for London's Managing Director of Street Management and the chief architect of the Congestion Charge.
In 2005 he was appointed Highways Agency National Traffic Director.
See http://www.tnn.co.uk/UKNews/Highways/plonearticle.2005-03-08.1750474385 for a fuller CV 

Committee owner: Adrian