European Commission starts the eHealth Network

According to the provisions of the Directive 2011/24/EU on Patients' Rights in Cross-border Healthcare, the European Commission has adopted a Decision establishing the eHealth Network. The Network will bring together the national authorities responsible for eHealth on a voluntary basis to work on common orientations for eHealth. The aim of the eHealth Network is to ensure EU wide interoperability of electronic health systems and wider use of eHealth as well as coordination, coherence and consistency of work on eHealth at EU level.

As highlighted by Commissioner for the Digital Agenda, Neelie Kroes, interoperable eHealth can help to improve the safety and efficiency of care of millions of Europeans who travel within the EU every year. The establishment of the Network represents the first time that the European legislator includes provisions on eHealth with a clear objective to achieve modern innovative solutions to deliver better health services to the citizens.

The eHealth Network is expected to translate the results of numerous research projects and pilot projects into real-life accessible services for European citizens. It is mandated to draw up guidelines on a minimum set of common data to be included in patients' summaries as well as effective methods to enable the use of medical information for public health and medical research.

Also, according to the Directive 2011/24/EU on the application of patients’ rights in cross-border healthcare, the eHealth Network will support Member States in developing common identification and authentication measures to facilitate transferability of data in cross-border healthcare.

Source : http://euroalert.net/en/news.aspx?idn=14284

More HTML5 in 2012

After that in 2011 webkit's family of browsers has shown the way, from tech titans like Zynga, Facebook, Microsoft, to startups just launching, the battle lines of 2012 will be drawn across the landscape of HTML5. Below are 14 bold predictions for how HTML5 will evolve in 2012.

Welcome to a more interconnected web:

In 2012, HTML5 will be adding support for some really useful and cool APIs that allow one
website to connect to another.

For example, Zynga games on Facebook run inside of iframes. Using the new postMessage APIthese games will be able to communicate within the containing Facebook frame directly. Before HTML5, inter-window communication had to rely on a remote server – or use unreliable hacks.

Another exciting addition is CORS (Cross Origin Resource Sharing). This will make it much easier for different websites to share information with one another. For example, CORS will enable startups to create photo-editing services that download your photos from Facebook, let you modify them, and then re-upload them – again without having to resort to ugly hacks.

With all of the new semantic information (see Semantics and Microdata) available with HTML5, it will become much easier to create web tools that extract information from web pages. As a result, you can expect to see a plethora of new mashup services, as well as better browser modes (like readers and translators).

Web browsers will look more like iPhones

Everyone loves Apple’s iOS. Now it’s coming to the HTML5 web. In 2012 your browsers will start
sporting push notifications, geolocation, and offline capable applications. Some browsers will likely adopt a more iOS-like user interface that will make the comparison all the more apt.

More and more applications will just be built in HTML5 instead of downloadable apps

If you’re like me, you already use web apps for email, calendars, and photo-sharing, but in 2012 more classes of applications will be HTML5 enabled. Next up, you can expect to see content creation apps like Inkscape and Illustrator emerge for HTML5 and start to catch on.

Internet Explorer & Microsoft will dramatically improve in coolness.

Internet explorer’s reputation will stop being “the browser where nothing works right” and start being “the fast browser”. Microsoft has made major investments into improving HTML5 performance that will give IE 10 a huge performance lead over competing browsers. Its hardware accelerated “canvas” will blow away all the other browsers in any speed test. Microsoft is also adding interesting ways for the HTML5 web and the desktop to work together that will really spice up its operating system. Having good support from IE will be the impetus that will really turn the tide in favor of authoring HTML5 applications.

Browser manufacturers will get into the App Store business

Taking a cue from Apple, browser manufacturers will start to realize that they are missing out by not being in the app store business. Google Chrome already has an integrated app-store as its splash page. Expect many other browsers to follow. This is actually a good thing for HTML5 application developers – it means more distribution opportunities for apps, although platform specific payment systems and platform revenue-shares will follow later on.

At least one major console game released or re-released using WebGL

In 2012, at least one AAA console game company is going to make the leap and decide to launch a 3D title on the web using WebGL instead of (or in addition to) creating a downloadable client. It might be a re-release of a well-known title (Like “Team Fortress 2″ or “Assassins Creed”), or another way to play a popular MMO (like “Eve Online” or “World of Warcraft”), or it may be an entirely new title launching for the first time.

Many more applications will use offline cache and will work offline

The offline application cache will dramatically improve the usability and speed of HTML5 apps. Querying a local database will allow applications to avoid a round-trip to the server, eliminating that laggy web-app feel that makes us all prefer native apps today.

In 2012, expect to see a few issues arise from this extended usage. You’ll lose your work by clearing your cache at least once or twice. Also expect security vulnerabilities to keep showing up that allow malicious applications to access private files stored on your computer by another
website.

HTML5 ads will become prevalent and overtake Flash ads

Website owners keen to monetize the increasingly large amount of traffic coming from iOS devices will demand HTML5 ads (rather than Flash ads). Startups will emerge to serve this market. These startups will solve the sand boxing, security, and authoring tools issues that this new market will face. Now that HTML5 is capable of doing everything that flash ads commonly do, it’s just a matter of time before they take over.

JavaScript will get a lot faster with better memory management and typed arrays

JavaScript has gotten really, really fast – it’s already among the world’s fastest scripting languages – but there is room for improvement. Google Chrome has started pushing the envelope on better memory management and garbage collection algorithms. This, combined with typed arrays, will bring JavaScript performance closer to more mature languages like Java.

Canvas will get hardware acceleration in more browsers (but no major mobile browsers)

Other browser makers will follow Internet Explorer’s lead and add hardware acceleration to their canvas implementations. Those that don’t will suffer a severe loss in mind-share. Firefox is most at-risk in this regard. If Mozilla fails to accelerate their canvas it risks being portrayed as the new IE — slow and bloated and burdened down with legacy code.

However, in 2012, no major mobile browsers will successfully roll out a hardware-accelerated canvas. We will have to wait until 2013 to start seeing that catch on.

People will play popular HTML5 games on their mobile devices from Zynga and others, but they will be very simple games

You can expect to see your friends playing games like Zynga Poker, Words with Friends, and Mafia Wars on their mobile phones, running purely in HTML5. These games will be played on both destination websites and within native applications (like the Facebook app).

However, successful HTML5 games on mobile devices will be limited to menu-based games, card games, board games, turn-based multiplayer games, and avatar customizer games. More complex and visually intensive Zynga “Ville” style games with isometric worlds or hundreds of animating sprites will not yet strike gold in 2012.

Facebook will release improved HTML5-based APIs that allow for more seamless integration with external websites

In its continued quest to be the de facto social-graph of the web, Facebook Connect will grow and expand to take advantage of new HTML5 features. This will allow even deeper and richer integration of Facebook connect with external websites and services.

Facebook will get a lot more seamlessly integrated with your desktop

Think drag-and-drop, file system access, photo synching, and widgets on your desktop. All of these features (and more) will start to blur the line between desktop and browser, bringing your social graph more closely into contact with your traditional desktop experience.

Apple will NOT fix HTML5 sound in mobile Safari

HTML5 sound used to work well in mobile Safari, back in the days iOS3. However, Apple disabled most of the API in iOS 4 and 5. It just introduces competition for iTunes — both the music store, and the App Store. In its continued fight to maintain total control over the Apple ecosystem, they will refrain from fixing HTML5 sound in 2012.

Source : http://techcrunch.com/2011/12/21/guide-to-html5-14-predictions-2012/

L’Uncam rétablit le supplément d’archivage pour des examens d’imagerie médicale

L’Union nationale des caisses d’assurance maladie (Uncam) a entériné la création d’un "supplément pour archivage numérique", applicable à 85 actes d’imagerie médicale à compter du 9 janvier 2012, soit presque 30 mois après l’annulation d’une disposition analogue par le Conseil d’Etat.

La décision du 28 septembre 2011 modifie la liste des actes et prescriptions pris en charge par l’assurance maladie et institue un "supplément pour archivage numérique d’un examen scanographique ou remnographique".

Son contenu est fortement inspiré de l’avenant n°24 à la convention médicale de 2007, qui avait créé une "option archivage" ouvrant droit à deux "suppléments", au profit des seuls radiologues libéraux.

Ces mesures avaient été annulées par le Conseil d’Etat en juillet 2009, en raison d’une "différence de traitement manifestement disproportionnée" avec les praticiens hospitaliers, et parce que la création d’actes nouveaux et la définition de leurs conditions de facturation relève des prérogatives de la seule Uncam.

Plus de deux ans après, la mesure est ainsi restaurée pour 45 actes de scanographie et 40 actes de remnographie et son tarif est fixé à 1,50 euro, contre 4 euros précédemment pour le même type d’examens.

Ce "supplément" est "destiné à financer les coûts d’acquisition et de maintenance du système d’archivage supportés par son exploitant", qui devra fournir "un document de nature comptable attestant de sa participation financière".

En revanche, il "n’est pas pris en charge lorsque le médecin ou la structure (…) a bénéficié d'une subvention, totale ou partielle, pour le système d’archivage et de gestion des images [PACS, ndr], à l’exception des PACS territoriaux intersites ou interétablissements agréés par une agence régionale de santé".

Le texte rappelle que la durée minimale légale d’archivage des données médicales est de vingt ans pour les établissements de santé et stipule que "la durée doit être au minimum de cinq ans" pour les médecins libéraux.

En outre, les images "doivent être disponibles en accès immédiat sur le site pendant au moins trois ans", c’est-à-dire en moins de cinq secondes pour la première image d’un scanner et en moins d’une minute pour une série complète de 600 images.

A cette fin, les données sont archivées "en format DICOM sans compression ou avec compression sans perte (DICOM lossless)". Au-delà des trois premières années, l’accès aux données "peut être différé" et "une compression plus importante sera admise (DICOM lossy)".

En matière d’interopérabilité, le respect de certaines normes HL7 et des profils IHE correspondants (KIN, PAM, PDQ, SWF) est "indispensable", quand "l’utilisation de l’identifiant national de santé (INS) est recommandée". De plus, "le système d’archivage de l’exploitant doit être interopérable avec les PACS qui relèvent de la région où il est implanté".

Enfin, "l’archivage des images doit faire l’objet d’une déclaration" à la Commission nationale de l’informatique et des libertés (Cnil) et "une procédure interne de contrôle qualité du système doit être mise en place".

La décision de l’Uncam est parue au Journal officiel le 10 décembre 2011 et prendra effet "à compter du trentième jour suivant sa publication", soit le lundi 9 janvier 2012.

Source : http://www.ticsante.com/show.php?page=story&id=1131

ANTIOXIDANT HAS POTENTIAL IN THE ALZHEIMER’S FIGHT

When you cut an apple and leave it out, it turns brown. Squeeze the apple with lemon juice, an antioxidant, and the process slows down.

Simply put, that same “browning” process — known as oxidative stress — happens in the brain as Alzheimer’s disease sets in. The underlying cause is believed to be improper processing of a protein associated with the creation of free radicals that cause oxidative stress.

Now, a study by researchers in the University of Georgia College of Pharmacy has shown that an antioxidant can delay the onset of all the indicators of Alzheimer’s disease, including cognitive decline. The researchers administered an antioxidant compound called MitoQ to mice genetically engineered to develop Alzheimer’s. The results of their study were published in the Nov. 2 issue of the Journal of Neuroscience.

According to the Alzheimer’s Society, more than 5 million Americans currently suffer from the neurodegenerative disease. Without successful prevention, almost 14 million Americans will have Alzheimer’s by 2050, accounting for healthcare costs of more than $1 trillion a year.

Oxidative stress is believed to cause neurons in the brain to die, resulting in Alzheimer’s. Study author James Franklin, an associate professor of pharmaceutical and biomedical sciences, has studied neuronal cell death and oxidative stress at UGA since 2004.

“The brain consumes 20 percent of the oxygen in the body even though it only makes up 5 percent of the volume, so it’s particularly susceptible to oxidative stress,” said Franklin, coauthor of the study along with Meagan McManus, who received her Ph.D. in neuroscience from UGA in 2010.

The UGA researchers hypothesized that antioxidants administered unsuccessfully by other researchers to treat Alzheimer’s were not concentrated enough in the mitochondria of cells. Mitochondria are structures within cells that have many functions, including producing oxidative molecules that damage the brain and cause cell death.

“MitoQ selectively accumulates in the mitochondria,” said McManus, who is now studying mitochondrial genetics and dysfunction as a postdoctoral researcher at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.

“It is more effective for the treatment to go straight to the mitochondria, rather than being present in the cell in general,” she said.

Although he had not previously conducted research on Alzheimer’s disease, Franklin was moved to approve McManus’ research proposal to take his laboratory research in a more clinical direction in part because of her family’s history with the disease.

“Two of my grandparents had Alzheimer’s disease, but they presented with it very differently. While my granddad often couldn’t remember who we were, he was still the same soulful funnyman I’d always loved. But the disease changed my grandmother’s mind in a different way, and turned her into someone we’d never known,” said McManus.

“So the complexity of the disease was most intriguing to me. I wanted to know how and why it was happening, and more importantly, how to stop it from happening to other people,” she said.

In their study, mice engineered to carry three genes associated with familial Alzheimer’s were tested for cognitive impairment using the Morris Water Maze, a common test for memory retention. The mice that had received MitoQ in their drinking water performed significantly better than those that didn’t. Additionally, the treated mice tested negative for the oxidative stress, amyloid burden, neural death and synaptic loss associated with Alzheimer’s.

The full paper is available online at http://www.jneurosci.org/content/31/44/15703.full.

Source : http://scienceblog.com/50946/antioxidant-has-potential-in-the-alzheimers-fight/

MitoQ

Introduction to Our Platform TechnologyMitochondria, present in all cells, provide energy for life processes. It is now recognized that mitochondrial dysfunction plays a role in the pathogenesis of several degenerative disorders. Antioxidants are the body's defense against free radicals. Antioxidants block the effects of oxidation, a chemical reaction that combines single electrons with oxygen to generate free radicals, which can attack and destroy cells.

Antipodean's proprietary targeted lipophilic cation technology prevents oxidative damage by concentrating antioxidants in mitochondria. MitoQ^® is targeted to mitochondria by covalent attachment to a lipophilic triphenylphosphonium cation. Because of the large mitochondria membrane potential, the cations accumulate within cellular mitochondria up to 1,000 fold, compared to non-targeted antioxidants such as Coenzyme Q or its analogues.  This accumulation enables the antioxidant moiety to block lipid peroxidation, and maintain the integrity of the mitochondria membrane by protecting it from oxidative damage.

Antipodean's lead compound MitoQ^® (mitoquinone) is a mitochondria-targeted antioxidant that selectively blocks mitochondrial oxidative damage and prevents cell death. Mitochondrial dysfunction underlies a wide range of degenerative diseases, in which oxidative stress plays a key pathogenic role, including such diseases as NASH, Type 2 diabetes, ischemic heart disease, among others. Therefore, protecting mitochondria from oxidative damage is a promising and innovative therapeutic strategy.

 

The lipophilic cation is accumulated 5- to 10- fold into the cytoplasm from the extracellular space by the plasma membrane potential and then further accumulated 100- to 500- fold into the mitochondrial matrix by the mitochondrial membrane potential.

MitoQ^® is being evaluated as an oral treatment for liver inflammation that leads to fibrosis and is associated with metabolic dysfunction.  The company is also investigating topical indications that involve mitochondrial dysfunction, including dermatologic applications and retinal degeneration. 

BIOCHEMICAL SIGNATURE PREDICTS PROGRESSION TO ALZHEIMER’S DISEASE

A study led by Research Professor Matej Orešič from VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland suggests that Alzheimer’s disease is preceded by a molecular signature indicative of hypoxia and up-regulated pentose phosphate pathway. This indicator can be analysed as a simple biochemical assay from a serum sample months or even years before the first symptoms of the disease occur. In a healthcare setting, the application of such an assay could therefore complement the neurocognitive assessment by the medical doctor and could be applied to identify the at-risk patients in need of further comprehensive follow-up.

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a growing challenge to the health care systems and economies of developed countries with millions of patients suffering from this disease and increasing numbers of new cases diagnosed annually with the increasing ageing of populations.

The progression of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is gradual, with the subclinical stage of illness believed to span several decades. The pre-dementia stage, also termed mild cognitive impairment (MCI), is characterised by subtle symptoms that may affect complex daily activities. MCI is considered as a transition phase between normal aging and AD. MCI confers an increased risk of developing AD, although the state is heterogeneous with several possible outcomes, including even improvement back to normal cognition.

What are the molecular changes and processes which define those MCI patients who are at high risk of developing AD? The teams led by Matej Orešič from VTT and Hilkka Soininen from the University of Eastern Finland set out to address this question, and the results were published on 13th Dec. 2011 in Translational Psychiatry.

The team used metabolomics, a high-throughput method for detecting small metabolites, to produce profiles of the serum metabolites associated with progression to AD. Serum samples were collected at baseline when the patients were diagnosed with AD, MCI, or identified as healthy controls. 52 out of 143 MCI patients progressed to AD during the follow-up period of 27 months on average. A molecular signature comprising three metabolites measured at baseline was derived which was predictive of progression to AD. Furthermore, analysis of data in the context of metabolic pathways revealed that pentose phosphate pathway was associated with progression to AD, also implicating the role of hypoxia and oxidative stress as early disease processes.

The unique study setting allowed the researchers to identify the patients diagnosed with MCI at baseline who later progressed to AD and to derive the molecular signature which can identify such patients at baseline.

Though there is no current therapy to prevent AD, early disease detection is vital both for delaying the onset of the disease through pharmacological treatment and/or lifestyle changes and for assessing the efficacy of potential AD therapeutic agents. The elucidation of early metabolic pathways associated with progression to Alzheimer’s disease may also help in identifying new therapeutic avenues.

This study was supported by the project “From patient data to personalised healthcare in Alzheimer’s disease” (PredictAD) which was supported by the European Commission under the 7th Framework Programme.

Reference:
M. Orešič, T. Hyötyläinen, S.-K. Herukka, M. Sysi-Aho, I. Mattila, T. Seppänan-Laakso, V. Julkunen, P. V. Gopalacharyulu, M. Hallikainen, J. Koikkalainen, M. Kivipelto, S. Helisalmi, J. Lötjönen, H. Soininen, Metabolome in progression to Alzheimer’s disease, Translational Psychiatry, 13th December 2011.

Further information:

VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland

Matej Orešič, Research Professor

tel. +358 20 722 4491, matej.oresic@vtt.fi

University of Eastern Finland

Hilkka Soininen, Professor

tel. +358 40 5735749, hilkka.soininen@uku.fi

Source : http://scienceblog.com/50952/biochemical-signature-predicts-progression-to-alzheimers-disease/

Googlemail integration for encrypting, decrypting or signing emails.

GPG4Browsers is a prototype implementation of the OpenPGP Message Format [RFC 4880]. The implementation is currently written as Chrome Browser Extension with a Googlemail integration for encrypting, decrypting or signing emails.

The OpenPGP implementation supports all asymmetric, symmetric ciphers (except IDEA) and hash functions specified in the standard and implements the following use cases:

• Encryption and decryption of messages
• Sign and verify message signatures
• Import and export of certificates

The implementation is compatible with the GnuPG implementation standard settings except the standard compression used. To create a compatible message in GnuPG use the option --compress-algo none.

Limitations and Licensing

The code is released under the GNU Lesser Public License.

The implementation currently not supports:

• Generation, manipulation or creation of signatures on keys
• Several signature types on keys
• Symmetric only encrypted messages
• Compressed data packets

Contributions

The following code of other projects has been modified or used for this project:

Component	Contributor
AES library	Herbert Hanewinkel
CAST5 library	pjacobs@xeekr.com with modifications from Herbert Hanewinkel
DES library	Paul Tero with modification from Michael Hayworth
Blowfish library	nklein software (Patrick Fleckenstein)
Twofish library	Atsushi Oka
SHA library	Brian Turek
MD5 library	Henri Torgemane
RIPEMD/160	Derek Buitenhuis
Base64 encoding library	Herbert Hanewinkel
JS BigNum library	Tom Wu
OpenPGP CFB	Partially from Herbert Hanewinkel
UI library	The jQuery Project

Get the code

The current release is available as ZIP archive here.

The source code is located in the following subversion repository:http://gpg4browsers.recurity.com/svn/gpg4browsers/

Install

To install the extension perform the following steps:

• Get the source code
• Open chrome://extensions in the google-chrome browser
• Enable the developer mode on the far right
• Click on "Load unpacked extension .." and select the source code folder where the manifest file is located
• Check the "Allow in incognito" option.

Setup

For using the Browser extension you need to import private and public OpenPGP keys. This can be done by using the extensions options page linked at chrome://extensions. The options page allows to search keys on a public key server which exposes the service at port 80.

Usage

• Login to google mail
• Click on the page action (on the right side of the address bar within your google mail tab) to create a openpgp message
• When an OpenPGP signed or encrypted message is displayed in the google mail interface a popup occurs allowing the mail to be opened with GPG4Browsers.

Documentation

The source code is documented using JavaDoc annotation. An architectural overview as well as example code can be found in the Developer Documentation (PDF).

Source : http://gpg4browsers.recurity.com/

IPv6 Wireless Internet IniTiative – 6WINIT

The 6WINIT project investigated the problems in introducing a range of IPv6-enabled applications over an IPv6-enabled wireless Internet. It covered the areas of end-stations, routers, gateways, generic technologies and applications – with specific emphasis on following the IPv6-related standards emerging in the IETF. Thus Mobile IP, Road Warrior technology, Quality of Service,
agent technology,  interworking across WLAN, GPRS and UMTS,  and security were of particular concern. Generic applications investigated included conferencing, voice over IP, video streaming, location-based services and home environments. There was specific emphasis on clinical applications, where secure mobile access was demonstrated to clinical data and radiographic images, and emergency treatment from ambulances for Accident and Emergency. Most of the work was in the context of Wireless LANs, since the access to and functionality of GPRS were very limited and the access to UMTS test facilities was provided only at the project end; nevertheless, experiments were carried out both with GPRS and UMTS test facilities.
Objectives:
The principal objective of the 6WINIT project was to validate the introduction of a new mobile wireless Internet in Europe - based on a combination of the new Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) and the new wireless protocols used in WLAN, GPRS and UMTS/3GPP networks.
Technical Approach:
The basic network components used in the project were a combination of IPv6 and wireless networks. The project provided an insight into the problems in deploying real applications in the emerging IPv6-enabled wireless-enabled  Internet; WLAN, GPRS and a UMTS test cell were used as wireless networks. We carried through complete systems pilots, and identified what components are inadequate in the applications, network facilities, major components and middleware. The project concentrated on mobile and wireless aspects of the system, but it also linked into the existing IPv6 wired infrastructures provided under the 6NET and Euro6IX projects. The technical approach was to take applications from other activities, which were expected to gain from the mobile IPv6 environment. These applications, which were  mainly selected from the clinical health care, multimedia conferencing and streaming, in- and outdoors navigation and home control domains, were ported to work over IPv6. This way we ensured that all the requisite technology was available to allow them to work in a wireless-enabled IPv6 environment.
Consequently we were also working on IPv6-enabled components: routers, relays, hand-helds, IPv4 to IPv6 transition mechanisms and other software components required by the applications. Because of the limited capability of the GPRS network, some of the traffic had to be run, in that case, in IPv6/IPv4 encapsulation.
We carried out many experiments with GPRS, UMTS and WLAN networks – together with the appropriate applications. For example our work with GPRS showed that the latency was both much too long for interactive conferencing, had much too much short-term variation in its value, and much too low a bandwidth. Other experiments showed that it was possible to use PDAs with the wireless connectivity for getting reasonable resolution of cardiac images. Another showed that in our hospital settings, the WLAN radiation had no discernable impact on the clinical instrumentation – though some of the instrumentation had occasional impact on the WLAN operation (e.g. during MMR scans or anti-coagulator action). We also investigated the precision we could obtain on location sensing indoors, using WLAN technology, and on the rate of handoffs achievable with the WLAN. Finally we showed that one could have fast multi-access handover between the UMTS test-cell and WLAN.
Applications:
A wide variety of IPv6-enabled applications were pursued – infrastructure (e.g. Mobile IP, Road Warrior, etc), generic (e.g. Voice over IPv6, Media streaming, Secure remote control of the home environment, etc) and clinical (e.g. Access to clinical data bases, consultation with moving ambulances, etc).
Results:
Our results are fully reported on the 6winit web store  http://www.6winit.org/. However a significant number of components and features are expected to be developed further – often in a commercial setting (e.g. The Guardian Angel System, Router components for mobile IP, Highquality streaming, etc).
Innovation:
Many of these results are highly innovative. An example of the integration of many of the results together are illustrated in a demonstration given in the final review.
A simulated ambulance professionals communicate via a mobile terminal, capable of providing voice, video and data on body parameters from a patient like electro-cardiograms and blood pressure, communicate via both a UMTS test cell and a wireless LAN with other professionals in a simulated hospital. The communication uses Mobile IP and simultaneous multi-access, with secured data transmission based on a Public Key Infrastructure.
Contribution to Standards:
During course of this work there were many contributions to the standards for Mobile IP, simultaneous multi-access, IP security, SIP, multimedia transport and IPv6/IPv4 transition. Almost all these contributions were made to the Internet Engineering Task Force.
Success stories:
As a result of this work, an excellent set of IPv6-enabled components and applications became available both to show that IPv6 was becoming a viable technology, and that wireless-based IPv6 applications could be built. Specifics of the results are being incorporated into the products of the 6WINIT partners; examples are the router components. Others are being used to be the core of new business ventures; an example is the GANS system. Yet others are being used to persuade the regulatory authorities to allow the systems to be used in the hospital environment with real patients; an example is the database access system. Of particular importance is that the wealth of IPv6 applications developed are an important input to two large IPv6 deployment projects 6NET and Euro6IX, and have provided important inputs to many new projects.
The applications developed in the project (6VOICE, GANS, streaming etc) are being used in multiple follow-on projects for further features.
Project name:
6WINIT - IPv6 Wireless Internet IniTiative
Contract no.:
IST-2000-25153
Project type:
RTD
Start date:
01/01/2001
Duration:
25 months
Total budget:
€ 6,018,800
Funding from the EC:
€3,492,000
Total effort in person-months:
550
Website:
http://www.6winit.org/
Contact person:
Prof. Peter T. Kirstein
email: Kirstein@cs.ucl.ac.uk
tel.: +44 (0) 20 7679 7286
fax: +44(0) 20 7387 1397
Project participants:
6WIND   F
BT   UK
Ericsson-Poland PL
Ericsson-Research SE
ETRI   KR
IABG   DE
RUS   DE
T-NOVA  DE
TED   DK
Telscom  CH
TZI   DE
UCL   UK
UKT   DE
UMM   PL
UoS   UK
VTT   FI
Keywords:
IPv6, wireless, applications, testbeds and mobile.
Collaboration with other EC funded projects:  5
6INIT
6LINK
6NET
ANDROID
NGNI
WINE
IST - Research Networking - Research on Networks – IPv6

Source : ftp://ftp.cordis.europa.eu/pub/ist/docs/rn/6winit.pdf

IPV6 security

One of the first problems facing any layer three protocol is address resolution. Given an IP packet, how to deliver that to an Ethernet interface?

IPv6 uses a protocol called the Neighbor Discovery Protocol (NDP) to do address resolution, among other things. Neighbor Discovery (ND) uses multicast to a small set of similar addresses rather than a broadcast to all, but in broad terms is very similar to IPv4's ARP. The router builds a cache of layer three to layer two mappings. For new destination IPv6 addresses the router sets up a new cache entry, sends out an ND solicitation, and waits for the desired host to respond with its layer two address. If the router receives no response within a certain time, it discards the cache entry; otherwise it completes the cache entry and can then use it to deliver packets to that destination IPv6 address.

If someone sends lots of packets for non-existent IPv6 addresses, the router will end up with lots of incomplete cache entries. If enough such packets are received fast enough, all available cache slots may be used up, meaning that no new addresses can be reached. Since completed cache entries time out after a little while, even good entries may be dropped, to be replaced by new never-to-be-completed entries. Unlike most other NDP-related attacks, this one can come from outside your network. It doesn't take much bandwidth either – timing out an incomplete cache entry takes about four seconds; in four seconds a gigabit link can deliver more than enough packets to be a problem.

Sadly there is no real defence yet. Bad packets are indistinguishable from good packets; the router can't tell that an address doesn't exist unless it does neighbor discovery on it. The simple defence of having a big enough cache to handle the load is not feasible with IPv6, where just a single subnet has billions of possible addresses. You can mitigate the problem by doing things like using small subnets, filtering packets at your border, rate limiting and so forth, but the real defence lies in sophisticated cache management in the routers.

Another NDP issue is rogue router advertisements. Setting up an IPv6 “router” is trivial on any modern desktop or laptop. An on-link host sending unwanted router advertisements can cause havoc – deprecating prefixes, redirecting traffic and so on.

There are two solutions in the wings, but neither is complete or robust yet. The first is Secure Neighbor Discovery, or SEND. SEND uses cryptographically generated addresses and signed NDP messages, guaranteeing that the apparent sender of an NDP message is in fact the sender. Combined with a mechanism for distributing certificates (a PKI), SEND is a solution to rogue RAs; without a PKI, it is not. SEND is a moderately heavyweight solution, but a bigger issue is that neither Windows nor OSX currently support SEND.

A second solution is RA-Guard. RA-Guard is (conceptually) a piece of software that sits at a security border such as a switch, and inspects passing RA messages. If they meet certain criteria, RA-Guard lets them pass. If they do not, RA-Guard blocks them. This sounds simple enough, but it turns out that IPv6 throws a few curve balls – current implementations get confused by extension headers, for example. Fixing this means either redefining the NDP protocol to forbid extension headers, or building lots of wire-speed layer three smarts into switches.

Thanks to : Karl Auer

Source : http://www.cso.com.au/article/403624/ipv6_security_everything_old_new_again/

IPV6 : a big win for school

Cyberbullying may be more of an operational issue in schools than the outside hacking that enterprises face, but opaque IPv4 network configurations are causing security issues for both groups as organisations struggle to enforce administrative policies by reliably matching IP addresses and user identities.

Such was the experience of StudentNet, a specialist educational IT consultancy that recently worked with two of its school clients and called on groups of students to participate in a World IPv6 Day "torture test" of the successor to the ubiquitous and capacity-challenged protocol upon which the Internet is based.

Waverley College – a year 5-12 school in Waverley in Sydney's eastern suburbs – and Wollondilly Anglican College, on the south-western fringe of metropolitan Sydney, presented two very different network administration environments but had two similar objectives: to improve visibility of and control over their students' online activities.

Differences in their networks, however, made this difficult. Waverley College, in particular, was configured in a dual-NAT (network address translation) configuration in which the college and its ISP were each running separate NAT domains. This provided a double buffer hiding students' IP addresses from the Internet at large, but it also meant the school had no way of easily resolving the identity of a network user who was alleged to be the source of cyber harassment.

Add in the sheer size of schools – typically from 1000 to 1800 students – and demands on the network scale rapidly. With hundreds of students simultaneously using rich media sources that burden the network and create massive volumes of sessions, traditional network architectures can become buried in a sea of anonymity. "Intrusive" proxy servers – which provide Internet filtering and content buffering – don't help either, since they can complicate the logging of user sessions and activities.

"Private schools in particular are very isolated from each other," StudentNet business manager Kevin Karp told attendees at the recent IPv6 Summit in Melbourne. "They have to deal with unexpected complexities and complications because of the community they're dealing with. It's very different to an SMB or large enterprise, because school education has to do with large blocks of data done on a very repetitive basis and done with a large number of students."

Because it does away with NAT and allows addresses to be assigned in meaningful groups, IPv6 offers a significant improvement, Karp said: for example, the protocol would allow a school administrator to give students IP addresses grouped into blocks by year level. These could then be used to enforce year-appropriate content filtering, learning management system access, YouTube access and other policies with a clear correlation between the address and the person logged into the system.

"The advantage of being able to undertake individual IP addresses for each student is that you know the student is in Year 10, say, instead of Year 6. You can protect the Year 6 kids a lot more because with IPv6 they're all on the same IP address range" rather than relying on whichever address the NAT spits out on a particular day."

As well as providing better control and role-based segregation of network users, IPv6 provides visibility that's lacking under current NAT-based IPv4 structures. Such capabilities are invaluable in forensic activities such as tracking down cyber-bullies, but they're also important in helping the network reach out to better manage the influx of mobile devices.

"We've got this mushrooming of mobility, computer usage and network size that introduces complications all through the school's operations," said Karp. "Establishing the identity of the students – especially if they're somewhere else and not at the school – is more difficult because of NAT, which is introducing an identity problem that's very difficult to deal with."

The World IPv6 Day tests got off to a rocky start when a simultaneous ISP failure saw gathered dignitaries faced with no connectivity at all. But once the problem was identified and the ISP came back online, the IPv6 environment worked as expected and Karp said the day was labelled a massive success.

Reinforcing the value of minimising NAT presence, Karp said, administrators at Wollondilly Anglican College had only its own NAT to deal with, and not an additional layer of obfuscation at its ISP as at Waverley. The IPv6 layer worked smoothly during the World IPv6 Day test, with students simply getting online and getting on with things.

Thanks to : http://www.cso.com.au/article/405226/ipv6_boosts_schools_on-net_security/

Boost to IPV6

Support for IPv6 has grown by almost 20 times in the past year by one measure, but most websites still can't be reached without IPv4, the current Internet Protocol, which is near running out of unclaimed addresses.

The number of subdomains under .com, .net and .org that support Internet Protocol version 6 increased by about 1,900 percent in the year leading up to October 2011, according to an automated sampling of subdomains by Measurement Factory. The study, which was sponsored by IPv6 software specialist InfoBlox, used a script to automatically sample 1 percent of the subdomains under the three well-known top-level domains.

IPv4 only allows for about 4 billion addresses, whereas IPv6 has a nearly unlimited supply. ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers), the global governing body for the Internet,assigned the last of the unclaimed IPv4 addresses to regional registry bodies earlier this year. Some enterprises and service providers are making a gradual transition to IPv6 using dual software stacks, but experts expect users eventually to come to the Internet without IPv4 addresses. They will need pure IPv6 communication, which most operators of websites can't offer today.

Last month, 25.4 percent of subdomains under .com, .net and .org supported IPv6, up from just 1.27 percent a year earlier. However, the long-awaited IPv6 future may not be as close as it sounds from that statistic.

All the figure means is that a DNS (Domain Name System) server can point to those subdomains using IPv6. If a user with an IPv6-only device tries to go to a website, for example, the site's registrar can match up its URL with an IPv6 address and kick back an answer to the Web surfer, said Cricket Liu, vice president of architecture at InfoBlox.

Most of the dramatic boost in the past year came when GoDaddy, one of the world's largest domain registrars, made its DNS work with IPv6. GoDaddy claims its DNS service has more than 30 million customers. Had it not been for GoDaddy, the number of subdomains supported would have grown by a bit more than double, to about 3 percent, according to Measurement Factory.

But for now, most of those DNS requests wouldn't take an IPv6-only user to an actual Web page, because less than 1 percent of all subdomains surveyed had IPv6-enabled Web servers, according to the Measurement Factory study. Likewise, there were very few IPv6 email servers. Just over 2 percent of zones were served by IPv6-compatible mail servers.

The good news is that many more operators of websites, such as GoDaddy's customers, now can serve IPv6 visitors once they have an IPv6-compliant Web server, Liu said. Along with GoDaddy, Measurement Factory cited three other major registrars, Gandi and OVH in France and Active24 in the Czech Republic, that adopted IPv6 during the period.

GoDaddy has said it plans to extend its IPv6 strategy soon by supporting the new protocol on its website hosting service. Then, companies that rely on GoDaddy instead of operating their own Web servers will be able to run an IPv6 site.

The study found France leading in IPv6 adoption, with 57 percent of subdomains in France reachable by IPv6, followed by the U.S. with 42 percent and Czech Republic with 36 percent. But its scope was limited by examining only .com, .net and .org. For one thing, that left out subdomains that are under country-level domains in Asia, where a more severe shortage of IPv4 addresses has led to strong government efforts behind IPv6 in some countries.

The sample also overlooked other top-level domains where IPv6 has been more widely adopted, such as the .gov domain of the U.S. government and the .edu domain used by universities, said Nav Chander, an Internet infrastructure analyst at IDC. However, the move to pure IPv6 networking remains slow,

Thanks to : http://www.cso.com.au/article/408200/boost_ipv6_use_only_one_step_solution/