Assured: The Isode Blog

Apple's iPhone & making mobile email work well using IMAP

Apple's iPhone has an excellent email client that is an important part of the platform. The iPhone's sophisticated use of IMAP (in contrast to other widely available IMAP clients) is one reason that the email client works so well. 

A new whitepaper on the Isode site looks at how iPhone uses IMAP to meet mobile messaging requirements, and looks at other IMAP capabilities that could be used to support mobile messaging.

Isode R14.4: File Transfer by Email

This is the second in a series of messages describing new features in Isode R14.4, scheduled to ship in April 2009. You can see all of the messages on this blog relating to R14.4 by clicking on this link.

Amongst the improvements made to M-Switch in R14.4 is support for file transfer by email (transfer can use x.400 or internet mail).

File Transfer by Email can be useful for moving data between systems when standard file or data transfer mechanisms are not available. We're providing File Transfer by Email as a general purpose building block that can be used to support a range of applications, including:

• Directory Replication, as described in our whitepaper Directory Replication by Email and over 'Air Gap'. This is the primary reason that we developed this application.
• Database Replication. Where there is a need to distribute database updates over email, File Transfer by Email provides a natural supporting infrastructure.
• End user file transfer, to copy data around. Isode's system has been developed to support applications; An end user application could be easily developed over Isode' s solution, which is described later.

New Whitepaper

We've published a new whitepaper on the Isode website which covers scenarios & application areas where this capability will prove useful and which looks at our solution architecture.

Isode Whitepaper: File Transfer by Email

As always, we'd appreciate any feedback you have on this whitepaper or any other questions you have relating to R14.4.

Operating XMPP over Radio and Satellite Networks

In the first of two announcements with an XMPP theme today, we've placed a new whitepaper on the Isode website "Operating XMPP over Radio and Satellite Networks" which examines how XMPP services (Instant Messaging, Group Chat, Presence) can be effectively deployed in environments characterized by constrained bandwidth and high latency.

The paper discusses modifications that need to be made (and which we at Isode are making to our M-Link XMPP server) so that XMPP services can be deployed over networks running at 2.4 kbit/sec (300 bytes per second), which is a typical (but not minimum) HF radio speed.

Security Labels & XMPP

The issue of ensuring that sensitive information is not sent to inappropriate individuals or domains is a critical one to many of Isode's customers. A new whitepaper on the Isode website looks at Using Security Labels to Control Message Flow in XMPP Services.

Isode's approach is to associate a Security Label with each XMPP message. Access to an XMPP message is then controlled by Security Clearance, with access control determined by Security Policy held in a Directory.

The paper looks in detail at how we plan to enhance our M-Link product to provide Security Label based controls for user-to-user messaging and for Multi-User Chat (MUC).

Update to M-Switch Anti-Spam False Negative Graph

As promised in my last blog post we have just updated the graph on our whitepaper:

"Measuring the False Negative Rate for Isode’s M-Switch Anti-Spam."

The graph now contains the data from the 1st May 2008 - 31st July 2008. As you can see our False Negative rate continues to be consistently low as a result of the continuous improvements to our data set.

 

 

M-Switch Anti-Spam False Negative Rate Graph Update

As mentioned in previous posts (Blog post May 9th 08 and Blog post May 14th 08) we have been paying particular attention to the False negative rate of the copy of M-Switch Anti-Spam running here at Isode's offices. We wrote a whitepaper on our findings:

“Measuring the False Negative Rate for Isode’s M-Switch Anti-Spam.”

The whitepaper included graphs showing the daily quantities of Spam we received and the daily False Negative rate going back over 4 months (up to 30th April). We always intended to keep these graphs up to date so that they would continue to track M-Switch's performance and today we've updated them to include May's figures.

We will continue to update these graphs, at the end of each month, so that they always show current data.

Measuring the False Negative Rate for Isode's M-Switch Anti-Spam

A key feature of any anti-spam solution is how effective it is at removing spam. A perfect anti-spam system would have a zero false positive rate and a zero false negative rate. In practice, this is not usually achieved, and systems will invariably trade off the two measurements.

A new whitepaper on the Isode website describes how false negatives can be measured and looks at false negative rates from the beginning of this year for Isode's M-Switch Anti-Spam.

"Measuring the False Negative rate for Isode's M-Switch Anti-Spam"

The graph below shows the false negative rate from January 2008.

HF Radio & Network Centric Warfare

Modern military communications are a key component of Network Centric Warfare. HF Radios are used extensively for military communications, and, although very slow, provide effective long distance communication in a wide range of situations.

A new whitepaper on the Isode website looks at how HF Radio fits with Network Centric Warfare, and looks at approaches for integrating HF Radios to maximize their effectiveness.

"HF Radio & Network Centric Warfare"

Instant Messaging and Presence for Secure Environments

Instant Messaging (IM) and Presence applications are now in wide use. In a new free-to-access whitepaper on the Isode website we consider their application in environments where security is of paramount concern, such as Government and Military deployments.

In particular the paper looks at:

• Distributed deployment
• Relationship to Directory
• Security Labels and Clearance
• Strong Authentication and Digital Signatures

The paper shows how an XMPP based solution can address these areas and looks at standards that need to be put in place to meet the security requirements discussed in this paper.

The first version of Isode's XMPP server, M-Link, was released with Isode R14.2 last month.

"Instant Messaging and Presence for Secure Environments" can be found here.

First International LDAP Conference

The first International LDAP Conference, organised by the German Unix Users Group, takes place in Cologne on the 6th & 7th of September this year (more information here).

Isode's Kurt Zeilenga is giving the conference's introductory presentation, a report on current directory standardization activities, and we'll be posting a report on the conference as soon it's over.

We published a new LDAP whitepaper today on our website. 10 new LDAP RFCs were published in June 2006 (RFCs 4510-4519) to provide a new LDAPv3 specification and to replace RFC 2251 and a number of related specifications. The goal of the new whitepaper is to guide those with some basic knowledge of LDAP quickly through all of these documents. The paper, The LDAP Standard Specification, can be found by following the link.