Here we go.....

So on Nov 30th I have used this as a example. Today at noon somewhere on this planet it became reality. Some person working with a cupteam or close to one, has thought it might be a great ideal to flash a picture of a Wing being tested in a windtunnel with his Blackberry 8900, and send it to a mate, that then posted it onto the biggest sailing website known.

Follow the link here: http://forums.sailinganarchy.com/index.php?showtopic=113739&view=findpost&p=3189820

I am purposely not posting the picture because I don't think this is right. It should be a slap into the face of the designers, the team, the poor guy pouring money into this team.
Over the last two month I have had contact with some teams about the issue of Intellectual Property and none of them think it is a problem, and nothing will happen they said.

Maybe I am just paranoid, but if this would be my team, I'd be pretty pissed off right now.

I might think someone is getting fired, sued in the next 24h.

Maybe at some point these teams will realize that IT and Security is a vital part in the Americas Cup !

/dev/null/

logout:>

update: apparently this picture is claimed by someone from that took it from at the university of Southampton.  Nothing to do with a competitor. Cover up or reality? I hope for the 2nd one. Here again.. some missing pieces.

PDF docuemnts - stupitiy or genius

MJ90 - What does it stand for. Well many assumptions have been made (Modern J, Mary Jane....). Who cares.  Looking at the PDF a little closer leaks a little bit more information then seen at first view.

Vsail and Zerograd. Blogs have posted the release without source. Now of course everyone kind of assumes where this comes from but lets look at little closer.

Author: Quite fast we have learned from the Author of the PDF is a certain employee from Hi-D.ch that only marine project was the defender from the 32nd America's Cup Alinghi. So that of course points to Alinghi's direction.

The document details name was: "Microsoft Word - MJ CLASS nm revised 141109.docx". One could think that NM stands for "Nelson and Marek". As far as I remember Bruce Nelson was involved in the 32nd America's Cup with Luna Rossa. (I could be wrong.) So this would point into Prada's direction who have also been rumored interested in a possible new circuit.

So open is still why was this design presented to the recipient in November 2009? Alinghi was in RAK sailing the A5. I think Prada had just finished a STP65 season and decided that the STP class is not really what they had hoped for.

Some spots still need filling in....

But it goes to show that if you want to send something as a PDF, unchangeable document. And keep it secure in whatever way, one should also clear out all the details.

be afraid...

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Cuphacker - salty bits beta released

Have sailing footage? Have a wtp2 full off data? Have you ever watched a film with vlc (videolan.org) player. Then listen to this.
Cuphacker has a tool where you can watch your sailing video with selected wtp2 data overlaid and all for free.

Get it here:
https://sourceforge.net/projects/saltybits/

It's still beta, updates will follow also a OSX version will be released. Comments / problems contact me here: cuph4cker@gmail.com

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OTS or DIY ?

"Off the shelf" OTS or "Do it yourself" DIY when it comes to software engineering in teams the DIY approach is usually the one followed. Some poor guy/gal develops some tool that grows and grows over the duration of the campaign and becomes a dependable tool for the team to do whatever... (sail vision, management, performance, construction.....).

Great one would think, this is EXACTLY what we need. Well maybe but not really. The reality shows different:

- The people designing this mostly don't have great knowledge about software engineering / database modeling, or system resource management -> The program doesnt scale, database models can't grow,

- Nothing will be documented so when the person leaves the project, the software becomes usless.

With the money and time invested these people trying at their best to solve a problem, one has to understand that this is not cheaper. At the end the product is more expensive, less reliable and there is no investment protection because of the probability that if the designer leaves the program becomes unusable/changeable.

OTS "Off the shelf" will most likly do whatever one is looking for. Lets be honest what does a team need to do with data, it does data mining and charts/graphics from that, this all needs to be fast and easy to use. Correlate it with whatever boat setup/weather... it's not really rocket science.

Conclusion is that maybe an OTS solution is more expensive, but at least there is company behind it that will hopefully be there in 3-4 years, and they do the development, not someone in the team, there is a support hotline and all the other features that come along when one buys software.

So for whatever project a DYI is on the table one should look at the size of the tool and then maybe weigh in the OTS solution aswell.

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Why should they care? Risk Assessment for a Cup Team

no related, but funny :-)

Why should they care? The teams. What is the hype all about? We are all friends, aren't we?

Ok lets draw a picture here

• 5-6 Teams (each spending 30-75 million euro)
• Most probably half of the staff have worked with numerous people from other competitors
• Depending on the format/venues all competitors will be in a short proximity to eachother
• New boat need to hit the water in less and 1.5 years, a boat never has been constructed before. Putting a great pressure on designers and builders to get it pretty right the first time. Solve problems they don't even know about yet....

So what risks is upcoming team exposed to?

Biggest risk 'confidentiality'!

• How do I keep cell phone cameras out of my boat building shed without killing the cooperate climate?
  
• How do I run a tool like Skype that is highly functional and adapted by so many in a cooperate secure way. Upps just dragged and dropped my new wing profile to the wrong contact?
  
• Is it really cheaper to tell everyone to bring along their own laptop and work from it?

3 Questions alot of answers possible.

1. Problem: Cell phone cameras. It takes 15 sec to take a high definition picture with a Iphone4 and send it via email to a outside party, post it on facebook, or even better straight to an sailing anarchy forum! Solution, well my not buy disposable cell phones for all the builders. The ones without cameras of course! Ban cameras and keep the builders connected to the outside world. (hence these poor guys will spend the next 4mnt straight in the shed building....)

2. Problem: Skype, flexible, fast, cheap and super handy. A corporate nightmare! Files are dragged and dropped onto a contact and sent over an encrypted channel to the other person. No logs, no way to kill it. How do I keep this tool running without running the risk of the just fired aero dynamic specialist that didn't seem to be as good as we thought to just drag and drop the entire plan folder to someone willing to give him a new job? Solution... Many but think separation of duties...

3. Problem: We are a small team we will save money and tell everyone to just bring their own computers. That will save money. Really? Small team, ok small salaries, so everyone thinks what they create belongs to them because they are  underpaid, so kiss the intellectual property goodbye.
Like in any team constellation, its only as strong as its weakest link! So do you really want to let the security of your data and reliability of systems depend on how a sailmaker, sailor or boatbuilder setups his system and treats it. (I am not saying they are not able to do so, but would you let me recut a 3DL sail?). Solution: Today computer run for less then 400 euros, some netbooks are 260euros.. . If the team owns them, then the team has the right to say how they are run and treated. An investment that will pay out in the long run.

Of course there is no 100% security, but getting things setup right from the beginning is cheaper and easier then trying to fix it later. And also one has to trust one another. But as a famous sailor once said. It's a Gentlemans game thats why you need be really careful who you trust.
If someone spends 50 Million on a campaign, its not gonna hurt him to pay a eastern script kiddie 5000 USD to hack the hotmail account of the CFD designer of the other team. Protocol and Rule69 back and forth, proofing that Chen, Sergei or let call him Ken received funds and did break the law is not gonna happen.

Think about it! how much it it be worth (just in time) for team C to know what teams B 2nd wing will look like? Call me paranoid, if 50% is true someone is in trouble.

be afraid, very afraid.

logout..:>

cuphacker - salty bits and bytes

The Americas Cup, sailings more precious trophy. You win it, you own it. And if you are smart you might make a nice sum of money with it as well. The 34th America's Cup has introduced a new era into this legendary competition. 72foot wing powered multihulls screaming down a race course for the search of success.
This blog will be monitoring the world of the 0s and 1s of this competition. Computer Technology has definitely made its hard path into this competition, salt water and computer dont go well. Cuphacker predicts that this edition the electronic and computer side of a campaign will pay a even more important role then ever. Therefor we should have plenty of material to chat about.

Stay tuned.