CS1105 Computing and Society
2008/2009 Semester One
Team Assignment
Case Write-up on
ICT in Beijing Olympics
Tutorial Group: 17
Tutor: Padmani d/o Visayakumaran
Team 17D
Ding Bei Hong
U087815H
Jin Yuwei
U087247E
Tan Theng Lee
U065410X
Toh Hui Yee
U087108J
Zhang Han
U087267X
Content Page
1. Introduction
2. Ubiquity of ICT use in Beijing Olympics
2.1 Games operations
2.2 Data transmission
2.3 Online digital media coverage
2.4 Online ticketing system
2.5 Traffic management system
2.6 Security
2.7 Achieving a Green Olympics
3. Reliability of ICT deployed in Beijing Olympics
3.1 Olympic risk management
3.2 Unexpected online ticketing system failure
4. Intellectual Property Rights Issue
4.1 Online digital media rights
5. Other ICT-Related Issues
ICT in Beijing Olympics
1.
Introduction
The 2008 Beijing Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XXIX Olympiad, was
a greatly anticipated global multi-sporting event. In both the preparation for and duration of
the Olympics, Information and Communications Technology (ICT) has been extensively
utilized in various aspects to ensure the smooth-running of the event. Besides the Beijing
Organizing Committee for the Games (BOCOG), Atos Origin, Samsung and Lenovo were
some of the other major players involved in the construction of the IT infrastructure behind
the games. The three companies were responsible for systems integration, wireless
communication and computer equipment provision respectively.
2.
Ubiquity of ICT use in Beijing Olympics
The deployment of ICT was seen in many areas, such as the following:
2.1 Games Operations
The Games Management System (GMS), developed in Java by Atos Origin, a Francebased IT services company, was vital in supporting the “planning and operation of the
Games, including staffing, accommodation, travel, and medical operations” (Schwankert,
2008). For instance, the accreditation system application under the GMS was used to assign
“access rights to athletes, coaches, officials, staff, the media and volunteers” (Steve, 2008),
which highly sped up the process of accessing gaming data for the relevant parties.
2.2 Data Transmission
The Information Diffusion Systems (IDS) was the other core pillar used to store and
transmit data efficiently (Steven, 2008). Being involved in integrating the timing and scoring
of the games results by Omega, the IDS allowed the recording of the athletes’ timings to be
accurate and without dispute, thus ensuring the fairness of the events. For instance, the
touching pads in the swimming pools were embedded with sensors that would transmit
data to the IDS to record the time taken by each swimmer in the competition, thus
determining the ranking effortlessly.
2.3 Online Digital Media Coverage
ICT was utilized during the Beijing Olympics to provide online digital media coverage
of the Olympics games. ICT provided millions of online viewers with the ability to view the
Beijing Olympics through a variety of digital media platforms, such as the broadband, mobile
and Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) platforms. The online viewers were also given the
choices to either watch the live broadcast of the games or to catch the games using ondemand video streams.
2.4 Online Ticketing System
The Online Ticketing System was introduced in 2007 to automate the purchase of
tickets for the Beijing Olympics (BOCOG, 2008). The system was convenient and an easy-tofollow procedure for online registration and payment (Figure 1) was put up on the official
ticketing website.
Figure 1: The Official Ticketing Website provided a guideline for users to follow. All the updated Olympic
Ticketing information can be checked out easily on the website.
People were encouraged to use VISA Cards for online payment, which reduced a
great deal of manual process.
2.5 Traffic Management System
ICT was also evident in the management of traffic. The Intelligent Transportation
System (ITS), an information-based, intelligent form of transportation system, was
constructed and focused on three aspects.
Firstly, an online service was created, whereby detailed information regarding public
transport to the Olympic venues was provided on the Beijing Olympic Transportation
Website. In addition, real-time traffic information of the entire traffic net in Beijing was
publicized to guide people in reaching and leaving the venues effectively.
Secondly, special hotlines were opened for the public to enquire traffic advice.
According to the Beijing Municipal Committee of Communications, the hotline “122” offered
help to foreign guests in eight languages, including English, French, German and Spanish.
Thirdly, dynamic in-car navigation instruments were installed in vehicles to not only
provide directions, but also enable drivers to check the real-time traffic conditions
momentarily in order to design a path that would avoid the jam. As such, ICT proved its
usefulness in the various ways it could be employed to mitigate traffic flow severity and aid
in its smooth flow in Beijing during the Olympics.
2.6 Use of ICT in Security
The use of ICT for security topped as one of the most important areas being
emphasized by BOCOG and are reflected in the following aspects: access control and
security monitoring.
Firstly, two main ICT technologies were used to control access during the Beijing
Olympics, namely biometric smart cards and Radio Frequency Identification (RFID).
Biometric smart cards were designed to control the access to the Beijing Olympic Reunion
Center. All the guests of the Reunion Center had their own smart cards, which contained
their encoded fingerprint data (SecureIDNews, 2008). Cardholders were required to use
their smart cards whenever they intended to enter the Reunion Center. On the other hand,
RFID was employed in the ticketing at the Games. RFID chips were embedded in the tickets
and connected to a remote database to verify authenticity and thus enabled anticounterfeiting (Wong, 2008).
Secondly, security monitoring was applied to the entire city of Beijing. During the
event, IBM was responsible for providing real-time surveillance on public places by using its
new S3, which stood for Smart Surveillance System (U.S.-China Surveillance, 2007).
According to Julie Donahue, the S3 is able to reuse an existing infrastructure to do higher
level of analyses as well as provide real-time alerts (U.S.-China Surveillance, 2007). As a
result, the physical security of Beijing was strongly tightened and the safety of the people
was more robustly protected.
2.7 Use of ICT in Achieving a Green Olympics
In order to realize a Green Olympics, ICT assumed a significant role in minimizing the
impact of the Olympics on the environment.
Firstly, high-bandwidth networks allowed video content to be transferred from
Beijing to New York for NBC Universal, broadcaster which held exclusive U.S. media rights to
the Olympic Games, for coverage of the events. As such, shot selectors and editors
numbering to 400 did not have to relocate themselves to Beijing (Cisco 2008). Also, remote
access was enabled to the Commentator Information System, a Java-based system allowing
broadcasters to obtain real-time results and data feeds in their country of operation (Steven,
2008). These ICT applications greatly reduced the need for travel, thereby saving on the 800
airplane trips and fuel energy required (Cisco, 2008).
In constructing new facilities required for the Olympics, the designs were embedded
with Metasys Building Management Systems (Milwaukee, 2008). Such smart systems
incorporated an Internet Protocol (IP)-based network that combined networks that carried
building information systems with those that carried voice and data (Ong, 2008). The
management of all the information systems in a building through a centralised control room
helped to save on power consumption and thus reduced the footprint on the environment.
3.
Reliability and Security of ICT deployed in Beijing Olympics
3.1 Olympic Risk Management
Systems’ security in Beijing Olympics was the most important task of the IT team
spearheaded by Atos Origin. As the scale of IT infrastructure for the Beijing Olympics was
massive, the frequency of computer issues expected was greater. To allay the fear that
there could be “3 million abnormal IT behaviour” (Jack, 2008), such as user error and
security breach, the team adopted a “conservative and cautious” approach to risk
management. Three key areas were focused on – security architecture, risk management
and security operations – to ascertain that any potential threats within or outside the
Games network could be addressed effectively.
To guarantee and improve the usability of the IT systems to be deployed, integration
tests were executed at least a year before the Beijing Olympics began. Around “10 000 test
cases” were generated to assess the systems, which amounted to over “200 000 hours”
(Jack, 2008). These test cases ranged from making sure Chinese language was displayed on
the public scoreboards at the competition events, to what would happen if there were a
mass food poisoning resulting in lack of IT personnel.
Nevertheless, much as these technical rehearsals were extensive and rigorous, they
were unable to fully simulate the Olympics, thus risks were still involved in the Olympics and
the IT team had to maintain full vigilance and alertness throughout the events. Besides the
large number of tests to verify the systems’ robustness (Thomson, 2008), intrusion
detection systems and anti-virus software were also installed to shield the entire network of
systems from malicious codes and other possible security attacks via the Internet. As such,
the computer systems implemented at the Beijing Olympics were secured strongly and
considered sufficiently reliable.
3.2 Unexpected Online Ticketing System Failure
Although the Online Ticketing System was a widely preferred purchasing medium,
design errors caused it to crash shortly after the tickets went on sale to the public in
November 2007. The paralysis of the system was caused by the purchase of 200 000 tickets
per minute, which had far exceeded the system’s designed processing capability of only 150
000 tickets per minute (Sumner, 2007).
The slowdown of the process resulted in buyers having to spend 3 to 4 hours to
complete the online purchase, causing much distress and frustration among buyers. Many
resorted to purchasing the tickets from the Bank of China despite the long queue required.
Eventually, the errors in the system could not be rectified and the ticketing policies were
adjusted to allow tickets to be allocated through a Lottery System (BOCOG, 2008).
4.
Intellectual Property Rights Issue
4.1 Online digital media rights
The International Olympics Committee (IOC) offered a great amount of quality
Olympics event coverage to viewers around the world by working with official rights holders.
The IOC worked closely with rights holders to minimize the risk of online piracy and
protected the exclusive rights of the event content with sophisticated anti-piracy campaign.
The Chinese government also ordered the top ten web sites in China, such as Sina, Netease
and Sohu, to sign an agreement prohibiting the provision of any digital media that would
violate the rights of China Central Television (CCTV), the official Internet broadcaster of the
games in China.
The IOC also made use of advanced technologies to check the Internet for
unauthorized Olympic content. The video fingerprinting technology and sophisticated web
crawling techniques helped to prevent, track, and take action against any uploading of
unauthorized content of the events. The IOC also cooperated with video sharing websites to
monitor additional copyright infringement.
A video showing students’ protest for Tibet was uploaded on YouTube during the
Beijing Olympics. The video was later requested by the IOC to be taken down and the IOC
filed a copyright infringement claim against the video (see appendix figure 2). However, the
copyright infringement was later withdrawn by the IOC.
The IOC also censored Internet access at the Olympic venues during the events.
Kevan Gosper, a senior member of the IOC, mentioned that the journalists in China would
only be able to access websites whose content were related to Olympic competition.
Information especially on political and human rights were blocked. The censorship caused
human rights activists to criticize the IOC.
5. Other ICT-Related Issues
While ICT has generally been used to further the progress of the Olympics operations,
abuse of ICT has been cited during the Olympics period. According to enterprise security
firm Secure Computing, a phenomenal rise of 360 million spam messages pertaining to
Beijing Olympics was observed, infecting computer systems with a malware called Storm
(Jack, 2008). Also, about 13 phishing attacks targeted at the Beijing Olympics have been
detected since December 2007, most of which attempted to install Trojans via a Microsoft
Office vulnerability on computers in military and government organizations (Darren,2008).
Such attacks preyed on people’s curiosity and enticement towards the Olympics and posed
severe security threats to business organizations in mainly Asia.
On the overall, it can be seen that ICT use in today’s world is pervasive and while ICT
provides more than satisfactory technical solutions to problems most of the time, much
more can be done to improve the usability of certain systems to enhance reliability.
-End(1964 words)
References
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Appendix
Figure 2: IOC’s copyright notice on YouTube