Turning the tables on a China-based computer espionage gang, Canadian and United States computer security researchers have monitored a spying operation for the past eight months, observing while the intruders pilfered classified and restricted documents from the highest levels of the Indian Defence Ministry. In a report issued Monday night, the researchers, based at the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto, provide a detailed account of how a spy operation it called the Shadow Network systematically hacked into personal computers in government offices on several continents
Blu-ray discs may become more than just the prerecorded vehicle for high-definition movies. On Saturday, the Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA) announced new media formats to enable write-once options on 100GB and 128GB Blu-ray discs, and rewritable capability on 100GB discs. The two formats are called BDXL, for high-capacity recordable and rewritable discs; and IH-BD, for Intra-Hybrid Blu-ray discs. Details about the specs are expected to be released within the next few months
Memory sticks and CDs containing the personal details of 9,000 school children have been stolen from a house in north London. The devices storing names, addresses and dates of birth of pupils in Barnet were taken during in a break-in at a council employee’s home two weeks ago
A police investigation into the theft of £10,000 of watches has been scuppered after DNA evidence was found to belong to identical twins. Blood containing DNA matching that of James and John Parr, 25, was found on glass at the scene. However, the Crime Prosecution Service (CPS) has decided not to press charges against the Manchester twins — who both deny responsibility — as it would be impossible to determine if one or the other of them was responsible
Only clinics in big cities can afford the blood work equipment that allows doctors to monitor the disease’s progression and treat it early and effectively. Doctors in rural areas often prescribe treatment based only on the visible symptoms their patients show. Responding to this need, researchers at California company Palo Alto Research Centre have shrunk the laser technology inside large laboratory machines down to about the size of an iPod. Their cheap, handheld device promises to provide an immune system check-up on the spot and in less than 10 minutes
In recent months a flood of so-called books have been appearing in Amazon’s catalogue. VDM Publishing’s imprints Alphascript and Betascript Publishing have listed over 57,000 titles, adding at least 10,000 in the previous month alone. These books are simply collections of linked Wikipedia articles put into paperback form, at a cost of 40 cents a page or more. These books seem to be computer-generated, which explains the peculiar titles noted such as Vreni Schneider: Annemarie Moser-Pröll, FIS Alpine Ski World Cup, Winter Olympic Games, Slalom Skiing, Giant Slalom Skiing, Half Man Half Biscuit
. Such titles do have the marketing effect of turning up in many different searches. There is debate on Wikipedia about whether their ‘VDM Publishing’ page should contain the words ‘fraud’ or scam
. VDM Publishing’s practice of reselling Wikipedia articles appears to be legal, but is ethically questionable. Amazon customers have begun to post 1-star reviews and complain. Amazon’s response to date has been, As a retailer, our goal is to provide customers with the broadest selection possible so they can find, discover, and buy any item they might be seeking
. The words and pay us
were left out. Amazon carries, as a Googled guess, 2 million different book titles, so VDM Publishing is currently 1/35th of their catalog, and rapidly growing — via Slashdot
When the science writer Simon Singh sat down to write an opinion piece on chiropractors two years ago, he could have had little inkling of the nightmare that lay ahead. Yesterday, after a court of appeal ruling hailed as a resounding victory
for Singh, he has been spared having to stand up in court and prove that the comments that sparked a libel suit from the British Chiropractic Association (BCA) were factually correct — an experience that the three appeal judges compared to an Orwellian ministry of truth
. The landmark ruling will allow the writer, whose battle has become a catalyst for demands for libel law reform, to rely on a fair comment
defence of his statements about chiropractors. It will also strengthen the position of others — from science writers and medical professionals to bloggers — who face libel suits, as the judges made clear the court was not the place to settle scientific controversies
An elaborate scheme to get the husband of a co-worker he was obsessed with locked up in jail, backfired on Ilkka Karttunen, a 48-year from Essex. His plan was to get the husband arrested so that he could have a go at a relationship with the woman, and to do this he broke into the couple’s home while they were sleeping, used their family computer to download child pornography and then removed the hard drive and mailed it anonymously to the police, along with a note that identified the owner
The European Space Agency is moving forward with a plan to land an autonomous spacecraft on the moon by 2017, with the idea a manned vehicle could land there sometime in the future. It’s a mission NASA had on its roadmap before the current budget debate, but such plans seem doomed now
Microsoft uncovered more than 1,800 bugs in Office 2010 by tapping into the unused computing horsepower of idling PCs. Office developers found the bugs by running millions of fuzzing
tests, said Tom Gallagher, senior security test lead with Microsoft’s Trustworthy Computing group
Early last month the mayor of Topeka, Kansas stunned the world by announcing that his city was changing its name to Google. We’ve been wondering ever since how best to honour that moving gesture. Today we are pleased to announce that as of 1.00am (Central Daylight Time) 1 April, Google has officially changed our name to Topeka
Toad Last spring, a group of biologists were studying the mating habits of the common toad (Bufo bufo) in the L’Aquila province of Italy. As temperatures warm each year, male toads gather en masse at small ponds to compete for the affections of females. As part of their study, the scientists ventured out to one particular pond every evening to count the toads and note whether they had laid any new eggs. A few days into their work, something strange happened: the toads scattered. Spawning had only just begun, and where there had been between 80 and 90 male toads for the last few days of March, the first few days of April turned up fewer than ten. Then on 6 April, a magnitude 6.3 earthquake hit, ravaging L’Aquila province and its capital city of the same name. Hundred of people were killed and thousands injured as buildings that dated to the middle ages crumbled. In a new paper out this evening in Journal of Zoology, the researchers claim this sequence of events is more than just a coincidence. Toads stayed away from the pond for several more days following the quake, before finally returning in force around 15 April. No word on where the toads went, exactly, to flee the disaster. But did the toads sense the coming quake and head for the hills? That’s what the researchers are arguing
A federal judge ruled Wednesday that the National Security Agency’s program of surveillance without warrants was illegal, rejecting the Obama administration’s effort to keep shrouded in secrecy one of the most disputed counterterrorism policies of former President George W Bush
realestate.com.au has confirmed its subscriber database was illegally accessed and the matter had been referred to Victoria Police. The popular real estate web site admitted that its mailing list had been used by a third party, which asked people for money to arrange property inspections. The fraudulent email directed consumers to respond directly to a Gmail address, instead of using the agent enquiry tool on realestate.com.au
The ancestors of modern Scottish people left behind mysterious, carved stones that new research has just determined contain the written language of the Picts, an Iron Age society that existed in Scotland from 300 to 843. The highly stylised rock engravings, found on what are known as the Pictish Stones, had once been thought to be rock art or tied to heraldry. The new study, published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society A, instead concludes that the engravings represent the long lost language of the Picts, a confederation of Celtic tribes that lived in modern-day eastern and northern Scotland
Anyone who plays FarmVille knows it is critical to harvest your crops on time. But maybe it’s not as important as administrating the second-largest city in Bulgaria. Dimitar Kerin was voted off a committee assignment by the Plovdiv City Council for his inability to stop tending his virtual crops on the Facebook game during meetings
Yahoo e-mail accounts belonging to foreign journalists appeared to have been hacked and Google’s Chinese search engine was intermittently blocked Tuesday, the latest troubles in China’s heavily censored internet market. The Yahoo accounts of at least three journalists and an analyst became inaccessible over the last few weeks. They were greeted with messages saying, We’ve detected an issue with your account
and were told to contact Yahoo, they said Tuesday. Yahoo technicians told one of the four that his account had been hacked and restored his access, but it was not clear if the other instances were related
Google said it appeared to have inadvertently sparked the blockage of search queries from across China this evening, reassuring users who feared authorities were shutting off all access in response to the internet giant’s decision to close its mainland service. Users had reported that all standard searches on Google’s Hong Kong-based service were failing. But it seems that the introduction of a new search parameter, which by chance included a sensitive three-letter phrase, had triggered an existing keyword filter
Arthur Firstenberg, who says he is hypersensitive to certain frequencies of electromagnetic radiation, saw the house at the end of a narrow lane as a refuge from physical and neurological symptoms that have plagued him for three decades. It’s been difficult because of my electromagnetic sensitivities,
he said. I had a lot of difficulty finding a house that I could be comfortable in.
So in September 2008, he bought the home on Barela Street, a few blocks from the newly redeveloped downtown rail yard here. But last October, when a friend of his rented a house on the next block that backed up to Firstenberg’s property, the familiar waves of nausea, vertigo, body aches, dizziness, heart arrhythmia and insomnia returned — all, he says, because she was using an iPhone, a laptop computer, a wireless router and dimmer switches. So he sued Monribot in state district court, seeking $530,000 in damages and an injunction to force her to turn off the electronics
Patents on genes associated with hereditary breast and ovarian cancer are invalid, ruled a New York federal court today. The precedent-setting ruling marks the first time a court has found patents on genes unlawful and calls into question the validity of patents now held on approximately 2,000 human genes. The ruling follows a lawsuit brought by a group of patients and scientists represented by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Public Patent Foundation (PUBPAT), a not-for-profit organization affiliated with Benjamin N Cardozo School of Law
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