Cyberattack Strikes Web Sites in U.S., South Korea

At least 35 government and commercial Web sites in South Korea and the United States came under major attack over the past several days, fueling suspicions of involvement by North Korea or its sympathizers.

In the United States, the attacks targeted Web sites operated by major government agencies, including the departments of Homeland Security and Defense, the Federal Aviation Administration and the Federal Trade Commission, according to several computer security researchers. The Washington Post’s site was also affected.

South Korea’s main spy agency, the National Intelligence Service, said in a statement that it believed the attack was carried out “at the level of a certain organization or state,” but did not elaborate. The South Korean news agency Yonhap reported that intelligence officials had told South Korean lawmakers that North Korea or its sympathizers were prime suspects in the attacks. A spokesman for the intelligence service said it could not confirm the report.

The attacks were described as a “distributed denial of service,” a relatively unsophisticated form of hacking in which personal computers are commanded to overwhelm certain Web sites with a blizzard of data. The effort did not involve the theft of sensitive information or the disabling of crucial operational systems, government and security experts said. But they said it was widespread, resilient and aimed at both U.S. and South Korean government Web sites.

South Korea is one of the world’s most wired countries, with broadband access in more than 90 percent of homes and Internet data-transfer speeds that are much faster than in most of the United States. Earlier this year, a number of South Korean news organizations reported that North Korea was running a cyber-warfare unit that targets military computer networks in South Korea and the United States.

Experts, however, cautioned against implicating North Korea too soon.

“In the dozens of instances that I worked over the past decade, I cannot recall a single instance in which someone intending to attack came from the source it appeared to have come from,” said Dale W. Meyerrose, former chief information officer for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. “Most attackers in cyberspace try to mask who they really are.”

via Cyberattack Strikes Web Sites in U.S., South Korea – washingtonpost.com.

Robo-bats with metal muscles may be next generation of remote control flyers

Tiny flying machines can be used for everything from indoor surveillance to exploring collapsed buildings, but simply making smaller versions of planes and helicopters doesn’t work very well. Instead, researchers at North Carolina State University are mimicking nature’s small flyers – and developing robotic bats that offer increased maneuverability and performance.

Small flyers, or micro-aerial vehicles (MAVs), have garnered a great deal of interest due to their potential applications where maneuverability in tight spaces is necessary, says researcher Gheorghe Bunget. For example, Bunget says, “due to the availability of small sensors, MAVs can be used for detection missions of biological, chemical and nuclear agents.” But, due to their size, devices using a traditional fixed-wing or rotary-wing design have low maneuverability and aerodynamic efficiency.

So Bunget, a doctoral student in mechanical engineering at NC State, and his advisor Dr. Stefan Seelecke looked to nature. “We are trying to mimic nature as closely as possible,” Seelecke says, “because it is very efficient. And, at the MAV scale, nature tells us that flapping flight – like that of the bat – is the most effective.”

The researchers did extensive analysis of bats’ skeletal and muscular systems before developing a “robo-bat” skeleton using rapid prototyping technologies. The fully assembled skeleton rests easily in the palm of your hand and, at less than 6 grams, feels as light as a feather. The researchers are currently completing fabrication and assembly of the joints, muscular system and wing membrane for the robo-bat, which should allow it to fly with the same efficient flapping motion used by real bats.

“The key concept here is the use of smart materials,” Seelecke says. “We are using a shape-memory metal alloy that is super-elastic for the joints. The material provides a full range of motion, but will always return to its original position – a function performed by many tiny bones, cartilage and tendons in real bats.”

Seelecke explains that the research team is also using smart materials for the muscular system. “We’re using an alloy that responds to the heat from an electric current. That heat actuates micro-scale wires the size of a human hair, making them contract like ‘metal muscles.’ During the contraction, the powerful muscle wires also change their electric resistance, which can be easily measured, thus providing simultaneous action and sensory input. This dual functionality will help cut down on the robo-bat’s weight, and allow the robot to respond quickly to changing conditions – such as a gust of wind – as perfectly as a real bat.”

via Robo-bats with metal muscles may be next generation of remote control flyers.

Be on the look out for fake bats that seem to be watching you. As far as the “alloy” I think they are talking about nitinol which, according to this page, may have connections to the UFO that crashed at Roswell in 1947.

Human sperm created from embryonic stem cells

Human sperm have been created using embryonic stem cells for the first time in a scientific development which will lead researchers to a better understanding of the causes of infertility.

Researchers led by Professor Karim Nayernia at Newcastle University and the NorthEast England Stem Cell Institute (NESCI) have developed a new technique which has made the creation of human sperm possible in the laboratory.

The work is published today (8th July 2009) in the academic journal Stem Cells and Development.

The NorthEast England Stem Cell Institute (NESCI) is a collaboration between Newcastle and Durham Universities, Newcastle NHS Foundation Trust and other partners. …

In the technique developed at Newcastle, stem cells with XY chromosomes (male) were developed into germline stem cells which were then prompted to complete meiosis – cell division with halving of the chromosome set. These were shown to produce fully mature, sperm called scientifically, In Vitro Derived sperm (IVD sperm).

In contrast, stem cells with XX chromosomes (female) were prompted to form early stage sperm, spermatagonia, but did not progress further. This demonstrates to researchers that the genes on a Y chromosome are essential for meiosis and for sperm maturation.

via Human sperm created from embryonic stem cells.

Weird. This means that technically, with a bit of help, an embryo could be a father before it is born.

Backup plan to get NASA to moon cheaper

Like a car salesman pushing a luxury vehicle that the customer no longer can afford, NASA has pulled out of its back pocket a deal for a cheaper ride to the moon.

It won’t be as powerful, and its design is a little dated. Think of it as a base-model Ford station wagon instead of a tricked-out Cadillac Escalade.

Officially, the space agency is still on track with a 4-year-old plan to spend $35 billion to build new rockets and return astronauts to the moon in several years. However, a top NASA manager is floating a cut-rate alternative that costs around $6.6 billion.

This cheaper option is not as powerful as NASA’s current design with its fancy new rockets, the people-carrying Ares I and cargo-lifting Ares V. But the cut-rate plan would still get to the moon.

The new model calls for flying lunar vehicles on something very familiar-looking – the old space shuttle system with its gigantic orange fuel tank and twin solid-rocket boosters, minus the shuttle itself. There are two new vehicles this rocket would carry – one generic cargo container, the other an Apollo-like capsule for astronaut travel. Those new vehicles could both go to the moon or the international space station.

What’s most remarkable about this idea is who it came from: NASA’s shuttle program manager John Shannon. He recently presented it to an independent panel charged with reviewing NASA’s costly spaceflight plans. And he was urged to do so by a top NASA administrator.

It shows that top officials in NASA, an agency of engineers who regularly make contingency plans, worry that their preferred moon plan is running into trouble, space experts said.

via Backup plan to get NASA to moon cheaper.

New dinosaurs found in Australia

Dinosaur discovery “a major breakthrough”

Australian palaeontologists say they have discovered three new dinosaur species after examining fossils dug up in Queensland.

Writing in the journal PLoS One, they describe one of the creatures as a fearsome predator with three large slashing claws on each hand.

The other two were herbivores: one a tall giraffe-like creature, the other of stocky build like a hippopotamus.

The fossils date back nearly 100 million years.

They were found in rocks known as the Winton Formation.

The dinosaurs have been named after characters in Australia’s famous song Waltzing Matilda.

The carnivore, which has the scientific classification Australovenator wintonensis, has therefore been dubbed “Banjo” after Banjo Patterson, who composed the song in Winton in 1885.

Queensland Museum palaeontologist Scott Hucknell said the creature would have been a terrifying prospect.

“The cheetah of his time, Banjo was light and agile. He could run down most prey with ease over open ground,” he told reporters.

via BBC NEWS | Science & Environment | New dinosaurs found in Australia.

Michael Jackson’s last rehearsal video

Michael Jackson’s last rehearsal video.

It seems that everyone wants to see Michael Jacksons last rehearsal video.

I have been following all of the latest news on Michael Jackson’s death through the ABC News website. ABC has reported that two days before Michael Jackson’s death, he was rehearsing for his big come back tour. This rehearsal was video taped. Jackson seemed to be in good health. But yet, he died suddenly of a cardiac arrest, two days later.

You be the judge. Watch Michael Jackson’s last rehearsal video.

From the  Examiner’s recap of Jackson’s service:

Michael Jackson’s memorial service involved television and the internet equally. So many people streamed it online that it should end up as the most watched real-time event in human history. All other hyperbole regarding its participatory nature aside, it was obviously a strange, lavish moment in the culture. Whether or not it was a fitting tribute still isn’t clear.

In terms of the television coverage, there was initial confusion over start time and some unfortunate dead air the networks tried to fill in various hysterical ways: reading from Lisa Marie Presley’s MySpace page, for instance (Fox News) as if it held vital information. NBC’s Lester Holt, in conversation with Brian Williams outside Staples Center, referenced “all the people” Jackson touched. Universally awkward silence ensued–followed, no doubt, by a sea of snark.

Upon running out of ways to bathe Staples Center in appropriately dour light, the networks caught a break when the service was finally allowed to begin. There followed a string of remarkably disparate performances that at least, by being episodic, reiterated that this was, after all, television. Mariah Carey did an American Idol version of herself; Stevie Wonder, typically, induced shivers by being very much himself.

John Mayer played Jackson’s “Human Nature”, for which he has so far been panned. Usher, one of contemporary r&b’s more obvious MJ approximations, sang “Gone Too Soon” utterly without subtlety; near its end he approached Jackson’s casket, dropping his, Usher’s, hand briefly to it. At this point the histrionics were already way past exponential.

Laser ‘cure’ for blindness tested

A ground-breaking laser treatment could prevent millions of older people from going blind, experts believe.

The technique helps reverse the effects of age-related macular degeneration – the leading cause of blindness in over 60s in the western world.

Developed by pioneering eye expert Professor John Marshall of King’s College London, the laser returns the back of the eye to its youthful state.

Improvements to sight were reported in early proof of concept trials.

AMD affects more than 200,000 people in the UK and attacks the central vision.

It develops when a membrane at the back of the eye becomes clogged with natural waste materials produced by the light-sensitive cells, which clouds vision.

In youthful eyes, enzymes clear away the debris, but as the ageing process sets in this system can fail.

The painless “short pulse” laser works by boosting the release of the enzymes to clean away the waste without damaging the cells that enable us to see.

Early tests proved promising in around 50 people with diabetic eye disease – chosen as a model because the problems develop faster than in AMD. … nce people have advanced AMD in one eye, studies show the condition usually develops in the second eye in 18 months to three years.

“If you can delay the onset by three, four, six, seven or 10 years, it’s proof of the principle,” he said.

“What this laser is doing is trying to treat the underlying ageing process, as it were, reset the clock so that you don’t have the manifestations of visual loss.”

He said the aim was to prevent damage and preserve their sight for the rest of their lives.

via BBC NEWS | Health | Laser ‘cure’ for blindness tested.

Repository of History Has Items Disappearing

Visitors to the National Archives here know they will find the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights in the main building’s magnificent rotunda.

But they can no longer find the patent file for the Wright brothers’ flying machine or maps for the first atomic bomb missions in the archives inventory.

Many historical items the archives once possessed are missing, including Civil War telegrams from Abraham Lincoln, presidential portraits of Franklin D. Roosevelt, NASA photographs from space and the moon, and presidential pardons.

Some were stolen by researchers or archives employees. Others simply disappeared. And more than that is gone.

The archives’ inspector general, Paul Brachfeld, is conducting a criminal investigation into a missing hard drive with copies of records from the Clinton administration. Because the drive may also include classified information, Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa, calls its loss a major national security breach.

Mr. Brachfeld has documented thousands of electronic storage devices, including computers and servers, that have disappeared over the past decade.

Mr. Grassley, who has demanded an accounting of all missing items, said the loss of historical documents “is completely unacceptable.”

The archives’ stewardship of the nation’s records has been questioned before. In a well-publicized incident, former President Bill Clinton’s national security adviser, Samuel R. Berger, took documents in the fall of 2003 while preparing for testimony to the Sept. 11 commission. In September 2005, Mr. Berger was sentenced to two years of probation and 100 hours of community service, was fined $50,000 and lost his security clearance for three years.

via Repository of History Has Items Disappearing – NYTimes.com.

Wife blows MI6 chief’s cover on Facebook

The wife of the new head of MI6 has caused a major security breach and left his family exposed after publishing photographs and personal details on Facebook.

Sir John Sawers is due to take over as chief of the Secret Intelligence Service in November, putting him in charge of all of Britain’s spying operations abroad.

But entries by his wife Shelley on the social networking site have exposed potentially compromising details about where they live and work, their friends’ identities and where they spend their holidays. On the day her husband was appointed she congratulated him on the site using his codename “C”.

Lady Sawers had put virtually no privacy protection on her account, making it visible to any of the site’s 200m users around the world who choose to be in the open-access London social network on Facebook.

The extraordinary lapse exposed the couple’s friendships with senior diplomats and well-known actors, including a leading character in The Archers, the BBC Radio 4 drama, and revealed that the intelligence chief’s brother-in-law, who holidayed with him last month, is an associate of David Irving, the controversial right-wing historian.

Once the Foreign Office had been informed of the faux pas all the material was removed from the internet. The move suggests that MI6 or the Foreign Office had not vetted the information the Sawers family shared over the internet.

Foreign Office staff are warned about using social networking sites when they join but MI6 advises its agents to maintain even tighter secrecy, telling them to reveal their true role only to their closest family.

Last night Ed Davey, the Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman, told The Mail On Sunday: “This type of exposure verges on the reckless. The prime minister should immediately commission an internal inquiry as to whether this has breached the security of the incoming head of MI6 too seriously to allow him to take up the post.”

The Tory MP Patrick Mercer said the MI6 chief had left himself open to blackmail. A Foreign Office spokesman was unavailable for comment last night.

via Wife blows MI6 chief’s cover on Facebook – Times Online.

Doh.

So why is the U.S. so eager to lock up Gary McKinnon, the Asperger’s Syndrome hacker?

The determination to see Gary McKinnon rot in jail has been driven by American domestic politics.

The case against him was launched in the febrile aftermath of the 9/11 attacks during the presidency of George W. Bush. Now his chances of escaping extradition have been hit by a new White House focus on cyber security breaches under Barack Obama.

The President recently appointed a White House cyber tsar to plug holes in security after continuing attempts to hack into government computers. Security, judicial and intelligence officials in Washington have told the Mail that they have no intention of dropping their demands for Gary to face trial in the U.S. Pentagon figures still regard his admitted crimes as very serious, as well as embarrassing, and dismiss his claims that he is a harmless UFO researcher.

When Gary was charged, U.S. Attorney Paul McNulty accused him of carrying out the ‘biggest military computer hack of all time’. U.S. officials were particularly incensed that he carried out some of his attacks in the aftermath of the September 11 atrocities.

He is accused of illegally accessing 98 computers belonging to the U.S. army, navy, air force, NASA, Department of Defence and a number of private companies. He allegedly stole passwords, deleted files and monitored traffic and did £500,000 of damage to computers in 14 states.

In April 2001, he hacked into the computers of a naval weapons station in New Jersey, which provides munitions and supplies for the Atlantic fleet. He stole 950 passwords and then 12 days after 9/11, allegedly used the passwords to delete files needed to power up the computers, shutting them down at a time the nation was on high alert.

A former CIA officer with close links to the National Security Council told the Mail: ‘The attitude is that you don’t do something like that and get away with it. People still want to see an example made of him.’ … A Washington official familiar with the case said: ‘It would be naive to think that the change in the White House will make a difference.

‘This never really was a Bush or a neocon thing or an Obama thing either. The U.S. system is big on bringing lawbreakers to justice. It is partly cultural and partly institutional and that would work against him even if cyber security were not right up there as an issue at the moment.

via So why is the U.S. so eager to lock up Gary McKinnon, the Asperger’s Syndrome hacker? | Mail Online.

In my view they don’t want to put him in jail as much as they want to spend years talking about putting him in jail.  More here than meets the eye.