NEWS

[towhom]

U.S. Army servers breached by Turkish hackers
ZDNet News & Blogs / Technology News
Posted: Jun 01, 2009 4:44:56 AM
news.zdnet.com/2100-9595_22-307208.html?tag=nl.e589

Hackers based in Turkey penetrated two US army web servers and redirected traffic from those websites to other pages, including one with anti-American and anti-Israeli messages, according to a report in InformationWeek.

The hackers, who go by the group name 'm0sted', breached a server at the army's McAlester Ammunition Plant in Oklahoma on 26 January (2009) and a server at the US Army Corps of Engineers' Transatlantic Center in Winchester, Virginia, on 19 September, 2007, the report said.

Investigators believe an SQL injection attack was used to exploit a vulnerability in Microsoft's SQL Server database in order to gain access to the servers.

It is unclear whether any sensitive information was accessed, according to the report.

Search warrants have been served on Microsoft, Yahoo, Google and other ISPs and email providers, while a criminal investigation is underway at the Defense Department, the US Army's Judge Advocate General's Office, and the Computer Emergency Response Team, InformationWeek reported.

The same group defaced the United Nations website in 2007, also using a SQL injection attack.

This article was originally posted on CNET News.

Why did this take so long to hit the streets? Are you looking for more funding for an infrastructure overhaul. That is already a priority with the current administration. You have "stuff". You just want the game board set up in your favor, authorizing the use of a totally invasive "superstructure" to do what you are ALREADY DOING. Just like the previous administration's "legal manipulation" in setting up guidelines and protocols via the totally infamous "Patriot Act" and the enforcement by the "Dept. of Homeland Security" referencing data collection and monitoring of all communications without cause and without subpoenas. You've been doing this for YEARS - you finally got around to adding the "laws" authorizing these "procedures".

The concern I have is the introduction of AI platforms and programs (the "stuff") as cited in many articles, both in the open and on "the fringe" - like the one above.

There is no way I can accept that there aren't advancements already in place and in use with respects to AI applications - especially intuitive and self-correcting programs. Frankly, I think the only reason some of the research "trickles out" in main stream media is to add a layer of complacency for the general population and trip-wire some other research into cross-sharing so it can be tracked, squashed and/or incorporated into "non-acknowledged" tinkering.

Furthermore, it is a crying shame that this "not in the loop" attitude is alive and well...not even the POTUS is included. What a bunch of "goober-geeks"...

[towhom]

20,000 sites hit with drive-by attack code
ZDNet News & Blogs / Technology News
by Ryan Naraine
Posted: June 1st, 2009 @ 6:50 am
blogs.zdnet.com/security/?p=3476&tag=nl.e589

Hackers have broken into more than 20,000 legitimate Web sites to plant malicious code to be used in drive-by malware attacks.

According to a warning from Websense Security Labs, the sites have been discovered to be injected with malicious JavaScript, obfuscated code that leads to an active exploit site.

The company discovered that the active exploit site uses a name similar to the legitimate Google Analytics domain (google-analytics.com).

This is unrelated to the Gumblar attack, Websense said.

This mass injection attack does not seem related to Gumblar. The location of the injection, as well as the decoded code itself, seem to indicate a new, unrelated, mass injection campaign.

The exploit site has been seeded with several different attacks targeted unpatched software vulnerabilities. The malware that gets loaded on compromised Windows machines is linked to scareware/rogueware (fake security applications).

Malware purveyors have increasingly turned to legitimate Web sites to launch attacks, using SQL injection techniques to compromise and hijack high-traffic sites.

According to data from MessageLabs, about 85 percent of Web sites blocked for hosting malicious content were ‘well-established’ domains that have been around for a year or more.

[towhom]

Supreme Court to hear patent case with broad implications
ZDNet News & Blogs / Government
Posted by Richard Koman
June 1, 2009 @ 9:44 AM
government.zdnet.com/?p=4875

Weather-based risk in commodities trading. Is that too abstract for a patent? Maybe not. While the question may seem arcane, it actually has big import for high-tech.

The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit rejected the patent on the so-called business method patent because it was too abstract. The inventors say the invention is patentable because “it produced a useful, real-world result: the ability to buy or sell commodities over a given time period at fixed prices,” according to the Wall Street Journal.

The case pits biotech against high-tech again, the Journal says, as it’s another attempt to broaden patent protections.

International Business Machines Corp., Dell Inc. and Microsoft Corp. were among the companies who had urged the lower court to rein in patent rights, while biotechnology groups warned that changes to current patent standards could harm patent protections for biotech inventions.

POTUS to SCOTUS: Leave Cablevision decision alone
ZDNet News & Blogs / Government
Posted by Richard Koman
June 1, 2009 @ 9:15 AM
government.zdnet.com/?p=4873

Should the Supreme Court hear networks’ and movie studios’ plea to consider whether Cablevision’s remote DVR technology violates copyright law? The Justice Department urged no, Dow Jones reports.

A federal appeals court said Cablevision could go forward with its plans to record, store and serve copyrighted content on its own servers instead of forcing customers to buy their own individual DVRs, rejecting the copyright industry’s argument that the scheme violates copyright law.

Solicitor General Elena Kagan wrote in a brief that the court shouldn’t get involved.

For the last 30 years, consumers have been able to record televised programs and to play back the recorded programming at a later time. Respondents’ proposed RS-DVR service is part of a broader transition from analog to digital recording and playback, and from business models where consumers purchase a tangible item to those where they pay for a service.

[towhom]

Microsoft sneaks in Firefox extension via Update
ZDNet News & Blogs / Community
by Joe Brockmeier
Posted: May 31st, 2009 @ 6:42 pm
blogs.zdnet.com/community/?p=293

The good news is that Microsoft is writing extensions for Firefox. The bad news is, the Redmond giant is slipping the extension onto systems without notifying users and making it difficult to get rid of the extension. Even worse? It’s an extension that allows Web sites to install software onto users’ PCs behind the scenes — meaning that Firefox users on Windows may not be as safe as they think.

Brian Krebs, who originally recommended the .Net Framework that sneaks the extension into Firefox writes:

Anyway, I’m sure it’s not the end of the world, but it’s probably infuriating to many readers nonetheless. Firstly — to my readers — I apologize for overlooking this…”feature” of the .NET Framework security update. Secondly — to Microsoft — this is a great example of how not to convince people to trust your security updates.

Krebs is right: It’s not the end of the world. But it seems like a violation of user trust to monkey with a third-party program — and top it off by making it difficult to remove the extension without editing the Windows Registry. By using the update mechanism to sneak software onto the system, Microsoft is telling security conscious users to be suspicious of updates and to deploy them only after they’ve been widely vetted, or choose a more trustworthy vendor.

As a Linux user, it makes little difference to me what Microsoft does via Windows Update –users on openSUSE and other Linux distros can see exactly what updates will do to their system: Down to the source code, if they choose to take the time.

But, failing a source code audit, Microsoft could at least provide a full disclosure of the packages and features modified when a user runs Windows Update. Without that, users should be wary indeed of trusting Microsoft’s updates — and missing a trust relationship for security updates, users should be wary of running Windows in the first place.

[mike]

Jun 1, 2009 3:55:06 GMT 4 @towhom said:

Breakthrough In Quantum Control Of Light: Implications For Banking, Drug Design, And More
ScienceDaily
May 31, 2009
www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/05/090529093155.htm

<snip!>

The project is funded by the federal agency called the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity, or IARPA. The government is particularly interested in quantum computing because of the way banking and other important communications are currently encrypted. Using large numbers, with hundreds of digits, encryption codes are changed daily and would take years of traditional computing to break. Quantum computing could potentially break those codes quickly, destroying current encryption schemes.
[Note: Yes, the better to "hear you" with, my dears...]

<snip!>

I love the editorial comments!

Just wanted to add a few thoughts of my own, since anything to do with quantum computing is usually suspect once it has been filtered through the mainstream press.

If quantum computing became a reality tomorrow (or if it is already a reality somewhere in the bowels of the NSA) current encryption schemes would not be destroyed. Yes, some changes would be needed--especially in the key exchange protocols--but nothing too drastic. The core symmetric encryption algorithms that handle all of the bulk data encryption in your typical SSL session (as an example) would likely remain the same, although the internal key size would have to double to offset the quadratic search improvements of a quantum computer running an optimal search algorithm on the key space. Still, with most symmetric encryption algorithms, the computational cost of doubling the key size is negligible on modern hardware and is usually paid for up front during initialization, and avoided for all subsequent rounds of encryption (subject to being periodically re-keyed). In a nutshell, the advent of widespread quantum computing will not represent the end of modern encryption, nor will it represent some sort of sea change in the way we do things on the Net. The software needed to effectively deal with this eventuality already exists.

* One more quibble with the article: the keys used by banks (assuming they abide by modern NIST recommendations) cannot be broken by brute force using conventional computers in years; depending on your estimates of evolving computer capabilities, it would likely take many, many times the current age of the universe to work your way through the solution space of a single 128-bit key; of course, on average (for a random key) you'd only have to try half of those keys. ;D

* In practice, I suspect most governments rarely bother with cryptanalysis. When the existance, locale and frequency of encrypted communications becomes sufficient to draw their interest, they probably assign it some sort of risk estimate and end up using various on-the-ground techniques to find out what is actually going on with the source.



Kind regards,
Mike

[towhom]

Jun 2, 2009 2:44:53 GMT 4 @mike said:

Jun 1, 2009 3:55:06 GMT 4 @towhom said:

Breakthrough In Quantum Control Of Light: Implications For Banking, Drug Design, And More
ScienceDaily
May 31, 2009
www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/05/090529093155.htm

<snip!>

The project is funded by the federal agency called the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity, or IARPA. The government is particularly interested in quantum computing because of the way banking and other important communications are currently encrypted. Using large numbers, with hundreds of digits, encryption codes are changed daily and would take years of traditional computing to break. Quantum computing could potentially break those codes quickly, destroying current encryption schemes.
[Note: Yes, the better to "hear you" with, my dears...]

<snip!>

I love the editorial comments!

Just wanted to add a few thoughts of my own, since anything to do with quantum computing is usually suspect once it has been filtered through the mainstream press.

If quantum computing became a reality tomorrow (or if it is already a reality somewhere in the bowels of the NSA) current encryption schemes would not be destroyed. Yes, some changes would be needed--especially in the key exchange protocols--but nothing too drastic. The core symmetric encryption algorithms that handle all of the bulk data encryption in your typical SSL session (as an example) would likely remain the same, although the internal key size would have to double to offset the quadratic search improvements of a quantum computer running an optimal search algorithm on the key space. Still, with most symmetric encryption algorithms, the computational cost of doubling the key size is negligible on modern hardware and is usually paid for up front during initialization, and avoided for all subsequent rounds of encryption (subject to being periodically re-keyed). In a nutshell, the advent of widespread quantum computing will not represent the end of modern encryption, nor will it represent some sort of sea change in the way we do things on the Net. The software needed to effectively deal with this eventuality already exists.

* One more quibble with the article: the keys used by banks (assuming they abide by modern NIST recommendations) cannot be broken by brute force using conventional computers in years; depending on your estimates of evolving computer capabilities, it would likely take many, many times the current age of the universe to work your way through the solution space of a single 128-bit key; of course, on average (for a random key) you'd only have to try half of those keys. ;D

* In practice, I suspect most governments rarely bother with cryptanalysis. When the existance, locale and frequency of encrypted communications becomes sufficient to draw their interest, they probably assign it some sort of risk estimate and end up using various on-the-ground techniques to find out what is actually going on with the source.


Kind regards,
Mike

Hiya Mike!

Hope all is well with you and yours!

I agree that all information that surfaces in main stream press is suspect. As stated in another post today, I think someone is:

• "allowing" the information to surface for reasons of public complacency
  
• "baiting the trap" to see what nibbles and/or bites the bytes to track on cross-sharing information
  
• someone had a "quantum moment"
  
• the encryption "gurus" and the "quantum "stringers" are duking it out for funding
  
• it's a trailer for a new SciFi Channel series this fall called "Tales from Encryption - The Quantum Zone" based on the battle between Photons and Schroedinger's Cat including a high-tech special effects scene of the "Photonics" forcing "SchroeCat" to walk the "Planck" suspended over a well of "black-body radiation"... (okay, so maybe it isn't...)

Anyway ...

It is highly probable (as in 99.999%) that whatever exists in the public domain, is far more advanced in the "private domain". We know this is a fact in weaponry development. Considering the internet currently in use today originated on platforms developed by DARPA, it is not a "leap in faith" that the platforms were opened with all sorts of nifty "snoop loops" hardwired or "softwired". Furthermore - who knows what is embedded in any piece of hardware currently running the computers globally. I don't see many people building their own motherboard or processor...

The bottom line is privacy is no longer sacrosanct. Whatever privacy was once upheld by the courts is slowly fading away. It wouldn't matter if someone were to develop a fully-functional quantum computer (snicker-snicker), we're being hacked, stacked and smacked right now.

And yes, simply watching "traffic trends" allows for "traffic diversion or packet re-routing" complete with encryption key recovery.

Peace and Joy
Always

Sally Anne ;D

[locoaz2009]

American capitalism gone with a whimper Stanislav Mishin
From PRAVDA.ru June 1, 2009

It must be said, that like the breaking of a great dam, the American decent into Marxism is happening with breath taking speed, against the back drop of a passive, hapless sheeple, excuse me dear reader, I meant people.

True, the situation has been well prepared on and off for the past century, especially the past twenty years. The initial testing grounds was conducted upon our Holy Russia and a bloody test it was. But we Russians would not just roll over and give up our freedoms and our souls, no matter how much money Wall Street poured into the fists of the Marxists.

Those lessons were taken and used to properly prepare the American populace for the surrender of their freedoms and souls, to the whims of their elites and betters.

First, the population was dumbed down through a politicized and substandard education system based on pop culture, rather then the classics. Americans know more about their favorite TV dramas then the drama in DC that directly affects their lives. They care more for their "right" to choke down a McDonalds burger or a BurgerKing burger than for their constitutional rights. Then they turn around and lecture us about our rights and about our "democracy". Pride blind the foolish.

jsmineset.com/

LOCOAZ

[locoaz2009]

Geithner gets laughed at by Chinese students when saying $ assets are safe

Jim Sinclair’s Commentary

Even the kids in China understand the future of the US dollar.

June 1, 2009
Tom Bawden

Geithner tells China its dollar assets are safe

Mr Geithner, in China on his first visit as US Treasury Secretary, reiterated that US would cut its huge fiscal deficits

Timothy Geithner moved today to reassure the Chinese Government that its huge holdings of dollar assets were safe as he reaffirmed his faith in a strong US currency.

Mr Geithner, in China on his first visit as US Treasury Secretary, sought to allay concerns that Washington’s growing budget deficit would fan inflation which, in turn, would undermine the dollar and US bonds.

“Chinese assets are very safe,” Mr Geithner said, answering a question after his opening address at Peking University this morning.

His answer was greeted with laughter by the students, who question the wisdom of China spending huge amounts of money on US bonds instead of improving domestic living standards.

China is the biggest foreign owner of US Treasury bonds, holding $768 billion (£468 billion) at the end of March.


jsmineset.com/

LOCOAZ

[locoaz2009]

Posted: Jun 01 2009 By: Jim Sinclair

Jim,

In determining the path to hyperinflation I come to a stopping point at the wage-price spiral. If the past few months have shown us anything, it’s that the average working-class American lacks the backbone to make a stand again corporate fascism. Hyperinflation requires wage increases so the consumer can still afford goods. In Weimar Germany, the labor unions were apparently quite powerful, which facilitated the process. In the present-day US, other than UAW and a couple of others, the labor class is nearly powerless in the economic process. There is a shortage of good jobs in the real economy and thus workers will be beggars and they will have little bargaining power.

In your model how will higher commodity prices and a Treasury bond selloff translate into higher wages in this economy under such conditions to initiate a wage-price spiral when the workers have such little power these days?

All the best,
CIGA Subir


Dear Subir,

Let us assume the US dollar goes into a free fall whereby groceries are rising in price by 20% per week. Nobody is going to work five days for what will only buy them a half day’s worth of food.

Your thoughts are driven by the assumption that hyperinflation is a demand pull or cost (wage push) type of inflation when it is not.

Hyperinflation has always been and will always be a product of prices escalating as a result of a currency falling in value rapidly.

Currency Hedge Funds internationally utilizing enormous leverage as short sellers will bring hyperinflation to the USA, not unions.

October/November of 2009 will give the US its first taste of hyperinflation since the collapse of the Confederate Dollar hit the South or from the collapse of the US Continental for the Colonial hinterland citizens still holding them.

Respectfully yours,
Jim

[towhom]

Newsflash: Sunspot Appears!
Universe Today
Written by Nancy Atkinson
June 1st, 2009
www.universetoday.com/2009/06/01/newsflash-sunspot-appears/

OK, I admit – the headline is a little over the top. But the sun has been so quiet of late, that even a small sunspot can be exciting. There’s been some debate whether this period of extreme solar calm is truly unusual, or just part of the natural cycle. But solar cycle models never predicted this low amount of activity. “It turns out that none of our models were totally correct,” admitted Dean Pesnell of the Goddard Space Flight Center, a member of an international panel of experts that are now trying to predict what the next solar cycle will hold. “The sun is behaving in an unexpected and very interesting way.”

The panel is predicting that the next cycle, Solar Cycle 24 will have a peak sunspot number of 90, the lowest of any cycle since 1928 when Solar Cycle 16 peaked at 78.

Right now, the solar cycle is in a valley–the deepest of the past century. In 2008 and 2009, the sun set Space Age records for low sunspot counts, weak solar wind, and low solar irradiance. The sun has gone more than two years without a significant solar flare.

“In our professional careers, we’ve never seen anything quite like it,” says Pesnell. “Solar minimum has lasted far beyond the date we predicted in 2007.”

For 2009, the number of “spotless” days are 123, as of May 31, which is 82%.

There’s a little sign of action on the sun, though. In recent months small sunspots and “proto-sunspots” are popping up with increasing frequency. Enormous currents of plasma on the sun’s surface (”zonal flows”) are gaining strength and slowly drifting toward the sun’s equator. Radio astronomers have detected a tiny but significant uptick in solar radio emissions. All these things are precursors of an awakening Solar Cycle 24 and form the basis for the panel’s new, almost unanimous forecast.

According to the forecast, the sun should remain generally calm for at least another year. This calm has a greater affect on Earth’s atmosphere than you might imagine. With low solar activity, the Earth’s atmosphere can cool and contract. Space junk accumulates in Earth orbit because there is less aerodynamic drag; hence the increase in the number of collision event “alarms” for the ISS and shuttles. The calm solar wind whips up fewer magnetic storms around Earth’s poles. Cosmic rays that are normally pushed back by solar wind instead intrude on the near-Earth environment. There are other side-effects, too, that can be studied only so long as the sun remains quiet.

But the sun is a very chaotic place, and even a below-average cycle is capable of producing severe space weather from solar flares and coronal mass ejections (CME) said Doug Biesecker of the NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center. So we shouldn’t be lulled into a false sense of security.

Sources: Science@NASA, SpaceWeather.com

[locoaz2009]

Pakistan ‘fears destabilizing’ US policies

Jim Sinclair’s Commentary

Destabilization? There are 2,500,000 Pakistanis homeless and on the march. What do you call that?

Fri, 29 May 2009 07:09:53 GMT

The Islamabad government is worried that the US President Barack Obama’s move to boost its military presence in Afghanistan could further destabilize Pakistan.

Pakistan’s Dawn News revealed on Friday that Civilians and military officials in Islamabad believe that an increase of 21,000 US troops in Afghanistan could further destabilize Pakistan by pushing more militants across the border.

Sources said increased US military activity may also spark an influx of refugees from insurgency-hit southern Afghanistan into border areas of Pakistan.

Meanwhile, US Central Command chief Gen David Petraeus paid a secret visit to Islamabad during this week to allay Pakistan’s concerns that the troops build-up in the war-ravaged Afghanistan would add to its woes, according to the report.

"Gen Petraeus told his interlocutors that the US had very few options other than to increase the number of troops in Afghanistan and that all possible efforts would be made to minimize its fallout on Pakistan," a diplomatic source told Dawn.


jsmineset.com/

LOCOAZ

[towhom]

Scientists create metal that pumps liquid uphill
Ultra-fast laser makes metal that attracts, repels and guides liquids
EurekAlert
Public Release: 2-Jun-2009
www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-06/uor-scm060209.php

In nature, trees pull vast amounts of water from their roots up to their leaves hundreds of feet above the ground through capillary action, but now scientists at the University of Rochester have created a simple slab of metal that lifts liquid using the same principle—but does so at a speed that would make nature envious.

The metal, revealed in an upcoming issue of Applied Physics Letters, may prove invaluable in pumping microscopic amounts of liquid around a medical diagnostic chip, cooling a computer's processor, or turning almost any simple metal into an anti-bacterial surface.

"We're able to change the surface structure of almost any piece of metal so that we can control how liquid responds to it," says Chunlei Guo, associate professor of optics at the University of Rochester. "We can even control the direction in which the liquid flows, or whether liquid flows at all."

Guo and his assistant, Anatoliy Vorobyev, use an ultra-fast burst of laser light to change the surface of a metal, forming nanoscale and microscale pits, globules, and strands across the metal's surface. The laser, called a femtosecond laser, produces pulses lasting only a few quadrillionths of a second—a femtosecond is to a second what a second is to about 32 million years. During its brief burst, Guo's laser unleashes as much power as the entire electric grid of North America does, all focused onto a spot the size of a needlepoint, he says.

The wicking process, which on Guo's metal moves at a quick one centimeter per second speed against gravity, is very similar to the phenomenon that pulls spilled milk into a paper towel or creates "tears of wine" in a wineglass—molecular attractions and evaporation combine to move a liquid against gravity, says Guo. Likewise, Guo's nanostructures change the way molecules of a liquid interact with the molecules of the metal, allowing them to become more or less attracted to each other, depending on Guo's settings. At a certain size, the metal nanostructures adhere more readily to the liquid's molecules than the liquid's molecules adhere to each other, causing the liquid to quickly spread out across the metal. Combined with the effects of evaporation as the liquid spreads, this molecular interaction creates the fast wicking effect in Guo's metals.

Adding laser-etched channels into the metal further enhances Guo's control of the liquid.

"Imagine a huge waterway system shrunk down onto a tiny chip, like the electronic circuit printed on a microprocessor, so we can perform chemical or biological work with a tiny bit of liquid," says Guo. "Blood could precisely travel along a certain path to a sensor for disease diagnostics. With such a tiny system, a nurse wouldn't need to draw a whole tube of blood for a test. A scratch on the skin might contain more than enough cells for a micro-analysis."

Guo's team has also created metal that reduces the attraction between water molecules and metal molecules, a phenomenon called hydrophobia. Since germs mostly consist of water, it's all but impossible for them to grow on a hydrophobic surface, says Guo.

Currently, to alter an area of metal the size of a quarter takes 30 minutes or more, but Guo and Vorobyev are working on refining the technique to make it faster. Fortunately, despite the incredible intensity involved, the femtosecond laser can be powered by a simple wall outlet, meaning that when the process is refined, implementing it should be relatively simple.

Guo is also announcing this month in Physical Review Letters a femtosecond laser processing technique that can create incandescent light bulbs that use half as much energy, yet produce the same amount of light. In 2006, Guo's team used the femtosecond laser to create metal with nanostructures that reflected almost no light at all, and in 2008 the team was able to tune the creation of nanostructures to reflect certain wavelengths of light—in effect turning almost any metal into almost any color.

This research funded by the U.S. Air Force Office of Scientific Research and the National Science Foundation.

[mike]

Jun 2, 2009 4:10:12 GMT 4 @towhom said:

Jun 2, 2009 2:44:53 GMT 4 @mike said:

I love the editorial comments!

Just wanted to add a few thoughts of my own, since anything to do with quantum computing is usually suspect once it has been filtered through the mainstream press.

If quantum computing became a reality tomorrow (or if it is already a reality somewhere in the bowels of the NSA) current encryption schemes would not be destroyed. Yes, some changes would be needed--especially in the key exchange protocols--but nothing too drastic. The core symmetric encryption algorithms that handle all of the bulk data encryption in your typical SSL session (as an example) would likely remain the same, although the internal key size would have to double to offset the quadratic search improvements of a quantum computer running an optimal search algorithm on the key space. Still, with most symmetric encryption algorithms, the computational cost of doubling the key size is negligible on modern hardware and is usually paid for up front during initialization, and avoided for all subsequent rounds of encryption (subject to being periodically re-keyed). In a nutshell, the advent of widespread quantum computing will not represent the end of modern encryption, nor will it represent some sort of sea change in the way we do things on the Net. The software needed to effectively deal with this eventuality already exists.

* One more quibble with the article: the keys used by banks (assuming they abide by modern NIST recommendations) cannot be broken by brute force using conventional computers in years; depending on your estimates of evolving computer capabilities, it would likely take many, many times the current age of the universe to work your way through the solution space of a single 128-bit key; of course, on average (for a random key) you'd only have to try half of those keys. ;D

* In practice, I suspect most governments rarely bother with cryptanalysis. When the existance, locale and frequency of encrypted communications becomes sufficient to draw their interest, they probably assign it some sort of risk estimate and end up using various on-the-ground techniques to find out what is actually going on with the source.


Kind regards,
Mike

Hiya Mike!

Hope all is well with you and yours!

I agree that all information that surfaces in main stream press is suspect. As stated in another post today, I think someone is:

• "allowing" the information to surface for reasons of public complacency
  
• "baiting the trap" to see what nibbles and/or bites the bytes to track on cross-sharing information
  
• someone had a "quantum moment"
  
• the encryption "gurus" and the "quantum "stringers" are duking it out for funding
  
• it's a trailer for a new SciFi Channel series this fall called "Tales from Encryption - The Quantum Zone" based on the battle between Photons and Schroedinger's Cat including a high-tech special effects scene of the "Photonics" forcing "SchroeCat" to walk the "Planck" suspended over a well of "black-body radiation"... (okay, so maybe it isn't...)

Anyway ...

It is highly probable (as in 99.999%) that whatever exists in the public domain, is far more advanced in the "private domain". We know this is a fact in weaponry development. Considering the internet currently in use today originated on platforms developed by DARPA, it is not a "leap in faith" that the platforms were opened with all sorts of nifty "snoop loops" hardwired or "softwired". Furthermore - who knows what is embedded in any piece of hardware currently running the computers globally. I don't see many people building their own motherboard or processor...

The bottom line is privacy is no longer sacrosanct. Whatever privacy was once upheld by the courts is slowly fading away. It wouldn't matter if someone were to develop a fully-functional quantum computer (snicker-snicker), we're being hacked, stacked and smacked right now.

And yes, simply watching "traffic trends" allows for "traffic diversion or packet re-routing" complete with encryption key recovery.

Peace and Joy
Always

Sally Anne ;D

Thank you, Sally Anne! I've been a bit preoccupied with other stuff lately, but I still try to get in here a few times a week and read up on everyone's postings along with the latest developments in Eagles Country.

Do you remember when that story broke about AT&T installing taps in all of its major switching centers, to allow various spooks and alphabet agencies unrestricted access to all of its traffic? It basically confirmed what a lot of us had suspected for quite awhile--once your traffic reaches the routers of a major backbone provider, you can consider it compromised. Strong mathematics can still protect your traffic, but it won't protect you as an individual from the resources of your elected government (cough). As others here can tell you, it's probably better to hide in plain sight and send information back channel (innuendo, implication, breveties, open codes, even steganography) because it is less ammenable to automated analysis and discovery. If they want the information badly enough, make them work for it.

Of course, when it comes down to brass tacks, one-time pads are easy to generate and are just as unbreakable now as they were during the cold war. I'm somewhat hopeful that good crypto, passable marksmanship and a vigilant, educated population can preserve some aspects of our democracy. Of course, the realist in me tends to agree with you. The system--such as it is--has been subverted for so long and to such an extent that all of the Goobers have a level of confidence that goes way past the point of arrogance. Sigh.


Kind regards,
Mike

[towhom]

NASA is updating their Messenger Mission...

Magnetic Tornadoes Could Liberate Mercury's Tenuous Atmosphere
NASA / Goddard Space Flight Center
Mercury Messenger Mission
06.02.09
www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/messenger/multimedia/magnetic_tornadoes.html

As the closest planet to the sun, Mercury is scorching hot, with daytime temperatures of more than 800 degrees Fahrenheit (approximately 450 degrees Celsius). It is also the smallest rocky planet, so its gravity is weak, only about 38 percent of Earth's. These conditions make it hard for the planet to hold on to its atmosphere, which is extremely thin, and invisible to the human eye. However, it can be seen by special instruments attached to telescopes and spacecraft like MESSENGER (MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging).

"Mercury's atmosphere is so thin, it would have vanished long ago unless something was replenishing it," says Dr. James A. Slavin of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md., a co-investigator on NASA's MESSENGER mission to Mercury. That something could be the solar wind, a thin gas of electrically charged particles, called a plasma, which blows constantly from the surface of the sun. The solar wind moves quickly, usually around 250 to 370 miles per second (about 400 to 600 kilometers/second); fast enough to blast atoms off the surface of Mercury. Through a process called "sputtering," solar wind particles that crash into Mercury’s surface transfer sufficient energy to launch some atoms into ballistic trajectories high above the surface and replenish Mercury's atmosphere, according to Slavin.

However, there's a problem – Mercury's magnetic field gets in the way. MESSENGER's first flyby on January 14, 2008, confirmed that the planet has a global magnetic field, as first discovered by the Mariner 10 spacecraft during its flybys of the planet in 1974 and 1975.

The ions and electrons that make up the solar wind are electrically charged and "feel" magnetic forces, so a global magnetic field usually deflects the solar wind. However, global magnetic fields are leaky shields and, under the right conditions, they are known to develop holes through which the solar wind can flow.
[Note: The Earth's magnetic shield has leaks. There has yet to be a scientifically-proven statement made referencing the cause. Frankly I would be leery of anything "official", since those statements have a tendency of being "leaked" and are full of "leaky holes"...]

During its second flyby of the planet on October 6, 2008, MESSENGER discovered that Mercury’s magnetic field can be extremely leaky indeed. The spacecraft encountered magnetic "tornadoes" – twisted bundles of magnetic fields connecting the planetary magnetic field to interplanetary space – that were up to 500 miles wide or a third of the radius of the planet.

"These 'tornadoes' form when magnetic fields carried by the solar wind connect to Mercury's magnetic field," said Slavin. "As the solar wind blows past Mercury's field, these joined magnetic fields are carried with it and twist up into vortex-like structures. These twisted magnetic flux tubes, technically known as flux transfer events, form open windows in the planet's magnetic shield through which the solar wind may enter and directly impact Mercury's surface."

Venus, Earth, and even Mars have thick atmospheres compared to Mercury, so the solar wind never makes it to the surface of these planets, even if there is no global magnetic field in the way, as is the case for Venus and Mars. Instead, it hits the upper atmosphere of these worlds, where it has the opposite effect to that on Mercury, gradually stripping away atmospheric gas as it blows by.

Venus has a thick atmosphere that may be replenished by volcanoes, so losses to the solar wind are insignificant. Mars is a different story. Mars lost its global magnetic field billions of years ago. With little apparent volcanic activity since then, the solar wind could have eroded a significant portion of the Red Planet's atmosphere.

Features on Mars resembling dry riverbeds, and the discovery of minerals that form in the presence of water, indicate that Mars once had a thicker atmosphere that kept it warm enough for liquid water to flow on the surface. However, somehow that much thicker ancient atmosphere got lost, because it appears Mars has been cold and dry for billions of years.
[Note: "appears" is the operative word. They don't really know the complete set of functional interactions of any given stellar body with reference to itself and its location in the cosmic plane. It's still basically "guesstimates". To an extent, I mean no disrespect (I don't include the "scientific mouth flappers and disinformation goobers", simply because they function without respect towards the majority of humanity, and are not accorded MY respect). We're still processing in an "infancy stage" when it comes to knowledge of our "universal environment".]

In 2013, NASA plans to launch a mission to Mars called MAVEN (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution Mission). It will explore the various ways Mars loses its atmosphere to space, including how much may have been stripped away by the solar wind.

The process of linking interplanetary and planetary magnetic fields, called magnetic reconnection, is common throughout the cosmos. It occurs in Earth's magnetic field, where it generates magnetic tornadoes as well. However, the MESSENGER observations show the reconnection rate is ten times higher at Mercury.

"Mercury's proximity to the sun only accounts for about a third of the reconnection rate we see," said Slavin. "It will be exciting to see what's special about Mercury to explain the rest. We'll get more clues from MESSENGER's third flyby on September 29, 2009, and when we get into orbit in March 2011."
[Note: Mercury's elemental composition and its proximity to the Sun lead me to believe that Mercury is a "planetary focusing instrument / lens" that we've yet to fully understand. I believe it is more than the (electro-) magnetic fluxes - I think they will find that gravitational fluxes are involved, as well as harmonic (sound) and photonic (light) bursts...and more. These are just my thoughts on the matter. Mercury is a fascinating member of our immediate cosmic environment.]

Slavin's MESSENGER research was funded by NASA and is the subject of a paper that appeared in the journal Science on May 1, 2009.

MESSENGER is a NASA-sponsored scientific investigation of the planet Mercury and the first space mission designed to orbit the planet closest to the Sun. The MESSENGER spacecraft launched on August 3, 2004, and after flybys of Earth, Venus, and Mercury will start a yearlong study of its target planet in March 2011. Dr. Sean C. Solomon, of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, leads the mission as Principal Investigator. The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, Md., built and operates the MESSENGER spacecraft and manages this Discovery-class mission for NASA.

[towhom]

Now look at this article...timing is everything...

SRI International Announces Findings from New Upper Atmospheric Radar System Built for Scientific Research
Novel Radar System in Alaska Aids Research on Space Weather and Solar Storms
SRI International
June 2 , 2009
www.sri.com/news/releases/060209.html

Menlo Park, CA — SRI International, an independent nonprofit research institute, announced today that early scientific results are now available from the Advanced Modular Incoherent Scatter Radar (AMISR), a modular, transportable radar system funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) that has recently completed the first two years of operation.

Scientists are using the novel system to investigate the interaction of upper atmospheric phenomena, which are driven by energetic particles and the solar wind that cause spectacular displays of the aurora borealis, with lower atmospheric phenomena such as tropospheric storms and weather patterns. Remote operation and electronic beam steering allows researchers to operate and position the radar beam instantaneously to accurately measure rapidly changing space weather events.

"The AMISR system is unique among upper atmospheric radars in that it is capable of observing small-scale and temporally dynamic phenomena such as the aurora and space weather storms. Scientists need to understand how the upper atmosphere behaves on these scales to adequately study climate change and other processes linked to the transfer of energy and momentum from the surface of the sun to Earth’s atmosphere," said Robert Robinson, AMISR program manager at NSF.

New Research Investigates Auroral Arcs and High-Altitude Clouds
A recent issue of the Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics (JASTP) is dedicated to early research results from the Poker Flat, Alaska deployment of AMISR (known as PFISR).
[Note: It's coordinated research, no doubt. I would assume that Poker Flat, Alaska isn't all that far from or is the best location to record and analyze the effects of HAARP in action. Since it's also a "mobile platform" it can also be moved to other ELF locations.]

The article, "Coordinated Optical and Radar Image Measurements of Noctilucent Clouds and Polar Mesospheric Summer Echoes," by Michael Taylor, Ph.D., professor at Utah State University, describes the first detailed investigation of the common horizontal and vertical structures of radar and optical mesospheric clouds. These are the highest altitude clouds, which form in the mesopause, the coldest part of the Earth’s atmosphere. These high-altitude clouds may be an indicator for global climate change since their increasing occurrence rate implies a cooling mesopause.

A second article, "Volumetric Imaging of the Ionosphere: Initial Results from the PFISR," by Joshua Semeter, Ph.D., associate professor at Boston University, presents the first three-dimensional images of the aurora borealis seen from PFISR. Volumetric imaging allows scientists to observe in three dimensions where and how magnetospheric energy is deposited into the system that couples the Earth’s ionosphere and upper atmosphere. Without this kind of detailed understanding, space weather models can not reproduce or predict future behavior.

Novel Radar is Dedicated Solely to the Research Community
NSF operates other large incoherent scatter radars, including ones located in Greenland, Peru, Puerto Rico, and Massachusetts. The SRI-designed AMISR is the first NSF-funded radar system that was developed and built specifically for scientific research.
[Note: Nice try - love the wording of this, too. So it was the "...first NSF-funded radar system developed and built for specifically scientific research". I am sure there are DoD-funded ENHANCED radar systems built along these lines for, uh, "scientific research". Duhhhh...]

NASA has used the array to determine the most optimal space weather conditions for launching scientific rockets. Since AMISR is capable of simultaneous monitoring in multiple directions, measurements can provide a multi-dimensional view of Earth’s upper atmosphere and ionosphere in real-time, providing a unique perspective for scientific rocket and satellite missions. AMISR is a significant technical advance from systems that provide one-dimensional measurements along a single trajectory.

AMISR also supported the International Polar Year (IPY), an international research program focusing on the polar regions of the world. Jan Sojka, Ph.D., professor at Utah State University, is one of many scientists who have requested experiment time on the new radar. His objective is to study how the ionosphere changes in response to energy input from above and below. He scheduled AMISR observations every 10 minutes for the entire IPY.

Sojka explained, "The year-long AMISR data set contained the information we needed to resolve long-standing questions about how the ionosphere responds to energy input associated with such phenomena as the aurora borealis and atmospheric waves and tides. Only AMISR has the necessary temporal and spatial resolution to study this very dynamic region of Earth’s atmosphere."

Initial results from Sojka’s work are detailed in the article, "The PFISR IPY Observations of Ionospheric Climate and Weather," also in the PFISR special issue.

Deployment Details
AMISR began operating in January 2007. The AMISR system at Poker Flat was the first of three radars constructed by SRI. The next two radars are being constructed in Arctic Canada, at Resolute Bay in the territory of Nunavut. The first of the two radars will become operational later in 2009. These incoherent scatter radars are the closest in the world to the magnetic north pole (an important distinction when it comes to ionospheric and magnetospheric research) and provide unprecedented views of the complex physical processes that couple the sun, magnetosphere, and ionosphere.

"Because the very large AMISR system is configured in modules, the facility can be relocated for studying upper atmospheric activity around the globe," said John Kelly, Ph.D., director of SRI's Center for GeoSpace Studies. "In addition, each of the three antennae faces of the system can operate together or can be independently deployed in up to three separate locations. This facilitates comprehensive data gathering to increase our scientific understanding of upper atmospheric phenomena, which ultimately will help prevent the potentially large economic losses that can result from severe space weather events."

In addition to funding from NSF, several companies supported the SRI-led project. These include subcontractor Sanmina-SCI, which manufactured the Antenna Element Units, the basic building blocks of the radar panels. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) served as the co-investigator on the project.

More information about AMISR can be found at www.amisr.com. A one-page backgrounder can be found here.

About SRI
Silicon Valley-based SRI International is one of the world’s leading independent research and technology development organizations. Founded as Stanford Research Institute in 1946, SRI has been meeting the strategic needs of clients for more than 60 years. The nonprofit research institute performs client-sponsored research and development for government agencies, commercial businesses, and private foundations. In addition to conducting contract R&D, SRI licenses its technologies, forms strategic partnerships, and creates spin-off companies.

SRI's Center for GeoSpace Studies researches the fundamental processes governing the nature of the upper atmosphere and space environment. Experimental studies use incoherent scatter radar, satellite and optical instruments, and radiowave diagnostics. Under the auspices of the National Science Foundation, SRI's Center operates, manages, and conducts research at a facility in Sondrestrom, Greenland, and at the Resolute Bay Early Polar Cap Observatory in Canada.

AMISR BACKGROUNDER

NSF-Funded Radar Array Provides First Comprehensive View of the Upper Atmosphere
Advanced Modular Incoherent Scatter Radar (AMISR) is the first system to provide scientists with the technology necessary to collect critical data and study global climate trends from year to year. Scientists can now investigate the energy and momentum transfer among all layers of the Earth’s upper atmosphere, accessing critical data on the complex physical processes that comprise the sun, magnetosphere, and ionosphere. Data collected from the high-latitude atmosphere and ionosphere provide an opportunity for early detection of climate-change phenomena. Space weather events, which can potentially damage and interrupt power grids and satellite and electronic communication, are also monitored.

AMISR measures 30 meters on a side and is made up of 4,096 antennas, giving a combined power of up to two megawatts. By phasing the signal coming from the individual antennas, the radar beam can be steered almost instantaneously from one position in the sky to another. This unique feature of AMISR is especially important for studying rapidly moving features of the atmosphere.

Collecting Incoherent Scatter Radar from an Array of Antennas
The term “incoherent scatter” refers to the way in which transmitted radio waves are reflected by ambient electrons in the atmosphere. Using high-powered transmitters and sensitive receivers, scientists can analyze the backscattered signals to determine the density, temperature, and velocity of electrons in the ionosphere over several hundreds of kilometers of altitude. Where other incoherent scatter radars use a single high-powered transmitter, AMISR uses an array of antennas, each of which is driven by a specially designed, solid-state, 500-watt transmitter.

AMISR can be operated remotely and also collect data from several directions at the same time. Currently, the radar is being used to study the aurora borealis and other dynamic features of the high-latitude ionosphere. By measuring the electric fields and particles at high latitudes, scientists can study how the magnetosphere, an immense comet-shaped structure around the Earth that extends tens of thousands of kilometers into space, changes in response to solar storms. This is important for predicting space weather, which can disrupt technical systems such as electric power distribution, navigation, communication, and aviation.

3D Views Provide Accurate and Comprehensive Space Weather Analysis
AMISR has enabled researchers to better understand how the magnetosphere and solar winds deposit energy into the Earth’s atmosphere. By studying radar clouds and aurorae in three dimensions (two horizontal, one vertical), scientists can determine whether a change in the upper atmosphere at one location is caused by a real change in the overall system or simply the movement of a plasma cloud that already existed. (Did the plasma cloud form here or move from another location?)

This is crucial for truly understanding this coupled system and to make predictions about future behavior.