Tuesday, October 30. 2012
The Pirate Bay switches to cloud-based servers
Via Slash Gear
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It isn’t exactly a secret that authorities and entertainment groups don’t like The Pirate Bay, but today the infamous site made it a little bit harder for them to bring it down. The Pirate Bay announced today that it has move its servers to the cloud. This works in a couple different ways: it helps the people who run The Pirate Bay save money, while it makes it more difficult for police to carry out a raid on the site.
“All attempts to attack The Pirate Bay from now on is an attack on everything and nothing,” a Pirate Bay blog post reads. “The site that you’re at will still be here, for as long as we want it to. Only in a higher form of being. A reality to us. A ghost to those who wish to harm us.” The site told TorrentFreak after the switch that its currently being hosted by two different cloud providers in two different countries, and what little actual hardware it still needs to use is being kept in different countries as well. The idea is not only to make it harder for authorities to bring The Pirate Bay down, but also to make it easier to bring the site back up should that ever happen.
Even if authorities do manage to get their hands on The Pirate Bay’s remaining hardware, they’ll only be taking its transit router and its load balancer – the servers are stored in several Virtual Machine instances, along with all of TPB’s vital data. The kicker is that these cloud hosting companies aren’t aware that they’re hosting The Pirate Bay, and if they discovered the site was using their service, they’d have a hard time digging up any dirt on users since the communication between the VMs and the load balancer is encrypted.
In short, it sounds like The Pirate Bay has taken a huge step in not only protecting its own rear end, but those of users as well. If all of this works out the way The Pirate Bay is claiming it will, then don’t expect to hear about the site going down anytime soon. Still, there’s nothing stopping authorities from trying to bring it down, or from putting in the work to try and figure out who the people behind The Pirate Bay are. Stay tuned
Monday, October 29. 2012
A Stuxnet Future? Yes, Offensive Cyber-Warfare is Already Here
Via ISN ETHZ
By Mihoko Matsubara
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Server room at CERN
Mounting Concerns and Confusion
Stuxnet proved that any actor with sufficient know-how in terms of cyber-warfare can physically inflict serious damage upon any infrastructure in the world, even without an internet connection. In the words of former CIA Director Michael Hayden: “The rest of the world is looking at this and saying, ‘Clearly someone has legitimated this kind of activity as acceptable international conduct’.”
Governments are now alert to the enormous uncertainty created by cyber-instruments and especially worried about cyber-sabotage against critical infrastructure. As US Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta warned in front of the Senate Armed Services Committee in June 2011; “the next Pearl Harbor we confront could very well be a cyber-attack that cripples our power systems, our grid, our security systems, our financial systems, our governmental systems.” On the other hand, a lack of understanding about instances of cyber-warfare such as Stuxnet has led to confused expectations about what cyber-attacks can achieve. Some, however, remain excited about the possibilities of this new form of warfare. For example, retired US Air Force Colonel Phillip Meilinger expects that “[a]… bloodless yet potentially devastating new method of war” is coming. However, under current technological conditions, instruments of cyber-warfare are not sophisticated enough yet to deliver a decisive blow to the adversary. As a result, cyber-capabilities still need to be used alongside kinetic instruments of war.
Advantages of Cyber-Capabilities
Cyber-capabilities provide three principal advantages to those actors that possess them. First, they can deny or degrade electronic devices including telecommunications and global positioning systems in a stealthy manner irrespective of national borders. This means potentially crippling an adversary’s intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities, delaying an adversary’s ability to retaliate (or even identify the source of an attack), and causing serious dysfunction in an adversary’s command and control and radar systems.
Second, precise and timely attribution is particularly challenging in cyberspace because skilled perpetrators can obfuscate their identity. This means that responsibility for attacks needs to be attributed forensically which not only complicates retaliatory measures but also compromises attempts to seek international condemnation of the attacks.
Finally, attackers can elude penalties because there is currently no international consensus as to what actually constitutes an ‘armed attack’ or ‘imminent threat’ (which can invoke a state’s right of self-defense under Article 51 of the UN Charter) involving cyber-weapons. Moreover, while some countries - including the United States and Japan - insist that the principles of international law apply to the 'cyber' domain, others such as China argue that cyber-attacks “do not threaten territorial integrity or sovereignty.”
Disadvantages of Cyber-Capabilities
On the other hand, high-level cyber-warfare has three major disadvantages for would-be attackers. First, the development of a sophisticated ‘Stuxnet-style’ cyber-weapon for use against well-protected targets is time- and resource- intensive. Only a limited number of states possess the resources required to produce such weapons. For instance, the deployment of Stuxnet required arduous reconnaissance and an elaborate testing phase in a mirrored environment. F-Secure Labs estimates that Stuxnet took more than ten man-years of work to develop, underscoring just how resource- and labor- intensive a sophisticated cyber-weapon is to produce.
Second, sophisticated and costly cyber-weapons are unlikely to be adapted for generic use. As Thomas Rid argues in "Think Again: Cyberwar,” different system configurations need to be targeted by different types of computer code. The success of a highly specialized cyber-weapon therefore requires the specific vulnerabilities of a target to remain in place. If, on the contrary, a targeted vulnerability is ‘patched’, the cyber-operation will be set back until new malware can be prepared. Moreover, once the existence of malware is revealed, it will tend to be quickly neutralized – and can even be reverse-engineered by the target to assist in future retaliation on their part.
Finally, it is difficult to develop precise, predictable, and controllable cyber-weapons for use in a constantly evolving network environment. The growth of global connectivity makes it difficult to assess the implications of malware infection and challenging to predict the consequences of a given cyber-attack. Stuxnet , for instance, was not supposed to leave Iran’s Natanz enrichment facility, yet the worm spread to the World Wide Web, infecting other computers and alerting the international community to its existence. According to the Washington Post , US forces contemplated launching cyber-attacks on Libya’s air defense system before NATO’s airstrikes. But this idea was quickly abandoned due to the possibility of unintended consequences for civilian infrastructure such as the power grid or hospitals.
Implications for Military Strategy
Despite such disadvantages, cyber-attacks are nevertheless part of contemporary military strategy including espionage and offensive operations. In August 2012, US Marine Corps Lieutenant General Richard Mills confirmed that operations in Afghanistan included cyber-attacks against the adversary. Recalling an incident in 2010, he said, "I was able to get inside his nets, infect his command-and-control, and in fact defend myself against his almost constant incursions to get inside my wire, to affect my operations."
His comments confirm that the US military now employs a combination of cyber- and traditional offensive measures in wartime. As Thomas Mahnken points out in “Cyber War and Cyber Warfare,” cyber-attacks can produce disruptive and surprising effects. And while cyber-attacks are not a direct cause of death, their consequences may lead to injuries and loss of life. As Mahnken argues, it would be inconceivable to directly cause Hiroshima-type damage and casualties merely with cyber-attacks. While a “cyber Pearl Harbor” might shock the adversary on a similar scale as its namesake in 1941, the ability to inflict a decisive, extensive, and foreseeable blow requires kinetic support – at least under current technological conditions.
Implications for Critical Infrastructure
Nevertheless, the shortcomings of cyber-attacks will not discourage malicious actors in peacetime. The anonymous, borderless, and stealthy nature of the 'cyber' domain offers an extremely attractive asymmetrical platform for inflicting physical and psychological damage to critical infrastructure such as finance, energy, power and water supply, telecommunication, and transportation as well as to society at large. Since well before Stuxnet, successful cyber-attacks have been launched against vulnerable yet important infrastructure systems. For example, in 2000 a cyber-attack against an Australian sewage control system resulted in millions of liters of raw sewage leaking into a hotel, parks, and rivers.
Accordingly, the safeguarding of cyber-security is an increasingly important consideration for heads of state. In July 2012, for example, President Barack Obama published an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal warning about the unique risk cyber-attacks pose to national security. In particular, the US President emphasized that cyber-attacks have the potential to severely compromise the increasingly wired and networked lifestyle of the global community. Since the 1990s, the process control systems of critical infrastructures have been increasingly connected to the Internet. This has unquestionably improved efficiencies and lowered costs, but has also left these systems alarmingly vulnerable to penetration. In March 2012, McAfee and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory released a report which concluded that power grids are rendered vulnerable due to their common computing technologies, growing exposure to cyberspace, and increased automation and interconnectivity.
Despite such concerns, private companies may be tempted to prioritize short-term profits rather than allocate more funds to (or accept more regulation of) cyber-security, especially in light of prevailing economic conditions. After all, it takes time and resources to probe vulnerabilities and hire experts to protect them. Nevertheless, leadership in both the public and private sectors needs to recognize that such an attitude provides opportunities for perpetrators to take advantage of security weaknesses to the detriment of economic and national security. It is, therefore, essential for governments to educate and encourage --- and if necessary, fund --- the private sector to provide appropriate cyber-security in order to protect critical infrastructure.
Implications for Espionage
The sophistication of the Natanz incident, in which Stuxnet was able to exploit Iranian vulnerabilities, stunned the world. Advanced Persistent Threats (APTs) were employed to find weaknesses by stealing data which made it possible to sabotage Iran’s nuclear program. Yet APTs can also be used in many different ways, for example against small companies in order to exploit larger business partners that may be possession of valuable information or intellectual property. As a result, both the public and private sectors must brace themselves for daily cyber-attacks and espionage on their respective infrastructures. Failure to do so may result in the theft of intellectual property as well as trade and defense secrets that could undermine economic competitiveness and national security.
In an age of cyber espionage, the public and private sectors must also reconsider what types of information should be deemed as “secret,” how to protect that information, and how to share alerts with others without the sensitivity being compromised. While realization of the need for this kind of wholesale re-evaluation is growing, many actors remain hesitant. Indeed, such hesitancy is driven often out of fears that doing so may reveal their vulnerabilities, harm their reputations, and benefit their competitors. Of course, there are certain types of information that should remain unpublicized so as not to damage the business, economy, and national security. However, such classifications must not be abused against balance between public interest and security.
Cyber-Warfare Is Here to Stay
The Stuxnet incident is set to encourage the use of cyber-espionage and sabotage in warfare. However, not all countries can afford to acquire offensive cyber-capabilities as sophisticated as Stuxnet and a lack of predictability and controllability continues to make the deployment of cyber-weapons a risky business. As a result, many states and armed forces will continue to combine both kinetic and 'cyber' tactics for the foreseeable future. Growing interconnectivity also means that the number of potential targets is set to grow. This, in turn, means that national cyber-security strategies will need to confront the problem of prioritization. Both the public and private sectors will have to decide which information and physical targets need to be protected and work together to share information effectively.
Wednesday, October 24. 2012
Molecular 3D bioprinting could mean getting drugs through email
Via dvice
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What happens when you combine advances in 3D printing with biosynthesis and molecular construction? Eventually, it might just lead to printers that can manufacture vaccines and other drugs from scratch: email your doc, download some medicine, print it out and you're cured.
This concept (which is surely being worked on as we speak) comes from Craig Venter, whose idea of synthesizing DNA on Mars we posted about last week. You may remember a mention of the possibility of synthesizing Martian DNA back here on Earth, too: Venter says that we can do that simply by having the spacecraft email us genetic information on whatever it finds on Mars, and then recreate it in a lab by mixing together nucleotides in just the right way. This sort of thing has already essentially been done by Ventner, who created the world's first synthetic life form back in 2010.
Vetner's idea is to do away with complex, expensive and centralized vaccine production and instead just develop one single machine that can "print" drugs by carefully combining nucleotides, sugars, amino acids, and whatever else is needed while u wait. Technology like this would mean that vaccines could be produced locally, on demand, simply by emailing the appropriate instructions to your closes drug printer. Pharmacies would no longer consists of shelves upon shelves of different pills, but could instead be kiosks with printers inside them. Ultimately, this could even be something you do at home.
While the benefits to technology like this are obvious, the risks are equally obvious. I mean, you'd basically be introducing the Internet directly into your body. Just ingest that for a second and think about everything that it implies. Viruses. LOLcats. Rule 34. Yeah, you know what, maybe I'll just stick with modern American healthcare and making ritual sacrifices to heathen gods, at least one of which will probably be effective.
Wednesday, October 10. 2012
The mouse faces extinction as computer interaction evolves
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Swipe, swipe, pinch-zoom. Fifth-grader Josephine Nguyen is researching the definition of an adverb on her iPad and her fingers are flying across the screen. Her 20 classmates are hunched over their own tablets doing the same.
Conspicuously absent from this modern scene of high-tech learning: a mouse.
Nguyen, who is 10, said she has used one before — once — but the clunky desktop computer/monitor/keyboard/mouse setup was too much for her.
“It was slow,” she recalled, “and there were too many pieces.”
Gilbert Vasquez, 6, is also baffled by the idea of an external pointing device named after a rodent.
“I don’t know what that is,” he said with a shrug.
Nguyen and Vasquez, who attend public schools here, are part of the first generation growing up with a computer interface that is vastly different from the one the world has gotten used to since the dawn of the personal-computer era in the 1980s.
This fall, for the first time, sales of iPads are cannibalizing sales of PCs in schools, according to Charles Wolf, an analyst for the investment research firm Needham & Co. And a growing number of even more sophisticated technologies for communicating with your computer — such as the Leap Motion boxes and Sony Vaio laptops that read hand motions, as well as voice recognition services such as Apple’s Siri — are beginning to make headway in the commercial market.
John Underkoffler, a former MIT researcher who was the adviser for the high-tech wizardry that Tom Cruise used in “Minority Report,” says that the transition is inevitable and that it will happen in as soon as a few years.
Underkoffler, chief scientist for Oblong, a Los Angeles-based company that has created a gesture-controlled interface for computer systems, said that for decades the mouse was the primary bridge to the virtual world — and that it was not always optimal.
“Human hands and voice, if you use them in the digital world in the same way as the physical world, are incredibly expressive,” he said. “If you let the plastic chunk that is a mouse drop away, you will be able to transmit information between you and machines in a very different, high-bandwidth way.”
This type of thinking is turning industrial product design on its head. Instead of focusing on a single device to access technology, innovators are expanding their horizons to gizmos that respond to body motions, the voice, fingers, eyes and even thoughts. Some devices can be accessed by multiple people at the same time.
Keyboards might still be used for writing a letter, but designing, say, a landscaped garden might be more easily done with a digital pen, as would studying a map of Lisbon by hand gestures, or searching the Internet for Rihanna’s latest hits by voice. And the mouse — which many agree was a genius creation in its time — may end up as a relic in a museum.
The mouse is born
The first computer mouse, built at the Stanford Research Institute in Palo Alto, Calif., by Douglas Englebart and Bill English in 1963, was just a block of wood fashioned with two wheels. It was just one of a number of interfaces the team experimented with. There were also foot pedals, head-pointing devices and knee-mounted joysticks.
But the mouse proved to be the fastest and most accurate, and with the backing of Apple founder Steve Jobs — who bundled it with shipments of Lisa, the predecessor to the Macintosh, in the 1980s — the device suddenly became a mainstream phenomenon.
Englebart’s daughter, Christina, a cultural anthropologist, said that her father was able to predict many trends in technology over the years, but she said the one thing he has been surprised about is that the mouse has lasted as long as it has.
“He never assumed the mouse would be it,” said the younger Englebart, who wrote her father’s biography. “He always figured there would be newer ways of exploring a computer.”
She was 8 years old when her father invented the mouse. Now 57, she says she is finally seeing glimpses of the next stage of computing with the surging popularity of the iPad. These days her two children, 20 and 23, do not use a mouse anymore.
San Antonio and LUCHA elementary schools in eastern San Jose, just 17 miles south of where Englebart conducted his research, provide a glimpse at the future. The schools, which share a campus, have integrated iPod Touches and iPads into the curriculum for all 700 students. The teachers all get Mac Airbooks with touch pads.
“Most children here have never seen a computer mouse,” said Hannah Tenpas, 24, a kindergarten teacher at San Antonio.
Kindergartners, as young as 4, use the iPod Touch to learn letter sounds. The older students use iPads to research historical information and prepare multimedia slide-show presentations about school rules. The intuitive touch-screen interface has allowed the school to introduce children to computers at an age that would have been impossible in the past, said San Antonio Elementary’s principal, Jason Sorich.
Even toddlers are able manipulate a touch screen. A popular YouTube video shows a baby trying to swipe the pages of a fashion magazine that she assumes is a broken iPad.
“For my one-year-old daughter, a magazine is an iPad that does not work. It will remain so for her whole life,” the creator of the video says in a slide at the end of the clip.
The iPad side of the brain
“The popularity of iPads and other tablets is changing how society interacts with information,” said Aniket Kittur, an assistant professor at the Human-Computer Interaction Institute at Carnegie Mellon University. “.?.?. Direct manipulation with our fingers, rather than mediated through a keyboard/mouse, is intuitive and easy for children to grasp.”
Underkoffler said that while desktop computers helped activate the language and abstract-thinking parts of a child’s brain, new interfaces are helping open the spatial part.
“Once our user interface can start to talk to us that way .?.?. we sort of blow the barn doors off how we learn,” he said.
That may explain why iPads are becoming so popular in schools. Apple said in July that the iPad outsold the Mac 2 to 1 for the second consecutive quarter in the education market. In all, the company sold 17 million iPads in the April-to-June quarter; at the same time, mouse sales in the United States are down, some manufacturers say.
“The adoption rate of iPad in education is something I’d never seen from any technology product in history,” Apple chief executive Tim Cook said in July.
At San Antonio Elementary and LUCHA, which started their $300,000 iPad and iPod experiment last school year, the school board president, Esau Herrera, said he is thrilled by the results. Test scores have gone up (although officials say they cannot directly correlate that to the new technology), and the level of engagement has increased.
The schools are now debating what to do with the handful of legacy desktop PCs, each with its own keyboard and mouse, and whether they should bother teaching students to move a pointer around a monitor.
“Things are moving so fast,” said LUCHA Principal Kristin Burt, “that we’re not sure the computer and mouse will even be around when they get old enough to really use them.”
Monday, October 08. 2012
There Really Is a Smartphone Inside ‘EW Magazine’
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