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Google attacks net treaty talks

Written By Unknown on Kamis, 22 November 2012 | 23.34

21 November 2012 Last updated at 09:49 ET

Google has warned that a forthcoming UN-organised conference threatens the "free and open internet".

Government representatives are set to agree a new information and communications treaty in December.

It has been claimed some countries will try to wrest oversight of the net's technical specifications and domain name system from US bodies to an international organisation.

However, the UN has said there would be consensus before any change was agreed.

Google has asked web users to add their name to an online petition to support its view.

"The [UN agency] International Telecommunication Union (ITU) is bringing together regulators from around the world to renegotiate a decades-old communications treaty," it wrote on its Take Action site.

"Some proposals could permit governments to censor legitimate speech - or even allow them to cut off internet access.

"Other proposals would require services like YouTube, Facebook, and Skype to pay new tolls in order to reach people across borders. This could limit access to information - particularly in emerging markets."

Google added that it was concerned that "only governments have a voice at the ITU" and not companies or others who had a stake in the net, concluding that the World Conference on International Telecommunications (Wcit) was "the wrong place" to make decisions about the internet's future.

However, the ITU has said that each country could invite whoever it likes to be part of its delegation at the meeting.

Leaked documents

The ITU has said a new treaty was needed to ensure "the free flow of information around the world, promoting affordable and equitable access for all and laying the foundation for ongoing innovation and market growth".

It added that the growth of the internet and adoption of mobile phones meant the existing agreement - signed in 1998 - needed to be updated.

The agency is not openly publishing each government's proposals ahead of the conference, however a site called Wcitleaks, run by researchers at George Mason University, has revealed some of the details.

Most recently these included a proposal from Russia suggesting that the US should have less control over the internet's operation.

"Member states shall have equal rights to manage the internet, including in regard to the allotment, assignment and reclamation of internet numbering, naming, addressing and identification resources and to support for the operation and development of basic internet infrastructure," it said in a document submitted on 17 November.

This would mark a shift from the current set-up in which such matters are looked after by non-profit bodies which are officially under the remit of the US Department of Commerce, but in effect operate at arm's length from the US government.

The Russia Today news service had previously reported that China and India backed the Kremlin's view that the ITU could take over these functions.

However, the US's ambassador to the conference, Terry Kramer, has already signalled he would not support this saying the existing institutions had "functioned effectively and will continue to ensure the health and growth of the internet".

Tolled traffic

Parts of the US tech industry have also been concerned by remarks by the ITU's secretary general, Dr Hamadoun Toure, that the meeting should "address the current disconnect between sources of revenue and sources of costs, and to decide upon the most appropriate way to do so".

Dr Toure said that the new treaty should be designed to help encourage broadband rollout and investment, later adding that telecom companies had the "right to a return on [the] investment" needed to avoid congestion.

But Google is not alone in fearing some countries will suggest the best way to do this will be to introduce "tolls" in which popular sites have to pay developing nations money if they send a lot of traffic through their data networks.

"Many countries are used to getting revenue from telephone calls, and those telephone calls have gone away in favour of various internet-based video services which don't produce revenue for them," Gary Shapiro, president of the US's Consumer Electronics Association, told the BBC.

"So they are looking to recover it and they are trying to put a charge on incoming internet access. So if you have a website which is very popular worldwide you would have to pay to get access to them - we think that is wrong.

"We think the value of the internet is that it is available to everyone for free without international barriers."

Unanimous decisions

The ITU is hosting the conference to draw up the treaty between 3 to 14 December in Dubai.

Dr Toure has signalled that if there were any serious disagreements he would try to avoid putting an issue to a majority vote.

"We never vote because voting means winners and losers and you can't afford that," he told the BBC in July.

"Whatever one single country does not accept will not pass."

But experts warn this poses a risk that participants leave some issues unresolved.

"In the worst case there's a danger you could see a splintering of the internet," said Prof Alan Woodward, from the department of computing, University of Surrey.

"Some countries including Russia already restrict which sites can be accessed, but if people start going off and doing their own things in term of naming conventions and net addresses you could end up with different parts of the internet being unable to send traffic to each other.

"It would be the online equivalent of not being able to make a telephone call from one nation to another."


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Facebook to stop privacy votes

22 November 2012 Last updated at 08:26 ET By Dave Lee Technology reporter, BBC News

Facebook is set to remove the ability for users to vote on changes to its data privacy policy, in a move that has angered campaigners.

In an email to all members, Facebook said it wanted a "more meaningful" way for users to give feedback.

The site has also proposed combining information across its other services, such as photo-sharing app Instagram.

Facebook said a vote into the changes could take place, but more than 300m users would need to participate.

Under the site's rules, votes have an effect only if 30% of the user base has taken part. The site recently announced its one billionth sign-up.

A campaign opposing the changes and calling for more transparency has been launched.

The Our-Policy.org website is urging users to comment on the announcement in order to trigger a user vote on Facebook's plans.

Under current rules, if there are 7,000 comments on an issue it will be voted upon. At the time of writing, 3,000 members had commented.

'Accountable'

In explaining the changes, Facebook said it was looking for ways to more "effectively engage" with its users over changes to the network.

"That commitment guided our decision in 2009 to launch an unprecedented process for user feedback," wrote Elliot Schrage, a vice-president of communications.

Continue reading the main story

We want Facebook to use clear and understandable language"

End Quote Our-Policy.org campaign

"When we held our second global site governance vote in June, we indicated that we would review our site governance process in light of the growth of both our community - to over one billion users - and our company, which is now publicly traded and accountable to regulators around the world."

Mr Schrage said the review of the procedure highlighted issues which required a restructuring of the feedback process.

"We found that the voting mechanism, which is triggered by a specific number of comments, actually resulted in a system that incentivised the quantity of comments over their quality.

"Therefore, we're proposing to end the voting component of the process in favour of a system that leads to more meaningful feedback and engagement."

Data merge

The new proposals also outlined details of Facebook's plans to combine information across various services it owns.

This could potentially include Instagram, the photo-sharing app which the social network acquired for £440m ($700m) earlier this year. As well as a vast library of user-uploaded photographs, Instagram also holds location data on its users - a highly valuable resource.

The Reuters news agency has speculated that Facebook intended to unify user data profiles in a way similar to Google's controversial policy changes which took place earlier this year.

The move made it easier for Google to serve targeted advertising to its users.

The search giant was heavily criticised by EU data regulators, and told that it must do more to explain to users how their information was being used.

Facebook has told the BBC that there are currently no plans to merge its services in this way - but did not rule it out from happening in the future.

Aside from the privacy-related changes, Facebook also told users it plans to:

  • Add new tools for filtering incoming messages, in response to user complaints that messages from friends were being lost in the "Other" folder.
  • Give better indicators of where posts can be viewed - and by whom.
  • Offer more guidance on managing profiles, including how to request deletion of posts a user has been "tagged" in by a friend.

As part of a lengthy list of demands, the Our Policy website criticises the proposal as being too vague.

"We want Facebook to use clear and understandable language," the group says.

"We oppose that Facebook is using 'like', 'may' or 'could' instead of clear statements. This makes it impossible to clearly know what we consent to."


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3D-printed replacement cartilage

22 November 2012 Last updated at 08:52 ET

Researchers have developed a way to "print" cartilage that could help treat joint diseases and sporting injuries.

They say that the new material is more robust and hardwearing than previous efforts to create artificial cartilage.

A traditional ink-jet printer combined with a specialised spinning-machine is used to make it.

It could lead to bespoke cartilage created for individual patients. But one expert warned it was too early to be confident it would ever be used.

The study was published in the Institute of Physic's journal Biofabrication.

It marks the latest effort to use 3D printers in medicine following the use of a machine to make a replacement lower jaw and efforts to create 3D-printed scaffolds to support the growth of bone cells.

Animal tests

Scientists said they were able to build cartilage made from a chemical compound known as a polymer coated with cartilage cells from a rabbit's ear.

They combined the ink-jet printer with a machine that uses an electric current to spin very fine fibres from the polymer solution.

It allowed the construction to be easily controlled, meaning scientists could make the artificial cartilage porous. This is key to encouraging real cartilage cells to integrate into the surrounding tissue.

So far the printed cartilage has been tested on mice and, after eight weeks, appeared to have developed the properties of real cartilage, suggesting it has potential for insertion into human patients.

The scientists said that in the future it could allow medics to create cartilage specific to each patient's needs.

They suggest an MRI scan could create a blueprint of a body part, such as a knee, and matching cartilage could be made using the 3D printer.

"This is a proof-of-concept study and illustrates that a combinations of materials and fabrication methods generates durable implantable constructs," said James Yoo, a professor at the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine, and one of the paper's authors.

Athletes' injuries

At present one of the best options available to doctors treating cartilage damage is a technique called microfracture surgery.

It involves drilling small holes into the bone in the cartilage's gap to encourage bleeding. Scar tissue then forms over the gap, acting as a replacement for the missing cartilage.

But it is not generally suitable for older or more obese patients, and it does not work if the lesion is too large.

Dr Richard Weiler - a consultant in sport and exercise medicine at University College London Hospitals - told the BBC the new innovation could potentially offer respite to a wider range of the patients he treated. But he had doubts about whether it would ever be used.

"Certainly with sport there are injuries that cause damage to cartilage - we have seen this with some famous footballers, cyclists and other athletes who have had traumatic injuries where the cartilage has been damaged and then drops off and doesn't grow back very well in the affected area," he said.

"However, there have been lots of previous cartilage replacement technologies that were shown to have had an effect in animals but have proved not to be as good as hoped when used long-term by humans.

"This technology sounds an interesting development, we would just want to make sure it's safe."


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Apple told to disclose HTC deal

22 November 2012 Last updated at 01:30 ET

A US judge has ordered Apple to disclose details of its patent-sharing deal with HTC to its rival, Samsung.

Apple and HTC signed a 10-year licence agreement earlier this month, but did not make the details public.

Samsung, which is also involved in various patent disputes with Apple, asked the courts to tell Apple to furnish the information.

It said it was "almost certain" the deal covered some of the patents at the centre of its dispute with Apple.

The court ordered Apple to produce a full copy of the settlement agreement "without delay", subject to an "attorneys' eyes only" designation, meaning it will not be made public.

The deal between Apple and HTC saw the two firms settle all their outstanding disputes over patents, ending a fight that began in March 2010.

According to some reports, the two companies were fighting almost 20 cases across the globe.

Legal advantage

While that fight has ended, Apple is still involved in legal tussles with Samsung.

Continue reading the main story

It is clearly a very smart move from Samsung"

End Quote Andrew Milroy Frost & Sullivan

The two rivals have filed cases against each other in more than 10 countries, each accusing the other of violating its patents.

Earlier this year, a Californian court awarded Apple $1.05bn (£652m) in damages against Samsung, after ruling that several of its software and design technologies had been infringed.

However, the South Korean firm has appealed against the ruling and has called for a retrial.

Some analysts said that the latest decision by the court, giving Samsung access to Apple's deal with HTC, may have a big impact on Samsung's legal battle with Apple.

"It is clearly a very smart move from Samsung - because the general feeling is that a lot of its patent disputes with Apple are very likely to be similar to those between HTC and Apple," Andrew Milroy of consultancy Frost & Sullivan told the BBC.

"And if there are similarities, it gives Samsung an advantage in any future legal issues and negotiations with Apple."

'Bad time'

The decision is the latest setback for Apple in its various legal clashes with rivals.

Last month, Apple lost its appeal against a UK ruling that Samsung had not infringed its design rights.

In a further blow, the US technology firm was asked by a UK High Court to publish a statement on its website admitting that Samsung had not infringed its designs.

Sales bans sought by Apple against Samsung's Galaxy Nexus phone and Samsung's Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet computer in the US were also lifted in October.

Then, earlier this month, a judge in the US dismissed a case brought by Apple alleging that Google's Motorola unit was seeking excessive royalty payments for patents.

"Apple has been having a really bad time of late in its legal battles," said Mr Milroy. "They are going to have to re-examine the legal approach they take from here on."


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UK start-up programme launch set

21 November 2012 Last updated at 06:48 ET By Dave Lee Technology reporter, BBC News

A major new programme to support fledgling technology start-ups in the UK is to be launched in the 2013.

Cloud hosting firm Rackspace is to offer £12,000 of hosting and mentoring for start-ups on the programme.

The launch comes as the government continued efforts to encourage successful UK start-ups to float on the stock exchange.

A survey of more than 50,000 entrepreneurs ranked London as the seventh best city to launch a start-up.

The report, by telecoms firm Telefonica, concluded that the UK's offering was "no Silicon Valley" - due mainly to a lack of investment and what is perceived as a risk-averse investment culture.

But Rackspace, whose start-up programme has aided more than 850 US start-ups in their early stages, said they felt the timing was right to launch its push in the UK.

Speaking at Google's Campus building in east London, technology blogger and Rackspace "evangelist" Robert Scoble drew parallels between London today and the early days of California's famous Silicon Valley.

"If you go downstairs [at Google Campus] you can see dozens of start-ups working at tiny little tables," he told the BBC.

"This feels a lot about how I saw Instagram for the first time - two guys sitting at a table coding like mad, two years later they're worth a billion dollars. It has that feel to it."

Rackspace is one of the world's largest cloud hosting firms - second only to Amazon.

The cloud, as it is known, is a term given to storing data on servers in a variety of locations - rather than on a local machine.

Cloud hosting gives small companies flexibility when starting out. Rather than pay for the rental of dedicated servers, which can be expensive, it means start-ups can just pay for what they need.

'Next Facebook'

In September, the government announced plans to loosen regulations surrounding companies that wanted to float on the stock market.

The move, which was backed by several of the country's largest investment firms, would provide a "new route" to an initial public offering (IPO), universities minister David Willetts said.

A successful British IPO would be seen as a major success for the government's Tech City initiative - an organisation designed to promote the interests of UK-based start-ups globally.

Companies tipped to be likely IPO candidates in the new year include Mind Candy - creators of children's social network Moshi Monsters - and online loans company Wonga.

Mr Scoble said the key to a successful flotation was in the timing - and that chasing the "next Facebook" may not be the right move.

"Some of it is luck," he told the BBC.

"Some of it is about being at the right market window at the right time. Right now it's a really tough market window.

"In Silicon Valley the venture capitalists are telling me they're moving investment away from consumer and into enterprise because they're seeing that the consumer markets are too risky.

"They're investing less in consumer kinds of things - they're trying to get the kids to focus on the enterprise market."


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Countries list net name protests

21 November 2012 Last updated at 07:05 ET

More than 250 "early" objections to proposed new internet address endings have been filed by a panel representing about 50 of the world's governments.

The list includes references to groups of people or locations including .roma, .islam, .patagonia, .africa and .zulu.

There are also concerns about proposed suffixes covering broad sectors such as .casino, .charity, .health, .insurance and .search.

The list was submitted ahead of a planned rollout next year.

The panel - known as the Government Advisory Committee (Gac) - has published its "early warning" list on the web to give applicants a chance to address its concerns or choose to withdraw their submission and reclaim 80% of their $185,000 (£116,300) application fee.

Gac will then decide in April which of the suffixes warrant formal complaints if it still has outstanding concerns, at a meeting in Beijing.

Each warning on the list makes reference to the country which filed the objection. A suffix was only added to the register if no other members of Gac objected to its inclusion.

Anti anti-virus

The organisations and suffixes referred to on the list included:

  • Amazon for its applications for .app, .book, .movie, .game and .mail among others.
  • Google for .search, .cloud and .gmbh (a reference to a type of limited German company).
  • Johnson & Johnson for .baby.
  • L'Oreal for .beauty, .hair, .makeup, .salon and .skin.
  • The Weather Channel for .weather.
  • Symantec for .antivirus.
  • eHow publisher, Demand Media, for .army, .airforce, .engineer and .green.

Despite the large number of objections, Icann (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) - the internet name regulator in charge of the rollout - has indicated that it still believed it would be able to release the first suffixes for use by May 2013.

The organisation does not have to comply with the governments' wishes, but must provide "well-reasoned arguments" if it decides to deny any rejection request.

Competition concerns

A range of reasons were given for the early warnings.

France raised concerns about seven organisations that had applied for .hotel or .hotels on the grounds that it believed that if the suffix was introduced it should be reserved for hotel businesses.

"The guarantee of a clear information of the customer on hotel accommodation services is the best way to promote the tourism industry," it said. "Behind the term hotel as a generic denomination, any customer in the world must have the guarantee that will be directly connected to a hotel."

It is feasible that some of the applicants might be able to give this guarantee, allowing the ultimate owner of the suffix to profit by charging individual businesses to register their hotel websites.

But other issues may be harder to resolve.

For example, Australia objected to Amazon's application for the Japanese-language suffix meaning "fashion" on the grounds it might give the firm an unfair advantage.

"Restricting common generic strings for the exclusive use of a single entity could have unintended consequences, including a negative impact on competition," the country's government wrote.

Religions and reputations

An objection by the United Arab Emirates to Asia Green IT System's application for .islam may also be impossible to reconcile.

"It is unacceptable for a private entity to have control over religious terms such as Islam without significant support and affiliation with the community it's targeting," it said.

"The application lacks any sort of protection to ensure that the use of the domain names registered under the applied for new gTLD (generic top-level domain) are in line with Islam principles, pillars, views, beliefs and law."

Other problems stemmed from more commercial concerns.

For example. Samoa is opposed to three applications for the suffix .website on the grounds that it is too similar to the .ws suffix it already controls, which provides the South Pacific country with revenue.

Corporate reputations emerged as another sticking point.

Australia has challenged applications for .gripe, .sucks and .wtf on the basis they had "overtly negative or critical connotations" which might force businesses to feel they had to pay to register their brands alongside the suffix to prevent anyone else from doing so.

The only address that the UK filed an objection to was .rugby.

It objected to two applicants which it said did "not represent the global community of rugby players, supporters and stakeholders".

The UK suggested the proposals be rejected in favour of a third submission for the suffix from the International Rugby Board.


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Kickstarter sued over 3D printers

21 November 2012 Last updated at 14:18 ET

Crowd-funding website Kickstarter is being sued for its promotion of a new 3D printer.

More than 2,000 users contributed over $2.9m (£1.8m) to help Massachusetts-based Formlabs build the device.

However, 3D Systems - a leading maker of printers that turn computer design files into real-world objects - has alleged one of its patents was being infringed by the machine.

It has also filed a lawsuit against Formlabs itself.

The two defendants have yet to respond to the accusations.

Although patent lawsuits are relatively common in the US tech industry, this marks the first time Kickstarter has become involved in a case linked to a product marketed on its site, according to the country's Pacer (Public Access to Court Electronic Records) system.

Laser-enhanced printing

At the heart of the allegations is a printing technique called stereolithography.

It involves directing an ultraviolet laser across a liquid synthetic substance to cause a thin layer to solidify.

This is then repeated layer-by-layer, with the shape of the resulting object determined by the pattern drawn by the laser beam.

The technique has been about since the 1980s. However, California-headquartered 3D Systems identified a problem with the process - if a feature was too thin at one point and unsupported, it might not solidify properly or result in the object losing its shape.

The firm came up with a solution that involved adapting the procedure so that each layer did not need to be completed before moving onto the next one.

By staggering the point at which each part of a cross-section is solidified, there is greater opportunity to provide structural support for each feature.

3D Systems said this resulted in the opportunity to make more accurate, higher-resolution objects.

It was awarded a patent for the method in 1997.

Cheaper prints

When the MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) Media Lab researchers behind Formlabs submitted their fundraising campaign to Kickstarter, they made a virtue of the quality of the print-outs they could offer.

They said that by using stereolithography, their printer could offer "layer thicknesses and feature sizes that are worlds ahead of what is possible with" the existing technique used by budget printers, which melt plastic and squeeze it through a nozzle to build up each layer of an object.

They noted other high-definition 3D printers typically cost tens of thousands of dollars, but said they would provide their Form 1 printer to anyone who pledged $2,299 or more.

However, 3D Systems said it was "well known" in the industry that it had a significant portfolio of stereolithography-related patents and had already been involved in other lawsuits to defend the intellectual property.

As a result, it said, Formlabs must have known, or chosen not to find out, whether there might be a risk of patent infringement.

Patent interviews

3D Systems' court filing notes the Techcrunch news site had quoted one of Formlabs' co-founders as saying that one of the reasons it had been able to offer its printer at such a low cost had been because several patents had expired "meaning that the team didn't need to pay high licensing fees to get this product to market".

It also highlights that the claim had been repeated by a second member of the Formlabs team in an interview given to SolidSmack.

The filing also flags news coverage of a report by JP Morgan bank specifically highlighting the disruptive threat that Formlabs cheap sales price posed to sales of 3D Systems's products.

The lawsuit says Kickstarter is also named as a defendant because the site took a 5% cut of the pledges made to Formlabs, and by promoting the Form 1 printer had caused "immediate and irreparable injury and damage to 3D Systems".

Although this is the first case of its kind Kickstarter has been involved in, it is not the only lawsuit it is fighting.

The firm is also embroiled in a dispute with ArtistShare - another crowd-funding site - about the rights to a patent describing how database software can be used to raise cash for creative works.


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Boost for biometrics ID research

21 November 2012 Last updated at 19:02 ET By Zoe Kleinman Technology reporter, BBC News

A cybersecurity research centre is being launched at the University of Southampton.

It is one of eight universities to have secured a government grant to focus on the discipline.

Cybersecurity covers bank and border security as well as protecting national infrastructure like the power grid.

Southampton will use part of the cash to extend its study of biometrics - the identification of people by their biological characteristics.

Cybercrime is getting worse, experts claim.

"It's very easy to be a cybercriminal if you want to be," said Vladimiro Sassone, director of the Cyber Security Centre of Excellence at the university.

He said software was now readily available to help to carry out computer-controlled attacks.

"Attempts to tear down national infrastructures of entire countries are actually happening."

He added that illegal efforts ranged from large-scale attacks on transport and financial systems to attempts to steal private information from individuals.

"How do you assess cyber risks?" he asked.

Hand on computer keyboard

Please turn on JavaScript. Media requires JavaScript to play.

"Why are people on the internet behaving as if they were sitting in the living room when in fact they are out there in the wilderness?

"A lot can be done by educating people. But this is a complex field - there are other things that are so far above the heads of the end-user."

Eye contact

The University of Southampton's work will build on existing research into biometrics.

Face and iris recognition tools are already in use. The academics suggest analysing the way people walk and the shape of their ears could be the basis of future tests.

Prof Mark Nixon believes that a person's gait and ears are as unique as their fingerprints, adding that they are harder to fake than more traditional forms of identification.

He has built a biometric tunnel in his lab at the University of Southampton. It contains 12 cameras which measure a person's gait as they walk along it and take pictures of their ears.

The tunnel is brightly coloured to optimise the contrast between the subject's clothing and background, making it easier for the researchers to capture a 3D image as they walk.

"It's normal television technology - chroma key," he said referring to the green-screen backgrounds used to superimpose people against separately filmed scenes.

"Nobody would be seen dead in a bright green suit, or a bright blue suit, or a bright red suit.

"We haven't tested it on 60 million people yet but the results are very encouraging."

No two people have yet been found to have the same results, and so far far nobody has been able to replicate somebody else's gait to the extent that it fooled the computer, Professor Nixon said.

Gait-analysis recently helped police deduce that a series of crimes were being carried out by the same man, who had disguised his identity by wearing a bike helmet, he added.

But he noted that other countries had been faster than Britain to adopt biometrics in day-to-day life.

"In Japan something like 40% of ATM terminals use finger vein technology," he said. "It recognises you by the pattern of blood vessels in your finger."

"But it's early days and it takes people a while to become happy with new technology."

Centres of Excellence

Southampton, Bristol, Lancaster, Oxford and London universities, Imperial College London, Queens University Belfast and University College London have all been named Centres of Academic Excellence by the government's cybersecurity scheme which includes intelligence division GCHQ and the Department for Business and Skills.

As part of their status, they have each been given an investment grant of £50,000.

"We want to make the UK one of the most secure places in the world to do business, by investing in the best expertise to keep pace with technological change," said cybersecurity Minister Francis Maude.

"These first eight centres will play a vital role in boosting research, expanding our cyber-skills base and fostering innovation in the field."


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God game seeks Kickstarter update

22 November 2012 Last updated at 07:25 ET

British gaming veteran Peter Molyneux has turned to Kickstarter to raise cash for an updated version of Populous.

The original started the "god game" genre, in which players act as the divine overseer of an artificial world.

The updated version, called Project Godus, will add multiplayer and have worlds that change to reflect the character of their creator.

Mr Molyneux is seeking £450,000, via Kickstarter, to get Godus ready to be launched in September 2013.

Star games

Mr Molyneux was the designer and main programmer behind the Populous PC game that was released in 1989.

Project Godus will update Populous said Mr Molyneux, on the Kickstarter page dedicated to the funding drive, but keep its core ethic of helping a population of computerised people flourish and develop using their godly powers. Kickstarter is a crowd-sourced fundraising website system in which projects seek cash from members of the public before they embark on any work.

Mr Molyneux's new game studio, called 22 Cans, will drive development of Project Godus.

Innovations seen in other games produced by Mr Molyneux, such as Dungeon Keeper and Black and White, would be used in the new god game, he said.

This would mean that the worlds overseen by good gods would gradually look more idyllic, but deities who punish and smite would produce a harsh and unforgiving environment.

As with many other Kickstarter projects, backers get a variety of rewards for pledging cash.

Those who pledge £5,000 or more will get an all expenses paid trip to gaming show E3 as a guest of Mr Molyneux.

Jim Rossignol, writing about Godus on the Rock, Paper, Shotgun PC gaming news site, said the project was an "interesting one" but added a note of caution about whether Kickstarter was the best way to revive the god game genre.

Mr Molyneux is one of many veteran game makers that have turned to Kickstarter to raise cash.

British gaming pioneer David Braben is using the site to raise money for an updated version of Elite.

Chris Roberts, who developed the Wing Commander series of games, has raised more than $2m (£1.2m) to develop Star Citizen.


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Cyber hackers 'cost PayPal £3.5m'

22 November 2012 Last updated at 11:33 ET

A student attacked the PayPal website as part of a concerted effort by the Anonymous "hacktivists" that cost the company £3.5m, a court has heard.

Christopher Weatherhead, 22, was studying at Northampton University when he allegedly took part in the campaign.

The court heard Anonymous targeted companies who opposed internet piracy but later attacked PayPal after it refused to process WikiLeaks payments.

Mr Weatherhead, from Northampton, denies a charge of conspiracy.

He has pleaded not guilty to conspiring to impair the operation of computers between 1 August 2010 and 22 January 2011.

MasterCard, Visa, Ministry of Sound, the British Recorded Music Industry and the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry were also hit.

The jury at Southwark Crown Court were told Ashley Rhodes, 27, from Camberwell, south London; Peter Gibson, 24, from Hartlepool; and an 18-year-old male who cannot be named for legal reasons have already pleaded guilty to the charge.

Mr Patel said Gibson had initially suggested attacking musician Lily Allen's website because of her overt anti-piracy stance but changed his mind, saying he did not wish to "attack artists".

Sandip Patel, prosecuting, said the group caused PayPal "enormous economic harm".

He said they initially targeted components who were known to oppose internet piracy but later switched to attacking PayPal after it refused to process payments on behalf of the controversial WikiLeaks website, founded by Julian Assange.

Continue reading the main story

This case, simply put, is about hackers who used the internet to attack and disable computer systems - colloquially described as cyber attackers or vandals"

End Quote Sandip Patel Prosecutor

Mr Patel said PayPal was chosen after it refused, in December 2010, to process payments for the Wau Holland Foundation, which was raising money to keep WikiLeaks going.

The prosecutor said Anonymous were "hacktivists" who believed copyright should not apply to the internet.

He said their attacks, codenamed Operation Payback, began as a campaign against the music industry and those who took part in action against the Pirate Bay website which had attempted to distribute music in breach of copyright laws.

Websites crashed

Mr Patel said they used distributed denial of service, or DDoS, which flooded the targets computers with enormous amounts of online requests.

Target websites would crash and users would be directed to a page displaying the message: "You've tried to bite the Anonymous hand. You angered the hive and now you are being stung."

Mr Patel said: "This case, simply put, is about hackers who used the internet to attack and disable computer systems - colloquially described as cyber attackers or vandals."

He said Mr Weatherhead, who used the online name Nerdo, posted plans on an Internet Relay Chat (IRC) channel encouraging an attack on PayPal.

"It is the prosecution case that Christopher Weatherhead, the defendant, is a cyber attacker and that he, and others like him, waged a sophisticated and orchestrated campaign of online attacks that paralysed a series of targeted computer systems belonging to companies to which they took issue with, for whatever reason, and those attacks caused unprecedented harm," Mr Patel added.

He said PayPal was the victim of a series of attacks "which caused considerable damage to its reputation and loss of trade".

More than 100 workers from PayPal's parent company, eBay, spent three weeks working on issues related to the attacks, said Mr Patel.

He said PayPal also had to pay for more software and hardware to defend against similar attacks in the future and he said the total cost to the firm was estimated at £3.5m.

'Dark side' of internet

Mr Patel said the case showed the "dark side" of the internet and he said Anonymous "split into organised and co-ordinated attacks almost along military lines".

The BPI was the subject of an attack in September 2010, leading it to pay out £3,996 for improved online security while the Ministry of Sound paid out £9,000 after its four websites were targeted in October 2010.

The court was told the IRC server used by Anonymous was called AnonOps, and he described Mr Weatherhead as being part of a "small cabal of leaders" and the network administrator for the group.

Mr Patel said one of the websites created by the group was also set up, paid for and run by the defendant using the fake name Moses Gustavsson.

He said Mr Weatherhead used an internet service provider (ISP) called Heihachi, which is based in Russia, which Mr Patel described as a "safe haven" for renegade ISPs.

Mr Weatherhead allegedly boasted that Heihachi permitted anything, even child pornography.

The jury was told Mr Weatherhead discussing attacking the Bank of America and the law firm GM Legal, which was involved in anti-piracy work.

The court heard that Mr Weatherhead's home was raided on 27 January 2011 and computer equipment were seized.

Mr Patel said Mr Weatherhead's security passwords were variations on the words "Nerdo is the best (or worst) hacker in the world".

He claimed the computer belonged to his sister, Laura.

The trial continues.


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