Prison for shining laser at aircraft

26 March 2013 Last updated at 07:58 ET

A 19-year-old California man has been sentenced to two and a half years in prison for shining a laser pointer at two aircraft.

In March 2012 Adam Gardenhire aimed a green laser pen at a business jet and then shone it at a Pasadena police helicopter sent to find the source.

He is the second person in the US to be sentenced for aiming a laser at an aircraft.

The act has been considered a federal crime in the US since February 2012.

Gardenhire pleaded guilty in October.

Commercially obtained laser pointers project just a tiny beam, but its diameter grows much bigger as the distance increases and can result in temporarily blindness if shone in someone's eyes.

According to the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), the high intensity light can dazzle pilots during the crucial phases of take-off and landing.

The pilot of a Cessna Citation plane preparing to land at Bob Hope Airport in Burbank suffered "vision impairment that lasted for hours" after the incident, according to a statement from the Office of the United States Attorney Central District of California.

The helicopter pilot, who had been wearing protective eye gear, was uninjured.

Glenn Stephen Hansen, of Saint Cloud, Florida, was sentenced to six months in prison for a similar offence in August 2012.

Laser pen attacks on aircraft seem to be on the rise in many places around the world. In the past three years, there have been more than 4,500 reports of pilots being targeted by lasers.

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Campaigners warn on Google Glass use

26 March 2013 Last updated at 08:06 ET

Google Glass and other augmented reality gadgets risk creating a world in which privacy is impossible, warn campaigners.

The warning comes from a group called "Stop the Cyborgs" that wants limits put on when headsets can be used.

It has produced posters so premises can warn wearers that the glasses are banned or recording is not permitted.

The campaign comes as politicians, lawyers and bloggers debate how the gadgets will change civil society.

"We are not calling for a total ban," one of the campaign workers called Jack told the BBC in a message sent via anonymised email service Hushmail.

"Rather we want people to actively set social and physical bounds around the use of technologies and not just fatalistically accept the direction technology is heading in," he wrote.

Based in London, the Stop The Cyborgs campaign began at the end of February, he said, and the group did not expect much to happen before the launch of Google Glass in 2014.

Personal privacy

However, the launch coincided with a push on Twitter by Google to get people thinking about what they would do if they had a pair of the augmented reality spectacles. The camera-equipped headset suspends a small screen in front of an owner and pipes information to that display. The camera and other functions are voice controlled.

Google's push, coupled with the announcement by the 5 Point Cafe in Seattle to pre-emptively ban users of the gadget, has generated a lot of debate and given the campaign a boost, he said.

Posters produced by the campaign that warn people not to use Google Glass or other personal surveillance devices had been downloaded thousands of times, said Jack.

In addition, he said, coverage of the Glass project in mainstream media and on the web had swiftly turned from "amazing new gadget that will improve the world" to "the most controversial device in history".

The limits that the Stop The Cyborg campaign wants placed on Google Glass and similar devices would involve a clear way to let people know when they are being recorded.

"It's important for society and democracy that people can chat and live without fear that they might end up being published or prosecuted," it said in a manifesto reproduced on its website.

"We are not anti-technology," said Jack. "We just want people to realise that technology is a powerful cultural force which shapes our society and which we can also shape."

In a statement, Google said: "We are putting a lot of thought into how we design Glass because new technology always raises important new issues for society."

"Our Glass Explorer program will give all of us the chance to be active participants in shaping the future of this technology, including its features and social norms," it said.

Already some US states are looking to impose other limits on augmented reality devices. West Virginia is reportedly preparing a law that will make it illegal to use such devices while driving. Those breaking the law would face heavy fines.

In addition, bloggers are debating the influence of augmented reality spectacles on everyday life. Blogger Ed Champion wrote up 35 arguments about the gadget saying it could force all kinds of unwanted changes. He warned it could stifle the freedom people currently have to enjoy themselves because they know they are not being watched.

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Microsoft faces open software probe

26 March 2013 Last updated at 14:00 ET

A Spanish group of open-source users has accused Microsoft of making it difficult for users of Windows 8 to install alternatives.

The group of 8,000 Linux developers has filed a complaint to the European Commission about a mechanism that locks out other operating systems.

Microsoft said the mechanism was a security feature.

Earlier this month the commission fined the firm 561m euros (£484m) for failing to offer users a choice of web browser.

The Hispalinux group told Reuters The Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) Secure Boot in Windows 8 was "a de facto technological jail for computer booting systems... making Microsoft's Windows platform less neutral than ever".

Its 14-page complaint said users needed to request digital keys from Microsoft to install another operating system.

Microsoft said in a statement: "UEFI is an industry standard aimed at improving computer security and the approach has been public for some time.

"We're happy to answer any additional questions, but we are confident our approach complies with the law and helps keep customers safe."

Richard Edwards, a principal analyst at research firm Ovum, said: "I can't see too many purchasers of Windows 8 calling foul over this.

"Microsoft will argue that the reason the technology has been developed is to provide enhanced security."

In January, when the issue was raised by a Euro-MP, European Competition Commissioner Joaquin Alumnia said the commission had no evidence the Windows 8 security requirements violated EU competition rules.

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Anti-cyber threat centre launched

26 March 2013 Last updated at 22:02 ET By Gordon Corera Security correspondent, BBC News

A new initiative to share information on cyber threats between businesses and government is to be launched.

It will include experts from government communications body GCHQ, MI5, police and business and aims to better co-ordinate responses to the threats.

There will be a secure web-portal to allow access to shared information in real time, like a "secure Facebook".

UK networks are attacked by other states, criminals and companies seeking secrets, costing billions of pounds.

In 2012, the head of MI5 Jonathan Evans said the scale of attacks was "astonishing".

One major London listed company had incurred revenue losses of £800m as a result of cyber attack from a hostile state because of commercial disadvantage in contractual negotiations.

One government official told the BBC: "No one has full visibility on cyberspace threats. We see volumes of attack increase and we expect it to continue to rise."

The plan - the Cyber Security Information Sharing Partnership (CISP) - has emerged out of a 2012 pilot scheme known as Project Auburn.

Eighty companies from five sectors of the economy - finance, defence, energy, telecommunications and pharmaceuticals - were encouraged to share information.

The pilot was expanded to 160 firms. A more permanent structure is being announced on Wednesday.

The kind of information shared includes technical details of an attack, methods used in planning it and how to mitigate and deal with one.

At a new London base, large screens will monitor attacks and provide details in real-time of who is being targeted.

A group of 12-15 analysts with security clearance will work mainly during office hours.

Companies previously have been nervous of revealing publicly when they have been attacked because of the potential impact on reputation and share price if they are seen as having lost valuable intellectual property or other information.

It is hoped further firms will join the initial 160.

Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude said: "We know cyber attacks are happening on an industrial scale and businesses are by far the biggest victims in terms of industrial espionage and intellectual property theft, with losses to the UK economy running into the billions of pounds annually.

"This innovative partnership is breaking new ground through a truly collaborative partnership for sharing information on threats and to protect UK interests in cyberspace."

Government officials say they continue to be uncomfortable with an EU draft directive which would force companies to disclose when they have been attacked.

They hope a voluntary partnership will provide a more workable solution.

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'Biggest ever attack' slows internet

27 March 2013 Last updated at 09:03 ET By Dave Lee Technology reporter, BBC News

Please turn on JavaScript. Media requires JavaScript to play.

The BBC's Rory Cellan-Jones explains why the attack is like a "motorway jam", alongside expert David Emm from Kaspersky Lab

The internet around the world has been slowed down in what security experts are describing as the biggest cyber-attack of its kind in history.

A row between a spam-fighting group and hosting firm has sparked retaliation attacks affecting the wider internet.

It is having an impact on popular services like Netflix - and experts worry it could escalate to affect banking and email systems.

Five national cyber-police-forces are investigating the attacks.

Spamhaus, a group based in both London and Geneva, is a non-profit organisation that aims to help email providers filter out spam and other unwanted content.

To do this, the group maintains a number of blocklists - a database of servers known to be being used for malicious purposes.

Recently, Spamhaus blocked servers maintained by Cyberbunker, a Dutch web host that states it will host anything with the exception of child pornography or terrorism-related material.

Sven Olaf Kamphuis, who claims to be a spokesman for Cyberbunker, said, in a message, that Spamhaus was abusing its position, and should not be allowed to decide "what goes and does not go on the internet".

Spamhaus has alleged that Cyberbunker, in cooperation with "criminal gangs" from Eastern Europe and Russia, is behind the attack.

Cyberbunker has not responded to the BBC's request for comment.

'Immense job'

Steve Linford, chief executive for Spamhaus, told the BBC the scale of the attack was unprecedented.

"We've been under this cyber-attack for well over a week.

Continue reading the main story

Writing exactly one year ago for the BBC, Prof Alan Woodward predicted the inherent weaknesses in the web's domain name system.

He wrote: "It is essentially the phone book for the internet. If you could prevent access to the phone book then you would effectively render the web useless."

Read Prof Woodward's full article

"But we're up - they haven't been able to knock us down. Our engineers are doing an immense job in keeping it up - this sort of attack would take down pretty much anything else."

Mr Linford told the BBC that the attack was being investigated by five different national cyber-police-forces around the world.

He claimed he was unable to disclose more details because the forces were concerned that they too may suffer attacks on their own infrastructure.

The attackers have used a tactic known as Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS), which floods the intended target with large amounts of traffic in an attempt to render it unreachable.

In this case, Spamhaus's Domain Name System (DNS) servers were targeted - the infrastructure that joins domain names, such as bbc.co.uk, the website's numerical internet protocol address.

Mr Linford said the attack's power would be strong enough to take down government internet infrastructure.

"If you aimed this at Downing Street they would be down instantly," he said. "They would be completely off the internet."

He added: "These attacks are peaking at 300 Gbps (gigabits per second).

"Normally when there are attacks against major banks, we're talking about 50 Gbps"

Clogged-up motorway

The knock-on effect is hurting internet services globally, said Prof Alan Woodward, a cybersecurity expert at the University of Surrey.

"If you imagine it as a motorway, attacks try and put enough traffic on there to clog up the on and off ramps," he told the BBC.

"With this attack, there's so much traffic it's clogging up the motorway itself."

Arbor Networks, a firm which specialises in protecting against DDoS attacks, also said it was the biggest such attack they had seen.

"The largest DDoS attack that we have witnessed prior to this was in 2010, which was 100 Gbps. Obviously the jump from 100 to 300 is pretty massive," said Dan Holden, the company's director of security research.

"There's certainly possibility for some collateral damage to other services along the way, depending on what that infrastructure looks like."

Spamhaus said it was able to cope as it has highly distributed infrastructure in a number of countries.

The group is supported by many of the world's largest internet companies who rely on it to filter unwanted material.

Mr Linford told the BBC that several companies, such as Google, had made their resources available to help "absorb all of this traffic".

The attacks typically happened in intermittent bursts of high activity.

"They are targeting every part of the internet infrastructure that they feel can be brought down," Mr Linford said.

"Spamhaus has more than 80 servers around the world. We've built the biggest DNS server around."

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Digital arts funding scheme launched

27 March 2013 Last updated at 12:42 ET

A new scheme to encourage visitors to arts institutions to give donations using their mobile phones has received the backing of actor Griff Rhys Jones.

The comedian and presenter said the Donate initiative would help reduce "embarrassment about asking for money".

The project, involving 12 theatres and galleries, hopes to raise funds using text message codes.

Culture minister Ed Vaizey called it a "great idea" to begin "harnessing new technologies".

Visitors to exhibitions and theatres will be encouraged to text donations using their mobile phone while they are at the venue.

The scheme, which was first announced last summer by the then culture minister Jeremy Hunt, will be rolled out nationally by the end of 2013.

Sir Paul Ruddock, of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, said it was important to "make it easy for visitors to give and show their appreciation".

The money raised will help fund specific campaigns, such as the restoration of the Royal Festival Hall organ at Southbank Centre.

Other venues hoping to increase donations from their visitors include the Almeida Theatre in London, the Baltic Centre in Gateshead, Bath's Holburne Museum and the Octagon Theatre in Bolton.

"We believe the scheme will deliver incremental income to institutions at a time when the cultural sector feels the pain of an ongoing recession and funding cuts," said Donate's Robert Dufton.

Last December the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) announced cuts of £11.6 million to Arts Council England funding that followed a 30% budget reduction in 2010.

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Arrests as Egypt internet cable cut

27 March 2013 Last updated at 19:01 ET

Egyptian authorities say they have arrested three divers trying to cut through an undersea internet cable.

The men were caught on a fishing boat just off the port city of Alexandria, said military spokesman Col Ahmed Mohammed Ali.

The damaged cable caused a drop in the speed of online services in Egypt and some other countries, said Egyptian news agency Mena.

It was unclear whether the incident was linked to cables damaged last Friday.

At the time, cable operator Seacom said several lines connecting Europe with Africa, the Middle East and Asia were hit, also slowing down internet services, reported Reuters news agency.

The cable hit in Wednesday's apparent sabotage was the South East Asia Middle East Western Europe 4 (SEA-ME-WE 4) - one of the main cables snaking under the Mediterranean, Mena said.

The attack took place some 750m (820 yards) north of Alexandria, it said.

In the statement on his official Facebook page, Col Ali said the divers were arrested while "cutting the undersea cable" of the main telecommunications company, Telecom Egypt.

He did not give any explanation for the divers' alleged motive.

The men were due to be interrogated.

Mediterranean telecoms cables have suffered disruptions several times in recent years, but they have usually been attributed to accidents involving ship propellers.

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'Them and us' online service warning

28 March 2013 Last updated at 05:49 ET

The government is in danger of creating a "them and us" situation by digitising public services, a report warns.

Ministers say 82% of "transactions" can be carried out online, as that is roughly the proportion of the population which uses the internet.

But the National Audit Office argued that the percentage of people able to access some services, such as those used by elderly people, was lower.

It called for "continued access" to face-to-face and telephone services.

The government said it was continuing to offer help to users and promised to create websites "so good (that) people will prefer to use them".

The coalition has moved most government services to the single gov.uk address, after Whitehall departments set up their own sites in a more piecemeal fashion. Other bodies are expected to follow by March next year.

It estimates that making services "digital by default" may save up to £1.2bn during the current parliament, with future savings potentially reaching £1.8bn a year in the longer term.

'Greater scope'

A study has put the average cost of face-to-face transactions at £8.62 each, those via telephone at £2.83 and those via a website at 15 pence.

Continue reading the main story

It is important to remember that there are significant numbers for whom this does not work"

End Quote Amyas Morse Head of National Audit Office

In its report, the National Audit Office (NAO) agreed there was "greater scope" for online public services.

It said: "The government, in calculating potential savings, has assumed that 82% of transactions with public services will be carried out online, the proportion of the population currently online."

But it warned that "online use of some services falls short of that level", and that "age, socio-economic group and disability do make a difference".

The NAO looked at 20 public services and found the main reasons for lower take-up were: a preference for face-to-face dealings; an unwillingness to provide information online; and low awareness of some online services.

The report said: "The government has set out plans to help people not on the internet to use digital services. Given the scale of 'digital exclusion', the government now needs to put these plans into action to avoid a 'them and us' problem."

Amyas Morse, head of the NAO, said: "Online working is increasingly central to the delivery of government services and rightly so. But it is important to remember that there are significant numbers for whom this does not work - who cannot or do not want to go online."

Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude said: "This report firmly endorses the digital transformation of public services designed around user needs that the government has undertaken.

"Putting these services online, rather than using face-to-face, postal or phone options, will deliver substantial savings to the public purse, and save users time and money.

"We are developing digital services that are so good people will prefer to use them, while ensuring that those who are not able to go online are given the support they need to do so."

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Bitcoin miners hit back at botnets

28 March 2013 Last updated at 07:07 ET By Mark Ward Technology correspondent, BBC News

Cyber-thieves are attempting to cash in on the rising value of the bitcoin virtual currency.

Bitcoins have almost tripled in value in a month. In late February one bitcoin was worth £22 ($33) but now each one sells for about £60 ($90).

Thieves who run networks of hijacked PCs are increasingly using these machines to create or "mine" the coins.

But bitcoin miners say thieves will struggle to keep up, as coin-generating technology becomes more sophisticated.

Computer cash

As a virtual currency, bitcoins depend on a wide network of closely connected computers to log who holds the coins and where they are spent.

That network also shares information about who is "mining" the coins.

Mining involves solving a hard mathematical problem and miners typically use large numbers of computers to speed up the number crunching involved.

"Botnet mining is fundamentally theft of private property, illegal and unethical," Jeff Garzik, a bitcoin developer told the BBC, adding that bitcoin miners had battled botnets for years, seeing them as a "cost and a burden" they just had to deal with.

Many cyber-thieves who control botnets, large networks of home PCs compromised with a virus, were using them as a dedicated mining pool in a bid to generate bitcoins for themselves, said Derek Manky, senior security strategist at Fortinet.

The operators of one of the biggest current botnets, known as ZeroAccess, had recently ramped up their efforts to use machines they control to mine bitcoins, he said, adding that millions of infected PCs were unwittingly enrolled in the criminal network.

"ZeroAccess has employed an affiliate model," he said. "They pay other people to install malware for them."

The operators of ZeroAccess were making so much money that they were paying high prices for each infection. Current rates ran at about $100 (£65) for every 1,000 infections, said Mr Manky.

As well as mining bitcoins, PCs enrolled in ZeroAccess were also being used to poison search results - to cause users to unwittingly click on booby-trapped web pages - or fraudulently click on adverts to generate revenue.

"ZeroAccess has been extremely profitable," said Mr Manky.

The wider bitcoin community was aware of the efforts botnet owners were making to produce their own cash, said Mr Manky.

"They try to detect and remove these transactions but it's a bit of a cat and mouse game," he said. "The operators of ZeroAccess know about that and just change their tactics."

However, said Mr Garzik, criminal participation in bitcoin mining was likely to get much less profitable as professional miners turned away from using desktop PCs to generate the coins.

Increasingly, he said, professional miners were using custom-made chips, called Asics (Application-Specific Integrated Circuits), to mine because such processors worked faster.

"It is theorised that the current shift in bitcoin mining to 'Asic' miners - the fastest and most advanced generation - will simply make it unprofitable for botnet miners," said Mr Garzik.

Vitalik Buterin, technical editor at Bitcoin Magazine, said the the rise of Asic mining meant cyber-thieves would soon be pushed out.

Currently, he said, only about one-third of all professional miners were using Asics, but as that proportion grew, the number of bitcoins that could be generated with a botnet would shrink.

"The fact that botnets are (somewhat) viable now is basically an aberration resulting from the massive price increase that has not yet been matched by increased mining activity," he said. " Once Bitcoin stabilises again the botnets will rapidly crawl back into the shadows."

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'Disruptive' Ouya console launches

28 March 2013 Last updated at 07:45 ET

A new games console which industry experts say could disrupt the industry has begun shipping to customers.

The Ouya costs $99 (£65) and runs on Google's Android operating system.

Games on the system will be a fraction of the cost of traditional console games, more comparable to those found on mobiles and tablets.

However, it may struggle to muscle in on a market dominated by big players such as PlayStation and Xbox, one analyst predicted.

The Ouya was financed using crowdfunding website Kickstarter, where it attracted over $8m (£5.3m) in funding from 63,416 backers.

The company has begun sending out consoles to the first supporters of the project - while other interested gamers can pre-order the device.

Indie movement

The Ouya will look to capitalise on a growing popularity for cheap, often independently produced games.

Mobile devices have eaten into the handheld gaming market, attracting millions of casual gamers who are not prepared to invest in bespoke gaming devices, but are still keen to dabble in gaming.

While traditional platforms, such as Nintendo's DS or Sony's PlayStation Vita, have titles costing in the region of £30-£40, games downloaded from app stores are considerably cheaper, and often free.

Developers on these newer platforms are instead looking to other monetization methods, such as in-game upgrades.

The Ouya is the first major attempt to bring that same kind of disruption to the home gaming industry, says gaming analyst Piers Harding-Rolls, from IHS.

"The space of TV gaming is getting to that point where it's the one area that hasn't been significantly disrupted," he told the BBC.

"Ouya will get other companies involved in the space, looking at it more intently.

"It will get the existing console companies to be more aggressive in their business models, opening up their distribution channels."

Hotting up

While Ouya is the first major launch of this style of gaming device - it will soon have plenty of company.

Gamestick, a UK-based firm, is also developing its own Android-based console.

Nvidia, traditionally a manufacturer of high-end graphical hardware, announced its Project Shield console at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in January.

Perhaps an even greater threat comes from Valve, the PC gaming giant which confirmed it was to make its own "Steambox" - a console utilising the already massively popular Steam network to deliver games.

But Ouya is the first, and likely to be the cheapest.

The console, a small cuboid, can be opened up and upgraded if users wish. It uses off-the-shelf components, minimising manufacturing costs.

Speaking to the BBC in January, Ouya chief executive Julie Uhrman said her device will allow smaller players to get stuck into the home gaming industry.

"Console gaming had traditionally been closed to new entrants," she said.

"That's made it very difficult for small developers to bring titles to the television, and really expensive for gamers [to play]."

However, IHS's Mr Harding-Rolls said the console may struggle in its early days if the quality of titles does not meet expectation.

"It's obviously creating a lot of developer interest, as are others in this space, not just the Ouya," he said, adding that some games may just be direct copies of mobile games.

"I think there will be in the first case a lot of porting that goes on which will not necessarily show off the best capabilities of the device."

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