LONDON — A ‘cyber cold war’ waged over the world’s computers threatens to become one of the biggest threats to security in the next decade, according to a report published on Thursday. About 120 countries are developing ways to use the Internet as a weapon to target financial markets, government computer systems and utilities, Internet security company McAfee said in an annual report. Intelligence agencies already routinely test other states’ networks looking for weaknesses and their techniques are growing more sophisticated every year, it said. Governments must urgently shore up their defenses against industrial espionage and attacks on infrastructure. ‘Cybercrime is now a global issue,’ said Jeff Green, senior vice president of McAfee Avert Labs. ‘It has evolved significantly and is no longer just a threat to industry and individuals but increasingly to national security.’ The report said China is at the forefront of the cyber war. It said China has been blamed for attacks in the United States, India and Germany. China has repeatedly denied such claims. ‘The Chinese were first to use cyber-attacks for political and military goals,’ James Mulvenon, director of the Center for Intelligence and Research in Washington, was quoted […]
Some 178 species are endangered or in decline, new list says. That’s up 11 percent from five years ago. With birds increasingly hammered by climate change, habitat loss, and a host of other threats, the list of US species in dire trouble is getting longer. Unlike many still common ‘backyard bird’ species whose notable declines were documented in a national study this spring, the much-less familiar species on the new ‘2007 WatchList for US Birds’ released yesterday are considered in danger of extinction or in very serious decline. Some 178 species made this year’s watch list, up 11 percent from five years ago. The masked booby, wandering tattler, and Mexican chickadee are among 12 new species added to the US watch list, which is compiled every five years by the National Audubon Society in New York and the American Bird Conservancy in Washington, both of which are conservation groups. ‘The watch list sounds a real warning,’ said David Pashley, director of conservation programs for the American Bird Conservancy and a coauthor of the list, in a statement. Many consider the ultimate warning list to be the federal Endangered Species list maintained by the US Fish […]
SAN JOSE, Calif. — Online pornography hunters’ Internet adventures are already fraught with danger from malicious code many porn sites use to commandeer visitors’ machines or steal personal data. Now comes a scheme some researchers say amounts to extortion: One site’s threat to disable visitors’ computers with relentless pop-up ads if they don’t pay for a subscription they were automatically signed up for after a free trial. The threats, reported this week by researchers at security vendor McAfee Inc.’s Avert Labs, affect people who visit the Web site and download software to access a free three-day trial membership. Visitors do get free access for three days, but the download includes code that then generates a stream of pop-up windows, when the user is online and offline, demanding payment of roughly $80 for 90 days’ worth of additional access. The windows stay open up to 10 minutes and appear once a day. They appear on top of any open windows and restore to their original size if shrunk or moved, making them impossible to ignore. They also reappear if the computer is rebooted. The site actually warns visitors they will be billed as full members-and lose […]
The 2002 North American drought left an extra 360 million tons of heat-trapping carbon in the air, equivalent to the pollution caused that year by 200 million U.S. cars, according to a study released this week by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The prolonged drought cut by half the continent’s ability to absorb carbon dioxide, said the study. Most atmospheric scientists say increased carbon dioxide is the main reason the planet’s average temperatures are creeping up. NOAA used its powerful new modeling system CarbonTracker to analyze data. CarbonTracker found that in North America, humans released 1.9 billion metric tons of carbon into the atmosphere each year – through burning fossil fuels. Typically, forests, grasslands, crops and soil would be expected to absorb about one-third of those emissions in North America. But that natural ratio slumped in 2002 when the continent had one of its largest droughts in a century. Conditions over almost half of the United States were deemed ‘extreme’ or ‘exceptional.’ Vegetation and soil took up only 330 million metric tons of carbon, down from a yearly average of 650 million metric tons. Humans and other animals breathe in […]
RAMALLAH/GAZA CITY — Vowing yesterday to go on fighting the ‘Zionist enemy,’ Hamas called Mahmoud Abbas the worst leader in Palestinian history and said he had no right to make concessions to Israel at the Annapolis peace conference. Speaking at an ‘anti-Annapolis’ conference in Gaza, leaders of the Islamist group which seized the enclave from Abbas’ forces in June said the president did not represent the Palestinian people and vowed never to recognize Israel. ‘Let the whole world hear us - we will not cede an inch of Palestine and we will never recognize Israel,’ Hamas’ Gaza leader Ismail Haniyeh told the meeting of about 1,000 people, including representatives from some other Palestinian factions. Hamas’ seizure of control of Gaza, prompted Abbas, whose rival Fatah faction holds sway in the West Bank, to sack Haniyeh as prime minister and open negotiations, with US sponsorship, that could lead to a Palestinian state alongside Israel. Hamas, shunned by the West for refusing to renounce violence, was not invited to today’s conference in Annapolis, Maryland. Israel, which views Gaza as an ‘enemy entity’ and launches regular raids into the territory to curb rocket attacks, killed a Hamas militant and […]
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
