posted by Fergie @ 10/03/2010 05:30:00 AM
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An AFP newswire article, via Google News, reports:
Iran's intelligence minister said on Saturday authorities had arrested several "nuclear spies" who were working to derail Tehran's nuclear programme through cyberspace.
Without saying how many people were arrested or when, Heydar Moslehi was quoted on state television's website as saying Iran had "prevented the enemies' destructive activity."
His remarks came against the backdrop of reports that the Stuxnet worm is mutating and wreaking havoc on computerised industrial equipment in Iran and had already infected 30,000 IP addresses.
But Moslehi said intelligence agents had discovered the "destructive activities of the arrogance (Western powers) in cyberspace, and different ways to confront them have been designed and implemented."
"I assure all citizens that the intelligence apparatus currently has complete supervision on cyberspace and will not allow any leak or destruction of our country's nuclear activities."
The website said Moslehi emphasised that his ministry was aware of the different activities of "enemies' spy services."
posted by Fergie @ 10/02/2010 01:17:00 PM
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Davide Castelvecchi writes in Scientific American:
The nascent industry of quantum communications could suffer a fatal blow if the U.S. enacts sweeping new regulations to provide wiretapping access to law enforcement.
The weirdness of quantum mechanics makes it possible for two parties to share an encryption key and be sure that no one else can copy it. Any attempt to eavesdrop on the communication of the quantum key would irreversibly disturb its quantum state, thus revealing that the channel is being wiretapped.
In recent decades, the development of quantum communication and encryption has motivated significant advances in basic research in mathematics, physics and engineering.
posted by Fergie @ 10/01/2010 05:57:00 PM
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The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation has officially informed the Russian Consulate General on the detainment of four Russian citizens suspected of a large-scale banking fraud, a Russian vice consul said.
The Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York said on Friday that a total of 25 Russians have been charged in a large-scale banking fraud case in the United States.
"We have received an official notification from the FBI on the detainment of four Russian and two Moldovan citizens on September 30 suspected of conspiracy to commit bank fraud and the use of forged passports," Alexander Otchainov said.
The four Russian names in the notification are Adel Gataullin, Maxim Miroshnichenko, Kristina Svechinskaya and Yulia Sidorenko and the Moldovan citizens are Viktoria Opinka and Alina Turuta.
When asked about a great mismatch in the number of detained Russians stated by the attorney's office and the official FBI notification, Otchainov said that perhaps the part of the detained could have Russian names but could not be citizens of Russia.
posted by Fergie @ 10/01/2010 05:44:00 PM
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Katie Drummond writes on Danger Room:
The U.S. intelligence community wants a sharp competitive edge on the world’s best and brightest ideas. In an effort to find the next big thing before it happens, they’re looking to do away with fallible human trendspotters, and enlist an algorithmic system to “scan the horizon” and tap into the first signs of burgeoning memes in science and technology.
IARPA, the intel world’s far-out research arm, is already wary of trusting big calls and predictions to flesh-and-blood experts alone. Earlier this year, the agency solicited proposals for a system that would evaluate and rank the value of expert opinion based on niche, learning style, prior performance and “other attributes predictive of accuracy.”
This time around, IARPA’s looking for a system that wouldn’t just rate experts, but would take over many of their responsibilities entirely. The agency’s Foresight and Understanding from Scientific Exposition (or FUSE) wants researchers to create “a reliable, evidence-based capability that…reduce[s] the labor involved to identify specific technical areas for in-depth review.”
As IARPA’s solicitation notes, trying to identify the hottest trends before they heat up is time-consuming, time sensitive and susceptible to human bias. Not to mention that most experts are confined to certain geographic regions, cultures, languages and technical niches. But with globalization churning out innovations worldwide, IARPA wants a system that can operate in several languages and account for cultural differences.
posted by Fergie @ 10/01/2010 05:21:00 PM
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A federal court has permanently shut down the illegal operations of Inc21, a firm that placed bogus charges on the telephone bills of thousands of small businesses and consumers for Internet-related services they never agreed to buy.
The court, at the request of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has barred the defendants from charging consumers' telephone bills and prohibits them from telemarketing unless they get prior approval from the FTC and the court.
It also ordered third parties through which charges were placed -- including local exchange telephone companies, or LECs -- to return money in escrow to consumers, and ordered the defendants to pay nearly $38 million in restitution for consumers.
posted by Fergie @ 10/01/2010 05:12:00 PM
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Ellen Nakashima writes in The Washington Post:
A sophisticated worm designed to infiltrate industrial control systems could be used as a blueprint to sabotage machines that are critical to U.S. power plants, electrical grids and other infrastructure, experts are warning.
The discovery of Stuxnet, which some analysts have called the "malware of the century" because of its ability to damage or possibly destroy sensitive control systems, has served as a wake-up call to industry officials. Even though the worm has not yet been found in control systems in the United States, it could be only a matter of time before similar threats show up here.
"Quite honestly you've got a blueprint now," said Michael J. Assante, former chief security officer at the North American Electric Reliability Corporation, an industry body that sets standards to ensure the electricity supply. "A copycat may decide to emulate it, maybe to cause a pressure valve to open or close at the wrong time. You could cause damage, and the damage could be catastrophic."
Joe Weiss, an industrial control system security specialist and managing partner at Applied Control Solutions in Cupertino, Calif., said "the really scary part" about Stuxnet is its ability to determine what "physical process it wants to blow up." Said Weiss: "What this is, is essentially a cyber weapon."
posted by Fergie @ 10/01/2010 01:44:00 PM
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Robert McMillan and Grant Gross write on ComputerWorld:
Ukrainian police on Thursday arrested five people thought to be the brains behind a scam using the Zeus Trojan to siphon money from small businesses in the U.S.
The operation is part of an ongoing effort to take down a criminal empire that stole $70 million from victims' bank accounts over the past few years. Many of those hit were small businesses or local organizations that ended up having to absorb the costs of the fraud.
Ukraine's national police force, the SBU, made the arrests as part of a joint effort with the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation, police in the Netherlands and the U.K.'s Metropolitan Police Service. Those detained are "key subjects responsible for this overarching scheme," the FBI said in a statement.
Ukrainian SBU agents also executed eight search warrants in an operation that was manned by about 50 police officers.
posted by Fergie @ 10/01/2010 01:21:00 PM
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