Countries brace for The Code War

LAS VEGAS -- Repeated and constant cyber attacks against the United States have turned the country's assessment of national security threats on its head.

Just five years ago, the CIA was mostly worried about physical threats like bombings or chemical warfare. But now, the CIA thinks cyber attacks have the second greatest potential for national destruction behind only a nuclear attack.

"Cyber will be part of any future conflict -- whether it's a nation state or terrorism," said Cofer Black, former director of the CIA's counterterrorist center, at the Black Hat cybersecurity conference in Las Vegas on Wednesday.

It's not just that cyber will become part of warfare. It already has.

McAfee, a cybersecurity company owned by Intel (INTC, Fortune 500), announced late Tuesday that it uncovered a wide-ranging, global cyber attack that impacted 72 organizations.

A total of 36 corporations, 12 non-profits and 22 government organizations were affected, including 15 U.S. government agencies and the United Nations.

The broad-based nature of the attack means that every country and company must assume that they have been compromised, an executive at McAfee argued.

"You can't just deploy a firewall and assume you're safe," said Toralv Dirro, security strategist at McAfee. "Someone one way or another will get into a computer and attack your system."

McAfee found that a country launched a sponsored cyberespionage scheme, but it didn't go so far as to pin down the nation responsible. Though McAfee informed the companies and agencies that were spied on, most of those attacked didn't want the security company to name them publicly.

How they hack you

The scariest part of the scheme wasn't that it impacted so many organizations around the world, but that it has been going on, undetected, for the past five years. McAfee actually discovered the attack when the hackers finally made a mistake -- they left logs of their attacks on a command and control server that McAfee uncovered in 2009.

Cyberespionage poses a great threat since it gives the nations sponsoring the attacks a leg up in diplomacy, business competition and, should a conflict arise, warfare.

Countries have already shown how cyberattacks can be used to mitigate rivals' defenses.
In September 2007, Israeli F15s and F16s bombed a nuclear reactor construction site in Syria, but Syrian radars never picked up the planes crossing the border. That's because Israel had hacked Syria's radar software.

The most infamous example is Stuxnet, a bug so sophisticated that it significantly delayed Iran's nuclear program. The worm, which was likely loaded into the system on a thumb drive, ordered the centrifuges in an Iranian nuclear facility to spin out of control, ultimately destroying it. While that was happening, Stuxnet made all the readings tell Iranian engineers that everything was normal.

"I am here to tell you, and you can quote me, the Stuxnet attack is the Rubicon of our future," said Black. "Physical destruction of a national resource is huge."

It might not just be nations sponsoring these attacks one day, however. Black said Al Qaeda's abilities to launch physical attacks against the United States have largely been neutralized, but the group's potential ability to commit cyber warfare could wreak havoc on our resources.

"The natural inclination for Al Qaeda would be to fall back and enter the cyber world," he argued.

Though nations are unlikely to attack our systems for fear of response from the United States, terrorists wouldn't hesitate. That's a worry, since our government is woefully unprepared for such an event.

"Like the terrorist threat before 9/11, our leaders hear it but they don't believe it," Black said to the room of about 8,500 hackers and security professionals. "We're counting on you. The Code War is your war." 

Android conquers almost 50 percent of smartphone market

A model demonstrates a Nexus One smartphone, the first

mobile phone Google will sell directly to consumers based

on its Android platform, after a news conference at Google

headquarters in Mountain View, California January 5, 2010.

Google's Android platform has taken almost 50 percent of the global smartphone market, dominating in the Asia-Pacific region, research firm Canalys said on Monday.

Android, which Google acquired in 2005 and launched on phones in 2008, is used by almost all the major phone makers including HTC, LG, Motorola and Samsung.

It was the number one platform in 35 of the 56 countries Canalys tracks, resulting in a market share of 48 percent, the research firm said.

By comparison, Apple, which shipped 20.3 million iPhones, is a distant second with a market share of 19 percent but it overtook ailing Finnish handset maker Nokia as the world's largest individual smartphone vendor.

Samsung also overtook Nokia but Canalys said the South Korean handset maker could have done better.
"Samsung has failed to fully capitalize on Nokia's weakened state around the world, as the Finnish company rides out a challenging transitional period," Canalys analyst Chris Jones said.

"It's the best placed vendor to grow at Nokia's expense, taking advantage of its global scale and channel reach, but it hasn't yet done enough to capitalize on this, particularly in emerging markets."

Samsung, which sells Android smartphones as well as its own bada branded devices, shipped some 17 million devices, a rise of 421 percent versus a year ago.

Android's success however comes with a headache for Google and its vendors.

Its Android mobile software has attracted a lawsuit from Oracle, while handset makers using the software have also been sued by both Apple and Microsoft, which claims an existing, perpetual license to Nortel patents.

Microsoft, whose own presence in the smartphone market is a mere 1 percent, receives money from deals reached with some Android handset makers but is pressing for more.

Last month, Apple, Microsoft and Blackberry maker RIM teamed up with three other companies to outbid Google at an auction for Nortel's wireless patents, which could result in big licensing fees for Google.

That move may run into legal obstacles.

The Wall Street Journal, quoting people familiar with the matter, reported that the U.S. Department of Justice is intensifying an investigation into whether Apple, Microsoft and Research in Motion could use the recently acquired trove of patents to unfairly hobble competing smartphones using Google's Android software.

Unfazed by its failure to acquire the Nortel patents, Google, which has been hampered by a lack of intellectual property in wireless telephony, is said to have held talks about buying U.S. wireless chip technology company InterDigital to boost its patent portfolio.

InterDigital, which has a market value of $3.11 billion and 2010 revenues of $395 million, said earlier this week its board was evaluating strategic alternatives, including a possible sale of the company or of its patents.

GIT: What should spaceships look like?

GIT: What should spaceships look like?: "As the next generation of spaceships is being conceived, should shuttle designers take their inspiration from sci-fi illustrators? Genera..."

What should spaceships look like?

As the next generation of spaceships is being conceived, should shuttle designers take their inspiration from sci-fi illustrators?

 

Generations of schoolchildren, openly, and many adults, perhaps more guardedly, have delighted in fantastical depictions of space travel.

 

 

 

Sci-fi art and space reality

• Rocket scientist Wernher von Braun worked with Chesley Bonestell to illustrate his concepts of space technology.
• Nasa artist Robert McCall illustrated for Isaac Asimov and worked on 2001: A Space Odyssey.
• Nasa commissioned space and aerospace illustrator Vincent Di Fate to create the official painting of the International Space Station in 1985.
• Before a man walked on the moon, Norman Rockwell provided a depiction of what the first step on the moon would look like

From Star Wars back to 2001: A Space Odyssey and even further back to comic hero Dan Dare and Victorian illustrations for the stories of Jules Verne and HG Wells, the way spaceships should look has been an important issue - before the first rocket booster ever fired.

But the fanciful reputation of sci-fi novels and films aside, the illustration of spacecraft might actually have a realistic place in the design of future vessels.

The line has often been blurred between the realm of the sci-fi artist and the real spacecraft designers.
Often referred to as the father of modern space art, Chesley Bonestell had a significant impact on not only science fiction illustration, but the whole of the American space programme.

German rocket developer and champion of space exploration Dr Wernher von Braun, who was inspired by the works of Verne and Wells, commissioned Bonestell to illustrate his spaceflight concepts in a 1952 issue of Collier's Weekly magazine.

The combination of von Braun's technology and Bonestell's artistic vision made the science come alive for the layman readers. Of course, the tax dollars and votes of those inspired layman readers would be needed to realise ambitious space projects.

The Association of Science Fiction & Fantasy Artists now honours work in the sci-fi and fantasy art industry with its annual Chesley Awards.

“An enterprising company might achieve success by offering spaceships that resemble the unique visions of Chris Foss”

Harry Lange was a German artist who got his start in military flight manual illustrations and was appointed to lead the future projects section for Nasa. He and his team found themselves illustrating von Braun's ideas to promote his vision of a US space station. Lange ended up as production designer on Stanley Kubrick's 2001.

On the other hand it's hard to imagine the designs of Chris Foss, the subject of a new retrospective book, Hardware: The Definitive SF Works of Chris Foss, easily crossing the line into the real world of space travel. With Picasso as an inspiration, Foss created book covers that pioneered a new style of space art, featuring prominently placed gigantic colourful craft in swirling spacescapes.

Marked with mysterious symbols and complex patterns, his illustrations have breathed life into sci-fi writings of everyone from Isaac Asimov to EE "Doc" Smith and AE van Vogt. Foss was also commissioned to do work for Alien, Superman and Alejandro Jodorowsky's unmade film version of Dune.

Seeing Kubrick's 2001 made a lasting impression on his work, as did the Cold War years and the bleakness of some of the derelict areas of post-war Britain. "People were really looking for a new kind of explosion," says Foss. "Humans want hope. They want something to believe in."

So is it fanciful to imagine Foss's ships - or those of equally florid artists - being like Bonestell's and infiltrating real design?

Perhaps not if a new age of privately-financed space travel needs to rally support in the same way von Braun and Bonestell did.

The end of the space shuttle programme presents a new challenge for spacecraft engineers and designers - one that could even benefit from collaboration with artists.

With government funding constricted, many will be looking to private investors to lead the future of space vessels.

More and more, the aim of companies, such as Boeing, will be to entice consumers to pay for space travel. Just as airlines have done, they will have to appeal to potential passengers - and investors - in order to establish their brands against the competition.

"An enterprising company seeking to attract government and private passengers might achieve success by offering them spaceships that resembled the unique visions of Chris Foss," says science fiction academic Dr Gary Westfahl.

Exotic design might play a part similar to that of airline insignia - from Alaska Airlines' themed craft to Aer Lingus's shamrocks. The goal is to establish brand recognition and visual appeal.

"Foss made his spaceships beautiful not by streamlining them but by adding bright, decorative colours," says Westfahl.

Some might find it strange that a Nasa worker like Lange could make the jump from a deep space project to Hollywood and end up with Oscar nomination for the art direction on The Empire Strikes Back.

But space is a particularly romanticised part of our vision of exploration, says Dr Eric Rabkin, a professor of English at the University of Michigan who specialises in science fiction.

It's because of the unknown, he says. Trains must go where tracks have previously been laid down and planes have to fly where they can ultimately land.

"Ships are inherently romantic because they can go where no one has before. Ships are associated with freedom and conquest," says Rabkin.