Following the New York Times' revelation earlier this week of a massive Chinese attack upon its computer systems, a security analyst told TechNewsDaily that disclosing such attacks might become a "badge of honor" among media companies.
The statement by Sean Sullivan of Finnish security firm F-Secure was quickly proved right.
On Thursday afternoon, less than a day after the Times' story was posted online, its ideological rival the Wall Street Journal revealed that it, too, had been attacked by Chinese hackers.
On Friday, the Washington Post, following a scoop by a former staffer, was forced to admit that its networks had been penetrated for years.
The Journal provided fewer details than the Times, but said that "in the most recent incident," hackers had managed to break into computers in the Journal's Beijing bureau in mid-2012.
From there, the Journal said, the intruders were able to access the Journal's worldwide computer network.
"A number of computers were totally controlled by outside hackers," the Journal said.
[Why Most Companies Won't Admit They Were Hacked]
Brian Krebs, who covered computer security at the Washington Post and now publishes his own Krebs on Security blog, was contacted by a former colleague who had been an information-technology staffer at the newspaper's headquarters.
"We spent the better half of 2012 chasing down compromised PCs and servers. [It] all pointed to being hacked by the Chinese," Krebs' source told him.
"They had the ability to get around to different servers and hide their tracks. They seemed to have the ability to do anything they wanted on the network."
The pattern described by Krebs' source fit those described by the Times and the Journal ? an initial break-in to a few machines, followed by an exploration of the entire network and the installation of malware that guaranteed further access.
The Post's own story provided few on-the-record details, other than to confirm the broader outlines of Krebs' story, as Post officials were unwilling to confirm much to their own reporters.
A company spokeswoman denied the assertion by Krebs' source that the newspaper had turned over a server to the National Security Agency for analysis.
The Post's reporters had better luck with an unnamed tech-industry official, who told them, "If every company reported when it was hacked and who it was hacked by, it would be harder [for China] to get away with it."
At least one media outlet seemed to welcome the news of massive Chinese network infiltration.
"The Onion would like to once again affirm our commitment to providing the Chinese government with our employees' passwords and personal information with total and unquestioning cooperation," the satirical newspaper said in a piece posted Thursday.
"The Onion aims to be on the right side of history, and towards that end, China is also welcome to our employees' Social Security numbers, home addresses, and medical and voting histories if ever they would like to see them," it said. "When our Chinese overlords colonize this crumbling land, The Onion will be glad to have been of some modest service."
Copyright 2013 TechNewsDaily, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Google has offered to take specific steps to allay competition regulators' concerns about its business practices, in a major move towards ending a two-year investigation and avoiding billions of dollars in fines.
The European Commission said on Friday it had received detailed proposals from the world's most popular search engine, which has been under investigation following complaints from more than a dozen companies, including Microsoft, that Google has used its market power to block rivals.
If the commission accepts the proposals under its settlement procedure, it would mean no fine and no finding of wrongdoing against Google.
Companies found to be in breach of EU rules can be fined as much as 10 percent of global turnover, which could mean up to $4 billion if there is no satisfactory resolution in Google's case.
EU Competition Commissioner Joaquin Almunia told Reuters he had received Google's submission, but declined to give details of the proposal.
"We are analyzing it," he said.
Google spokesman Al Verney said the group continues to work cooperatively with the commission.
The company ranks first in Internet searching in Europe, with an 82 percent market share, versus 67 percent in the United States, according to research firm comScore.
Lobbying group ICOMP, whose members include complainants Microsoft, Foundem, Hot-map, Streetmap and Nextag, said any solution should include measures ensuring that rivals could compete on a level playing field with Google.
The FairSearch coalition, whose members include online travel agencies and complainants Expedia and TripAdvisor, said a third-party monitor should be appointed to ensure that Google lives up to any promises.
The commission, which acts as competition regulator in the 27-member European Union, is now expected to seek feedback from Google's rivals and other interested parties, before launching an official market test.
Last month, Google won a major victory when U.S. antitrust regulators ended their investigation, saying the company had not manipulated its web search results to block rivals.
The commission has said Google may have favored its own search services over those of rivals, and copied travel and restaurant reviews from competing sites without permission.
The EU executive is also concerned the company may have put restrictions on advertisers and advertising to prevent them from moving their online campaigns to competing search engines.
(Reporting by Foo Yun Chee; Editing by Rex Merrifield and Hans-Juergen Peters)
How do corals survive in the hottest reefs on the planet?Public release date: 1-Feb-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Catherine Beswick catherine.beswick@noc.ac.uk National Oceanography Centre, Southampton (UK)
Coral reefs are predicted to decline under the pressure of global warming. However, a number of coral species can survive at seawater temperatures even higher than predicted for the tropics during the next century. How they survive, while most species cannot, is being investigated by researchers at the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton (NOCS) and New York University Abu Dhabi (NYUAD).
We tend to associate coral reefs with tropical seas of around 28 degrees, where even slight warming can have devastating effects on corals. But in the Arabian/Persian Gulf, corals survive seawater temperatures of up to 36 degrees Celsius every summer, heat levels that would kill corals elsewhere.
In their study, the NOCS team worked closely with NYUAD researchers to select and characterise model corals from the Arabian/Persian Gulf, which will facilitate future molecular-scale investigations into why they can tolerate heat stress.
"We have established successful laboratory cultures of Gulf corals," said Dr Jrg Wiedenmann, Head of the Coral Reef Laboratory and Senior Lecturer at University of Southampton Ocean and Earth Science, both of which are based at NOCS. "This will greatly accelerate the progress of unravelling the mechanisms that underlie their surprising heat resistance."
Reefs are made up of many species of coral, each of which have a mutually beneficial, or "symbiotic", relationship with algae living in their tissue. These algae supply vital nutrition to the host but are sensitive to environmental changes including increases in seawater temperature.
Even a temperature rise of just one degree Celsius can harm the symbiotic algae, which in turn can increase mortality in corals. The associated loss of symbiotic algae is known as "coral bleaching" because the white skeletons of the corals become visible through the tissue depleted from the algal pigments.
"In Gulf corals, both the coral host and the associated algal partners need to withstand the high seawater temperatures," said Dr Wiedenmann who led the study.
But the scientists were surprised to discover that the algae in Gulf corals belong to a group not known for its thermal tolerance.
"We see that the algae are indeed special but in a way that we did not expect," said Dr Wiedenmann. "The algae that we found in most of the corals in Abu Dhabi reefs were previously described as a 'generalist strain' that is usually not found in corals exposed to high levels of heat stress."
"The system seems to be more complex than it is commonly thought but now we are in an excellent position to tackle these important questions."
The Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) has recently granted funding to Dr Wiedenmann and the Coral Reef Laboratory, so that the team can do just that. The researchers will build on their previous findings and use their model corals to investigate the molecular mechanisms that allow corals to thrive at extreme temperatures.
Already around 30 per cent of coral reefs are severely damaged and more than half of coral reefs worldwide may be lost within the near future because of global warming. A better understanding of how corals respond to rising sea temperatures is important for predicting the fate of coral reefs and to optimise reef conservation.
"Gulf corals are living at the limit of their tolerance," said co-author Professor John Burt from the New York University Abu Dhabi. "We have observed an increased frequency of coral bleaching events in this area, and we need to act now to protect and understand these ecosystems that hold the answers to many important climate change related questions."
The study was published in the journal Marine Pollution Bulletin as part of a special issue on coral ecosystems of the Gulf that was initiated during the first NYUAD "Coral Reefs of the Gulf" conference in 2012.
###
The paper Hume B., D'Angelo C., Burt J., Baker A.C., Riegl B. and Wiedenmann J. (2013) Corals from the Persian/Arabian Gulf as models for thermotolerant reef-builders: Prevalence of clade C3 Symbiodinium, host fluorescence and ex situ temperature tolerance is available online at http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.marpolbul.2012.11.032.
Notes to editors
1) Reference: B. Hume, C. D'Angelo, J. Burt, A.C. Baker, B. Riegl, J. Wiedenmann, Corals from the Persian/Arabian Gulf as models for thermotolerant reef-builders: Prevalence of clade C3 Symbiodinium, host fluorescence and ex situ temperature tolerance, Marine Pollution Bulletin, doi: 10.1016/j.marpolbul.2012.11.032.
The paper is available at
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0025326X1200570X
2) The attached imaged shows a staghorn coral from the Persian/Arabian Gulf that bleached during summer 2012.
3) For further information contact Catherine Beswick, Media and Communications Officer, National Oceanography Centre, email: catherine.beswick@noc.ac.uk
or the authors:
Dr Joerg Wiedenmann
Email Joerg.wiedenmann@noc.soton.ac.uk
Tel +44-(0)7912564356
Dr John Burt
Email John.Burt@nyu.edu
Tel +971-50-221-9269 (UAE, GMT+4)
4) Further relevant papers by the Coral Reef Laboratory (University of Southampton) in this context are:
Smith E.G., D'Angelo C., Salih A. and Wiedenmann J. (2013) Screening by coral green fluorescent protein (GFP)-like chromoproteins supports a role in photoprotection of zooxanthellae. Coral Reefs DOI 10.1007/s00338-012-0994-9, 1-12.
(http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00338-012-0994-9)
D'Angelo C., Smith E.G., Oswald F., Burt J., Tchernov D. and Wiedenmann J. (2012) Locally accelerated growth is part of the innate immune response and repair mechanisms in reef-building corals as detected by green fluorescent protein (GFP)-like pigments. Coral Reefs 31, 1045-1056.
(Open access: http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00338-012-0926-8#page-1)
Wiedenmann J., D'Angelo C., Smith E.G., Hunt A.N., Legiret F.-E., Postle A.D. and Achterberg E.P. (2012) Nutrient enrichment can increase the susceptibility of reef corals to bleaching. Nature Climate Change doi:10.1038/nclimate1661.
(http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nclimate1661.html)
D'Angelo C., Denzel A., Vogt A., Matz M.V., Oswald F., Salih A., Nienhaus G.U. and Wiedenmann J. (2008) Blue light regulation of host pigment in reef-building corals. Marine Ecology Progress Series 364, 97-106.
(Open access: http://www.int-res.com/abstracts/meps/v364/p97-106/)
5) A video about the coral reef lab facility at the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton can be viewed at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9p0py1KN5g
6) The National Oceanography Centre (NOC) is the UK's leading institution for integrated coastal and deep ocean research. NOC operates the Royal Research Ships James Cook and Discovery and develops technology for coastal and deep ocean research. Working with its partners NOC provides long-term marine science capability including: sustained ocean observing, mapping and surveying, data management and scientific advice.
NOC operates at two sites, Southampton and Liverpool, with the headquarters based in Southampton.
Among the resources that NOC provides on behalf of the UK are the British Oceanographic Data Centre (BODC), the Marine Autonomous and Robotic Systems (MARS) facility, the National Tide and Sea Level Facility (NTSLF), the Permanent Service for Mean Sea Level (PSMSL) and British Ocean Sediment Core Research Facility (BOSCORF).
The National Oceanography Centre is wholly owned by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC).
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
How do corals survive in the hottest reefs on the planet?Public release date: 1-Feb-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Catherine Beswick catherine.beswick@noc.ac.uk National Oceanography Centre, Southampton (UK)
Coral reefs are predicted to decline under the pressure of global warming. However, a number of coral species can survive at seawater temperatures even higher than predicted for the tropics during the next century. How they survive, while most species cannot, is being investigated by researchers at the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton (NOCS) and New York University Abu Dhabi (NYUAD).
We tend to associate coral reefs with tropical seas of around 28 degrees, where even slight warming can have devastating effects on corals. But in the Arabian/Persian Gulf, corals survive seawater temperatures of up to 36 degrees Celsius every summer, heat levels that would kill corals elsewhere.
In their study, the NOCS team worked closely with NYUAD researchers to select and characterise model corals from the Arabian/Persian Gulf, which will facilitate future molecular-scale investigations into why they can tolerate heat stress.
"We have established successful laboratory cultures of Gulf corals," said Dr Jrg Wiedenmann, Head of the Coral Reef Laboratory and Senior Lecturer at University of Southampton Ocean and Earth Science, both of which are based at NOCS. "This will greatly accelerate the progress of unravelling the mechanisms that underlie their surprising heat resistance."
Reefs are made up of many species of coral, each of which have a mutually beneficial, or "symbiotic", relationship with algae living in their tissue. These algae supply vital nutrition to the host but are sensitive to environmental changes including increases in seawater temperature.
Even a temperature rise of just one degree Celsius can harm the symbiotic algae, which in turn can increase mortality in corals. The associated loss of symbiotic algae is known as "coral bleaching" because the white skeletons of the corals become visible through the tissue depleted from the algal pigments.
"In Gulf corals, both the coral host and the associated algal partners need to withstand the high seawater temperatures," said Dr Wiedenmann who led the study.
But the scientists were surprised to discover that the algae in Gulf corals belong to a group not known for its thermal tolerance.
"We see that the algae are indeed special but in a way that we did not expect," said Dr Wiedenmann. "The algae that we found in most of the corals in Abu Dhabi reefs were previously described as a 'generalist strain' that is usually not found in corals exposed to high levels of heat stress."
"The system seems to be more complex than it is commonly thought but now we are in an excellent position to tackle these important questions."
The Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) has recently granted funding to Dr Wiedenmann and the Coral Reef Laboratory, so that the team can do just that. The researchers will build on their previous findings and use their model corals to investigate the molecular mechanisms that allow corals to thrive at extreme temperatures.
Already around 30 per cent of coral reefs are severely damaged and more than half of coral reefs worldwide may be lost within the near future because of global warming. A better understanding of how corals respond to rising sea temperatures is important for predicting the fate of coral reefs and to optimise reef conservation.
"Gulf corals are living at the limit of their tolerance," said co-author Professor John Burt from the New York University Abu Dhabi. "We have observed an increased frequency of coral bleaching events in this area, and we need to act now to protect and understand these ecosystems that hold the answers to many important climate change related questions."
The study was published in the journal Marine Pollution Bulletin as part of a special issue on coral ecosystems of the Gulf that was initiated during the first NYUAD "Coral Reefs of the Gulf" conference in 2012.
###
The paper Hume B., D'Angelo C., Burt J., Baker A.C., Riegl B. and Wiedenmann J. (2013) Corals from the Persian/Arabian Gulf as models for thermotolerant reef-builders: Prevalence of clade C3 Symbiodinium, host fluorescence and ex situ temperature tolerance is available online at http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.marpolbul.2012.11.032.
Notes to editors
1) Reference: B. Hume, C. D'Angelo, J. Burt, A.C. Baker, B. Riegl, J. Wiedenmann, Corals from the Persian/Arabian Gulf as models for thermotolerant reef-builders: Prevalence of clade C3 Symbiodinium, host fluorescence and ex situ temperature tolerance, Marine Pollution Bulletin, doi: 10.1016/j.marpolbul.2012.11.032.
The paper is available at
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0025326X1200570X
2) The attached imaged shows a staghorn coral from the Persian/Arabian Gulf that bleached during summer 2012.
3) For further information contact Catherine Beswick, Media and Communications Officer, National Oceanography Centre, email: catherine.beswick@noc.ac.uk
or the authors:
Dr Joerg Wiedenmann
Email Joerg.wiedenmann@noc.soton.ac.uk
Tel +44-(0)7912564356
Dr John Burt
Email John.Burt@nyu.edu
Tel +971-50-221-9269 (UAE, GMT+4)
4) Further relevant papers by the Coral Reef Laboratory (University of Southampton) in this context are:
Smith E.G., D'Angelo C., Salih A. and Wiedenmann J. (2013) Screening by coral green fluorescent protein (GFP)-like chromoproteins supports a role in photoprotection of zooxanthellae. Coral Reefs DOI 10.1007/s00338-012-0994-9, 1-12.
(http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00338-012-0994-9)
D'Angelo C., Smith E.G., Oswald F., Burt J., Tchernov D. and Wiedenmann J. (2012) Locally accelerated growth is part of the innate immune response and repair mechanisms in reef-building corals as detected by green fluorescent protein (GFP)-like pigments. Coral Reefs 31, 1045-1056.
(Open access: http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00338-012-0926-8#page-1)
Wiedenmann J., D'Angelo C., Smith E.G., Hunt A.N., Legiret F.-E., Postle A.D. and Achterberg E.P. (2012) Nutrient enrichment can increase the susceptibility of reef corals to bleaching. Nature Climate Change doi:10.1038/nclimate1661.
(http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nclimate1661.html)
D'Angelo C., Denzel A., Vogt A., Matz M.V., Oswald F., Salih A., Nienhaus G.U. and Wiedenmann J. (2008) Blue light regulation of host pigment in reef-building corals. Marine Ecology Progress Series 364, 97-106.
(Open access: http://www.int-res.com/abstracts/meps/v364/p97-106/)
5) A video about the coral reef lab facility at the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton can be viewed at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9p0py1KN5g
6) The National Oceanography Centre (NOC) is the UK's leading institution for integrated coastal and deep ocean research. NOC operates the Royal Research Ships James Cook and Discovery and develops technology for coastal and deep ocean research. Working with its partners NOC provides long-term marine science capability including: sustained ocean observing, mapping and surveying, data management and scientific advice.
NOC operates at two sites, Southampton and Liverpool, with the headquarters based in Southampton.
Among the resources that NOC provides on behalf of the UK are the British Oceanographic Data Centre (BODC), the Marine Autonomous and Robotic Systems (MARS) facility, the National Tide and Sea Level Facility (NTSLF), the Permanent Service for Mean Sea Level (PSMSL) and British Ocean Sediment Core Research Facility (BOSCORF).
The National Oceanography Centre is wholly owned by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC).
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
VIENNA - Diplomats tell The Associated Press that Iran plans to vastly increase the speed of its uranium enrichment program, which can make both reactor fuel and the core of nuclear warheads.
The diplomats say Iran has told the International Atomic Energy Agency that it wants to install thousands of high-technology machines at its main enriching site at Natanz, in central Iran. The machines can enrich two or three times faster than the present equipment being used by Tehran.
Iran denies any interest in nuclear weapons. It says it is enriching only to power reactors and for scientific and medical purposes.
The diplomats demanded anonymity because they are not allowed to divulge confidential information.
Can a pair of shoes be considered a “gadget”? ?The new Reebok ATV 19+ has to come awfully close. ?The carbon rubber sole is comprised of 19 irregular “lugs” ?designed to grip any terrain you find yourself on, be it snow, mud, sand, or grass and still provide a cushioning support to the foot. ?More [...]
Google on Wednesday released updates to two of its Android apps, Google+ and Google Play Music. You can download the latest versions now directly from the Google Play Store: here and here.
The Google+ update dropped before the one Google Play Music, so we?ll discuss it first. When it hit, we wondered whether Google was looking to disrupt Facebook?s earnings report, but it turns out this is a small update: the company has added support for adding a link when creating a post (the mind boggles why this wasn?t present before), a new notifications tray, and additional Community moderation features.
The Google Play Music update is more significant. This makes sense given that the service is even newer than Google+, if you can believe it.
Instant mixes finally go beyond 25 songs (an arbitrary limit that should never have been there in the first place) and the app now features new album art. As for new features, the homescreen widget has gained a previous button and you can now shuffle an album, artist, or playlist.
Here?s the full changelog for version 4.5.910I:
Instant mixes continue playing beyond 25 songs.
Added ability to shuffle an album, artist or playlist.
New default album art.
Previous button added to widget.
Pinning progress now shown on album and playlist pages.
Fix for the Galaxy S3 freezing issue.
Again, neither of these updates are particularly breathtaking but they are part of what makes using Google?s apps so enjoyable. Everyone likes regular updates that bring in more functionality for free. In both the social networking and music streaming spaces, Google has to keep iterating to fight the competition.
See also ? Meet Google+ Communities: Google?s answer to Facebook Groups aimed at helping you meet new people and Google Play comes to Google Apps, letting enterprise customers distribute apps internally
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Public release date: 1-Feb-2013
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