Spy centre seeking code breakers

30 November 2011Last updated at 20:27 ET

UK intelligence agency GCHQ has launched a code cracking competition to help attract new talent.

The organisation has invited potential applicants to solve a visual code posted at an unbranded standalone website.
The challenge will also be "seeded" to social media sites, blogs and forums.
A spokesman said the campaign aimed to raise the profile of GCHQ to an audience that would otherwise be difficult to reach.
"The target audience for this particular campaign is one that may not typically be attracted to traditional advertising methods and may be unaware that GCHQ is recruiting for these kinds of roles," the spokesman said.
"Their skills may be ideally suited to our work and yet they may not understand how they could apply them to a working environment, particularly one where they have the opportunity to contribute so much."
GCHQ said that once the code was cracked individuals would be presented with a keyword to enter into a form field. They would then be redirected to the agency's recruitment website.
The organisation said it was not worried that the problem's answer might be spread around the internet.
It said it would still benefit because the resulting discussion would "generate future recruitment enquiries".
However, it added that anyone who had previously hacked illegally would be ineligible. The agency's website also states that applicants must be British citizens.
Concerns
The move was hinted at two months when Prime Minister David Cameron presented his government's response to the Intelligence and Security Committee's annual report.
The document noted the committee had concerns about GCHQ's "inability to retain a suitable cadre of internet specialists" to respond to cyber threats.
It said that the Cabinet Office supported "initiatives such as the Cyber Security Challenge, which promotes careers in cyber security via annual competitions and events".
Following this the government announced last week that it would set up a specialist department within GCHQ.
The Joint Cyber Unit will concentrate on tackling the growing threat of cyber attacks from organised criminals, terrorists, hostile states and hacktivists.
Innovative
GCHQ claimed that this was the first time this sort of challenge had ever been conducted by an organisation to target these sorts of skills.
However, the agency has used unusual recruitment methods in the past.
In 2009, it placed video content, themes and downloadable pictures on the Xbox Live network which appeared during Call of Duty, Assassin's Creed and other video games.
Two years earlier, it targeted gamers by placing digital posters in online titles including Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Vegas and Splinter Cell Double Agent.

Spotify opens up to add-on apps

30 November 2011Last updated at 13:46 ET

The internet music service Spotify is opening itself up to third party apps.

Developers will be able to write programs to add functionality to the music player, such as the ability to see lyrics or buy concert tickets from artists being listened to.
Co-founder Daniel Ek said he believed the move would be "game-changing for music" adding that many subscribers had requested the feature.
Facebook has found success using a similar model.
Spotify teamed up with the social network earlier this year, allowing its users to reveal which songs they were listening to via its partner's website.
Spotify's decision poses a further challenge to Apple. Although the iPhone maker dominates MP3 sales, its social network feature Ping is not viewed as a success.
Mr Ek believes the introduction of apps will only attract more people to his firm's service.
"We are truly launching integrated apps inside Spotify from the best and the brightest," he said.
"They can access all Spotify's features through an easy-to-use Java script API [application programming interface]."
He added that the programs would be "seamlessly integrated" to the platform, both visually and in their functionality.
"The possibilities are truly endless," he said.
Partners
One of the apps unveiled at the New York press conference was the ability to read reviews from Rolling Stone.
The magazine said it was excited about the possibility of getting its content to music listeners as soon as it was published.
A spokesman for Tunewiki - an internet start-up which provides synchronised lyrics to music - also said he was "thrilled" to be part of the launch.
Other firms offering apps in beta include the tour date tracker Songkick, the music recommendation service Last.fm and the music criticism website Pitchfork.
Mr Ek said his firm would have final approval on which apps were made available. He said that all Spotify members would be able to access them for free, whether they paid for a subscription or used the free advertising-supported service.
However, some industry watchers were concerned by that decision.
"Developers are happy to mess around with these things but people want to see a return on the investment," said Stuart Miles, founder of the tech website Pocket-lint.
"If you can't charge for your app, that's going to put a lot of people off."
Controversy
Spotify says it now has about 10 million active users following its launch in the US in July.
However, some music industry players are concerned that the service discourages users from buying music and have complained that the amount of money Spotify pays out is too low.
Earlier this month ST Holdings - a distributor which represents more than 200 dance labels - removed its entire catalogue from the platform.
It released a statement saying: "Music loses its specialness by its exploitation as a low value/free commodity."
The British band Coldplay also drew attention when it decided not to make its latest album available to Spotify and other streaming services.
When asked about the firm's business model at the press conference, Mr Ek said: "We pay every time someone plays a song, we feel that is great value.
"We are paying out the vast majority of all the revenues and that is how I want to keep on going."

Firms told to delist fake sites

30 November 2011Last updated at 07:38 ET

A US Judge has ordered Google, Yahoo, Twitter and Facebook, among others, to delist domain names linked to websites selling counterfeit goods.

It represents a significant step in the ongoing battle against the sale of fake items online.
The case was brought by luxury goods maker Chanel against 600 sites which it had identified as trading in counterfeits.
Many experts were surprised at the scope of the Nevada judge's ruling.
US firm GoDaddy, which manages around 45 million domain names, has been given control of the web addresses of the 600 firms. It has been told to ensure that none of the sites can be accessed.
Judge Dawson also ordered:

• Google, Bing, Yahoo, Facebook, Google+ and Twitter to remove the domain name from any search results pages.
• The defendants to stop using Chanel's name and images, and to stop selling any Chanel products.
• GoDaddy to link the web addresses involved to a site outlining the case.

Whack-a-mole
Chanel's counterfeit investigative team identified the websites by ordering goods from them which it then determined to be fakes.
Writing about the case in his blog, laywer Eric Goldman said: "Wow, I'm sympathetic to the "whack-a-mole" problem rights owner face, but this relief is just extraordinarily broad and is on shaky procedural grounds."
Others have questioned how much jurisdiction the court would have over domains that had been registered outside of the US.
"One of the problems is that the internet is a global phenomenon and you would need similar judgements in all jurisdictions," said Rachel Barber, assistant at law firm Wiggin.
She linked the case to the L'Oreal versus eBay judgement earlier this year.
In July the Court of Justice of the European Union ruled that eBay and others should play a more active role in stopping their sellers from trading in counterfeit L'Oreal goods.
The court said that websites such as eBay might be liable for trademark infringements if they played an "active role" in promoting fake goods.
"It is acknowledged that third party intermediaries are best placed to tackle online infringement and that when intermediaries have knowledge of this based on good evidence that can't just sit on their hands," said Ms Barber.
Google said that it had no comment to make at this stage because it was yet to be served with the judgement. Facebook said was looking into the matter.

3D printer helps grow new bones

30 November 2011 Last updated at 09:10 ET

A 3D printer is being used to create "bone-like" material which researchers claim can be used to repair injuries.

The engineers say the substance can be added to damaged natural bone where it acts as a scaffold for new cells to grow.

It ultimately dissolves with "no apparent ill-effects", the team adds.

The researchers say doctors should be able to use the process to custom-order replacement bone tissue in a few years time.

Prof Susmita Bose helped carry out the work at Washington State University and co-authored a report in the Dental Materials journal.

"You can use the bone-like ceramic powder as a feed material and it can make whatever you draw on the computer," she says.

"It is mostly [suitable for] low load bearing applications. However, what we are trying to develop is the controlled degradation... of these scaffolds where as the scaffold dissolves in the body the bone tissue grows over it."

Binder

Prof Bose's team have spent four years developing the bone-like substance.

Their breakthrough came when they discovered a way to double the strength of the main ceramic powder - calcium phosphate - by adding silica and zinc oxide.

To create the scaffold shapes they customised a printer which had originally been designed to make three-dimensional metal objects.

It sprayed a plastic binder over the loose powder in layers half as thick as the width of a human hair.

The process was repeated layer by layer until completed, at which point the scaffold was dried, cleaned and then baked for two hours at 1250C (2282F).

Repairs

Tests carried on immature foetal bone cells in the laboratory found that new bone cells started growing over the scaffold within the first week of it being attached.

The team say they have also had promising results from tests involving live rabbits and rats.

"The way I envision it is that 10 to 20 years down the line, physicians and surgeons should be able to use these bone scaffolds along with some bone growth factors, whether it is for jaw bone fixation or spinal fusion fixation," says Dr Bose.

This is not the first time that orthopaedic experts have investigated the use of 3D printers.

Earlier this year a surgical trainee at Scotland's Monklands hospital detailed a technique to produce bone replicas using the technology.

Mark Frame suggested using a CAT scanner to produce images of damaged bones.

He said the data could then be fed into a 3D printer to create a model to help doctors plan their surgery.

He said the process cost about a tenth of traditional techniques.

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