GCHQ technology 'could be sold'

1 December 2010 Last updated at 09:08 ET

The government's secret listening post GCHQ could sell its technical expertise to the private sector under plans being considered by the government.

Security minister Dame Pauline Neville Jones said ministers were "thinking about" ways in which GCHQ could supply services to private firms.

"It's a live issue," she told the Commons science committee.

Scientists and cyber-security experts are employed at GCHQ, in Cheltenham, to monitor e-mail and phone traffic.

Their work has always been considered top secret, but committee chairman, Labour MP Andrew Miller, asked whether the government was considering the "radical" step of the commercialisation of products, working in partnership with the the private sector.

"You are taking me on to ground, chairman, that we are thinking about," she told the MPs, adding that there were "many ways Cheltenham could supply a service to the private sector".

But she said the government was still considering how that might be funded and what the relationship between private firms and this branch of the security services might be and she could not comment further at this stage.

The top secret Defence Evaluation and Research Agency was privatised by the previous government, and floated on the stock exchange in 2006 as Qinetiq.

Although the cutting edge cyber-security and computer research carried out at GCHQ could potentially generate cash for the government any moves to involve the private sector would have to be handled carefully due to the highly sensitive nature of the signals intelligence material it handles.

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Home Office mulls data law change

30 November 2010 Last updated at 08:45 ET

The Home Office has agreed to meet civil liberties groups as part of a consultation it is conducting into UK interception laws.

The Open Rights Group and other organisations are concerned that the consultation is being rushed through with minimum publicity.

They want to see strong laws to protect citizens who have had their e-mail or web traffic collected without consent.

The consultation has been forced on the UK by the European Commission.

Initially the Home Office said a meeting with civil society groups was unnecessary but it has u-turned on that and will meet ORG and others early this week.

It has also extended the consultation deadline until 17 December.

The consultation on possible changes to the UK's data laws follows an EC investigation into how Phorm, a controversial ad-tracking technology, was rolled out in the UK.

As part of that investigation, the EC found that the UK currently has no legal redress for citizens who think that their web browsing or e-mail has been monitored unintentionally.

Neither does it have any official body to deal with such complaints.

This puts the UK in breach of the European e-Privacy directive and has forced the Home Office to reconsider its Ripa (the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act) legislation.

Any change to Ripa could have implications for firms which have intercepted data without permission, such as Google, which accidentally collected huge amounts of private data on unsecured wi-fi networks when it was gathering information for its Street View service.

It could also provide redress for the thousands of BT customers who took part in Phorm trials without giving their consent.

Phorm is one of a growing number of firms which wants to track web behaviour in order to better target advertisements.

BT was among a handful of UK ISPs to sign up to the scheme and initially carried out a series of trials without telling customers they were taking part.

Directly affected

The Home Office consultation opened in November.

Jim Killock, chief executive of the Open Rights Group, is not happy about the way the consultation is being conducted.

"When the consultation started in November we heard about it through the grapevine rather than a public announcement," he said.

"We wrote to the Home Office saying they needed to meet with representatives from civil society because the law was about individual rights,"

"We were told that the Home Office was only consulting those directly affected, ie those who might get punished, ignoring the fact that those most directly affected are the general public," he said.

"The consultation is about a very serious matter. What rights should we have as citizens to take legal action against people who intercept our communications? Should criminal as well as civil charges be available? Who should investigate?" he added.

The Home Office wants to extend the powers of the Interception Commissioner, who currently deals with citizens who feel they have been put under unnecessary surveillance via government agencies, to include complaints against private sector companies.

It is proposing that the Interception Commissioner should be given the power to issue fines against firms such as BT, if individuals complain that their web communications have been intercepted unintentionally.

"It is talking about fines of around �10,000 which is pocket money to firms such as BT. It is a joke," said Mr Killock.

He is not convinced giving more powers to the Interception Commissioner would be the best way to tighten data privacy laws.

"The Interception Commissioner has no history of relations with the private sector and no technical expertise. We would prefer it that there would be the option, for instance, that the police be able to investigate. A one stop shop for privacy complaints should also be considered," he said.

"The worry is that the Home Office will do the absolute minimum to bring the UK in line with Europe and we will end up with very weak powers," he added.

Since the post of Interception Commissioner was created in 1986, it has upheld just four complaints, according to Mr Killock.

The Home Office told the BBC: "The consultation is available on the Home Office website for anyone to view. We welcome all response and there is an email or postal address for people to make contributions."

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Virgin debuts iPad-only magazine

1 December 2010 Last updated at 07:01 ET

Virgin Tycoon Richard Branson has launched what he says is the "first truly digital" magazine for Apple's iPad.

The publication, called Project, is a monthly style and culture magazine that will be sold through Apple's App store.

The publication comes head of an expected launch of a digital newspaper for the iPad called The Daily.

The newspaper is expected to be launched by Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation.

It is part of Mr Murdoch's continuing efforts to find a sustainable model for his newspaper empire, which has seen increased competition from free content on the internet.

In July, his Times newspaper began to charge customers to access its site, resulting in a 87% drop in readership online.

At the New York launch, Mr Branson dismissed suggestions he was engaged in a war with Murdoch.

"It's not a battle," he said. "It's all about choice, and a fair bit of competition doesn't hurt."

Project features video, sound and links to augment features on topics such as a new Jaguar car prototype and the film Tron: Legacy.

"On every page there will be links to expand the story," the editor-in-chief Anthony Noguera told the AFP news agency.

The magazine will cost �1.79 ($2.99), but Mr Noguera believes people will pay.

"It's a quality piece of editorial, so you have to pay for it," he said. "This is an expensive product to make."

However, reaction to the magazine has been muted. Digital media blog Paid content, for example, said it "frustrates with complexity".

Tech blog CNet said that "the articles themselves, as well as the messages in the souped-up advertisements for brands like Lexus and Panasonic, can come across as afterthoughts when there's so much audio-visual distraction" already on the iPad.

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Google to be investigated by EU

30 November 2010 Last updated at 05:59 ET

The European Commission has launched an investigation into Google after other search engines complained that the firm had abused its dominant position.

The body said it would look into whether the world's largest search engine lowered the ranking of competing services in its results.

The probe follows complaints by British price comparison site Foundem and French legal search engine ejustice.fr.

The EU will also investigate its online advertising platform.

"The European Commission has decided to open an antitrust investigation into allegations that Google has abused a dominant position in online search," the Commission said.

It said the action followed "complaints by search service providers about unfavourable treatment of their services in Google's unpaid and sponsored search results coupled with an alleged preferential placement of Google's own services."

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Iran admits 'software' interference

29 November 2010 Last updated at 13:27 ET

Iran's president has said some of the centrifuges used in its uranium enrichment programme were sabotaged, raising suspicions that they were targeted by the Stuxnet computer worm.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said the problems had been created by enemies of Iran, but had had only a limited effect.

Iran has repeatedly denied that Stuxnet had affected its nuclear programme.

The UN said last week that Iran had temporarily halted most of its uranium enrichment work earlier this month.

The West fears Iran's ultimate goal is to build nuclear weapons. Iran says its programme is aimed solely at peaceful energy use.

"They succeeded in creating problems for a limited number of our centrifuges with the software they had installed in electronic parts," Mr Ahmadinejad told a news conference.

"Our specialists stopped that and they will not be able to do it again," he added without elaborating on the software thought to have been used.

The Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency said in a report last week that a temporary stoppage had hit Iran's Natanz enrichment nuclear plant earlier this month.

Experts say the worm, which Iran said in September had attacked its computers, has been specially configured to damage motors commonly used in uranium-enrichment centrifuges by sending them spinning out of control.

The computer bug is a form of customised malware, written to attack a precise target.

Analysts say the complexity of the code suggests it was created by a "nation state" in the West, rather than an organised crime group.

Senior Iranian officials have said that the virus is evidence that an "electronic war" has been launched against the country.

Mr Ahmadinejad's comments about the cyber attack worm come on the day that a high-profile Iranian nuclear scientist was killed and another wounded in two separate but similar attacks in the capital.

The president accused Israel and the West of being behind the attacks.

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US shuts down file-sharing sites

29 November 2010 Last updated at 05:41 ET

More than 70 sites alleged to be selling counterfeit goods or offering pirated content have been shut down by the US government.

The action was taken by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, part of the US Department of Homeland Security.

Domains seized included a BitTorrent search engine, music download sites and shops selling fake designer clothing.

Many of the sites who lost their domains have continued trading via alternative addresses.

ICE confirmed that it had taken the action to the New York Times but said it could not provide any details because the seizures were part of an "ongoing investigation".

Anyone trying to visit the seized pages was confronted by a screen saying that the domain had been taken over by ICE and which quoted US laws on copyright infringement and trafficking in counterfeit goods.

Domains seized included louis-vuitton-outlet-store.com, burberryoutletshop.com, rapgodfathers.com, mydreamwatches.com as well as BitTorrent search engine Torrent-Finder.com.

ICE's action involved gaining control of the domain name that sites were trading under. It did not involve removing any content from the sites affected or blocking the use of an IP address.

Many of the sites that lost their domains have moved to new names in a bid to keep running.

The seizures follows similar action earlier in 2010 against nine sites also believed to be involved in counterfeiting and pirating copyrighted material.

The action comes as the UK's Serious and Organised Crime Agency seeks similar powers over .uk domains it deems are involved in criminal activity.

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Wikileaks 'attacked by hackers'

28 November 2010 Last updated at 12:38 ET

Whistle-blowing website Wikileaks says it has come under attack from a computer-hacking operation, ahead of a release of secret US documents.

"We are currently under a mass distributed denial of service attack," it said on its Twitter feed earlier.

It added that several newspapers will go ahead and publish the documents released to them by Wikileaks even if the site goes down.

The US state department has said the release will put many lives at risk.

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has said the US authorities are afraid of being held to account.

Wikileaks has said the release of classified messages sent by US embassies will be bigger than past releases on Afghanistan and Iraq.

The newspapers set to publish details of the US embassy cables include Spain's El Pais, France's Le Monde, Germany's Spiegel, the UK's Guardian and the New York Times.

The latest leak is expected to include documents covering US dealings and diplomats' confidential views of countries including Australia, Britain, Canada, Israel, Russia and Turkey.

"The material that we are about to release covers essentially every major issue in every country in the world," Mr Assange told reporters by video link on Sunday.

A journalist with Britain's Guardian newspaper said the files include an unflattering US assessment of UK PM David Cameron.

Simon Hoggart told the BBC: "There is going to be some embarrassment certainly for Gordon Brown but even more so for David Cameron who was not very highly regarded by the Obama administration or by the US ambassador here."

No-one has been charged with passing the diplomatic files to the website but suspicion has fallen on US Army private Bradley Manning, an intelligence analyst arrested in Iraq in June and charged over an earlier leak of classified US documents to Mr Assange's organisation.

'Illegally obtained'

The US government has written to Mr Assange, urging him not release the documents.

The letter from the US state department's legal adviser Harold Koh said the release of classified state department documents was against US law and would put "countless" lives at risk.

Mr Assange is said to have asked which individuals would be put at risk by the leak and offered to negotiate over limited redactions.

In response, Mr Koh demanded that Wikileaks return official documents to the US government.

"We will not engage in a negotiation regarding the further release or dissemination of illegally obtained US government classified materials," he said in the letter.

Mr Koh's letter adds that the publication of the documents would endanger the lives of "countless" individuals - from journalists to human rights activists and bloggers - and put US military operations at risk.

Wikileaks earlier this week said that its next release of documents would be nearly seven times larger than the nearly 400,000 Pentagon documents relating to the Iraq war it published in October.

Wikileaks argues that the site's previous releases shed light on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. They included allegations of torture by Iraqi forces and reports that suggested 15,000 additional civilian deaths in Iraq.

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Pirate Bay founders lose appeal

26 November 2010 Last updated at 09:06 ET

Three founders of The Pirate Bay have lost an appeal against a conviction for illegally sharing copyrighted content.

The Swedish appeals court upheld the 2009 ruling against the site's founders which saw them sentenced to a year in jail and heavily fined.

The ruling reduces the sentences the men face but increases fines to 46m crowns (�4.1m).

Three of The Pirate Bay's four founders were in court for the verdict. The other was too ill to attend.

The original verdict on Peter Sunde, Fredrik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg and Carl Lundstrom was handed down in April 2009 following a lengthy trial.

Lawyers acting for music labels and movie studios alleged that via The Pirate Bay, the four men helped people circumvent copyright controls.

The founders defended themselves by saying that The Pirate Bay did not host any pirated material directly.

The appeal court ruling will see Mr Neij serve a 10 month sentence; Mr Sunde eight months and Mr Lundstrom four months. Once Mr Svartholm Warg is fit his "criminal liability" will be tested by the appeals court.

Throughout the legal action and appeal hearing The Pirate Bay website has continued to function.

"Today's judgment confirms the illegality of The Pirate Bay and the seriousness of the crimes of those involved," said the International Federation for the Phonographic Industry in a statement.

"It is now time for The Pirate Bay, whose operators have twice been convicted in court, to close. We now look to governments and ISPs to take note of this judgment, do the responsible thing and take the necessary steps to get The Pirate Bay shut down."

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Police seek domain closure powers

26 November 2010 Last updated at 08:24 ET

The police are seeking powers to shut down websites deemed to be engaged in "criminal" activity.

The Serious and Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) has tabled a plan for Nominet, which oversees .uk web addresses, to be given the domain closing power.

Nominet said the idea was only a proposal and invited people to join the debate on the form of the final policy.

IT lawyers said the proposal would be "worrying" if it led to websites going offline without judicial oversight.

"It's not policy at this stage," said Eleanor Bradley, director of operations at Nominet.

She said SOCA's proposal emerged from changes made to Nominet's policy development process earlier in 2010, as well as experiences with closing down a series of criminal sites in the last 12 months.

In the proposal, SOCA pointed out that Nominet currently has no obligation to close down criminal websites. SOCA wants this changed so domains can be cancelled if law enforcement agencies deem them to be engaged in criminal activities, and inform Nominet of their conclusion.

Ms Bradley SOCA's proposal was the "very beginning of the process" to update Nominet's policies.

"We now need to get a balanced group of stakeholders together to talk about the policy and its implications," she said.

Since SOCA's proposal was posted on the Nominet site, feedback had started to come in that was helping to define who should be invited to join a formal discussion of the plan, said Ms Bradley.

She invited those to whom the proposal was relevant to get in touch. "We want to make sure the stakeholder group is balanced," she said.

No timetable has been drawn up for when the proposal would be discussed or when any resulting policy would be adopted.

"If you are going to do this, then fine, but it needs judicial oversight," said barrister and IT lawyer David Harris, adding that that conferring these powers might be better done by updating the Computer Misuse Act.

Nick Lockett, a lawyer at DLL specialising in computer law, said he was "deeply concerned" about SOCA's proposal if it meant it could act before a conviction had been secured.

"In a world of online retailing, the ability for a police officer to seize any business, whether that is blocking a domain or seizing the servers - pre-conviction or certainly pre-warrant - would be a dramatic change in the relationship between the police and the internet community," he told BBC News.

He also said the police would have to be very careful about the sites they judged to be engaged in criminal activity. Mistakes that resulted in shutting down a legitimate site would leave them open to claims for "massive damages" he warned.

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Net-dedicated satellite to launch

26 November 2010 Last updated at 05:46 ET By Jonathan Amos Science correspondent, BBC News

The first satellite dedicated to delivering broadband services to Europe is all set for launch.

The Hylas spacecraft is designed to fill so-called "not spots" - remote locations such as rural villages where it is currently not possible to get a fast internet connection.

The satellite will be carried into orbit on an Ariane 5 rocket.

The vehicle is expected to lift off from the Kourou spaceport in French Guiana at 1539 local time (1839 GMT).

Hylas (Highly Adaptable Satellite) is a commercial venture operated by start-up Avanti Communications of London, but the spacecraft itself incorporates technology developed with public funding through the European Space Agency (Esa).

The satellite's payload will automatically vary the amounts of power and bandwidth needed to match peaks and troughs in demand for net access across its European "footprint".

Hylas was prepared at the Portsmouth, UK, factory of EADS Astrium, Europe's largest space company, and Antrix, a commercial arm of the Indian space agency (Isro).

The 2.6-tonne spacecraft will operate in the Ka radio band and deliver broadband services to some 350,000 subscribers.

The UK government put �40m into the Hylas development programme.

It has a commitment that everyone in Britain should have access to a decent net connection by 2015.�That means a minimum of two megabits per second (Mbps).

Some three million UK homes currently fall below this standard; and across Europe, there are many millions more who cannot currently get an adequate connection through terrestrial technology.

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Hylas will be offering up to 10Mbps to its users.

"It is the first of what will be many satellites," explained Avanti CEO David Williams. "We've already got our second satellite under construction at the moment and that launches in about 15 months' time.

"That will put more capacity into the UK but also it puts new capacity into new areas in Africa and the Middle East. And then we are planning more satellites for Latin America, India and other parts of Asia."

In Europe, Avanti faces competition from the long-established Eutelsat space communications company, which is putting up its own net-dedicated Ka-band satellite for Europe, delivering 10Mbps through its Tooway service.

Eutelsat's KA-Sat is due for launch on a Russian Proton rocket on 20 December.

Astrium worked on both Hylas-1 and KA-Sat, and at one stage the two satellites were sitting inside the same Portsmouth cleanroom separated by a few metres.

Friday's Ariane will also be orbiting a telecommunications spacecraft for Intelsat. The US platform will deliver a wide range of services across Europe, the Middle East, Russia and Asia.

Intelsat-17 will be ejected by the Ariane upper-stage 27 minutes into the flight; Hylas will come out seven minutes later.

Jonathan.Amos-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk

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