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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United Nations agency 'hacked'

29 November 2011 Last updated at 14:37 ET

A group of hackers has posted more than 100 email addresses and login details which it claimed to have extracted from the United Nations.

Many of the emails involved appear to belong to members of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

The group, which identifies itself as Teampoison, attacks the UN's behaviour and calls it a "fraud".

A spokeswoman for the UNDP said the agency believed "an old server which contains old data" had been targeted.

"UNDP is taking action to close any vulnerabilities on our website," said Sausan Ghosheh.

"Please note that UNDP.org was not compromised."

'Leak'

The details were posted on the website Pastebin under the Teampoison logo.

The message preceding the login details accused the UN of acting to "facilitate the introduction of a New World Order" and asked "United Nations, why didn't you expect us?"

Many of the email addresses given end in undp.org, but others appear to belong to members of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the UK's Office for National Statistics (ONS).

The poster noted that several of the accounts had "no passwords".

The message ended with the taunt: "The question now is how? We will let the so called 'security experts' over at the UN figure that out... Have a Nice Day."

Credit card attacks

The security company Sophos noted that Teampoison hackers had previously attacked the maker of the Blackberry smartphone's website and had published private information about former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair.

"Teampoison recently announced they were joining forces with Anonymous on a new initiative dubbed 'Operation Robin Hood', targeting banks and financial institutions," the firm's senior technology consultant, Graham Cluley wrote on Sophos's blog.

The groups said at the time that their operation aimed to take money from credit cards and donate it to individuals and charities.

They said people would not be harmed as the banks had to refund fraudulent charges.

Teampoison added a "shoutout" to Anonymous in its UN attack posting, adding a link to a Youtube video with more information about its banking attack plan.

These latest moves serve as a reminder that so-called hacktivists are skilled and willing to collaborate to take down their targets, according to Professor Alan Woodward from the University of Surrey's department of computing.

"One of the big problems is that there is so much data around that people forget about their older systems that still have valuable data on them," he said.

"The lesson here is that anything that holds any data of any value must be protected."

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Osborne announces broadband money

29 November 2011 Last updated at 09:07 ET

Better broadband networks in 10 cities across the UK are being promised by the government.

In his autumn statement, Chancellor George Osborne announced �5bn of spending on infrastructure projects such as roads, railways and broadband networks.

�100m of that is set to boost broadband coverage in London, Belfast, Edinburgh and Cardiff.

A further six cities will be identified later.

"For the first time we are identifying over 500 infrastructure projects we want to see built over the next decade and beyond. Roads, railways, airport capacity, power stations, waste facilities, broadband networks," the chancellor told the House of Commons.

"It means creating new superfast digital networks for companies across our country. These do not exist today. See what countries like China or Brazil are building, and you'll also see why we risk falling behind the rest of the world," he said.

"Our great cities are at the heart of our regional economies. And we will help bring world leading, superfast broadband and wi-fi connections to 10 of them - including the capitals of all four nations.

The plan is to create a hub of super-fast cities with broadband speeds of between 80 to 100Mbps (megabits per second) and city-wide high-speed mobile connectivity.

The current average broadband speed in the UK is 6.8Mbps.

Firms including BT and Virgin will be able to bid for the money, which they can use to fill in urban notspots or increase wi-fi coverage, a spokesman for the Department of Culture, Media and Sport told the BBC.

BT welcomed the news.

"This is a positive initiative that will help ensure our major cities have the best available super-fast broadband. BT is already upgrading large parts of these cities under its commercial rollout plan and these funds could help us go further. We look forward to working closely with the selected cities to see what can be achieved," said a spokesman for the firm.

But critics said the money would have been better spent boosting rural broadband.

"�100m between ten cities is about �1.50 per person. If the government had put the money in rural project it would have boosted rural businesses. Broadband is already available in cities," said Andrew Ferguson, editor of broadband news site ThinkBroadband.

Public funding for new infrastructure projects will come in two chunks - �5bn in the period to 2014/15 and the remaining �5bn to cover longer-term projects over the five years from 2015/16.

The chancellor said that the government has also negotiated an agreement with two groups of British pension funds, to unlock an additional �20bn of private investment in modern infrastructure.

Rural broadband?

The government wants the UK to be the best place for broadband in Europe by 2015.

BT recently accelerated its superfast broadband rollout and now plans to offer fibre services to two-thirds of UK premises by the end of 2014.

Virgin Media has also turned up the speed dial on its services, which is available to half the homes in the UK.

Broadband rollouts in rural areas have been far slower with critics complaining that the �530m set aside by the government to encourage investment in these areas is insufficient.

Much of that money has been allocated to local councils identified as having broadband blackspots but few have yet got projects up and running.

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DIY search engine takes on Google

29 November 2011 Last updated at 04:56 ET

Google, Bing, Yahoo and other search sites have a new rival called YaCy.

Backed by free software activists, YaCy aims to literally put search into the hands of users by distributing its indexing engine around the net.

Anyone can download the YaCy software and help the search system improve and spread the load of queries.

Its creators also hope YaCy will be much harder to censor than existing systems that pipe queries through centralised servers.

Peer privacy

The YaCy search page was opened to the public on 28 November and currently has about 600 participants or peers that share the load of queries and the task of indexing information.

"Most of what we do on the internet involves search," said Michael Christen, YaCy's project leader in a statement. "It's the vital link between us and the information we're looking for."

"For such an essential function, we cannot rely on a few large companies, and compromise our privacy in the process," he said.

YaCy (pronounced "Ya See") is supported by the Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) which campaigns on digital rights and tries to help people control their own digital destiny.

FSFE said YaCy helps privacy by encrypting all queries and by letting peer owners build up and manage their own search profile.

"We are moving away from the idea that services need to be centrally controlled," said Karsten Gerloff, president of the FSFE. "Instead, we are realising how important it is to be independent, and to create infrastructure that doesn't have a single point of failure."

YaCy software is available for Windows, Linux and MacOS and users are being encouraged to download and run it for themselves.

The first version of YaCy has been used and refined on intranets for the FSFE and the Sciencenet search site.

On its opening day, the YaCy demo page struggled to handle all the queries coming its way.

The prospects for YaCy's success are mixed as there have many other pretenders to Google's crown. One of the most notable was a search engine called Cuil that was set up by two former Google workers.

Cuil launched in 2008 and struggled to win over significant numbers of users. It shut down in late September, 2010.

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200-year old press papers online

29 November 2011 Last updated at 00:18 ET

Four million pages of newspapers from the 18th and 19th centuries have been made available online by the British Library.

The public will now be able to scan the content of 200 titles from around the UK and Ireland.

These will include historic events such as the wedding of Victoria and Albert and the rise of the railways.

Ed King, the British Library's head of newspapers, said it opened up the collection "as never before".

The archive is free to search, but there is a charge for accessing the pages themselves.

Other stories contained within the scanned pages include reporting on the Charge of the Light Brigade.

Mr King said: "Rather than having to view the items on site at the Library, turning each page, people across the UK and around the world will be able to explore for themselves the goldmine of stories and information contained in these pages.

"The ability to search across millions of articles will yield results for each user that might previously have been the work of weeks or months, in a matter of seconds and the click of a mouse."

Included in the project are pages from the Aberdeen Journal, Belfast Newsletter, Western Mail and Manchester Evening News.

A team has spent a year at the British Library's newspaper library at Colindale, north London, digitising up to 8,000 pages a day.

They expect to scan up to 40m pages over the next 10 years.

Ed Vaizey, the Minister for Culture, Communications and Creative Industries, said the archive was "a rich and hugely exciting resource".

He added: "I searched for my own constituency of Wantage and within seconds had 42,000 results - an indication of the breadth and variety of material featured."

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Discounts aid online sales surge

28 November 2011 Last updated at 08:07 ET

Online sales rose faster than expected in the US on Black Friday, according to surveys.

Internet sales totalled $816m (�524m), a 26% gain on last year, said Comscore. IBM Coremetrics put the rise at 24%.

Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, is treated by many retailers as the start of the Christmas shopping season. They offer one-off discounts to mark the occasion.

Analysts said heavy promotional activity helped drive demand.

By comparison, a report by Shoppertrak suggested that in-store Black Friday sales were up by 7% on last year, at $11.4bn.

Beating the rush

Around 50 million Americans visited online retail sites on Friday, according to Comscore.

It said Amazon was the most popular destination, with 50% more visitors than any other retailer.

Walmart, Best Buy, Target and Apple were next in line, said the analytics company.

"Despite some analysts' predictions that the flurry of brick-and-mortar retailers opening their doors early for Black Friday would pull dollars from online retail, we still saw a banner day for e-commerce," said Comscore's chairman, Gian Fulgoni.

Mobile shopping

IBM Coremetrics also noted a trend towards shopping on smartphones and tablet computers.

It said Black Friday purchases made on mobile devices had accounted for 9.8% of all online sales, compared with 3.2% last year.

IBM described mobile shoppers as having had a "laser focus" since they had been more likely to view a single page on a retailer's site rather than browse what else was for sale.

IBM said Apple's iPhone and iPad had generated the most mobile internet visits to online stores, accounting for more than double the traffic originating from devices running Google's Android system.

The company also noted a jump in Black Friday related chatter on social networks. It recorded a 110% rise in discussion volumes after consumers had shared tips on how to secure products before they sold out and the best places to park.

Cyber Monday

Friday's internet sales are expected to be eclipsed today on what is referred to as Cyber Monday - which many experts believe will be the US's busiest online shopping day of the year.

Close to 123 million Americans plan to make an online purchase according to a survey commissioned by the US National Retail Federation, an industry lobby group. That would be a 15% increase on last year.

NRF said nearly eight in ten online retailers would run special promotions including "flash sales that last an hour" and "free shipping offers".

The federation also highlighted the shift to mobile devices, saying it expected 17.8 million Americans to use them to shop today, nearly five times the number in 2009.

"Retailers have invested heavily in mobile apps and related content as the appetite for Cyber Monday shopping through smartphones and tablets continues to rise," said Vicki Cantrell, executive director of the NRF's website shop.org.

Cyber confusion

UK internet retailers said it was less clear which day will be the UK's busiest online shopping day this year.

"Over the last couple of years we have seen a fortnight of peak activity over the period corresponding to both this and next week," said Andy Mulcahy, a spokesman for the industry body Interactive Media in Retail Group (IMRG).

"We expect �3.72bn will be spent online over the two week period."

Mr Mulcahy said that although some retailers are trying to generate interest in the idea of a cyber event in the UK, but they are split over which day to mark.

Visa Europe said it believed today will be the UK's busiest internet shopping day, with �303m spent online.

eBay has forecast that it would experience its peak in activity this Sunday with more than 5.5 million people expected to log onto the UK version of its auction website.

Amazon said it expected to experience more demand the following day.

"In recent years, the first Monday in December has been Amazon.co.uk's busiest day with orders for over 2.3 million items being placed on Monday 6th December last year," said Christopher North, the website's managing director.

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AUDIO: Should kids learn how computers work?

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Some of the biggest firms in hi-tech, including Google and Microsoft, are calling for major changes in how the UK teaches computing to give Britain the skills it needs to compete.

Technology correspondent Rory Cellan-Jones and Alex Hope, co-author of the Livingstone Hope Review discuss whether children need to learn how computers work, and not just how to use them.

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Get in touch with Today via <!-- S ILIN --> email <!-- E ILIN --> , <!-- S ILIN --> Twitter <!-- E ILIN --> or <!-- S ILIN --> Facebook <!-- E ILIN --> or text us on 84844.

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Promising step to cybersecurity

25 November 2011Last updated at 10:27 ET By David Clemente International security programme, Chatham House

The UK government has today released its 2011 Cyber Security Strategy.

With an increased focus on cybercrime, and renewed focus on cyberspace as an engine of economic and social prosperity, the strategy continues to hone Whitehall's understanding of this vibrant, complex and increasingly global domain.
Many of the strategy objectives - in particular those related to securing critical infrastructure - will require close engagement with the private sector.
These public-private partnerships are essential, and, as noted in a recent Chatham House report on critical national infrastructure, they require awareness, engagement and trust among senior decision makers on all sides.
This is not an easy process and requires a keen understanding of the incentives that guide actions in the public and private sectors.
Links to business
The government will also have to balance the tension between building a more secure environment - which requires standards and regulation - and encouraging businesses to set up shop in the UK.
However there are signs that Whitehall is aware of these complexities and the need to experiment with potential solutions.
One new initiative is a three-month pilot scheme among five business sectors: defence, finance, telecommunications, pharmaceuticals, and energy.
It will exchange "actionable information on cyber threats", "analyse new trends" and work to "strengthen and link up our collective cyber security capabilities".
The strategy also supports existing independent initiatives such as Get Safe Online (raising awareness of cyber threats) and Cyber Security Challenge UK (searching for new talent), both of which have taken a good idea and implemented it in a simple and straightforward manner.
Risks
Cybercrime is topic that receives significant focus, in particular for the damage it does to the financial and social fabric of the country.
One primary initiative will create a "national cyber crime capability as part of the new National Crime Agency by 2013".
Another will create, by the end of 2011, a "single reporting system for citizens and small businesses to report cyber crime".
These are all encouraging steps that will require patience and persistence but which are essential.
One idea that looks slightly riskier is a "government-sponsored venture capital model to unlock innovation on cyber security in SMEs" (small and medium enterprises).
The appetite for risk varies widely between Silicon Roundabout and Whitehall, and government experimentation with venture capitalism has often produced mixed results. For example the US government's $535m (�345m) loan to Solyndra - the now-bankrupt solar panel manufacturer.
First steps
The new strategy is more detailed than the 2009 version, and in many ways reads more like a cyber and economic security strategy.
It continues the process set in motion by the recent Foreign Office-led London Conference on Cyberspace, which emphasised the economic and social benefits of a secure cyberspace and called for development of "rules of the road".
The introduction to the strategy notes that the government will report back in 2012 on progress made toward these objectives.
This strategy is a promising step and has ambitiously laid out a task list of dozens of actions.
The real challenge will be to prioritise and deliver in a climate of financial austerity.
David Clemente is a research assistant specialising in international security, at the Chatham House think tank.
He is the co-author off the organisation's recent report "Cyber security and the UK's critical national infrastructure".

Drugs giant challenges Facebook

25 November 2011 Last updated at 08:24 ET

The German drugmaker Merck KGaA has begun legal action against Facebook after discovering what its lawyer described as the "the apparent takeover of its Facebook page".

The webpage is being used by the German firm's US rival Merck & Co.

Merck KGaA said that the social network "is an important marketing device [and] the page is of great value", adding that since its competitor was benefiting from the move "time is of the essence."

A Facebook spokeswoman said: "We are looking into it."

Merck KGaA said it had entered into an agreement with Facebook for the exclusive rights to www.facebook.com/merck in March 2010.

The German firm said a number of its employees had been subsequently assigned administrative rights to the page.

However, Merck KGaA said that when it had checked the site on 11 October this year it had discovered it had lost control of the page, and that content on the site now belonged to Merck & Co.

Divided

The two drugmakers both stem from the same firm set up by a pharmacy owner in the German city of Darmstadt in 1668.

The business was split in two after World War I as part of the reparations package imposed on Germany.

Merck KGaA's lawyer, Robert Horowitz said he had sent a letter and a series of emails to various Facebook staff asking to discuss what had happened to the webpage.

However, he said the respondents "either did not understand the problem... [or were] intentionally giving unresponsive answers".

Mr Horowitz said that when he had requested a telephone conversation, one of Facebook's staff "incredibly replied that 'no-one is available for a call at this time'".

Legal steps

Merck KGaA has since filed a petition with the- Supreme Court of the State of New York.

"We took legal action versus Facebook to ask for information why a website we thought we owned isn't ours anymore," Dr Gangolf Schrimpf, a spokesman for Merck KGaA, told the BBC.

"We are just trying to learn what happened."

However, the court filing notes that: "Merck is considering causes of action for breach of conduct, tortious interference with contract, tortious interference with prospective business advantage, and/or conversion."

Interaction

Merck KGaA stressed that it had not taken any action against its US counterpart at this stage.

Facebook was unwilling to make a comment beyond saying that it was looking into the case.

Branding experts say the case reflects a growing belief that social networks can offer firms a better way of reaching their customers than through their own websites.

"Company communication departments have realised that many of the people they want to reach and influence are already on Facebook," said Simon Myers, from the consultancy Figtree Network.

"As corporate content becomes more tailored and engaging, social media sites such as Facebook represent a brighter future of greater customer dialogue and interaction than the current corporate website with static content and pictures of people shaking hands."

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Cyber security strategy unveiled

24 November 2011 Last updated at 19:43 ET

The government will reveal its plan to tackle cyber crime later, including using the intelligence agency GCHQ to help the private sector protect itself.

Police forces will be encouraged to train "cyber specials", while specialist Army reservists could also be used to provide particular skills.

There will also be a big focus on helping the public protect themselves.

It comes as the amount - currently about 6% - of UK GDP generated by the internet continues to grow.

The increasing dependence on the digital world carries risks and the cyber security strategy is aimed at outlining responses to minimise them.

Last year's national security strategy ranked hostile computer attacks on a par with international terrorism as a threat to the UK.

Ministers then announced an extra �650m for cyber security, particularly to bolster protection for key infrastructure and defence assets.

The government says there are more than 20,000 malicious emails sent to its networks each month, 1,000 of which are deliberately targeted.

'Kitemarking'

The strategy is expected to include a new joint initiative between the public and private sector to exchange crucial information on cyber threats and to manage the response to attacks.

It is also expected to set out ways in which GCHQ can help private companies and improve the wider UK cyber security sector.

There will be further details on the Ministry of Defence's new Defence Cyber Operations Group, and a plan to encourage all police forces to follow the lead of the Metropolitan Police and train cyber specialists.

Individuals will also be given more help to protect themselves, amid a warning from GCHQ that 80% of successful attacks could be thwarted by following simple steps like updating anti-virus software regularly.

The strategy is expected to suggest "kitemarking" for cyber security software to help consumers and businesses avoid "scareware" - software which purports to be helpful but is, in fact, malicious.

Earlier this month, the UK hosted an international cyber security conference, drawing together representatives from 60 nations.

The event came soon after GCHQ warned that cyber attacks on the UK were at "disturbing" levels.

Iain Lobban, the head of GCHQ, told the conference that a "significant" attempt was made to target the computer systems of the Foreign Office and other government departments over the summer.

Baroness Neville-Jones, the prime minister's special representative to business on cyber security, said Russia and China - who both attended the conference - were some of the worst culprits involved in cyber-attacks.

Outlining the national security strategy last October, Foreign Secretary William Hague said businesses and individuals must be aware of the risk of cyber attacks, as well as governments.

He said such attacks could become a major threat to the country's economic welfare and its national infrastructure, such as electricity grids.

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Black Friday iTunes malware alert

24 November 2011 Last updated at 14:43 ET

Criminals are targeting internet users with a new gift certificate scam, according to security experts.

Users receive an email that claims to be from Apple's iTunes store, warns the Eleven security blog.

The ZIP file attached contains malware that may allow hackers to gain access to the recipient's computer.

The blog says the attack appears to have been timed to coincide with Black Friday, one of the US's busiest shopping days.

Black Friday was the name used by Philadelphia's police department in the 1960s to describe the day after Thanksgiving because of all the traffic jams caused by people visiting the city's stores.

It is now viewed by many retailers as the start of the Christmas shopping season. They mark the day with one-off discounts and other special offers.

Eleven says the period has become one of the most popular times for internet scammers to target users.

Infected offer

The security firm says that users are told they have been sent $50 (�32) of iTunes store credit and need to open an attached file to find out their certificate code.

The file contains a program known as Mal/BredoZp-B.

PCthreat.com says the software opens up a backdoor on the users' computers and may also capture passwords and other information.

It says the code may also slow down the infected computer's performance and make files disappear.

The malware can be removed with the use of anti-spyware tools.

Facebook phishing

Security adviser Sophos warns of a separate threat linked to Facebook.

It says users are receiving emails claiming that they have violated the social network's policy regulations by annoying or insulting other members.

An attached link take users to a web page that presents them with a fake "Facebook Account Disabled" form.

The firm says that members are then asked to fill in a series of forms requesting their login details, country of residence and the first six digits of their credit card number.

If the users refuse they are told their account will be blocked automatically.

"New day, new attempt," writes Sophos's security writer Lisa Vaas on the company's blog.

"All these phishing scams boil down to a naked grab for your account details. Remember, neither Facebook nor other reputable social media sites would ask for this information."

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Cyborg insect power breakthrough

Efforts to create an army of cyborg insects are being pursued by a team of US-based engineers.

The group is investigating ways to harvest energy from the creatures to power sensors and other equipment fastened to their bodies.

The team has created an energy scavenging device that is attached close to the insects' wings.

It suggested the creatures might one day be used to aid search-and-rescue operations and surveillance.

The University of Michigan team of engineers published their study in the Journal of Micromechanics and Microengineering.

Power source

The report noted that, despite major advances in micro-air-vehicle technology, no-one had been able to match the aerodynamic performance and manoeuvring capability of insects.

However, it said that if insects were to be equipped with control mechanisms and other add-on kit, the equipment would require a power source.

The team rejected the idea of using miniature solar panels because they would be dependent on available light. So the group decided to develop a vibration energy collector.

The resulting device consists of a tiny three-layered spiral generator.

The outer two layers are made up of PZT-5H - a ceramic substance that produces an electrical charge when mechanical stress is applied. An inner layer of brass provides reinforcement.

Muscle power

The researchers used Green June Beetles to determine the best place to locate the device.

They identified the wings as the most promising power source.

However, the creatures' wing membranes were not rigid or strong enough to support the device, and it also made them less aerodynamic. So the team focussed, instead, on the animals' wing muscle.

The engineers ultimately decided to attach two of the spiral beams to each beetle's thorax. The end of each coil extended out to touch a hardened part of the insect's body close to its wing base where it could pick up energy.

The two devices weighed less than 0.2 grams and generated 45 microwatts of power during flight.

Cyborgs

The researchers suggested that the devices could eventually become the power source for a race of remote controlled cyborg insects with neural electrodes implants, communications equipment, microphones and other sensors.

The team suggested the creatures could wear the equipment in tiny "backpacks".

The animals could then be released into dangerous or hard-to-access locations after an accident has occurred. The information they gathered could be beamed back to the emergency services to help prepare a response.

They said the creatures could usher in "a new era for search-and-rescue operations, surveillance, monitoring of hazardous substances, and detection of explosives".

This is not the first time researchers have tried to work out how to turn animals into remote-controlled automatons.

The report's authors noted experiments to control rats through the parts of their brains related to their whiskers, an attempt to direct sharks by stimulating the part of their brain linked to their sense of smell and research into the locomotion control of cockroaches.

The team also noted that a previous attempt to harvest vibration energy from moths had failed because the 1.28g weight of the device involved proved too heavy for the insects to carry.

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Google, Samsung confirm Nexus bug

24 November 2011 Last updated at 06:29 ET

Google and Samsung have confirmed that there are volume issues with their flagship mobile phone the Galaxy Nexus.

It follows complaints on net forums about unexplained changes in volume.

The handset, the first to feature Google's operating system Android Ice Cream Sandwich, is currently available in the UK and is due to go on sale in the US in December.

Samsung said that it is aware of the problem and will offer a repair but did not say when.

"Regarding the Galaxy Nexus, we are aware of the volume issue and have developed a fix," Samsung said in a statement. "We will update devices as soon as possible."

Google issued an almost identical statement.

Silent alarm

Posting on Google's Android user forum Damian M summed up the problem many seem to be experiencing: "Volume drops to nothing seemingly at random, volume rocker becomes unresponsive for a few seconds," he said.

Some users reported that the issues became worse when using the 2G network. Others complained that they were unable to rely on the device.

"Had this problem since buying the phone on the 17 Nov. Happened so far on 3G, wifi and using the sat nav. It also happened this morning again when my alarm went off," wrote one user nicknamed Stuartea.

"I was already awake and had not touched the phone yet, the alarm sounded for a second and then went silent. Thought that was weird so checked the phone and the volume was down. I can't trust the alarm to wake me up now for work!"

It is unclear at this stage whether the issues are caused by hardware or software faults.

Rivalry

The problem comes as Apple rushes to fix a bug in its new operating system iOS 5.

Users complain that iPhone batteries are running down too quickly.

An initial software patch issued by Apple to solve the problem has not appeared to have helped.

Apple and Samsung are engaged in a fierce rivalry for market share.

Research from Strategy Analytics suggested that Samsung had overtaken Apple to become the world's biggest shipper of smartphones between July and September.

The study said that the South Korean firm had shipped 27.8 million smartphones in the three-month period, compared with 17.1 million from Apple and 16.8 million from Nokia.

Meanwhile, Samsung and Apple remain locked in intellectual property disputes around the world. Both are trying to ban sales of each other's products.

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HTC shares plunge on growth cut

23 November 2011 Last updated at 21:31 ET

Shares of smartphone maker HTC have fallen by 7%, the maximum allowed in one day, after the company cut its growth forecast.

Taiwan-based HTC said on Wednesday that it expected revenues for the final three months of 2011 to be little changed from a year earlier.

The firm had earlier forecast growth of 20% to 30%.

HTC, the world's fourth-biggest smartphone brand, blamed increased competition and weakening demand.

Analysts and the markets were surprised by the statement filed with the Taiwan Stock Exchange.

"This new guidance takes us by complete surprise and is at odds with recent discussions we have had with distribution channels, especially in Europe," said Sanford Bernstein from Pierre Ferragu in a note to clients.

In October, the company had warned that fourth quarter revenue was slowing, predicting 125bn to 135bn New Taiwan dollars ($4.1bn-$4.4bn; �2.6bn-$2.9bn), compared with T$135.8bn in the previous three months.

Although HTC did not give a specific forecast for Wednesday's further downward revision, it said it predicted no growth compared to the same period last year. HTC's revenue in the last three months of 2010 was T$104bn.

Analysts said the grim outlook could be blamed on lack of new products to compete with an expansion in Apple's distribution channels in the US.

However, the company said it expected a pick up in revenue in the first half of 2012.

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Firms &#39;not ready for IT failure&#39;

23 November 2011 Last updated at 23:41 ET

Almost three-quarters of firms and public sector organisations across nine European countries may not fully recover their computer systems or data after an IT failure, a survey suggests.

The report by IT group EMC said 74% were "not very confident" they could fully restore their networks.

It also found that 54% admitted they had lost data or suffered systems downtime in the past 12 months.

A total 1,750 IT bosses in countries including the UK were questioned.

The other countries covered in the survey were Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg and Russia.

EMC said firms needed to put more focus on backup and recovery systems.

Its report found that the most common cause of data loss and downtime was hardware failure, followed by power outage and software malfunction.

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FBI downplays water supply &#39;hack&#39;

23 November 2011 Last updated at 08:19 ET

US officials have cast doubt over reports that a water pump in Illinois was destroyed by foreign hackers.

The FBI and the Department of Homeland Security said they had "found no evidence of a cyber intrusion".

The Illinois Statewide Terrorism and Intelligence Center (STIC) previously claimed a hacker with a Russian IP address caused a pump to burn out.

A security expert, who flagged up the story, said he was concerned about the conflicting claims.

Information about the alleged 8 November breach was revealed on Joe Weiss's Control Global blog last week. His article was based on a formal disclosure announcement by the Illinois STIC.

The report said that the public water district's Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition System (Scada) had been hacked as early as September.

It claimed that a pump used to pipe water to thousands of homes was damaged after being repeatedly powered on and off.

It added that the IP address of the attackers had been traced back to Russia.

The news attracted attention because it could have been the first confirmed case of foreign hackers successfully damaging a US utilities.

'No evidence'

The FBI and the DHS said they had carried out "detailed analysis" and could not confirm the intrusion.

"There is no evidence to support claims made in the initial Fusion Center report - which was based on raw, unconfirmed data and subsequently leaked to the media - that any credentials were stolen, or that the vendor was involved in any malicious activity that led to a pump failure at the water plant," an email sent to the US Industrial Control Systems Joint Working Group said.

"In addition, DHS and FBI have concluded that there was no malicious or unauthorised traffic from Russia or any foreign entities, as previously reported."

The officials added that their analysis of the incident was still ongoing.

Mr Weiss said he was concerned that the email appeared to contradict the initial report.

"This begs the question why two government agencies disagree over whether a cyber event that damaged equipment had occurred at a water utility," he wrote on his blog.

"If the STIC report is correct, then we have wasted precious time and allowed many others in the infrastructure to remain potentially vulnerable while we wait to find out if we should do anything."

Fewer managers

Mr Weiss also notes that a 2010 report by the security company McAfee highlighted the relative vulnerability of the global water system compared with other industries including energy and financial services.

"The water/sewage sector... had the lowest adoption rate for security measures protecting their Scada/ICS systems," it said.

The report noted that the low adoption rate might have been linked to the fact that the water and sewage sector, and said that only 55% of its Scada systems were connected to the internet - a lower percentage than most other industries.

However, it went on to highlight the lower number of managers taking responsibility for the issue.

"When considering this data, the small number of water sector executives amongst those with Scada/ICS systems responsibilities - only 11 out of 143 - needs to be noted," said the McAfee report.

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Google to kill off more products

23 November 2011 Last updated at 07:44 ET

Google has announced that it is dropping seven more products in an effort to simplify its range of services.

The out-of-season "spring clean" brings an end to services including Google Wave, Knol and Google Gears.

It is the third time that the US firm has announced a cull of several of its products at the same time after they had failed to take off.

Experts said the strategy might put off users from signing up to new services.

Google announced the move in its official blog.

"We're in the process of shutting a number of products which haven't had the impact we'd hoped for, integrating others as features into our broader product efforts, and ending several which have shown us a different path forward," said Urs Holzle, Google's vice president of operations.

"Overall, our aim is to build a simpler, more intuitive, truly beautiful Google user experience," he added.

Wave goodbye

The seven latest products earmarked for the chop are as follows:

• Google Wave - an attempt to combine email and instant messaging for real-time collaboration
• Google Bookmarks List - a service which allowed users to share bookmarks with friends
• Google Friends Connect - allowed webmasters to add social features to their sites by embedding a snippet of code
• Google Gears - much-hyped effort to maintain web browser functionality when working offline
• Google Search Timeline - a graph of historical query results
• Knol - a Wikipedia-style project, which aimed to improve web content
• Renewable Energy Cheaper than Coal - a project which aimed to find ways to improve solar power

Google had previously announced its plans to kill off some of the projects on the list.

It has now given details about when the switch-offs will occur. For example Wave will be retired in April, and Knol content will be taken offline in October.

Lessons

The diverse nature of the list illustrated how Google operated as a company, said Richard Edwards, principal analyst at research firm Ovum.

"Any company with the resources and number of brains that Google has will have ideas, only some of which will fly. Hitting the zeitgeist is tricky to plan or predict," he said.

The steady stream of innovations from the search giant and the open way it announced them had been a welcome change in a tech industry that had traditionally kept its cards close, said Mr Edwards.

But he warned that Google needed to be careful about how it announced new products in future.

"It can hype the bejesus out of new announcements and it can be difficult for people to pick out the substance from the hype," he said.

There were, he said, "lessons to be learned" from firms such as Apple which took a more measured approach, announcing just a handful of new products once or twice a year.

Focus

Some experts think that Google is streamlining in order to concentrate on its Facebook rival Google+.

The network gained 10 million users within the first 16 days after its private launch, and 40 million within the first 100 days, making it the fastest-growing social network in the history of the web.

But Mr Edwards was sceptical about how successful the service would be in the long-term.

"There is no likelihood of people flocking away from Facebook at the current time unless it commits some hideous faux pas on privacy," he said.

"Something may displace Facebook but I'm not sure it is likely to be Google+," he added.

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