American industrial systems vulnerable to Stuxnet like exploit

America’s Stuxnet? Weakness found in Pentagon systems, power grid
Mark Clayton | CSMonitor »

An amateur cybersecurity researcher who bought industrial computer networking equipment on e-Bay for fun has discovered a critical weakness in equipment that helps run railroads, power grids, and even military installations nationwide.

The vulnerability means that hackers or other nations could potentially take control of elements within crucial American infrastructure – from refineries to power plants to missile systems – sabotaging their ability to operate from within.

Analysts say the problem is likely fixable, but the enthusiast says he has gone public only because the company that manufactures the equipment, RuggedCom of Concord, Ontario, has declined to address the issue since he made it known to them a year ago. >continue<

related: Stuxnet, dire warnings 1yr on  |  Cracking Stuxnet [TED talk]

HBGary & Stuxnet  |  Israeli General brags over Stuxnet

Welcome to Cyberwar  |  Stuxnet in the news

Novel photosynthetic process called 'Biosolar Breakthrough'

Science Daily »

To produce the energy, the scientists harnessed the power of a key component of photosynthesis known as photosystem-I (PSI) from blue-green algae. This complex was then bioengineered to specifically interact with a semi-conductor so that, when illuminated, the process of photosynthesis produced electricity. Because of the engineered properties, the system self-assembles and is much easier to re-create than his earlier work. In fact, the approach is simple enough that it can be replicated in most labs…

…This green solar cell is a marriage of non-biological and biological materials. It consists of small tubes made of zinc oxide — this is the non-biological material. These tiny tubes are bioengineered to attract PSI particles and quickly become coated with them — that’s the biological part. Done correctly, the two materials intimately intermingle on the metal oxide interface, which when illuminated by sunlight, excites PSI to produce an electron which “jumps” into the zinc oxide semiconductor, producing an electric current.  >continue<

Europe Weighs Tough Law on Online Privacy

Europe is considering a sweeping new law that would force Internet companies like Amazon.com and Facebook to obtain explicit consent from consumers about the use of their personal data, delete that data forever at the consumer’s request and face fines for failing to comply.

The proposed data protection regulation from the European Commission, a copy of which was obtained by The New York Times, could have significant consequences for all Internet companies that trade in personal data… >continue<

Gluttony Goes Viral

infoneer-pulse:

When we try to hold the Internet in a single thought, we reach for an image of exhilaration, of liberation, of flight: “the Information Superhighway”; “surfing the Web”; data zipping through candy-colored cables straight into our homes. This is the Internet as it, in theory, ought to be: the world’s information and entertainment instantly accessible, and we at our screens, poised, enthralled, and weightless.

I want to suggest another image, one that comes closer to the Internet in practice: a great groaning table, creaking under bottomless platters of food and pitchers of drink, and we in our chairs, too exhausted to stand, mouths too numb to taste much, but with just enough energy to reach for more.

Few of those who identify with this image of information numbness are Luddites—in fact, they’re often the most immersed. A recent college graduate likened life online to “being demoted from the category of thinking, caring human to a sort of rat that doesn’t know why he needs to tap that button, just that he does.” An information-management expert advises her overwhelmed clients to stop “passively ingesting the flow.” A Newsweek report on the Internet and decision-making warns that “trying to drink from a fire hose of information has harmful cognitive effects.”

» via The Chronicle of Higher Education (Subscription may be required for some content)

#Riot: Self-Organized, Hyper-Networked Revolts—Coming to a City Near You

Wired.com | Bill Wasik »

For tech to become effective as a tool for civic disorder, it first had to insinuate itself into people’s daily lives. Now that it has, there can be no getting rid of it. The agent provocateur lives inside our pockets and purses and cannot be uninstalled.  >continue<

Interesting long read & observations on protests, technology and social media.  Wild too trying to get a fix on the irony of blanket attitudes of opposition to a system which in large part are enabled and sustained by what is undeniably a product of the system.

Open Source Paradigm Shift

In 1962, Thomas Kuhn published a groundbreaking book entitled The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. In it, he argued that the progress of science is not gradual but (much as we now think of biological evolution), a kind of punctuated equilibrium, with moments of epochal change. When Copernicus explained the movements of the planets by postulating that they moved around the sun rather than the earth, or when Darwin introduced his ideas about the origin of species, they were doing more than just building on past discoveries, or explaining new experimental data. A truly profound scientific breakthrough, Kuhn notes, “is seldom or never just an increment to what is already known. Its assimilation requires the reconstruction of prior theory and the re-evaluation of prior fact, an intrinsically revolutionary process that is seldom completed by a single man and never overnight.”  >continue<

Intro to a great long read with some focus on Linux. And to one of the questions posed therein: Yes, Linux Mint Debian Edition here ;/

Researcher’s Video Shows Secret Software on Millions of Phones Logging Everything

infoneer-pulse:

The Android developer who raised the ire of a mobile-phone monitoring company last week is on the attack again, producing a video of how the Carrier IQ software secretly installed on millions of mobile phones reports most everything a user does on a phone.

Though the software is installed on most modern Android, BlackBerry and Nokia phones, Carrier IQ was virtually unknown until 25-year-old Trevor Eckhart of Connecticut analyzed its workings, revealing that the software secretly chronicles a user’s phone experience — ostensibly so carriers and phone manufacturers can do quality control.

But now he’s released a video actually showing the logging of text messages, encrypted web searches and, well, you name it.

» via Wired

Mystery code spreads, but is it ‘son of Stuxnet’?

The malicious computer code that bears similarities to Stuxnet — the worm that sabotaged Iran’s nuclear program and prompted speculation about U.S. and Israel involvement — has now spread to eight countries, according to researchers, but there’s still widespread disagreement on whether it is, in fact, the “son of Stuxnet.”

…Duqu, by contrast, captures information on the systems it infects. Symantec has said that it, nonetheless, appears to be a precursor to a Stuxnet-like attack, gathering information that could be used to guide the selection of future targets.

“In our mind, there’s absolutely no doubt that Duqu was created from the same source code as Stuxnet.  >continue<

Related:

Duqu linked to MS Word Document Exploit | Unholy Ghost of Stuxnet