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Web Security Expert Warns Of Cyber World War

Eugene Kaspersky
Internet security expert Eugene Kaspersky has told Sky a catastrophic cyber terrorist attack is likely
A leading internet security expert has warned that a cyber terrorist attack with "catastrophic consequences" looked increasingly likely in a world already in a state of near cyber war.

Eugene Kaspersky is not given to easy hyperbole. But the Russian maths genius who founded an internet security empire with a global reach, clutched at his thick mop of hair with both hands.

"I don't want to speak about it. I don't even want to think about it," he said.

"But we are close, very close, to cyber terrorism. Perhaps already the criminals have sold their skills to the terrorists - and then...oh, God."

Speaking privately at the London Cyber Conference, Kaspersky told Sky that he believed that cyber terrorism was the biggest immediate threat to have emerged to confront nations as diverse as China and the US.

"There is already cyber espionage, cyber crime, hacktivisim (when activists attack networks for political ends) soon we will be facing cyber terrorism," he said.

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Best of the Web: Psychopaths in Academia: Report finds massive research fraud at Dutch universities

Investigation claims dozens of social-psychology papers contain faked data.

When colleagues called the work of Dutch psychologist Diederik Stapel too good to be true, they meant it as a compliment. But a preliminary investigative report released on 31 October gives literal meaning to the phrase, detailing years of data manipulation and blatant fabrication by the prominent Tilburg University researcher.

"We have some 30 papers in peer-reviewed journals where we are actually sure that they are fake, and there are more to come," says Pim Levelt, chair of the committee that investigated Stapel's work at the university.

Stapel's eye-catching studies on aspects of social behaviour such as power and stereo­typing garnered wide press coverage. For example, in a recent Science paper (which the investigation has not identified as fraudulent), Stapel reported that untidy environments encouraged discrimination (Science 332, 251 - 253; 2011).

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Rare Date: Today Is Once-in-10,000-Years Palindrome

Palindrome
© Live Science

Today might not seem any more special than yesterday or the day before, but it is a once-in-10,000-years event. Nov. 2, 2011, written out numerically, is 11/02/2011, which on its own makes it a very rare eight-digit palindrome date, meaning that it can be read the same way frontward and backward.

But, as one scientist has found, there's much more to this date that makes it truly one of a kind.

This century features a relative wealth of eight-digit palindrome dates; today is the third date so far, and there will be nine more. In fact, we live in a relative golden age of palindrome dates: Before 10/02/2001, the last eight-digit palindrome date was Aug. 31, 1380 (08/31/1380).

"Eight-digit palindrome dates are very rare, and are clustered in the first three or so centuries at the beginning of a millennial, and then don't show up for 600 to 700 years, until they appear as a cluster in the next millennium," said Aziz Inan, a professor of electrical engineering at the University of Portland who crunches palindrome dates in his spare time.

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Not All Brain Regions Are Created Equal

Areas of The Brain
© Van den Heuvel, et al. The Journal of Neuroscience 2011This image shows the group connectome, with the nodes and connections colored according to their rich-club participation. Green represents few connections. Red represents the most.

Just as the Occupy Wall Street movement has brought more attention to financial disparities between the haves and have-nots in American society, researchers from Indiana University and the University Medical Center Utrecht in The Netherlands are highlighting the disproportionate influence of so called "Rich Clubs" within the human brain.

Not all regions of the brain, they say, are created equal.

"We've known for a while that the brain has some regions that are 'rich' in the sense of being highly connected to many other parts of the brain," said Olaf Sporns, professor in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences in IU's College of Arts and Sciences. "It now turns out that these regions are not only individually rich, they are forming a 'rich club.' They are strongly linked to each other, exchanging information and collaborating."

The study, "Rich-Club Organization of the Human Connectome," is published in the Nov. 2 issue of the Journal of Neuroscience. The research is part of an ongoing intensive effort to map the intricate networks of the human brain, casting the brain as an integrated dynamic system rather than a set of individual regions.

Using diffusion imaging, which is a form of MRI, Martijn van den Heuvel, a professor at the Rudolf Magnus Institute of Neuroscience at University Medical Center Utrecht, and Sporns examined the brains of 21 healthy men and women and mapped their large-scale network connectivity. They found a group of 12 strongly interconnected bihemispheric hub regions, comprising the precuneus, superior frontal and superior parietal cortex, as well as the subcortical hippocampus, putamen and thalamus. Together, these regions form the brain's "rich club".

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Globalists Using London Cyberspace Summit to Push for Global Internet Treaty

censorship
© unknown
For the next two days, leaders from around the globe will collude with tech giants to discuss how to respond to the challenges and opportunities of the Internet. Translation: they'll be negotiating a global Internet treaty.

It's reported that officials from 60 countries will join Google, Facebook, Microsoft and Tudou.com (Chinese video sharing site), as well as cyber crime agencies, and computer security firms at the London Conference on Cyberspace.

The London summit is hosted by Foreign Secretary, William Hague, who said the purpose is to "discuss ideas and expected behaviour in cyberspace".

To which he claims the goal is bring together major players to determine how "collectively, we should respond to the challenges and opportunities which the development of cyberspace presents."

A few days before the conference, Council on Foreign Relations members Adam Segal and Matthew Waxman wrote that the conference presents those calling for a global Internet treaty with "a step in that direction."

Magic Wand

Success for Andrea Rossi's E-Cat cold fusion system, but mysteries remain

earth
© NASA
Against all the odds, Andrea Rossi's E-Cat cold fusion power plant passed its biggest test yesterday, producing an average of 470 kilowatts for more than five hours. (A technical glitch prevented it from achieving a megawatt as originally planned). The demonstration was monitored closely by engineers from Rossi's mysterious US customer, which was evidently satisfied and paid up.

The energy was output in the form of heat, measured by the quantity of water boiled off. The results are reported in NyTeknik and Pure Energy Systems News, who both had reporters present for the test. Associated Press also sent a correspondent who should be filing a story in the next few days (one suspects his editors might have some questions).

But this does not mean we can crack open the champagne and celebrate the end of fossil fuels quite yet. Skeptics have plenty of grounds to doubt whether the new test really takes us any further forwards.

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U.S. Government Glossed Over Cancer Concerns As It Rolled Out Airport X-Ray Scanners

TSA
© Scott Olson/Getty ImagesA sign at a Transportation Security Administration (TSA) checkpoint instructs passengers about the use of the full-body scanner at O'Hare International Airport.
On Sept. 23, 1998, a panel of radiation safety experts gathered at a Hilton hotel in Maryland to evaluate a new device that could detect hidden weapons and contraband. The machine, known as the Secure 1000, beamed X-rays at people to see underneath their clothing.

One after another, the experts convened by the Food and Drug Administration raised questions about the machine because it violated a longstanding principle in radiation safety - that humans shouldn't be X-rayed unless there is a medical benefit.

"I think this is really a slippery slope," said Jill Lipoti, who was the director of New Jersey's radiation protection program. The device was already deployed in prisons; what was next, she and others asked - courthouses, schools, airports? "I am concerned ... with expanding this type of product for the traveling public," said another panelist, Stanley Savic, the vice president for safety at a large electronics company. "I think that would take this thing to an entirely different level of public health risk."

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British Police Surveillance System Can Turn Off Mobile Phones

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© Flickr user nolifebeforecoffee
Police in London possess a surveillance technology that sounds like something straight out of science fiction: a mobile GSM device that pretends to be a cellular tower, tricking nearby phones into connecting to it, then intercepting all their communications.

The system was developed by the British firm Datong plc, according to The Guardian, which noted that the U.S. Secret Service and a number of Middle Eastern regimes also patronize the company.

The signal this device projects covers an area for 10 miles around, and the variety of data it can produce is specific enough to track the exact location of any mobile device on the network. It can even be used to shut off all mobile devices in its range.

The full range of its capabilities are classified, The Guardian added, and Datong plc did not comment on the initial report. The Metropolitan Police refused to say when or where the device has been used, if at all.

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Do Animals Know Right from Wrong? New Clues Point to 'Yes'

Guilty Dog
© YouTube | puckeredpetebreweryTank the dog caught red-handed after digging through the trash.

In a famous YouTube video, Tank the dog sure does look guilty when his owner comes home to find trash scattered everywhere, and the trash can lid incriminatingly stuck on Tank's head. But does the dog really know he misbehaved, or is he just trying to look submissive because his owner is yelling at him?

In another new video from the BBC Frozen Planet series, Adelie penguins are seen gathering stones to build their nests. One penguin stealthily steals a stone from his neighbor's nest every time the neighbor goes a-gathering. Does the penguin thief know its covert actions are wrong?

These are some of the scenarios that interest ethologists, or scientists who study animal behavior. For years, these scientists categorically ruled out the possibility that animals might have a sense of morality - that they know right from wrong. Lately, though, the tide is turning.

"People used to like to make that stark division between human and nonhuman animals," said ethologist Marc Bekoff. "But there's just no doubt that the scientific evidence for animal morality is accumulating as more and more animals are studied."

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Fertility Chip Measures Sperm in Home Test Accurately

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© University of TwenteSchematic drawing of the fertility chip with fluid channels and electrodes.
Loes Segerink, a researcher at the University of Twente has developed a "fertility chip" that can accurately count sperm and measure their motility. The chip can be inserted into a compact device for one-off use. A home test kit will soon make it possible for men to test their sperm in a familiar environment. As a result, there is a greater chance of obtaining a correct diagnosis, also the method is simple and inexpensive. Segerink's doctoral defence will take place on 4 November 2011.

The lab-on-a-chip developed by Segerink measures sperm concentration. The importance of the sperm concentration is that the fertility standard states that a millilitre of ejaculate should contain at least 20 million sperm. A second important aspect of fertility is motility. This too can be measured using the lab-on-a-chip. Simple home test kits are already commercially available. These indicate whether the concentration is "above or below the standard value." These tests are too limited, however, as they do not give accurate concentration readings.