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Pretty cool job to get hired to break through a companies security and get paid for it! (Sounds like that old 90s movie Sneakers)

“Cracking a power company network and gaining access that could shut down the grid is simple, a security expert told an RSA audience, and he has done so in less than a day. Ira Winkler, a penetration-testing consultant, says he and a team of other experts took a day to set up attack tools they needed then launched their attack, which paired social engineering with corrupting browsers on a power company’s desktops. By the end of a full day of the attack, they had taken over several machines at the unnamed power company, giving the team the ability to hack into the control network overseeing power production and distribution.”

(Network World article)

Hear no threat, see no threat, there must be no threat right?  Seriously people should be very aware of this…

“IEEE Spectrum reports that noted encryption pioneer Prof. Martin Hellman has a new passion; estimating the risk of our current nuclear weapons policies. His web site, Defusing the Nuclear Threat, asks the question, ‘How risky are nuclear weapons? Amazingly, no one seems to know.’ Hellman therefore did a preliminary analysis and found the risk to be ‘equivalent to having your home surrounded by thousands of nuclear power plants.’ The web site and a related statement therefore urgently call for more detailed studies to either confirm or correct his startling conclusion. The statement has been signed by seven notable individuals including former NSA Director Adm. Bobby R. Inman and two Nobel Laureates.”

(Slashdot article)

Dictatorial behavior partly genetic?  I believe genetics are just predispositions to that behavior, not an excuse to act that way (remember the movie Gattaca?)

“Researchers at Hebrew University in Jerusalem have found a link between a gene called AVPR1a and ruthless behavior. These findings come from an economic exercise called the ‘Dictator Game’ that allows players to behave selflessly, or like national dictators and ‘little Hitlers’ found in workplaces the world over. The team decided to look at AVPR1a because it is known to produce receptors in the brain that detect vasopressin, a hormone involved in ‘prosocial’ behavior. Researchers tested DNA samples from more than 200 student volunteers, before asking the students to play the game that measured their altruism. There was no connection between the participants’ gender and their behavior but there was a link to the length of the AVPR1a gene.”

(Nature News article)

Check out this video on BBC of a pressure tsunami on the sun! Cool stuff!

“Astronomers have captured the first footage of a solar “tsunami” hurtling through the Sun’s atmosphere at over a million kilometres per hour. The event was captured by Nasa’s twin Stereo spacecraft designed to make 3D images of our parent star. Naturally, this type of tsunami does not involve water; instead, it is a wave of pressure that travels across the Sun very fast.”

(BBC News article)

I’m very sure that this is not the first time, nor the last we will see cases like this …

The case involves a Ukrainian engineering consultant named Oleksandr Dorozhko who is alleged to have hacked into a computer that contained advance information about a negative earnings announcement for IMS Health, a company that provides market research to the pharmaceutical and health care industries.
…
indicative of an emerging hacking-for-profit trend that just might allow the perpetrator to keep his ill-gotten gains. In this case, the crime doesn’t involve hacking databases to steal credit and debit card numbers, but hacking a computer to obtain inside information in order to profit on the stock market.

Ukrainian Hacker Makes a Killing in Stock Market Fraud (Feb 15, 2008, Wired: Threat Level))

A funny & very relevant comic strip about the current wiretapping bill, called Protect America, that the House & Senate are talking about …

Snuggly the bear explains!

(But seriously, don’t think this only happens in the US, just cause we don’t hear about it on the news in Canada)

Also, for another view on the matter, watch this Republican advertisement about why it matters.

More interesting news, i really think the key of all of this is to understand the bias of the different sources of information …

The five underseas cables that were cut or went out of service in the Middle East in recent weeks might have been sabotaged, an officer at the International Telecommunication Union told the Agence France-Presse.

“We do not want to preempt the results of ongoing investigations, but we do not rule out that a deliberate act of sabotage caused the damage to the undersea cables over two weeks ago,” the UN agency’s head of development, Sami al-Murshed, told AFP.[…]

Some experts doubt the prevailing view that the cables were cut by accident, especially as the cables lie at great depths under the sea and are not passed over by ships,” Murshed said on the sidelines of a conference on cyber-crime held in Gulf state of Qatar.

UN Official Feeds Cable Cut Sabotage Speculation (Feb 19, 2008; Wired: Threat Level)

(Also, here’s a cool map of all the undersea cables)