Hackers had 'full functional control' of Nasa computers

Hackers gained "full functional control" of key Nasa computers in 2011, the agency's inspector general has told US lawmakers.

Paul K Martin said hackers took over Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) computers and "compromised the accounts of the most privileged JPL users". He said the attack, involving Chinese IP addresses, was under investigation.In a statement, Nasa said it had "made significant progress to protect the agency's IT systems".
Mr Martin's testimony on Nasa's cybersecurity was submitted to the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology's Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight.
State of security
In the document, he outlined how investigators believed the attack had involved "Chinese-based internet protocol [IP] addresses".
He said that the attackers had "full system access" and would have been able to "modify, copy, or delete sensitive files" or "upload hacking tools to steal user credentials and compromise other Nasa systems".Mr Martin outlined how the agency suffered "5,408 computer security incidents" between 2010 and 2011.He also noted that "between April 2009 and April 2011, Nasa reported the loss or theft of 48 Agency mobile computing devices.
In one incident an unencrypted notebook computer was lost containing details of the algorithms - the mathematical models - used to control the International Space Station.

Nasa told the BBC that "at no point in time have operations of the International Space Station been in jeopardy due to a data breach".

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Obama warns of force against Iran, but urges diplomacy

President Barack Obama says the US "will not hesitate" to use force to stop Iran obtaining nuclear weapons, but says diplomacy could still succeed.

Addressing an influential pro-Israel lobby group, Mr Obama also warned against "loose talk" of war in the dispute with Tehran.Earlier, Israeli President Shimon Peres said Iran was "a danger to the world".The US and its allies suspect Iran of trying to develop nuclear weapons, a claim Tehran denies.
As tension in the region rises, speculation has been mounting that Israel might launch a pre-emptive strike against Iranian nuclear sites.

"Iran's leaders should know that I do not have a policy of containment - I have a policy to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon," Mr Obama told the annual American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac) policy conference in Washington.

"And as I've made clear time and again during the course of my presidency, I will not hesitate to use force when it is necessary to defend the United States and its interests."However, he said Iran was isolated and there was an opportunity "for diplomacy - backed by pressure - to succeed"."Already, there is too much loose talk of war," Mr Obama added. "Over the last few weeks such talk has only benefited the Iranian government, by driving up the price of oil which they depend upon to fund their nuclear programme.

 

Instruction for Masses Knocks Down Campus Walls

The pitch for the online course sounds like a late-night television ad, or maybe a subway poster: “Learn programming in seven weeks starting Feb. 20. We’ll teach you enough about computer science that you can build a Web search engine like Google or Yahoo.”

But this course, Building a Search Engine, is taught by two prominent computer scientists, Sebastian Thrun, a Stanford research professor and Google fellow, and David Evans, a professor on leave from the University of Virginia.

The big names have been a big draw. Since Udacity, the for-profit startup running the course, opened registration on Jan. 23, more than 90,000 students have enrolled in the search-engine course and another taught by Mr. Thrun, who led the development of Google’s self-driving car.

Welcome to the brave new world of Massive Open Online Courses — known as MOOCs — a tool for democratizing higher education. While the vast potential of free online courses has excited theoretical interest for decades, in the past few months hundreds of thousands of motivated students around the world who lack access to elite universities have been embracing them as a path toward sophisticated skills and high-paying jobs, without paying tuition or collecting a college degree. And in what some see as a threat to traditional institutions, several of these courses now come with an informal credential (though that, in most cases, will not be free).

Consider Stanford’s experience: Last fall, 160,000 students in 190 countries enrolled in an Artificial Intelligence course taught by Mr. Thrun and Peter Norvig, a Google colleague. An additional 200 registered for the course on campus, but a few weeks into the semester, attendance at Stanford dwindled to about 30, as those who had the option of seeing their professors in person decided they preferred the online videos, with their simple views of a hand holding a pen, working through the problems.

Mr. Thrun was enraptured by the scale of the course, and how it spawned its own culture, including a Facebook group, online discussions and an army of volunteer translators who made it available in 44 languages.

Besides the Artificial Intelligence course, Stanford offered two other MOOCs last semester — Machine Learning (104,000 registered, and 13,000 completed the course), and Introduction to Databases (92,000 registered, 7,000 completed). And this spring, the university will have 13 courses open to the world, including Anatomy, Cryptography, Game Theory and Natural Language Processing.       

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Putin Wins, but Opposition Keeps Pressing

MOSCOW — Russian voters overwhelmingly granted Vladimir V. Putin a six-year term as president on Sunday, a widely expected outcome that set the stage for a far more suspenseful post-election confrontation between the freshly emboldened leader and an opposition movement that has repeatedly rallied tens of thousands of protesters.
With 80 percent of ballots counted, Mr. Putin had won 64.7 percent of the vote, the Central Election Commission said, comfortably above the 50 percent needed to avoid a runoff and extending his claim on power to 18 years, which would equal the rule of Leonid Brezhnev, the Soviet leader for much of the cold war. “We have won!” Mr. Putin, tears streaming down his right cheek, told a throng of tens of thousands of his supporters on Manezh Square, just outside the Kremlin walls.

“We have gained a clean victory!” he said, standing next to Dmitri A. Medvedev, the protégé he chose to succeed him as president just over four years ago, and who now, in a job swap, has been promised the post of prime minister. “We won!” Mr. Putin said. “Glory to Russia!”

Amid renewed allegations of voting fraud, some opposition leaders called for demonstrations beyond those allowed by government permits, raising the prospect of a sharp response from the authorities and threatening to undercut Mr. Putin’s promise of stability.

“This is not an election; it’s a shame,” Sergei Udaltsov, the leader of the Left Front, a radical socialist group, posted on Twitter. “Once again they spat in our face. Tomorrow we go to the streets!”

Despite their strength in numbers, the protests have failed to yield clear leaders, nor have they spread much beyond the capital, which raises questions about the opposition’s viability.

People need to go out on the streets and not leave until their demands are met,” he said in a television interview.

In an echo of the disputed parliamentary election in December that helped set off the huge opposition protests, there were, by some tallies, more than 3,000 complaints of voting violations. They included “carousel voting,” in which the same people cast ballots at multiple locations, and “centralized voting” in which managers of factories, schools, hospitals and other large organizations pressure employees to vote for a specific candidate. In some cases, ballots are collected at the workplace.

And once again there were statistically improbable results from the North Caucasus, home to 6 percent of the Russian electorate. Mr. Putin and his party have previously won close to 100 percent of the vote there, with abnormally high turnout.

Thousands of election observers took up posts across the country, most of them — in accordance with Russian election law — aligned with a candidate. In response to citizens’ cellphone photographs and video documentation of fraud in December, the chairman of the Central Election Commission, Vladimir Y. Churov, announced that 180,000 Web cameras — installed at a cost of $450 million — would be used to record activity inside polling stations in real time and turned off “only after the counting of votes and the final signing of the protocols.”

But Gennady A. Zyuganov, the Communist Party presidential candidate who finished a distant second, said the vote was tainted.

“It was illegitimate, unfair and not transparent,” he said. However, there was no expectation that the complaints or the statistical anomalies would change the outcome.

Many voters said that they remained ambivalent. “I will not say who I am voting for,” Anastasia Ryabukhina, 20, a student at the Academy of Labor and Social Relations, said at a polling station in southwest Moscow. “But think about it yourself: of all of them, Putin is the most realistic candidate.”

Natalia I. Bazlova, 57, who voted at a school in the historic Cheremushki district, said: “I share his views but looking at his rivals, I also don’t see any other option. He is the most reliable. Putin is our stability.”

Mr. Putin’s victory never seemed in doubt. He faced three, well-worn opponents whom he had defeated in previous elections — including Mr. Zyuganov — and one newcomer, Mikhail D. Prokhorov, a billionaire industrialist and owner of the New Jersey Nets basketball team, who mustered the two million signatures to get on the ballot but had no party to support him and no political experience.     

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Weight Loss Facts:

Low Fat Foods DON'T WORK.
You cannot lose weight using Low Fat Diets. Low fat foods have been popular for more than 15 years, but yet our society is getting more overweight as each year passes. This fact alone should tell you that eating a purely low fat menu is not the answer to losing weight.
Low Calorie Diets DON'T WORK.
You won't lose weight using a Low Calorie Dieting Plan either. In fact, eating low calories is the worst thing that you can do to your body, since that will only slow down your body's fat burning engine and ruin all chances of losing weight (low calorie diets may allow a few pounds of weight loss for the first few days, but then after that all weight loss comes to a halt --- known as a dieting plateau). You can never get slim by starving yourself.
Low Carb Plans DON'T WORK.
You'll probably find it extremely difficult to get slim using a Low Carb Dieting Plan. Low carb diets have recently become popular over the last couple years, but the problem with low carb menus is that they are too strict and TOO HARD TO FOLLOW for average people. Low carb menus tend to rob your body of too much energy (carbohydrates) and make it nearly impossible to remain on the program for very long. This is why so many dieters find it difficult to follow a strict low carbohydrate menu

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FDI down 33% in December to $1.35 billion

Foreign direct investment in India declined about 33% to USD 1.35 billion (Rs 7,124 crore) in December 2011, over the same month in the previous year, an official said.

FDI inflows in December 2010 totalled USD 2.01 billion (Rs 9,094 crore).
However, cumulative the flows during April-December moved up 51% to USD 24.18 billion, from USD 16.03 billion in the same period last year, mainly due to higher FDI inflows during the April-June quarter.
The cumulative figure has crossed USD 19.43 billion which came in the full fiscal of 2010-11, according to the official.
In April, May and June, the country received FDI worth USD 3.12 billion, USD 4.66 billion and USD 5.65 billion, respectively.
Analysts say that FDI in the current financial year will cross USD 30 billion, which will have a positive impact on rupee in the foreign exchange market.

Microsoft unveils the future — Windows 8

Reimagining the different ways you interact with your computer, and making it so much better.

Microsoft Corp. on Wednesday announced the availability of the Windows 8 Consumer Preview -- the next milestone of the Windows operating system.
This latest preview will be made available for download starting today at preview.windows.com. The Windows 8 Consumer Preview offers a more robust experience for testing the world's most popular operating system and is available to the widest range of people yet following the initial release of the Windows 8 Developer Preview late last year. The Developer Preview received more than 3 million downloads.

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Oil price falls back from 43-month high

Oil prices have dipped from a 43-month high after Saudi Arabia denied reports that a key pipeline had exploded.Brent crude fell back to $124.9 a barrel after jumping almost $6 to $128.40 in New York on Thursday. US light crude fell slightly to $107.9.A number of factors had pushed prices to their highest level since July 2008, including tensions over Iran's nuclear plans and regional unrest.

Thursday's high beat the level seen during the Libyan civil war last year.

'Market nervousness'

The problem facing the oil market at the moment is that events in a number of countries could have an impact on supply and demand, often causing traders to react more quickly to speculation and increasing volatility.

On Thursday, the trigger was a report in Iranian media that an explosion had occurred at a pipeline in Saudi Arabia.

The report came at a time when there has been a steady increase in friction between Iran on one side and the United States and its allies on the other. The US has imposed fresh sanctions against Tehran targeting the country's oil exports, while the European Union has announced a ban on imports of Iranian oil.

For its part, Iran has threatened that it will close the Straits of Hormuz, a vital trade route for oil from the Gulf - including Saudi oil - if the West were to impose more sanction.

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Analysts said all these issues had created an uncertainty over oil supplies and the latest reports had only fanned those fears further.

"The sharp move up on the pipeline story points to the market nervousness on anything related to supply problems," said Gene McGillan of Tradition Energy.
Sufficient capacity

Red Cross convoy arrives in Homs bringing Baba Amr aid

A Red Cross convoy has arrived in the Syrian city of Homs and is set to deliver supplies to the Baba Amr district after a month-long siege.The Red Cross and Syrian Red Crescent have organised the seven-lorry aid convoy, and are also planning to evacuate the wounded.The area has suffered heavy bombardment by government forces in recent weeks.The rebel Free Syrian Army (FSA) said on Thursday it was leaving the district in a "tactical withdrawal".Of the 100,000 people who normally live in Baba Amr only a few thousand remain, with the FSA saying it had pulled back to save those still there from an all-out assault.Meanwhile, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights said it had received reports of "a particularly grisly set of summary executions" in Homs.

Also on Friday, French President Nicolas Sarkozy said France was closing its embassy in Damascus.

Syrian Red Crescent operations chief Khaled Erksoussi told Agence France-Presse news agency the convoy was "carrying food, medicines, blankets, milk for babies and other equipment".

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Drug cartels threaten Latin American democracy - OAS

Drugs gangs are posing a growing threat to democracy in Latin America, the Organization of American States (OAS) has warned.

Cartels are influencing elections by threatening politicians and even running their own candidates, OAS Secretary for Multidimensional Security Adam Blackwell said.
He was speaking at an OAS conference on transnational crime in Mexico City.
The two-day meeting brings together prosecutors from across Latin America.
Mexican President Felipe Calderon told delegates that countries in the Americas needed to work together to defeat gangs.
"In the face of transnational organised crime, we must create an international front where societies and governments are not faced with resolving this challenge alone," he said. More than 45,000 Mexicans have died in drug-related violence since 2006, when he began deploying the military to combat the cartels.

The flow of South American cocaine north to the US has also helped turn Central America into one of the most violent regions in the world, with Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador particularly affected.
"Crime and violence are today the biggest threat to security in our region," Mr Blackwell said.
"The participation of criminal bands in the election process is another expression of the risks that organised crime poses to the preservation of our democratic organisations," he added.
Throughout Americas, Mr Blackwell said there had been 150,000 homicides in 2010. Crime and violence are today the biggest threat to security in our region," Mr Blackwell said.
"The participation of criminal bands in the election process is another expression of the risks that organised crime poses to the preservation of our democratic organisations," he added.
Throughout Americas, Mr Blackwell said there had been 150,000 homicides in 2010.
Officials at the meeting also expressed optimism that, through co-ordinated action, criminal gangs could be successfully confronted.

Pakistan keen on recalibrating ties with India

Without diluting its stated position on Kashmir, Pakistan on Thursday articulated a desire to recalibrate its relationship with India that has hinged on hostility till date. Arguing that three wars with and perennial hostility towards India had not achieved any results on outstanding issues, Pakistan Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar made out a case for giving trade and peace a chance.

Briefing mediapersons here on foreign policy initiatives, Ms. Khar was bombarded with questions on the rationale behind normalising trade relations with India by moving towards granting Most Favoured Nation status to a country regarded as ‘Enemy No. 1'.

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And, she was steadfast in her responses; maintaining that the current government had been striving hard to improve relations with all its neighbours without being selective. Referring to the Cabinet's decision to switchover from a positive list to a negative list approach for trade with India, she said this would be mutually beneficial and reflected the priority the government attached to the economic development of Pakistan. “We want to work the geo-economics of the region to our advantage.”

Stating that South Asia was the worst performer in regional cooperation and connectivity, Ms. Khar time and again said that normalising trade relations with India in no way meant that Pakistan had diluted its position on Kashmir. “We will continue to engage in meaningful dialogue with India on all issues simultaneously.”

Jinnah's vision

Asked about Pakistan's earlier position that trade with India would be normalised only after there was positive movement from India on Kashmir, the Minister shot back: “If the vision of Mohammad Ali Jinnah is anything to go by, he had bequeathed us normal trade relations with India and that remained the case till 1965.” She maintained that there was a good case for improving ties with India.

Referring to the keenness on both sides to pursue dialogue, Ms. Khar said: “In the past few months, we have been able to build a degree of trust and let us give this track some time. We gave 40 years to war and hostilities and it has not yielded results on Kashmir. Let us give time to this track or do you want to continue with hostilities for another 40 years?”

Of the view that Pakistan had been bogged down by the history of the past 60 years, Ms. Khar sought to dispel the notion that only Pakistan was making concessions while India had not yielded an inch. About the Non-Tariff Barriers that India has, she said three memoranda of understanding had been signed during the Indian Commerce Minister's visit to dismantle them. Also, she flagged the fact that India had dropped its opposition to the time-bound European Union waiver on trade preferences that was offered to Pakistan to help it recover from the devastating floods of 2010.”

India, China move to maritime cooperation

India and China have decided to open a new chapter in bilateral cooperation by agreeing to undertake joint operations against pirates and sharing technological knowhow on seabed research.

The maritime cooperation proposals were made by visiting Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi and welcomed by his counterpart S.M. Krishna during an extensive round of talks here on Thursday.

The dialogue on the proposalswill be taken forward at a multi-ministerial meeting as is the case with the other confidence building measure for the land border — the Mechanism on Coordination and Consultation on Border Affairs, which will hold its first meeting in Beijing in mid-March.

The first proposal seeks to involve the Coast Guards, the navies and air forces in action against pirates. The modalities will be worked out by a joint group that will include the two Foreign Offices, besides the Ministries of Defence, Shipping and Oceanography.

The talks also touched an area of acute anxiety to the Chinese — the possibility of protesting Tibetans stealing the limelight during the month-end BRICS summit here at a time of heightened tensions in the Chinese province.
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