Hybrid phone network offers Wi-Fi calls

Smartphones let you do almost everything over Wi-Fi, so why do we still have to use up cellular minutes when making a call? That's the thinking behind Republic Wireless, a new hybrid phone network that lets you seamlessly make calls using any available Wi-Fi hotspot, falling back to the regular cellular network when you move out of Wi-Fi range.

The company estimates that most people are near a Wi-Fi network 60 per cent of the time, whether that be your home, work or the local coffee house, but it might not be suitable for those who like to roam further afield - rely too much on the cellular connection and you'll receive a warning before eventually being booted off the network.

It is a nice idea, especially if you are after a cheap smartphone - the initial cost is $199 for a modified LG Optimus phone running Android, followed by a $19 monthly charge. There is no minimum contract tie-in as with most other networks. You can't yet use your existing phone, though the company says it hopes to allow this in the future as well as providing a range of other handsets.

But is hotspot availability in the US good enough for the hybrid plan to work? Running data-hungry smartphones on Wi-Fi makes much more sense than the ageing cellular network, which was never designed to stream movies or download the latest apps, but it does rather reduce the mobility of your mobile phone.

Perhaps the Republic Wireless model would work better in a country like Estonia, which enjoys near-ubiquitous Wi-Fi coverage.

State-Sponsored Cyberthieves Target Trade Secrets

“We have just seen the tip of this iceberg. The economic threats of cyberespionage are a lot worse than you think,” says Harry Sverdlove, CTO of the security firm Bit9 Inc. “Most businesses have already been probed, even if they do not know it.”

Suddenly, this is front-page news, and it is not about malicious hackers, nor is it about cybercriminals seeking to loot bank accounts. This is “game on” where the object, say the experts, is to pilfer a company’s intellectual property. And the perpetrators are apparently state-sponsored (read China).

If these experts are right, while most eyes are on Stuxnet and Zeus, the real action is focused on a systematic ransacking of trade secrets and intellectual property of companies in the US, the UK, and throughout Europe.

This loud warning was sounded recently in England by Major General Jonathan Shaw, head of the Ministry of Defense’s cybersecurity program, who told the Telegraph: “The biggest threat to this country by cyber is not military, it is economic.”

To prove his point, Shaw indicated that numerous UK businesses have shuttered precisely because their IP was looted. “If the moment you come up with a brilliant new idea, it gets nicked by the Chinese, then you can end up with your company going bust.”

According to Shaw, cyberespionage has cost the United Kingdom about $43 billion, and that is a number big enough to get attention.

Small and midsized businesses are emerging as the primary target of cyberespionage, say the experts. “Small and midsized businesses… often do not invest in the resources to protect themselves. They rely on antivirus and a firewall, and that is not sufficient to defend against well organized, state-sponsored attackers,” says Don DeBolt, director of threat research for Total Defense, an Internet security company.

“These attacks are happening every day. IP is being stolen every day,” says DeBolt.

And the attacks are happening to all kinds of companies. That’s a conclusion of McAfee’s so-called Shady Rat research, which has documented intrusions into 71 targets. The list is dazzlingly diverse, with real estate firms, accounting firms, government agencies, defense contractors, and many more included.

“They are interested in everything,” says Sverdlove, and no business -- no matter how small or obscure -- should count itself safe. “If you have IP of value, they want it.”

Sverdlove goes on: “I talk at a lot of conferences about these cyberattacks, and everybody who attends has a story about an attack. These are advanced persistent threats -- nation states have identified target companies, and they have assigned teams to gather the information they want. Day in, day out, they try. They have the patience of Job.”

Traditional cybercriminals usually give up when they run into high security walls, he said. They want quick payoffs -- the Internet equivalent of an old-fashioned bank stick-up -- and they do not have the resources or inclination to persistently probe for weaknesses. The state-sponsored crooks are a different breed: “They keep coming back, they keep probing, and they are finding and exploiting vulnerabilities.”

Do all the attacks originate in China? Right now, say the experts, the digital fingerprints appear to be Chinese, but there is recognition that capable cyberspies (perhaps in Russia, South Korea, Israel, or France, to name nations often cited) are well able to generate false trails. Exactly who is behind the present wave of economic attacks is not known, but the damage to looted businesses keeps mounting.

That is why the experts are raising a plea for simple steps by small and midsized businesses to ward off at least some attacks: “About 80 percent of our cyberproblems are caused by what I call poor cyberhygiene,” Major General Shaw told the Telegraph. “Many of them would go away if our cyberhygiene was better.”

DeBolt says a lot of vulnerability traces back to plain failure to do easy things such as patching browsers and upgrading to late model OSS. “Where you can upgrade, upgrade. You will be much safer.”

Bottom line: Companies need to assume they will be attacked, and, that understood, the only real question is: What are you going to do about it?

Light-Based Therapy Destroys Cancer Cells

The new approach, which features a heat-sensitive fluorescent dye, could eventually replace standard chemotherapy.

By Erica Westly

For more than two decades, researchers have tried to develop a light-activated cancer therapy that could replace standard chemotherapy, which is effective but causes serious negative side effects. Despite those efforts, they've struggled to come up with a light-activated approach that would target only cancer cells.

Now scientists at the National Cancer Institute have developed a possible solution that involves pairing cancer-specific antibodies with a heat-sensitive fluorescent dye. The dye is nontoxic on its own, but when it comes into contact with near-infrared light, it heats up and essentially burns a small hole in the cell membrane it has attached to, killing the cell.

(Light touch: Researchers treated the tumor on the right-hand side of this mouse's body with a light-activated therapy. The top image is befor treatment the bottom is after)
Hisatake Kobayasi, National Cancer Insitute

To target the tumor cells, the researchers used antibodies that bind to proteins that are overexpressed in cancer cells. "Normal cells may have a hundred copies of these antibodies, but cancer cells have millions of copies. That's a big difference," says Hisataka Kobayashi, a molecular imaging researcher at the National Cancer Institute and the lead author of the new study, published this week in Nature Medicine. The result is that only cancer cells are vulnerable to the light-activated cascade.

The researchers tested the new treatment in mice and found that it reduced tumor growth and prolonged survival.

There are a few kinks to work out before the system can be adapted for humans, though. For instance, the researchers couldn't test the treatment's effect on large tumors, since killing off too many cells at once caused cardiovascular problems in the mice. Finding the right cancer-cell markers to pair with the dye may also prove difficult. For example, HER-2, one of the proteins targeted in the study, is only expressed in 40 percent of breast-cancer cells in humans.

Still, the lack of toxicity associated with the treatment is a huge advantage, says Karen Brewer, a chemist at Virginia Tech who also works on light-activated cancer therapies. "What's interesting about this study is that they're applying a traditional method of targeting cancer cells to a light-activated treatment," she says. "This is really where the field is headed."

The dye used in the study offers another bonus because it lights up—allowing clinicians to track the treatment's progress with fluorescence imaging. In the mice, the fluorescence visibly declined in tumor cells a day after administration of the near-infrared light. Kobayashi suspects the approach could also prove valuable as a secondary therapy by helping surgeons label cancer cells that may remain after a tumor has been excised. "It could help clean up the tumor cells that are harder for surgeons to get to," he says.

Encryption for transit cards hacked on the cheap

Jesse Emspak, contributor
Chalk up another security measure that hackers can break.

The encryption protocol called Triple-Data Encryption Standard, or 3DES is  supposed to be unbreakable - at least not without a lot of computing time and power. Because of this, lots of contactless smart cards - London's Oyster Card, as well as cards used to store money and passes for mass transit systems in Chicago, Seattle and elsewhere - rely on 3DES to protect users' accounts.

But Christof Paar at Ruhr-University Bochum has led a team that hacked 3DES using a low-cost system to break in with just a few hours of work.

The team's method, called side channel analysis, is a lot like a safecracker listening for the clicks in an old-fashioned combination lock, or feeling for the catch in a combination padlock. Using a small probe, an RFID reader and an oscilloscope, the team measured the power consumption of the chip embedded in the card used while encrypting and decrypting its data, which allowed them to crack the code.

This allowed the team to make duplicates of the cards. The equipment, Paar says in a paper originally presented at the Workshop on Cryptographic Hardware and Embedded Systems in Japan last month, isn't all that expensive - about $3000, well within the reach of a criminal gang.

The manufacturer of the cards, NXP, says it is aware of the vulnerability and is recommending that customers upgrade to newer versions of the cards, as it had planned to phase out the version Paar and his colleagues worked on by year-end. The company says it had planned the upgrade before Paar's lab alerted them to the attack.

Hacking a transit card isn't all that lucrative, but subway rides aren't the only kind of contactless card out there. Visa and MasterCard use a system called payWave, also manufactured by NXP. Those could be hacked as well in a similar fashion. A similar type of attack was demonstrated on digital car keys in 2008, but this is the first time anyone has shown that a real-world system is vulnerable.

And while NXP says it will cease making the model of card that the German team hacked, it won't change instantly - transit systems take some time to "recycle" cards (as people renew or lose them) and credit card companies also don't act instantly. So odds are if you are carrying a contactless card with an NXP chip, it will be an older model for at least a few months.

Chinese Rocket Launches New Satellite for Pakistan

Stephen Clark, Spaceflight Now

China deployed a communications satellite for Pakistan on Thursday aboard a Long March 3B rocket launched from a mountainous spaceport in the southwest China's Sichuan province.
The fresh spacecraft, called PakSat 1R, replaces Pakistan's aging national communications satellite launched in 1996.
The Long March 3B rocket soared off the launch pad at 1615 GMT (12:15 p.m. EDT). It was 12:15 a.m. local time Friday at the Xichang space center.
China deployed a communications satellite for Pakistan on Thursday, August 11, 2011, aboard a Long March 3B rocket.
CREDIT: China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology (CALT)

The 180-foot-tall rocket streaked off the launch pad with the help of four strap-on boosters, turned east from the Xichang space base and deployed PakSat 1R in orbit about 26 minutes after liftoff, according to the state-run Xinhua news agency. [Related Photos: China's 1st Space Station]

The satellite weighed about 11,000 pounds at the time of launch.

PakSat 1R was placed in an oval-shaped orbit stretching from a low point of approximately 110 miles to a high point of about 26,000 miles. Its orbital inclination was about 24.8 degrees, according to independent tracking data.

The spacecraft will reach a circular orbit about 22,300 miles above the equator in the coming weeks. PakSat 1R will enter service after testing of its engineering systems and communications payload.

 

Stationed at 38 degrees east longitude, PakSat 1R will provide communications and broadcasting services to Pakistan and neighboring regions for at least 15 years. The satellite carries 18 Ku-band and 12 C-band transponders, according to Pakistan's Space and Upper Atmospheric Research Commission, or SUPARCO.

SUPARCO is Pakistan's national space agency, which fields the government's Earth observation and communications satellites.

PakSat 1R was built by the China Academy of Space Technology and is based on the DFH-4 spacecraft platform. China has reached agreements to build DFH-4 communications satellites for several non-traditional players in the space industry, including Pakistan, Nigeria, Venezuela, Laos and Bolivia.

Thursday's flight was China's seventh space launch of the year. All of the missions have been successful.

Pakistan Space Program

Pakistan Space and Upper Atmosphere Research Commission (SUPARCO) is Pakistan’s national space agency and was established in 1961 as a committee and was granted the status of a Commission in 1981. SUPARCO is devoted to Research and Development work in Space Sciences and Space Technology and their applications for the peaceful uses of outer space. It works towards developing indigenous capabilities in space technology and to promote space applications for socio-economic uplift of the country.

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Badr-1
Badr-1 (Badr-A) was Pakistan's first indigenously developed satellite and was launched from the Xichang Launch Center, China on July 16, 1990 aboard a Chinese Long March 2E rocket. Badr-1 weighed 150 pounds. Originally designed for a circular orbit at 250-300 miles altitude, Badr-1 actually was inserted by the Long March rocket into an elliptical orbit of 127-615 miles. The satellite successfully completed its designed life.

SUPARCO started building the small amateur radio satellite in late 1986 with support from the Pakistan Amateur Radio Society. The satellite was named Badr inspired from the Urdu language word for 'new moon'. Badr-1 was planned to be launched on the US Space Shuttle, but the 1986 Challenger explosion and consequent delay in American flights changed the plan.

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Badr-B

Pakistan’s second satellite was BADR-B. It was an Earth Observation Satellite and was launched on 10 December 2001 on a Zenit 2 rocket from Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan. It was designed by Space Innovations Limited from the UK.

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PakSat-1

Paksat 1 was Pakistan's first geostationary satellite. The satellite was originally known as Palapa C1 and was designed to serve Indonesia. After an electronics failure, it was renamed Anatolia 1 and then renamed again to Paksat 1 in 2002. It was originally manufactured by Boeing and used the

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Paksat-1R Satellite

Paksat-1R satellite will replace the existing Paksat-1 in 2010. Pakistan's national space agency signed a consulting deal with Telesat in March 2007 for advice on the purchase, manufacture and launch of the Paksat-1R satellite. Under the agreement Telesat will help the Pakistani agency find a manufacturer and provide technical and commercial advice during the negotiation process. Telesat will also help oversee the construction of the new satellite and monitor the launch and in-orbit testing services.

Did you know?

China launched Pakistan's first satellite to orbit in 1990 because Pakistan had no Spaceport. However, Pakistan does have a space program. In the future may they develop their own Spaceport and launch vehicle.

HS 601 spacecraft design. It was launched on February 1, 1996.

A Broadband Boom in the Boondocks

A massive injection of spectrum might be about to revolutionize the digital infrastructure of rural America.

For a glimpse of the wireless future, take a look at the Yurok Indian reservation, an out-of-the-way spot just south of the California-Oregon border at the mouth of the Klamath River. There, among the giant redwoods, stand three new towers built to create a new type of wireless network, known as "super Wi-Fi."  If the U.S. Federal Communications Commission gets its way, super Wi-Fi will become a key part of rural America's digital infrastructure.

Most people living on the Yurok's 63,000-acre reservation lack phone service. Almost none have high-speed Internet. The new towers aim to fix both problems. Unlike regular Wi-Fi networks, which are generally limited to beaming high-speed Internet around a house, super Wi-Fi promises to blanket entire neighborhoods with high-speed access. 

A Yurok tribal spokesman says the new signals will reach even into the steep-walled valleys that play havoc with most wireless signals. The tribe plans to start testing the system this week.

The FCC is so enthused with the idea of super Wi-Fi that it took the idea nationwide last month, issuing final rules that will free any town or county to do what the Yurok have done.  On Monday, FCC chairman Julius Genachowski proposed a way to pay for much of that infrastructure that would be needed to support municipal Super Wi-Fi. He wants to convert the current system of rural phone subsidies, which now total $8 billion a year, into a more modern system that can pay for things like super Wi-Fi.