Scientists at North Carolina's PULSTAR nuclear reactor facility fired a positron bean five times stronger than any other ever created earlier this month, breaking a record previously held by a team in Germany. The antimatter device -- which apparently looks like a Star Trek warp reactor -- was developed as part of a two year project by NC State, the University of Michigan, and Oak Ridge National Labs. Now that the device is working, the team is looking for practical applications for the tech, including building an "antimatter telescope," which would allow even closer observations of atomic interactions. Or they could use it to blow up the universe. You know, whatever.

Researchers fire most powerful antimatter beam ever - Engadget

PCMAG.com
October 15, 2007
by John C. Dvorak

I mention this only because over the weekend, Uncle Dave posted a rant on my blog by longtime network admin Marc Perkel. He went off on MySQL, Linux, and much of the open-source philosophy. You can read it here. I wasn't surprised that the number of comments immediately rose to over 100. But I was a little surprised at the sheer number of comments that featured that same peculiar whining you'd hear a decade or more ago, when you said something critical about the Amiga.

Among the comments in response to Marc Perkel's rant...

Comment 18.

This is just like arguing over Ford vs Chevy vs Dodge…

the people who are interested in what is going-on under the hood - and like to tinker with the internals - probably love linux & gnu.

the people who just want the damn thing to run - and could give a shit about what is under the hood - are left with the choice of windows or mac.

One side or the other claiming superiority is pointless.

Comment by Mike Voice — 10/14/2007 @ 9:49 am

Comment 20.

Dodge?

Comment by John C Dvorak — 10/14/2007 @ 9:54 am

LOL!

What's Wrong with Open-Source Software?

Russian artists from Moscow presented in London a totally useless but somehow cool device: goggles that you can put on and feel like somebody from "cyberspace."

Click through for the video.

See also HasciiCam.

See the world, Asciified, with The Matrix Goggles

Multinational corporations have foreign policies, and the "home" country doesn't necessarily get special treatment:

In an effort to curb distrust, in 2003 Microsoft signed a pact with China, Russia, the United Kingdom, NATO and other nations to let them see the Windows source code.

A couple of thoughts:

1) Possession of source code has limited defensive value unless you actually build your software from that source. Based on press reports the agreement does not facilitate local compilation.
2) Is it really feasible for a third party to audit the Vista source? The people involved seem to think so, or are at least making a show of it. I am dubious.
3) The utility of this 'pact' would seem to be primarily offensive.

Consider:

Microsoft has reportedly signed a new government security program source code agreement with China Information Technology Security Certification Center, allowing CNITSEC and other approved institutions to look over the source code and relevant technical data of Microsoft's products, including Windows Vista ,so as to improve their evaluation on the security of Microsoft products. The agreement is an important part of the MOU signed between National Development and Reform Commission and Microsoft in April 2006.

Microsoft's Government Security Program helps government departments and international organizations evaluate the security of Microsoft products. CNITSEC previously signed an agreement with Microsoft on security source code in February 2003 and was authorized to check over the company's major source code and technical data.

From 2003:

According to sources at the software company, China is the eighteenth nation to sign such an agreement to view Microsoft's proprietary source code.

Surely the number has grown since then.

Craig Mundie's doublespeak:

This program is an integral element of our efforts to help address the unique security requirements of governments.

Microsoft Forges 'Pact' With Cyberwarriors Worldwide

China is seeking to unseat the United States as the dominant power in cyberspace, a U.S. Air Force general leading a new push in this area said Wednesday.

"They're the only nation that has been quite that blatant about saying, 'We're looking to do that,"' 8th Air Force Commander Lt. Gen. Robert Elder told reporters.

Elder is to head a new three-star cyber command being set up at Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana, already home to about 25,000 military personnel involved in everything from electronic warfare to network defense.

The command's focus is to control the cyber domain, critical to everything from communications to surveillance to infrastructure security.

"We have peer competitors right now in terms of doing computer network attack ... and I believe we're going to be able to ratchet up our capability," Elder said. "We're going to go way ahead."

The Defense Department said in its annual report on China's military power last month that China regarded computer network operations -- attacks, defense and exploitation -- as critical to achieving "electromagnetic dominance" early in a conflict.

China's People's Liberation Army has established information warfare units to develop viruses to attack enemy computer systems and networks, the Pentagon said.

China also was investing in electronic countermeasures and defenses against electronic attack, including infrared decoys, angle reflectors and false-target generators, it said.

Elder described the bulk of current alleged Chinese cyber-operations as industrial espionage aimed at stealing trade secrets to save years of high-tech development.

He attributed the espionage to a mix of criminals, hackers and "nation-state" forces. Virtually all potential U.S. foes also were scanning U.S. networks for trade and defense secrets, he added.

"Everyone but North Korea," he said. "We've concluded that there must be only one laptop in all of North Korea -- and that guy's not allowed to scan overseas networks," Elder said.

In October, the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff defined cyberspace as "characterized by the use of electronics and the electromagnetic spectrum to store, modify, and exchange data via networked systems and associated physical infrastructures."

General: China taking on U.S. in cyber arms race - CNN.com

I have consumed a massive amount of Red Bull in the last 2 weeks in a run up to finishing the manuscript for my Ajax Security book. We are talking on average 2-3 a day, with an occasional day of 4. Once there was a day of 5. Just once, and *never* again. At some point you can't really call them "days" anymore. A day is simply a convenient unit of 24 hours that may or may not start at 12:00am.

There is an elusive euphoria stage of Red Bull consumption where you are unbelievably productive and yet task that seemly take hours take only about 27 minutes or so. That was the odd thing. It always seemed 27 minutes later. I like to call this stage "Fry-Time" in reference to that Futurama episode where Fry drinks 100 cups of coffee and time slows to a crawl. Fry-Time occurs only in a narrow band on the line between total exhaustion and caffeine-induced heart attack and is a difficult stage to reach. I've hit Fry-Time maybe 3-4 times ever. 2 of those times have happened in the last 2 weeks.

Then, there is the "attention deficient disordering" stage. This stage occurs beyond Fry-Time and before the caffeine-induced heart attack phase. In this phase, you want to be productive. You are aware of all the work you need to accomplish as well as its importance. You feel motivated and excited about all your projects. In fact, it feels like you are in the Fry-Time stage. But you aren't. You are ADDing. Because as soon as you try to do something. You can't. Halfway through your brain jumps to thinking about another task and you stall. Its like OS scheduler that has so many jobs to do it spends all it time context switching instead of actually making any progress on any of them. This is an extremely frustrating phase because you know what's happening. And the very act of noticing that you are being scattered brained brings to mind all the tasks you still need to do which makes you think about how cool some of them are and suddenly you aren't doing any more work on whatever it was you were working on. You've context switched to another job.

The only thing to do in the ADD stage is wait it out and try to be productive later. The only problem is when you are in the ADD phase you have had so much Red Bull you can't sleep! So you are wide awake, too hyped to do anything, knowing you have shit to do, and losing time that you could be sleeping.

This is exactly what happened to me around 4:00am this morning. On an upside, I got through about 60 pages of Guns, Germs, and Steel. Elonka's cousin sure can write!

Taming the Bull

‘I will live in a very quiet world’
By David Searle
Robin Wood and the aerials that neighbours have complained about.
Robin Wood and the aerials that neighbours have complained about.

A BLIND amateur radio ham fears he may lose his contact with the outside world if he is given an antisocial behaviour order over the aerials he keeps in his garden.

Robin Wood, 61, of Ombersley Close, Woodrow, is a licensed amateur radio operator who has had aerials in his garden for 15 years.

But after a visit from an ASBO officer, Redditch Council wants to reduce the size of the aerials, meaning he will no longer be able to communicate with his friends around the world.

"I'm blind and the radio is the only way I can communicate with the outside world. I use the radio as my social life," said Mr Wood.

"I'm not prepared to lose my quality of life. I feel threatened when I go outside and haven't been out on my own for 15 years.

"I can't watch the TV either - without my radio, I will live in a very quiet world."
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Mr Wood uses the radio to keep in touch with friends from as far afield as New York, Australia and Canada but the reduced sized aerials would not be able to transmit that far.

"The council just won't listen to me. They won't find anyone technically competent enough who can tell me exactly what the problem is and exactly what I have to take down and why I have to do it.

"They've threatened me with court if I don't take them down. I speak to them but they don't take anything on board," said Mr Wood.

Mr Wood's wife June said: "When you think of ASBOs, you think of young delinquents, not a 61-year-old man."

Mr Wood is now involved in talks with lawyers about the steps he can take to keep his aerials the same size.

A council spokesman said: "Residents are concerned about the visual impact of this resident's aerials, the radio interference they are experiencing and the nuisance this is causing them.

"Following legal advice, we're working with the resident and the relevant organisations involved to come to a solution that meets the needs of all parties."

This is bullshit.... Hams here in the US are required to take the steps to reduce and/or eliminate interference and I am sure it is the same in the UK.... Someone has a beef with someone and they bend the laws to take them out....

Just like the DoD jumps on hams on the coasts for the interference to PAVE/PAWS radar... but why is it now a problem? I can not seem to find out why?

see link http://www.eham.net/articles/16786

*update*

"Let's see if I understand this: The Anti Social Behavior Officer is wanting to remove the primary social outlet of an individual because of neighbors who are not very sociable. OK, I thing I have it. The antisocials are upset that he is being sociable. The Anti Social Behavior Officer is trying to enforce antisocial Behavior."

I Will Live In A Very Quiet World (from Redditch Advertiser)

A three-week wave of massive cyber-attacks on the small Baltic country of Estonia, the first known incidence of such an assault on a state, is causing alarm across the western alliance, with Nato urgently examining the offensive and its implications.

While Russia and Estonia are embroiled in their worst dispute since the collapse of the Soviet Union, a row that erupted at the end of last month over the Estonians' removal of the Bronze Soldier Soviet war memorial in central Tallinn, the country has been subjected to a barrage of cyber warfare, disabling the websites of government ministries, political parties, newspapers, banks, and companies.

Nato has dispatched some of its top cyber-terrorism experts to Tallinn to investigate and to help the Estonians beef up their electronic defences.

"This is an operational security issue, something we're taking very seriously," said an official at Nato headquarters in Brussels. "It goes to the heart of the alliance's modus operandi."

Interesting. This is the first I've heard of this.

If it were established that Russia is behind the attacks, it would be the first known case of one state targeting another by cyber-warfare.

I'm not so sure about that part... I guess it depends on how you define cyber-warfare. I prefer to view this all as different flavors of information warfare, which very much includes espionage activity, which we have often seen.

The crisis unleashed a wave of so-called DDoS, or Distributed Denial of Service, attacks, where websites are suddenly swamped by tens of thousands of visits, jamming and disabling them by overcrowding the bandwidths for the servers running the sites. The attacks have been pouring in from all over the world, but Estonian officials and computer security experts say that, particularly in the early phase, some attackers were identified by their internet addresses - many of which were Russian, and some of which were from Russian state institutions.

"The cyber-attacks are from Russia. There is no question. It's political," said Merit Kopli, editor of Postimees, one of the two main newspapers in Estonia, whose website has been targeted and has been inaccessible to international visitors for a week. It was still unavailable last night.

At the moment, the big question may be if this type of attack qualifies as a military action in the same way that electronic warfare does. At this point, if only websites are being DoS'd, it's one thing. If the attacks are (or become) focused on key infrastructure, it would be more clear cut. If these attacks are driven by state conflicts, this is a dangerous grey area to play in.

Without more information, it is very hard to determine if these attacks are backed by the state, or just being done by rogue hackers that happen to be motivated by the row between Russia and Estonia.

Russia accused of unleashing cyberwar to disable Estonia | Guardian Unlimited

The most effective way to find and destroy a land mine is to step on it.

This has bad results, of course, if you're a human. But not so much if you're a robot and have as many legs as a centipede sticking out from your body. That's why Mark Tilden, a robotics physicist at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, built something like that. At the Yuma Test Grounds in Arizona, the autonomous robot, 5 feet long and modeled on a stick-insect, strutted out for a live-fire test and worked beautifully, he says. Every time it found a mine, blew it up and lost a limb, it picked itself up and readjusted to move forward on its remaining legs, continuing to clear a path through the minefield.

Finally it was down to one leg. Still, it pulled itself forward. Tilden was ecstatic. The machine was working splendidly.

The human in command of the exercise, however -- an Army colonel -- blew a fuse.

The colonel ordered the test stopped.

Why? asked Tilden. What's wrong?

The colonel just could not stand the pathos of watching the burned, scarred and crippled machine drag itself forward on its last leg.

This test, he charged, was inhumane.

A sad, sad robot song to sing.

Bots on The Ground - washingtonpost.com

Having heard that Vista's CD/DVD burn utility by default uses a nonstandard format, possibly as a result of yet another one of Microsoft's lock-in schemes, I decided to check things out for myself. That would also give me a nice chance to see what Vista was all about.

The plan was simple:
1. Locate a Vista box,

2. Bring empty CD's plus some arbitrary files on a USB stick, and

3. Burn CD's in several ways while making screenshots.

As it turned out, the planning was the simplest part by far. The rest is best described as a tale of frustration.

From the article, it seems that Vista really goes out of its way to try and make the user use a non-standard CD/DVD image format - when it works at all.

Burning Issues With Vista