With just 16 days before the Olympic Games kick off in London, there's been a major hitch in the much-hyped security plans. Thousands of extra British soliders have had to be drafted in after a private firm failed to supply promised guards. The company's been paid almost 300 million pounds - but hasn't trained enough staff. RT's Sara Firth has more.
0 British Army steps in as London 2012 defense plan falls short
With just 16 days before the Olympic Games kick off in London, there's been a major hitch in the much-hyped security plans. Thousands of extra British soliders have had to be drafted in after a private firm failed to supply promised guards. The company's been paid almost 300 million pounds - but hasn't trained enough staff. RT's Sara Firth has more.
0 $50 Million Stealth Ship Sold for $2.5 Million, Headed to Scrap Heap
If any of you out there were still holding out to buy the first ever stealth ship, then your boat has set sail. The IX-529, or Sea Shadow to its friends, has been sold for a measly $2.5 million.
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| The IX-529 |
Sadly, the once top secret experimental vessel won’t be plying the seas anymore: It’s headed to that big scrap heap in the sky.
Originally built in 1985 by Lockheed Martin, the Sea Shadow was intended to test whether the same technologies that spawned the F-117 Nighthawk stealth fighter could be applied to naval vessels as well. Built in secret for $50 million, the Sea Shadow demonstrated that it could not only evade radar and sneak up on other ships, but that it could survive intense storms thanks to its twin-hull design.
Finally unveiled to the public in 1993, the Sea Shadow never went into production and was little more than an (extremely cool looking) experiment. Interestingly, its fate intersected another storied secret naval craft, the Hughes Mining Barge or HMB-1. A submersible drydock barge, the HMB-1 was used to house the Sea Shadow during construction, and ferried the secret boat to and from sea trials far from prying eyes.
For the HMB-1, its time with the Sea Shadow was an encore career. It had already made its name being used in Project Azorian (incorrectly referred to as “Project Jennifer”), a top secret CIA operation which raised the downed Soviet submarine K-129 in 1974.
With limited space onboard and no real practical use beyond experimentation, the Navy attempted to give the Sea Shadow to any interested museum. However, they found no takers and the two craft were sent to the Suisun Bay mothball fleet. Then in April, the General Services Administration’s auction site listed the two craft for sale for an opeing bid of $100,420under the condition that the Sea Shadow be scrapped.
In the end, the California-based Bay Ship & Yacht Co. won the auction with a final bid around $2.5 million. In an interview with the Sacramento Bee, Bay Ship & Yacht Co. general managerAlan Cameron described his dismay in scrapping such a unique vessel.
“We don’t think we’re going to make money on Sea Shadow at all [...] In fact, it would have been wonderful if we could have just floated it out of there and given it to somebody.”
The HMB-1, however, is free to be repurposed which the Bay Ship & Yacht Co. apparently intends to do. According to the Bee, HMB-1 will become a floating drydock for servicing ships.
But though the Sea Shadow will be gone, it will sure not be forgotten. It will live on in our dreams, in our memories, and as the inspiration for that stealth ship in Tomorrow Never Dies.
(Sacramento Bee via NOSInt, image via Wikipedia)
0 Sudan blames Zionist-American plot for unrest
Sudan accused unnamed "Zionist institutions" on Sunday of fanning anti-government protests as it tries to snuff out disturbances which echo Arab Spring unrest elsewhere.
For two weeks, anti-austerity protesters have been calling for the resignation of the government of President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, one of Africa's longest serving leaders.
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| President Omar Hassan al-Bashir |
Sudan lost three-quarters of its oil revenue after South Sudan gained independence last year, forcing the government to impose cuts that have hit Sudanese who were already grappling with soaring inflation and a weakening currency.
"Zionist institutions inside the United States and elsewhere... are exploiting the latest economic decisions to destabilize the security and political situation," the state-linked Sudanese Media Centre quoted presidential assistant Nafie Ali Nafie as saying.
Nafie said the government had evidence of collusion between rebel groups in Darfur, politicians in arch-foe South Sudan and Zionist institutions in the United States to sabotage Sudan. He did not present the evidence.
The demonstrations have rarely gathered more than a few hundred people at a time, but have been an added pressure for Bashir's government, already trying to contain the economic crisis and multiple armed insurgencies.
Police used teargas to put down protests in Khartoum on Friday.
The Sudanese Commission for Defence of Freedoms and Rights estimated on Sunday that 1,000 people had been arrested since the protests began.
Demonstrators have chanted the widespread Arab Spring refrain: "The people want the downfall of the regime".
Unusually, there was no official ceremony on Saturday to mark the 23rd anniversary of Bashir's bloodless coup.
Instead, Bashir attended the opening of a shopping mall in central Khartoum. Sudanese media reported the state would donate 20 percent of revenues from the mall to the poor.
Bashir is wanted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes in Darfur, charges Sudan has dismissed as baseless and politically motivated. (Additional reporting by Khalid Abdelaziz; Writing by Yara Bayoumy; Editing by Matthew Tostevin)
0 Jail For File-Sharing Not Enough, Labels Want ISP-Level Spying Regime
From October, knowingly uploading or simply downloading copyrighted material from the Internet will be a criminal offense subject to jail sentences in Japan. But despite now having the ultimate deterrent, it’s still not enough for the Recording Industry Association of Japan.
The group is now pressing for ISPs to install spying technologies that will automatically block unauthorized uploads.
Earlier this week, Japan approved an amendment to its Copyright Law that will soon give the authorities the power to jail Internet users for up to two years for simply downloading copyright material.
Uploading copyright material has been illegal for some time, but the criminalization of downloading has caused some to worry whether simply viewing a pirate music video on YouTube could render people liable to prosecution.
Understandably this kind of talk has the potential to lead to a climate of fear among Internet media consumers, but if that leads to increased sales at authorized outlets rightsholders won’t be too disappointed. In fact, after lobbying hard for this tough copyright law amendment, that will be very much “mission accomplished.”
Not surprisingly though, even the toughest of sanctions aren’t going to stop the big recording labels coming back for more mechanisms to protect their interests. And that they have.
Several music rights groups including the Recording Industry Association of Japan say they have developed a system capable of automatically detecting unauthorized music uploads before they even hit the Internet. In order to do that though, Internet service providers are being asked to integrate the system into their networks.
The system works by spying on the connections of users and comparing data being uploaded to the Internet with digital fingerprints held in an external database. As can be seen from the diagram, the fingerprinting technology employed is from GraceNote, with intermediate systems provided by Copyright Data Clearinghouse (CDC).
Once a match is found, rightholders want ISPs to automatically block the allegedly infringing content. But according to one report, there may even be requests to send out warning letters to uploaders. If implemented this would amount to the most invasive “3 strikes” style regime anywhere in the world.
The system is being promoted as a benefit to ISPs, in the sense that once installed (and licensed at a cost of around $600 per month) they can potentially avoid being held liable for copyright infringements carried out by their customers. Whether not having it installed will save ISPs from privacy invasion lawsuits remains to be seen.
Rightsholders have tried to get service providers to install this kind of system before, most notably resulting in the legal battle between music rights group SABAM and Belgian ISP Scarlet. That case ended in 2011 with the European Court of Justice declaring that spying on Internet users would breach their privacy and violate the fundamental rights of both the ISP and its subscribers.
0 CNBC Admits We're All Slaves To ROTHSCHILD CENTRAL BANKERS GLOBAL GOVERNMENT
Truth on CNBC?....now I've seen it all.
0 U.S. Army prepares to invade U.S.
The plans to implement martial law in America have been taking shape for decades, hidden behind "Continuity of Government" contingency planning. Now, with public outcry over the banker bailout bill at fever pitch, all of the pieces are in place for the U.S. Army to start policing American citizens.
For more information and analysis, please visit
http://www.corbettreport.com
0 Former Tepco chief to be grilled over Fukushima disaster for first time
TOKYO (Reuters) - The former president of Fukushima plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co faces questioning for the first time on Friday by a high profile investigative panel seeking to uncover the causes of the world's worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl.
Members of the panel appointed by parliament will likely grill Masataka Shimizu over whether he planned to abandon the tsunami-devastated Fukushima plant at the height of the crisis in March 2011, as reactors melted down and the situation was in danger of spinning out of control, threatening Tokyo itself.
Then-prime minister Naoto Kan and two other ministers handling the disaster response have told the panel that Shimizu had planned to withdraw all of his utility's workers as explosions rocked the plant and three reactors melted down, spewing radiation across northeast Japan.
Shimizu, 67, was also widely criticized for vanishing from public view three days after the disaster struck. He was later hospitalized for dizziness and high blood pressure, leaving the utility's chairman to supervise operations during his absence.
Shimizu's testimony coincides with efforts by Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda's government to restart two idled nuclear reactors in western Japan to cope with possible power shortages when electricity demand peaks in July and August.
All of Japan's 50 reactors have gone offline since the crisis and Tokyo has been trying to win local communities' agreement for the restarts despite persistent public concerns about safety and delays in setting up a new nuclear regulator.
The government is also thrashing out a new energy strategy after scrapping a 2010 plan that would have boosted nuclear power's share of electricity to more than 50 percent by 2030 from around 30 percent before the disaster.
UNPREPARED FOR RISKS
Shimizu, who stepped down in June last year as president of the utility, known as Tepco, has been questioned in parliament but Friday is the first time he appears publicly in front of one of the three main inquiries that have looked into the disaster.
He and other Tepco executives had said repeatedly that the scale of the natural disaster was unpredictable, but company documents have shown the utility was well aware of the risk.
Kan, who himself resigned last year after harsh criticism of his handling of the crisis, told the panel last week he had rushed to Tepco headquarters on March 15 to order Shimizu not to withdraw all the utility's workers.
Tepco, however, has denied it planned a full-scale pullout from the plant, which lost power and cooling capacity after a massive earthquake and the tsunami devastated the facility.
Shimizu quickly became a target of public outrage in the early days and weeks of the crisis.
The governor of Fukushima prefecture, where the stricken plant is located, on two occasions refused to meet him when the president visited to apologize.
But in a sign of the close ties that bind corporate Japan, Shimizu will later this month become an outside board member of Fuji Oil Co., which is owned by AOC Holdings Inc., a firm in which Tepco has an 8.7 percent stake.
Tepco itself, burdened with massive compensation and clean-up costs from the disaster, will be taken over by the government through a 1 trillion yen ($12.6 billion) injection of public funds to be approved at a shareholders' meeting this month.
The eventual cost of the disaster has been estimated at more than $100 billion. Last week, Tepco said the radiation release from Fukushima's meltdowns was more than twice initial estimates.
($1 = 79.5700 Japanese yen)
(Additional reporting by Osamu Tsukimori; Editing by Linda Sieg and Mark Bendeich)
Source:http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/nationworld/sns-rt-us-japan-nuclear-shimizubre85703w-20120607,0,6381925.story
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| Workers stand near the No. 4 reactor building at the Tokyo Electric Power Co's (TEPCO) tsunami-crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Fukushima prefecture (POOL, REUTERS / June 7, 2012) |
Members of the panel appointed by parliament will likely grill Masataka Shimizu over whether he planned to abandon the tsunami-devastated Fukushima plant at the height of the crisis in March 2011, as reactors melted down and the situation was in danger of spinning out of control, threatening Tokyo itself.
Then-prime minister Naoto Kan and two other ministers handling the disaster response have told the panel that Shimizu had planned to withdraw all of his utility's workers as explosions rocked the plant and three reactors melted down, spewing radiation across northeast Japan.
Shimizu, 67, was also widely criticized for vanishing from public view three days after the disaster struck. He was later hospitalized for dizziness and high blood pressure, leaving the utility's chairman to supervise operations during his absence.
Shimizu's testimony coincides with efforts by Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda's government to restart two idled nuclear reactors in western Japan to cope with possible power shortages when electricity demand peaks in July and August.
All of Japan's 50 reactors have gone offline since the crisis and Tokyo has been trying to win local communities' agreement for the restarts despite persistent public concerns about safety and delays in setting up a new nuclear regulator.
The government is also thrashing out a new energy strategy after scrapping a 2010 plan that would have boosted nuclear power's share of electricity to more than 50 percent by 2030 from around 30 percent before the disaster.
UNPREPARED FOR RISKS
Shimizu, who stepped down in June last year as president of the utility, known as Tepco, has been questioned in parliament but Friday is the first time he appears publicly in front of one of the three main inquiries that have looked into the disaster.
He and other Tepco executives had said repeatedly that the scale of the natural disaster was unpredictable, but company documents have shown the utility was well aware of the risk.
Kan, who himself resigned last year after harsh criticism of his handling of the crisis, told the panel last week he had rushed to Tepco headquarters on March 15 to order Shimizu not to withdraw all the utility's workers.
Tepco, however, has denied it planned a full-scale pullout from the plant, which lost power and cooling capacity after a massive earthquake and the tsunami devastated the facility.
Shimizu quickly became a target of public outrage in the early days and weeks of the crisis.
The governor of Fukushima prefecture, where the stricken plant is located, on two occasions refused to meet him when the president visited to apologize.
But in a sign of the close ties that bind corporate Japan, Shimizu will later this month become an outside board member of Fuji Oil Co., which is owned by AOC Holdings Inc., a firm in which Tepco has an 8.7 percent stake.
Tepco itself, burdened with massive compensation and clean-up costs from the disaster, will be taken over by the government through a 1 trillion yen ($12.6 billion) injection of public funds to be approved at a shareholders' meeting this month.
The eventual cost of the disaster has been estimated at more than $100 billion. Last week, Tepco said the radiation release from Fukushima's meltdowns was more than twice initial estimates.
($1 = 79.5700 Japanese yen)
(Additional reporting by Osamu Tsukimori; Editing by Linda Sieg and Mark Bendeich)
Source:http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/nationworld/sns-rt-us-japan-nuclear-shimizubre85703w-20120607,0,6381925.story
0 Geoengineering may lead to whiter sky
One idea for fighting global warming is to increase the amount of aerosols in the atmosphere, scattering incoming solar energy away from the Earth’s surface; scientists, however, theorize that this solar geoengineering could have a side effect of whitening the sky during the day
One idea for fighting global warming is to increase the amount of aerosols in the atmosphere, scattering incoming solar energy away from the Earth’s surface. Scientists, however, theorize that this solar geoengineering could have a side effect of whitening the sky during the day. New research from Carnegie’s Ben Kravitz and Ken Caldeira indicates that blocking 2 percent of the sun’s light would make the sky three-to-five times brighter, as well as whiter. Their work is published 1 June in Geophysical Research Letters, a journal of the American Geophysical Union.
A Carnegie Institution for Science release reports that carbon dioxide emissions from the burning of coal, oil, and gas have been increasing over the past decades, causing the Earth to get hotter and hotter. Large volcanic eruptions cool the planet by creating lots of small particles in the stratosphere, but the particles fall out within a couple of years, and the planet heats back up. The idea behind solar geoengineering is constantly to replenish a layer of small particles in the stratosphere, mimicking this volcanic aftermath and scattering sunlight back to space.
Using advanced models, Kravitz and Caldeira — along with Douglas MacMartin from the California Institute of Technology — examined changes to sky color and brightness from using sulfate-based aerosols in this way. They found that, depending on the size of the particles, the sky would whiten during the day and sunsets would have afterglows.
Their models predict that the sky would still be blue, but it would be a lighter shade than what most people are used to looking at now. The research team’s work shows that skies everywhere could look like those over urban areas in a world with this type of geoengineering taking place. In urban areas, the sky often looks hazy and white.
“These results give people one more thing to consider before deciding whether we really want to go down this road,” Kravitz said. “Although our study did not address the potential psychological impact of these changes to the sky, they are important to consider as well.”
There are several larger environmental implications to the group’s findings, too. Because plants grow more efficiently under diffuse light conditions such as this, global photosynthetic activity could increase, pulling more of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. On the other hand, the effectiveness of solar power could be diminished, as less sunlight would reach solar-power generators.
“I hope that we never get to the point where people feel the need to spray aerosols in the sky to offset rampant global warming,” Caldeira said. “This is one study where I am not eager to have our predictions proven right by a global stratospheric aerosol layer in the real world.”
— Read more in Ben Kravitz et al., “Geoengineering: Whiter skies?”Geophysical Research Letters 39 (1 June 2012) (doi:10.1029/2012GL051652)
0 US Troops in Iraq talk about Halliburton & KBR
This from a government that supposedly "Loves" their military
0 Lord Jacob Rothschild Confronted by We Are Change
This is one of the 12 videos you will see released on May 31st during our 12 hour Donation Drive broadcast at Bilderberg. Help WeAreChange reach our goal @ http://wearechange.org/donate watch live here http://ustream.tv/wearechange
For decades, a shadowy and secret elite organization called the Bilderberg Group has plotted policy together that subjugates humanity under the cover of darkness. On the first day of the Bilderberg Group meeting in Chantilly, VA on May 31st, from 10am to 10pm, Luke Rudkowski of WeAreChange will shine a much needed light on the group's members and media pundits that have kept details about the group hidden from the American public. Tune intohttp://www.ustream.tv/WeAreChange for a twelve hour donation drive being broadcast outside the Bilderberg conference to watch TWELVE never seen before confrontations released LIVE every hour. If you want to continue to hold these politicians accountable and make sure the elites continue to hear the voice of the people, donate to WeAreChange.org at http://www.WeAreChange.org/donate
WeAreChange's Schedule for the release of the 12 never before seen confrontation videos. We will release these videos while streaming live from Chantilly, VA, outside the Bilderberg meeting. Starts Thursday, May 31st at 10am. http://www.ustream.tv/WeAreChange
1. Tony Blair (10am)
2. Lawrence O'Donnell (11am)
3. Alan Greenspan (12pm)
4. George Pataki (1pm)
5. Charlie Rose (2pm)
6. Ted Turner (3pm)
7. Henry Kissinger (4pm)
8. Jill Abramson (5pm)
9. Vernon Jordan (6pm)
10. Paul Wolfensohn (7pm)
11. Lou Dobbs and Paula Zahn (8pm)
12. Lord Jacob Rothschild (9pm)
0 E.P.A. Chemist Who Warned of Ground Zero Dust Is Reinstated
A senior Environmental Protection Agency chemist who argued that she was removed from her job in retaliation for accusing the agency of underestimating the toxicity of dust at ground zero has been reinstated with back pay by an administrative board.
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| Cate Jenkins |
The federal Merit Systems Protection Board ruled late last week in Washington that the agency violated the due process rights of the chemist, Cate Jenkins, when she was fired in 2010 because she was not informed of all the charges against her.
The panel also found that an administrative judge who first heard the case did not give her an adequate opportunity to make her case that she was dismissed for acting as a whistle-blower.
Dr. Jenkins sued under the federal Whistle-Blower Protection Act, saying she was being punished for charging that the agency had relied on data that it knew mismeasured the pH levels of the dust released by the World Trade Center collapse in 2001.
The E.P.A. has said that Dr. Jenkins was fired for charges related to threatening a supervisor.
Dr. Jenkins had a history of disagreeing with her superiors on scientific matters at the agency and in 2009 underwent a two-day suspension for “discourteous, unprofessional and bullying” conduct toward colleagues.
The board did not decide if the E.P.A. fired Dr. Jenkins for her accusations. Instead, it said she was not given a full opportunity for a defense because she was not informed of a third charge used to justify her removal.
But Paula Dinerstein, a lawyer for Dr. Jenkins, said Tuesday that the ruling vindicated her client indirectly. “I think it shows to us that the agency was trying to get rid of her and silence her by making this allegation, and to go to the length of even a constitutional violation to get her out of there,” she said.
The E.P.A. is free to bring charges against the scientist again. It did not respond to requests for comment late Tuesday on how it planned to proceed.
Dr. Jenkins’s reinstatement was reported by The Guardian on Friday.
Recent scientific studies have found that the particles released by the towers’ collapse were more harmful to workers’ lungs than experts had believed.
They did not "underestimate" the toxicity,
THEY LIED!
0 Not Even A Drill: US, S.Korea speс-ops pester Pyongyang
It's a scandal likely to fuel the long-standing tensions between Washington and Pyongyang. A media report accuses US and South Korean special forces of parachuting into North Korea to spy on underground military facilities. The source was an American army general who admitted the missions had happened. It's been vehemently denied by Washington which now accuses the journalist behind the report of making up the quotes. Journalist Nile Bowie talks to RT. He says Washington strategy goes far beyond that.
Subscribe to RT! http://www.youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=RussiaToday
0 Flame: Israel's New Contribution to the Middle East Cyberwar
The country that brought us Iranian nuclear assassinations, explosions at Iran missile bases, and Stuxnet, is at it again.
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| Map of known infections from Flame |
A computer virus called Flame, is spreading among computers in the Middle East. according to an article by an expert at Kapersky Labs:
…We’ve found what might be the most sophisticated cyber weapon yet unleashed. The ‘Flame’ cyber espionage worm came to the attention of our experts at Kaspersky Lab after the UN’s International Telecommunication Union came to us for help in finding an unknown piece of malware which was deleting sensitive information across the Middle East. While searching for that code – nicknamed Wiper – we discovered a new malware codenamed Worm.Win32.Flame.Flame shares many characteristics with notorious cyber weapons Duqu and Stuxnet: while its features are different, the geography and careful targeting of attacks coupled with the usage of specific software vulnerabilities seems to put it alongside those familiar ‘super-weapons’ currently deployed in the Middle East by unknown perpetrators. Flame can easily be described as one of the most complex threats ever discovered. It’s big and incredibly sophisticated. It pretty much redefines the notion of cyberwar and cyberespionage.…Flame is one of the most complex threats ever discovered.
Classical Zionism decrees that Israel should be a “light unto the nations.” But Israeli cyberwarriors have taken the saying a bit too literally making Israel a “flame” unto the nations. Such a contribution Israel is making to the advancement of western civilization. It would make Herzl and Ahad HaAm proud.
My major scoop is that my senior Israeli source confirms that it is a product of Israeli cyberwarfare experts. Most such products are produced by the IDF’s Unit 8200, though the Mossad also may take some role in such projects. So add to all the previous marginally successful efforts this new one. The goal is apparently to infiltrate the computers of individuals in Iran, Israel, Palestine and elsewhere who are engaged in activities that interest Israel’s secret police including military intelligence. My source also tells me that this is the first known instance in which Israeli intelligence has used malware to intrude on Israeli citizens. Within Israel and the Palestinian territories Flame is implemented by the Shin Bet. The “beauty” of it for the secret police is that unlike “legal” eavesdropping on phones or computers, you don’t need to ask for judicial approval to infect a computer. No Israeli police officer would ever investigate a case of an Israeli computer infected with Flame since it would lead to exposing Israeli security services.
Flame appears to be the third generation of Israeli malware after Stuxnet and Duqu, which were more specifically targeted at Iranian industrial facilities, specifically its centrifuge network. It shares some capabilities with them and exploits similar vulnerabilities to gain access to targeted computers and systems (though it is 20 times larger in size). There is also some indication of similar exploits used by Stuxnet and Flame used to access host computers, which indicate they may share common authorship or have been developed by two separate groups sharing data:
Flame is a sophisticated attack toolkit, which is a lot more complex than Duqu. It is a backdoor, a Trojan, and it has worm-like features, allowing it to replicate in a local network and on removable media if it is commanded so by its master…Once a system is infected, Flame begins a complex set of operations, including sniffing the network traffic, taking screenshots, recording audio conversations, intercepting the keyboard, and so on. All this data is available to the operators through the link to Flame’s command-and-control servers.Later, the operators can choose to upload further modules, which expand Flame’s functionality. There are about 20 modules in total and the purpose of most of them is still being investigated.
The “innovation” of Flame is that it not only can record audio, which is a relatively rare feature of worms, it can intrude into the host in multiple ways to steal and monitor information (including recording keystrokes and taking screenshots). In this fashion it can capture IM conversations that might be otherwise encrypted. It’s what they call in baseball a “triple threat.” It also has lots of wifi features especially using Bluetooth which enable it to use the host to scan nearby electronic devices (possibly for vulnerabilities and access to them as well).
Unlike with Stuxnet, the creators of Flame obscured any possibly information that would identify when the original source was created. This would make it more difficult to track the code to its source in any specific way. Kapersky though considers the worm a creation that does not predate and says that its authors continue to refine it.
Unlike Stuxnet which was designed to sabotage Iran’s centrifuge network, Flame is not a single-focus malware:
…The creators of Flame are simply looking for any kind of intelligence – e-mails, documents, messages, discussions inside sensitive locations, pretty much everything. We have not seen any specific signs indicating a particular target such as the energy industry – making us believe it’s a complete attack toolkit designed for general cyber-espionage purposes.
However, Flame can do some of the things that Stuxnet did, so it could also be adapted for such specific uses in the event it found a convenient target. Also, unlike Stuxnet which was designed to sabotage Iran’s nuclear program, the current worm targets individuals and organizations more than state entities:
There doesn’t seem to be any visible pattern re the kind of organizations targeted by Flame. Victims range from individuals to certain state-related organizations or educational institutions.
Flame uses at least 80 different servers and domain names to relay its data back home, so it is extremely difficult to track usage and where the information is transferred.
Kapersky notes that Flame may’ve been a companion project to Stuxnet and Duqu that was different enough from them that if the latter two were discovered, Flame could continue operating undetected:
…We believe Flame to be a parallel project, created as a fallback in case some other project is discovered.
Here is some further data on how Flame retrieves information and gleans what is useful to it from what is not:
Flame appears to be much, much more widespread than Duqu, with probably thousands of victims worldwide. The targets are also of a much wider scope, including academia, private companies, specific individuals and so on.According to our observations, the operators of Flame…infect several dozen, then conduct analysis of the data of the victim, uninstall Flame from the systems that aren’t interesting, leaving the most important ones in place. After which they start a new series of infections.
Like Stuxnet, Flame uses USB sticks as a method of infection and has two different ways it can accomplish this. Once inside, it can take advantage of multiple vulnerabilities to gain access not just to individual computers but entire networks.
When asked why the package is so big, Kapersky responded:
Much of these [the size of Flame] are libraries designed to handle SSL traffic, SSH connections, sniffing, attack, interception of communications and so on.
The cybersecurity experts note it took them months to analyze Stuxnet. Because of its greater size it will likely take a year to do the same for the current worm.
This is an Iranian report on Flame.
UPDATE: Senior Israeli minister, Bogie Yaalon, did everything but spill the beans to Galey Tzahal (Hebrew) in answering a question about the origin of Flame:
Anyone who believes that the Iranian threat is meaningful would find it desirable to take effective means, including these, to sabotage it. Israel is blessed with being a country that has tremendous technological capabilities. These tools open all sorts of possibilities for us.
Of course, this doesn’t answer the question why computers in Israel, Palestine, Egypt, Russia and the U.S. were infected as well. Especially since Flame targets specific computers and does not attack in a generalized way as Stuxnet did.
0 107.2 Bq/kg of cesium from Fukushima pork
107.2 Bq/Kg of cesium was measured from pork of pig farmer in Koriyama city Fukushima.
According to Ministry of agriculture, forestry and fisheries, this is the first time cesium has been detected anywhere near these levels in pork.
It had not been distributed to the market, and Koriyama city has been ordered to dispose of the pork.
Source
According to Ministry of agriculture, forestry and fisheries, this is the first time cesium has been detected anywhere near these levels in pork.
It had not been distributed to the market, and Koriyama city has been ordered to dispose of the pork.
Source
Guide on current levels of intake of radioactive cesium per household, as a comparison.
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