Fears That U.S. Banks Are Now Being Targeted For Cyber Attacks

Tourists walk past a Bank of America banking center in Times Square in New York in this June 2012 photo. Brendan McDermid/Reuters/Files

Cyberattacks On US Banks Resume, Aiming To Block Their Websites -- Christian Science Monitor

The latest cyberattack mirrors one in early fall that targeted websites of major US banks. Security experts say the attacks appear to be the handiwork of a group tied to Hamas, which the US lists as a terrorist organization. A massive new wave of cyberattacks aimed at blocking access to US banking websites has resumed after a three-month break, but with only mild impacts reported so far despite its size, cybersecurity experts report. Cybersecurity experts analyzing the distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks – which shoot data from myriad computers to clog the Internet pipes at the target site – say the attacks that began early Tuesday are similar to those that struck banks' website server computers in mid-September and continued for several weeks.  

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More News On U.S. Banks Being Targeted For Cyber Attacks

Muslim hacker group launches further attacks against US banks -- Global Post
'Project Blitzkrieg': Are Russian cybercriminals about to invade US banks? -- Christian Science Monitor DDoS Attacks on Major US Banks Resurface -- Threat Post
U.S. Banks on Alert After DDoS Threats by Islamic 'Hacktivists' -- Sci Tech Today
New Threats Of Cyberattacks Against U.S. Banks -- CRN
DDoS attacks against U.S. banks peaked at 60 Gbps -- Computer World
Latest DDoS attacks on banks: A teachable moment -- CSO

Leaked Images Show 'The Next Blackberry'

Leaked Images Show 'The Next Blackberry' - And It Looks Suspiciously Like An iPhone -- Daily Mail 

* Images suggest that like Apple's device the Blackberry will have chunky bezels at top and bottom
* Device set to be Research In Motion's make or break product, with launch expected at the end of January
* Pictures leaked by a Vietnamese tech site

These pictures purport to show the phone which BlackBerry maker Research In Motion hopes will halt its seemingly inexorable slide out of the mobile business. Sourced from a Vietnamese tech news site they show a gadget that's sleek, shiny and futuristic - and that looks suspiciously like an iPhone. The images suggest Research In Motion has finally dropped the full keyboard that was their brand's virtual trademark in favour of a full touchscreen device.

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My Comment: It looks like a winner.

Global Demographic Trends

The Demographic Trends that Will Shape the World -- Joseph Chamie, Real Clear World

While governments and institutions try to grapple with economic uncertainty and volatility an important factor of relative certainty is often overlooked: demography. One may not know how the markets will behave, but demographic trends can provide instructive and relative certainty for the near term to deal with debt, taxes, unemployment and entitlements, to name a few. Dismissal of major demographic trends, seven of which described below, will in all likelihood result in ill-conceived policies, unsustainable programs and squandered resources. First, at an estimated 7 billion, the world's population is growing at 1.1 percent annually, or 78 million people, half the peak level of 2.1 percent in the late 1960s. Although the world's demographic growth rate is continuing to slow due to declining birthrates, the 8 billion world population mark will likely be reached by 2025. This growth will increase the world's working age population, 15 to 64 years, by 610 million and those aged 65 years and older by 290 million, increases of 13 and 52 percent, respectively.  

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My Comment: There are a lot of stats in this report .... bottom line .... the world in 2050 will not look like the world today.

Facebook, Twitter And Google Release 2012 Trends

Facebook, Google Release 2012 Trends -- CNN 

 (CNN) -- If you can't recall everything you loved and hated about 2012, Facebook, Twitter and Google all just released their year-in-review reports. And all three reflect what many of us experienced firsthand: Thousands of strangers gathering to watch a rover land on Mars and a man fall from space. A hurricane slamming the East Coast while the world watched tragedy strike and heroes emerge. Social media, combined with the ability to search and surface information almost instantly, repeatedly brought Internet users together to huddle around the virtual campfire, sharing their stories through image, text and sound.

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CSN Editor: For more on the trends:

Twitter: 2012 Year on Twitter

Google: Google Zeitgeist 2012

Facebook: 2012 Year in Review

The Next-Generation Supercomputers

Illustration: George Retseck 

Next-Generation Supercomputers -- IEEE 

Supercomputers are now running our search engines and social networks. But the heady days of stunning performance increases are over. Supercomputers are the crowning achievement of the digital age. Yes, it's true that yesterday's supercomputer is today's game console, as far as performance goes. But there is no doubt that during the past half-century these machines have driven some fascinating if esoteric pursuits: breaking codes, predicting the weather, modeling automobile crashes, simulating nuclear explosions, and designing new drugs—to name just a few. And in recent years, supercomputers have shaped our daily lives more directly. We now rely on them every time we do a Google search or try to find an old high school chum on Facebook, for example. And you can scarcely watch a big-budget movie without seeing supercomputer-generated special effects. So with these machines more ingrained than ever into our institutions and even our social fabric, it's an excellent time to wonder about the future. Will the next decade see the same kind of spectacular progress as the last two did? Alas, no.

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My Comment: An excellent report on the next generation of supercomputers. Read it all.

How Maggots Heal Wounds

How Maggots Heal Wounds -- Wired/Science Now 

Yes, maggots are creepy, crawly, and slimy. But that slime is a remarkable healing balm, used by battlefield surgeons for centuries to close wounds.

Now, researchers say they’ve figured out how the fly larvae work their magic: They suppress our immune system. Maggots are efficient consumers of dead tissue. They munch on rotting flesh, leaving healthy tissue practically unscathed. Physicians in Napoleon’s army used the larvae to clean wounds. In World War I, American surgeon William Baer noticed that soldiers with maggot-infested gashes didn’t have the expected infection or swelling seen in other patients. The rise of penicillin in the 1940s made clinical maggots less useful, but they bounced back in the 1990s when antibiotic-resistant bacteria created a new demand for alternative treatments. In 2004, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved maggot therapy as a prescription treatment.

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My Comment: I guess our ancestors knew what they were doing.

New Views Of Earth At Night

NASA Unveils The Clearest View Of Earth At Night Ever Captured -- Business Insider 

Scientists unveiled the most detailed view of what the Earth looks like at night at a news conference at the American Geophysical Union meeting on Wednesday, Dec. 5. The unprecedented nighttime view of Earth's city lights is compiled from hundreds of images that come from a new NASA and NOAA satellite, called Suomi NPP. Suomi NPP is special because it's equipped with a new sensor, called VIIRS, that can capture images at night even without moonlight, distinguishing night lights with six times better spatial resolution and 250 times better resolution of lighting levels than before.

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My Comment: An incredible video .... check it out.

Making All Smartphones To Be Pocket Seismometers

A range of phones are hooked up to the Berkeley Seismological Lab's shake table 

Smartphones To Be Pocket Seismometers -- BBC 

The smartphones in our pockets are about to get even smarter. Scientists want these ubiquitous gadgets to be put to work helping them detect and investigate earthquakes. The devices contain accelerometers and a team at the Berkeley Seismic Laboratory says the mechanisms are capable of monitoring tremors. An app is being developed that will record the shaking during major events and then report the data back to a central server over the cell network. The high numbers of smartphones now in circulation mean researchers could get very detailed information on who felt what, and where.
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My Comment: This is smart .... and one that millions can easily contribute to.

Volvo Develops The 'No Death' Car

Volvo Develops The 'No Death' Car: Vehicles Which Drive Themselves And Are Totally Crashproof Could Be On British Roads In Eight Years -- Daily Mail 

* Vehicle will be fitted with sensors that can detect potential collisions and take action
* Firm claims 'nobody will be killed or injured in a new Volvo by 2020'

Car giant Volvo is developing 'no death' cars that drive themselves and are impossible to crash – ready for launch in showrooms within eight years. The computerised vehicles will be fitted with high-tech sensors and will 'refuse to be steered' into other objects. Volvo says they will be on sale to customers by 2020, but that some of the life-saving technology will be incorporated into its vehicles even earlier – from 2014 – it says.

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My Comment: I am not convinced .... I will need to keep my hands on the steering wheel.

Inside An Amazon Warehouse (Pics)

CSN Editor: The link is here. What's my take .... impressive.

The Trend Of Building Glass Houses

Neighborhood Watch -- Wall Street Journal

A growing number of city dwellers are building glass houses—just a stone's throw from the street. Such homes allow in lots of light, but also curious looks from passersby; beware neighbors brandishing telescopes.

Every so often, Grant Risdon looks out his living room window and sees a stranger staring up at him, waving. Mr. Risdon isn't a celebrity—he is a consultant at a biotechnology company. But his house has a very public persona: Its second floor is almost entirely encased in glass, making it look like a transparent box floating above the more traditional homes in a densely populated Seattle neighborhood.

Mr. Risdon says he wanted to feel connected to the outside but didn't want to leave the city. He says he and his wife don't use blinds—even at night. "I don't feel exposed. I don't worry about it. We have nothing to hide," Mr. Risdon says.

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 My Comment: If privacy is not your thing .... I guess this is for you.

The Future For Drones Is 'Small'

iRobot Founder Now Building Tiny Hovering Drone Spies -- Danger Room

Four years ago, iRobot co-founder Helen Greiner stepped down from the company she helped turn into an all-important supplier of the military’s growing arsenal of ground robots. Now today, she’s unveiled the first ‘bots to roll off her new company’s assembly line. What are they? Teeny tiny hovering drones, designed to fly through your window and spy on you. That’s just one of two robots revealed so far from Massachusetts company CyPhy Works, founded by Greiner after leaving iRobot. We’ve also now got a sense of what Greiner’s been developing for the past couple of years.  

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My Comment: I concur .... I can easily foresee the day when these drones are being used by soldiers to scout ahead, check buildings/rooms, and monitor threats.

A The Bugatti Veyron Covered With Mathematical Equations

The 252mph Bugatti Veyron has been decorated with the equations that power its superfast engine

Now That's A FORMULA One Car: Bugatti Veyron Covered With Mathematical Equations Used To Engineer It -- Daily Mail

* 252mph car was customised by French artist Bernar Venet
* Both the bodywork and interior are decorated with complex formulae
* The Bugatti is a one-off version of the standard £1.5m Veyron, and is currently on display in a Miami museum

It is one of the world's fastest supercars, with a 252mph top speed that leaves rivals trailing in its wake. And now Italian car manufacturer Bugatti has revealed the science behind the Veyron's astonishing top speed by covering the car in the sums used to power it. Conceptual artist Bernar Venet was asked by Bugatti to create his own design for the £1.5million Grand Sport model.  

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My Comment: For geeks .... (yes ... I am one of them) .... this is super-cool.

U.S. Navy's Biofuel Plans Get The Support Of The U.S. Senate

Senate Votes To Save The Navy’s ‘Great Green Fleet’ -- Danger Room

The Senate on Wednesday threw a life raft to the Navy’s beleaguered plan to power its ships and jets with biofuel. Navy Secretary Ray Mabus trumpeted the program as key to service’s long-term stability, pledging $170 million to kickstart the wobbly biofuel industry, promising to get half the Navy’s fuel from alternative sources by 2020, and making plans to dispatch an eco-friendly “Great Green Fleet” in 2016.  

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More News On the U.S. Senate Approving The Pentagon's Plans For Bio-fuels

Senate OK’s military spending on biofuel refineries -- Stars and Stripes
Senate gives green light to Pentagon green energy -- Bloomberg Businessweek/AP
Navy's Biofuel Plan Gets Senate Support -- Wall Street Journal
Senate strikes restriction on military biofuel development -- Reuters
US Senate backs military, Obama on green fuels -- TG Daily
Senate Again Backs Pentagon's Green-Energy Plans -- Wall Street Journal
With Senate’s Support, Advanced Biofuel Industry Ready for Takeoff -- Energy Collective Democrats put green energy back into military budget bill -- Human Events

How Syria Turned Off The Internet

How Syria Turned Off The Internet -- Cloud Flare

Today, 29 November 2012, between 1026 and 1029 (UTC), all traffic from Syria to the rest of the Internet stopped. At CloudFlare, we witnessed the drop off. We've spent the morning studying the situation to understand what happened. The following graph shows the last several days of traffic coming to CloudFlare's network from Syria. Since the beginning of today's outage, we have received no requests from Syrian IP space. That is a more complete blackout than we've seen when other countries have been cut from the Internet (see, for example, Egypt where while most traffic was cut off some requests still trickled out).  

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More News On Syria's Internet Shutdown

How Syria Turned Off the Internet -- Gizmodo
How were Syria's networks and Internet taken offline? -- ZDNet
How did Syria shut off the Internet? -- SFGate
Assad gov't continues to block Internet in Syria -- CBS/AP
Syrian Internet Connections Cut for Second Day -- New York Times
Syria Plunges Into Internet Blackout -- PC Mag
Syria's government urged to unblock internet and mobile access to country -- The Guardian
US providers host Syrian government websites -- Computer World
Communications blackout doesn't deter hackers targeting Syrian regime -- FOX News
Anonymous Hackers Swat At Syrian Government Websites In Reprisal For Internet Blackout -- Forbes
Anonymous declares Internet war on Syria -- NBC News
Syria’s Internet shutdown leaves information void, may signal escalating war -- Washington Post Syria Internet outage: How it might have happened and what it means -- Washington Post
How To Get Around The Internet Blackout In Syria -- Or A Mass Communications Outage Anywhere -- Betsy Isaacson, Huffington Post
The three big questions on Syria’s Internet blackout -- Max Fisher, Washington Post

Scientists Beat The House At Roulette

Scientists Beat The House At Roulette With Chaos Theory -- Forbes 

Professional gamblers know that when it comes to the game of roulette, the best strategy is the same one that supercomputer Joshua applied to nuclear war in the movie WarGames: “The only way to win is not to play.” But that didn’t stop a group of chaos theorists from trying to beat it anyway. And according to new research published in the journal Chaos, it looks like they may have found a way to beat the house. They were able to model the motion of the wheel and ball and were able to confirm their predictions both in simulation and using an actual roulette wheel.

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My Comment: Their analysis makes sense .... but .... I suspect that the House knows about these "tricks".

Steve Jobs High-Tech Yacht 'Venus' Unveiled

Steve Jobs reportedly spent years designing his super yacht Venus. FOX News

Steve Jobs High-Tech Yacht Unveiled -- BBC

A year after he died, a yacht that the co-founder of Apple, Steve Jobs, was working on has finally been launched in the Netherlands. It's a little under 80m (260 feet) long, made of lightweight aluminium and features 3m (10 feet) high windows. Just another super-yacht for one of the world's mega-rich you might think, but the clues to the owner of this sleek vessel are there, not least in the many Apple Mac computer screens on the bridge. The vessel is Jobs's yacht Venus, named for the Roman goddess of love. It has just been launched in Aalsmeer in The Netherlands. The boat has been built by the Dutch custom yacht builders Feadship.  

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More News On The Launching Of Steve Jobs Yacht

Steve Jobs-designed yacht launched in the Netherlands -- CBS/AP
Steve Jobs’ Yacht, Venus, Makes Public Debut -- ABC News
Steve Jobs' Yacht, 'Venus,' Sets Sail -- PC Magazine
Super yacht designed by Apple's Steve Jobs unveiled -- FOX News
Yacht Commissioned by Steve Jobs Launched -- Sci-Tech Daily
Steve Jobs’s 256-Foot Yacht Launches Posthumously -- HITC
About Steve Jobs’s New, iMac-Controlled Yacht -- Vanity Fair
Steve Jobs' custom, aluminum-hulled super-yacht "Venus" now seaworthy -- Ars Technica
Steve Jobs’s yacht: a floating Apple store with elements of iPhone -- The Week
Steve Jobs' superyacht breaks cover -- Motorboat & Yachting
Steve Jobs' magnificent yacht reflects the success of Apple -- Examiner

How 3D Printers Will Revolutionise The Manufacture Of Deadly Weapons

Making Guns In Your Garage: How 3D Printers Will Revolutionise The Manufacture Of Deadly Weapons -- The Telegraph

In the very near future, someone will be killed with a gun not bought from a dealer or a dodgy bloke in a pub, but printed at home in metal and plastic with a 3D printer. The tools necessary to replicate a deadly weapon will soon be affordable to someone toiling away at home. The cost of 3D printers has dropped substantially: models are available for as little as £400. Extremely polished designs such as the MakerBot Replicator 2 and Form Labs Form1 reveal how close the technology is to becoming a mainstream consumer proposition. Read more .... My Comment: The below video explains how this incredible tech works. One can only wonder what future developments will hold.

Here Comes The U.S. Army's Monster Laser Truck

Not quite handheld yet... The truck-mounted laser weapons system that Boeing and the Pentagon hopes will prove the efficacy of the technology on the battlefield

The Death-Ray On Wheels: US Army Begins Testing Monster Laser Truck That Can Shoot Down Anything, Including Missiles -- Daily Mail

* Boeing's land-based laser weapon could be used for missile defence * Beam will hit targets at a phenomenal 186,000 miles a second Laser weapons are a step closer to deployment on Earth's battlefields as a U.S. defence company gears up to test a new land-based device. Boeing has announced that it has successfully mounted a 10kw solid-state laser on an eight-wheeled, 500-horsepower truck that could be used alongside conventional Army forces. The High Energy Laser Mobile Demonstrator (HEL MD) is now ready for field testing and over the next year will have a chance to show off its ability to acquire, track and destroy targets. Read more ....

More News On Boeing's U.S. Army Laser Truck

The Army's eight-wheeled laser truck that zaps enemy missiles -- The Week Boeing Just Put The Finishing Touches On An 8-Wheeled Laser Truck -- Business Insider Boeing trucks ahead with 8-wheeling laser weapon -- CNet Truck Mounted High Energy Laser For Destroying Incoming Rocket and Artillery To Be Tested Next Year -- Ottawa Citizen Pew pew: Boeing's laser truck powers up -- Dvice Boeing lands $16M laser weapon follow-up -- Optics.org

Global Hunger Continues For One In Eight In The World

One In Eight Of World Population Going Hungry: U.N. -- Reuters

(Reuters) - One out of every eight people in the world is chronically undernourished, the United Nations' food agencies said on Tuesday, and aid groups warned that rising food prices could reverse gains in the fight against hunger. In a report on food insecurity, the UN agencies said 868 million people were hungry in 2010-2012, or about 12.5 percent of the world's population, down more sharply than previously estimated from about 1 billion, or 18.6 percent in 1990-92. The new figures, based on a revised calculation method and more up-to-date data, are lower than the last estimates for recent years that pegged the number of hungry people at 925 million in 2010 and 1.02 billion in 2009. Read more ....

More News On Global Hunger

UN says world hungry not 1 billion after all -- Seattle Times/AP UN Says World Hungry Now Under 1 Billion -- Voice of America MDG target to halve prevalence of hunger within reach, says UN -- The Guardian UN tweaks the methodology of malnourishment -- Globe and Mail Hunger falls but still unacceptably high-FAO chief -- Reuters