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Pedro Gonçalves

BBC NEWS | Americas | US in nuclear disclosure blunder - 0 views

  • A document providing confidential details of US civilian nuclear sites was accidentally posted on the internet, the government has admitted.The 266-page document included the precise location of stockpiles of fuel for nuclear weapons, the Obama administration said.
  • The document, which lists itself as "sensitive but unclassified", contains maps and information on hundreds of US civilian nuclear sites. No military installations are included but the document does cover the nuclear weapons laboratories at Los Alamos, Livermore and Sandia.
  • It said the most serious disclosure was on the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, known as the Fort Knox of highly enriched uranium, the leading fuel for nuclear weapons.
Pedro Gonçalves

Report: Iran blocks Facebook ahead of presidential election - CNN.com - 0 views

  • The Iranian government has blocked access to the social networking site Facebook amid political jockeying for the June 12 presidential elections, according to the semi-official Iranian Labour News Agency.
  • Reformist candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi -- a former prime minister considered a threat to current hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad -- created a Facebook page for his campaign that has more than 5,000 supporters on the site. Those attempting to visit Facebook received a message in Farsi saying, "Access to this site is not possible," according to CNN personnel in Tehran.
  • Iran's population -- estimated at more than 66 million by July 2009, according to the CIA World Factbook -- has a median age of 27. The Financial Times, which put the country's population at 70 million, said 47 million Iranians have cell phones and 21 million have Internet access.
Pedro Gonçalves

Al Jazeera English - Americas - Obama says world 'watching Iran' - 0 views

  • Barack Obama, the US president, has told Iran "the world is watching" its actions after the country's supreme leader demanded an end to street protests over recent elections. Obama made the comments to CBS news on Friday as both houses of the US congress voted in favour of a resolution to condemn Iran for its crackdown on protests against the re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as president.
  • The US House of Representatives voted 405-1 to condemn Iran's crackdown on protests following its disputed presidential elections, in a resolution later approved by the senate. The policy statement expressed support for "all Iranian citizens who embrace the values of freedom, human rights, civil liberties and rule of law" and affirms "the importance of democratic and fair elections". It also condemns "the ongoing violence" by the government and pro-government militias against demonstrators, as well as government "suppression of independent electronic communications through interference with the internet and cell phones". The move was welcomed by the White House on Friday.
  • Amnesty International, the UK-based human rights group, said on Friday that it believed 15 people had been killed as the protests spilled over into violence, compared with just seven deaths reported on Iranian state radio.
Pedro Gonçalves

Cyber Blitz Hits U.S., Korea - WSJ.com - 0 views

  • U.S. and South Korean computer networks were besieged for days by a series of relatively unsophisticated attacks, possibly from North Korea, that were among the broadest and longest-lasting assaults perpetrated on government and commercial Web sites in both countries.
  • South Korean officials are investigating whether the attacks originated in North Korea, and a senior U.S. official said the U.S. also is probing North Korea's possible role. U.S. officials noted that the attacks, which appear to have started primarily in South Korea on July 4, coincided with North Korea's latest missile launches and followed a United Nations decision to impose new sanctions.
  • The senior U.S. official said the attacks seemed to have come from South Korea, but it was possible Pyongyang was using sympathizers there. "We're trying to assess whether this is some random attack or the North Koreans might be working through a proxy," said the official.
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  • If a North Korea link is found, it would mark a new turn in Pyongyang's attempts to lash out at the U.S. North Korea has been building up its capability for cyberattacks in the past couple of years, computer security specialists said. North Korea recently increased the number of people in a cyber-warfare unit, South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported last month.
  • U.S. government Web sites attacked included those of the Defense Department, National Security Agency, Treasury Department, Secret Service, State Department, Federal Trade Commission and Federal Aviation Administration, according to the cyber-security unit of VeriSign Inc., a computer-security company, and others familiar with the attacks. The attacks appear to have occurred roughly from Saturday to Tuesday.
  • Private sites attacked, according to a cyber-security specialist who has been tracking the incidents, included those run by the New York Stock Exchange, Nasdaq, the Washington Post, Amazon.com and MarketWatch.
  • Most U.S. federal Web sites appeared to be running properly Wednesday. In South Korea, several government sites were down late Tuesday and early Wednesday but many were back to normal by Wednesday afternoon. "There is a connection between what is going on here in the states and what is going on in [South] Korea," said Richard Howard, director of intelligence at VeriSign's iDefense cyber-security unit.
  • Those responsible used a method similar to attacks in recent years on the governments of Estonia and Georgia, called a "distributed denial of service" attack. It is a maneuver in which many computers act in concert to overwhelm Web sites.
  • At the White House, spokesman Nicholas Shapiro said the attacks over the weekend "had absolutely no effect on the White House's day-to-day operations." The only effect, he said, was that some Internet users in Asia may not have been able to access the White House's Web site for a time.
  • President Barack Obama has made bolstering cyber-security a priority. He said in May he would create a new White House cyber-security post, though it hasn't yet been staffed. People familiar with the process say the White House has had difficulty finding someone to take the job.
  • Defense officials confirmed Pentagon networks were struck but said the intrusions were detected quickly and did no real damage. Adm. Mike Mullen, the nation's top military officer, said Pentagon networks are under near-constant attack. "I grow increasingly concerned about the cyber-world and the attacks," he said.
  • James Lewis, a cyber-security specialist at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said of the attack, "It's really a test of which U.S. agencies are ready and which aren't."
  • The New York Stock Exchange's parent company, NYSE Euronext, announced at 12:35 p.m. Wednesday that its Web site, but not its trading systems, had been targeted. Exchange officials weren't aware of the attack until notified by the government on Tuesday, said a person familiar with the events. An NYSE spokesman said the exchange's systems detected zero impact either on the Web site or on the separate trading operations. An official of Nasdaq said there wasn't any impact on its business.
  • North Korea turned more antagonistic after the illness of dictator Kim Jong Il last August and September. The country had done little to prepare for a successor, and Mr. Kim's illness triggered an internal shuffle that apparently raised the influence of hard-line military figures.
  • The cyberattacks came as Washington's point man on North Korea sanctions, Ambassador Philip Goldberg, concluded a weeklong trip to China and Malaysia aimed at tightening the financial screws on Pyongyang. Last week, the Obama administration announced sanctions on two North Korea-linked arms companies. The U.S. Treasury last month listed 17 North Korean banks and businesses that it is seeking to constrict financially.
Argos Media

U.S. to create cybersecurity military command: report | Technology | Internet | Reuters - 0 views

  • The Obama administration plans to create a new military command to focus on Pentagon computer networks and offensive capabilities in cyberwarfare, The Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday, citing current and former officials familiar with the plans.
  • The initiative will reshape the military's efforts to protect its networks from attacks by hackers, especially those from countries such as China and Russia, the newspaper said.
  • Pentagon officials were quoted as saying the new command will be unveiled within the next few weeks. The cyber command will likely to be led by a military official of four-star rank and initially would be part of the Pentagon's Strategic Command, the newspaper said, citing officials familiar with the proposal.
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  • The newspaper earlier reported that computer spies have repeatedly breached the Pentagon's costliest weapons program -- the $300 billion Joint Strike Fighter project.
  • The Journal quoted former U.S. officials as saying the attacks seemed to have originated in China, although it noted it was difficult to determine the origin because of the ease of hiding identities online.
Argos Media

'Twitter revolution' Moldovan activist goes into hiding | World news | guardian.co.uk - 0 views

  • The woman behind the mass protests which rocked the capital of Moldova last week has gone into hiding after the so-called "Twitter revolution" forced a recount of the general election.Natalia Morar, 25, a Moldovan who has already been banned from Russia for opposing the Kremlin, told the Guardian she feared arrest after organising a flash mob which ended with 20,000 people storming the parliament building.
  • The protests began after a conversation between Morar and six friends in a cafe in Chisinau, Moldova's tiny capital, on Monday 6 April. "We discussed what we should do about the previous day's parliamentary elections, which we were sure had been rigged," said Morar, speaking at a secret location.
  • The elections brought a larger-than-expected victory for the incumbent Communist party. "We decided to organise a flash mob for the same day using Twitter, as well as networking sites and SMS." With no recent history of mass protests in Moldova, "we expected at the most a couple of hundred friends, friends of friends, and colleagues", she said. "When we went to the square, there were 20,000 people waiting there. It was unbelievable."
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  • This morningelection officials in Moldova began a recount of votes, which was ordered by President Vladimir Voronin following the protests. The results of the recount will be announced on Friday.
  • The demonstrations continued into Tuesday peacefully. But later that day, with no response from the government, protesters swept police aside to storm the parliament building and the towering presidential palace opposite. Fire broke out in one wing of the parliament, and the young protesters vented their fury by wrecking computers and office furniture.
  • "Not only did we underestimate the power of Twitter and the internet, we also underestimated the explosive anger among young people at the government's policies and electoral fraud," said Morar.
  • Moldova, with a population of 4 million, is Europe's poorest country, and a large number of young people are forced to find work in the west.
  • She does not believe the current vendetta against her is purely the work of the Moldovan authorities, but sees the Kremlin's hand in it as well: "It was when Russia expressed strong support for Moldova's position on the elections, and condemned the protests, that they started targeting us."
  • Morar was expelled from Russia in 2007 after writing a series of articles accusing top Kremlin officials, including Alexander Bortnikov, the current head of the Russian security services, the FSB, of being behind the murder of Russia's central bank deputy head Andrey Kozlov in September 2006.
Argos Media

BBC NEWS | Americas | Obama eases curbs on Cuba travel - 0 views

  • US President Barack Obama has approved measures that will allow Cuban Americans to travel more freely to Cuba, his spokesman has said. Cuban-Americans will also be allowed to send more money to relatives in Cuba.
  • "The president has directed the secretaries of state, treasury and commerce to carry out the actions necessary to lift all restrictions on the ability of individuals to visit family members in Cuba and to send them remittances," said Mr Gibbs.
  • Restrictions would also be lifted on US telecommunications companies applying for licences to operate in Cuba, Mr Gibbs added.
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  • That move could open the way for a greater flow of information to the island via the internet, says the BBC's Kevin Connolly in Washington, although much will depend on the attitude of the Cuban government itself.
  • The US president has indicated he would be open to dialogue with Cuba's leaders. But he has said that, like previous American presidents, he will only consider a full lifting of the US embargo once Cuba's communist government makes significant moves such as the holding of democratic elections.
  • Cuba's President Raul Castro has said he is prepared to negotiate with the new US administration, providing there are no preconditions.
  • President Obama clearly believes that engagement may yet achieve what the half-century embargo never did, says our correspondent: real political change in Cuba. But there is no talk for the moment of opening diplomatic relations or of lifting the general trade embargo, he adds.
Argos Media

Protests in Moldova Explode, With Help of Twitter - NYTimes.com - 0 views

  • Russia backed Mr. Voronin
  • At a news briefing, a State Department spokesman, Robert A. Wood, also expressed concern about the violence, but he said policy makers in Washington had not yet assessed whether the elections had been free and fair.
  • Mihai Moscovici, 25, who provided updates in English all day over Twitter, painted a more nuanced picture. He said the gathering on Monday night drew only several hundred people. The protesters agreed to gather the next morning and began spreading the word through Facebook and Twitter, inventing a searchable tag for the stream of comments: #pman, which stands for Piata Marii Adunari Nationale, Chisinau’s central square. When Internet service was shut down, Mr. Moscovici said, he issued updates with his cellphone.
Argos Media

Protests in Moldova Explode, With Help of Twitter - NYTimes.com - 0 views

  • A crowd of more than 10,000 young Moldovans materialized seemingly out of nowhere on Tuesday to protest against Moldova’s Communist leadership, ransacking government buildings and clashing with the police.
  • The sea of young people reflected the deep generation gap that has developed in Moldova, and the protesters used their generation’s tools, gathering the crowd by enlisting text-messaging, Facebook and Twitter, the social messaging network.
  • The protesters created their own searchable tag on Twitter, rallying Moldovans to join and propelling events in this small former Soviet state onto a Twitter list of newly popular topics, so people around the world could keep track.
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  • By Tuesday night, the seat of government had been badly battered and scores of people had been injured. But riot police had regained control of the president’s offices and Parliament Wednesday.
  • Young people have increasingly used the Internet to mobilize politically; cellphones and text messages helped swell protests in Ukraine in 2004, and in Belarus in 2006.
  • The immediate cause of the protests were parliamentary elections held on Sunday, in which Communists won 50 percent of the vote, enough to allow them to select a new president and amend the Constitution. Though the Communists were expected to win, their showing was stronger than expected, and opposition leaders accused the government of vote-rigging.
  • Election observers from the European Union and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe had tentatively accepted the voting as fair, though they expressed some concern about interference from the authorities. But the results were a deep disappointment in the capital, where Communist candidates lost the last round of municipal elections.
  • Behind the confrontation is a split in Moldova’s population. The collapse of the Soviet Union brought benefits to much of Eastern Europe, but in Moldova it ushered in economic decline and instability. In 2001, angry citizens backed the return of the Communists and their social programs.
  • But Moldova remained desperately poor, and young people flocked overseas to work. They have looked to the West as the best path to economic stability and have defied Mr. Voronin’s government by urging closer integration with Romania.
  • “I wouldn’t necessarily call it an anti-Communist movement,” Mr. Patterson said. “This really is a generational squeeze. It’s not really the Communists versus the opposition. It’s the grandmothers versus the grandkids.”
Argos Media

BBC NEWS | Technology | Net firms start storing user data - 0 views

  • Details of user e-mails and net phone calls will be stored by internet service providers (ISPs) from Monday under an EU directive.
  • The plans were drawn up in the wake of the London bombings in 2005.
  • All ISPs in the European Union will have to store the records for a year. An EU directive which requires telecoms firms to hold on to telephone records for 12 months is already in force.
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  • Sweden has decided to ignore the directive completely while there is a challenge going through the German courts at present.
  • The data stored does not include the content of e-mails or a recording of a net phone call, but is used to determine connections between individuals. Authorities can get access to the stored records with a warrant.
  • Isabella Sankey, Policy Director at Liberty, said the directive formalised what had already been taking place under voluntary arrangement for years. "The problem is that this regime allows not just police to access this information but hundreds of other public bodies."
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