FIRST FINN BUYS TICKETS INTO SPACE

Finland’s first space tourist has booked a flight on Virgin Galactic’s commercial spacecraft. The traveller shelled out some 140,000 euros for the ticket into space.

Virgin Galactic has already sold trips to some 300 fledgling astronauts around the world, says Area, the company’s sales agent in Finland. The tourist spaceship is scheduled to begin test flights next year.
The company's commercial spaceflights depart from New Mexico in the United States and Kiruna in Sweden.
During the two-hour flight astronauts get a glimpse of space at 115 kilometres above earth and experience weightlessness for five minutes.
Confidentiality clauses prevent Area from releasing the identity of the Finnish space tourist.

Nasa photographs 'trees' on Mars

The "trees" are really trails of debris caused by landslides as ice melts in Mars's spring Photo: NASA

The images appear to show rows of dark "conifers" sprouting from dunes and hills on the planet surface. But the scene is actually an optical illusion.
The photographs actually show sand dunes coated with a thin layer of frozen carbon dioxide, or dry ice, less than 240 miles from the planet's north pole.
The "trees" are really trails of debris caused by landslides as ice melts in Mars's spring. You can even see a cloud of dust, just to the left of centre of the picture, where an avalanche is caught happening.
The photograph was taken from orbit around Mars by HiRISE, the most powerful camera sent to another planet.
NASA's Candy Hansen told The Sun: "The streaks are sand, dislodged as ice evaporates, which slide down the dune. At this time of the Martian year the whole scene is covered by CO2 frost."
Last month Nasa announced a new telescope had detected five planets outside the solar system. The observatory, which was launched last year to find other Earths, made the discoveries in its first few weeks of science operations.
Although the new worlds, called exoplanets, are all bigger than Neptune, Nasa said their discovery showed that the planet hunting telescope was working well.

Welcome to DarkMarket – global one-stop shop for cybercrime and banking fraud • Personal data and tutorials in hacking offered online • Founder of site traced to London internet cafe

Renukanth Subramaniam, 33, is accused of being a key figure in running DarkMarket, a website where criminals exchanged information on stolen credit cards and other data. Photograph: Serious Organised Crime Agency/AP

To the casual observer, there was little to distinguish the Java Bean internet cafe in Wembley from the hundreds of others dotted around the capital. But to surveillance officers staking it out month after month, this unremarkable venue was the key to busting a remarkable and sophisticated network of cyber criminals.
From the bank of computers inside, a former pizza bar worker ran an international cyber "supermarket" selling stolen credit card and account details costing the banking industry tens of millions.
Renukanth Subramaniam, 33, was revealed today as the founder and a major "orchestrator" of the secret ­DarkMarket website, where elite fraudsters bought and sold personal data, after it was infiltrated by the FBI and the US Secret Service.
Membership was strictly by invitation. But once vetted, its 2,000 vendors and buyers traded everything from card details, obtained through hacking, phishing and ATM skimming devices, to viruses with which buyers could extort money by threatening company websites.
The top English language cybercrime site in the world, it offered online tutorials in account takeovers, credit card deception and money laundering. Equipment – including false ATM and pin machines and everything needed to set up a credit card factory – was available.
It even featured breaking-news-style updates on the latest compromised material available, while criminals could buy banner adverts to promote their wares.
So vast was its reach, with members in the UK, Canada, US, Russia, Turkey, Germany and France, the UK's Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca), which helped bust it, said it was "impossible" to put a figure on how much it cost banks worldwide.
Subramaniam, who used the online soubriquet JiLsi, was remanded in custody at his own request at Blackfriars crown court today after pleading guilty to conspiracy to defraud and five counts of furnishing false information. Judge John Hillen warned it was "inevitable" he faced a "substantial custodial sentence".
A Sri Lankan-born British citizen, Subramaniam was a former member of ShadowCrew, DarkMarket's forerunner, which was uncovered by the US Secret Service in 2004. "JiLsi was one of the highest in cybercrime in this country with what he managed to achieve setting up a forum globally. No JiLsi, no DarkMarket," said one Soca investigator.
Its 2,000 members never met in real life. Quality, not quantity, was the key. DarkMarket was fastidious in banning "rippers" who would cheat other criminals. Honour among thieves was paramount.
It operated an "escrow" service, with payments and goods exchanged through a third party – "like a PayPal for criminals", the judge observed, and an arbitration service resolved disputes. To keep off the radar, the rules were strict: no firearms, drugs or counterfeit currency.
Built on a pyramid structure, administrators decided who joined, moderators ran specific site sections, and reviewers vetted wannabes – each demanding 5% or £250 per transaction as a fixer's fee.
To get on, criminals had to present details of 100 compromised cards free of charge - 50 to one reviewer, 50 to another. Reviewers would test the cards and write an online review of customer satisfaction – just like eBay customers. "If the cards did what they were supposed to … they would be recommended. If not they weren't allowed in," said the investigator.
Payment was via accounts on WebMoney, or E-Gold. "It was the QuickTime method of sending money anywhere."
Subramaniam was one of the top administrators. He kept his operating system on memory sticks. But when one was stolen, costing him £100,000 in losses and compromising the site's security, he was downgraded to reviewer. Surveillance officers caught him logging on to the website as JiLsi unaware the fellow criminal MasterSplyntr he was talking to was, in fact, an FBI agent called Keith Mularski.
Considerable money was exchanged, though actual transactions took place away from the site for security reasons. One buyer spent £250,000 on stolen personal information in just six weeks.
Described as "a very quiet man", Subramaniam worked at Pizza Hut and as a dispatch courier. "He owned three houses but was largely itinerant," said Sharon Lemon, Soca deputy director. "The key to investigations of this sort is finding the evidence to connect the online persona with a living, breathing person."
Harendra de Silva QC, defending Subramaniam, said the "evidence was unchallenged" but said the "question of interpretation does arise in certain areas" and there would be submissions on "nuance" of the fraud in so far as it applied to his client. He is charged alongside John McHugh, 66, known as Devilman, also a site reviewer who has pleaded guilty to conspiracy to defraud and at whose Doncaster home officers found a credit card-making factory. The two will be sentenced later.
But the battle against cybercrime continues. "This was one of the top 10 sites in the world, but there are more than 100 we know of globally, and another 100 we don't yet know of," said the investigators.

In the DarkMarket

DarkMarket price listTrusted vendors on DarkMarket offered a smorgasbord of personal data, viruses, and card-cloning kits at knockdown prices. Going rates were:
Dumps Data from magnetic stripes on batches of 10 cards. Standard cards: $50. Gold/platinum: $80. Corporate: $180.
Card verification values Information needed for online transactions. $3-$10 depending on quality.
Full information/change of billing Information needed for opening or taking over account details. $150 for account with $10,000 balance. $300 for one with $20,000 balance.
Skimmer Device to read card data. Up to $7,000.
Bank logins 2% of available balance.
Hire of botnet Software robots used in spam attacks. $50 a day.
Credit card images Both sides of card. $30 each.
Embossed card blanks $50 each.
Holograms $5 per 100.

IT UNDERWORLD

Google hack hit 33 other companies

The plot thickens. According to iDefense Labs, the recent Internet attack that has so upset Google affected 33 other US tech and defence firms and is directly related to an Adobe Reader-based attack of last July.
The US flaw-hunting specialist said that the attack was an attempt to steal source code on an industrial scale and was, in many cases, probably successful. If correct, this might explain why Google has by its own normally quite restrained standards gone ballistic to the extent of threatening to quit China.
"Two independent, anonymous iDefense sources in the defense contracting and intelligence consulting community confirmed that both the source IPs and drop server of the attack correspond to a single foreign entity consisting either of agents of the Chinese state or proxies thereof," said the iDefense press statement, confirming what the world already knows.
It now turns out that Adobe itself was targeted in the latest alleged Chinese attacks, http://blogs.adobe.com/conversations/2010/01/adobe_investigates_corporat... ">as a statement on its own website explains.
"Adobe became aware on January 2, 2010 of a computer security incident involving a sophisticated, coordinated attack against corporate network systems managed by Adobe and other companies."
The note goes on to say that in Adobe's case, the attack was not successful in stealing any data.
More embarrassingly, a flaw in Adobe software has been implicated in the new attacks. iDefense has forensically linked these to last July's attacks, which involved exploiting zero-day flaws in Adobe Reader 9.1.2 and Adobe Flash Player 9 and 10 to send specially-crafted PDFs.
As well as using the same emailed PDF technique to drop Trojans, the two attacks used the same HomeLinux DynamicDNS provider, pointed to the same virtual private server host owned by US-based Linode, and had IP addresses on the same subnet within a very similar address range.
"Considering this proximity, it is possible that the two attacks are one and the same, and that the organizations targeted in the Silicon Valley attacks have been compromised since July," says iDefense.
In fact, it is also possible that exploits go back further since the flaws used in last summer's attack pre-date the known attack by some months.
Whatever the details, that China is targeting the US technology firms, the government and military is nothing new, as a Northrop Grumman report of last October made clear. It now looks as if the latest cycle of attacks could take US firms, and perhaps even the US government itself, beyond breaking point.

Cooing

Little humor for this uncertain age…

Alleged China attacks could test U.S. cybersecurity policy…

The attacks on Google and more than 30 other Silicon Valley companies by agents allegedly working for China is focusing renewed attention on the issue of state-sponsored cyber attacks and how the U.S. government should respond to them.

The U.S. has no formal policy for dealing with foreign government-led threats against U.S. interests in cyberspace. With efforts already under way to develop such a policy, the recent attacks could do a lot shape the policy and fuel its passage through Congress.

In a revelation that was surprising for its boldness, Google on Tuesday said that agents possibly working on behalf of the Chinese government had hacked into its computers -- and those of more than 30 other multi-national companies. Also hit: Adobe .

This is not the first time Beijing has been accused of state-sponsored espionage. Over the past five years, China has been implicated in dozens of attacks involving U.S. commercial, government and military targets. The most sensational of these involved a Chinese hacking group called Titan Rain , which in the early 2000s is believed to have stolen U.S. military and nuclear information.

For the most part, the official U.S. response to the attacks amounted to little more than expressions of outrage and protest by lawmakers. On Tuesday, Secretary of State Hilary Clinton released a statement asking the Chinese government for an explanation for the attacks, which raised "very serious concerns and questions." On Wednesday, Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.), the chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, said that attacks like the one against Google must be confronted "aggressively and with all available means."

"The official response will be, 'We are highly upset about this and we demand you stop it,'" said Ira Winkler, president of the Internet Security Advisors Group. (Winkler is also the author of Spies Among Us and a Computerworld columnist.) "The reality of the situation is we are screwed. The political reality is that China, in large part, is funding the U.S. deficit. We have no leverage.

"We just can't cut China off," he said.

Articulating a response to government-led cyber attacks isn't easy.

"We have to keep one thing in mind -- it is extremely difficult to attribute a cyber attack to a foreign government," said Greg Nojeim, senior counsel at the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT), a Washington-based think tank. "There is often a lack of certainty in that regard that makes it really difficult to decide what kind of response to make."

And even if the evidence is there, it's futile to launch any kind of cyber-retaliation, he said. "That's something that should be off the table. You don't want to have a cyberwar where you fight fire with fire. That could burn the whole house down."

Instead, what's needed is a measured diplomatic response, where the issue is raised with China when it wants U.S. cooperation on other matters, he said. "The State Department has to make it clear that these attacks are so serious they warrant a diplomatic response. I am not sure that level of commitment has been demonstrated yet," Nojeim said.

Any victories gained from cyber-retaliation are likely to be temporary, at best, Winkler said. "If you can identify the systems that are attacking us and make sure you are attacking the right systems, theoretically, that might work" to head off another attack, he said. "But that's like throwing sand in the eyes of somebody who is beating you up." It can be effective -- but only for a while, he said.

That doesn't mean, nothing can be done. U.S. organizations that are targets of attacks from China first need to bolster their defenses, said Amit Yoran, former director of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's National Cyber Security Division. The continuing success Chinese agents have in penetrating U.S. networks points to ineffective security -- and sophisticated attackers, Yoran said.

"Companies such as Google have very, very sharp security teams, but the technologies they rely on are inadequate," said Yoran, who is currently CEO of security vendor NetWitness Corp. "We have developed a technology base in modern computing that is indefensible against modern threats."

What's needed is a security approach that focuses on continuous monitoring of networks and data, not one based solely on prevention.

"Whining about this won't stop it," said Alan Paller director of research for the SANS Institute, a Bethesda, Md.-based security institute. "Cyber-based military espionage and economic espionage are radically effective programs for the Chinese government," and it's unlikely that policy statements are going to do any good, he said. "There are simply too many attackers with too many motives to think that a policy of deterrence would be more than minimally effective."

At the federal government level, at least, "it is [security] skills with good tools that allow organizations to defend themselves," Paller said. "Sadly, these skills are in radically short supply."

The U.S government has fewer than 1,000 people with the advanced skills needed to fight in cyber space at "world-class levels," he said. What's needed are between 20,000 and 30,000 cybersecurity warriors. "Our competitors have even more."

Companies outsourcing work to China, or doing business there or in other developing nations such as India, also need to be aware of the heightened risks to their intellectual property, Winkler said. "Companies need to look at things much more strategically," he said. While it may be cheaper to outsource manufacturing in countries such as China and India, the long term costs could be high if they're not careful.

"Many are not looking at the strategic risks of a rival stealing their technology and selling counterfeit goods," he said.

As for official government cyber policies, just because the U.S doesn't have an official policy for handling attacks doesn't mean it's sitting on its hands, said one analyst who asked not to be named. "One reason why the U.S might not have come up with any rules of the road is because the NSA and other intelligence agencies are involved in the same kind of activity," he said.

Security experts say Google cyber-attack was routine

The cyber-attack that made Google consider pulling out of China was run of the mill, say security experts.

Google revealed its move following attempts to hack Gmail accounts of human rights activists.

The search giant said analysis showed that the series of attacks originated from inside China.

"This wasn't in my opinion ground-breaking as an attack. We see this fairly regularly. said Mikko Hypponen, of security firm F-Secure.

"Most companies just never go public," he added.

"Human-rights activists are the biggest target," said Mr Hypponen. "Everyone from Freedom for Tibet to Falun Gong supporters and those involved in Liberation of Taiwan are hit."

F-Secure has been monitoring such attacks against Chinese human-rights activists since 2005.

Google has operated in China since 2006 and has now said it was no longer willing to censor results on its Chinese search engine as the government required.

China has responded to Google and said that foreign firms were welcome to trade in the nation "according to the law". The spokesman added that the net was "open" in China.

Other victims

Of the attacks, Google said only two Gmail accounts were accessed and that hackers got very limited information. This included when the account was set up and the subject line rather than content of e-mail messages.

The company said that the accounts of dozens of US, China and Europe-based users who are advocates of human rights in China had been routinely accessed by third parties.
The cyber-criminals broke in using a tactic known as "phishing" where a legitimate e-mail is sent claiming to come from someone the user knows and trusts.

Typically these e-mail messages have a booby-trapped attachment that, once opened, places malware on a computer.

Once an e-mail account is compromised, attackers can piggyback on it to get access to confidential files and systems throughout an organisation.

"The attacker really did their homework finding out first who to attack, who the key people were in the organisation and how to attack them," said Mr Hypponen.

Google has said publicly that another 20 companies were hit. Adobe is the only other company to go public with this information.

But many security experts say the figure is much higher.

"We know of at least 40 companies that were attacked. For the most part they were in the US," said Chris Day, chief security architect of IT services firm Terremark.

"This goes on all the time. Of the Fortune 100 companies, all 100 are under some sort of attack all the time."

Mr Day told the BBC a host of those targeted were technology and software companies based in Silicon Valley.

Google has revealed that finance, chemical and media firms were hit.

Blame game

Questions are now being asked about who orchestrated the attacks.

"We are not saying one way or another these attacks were state sponsored or done with the approval of the state," said David Drummond, Google's chief legal officer.

"We do know they were highly organised and we believe the attacker came from China."
The inference being drawn across the security community is that the Google attack and those on other US companies were sanctioned by government.

"Sources indicate that they believe the attack is the work of actors operating on behalf of or in the direct employ of official intelligence entities of the People's Republic of China," said iDefense Labs in an e-mail to the BBC.

iDefense also revealed that this incident resembles one that took place in July 2009 against nearly 100 IT-focused companies.

"A nation state getting into the business of hacking companies is a really big shift," said Dan Kaminsky, director of penetration at security firm IOActive.

"The question now is are we going to see a significant increase or decrease in these kinds of attacks?"

Safe and secure

Google has stressed that users have nothing to fear about the security of the information it holds.
"The fact that they have come out and are transparent about what has happened is good for user trust," said Terremark's Mr Day.

"I have seen far worse things happen and I think larger organisations, and even individuals, should take this as an object lesson that no-one is immune to these attacks."

General security advice for all users is have a strong password that is changed regularly and includes letters, numbers and symbols.

All security patches should be up-to-date and users should never open attachments unless they know the person they are being sent by and are expecting them.

Haiti earthquake survivors await global aid effort

BBC correspondents say the situation is increasingly desperate, with no coordinated rescue plan so far and aid only trickling in.
The search for survivors continues but rescuers have little lifting equipment and are often using their bare hands.
Tens of thousands are feared dead and up to three million affected.
Aid groups say there is a race against time to find survivors under the rubble of the collapsed buildings - the first priority of the rescue effort.
Heavy lifting gear and sniffer dogs are desperately needed to seek out trapped victims, with medicine, food and water also in short supply.
Elisabeth Byrs of the UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, said: "The priority is to find survivors. We are working against the clock."
The head of Medecins du Monde, Olivier Bernard, told AFP news agency that aid had to arrive by Thursday evening.
"To save lives, surgery must be available ideally within the first 48 hours."
A few US aid planes and a 50-strong Chinese rescue team with sniffer dogs have landed at the airport serving the capital, Port-au-Prince.
Other plane-loads of rescuers and relief supplies are said to be on the way from the EU, Canada, Russia and Latin American nations.
A British rescue team with heavy lifting gear and dogs has landed in the Dominican Republic and will be in Haiti later on Thursday.
International Development Secretary Douglas Alexander said: "This is a tragedy on a massive scale. Britain is playing its part in the huge international response."
US President Barack Obama said the "people of Haiti will have the full support of the United States" in an "aggressive" aid campaign.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has cancelled a trip to Asia to deal with the crisis. Her husband, Bill Clinton, the UN special envoy for Haiti, told the Washington Post the quake was "one of the great humanitarian emergencies in the history of the Americas".
The USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier will arrive on Thursday. The USS Bataan, carrying a Marine expeditionary unit, is also on its way. The Pentagon said it was "seriously considering" sending thousands of marines.
The World Bank is funding $100m of emergency aid.
The World Food Programme is working on supplying 15,000 tonnes of food and the Red Cross has begun a $10m appeal.
The help is desperately needed as there is no coordinated rescue at present.
Doctor's assistant Jimitre Coquillon told Associated Press: "This is much worse than a hurricane. There's no water. There's nothing. Thirsty people are going to die."
Haitian President Rene Preval could not give an official estimate of the dead, saying: "I don't know... up to now, I heard 50,000... 30,000."
He spoke of how he stepped over dead bodies and heard cries of those trapped in the parliament building.
Singing hymns
Haiti is the poorest country in the western hemisphere and correspondents say it simply does not have the infrastructure to manage a rescue operation.
One Chilean UN peacekeeper told Reuters: "We just don't know what to do. You can see how terrible the damage is. We have not been able to get into all the areas."
The UN peacekeepers, who played a key role in maintaining public order in Haiti even before the quake, have been deployed to control any outbreaks of unrest as reports come in of looting.
The UN says 16 personnel are confirmed dead and more than 100 staff are still unaccounted for. They include UN mission head Hedi Annabi.
Medical aid agency Medecins sans Frontieres reported a "massive influx" of casualties at its makeshift clinics, many of them with severe injuries.
Patients with "severe traumas, head wounds, crushed limbs" have been streaming into MSF's temporary structures but the agency is only able to offer them basic medical care, spokesman Paul McPhun told reporters.
Thousands of Haitians spent a second night in the open on Wednesday, too scared to sleep inside damaged buildings. Many sang hymns to keep up their spirits.
The BBC's Matthew Price visited the grounds of one hospital and spoke of seeing about 100 bodies - but there were many people bedding down for the night to sleep among the dead.
The 7.0-magnitude quake, Haiti's worst in two centuries, struck at 1653 local time (2153 GMT) on Tuesday, just 15km (10 miles) south-west of Port-au-Prince and close to the surface.
Meanwhile, the Red Cross has set up a web site at www.icrc.org/familylinks on which people in Haiti and overseas can register the names of missing relatives.

Finnish Organisations Plead for Haiti Aid

The Finnish Red Cross (SPR) has pledged 200,000 euros to help Haiti, whose capital Port-au-Prince has been devastated in a massive earthquake. The government and the Evangelical Lutheran Church have also promised to send emergency aid.

In addition to the immediate funds, the SPR is asking for the public to make donations using its website (site in Finnish and Swedish only). It is also asking the Foreign Ministry to fund a mobile hospital clinic to be sent to the country as quickly as possible.
A team of health care professionals in Tampere is awaiting the green light from the International Red Cross. The IRC will take a few days to make a full assessment and whether it is useful to send teams and equipment all the way from Finland. SPR communications officer Taina Keinänen notes that it's much cheaper to send help from units closer to the disaster area.
Government and Church to Send Aid
Meanwhile, the Foreign Ministry says it's prepared to donate aid as well, but is waiting for official requests from aid organisations.
Finn Church Aid, the charitable unit of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, has also earmarked 150-thousand euros for emergency relief. Thousands of people are feared dead in Haiti, and thousands more are still trapped in the rubble.
The Finnish Foreign ministry says that no Finns were injured in the quake. Only one Finn was known to be in Haiti at the moment. Both he and the 200-or-so Finns in the neighbouring Dominican Republic are all alive and well.

Haiti Chief Says Thousands May Be Dead

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — The wailing of survivors pierced the air in pockets of this devastated city on Wednesday as people dug desperately through the rubble of collapsed buildings and piled bodies of the dead on roadsides under white sheets.
Huge swaths of the capital, Port-au-Prince, lay in ruins, and thousands of people were feared dead in the rubble of government buildings, foreign aid offices and shantytowns. Limbs protruded from piles of disintegrated concrete, and muffled cries emanated from deep inside the wrecks of buildings, as this impoverished nation struggled to grasp the grim, still unknown toll from its worst earthquake in more than 200 years.

Scenes of destruction defined the city. Concrete homes collapsed on hillsides. Hospitals overflowed with victims. The Canape Vert hospital was surrounded by collapsed buildings.

With the electricity and phone service out and supplies of fresh water dwindling, The United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, said Haiti was facing a “major humanitarian emergency.” With 14 United Nations peacekeepers confirmed dead and more than 100 workers missing, the organization was in mourning and flying its own flag at half-staff.
When staff members tried to travel by car “they were mobbed by crowds of people,” Mr. McPhun said. “They just want help, and anybody with a car is better off than they are.” Contaminated drinking water is a longstanding and severe problem in Haiti, causing high rates of illness that put many people in the hospital. Providing sanitation and clean water is one of the top priorities for aid organizations, to try to avert outbreaks of dysentery.Some roads had been torn apart in the quake or were blocked by debris, making it more difficult to transport fresh water, food and first aid supplies, and hospitals were overwhelmed by the injured. In a place where there are constant blackouts, the electricity remained out during the early hours Wednesday, and telephones were not working.

More than 30 significant aftershocks of a 4.5 magnitude or higher rattled Haiti through the night and into the early morning, according to Amy Vaughan, a geophysicist with the United States Geological Survey. “We’ve seen a lot of shaking still happening,” she said.

Bob Poff, a Salvation Army official, said in a written account posted on the Salvation Army’s Web site how he had loaded injured victims — “older, scared, bleeding and terrified” — into the back of his truck and set off in search of help. In two hours, he managed to travel less than a mile, he said.

The account described how Mr. Poff and hundreds of neighbors spent the night outside, in the playground near a children’s home run by the group. Every tremor sent ripples of fear through the survivors, providing “another reminder that we are not yet finished with this calamity,” he wrote.

“And when it comes, all of the people cry out and the children are terrified,” he wrote.

Louise Ivers, the clinical director of the aid group Partners in Health, said in an e-mail to her colleagues: “Port-au-Prince is devastated, lot of deaths. SOS. SOS . . . Temporary field hospital by us at UNDP needs supplies, pain meds, bandages. Please help us.”

A hospital collapsed in Pétionville, a hillside district in Port-au-Prince that is home to many diplomats and wealthy Haitians, a videographer for The Associated Press said. Photos from Haiti on Wednesday showed a hillside scraped nearly bare of its houses, which had tumbled into the ravine below.

Immigration officials at the Port-au-Prince airport refused to allow incoming journalists into the terminal, fearing that it could collapse; instead they were taken a side exit of the airport, where taxis began showing up late Wednesday morning.

Tequila Minsky, a photographer who was in Port-au-Prince, said a wall at the front of the Hotel Oloffson had fallen, killing a passer-by. A number of nearby buildings had crumbled, trapping people, she said, and a Unibank bank building was badly damaged. People were screaming.

“It was general mayhem,” Ms. Minsky said.

Haiti’s many man-made woes — its dire poverty, political infighting and history of insurrection — have been worsened repeatedly by natural disasters. At the end of 2008, four hurricanes flooded whole towns, knocked out bridges and left a destitute population in even more desperate conditions.



The Haitian president, René Préval, told The Miami Herald that the toll was “unimaginable” and estimated that thousands had died. Among those feared dead were the chief of the United Nations mission in Haiti and Msgr. Joseph Serge Miot, the archbishop of the capital, Port-au-Prince.

The quake struck just before 5 p.m. Tuesday about 10 miles southwest of Port-au-Prince, ravaging the infrastructure of Haiti’s fragile government and destroying some of its most important cultural symbols. The domed white presidential palace and the cathedral collapsed, the Ministry of Justice was destroyed, and the country’s national prison suffered extensive damage, a United Nations spokesman said.

“Parliament has collapsed,” Mr. Préval was quoted as saying. “The tax office has collapsed. Schools have collapsed. Hospitals have collapsed. There are a lot of schools that have a lot of dead people in them.”

“All of the hospitals are packed with people,” he added. “It is a catastrophe.”

The earthquake left the country in a shambles, tangling efforts to provide relief to an estimated 3 million people who the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said had been affected by the quake.
President Obama promised that Haiti would have the “unwavering support” of the United States.

Mr. Obama said United States aid agencies were moving swiftly to get help to Haiti and that search-and-rescue teams were already en route. He described the reports of destruction as “truly heart-wrenching,” made more cruel given Haiti’s long-troubled circumstances. Mr. Obama did not make a specific aid pledge, and administration officials said they were still trying to figure out what the island needed. But he urged Americans to dig into their pockets and to go to the White House’s Web site, www.whitehouse.gov, to find ways to donate money.

“This is a time when we are reminded of the common humanity that we all share,” Mr. Obama said, speaking in the morning in the White House diplomatic reception room with Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. at his side.

Aid agencies said they would open their storehouses of food and water inside Haiti, and the World Food Program was flying in nearly 100 tons of ready-to-eat meals and high-energy biscuits from El Salvador. The United Nations said it was freeing up $10 million in emergency relief funds, the European Union pledged $4.4 million, and groups like Doctors Without Borders were setting up clinics in tents and open-air triage centers to treat the injured.

Supplies began filtering in from the Dominican Republic, as charter flights were restarted between Santo Domingo and Port-au-Prince.

But efforts to administer emergency services and distribute food and water were halting, and in some places, seemingly nonexistent. A few S.U.V.’s driven by United Nations personnel plied streets clogged with rubble, pedestrians and other vehicles. Fuel shortages emerged as an immediate concern as motorists sought to find gas stations with functioning fuel pumps.

Hundreds of people camped under the shade of trees in the prime minister’s office compound, while others milled about in open spaces, hesitant to return to their homes after the powerful earthquake that struck Tuesday afternoon, followed by seemingly endless aftershocks.

"This is the worst tragedy I have seen in Haiti in my 54 years," said Lubini Hermano, a driver employed by a hotel in the hills above the capital. The hotel, Villa Creole, was deeply damaged but still a focal point, as doctors tended to a flow of injured people who appeared at its gate.

Some aid groups with offices in Haiti’s capital were also busy searching for their own dead and missing.

Five workers with the United Nations mission in Haiti were killed and more than 100 more missing after the office’s headquarters collapsed in one of the deadliest single days for United Nations employees. The Tunisian head of the group’s Haitian mission, Hedi Annabi, and his deputy were among the missing, said Alain LeRoy, the United Nations peacekeeping chief.

Earlier Wednesday, the French foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner, said in radio interviews that Mr. Annabi had been killed in the collapse.

The Brazilian Army, which has one of the largest peacekeeping presences in Haiti, said that 11 of its soldiers had been killed in the quake and seven had been injured, with seven more unaccounted for.

In addition to the human toll, the heavy damage sustained by Haiti’s presidential palace and the United Nations headquarters were a blow to the two major symbols of authority in the country.

“The palace was like something out of a fairy tale in a country that had nothing,” said Johanna Mendelson Forman, a former adviser to the United Nations mission, who now works at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “It had red carpets and gold ropes. It was a symbol of one of the few institutions that works there, and that’s the presidency.”

On Wednesday the palace looked like a collapsed wedding cake, with its column-lined facade crumpled and its white domed roof caving in.

During a driving tour of the capital Wednesday, Bernice Robertson, an analyst with the International Crisis Group, said she saw at least 30 dead bodies, most covered with plastic bags or sheets. She also witnessed heroic recovery efforts. “There are people digging with their hands, searching for people in the rubble,” she said in an interview by Skype. “There was unimaginable destruction.”

Paul McPhun, operations manager for Doctors Without Borders, described scenes of chaos.

Iranian Cyber Army hacks China's Baidu search engine

The group known as the Iranian Cyber Army, which attacked Twitter in December, has defaced another high-profile website, according to security firm Sophos.
This time the group has targeted China's biggest search engine, Baidu. The site's home page briefly displayed a message declaring the site had been hacked by the Iranian Cyber Army.
"It is not presently clear whether Baidu's site itself was compromised or, as in the case with the Twitter attack, its DNS records," said Graham Cluley senior technology consultant at Sophos.
If the website's DNS records were breached then the hackers would have been able to redirect visitor to web server under their control, he said in a blog post.
The Baidu website appeared to be back to normal in two hours, indicating that the motive for the attack was political rather than financial, said Cluley.
But it would have been easy for the hackers to create a cloned version of the main Baidu web page, he said, complete with an invisible link to a software exploit or piece of malware.

"Attacks like this are a reminder to everyone that you always need to have security scanning every webpage you visit, even if it is an established legitimate website," said Cluley.

Cops probe first Twitter murder

POLICE in the US are investigating what they believe is the first murder carried out because of messages posted on Twitter.

Detectives in New York say a deadly confrontation between two friends was caused by angry comments posted on the micro blogging site.

They are set to serve legal papers ordering the Twitter site to get the messages that were sent between alleged killer Jameg Blake and victim Kwame Dancy.

Criminal experts said it would be the first time the 140 word postings would be used as evidence in a murder trial.

Prosecutors will use the postings to show the increasingly hostile relationship between the men.

According to police, Blake, 22, and Dancy, 22, had spent weeks sending each other angry messages via their Twitter accounts.

The pair, childhood friends, lived on the same floor of a high rise block of flats but had fallen out over a girl.

Police sources said the pair had sent each other spiteful messages on their Twitter accounts.

Other friends joined in the row by adding to the Tweets.

Police said hours before Dancy was blasted in the neck with a shotgun blast he sent his victim a Tweet which said: "N------s is looking for u don't think I won't give up ya address for a price betta chill asap!"

Police said Dancy, who was training as a nurse, died after being shot as he left his home in Harlem, New York on December 1st.

The murder weapon was later found abandoned in Central Park along with a spent shell.

Two days after the killing Blake took to his Twitter account to post the message: "R.I.P. Kwame".

Dancy's mother, Madeline Smith, said she was stunned to learn that Tweets between the friends could have led to murder.

"That's not a reason to shoot somebody," she said.

"That's crazy. I don't know what's going on with that Twitter thing."

Smith said her son and Blake had been friends since childhood.

"They were good friends, that's the sad part about it," she said.

"Obviously, I didn't know him like I thought I did. I just want to ask him. 'Why? How could you?'

Blake has been charged with first degree murder.

Itella Cutting 188 Postal Workers

The Finnish postal services company Itella plans to cut 188 jobs by the end of the year. The company had initially planned more redundancies, and the total number of job losses might be reduced further before the year is out. Co-determination talks on the future of sorting personnel concluded on Monday.

The job cuts are to take place in five communities. The communities most affected will be the company’s facilities in Helsinki (47), Lappeenranta (54), and Turku (81). Four people are to be let go in Mikkeli and 22 in Seinäjoki. The company had previously expected to cut 380 people in eight communities.
A number of temporary redundancies are also planned for this year. Itella says that it hopes to implement the moves as far as possible without actual terminations, through retirement arrangements, shifting employees to other jobs, and other similar moves.
The need to cut personnel stems from rationalisation in mail sorting and the introduction of new equipment. Itella is concentrating its mail sorting operations on four cities - Helsiinki, Tampere, Kuopio, and Oulu.

BBC's plan to kick free/open source out of UK TV devices

My latest Guardian column, "The BBC's digital rights plans will wreak havoc on open source software," describes how the BBC's plan to add DRM to its high-def broadcasts will exclude free/open source software from use in digital television applications, slowing down innovation, raising costs, and harming the public interest. The BBC's regulator, Ofcom, will soon hold a second consultation on the Beeb's plan to add DRM to high-def broadcasts, and I'm urging them to get the BBC to answer for this consequence of the DRM plan. The entire DTLA system relies on the keys necessary to authenticate devices and unscramble video being kept secret, and on the rules governing the use of keys being inviolable. To that end, the DTLA "Compliance and Robustness Agreement" (presented as "Annex C" to the DTLA agreement) has a number of requirements aimed at ensuring that every DTLA-approved device is armoured against user modification. Keys must be hidden. Steps must be taken to ensure that the code running on the device isn't modified. Failure to take adequate protection against user modification will result in DTLA approval being withheld or revoked. This is where the conflict with free/open source software arises.
Free/open source software, such as the GNU/Linux operating system that runs many set-top boxes, is created cooperatively among many programmers (thousands, in some cases). Unlike proprietary software, such as the Windows operating system or the iPhone's operating system, free software authors publish their code and allow any other programmer to examine it, make improvements to it, and publish those improvements. This has proven to be a powerful means of quickly building profitable new businesses and devices, from the TomTomGo GPSes to Google's Android phones to the Humax Freeview box you can buy tonight at Argos for around £130.
Because it can be adapted by anyone, free software is an incredible source of innovative new ideas. Because it can be used without charge, it has allowed unparalleled competition, dramatically lowering the cost of entering electronics markets. In short, free software is good for business, it's good for the public, it's good for progress, and it's good for competition.
But free software is bad for DTLA compliance.

Britain's Digital Economy Bill will cost ISPs £500M, knock 40K poor households offline

In the UK, Business Secretary Peter Mandelson has tabled his "Digital Economy Bill," a terrible piece of legislation that requires ISPs to police their customers on behalf of the music industry when the latter claims that its copyrights have been violated (no evidence necessary). The UK music industry blames piracy for £200 million in annual losses, and this is Mandelson's excuse for abridging human rights and fundamental justice in his witch-hunt for pirates.
But the government's own research shows that Mandelson's plans will cost the UK ISP industry £500 million to implement, and when these costs are added to each customer's bill (as they surely will be), the rise will be enough to knock an estimated 40,000 British families off the Internet.
What's more, the government's own Digital Inclusion research has shown that poor households with Internet access enjoy a substantially higher quality of life than their offline neighbours, thanks to a variety of factors, from low-cost online shopping, to savings through online utility billing, to better research tools for school-kids, job-seekers and people with health problems.
Half a billion pounds down the drain, 40,000 of Britain's most vulnerable families knocked offline, and for all that, there's no reason to believe that Mandelson's plan will do anything to reduce piracy. Today, according to a new report, government ministers have admitted that the costs will amount to £500m ($799.2m).
ISPs say that issuing warnings will cost every customer £1.40 ($2.24) and otherwise meddling with accounts at the behest of the music industry will add £25 ($40) total to an annual subscription.
Worryingly, ministers say that this extra cost will force 40,000 UK households offline, with BT's John Petter calling the plans "collective punishment that goes against natural justice."
Jeremy Hunt, the Shadow Culture Secretary, said that it is "grossly unfair" for the government to force all broadband customers to foot the bill, and noted that forcing tens of thousands offline will go against government targets of increasing Internet take-up among the most disadvantaged communities.

Finnish Plane Makes Emergency Landing

A Ryanair plane that departed from Tampere on Sunday was forced to make an emergency landing in Sweden. The pilot made the decision to land after noting a problem with the plane’s motor.

The aircraft, which was heading for Frankfurt, Germany, landed at the Skavstan Airport near Nyköping, in southeast Sweden.
The landing was smooth. However, technicians decided to keep the plane grounded, reported Sweden’s public television company SVT.
Swedish aviation officials confirmed the plane had a motor problem. Passengers of the interrupted flight were loaded onto another plane to continue their journey.

H1N1 Vaccine Available for All Helsinki Residents

All residents of Helsinki are now eligible for the swine flu vaccine. Beginning Monday, healthy persons between the ages of 25 and 34 can show up for the shot at health centres without an appointment. The vaccination is staggered by age groups to help avoid queues.

Health care professionals plan to administer vaccinations until everyone who desires the shot receives it.
However people are less eager to get the shot, according to Jukka Pellinen, the administrative physician of the City of Helsinki Health Centre.
“Based on the number of people who turned up for vaccinations last week, we’re not expecting a big rush,” he says.
Nonetheless, Pellinen recommends that as many people as possible get the H1N1 flu shot.
“If we reach enough people with the vaccine, it’s possible we could avoid a second swine flu wave.”

Med Student Caught Playing Doctor

A medical student at the Kokkola Health Centre treated patients despite lacking the proper training, reports the newspaper Keskipohjanmaa. The student worked for six months before being caught.

The imposter had reportedly been studying medicine for three years. Officials say the student, who had worked for the health care staffing firm MedOne and the Kokkola Health Centre, should not have been allowed to work so independently.
The medical student was caught in early September after authorities became suspicious of the student’s capabilities. The National Supervisory Authority for Welfare and Health (VALVIRA) investigated the case.
The Kokkola Health Centre will now decide whether to review the medical cases handled by the student.

One Call Would Have Revealed False Doctor, Minister Says

Minister of Social Services Paula Risikko does not understand why the competence of the young man who posed as a doctor at the Karkkila Health Centre was not properly ascertained. In an interview with the newspaper Aamulehti, the fraud could have been found out with just one telephone call to VALVIRA, the National Supervisory Authority for Welfare and Health.

VALVIRA registers all competent doctors, as well as medical students who have studied medicine for 4-5 years.
Risikko says that it is a mystery to her how a 23-year-old man was able to fool people in Karkkila and Karjaa so well that he could pose as an advanced medical student for over a year before being caught.
The person in question had never studied medicine, although he had tried to get into medical school twice.

Former MP Tony Halme Dies at 47

Former Member of Parliament Tony Halme has died at the age of 47. Police told YLE that no foul play is suspected in his death. Police would not yet confirm the time, or cause of death. The late-edition tabloid Iltalehti reported in its online edition that Halme was found dead at home.

Halme, a professional boxer by training, achieved fame on the Finnish version of the Gladiators television franchise.
He was notorious for his outspoken opinions, served for one term as a Member of Parliament of the populist True Finns party, after winning a landslide of personal votes in the Parliamentary elections of 2003. In his campaign he put a special emphasis on opposition to more immigration.
Later in 2003 he was hospitalised following an incident in which he had fired a pistol in his Helsinki apartment, apparently while under the influence of alcohol and drugs.
The incident brought him a suspended prison sentence and a fine.
In October last year he was arrested for driving while under the influence of illegal drugs. Charges were still pending in the incident when he died.

Shops Stretch Opening Hours under New Law

Many Finnish shops have taken advantage of new legislation allowing them to remain open longer than before. The law has removed all restrictions on opening hours for shops with less than 400 square metres of floor space. One Alepa store on Mannerheimintie in Helsinki is staying open 24 hours a day.

HOK-Elanto has decided to try round-the-clock opening hours in one of its Alepa stores. Young people buying soft drinks and snacks are among the main late-night clientele. The manager of the shop, Mia Juselius, says that fruit and vegetables also sell late at night.
Trial Opening
Kimmo Nikula, manager of the Alepa and S-Market chain, emphasizes that the 24-hour opening of the Mannerheimintie Alepa is a trial, and that there are no plans to extend it to other shops very soon. According to Nikula, it is not yet possible to evaluate the profitability of late-night trading.
“We will follow the situation and in the coming weeks we will see how sensible this is,” Nikula says.
He emphasizes that a number of measures have been taken to secure the safety of employees who are on night shifts. The main idea is that nobody will be forced to work alone late at night; there will be at least two shop employees and a guard.
Currently there are about 300 shops in Finland which are staying open until 11:00 PM. The tendency toward 24-hour store opening is strong. The Kesko chain expects that the number of K-Markets staying open late into the night will increase to more than 20 this year.

Tony Halme on kuollut

Entinen kansanedustaja ja nyrkkeilijä Tony Halme on kuollut.
Tony Halme on löytynyt kuolleena kotoaan. Iltalehden tietojen mukaan Halme kuoli sunnuntain vastaisena yönä. Poliisi vahvistaa Iltalehdelle, että Halme on kuollut, mutta ei vahvista kuolintapaa eikä -aikaa.
- Tapaukseen ei liity rikosta. Meillä on meneillään normaali kuolinsyyntutkinta, johon liittyvät tiedot ovat lain mukaan salaisia, perustelee rikosylikomisario Kari Tolvanen.
Tony Christian Halme oli kuollessaan 47-vuotias. Hän syntyi Helsingissä 6. tammikuuta 1963. Halmeen piti viettää syntymäpäiväjuhliaan eilen lauantaina Helsingin keskustassa sijaitsevassa ravintolassa.

Nyrkkeilijä ja kansanedustaja

Tony Halme tuli suurelle yleisölle tunnetuksi vuonna 1993, kun hän esiintyi televisiossa Gladiaattorit-ohjelmassa.
Sittemmin Viikinki-lempinimellä tunnettu mies ryhtyi ammattinyrkkeilijäksi. Hän riisti raskaansarja Suomen mestaruuden Jukka "Pyöveli" Järviseltä vuonna 1997.
Halme kunnostautui myös kirjailijana, näyttelijänä ja laulajana.
Suorapuheinen ja isänmaallinen Halme oli ristiriitainen henkilö, jota osa rakasti ja osa vihasi. Vuonna 2003 miehen uskomaton suosio nosti hänet eduskuntaan perussuomalaisten listoilta. Halme saavutti 16 390 ääntä ja oli Paavo Lipposen (sd) jälkeen toiseksi eniten Helsingissä ääniä saanut ehdokas.

Syyteharkinta kesken

Halmeen ongelmat nousivat puheenaiheeksi viime lokakuussa, kun Iltalehti uutisoi miehen kärynneen ratista. Halme ajoi huumeiden vaikutuksen alaisena.
Kotietsinnässä häneltä löytyi tuolloin laiton pistooli, toistasataa patruunaa ja mahdollisesti amfetamiinia. Jutun syyteharkinta on yhä kesken.
Huumesekoilu maksoi Halmeelle myös roolin Talvisota-näytelmässä. Miehen oli tarkoitus esiintyä Porvoon Kokonniemessä sotilaspoliisin roolissa.