US charges eight suspects in $45 million ATM cyber attacks

Eight alleged members of a global cyber crimes cell accused of stealing $45 million dollars from multiple banks worldwide have been charged, the Justice Department says.

The eight suspects being charged, one of whom is dead, were allegedly part of the New York cell of the operation. The case, spearheaded by the US Secret Service, is being prosecuted in Brooklyn by US Attorney Loretta Lynch.

The alleged members of the New York cell reportedly stole $2.8 million out of ATMs on the Broadway thoroughfare in New York City,  CBS news reports. The group has also been accused of hacking into a Visa and MasterCard processor in the United States in February, as well as an Indian bank in December.

Data the group allegedly acquired from Master Card Inc. was used to make roughly 36,000 transactions in two dozen countries in a 10 hour period, Reuters cites the Justice Department as saying. Federal law enforcement called its investigation into the conspiracy “Operation Unlimited”, as the the hackers removed the withdrawal limits on the stolen prepaid debit card data.

The accused are being charged with conspiracy to commit access device fraud and money laundering related offenses.

Seven of the eight defendants are residents of Yonkers, New York. The eighth suspect charged in the indictment was murdered in the Dominican Republic last month.

The loosely-knit global cyber-crime network  allegedly took part in a massive criminal conspiracy which spanned 26 countries and caused some $45 million in loses, authorities said.

 

 

 

RT

Catapult to future: Facebook ‘building $1.5-billion data center’ in US to conquer Internet

An employee walks past servers in one of four server rooms at the Facebook Data Center on April 19, 2012 in Forest City, North Carolina. (AFP Photo)

Facebook has been revealed to be the company behind a $1.5-billion installation under construction in Iowa, already dubbed the “most technologically advanced data center in the world,” according to US media.

For over a year, the mysterious project in Altoona, Iowa, a town of just over 15,000 people, was a topic of heated speculation – what company is spending $1.5 billion on a data center occupying 130,000 square meters, with servers and databanks?

Now, legislative sources have revealed to Iowa newspaper the Des Moines Register that they are “finalizing some elements” for Siculus Inc. and its ‘Project Catapult,’ believed to be a Facebook initiative.

The three-building installation is expected to be completed in two stages, each worth $500 million, with the final price tag for the facility reaching as high as $1.5 billion, analysts said.

Facebook already has three similar facilities: In Prineville, Oregon($210 million); in Forest City, North Carolina ($450 million) and in Luleå, Sweden (worth $760 million). The Altoona installation would be the largest, worth more than all three others combined. All of Facebook’s data centers are also brand new, having been built in 2010 at the earliest.

Ideal location

Facebook’s Catapult will join Google and Microsoft, which are also building IT hubs in the region. Another site lobbied fiercely to host the Facebook facility – ‘Project Edge’ in Kearney, Nebraska – but Altoona won out for several reasons.

Any data center needs a high-capacity fiber optic cable system, like the one running along Interstate Highway 80 near Altoona. Reliable power supplies are another crucial element – despite claims of ‘green’ energy powering the project, the proximity to a large power station appears to have contributed to Facebook’s decision to construct its datacenter in Altoona. The Duane Arnold Energy Center, the only nuclear power plant in Iowa, is also about 150 km away from the site.

 

Picture taken on November 18, 2012 shows the construction site of the new Facebook Data Center and firm’s first outside the US in the city of Lulea, in Swedish Lapland. (AFP Photo)

 

The announced use of solar arrays, fuel cells and wind energy in Altoona would likely be unable to fully satisfy the power needs of such a huge energy-intensive facility, but development of renewable power sources in the area might bring Facebook certain tax credits anyway, the Des Moines Register reported. And like Facebook’s other two US data centers, the Altoona facility will also likely be equipped with backup diesel generators.

A large data center also needs extensive water cooling – the Saylorville Lake reservoir on the Des Moines River is about 20km away. Iowa is also a relatively safe from natural disasters, as neither hurricanes nor earthquakes happen frequently in the region.

Finally, the installation needs to be near major highways, and Altoona is located near three major arteries: Interstates 80 and 35 and US Highway 65.

A master plan?

In October 2012, Facebook registered 1 billion active users a month; founder Mark Zuckerberg said the company is now aiming for 2 billion users.

Such growth would necessarily require new data centers to be built. Matz Engman, chief executive of Luleå Business Agency, told the UK’s Sun in January that the construction of a Facebook data center in Luleå is “just the beginning… What we want is to be the actual hub for all data traffic in Europe.”

 

Prineville Data Center (Photo from facebook.com/prinevilleDataCenter)

 

 

The construction of the Altoona data center could empower Facebook to broaden its horizons beyond just European and US data traffic. US media reports last month suggest some clues to their plans.

In late March, FBI general counsel Andrew Weissman discussed plans to monitor private Internet communications in real time.

And a cyber-security directive signed in February by US President Barack Obama, increased the mandatory security for private-sector firms such as Gmail and Facebook, which might soon be considered “critical infrastructure” entities and asked to share information with the federal government.

Moreover, the US government has long vowed to use the Internet to advance its foreign policy. The construction of multi-billion-dollar facilities by giants like Facebook and Google might fit within thisframework.

Dutch reality show seeks volunteers for a getaway to the first human colony on Mars

 

Dutch company ‘Mars One’ has launched an official selection program for volunteers from all nations for a reality show to fly, live and die on Mars.

“Gone are the days when bravery and the number of hours flying a supersonic jet were the top criteria,”said Norbert Kraft, Mars One’s Chief Medical Director and former NASA senior researcher.

The company invites anyone from anywhere in the world to fill out an online application for the departure, scheduled for 2022, and land in April 2023. As the technology for a return flight does not exist, it will be a one-way ticket, according to Mars One website.

“When that day comes there will be a memorial service and cremation ceremony, just like customs on Earth dictate.”

Image by Bryan Versteeg / Mars One

The return to Earth is also not possible due to funding, as a one-way mission greatly reduces costs. Mars One is a non-profit organization, planning to raise money to fund the project, estimated at about $6 billion, according the web site.

“It sounds like a lot of money. And actually it is a lot of money. But imagine what will happen when the first people land on Mars. Literally everybody on the globe will want to see it,” Lansdorp said as quoted on Mars One website.

 

Image by Bryan Versteeg / Mars One

 

In addition to application fees, which will vary from $5 to $75 depending on the per capita GDP of the applicant’s country, the company plans to raise money by selling broadcast rights.

“Not unlike the televised events of the Olympic Games, Mars One intends to maintain an on-going, global media event, from astronaut selection to training, from lift-off to landing,” the site said.

Last year Mars One received 10,000 messages from applicants from over 100 countries, though the official launch of the selection program started on Monday.

Requirements for ‘Martian citizenship’

“We are very excited about launching the selection program. Round One is where we open the doors to Mars for everyone on Earth. This is an international mission and it is very important for the project that anyone anywhere can ask themselves: Do I want this? Am I ready for this? If the answer is yes then we want to hear from you,” said Lansdorp.

The company established certain requirements for potential Martians. It is looking for applicants older than 18 years, who are ‘both mature and interesting’, according to Mars One. They have to possess certain character traits – ‘resilience, adaptability, curiosity, ability to trust others, creativity, and resourcefulness’.

“For this mission of permanent settlement we are more concerned with how well each astronaut lives and works with others and their ability to deal with a lifetime of challenges”, said Kraft.

 

Image by Bryan Versteeg / Mars One

 

According to the company the candidates don’t need particular professional skills, as they will obtain those during a seven-year training program in the US – everything you need to learn to survive on an inhospitable planet.

The first settlers will be picked by an audience vote during the last stage of several rounds of the selection process of the trained and qualified candidates. They will travel to the red planet in groups of four every two years.

The deadline for the first round of online applications is August 31.

The company will use only existing technology available in the space industry. According to the website, a SpaceX spacecraft will send rovers and supplies ahead of the astronauts, and then the SpaceX Falcon Heavy will take the crew to Mars, where they will assemble their habitat.

However, many questions rise about how the astronauts would survive on a planet with freezing temperatures and a carbon dioxide atmosphere. The company’s representatives claim that their project is ‘ethically sound’, calling it an ‘idealistic mission’.

This is not the only ongoing Mars project. Previously the Russian space agency Roscosmos signed a deal with the European Space Agency (ESA) to participate in the Exomars project, a new attempt to discover life on the Red Planet.

 

 

 

 

RT

Who made the first cell phone?

We wanted to do a dazzling demonstration,” Martin Cooper says of the day in 1973 when he stood outside the Manhattan Hilton and fiddled with an object that was nearly the size of a child’s boot. “I had this thing with push-buttons on it, and I was talking into it,” he remembers. A crowd gathered around him on Sixth Avenue, gawking as he demonstrated how to make a call from the sidewalk — with no phone booth and no wires.

After the stunt, Cooper — who was head of the communications-systems division at Motorola — met with journalists inside the Hilton. The first cellphone, weighing more than two pounds, had all the sex appeal of a doorstop. Still, it was a triumph of engineering. To prove that the phone wasn’t an elaborate fake, he handed it around. One reporter called Australia and was astonished when her mother’s voice came out of the plastic-covered device.

“I have a mantra that people are naturally, fundamentally and inherently mobile,” Cooper says. While working on car phones, he imagined a world in which people would carry the devices on their bodies — and he liked to joke that “when you were born, you would be assigned a phone number.” That idea seemed wildly futuristic in the 1960s, when car phones needed 30-pound batteries. But by the early 1970s, “the electronics had improved,” he says. “We could get by with a small battery and very small parts, and you could actually carry the phone with you.”

It would be another decade before you could actually buy one. The Motorola DynaTAC 8000X, left, went on sale in 1983 for about $4,000 — and became a symbol of yuppie excess. In the 1987 movie “Wall Street,” Gordon Gekko strolls on the beach at sunrise and snarls into his brick-size phone, “This is your wake-up call, pal.” Soon enough, everyone else would get the wake-up call, too.

SPYING ON YOURSELF

Alex Pentland, director of the Human Dynamics Lab at M.I.T., studies cellphone data for clues about our behavior.

The phone tracks our movements, as well as our calls and texts, so it can reveal a lot about our daily lives. What did you learn about yourself by studying your own cellphone data? That I’m very predictable. We tend to pay attention only to the new things in our lives. Meanwhile, our habits are invisible to us. You may say you don’t always eat Tex-Mex food, but if you’re always at the Tex-Mex restaurant, I’d have to disagree.

If you were to look at my cellphone data, could you predict where I’ll be next Tuesday? Probably.

In a recent study, you looked at people’s cellphone data and found that their behavior changed just before they reported feeling sick. Yes. It turns out that all of us have very consistent responses when we’re getting the flu. We move around more before we come down with the illness — it’s that last gasp of activity before you get really sick.

You asked the people in your study to tell you how many hours they slept. Did you discover anything when you put together the sleep logs with calls, texts and other cellphone data? It turns out that there’s a strong correlation between social stimulation and good sleep. If you don’t sleep well, you are more likely to be a hermit. Some of the people in our study discovered that the correlation was very strong for them — they needed good sleep in order to be social.

 

nytimes

Facebook Revamps News Feed As ‘Personalized Newspaper’

Facebook is revamping its most-used feature: its News Feed, making its design more image-focused and mobile-friendly, while providing more ways for people to access specific types of content.

The problem Facebook is facing is that more content than ever is flooding its News Feed. That’s because people have more friends, while following more businesses and famous people on Facebook–who are all posting more content. The new specific feeds announced today allow people to see just content from real-life friends (not businesses or celebrities), photos, music content or businesses and celebrities. This will help people to see content that is older that they may have missed, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said.

Unlike Twitter, which focuses on real-time content, Facebook is the place where people go to keep in touch with family and friends, regardless of when the news happens.

Facebook also redesigned its site and navigation to make it more consistent and mobile-centric. The design includes an emphasis on larger photos and images in the News Feed. The person or business who posts an event is now represented by their photos on the left side of the content. The result is a much more image-heavy design, which is what people want, Facebook says.

See the live blog here: We’re live at Facebook for the social network’s expected News Feed announcement. The company is expected to announce changes to one of its main products, the stream of content that its one billion users interact with on a regular basis. TechCrunch previously reported that the company plans to launch new content-specific feeds and new photo views.

Zuckerberg takes the stage: “What we’re trying to do is give everyone the best personalized newspaper.” The best newspapers should be visual and rich. We’re talking about a new design today, he says. He shows an early version of the News Feed from 2007. Our goal was different from what any other social service was going to provide, he says. “There’s a special place in the world for this personalized newspaper.”

Composition of News Feed: The News Feed was mainly text early on with status updates, but now it’s primarily about visual content. Almost 50% of content now is visual on the feed. We think of News Feed as friend posts but now almost 30% of content is from famous people and Facebook Pages, Zuckerberg says.

There are three main changes in the new design: rich visual stories, your choice of specific feeds, and a mobile-inspired consistent user interface design across all mobile devices and the desktop.

Zuck hands it off to head of design Julie Zhou to describe the new design. Zhou is showing a new display of larger photos in the News Feed.

New Visual Design: There’s a new banner in the News Feed for when someone adds a friend or “likes” a page. Instead of just seeing “Joe has added Jim as a friend” in text, there will now be photos of them. That’s the overall idea to add photos or graphics for essentially all News Feed content. The new display of Facebook check-ins shows maps of where the person was. And third party apps in News Feed are also revamped: A Vimeo update shows larger videos along with photos of the people tagged in the video. An NPR update shows the most shared stores on NPR. You can also see news about people such as Taylor Swift “I’m a big fan of Taylor Swift, I’m not afraid to admit it,” Zhou says. Really?

Specific News Feeds: As expected, you can see specific types of content in the Feed. There is a list of the feeds on the right side of the website and the top of the mobile device. The feeds are organized by which you use most often.

There’s a new All Friends feed to just see posts from friends. A music feed shows what my favorite musicians are posting and what my friends are listening to, says Chris Struhar, tech lead on News Feed. There’s also a feed just for photos. And just like the friends feed, there’s also a “following” feed for famous people, businesses, news outlet or sports teams. This feed is in chronological order so that for example news outlets can get all their content seen. The close friends and games feeds remain the same.

Consistent mobile inspired Design: The company has taken the design from mobile to desktop, Facebook’s Chris Cox explains. Even typeface, color as well as navigation are similar now. There’s a new “tray” on the left side of web or mobile Facebook. So now you can get to any page on Facebook without going through the Home Page.

The new design is rolling out on the web today. It will appear on phones and tablets in the coming weeks.

Question time: How will this affect ads? The new design will apply to advertisements on the News Feed as well.

Is the News Feed algorithm changing? The algorithm is not changing. But we’re adding new sections like a newspaper.

How much will the new design be used? People are seeing a lot of content in their feed. This helps sort through it all, Cox says.

Why this change now? There’s a lot more content and users. People don’t have 80 friends anymore, Cox says.

How will this affect Facebook Pages? Pages publish content and the “following” feed will show them. But this won’t change Pages.

How will this Music feed work? Upcoming shows from musicians and other posts from musicians will be included.

forbes