Officials: Israeli airstrike inside Syria

WASHINGTON (AP) — Officials say Israeli warplanes attacked a military target inside Syria.

An Obama administration official confirmed the attack happened overnight Thursday but provided no details.

Another security official said that the attack occurred in the Syrian port city of Latakia and that the target was Russian-made SA-125 missiles.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the attack.

At least twice earlier this year Israel launched airstrikes on shipments of missiles inside Syria.

Associated PressSource: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/89ae8247abe8493fae24405546e9a1aa/Article_2013-10-31-Israel-Syria/id-5a6cc20020384bbf9b70b6a3ee8e60dd
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Officials: Israeli airstrike inside Syria

WASHINGTON (AP) — Officials say Israeli warplanes attacked a military target inside Syria.

An Obama administration official confirmed the attack happened overnight Thursday but provided no details.

Another security official said that the attack occurred in the Syrian port city of Latakia and that the target was Russian-made SA-125 missiles.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the attack.

At least twice earlier this year Israel launched airstrikes on shipments of missiles inside Syria.

Associated PressSource: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/89ae8247abe8493fae24405546e9a1aa/Article_2013-10-31-Israel-Syria/id-5a6cc20020384bbf9b70b6a3ee8e60dd
Category: Origami Owl   Presidents Cup   sons of anarchy   Steve Ballmer   Big Brother 15  

Why spy on allies? Even good friends keep secrets

FILE - In this Sept. 6, 2013 file photo, President Barack Obama walks with Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel toward a group photo outside of the Konstantin Palace in St. Petersburg. In geopolitics just as on the local playground, even best friends don't tell each other everything. And everybody's dying to know what the other guy knows. Revelations that the U.S. was monitoring the cellphone calls of up to 35 world leaders, including close allies, have brought into high relief the open-yet-often-unspoken secret _ and suggested the incredible reach of new-millennium technology. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko, File)

FILE - In this Sept. 6, 2013 file photo, President Barack Obama walks with Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel toward a group photo outside of the Konstantin Palace in St. Petersburg. In geopolitics just as on the local playground, even best friends don't tell each other everything. And everybody's dying to know what the other guy knows. Revelations that the U.S. was monitoring the cellphone calls of up to 35 world leaders, including close allies, have brought into high relief the open-yet-often-unspoken secret _ and suggested the incredible reach of new-millennium technology. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko, File)

FILE This Oct. 29, 2013 file photo shows Director of National Intelligence James Clapper pausing while testifying on Capitol Hill in Washington. In geopolitics just as on the local playground, even best friends don't tell each other everything. And everybody's dying to know what the other guy knows. Revelations that the U.S. was monitoring the cellphone calls of up to 35 world leaders, including close allies, have brought into high relief the open-yet-often-unspoken secret _ and suggested the incredible reach of new-millennium technology. (AP Photo/ Evan Vucci, File)

This photo provided by The Guardian Newspaper in London shows Edward Snowden, who worked as a contract employee at the National Security Agency, on Sunday, June 9, 2013, in Hong Kong. In geopolitics just as on the local playground, even best friends don't tell each other everything. And everybody's dying to know what the other guy knows. Revelations that the U.S. was monitoring the cellphone calls of up to 35 world leaders, including close allies, have brought into high relief the open-yet-often-unspoken secret _ and suggested the incredible reach of new-millennium technology. (AP Photo/The Guardian, Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras)

FILE - In this Friday, May 15, 1998 file photo, Jonathan Pollard speaks during an interview in a conference room at the Federal Correction Institution in Butner, N.C. In geopolitics just as on the local playground, even best friends don't tell each other everything. And everybody's dying to know what the other guy knows. Revelations that the U.S. was monitoring the cellphone calls of up to 35 world leaders, including close allies, have brought into high relief the open-yet-often-unspoken secret _ and suggested the incredible reach of new-millennium technology. (AP Photo/Karl DeBlaker, File)

In geopolitics, just as on the playground, even best friends don't tell each other everything. And everybody's dying to know what the other guy knows.

Revelations that the U.S. has been monitoring the cellphone calls of up to 35 world leaders, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel, have brought into high relief the open-yet-often-unspoken secret that even close allies keep things from one another — and work every angle to find out what's being held back.

So it is that the Israelis recruited American naval analyst Jonathan Pollard to pass along U.S. secrets including satellite photos and data on Soviet weaponry in the 1980s. And the British were accused of spying on U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan in the lead-up to the Iraq War. And the French, Germans, Japanese, Israelis and South Koreans have been accused of engaging in economic espionage against the United States.

But now the technology revealed by former National Security Agency analyst Edward Snowden has underscored the incredible new-millennium reach of the U.S. spy agency. And it is raising the question for some allies: Is this still OK?

National Intelligence Director James Clapper, for his part, testified this week that it is a "basic tenet" of the intelligence business to find out whether the public statements of world leaders jibe with what's being said behind closed doors.

What might the Americans have wanted to know from Merkel's private conversations, for example? Ripe topics could well include her thinking on European economic strategy and Germany's plans for talks with world powers about Iran's nuclear program.

There is both motive and opportunity driving the trust-but-verify dynamic in friend-on-friend espionage: Allies often have diverging interests, and the explosion of digital and wireless communication keeps creating new avenues for spying on one another. Further, shifting alliances mean that today's good friends may be on the outs sometime soon.

"It was not all that many years ago when we were bombing German citizens and dropping the atomic bomb on the Japanese," says Peter Earnest, a 35-year veteran of the CIA and now executive director of the International Spy Museum in Washington.

News that the U.S. has tapped foreign leaders' phones was an eye-opener to many — the White House claims that even President Barack Obama wasn't aware of the extent of the surveillance — and has prompted loud complaints from German, French and Spanish officials, among others.

It's all possible because "an explosion in different kinds of digital information tools makes it possible for intelligence agencies to vacuum up a vast quantity of data," says Charles Kupchan, a former Clinton administration official and now a senior fellow of the Council on Foreign Relations. "When you add together the Internet, wireless communications, cellphones, satellites, drones and human intelligence, you have many, many sources of acquiring intelligence."

"The magnitude of the eavesdropping is what shocked us," former French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said in a radio interview. "Let's be honest, we eavesdrop, too. Everyone is listening to everyone else. But we don't have the same means as the United States, which makes us jealous."

Protests aside, diplomats the world around know the gist of the game.

"I am persuaded that everyone knew everything or suspected everything," Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said of the reports of U.S. monitoring.

And while prime ministers and lawmakers across Europe and Asia say they are outraged, Clapper told Congress that other countries' own spy agencies helped the NSA collect data on millions of phone calls as part of cooperative counterterror agreements.

Robert Eatinger, the CIA's senior deputy general counsel, told an American Bar Association conference on Thursday that European spy services have stayed quiet throughout the recent controversy because they also spy on the U.S.

"The services have an understanding," Eatinger said. "That's why there wasn't the hue and cry from them."

And another intelligence counsel says the White House can reasonably deny it knows everything about the U.S. spying that's going on.

"We don't reveal to the president or the intelligence committees all of the human sources we are recruiting. ... They understand what the programs are, and the president and chairs of the intelligence committees both knew we were seeking information about leadership intentions," said Robert Litt, general counsel for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. "They both saw reporting indicating what we were getting if not indicating the source."

Still, Claude Moraes, a British Labor Party politician and member of the European Union delegation that traveled to Washington this week for talks about U.S. surveillance, was troubled by the broad net being cast by U.S. intelligence.

"Friend-upon-friend spying is not something that is easily tolerable if it doesn't have a clear purpose," he said. "There needs to be some kind of justification. ... There is also a question of proportionality and scale."

Obama has promised a review of U.S. intelligence efforts in other countries, an idea that has attracted bipartisan support in Congress.

The United States already has a written intelligence-sharing agreement with Canada, Britain, Australia and New Zealand known as "Five Eyes," and France and Germany might be interested in a similar arrangement.

Paul Pillar, a professor at Georgetown University and former CIA official, worries that a backlash "runs the risk of restrictions leaving the United States more blind than it otherwise would have been" to overseas developments.

The effort to strike the right balance between surveillance and privacy is hardly new.

University of Notre Dame political science professor Michael Desch, an expert on international security and American foreign and defense policies, says the ambivalence is epitomized by Secretary of State Henry L. Stimson's famous line, "Gentlemen do not read each other's mail." Stimson, who served under President Herbert Hoover, shut down the State Department's cryptanalytic office in 1929.

"Leaks about NSA surveillance of even friendly countries such as Brazil, Mexico, and now France make clear that we no longer share Stimson's reticence on this score," Desch said. "While such revelations are a public relations embarrassment, they also reflect the reality that in this day in age, gentlemen do read each other's mail all of the time, even when they are allies."

In fact, a database maintained by the Defense Personnel Security Research Center covering Americans who committed espionage against the U.S. includes activity on behalf of a wide swath of neutral or allied countries since the late 1940s. U.S. citizens have been arrested for conducting espionage on behalf of South Korea, Taiwan, the Philippines, Israel, the Netherlands, Greece, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Ghana, Liberia, South Africa, El Salvador and Ecuador, according to the database.

___

Associated Press Writers Deb Riechmann and Kimberly Dozier contributed to this report.

___

Follow Nancy Benac on Twitter at http://twitter.com/nbenac

Associated PressSource: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2013-10-31-Why%20Spy%20on%20Allies/id-a6331f33c99d43f4b2e81f7b7c685ebb
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Twitter making tweets more 'visual' with overhaul

San Francisco (AFP) - Twitter said Tuesday it overhauled its user display to make the messaging service "more visual," as it ramps up competition against photo-sharing services like Instagram.

"So many of the great moments you share on Twitter are made even better with photos or with videos from Vine," Twitter's Michael Sippey said in a blog post.

"These rich tweets can bring your followers closer to what's happening, and make them feel like they are right there with you."

Sippey said that "starting today, timelines on Twitter will be more visual and more engaging: previews of Twitter photos and videos from Vine will be front and center in tweets."

Some Twitter users noticed the change, which makes pictures, graphics and videos more prominent.

The company said it was incorporating the changes in Twitter on the Internet and its Android and iPhone apps.

The shift comes as Twitter is preparing its stock market debut, possibly as early as next week.

While Twitter has amassed more than 200 million users and a strong core of celebrities, journalists and political leaders, some critics say the service lacks the visual appeal of photo-centric services like Pinterest or Instagram, which was acquired by Facebook last year.

Twitter is seeking to raise some $1.6 billion in its IPO, valuing the company in the range of $9.3 billion and $11.1 billion.

• Arts & Entertainment
• Social & Online Media
• Twitter

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/twitter-making-tweets-more-visual-overhaul-215012667.html
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Wanted: Adoring Female Students

Some male professors make you wonder if they're more interested in teaching their subject or appearing cool to young ladies.

Photo by Thinkstock

The intellectual and physical seduction of young female students by older, male professors—usually in the humanities, and in the throes of midlife crises—is so common in movies and books that it’s become a cliché.

But a recent Twitter thread started by a popular feminist blogger examines a dark side of that cliché in real-life academe, one in which professors’ advances—intellectual and otherwise—feed a need for validation and flattery, and at times cross the line into sexual harassment.

“Please share with me all your stories of the male professors you had in college who thrived upon and demanded female admiration to function,” Mallory Ortberg, editor of the website the Toast, tweeted. She soon followed up with a humor piece imagining a conversation between two male professors bemoaning diminishing adulation from the new generation of female pupils.

“Just yesterday, in one of my intro classes, I used the word ‘problematic’ in a sentence—real casual, just to let them know I’m one of the good guys—and not one of them stayed after the lecture to ask me just what I meant by that or to see if they could borrow the conspicuously dog-eared copy of Pedagogy of the Oppressed I like to leave on my desk in case any female students want to borrow it,” one imaginary professor says.

He continues, later, after some bottle-passing: “That copy has my phone number in it. You know, the old ‘write your phone number on the front page of a copy you lend to female students only under the “IF LOST PLEASE RETURN TO” bubble’ gag?”

Almost immediately after her original tweet, Ortberg’s Twitter followers began to respond with their experiences with such professors, some humorous and others less so. A sampling:

@hallleloujah: “had one who called everything sexy in a weirdly drawn out, British way. Also started a rumor he was undercover for CIA (he wasn't).”

@kitalita: “one kept conveniently ‘forgetting’ my graded assignments in his office and specifically told me he was divorced (he wasn't).”

@AmyRosary: “Let's talk about the English department chair I got fired for harassing EACH AND EVERY female English major. He liked to insist [continued in a separate tweet] upon meeting girls in his office and serenading them with Bob Dylan covers with the door closed, or ‘accidentally’ putting on porn.”

@kellieherson: “Providing a validation space for those men is the only reason university administrators allow the humanities to continue to exist.”

Another follower cited a proclivity for flirting among her theater professors, one of whom bragged about once trying to meet women with actor Pat Morita. One said her professor had emailed her to tell her that not doing her homework was “not sexy”; yet another fended off a request for her to model for a professor who said he was an amateur photographer.

Jaya Saxena, a web editor for the New-York Historical Society and writer who studied English and political science at Tulane University, said: “Lots of [him] inviting classes to his house for pizza and making sure to corner the girls and talk about his art collection.” That professor also once hit on her in a bar, she posted.

“If your job is to command the attention of a room and instill knowledge into people, then you're probably going to thrive on receiving that attention. That just comes with the work, right?”

In an email, Saxena said she enjoyed close relationships with several of her professors, and that in New Orleans, seeing faculty members out at a bar was not outside the norm. But the “line gets drawn when you're throwing your arms around your students and drunkenly saying they look hot when they dance!”

Saxena said she never took classes from the professor mentioned, and therefore felt less intimidated than awkward following the incident.

That wasn’t the case for Tamara Johnson, who tweeted about an English professor who told her as an undergraduate that “female students were like fishing lures, drawing male instructors into deep waters.”  He also made inappropriate remarks about rape, vaguely in relation to a lecture, soon after, she said—making her feel highly uncomfortable.

Johnson, who has her Master of Fine Arts in creative writing from San Diego State, said she saw male professors seeking sexual attention from their female students as the rule, not the exception. Saxena, by contrast, said there were several “attractive” male professors in her department who reacted to the attention from students in different ways. And while male professors did seem to bask more in that attention than did female professors, she said, “I never saw the ‘attention-needing male professor’ as a rule.”

Source: http://www.slate.com/articles/life/inside_higher_ed/2013/10/male_professors_female_students_a_tricky_power_dynamic.html
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Suspect in LAX shooting spree targeted TSA

This photo provided by the FBI shows Paul Ciancia, 23. Accused of opening fire inside the Los Angeles airport, Ciancia was determined to lash out at the Transportation Security Administration, saying in a note that he wanted to kill at least one TSA officer and didn’t care which one, authorities said Saturday, Nov. 2, 2013. (AP Photo/FBI)

This photo provided by the FBI shows Paul Ciancia, 23. Accused of opening fire inside the Los Angeles airport, Ciancia was determined to lash out at the Transportation Security Administration, saying in a note that he wanted to kill at least one TSA officer and didn’t care which one, authorities said Saturday, Nov. 2, 2013. (AP Photo/FBI)

ALTERNATE HORIZONTAL CROP - This June, 2013 photo released by the Hernandez family Saturday, Nov. 2, 2013, shows Transportation Security Administration officer Gerardo Hernandez. Hernandez, 39, was shot to death and several others wounded by a gunman who went on a shooting rampage in Terminal 3 at Los Angeles International Airport Friday. (AP Photo/Courtesy Hernandez Family)

John S. Pistole, left, Administrator of Transportation Security Administration and Ana Fernandez, center, wife of TSA agent Gerardo Fernandez, victim at LAX shooting, before a press conference in Porter Ranch, Calif. on Saturday Nov. 2, 2013. A gunman armed with a semi-automatic rifle opened fire at Los Angeles International Airport on Friday, killing a Transportation Security Administration employee and wounding two other people in an attack that frightened passengers and disrupted flights nationwide. (AP Photo/Ringo H.W. Chiu)

Transportation Security Administration employees classify the luggage to return to passengers at Los Angeles International Airport's Terminal 3 on Saturday, Nov. 2, 2013. A gunman armed with a semi-automatic rifle opened fire at the airport on Friday, killing a Transportation Security Administration employee and wounding two other people in an attack that frightened passengers and disrupted flights nationwide. (AP Photo/Ringo H.W. Chiu)

From left to right, FBI Special Agent in Charge David L. Bowdich, United States Attorney Andre Birotte Jr., and Los Angeles Police Department Commander Andrew Smith in press conference to provide an update on the investigation of the shooting incident at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX), on Saturday Nov. 2, 2013 at Westwood Federal Building in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Ringo H.W. Chiu)

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Seeking to stir fear in "traitorous minds," a man suspected of a shooting spree at Los Angeles airport allegedly set out to kill employees of the Transportation Security Administration in the attack that left one person dead and others wounded, authorities said.

At a news conference Saturday announcing charges against Paul Ciancia, U.S. Attorney Andre Birotte Jr. spelled out a chilling chain of events at LAX that began when he strode into Terminal 3 Friday morning, pulled a Smith & Wesson .223-caliber assault rifle from his duffel bag and fired repeatedly at point-blank range at a TSA officer. The officer was checking IDs and boarding passes at the base of an escalator leading to the main screening area.

After shooting a TSA officer and going up an escalator, Ciancia turned back to see the officer move and returned to finish him off, according to surveillance video reviewed by investigators.

Investigators said Ciancia, an unemployed motorcycle mechanic, fired on at least two other uniformed TSA employees and an airline passenger, who were all wounded. Airport police eventually shot him as panicked passengers cowered in stores and restaurants.

Ciancia, 23, remained hospitalized Saturday after being hit four times and wounded in the mouth and leg. The FBI said he was unresponsive and they had not been able to interview him.

The duffel bag also contained a handwritten letter signed by Ciancia stating he'd "made the conscious decision to try to kill" multiple TSA employees and that he wanted to "instill fear in their traitorous minds" said FBI Agent in Charge David L. Bowdich.

Federal prosecutors filed charges of first-degree murder of a federal officer and committing violence at an international airport. The charges could qualify him for the death penalty.

The FBI was still looking into Ciancia's past, but investigators said they had not found evidence of previous crimes or any run-ins with the TSA. They said he had never applied for a job with the agency.

Authorities believe someone dropped Ciancia off at the airport. Agents were reviewing surveillance tapes to piece together the sequence of events.

"We are really going to draw a picture of who this person was, his background, his history. That will help us explain why he chose to do what he did," Bowdich said. "At this point, I don't have the answer on that."

The note found in the duffel bag suggested Ciancia was willing to kill almost any TSA officer.

"Black, white, yellow, brown, I don't discriminate," the note read, according to a paraphrase by a law enforcement official briefed on the investigation. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly.

The screed also mentioned "fiat currency" and "NWO," possible references to the New World Order, a conspiracy theory that foresees a totalitarian one-world government.

When searched, the suspect had five 30-round magazines, and his bag contained hundreds more rounds in boxes, the law-enforcement official said.

Terminal 3, the area where the shooting happened, reopened Saturday. Passengers who had abandoned luggage to escape Friday's gunfire were allowed to return to collect their bags.

The TSA planned to review its security policies in the wake of the attack. Administrator John Pistole did not say if that would mean arming officers.

As airport operations returned to normal, a few more details trickled out about Ciancia, who by all accounts was reserved and solitary.

Former classmates barely remember him and even a recent roommate could say little about the young man who moved from New Jersey to Los Angeles less than two years ago. A former classmate at Salesianum School in Wilmington, Del., said Ciancia was incredibly quiet.

"He kept to himself and ate lunch alone a lot," David Hamilton told the Los Angeles Times. "I really don't remember any one person who was close to him .... In four years, I never heard a word out of his mouth."

On Friday, Ciancia's father called police in New Jersey, worried about his son in L.A. The young man had sent texts to his family that suggested he might be in trouble, at one point even saying goodbye.

The call came too late. Ten minutes earlier, police said, he had walked into the airport.

In the worrisome messages, the younger Ciancia did not mention suicide or hurting others, but his father had heard from a friend that his son may have had a gun, said Allen Cummings, police chief in Pennsville, a small blue-collar town near the Delaware River where Ciancia grew up.

The police chief called Los Angeles police, who sent a patrol car to Ciancia's apartment. There, two roommates said that they had seen him a day earlier and he had appeared to be fine.

But by that time, gunfire was already breaking out at the airport.

"There's nothing we could do to stop him," Cummings said.

The police chief said he learned from Ciancia's father that the young man had attended a technical school in Florida, then moved to Los Angeles in 2012 hoping to get a job as a motorcycle mechanic. He was having trouble finding work.

Ciancia graduated in December 2011 from Motorcycle Mechanics Institute in Orlando, Fla., said Tina Miller, a spokeswoman for Universal Technical Institute, the Scottsdale, Ariz., company that runs the school.

A basic motorcycle mechanic course takes about a year, she said.

On Friday, as swarms of passengers dropped to the ground or ran for their lives, the gunman seemed to ignore anyone except TSA targets.

Leon Saryan of Milwaukee had just passed through security and was looking for a place to put his shoes and belt back on when he heard gunfire. He managed to hide in a store. As he was cowering in the corner, the shooter approached.

"He looked at me and asked, 'TSA?' I shook my head no, and he continued on down toward the gate," Saryan said.

Authorities identified the dead TSA officer as Gerardo I. Hernandez, 39, the first official in the agency's 12-year history to be killed in the line of duty.

Friends remembered him as a doting father and a good neighbor who went door-to-door warning neighbors to be careful after his home was burglarized.

In brief remarks outside the couple's house, his widow, Ana Hernandez, said Saturday that her husband came to the U.S. from El Salvador at age 15.

"He took pride in his duty for the American public and for the TSA mission," she said.

___

Associated Press writers Alicia Chang in Los Angeles and Geoff Mulvihill in New Jersey contributed to this report.

Associated PressSource: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2013-11-03-US-LAX-Shooting/id-2478a1ed496840c383cdfccd7440fe06
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Email goes 'Dark' -- encrypted, that is

In the light of a seemingly endless series of revelations about the NSA's multi-faceted infiltrations of just about every network there is, including the private fiber used by Google and Yahoo, more and more folks are stepping up to offer possible solutions.

But because both the Internet and encryption aren't as singular or straightforward as they could be, it isn't likely to be something that can be delivered as a single product anytime soon.

The most common analogy used about email security is that it's no better than a postcard written in pencil and sent via conventional mail. To do something about it, two big names in security, Lavabit and Silent Circle, are joining forces to create a project they call the Dark Mail Alliance.

Silent Circle, a provider of both encrypted email and phone solutions, and Lavabit, a secure email provider, both made headlines earlier this year when they voluntarily shut down their email services in the wake of Edward Snowden's leaks about NSA actions against ISPs, rather than be a party to such spying. Their plan is to help create a new email system that is as resistant as technologically possible to spying.

The idea isn't to offer a product per se, but rather to create an open standard that could be freely implemented by themselves or by third parties. "1,000 Lavabits all around the world," was how Jon Callas, CTO and founder of Silent Circle, described it in a discussion with Infoworld.

This decentralized plan is both the best and worst thing about the project: Best in the sense that no one person has explicit control over it, but worst in the sense that it's also not possible to guarantee how consistently it can be delivered if it's an open project.

The technical details of Dark Mail involve taking existing email clients -- Outlook and Exchange were cited as possible targets -- and outfitting them with add-ons that would use the XMPP Web messaging protocol in conjunction with another encryption protocol developed by Silent Circle, named, appropriately enough, SCIMP, or Silent Circle Instant Message Protocol. Encryption keys are held on the end user's system and not managed by the email providers themselves, so a court order against the ISP will yield nothing. Both the message's contents and metadata (e.g., to/from headers) are encrypted.

The thing is, the technical details of encrypted email aren't themselves the real obstacle. The difficulties tend to be social -- that is, getting people to use the existing standards and projects in the first place. Many existing packages, such as Enigmail, already allow you to equip email clients with encryption without too much difficulty. But few non-technical users bother with them, in big part because in order to send someone else an encrypted message, they have to be running the same software. The lack of a common implementation, as common as a web browser, is a big stumbling block, but end user indifference is ultimately the biggest reason why most email isn't encrypted.

The other issue is something Silent Circle and Lavabit are at least attempting to tackle: Participation from common email providers. If Gmail supported the Dark Mail standard, for instance, that would provide a great many existing email users with a near-seamless way to make use of it, but so far, no third-party mail providers have piped up. That might well be a defensive measure: If they announced early on they were working on such a thing, it would give attackers all the more time to try and plan a way to subvert it.

The Snowden papers have also showed how even those who do take the pains to encrypt can have their privacy subverted by attackers who simply perform an end-run around the encryption and intercept information either before or after it's ever encrypted. Unfortunately, the only way to prevent such a thing is via such extreme measures as an air-gapped system.

So what can we expect from Dark Mail? If it's ever implemented as its creators intend, it ought to serve two functions: Give end users a way to casually encrypt email without going through a whole hassle, and make them that much more conscious of how, on the current Internet, there may not be any safe places at all.

This story, "Email goes 'Dark' -- encrypted, that is," was originally published at InfoWorld.com. Get the first word on what the important tech news really means with the InfoWorld Tech Watch blog. For the latest developments in business technology news, follow InfoWorld.com on Twitter.

Source: http://www.infoworld.com/t/encryption/email-goes-dark-encrypted-229947
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AT&T: Buy a phone, get a free tablet

The cell phone wars are heating up, thanks to a new offer from AT&T and Samsung. The deal: Buy a qualifying Samsung phone and sign up for a new contract from AT&T, and the network will give you a free Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 as a bonus.

There are more than a few little details to consider should you find this deal enticing. The biggest is that you'll have to add that Galaxy Tab 3 to your new AT&T Mobile Share data plan at a price of $10 a month extra. You'll have to commit for the standard two years, or sign up for AT&T Next, an installment plan which provides you with yearly device upgrades to your phone without additional expense. Trade-ins on your current handset are also available if you upgrade to the Next plan.

The list of supported phones eligible for the free tablet offer includes the Qualcomm Snapdragon-powered Samsung Galaxy S4, Galaxy S4 Active, Galaxy Note 3, and Galaxy Note 3. Better get in on the deal quickly: The program is set to end on January 9, 2014.

The move is the latest in an effort from AT&T to maintain its competitiveness in the mobile phone market with archrival Verizon Wireless. In recent months AT&T has seen its market share slip, from 28.5 percent of the market in summer 2012 to 21.7 percent at the end of August 2013. Meanwhile Verizon has surged from a 30.2 percent share to a whopping 37.1 percent over the same time frame.

In addition to experimenting with device add-ons like this, AT&T has been finalizing the rollout of its 4G LTE footprint nationally. Most recently it added 4G coverage to six small markets, including Redding, Calif. and Watertown-Fort Atkinson, Wisc. The company's full coverage map now spans 447 markets and offers service to 250 million people, with a full 300 million consumers planned to be encompassed by AT&T's 4G service by the end of 2014.

On the other side of the fence, Verizon has been focused primarily on enhancing its 4G performance, most recently showcasing an 80Mbps download speed over the new spectrum it recently acquired. While AT&T has been wearing the speed crown for at least the last year, that title could soon be changing hands if -- and when -- Verizon's zippy performance upgrades are rolled out commercially and on a national scale.

[ This sponsored article was written by IDG Creative Lab, a partner of PCWorld. ]

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New study compares provisional and two-stent strategies for coronary bifurcation lesions

PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:

30-Oct-2013

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Contact: Judy Romero
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Cardiovascular Research Foundation

Results of the Nordic-Baltic Bifurcation IV trial presented at TCT 2013

SAN FRANCISCO, CA OCTOBER 30, 2013 A new clinical trial shows that a two-stent technique for treatment of bifurcation lesions with a large stenotic side branch was not associated with significant improved outcomes compared to a provisional stenting approach. The findings from the Nordic-Baltic Bifurcation IV study were presented today at the 25th annual Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics (TCT) scientific symposium. Sponsored by the Cardiovascular Research Foundation (CRF), TCT is the world's premier educational meeting specializing in interventional cardiovascular medicine.

Coronary bifurcation lesions are caused from a build-up of plaque in the heart at a location where one artery branches from another. In provisional side branch stenting, the main vessel branch is stented and the side branch only if compromised. Currently, provisional side branch stenting is the preferred strategy for treatment of bifurcation lesions.

The safety and effectiveness of provisional stenting for bifurcations that involve a large side branch of the coronary arteries is unknown. The Nordic-Baltic IV trial was a randomized, controlled, non-blinded, multicenter, superiority trial that compared provisional stenting with a two-stent strategy for the treatment of coronary bifurcation lesions involving a major side branch.

The primary endpoint was the composite of major adverse cardiac events (MACE) including cardiac death, non-procedure-related myocardial infarction, target vessel revascularization and stent thrombosis after six months. Follow up is planned until five years. A total of 450 patients with coronary bifurcation lesions were randomized 1:1 to the provisional strategy (stenting of the main vessel and provisional stenting of the side branch) or a complex two-stent strategy (planned stenting of both the main vessel and the side branch).

After six months, the MACE rate was not significantly different between provisional and two-stent techniques (4.6 percent and 1.8 percent, respectively, p=0.09). Individual endpoints were also similar between the two techniques including total death (0 and 0.4 percent, p=0.32), non-procedural myocardial infarction (1.8 percent and 0.9 percent, p=0.50) and target vessel revascularization (3.7 percent and 1.3 percent, p=0.11). There were no incidents of cardiac death in either group.

However, in contrast to prior studies, longer and more complex procedures in the two-stent group did not translate into more procedural myocardial infarctions.

"Results of this trial indicate that a two-stent technique does not significantly improve mid-term outcomes for patients with bifurcation lesions compared to provisional stenting," said lead investigator Indulis Kumsars, MD. Dr. Kumsars is Head of the Cardiac Catheterization Laboratory at the Latvian Cardiology Center in Riga, Latvia.

Given the fact that there was a weak trend towards lower MACE in the two stent strategy and follow up is continuing for five years, the Nordic-Baltic investigators concluded, "Recommendations on optimal strategies for this lesion subset should await longer term follow up."

###

The Nordic-Baltic Bifurcation IV study was an academic investigator trial conducted by the Nordic-Baltic PCI Study group. The study was funded by participating institutions and by unrestricted research grants from Abbott and Cordis. Dr. Kumsars reported no disclosures.

About CRF and TCT

The Cardiovascular Research Foundation (CRF) is an independent, academically focused nonprofit organization dedicated to improving the survival and quality of life for people with cardiovascular disease through research and education. Since its inception in 1991, CRF has played a major role in realizing dramatic improvements in the lives of countless numbers of patients by establishing the safe use of new technologies and therapies in interventional cardiovascular medicine. CRF is the sponsor of the Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics (TCT) scientific symposium. Celebrating its 25th anniversary this year, TCT is the world's premier educational meeting specializing in interventional cardiovascular medicine. For more information, visit http://www.crf.org and http://www.tctconference.com.

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Contact: Judy Romero
jromero@crf.org
Cardiovascular Research Foundation

Results of the Nordic-Baltic Bifurcation IV trial presented at TCT 2013

SAN FRANCISCO, CA OCTOBER 30, 2013 A new clinical trial shows that a two-stent technique for treatment of bifurcation lesions with a large stenotic side branch was not associated with significant improved outcomes compared to a provisional stenting approach. The findings from the Nordic-Baltic Bifurcation IV study were presented today at the 25th annual Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics (TCT) scientific symposium. Sponsored by the Cardiovascular Research Foundation (CRF), TCT is the world's premier educational meeting specializing in interventional cardiovascular medicine.

Coronary bifurcation lesions are caused from a build-up of plaque in the heart at a location where one artery branches from another. In provisional side branch stenting, the main vessel branch is stented and the side branch only if compromised. Currently, provisional side branch stenting is the preferred strategy for treatment of bifurcation lesions.

The safety and effectiveness of provisional stenting for bifurcations that involve a large side branch of the coronary arteries is unknown. The Nordic-Baltic IV trial was a randomized, controlled, non-blinded, multicenter, superiority trial that compared provisional stenting with a two-stent strategy for the treatment of coronary bifurcation lesions involving a major side branch.

The primary endpoint was the composite of major adverse cardiac events (MACE) including cardiac death, non-procedure-related myocardial infarction, target vessel revascularization and stent thrombosis after six months. Follow up is planned until five years. A total of 450 patients with coronary bifurcation lesions were randomized 1:1 to the provisional strategy (stenting of the main vessel and provisional stenting of the side branch) or a complex two-stent strategy (planned stenting of both the main vessel and the side branch).

After six months, the MACE rate was not significantly different between provisional and two-stent techniques (4.6 percent and 1.8 percent, respectively, p=0.09). Individual endpoints were also similar between the two techniques including total death (0 and 0.4 percent, p=0.32), non-procedural myocardial infarction (1.8 percent and 0.9 percent, p=0.50) and target vessel revascularization (3.7 percent and 1.3 percent, p=0.11). There were no incidents of cardiac death in either group.

However, in contrast to prior studies, longer and more complex procedures in the two-stent group did not translate into more procedural myocardial infarctions.

"Results of this trial indicate that a two-stent technique does not significantly improve mid-term outcomes for patients with bifurcation lesions compared to provisional stenting," said lead investigator Indulis Kumsars, MD. Dr. Kumsars is Head of the Cardiac Catheterization Laboratory at the Latvian Cardiology Center in Riga, Latvia.

Given the fact that there was a weak trend towards lower MACE in the two stent strategy and follow up is continuing for five years, the Nordic-Baltic investigators concluded, "Recommendations on optimal strategies for this lesion subset should await longer term follow up."

###

The Nordic-Baltic Bifurcation IV study was an academic investigator trial conducted by the Nordic-Baltic PCI Study group. The study was funded by participating institutions and by unrestricted research grants from Abbott and Cordis. Dr. Kumsars reported no disclosures.

About CRF and TCT

The Cardiovascular Research Foundation (CRF) is an independent, academically focused nonprofit organization dedicated to improving the survival and quality of life for people with cardiovascular disease through research and education. Since its inception in 1991, CRF has played a major role in realizing dramatic improvements in the lives of countless numbers of patients by establishing the safe use of new technologies and therapies in interventional cardiovascular medicine. CRF is the sponsor of the Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics (TCT) scientific symposium. Celebrating its 25th anniversary this year, TCT is the world's premier educational meeting specializing in interventional cardiovascular medicine. For more information, visit http://www.crf.org and http://www.tctconference.com.

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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.

Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-10/crf-nsc103013.php
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Polio Has Not Returned To South Sudan, After All

We reported Wednesday that the polio outbreak in Somalia had spread to South Sudan. But health officials say that they were mistaken. There have been no polio cases in the country since 2009.

The World Health Organization said previously that it had confirmed three cases of polio in South Sudan back in August.

"There was a problem in the lab analysis," WHO spokesman Oliver Rosenbauer told Shots Thursday in an email. "So in fact those are not [polio] cases. South Sudan is being removed from the list of infected countries.

"But given that the Horn of Africa outbreak is continuing, South Sudan remains at risk," Rosenbauer wrote. "And immunization activities continue to be implemented in the country."

The polio outbreak in Somalia is currently the largest one in the world, with 174 cases. The virus has spread to Kenya and Ethiopia, which share borders with Somalia.

South Sudan, on the other hand, is hundreds of miles from the Somali border. So the corrected information means that the spread of the virus is more limited than previously thought.

Source: http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2013/10/31/242150843/polio-has-not-returned-to-south-sudan-after-all?ft=1&f=1001
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TUF 18: Peggy Morgan vs Sarah Moras (Full Fight)

See every punch, kick and submission attempt in the episode 9 matchup between Peggy Morgan and Sarah Moras. Also make sure to check our recap of The Ultimate Fighter 18 – Episode 9 and make sure to tune in each Wednesday at 10PM ET on FS1 for new episodes.

Source: http://mmafrenzy.com/95592/tuf-18-peggy-morgan-vs-sarah-moras-full-fight/
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Surface Pro 2 review: This is the Windows tablet you're looking for

You have to appreciate Microsoft’s tenacity. After launching the original Surface Pro tablet to mixed reviews, the company opted not to rebuild from scratch but to refine its vision for a thick and heavy, but powerful, tablet. The result is Surface Pro 2.

Much like Windows 8.1, Surface Pro 2 is less conflicted on both the laptop and tablet sides of the hybrid equation, arriving with a more flexible kickstand, improved Touch and Type Covers, longer battery life, and better thermal design. It’s still less than the best of both worlds, but the balance between them no longer feels so uneasy.

The Surface Pro 2 is also a better lesson in compromise than the just-released Surface 2. Both hybrid devices sport incremental rather than revolutionary upgrades, but the Pro version is simply more useful when you’re working with your hardware in the field.

Image: Michael HomnickThe Surface Pro 2 is a tablet that leans toward a laptop, and does a better job of it than most hybrids currently available.

As with the original Pro hybrid, the Surface Pro 2 resembles a plain old tablet until you unfurl the integrated kickstand and attach a keyboard cover to the base, transforming the device into a small, funky-looking laptop. It retains the satisfying clicking sounds as you close the kickstand or snap in a keyboard cover, and the trapezoidal design still looks vaguely like a piece of Imperial architecture straight out of Star Wars.

Many other details are unchanged. The tablet alone weighs 2 pounds and measures 0.53 inch thick, and boasts a 10.6-inch, 1920-by-1080 display. You’ll find a full-size USB port and a headphone jack on one side, and a MicroSD card slot and a Mini DisplayPort output on the other.

The included active digitizer stylus has the same mechanical-pencil vibe as the original, and allows for pressure-sensitive drawing while resting your hand on the screen. Pricing is similar to that of the original, too, at $900 with 64GB of storage and 4GB of RAM, and $1000 for 128GB of storage. Now, however, you can bump up to 256GB for $1300 or 512GB for $1800, both versions with 8GB of RAM.

Image: Michael HomnickThe angled, trapezoidal profile of the Surface Pro 2 helps it stand out among tablet competitors.

Why so bulky and pricey? Because Microsoft wanted to make a tablet that handles robust productivity tasks, such as video editing and image processing. The Surface Pro 2’s Intel Core i5-4200U processor is what you’d typically find in an Ultrabook, and it doesn’t flinch under heavy loads. As a side benefit—or perhaps a main draw—the integrated graphics on the 256GB, 8GB RAM model do an admirable job on fairly recent PC games, at least at 720p resolution. Where’s the Surface-ready Bluetooth Xbox controller, Microsoft?

PCWorld benchmarked a 64GB version of the Surface Pro 2 with 4GB of RAM. Compared with the original Surface Pro (128GB), the Surface Pro 2 (64GB) was about 9 percent faster in WorldBench 8.1. The Surface Pro 2 was also about 16 percent faster than the new Sony Tap 11, which carries a slower Haswell-class processor. The Asus Transformer Book T100T, which uses an Atom processor, was barely half as fast as the Surface Pro 2.

The Surface Pro 2 outpaces the original Surface Pro, as well as other recent Windows tablets.

Microsoft would prefer that you think of the Surface Pro 2 as a laptop first, and that you not compare the product directly to Apple’s much thinner and lighter iPad. But it’s hard to ignore the iPad given the Surface Pro 2’s ability to act as a tablet.

Let’s state the obvious: The Pro 2 can be tiresome to hold, its selection of touch-optimized apps is inferior to that of the iPad, and its battery doesn’t last nearly as long. But those drawbacks aren’t as pronounced as they were when the original Surface Pro launched in February.

Since that launch, Microsoft has also secured some key apps for its tablet-friendly modern interface, including Facebook and Twitter, with Flipboard on the way. Microsoft has also made improvements to its own built-in apps in Windows 8.1, and the modern version of Internet Explorer 11 has helpful new features, such as the ability to open unlimited tabs across multiple windows. (Check out our review of Windows 8.1 for more details on what’s new.)

As for the hardware, the Surface Pro 2 benefits in the battery department from Intel’s fourth-generation “Haswell” processor, though not quite as much as we’d hoped. We’re still doing formal testing, but my experiences juggling lots of browser tabs and a few modern apps on the Surface Pro 2 yielded about 6 hours of battery life—basically the same as PCWorld Labs' benchmarked result of six hours and nine minutes. That’s an hour or two better than the original Surface Pro, and more than adequate for an afternoon working at Starbucks or an evening on the couch. But an entire day of use would require a top-up in the middle.

Improvements to the Surface Pro 2’s thermal design are more substantial. The tablet runs cool and quiet during lighter use, and it doesn’t spin up its internal fans as often as the original did. Unless you’re putting a heavy load on the Surface Pro 2, it won’t get uncomfortably warm or noisy.

Image: Michael HomnickThanks to a new 40-degree incline, the Surface sits more easily on a table or on your lap.

The other big change is in the Surface Pro 2 kickstand, which can position the machine at a 40-degree angle in addition to the original 22-degree angle. That doesn’t sound like much, but the flatter viewing angle feels more natural when the tablet is resting in your lap, or next to you on a couch. Just having the kickstand helps mitigate the tablet’s bulkiness, because you don’t have to hold up the tablet with your hands.

Many of the tablet-enhancing improvements in the Surface Pro 2 carry over to laptop mode. The added kickstand angle makes the Surface Pro 2 less prone to toppling, even when you have it balanced on one leg with the keyboard attached, and the screen never feels as if it’s aimed in an awkward direction. Battery life is now comparable to that of many other small Windows laptops (but frustratingly it’s still nowhere close to Apple’s MacBook Air).

Windows 8.1 also brings several improvements for desktop users, including better scaling, so things don’t look so teeny on the Surface’s 10.6-inch display. The small screen feels like less of a constraint than before, though text still becomes tough to read if you’re running two websites side by side. You may also find that a lot of desktop software isn’t optimized for the Surface’s higher pixel density, making things look fuzzy. Here’s hoping that software makers will catch up as more high-DPI laptops come to market.

Image: Michael HomnickThe new Type Cover is backlit, but the touchpad is trickier to use than it should be.

Even after all those improvements, the Surface Pro 2 struggles to provide the same experience as a full-blown laptop, in large part because of the optional Touch Cover and Type Cover accessories.

The physical footprint of the Surface Pro 2 limits how large these covers can be. Although the keyboards don’t feel cramped, the small touchpad is tricky to master. Moving the pointer from one corner of the screen to the other usually takes more than one swipe unless you crank up the mouse sensitivity, thereby sacrificing accuracy. (You handle touchpad sensitivity through the Mouse section of Control Panel, separate from the Mouse and Trackpad Settings in the modern interface.)

The touchpad would be more useful if not for some baffling decisions on Microsoft’s part. When you drag down from the top of the pad, for instance, two-finger scrolling doesn’t register right away, so you get a dead zone that occupies roughly the top fifth of the pad. Clicking and dragging is even more of a nightmare: To begin a selection, you can’t just double-tap anywhere on the touchpad. Instead, you must hold one finger down on the tiny sliver that represents the left mouse button, a process that often takes two or three tries to get right, and more frequently messes up midselection. Expecting users to attach a mouse for reliable text selection is unacceptable, and a software fix needs to be high on Microsoft’s priority list.

Image: Michael HomnickGood news for assertive typers: The new Type Cover’s keys are firmer and less springy, though the travel is also shorter.

Thanks to firmer, less springy keys, typing on the Type Cover 2 feels solid, and the keyboard seems sturdier than its predecessor for in-lap use. Typing still takes getting used to, as the keys don’t travel as much and they have no space in between them, but the touchpad is the bigger hindrance.

A few other nitpicks come to mind: First, when you’re using the Type Cover with scrolling inverted, on occasion the Surface can scroll in the wrong direction, forcing you to detach and reattach the cover. Second, the built-in stylus still connects magnetically to the same slot as the charger, so you can’t attach both at the same time. And finally, Microsoft exacerbates the Surface Pro 2’s battery woes by forcing hibernation when your machine has only a little life (8 percent) left in the tank. You can dig into the Windows settings to give yourself more time, but Microsoft shouldn’t be leaving a half hour of battery life on the table by default.

Bottom line

Clearly, Microsoft has lots of refinement left to do. But despite all the Surface Pro 2’s flaws, there’s something alluring about it. No other touchscreen laptop or convertible device plays the hybrid game as well as the Surface Pro 2 does. The kickstand is a brilliant flourish that compensates for the tablet’s weight while solving for the top-heaviness you find in other detachable hybrids. The Touch and Type Covers are so thin and light that you can keep them attached, and the total package still feels light enough to rival the slickest laptops.

Image: Michael HomnickThe second-generation Surface Pro is a refinement rather than a total rebuild.

The Surface Pro 2 is a different kind of device, aimed at people who need to edit videos, create digital art, run a dozen applications at once, or kick back with some full-blown PC games. The fact that you can do those things on a tablet that still feels comfortable for Facebook, Netflix, or solitaire is no small achievement, and a sign that the best of both worlds might be attainable if Microsoft keeps chipping away.

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Source: http://www.pcworld.com/article/2058685/surface-pro-2-review-this-is-the-windows-tablet-youre-looking-for.html#tk.rss_reviews
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New malware variant suggests cybercriminals targeting SAP users

A new variant of a Trojan program that targets online banking accounts also contains code to search if infected computers have SAP client applications installed, suggesting that attackers might target SAP systems in the future.

The malware was discovered a few weeks ago by Russian antivirus company Doctor Web, which shared it with researchers from ERPScan, a developer of security monitoring products for SAP systems.

[ Find out how to block the viruses, worms, and other malware that threaten your business, with hands-on advice from expert contributors in InfoWorld's "Malware Deep Dive" PDF guide. | Keep up with key security issues with InfoWorld's Security Adviser blog and Security Central newsletter. ]

"We've analyzed the malware and all it does right now is to check which systems have SAP applications installed," said Alexander Polyakov, chief technology officer at ERPScan. "However, this might be the beginning for future attacks."

When malware does this type of reconnaissance to see if particular software is installed, the attackers either plan to sell access to those infected computers to other cybercriminals interested in exploiting that software or they intend to exploit it themselves at a later time, the researcher said.

Polyakov presented the risks of such attacks and others against SAP systems at the RSA Europe security conference in Amsterdam on Thursday.

To his knowledge, this is the first piece of malware targeting SAP client software that wasn't created as a proof-of-concept by researchers, but by real cybercriminals.

SAP client applications running on workstations have configuration files that can be easily read and contain the IP addresses of the SAP servers they connect to. Attackers can also hook into the application processes and sniff SAP user passwords, or read them from configuration files and GUI automation scripts, Polyakov said.

There's a lot that attackers can do with access to SAP servers. Depending on what permissions the stolen credentials have, they can steal customer information and trade secrets or they can steal money from the company by setting up and approving rogue payments or changing the bank account of existing customers to redirect future payments to their account, he added.

There are efforts in some enterprise environments to limit permissions for SAP users based on their duties, but those are big and complex projects. In practice most companies allow their SAP users to do almost everything or more than what they're supposed to, Polyakov said.

Even if some stolen user credentials don't give attackers the access they want, there are default administrative credentials that many companies never change or forget to change on some instances of their development systems that have snapshots of the company data, the researcher said.

With access to SAP client software, attackers could steal sensitive data like financial information, corporate secrets, customer lists or human resources information and sell it to competitors. They could also launch denial-of-service attacks against a company's SAP servers to disrupt its business operations and cause financial damage, Polyakov said.

SAP customers are usually very large enterprises. There are almost 250,000 companies using SAP products in the world, including over 80 percent of those on the Forbes 500 list, according to Polyakov.

If timed correctly, some attacks could even influence the company's stock and would allow the attackers to profit on the stock market, according to Polyakov.

Dr. Web detects the new malware variant as part of the Trojan.Ibank family, but this is likely a generic alias, he said. "My colleagues said that this is a new modification of a known banking Trojan, but it's not one of the very popular ones like ZeuS or SpyEye."

However, malware is not the only threat to SAP customers. ERPScan discovered a critical unauthenticated remote code execution vulnerability in SAProuter, an application that acts as a proxy between internal SAP systems and the Internet.

A patch for this vulnerability was released six months ago, but ERPScan found that out of 5,000 SAProuters accessible from the Internet, only 15 percent currently have the patch, Polyakov said. If you get access to a company's SAProuter, you're inside the network and you can do the same things you can when you have access to a SAP workstation, he said.

Source: http://www.infoworld.com/d/security/new-malware-variant-suggests-cybercriminals-targeting-sap-users-230014?source=rss_applications
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LAX suspect set out to kill multiple TSA officers

This photo provided by the FBI shows Paul Ciancia, 23. Accused of opening fire inside the Los Angeles airport, Ciancia was determined to lash out at the Transportation Security Administration, saying in a note that he wanted to kill at least one TSA officer and didn’t care which one, authorities said Saturday, Nov. 2, 2013. (AP Photo/FBI)

This photo provided by the FBI shows Paul Ciancia, 23. Accused of opening fire inside the Los Angeles airport, Ciancia was determined to lash out at the Transportation Security Administration, saying in a note that he wanted to kill at least one TSA officer and didn’t care which one, authorities said Saturday, Nov. 2, 2013. (AP Photo/FBI)

ALTERNATE HORIZONTAL CROP - This June, 2013 photo released by the Hernandez family Saturday, Nov. 2, 2013, shows Transportation Security Administration officer Gerardo Hernandez. Hernandez, 39, was shot to death and several others wounded by a gunman who went on a shooting rampage in Terminal 3 at Los Angeles International Airport Friday. (AP Photo/Courtesy Hernandez Family)

John S. Pistole, left, Administrator of Transportation Security Administration and Ana Fernandez, center, wife of TSA agent Gerardo Fernandez, victim at LAX shooting, before a press conference in Porter Ranch, Calif. on Saturday Nov. 2, 2013. A gunman armed with a semi-automatic rifle opened fire at Los Angeles International Airport on Friday, killing a Transportation Security Administration employee and wounding two other people in an attack that frightened passengers and disrupted flights nationwide. (AP Photo/Ringo H.W. Chiu)

Transportation Security Administration employees classify the luggage to return to passengers at Los Angeles International Airport's Terminal 3 on Saturday, Nov. 2, 2013. A gunman armed with a semi-automatic rifle opened fire at the airport on Friday, killing a Transportation Security Administration employee and wounding two other people in an attack that frightened passengers and disrupted flights nationwide. (AP Photo/Ringo H.W. Chiu)

From left to right, FBI Special Agent in Charge David L. Bowdich, United States Attorney Andre Birotte Jr., and Los Angeles Police Department Commander Andrew Smith in press conference to provide an update on the investigation of the shooting incident at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX), on Saturday Nov. 2, 2013 at Westwood Federal Building in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Ringo H.W. Chiu)

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The unemployed motorcycle mechanic suspected in the deadly shooting at the Los Angeles airport set out to kill multiple employees of the Transportation Security Administration and hoped the attack would "instill fear in their traitorous minds," authorities said Saturday.

Paul Ciancia was so determined to take lives that, after shooting a TSA officer and going up an escalator, he turned back to see the officer move and returned to finish him off, according to surveillance video reviewed by investigators.

In a news conference announcing charges against Ciancia, U.S. Attorney Andre Birotte Jr. spelled out a chilling chain of events at LAX that began when Ciancia strode into Terminal 3, pulled a Smith & Wesson .223-caliber assault rifle from his duffel bag and fired repeatedly at point-blank range at a TSA officer. The officer was checking IDs and boarding passes at the base of an escalator leading to the main screening area.

After killing that officer, Ciancia fired on at least two other uniformed TSA employees and an airline passenger, who were all wounded. Airport police eventually shot him as panicked passengers cowered in stores and restaurants.

Ciancia, 23, remained hospitalized Saturday after being hit four times and wounded in the mouth and leg. The FBI said he was unresponsive and they had not been able to interview him.

The duffel bag contained a handwritten letter signed by Ciancia stating that he had "made the conscious decision to try to kill" multiple TSA employees and that he wanted to stir fear in them, FBI agent in charge David L. Bowdich said.

Federal prosecutors filed charges of first-degree murder of a federal officer and committing violence at an international airport. The charges could qualify him for the death penalty.

The FBI was still looking into Ciancia's past, but investigators said they had not found evidence of previous crimes or any run-ins with the TSA. They said he had never applied for a job with the agency.

Authorities believe someone dropped Ciancia off at the airport. Agents were reviewing surveillance tapes to piece together the sequence of events.

"We are really going to draw a picture of who this person was, his background, his history. That will help us explain why he chose to do what he did," Bowdich said. "At this point, I don't have the answer on that."

The note found in the duffel bag suggested Ciancia was willing to kill almost any TSA officer.

"Black, white, yellow, brown, I don't discriminate," the note read, according to a paraphrase by a law enforcement official briefed on the investigation. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly.

The screed also mentioned "fiat currency" and "NWO," possible references to the New World Order, a conspiracy theory that foresees a totalitarian one-world government.

When searched, the suspect had five 30-round magazines, and his bag contained hundreds more rounds in boxes, the law-enforcement official said.

Terminal 3, the area where the shooting happened, reopened Saturday. Passengers who had abandoned luggage to escape Friday's gunfire were allowed to return to collect their bags.

The TSA planned to review its security policies in the wake of the attack. Administrator John Pistole did not say if that would mean arming officers.

As airport operations returned to normal, a few more details trickled out about Ciancia, who by all accounts was reserved and solitary.

Former classmates barely remember him and even a recent roommate could say little about the young man who moved from New Jersey to Los Angeles less than two years ago. A former classmate at Salesianum School in Wilmington, Del., said Ciancia was incredibly quiet.

"He kept to himself and ate lunch alone a lot," David Hamilton told the Los Angeles Times. "I really don't remember any one person who was close to him .... In four years, I never heard a word out of his mouth."

On Friday, Ciancia's father called police in New Jersey, worried about his son in L.A. The young man had sent texts to his family that suggested he might be in trouble, at one point even saying goodbye.

The call came too late. Ten minutes earlier, police said, he had walked into the airport.

In the worrisome messages, the younger Ciancia did not mention suicide or hurting others, but his father had heard from a friend that his son may have had a gun, said Allen Cummings, police chief in Pennsville, a small blue-collar town near the Delaware River where Ciancia grew up.

The police chief called Los Angeles police, who sent a patrol car to Ciancia's apartment. There, two roommates said that they had seen him a day earlier and he had appeared to be fine.

But by that time, gunfire was already breaking out at the airport.

"There's nothing we could do to stop him," Cummings said.

The police chief said he learned from Ciancia's father that the young man had attended a technical school in Florida, then moved to Los Angeles in 2012 hoping to get a job as a motorcycle mechanic. He was having trouble finding work.

Ciancia graduated in December 2011 from Motorcycle Mechanics Institute in Orlando, Fla., said Tina Miller, a spokeswoman for Universal Technical Institute, the Scottsdale, Ariz., company that runs the school.

A basic motorcycle mechanic course takes about a year, she said.

On Friday, as swarms of passengers dropped to the ground or ran for their lives, the gunman seemed to ignore anyone except TSA targets.

Leon Saryan of Milwaukee had just passed through security and was looking for a place to put his shoes and belt back on when he heard gunfire. He managed to hide in a store. As he was cowering in the corner, the shooter approached.

"He looked at me and asked, 'TSA?' I shook my head no, and he continued on down toward the gate," Saryan said.

Authorities identified the dead TSA officer as Gerardo I. Hernandez, 39, the first official in the agency's 12-year history to be killed in the line of duty.

Friends remembered him as a doting father and a good neighbor who went door-to-door warning neighbors to be careful after his home was burglarized.

In brief remarks outside the couple's house, his widow, Ana Hernandez, said Saturday that her husband came to the U.S. from El Salvador at age 15.

"He took pride in his duty for the American public and for the TSA mission," she said.

___

Associated Press writers Alicia Chang in Los Angeles and Geoff Mulvihill in New Jersey contributed to this report.

Associated PressSource: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2013-11-02-US-LAX-Shooting/id-6b6ddfdc5219419baa4f06291dd5a903
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