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Lone Signal aims to send 'hello!' tweets to extraterrestrials

Wed, 19 Jun 2013 09:26:02 GMT

Would you pay 25 cents to send a tweet to space on the odd chance that an alien might read it? The founders of Lone Signal hope so. The New York startup has launched a new website through which anyone can submit messages that will be broadcast to a star 17 light years away.

The messages will be sent from the fabled Jamesburg Earth Station, a satellite site that was first built to support the Apollo 11 moon mission. The property, which includes 160 acres of prime real estate in California's rural Carmel valley, is now privately owned, and Lone Signal has secured a 30-year lease on its satellite equipment.

But Lone Signal has a more ambitious goal. If the current project sparks enough interest around the world, the company hopes to eventually raise the kind of money required for a full-scale continuous transmission project -- an effort that would cost an estimated $100 million and require satellite dishes in each hemisphere.

"The only way to do that would be to interest the private sector in the same way that Space X has brought the private sector into space exploration," says Jamie King, Lone Signal's CEO. That's the goal of Lone Signal's text-messaging project: to generate mass-market interest in the concept of communicating with aliens.

Lone Signal's website launched Monday evening; anyone will be able to post one 144-character text message for free. After that, they can purchase four "credits" for 99 cents, which buys four text messages.

The messages are being beamed to Gliese 526, a potentially habitable solar system that is relatively close to Earth.

In addition to the text messages, which can be written in any language, Lone Signal will simultaneously send a message written in binary code -- the language computers use to communicate -- that contains basic principles of physics. The idea is that these principles apply throughout the universe and thus are more likely to be understood by an alien than, say, a text message written in English.

That message was developed by astrophysicist and planetary scientist Michael W. Busch, a fellow at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory.

Lone Signal's executives are a diverse bunch who got together based on a shared enthusiasm about the possibility of communicating with creatures from other planets. King is a cofounder of Rockstar Games, the company behind the bestselling "Grand Theft Auto" series. The company's other creators include a fashion photographer and a video game developer.

Ray Kurzweil, a well-known figure in the tech community who is a director of engineering at Google, was given early access to the site and queued up a message. It reads: "Greetings to Gliese 526 from Singularity University. As you receive this, our computers have made us smarter, the better to understand you and the wisdom of the universe."

The site has a few neat features. Users can dedicate a message to someone else and track their messages, watching in real-time to see how far each has travelled. Site visitors can read other messages that have been sent. Lone Signal plans to send periodic emails to users when their messages hit milestones.

The executives wouldn't say how many paying customers they'll need to keep the operation running. For now, the sole investor in the project is Greg Kadel, the fashion photographer who first hatched the idea with company cofounder Pierre Fabre.

"We think we're running a very lean operation, and a lot of us are actually working gratis," King says. The project's expenses have included an upgrade to the equipment at Jamesburg, which hadn't been used for years, plus the ongoing costs of paying for an on-site engineer at Jamesburg and maintaining Lone Signal's website.

The quixotic project won't be without critics. Some people worry that transmitting messages to beings in space might not be smart, since we don't know the temperament of these extraterrestrials, should they exist. (Think "Independence Day," rather than "E.T.")

But Long Signal points out that we've already done a good job of broadcasting our existence.

"The scientific community is well aware that we've been transmitting radio waves that are detectable at these distances for 70 some years," says Jacob Haqq-Misra, who serves as chief scientific officer for Lone Signal and holds a Ph.D. in meteorology and astrobiology from Penn State University. Radar, TV, satellite, cellphones and even city lights emit signals that travel into space.

"Astronomers and astrobiologists and scientists are in agreement that our location is not a secret if anyone wants to look for us," he says.

Lone Signal just wants to give that "hi, we're here!" beacon a boost.

How to hide your data from Web snoops

Wed, 19 Jun 2013 09:24:26 GMT

Let's face it: Most of us don't e-mail, tweet, text or post anything worthy of clandestine scrutiny.

But having concerns about NSA cybersnooping doesn't mean we must surrender all privacy -- what's left of it -- in our day-to-day online activities.

It's easy to forget that we're volunteering basic information about ourselves in return for free e-mail, social networking and other digital services. And let's remember that third parties -- from government agencies to cybercriminals -- can get their hands on even more personal stuff if they're actively trying.

So, whether it's due to a vague fear of Big Brother or a more specific desire to keep your bank information out of the hands of thieves, you might be considering ways to keep your communication more secure.

"So much that's geo-political, so much cybercrime, so many struggles of various types are being played out in terms of information security today," said Wade Williamson, a senior security analyst at Palo Alto Networks. "It's not just that people decided to get interested in encryption all of a sudden."

Specifically, encryption has come up a lot in recent days. For one, NSA whistleblower (some would say "traitor") Edward Snowden said Monday in an online question-and-answer session that e-mail encryption is an effective way of foiling government surveillance.

"Encryption works," he wrote. "Properly implemented strong crypto systems are one of the few things that you can rely on. Unfortunately, endpoint security is so terrifically weak that NSA can frequently find ways around it."

Encryption is a method of securing your files, including e-mail, by encoding it so that the intended recipient can read it, but anyone who may intercept the message along the way cannot.

An encryption tool turns your original message (called "plaintext") into a garbled mess (or "ciphertext") while it's flying from Point A to Point B. The system gives the approved recipient a decryption tool which makes the text readable once it arrives at its destination.

With all of the renewed interest in online privacy, we talked with Williamson about ways to help keep your data secure -- before, during and after sending it.

Before

First things first. There are ways to make your contact with every website you visit more secure.

A "secure sockets layer" (SSL) provides a layer of security during everything from Web browsing to text messaging. Many major websites offer the option of using a secure connection all the time. Williamson and other security experts suggest doing this when given the option.

If not -- sometimes it can be as easy as tweaking "http" to "https" in your browser's address bar.

"By and large, you can just throw an 'S' into the URL and go to town," Williamson said.

There are also tools like HTTPS Everywhere, a free extension for Chrome and Firefox browsers, that encrypt your connection with most major websites.

During

Most major e-mail services, like Outlook and Gmail, offer some form of encryption. Check your e-mail's security settings for options.

But for people who are really worried about their e-mails being intercepted -- and that's always just an unsecured network and an eager hacker away -- Williamson suggests buying encryption software. (Note: His company focuses on network security and does not sell encryption software to individuals).

With many of the systems, customers will get digital "certificates" for themselves called private keys. Everyone with whom they want to share encrypted messages will receive public keys.

Using such a system, only someone with one of a user's public certificates could descramble a message's content.

After

So, your data may be secure while it's hurtling through cyberspace. But what if somebody breaks into your car, where you stupidly left your laptop, and makes off with it?

That's where disk encryption comes in.

There's some free disk encryption software floating around in the open-source community, but for most folks this, too, will cost some cash.

In effect, disk encryption scrambles everything stored to your computer, requiring a password or other approved recovery tool to decode it. So, if your computer falls into the wrong hands, all won't be lost.

To summarize, there are lots of encryption and other security options out there. Some are quick, easy and free. Others are going to cost money for specialized software, hardware or both.

To find a level of security you're comfortable with, start by poking around with security settings on your browser, e-mail client and favorite websites. Then consider whether you want professional help to get to the next level.

Will Facebook's organ donor success stick?

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 18:00:21 GMT

It seems we often hear of another patient who has been desperately waiting for a transplant that could save his or her life.

Earlier this month it was a 10-year-old girl in Pennsylvania hoping for a new set of lungs. Before that it was Molly Pearce, who needs four organ transplants to survive. In September a man walked the streets of his South Carolina town asking strangers for a kidney for his wife.

More than 118,000 people in the United States are currently awaiting organ donations, according to OrganDonor.gov; 18 of them die each day without a donation.

Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg is hoping to change that with the power of the world's largest social networking site. On May 1, 2012, Facebook launched an initiative aimed at encouraging more people to register as organ donors.

Researchers at Johns Hopkins University, the Living Legacy Foundation and Donate Life America watched closely during the rollout, tracking how many people signed up and whether the initial boost in organ donor registration was sustained. The results of their analysis were published this week in the American Journal of Transplantation.

On the first day of the initiative, there were 13,012 new online donor registrations across the 44 states the study authors analyzed; that's a 21.2-fold increase over the usual daily registration of 616. Over the next two weeks, the number of new donors each day declined, although levels still remained above normal. The total number of new registrations during the study period reached nearly 40,000.

Even though 40,000 is less than 0.1 percent of Facebook's users, the study authors say the impact may have a ripple effect that could save lives. The theory is that sharing your organ donor status online will remind others to sign up, who will in turn encourage their friends to do the same.

"This 'chronic vitality' may give the Facebook organ donor initiative a chance of sustained impact that other previous media campaigns have lacked," the authors write.

The real question is whether the elevated levels will stick. Was the initial boost really due to Facebook's social media prowess? Or was it due to the media attention the site received in the days surrounding the initiative launch? And will the effort eventually result in more organ donations?

Only time will tell, the study authors say.

To join the social media campaign, visit your Facebook profile page and click "Life Event." Doing so brings up a drop-down menu where you can select "Health & Wellness" and then "Organ Donor..." That will direct you to your state's organ donation registry and allow you to post a story to your timeline about when and why you decided to become a donor.

Presenting the longboard stroller: half baby stroller, half skateboard

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 15:38:30 GMT

If you are sick and tired of pushing your kids around in a normal stroller like regular parents, this is good news for you. Soon, perhaps, you'll be able to push your kids along on a skateboard with a stroller mounted on top.

Belgian design firm Studio Peter van Riet has teamed with stroller company Quinny to design and create an "urban mobility concept with an eye to the future."

The first longboard stroller, which takes a traditional baby stroller, and attached it to the front end of a long skateboard. The design studio calls it an environmental alternative to traveling by car or bus.

But is it safe? The stroller comes equipped with a brake at the back and handlebars to steer the longboard. The prototype is still being tested, so it is not available on the market.

Check out this video to see the longboard stroller in action!

WATCH VIDEO:

Defenders warning: High tech crime wave

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 14:13:58 GMT

The Local 4 Defenders take a closer look at the latest digital scam.

Dictionary acknowledges humans can tweet, too

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 10:57:17 GMT

The Oxford English Dictionary has finally gotten around to acknowledging that tweeting isn't just for the birds.

In its latest update, the dictionary that describes itself as "the accepted authority on the evolution of the English language over the last millennium" has revamped the entry for "tweet" to include its social networking usage.

Although the move may seem behind the curve given the widespread use of "tweet" to refer to activity on Twitter, the dictionary's chief editor says he's actually broken one of its rules by including it so soon.

"A new word needs to be current for ten years before consideration for inclusion," John Simpson wrote on the dictionary's website. "But it seems to be catching on."

The dictionary's entry for tweet now includes the verb -- "to make a posting on the social networking service Twitter" -- and the noun -- "a posting made on the social networking service Twitter."

They sit alongside the well established bird-related definitions of the word, whose traces go as far back as the 16th century, according to the dictionary.

By recognizing that people can tweet, too, the main Oxford English Dictionary is playing catch up with its smaller, snappier cousin, the Concise Oxford English Dictionary.

The concise dictionary, a different product that seeks to be "progressive and up to date," already included the word "retweet" -- meaning to repost or forward a message posted by another user on Twitter -- in its 12th edition in 2011.

But the mother dictionary, which began life in the 19th century and contains information on more than 600,000 words, tends to move more cautiously in adding and revising entries, something it does four times a year.

It has nonetheless ingested several new tech-related words in this month's update, along with "tweet." They include "big data," "crowdsourcing," "e-reader" and "mouseover."

And in a belated nod to 1990s pop culture, the dictionary has also just added the Bart Simpson catchphrase "to have a cow."

Simpson -- the dictionary's editor, not the cartoon character -- points out that while Bart made the slang term popular, its use can be traced back to 1959.

That means it took more than half a century to find its way into the dictionary's pages, a far longer journey than the rapid rise of the non-avian "tweet."

Half of NASA's new astronauts women

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 09:26:12 GMT

NASA has selected another generation of astronauts to travel to new destinations in the solar system, including an asteroid and Mars, and for the first time in its history half of the new candidates are women.

Four out of the eight candidates are women, "making this the highest percentage of female astronaut candidates ever selected for a class," the US space agency said.

The new space explorers, drawn from among 6,000 applicants, are all in their 30s, according to NASA. New astronauts will begin with a two-year general orientation training and a flight mission to low-Earth orbit afterwards.

"We have great female candidates in the pool this year. The selection is about qualifications. It has nothing to do with their genders," said Jay Bolden, public affairs officer at NASA.

Coming from combined backgrounds, the new astronauts will become full-time NASA employees. Some astronauts with military affiliations will retain their military status, and those who are not will quit their jobs, Bolden said.

NASA, which has recently stopped sending its own rockets into space, will instead outsource that work to privately held U.S. rocket maker SpaceX.

SpaceX, run by Elon Musk, the outspoken CEO of electric carmaker Tesla and chairman of solar panel outfitter SolarCity, will provide the spacecraft for several flight missions, according to NASA. Potential missions include a low-Earth orbit flight, planned soon, a flight to the International Space Station planned around 2020 to 2025, a mission to land on an asteroid and then the first human mission to Mars in the 2030s.

NASA has already been in a partnership with SpaceX for several years. The company is already flying cargo missions to the International Space Station for NASA, and delivering satellites into space for commercial customers.

"The astronauts could be the first to fly to the International Space Station with a commercial flight," Bolden said.

The new astronaut candidates will begin training at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston in mid-August.

"These new space explorers asked to join NASA because they know we're doing big, bold things here—developing missions to go farther into space than ever before," NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said in a statement.

"They are excited about the science we are doing on the International Space Station and our plan to launch from U.S. soil to there on spacecraft built by American companies. And they are ready to help lead the first human mission to an asteroid and then on to Mars," he said.

Google seeks to scrub Web of child porn

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 08:17:20 GMT

Google says it will spend $5 million on an effort to wipe pictures of child sexual abuse from the Web and another $2 million to research more effective ways to find, report and eradicate the images.

"The Internet has been a tremendous force for good -- increasing access to information, improving people's ability to communicate and driving economic growth," Jacqueline Fuller, the director of Google Giving, said in a blog post. "But like the physical world, there are dark corners on the web where criminal behavior exists."

Part of the $5 million will go to established child-protection groups that have been partnering with Google to fight the problem. They include the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and the Internet Watch Foundation.

The Web giant also is creating the Child Protection Technology Fund to develop more efficient ways to fight child porn.

Recently, Google has begun using "fingerprinting" of child sex-abuse images, Fuller said. It will help law enforcement, Web companies and advocates find and remove the images, as well as prosecute the people who posted them, Google says.

"We're in the business of making information widely available, but there's certain 'information' that should never be created or found," Fuller wrote. "We can do a lot to ensure it's not available online -- and that when people try to share this disgusting content they are caught and prosecuted."

Since 2008, Google has been using technology to tag images, helping the company find them anywhere else they may appear on the Web. Among other things, Google can make sure images or Web pages do not appear in search results.

In 2006, the company joined Microsoft, AOL, Time, Time Warner (CNN's parent company) and others in a Technology Coalition, targeting child abuse on the Web, and has donated hardware and software to groups around the world fighting child sex abuse.

The company, which jealously protects details on how its search algorithms and other processes work, did not immediately respond to a message seeking more details about how its new initiative will work and what additional efforts may be on the way.

According to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, the group's tip line received 17.3 million images and videos of suspected child abuse in 2011. That was four times what the group received in 2007.

10,000 Apple accounts subject to data requests

Mon, 17 Jun 2013 18:43:29 GMT

U.S. law enforcement officials made thousands of requests for data about Apple users over the last seven months, the company said Monday.

Apple said it had received between 4,000 and 5,000 requests, covering between 9,000 and 10,000 accounts or devices, from federal, state and local authorities.

Some of the requests were related to national security matters, but most were made by police investigating crimes, searching for missing persons or trying to prevent suicide, according to the company.

Apple's revelation follows the leaking by American computer analyst Edward Snowden of details of a U.S. government system for monitoring millions of emails, photos, search histories and other data from major telecommunications and technology firms.

Snowden's leaks have sparked a furious debate about the scale and scope of the National Security Agency surveillance program, which dates back to the days after the 2001 al-Qaida attacks on New York and Washington. It has also raised questions about the role tech companies play.

Apple said it first heard of the program -- known as PRISM -- on June 6. Since then, like other tech companies, it had sought U.S. government permission to report how many requests it receives and how it handles them. It said it does not provide direct access to its servers.

"Regardless of the circumstances, our legal team conducts an evaluation of each request and, only if appropriate, we retrieve and deliver the narrowest possible set of information to the authorities," the company said in a statement.

"In fact, from time to time when we see inconsistencies or inaccuracies in a request, we will refuse to fulfill it."

Facebook and Microsoft have also published details of the extent of their involvement in recent days. Facebook said it received between 9,000 and 10,000 requests in the last half of 2012, targeting between 18,000 and 19,000 accounts.

Over the same period, Microsoft received between 6,000 and 7,000 criminal and security warrants, subpoenas and orders affecting as many as 32,000 customer accounts.

Apple said there were certain categories of information it was unable to provide to law enforcement officials because it didn't record them. Such data includes iMessage or FaceTime conversations, which Apple said were protected by end-to-end encryption so that no one but the sender or receiver can see or read them.

"Apple cannot decrypt that data. Similarly, we do not store data related to customers' location, Map searches or Siri requests in any identifiable form," Apple said.

Reporting all law enforcement requests together makes it hard to single out those made for national security reasons.

Google, which publishes a transparency report detailing requests from governments worldwide, has said it wants to be able to break out numbers of national security requests separately.

The spying allegations threatened to cast a shadow over a meeting of G-8 leaders beginning Monday in the U.K. after the Guardian newspaper published a new report based on documents provided by Snowden. The paper claimed that Britain's electronic intelligence agency monitored delegates' phones and tried to capture their passwords during an economic summit in 2009.

Facebook, Microsoft reveal U.S. data requests

Sun, 16 Jun 2013 10:15:58 GMT

Facebook and Microsoft disclosed that they received thousands of requests for user data from government agencies in the United States in the last half of 2012.

Facebook said it got between 9,000 and 10,000 requests targeting between 18,000 and 19,000 accounts during that period.

"These requests run the gamut -- from things like a local sheriff trying to find a missing child, to a federal marshal tracking a fugitive, to a police department investigating an assault, to a national security official investigating a terrorist threat," Ted Ullyot, Facebook's general counsel, said in a post Friday night

"With more than 1.1 billion monthly active users worldwide, this means that a tiny fraction of 1% of our user accounts were the subject of any kind of U.S. state, local, or federal U.S. government requests."

The disclosure comes amid a firestorm over revelations that both were among companies that turned over user data to the National Security Agency's web surveillance program.

The U.S. government has a sweeping system for monitoring emails, photos, search histories and other data from major American Internet companies, including Facebook, Microsoft, Google and Skype.

"The Department of Justice reached agreements with certain providers that will allow the publication of additional data pertaining to U.S. government requests for user data in compliance with legal process," a Justice Department spokesperson told CNN Saturday. "Under these agreements, the providers plan to begin publishing aggregate totals of criminal and national security requests received from federal, state, and local governments over a six-month period."

More transparency

Both companies got government permission to publish the reports as long as they were grouped with all others requests, including from state and local agencies. The grouping of the data made it hard to single out those made for national security reasons.

Google publishes a transparency report using requests from governments worldwide. It said grouping information is a "step back" for users.

"We have always believed that it's important to differentiate between different types of government requests," Google said in a statement. "... Our request to the government is clear: to be able to publish aggregate numbers of national security requests, including FISA disclosures, separately."

Facebook said it has been in talks with U.S. officials to seek greater transparency on national security-related orders.

In an effort to combat criticism, Microsoft also disclosed information on its data requests Friday night.

"For the six months ended December 31, 2012, Microsoft received between 6,000 and 7,000 criminal and national security warrants, subpoenas and orders affecting between 31,000 and 32,000 consumer accounts from U.S. governmental entities (including local, state and federal)," said John Frank, Microsoft's vice president.

Both companies said the information they were allowed to publish falls short of what users need to better understand the issues.

"We are permitted to publish data on national security orders received, but only if aggregated with law enforcement requests from all other U.S. local, state and federal law enforcement agencies," Frank said.

The Justice Department spokesperson said, "These aggregate totals include all instances in which a government entity has served lawful process on the providers - be it a grand jury subpoena or search warrant in a criminal matter, a national security letter, a court order under FISA, or another type of request pursuant to statutory authorization.

"The publication of these numbers will show that an extraordinarily small number of accounts are subject to legal process. These agreements reflect our continued commitment to working with providers to afford greater transparency to the public while preserving confidentiality required for law enforcement or national security reasons."

Obama administration officials have pushed back against criticism on the domestic surveillance in the aftermath of the classified leaks last week that disclosed details of covert surveillance programs.

Edward Snowden, 29, has admitted leaking the classified documents about the covert programs.

Top-secret program

The top-secret program is legal, conducted properly and could have helped detect a 9/11 hijacker had it been in place before the 2001 terrorist attacks, FBI Director Robert Mueller said Thursday.

Civil liberties groups and legislators are among critics condemning the program as government overreach beyond the intention and limits of the Patriot Act originally passed in the aftermath of the 2001 attacks.

"It's my fear that we are on the verge of becoming a surveillance state, collecting billions of electronic records on law-abiding Americans every single day," said Rep. John Conyers of Michigan, the ranking Democrat on the judiciary panel.

Conyers said he is co-sponsoring legislation that would address "the overbreadth and impenetrability of the surveillance programs."

Wrong public perception?

But legislators of both parties joined Mueller in defending the programs.

"This program does not target innocent Americans in any way, shape or form," said House Speaker John Boehner, an Ohio Republican. "These programs have helped keep America safe. They have enhanced our ability to go after terrorists who want to bring harm to the American people."

Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson of Florida said public perception of the government data mining was wrong.

One of the programs, under Section 215 of the Patriot Act, collects billions of phone records to create a database for use in tracking suspected terrorists. Another under Section 702 of the Patriot Act deals with computer activity and other information of foreigners.