Chinese Monitoring Your Skype Calls

If you're an authoritarian government that closely monitors your citizens' online communications, here's a tip from Ars Technica: tell your minions not to store the logs on publicly-accessible servers. This is exactly what China has done with information pulled from the TOM-Skype network, leading a handful of researchers to discover that China is logging text messages and analyze the country's behavior with regards to the online monitoring and censorship of citizens. In a joint report between ONI Asia and the Information Welfare Monitor, author Nart Villeneuve details evidence that China not only monitors and logs text chat, but also targets specific users for further monitoring.

Japan proposes 'Net censorship, watermarking
The report published yesterday, titled "BREACHING TRUST: An analysis of surveillance and security practices on China's TOM-Skype platform" (PDF), explains that full chat text messages from TOM-Skype users were found on insecure, publicly-accessible web servers along with the encryption key required to decrypt the data (TOM Online is Skype's operating partner in China). This—along with "millions of records containing personal information" such as IP address, usernames, and landline phone numbers—were stored along with additional data detailing Skype users outside of China who have communicated with TOM-Skype users in China.

"The captured messages contain specific keywords relating to sensitive political topics such as Taiwan independence, the Falun Gong, and political opposition to the Communist Party of China," reads the report. Villeneuve explains that the surveillance doesn't stop there, either. According to the groups' analysis, many of the captured messages contain content that falls outside of typically-censored words or topics, "suggesting that there may be criteria, such as specific usernames, that determine whether messages are captured by the system." Translation: If you're the type who regularly talks about unapproved topics on Skype, you may be flagged for further monitoring of everything you say.

Clearly, there are a number of problems with this discovery, starting with security. Villeneuve notes that the information contained on the servers could be used to exploit the TOM-Skype server network, and an attacker can access detailed user profiles. "In fact, evidence suggests that the servers used to store captured data have been compromised in the past and used to host pirated movies and torrents (for peer-to-peer file sharing)," reads the report. Clearly, crafty hackers already know where these servers are and how to get into them.

Additionally, the findings raise the question as to what extent TOM and Skype are cooperating with the Chinese government. The report questions the legal basis for TOM-Skype to capture and log this information, who has access to it, and what will be done with it in the future. Villeneuve notes that Skype is neither transparent nor forthcoming about the exact nature of its compliance with Chinese authorities, a disturbing trend among US-based Internet companies conducting business in China.

When asked for comment about the findings, eBay (Skype's parent company) spokesperson Jennifer Caukin only responded to the security implications. "The security breach does not affect Skype's core technology or functionality," she told the New York Times. "It exists within an administrative layer on Tom Online servers. We have expressed our concern to Tom Online about the security issue and they have informed us that a fix to the problem will be completed withi

Missile Officer Charged With Stealing Classified Device

Missileer charged with stealing tamper device
By Michael Hoffman - Staff writer
Posted : Tuesday Sep 30, 2008 6:40:02 EDT
An Air Force missile officer charged with stealing a classified device designed to protect nuclear missile launch secrets will face an Article 32 investigation hearing on Tuesday.

Capt. Paul A. Borowiecki was charged after he allegedly admitted stealing the tamper device, said Maj. Laurie Arellano, a service spokeswoman.

During a recent interview for a new assignment that requires a security clearance, Borowiecki allegedly admitted that he and another unnamed officer didn’t destroy the bandage-sized devices that dispense a residue to alert security personnel if launch code components have been improperly removed, Arellano said.

The investigation into the second officer is still ongoing, she said.

The two signed a document in July 2005 stating they had destroyed them.

Borowiecki, assigned to the 91st Space Wing, was charged with dereliction of duty, false official statements, and wrongful appropriation of military property under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. His Article 32 will be held at Minot Air Force Base, N.D.

First Privately Owned Rocket Makes Orbit

Rocket successfully launched from South Pacific

The Associated Press
Article Last Updated: 09/28/2008 04:42:39 PM PDT

LOS ANGELES—An Internet entrepreneur's latest effort to make space launch more affordable paid off Sunday when his commercial rocket carrying a dummy payload was lofted into orbit.
It was the fourth attempt by Hawthorne-based Space Exploration Technologies, or SpaceX, to launch its two-stage Falcon 1 rocket into orbit.

"Fourth time's a charm," said Elon Musk, the multimillionaire who started up SpaceX after making his fortune as the co-founder of PayPal Inc., the electronic payment system.

The rocket carried a 364-pound dummy payload designed and built by SpaceX for the launch.

"This really means a lot," Musk told a crowd of whooping employees. "There's only a handful of countries on earth that have done this. It's usually a country thing, not a company thing. We did it."

Musk pledged to continue getting rockets into orbit, saying the company has resolved design issues that plagued previous attempts.

Last month, SpaceX lost three government satellites and human ashes including the remains of astronaut Gordon Cooper and "Star Trek" actor James Doohan after its third rocket was lost en route to space. The company blamed a timing error for the failure that caused the rocket's first stage to bump into the second stage after separation.

SpaceX's maiden launch in 2006 failed due to a fuel line leak. Last year, another rocket reached some 180 miles above Earth, but its second stage prematurely shut off.

70-foot-long rocket powered by liquid oxygen and kerosene, is the first in a family of low-cost launch vehicles priced at $7.9 million each.
Besides the Falcon 1, SpaceX is developing for NASA a larger launch vehicle, Falcon 9, capable of flying to the international space station.

A Glorious Death: Jules Verne's ATV reentry spectacular

The unmanned Jules Verne ATV cargo ship breaks up in a spectacular display
during re-entry, as seen on Monday over the Pacific from an observation plane.
The European Space Agency's first cargo mission to the international space station ended in a spectacular fireworks show today, with the fiery re-entry of the unmanned Jules Verne ATV spaceship over the South Pacific.

"Jules Verne has now successfully completed its mission," ESA Director-General Jean-Jacques Dordain declared at the International Astronautical Congress in Glasgow, Scotland.

The end came at around 9:30 a.m. ET, when controllers back at Europe's mission control in Toulouse, France, directed the 17-ton craft into its final plunge. Jules Verne, the first of Europe's Automated Transfer Vehicles, was launched from the ESA spaceport in French Guiana early March 9. It linked up with the space station almost a month later, delivering tons of food, water and equipment.

During its stay, Jules Verne periodically boosted the space station's orbit, and in fact helped the station dodge a passing piece of Russian space junk last month.

But all good things must come to an end: Unlike the Italian-built space cargo modules that are carried back and forth inside NASA's space shuttle, the Euroean-built ATVs are not designed for return or reuse. Instead, each spent craft has to be disposed of safely, by directing it remotely on a plunge through the atmosphere. The wide-open South Pacific is the favorite dumping ground for such space junk, as we saw back in 2001 when Russia's Mir space station fell to its doom.

Jules Verne's re-entry was witnessed by an international team of scientists flying aboard a NASA DC-8 observation plane. Studying the spacecraft's controlled fall could lead to fresh insights about the chemical and radiation effects of falling meteors - as well as better computer models for predicting how objects fragment as the blast through the atmosphere.



ESA
The Jules Verne ATV cargo craft glows during its atmospheric re-entry, in a view
captured Monday from a DC-8 observation plane flying over the Pacific. A lens
diffraction flare can be seen in rainbow colors at lower right.

Hubble Breaks/ Shuttle Delayed

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (AP) -- NASA said Monday that it is delaying its mission to the Hubble Space Telescope until next year because of a serious breakdown of the observatory in orbit.


The Atlantis team was scheduled to blast off October 14 to make other repairs and upgrades on the Hubble.

Space shuttle Atlantis had been scheduled to blast off in just two weeks, but an unexpected problem with the Hubble appeared Saturday night, when the telescope stopped sending science data.

That potentially means a new repair issue for the astronauts to confront, one they haven't trained for and never anticipated.

The failure of the command and data-handling system for Hubble's science instruments means the telescope is unable to capture and beam down the data needed to produce its stunning deep space images.

Early Monday afternoon, NASA announced that the October 14 launch had been postponed until at least early next year, possibly February.

When Atlantis does fly, NASA may send up a replacement part for the failed component.

It would take time to test and qualify the old replacement part and train the astronauts to install it in the telescope, NASA spokesman Michael Curie said. NASA also would have to work out new mission details for the astronauts who have trained for two years to carry out five Hubble repair spacewalks.

"The teams are always looking at contingencies, and this is just something that has cropped up we have the ability to deal with. They're just trying to decide what direction we want to go," Curie said.

There is a backup channel for the science instruments' command and data-handling system, and NASA may be able to activate it successfully so that data transmission resumes, Curie said. But if NASA relies solely on the backup channel, there would be no other options if it malfunctioned.

Work has begun to switch the telescope to the backup channel. It is a complicated process; the backup channels on the various modules that must be switched over have not been turned on since the late 1980s or early 1990, right before Hubble was launched. The Hubble team hopes to complete the job by the end of the week.

Curie stressed that the telescope is not in trouble; it just cannot send science information to ground controllers. That means NASA is unable to receive the dramatic pictures Hubble is known for.

The mission by Atlantis and a seven-person crew will be the fifth and final servicing mission to Hubble.

Now, Endeavour will be the next shuttle up, on a trip to the international space station in November. Endeavour is at the launch pad; it was supposed to serve as a rescue ship for Atlantis in case of trouble