There’s no confirmation on whether this was intentional or not, but it comes at a time of increased sensitivity over cyber-terrorism.

Among websites who had traffic diverted were the US Senate, The Office of the Secretary of Defence, NASA and the US Commerce Department.

A draft report by the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission says “Evidence related to this incident does not clearly indicate whether it was perpetrated intentionally and, if so, to what ends.  However, computer security researchers have noted that the capability could enable severe malicious activities.”

The Internet, such as it is, is at some risk of attacks that could threaten national infrastructure and so countries around the world have been working on methods of defending their Internet servers from such threats.  A recent attack was, allegedly, made on Iran and saw plants in the country experiencing significant disruption.  There is no evidence of who was responsible for the attack though it is widely considered that only a major power would have the resources to instigate such a project.

In the first example of malware of this type the worm was programmed to attack power stations, water plants and industrial units.

A report by the BBC has said that the sheer complexity of the worm means it could only have been written by another “nation state” and so would make it the first real-world example of what most people would expect cyber-terrorism to look like.

Liam O’Murchu from security firm Symantec told the BBC “The fact that we see so many more infections in Iran than anywhere else in the world makes us think this threat was targeted at Iran and that there was something in Iran that was of very, very high value to whomever wrote it.”

Some people have speculated the worm could have been written to specifically target Iran’s nuclear facilities, though there is not enough evidence to draw any conclusions about what its intended target was or who wrote it.

Stuxnet was first detected in June by a security firm in Belarus who discovered it was trying to infect systems that, for security reasons, are not normally connected to the Internet.  It was coded to seek out a specific configuration of industrial control software made by European electronics giant Siemens.

Once the systems were hijacked, the worm would give the systems new instructions that could have seen them overheat as monitoring was shut down, or that could have seen the systems shut down altogether.

Either way this is clearly a very specific type of attack and no party has come forward to claim responsibility for it.

The reason for this is that the data is filtered therough RIM’s servers, which are outside of those countries (in Canada to be precise) and, thus, are unable to be monitored and filtered by the authorities there.  The arguments for these actions range from maintaining obscenity laws to fighting terrorism.

Now it appears that RIM might be showing signs of caving.  The Wall Street Journal is reporting that RIM is looking to set up a local data-centre in Saudi Arabia to handle network traffic.

Saudi Arabia’s telecoms watchdog has now said it is extending the deadline on which the Blackberry data services will be blocked by 48-hours to give RIM more time to clarify its plans.

Apparently negotiations are now in the ‘final stages’ as RIM fightes to maintain its place in a market where it already has well over 500,000 users.

We’ll let you know how this turns out.

The rules regards internet usage and decency in the country are fairly strict and all ISPs are required to have filtering equipment to block inappropriate or offensive websites and content.  The difference with the Blackberry though is that all of the data on the phones is filtered through RIMs own servers which sit outside of the country, and as such, can’t be controlled by the government.

There have been attempts to crack down on the “crackberrys” as they are affectionately known including one purported attempt to sneak software on to the phones by the state-run telecoms agency, TRA.

RIM has yet to officially respond to the announcement which would see some Blackberry services suspended from 11th October.  There are an estimated 500,000 Blackberry users in the country.

TRA Director General, Mohammed al-Ghanem told Reuters “it’s a final decision but we are continuing discussions with [RIM].  Censorship has nothing to do with this.  What we are talking about is suspension due to the lack of comliance with UAE telecommunications regulations.

How this will result, with the UAE wanting to monitor all data and email in the country remains to be seen.

Now more details have emerged and the BBC have reported that it was indeed the FBI who ordered the services’ closure because of a “link to terrorist material” and an al-Qaeda hit list”.

BurstNet, which hosts the service said that Blogetry.com had also posted “bomb-making instructions”.

The question remains though if the FBI acted within reason and within the limits of its powers in closing the service.  It stands to reason that not all of Blogetry’s 70,000 users were terrorists or support terrorism.  It’s far more likely that there were no more than a handful of blogs using the service that could have been considered as directly supporting terrorism.

The Centre for Democracy and Technology has also expressed concern about what happens to the 70,000 plus bloggers who have had their blogs terminated.

“As a free speech advocate, I certainly think it is unfortunate that what I assume are many thousands of perfectly innocent blogs were taken down here,” John Morris, the head of the Centre for Democracy & Technology’s free expression project told BBC News.

“I hope our society is able to figure out a way to address one bad apple in a pool of content without collateral consequences for the innocent speakers. This (case) highlights the fragility of speech on the internet when thousands of speakers have their speech removed.”

As of right now, twenty four hours later and there’s no word on whether these perfectly legitimate blogs will be restored and what, if any, rights the users of Blogetry might have.  Unsurprisingly the FBI have only said that they do not comment on current investigations.

Update: Blogetery blogs are online again. The service is offering free blogs and pro accounts based on the WordPress blog system.

While the cyborg beetles in my last post are still nowhere near practical implementation, these sniffer bees are already being used to detect suspect chemicals that are used in explosives. Thankfully, unlike their cyborg brethren, these insects are actually there to stop the violence before it happens by sniffing out bombs and explosives.

These bees are normal honeybees that have been trained to respond to certain chemicals. They are rewarded for responding correctly to the chemicals. This is the same training procedure that is used to train dogs and other animals to respond to certain stimulus, usually smell. Another procedure used to train animals is by inducing pain whenever they make a mistake. This is used to train them to avoid certain things or to take one specific path through a maze.

A company called Insentinel is behind training these bees by exposing them to tiny samples of chemicals. Bees are extremely sensitive when it comes to picking up traces in the air, so they make for perfect sniffers. It has already been shown that they can pick up the traces in concentrations to the tune of one in one million million. As the reporter puts it, that is like a grain of salt in a swimming pool.

Sources are of the opinion that the system may be in place within a year from now. So the next time you are at the airport and hear a strange buzzing noise, you’ll know there’s no place to hide.

How will people with bee allergies react when bees are used on airports to sniff for dangerous or illegal substances?

Data Retention Laws (firmly pushed by the United Kingdom) are already in place which forces every European ISP to record communication data of their users. Apparently though that is not enough for the British Home Office who have plans to create a database of electronic information holding details of every phone call and e-mail sent in the UK according to the BBC.

All for the sake of national security, fighting terrorism and crime of course. The data will be “subject to strict safeguards to ensure the right balance between privacy and protecting the public.”

Am I the only one thinking all those laws that reduce the liberty of the individual and the population are way out of proportion ? There is zero difference between some laws in Europe and the United States and some oppressive regime in the rest of the world.

I’m sorry that it got a bit political but this is an issue that is affecting everyone living in those countries.