Cyberwar manual lays down rules for online attacks

  A copy of the Tallinn Manual, a rulebook on cyberwarfare, is held up in a posed photograph in London, Tuesday, March 19, 2013. Even cyberwar has rules, and one group of experts is publishing a manual to prove it. The handbook due to be published later this week applies the venerable practice of international law to the world of electronic warfare in an effort to show how hospitals, civilians, and neutral nations can be protected in an information age fight. (AP Photo/Matt Dunham) Even cyberwar has rules, and one group of experts is putting out a manual to prove it. Their handbook, due to be published later this week, applies the practice of international law to the world of electronic warfare in an effort to show how hospitals, civilians and neutral nations can be protected in an information-age fight. Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2013-03-cyberwar-manual-online.html#jCp "Everyone was seeing the Internet as the 'Wild, Wild, West,'" U.S. Naval War College Professor Michael Schmitt, the manual's editor, said in an interview before its official release. "What they had forgotten is that international law applies to cyberweapons like it applies to any other weapons." The Tallinn Manual—named for the Estonian capital where it was compiled—was created at the behest of the NATO Cooperative Cyber Defense Center of Excellence, a NATO think tank. It takes existing rules on battlefield behavior, such as the 1868 St. Petersburg Declaration and the 1949 Geneva Convention, to the Internet, occasionally in unexpected ways. Marco Roscini, who teaches international law at London's University of Westminster, described the manual as a first-of-its-kind attempt to show that the laws of war—some of which date back to the 19th century—were flexible enough to accommodate the new realities of online conflict. The 282-page handbook has no official standing, but Roscini predicted that it would be an important reference as military lawyers across the world increasingly grapple with what to do about electronic attacks. "I'm sure it will be quite influential," he said. The manual's central premise is that war doesn't stop being war just because it happens online. Hacking a dam's controls to release its reservoir into a river valley can have the same effect as breaching it with explosives, its authors argue. Legally speaking, a cyberattack that sparks a fire at a military base is indistinguishable from an attack that uses an incendiary shell. The humanitarian protections don't disappear online either. Medical computers get the same protection that brick-and-mortar hospitals do. The personal data related to prisoners of war has to be kept safe in the same way that the prisoners themselves are—for example by having the information stored separately from military servers that might be subject to attack. Cyberwar can lead to cyberwar crimes, the manual warned. Launching an attack from a neutral nation's computer network is forbidden in much the same way that hostile armies aren't allowed to march through a neutral country's territory. Shutting down the Internet in an occupied area in retaliation for a rebel cyberattack could fall afoul of international prohibitions on collective punishment. The experts behind the manual—two dozen officers, academics, and researchers drawn mainly from NATO states—didn't always agree on how traditional rules applied in a cyberwar. Self-defense was a thorny issue. International law generally allows nations to strike first if they spot enemy soldiers about to pour across the border, but how could that be applied to a world in which attacks can happen at the click of a mouse? Other aspects of international law seemed obsolete—or at least in need of an upgrade—in the electronic context. Soldiers are generally supposed to wear uniforms and carry their arms openly, for example, but what could such a requirement have when they are hacking into distant targets from air-conditioned office buildings? The law also forbids attacks on "civilian objects," but the authors were divided as to whether the word "object" could be interpreted to mean "data." So that may leave a legal loophole for a military attack that erases valuable civilian data, such as a nation's voter registration records. Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2013-03-cyberwar-manual-online.html#jCp Source taken from PHYS

Car enters Gujarati restaurant in the US

San Diego: California-based NRG Raj Patel would have never imagined that he would witness such an accident in his restaurant! Patel, owner of the Miramar restaurant at Artesia, saw a car suddenly entering into his restaurant at 2 pm on Friday. It literally plowed into a restaurant, hitting one customer who was walking out the door and two others who were seated. A third woman was pushed aside by the impact holding her knee in pain.

The interesting aspect is that none of the people involved were seriously injured. The driver, a regular customer at the Surati Farsan Mart, was stopping by to place an order for her daughter’s birthday. She accidentally hit the gas pedal instead of the brakes, she told the cops. She told the cops that she was shaken and felt awful about the incident. San Diego police said that the accident was under investigation, they were unclear if the driver will face any charges.

San Diego Police Department Lieutenant Jerry Hara said, “Looks like they probably stepped on a little bit of the gas pedal as well, causing the car to actually go into the restaurant.”

“When I first pulled it out, I was shocked, it was crazy-looking. Luckily, I am surprised nobody was hurt with all of the force of the impact,” said Patel. Damage to the restaurant is estimated at about $25,000.

Even Obama does not know who shot Osama

Revealed: fascinating details of the Abbottabad raid, including the SEAL’s first words after he killed the world’s most-wanted man: “For God and country — Geronimo, Geronimo, Geronimo”



Washington: Osama bin Laden’s killing in a covert US operation in Pakistan on May 2 was the culmination of months of meticulous planning during which the US explored options like tunnelling in and an attack by B-2 Spirit bombers.

Tunnelling would have avoided ground troops sneaking through the town of Abbottabad as they penetrated the walled compound, The New Yorker magazine reported. But they determined from satellite photos that a water table was probably just below the surface of the building land and that tunnelling was highly unlikely to be successful.

A less exotic option for striking bin Laden was to bomb from the sky. The article detailed how then secretary of defense Robert Gates preferred a strike by B-2 Spirit bombers. But President Barack Obama disliked that idea and said the helicopter raid should go ahead.

In the end, bin Laden was shot by a SEAL, who gave his account of the assault in an interview with The New Yorker magazine.

When he pulled the trigger on his silenced rifle in a darkened bedroom and shot a tall, unarmed man with a straggly beard, he ended a nine-year manhunt for bin Laden, the man who claimed 2,973 lives on September 11, 2001.

But no one — not even President Barack Obama — will ever know the name of that SEAL, nor of the comrade who wrapped bin Laden’s wives in a huge bear hug and dragged them aside in case they were wearing suicide bomb vests, knowing he would absorb most of the blast and save the men behind him.

In the interview, for the first time, the fascinating details of that raid have been revealed, including the SEAL’s first words after he killed the world’s most-wanted man: “For God and country — Geronimo, Geronimo, Geronimo”.

The SEAL told The New Yorker, “There was never any question of detaining or capturing him — it wasn’t a split-second decision. No one wanted detainees.”

He told the magazine how he stepped into the terror leader's bedroom and “trained the infrared laser of his M4 [rifle] on bin Laden’s chest. “The al Qaeda chief, who was wearing a tan shalwar kameez and a prayer cap, froze; he was unarmed.” The SEAL fired, hitting bin Laden once in the chest and above the left eye.

Moments earlier, the SEAL told The New Yorker, another SEAL had entered the room and was confronted by two of bin Laden’s wives. One screamed and appeared to charge at him. The SEAL shot her in the calf and then, “fearing that one or both of women were wearing suicide jackets, he stepped forward, wrapped them in a bear hug and drove them aside.

The report also revealed that the SEALs were not wearing cameras on their helmets, and Obama and his colleagues spent 25 minutes waiting to hear the news.

After the first dramatic words from Abbottabad, the SEAL added: “Geronimo E.K.I.A — enemy killed in action”. Geronimo was the codename for a hit on bin Laden. The president pursed his lips, and speaking to no one in particular said: “We got him”.

The SEALs then put bin Laden in a body bag and carried him out of the house, where a medic took two bone marrow samples and DNA swabs.

Five days after the May 2 operation, Obama went to Kentucky where he met the assault team and spoke to each one in turn, but he never asked one crucial question — who pulled the trigger.

The men didn’t volunteer the information either. Known as ‘the best of the best’, whoever shot bin Laden is likely to have received acclaim within the unit, but will never be revealed outside it.

Instead, The Daily Mail reported, Obama settled for a flag, taken from one of the Chinooks, which the team had framed, signed, and inscribed. The message read: “From the Joint Task Force Operation Neptune’s Spear, 01 May 2011: For God and country. Geronimo.”

Harry Potter series to be sold as e-book

JK Rowling on Potter and the future of print and digital books
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Rowling launches 'mystery' site
The seven Harry Potter novels are to be sold as e-books for the first time in October.

Author JK Rowling announced the series will also be available as audiobooks through a new website, Pottermore.

The interactive website will also feature new material which Rowling says she has been "hoarding for years".

"This is such a great way to give something back to the fans who made Harry Potter such a huge success," the author said.

The Harry Potter novels have sold more than 450 million copies through Bloomsbury in Britain, and Scholastic in the United States.

However the e-books - which will be available in several languages - will be published through Rowling's Pottermore Publishing, rather than her print publishers which do not own the digital rights.

'New stuff'

Pottermore will go live on 31 July - Harry Potter's birthday.

Rowling told the BBC that the new material was being released online, rather than in a new book, because she did not have "a new story".

"Most of this writing is material I generated while I was writing the books initially," she said.

"It's background, and lots of details that didn't make it into the book.

"Some of it is new stuff in response to things fans have asked me over the years."

The site, which Rowling said she had been working on for two years, promises to immerse users in the boy wizard's world, offering opportunities for computer gaming, social networking and an online store.

Sections let users shop for wands in Diagon Alley, travel to Hogwarts from the imaginary platform at London's King's Cross train station and be sorted into Hogwarts' school houses using the Sorting Hat.

One million users will initially be chosen to help develop the online world, before it is open to all users from October.

Rowling told reporters at the London Pottermore launch she had no intention of writing an eighth Harry Potter book.

"I do have closure with Harry. I'm pretty sure I'm done on the novel front, but it was fun while it lasted," she said.

US 'worried over Thai succession

American diplomats have expressed concern over Thailand's royal succession, according to leaked cables.

The documents suggest Crown Prince Vajiralongkorn, who is next in line to the throne, is suffering from health problems. US officials are also worried about how the Thai public regards him.

His father, 83-year-old King Bhumibol Adulyadej, has been in hospital for much of the past two years.

Thailand has strict laws prohibiting any criticism of the monarchy.

Offences under lese majeste laws are punishable by up to 15 years in prison.

The concerns of the US embassy officials were publicised by journalist Andrew MacGregor Marshall in several British newspapers.

He left his job at Reuters news agency because they would not publish the claims.

He told the BBC: "The Thai people - most of them - genuinely love and respect King Bhumibol. It's not fake.

"They really do love him and they are very protective of him and that, I think, has caused people to be against anybody saying anything that appears to attack the monarchy."

But he said that the military and palace courtiers had been meddling in politics for years.

"And they have somehow allowed themselves to hide under the same umbrella of lese majeste as the king," he said.

The documents, publicised just days before Thailand's general election, were reportedly written by US diplomats over several years.

They air concerns about the prince and how he is perceived in the country, suggesting that Thailand will face "a moment of truth" when the king dies.

One embassy cable in 2009 is quoted as saying: "It is hard to overestimate the political impact of the uncertainty surrounding the inevitable succession crisis which will be touched off once King Bhumibol passes."

Many of the issues raised in the cables are known about and discussed privately in Thailand.

But there is a taboo around their public discussion in the country.

Afghan-Pakistan border like 'house without door

Who wins in the border area could win the entire Afghan war
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Taliban Conflict

Will US cut reverse Afghan gains?
Eight weeks to face the Taliban
Taliban tactics spark panic
Can the insurgents be defeated? Watch
Afghan intelligence officials in the province of Nuristan have accused the central government and Nato forces in particular of ignoring insurgents there and in other strategically important areas close to the Pakistani border.

They say that increasing violence in Nuristan - and in the provinces of Laghman, Kunar and Nangarhar - poses a significant security threat.

"Nuristan is now al-Qaeda and Taliban central," said one senior police official in the province. "They attack in hundreds, they have blocked key roads. We need to retake these areas from them."


The problem has become so acute that Gen Aminullah Amarkhel of the Afghan border police says the border with Pakistan is like a "house without a door".

The general commands Afghan forces along the 450km (280 mile) international border that cuts across Nangarhar, Kunar and Nuristan.

Poor security in this area makes it not only harder to fight insurgents - it also makes life easier for smugglers who also operate in the border areas and know its terrain only too well.


Meanwhile relations between the Afghan army and Pakistani forces remain tense on the border. Only recently Afghan officials in Kunar said close to 200 rockets landed in the province from Pakistan.

Separately, foreign and Afghan insurgents targeted a wedding party, killing 12 people - relatives of a powerful tribal elder who is also a district governor.

The police chief of Kunar, Gen Ewaz Mohammad Naziri, accused Pakistani forces of firing the rockets.

In recent months, Afghan and Pakistani border forces have clashed in the district of Goshta. Both sides exchanged heavy weapons fire.


'Enough is enough'
Like much of Afghanistan's armed forces, the border police are heavily dependent on their coalition partners.

The American military has helped them by providing armoured Humvees, heavy weapons and radios. More recently they have supplied sniper rifles.

"Since they have helped us, things have improved a lot. Their training is the most effective. But I need helicopters, I need mine-clearing machinery, I need better radios, I need more troops on the ground," says Gen Amarkhel.


Tribes in the region are helping security forces
A former Mujahideen fighter, Gen Amarkhel fought the Soviets in the 1980s for the National Islamic Front of Afghanistan and later against the Moscow-backed government of President Najibullah.

It could be that he is receiving help in his battle to control the border from some unlikely sources.

Various powerful tribes who reside in the area often help to defend it, an officer with the country's spy agency, the NDS, told the BBC.

Recently the Pakistani and Afghan Taliban killed nine members of a family on a wedding night.

"These tribes now have decided enough is enough," says the spy.

In order to get some idea of just how dangerous this part of the world is, Gen Amarkhel allowed me to accompany him as his troops launched an operation to seize illegally-held hashish.

The mission was top secret and the general had chosen not to disclose the programme even to his personal staff. Just before dawn, a heavily armed convoy of 20 vehicles was ready to move.

"There's been an exchange [of fire] last night with drug smugglers in the border district of Dehbala," Gen Amarkhel said. "We will know more on the way."

This is a mountainous region covered with dense vegetation. The tough terrain, thick forests, poor roads and non-existent communication network provides a perfect sanctuary to drug dealers, arms smugglers, the Taliban and al-Qaeda.

The government has never been in total control of this region. Nangarhar in particular is notorious for the illegal drug trade. Poppy and hashish are grown here and it is known to have several heroin processing laboratories.

Under-resourced
Like much of rural Afghanistan, Nangarhar's border districts have never had asphalted roads. There are few schools or heath clinics, making it easier for the smugglers and militants to recruit into their ranks.


The hashish discovered on the mules is estimated to be worth millions of dollars
After a two-hour drive, we arrive in the border village of Gorgoray. On the previous night, smugglers had used heavy machine guns and grenades on the border police.

But the police drove them back and the blood of the the smugglers could still clearly be seen on the ground. Although they escaped, they left behind 10 mules loaded with hashish estimated to be worth about $15m in London or New York.

"The Taliban and al-Qaeda charge a 10% tax on the smugglers," Gen Amarkhel said. "I am happy that we have denied them such huge revenue."

"In the past seven months, we have seized 7.5 tonnes of hashish and 60kg of heroin," the 46-year-old general said.

But he has his hands full. There are 5,000 soldiers under his command, mostly under-resourced and under-equipped. They have to guard one of the most treacherous areas in the country.

Back in his office, the general was trying to call in Nato air strikes to help one of his police posts, which was coming under attack from the Taliban.

''I will send you help very soon," the general said into his mobile phone. "We have asked for close air support. Keep fighting back.''

But as aides frantically tried to find the location, they realised that the insurgents were only a few hundred metres away from the district headquarters. Calling an air strike at this point could endanger civilians. The jets were ordered to turn back.

Hours later, dozens of heavily armed insurgents attacked a post not very far from the Pakistani side of the border. Border police reinforcements were again dispatched.

This is a part of the world that is literally in the line of fire - whoever wins here could win the entire Afghan war.

Ind vs WI: India beat West Indies by 63 runs to win first Test, lead series 1-0 PTI | Jun 23, 2011, 11.43pm IST

KINGSTON: India allowed the West Indies tail-enders to delay the inevitable before wrapping up the first cricket Test with a comfortable 63-run victory inside four days and take a 1-0 lead in the three-match Test series on Thursday.

Scorecard

Chasing a victory target of 326, West Indies never recovered from the twin-blow dealt by debutant Praveen Kumar dismissing Darren Bravo (41) and Shivanarine Chanderpaul (30) as they were all out for 262 in 68.2 overs.

The final pair of Devendra Bishoo (26, 33 balls, 2x4, 1x6) and Fidel Edwards (15 not out, 54 balls, 1x4) frustrated the Indian bowlers for around 10 overs after lunch. It was Suresh Raina who effected a freak dismissal with the ball rolling onto the stumps after hitting Bishoo's thigh-pads to bring an end to the proceedings.

It was a clinical performance by the Indian bowlers with Praveen being the pick snaring three for 42 and ending with a six-wicket haul in his very first Test match.

Ishant Sharma (3/81) bowled some poor deliveries but got crucial breakthroughs. The Indians blew away the middle and lower-middle order in the morning session where the home team needing a further 195 for a victory lose six wickets with an addition of 95 runs.

This was India's second victory at the Sabina Park having clinched the series with a win during their tour of 2006. This is also their fifth overall win on Caribbean soil.

The two teams now travel to Barbados where the second Test match will be held at Kensington Oval from June 28.