But what, actually, are those activities?

In the aftermath of the Boston Marathon terror bombing, federal officials not only investigated the movements of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and his brother Tamerlan, but also those around them.

One of those who came under scrutiny was Katherine Russell, the 24-year-old American widow of the now deceased bombing suspect, Tamerlan Tsarnaev.

Law-enforcement sources say Russell placed a phone call to her husband after authorities released pictures identifying him as a suspect in the bombings and speculation is revolving around just what was said between the two.

On “CNN’s Out Front with Erin Burnett,” Burnett had two counterterrorism experts on the show to discuss Russell’s possible involvement in the Boston Marathon terror attack.

During the course of the interview, one of the guests, former FBI counterterrorism expert, Tim Clemente, made a startling declaration:

BURNETT: “Tim, is there any way, obviously, there is a voice mail they can try to get the phone companies to give that up at this point, but it’s not a voice mail. It’s just a conversation. There’s no way they actually can find out what happened, right, unless she tells them?”

CLEMENTE: “No, there is a way. We certainly have ways in national security investigations to find out exactly what was said in that conversation. It’s not necessarily something that the FBI is going to want to present in court, but it may help lead the investigation and/or lead to questioning of her. We certainly can find that out.”

Startled, Burnet then asked:

BURNETT: “So they can actually get that? People are saying, look, that is pretty incredible, what you’re saying.”

At this point the second unnamed guest said, “No, welcome to America. All of that stuff is being captured as we speak whether we know it or like it or not.”

This exchange set off an Internet firestorm of accusations and suppositions over just how far the government can reach into the private conversations of individuals.

The following day, Clemente returned to CNN and doubled down on his previous statement and said, “there’s a way to look at digital communications in the past” and that “no digital communication is secure.”

Clemente indicated that this type of surveillance can’t be used in a criminal investigation but is used in “major terrorism investigations or counterintelligence investigations.”

These statements had private analysts wondering just how much of our communications are being captured by the government and kept for future analysis.

Some contend that all digital communications: telephone calls, emails, online chats, file transfers, social media postings to name only a few, are being captured.

There have been indications that data is being captured for years now.

The ECHELON System is a global network of computers that automatically searches through millions of intercepted messages for pre-programmed keywords or fax, telex and e-mail addresses. The system is designed for intercepting communications by the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

Having its origin in World War II and refined by the National Security Agency (NSA), ECHELON was ostensibly designed to intercept and monitor any and all foreign digital communication carried over the world’s telecommunications networks. ECHELON potentially intercepts every communication between parties communicating anywhere in the world.

(Assurances by the NSA that the U.S. would not monitor domestic communications could be finessed by the NSA requesting a foreign signal intelligence (SIGINT) service, such as Great Britain’s Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) do the monitoring in the U.S. for them).

An investigation of ECHELON by the European Union concluded by condemning the operation of the spy network, but doing little else, leaving analysts to wonder if the EU is looking at building their own ECHELON-like system.

Although Echelon is rumored to be the world’s largest surveillance network, it is not the only one. China, Russia, and France operate worldwide surveillance networks. Switzerland, Denmark, and the Netherlands have also constructed small, Echelon-like monitoring stations to eavesdrop on civil satellite communications as well.

As digital communication became more sophisticated, other communication infrastructures were brought into the SIGINT network.

Mark Klein, a retired AT&T technician revealed the collaboration between AT&T and the NSA in acquiring both domestic and foreign electronic transmissions for later analysis. Having hands-on responsibility for part of AT&T network, Klein was in a unique position to address the level of AT&T’s collaboration with the NSA.

Klein revealed that he had documents that showed the NSA had access to e-mail and metadata (the “data about data”) from more than a dozen telecommunications providers.

According to an article in the Washington Post, Klein said that the NSA built a special room to intercept data traveling through AT&T transmission lines. Some of the largest data links were being captured at a rate of 2.5 gigabits of data per second, the equivalent of 50,000 web pages per second.

Klein said that “the NSA set up a system that vacuumed up Internet and phone-call data from ordinary Americans with the cooperation of AT&T” and that “contrary to the government’s depiction of its surveillance program as aimed at overseas terrorists . . . much of the data sent through AT&T to the NSA was purely domestic.”

The documents in Klein’s possession listed 16 entities that were having digital data gathered by the NSA, among them, Global Crossing, UUNet (now owned by Verizon), Level 3 Communications, and other, more familiar companies such as Sprint and Qwest.

The documentation Klein amassed, along with his eyewitness testimony, form the basis of one of the first lawsuits filed against the telecoms. The case, Jewel v. NSA, originally was filed in 2009 and is currently working its way through the courts. The case was heard by the federal district court in San Francisco on December 14, 2012, and is currently under review.

The Klein revelation can give credence to statement that “no digital communication is secure”.

NSA cryptologist-mathematician and agency whistleblower William Binney has also gone on record as saying he believed domestic surveillance has become even more expansive under President Obama than President George W. Bush. The 40-year intelligence veteran estimated the NSA has assembled 20 trillion “transactions” – phone calls, emails and other forms of data – from Americans.

Much of this information is gathered by the NSA under Section 215 of the Patriot Act. The so-called “library records” provision of the act allows the federal government to get a secret court order for any records or other “tangible things” by certifying merely that they are “sought for” an authorized counter-intelligence, which the Justice Department says is the equivalent of “relevant to.”

Under this section of the Patriot Act, the NSA has stored over 1.7 billion e-mails, phone calls and other types of communications every day. Over the years, Binney asserts that the US government has “assembled on the order of 20 trillion transactions about U.S. citizens with other U.S. citizens” (which counts only communications transactions and not financial and other transactions), and that “the data that’s being assembled is about everybody. And from that data, then they can target anyone they want.”

Even with the surveillance capabilities available to agencies such as the NSA, some still doubt that every conversation is being stored.

Since the actual methods of surveillance are highly classified, much is left to conjecture. Gathering all the information as being described above is a daunting, but not impossible, task.

The telecom industry is very fragmented with many modes of product delivery. If an agency is targeting a specific individual, that fragmentation could make intercepting all the communications problematic.

POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service), land lines, mobile phones, Voice over IP (VoIP) services such as Skyp)e, combined with encryption services makes tracking all of a person’s communications difficult.

The volume of data is also daunting. While surveillance agencies are gathering huge amounts of data, the total information flow is even bigger. The amount of data is so large; it has been giving its own term, “Big Data.” Big Data is a collection of data so large and complex that it becomes difficult to process due to its sheer volume.

According to the latest market study by ABI Research, in 2011, the global annual telecom data traffic volume amounted to almost 8,000 petabytes (eight billion gigabytes). That volume is estimated to exceed 60,000 petabytes in 2016 – over seven times more than in 2011.

Intelligence analysts are also challenged. The people who analyze the data and phone conversations obtained by foreign and domestic spying disseminate their analyses by publishing 50,000 intelligence reports each year – a volume so large that many are routinely ignored.

So with all this information, another problem arises – where do you put it all?

Despite protestations to the contrary, the new data “spy center” being constructed 25 miles south of Salt Lake City, may be able to accommodate it, but the exact configuration of the center is classified.

Some suggest that part of the size problem can be alleviated through speech-to-text technology, but the current state of that technology is still spotty and the subtleties of the phone conversation, such as voice inflection, is lost in the transcription.

What can be said with a large degree of confidence is that all of a person’s phone calls, e-mails and all other digital transmissions can be gathered if that person is being targeted. The most recent admission coming out of the Obama administration that they used the IRS to target conservative people and groups only proves that the administration or any administration will target people for additional scrutiny if it suits their purposes.

Targeting may be the key to Clemente’s comment about going back to find out exactly what was said in the conversation between Katherine Russell and her husband.

It recently came to light that Russian intelligence operative intercepted a 2011 phone call between the Tsarnaev brothers’ mother, living in the Republic of Dagestan, and one of her sons in which they reportedly mentioned “jihad.” As a result, Russia sent an alert to the FBI.,

The alert said that the text messages they intercepted suggested Tsarnaev was interested in joining militant Islamic groups that Russia believes were responsible for attacks in the Caucasus region near where the family lives.

But because of distrust between the two countries, further requests for information from the United States did not elicit a response from Russia. It may have been enough, however, to bring the family’s communications under closer scrutiny with their phone conversations being given special attention.

Even if government agencies do not currently have the capability of gathering every bit of information about every person in the country, they’ll keep trying until technology makes the dream a reality.

Related Stories:

The information Vacuum Cleaner

‘Outing’ Echelon

Obama’s NSA: Close to knowing all about us

The story of fluoridating water is one of most successful public relations campaigns in history. The leader of the PR campaign was the “father of public relations,” Edward L. Bernays, Sigmund Freud’s nephew, who previously made a reputation for his campaign to persuade women to smoke cigarettes.

The campaign was so successful that the benefits of adding fluoride to water is considered “settled science,” and for years anyone who expressed concerns about the adverse side effects was considered a “kook.”

But fluoro-skeptics are no longer on the fringes of the debate.

As more evidence comes out about the dangers of fluoridation, communities, organizations and legislators that are taking up the cause against fluoridation have mounting scientific evidence to support their position.

On July 20, 2012, Harvard University researchers published a review of fluoride/brain studies in Environmental Health Perspectives. The study concludes “our results support the possibility of adverse effects of fluoride exposures on children’s neurodevelopment.”

The review also concluded, “The children in high fluoride areas had significantly lower IQ than those who lived in low fluoride areas.”

Other groups disagree.

The American Dental Association, in a pamphlet “10 Reasons to Fluoridate Public Water,” calls fluoridation the “single most effective public health measure to prevent tooth decay.”

The Centers for Disease Control issued a recommendation that water fluoridation is a “safe, effective, and inexpensive method to reduce tooth decay among populations with access to community water systems.”

It goes on to recommend that water fluoridation “should be continued in communities currently fluoridating and extended to those without fluoridation.”

These conflicting views are part of a discussion over water fluoridation that has been raging for almost 70 years.

The debate, however, has entered a new phase, with civil rights implications.

Regina Benjamin is the current surgeon general of the United States and has served in that office since 2009. Unlike previous surgeons general, and to the dismay of the American Dental Association, Benjamin failed to release a letter endorsing water fluoridation for the first four years of her tenure.

Eventually, Benjamin did issue a letter on the subject that was read at the opening ceremony of the National Oral Health Conference last month in Huntsville, Ala.

In the letter she stated:

Community water fluoridation is one of the most effective choices communities can make to prevent health problems while actually improving the oral health of their citizens.

She also said fluoridation was “the most cost-effective and practical way to provide protection from tooth decay in a community.”

Fluoridation opponents, such as health researcher Daniel Stockin of the Lillie Center for Scientific Research & Development in Health & Alternative Energy, note that nowhere in the statement did Benjamin use the word “safe.” He also finds the timing of the surgeon general’s endorsement very interesting.

On April 19, 2011, the American Dental Association and other dental groups sent a letter to Benjamin’s superior, Assistant Secretary for Health Dr. Howard Koh. The ADA was expressing pleasure that the Department of Health and Human Services is “moving forward on several oral health issues.”

Previously, on Jan. 7, 2011, the ADA issued a press release noting that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced plans to recommend that the level for community water fluoridation be lowered to 0.7 parts per million (ppm). The new proposed standard would replace the existing recommended range of 0.7 to 1.2 ppm and put the recommended level at the lowest end of the then existing range. This represented a change in the existing recommendation for water fluoridation which had been effect since 1962.

The recommendation was made in response to “new data that address the prevalence of dental fluorosis (formation of spots on tooth enamel), fluid intake among children, and the contribution of fluoride in drinking water to total fluoride exposure in the United States.”

The interesting part of the ADA letter to Koh is in the second paragraph as follows:

We were very grateful to you and your staff for partnering with the ADA earlier this year on the announcement that the standard for fluoridated community water should be lowered. That is why we have asked for your help in addressing the concerns raised by Former Atlanta Mayor Andrew Young and Pastor Gerald Durley regarding the safety of water fluoridation for minority populations. We believe that this issue has the potential to gain traction.

Just what is the issue that could “gain traction”?

Only a few weeks before the ADA wrote its letter to Dr. Koh, former Atlanta mayor and former U.N. ambassador Andrew Young and Civil Rights leader Gerald Durley, pastor of Providence Baptist Church in Atlanta, both asked Georgia legislators to repeal the state’s mandatory water fluoridation law.

Young and Durley both expressed concerns about the fairness, safety and full disclosure regarding fluoridation in letters to the state’s minority and majority legislative leaders.

Young wrote: “My father was a dentist. I formerly was a strong believer in the benefits of water fluoridation for preventing cavities. But many things that we began to do 50 or more years ago we now no longer do, because we have learned further information that changes our practices and policies. So it is with fluoridation.”

He goes on to note that most cavities occur in the crevices of the molars of teeth where the food can tend to accumulate. Fluorides in water do little to stop cavities caused this way. Tooth sealants are a much more effective way to stop cavities in these areas and there is an emphasis on using tooth sealants as part of a child’s dental health with fluoride being applied to the surface of the teeth (known as a topical application).

Young goes on to say that not only does water fluoridation have a limited effect on cavity prevention, but also presents risks of adverse side effects on the human body. He urges that communities weigh these limited benefits against the potential risks to infants, diabetics and others as a result of using fluorides.

Young also wrote that 11 unions representing 7,000 EPA lab workers, scientists, and others have called for a halt to water fluoridation.

The National Research Council, also mentioned in Young’s letter, has acknowledged that the amount of fluoride in drinking water can cause significant harm to millions of persons using the nation’s water supply.

In a 2006 press release, the NRC notes:

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s standard for the maximum amount of fluoride allowed in drinking water – 4 milligrams of fluoride per liter of water – does not protect against adverse health effects … The committee that wrote the report concluded that children exposed to the current maximum allowable concentration risk developing severe tooth enamel fluorosis, a condition characterized by discoloration, enamel loss, and pitting of the teeth. A majority of the committee also concluded that people who consume water containing that much fluoride over a lifetime are likely at increased risk for bone fractures.

Durley sends much the same message but also highlights the harm fluoridation is doing to the black community in his area.

In his letter, Rev. Durley writes:

… Fluoridation disproportionately harms members of the black community. The Centers for Disease Control’s own information acknowledges that blacks have significantly more ‘dental fluorosis’ teeth staining than whites. … Also, the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences has designated kidney patients, diabetics, seniors, and babies as ‘susceptible subpopulations’ that are especially vulnerable to harm from ingested fluorides. Black citizens are disproportionately affected by kidney disease and diabetes, and are therefore more impacted by fluorides.

He also gives some common sense wisdom on the subject, “Lack of fluoride does not cause cavities. Too many sugars on the teeth, lack of access to dental care, and lack of dental health education-these cause cavities.”

Andrew Young also touches on the matter in his letter:

I am most deeply concerned for poor families who have babies: if they cannot afford unfluoridated water for their babies milk formula, do their babies not count? Of course they do. This is an issue of fairness, civil rights, and compassion.

Other community leaders have also weighed in on this issue. Bernice King and Alveda King, the daughter and niece of Martin Luther King Jr. respectively, have also made public statements opposing water fluoridation.

On her webpage, Alveda King wrote of her concern over fluoridated water:

Planned Parenthood, founded by Margaret Sanger, once advocated “Birth Control” water. Some scientific studies show that flouride (sic) can be harmful to the human reproductive process.

Daniel G. Stockin, MPH has been following this issue for nine years. Stockin is the former manager of the EPA Western Regional Lead Training Center. He is a career public health professional with a background in toxics assessment and hazardous materials management. He is known internationally for his work at the Lillie Center, a Georgia-based firm working to end water fluoridation.

Stockin noted that it took four years for the current Surgeon General to make a formal endorsement of fluoridation. He believes the delay was, in part, because the Lillie Center spoke to her assistant and forwarded the background information they had collected on fluoride and the harm it was doing to the black community soon after Benjamin took office.

Stockin suspects the reason for the four-year delay in issuing a statement supporting fluoridation is because “a series of damage control efforts by the ADA and the Center for Disease Control (CDC) on the building body of scientific evidence showing disproportionate harm to black Americans from fluorides.”

Many municipalities are taking up the fluoridation issue with the city of Portland, Ore., heavily involved in the issue. In the upcoming vote on fluoridation, the NAACP of Portland has come out against fluoridation and the issue is beginning to “gain traction.”

Stockin believes that the Portland initiative, among others, may be the reason for Benjamin’s belated public support for fluoridation.

On June 29, 2000, EPA Chemist Dr. William Hirzy was invited to give testimony to the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, Subcommittee on Fisheries, Wildlife, and Water on the fluoride debate. He summarized the use of fluoride-bearing compounds this way:

If this stuff gets out into the air, it’s a pollutant; if it gets into the river, it’s a pollutant; if it gets into the lake, it’s a pollutant; but if it goes right straight into your drinking water system, it’s not a pollutant. That’s amazing!

Stockin sums up the debate succinctly:

We’ve been adding fluoride chemicals to drinking water for decades to theoretically help prevent cavities, but it turns out that no one did important whole-body, outside-the-mouth health effects studies before starting fluoridation. We’ve learned that fluorides accumulate in the pineal gland, and that fluorides can also reduce IQ.

Now coming to light are disturbing efforts by the dental lobby to suppress news of disproportionate harm from fluoridated city water to the black community and other minorities, to kidney patients, and to babies and children.

The actions taken to keep the news under wraps are a key part of the unfolding Fluoridegate scandal.

The debate over fluoridation has been ongoing for decades but now may be coming to a head.

Now Congress has put its oar into the water, with a special provision that protects those companies producing genetically modified food from all sorts of liabilities.

Genetically modified foods are derived from genetically modified organisms, or GMOs. When a gene from one organism is manipulated to change another organism, the result is a new, genetically modified organism. The organism is also sometimes called “transgenic,” because of the transfer of genes.

Many insects have been subject to gene-transfer research, due to their short life cycle and the relatively simple genome structure. The genome contains all of an organism’s genetic information. The word comes from the combination of the words “gene” and “chromosome.”

Gene transfer is also making its way into the commercial market. The GloFish is a patented genetically altered brand of red, green and orange fluorescent zebrafish. In 2003, the GloFish became the first genetically modified animal to become publicly available as a pet. The fish was quickly banned for sale in California.

The California Department of Fish and Game explained why it banned the fish:

“Moving a gene from one species to an entirely different species is an awesome display of human ingenuity and power over nature and should not be done for trivial purposes. … In instances where a transgenic organism can help feed the hungry, heal the sick or clean up the environment, the benefits may justify some level of risk. But creating a novelty pet is a frivolous use of this technology. No matter how low the risk is, there needs to be a public benefit that is higher than this. “

An increasing chorus of researchers believes that the benefits of genetically modified organisms do not justify the inherent risks.

Nowhere does the concern become more apparent than in genetically modified foods.

Foods have been modified for centuries, whether in yeast to make bread rise or using rennet to make cheese.

But today, genetically modified foods have short-cut the process to enhance or even eliminate particular characteristics in food. GMOs have been used to create crops that are resistant to infestations and are cheaper to produce – all by making a few changes in the plants’ DNA coding.

Plant geneticists can isolate the gene responsible for drought tolerance and insert the gene into a different plant, making it possible to grow the second, newly modified plant in areas that previously could not support agriculture.

GM techniques have also been utilized to transfer genes from plant organisms to non-plant organisms. The best known example of this is the use of the Bacillus thuringiensis (B.t.) into corn and other crops.

B.t. is a naturally occurring bacterium that produces proteins that are lethal to insect larvae. The bacterium has been transferred into corn, enabling the corn to produce its own pesticides against insects such as the European corn borer.

Monsanto (Monsanto Company Inc.) has been in the forefront in GM technology. Monsanto has also been at the forefront of controversy about the perceived dangers of GM food productions.

The commercial sale of genetically modified foods began in 1994, when Calgene first marketed its Flavr Savr GM tomato. This version of tomatoes was engineered to delay its ripening time to optimize its “fresh off the farm” look in grocery stores. It was also the first GM food that was licensed for human consumption.

In 1997, in a move to expand its biotechnology and food science businesses, Monsanto bought the remaining shares of Calgene Inc. it did not already own for $240 million, acquiring the full ownership of the company. The move was part of Monsanto’s strategy of transforming itself from a chemical company into a life sciences company, with agricultural, food ingredient and pharmaceutical holdings.

Since then, its research on and production of GM foods have increased dramatically.

On its website, Monsanto boasts that more than 2 billion acres of farmland worldwide converted to GM crop production.

It also claims a “proven economic and environmental benefits, a solid record of safe use and promising products for our future.” The company also claims that “opponents of GM crops often describe them as ‘untested’ and ‘unsafe.’ This is simply untrue.”

That is a statement open to debate.

The Ohio State University Extension Center’s Family and Consumer Sciences Department has outlined some of the nutritional concerns of consuming GM Foods.

It rates the top concern as the risk of allergic reactions. It states that transference of allergens from one food protein to a GM modified food is extremely low and that in response to this concern, the FDA requires that each genetically modified organism be proven not to have incorporated an allergenic substance into it.

If that proof cannot be demonstrated, the FDA does not ban the GM food, it merely requires a label on the product to alert the consumer of its possible allergic reaction.

As to the fact that the FDA does not require clinical trials before approving a GM food, the agency gives the rationale that any GM modified protein in the food is digested the same as other foods and rendered harmless.

The FDA states that “the human body cells cannot discern whether a gene is from a ‘natural’ or genetically modified organism because they are completely unbound from the original plant.”

The FDA also notes that “clinical trials would be difficult to perform because 60-70 percent of food products in groceries are already genetically modified.”

“It would be extremely difficult to get a large enough control group (people who consume no GMOs) to conduct a valid study,” the agency says.

The reports from the government and government-sponsored studies, however, have not settled the matter.
In his 2003 book, “Seeds of Deception,” author Jeffery Smith revealed that efforts to inform the public have been repressed. Smith said reliable science reports have been buried, and researchers that have warned about the dangers of GM foods have been maligned. The researchers, he said, have been threatened with funding cuts, and one researcher was fired for publishing his findings.

When eminent scientist Arpad Pusztai, Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, went public about his accidental discovery that genetically modified potatoes severely damage the immune system and organs of rats, he was suspended from the prestigious Rowett Research Institute in Aberdeen, Scotland, where he had worked for 35 years. He was then silenced with threats of a lawsuit

The resulting controversy became known as the Pusztai affair.

Because of the rising chorus of skeptics railing against GMOs, Monsanto is apparently taking no chances, protecting itself from any liability regarding its products.

As is frequently done in the world of “corporate welfare,” there was a small provision slipped into the HR 933 Senate Continuing Resolution spending bill. The provision (Sec. 735 shown on pp. 35-36 of the bill) essentially gives GM foods, of which Monsanto is the biggest player, a free pass from liability for any harm the crops may cause.

The rider, officially called the “Farmer Assurance Provision,” states that any company, primarily Monsanto, is beyond the reach of the judicial system. The courts cannot stop the “movement, planting, cultivation or introduction into commerce” of a GMO until a disposition of its safety is determined by the secretary of the agriculture “in a timely manner.” Why the paragraph was hidden in a 240-page appropriation bill has never been explained.

The provision is now commonly called the “Monsanto Protection Act.”

What also has not been explained is why President Obama has never fulfilled his 2007 campaign pledge to require labeling of GMO-derived products. The pledge seemed heartfelt, especially given Michelle Obama’s famous organic garden on the White House lawn and her public commitment to healthy eating choices.

Even after more than 250,000 people signed a petition opposing the provision after its passage, the White House has been silent on the issue.

Equally troubling is that Monsanto helped craft the language in the rider that protects it from liability.

Not all countries are embracing GMO as is the U.S.

In 2012, Russia suspended imports of Monsanto’s GMO corn after a French study linked the corn to cancer. In September 2012, France extended its temporary ban on Monsanto’s MON810 corn. MON810 is the same sweet corn sold in the U.S. for human consumption after it was quietly approved by the USDA.

Ireland has banned the growing of GMO crops for the last four years. Japan and Egypt have also banned the cultivation of GMO crops. In 2010, Switzerland extended a moratorium on genetically modified animals and plants, banning GMOs until November 2013.

Tasmania is getting ready to renew its moratorium on GMOs. Tasmania’s dairy farmers are warning that the ban could disadvantage their sector over the next few years, while Tasmania’s fruit growers have warned there will be consequences if the state’s blanket ban on genetically modified organisms is revoked. Besides the suspected risks inherent in GMOs, Lucy Gregg of Fruit Growers Tasmania says the state’s GMO-free status is vital to overseas marketing campaigns, particularly in Japan and Korea.

GM foods have been removed in Austria, Bulgaria, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Japan, Luxembourg, Madeira, New Zealand, Peru, South Australia and Switzerland.

In the U.S., the cry to ban or at least label GM foods is growing.

Andrew Kimbrell, executive director of the Center for Food Safety,” charged that in the Senate’s “hidden backroom deal,” Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., “turned her back on consumer, environmental and farmer protection in favor of corporate welfare for biotech companies such as Monsanto.”

Mikulski is chairwoman of the Senate Appropriations Committee.

“This abuse of power is not the kind of leadership the public has come to expect from Sen. Mikulski or the Democrat majority in the Senate,” Kimbrell said in a statement to the International Business Times.

In the wake of the controversy surrounding the rider, many lawmakers are distancing themselves from the legislation. Many members of Congress who voted to approve the bill now say they were unaware the language existed. At a time in which bills such as Obamacare are rammed through a compliant Congress, this now seems to be a usual refrain.

Even though the provision will only live for the six months that the continuing funding measure is in effect, it sets a terrible precedent. The International Business Times notes “the message it sends is that corporations can get around consumer safety protections if they get Congress on their side.”

“Furthermore, it sets a precedent that suggests that court challenges are a privilege, not a right.”

The attack apparently began on the evening of March 15 and appears to have ended March 26, but may still be ongoing. Internet police forces from five different countries are investigating the incident.

Spamhaus, a non-profit organization based in London and Geneva, is dedicated to helping e-mail service providers filter out spam messages with the use of what is called a “blacklist.”

A blacklist is a computer control program that looks at the origin of e-mail messages and websites (URLs) and blocks anything that comes from a site that has been reported as a malicious Internet server. The opposite of a blacklist is, naturally, a whitelist. The items on this list are let though whatever path is used. There is a third list, called a greylist, that contains sites that are temporarily blocked until they can be verified as safe.

A filtering company such as Spamhaus may be used to check e-mail messages coming into a company, to keep a list of software from running remotely, or to keep a website from accessing a computer.

Using a listing service has proven to be very effective in preventing viruses from attacking computers and unclogging a user’s inbox. In e-mail housekeeping alone, a listing service has proven its worth time after time.

In one company, for example, a listing service marked over 10.2 million incoming e-mail messages as spam in a single month. This represented 92 percent of the 11 million messages received. Without a listing service, one’s mailbox would have 10 times as many messages in it as it does now.

Listing services wield a lot of power in the Internet service community and to be inadvertently placed on its blacklist can mean a potential loss of hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue. The website is essentially taken off the Internet.

Black or greylisting also means that a website is not reachable for days (7-10 days on average) until the offending malware is removed and a request is sent to the listing service for blacklist removal. The reputation to a business is also damaged. Customers do not want to visit an e-commerce site that infected their computer.

A blacklisting can also result in the loss of search engine rankings, known as the SEO or Search Engine Optimization. It can take weeks or even months to regain the lost search engine rankings.

So list services are playing in a high stakes game and blacklistings are not taken lightly.

Spammers, of course, hate the practice of blacklisting so it is not a surprise that listing services, such as Spamhaus are threatened on a regular basis. Those affected by what they regard as incorrect listings also object to Spamhaus’ alleged vigilante tactics.

Hence the Internet war.

Recently, Spamhaus blocked servers maintained by Cyberbunker, a Dutch web host which states it will host anything with the exception of child pornography or terrorism-related material. The blacklisting meant that service hosted by Cyberbunker could no longer contact their client computers and any mail servers hosted by the Dutch company could no longer deliver their messages.

While not taking credit for the attacks, Sven Olaf Kamphuis, who claims to be a spokesman for Cyberbunker, said, in a message, that Spamhaus was abusing its position, and that, “They think they’re the boss on the Internet, but we are the boss.”

Spamhaus has alleged that Cyberbunker, in cooperation with “criminal gangs” from Eastern Europe and Russia, is behind the attack.

Steve Linford, chief executive for Spamhaus, told the BBC that the scale of the attack was unprecedented. “We’ve been under this cyber-attack for well over a week,” he said.

The attackers used a tactic known as a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS), which floods the target with large amounts requests for information, so many requests that the site is unavailable for legitimate requests.

Rather than aiming floods of traffic directly at Spamhaus’s servers – a well-known tactic that has become easy to defend against – the hackers went after the Internet’s domain name system (DNS) servers, which are like the Internet’s phone books that join domain names, such as www.wnd.com to its Internet Protocol or IP address (98.158.27.215).

The “inter” in Internet refers to the fact that it is actually a collection of networks connected to each other through what is called a “peering relationship.” When the Internet was just coming online, these networks communicated with each other through IP addresses. As more “civilians” came to use the Internet, a more user-friendly way of contacting other computers was needed. That is there the DNS servers come in.

These servers contain lists, called routing tables that take a domain name, such as WND.com and associate it with a corresponding IP address along with a path to that computer. A command called a “tracert” will “trace the route” of a packet from the user’s computer to the destination. When a website is typed into a web browser, it goes to a DNS server to find the IP addresses of all the computers it needs to contact to get to its destination. The tracert command will reveal the route and addressees of the computers that need to be contacted to reach their destination.

The hackers “spoofed” requests for these IP addresses from the DNS servers so they seemed to come from Spamhaus; the servers responded with huge floods of responses, all aimed back at any of the over 80 Spamhaus server sites.

The switchboxes that control IP requests are called routers. The largest routers that you can buy can handle, at most, 100 billion bits per second of traffic through their data ports. (With some programming, ports can be joined together to increase traffic, but there is a physical limit to how much data these ports can handle.) If that limit is exceeded then the network becomes overloaded and network performance suffers.

If the DNS servers are flooded with random requests, legitimate requests for directions to a server cannot get through. It is like trying to get a thimble full of information out of a deluge of random bits the size of Niagara Falls. (Recent cyberattacks – like the ones that caused persistent outages at U.S. banking sites in 2012 – tend to peak at 50 billion bits per second. The attack on Spamhaus clocked in at 300 billion bits every second.)

The latest series of attacks began on 18 March with a relatively small (10 gigabit per second) data flood that overwhelmed Spamhaus’ connection to the rest of the Internet and brought their servers down. Spamhaus’ blacklists are distributed via the DNS system and with the “mother” website down, the blacklists were not getting updated.

The recent attacks reported by Spamhaus seemed to be concentrated on the DNS servers located primarily in Europe and have affected hundreds of millions of people as they surfed sites that were unrelated to Spamhaus or CloudFlare. The result was a certain sluggishness in the response users were getting when they would type in a web address or send out a command for their mail.

The Internet security company, CloudFlare, estimates 30,000 DNS servers have been involved in the attack against Spamhaus.

An attack of this magnitude is powerful enough to take down an entire country’s Internet infrastructure.

“Normally when there are attacks against major banks, we’re talking about 50 billion bits per second.”

Prof Alan Woodward, a cybersecurity expert at the University of Surrey, likened the attacks to an electronic traffic jam. “If you imagine it (the Internet) as a motorway, attackers try to put enough traffic on there to clog up the on and off ramps,” he told the BBC.

“With this attack, there’s so much traffic it’s clogging up the motorway itself.”

In terms of the Internet itself, there is so much traffic hitting the DNS servers that the backlog is clogging the Internet itself.

So far, Spamhaus is weathering the electronic data storm and several Internet service companies, such as Google, had made their resources available as needed to help “absorb all of this traffic”. (The attacks are not coming in a steady stream, making detection of the source easier, but are coming intermittently in massive amounts.)

The list of suspects that may have reason to attack Spamhaus is a long one of which Cyberbunker is only one. Spamhaus has “made plenty of enemies”, according to one expert, and the cyber-attack appeared to be retaliatory in nature.

“Spamhaus has made plenty of enemies over the years. Spammers aren’t always the most lovable of individuals, and Spamhaus has been threatened, sued and [attacked] regularly,” noted Matthew Prince of Cloudflare, a hosting company that helped the London business survive the attack by diverting the traffic.

The botnets that the spammers used in the attacks were not the usual home computers that are usually turned into “zombie units” that could be ordered to join in the DNS attack; these were large servers with a much great capacity. It was the equivalent of using an AK-47 for an attack instead of a pellet gun.

The use of these large scale DNS attacks has experts worried. “The No 1 rule of the Internet is that it has to work,” said Dan Kaminsky, a security researcher who pointed out the inherent vulnerabilities of the DNS years ago.

“You can’t stop a DNS flood by shutting down those [DNS] servers because those machines have to be open and public by default. The only way to deal with this problem is to find the people doing it and stop them.”

The collateral damage from the attack is varied. Mainly, those Internet users who have grown accustomed to high-speed connections may have seen response times slow down. For example, some people accessing the online streaming site Netflix have reported a slowdown.

The bigger concern now is the question, “Are the attacks over?” Once the genie is let out of the bottle, it can be difficult to put it back in. Security analysts are concerned that these attacks are not over and while today Netflix may be affected, tomorrow it could be a nation’s banking system.

Only time will tell.

At the 48th Moriond Conference in Italy, a report discussed CERN’s Large Hadron Collider, or “Big Bang Machine,” and the findings from the July 2012 research that appeared to reveal the Higgs Boson, thought to be the basic building block in particle physics.

“The preliminary results with the full 2012 data set are magnificent, and to me it is clear that we are dealing with a Higgs Boson, though we still have a long way to go to know what kind of Higgs Boson it is,” said spokesman Joe Incandela.

The probability that last year’s data identification of the particle was a statistical fluke “is now becoming astronomically low,” said Tim Barklow, an experimental physicist with the ATLAS Experiment, who’s based at Stanford University’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory.

The search for the Higgs Boson was one of the largest international scientific efforts in history, involving 4,300 particle physicists, engineers, technicians, students and support staff from 179 universities and institutes from 41 countries.

Having analyzed all the data collected to date from the ATLAS detector, approximately two and a half times as much as when the original discovery was announced, CERN was able to announce with a good degree of certainty that what was found was, in fact, the Higgs.

Since CERN scientists have said with “with more than 99 percent certainty” that the particle discovered was the Higgs, some physicists have stopped referring to the new particle as being merely “Higgs-like” and are just calling it the Higgs Boson.

It remains to be seen, however, if this is actually the particle predicted in the Standard Model of particle physics or if it is one of a new class of fundamental particles that also has been predicted. Finding the answer to this question may take considerable time.

The Standard Model of particle physics was the name given to a scientific theory that predicted how subatomic particles – particles smaller than an atom – were put together and how they interacted with each other. The Standard Model described a total of 17 particles, both known and unknown. Besides the particles that have been taught for years in schools: protons, neutrons and electrons, there are a raft of other newly discovered particles with outlandish names such as: muon, down quark, gluon, charm, tau neutrino and Z boson.

Read the details about science, the beginnings of the world, and God, in “Evolution, A Fairy Tale for Grownups.”

The Higgs Boson now joins the group.

All these particles fall into one of two groups, fermions, the building blocks of matter itself, and bosons, the particles that carry the forces that define our world.

Fermions take their name from Enrico Fermi (1901-1954), who described their behavior. In short, Fermi said that no fermion particles could occupy the same place at the same time. This principle carries on from the microscopic world to the larger macroscopic world.

Bosons, first described by Satyendra Bose (1894-1974) of India, however, have no problem occupying the same place at the same time. All the particles that make up light and other forms of electromagnet (RF) radiation are made of bosons. Photons are probably the most familiar example of a boson.

What made the discovery of the Higgs Boson so significant was not only that it seemed to round out the Standard Model, but also that it seemed to provide proof for the particle that is responsible for giving mass to every other particle. Without the Higgs, nothing in the universe would have any mass, hence the name “the god particle.”

The term “god particle” given to the Higgs Boson started out as a joke. In 1993, Dick Teresi co-wrote “The God Particle: If the Universe Is the Answer, What Is the Question?” with Leon Lederman, the Nobel prize winning physicist. Lederman wanted to actually call the Higgs the “g*d*** particle” because it was so elusive, but the editor of the book wouldn’t agree to it. They then called it the “god particle” to see what the editor would say. But just as the term “Big Bang” was meant as a joke, the name stuck.

In the 1960s, Peter Higgs, along with his collaborators, Robert Brout and François Englert, realized that the force carrying particles, the fermions, needed at some point to have a mass to exist. The three physicists then made a proposal to solve the problem. What is now called the Brout-Englert-Higgs mechanism gives a mass to some of the fermions when they interact with an invisible field, now called the “Higgs field,” which permeates the universe. Higgs Bosons are what comprise this field.

The trio postulated that just after what has been theorized as “the Big Bang,” the Higgs field was almost non-existent, but as the universe cooled and the temperature fell below a critical value, the field grew suddenly so that any particle interacting with it acquired some mass. The more a particle interacts with this field, the heavier it is. Particles like the photon do not interact with the Higgs field and therefore have no mass. A problem with the theory was that no experiment had observed the Higgs boson in action.

After the theory was first put forward, physicists were in a race to discover the boson. In August 2000, physicists working at CERN’s Large Electron Positron collider (LEP) saw traces of particles that might fit the right pattern, but the evidence was inconclusive. Just as the researchers were making progress towards finding the Higgs, the LEP was closed down in November 2000 and the research was moved to Fermilab in Batavia, Ill. Research on the boson seemed to stall until 2005 when CERN went online with the Large Hadrion Collider, the LHC.

The CERN discovery July 4, 2012, marked the conclusion of over a decade of searching for the particle.

One well-used analogy of the Higgs field is as follows:

Imagine you’re at a Hollywood party. The crowd is rather thick and evenly distributed around the room, chatting. When the big star arrives, the people nearest the door gather around her. As she moves through the party, she attracts the people closest to her, and those she moves away from return to their other conversations. By gathering a fawning cluster of people around her, she’s gained momentum, an indication of mass. She’s harder to slow down than she would be without the crowd. Once she’s stopped, it’s harder to get her going again.

This “clustering effect” is what Higgs and his team theorized. They believed that when another subatomic particle moves through the Higgs field, it creates a little bit of distortion – like the crowd around the star at the party – which gives mass to the particle.

CERN’s collider, just outside Geneva, is now down for repairs until 2015, but its researchers are poring over the unanalyzed data and look forward to the prospect beginning actual experimentation in two years.

It is ironic that the men who popularized the nickname for the Higgs Boson do not believe in God.

Both Lederman and Teresi are atheists.

The Bible already had addressed such unknowns.

Paul, in his letter to the Romans, said: “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible attributes – his eternal power and divine nature – have been understood and observed by what he made, so that people are without excuse.” (Romans 1:20, ISV)

John said, “Through Him all things were made, and apart from Him nothing was made that has been made.” (John 1:3, ISV)

Last Thursday, WND reported a worldwide cyberattack was under way that was called “Red October” because it was discovered by the Russian security firm Kaspersky Lab in October 2012.

The attack was launched at least five years ago by suspected cyber-mercenaries who are not attached to any hacktivist group or nation-state.

The primary targets of the attack appear to be countries in Eastern Europe, the former USSR republics and Central Asia, although victims could be found in Western Europe and North America as well.

The hackers spread the virus by implanting it in Microsoft Word and Excel documents which triggered the virus once the file was opened.

While government embassies, research firms, military installations, energy providers, nuclear and other critical infrastructures are still trying to assess the damage, the true extent of the attack may never be known.

Costin Raiu of Kaspersky Lab, who led the effort to identify and analyze the virus, said that when the first report of the campaign appeared, the companies hosting the servers that received the harvested data began shutting down the websites the hackers were using. Also, many of the 60 domain names that were used to receive the data were quarantined.

“It’s clear that the infrastructure is being shut down. This time it’s being shut down for good,” Raiu said. “Not only are the registrars killing the domains and the hosting providers killing the command-and-control servers, but perhaps the attackers are shutting down the whole operation.”

Between the hosting companies and the hackers themselves, the attacks have been almost entirely shut down. As a result, the entire scope of the operation may never be known. Analysts suspect that the servers that were used to receive the collected data were merely proxy servers for the data before the information was sent to an intended site.

From what is known, analysts believe this latest incident may rival the Flame malware attack in its scope. Flame was a piece of malware, discovered last year, that infected 1,000 computers in seven Middle Eastern countries, primarily in Iran.

One thing that was discovered about Red October is that large-scale intelligence gathering can go on for a long period of time without the victim knowing.

How the hackers will use the information collected by Red October is yet to be determined.

WND’s original report said Kaspersky had documented the existence of the five-year-old cyber-espionage campaign that successfully had infiltrated computer networks worldwide at diplomatic, governmental, nuclear and energy groups along with scientific research organizations and aerospace industries.

It was described as one of the most sophisticated pieces of computer code since the Stuxnet virus that brought Iran’s nuclear-enrichment program to its knees.

Raiu, a senior security researcher at Kaspersky, said it looked like the goal was to obtain classified information and use it for geopolitical gains.

At the time, he said, “There’s no proof that this cyber-espionage operation is sponsored by a nation state, but the high-profile data stolen from the victims can of course be used by nation states to their advantage. One possibility is that this information is stolen with the intent of being sold to the highest bidder.”

While only recently discovered, Red October had been operating since at least 2007.

Like the virus that attacked Israeli police computers last year, Red October gathered classified information though vulnerabilities in Microsoft’s Word and Excel programs.

It appears that parts of the same code were previously used in targeted attacks against Tibetan activists, as well as military and energy sector targets in Asia.

Using these exploits, Red October assigned a number to each device it compromised with a 20-digit code. It then took the data it collected from each device and reported back to one of over 20 servers around the world.

Forensics on the virus show that it collected information from government embassies, research firms, military installations, energy providers, nuclear and other critical infrastructures. The virus has been able to harvest classified intelligence from these systems for half a decade and use that information to burrow its way into other systems.

It did its work not only by gathering the existing intelligence from the machines, but also by installing “key loggers,” small programs that capture the keystrokes made by a user and sending a record of the input back to a remote server. The hackers then can use the information to guess the user accounts and passwords on the infected machine to gather even more data.

The code also had unique ways of hiding. It can pretend to be a deleted file on the system. When an investigator initiates a search on the device, the malware deletes itself and the reappears when the search is complete.

Red October also has a “resurrection” module embedded as a plug-in in Adobe Reader and Microsoft Office applications. This module made it possible for attackers to regain control of a system even after the malware itself was discovered and removed from the system.

According to Kaspersky Lab, the Simplified Chinese character encoding used in the virus would point to Red October probably having Chinese origins, but the fact that the code includes Russian slang expressions would indicate that recent development work was done by people who speak Russian. For example, the word “proga” was found in the code. This is Russian slang which means “program” or “application.” It is a term that seems to be unique to the Russian programming community.

The alternative theory is that the Russian element is a “false flag,” meant to divert attention from the real operatives.

A total of 39 countries were found to have infected sites, with the most virulent cases of Red October being found in:

1. Russia – 35 sites
2. Kazakhstan – 21 sites
3. Azerbaijan – 15 sites
4. Belgium – 15 sites
5. India – 14 sites
6. Afghanistan – 10 sites
7. Armenia – 10 sites
8. Iran – seven sites
9. Turkmenistan – seven sites
10. United States – six sites

While there doesn’t seem to be a common thread among the victims, the sites that were selected seem to be specifically targeted. The attackers may have a specific purpose in mind or they be just looking at a “target-rich” network and practicing the “vacuum cleaner approach” to cyber-warfare, acquiring as much data as possible to see what can be discovered.

Hale-Bopp

Later this year, Comet ISON will pass through the asteroid belt, enter the Inner Solar System and sidestep Mars on its way past Earth, putting on what scientists expect will be a spectacular heavenly show that is not to be missed.

Astronomers are calling it the “comet of the century.”

Comets offer one of the most spectacular celestial scenes the unaided human eye can see. By November or December, ISON is expected to be brighter than a full moon. Some believe it will be up to 15 times brighter.

While ISON may prove to be brighter than any other comet of the last century, this trip may also be its swan song, as it is projected to end its flight in a fiery death in the sun.

Read about the solar flares that are forecast to hit at the same time, in “A Nation Forsaken – EMP: The Escalating Threat of an American Catastrophe.”

Comets are made of several parts. The core, or nucleus, is a solid snowball of dust and ice. As the comet nears the sun, the nucleus heats up, releasing the mixture of gas, called the coma, and dust, which forms the tail. There is also a plasma ion tail, which can be several hundred million miles long.

Occasionally, a comet is dislodged from its orbit and makes its way toward Earth.

ISON against background stars

Comet ISON, currently in the vicinity of Jupiter, was discovered by two Russian amateur astronomers, Vitali Nevski and Artyom Novichonok, using a 16-inch International Scientific Optical Network telescope in Vitebsk, Belarus. The comet possibly came from the Kuiper Belt, a region of icy small bodies beyond Neptune.

ISON, for the moment, is a faint object, visible only in sophisticated telescopes, but that will change in the next few months.

British astronomer David Whitehouse, in the London Independent, reports that by the end of summer, it will become visible in small telescopes and binoculars.

By October, the comet will pass close to Mars, and it will start to become exciting. The surface of the comet will begin to shift as it nears the sun. As it continues to warm, the surface will crack, releasing small puffs of gas from its core, forming the comet’s tail. Slowly at first, but with increasing energy, the gas and dust will reflect even more of the sun’s light

By autumn, the view should be remarkable.

Astronomers have calculated that the comet will not impact Earth, however, it will pass less than 800,000 miles away from Earth, making it easily visible.

Like the moon, comets do not shine on their own. They reflect only about 4 percent of the sun’s rays, about the same luminescence as a lump of coal. So while the sun’s reflection makes comets look brilliantly white from Earth, they are black on the surface.

Parts of a comet

The comet will begin brightening once it comes within Jupiter’s orbit, as the sun’s heat begins boiling the ice locked within, converting it directly into a gas.

The reaction to ISON is likely to recall the excitement of Comet Hale-Bopp, which sailed past the Earth in 1997, appearing as a static smear in the skies across the Northern Hemisphere.

ISON is also set to outshine “the greatest comet of the last century” – Comet McNaught, which shone brighter than Venus as it passed above the Southern Hemisphere in 1965.

There are reports Comet ISON’s path resembles that of the Great Comet of 1680, which is also called Kirch’s Comet or Newton’s Comet. That comet’s tail was reportedly visible during the day.

Comets are known as “dirty snowballs,” although technically a better definition would be “snowy dirtballs,” as they are generally rocky at the surface, with chemical-laden ice inside.

Comets can also give off a distinctive sound as they interact with the various space probes exploring the universe.

The timing of Comet ISON has set the astronomical world abuzz. The comet will be closest to the Earth during a time when the solar system’s star, the sun, will reach the maximum of its 11-year solar cycle.

While the comet will not impact Earth, the solar activity that will light up the comet will also unleash multiple Coronal Mass Ejections, or CME, that project trillions of tons of radioactive material at millions of miles per hour toward Earth.

If a major CME happens when the flare is facing directly toward Earth, satellites risk severe damage and, in some cases, destruction. In a nightmare scenario, a massive solar blast would initiate a cascading series of failures that could severely hamper daily life in today’s information age. Electrical systems would fail, and anything that depends on them — such as food, fuel and energy supply systems — simply would not work. No refrigerators in grocery stores, no pumps at gas stations, no valves controlling flows in dams.

The threat is serious enough that National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration scientists are watching these celestial events closely as the sun enters what is called the Solar Max. Government agencies are looking at contingency plans for anything from minor power and communication outages to destruction of global power grids and communications systems.

F. Michael Maloof relates in his book “A Nation Forsaken – EMP: The Escalating Threat of an American Catastrophe” that the effects of a solar maximum can be both spectacular and shattering:

On September 2, 1859, the largest recorded geomagnetic storm dazzled the pre-electronics era with auroras seen around the world. The white-light solar flare was so bright; folks in the northeastern United States could read newspaper just from the light of the aurora. The telegraph system in use all over Europe and North America failed. Telegraph operators were shocked, and telegraph pylons threw sparks, causing telegraph paper to spontaneously catch fire. And when telegraphers disconnected the batteries powering the lines, aurora-induced electric currents in the wires still allowed messages to be transmitted!

ISON might not be the only spectacular comet visible soon. Another comet, called 2014 L4 (PanSTARRS), was discovered last year, and in March and April it could also be a magnificent object in the evening sky.

Comets and other celestial objects have often been regarded as harbingers of events on Earth.

Mark Twain was born during the 1835 appearance of Halley’s Comet, and he predicted  he would “go out with it.” He died April 21, 1910, the day following the comet’s return.

The Star of Bethlehem heralding the birth of Jesus is mentioned in Matthew 2:

Where is he that is born King of the Jews? For we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship him. (Mt 2:2 KJV)

This celestial event is also thought to be foretold in Numbers 24:17 and Isaiah 60:3. It has historically been explained in three ways: as a major comet; as a planetary conjunction or sequence of conjunctions; or as a supernova.

The first-century Roman historian Josephus, in Book VI, chapter 5 of “The Wars of the Jews,” recorded the arrival of a comet before the fall of Jerusalem in AD 70. Josephus recounts a heavenly “sign” that was ignored by those without eyes or minds to consider it at the time:

Thus were the miserable people (the Jews of Jerusalem) persuaded by these deceivers (false prophets), and such as belied God himself; while they did not attend nor give credit to the signs [of the heavens] that were so evident, and did so plainly foretell their future desolation, but, like men infatuated, without either eyes to see or minds to consider, did not regard the denunciations that God made to them.

“Thus there was a star resembling a sword, which stood over the city, and a comet, that continued a whole year.”

Biblical prophecies of the Last Days also include celestial events:

“And I will show wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke. The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and the terrible day of the LORD come.” (Joel 2:30-31 KJV)

From this passage and from Revelation 6:12-13 comes what is known as the “Blood Moon” prophecy.

Blood moon

Four “blood-red” total lunar eclipses will fall on Passover and Sukkot in 2014 and 2015, the same back-to-back occurrences in 1492, 1948 and 1967.

The Blood Moon theory says the Second Coming of Christ will likely occur in 2014 or 2015 when there will be four consecutive, rare lunar eclipses, or a tetrad. The eclipses will coincide with two major holidays on the Jewish calendar in 2014 and 2015: Passover and the Feast of Tabernacles.

Supporters of this theory believe the Rapture likely will coincide with one of the eclipses.

While the world did not end with the end of the Mayan calendar last year, Comet ISON is considered by some to be another celestial sign of things to come.

Here’s the documentation of the EMP and solar flare danger: “A Nation Forsaken – EMP: The Escalating Threat of an American Catastrophe.”

After several months of investigation, Kaspersky Lab, a multinational computer security company based in Moscow, has announced the discovery of a new threat: a five-year-old cyber-espionage campaign that has successfully infiltrated computer networks worldwide at diplomatic, governmental, nuclear and energy groups along with scientific research organizations and aerospace industries.

The campaign, identified as “Rocra,” short for “Red October,” is still active, with data being sent to multiple command-and-control servers around the world. The virus is one of the most sophisticated pieces of computer code since the Stuxnet virus that brought Iran’s nuclear-enrichment program to its knees. The malware was found on Russian networks in October 2012, hence its name.

“We believe that the main goal of this operation is to obtain classified information which can be used for geopolitical gains,” said Costin Raiu a senior security researcher at Kaspersky Lab. “There’s no proof that this cyber-espionage operation is sponsored by a nation state, but the high-profile data stolen from the victims can of course be used by nation states to their advantage. One possibility is that this information is stolen with the intent of being sold to the highest bidder.”

Raiu said the primary targets are countries in Eastern Europe, the former USSR republics and Central Asia, although victims can be found in Western Europe and North America.

More than 1,000 program objects have been identified so far by the Kaspersky researchers.

The virus attacks sites and gathers intelligence from their networks, individual computer systems and mobile devices. It even gathers erased files from USB drives.

The latest threat doesn’t seem to be the work of a nation-state or terrorist group but of very talented mercenaries.

While only recently discovered, Red October has been operating since at least 2007.

Like the virus that attacked Israeli police computers last year, Red October gathers classified information though vulnerabilities in Microsoft’s Word and Excel programs.

It appears that parts of the same code were previously used in targeted attacks against Tibetan activists, as well as military and energy sector targets in Asia.

Using these exploits, Red October assigned a number to each device it compromised with a 20-digit code. It then took the data it collected from each device and reported back to one of over 20 servers around the world.

Forensics on the virus show that it collected information from government embassies, research firms, military installations, energy providers, nuclear and other critical infrastructures. The virus has been able to harvest classified intelligence from these systems for half a decade and use that information to burrow its way into other systems.

It did its work not only by gathering the existing intelligence from the machines, but also by installing “key loggers,” small programs that capture the keystrokes made by a user and sending a record of the input back to a remote server. The hackers then can use the information to guess the user accounts and passwords on the infected machine to gather even more data.

The code also has unique ways of hiding. It can pretend to be a deleted file on the system. When an investigator initiates a search on the device, the malware deletes itself and the reappears when the search is complete.

Red October also has a “resurrection” module embedded as a plug-in in Adobe Reader and Microsoft Office applications. This module made it possible for attackers to regain control of a system even after the malware itself was discovered and removed from the system.

In an interesting development, researchers discovered that Red October also made the jump to mobile phones, including iPhones, Windows Mobile devices and Nokia brand devices. Once a system is infected, the virus allows the hackers to spend a few days performing reconnaissance on the machines to determine the signature of the device. This can include the machine configuration, the browser history, the memory cache, which programs are installed and what remote files and devices are connected to the machine.

It could also scan the device for a host of file names. One type of file, called an “acid* file” is particularly interesting because it is associated with a classified piece of software called “Acid Cryptofiler” that is used by government organizations to encrypt files and hard drives,

This virus can discover known vulnerabilities on other systems as well. It can also download configuration data from network routers, access other servers on the local network and more.

On the larger systems, it could erase the programming on network switches and removable media such as disk drives and USB memory sticks.

While the researchers have been able to dissect the malware and determine how it works, figuring out who developed it is an entirely different matter.

According to Kaspersky Labs, the Simplified Chinese character encoding used in the virus would point to Red October probably having Chinese origins, but the fact that the code includes Russian slang expressions would indicate that recent development work was done by people who speak Russian. For example, the word “proga” was found in the code. This is Russian slang which means “program” or “application.” It is a term that seems to be unique to the Russian programming community.

The alternative theory is that the Russian element is a “false flag,” meant to divert attention from the real operatives.

It appears that the people who sent the virus out “into the wild” were not Russian after all. While the servers and domains to which the virus reported can be found in and around Germany and Russia, other evidence indicates that these were only proxy server that relayed the information to yet other servers, allowing the operators to cover their tracks.

While the size and sophistication of the virus suggests it’s the work of a nation-state, analysis of the code indicates it is not being run under the auspices of any single country. Red October seems to be an operation by a single person of a small group of people.

A total of 39 countries were found to have infected sites, with the most virulent cases of Red October being found in:

1. Russia – 35 sites
2. Kazakhstan – 21 sites
3. Azerbaijan – 15 sites
4. Belgium – 15 sites
5. India – 14 sites
6. Afghanistan – 10 sites
7. Armenia – 10 sites
8. Iran – seven sites
9. Turkmenistan – seven sites
10. United States – six sites

While there doesn’t seem to be a common thread among the victims, the sites that were selected seem to be specifically targeted. The attackers may have a specific purpose in mind or they be just looking at a “target-rich” network and practicing the “vacuum cleaner approach” to cyber-warfare, acquiring as much data as possible to see what can be discovered.

Given how long Red October has been active, Kaspersky researchers believe that hundreds of terabytes of sensitive data have probably been stolen by now.

This profile would point to a group such as Anonymous, which gathers as much as it can, hoping to come across particularly interesting or embarrassing information.

While the perpetrators may not be a nation-state or a committed group of hackers, they could very well be free-agents, waiting in the wings for a buyer to come along.

One with deep pockets and a malicious intent.

The U.S. Department of the Army issued a Federal Register notice that the TWIC card will no longer be used to authenticate users for access to certain Department of Defense computer systems.

In part, the notice states:

“The DoD PKI [Public Key Infrastructure] office has determined that the Transportation Workers Identification Card (TWIC) PKI certificate cannot be used to authenticate users for access to DoD systems. The DoD PKI office has not established a trust relationship with Homeland Security/TSA.

“Starting January 29, 2013, TWIC certificates cannot be accepted by ETA [Electronic Transportation Acquisition] … All current TWIC holders accessing an application within ETA will need to purchase an External Certificate Authority (ECA) prior to January 29, 2013. ”

The register entry essentially says that the TWIC program cannot be used to authenticate users for access to DoD computer systems and networks. The Department of Defense will require additional credentials of TWIC holders, who need access to certain defense computer networks starting at the end of the month.

The TWIC program was started as a joint initiative between Transportation Security Administration and U.S. Coast Guard. The purpose of the program is to provide a biometric credential to workers who need to enter “secure areas” of port facilities and vessels that fall under the Maritime Transportation Security Act of 2002.

Under the program, access to these areas is still allowed to those individuals, but they have to be escorted by someone currently holding a valid card. Individuals without those valid cards have to be kept within sight at all times.

TSA has spent $420 million on TWIC, and it has been estimated that the federal government and private sector may spend as much as $3.2 billion on TWIC during the next 10 years, not including the card readers themselves.

More than 1.9 million U.S. workers have enrolled in the TWIC program with a cost of $132.50 per enrollment.

The TWIC program has been problematic from the start. The TWIC application is a two-step process. A person has to go to an authorized TWIC Enrollment Center to apply for the card and then has to return to pick up the card and provide biometric information. This is not a problem if one lives close to a port city such as New York or Los Angeles. However, some of the facilities that fell under the jurisdiction of the TWIC program are far from the centers. In some cases, a person has to travel six to eight hours to apply for the card, and then repeat the process six weeks later to pick it up. For small facilities under the program, this caused quite a burden.

As one person tweeted, “I need to stop playing a ‘snag a TWIC card’.”

The cards themselves had a good security design, using standard “Two-factor Authentication,” an authentication method that consists of two or more of the three authentication factors: “something the user knows” (a password), “something the user has” (the TWIC card itself), and “something the user is” (their fingerprint).

To gain entry to a facility or system, the goal was for a person to present their card (something they own) for reading, enter their password (something they know), and have their fingerprint scanned and compared to the fingerprint information embedded in the card’s computer chip (something they are).

One problem that arose early on was that there were no card readers for the cards. The card’s computer chip, known as an Integrated Circuit Chip, stores the holder’s information and biometric data. The chip was supposed to be read by inserting it into a reader or holding it near a “contactless” reader.

Once the card was read, the card holder’s name was to be checked against a list of people who were to be barred from entering the facility. The list was to be updated almost in real time so that if a person was recently added to the list, they could be identified quickly and denied entry.

The problems with the card readers had been so profound that covered workers are allowed to extend their expiring TWIC cards by three years at a reduced price because federal officials are facing delays in deploying the readers.

This latest development with the DoD was not surprising since the program was already plagued by delays, cost overruns and false starts.

In December 2011, the Department of Homeland Security’s Transportation Security Administration said that the 26,000 already issued TWIC cards were missing a digit in the “Federal Agency Smart Credential Number.”

In another case, TSA lost the passwords that were associated with the card and a user had to apply for a new TWIC card if they ever needed their password.

Not that it would matter since the bug-ridden card reader program reduced the TWIC card to merely a “flash card” at most ports as the card reader program has been riddled with glitches and continues to lag behind its implementation schedule.

It also made it impossible to identify cards that have been reported as lost, stolen, revoked or suspended, while the lack of an updated threat assessment could compromise the security of a port.

The future of the program seemed suspect when the Transportation Security Administration opted this year to extend the expiration dates of some of the current cards. With the first round of five-year expiration dates bearing down on TWIC holders, the TSA offered a three-year extension. U.S. citizens with current TWICs that are to expire on or before Dec. 31, 2014, can opt to pay $60 to extend the expiration date for three years.

This latest announcement is making people covered by the TWIC program wonder why a program deemed not suitable for security in the U.S. Army Supply Chain is still being used for security in protecting civilian freight transportation venues from terrorist attack.

According to a December 2012 statement issued by Todd Spencer, the executive vice president of the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association, “At one time we thought TWIC would be it, but it does not appear so now. The promise of secure credentials to identify truckers authorized to work the ports is no closer to reality than ever.”

“The TWIC program seems to exist only for the benefit of those who collect fees for generating the card at the expense of the time and money of professional drivers.”

If you think you are being bombarded by information now, just wait.

The term “Information overload,” sometimes called, “infobesity,” is a term that came into everyday use in the 1970s. It refers to our inability to absorb and process all the information to which we are exposed.

If given too much information, we tend to just shut down. There is a term for this, “Information Fatigue Syndrome” (IFS). The term was coined by Dr. David Lewis, a British psychologist, and the author of the report “Dying for Information?” commissioned by London based Reuters Business Information in 1998.

IFS symptoms include, poor concentration, hostility, falling into a trance-like state, burnout, and a compulsion to check email, voice mail, the Internet to stay connected. Eventually, the sufferer will experience a lower immune response, depression and burnout.

An early case study in IFS was in the United Airlines Flight 232 crash in 1989.

United Airlines Flight 232 was a scheduled flight from Denver’s Stapleton International Airport to O’Hare International Airport in Chicago. On July 19, 1989, the airliner crash-landed in Sioux City, Iowa, after the failure of its tail-mounted engine, which caused the failure of all three independent hydraulic systems on board the aircraft.

The loss of flight controls left the crew with only two systems left for control: the two remaining engines. By adjusting only the thrust of the engines, the crew was able to make altitude, direction and speed adjustments. Without the use of the plane’s flaps and slats, they were unable to slow down for landing, and were forced to attempt a high-speed landing.

Immediately on touchdown the plane broke up and caught fire.  Despite the horrific nature of the crash, two thirds of the passengers survived the crash, in no small part due to the resourcefulness of the crew.

When the pilot Alfred Haynes was interviewed in the aftermath of the crash, he made a couple of interesting observations. Haynes noted that no one was prepared or trained for this scenario so hundreds of decisions had to be made based on unfamiliar information and information that had to be assimilated in an unfamiliar manner.

The crew began to experience all the symptoms of IFS, the most lethal one was “analysis paralysis.” There was so much information to be processed that none of it could be assimilated. It was only after the unexpected addition of a fourth crew member that the crew was able to function effectively.

Dennis Fitch was an off-duty United Airlines DC-10 flight instructor, taking a “dead head” ride on the plane who noticed the crew was having trouble and offered his assistance. Haynes credits Fitch with lowering the stress level in the plane and overload by cutting each person’s information processing needs by 30 percent.

Today, the information overload is primarily in electronic media and the exponential growth of information on the so-called “information age,” corresponding to growth in IFS.

In a 2010 address to 400 CIOs at Google’s Atmosphere Conference, Eric Schmidt, Google’s CEI, said that prior to 2003; mankind had generated a sum total of 5 exabytes of digital content. (That is equal to 5 million terabytes.) That is approximately 12 million times the information in all the books ever written.

Today we generate this amount of content in a matter of days.

In every minute of 2012 there have been:

• 72 hours of video posts,
• 347 blog posts,
• 700,000 Facebook entries,
• 30,000 tweets,
• 2 million e-mails sent and
• 12 million text messages

This only represents the data that we store. Far more data is generated and disappears as soon as it is generated. In 2007, about 1.9 zettabytes of information was generated from sources such as TV shows and GPS satellite location. (A zettabyte is 1,000 exabytes)

Information is growing faster than anything else being produced.

Roughly a third (34 percent) of the public say they go online for news, about the same percentage as with radio, and higher than daily newspapers. When cell phones, email, social networks and podcasts are added in, 44 percent of Americans say they got news through one or more Internet sources.

With so much data floating around, a new growth industry has arisen; it is the rise of “search engines.” These are tools that are used to “crawl” the Internet for everything that is posted and return pertinent information to searchers’ query.

While there are a number of search engines available, the best example of one is Google.

Anyone who has used the Internet has, at one time or another, used Google. People rely on the search engine to give them access to the information they need.

Google essentially serves as a gate-keeper to the world’s information and company officials say they recognize that responsibility in their unofficial corporate motto: “Don’t Be Evil.” According to their corporate website, it is part of a commitment to providing their users with “unbiased access to information” and also “doing the right thing.”

Critics of Google charge that they routinely violate that motto.

On the lighter side of data manipulation, periodically Google has planted “Easter Eggs” into their programming. An Easter Egg is a small amount of code put into a program to activate only in response to specific user input or a condition is met, for example, a certain date.

If a user types the word “anagram” into the search bar the first response returned is, “nag a ram” (itself being an anagram). If you type “tilt” into the search bar you get a response, but on a screen which is tilted.

At one time, if you typed “Chuck Norris” into the search bar and clicked on “I’m feeling lucky,” you would get the response, “Google won’t search for Chuck Norris because it knows you don’t find Chuck Norris, Chuck Norris finds you.”

But there is an insidious side to this manipulation. Last week, the Federal Trade Commission found that Google manipulates its search results to favor some websites over others. This finding concluded a 19-month anti-trust investigation into the search giant.

The FTC concluded that that Google used its search algorithm to demote competitors’ listings in search results. The study found that the search giant moved findings from their own sites farther up the search ranking and relegated results found on other search pages farther down the list, making those results more difficult to find.

In a major disappointment to Google’s competitors, the FTC found that Google was only looking to “improve the quality of its search results” and “any negative impact on actual or potential competitors was incidental to that purpose.”

Danny Sullivan, the editor of the industry blog Search Engine Land, said the FTC made the right decision by not taking action on the search bias charges. “People who go to Google expect to receive Google search results, not Yelp search results or Bing search results,” he said.

Understandably, companies are not pleased with the FTC ruling. Being relegated to page two or three of a Google results search can mean the difference between “making it” and going bankrupt. For other search engines, disappearing from the first results page in a search can have a huge impact on its advertising revenue.

While Google sees the FTC ruling as a victory, it has not been treated as kindly in other cases.

In November 2012, Google was ordered to pay U.S. $208,000 in an Australian defamation case involving how it showed a name in search results. In his suit, musician Michael Trkulja claimed that a person putting his name into Google’s search engine would be directed to websites where his name and photograph are mixed with underworld figures and crime identities. (Trkulja was shot in the back in what was first identified as an underworld shooting.)

When issuing the fine, a judge in the Victoria state Supreme Court in Australia compared Google’s search results to that of an online publisher and fell under those applicable laws.

Google is examining the original jury verdict and may file an appeal.

Other criticisms of Google involve privacy concerns, antitrust issues, and possible restraint of trade. It is the censorship issues that cause countries and civil rights advocates the greatest concern.

The opening salvo occurred in October 2012 when Google was blocked throughout China when the Communist Party met to appoint new leaders for the first time in a decade.

Google’s metrics showed a sharp drop in traffic from China, which Google attributed to an “outage.” “We’ve checked and there’s nothing wrong on our end,” a Google representative told CNNMoney at the time.

Service into China was eventually reopened but last month, Google removed a feature that notifies Chinese users of government censored keywords. The Chinese Internet freedom advocacy site Greatfire reported that Google tweaked their Chinese search feature that had informed users from China of keywords that were censored by the Chinese government.

According to GreatFire.org Google has also deleted a help article which explained how to use the feature – which it says indicates that Google is self-censoring in this instance, rather than being blocked by the government.

“Since the removal of the help article could only be done willingly by Google, the only explanation we see is that Google struck a deal with the Chinese government, giving in to considerable pressure to self-censor,” Greatfire writes.

Google confirmed to the industry site TechCrunch that it admitted to removing the notification feature and would have no further comment on the issue.

Figure 1 – This Google warning to Chinese users has been removed by the company

The move by Google was seen by privacy advocates as the search giant once again caving in to the “Great Firewall of China,” China’s attempt to restrict information flowing in and out of the country.

In 2005, China purchased more than 200 routers from the American technology company Cisco Systems that gave Beijing advanced technological censoring ability. Since the installation of the routers, “The Great Firewall” has imposed censorship on its 1.3 billion citizens.

Censorship in China is nothing new, for print publications; the Chinese censors have routinely torn out objectionable portions or stopped the distribution of entire publications. News broadcasts are censored as well. Foreign news broadcasts shown in five star hotels catering to foreigners will “go black” frequently.

Traditional censorship in a digital age has a minimal impact on information flow, but the control of electronic information is especially troubling.

More people than ever get their news and information from search engines and the control the results of a search query can eventually shape public opinion.

Information Technology research indicated that search engines such as Google can influence public opinion, simply by affecting what comes back from a search query. Other research also shows that Google actually attempted to manipulate public opinion in the last presidential election.

According to Robert Enderle’s article on the United States of Google shows that articles favorable to Barack Obama were weighted positively, while articles for Mitt Romney were given a negative bias.

For any search engine, the results shown on page 1 of a results page are generally the only articles read by the searcher. Articles that are relegated to the “Siberia” of page 2 of greater are hardly ever read. A search engine could manipulate the search results so that negative articles about a candidate come up on the first page, while positive information is pushed off that same page.

A company as large and pervasive as Google could be seen as exercising an abuse of power in tweaking the results. Google argues that the ordering of its search results is just their way of expressing its opinion. Taking an argument from the Australian case, a case they are appealing, Google is arguing that it is equivalent to a newspaper or magazine’s editorial page when it exercises its choice of articles it wants to publish. In Search King, Inc. v. Google, Google won using this argument.

Google has now updated its position on the matter by saying that it is, in effect a publisher and is entitled to the same first amendment rights given to all publishers.

All this begs the question that if Google succeeds in it argument, doesn’t that really inhibit our First Amendment rights? If Google can influence what we read, does that impinge upon our right to form our own opinion and affect public policy?