Archive for the 'Infrastructure' Category
Chernobyl Exclusion Zone: ‘The Continent’s Biggest Animal Sanctuary’
January 26th, 2013Via: Independent: Sergei Gaschak’s photography offers an unparalleled glimpse at animal life inside “the zone”, the area of Ukraine and Belarus that has been officially closed off to human habitation since the Chernobyl nuclear catastrophe of 1986. Using camera traps to take photographs mechanically, as well as taking photographs personally, Gaschak has captured what few […]
Inspection Team Headed to Pa. Nuclear Plant
January 16th, 2013UPDATE: MALICIOUS VIRUS SHUTTERED U.S. POWER PLANT Via: Reuters: A computer virus attacked a turbine control system at a U.S. power company last fall when a technician unknowingly inserted an infected USB computer drive into the network, keeping a plant off line for three weeks, according to a report posted on a U.S. government website. […]
U.S. Sailors Sue Japan Over Fukushima Lies
December 30th, 2012Well, unless we’re expected to assume that a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier isn’t equipped to measure radiation levels (which would be a totally absurd assumption), the plaintiffs should name the U.S. Navy in the lawsuit as well. Hint: Good luck. Via: Courthouse News Service: The Fukushima nuclear disaster exposed Navy rescue workers to dangerous levels […]
With Internet Down in Syria, Rebels Use Skype Over Satellite Links
December 1st, 2012Mmm hmm. Via: New York Times: In a demonstration of their growing sophistication and organization, Syrian rebels responded to a nationwide shutdown of the Internet by turning to satellite technology to coordinate within the country and to communicate with outside activists. Related: Syria: Internet Taken Down
Was the Author of This Renesys Piece Stoned When New Zealand Was Classified as Having a Low Risk of Disconnection from the Internet?
December 1st, 2012Here is Renesys’ criterion for a country having a severe risk of being cut off from the Internet: If you have only 1 or 2 companies at your international frontier, we classify your country as being at severe risk of Internet disconnection. Those 61 countries include places like Syria, Tunisia, Algeria, Turkmenistan, Libya, Ethiopia, Uzbekistan, […]
TrueTime API: How Google’s Servers Know What Time It Is
November 26th, 2012Via: Wired: But with Spanner, Google discarded the NTP in favor of its own timing-keeping mechanism. It’s called the TrueTime API. “We wanted something that we were confident in,” Fikes says. “It’s a time reference that’s owned by Google.” Rather than rely on outside clocks, Google equips its Spannerized data centers with its own atomic […]
Photo Gallery: Hurricane Sandy: The Long Recovery
November 18th, 2012Via: The Atlantic: Sixteen days after the landfall of superstorm Sandy, much recovery work remains to be done. After Katrina in 2005, Sandy is the costliest hurricane to ever hit the United States, and New York and New Jersey have suffered most of the estimated $50 billion in damages. Most who lost power have had […]
LTE Networks Vulnerable to Simple, Inexpensive Attack
November 15th, 2012Via: MIT Technology Review: High-speed wireless data networks are vulnerable to a simple jamming technique that could block service across much of a city, according to research findings provided to a federal agency last week. The high-bandwidth mobile network technology LTE (long-term evolution) is rapidly spreading around the world. But researchers show that just one […]
Fault Under Japan Nuclear Plant May be Active
November 11th, 2012Via: AFP: Japan’s only working nuclear power plant sits on what may be a seismic fault in the earth’s crust, a geologist has warned, saying it is “very silly” to allow it to continue operating. Mitsuhisa Watanabe says the earth’s plates could move underneath the Oi nuclear plant in western Japan, causing a catastrophe to […]
How to Steal Data from Your Neighbor in the Cloud
November 9th, 2012It’s not easy, but the description of the attack is pretty interesting. Via: MIT Technology Review: The new attack undermines one of the basic assumptions underpinning cloud computing: that a customer’s data is kept completely separate from data belonging to any other customer. This separation is supposedly provided by virtualization technology—software that mimics an instance […]
