World news. 06-13-2013 General UK banks fear cyber

Global cyber crime in the financial sector has become a more pressing worry, underlined by a series of cases this year.

U.S. prosecutors last month laid out details of a crime ring they say stole $45 million from two Middle Eastern banks by hacking into credit card processing firms and withdrawing money from cash machines in 27 countries.

Andrew Haldane, the BoE's director of financial stability, met with five of Britain's top banks six months ago and four told him that a cyber attack was their biggest threat.

It was surprising the fifth bank did not have this risk on their list but it does now, Haldane told parliament's Treasury Select Committee.

"You can see why the financial sector would be a particularly good target for someone wanting to wreak havoc through the cyber route," he added.

"Understanding and management of this risk was still at a somewhat early stage," Haldane said.

Earlier meetings with bank chiefs had pointed to the "usual suspects" of the euro zone crisis or a slump in the economy at the top risk, Haldane said.

The focus on credit, market and liquidity risk over the past five years may have distracted attention from operational, and in particular cyber risks, at banks or in infrastructure like payment systems, Haldane said.

Haldane was being quizzed by lawmakers on his reappointment to the BoE's Financial Policy Committee (FPC)

During a press event Monday night at the Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles, Sony hammered home key points about its new gaming system: Sharing games will be free. If people want to sell used games, that's fine. And a near-constant Internet connection, meant to monitor game usage, won't be required.

In other words, the PS4 will do many things the new XBox apparently cannot. Oh, and the PlayStation 4 will sell for $399 -- $100 less than the Xbox One. Both consoles are expected this fall in time for the holiday shopping season, setting up a battle for the hearts, minds and wallets of the gaming community.

A big point of contention among gamers is that Microsoft's new Xbox will require an online check-in every 24 hours (less than the "always-on" mode gamers expected) and will only allow games to be resold at selected retailers. Games may be shared only among a limited number of friends and family members.

Microsoft's daily check-in is designed, in part, to make sure users haven't resold, traded in or given away a game they've already downloaded on their consoles. The idea is to prevent more than one person from effectively owning a game that was purchased only once.

After rolling out a list of new games, Jack Tretton, president and CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment America, essentially went down a laundry list of complaints about the new Xbox, which had been showcased earlier Monday, and promised the opposite.

"In addition to creating an amazing library of new titles on PlayStation 4, we're equally focused on delivering what gamers want most without imposing restrictions or devaluing their PS4 purchases," Tretton said. "For instance, PlayStation 4 won't impose any new restrictions on the use of pre-owned games."

That announcement got a loud and sustained round of applause from an E3 crowd not always easy to impress.

"I guess that's a good thing," a smiling Tretton replied. In game-console terms, digital-rights management is a code that allows users to access a game's content. It's designed to assure developers and publishers that only the person who paid for the game, and close family and friends, can play it.

Sony and Microsoft aren't the ones that would benefit from DRM, or used-game restrictions. Game publishers want to make sure they are getting paid for their work, and that includes the secondhand market.

In the weeks leading up to E3, Microsoft had sought to calm gamers' concerns with a series of blog posts that some felt nibbled around the edges of rights-management issues but never offered definitive answers.

They are offering new ways of transportation and carrying out vital conservation work.

But, warned one speaker, far stricter controls are needed over the use of such machines in war.

Sci-fi author Daniel Suarez called for international treaties to limit the use of autonomous combat drones that are increasingly being developed by nations such as the US and Israel.

"There are tonnes of great uses for unmanned drones but we need a framework for robotic weapons as it puts too much power into too few hands," he said.

"Increasingly combat drones are making lethal decisions about human beings."

In 2011 US drones created 300,000 hours of video surveillance, for example.

"This is outstripping the human ability to review it all so increasingly people will rely on visual intelligence software," said Mr Suarez.

He also warned of the threat of anonymous war, where terrorists or criminals could launch drone attacks which would be difficult to trace back. "Such a war would tilt the geo-political balance on its head," he said.

Delivering supplies

On a more positive note, delegates heard how drones can play a vital role in civilian life.

Andreas Raptopoulos is currently building a network of drones to provide vital supplies to hard-to-reach places.

"In sub-Saharan Africa 85% of the roads are unusable during the rainy season," he said.

"Imagine if you are in Mali with a newborn in urgent need of medication - it may take days to come."

To overcome the issue, he is using small flying vehicles known as octocopters, which can deliver goods such as medicine in a few hours.

The firm he has created, Matternet, grew out of a challenge set at the Singularity University in Silicon Valley to find solutions to global poverty.

Prototypes have been tested in Haiti, delivering supplies to camps set up in the wake of the 2010 earthquakes and the firm is now planning a wider trial of the technology.

The method is cheap. "To deliver 2kg [4.4lb] over 10km [6.2 miles] costs just 24 cents," he said, although currently a vehicle costs about $3,000 (£1,900).

Mr Raptopoulos hopes to bring costs down to around $750 (£480) per vehicle.

He thinks that the project has huge potential.

But often lost amid it all is a simple fact: This is the world we have made. Oh, maybe you didn't make it, and I didn't make it, but enough of us voted for it with our ballots and pocketbooks and Web surfing that it has come to pass regardless.

Like it or not, the online world today is one in which we're expected to participate. Whether because of peer pressure, sheer convenience or clear-eyed decision making, we join social media sites, order merchandise online, store things in the cloud and burnish our "digital brand."

Meanwhile, we don't read End Use License Agreements (bo-ring!), freely exchange personal information on Facebook and insults on Twitter, enjoy tailored recommendations on Amazon and swipe key tags to take advantage of targeted discounts at grocery stores -- places where we often take pleasure in tabloid covers revealing invasions into other people's privacy.

So you thought paparazzi-level scrutiny was only for celebrities? Syracuse University's Anthony Rotolo has news for you: Thanks to the Internet, we're all celebrities on some level now.

"In reality, we're all kind of on 'Big Brother' -- on a reality show," says Rotolo, a professor who runs the Starship NEXIS lab, focusing on social networking and new technologies. "Whenever I give a talk, whenever you give a talk, there's going to be someone live-tweeting it. There's going to be somebody posting a picture on Facebook. We are redefining celebrity in this age, and anybody at any time could be speaking publicly without realizing it."

At its most extreme level, our hunger for sociability can turn minor incidents into major media firestorms, thanks to the Web's viral capabilities. One minute you're leaving a crummy tip; the next your message is all over the Web. One minute you're a bullied bus monitor; the next someone is raising hundreds of thousands of dollars on your behalf.

But even small pebble drops into the vast pool of the Internet can leave big ripples. How often have you made a purchase on one site -- or even just done some online window-shopping -- to find that ads on dozens of other, unrelated sites were suddenly pitching you the same product? And what about that misunderstood text that turns into a local flame war? And never mind the seemingly narrow online sleuthing that becomes an online lynching.

"A lot of stuff (online) plays out in public," says Rotolo, who believes we're still learning how to deal with it all.

The official name cards of several directors at Indonesia's ministry of foreign affairs, for example, give only Yahoo or Gmail addresses, services provided by Yahoo Inc and Google Inc. One researcher who deals regularly with Indonesian security and police officials said all of them used Gmail or Yahoo to communicate often sensitive information.

Gatot S. Dewa Broto, spokesman for Indonesia's Ministry of Communications and Informatics, acknowledged that officials had long been aware that public e-mail addresses were "prone to trespassing" but said it was hard to enforce use of official e-mail accounts.

"Sometimes we have difficulties sending large e-mails with photos, file or video attachments, and are forced to use a public e-mail account. But we have reiterated that public e-mail should not be used for highly confidential matters," he said, adding that he used Gmail "in emergencies."

Revelations this week by NSA contractor Edward Snowden of a program called Prism to sift data from U.S. web companies has raised fears of a close relationship between the companies and the NSA, something denied by both sides. Whatever the truth, the reliance of Asian officials on such services highlights how vulnerable they are to eavesdropping.

At a recent conference of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific in Bangkok, for example, officials from 20 of 33 Asian countries represented included Gmail, Hotmail or Yahoo addresses on their contact forms.

Of 18 Thai officials attending, only six gave only their official email address. This was despite all government officials being issued secure e-mail addresses.

"Government officials use the web domain go.th and we can vouch that this is secure," government spokesman Theerat Rattanasewee however said.

NO CHOICE

The twin setbacks, coupled with the derailing of a troubled privatization program, reversed a rise in investor confidence that had prompted Prime Minister Antonis Samaras to say the risk of a "Grexit" from the euro was dead and a "Greekovery" was under way.

Yields on Greece's 10-year benchmark bond crept back above 10 percent after Athens failed to sell state gas firm DEPA on Monday, putting it at risk of missing bailout targets.

The stock market traded at two-month lows after Greece became the first developed nation ever to be lowered to emerging market status by equity index provider MSCI.

Samaras's government declined comment on the market reclassification as it tried to fend off a growing backlash against ERT's dramatic closure that prompted outrage from journalists, unions and leaders across the political spectrum.

The public broadcaster was yanked off air just hours after the shutdown was announced in what the government said was a temporary measure to staunch an "incredible waste" of taxpayers' money prior to its relaunch as a slimmed-down station.

Labor unions called a 24-hour national work stoppage for Thursday and journalists went on an open-ended strike, forcing a news blackout on privately owned television and newspapers.

"The strike will only end when the government takes back this coup d'etat which gags information," the ESIEA union said.

Some ERT journalists occupied the broadcaster's building in defiance of government orders and broadcasted over the Internet, showing somber newscasters deploring the shutdown and replaying images of thousands gathered outside to protest.

ERT's reporters from as far away as Australia appeared on air to describe the outrage of local Greek communities.

"It is our only link with our homeland," said Odysseas Mandeakis, president of the Greek community in Zambia.

VERY WORRYING

In Athens, the ERT crisis overshadowed MSCI's reclassification of the country, whose bourse it said had not met the developed market criteria for size for two years. Still, brokers said the move could trigger inflows to the bourse.

"Emerging market funds could not enter since Greece was classified as developed market, now it will be on their radar," said Theodore Krintas, head of wealth management at Attica Bank.

With helmeted riot police looking on, some 10,000 protesters chanted "Russia without Putin!" and called for the release of activists who face long jail terms over violence at a protest against his inauguration to a third presidential term last year.

Critics accuse Putin, in power since 2000, of clamping down on dissent after he weathered the biggest protests of his rule and returned to the Kremlin following a stint as prime minister.

"We have no democracy here, we have what Putin calls sovereign democracy. That means there is democracy for them, not for us," said protester Andrei Rusakov, 53.

Protesters chanted "Putin is a thief" and held pictures of 12 activists who are being tried over clashes with police at a rally the day before he was sworn in.

A bridge leading across the Moscow river toward the Kremlin was blocked by police lines, bulldozers and water trucks. Police said they detained nine members of a suspended opposition group.

Shortly after the march, Putin, 60, was chosen to lead the Popular Front at a highly choreographed congress of the group he created in 2011 as a source of support to supplement the ruling United Russia, which many Russians mistrustp.

In a spectacle that mixed elements of Soviet Communist Party meetings and Western-style political conventions, members chanted Putin's name after a speech full of patriotic rhetoric.

"We are united by values that are higher than political passions," Putin told the gathering, which included cultural and religious figures, stylish young women and medal-bedecked World War Two veterans.

Putin spoke of freedom, human rights and the rule of law in his address but protesters said he has trampled on those values since starting his six-year third term.

Putin has signed laws restricting demonstrations and labeling U.S.-funded civic groups "foreign agents". Protest leaders are under investigation or on trial in what they say are trumped up charges.

POPULAR FRONT

Marchers, hoping to revive flagging protests, focused on the plight of 12 lesser-known activists who face up to eight years in jail over clashes with police in what critics call a Stalin-style show trial meant to scare away ordinary Russians.

"This is a political trial ... it is all clearly falsified," said Natalya Kavkazskaya, whose son Dmitry, 26, is among the defendants and has been in pre-trial detention since last July.

It also costs thousands of dollars and is way more machine than most people will ever need.

The Mac Pro is aimed at a narrow market of professionals such as photographers, videographers, designers and animators. Since the line was first announced in 2006, the Pro has received relatively few upgrades compared to the rest of Apple's product line. The company has been busy focusing on its hit consumer and mobile devices, leaving many professionals wondering if they were being left behind.

For people using the desktop computers in their businesses, the external look of a Mac is often secondary. So periodic internal improvements to the old tower design were enough to keep them satiated. Others had already abandoned the Pro line as the iMac and MacBook Pro became powerful enough to meet their photo- and video-production needs.

For the remaining power users, reaction to the new Mac Pro is mixed. And the future of the computer, which is 2.5 times faster than the current model, is still unclear.

First things first: The new Pro is a design marvel compared to its clunky predecessor -- a sleek, black cylinder that bears little resemblance to computers as we've traditionally imagined them.

It's smaller and cannot be expanded and customized as much as the previous system. Apple has built a machine so unique that people who want to add to it will end up building out, adding components like hard drives and PCI cards externally.

To make that expansion possible, the industry must first embrace the Thunderbolt input-output standard.

For example, it's no longer possible to pop in standard video cards. Mac Pro users will have to either get cards that fit the custom shape of the new computer or plug them into the computer using a Thunderbolt 2 connection.

"It's either going to change the way computers are built, or it will fall by the wayside," said Tony Welch, the creative services director at the Beyond Pix production studio.

Welch is excited about the new product and hopes to upgrade his studio's systems, but he hopes Apple's "risky" bet to depend heavily on Thunderbolt for expansion pushes the companies that make hard drives, PCI cards and other peripherals to support the connection technology.

Rumors have persisted for months that Waze was going to be bought by a major tech company. Apple (AAPL, Fortune 500) and Facebook (FB). were also said to be interested.

Neither Google nor Waze disclosed a purchase price. But according to several reports, Google was offering $1.3 billion for Waze.

Waze is one of only two major players in the world that has fully designed its own real-time, user-generated mapping service -- the other is Google (GOOG, Fortune 500). The search giant says it will run the company at arm's length, at least initially, with Waze's team remaining in Israel and operating as a separate entity. The Waze brand will remain for the time being.

"We're excited about the prospect of enhancing Google Maps with some of the traffic update features provided by Waze and enhancing Waze with Google's search capabilities," said Brian McClendon, Google's head of geolocation services, in a blog post.

Still, the deal is still likely to be scrutinized by lawmakers and antitrust officials.

Waze also partners with Apple and Facebook. So regulatory approval isn't a given. Facebook users can share their Waze mapping routes with one another, and Waze provides some mapping information for Apple's year-old mapping service.

The company's appeal to Google is likely due more to its technology than the size of its user base. Waze has just 50 million users, but it offers unique features, including social capabilities that other mapping services lack. For example, Waze users can wave their hands over their mobile device while driving to vocally report traffic or hazardous conditions.

The service then warns other users of the hazard or reroutes them around the traffic jam. Users can play social driving games, report gas prices and fully customize the app to their liking.

Most crowd-sourced services, including Google's maps, will detect fast and slow traffic, but that's where the user-generated data stops. Waze users get more detailed information, such as a warning that a police car is ahead or a tractor-trailer is broken down.

The Shenzhou 10 spacecraft was launched from a remote site in the Gobi desert in China's far west at 5:38 p.m. (0938 GMT) under warm, clear blue skies, in images carried live on state television.

Once in orbit, the craft will dock with the Tiangong (Heavenly Palace) 1, a trial space laboratory module, and the two male and one female astronauts will carry out various experiments and test the module's systems.

They will also give a lecture to students back on Earth.

China successfully carried out its first manned docking exercise with Tiangong 1 last June, a milestone in an effort to acquire the technological and logistical skills to run a full space station that can house people for long periods.

President Xi Jinping oversaw Tuesday's launch personally, addressing the astronauts before they blasted off to wish them success, saying he was "enormously happy" to be there.

"You are the pride of the Chinese people, and this mission is both glorious and sacred," Xi said, according to state media.

This mission will be the longest time Chinese astronauts have spent in space, and marks the second mission for lead astronaut Nie Haisheng.

It is China's fifth manned space mission since 2003, and was accompanied by the usual outpouring of national pride and Communist Party propaganda, including children dressed as happy ethnic minorities waving off the three at the space centre.

However, some wondered why China was spending so much money exploring space when it was still a developing country with a plethora of more pressing issues, from food safety and pollution to the prevalence of workplace fire disasters.

"Why don't they spend this money solving China's real problems instead of wasting it like this?" wrote one user on China's popular Twitter-like service, Sina Weibo.

China's space program has come a long way since late leader Mao Zedong, founder of Communist China in 1949, lamented that the country could not even launch a potato into space.

But China is still far from catching up with the established space superpowers, the United States and Russia.

Rendezvous and docking techniques such as those which China is only testing now were mastered by the United States and the former Soviet Union decades ago, and the 10.5 meter-long Tiangong 1 is a trial module, not a fully fledged space station.