Google’s Android platform has become the most popular platform for downloading apps, beating the iPhone and the iPad combined.
The operating system accounted for 44 per cent of all app downloads in the second quarter of this year, a survey has revealed.
Apple only got 31 per cent across all of its platforms. The figures were published the day after the release of Steve Jobs’ biography.
In the book the Apple founder rails against the Android and brands it a ‘stolen product’ for its similarity to the iPhone operating system.
He also threatens to fight until his ‘last dying breath’ and go to ‘thermonuclear war’ to stop it being a success.
Last week, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer also derided the operating system, saying you needed to be a ‘computer scientist’ to understand Android phones.
But a flood of low-priced handsets this summer has catapulted Android ahead of Apple for the first time in terms of app downloads.
It follows in the wake of reports that Samsung’s Galaxy Android handsets had outsold iPhone during the last quarter.
By Jim Finkle | Reuters
(Reuters) – Hackers who infiltrated the Nasdaq’s computer systems last year installed malicious software that allowed them to spy on the directors of publicly held companies, according to two people familiar with an investigation into the matter.
The new details showed the cyber attack was more serious than previously thought, as Nasdaq OMX Group had said in February that there was no evidence the hackers accessed customer information.
It was not known what information the hackers might have stolen. The investigation into the attack, involving the FBI and National Security Agency, is ongoing.
“God knows exactly what they have done. The long term impact of such attack is still unknown,” said Tom Kellermann, a well-known cyber security expert with years of experience protecting central banks and other high-profile financial institutions from attack.
The case is an example of a “blended attack,” where elite hackers infiltrate one target to facilitate access to another. In March hackers stole digital security keys from EMC Corp’s RSA Security division that they later used to breach the networks of defense contractor Lockheed Martin Corp.
Nasdaq had previously said that its trading platforms were not compromised by the hackers, but they attacked a Web-based software program called Directors Desk, used by corporate boards to share documents and communicate with executives, among other things.
By infecting Directors Desk, the hackers were able to access confidential documents and the communications of board directors, said Kellermann, chief technology officer at security technology firm AirPatrol Corp.
Investigators have learned that hackers were able to spy on “scores” of directors who logged onto directorsdesk.com before the malicious software was removed, said Kellermann and another person familiar with the investigation who was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.
It was still unclear how long Nasdaq’s system was breached before the attack was discovered last October.
A Nasdaq spokesman confirmed the investigation into the attack continues, but declined to give further details.
NSA HELPS NASDAQ
Executive Assistant FBI Director Shawn Henry said the financial services sector was losing hundreds of millions of dollars to hackers every year, and the attacks were increasingly “destructive” in nature.
“We know adversaries have full unfettered access to certain networks. Once there they have the ability to destroy data,” he told Reuters in a phone interview. “We see that as a credible threat to all sectors, but specifically the financial services sector.” Henry declined to comment on the Nasdaq attack.
U.S. Army General Keith Alexander, head of the National Security Agency and U.S. Cyber Command, said the NSA was working with Nasdaq to help protect its network against further attacks.
Alexander told security experts at a Baltimore conference that the United States was shoring up its defenses, but still had “tremendous vulnerabilities” to a growing number of increasingly destructive electronic attacks.
“Nation states, non-nation state actors and hacker groups are creating tools that are increasingly more persistent and threatening, and we have to be ready for that,” he said.
Amid a spate of high-profile cyber crimes, the Obama administration wants Congress to pass comprehensive cyber-security legislation that would increase the government’s ability to thwart the growing threat.
Alexander and other top officials held a classified meeting with lawmakers on Wednesday and Thursday to discuss the issue, according to sources familiar with the meeting.
Nasdaq CEO Robert Greifeld said in July that the exchange is under constant attack, requiring it to spend nearly a billion dollars a year on information security.
“As we sit here, there are people trying to slam into our system every day,” Greifeld said in the interview. “So we have to be ever vigilant against an ever-changing foe.”
(Reporting by Jim Finkle. Additional reporting by Jonathan Spicer in New York, Andrea Shalal-Esa in Baltimore and Diane Bartz in Washington. Editing by Tim Dobbyn, Tiffany Wu, and Bob Burgdorfer
AFP
US security firm Symantec has warned of a new computer virus similar to the malicious Stuxnet worm believed to have preyed on Iran’s nuclear program.
Symantec said Tuesday that the new virus, dubbed “Duqu” because it creates files with the file name prefix “DQ,” is similar to Stuxnet but is designed to gather intelligence for future attacks on industrial control systems.
“The threat was written by the same authors (or those that have access to the Stuxnet source code) and appears to have been created since the last Stuxnet file was recovered,” Symantec said on its website.
“Duqu’s purpose is to gather intelligence data and assets from entities, such as industrial control system manufacturers, in order to more easily conduct a future attack against another third party.
“The attackers are looking for information such as design documents that could help them mount a future attack on an industrial control facility.”
Symantec said the virus had been aimed at “a limited number of organizations for their specific assets,” without providing further information.
The company said it had been alerted to the threat on October 14 by a “research lab with strong international connections.”
Stuxnet was designed to attack computer control systems made by German industrial giant Siemens and commonly used to manage water supplies, oil rigs, power plants and other critical infrastructure.
Most Stuxnet infections have been discovered in Iran, giving rise to speculation it was intended to sabotage nuclear facilities there. The worm was crafted to recognize the system it was to attack.
The New York Times reported in January that US and Israeli intelligence services collaborated to develop the computer worm to sabotage Iran’s efforts to make a nuclear bomb.
Tehran has always denied it is seeking nuclear weapons.
AFPAFP
A computer virus that affected the US military’s drone fleet last month was not “specifically” aimed at the unmanned aircraft’s network, the head of US Strategic Command said Tuesday.
“It was a virus that we believe at this point entered from the wild, if you will, not specifically targeted at the RPA (remotely piloted aircraft) activities but entered through some other process,” General Robert Kehler told reporters.
“We’re not quite sure how that happened yet,” he said.
Discovered in mid-September at Creech Air Force base in Nevada, the virus infected computers in the ground control system for the drones, which is separate from the drones’ flight control system.
Drone flights in Afghanistan and other war zones directed from the Creech base were not affected by the virus, according the US Air Force.
One possible route for the virus could have come through hard drives in the ground control system, as the removable drives are used to transfer data and moved from “machine to machine,” Kehler said.
“So that opens the possibility to get something introduced in the system,” he said.
Wired magazine, which first reported the problem, had said the virus spread through removable hard drives used to load map updates and transfer mission videos from one computer to another.
In this case, Kehler said cyber security safeguards had performed successfully.
“All the information that I have would suggest that the systems that we have put in place to detect such viruses worked,” he said.
“We were able to quarantine the virus fairly quickly, we are still doing cleaning activities in some isolated machinery.”
The general added that US military networks are constantly being probed by outsiders.
“We see multiple deliberate attempts to try to get into our networks, almost daily.”
The US military’s newly created cyber command falls within Kehler’s Strategic Command, which also oversees the country’s nuclear arsenal.
By GAMAL ABDUL-FATTAH – Associated Press
SANAA, Yemen (AP) — Yemeni troops loyal to embattled President Ali Abdullah Saleh opened fire Tuesday at thousands of protesters calling for his ouster in the capital Sanaa, killing two, a medical official said.
The protesters marched through the streets surrounding Change Square, a central intersection where the uprising against Saleh started in February.
“The people want to prosecute the butcher,” the protesters chanted, and some held posters saying that after the death of Libya’s Moammar Gadhafi, it was time for Saleh to “listen to your people.”
The shooting broke out between Saleh’s forces and renegade troops loyal to Maj. Gen. Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar, who defected to the opposition and whose forces protect the protesters.
Mohammed al-Qubati, who runs a field hospital for the protesters, said two protesters were killed and at least 40 were wounded in the shooting. He said dozens had breathing difficulties from tear gas fired by the troops.
Saleh has clung to power despite more than nine months of massive street protests against him, inspired by Arab uprisings. After a June assassination attempt, he went to Saudi Arabia for treatment but abruptly returned to Yemen last month.
Saleh has also balked at signing a deal brokered by his powerful Arab Gulf neighbors and the United States in hopes of providing a smooth transition of power. Under the deal, Saleh would resign and hand power to his vice president in return for immunity from prosecution.
There are also worries that the intensified fighting could undermine U.S. and Saudi efforts to fight Yemen’s al-Qaida branch, considered by the U.S. to be the most dangerous of the terror network’s affiliates after it plotted two recent failed attacks on American soil.
On Friday, a U.N. Security Council resolution called for Saleh to immediately accept the deal and expressed grave concern at the situation in Yemen.
Also Tuesday, a Yemeni military plane crashed shortly before landing at the al-Ammad air base near the southern city of Aden.
Four people on board were killed and 11 injured, according to a security official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media. The official said a technical problem might have caused the crash. He said there were eight Syrians and seven Yemenis on board.
The powerful influence of the Sun and the nature of the mysterious ‘dark energy’ motivate European Space Agency’s next two science missions. Solar Orbiter and Euclid were selected by ESA’s Science Programme Committee for implementation, with launches planned for 2017 and 2019.
These two missions are medium-class missions and are the first in ESA’s Cosmic Vision 2015-2025 Plan.
Solar Orbiter will venture closer to the Sun than any previous mission. It is designed to make major breakthroughs in our understanding of how the Sun influences its environment, in particular how the Sun generates and propels the flow of particles in which the planets are bathed, known as the solar wind.
Solar activity affects the solar wind, making it very turbulent, and solar flares create strong perturbations in this wind, triggering spectacular auroral displays on Earth and other planets.
Solar Orbiter will be close enough to the Sun to sample this solar wind shortly after it has been ejected from the solar surface, while at the same time observing in great detail the process accelerating the wind on the Sun’s surface. The mission’s launch is planned for 2017 from Cape Canaveral with a NASA-provided Atlas launch vehicle.
Euclid is designed to explore the dark side of the Universe. Essentially a space telescope, the mission will map out the large-scale structure of the Universe with unprecedented accuracy. The observations will stretch across 10 billion light years into the Universe, revealing the history of its expansion and the growth of structure during the last three-quarters of its history.
One of the deepest modern mysteries is why the Universe is expanding at an ever-accelerating rate. This cosmic acceleration must be driven by something that astronomers have named ‘dark energy’ to signify its unknown nature. By using Euclid to study its effects on the galaxies and clusters of galaxies that trace the large-scale structure of the Universe, astronomers hope to be able to understand the exact nature of dark energy.
Euclid’s launch, on a Soyuz launch vehicle, is planned for 2019 from Europe’s Spaceport at Kourou, French Guiana.
“With the selection of Solar Orbiter and Euclid, the Science Programme has once more shown its relevance to pure science and to the concerns of citizens: Euclid will shed light on the nature of one of the most fundamental forces of the Universe, while Solar Orbiter will help scientists to understand processes, such as coronal mass ejections, that affect Earth’s citizens by disrupting, for example, radio communication and power transmission,” says Alvaro Giménez, ESA’s Director of Science and Robotic Exploration.
The announcement is the culmination of a process started in 2004 when ESA consulted the wider astronomical community to set Europe’s goals for space exploration in the coming decade. That exercise resulted in the Cosmic Vision 2015-2025 Plan, which identified four scientific aims: What are the conditions for life and planetary formation? How does the Solar System work? What are the fundamental laws of the Universe? How did the Universe begin and what is it made of?
In 2007, a ‘call for missions’ was issued around these aims and resulted in a number of medium-class missions being considered.
“It was an arduous dilemma for the Science Programme Committee to choose two from the three excellent candidates. All of them would produce world-class science and would put Europe at the forefront in the respective fields. Their quality goes to show the creativity and resources of the European scientific community,” said Fabio Favata, Head of the Science Programme’s Planning Office.
The Science Programme Committee decided to maintain the PLATO mission, not selected for a flight opportunity on this occasion, as a possible competitor for a future flight opportunity.
By Tarek Amara and Christian Lowe | Reuters TUNIS (Reuters) – Tunisia’s moderate Islamist party was preparing to lead a coalition government on Tuesday after its election win sent a message to the region that once-banned Islamists are challenging for power after the “Arab Spring.”
With election officials still counting the ballot papers, the Ennahda party said its own, unofficial tally showed it had won Sunday’s vote, the first since the uprisings which began in Tunisia and spread through the region.
Seeking to reassure secularists in Tunisia and elsewhere who see a threat to their liberal, modernist values, party officials said they would bring two secularist parties into a broad interim coalition that would govern the country.
“This is an historic moment,” said Zeinab Omri, a young woman in a hijab, or Islamic head scarf, who was among a cheering crowd outside the Ennahda headquarters when party officials claimed victory late on Monday.
“No one can doubt this result. This result shows very clearly that the Tunisian people is a people attached to its Islamic identity,” she said.
Two days after an unprecedented 90 percent of voters turned out for the election, officials were still counting the ballot papers in some areas. They said nationwide results would not be ready before Tuesday afternoon.
Sunday’s vote was for an assembly which will sit for one year to draft a new constitution. It will also appoint a new interim president and government to run the country until new elections late next year or early in 2013.
The voting system has built-in checks and balances which make it nearly impossible for any one party to have a majority, compelling Ennahda to seek alliances with secularist parties, which will dilute its influence.
BROAD ALLIANCE
Moncef Marzouki, the former dissident whose secularist Congress for the Republic was in second place according to unofficial results, said he was ready to work with Ennahda and with other parties.
“I am for a coalition government,” Marzouki, who spent years in exile in France before Tunisia’s revolution in January, told Reuters in an interview. “We wish to have a national government as wide as possible with all the parties.”
“There are lots of challenges which await us, and the political class should be worthy of the Tunisian people, which has given an exceptional lesson for the world.”
Ennahda officials named Marzouki’s party, and the left-wing secularist Ettakatol party, as favored coalition partners. Their presence in a coalition government may help reassure Tunisia’s secularists.
Another secularist party, the Progressive Democrats, rejected a coalition. That party has been the most forthright in saying the Islamists will erode Tunisia’s freedoms.
The election result is likely to resonate in Egypt, which starts voting in November in a multi-stage election. An Islamist party which shares much of the same ideology as Ennahda is predicted to perform strongly.
Tunisia became the birthplace of the “Arab Spring” when Mohamed Bouazizi, a vegetable seller in a provincial town, set fire to himself in protest at poverty and government repression.
His suicide in December provoked a wave of protests which forced autocratic President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali to flee to Saudi Arabia the following month.
The revolution in Tunisia, a former French colony, in turn inspired uprisings which forced out entrenched leaders in Egypt and Libya, and convulsed Yemen and Syria — re-shaping the political landscape of the Middle East.
TURKISH MODEL
Ennahda is led by Rachid Ghannouchi, forced into exile in Britain for 22 years because of harassment by Ben Ali’s police. A softly spoken scholar, he dresses in suits and open-necked shirts while his wife and daughter wear the hijab.
Ghannouchi is at pains to stress his party will not enforce any code of morality on Tunisian society, or the millions of Western tourists who holiday on its beaches. He models his approach on the moderate Islamism of Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan.
The party’s rise has been met with ambivalence by some people in Tunisia. The country’s strong secularist traditions go back to the first post-independence president, Habiba Bourguiba, who called the hijab an “odious rag.”
“I really feel a lot of fear and concern after this result,” said Meriam Othmani, a 28-year-old journalist. “Women’s rights will be eroded,” she said. “Also, you’ll see the return of dictatorship once Ennahda achieves a majority in the constituent assembly.”
Ennahda’s win was a remarkable turnaround for a party which just 10 months ago had to operate underground because of a government ban which had put hundreds of followers in prison.
In a slick and well-funded campaign, the party tapped into a desire among ordinary Tunisians to be able to express their faith freely after years of aggressively enforced secularism.
Western diplomats say Ennahda is largely funded by Tunisian businessmen, which they say means the party will pursue pro-market economic policies.
It also sought to show it could represent all Tunisians, including the large number who take a laissez-faire view of Islam’s strictures, drink alcohol, wear revealing clothes and rarely visit the mosque.
Secularist opponents say they believe this is just a cleverly constructed front that conceals more radical views, especially among Ennahda’s rank and file in the provinces.
(Additional reporting by Andrew Hammond in Tunis; Writing by Christian Lowe; Editing by Jon Boyle and Elizabeth Piper)
