Cutting edge telecoms sat launches

25 July 2013 Last updated at 15:56 ET By Jonathan Amos Science correspondent, BBC News

London-based Inmarsat, which provides mobile satellite telecommunications, has launched its latest spacecraft.

Alphasat I-XL rode an Ariane 5 to orbit, lifting clear of the Kourou spaceport in French Guiana at 16:54 local time (19:54 GMT) on Thursday.

The satellite is the product of a major public-private partnership involving Inmarsat and the European Space Agency.

The 6.6-tonne Alphasat incorporates a host of new technologies that should benefit both parties.

Thursday's Ariane flight lasted just over half an hour and saw the rocket deploy a second satellite, also - INSAT-3D, a meteorology mission for India.

Alphasat represents the first test of a new heavyweight class of chassis, or bus, that will allow European manufacturers to make telecoms spacecraft that weigh up to 8.8 tonnes with a power output of 22kW.

This has led some to refer to the Alphasat design as the "A380 of space".

For Inmarsat, the most important aspect of the new satellite is the inclusion of an advanced digital signal processor made in Portsmouth in southern England.

This processor, allied to the platform's smart 11m by 13m antenna system, can channel significant bandwidth and power on to specific locations on the ground.

'Agile' satellite

It will ensure Inmarsat's L-band radio-frequency allocation is used in the most efficient way possible. It should also be much more responsive to customers' varying demands, be they big TV companies, shipping concerns, airlines, the armed forces, or any group that uses on-the-go telecommunications in remote areas.

"Agility is key to this kind of satellite," says Rupert Pearce, Inmarsat's CEO.

"Its technology will work into the mid-2020s and beyond, which is a challenging thing for an operator to back because you have to figure out how you can make that technology relevant for so long. That's why the flexibility in Alphasat is so important."

Inmarsat has invested £240m ($370m/280m euros) in the project. Esa has put up about £320m ($490m/340m euros). The French space agency, the other big institutional partner on the venture, has also made a considerable financial outlay.

In addition to its commercial duties, Alphasat has a number of experimental payloads to test.

The most noteworthy of these is a laser-based communications system.

Developed in Germany, this technology will form the basis of Europe's forthcoming orbital data relay system, which will permit gigabit connections between Earth observation satellites and the ground.

Alphasat will validate the laser terminal by downlinking pictures from the EU's Sentinel-1a radar spacecraft when it launches next year.

"We will use the Alphasat terminal with Sentinel-1a to check all the functionality is there. Then we will deploy the full European Data Relay System," says Magali Vaissière, Esa's top telecoms official now based at Harwell in the UK.

Alphasat was built in a collaboration between Europe's two big satellite manufacturers - Astrium and Thales Alenia Space. They will both be able to offer the new big bus in their product lines.

Quite how much demand there will be remains to be seen. When Alphasat was first envisaged, there was a trend towards ever bigger telecommunications satellites. That trend may have stalled with telecoms operators currently showing interest in spacecraft that can be sized to launch on smaller, cheaper rockets.

"This bus will not form a major part of the market; it is really just for the top end, for those who need a lot of processing power and flexibility. But we have a number of possibilities we are discussing right now," says Eric Béranger, who heads up satellite production at Astrium.

Both Alphasat and INSAT-3D must raise their obits in the coming days to their final orbital slots. For Alphasat, this is some 36,000km above the equator at 25 degrees East. The spacecraft must also deploy its antenna, umbrella style. This is a critical event. Without this equipment, Alphasat has no mission.

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Chinese firm controls UK porn filter

25 July 2013 Last updated at 19:01 ET By Dave Lee Technology reporter, BBC News

The pornography filtering system praised by David Cameron is controlled by the controversial Chinese company Huawei, the BBC has learned.

UK-based employees at the firm are able to decide which sites TalkTalk's net filtering service blocks.

Politicians in both the UK and US have raised concerns about alleged close ties between Huawei and the Chinese government.

The company says the worries are without foundation and prejudiced.

On Monday the Prime Minister said TalkTalk had shown "great leadership" in setting up its system, Homesafe, which it has offered to customers since 2011.

TalkTalk told the BBC it was comfortable with its relationship with Huawei, and that the service was very popular.

Homesafe is a voluntary scheme which allows subscribers to select categories - including social media, gambling and pornography - that they want blocked.

Customers who do not want filtering still have their traffic routed through the system, but matches to Huawei's database are dismissed rather than acted upon.

Accountability question

Mr Cameron has demanded similar measures be adopted by all internet service providers (ISPs) in the UK, to "protect our children and their innocence".

He said ISPs would be monitored to ensure filtering was done correctly, but that they should choose their own preferred solution.

However, one expert insisted that private companies should not hold power over blacklists, and that the responsibility should lie with an independent group.

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David Cameron: "In the balance between freedom and responsibility we have neglected our responsibility to children"

"It needs to be run by an organisation accountable to a minister so it can be challenged in Parliament," Dr Martyn Thomas, chair of the IT policy panel at the Institution of Engineering and Technology, told the BBC.

"There's certainly a concern about the process of how a web address gets added to a blacklist - who knows about it, and who has an opportunity to appeal against it," he added.

"You could easily imagine a commercial organisation finding itself on that blacklist wrongly, and where they actually lost a lot of web traffic completely silently and suffered commercial damage. The issue is who gets to choose who's on that blocking list, and what accountability do they have?"

'Policing themselves'

For almost a decade, Huawei has been a core part of telecoms infrastructure in the UK - its biggest client, BT, has routinely said it has no concerns about using the firm.

Huawei's founder Ren Zhengfei, a former officer in China's People's Liberation Army, visited Downing Street last year after his company made a £1.3bn investment into its UK operations.

Continue reading the main story

Prime Minister David Cameron has announced that UK internet service providers (ISPs) will be putting pornography filters on domestic internet connections.

The speech is the culmination of a long campaign by the government to get ISPs to impose default filters for adult and sensitive subjects. But what will the changes mean in practice?

But Huawei's position was recently the subject of an Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) report. It criticised the lack of ministerial oversight over the firm's rapid expansion in the UK.

The committee said "the alleged links between Huawei and the Chinese State are concerning, as they generate suspicion as to whether Huawei's intentions are strictly commercial or are more political" - but added that it had not found any evidence of wrongdoing.

It said it had worries that a UK-based testing centre set up to examine Huawei products was staffed by experts employed by the Chinese firm.

The ISC said Huawei was "effectively policing themselves".

In the US, intelligence committees have gone further, branding Huawei a threat to national security.

For its part, Huawei strongly denies having close ties with the Chinese government, pointing out it is 98.6% owned by its employees - with the remaining amount held by Mr Ren. It welcomed the ISC's call for a review of the testing centre.

Huawei executive Chen Li Fang said the company should not be treated unfairly just because it was Chinese.

The UK government said it too agreed with the ISC's call to review the testing centre, adding that it works with all major communications providers to ensure security.

"Our work with Huawei and their UK customers gives us confidence that the networks in the UK that use Huawei equipment are operated to a high standard of security and integrity," a spokesman said.

Policy enforcement

Web filtering, which is not considered critical national infrastructure, was not covered in the ISC's report.

But the logistics of how Mr Cameron's plans will be implemented have been the subject of much debate.

Initially, TalkTalk told the BBC that it was US security firm Symantec that was responsible for maintaining its blacklist, and that Huawei only provided the hardware, as previously reported.

However, Symantec said that while it had been in a joint venture with Huawei to run Homesafe in its early stages, it had not been involved for over a year.

TalkTalk later confirmed it is Huawei that monitors activity, checking requests against its blacklist of over 65 million web addresses, and denying access if there is a match.

The contents of this list are largely determined by an automated process, but both Huawei and TalkTalk employees are able to add or remove sites independently.

Illegal websites - including ones showing images of child abuse - are blocked for all customers with the help of a list maintained by the non-profit Internet Watch Foundation.

Mr Cameron said that the actions of ISPs would be monitored to ensure filtering is done correctly.

Communications regulator Ofcom is expected to play some role in this, possibly by auditing the firms and reporting back to ministers regularly.

Follow Dave Lee on Twitter @DaveLeeBBC

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Sony confirms Gran Turismo movie

By Jonathan Blake
Newsbeat technology reporter

Sony has confirmed that a film based on the Gran Turismo PlayStation game is in development.

The company said it could not provide any further details about the movie or when it would be made.

The Social Network and Fifty Shades of Grey producers Michael De Luca and Dana Brunetti have been linked to the project.

Gran Turismo is one of Sony's most popular franchises, selling 70 million copies worldwide.

The newest game in the series, Gran Turismo 6, is expected to be released later this year.

Sony executives Elizabeth Cantillon, DeVon Franklin and Hannah Minghella will oversee the project, according to Hollywood news site The Wrap.

An adaptation of the long running Need for Speed franchise is due to be released early in 2014.

The DreamWorks production will feature Breaking Bad star Aaron Paul and British actor Dominic Cooper.

There have also been several video game releases based on the Fast and Furious films.

Gran Turismo was first released in 1997 and versions of the game have been developed for all Sony PlayStation consoles since.

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Bots help geeks nab best tables

26 July 2013 Last updated at 07:07 ET By Mark Ward Technology correspondent, BBC News

If you want a good table at a top restaurant in Silicon Valley you had better be a good programmer.

Coders in San Francisco are using custom written programmes, or bots, to grab the good tables leaving other diners frustrated.

The bots watch restaurant websites to spot when tables become available then reserve them before humans can react.

The use of bots has made it almost impossible to get good tables at some of the most popular Valley eateries.

Dinner mix

The growing use of bots was uncovered by programmer Diogo Monica who wrote a small programme to help him spot free tables at his favourite San Francisco restaurant State Bird Provisions (SBP).

The code emailed Mr Monica when other diners cancelled reservations or SBP released more tables. While the code helped him get a table now and then it quickly became ineffective. Close scrutiny of the SBP website revealed why.

"I found myself looking at it and noticed that as soon as reservations became available on the website (at 04:00), all the good times were immediately taken and were gone by 04:01," he wrote.

"It quickly became obvious that these were reservation bots at work," he said. This was making it all but impossible for anyone to get a table at SBP which is almost always fully booked, up to 60 days ahead.

In retaliation, Mr Monica wrote his own reservation bot and has started to regularly get a table at SBP.

He told the BBC that he knew of other programmers using bots to snap up tables at many restaurants in and around the Valley and added that there were also websites, such as Hacker Table, that let anyone automate the process of grabbing a table.

"It is a big problem in SF, yes, but only for the 'hip' restaurants," he told the BBC.

London was likely to have less of a problem with such bots, said Frances Dore, a spokeswoman for Caprice Holdings which runs restaurants such as The Ivy, Scott's and Le Caprice.

Ms Dore said regulars at its restaurants typically knew the maitre d' well enough to ensure that they got a table at very short notice. Few regulars would have to rely on software to secure a spot.

While online reservations were important to a lot of restaurants now, none would rely on them to entirely fill their tables, she said.

"No restaurant worth its salt will have a booking mechanism that is all online," she said. "It would be suicidal to do it all that way."

Better restaurants took seriously the mix of people in their establishment, she said, and on any night the clientele would be made up of regulars, reservations and walk-ins who were happy to wait for a table to become free.

"You try to manage the mix as much as possible rather than opening it up to complete strangers every night," she said.

Bot wars

Mr Monica's blog post about his bot prompted many people to confess in emails to him and via Twitter that they had written their own code to do a similar job. Mr Monica has also published the core code for his reservations programme which may also prompt others to create their own version.

Security expert Martin Zetterlund from Sentor which helps websites defeat bots and related attack tools called scrapers said machines could be hard to beat.

"When competing for any type of scarce resource a bot will always be better than a human," he said. "It will never sleep and it reacts in a microsecond."

While bots could be easy to spot because they act far faster than people, many good bot writers worked hard to conceal who was snapping up tickets or stealing data, he said.

Mr Monica said he expected to see a reaction from other bot writers and he was prepared to up the stakes. The next step might be to locate his server closer to that running the SBP website to give his bots a micro-second advantage.

"As for tactics, think of this war like high-frequency trading," he said. "The people with the best algorithms/optimisations will have an edge over everyone else."

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Vivendi in $8.2bn Activision sale

26 July 2013 Last updated at 08:38 ET

French media group Vivendi has agreed to sell control of US games firm Activision Blizzard, the company behind Call of Duty and World of Warcraft.

Vivendi is selling 85% of its 61.1% stake in Activision to the company and its management for $8.2bn (£5.3bn).

It is the second big deal announced by Vivendi this week.

On Tuesday, the company said it was in talks over selling its controlling stake in Maroc Telecom for 4.2bn euros ($5.6bn; £3.6bn).

The deals are part of Vivendi's plans to restructure the business and reduce its debt levels.

'Financial flexibility'

Vivendi chairman Jean-Francois Dubos said: "This transaction represents an important step forward in the strategic review conducted by the Vivendi Supervisory Board over the last year.

"It provides the group with greater financial flexibility and creates value for our shareholders."

The company said it would use part of the sale proceeds to strengthen its balance sheet and maintain the firm's debt rating.

It added that Vivendi's board would determine "the appropriate use of the remaining proceeds".

UBS analyst Polo Tang said that after the firm had paid down debt, "we expect the rest to be used for share buybacks or M&A to bulk up the media side of the business".

Under the terms of the deal, which is expected to be completed in September, Activision will by back 429 million shares from Vivendi for $5.8bn.

In addition, an investor group including Activision management will also buy 172 million shares for $2.3bn.

After the sale, Vivendi will retain a holding of 12% in the games firm.

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Cybersquatters descend on royal baby

26 July 2013 Last updated at 08:57 ET

Cybersquatters have leapt at the chance to register domain names referring to the new royal baby, Prince George.

Within moments of the baby's name being announced, domains such as GeorgeAlexanderLouis.com and princegeorgecambridge.co.uk were taken.

Purchases of domain names mentioning the name "George" rose by 106.9%, reseller Names.co.uk said.

One buyer of a royal baby-related domain has put it up for sale at £10,000.

The owner, Matt James, snapped up hrhprincegeorgecambridge.co.uk on 24th July - the day of the naming announcement.

He told the BBC: "Like most British people, I was glued to the TV, excited about the birth and thought a baby Prince domain name had potential.

"If it does sell for £10,000, I will definitely give half to a charity associated with Will and Kate."

Between 22 and 25 July, Names.co.uk noted 413 individual domains that contained one or more of the words Royal, Baby, HRH, Prince, George, Alexander and or Louis.

Opportunistic buyers were busy snapping up royal baby-related names well before the prince was even born - the less-than-appealing name royalfoetus.com was bought in December last year.

Rainforest wrangles

Cybersquatting is a common concern for companies who are determined to protect their brand online.

Firms like Google go to great lengths to prevent embarrassment by buying up hundreds of domains like googlesucks.com - but also domains used to imitate brands for more malicious reasons, such as "phishing" scams which seek to trick users into thinking they are on a legitimate website.

Soon, Icann - the body responsible for overseeing the domain name system - will roll-out custom top level domains, paving the way for suffixes like .google and .apple as well as the more typical .com and .co.uk. The BBC has applied to have .bbc.

Companies have been invited to request ownership of domains which relate to trademarks they own.

The process has stirred some controversy, however - online shop Amazon has been denied the use of .amazon after a challenge from several Latin American companies.

They argued the domain should be used to reflect the rainforest region rather than the retail giant.

"'.amazon' is a geographic name that represents important territories of some of our countries which have relevant communities, with their own culture and identity directly connected with the name," said a letter from the countries.

"Beyond the specifics, this should also be understood as a matter of principle."

An Icann sub-committee agreed with this argument, but its decision is not final and can be overruled by the Icann board.

At the time of writing, .prince is still available as a suffix, however .george has been requested by Wal-Mart, presumably in relation to the clothing brand.

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Elite hacker dies ahead of event

26 July 2013 Last updated at 11:44 ET

An elite hacker who was due to demonstrate how heart implants could be hacked has died unexpectedly in San Francisco.

Barnaby Jack died on Thursday, the city's medical examiner's office told Reuters, but did not give more details.

He had been due to give a presentation into medical device vulnerabilities at the Black Hat security conference in Las Vegas taking place next week.

He had said one technique could kill a man from 30 feet (nine metres) away.

IOActive, the security firm at which Mr Jack was director of embedded devices, said it was preparing a statement.

In a tweet, the company said: "Lost but never forgotten our beloved pirate, Barnaby Jack has passed."

His sister Amberleigh Jack, who lives in New Zealand, told Reuters news agency he was 35.

Mr Jack became one of the most famous hackers on the planet after a 2010 demonstration in which he hacked a cashpoint, making it give out money. The technique was dubbed "Jackpotting".

'Social media flood'

More recently, he emerged as a leading expert in the weaknesses that could be found in medical technology.

Last year, he told the BBC about how he had discovered flaws in widely-used insulin pumps which allowed him to compromise the devices.

The hack made it possible to control them and administer a fatal level of insulin, Mr Jack said.

"My purpose was not to allow anyone to be harmed by this because it is not easy to reproduce," he told the BBC during an interview in April 2012.

"But hopefully it will promote some change in these companies and get some meaningful security in these devices."

Mr Jack's expertise and vivid demonstrations of his knowledge at events like Black Hat earned him the respect of many security professionals.

Amberleigh Jack thanked those who have been posting messages of sympathy online.

"So humbled by the social media flood of people that loved @barnaby_jack," she tweeted.

"Thank you all so much for your kind words."

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