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Since 2016, the Ethiopian government has targeted dissidents and journalists in nearly two dozen countries with spyware provided by an Israeli software company, according to a new report from Citizen Lab, a research and development group at the University of Toronto.

Once their computers are infected, victims of the attack can be monitored covertly whenever they browse the web, the report says.

Based on an in-depth analysis of the methods used to trick victims into installing the software, Citizen Lab concluded that “agencies of the Ethiopian government” deployed the spyware to target individuals critical of their policies. 

More than 40 devices in 20 countries were infected, according to Citizen Lab’s research. It’s unknown how many individuals might have been targeted.

​Full access

Citizen Lab’s report found that attackers used email to target dissidents, outspoken critics and perceived enemies by impersonating legitimate websites and software companies. In some cases, they sent messages about events related to Ethiopian politics, with links purporting to show related videos. 

Those links led to web pages that prompted victims to update their Flash Players or download “Adobe PdfWriter,” fictitious software that, in fact, led to CutePDF Writer, a tool to create PDF files.

The attackers embedded the spyware in bona fide programs by exploiting security vulnerabilities, creating the impression that recipients were installing legitimate software and coaxing them to provide the administrator-level permissions needed to activate the surveillance. Once installed, the spyware spread to additional files tied to web browsers, making the software difficult to remove and nearly always active.

Any activity on an infected computer can be monitored, and information from web searches, emails and Skype contact lists can be extracted. A remote operator can take screenshots and record audio and video from a connected webcam.

Based on information provided by WiFi networks, attackers can also track the physical location of the infected device.

“Once the government has that information, they can do things like hijacking your email account,” said Bill Marczak, a senior research fellow at Citizen Lab and lead author of the new report.

“So, they’ll sign into your email account and then use your account to target your friends and basically expand the number of targets they have,” Marczak told VOA.

Eritrean, Ethiopian dissidents among those targeted

In October 2016, the Ethiopian government declared a nearly year-long state of emergency following months of protests that spread across the country.

Those protests — and a subsequent government crackdown that resulted in more than 800 deaths, according to a 2016 report by Amnesty International — were monitored by diaspora media groups, including the Oromia Media Network. 

OMN’s executive director, Jawar Mohammed, was a confirmed target of the recently uncovered spyware attack. 

“The pattern seems to be that they were very interested in what these Oromo activists and journalists were saying, how they were working, and perhaps even whom they were talking to back in Ethiopia,” Marczak said.

The Citizen Lab report also found seven infections in Ethiopia’s neighbor and longtime rival, Eritrea, most of whom were targets with ties to Eritrean government agencies and businesses.

According to Human Rights Watch, this is at least the third spyware vendor since 2013 that Ethiopia has used to target dissidents, journalists and activists. 

Ethiopia previously used Remote Control System spyware from HackingTeam, an Italian company, to target journalists based in the United States, Citizen Lab said. It said Ethiopia also targeted dissidents using FinSpy spyware by FinFisher, a company based in Munich, Germany.

Citizen Lab’s analysis produced an unusual level of detail about the program due to the discovery of a publicly available log file with in-depth data about both the attackers and targets. After analyzing that file, Citizen Lab concluded “that the spyware’s operators are inside Ethiopia, and that victims also include various Eritrean companies and government agencies.”

Since the Israel-based spyware manufacturer was only authorized to sell their software to intelligence and law enforcement agencies, Citizen Lab concluded that the Ethiopian government was behind the attacks.

Israeli security firm

The group behind the spyware, Cyberbit, is a subsidiary of Elbit Systems, a $3 billion company that trades on the NASDAQ. Cyberbit describes itself as “a team of cybersecurity experts, who know firsthand what it means to protect high-risk organizations and manage complex incidents.”

The spyware used in the attacks uncovered by Citizen Lab is called PC Surveillance System (PSS). Cyberbit no longer lists PSS on its website, but marketing materials from 2015 describe the software as “a comprehensive solution for monitoring and extracting information from remote PCs.” 

Key features touted by Cyberbit include covert operation, the ability to bypass encryption and the ability to target devices anywhere in the world. Cyberbit marketed the product to intelligence organizations and law enforcement agencies.

Citizen Lab also determined that Cyberbit representatives contacted Zambia’s Financial Intelligence Center and potential clients in Rwanda and Nigeria.

Spying with impunity

Citizen Lab and Human Rights Watch both have raised concerns about the ease with which governments can acquire sophisticated surveillance tools to target dissidents with impunity.

According to Marczak, it’s legal to produce and sell spyware to governments and law enforcement organizations, but Cyberbit would have required approval from the Israeli government to export the software to Ethiopia.

Missing in the process, Marczak said, is careful consideration of the impact on human rights.

In their report, researchers with Citizen Lab concluded that, “The fact that PSS wound up in the hands of Ethiopian government agencies, which for many years have demonstrably misused spyware to target civil society, raises urgent questions around Cyberbit’s corporate social responsibility and due diligence efforts, and the effectiveness of Israel’s export controls in preventing human rights abuses.”

The use of spyware by governments to monitor people around the world also occupies a murky legal space.

In 2016, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia dismissed a lawsuit filed by an American citizen born in Ethiopia. The plaintiff claimed the Ethiopian government used spyware to monitor his activities for months, but the court dismissed the case because the law allegedly broken did not apply to foreign states.
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A bitcoin mining company in Slovenia has been hacked for the possible theft of tens of millions of dollars, just days before the virtual currency, which hit a record above $15,000 on Thursday, is due to start trading on major U.S. exchanges.

NiceHash, a company that mines bitcoins on behalf of customers, said it is investigating a security breach and will stop operating for 24 hours while it verifies how many bitcoins were taken.

Research company Coindesk said that a wallet address referred to by NiceHash users indicates that about 4,700 bitcoins had been stolen. At Thursday’s record price of about $15,000, that puts the value at over $70 million.

There was no immediate response from NiceHash to an emailed request for more details.

“The incident has been reported to the relevant authorities and law enforcement and we are cooperating with them as a matter of urgency,” it said. The statement urged users to change their online passwords.

Slovenian police are investigating the case together with authorities in other states, spokesman Bostjan Lindav said, without providing details.

 

The hack will put a spotlight on the security of bitcoin just as the trading community prepares for the currency to start trading on two established U.S. exchanges. Futures for bitcoin will start trading on the Chicago Board Options Exchange on Sunday evening and on crosstown rival CME Group’s platforms later in the month.

That has increased the sense among some investors that bitcoin is gaining in mainstream legitimacy after several countries, like China, tried to stifle the virtual currency.

 

As a result, the price of bitcoin has jumped in the past year, particularly so in recent weeks. On Thursday it surged to over $15,000, up $1,300 in less than a day, according to Coindesk. At the start of the year, one bitcoin was worth less than $1,000.

 

Bitcoin is the world’s most popular virtual currency. Such currencies are not tied to a bank or government and allow users to spend money anonymously. They are basically lines of computer code that are digitally signed each time they are traded.

 

A debate is raging on the merits of such currencies. Some say they serve merely to facilitate money laundering and illicit, anonymous payments. Others say they can be helpful methods of payment, such as in crisis situations where national currencies have collapsed.

Miners of bitcoins and other virtual currencies help keep the systems honest by having their computers keep a global running tally of transactions. That prevents cheaters from spending the same digital coin twice.

 

Online security is a vital concern for such dealings.

In Japan, following the failure of a bitcoin exchange called Mt. Gox, new laws were enacted to regulate bitcoin and other virtual currencies. Mt. Gox shut down in February 2014, saying it lost about 850,000 bitcoins, possibly to hackers.

Ali Zerdin in Ljubljana, Slovenia, and Carlo Piovano in London contributed to this story.
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Those apps on your phone are expected to earn their developers about $77 billion this year.  Some entrepreneurs who are looking to grab a bit of that market were showing off their products in Germany this week. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports.
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Imagine the day you board a bus and it starts moving. It obeys all traffic signs and stops at signal lights. All without a driver. That’s the future, happening right now at a business park in Northern California. VOA’s Carolyn Presutti takes us on what’s probably your first ride on a driverless shuttle bus.
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Apple’s chief executive said Wednesday he’s optimistic some apps that fell afoul of China’s tight internet laws will eventually be restored after being removed earlier this year.

Speaking at a business forum in southern China, CEO Tim Cook also dismissed criticism of his appearance days earlier at an internet conference promoting Beijing’s vison of a censored internet.

Cook’s high-profile appearance Sunday at the government-organized World Internet Conference drew comments from activists and U.S. politicians who say Apple should do more to push back against Chinese internet restrictions.

He said he believed strongly in freedoms but also thought that foreign companies need to play by local rules where they operate.

When asked about Chinese government policies requiring removal of apps, including ones from operators of virtual private networks that can get around the country’s internet filters, he said, “My hope over time is that some of these things, the couple things that have been pulled, come back.”

“I have great hope on that and great optimism,” he added.

Cook said he didn’t care about being criticized for working with China, because he believes change is more likely when companies participate rather than opting to “stand on the sideline and yell at how things should be.”
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Booming esports do not need the Olympics to maintain their explosive growth, but a link with the world’s biggest multisports event would validate gaming worldwide and give the Games a much-needed younger audience, industry leaders say.

Esports, the competitive side of electronic gaming, have an estimated 250 million players, more than several of the traditional Olympic sports federations combined.

The market is also worth about $1 billion dollars a year and growing, with lucrative tournaments springing up across the world and professional teams competing for huge prize money in front of millions of mainly young viewers online.

“This will be the biggest sport in the world within 20 years,” said Logitech CEO Bracken Darrell, whose company has been making computer and gaming equipment for decades and is now riding the wave of esports.

Logitech’s gaming division has enjoyed 25 to 35 percent growth annually in the past four years alone, Darrell told Reuters. “What has happened surprises us as much as it does everyone. Esports will probably be as big or bigger than football. The earlier the Olympics gets in the mix, the better.”

Tournaments around the world are packing arenas, with the Beijing’s Birds Nest stadium, host of the 2008 Olympics, filling up for last month’s League of Legends World Championship final, which also attracted 60 million viewers online.

Traditional sports team owners from every major league are buying into esports, eager to tap into the growing market.

Olympic recognition

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) last month recognized esports as a sport, the first clear indication to the growing industry that it wants to link up.

With the IOC’s traditional audience aging and several Olympic sports past their international sell-by date, it is desperate to attract younger people even if it means breaking with tradition.

“Esports are showing strong growth, especially within the youth demographic across different countries, and can provide a platform for engagement with the Olympic movement,” the IOC said last month.

Global audiences are expected to reach 385.5 million this year, according to research firm Newzoo, and as events multiply and interest grows, it looks like a one-way street for the IOC.

“We consider esports as entertainment with competitive and sports characteristics,” Jan Pommer, director of team and federation relations at the Electronic Sports League (ESL), a worldwide leader in organizing esports competitions, told Reuters.

“We fully recognize, though, the reservations of the traditional sports world. Esports competitors train like traditional athletes, they are very fit, they have their own nutritionists and psychologists. Esports has all the characteristics of traditional sports.”

Growth guaranteed

The lucrative young market has also attracted a multitude of other investors, such as NBA player Jonas Jerebko of the Utah Jazz, who recently acquired esports team Renegades. 

“I did some research and checked out how many people watch esports and how big they are getting,” Jerebko told Reuters. “How much prize money, how many sponsors were getting involved.

“There won’t be less esports — it’s going to continue to grow. Many of the traditional sports are losing athletes, the interest for the Olympics has probably declined with the existing sports, so they’re trying to win back this new audience.”

The benefits for the Olympics are clear, with a potential new stream of revenue through sponsorship, broadcast rights and marketing as well as a rejuvenation of their fan base.

It is not only the IOC, though, that emerges a winner in such a possible alliance, with esports shaking off its still somewhat amateur image, Darrell said.

“There is still a bit of a what-are-they-doing-in-the-basement feel to gaming,” he said. “[An Olympic association] would help validate where the whole industry has got to quietly.”

ESL’s Pommer said esports did not necessarily need to be part of the main Olympics.

“We can build bridges. We do not demand, the industry does not demand, anything from traditional sports. What we would like is a dialogue.

“In a way it could be like the International Paralympic Committee, which has an extended role to the Olympics. Esports could play a similar role,” he said. “The wide majority of the esports community would be happy with it. It would help us in terms of social acceptance if it were part of the Olympic family.”
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“Smart suitcases” may be able to charge mobile phones or be easily found if misplaced, but unless their battery can be removed they risk being sent packing by the world’s airlines.

Global airlines body IATA said it could issue industry-wide standards on the new luggage soon, after some U.S. airlines issued their own restrictions on smart bags, whose manufacturers include companies such as BlueSmart, Raden or Away.

These contain GPS tracking and can charge devices, weigh themselves or be locked remotely using mobile phones, but they are powered by lithium ion batteries, which the aviation industry regards as a fire risk, especially in the cargo hold.

“We expect guidance to be issued potentially this week,” Nick Careen, IATA senior vice president of airport, passenger, cargo and security, told a media briefing in Geneva on Tuesday, when asked about restrictions placed by some airlines.

U.S.-based carriers American Airlines, Delta and Alaska Airlines all said last week that as of Jan. 15, 2018, they would require the battery to be removed before allowing the bags on board.

Careen gave no details of any potential industry-wide standards, but said he expected others could quickly follow the example of the U.S. carriers.

Away and Raden say on their websites that batteries in their bags can be easily removed.

Concerns over the risk of a lithium ion battery fire were highlighted during the electronics ban temporarily imposed earlier this year on some flights to the United States.
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YouTube says it’s hiring more people to help curb videos that violate its policies.

YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki says “some bad actors are exploiting” the Google-owned service to “mislead, manipulate, harass or even harm.”

She says Google will have more than 10,000 workers address the problem by next year, though her blog post Monday doesn’t say how many the company already has.

Wojcicki says YouTube will also use technology to flag “problematic” videos or comments that show hate speech or harm to children. It’s already used to remove violent extremist videos.

YouTube is also taking steps to try to reassure advertisers that their ads won’t run next to gross videos.

There have been reports of creepy videos aimed at children and pedophiles posting comments on children’s videos in recent weeks.
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A joint operation involving Germany, the United States and Belarus has taken down a malware system known as “Andromeda” or “Gamarue” that infected more than 2 million computers globally, Europol said on Tuesday.

Andromeda is best described as a “botnet,” or group of computers that have been infected with a virus that allows hackers to control them remotely without the knowledge of their owners.

The police operation, which involved help from Microsoft, was significant both for the number of infected computers and because Andromeda had been used over a number of years to distribute new viruses, said Europol spokesman Jan Op Gen Oorth.

“Andromeda was one of the oldest malwares on the market,” added the spokesman for Europol, the EU’s law enforcement agency.

Authorities in Belarus said they had arrested a man on suspicion of selling malicious software and also providing technical support services. It did not identify the suspect.

Officers had seized equipment from his offices in Gomel, the second city in Berlaus, and he was cooperating with the investigation, the country’s Investigative Committee said.

Op Gen Oorth said the individual is suspected of being “a ringleader” of a criminal network surrounding Andromeda.

German authorities, working with Microsoft, had taken control of the bulk of the network, so that information sent from infected computers was rerouted to safe police servers instead, a process known as “sinkholing.”

Information was sent to the sinkhole from more than 2 million unique internet addresses in the first 48 hours after the operation began on November 29, Europol said.

Owners of infected computers are unlikely to even know or take action. More than 55 percent of computers found to be infected in a previous operation a year ago are still infected, Europol said.

Information about the operation has been gradually released by Europol, the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation and Belarus’s Investigative Committee over the past two days.

Reporting by Toby Sterling; Editing by Keith Weir.
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As greenhouse gases go, methane is one of the worst. Pound for pound, it is much more damaging to the atmosphere than carbon dioxide. And a good portion of it is emitted by domesticated cattle. Scientists have been working for some time on ways to cut that methane production as a way to help reduce global warming. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports.
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Facebook is coming for your kids.

The social media giant is launching a messaging app for children to chat with their parents and with friends approved by their parents.

The free app is aimed at kids under 13, who can’t yet have their own accounts under Facebook’s rules, though they often do.

Messenger Kids comes with a slew of controls for parents. The service won’t let children add their own friends or delete messages — only parents can do that. Kids don’t get a separate Facebook or Messenger account; rather, it’s an extension of a parent’s account.

A kids-focused experience

While children do use messaging and social media apps designed for teenagers and adults, those services aren’t built for them, said Kristelle Lavallee, a children’s psychology expert who advised Facebook on designing the service.

“The risk of exposure to things they were not developmentally prepared for is huge,” she said.

Messenger Kids, meanwhile, “is a result of seeing what kids like,” which is images, emoji and the like. Face filters and playful masks can be distracting for adults, Lavallee said, but for kids who are just learning how to form relationships and stay in touch with parents digitally, they are ways to express themselves.

Lavallee, who is content strategist at the Center on Media and Child Health at Boston Children’s Hospital and Harvard University, called Messenger Kids a “useful tool” that “makes parents the gatekeepers.” But she said that while Facebook made the app “with the best of intentions,” it’s not yet known how people will actually use it.

As with other tools Facebook has released in the past, intentions and real-world use do not always match up. Facebook’s live video streaming feature, for example, has been used for plenty of innocuous and useful things, but also to stream crimes and suicides.

Hooked on Facebook

Is Messenger Kids simply a way for Facebook to rope in the young ones?

Stephen Balkam, CEO of the nonprofit Family Online Safety Institute, said “that train has left the station.”

Federal law prohibits internet companies from collecting personal information on kids under 13 without their parents’ permission and imposes restrictions on advertising to them. This is why Facebook and many other social media companies prohibit younger kids from joining. Even so, Balkam said millions of kids under 13 are already on Facebook, with or without their parents’ approval.

He said Facebook is trying to deal with the situation pragmatically by steering young Facebook users to a service designed for them.

Facebook said Messenger Kids won’t show ads or collect data for marketing. Facebook also said it won’t automatically move users to the regular Messenger or Facebook when they get old enough, though the company might give them the option to move contacts to Messenger down the line.

Messenger Kids is launching Monday in the U.S. on Apple devices — the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch. Versions for Android and Amazon’s tablets are coming later.
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The high-profile attendance of the leaders of Apple and Google at a Chinese conference promoting Beijing’s vision of a censored internet highlights the dilemma for Western tech companies trying to expand in an increasingly lucrative but restricted market.

 

The event in Wuzhen, a historic canal town outside Shanghai, marked the first time chiefs of two of the world’s biggest tech companies have attended the annual state-run World Internet Conference.

 

Apple CEO Tim Cook told the gathering as the conference opened Sunday that his company was proud to work with Chinese partners to build a “common future in cyberspace.”

 

His and Google CEO Sundar Pichai’s presence along with other business leaders, diplomats and other experts, some analysts say, helped bestow credibility on Beijing’s preferred version of an internet sharply at odds with Silicon Valley’s dedication to unfettered access.

 

Chinese President Xi Jinping vowed, in remarks to the conference conveyed by an official, that “China’s door to the world will never close, but will only open wider.”

 

As in previous years, organizers allowed attendees unrestricted access to the internet, contrary to official policy under which internet users face extensive monitoring and censorship and are blocked from accessing many overseas sites by the so-called Great Firewall of China.

 

Since Xi came to power in 2013, he has tightened controls and further stifled free expression, activists say.

 

Beijing’s restraints also extend to Western companies like Google, Twitter and Facebook, which have largely been shut out from the market, leaving it to homegrown internet giants like Tencent.

Apple has a large production base in China, which is one of its biggest markets, though domestic smartphone makers are catching up.

 

It has been criticized by some app developers for complying with Chinese censorship demands. In July, companies that let people get around the government’s internet filters – known as virtual private network providers – said their programs had been removed from Apple’s app store in China. One such company, ExpressVPN, said Apple was “aiding China’s censorship effort.”

 

Apple said that China began requiring this year that developers of virtual-private networks have a government license. The California-based tech giant said it had removed apps “in China that do not meet the new regulations.” Two Apple spokeswomen couldn’t be reached by phone for comment.

 

“The problem is that these companies are between a rock and a hard place,” said Rogier Creemers, a China researcher at Leiden University who attended the conference. They covet China’s huge market but if they do make it in, as in Apple’s case, local law “requires things that Western observers generally are uncomfortable with,” he said.

 

Cook’s speech drew a big crowd. He said the company supports more than 5 million jobs in China, including 1.8 million software developers who have earned more than 112 billion yuan ($17 billion).

 

It’s Apple’s responsibility to ensure that “technology is infused with humanity,” he said, avoiding mention of any sensitive topics.

 

Google shut the Chinese version of its search engine in 2010 over censorship concerns. Pichai has talked about wanting to re-enter China, and he told a panel discussion in Wuzhen that small and mid-sized Chinese businesses use Google services to get their products to other countries, according to a report in the South China Morning Post. A Google spokesman declined to comment.

 

The tech giants may have chosen to appear at the conference because the current political climate in the United States encourages a pragmatic approach in pursuing business regardless of other concerns, said Jonathan Sullivan, director of the University of Nottingham’s China Policy Institute.

 

“There has never been a time when an American company is less likely to be called out by the White House for pursuing a business-first approach,” said Sullivan.
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Facebook’s chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg warned of a potential backlash against women and urged companies to put into place clear policies on how allegations of sexual harassment are handled.

 

In a Facebook post over the weekend, Sandberg said that she has experienced harassment while doing her job but never by anyone she’s worked for. She did note, however, that in each instance the harasser had more power than she did.

 

“That’s not a coincidence,” the 48-year-old wrote. “It’s why they felt free to cross that line.”

 

Sandberg said that the current movement taking place, following the high-profile sexual misconduct scandals of those including Harvey Weinstein, Kevin Spacey and Matt Lauer, is empowering victims to speak up but is not enough.

 

The Facebook executive said “too many workplaces lack clear policies about how to handle accusations of sexual harassment.” She recommends every workplace start with clear principles and put in place policies to support them. That includes creating training sessions on proper workplace behavior, taking all claims seriously, establishing an investigation process and taking swift, decisive action against wrongdoing.

 

“We have to be vigilant to make sure this happens,” Sandberg wrote. “I have already heard the rumblings of a backlash: “This is why you shouldn’t hire women. Actually, this is why you should.”
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Luxury brands are switching gears at this year’s Los Angeles Auto Show. Manufacturers once known for iconic sports cars are facing an identity crisis — trying to compete with Tesla’s electric autos while still serving Americans’ love of SUVs (sport utility vehicles). Arash Arabasadi reports
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Facebook opens its new London office on Monday and said it would add 800 more jobs in the capital next year, underlining its commitment to Britain as the country prepares for Brexit.

The social network said more than half of the people working at the site in central London will focus on engineering, making it Facebook’s biggest engineering hub outside the United States.

It will also house Facebook’s first in-house start-up incubator, called LDN_LAB, designed to help kick start fledgling British digital businesses.

EMEA vice president Nicola Mendelsohn said Facebook was more committed than ever to the U.K. and supporting the growth of the country’s innovative start-ups.

“The U.K.’s flourishing entrepreneurial ecosystem and international reputation for engineering excellence makes it one of the best places in the world to build a tech company,” she said.

“And we’ve built our company here – this country has been a huge part of Facebook’s story over the past decade, and I look forward to continuing our work to achieve our mission of bringing the world closer together.”

The new jobs, which come 10 years after the company set up its first London office, will take Facebook’s total British workforce to more than 2,300 by the end of 2018, it said.

Facebook, along with other U.S. digital giants including Google and Amazon, has not been deterred from expanding in London by Britain’s decision to leave the European Union.

It announced the new headquarters last year, shortly after Google said it was building a new hub in the city that will be able to accommodate more than 7,000 employees in total.

Facebook’s new office in the capital’s West End, designed by architect Frank Gehry, will house engineers, developers, marketing and sales teams working on products like Workplace, its business product which was built in London, it said.
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Fracking, at least in the U.S., has changed the country’s energy outlook. It has cut the cost of fossil fuels and turned the U.S. into a net exporter of fuel. But fracking hasn’t had the same effect in Britain, and geologists say the island nation’s unique geology means fracking will never solve their energy problems. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports.
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Toyota Motor Corporation recently unveiled a high-tech personal assistant at the International Robot Exhibition in Tokyo. It mimics the moves of the user, which Toyota says may turn this machine into a caregiver for the elderly. Arash Arabasadi reports.
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Britain’s cybersecurity agency has told government departments not to use antivirus software from Moscow-based firm Kaspersky Lab amid concerns about Russian snooping.

Ciaran Martin, head of the National Cyber Security Centre, said “Russia is acting against the U.K.’s national interest in cyberspace.”

In a letter dated Friday to civil service chiefs, he said Russia seeks “to target U.K. central government and the U.K.’s critical national infrastructure.” He advised that “a Russia-based provider should never be used” for systems that deal with issues related to national security.

The agency said it’s not advising the public at large against using Kaspersky’s popular antivirus products.

Martin says British authorities are holding talks with Kaspersky about developing checks to prevent the “transfer of U.K. data to the Russian state.”

Kaspersky has denied wrongdoing and says it doesn’t assist Russian cyberespionage efforts.

In September, the U.S. government barred federal agencies from using Kaspersky products because of concerns about the company’s ties to the Kremlin and Russian spy operations.

News reports have since linked Kaspersky software to an alleged theft of cybersecurity information from the U.S. National Security Agency.

Britain has issued increasingly strong warnings about Russia’s online activity. Martin said last month that Russian hackers had targeted the U.K.’s media, telecommunications and energy sectors in the past year.

U.S. authorities are investigating alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election, and some British lawmakers have called for a similar probe into the U.K.’s European Union membership referendum.

Prime Minister Theresa May said last month that Russia was “weaponizing information” and meddling in elections to undermine the international order.
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The world’s largest lithium ion battery has begun providing electricity into the power grid in South Australia.  The project is a collaboration between the state government, American firm Tesla, and Neoen, a French energy company. 

Tesla boss Elon Musk, who was not in attendance at the switch-on, had boldly promised to build the battery in South Australia within 100 days – a pledge that has been fulfilled.  The 100-megawatt battery was officially activated Friday.  Musk has said it was three times more powerful than the world’s next biggest battery, and promised to deliver it for free had it not been built on schedule.

The South Australian state government hopes the project can prevent power outages because it can rapidly deploy electricity when it is most needed and reduce prices.

Last September, South Australia suffered a state-wide power outage when storms damaged the electricity network.

State premier Jay Weatherill believes the new battery will guarantee energy supplies.

“People were making fun of South Australia for its leadership in renewable energy and blaming it for the black-out,” said Weatherill. “That, of course, has now been debunked as a myth.  We now know that our leadership in renewable energy is not only leading the nation but leading the world, and we are more than happy to supply our beautiful renewable energy stored in a battery to help out the national electricity market.”

Located near Jamestown, about 200 kilometers north of Adelaide, the Tesla-built 100 megawatt lithium ion battery is connected to a wind farm run by French energy company Neoen.

The farm has 99 wind turbines and generates electricity that can be stored in the battery to serve 30,000 people for about an hour.  In a statement, the California-based firm said the project in South Australia showed “that a sustainable, effective energy solution is possible”.

Critics of the battery have said the technology’s potential has been exaggerated.

The bulk of Australia’s electricity is still generated by coal, and the nation is one of the world’s worst per capita emitters of greenhouses gases.

 

 
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More than a century after being unearthed in Egypt, a nearly 2000-year-old mummy is giving scientists, museum curators and medical researchers a unique look at the ancient world. Faith Lapidus reports.
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