NIST, NASA Launch Joint Effort to Develop New Climate Satellites

March 2, 2010 - One of the three CLARREO satellites, which will make observations of the energy the Earth absorbs from the sun and radiates back into space. The balance between them affects the climate.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) have launched a joint effort to gather enhanced climate data from spaceborne climate observation instruments planned for a group of satellites now under development.

The Climate Absolute Radiance and Refractivity Observatory (CLARREO) Mission includes a fleet of satellites tentatively scheduled for launch later this decade that will gather data for long-term climate projections. The CLARREO mission will provide an accurate climate record of the complete spectrum of energy that Earth reflects and radiates back into space, measurements that should provide a clearer understanding of the climate system.

NIST’s role will focus on the calibration of the instruments aboard CLARREO satellites, as well as on the accuracy that the sensors must meet. The measurements need to be characterized to far greater accuracy—from two to 10 times better, depending on the wavelength of light in question—and detector standards need to be developed for the far infrared region of the spectrum. NIST will also help NASA improve its own capabilities in instrument calibration. The collaboration was finalized in a Space Act Agreement on Feb. 4, 2010.

CLARREO, led by NASA Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va., is now among NASA’s top-priority missions because of its high ranking by the National Research Council, which designated CLARREO one of its four “Tier One” missions when it evaluated proposals in 2007. NASA is allocating $270,000 for NIST’s contributions to the project this year.

The mission is part of a longer-term effort to establish global long-term climate records that are of high accuracy and traceable to the international system of units (SI). The CLARREO satellites and other instruments will be calibrated against international standards based on SI, so that observations from different times and locations can be compared usefully, creating a more reliable record of long-term climate trends.

Call Forwarding: New NIST Procedure Could Speed Cell Phone Testing

March 2, 2010 - By accurately re-creating the jumbled wireless signal environment of a city business district in a special indoor test facility, researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have shown how the wireless industry could lop hours off the process of testing the capabilities of new cellular phones. The NIST techniques also could simulate complex real-world environments for design and test of other wireless equipment.

As described in a forthcoming paper,* NIST researchers conducted tests in downtown Denver, Colo., to measure precisely the clustering of signal reflections from radio waves bouncing off one or more multi-story buildings multiple times before reaching a distant receiver. The researchers replicated this environment indoors using a “reverberation chamber,” a room with highly reflective surfaces and a big, slowly rotating paddle that automatically alters signal paths. First, researchers feed a wireless transmitter’s signal into a device called a fading simulator, which is adjusted to re-create the timing and strength of the reflections of an outdoor urban area. The output then is fed into the reverberation chamber, where signal reflections decay exponentially over time, creating a cluster of signals similar to that observed in the field tests.

Industry certification of cell phones currently requires tests of parameters such as total radiated power using the opposite of a reverberation chamber, a room called an anechoic chamber that is lined with materials that absorb radio waves and reflect as little as possible. This testing takes about a day, requiring dozens of measurements of cell phone directional power from multiple angles. By contrast, an equivalent set of tests could be performed in about an hour in a reverberation chamber, according to NIST engineer Kate Remley, a senior author of the new paper. Reverberation chambers also could be used to measure cell phone receiver sensitivity, although currently there would be no time savings for this test, Remley says. Many industry testing practices are established by CTIA-The Wireless Association, the trade group representing the wireless industry.

NIST is studying new applications for reverberation chambers, which have typically been used to measure electronic equipment’s immunity to radio-frequency interference. By adjusting the reflectivity of the chamber through selective use of signal-absorbing material, researchers have found they can “tune” the signal decay time to simulate the conditions found in real-world environments. NIST researchers expect the new method will be useful for test and design of wireless devices such as cell phones, notebook computers equipped with wireless links, as well as new technology such as wireless beacons being developed for the emergency responder community.

The Denver tests were conducted in 2009. NIST researchers measured the power delays between a transmitter and a distant receiver positioned on streets lined with buildings three floors high or taller and a flat, single-layer parking lot. Most buildings were constructed of glass, steel, and concrete.

Mouse Work: New Insights on a Fundamental DNA Repair Mechanism

New research on a house mouse enzyme, Mus musculus NEIL3, sheds new light on a fundamental DNA respair mechanism.

Adding a new link to our understanding of the complex chain of chemistry that keeps living cells alive, a team of researchers from the University of Vermont (UVM), the University of Utah, Vanderbilt University and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has demonstrated for the first time the specific activity of the protein NEIL3, one of a group responsible for maintaining the integrity of DNA in humans and other mammals. Their work reported last week* sheds new light on a potentially important source of harmful DNA mutations.

Since it first was identified about eight years ago, NEIL3 has been believed to be a basic DNA-maintenance enzyme of a type called a glycosylase. These proteins patrol the long, twisted strands of DNA looking for lesions—places where one of the four DNA bases has been damaged by radiation or chemical activity. They cut the damaged bases free from the DNA backbone, kicking off follow-on mechanisms that link in the proper undamaged base. The process is critical to cell health, says NIST biochemist and Senior Research Fellow Miral Dizdaroglu, “DNA is damaged all the time. About one to two percent of oxygen in the body becomes toxic in cells, for example, creating free radicals that damage DNA. Without these DNA repair mechanisms there wouldn’t be any life on this planet, really.”

The glycosylases seem to be highly specific; each responds to only a few unique cases of the many potential DNA base lesions. Figuring out exactly which ones can be challenging. NEIL3 and its kin NEIL1 and NEIL2 are mammalian versions of an enzyme found in the bacterium E. coli, which first was identified in work at UVM. The lesion targets of NEIL1 and NEIL2 have been known for some time, but NEIL3, a much more complicated protein twice the size of the others, had resisted several attempts to purify it and determine just what it does. In a significant advance, a research team at UVM managed to clone the house mouse version of NEIL3 (99 percent identical to the human variant), and then prepare a truncated version of it that was small enough to dissolve in solution for analysis but large enough to retain the portion of the protein that recognizes and excises DNA lesions.

Using a technique they developed for rapidly analyzing such enzymes, NIST researchers Dizdaroglu and Pawel Jaruga mixed the modified protein with sample DNA that had been irradiated to produce large numbers of random base lesions. Because glycosylases work by snipping off damaged bases, a highly sensitive analysis of the solution after the DNA has been removed can reveal just which lesions are attacked by the enzyme, and with what efficiency. The NIST results closely matched independent tests by others in the team that match the enzyme against short lengths of DNA-like strands with a single specific target lesion.

In addition to finally confirming the glycosylase nature of NEIL3, says UVM team leader Susan Wallace, tests of the enzyme in a living organism—a tailored form of E. coli designed to have a very high mutation rate—had an unexpected bonus. Measurements at NIST showed that NEIL3 is extremely effective at snipping out a particular type of lesion called FapyGua** and seems to dramatically reduce mutations in the bacterium, a result that points both to the effectiveness of NEIL3 and the potentially important role of FapyGua in causing dangerous mutations in DNA.

Social Media Policy Balances Web 2.0 With Security

By Ian Graham
Special to American Forces Press Service

March 2, 2010 - The new policy allowing access to social media from computers connected to the Defense Department's unclassified network balances the mission value of Web 2.0 tools and the need for security, a top defense official said. Since being hired as principal deputy assistant secretary of defense for public affairs in June, Price B. Floyd has made waves as the Pentagon's "social media czar," promoting the use of Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and other social networking tools to spread the department's message.

Floyd explained the new policy announced last week to participants in a "DoDLive" bloggers roundtable yesterday.

"This means all [Defense Department] components have been told ... that the default switch on access is to be open," Floyd said. "It's balanced with the need to be security-conscious and tells the combatant commands to continue to deny access to sites when people try to access them inappropriately."

The policy upholds longstanding regulations denying access to Web sites with inappropriate content, such as gambling, hate crimes or pornography, he said. The new policy also keeps in the mind the importance of operational security, which he said becomes more important because of social media's reach.

"Don't say or do anything on these sites you wouldn't say or do in any other form of communication," he said. "The people here in public affairs have started an education campaign to push out both the fact that we have this new policy, and the need to use it appropriately."

He cautioned that certain caveats apply to the policy. In many areas where servicemembers are stationed around the world, the infrastructure simply doesn't exist to support high-bandwidth applications such as video streaming, he explained.

"In a place like Afghanistan, bandwidth is going to be a problem. Just because we have a new policy, doesn't mean everything's open," he said. "If we don't have the bandwidth, we don't have the bandwidth."

The new policy comes largely as a result of a culture shift outside the Defense Department, Floyd said. That shift needs to be carried over into the department's culture, he added, as young people, many of whom have grown up using sites such as MySpace and Facebook, join the military.

"I think we have work here to do at the Defense Department," Floyd said. "People who are coming into the military take all of this for granted. They can't imagine a world where one didn't have access to these sorts of sites. For those of us who are a little longer in the tooth, it's only been in the past few years that we've seen these developments and discovered how useful they can be. So we have some education and cultural shifting to do."

Along with educating servicemembers on how to use social media tools appropriately, Floyd said, some trial and error also must be part of the process. Because these technologies are constantly emerging and evolving, he explained, leaders should be less concerned about being given step-by-step guidance on how to use each application and more about finding what works best for their unit in their location.

Floyd said he's been amazed by his own ability to engage with audiences worldwide using social media to talk to people he likely will never meet in person,. The promise and outcome of Web 2.0 technology is the potential for outreach to an immense audience with relatively little effort, he noted.

"For me, this is not so much about official messaging," he said. "This is about the men and the women of the armed forces having access to these ways of communicating. Even on my own Twitter, which I would say is official, I don't communicate 'official messages.'"

The early months of the new policy will be a learning period for everyone, Floyd said. In six months, he added, a review will lead to further guidance. For now, though, he encouraged exploration of social media.

"We shouldn't be so dogmatic about this stuff," he said. "Try new things, see what works. What works for me here in Washington might not work on a base somewhere else. I would encourage people to open a Twitter account, create a Facebook page, and see what works for them and their audience."

(Ian Graham works in the Defense Media Activity's emerging media directorate.)

What Makes a Science a Science?

By John Ohab

March 2, 2010 - One thing that struck me while attending the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Annual Meeting in San Diego is how wide-ranging the discussions are pertaining toward different scientific disciplines.

Two examples that are effectively on opposite ends of the spectrum are forensic science and particle physics.

One panel discussion at the conference focused entirely on the past, present, and future of Forensic Science. It was emphasized that in many ways, it wasn’t really a science at all, or at least approached things backward from a “normal” scientific process. The speakers indicated that many of the forensic analyses that the general public know about, such as fingerprints, bite marks, and other crime-scene evidence, are considered scientifically valid because…well…they always have been. They are, in many ways, assumed valid, and circumstantial and anecdotal evidence continually backs that up, but there hasn’t been the rigorous scientific validation process that occurs in other disciplines.

The panelist also indicated that there are no set standards involved to state how valid a result is: one lab may claim that a fingerprint matches another, but a different lab may disagree. Forensic science also relies heavily on communication to the “outside world,” if you will, in the form of presenting evidence in court or trying to explain to the law enforcement community the inherent uncertainty in most results.

Compare that with the discipline of particle physics, where questions about the origin of the universe and what constitutes matter and energy are continually asked, theories are developed, and experiments designed to test those theories. Even after results are gained, questions still remain, and nothing is ever definitely claimed. The entire subject seems to focus around the thought “this is what we think, but we really don’t know for sure.” This was emphasized at the final plenary session of the conference, where Dr. Barry C. Barish, CalTech Linde Professor of Physics, emeritus, presented “New Frontiers in Particle Physics.”

As a scientist, I found it both fascinating and amusing how varied these discussions of “science” can be, and it made me think that in many ways the “outside world” view of science is similar to the “outside world” view of the Defense Department. Often, non-scientists group scientists into one big lump without realizing the major differences that exist between individuals, disciplines, and methods. Similarly, some people who have no connection to the military or to the Defense Department group anything military-related into one big group, not realizing all the inherent differences that exist between servicemembers, Services, and so forth.

Overall, it is good that conferences such as the AAAS Annual Meeting exist in order to bring perspective along with whatever specific knowledge is gained.

Hacking Tickmaster

Four Indicted in $25 Million Scheme Defrauding and Hacking Ticketmaster, Tickets.com, and Other Ticket Vendors

March 1, 2010 - NEWARK—Three men who used fraud, deceit, and computer hacking to make more than $25 million by acquiring and reselling more than 1.5 million of the most coveted tickets to concerts, sporting events, and live entertainment throughout the United States surrendered to federal authorities this morning after being charged in an indictment, U.S. Attorney Paul J. Fishman announced.

The 43-count indictment describes a scheme in which the defendants and their company, Wiseguy Tickets, Inc. (Wiseguys), targeted Ticketmaster, Tickets.com, MLB.com, MusicToday, and other online ticket vendors. According to the indictment, which was returned by a federal grand jury on Feb. 23 and unsealed this morning, the defendants are alleged to have fraudulently obtained prime tickets to performances by, among others, Bruce Springsteen, Hannah Montana, Bon Jovi, Barbara Streisand, Billy Joel, and Kenny Chesney. The criminal scheme also targeted tickets to live theater, including productions of Wicked and The Producers; sporting events, including the 2006 Rose Bowl and 2007 Major League Baseball playoff games at Yankee Stadium; and special events, including tapings of the television show Dancing with the Stars. The events took place in Newark and East Rutherford, New Jersey, and across the United States, including in New York City, Anaheim, Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, Omaha, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and Tampa, according to the indictment.

The indictment charges Kenneth Lowson, 40, Kristofer Kirsch, 37, and Faisal Nahdi, 36, all of Los Angeles, and Joel Stevenson, 37, of Alameda, Calif., with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and to gain unauthorized access and exceed authorized access to computer systems. The indictment also charges 42 additional counts of wire fraud; gaining unauthorized access and exceeding authorized access to computer systems; or causing damage to computers in interstate commerce.

Defendants Lowson, Kirsch, and Stevenson surrendered this morning at FBI headquarters in Newark and are expected to appear before U.S. Magistrate Judge Michael Shipp at 2:00 p.m. in Newark. Defendant Nahdi, who is not currently in the United States, is expected to surrender to authorities in the coming weeks. All of the defendants will be arraigned in the coming weeks before the U.S. District Court Judge Katharine S. Hayden, to whom the case has been assigned.

“At a time when the Internet has brought convenience and fairness to the ticket marketplace, these defendants gamed the system with a sophisticated fraud operation that generated over $25 million in illicit profits.” said U.S. Attorney Fishman. “Today’s indictment represents a significant step forward in the fight against those who use fraud to disrupt e-commerce and evade computer security.”

“The allegations in this indictment represent a scheme orchestrated through technology to cheat the public and circumvent fair business practices in the entertainment industry,” said Edward Kahrer, FBI Assistant Special Agent in Charge and head of its corruption program in the Newark Division. “Unfortunately for the defendants, they are the FBI’s first example of what happens to criminals when we combine the talent and resources in our white collar and cybercrime programs. As technology and the world move forward, the FBI will endeavor to remain one step ahead.”

According to the indictment, Lowson, Kirsch, Stevenson, and Nahdi used Wiseguys to obtain and resell millions of dollars worth of premium tickets to the most sought after concerts, shows, and sporting events. Wiseguys typically sold the event tickets that it obtained to ticket brokers, who in turn sold the tickets to the general public at significantly higher prices. Wiseguys profited by charging its customers, the ticket brokers, a percentage mark-up over the face value of the tickets it fraudulently obtained and re-sold.

Technological Steps to Ensure Fair Access to Tickets

The indictment alleges that ticket vendors were unwilling to sell tickets in large quantities for commercial resale to entities such as Wiseguys or brokers. To ensure fair access to tickets, Online Ticket Vendors restricted access to their ticket purchasing system to individual users, as opposed to computer programs that purchased tickets automatically, and restricted the number of tickets that an individual customer could purchase. To enforce these restrictions, Online Ticket Vendors used computer software that was designed to detect and prevent automated programs from accessing the Online Ticket Vendors’ computers.

These protecting technologies included CAPTCHA, a computer program that requires would-be ticket purchasers to read distorted images of letters, numbers, and characters that appear on their computer screens and to retype those images manually before tickets can be purchased. “CAPTCHA Challenges” are programmed so that the images are recognizable to the human eye but confusing to computers.

According to the indictment, other technologies the Online Ticket Vendors used to protect their computers include audio CAPTCHA Challenges, which are offered to ensure fair access to visually impaired customers who cannot see and respond to visual CAPTCHA Challenges; sending complex math problems to computers that were in the process of purchasing tickets (to slow down computers attempting to purchase multiple blocks of event tickets); and blocking the Internet Protocol addresses (IP Addresses) of computers that appeared to be using automated programs to access and attack the Online Ticket Vendors’ websites.

Sidestepping the Computer Defenses

To defeat the Online Ticket Vendors’ technologies, the defendants worked with computer programmers in Bulgaria to establish a nationwide network of computers that impersonated individual visitors to the Online Ticket Vendors’ websites, the indictment alleges. The network—described as the “CAPTCHA Bots” in the indictment—gave Wiseguys the ability to flood the Online Ticket Vendors’ computers at the exact moment that event tickets went on sale. The CAPTCHA Bots also automated and sped up the purchase process by completing both CAPTCHA Challenges and audio CAPTCHA Challenges automatically—faster than any human could accomplish the same task. The defendants thus gained a significant advantage over the general public in having access to the best seats to the most desirable events, according to the Indictment.

“The public thought it had a fair shot at getting tickets to these events, but what the public didn’t know was that the defendants had cheated them out of that opportunity,” said U.S. Attorney Fishman.

Allegedly, the defendants also used aliases, shell corporations, and fraudulent misrepresentations, both to deploy the CAPTCHA Bots and to disguise their ticket-purchasing activities. At various times the defendants, and others working at their direction, misrepresented Wiseguys’ activities to Online Ticket Vendors; to the companies that leased Internet access to Wiseguys for use of the CAPTCHA Bots; to the landlords that rented Wiseguys’ office space; and, in certain instances, to lower level employees at Wiseguys.

To further disguise their activities, defendants also created and managed hundreds of fake Internet domains (e.g., stupidcellphone.com) and thousands of e-mail addresses to receive event tickets from Online Ticket Vendors. The defendants also directed the development and deployment of technologies to secretly obtain CAPTCHA and audio CAPTCHA Challenges that could be used to buy event tickets for resale.

According to the indictment, the defendants were aware that the CAPTCHA Bots made it nearly impossible for the average consumer to have a chance to buy the best seats to the most popular events. For example, for a single July 2008 concert featuring Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band at Giants Stadium, Wiseguys was able to purchase and control nearly half of the 440 General Admission floor tickets made available to the public for that concert—the tickets closest to the stage. In internal company reports, Wiseguys employees described their success at buying tickets as “straight domination,” having bought the “best ringsides by far,” and, for a January 2009 NFL playoff game at Giants Stadium between the Philadelphia Eagles and the New York Giants, having “pigged out” on tickets.

Defendants Lowson, and Kirsch, according to the indictment, owned Wiseguys and directed all of its operations; defendant Stevenson was the company’s chief U.S.-based programmer, programmed aspects of the CAPTCHA Bots, and supervised Bulgarian computer programmers; defendant Nahdi managed Wiseguys’ operations and finances and at one point took ownership of a Wiseguys’ entity named Seats of San Francisco.

If convicted, each defendant faces a maximum statutory penalty of five years in prison on the conspiracy charge and a maximum statutory penalty of 20 years in prison on each wire fraud charge. In addition, defendants Lowson, Kirsch, and Stevenson face statutory maximum penalties of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine on each of 19 counts charging gaining unauthorized access and exceeding authorized access to computers; and 10 years in prison for each of six counts charging damage to computers in interstate commerce. In addition, each defendant faces a fine of $250,000 per count of conviction.

In determining an actual sentence, the Judge Hayden would, upon a conviction, consult the Advisory U.S. Sentencing Guidelines, which provide appropriate sentencing ranges that take into account the severity and characteristics of the offense, the defendant’s criminal history, if any, and other factors. The judge, however, is not bound by those guidelines in determining a sentence. Parole has been abolished in the federal system. Defendants who are given custodial terms must serve nearly all that time.

Despite indictment, all defendants are presumed innocent unless proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

Fishman credited the Special Agents of the FBI, under the direction of Acting Special Agent in Charge Kevin B. Cruise in Newark, and Special Agents of the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, under the direction of Inspector in Charge David L. Collins in Newark, with the investigation.

The government is represented by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Erez Liebermann and Seth Kosto in the U.S. Attorney’s Office Computer Hacking and Intellectual Property group, within the Commercial Crimes Unit.

Leica Geosystems Launches SmartNet North America

(Norcross, GA., 1 March 2010) - Leica Geosystems, Inc. is proud to announce the launch of SmartNet North America. SmartNet is a subscription based service offering GNSS Network RTK corrections throughout North America with Leica Geosystems directly operating, managing, and maintaining all segments of the network. From the reference stations in the field to the server and IT infrastructure, SmartNet offers a turnkey solution.

SmartNet is built on the powerful Leica Geosystems GNSS Spider software providing a variety of real-time data products to the end-user. With Leica MAX, which is based on the RTCM 3.1 Master Auxiliary Concept (the first and only international Network RTK Standard), legacy receivers not capable of using newer formats will be able to utilize Leica iMAX as well as other common RTK data formats. SmartNet is open to all data formats, offering a GNSS RTK solution to anyone in the precision measurement marketplace.

The Director of Reference Station Operations at Leica Geosystems, Wendy Watson states "Leica Geosystems has a long list of affiliate networks using our GNSS Spider software technology to cover both local and statewide markets; however with the SmartNet network Leica Geosystems is providing the largest and only North American wide GNSS RTK Network available in the market today. We do everything from the reconnaissance and installation of the reference stations themselves, managing subscriptions services, to monitoring the Network's health and operation 24/7."

SmartNet has opened the doors to new markets in precision measurement across many industries such as Precision Agriculture and GIS, while at the same time providing a stable and reliable infrastructure for the traditional construction and surveying applications. Watson continues, "We built SmartNet to provide high-precision, high-availability Network RTK corrections for any application, using any constellation, while at the same time being open to all. We are very excited to offer this to the market and have ambitious expansion plans to cover even more territory in North America. "

SmartNet North America is supported by a new website that was developed to be an information portal for users. With detailed information for applications, a map of the current North American coverage, as well as providing information about the Leica Geosystems affiliate networks available in North America, users can easily see what type of network coverage is available to them. The website also provides a host of other information including an introduction to RTK networks and methods, a glossary of common terms and acronyms, products associated with GNSS networks, configuration and connection guides, as well as news and announcements.

The website is not limited to North America. A SmartNet World link is also available to similar Leica subscription based services operating in the UK, Ireland, Denmark, Italy, Australia, and Bahrain along with many others around the world.

Visit http://smartnet.leica-geosystems.us/

Leica Geosystems - when it has to be right

With close to 200 years of pioneering solutions to measure the world, Leica Geosystems products and services are trusted by professionals worldwide to help them capture, analyze, and present spatial information. Leica Geosystems is best known for its broad array of products that capture accurately, model quickly, analyze easily, and visualize and present spatial information.

Those who use Leica Geosystems products every day trust them for their dependability, the value they deliver, and the superior customer support. Based in Heerbrugg, Switzerland, Leica Geosystems is a global company with tens of thousands of customers supported by more than 3,500 employees in 28 countries and hundreds of partners located in more than 120 countries around the world. Leica Geosystems is part of the Hexagon Group, Sweden.

For further information please contact:

Leica Geosystems Inc.
Andre Ribeiro
Director of Marketing
Atlanta, GA 30092
United States
Phone: +1 (770) 326-9557
Fax: +1 (770) 447-0710
Andre.ribeiro@leicaus.com
http://www.leica-geosystems.us/