Twitter hit by "sophisticated" cyber attack

SAN FRANCISCO: Twitter said Friday it had been hit by a "sophisticated" cyber attack similar to those that recently hit major Western news outlets, and that the passwords of about 250,000 users were stolen.

"This attack was not the work of amateurs, and we do not believe it was an isolated incident," Twitter information security director Bob Lord said in a blog post.

Lord referred to an "uptick in large-scale security attacks aimed at US technology and media companies" as he told of Twitter detecting attempts this week to get unauthorized access to data in the firm's network.

The attack coincided with the revelation of several high-profile security breaches. The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal said this week that they had been hacked, and pointed to hackers from China.

Twitter did not confirm the source of the intrusion.

But Lord noted that "the attackers were extremely sophisticated, and we believe other companies and organizations have also been recently similarly attacked."

He said that Twitter shut down a live attack as it was in process.

However, Lord added, cyber attackers may have gotten usernames, email addresses, passwords and other data.

As a precaution, Twitter invalidated passwords of accounts at issue and sent people email messages telling them to create new passwords.

-AFP/ac

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ED raids in 3 cities, hawala money seized

JALANDHAR: The enforcement directorate (ED) conducted simultaneous raids in Jalandhar, Ludhiana and Delhi on Friday and recovered money received through hawala channels. It is learnt that the directorate also seized documents pertaining to hawala transactions running into a few hundred crores.

The raid in Jalandhar was conducted at Happy Forex Pvt Ltd in Adda Hoshiarpur in the early afternoon. The team was accompanied by a heavy posse of CRPF and Punjab Police. They conducted thorough search in the office when according to eye witnesses one person escaped with a bag from the roof of the foreign exchange company.

Though ED officials remained tight-lipped about the raids, sources revealed that these people were on ED radar for a long and were carrying out hawala transaction at the behest of some individuals as well as some companies based abroad. These hawala operators were being used for sending funds in the country for anti-national activities.

Sources disclosed it is also being investigated if these people were conducting transactions at the behest of drug lord Raja Kandhola or other drug peddlers. Kandhola is main accused in the recovery of 40kg synthetic drug ice.

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Pictures We Love: Best of January

Photograph by Dieu Nalio Chery, AP

The magnitude 7 earthquake that struck near Port au Prince, Haiti, in January 2010 so devastated the country that recovery efforts are still ongoing.

Professional dancer Georges Exantus, one of the many casualties of that day, was trapped in his flattened apartment for three days, according to news reports. After friends dug him out, doctors amputated his right leg below the knee. With the help of a prosthetic leg, Exantus is able to dance again. (Read about his comeback.)

Why We Love It

"This is an intimate photo, taken in the subject's most personal space as he lies asleep and vulnerable, perhaps unaware of the photographer. The dancer's prosthetic leg lies in the foreground as an unavoidable reminder of the hardships he faced in the 2010 earthquake. This image makes me want to hear more of Georges' story."—Ben Fitch, associate photo editor

"This image uses aesthetics and the beauty of suggestion to tell a story. We are not given all the details in the image, but it is enough to make us question and wonder."—Janna Dotschkal, associate photo editor

Published February 1, 2013

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Hillary Clinton Says Goodbye...Until 2016?

Feb 1, 2013 6:48pm

Image Credit: Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP Photo

After four years, nearly a million miles traveled and 112 countries visited, Hillary Clinton stepped down as the 67th secretary of state on Friday. But even on this, her final day as America’s top diplomat, she could not escape the questions about what she’ll do four years from now.

Many of the 1,000 employees who gathered to see her off expressed hope that this was not the end of her political career.

“2016! 2016!” the crowd chanted as   Clinton waved and drove away. “We’ll Miss You!”

Right before her departure, Clinton gave the traditional farewell speech to staff on the steps of the State Department’s historic C street lobby. In a roughly 10 minute, often reflective speech she called the 70,000 State Department employees part of “a huge extended family.”

“I cannot fully express how grateful I am to those with whom I have spent many hours here in Washington, around the world and in airplanes,” she said, drawing laughter from the audience.

Clinton’s trademark sense of humor was on display, even as she grew emotional  speaking about how much the State Department had  meant to her over the last four years.

PHOTOS: Hillary Clinton Through the Years

“I am very proud to have been secretary of state. I will miss you. I will probably be dialing ops just to talk,” she joked to a cheering and laughing crowd. “I will wonder what you all are doing, because I know that because of your efforts day after day, we are making a real difference.”

But  Clinton also was somber when discussing the danger diplomats and foreign service officers face all over the world, using Thursday’s suicide bombing attack against the U.S. Embassy in Ankara, Turkey, in which a Turkish guard was killed, as an example.

“We live in very complex and even dangerous times, as we saw again just today at our embassy in Ankara, where we were attacked and lost one of our foreign service nationals, and others injured,” said Clinton “But I spoke with the ambassador and the team there. I spoke with my Turkish counterpart. And I told them how much we valued their commitment and their sacrifice.”

Clinton was flanked by trusted deputies, Bill Burns and Tom Nides, whom she gave warm hugs to at the end of the speech. With a huge “Thank You” sign behind her she walked a rope line after finishing her speech, greeting the hordes of employees who wanted to shake her hand and say goodbye before she walked out of the State Department as secretary of state for the last time.

“It’s been quite a challenging week saying goodbye to so many people and knowing that I will not have the opportunity to continue being part of this amazing team,” Clinton said. “But I am so grateful that we’ve had a chance to contribute in each of our ways to making our country and our world stronger, safer, fairer and better.”

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Senate ethics panel reviews gift accusations against Menendez

The Senate Ethics Committee is reviewing allegations that Sen. Robert Menendez accepted inappropriate gifts from a Florida doctor who has flown the New Jersey Democrat to his estate in the Dominican Republic, a senior member of the panel confirmed Thursday.

Sen. Johnny Isakson (Ga.), the ranking Republican on the committee, said the panel saw reports of the Tuesday FBI raid on the West Palm Beach offices of Salomon Melgen, a Menendez friend and political supporter who is also in an $11 million tax dispute with the Internal Revenue Service. That was followed by Menendez’s confirmation Wednesday night that he wrote a personal check of more than $58,000 to pay for flights on Melgen’s private jet to his Dominican estate — for a pair of trips there more than two years ago.

“The Senate Ethics Committee is aware of the article in the Miami Herald and other media outlets, and we are following established procedures,” Isakson said Thursday, declining to discuss any details of the review.

Menendez has denied any wrongdoing. His staff has said that most of his trips to visit Melgen in the Dominican Republic were paid for out of his own pocket and that the two trips he did not pay for were an oversight. A statement issued Wednesday also vehemently denied reports, mostly in the conservative news media, that he slept with prostitutes on the island, where prostitution is legal.

“Senator Menendez has traveled on Dr. Melgen’s plane on three occasions, all of which have been paid for and reported appropriately. Any allegations of engaging with prostitutes are manufactured by a politically-motivated right-wing blog and are false,” his office said in a statement.

Officials at the Justice Department declined to comment Thursday about the nature of its raid on Melgen’s office, which went on for several hours overnight.

Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) has stood behind the embattled senator. “First of all, Bob Menendez is my friend. He’s an outstanding senator,” Reid told reporters Thursday, directing any detailed questions to Menendez’s office.

The investigations come at a particularly troubling time for Menendez and Democrats, just as Menendez steps into a new role as chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee.
That makes him the top diplomat on Capitol Hill, someone tasked with greeting heads of state visiting Washington, and affords him the kind of public profile that prompts regular appearances on the Sunday morning political talk shows. Last week, Menendez presided over outgoing Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s testimony about the U.S. response to the Sept. 11 attack on a mission in Libya and the confirmation hearing for Kerry.

The only Latino among Senate Democrats, Menendez was chosen to participate in a bipartisan group of senators who unveiled a strategic framework for comprehensive immigration reform amid much fanfare Monday.

Reid’s gesture signaled that Democratic leaders were not abandoning Menendez as he begins what could be a long legal and ethics process. Two days earlier, Reid rejected out of hand any suggestion of wrongdoing by Menendez, telling reporters to “consider the source” because the reports first emerged on the Daily Caller, a conservative Web site that published the stories just before Election Day.

The issue was originally regarded as a partisan dispute just before Menendez’s election. But the seriousness of the allegations heated up with the FBI raid and the revelations that repayments to Melgen were made so long after the trips occurred.

Senate rules and federal law forbid expensive gifts unless the lawmaker has a longtime friendship with the person giving the gift. Otherwise, the rules require a prompt repayment for the thing of value, according to ethics experts. If a lawmaker accepts the gift from a friend, it would have to be revealed as such in annual financial disclosure forms that are made public every June.

Menendez did not pay Melgen until two months after New Jersey Republicans first asked the ethics panel to investigate, and the trips were not reported on his disclosure forms.

Menendez, 59, who is divorced, is one of the most prominent Cuban Americans, with deep support in his home town of Union City, sometimes called “Little Havana North,” and in South Florida. He has two grown children active in politics. Elected to the House in 1992, he served in Democratic leadership there until he was appointed to the Senate in late 2005 and has since won two full terms.

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Sony invites press to mystery New York event

SAN FRANCISCO: Sony sent out invitations Thursday to a mystery event in New York City on February 20, sparking rumors that the world would get its first look at a new-generation PlayStation videogame console.

Both Sony and Microsoft are expected this year to show off successors to their competing consoles, which have been evolving into home entertainment hubs for films, television, music, social networking and more.

The PlayStation 3 was released in November 2006 and industry trackers believe a successor is on the near horizon.

In January, the number of PS3 units shipped by Sony hit an estimated 77 million units, according to market research firm International Data Corporation.

IDC gaming research manager Lewis Ward predicted at the time of the report that consoles will retain their strongholds in homes while expanding to include other digital entertainment.

"The console ecosystem is in a state of flux since these platforms need to support an ever-growing array of non-gaming features and services at the same time that game distribution and monetization is moving in a digital direction," Ward said.

"It doesn't appear that alternative platforms -- set-top boxes from cable companies, Web-connected smart TVs and so on -- are positioned to materially disrupt the trajectory of the 'big 3' console OEMs in 2013 or 2014."

Videogame industry sales should be bolstered by the arrival of next-generation videogame consoles from Sony and Microsoft, according to Ward.

"With the advent of eighth-generation consoles, starting with the Wii U, historical norms strongly imply that game disk revenue will stop bleeding in 2013 and rise substantively in 2014," he said in the report.

- AFP/ir

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TOI Social Impact Awards: When an IT mind took the organic route to farming

BORIAVI (ANAND): Devesh Patel, 30, graduated in computer applications in 2005. But the idea of flying off to the US didn't attract him. He followed in his father's footsteps and became a farmer, returning to the land of his forefathers — Anand's Boriavi village.

Until recently, Devesh's father Ramesh, 56, suffered from chronic breathing problems induced by the chemical fertilizers he used. Nausea and headaches were part of life. "Only when his health worsened did my father realize that increasing yield wasn't everything. There's no point making money if one can't enjoy it. We switched to organic farming," Devesh says. They shifted to Anand Agricultural University's newly developed liquid biofertilizer (LBF). That changed their lives.

"Dharti maa chhe (Earth is our mother)," Devesh says. "A farmer should give her what she deserves. My father doesn't fall sick now. Hundreds of farmers in Gujarat are living healthier lives, largely because of AAU." Devesh uses 70 litres of LBF a year on his 4ha. "The health of the soil has improved. Chemical fertilizers cost up to Rs 28,000 per ha for crops such as sweet potato and ginger. LBF has cut my cost to below Rs 4,000/ha," he says. Proprietor of an organic brand, he supplies potato chips, turmeric and ginger powder to retail stores, earning Rs 30-40 lakh annually.

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Sinkhole Swallows Buildings in China

Photograph from AFP/Getty Images

The sinkhole that formed in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou (pictured) is, unfortunately, not a new occurrence for the country.

Many areas of the world are susceptible to these sudden formations, including the U.S. Florida is especially prone, but Guatemala, Mexico, and the area surrounding the Dead Sea in the Middle East are also known for their impressive sinkholes. (See pictures of a sinkhole in Beijing that swallowed a truck.)

Published January 31, 2013

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What If Undocumented Immigrants Had Voted?

If every undocumented immigrant had cast a vote for President Obama in 2012, he would have won Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina and Texas, and he would have beaten Mitt Romney by nearly 11 percentage points nationally, instead of three.

Only citizens can vote, however, and 11.2 million unauthorized residents didn't get the chance.

But with immigration overhaul on the table, legalizing new Democratic voters looms as a threat for conservatives who don't want to hand their political foes a potential windfall of 11.2 million new voters with the creation of a pathway to citizenship -- and to voting rights -- with a comprehensive bill.

"The fear that many people have is that the Democrats aren't interested in border security, that they want this influx," Rush Limbaugh griped during his Tuesday interview with overhaul champion Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida. "For example, if 70 percent of the Hispanic vote went Republican, do you think the Democrats would be for any part of this legislation?"

New immigration policies could mean in influx of new voters, but Republicans needn't worry about it in the short term.

See Also: Gang of Eight Accelerates Immigration Reform Pace

"Under almost any scenario, it's pretty far in the distance," Jeff Passell, senior demographer at the Pew Hispanic Center, said of the prospect that unauthorized immigrants' gaining voting rights would pump up numbers significantly enough to meaningfully change the U.S. electorate.

Whitney Curtis/Getty Images

And yet, the "influx" wouldn't be negligible: "Realistically, we're talking about potentially adding probably 5 million potential voters or so in 10 years," he said.

Hispanic voters broke 71 percent for Obama in November, and Republican strategists recognize that the party has failed to court Hispanic voters effectively. But depending on how slowly the citizenship line moves, the Republican Party will have a decade or so to shake its anti-Hispanic stigma.

See also: A Glossary for Immigration Reform

"It's a long time coming. You're talking about 15 to 20 years before we're talking about a whole slew of new voters coming into the electorate," said Jennifer Korn, executive director of the Hispanic Leadership Network, who served as Hispanic outreach director for George W. Bush's presidential campaign.

"If Republicans can map out and change their positions with things that Hispanics do support -- on less government, lower taxes, less regulations on small businesses -- then they can really compete for the Hispanic vote over the next 20, 30 years."

There are 11.2 unauthorized immigrants living in the United States, according to the Pew Hispanic Center's estimate. While most are of voting age (Pew estimates just 1 million younger than 18), the deluge of new Democratic voters might not be as substantial as Limbaugh implied.

In other words, it's not as if Democrats will gain 11.2 million votes in the next few years. Here are some things to keep in mind:

• Not All Hispanics Vote for Democrats. Most do, but not all, and voter preferences vary from state to state. In Florida, 60 percent of Hispanic voters backed Obama, according to 2012 exit polls; in Arizona, 74 percent voted for the president. Even if all 11.2 million had voted in 2012, Obama would only have picked up North Carolina if they simply hewed to Hispanic voter trends. Romney still would have carried Arizona, Georgia and Texas, although he would have won Georgia by less than 1 percentage point. (Note: There were no exit polls in Texas or Georgia, and here the national rate provides rough estimates of how results would have changed.)

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Mass. governor taps friend to fill Kerry seat

Massachusetts Gov. Deval L. Patrick (D) selected William “Mo” Cowan, his former chief of staff, to temporarily fill Sen. John F. Kerry’s seat, bringing the number of African Americans in the Senate to two, a historic high.

Cowan, 43, will serve until a special election in the summer determines who will serve out the remainder of Kerry’s term, which ends in 2015. Kerry was picked by President Obama to be secretary of state.

Cowan, a lawyer,
will become the first African American to represent Massachusetts in the Senate since Republican Edward Brooke held the seat from 1967 to 1979.

A month ago, South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley tapped fellow Republican Rep. Tim Scott to replace Sen. Jim DeMint. As a result, for the first time in history there will be two black senators serving simultaneously.

In picking Cowan, Patrick bypassed former Rep. Barney Frank, who openly campaigned for the seat.

Cowan, who said he was “honored and humbled by this appointment” will serve as Congress is set to begin another round of budget fights over entitlement programs and funding the goverment.

Patrick highlighted Cowan’s work on the economy in praising his close friend and former staffer.

“Mo’s service on the front lines in our efforts to manage through the worst economy in 80 years and build a better, stronger Commonwealth for the next generation has earned him the respect and admiration of people throughout government,” Patrick said in a statement.

Democrats will face off in an April primary to determine who will run in the general election. Rep. Edward J. Markey has already announced his intention to run, and Rep. Stephen F. Lynch is expected to announce Thursday that he will challenge Markey, who has already been endorsed by Kerry and former Rep. Barney Frank.

Former senator Scott Brown (R), who lost in November after winning the state’s other Senate seat in a 2010 special election, is strongly considering a run, according to a recent report.

A recent poll shows him leading Markey by more than 20 points.

Cowan is a native of Yadkinville, N.C., a rural tobacco town where, as a boy, he watched the Ku Klux Klan burn and march on his high school, according to a 2010 profile in the Boston Globe.

The son of a machinist and a seamstress, Cowan earned an undergraduate degree from Duke University and law degree from Northeastern University. He remained in Boston after law school and met Patrick in the 1990s.

In the 2010 Globe profile, Cowan described an early interaction between the two: “I essentially cold-called him and said: ‘Hey, you really don’t know me. I’m a young, know-nothing lawyer, but you seem to have a handle on this thing. Would you mind sparing a few minutes whenever you can to give me a bit of advice?’ And he said: ‘Sure. What are you doing right now?’ ’’

Cowan joined the Patrick administration in 2009 and became the governor’s chief of staff in January 2011. Before that, he served as Patrick’s chief legal counsel.

Before serving in the state government, Cowan was a partner at Mintz Levin in Boston, where he practiced civil litigation for 12 years.

Cowan announced his departure as chief of staff in November and returned to the private sector.

Cowan and Patrick have cultivated a close relationship, and his appointment keeps up a trend of governors appointing close allies to fill Senate vacancies. It also follows another trend: Since President Obama’s election, three African Americans, including Roland W. Burris, have been appointed to fill vacant Senate seats. (Burris replaced Obama in a seat representing Illinois.)

“The people of the Commonwealth have benefited from [Cowan’s] wisdom and good judgment during his time in our office, and will again in the Senate,” Patrick said in his statement Wednesday.

Ann Gerhart contributed to this report.

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