Silent Skype calls can hide secret messages

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Got a secret message to send? Say it with silence. A new technique can embed secret data during a phone call on Skype. "There are concerns that Skype calls can be intercepted and analysed," says Wojciech Mazurczyk at the Institute of Telecommunications in Warsaw, Poland. So his team's SkypeHide system lets users hide extra, non-chat messages during a call.












Mazurczyk and his colleagues Maciej Karaś and Krysztof Szczypiorski analysed Skype data traffic during calls and discovered an opportunity in the way Skype "transmits" silence. Rather than send no data between spoken words, Skype sends 70-bit-long data packets instead of the 130-bit ones that carry speech.












The team hijacks these silence packets, injecting encrypted message data into some of them. The Skype receiver simply ignores the secret-message data, but it can nevertheless be decoded at the other end, the team has found. "The secret data is indistinguishable from silence-period traffic, so detection of SkypeHide is very difficult," says Mazurczyk. They found they could transmit secret text, audio or video during Skype calls at a rate of almost 1 kilobit per second alongside phone calls.












The team aims to present SkypeHide at a steganography conference in Montpellier, France, in June.


















































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Suu Kyi says any peace bid is up to Myanmar govt

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YANGON: Myanmar democracy campaigner Aung San Suu Kyi on Sunday said she would not step in to help end worsening conflict between the army and ethnic Kachin rebels without government approval.

"It is up to the government. This case is being handled by the government at the moment," Suu Kyi told AFP when asked if she would get involved in efforts to resolve the fighting, after the army's use of air strikes drew international concern.

The Nobel laureate said she would need an official invitation to join peace negotiations aimed at quelling the raging civil war, which has overshadowed Myanmar's widely-praised political reforms.

Tens of thousands of people have been displaced by the conflict in the far north since June 2011, when a 17-year ceasefire between the government and the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) broke down.

Myanmar's quasi-civilian regime, which took power in 2011 at the end of junta rule, has reached tentative peace deals with other major ethnic rebel groups, but an agreement with the Kachin has proved elusive.

President Thein Sein, a former general, in December 2011 ordered an end to military offensives against the rebels and continued hostilities have led to doubts over his ability to control the powerful armed forces.

According to the English language state-run New Light of Myanmar newspaper on Sunday, the Myanmar leader has instructed the military not to attack unless in "self-defence".

The report said Thein Sein urged "mutual trust" and "continued dialogue" in order to bring about peace.

Civil war has plagued parts of the country formerly known as Burma since it won independence from Britain in 1948.

Yup Zaw Hkaung, a local businessman and peace negotiator in the Kachin state capital Myitkyina, on Saturday appealed for Suu Kyi's involvement in ending the fighting, which has intensified in recent weeks.

He said the democracy activist had a "responsibility" to work for ethnic peace.

Suu Kyi, a former political prisoner turned lawmaker, used her maiden speech to parliament in July last year to call for greater protection of ethnic minority rights.

But the veteran activist has disappointed rights campaigners by not speaking out more vocally in support of another minority group, the Rohingya, in the violence-torn western state of Rakhine.

- AFP/fa



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Nvidia at 2013 CES: Join us Sunday, 8 p.m. PT (live blog)

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Nvidia starts the 2013 International CES early with a press conference at 8 p.m. PT (11 p.m. ET) on Sunday, Jan. 6, and CNET will be there to cover it live. We'll have a live video stream, along with a blog full of news and analysis, as it happens.

You can tune into the blog and video stream here:

CNET's live coverage of Nvidia's 2013 CES press conference

Nvidia has been pretty quiet about any possible announcements at
CES, but the graphics chipmaker is likely to talk up Tegra, its processor for mobile devices. The company has had some success getting the chip into
tablets over the past year, but it continues to struggle in smartphones. Nvidia is counting on its new integrated processor, which combines the apps processor with the wireless connectivity on the same piece of silicon, to change that.

An alleged leak about Nvidia's Tegra 4 from last month showed 72 graphics cores, six times as many as those found in the current-generation Tegra 3. That many cores would mean substantially improved performance for smartphones, tablets, and other devices.
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Best Pictures: 2012 Nat Geo Photo Contest Winners

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Gun Show Near Newtown Goes on Despite Anger

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A little more than 40 miles from Sandy Hook Elementary School, where last month 20 first graders and six staff members were massacred, gun dealers and collectors alike ignored calls to cancel a gun show, and gathered for business in Stamford, Conn.


Four other gun shows with an hour of Newtown, Conn., recently cancelled their events in the wake of the shootings, when 20-year-old Adam Lanza broke in to the elementary school with a semi-automatic assault rifle and three other guns.


The organizers in Stamford emphasized their show only displayed antique and collectible guns, not military style assault weapons like the one used by Lanza in Sandy Hook.


Still, Stamford Mayor Michael Pavia had called for the show to close its doors, calling it "insensitive" to hold so close to the murders.


Gun show participant Sandy Batchelor said he wasn't sure about whether going ahead with the show was "insensitive," but said the shooter should be blamed, not the weapons he used.


"I don't have a solid opinion on [whether it is insensitive]," Batchelor said. "I'm not for or against it. I would defend it by saying it wasnt the gun."


In nearby Waterbury, the community cancelled a show scheduled for this weekend.


"I felt that the timing of the gun show so close to that tragic event would be in bad taste," Waterbury Police Chief Chief Michael J. Gugliotti said.












National Rifle Association News Conference Interrupted by Protesters Watch Video





Gugliotti has halted permits for gun shows, saying he was concerned about firearms changing hands that might one day be used in a mass shooting.


Across the state line in White Plains, N.Y, Executive Rob Astorino also canceled a show, three years after ending a had that had been in place since the 1999 Columbine High School shooting in Colorado. He said he felt the show would be inappropriate now.


But across the country, farther away from Connecticut, attendance at gun shows is spiking, and some stores report they can hardly keep weapons on their shelves with some buyers fearful of that the federal government will soon increase restrictions on gun sales and possibly ban assault weapons altogether.


"We sold 50-some rifles in days," said Jonathan O'Connor, store manager of Gun Envy in Minnesota.


President Obama said after the Sandy Hook shooting that addressing gun violence would be one of his priorities and Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said she would introduce an assault weapons ban this month.


But it is not just traditional advocates of gun control that have said their need to be changes in gun laws since the horrific school shooting.


Republican Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas and Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, a Democrat but a long-time opponent of gun control who like Hutchison has received an A rating from the NRA, have both come out in support of strengthening gun laws.


In Stamford, gun dealer Stuart English said participants at the gun show there are doing nothing wrong.


"I have to make a living. Life goes on," gun dealer Stuart English said.


ABC News asked English, what he thought about the mayor of Stamford calling the show "insensitive."


"He's wrong," English said. "This is a private thing he shouldn't be expressing his opinion on."


If you have a comment on this story or have a story idea, you can tweet this correspondent @greenblattmark.


The Associated Press contributed to this report.



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Graphic in-car crash warnings to slow speeding drivers

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Paul Marks, chief technology correspondent


142093734.jpg

(Image: Cityscape/a.collection/Getty)


"You would die if you crashed right now." Would such a warning make you take your foot off the accelerator? That's the idea behind a scheme to warn drivers of the consequences of speeding developed by engineers at Japan's Fukuoka Institute of Technology and heavy goods vehicle maker UD Trucks, also in Japan. They are developing what they call a "safe driving promotion system" that warns drivers what kind of crash could ensue if they don't slow down.






Their patent-pending system uses the battery of radar, ultrasound sonar and laser sensors found in modern cars and trucks to work out the current kinetic energy of a vehicle. It also checks out the distance to the vehicle in front and keeps watch on its brake lights, too. An onboard app that has learned the driver's reaction time over all their previous trips then computes the likelihood of collision - and if the driver's speed is risky, it displays the scale of damage that could result.


The warning that flashes up could vary from something like a potential whiplash injury due to a rear-end shunt to a fatal, car-crushing collision with fire. The inventors hope this kind of in-car advice will promote safety more forcefully than current warning systems, which merely display the distance to the vehicle in front. "A sense of danger will be awakened in the driver that makes them voluntarily refrain from dangerous driving," they predict.




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Tennis: Nishikori injury hands Murray berth in final

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BRISBANE, Australia: Defending champion Andy Murray was handed a berth in the final of the Brisbane International on Saturday when Japan's Kei Nishikori retired from their semi-final with a knee injury.

Murray had taken the first set 6-4 and was up 2-0 in the second when Nishikori, who had treatment on his knee at the end of the first set, decided he couldn't continue and conceded the match.

The 25-year-old Murray will now play Grigor Dimitrov in Sunday's final after the rising Bulgarian star edged out Cyprus's Marcos Baghdatis 6-3, 5-7, 7-6 (7/5) in the first semi.

Nishikori started brilliantly against Murray and leapt out to a 4-1 lead before the reigning US Open champion began to find his range.

He quickly broke back then took control as Nishikori struggled with his movement around the court.

"I didn't know he was injured until late in the set," Murray said. "He was trying to play aggressively and keep the points short.

"When I made him play the ball more I had him in trouble."

Murray said he was relatively pleased at how he was playing a week out from the first Grand Slam of the year.

"I'm playing okay, a bit up and down," he said. "I served pretty well for the majority of the tournament.

"I've moved better every single match. Returning could have been better and my groundstrokes, I think with more matches, I'll start to hit them cleaner.

"When I've come up to the net I've volleyed relatively well... there is stuff for me to work on."

Dimitrov progressed after a thrilling win over 2006 Australian Open runner-up Baghdatis.

The young Bulgarian has been in superb form this week and looked on track for another convincing win after dominating the first set and going up an early break in the second.

But Baghdatis has always performed well in Australia and he began to trouble Dimitrov, putting enormous pressure on his opponent's serve with his aggressive returning.

Dimitrov's serve dropped off as Baghdatis raised his game and there was nothing between the two men as the third set went to a tiebreak.

Dimitrov got the early break at 4-2 when Baghdatis became unsettled by a time violation, only for the Cypriot to storm back and level proceedings at 5-5.

However, the 21-year-old Dimitrov won the next two points to make his first final on the ATP tour.

"I think it will be a fun match for me (against Murray), I have nothing to lose tomorrow," Dimitrov said.

"I just want to go out there and compose myself and say, 'Okay, it's your first final, don't be nervous at least'.

"I think it's going to be a good match."

- AFP/fa



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Library of Congress digs in to full archive of 170 billion tweets

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The U.S. Library of Congress said today that it has completed a process of collecting a full, ongoing stream of tweets, and that it has begun work to archive and organize more than 170 billion tweets.




Under an agreement struck between the government institution and Twitter in 2010, the microblogging company is providing the Library of Congress with a full stream of all public tweets, starting with 21 billion generated from between 2006 and April 2010, and now supplemented with about 150 billion more posted since then.


In an announcement about the status of the project today, the library wrote that:


Twitter is a new kind of collection for the Library of Congress but an important one to its mission. As society turns to social media as a primary method of communication and creative expression, social media is supplementing, and in some cases supplanting, letters, journals, serial publications, and other sources routinely collected by research libraries.


Though the Library has been building and stabilizing the archive and has not yet offered researchers access, we have nevertheless received approximately 400 inquiries from researchers all over the world. Some broad topics of interest expressed by researchers run from patterns in the rise of citizen journalism and elected officials' communications to tracking vaccination rates and predicting stock market activity.


The Library of Congress isn't entirely clear how the ongoing archive will be utilized, but it has issued a white paper (PDF) outlining the project.


This project, of course, is different than Twitter's recently announced initiative to make every user's full tweet history available to them. That effort is under way, though only some users have been given access to date.


Interestingly, the Library of Congress reported in the white paper that its two full copies of the entire archive of 170 billion tweets comprise about 133 Terabytes of data. Each tweet, the library wrote, contains about 50 accompanying metadata fields.


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Best Pictures: 2012 Nat Geo Photo Contest Winners

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Quadruple Amputee Gets Two New Hands on Life

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It's the simplest thing, the grasp of one hand in another. But Lindsay Ess will never see it that way, because her hands once belonged to someone else.


Growing up in Texas and Virginia, Lindsay, 29, was always one of the pretty girls. She went to college, did some modeling and started building a career in fashion, with an eye on producing fashion shows.


Then she lost her hands and feet.


Watch the full show in a special edition of "Nightline," "To Hold Again," TONIGHT at 11:35 p.m. ET on ABC


When she was 24 years old, Lindsay had just graduated from Virginia Commonwealth University's well-regarded fashion program when she developed a blockage in her small intestine from Crohn's Disease. After having surgery to correct the problem, an infection took over and shut down her entire body. To save her life, doctors put her in a medically-induced coma. When she came out of the coma a month later, still in a haze, Lindsay said she knew something was wrong with her hands and feet.


"I would look down and I would see black, almost like a body that had decomposed," she said.


The infection had turned her extremities into dead tissue. Still sedated, Lindsay said she didn't realize what that meant at first.








Quadruple Amputee Undergoes Hand Transplant Surgery Watch Video









After Hand Transplant, Relearning How to Hold Watch Video







"There was a period of time where they didn't tell me that they had to amputate, but somebody from the staff said, 'Oh honey, you know what they are going to do to your hands, right?' That's when I knew," she said.


After having her hands and feet amputated, Lindsay adapted. She learned how to drink from a cup, brush her teeth and even text on her cellphone with her arms, which were amputated just below the elbow.


"The most common questions I get are, 'How do you type,'" she said. "It's just like chicken-pecking."


PHOTOS: Lindsay Ess Gets New Hands


Despite her progress, Lindsay said she faced challenges being independent. Her mother, Judith Aronson, basically moved back into her daughter's life to provide basic care, including bathing, dressing and feeding. Having also lost her feet, Lindsay needed her mother to help put on her prosthetic legs.


"I've accepted the fact that my feet are gone, that's acceptable to me," Lindsay said. "My hands [are] not. It's still not. In my dreams I always have my hands."


Through her amputation recovery, Lindsay discovered a lot of things about herself, including that she felt better emotionally by not focusing on the life that was gone and how much she hated needing so much help but that she also truly depends on it.


"I'm such an independent person," she said. "But I'm also grateful that I have a mother like that, because what could I do?"


Lindsay said she found that her prosthetic arms were a struggle.


"These prosthetics are s---," she said. "I can't do anything with them. I can't do anything behind my head. They are heavy. They are made for men. They are claws, they are not feminine whatsoever."


For the next couple of years, Lindsay exercised diligently as part of the commitment she made to qualify for a hand transplant, which required her to be in shape. But the tough young woman now said she saw her body in a different way now.






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