russia

Targeted Twitter user blames Russia

The Georgian blogger whose Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube accounts were targeted in denial-of-service attacks on Thursday, says he thinks Russia's federal security service is behind it.

"This hackers was from Russian KGB," the blogger, who uses "Cyxymu" on his accounts, wrote in a tweet early on Friday, adding later: "My twitter is online! Thank you all for support after ciber attack from Russia!"

Because of the difficulty in tracing distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks back to the source, unless someone takes credit for the attack or brags about it to online associates, it's … Read more

Lada proves practical for German drivers

While most folks joke about Russian cars, some Germans are actually driving them. This news cast explains why the boxy cars are gaining popularity.

Russia said to probe Microsoft over XP halt

Microsoft is reportedly facing another antitrust inquiry, this time from the Russians.

According to a Reuters report Thursday, regulators there argue that Microsoft is violating Russian antitrust law by limiting supplies of Windows XP while demand exists and forcing people to buy Windows Vista.

Microsoft has largely stopped selling Windows XP for use on new computers, although it is still allowed in some emerging markets as well as for very low-cost machines, such as Netbooks.

The software maker says it has yet to be notified of the complaint.

"Microsoft has not yet received notice of any new investigation," … Read more

The Cold War moves to cyberspace

This story was originally published at CBSNews.com.

Somewhere deep in Washington's national security apparatus, more than a few old-timers surely pine for the clarity of the Cold War. Black versus white, American versus Russian, spy versus spy--the good old days.

Now, however, they face more ephemeral threats from shadowy foes that prefer to cloak their identities.

"There's a cyberwar going on," said Ed Giorgio, who spent nearly 30 years with the National Security Agency before starting an IT security consultancy in 2007. The problem, he says, is that identifying an online adversary isn't as easy as pinpointing an enemy tank formation.

"Adversaries are just as likely to be nationalists as they are likely to be countries," said Giorgio, echoing a theme that cybersecurity experts say is likely to shape the Pentagon's approach to building Internet defenses in an increasingly networked world.

The extent of the problem was hinted at earlier in the day by Defense Secretary Robert Gates. In an upcoming 60 Minutes interview, Gates told CBS News anchor Katie Couric that the United States is "under cyberattack virtually all the time, every day" and that his department will more than quadruple the number of experts to battle cyber attacks. … Read more

Russia may increase oversight of Microsoft

The Russian government is exploring whether Microsoft deserves closer scrutiny under its antitrust laws, specifically whether the software maker should be added to a government-maintained list of companies with high market share.

Being added to the list itself doesn't mean the company is under investigation, but rather that it must comply with laws governing firms that have a significant market share. Unlike in some regions, Russia starts keeping an eye on companies with even a relatively low share. Anything upwards of about 35 percent share could land a company on the list.

"Russian authorities have opened an inquiry … Read more

MacBook Mini mockup: Fan fake or the real deal?

When it comes to anything Apple--and especially anything Mac Netbook-related--you can blog virtually anything and get a huge response from readers.

Well, Monday's Apple Netbook entry comes to us from a Russian magazine that printed up what's almost assuredly fake concept art for a MacBook mini (it's not quite April Fool's Day, but we're close). What's amusing is that it all looks pretty real on the surface, with a price tag ($899), a release date (sometime this year), and detailed specs that have some folks drooling:

10.4-inch WXGA display 1280x768-pixel resolution with LED backlighting Nvidia MCP79 chipset Intel Atom Z740 1.83GHz CPU with 1MB L2 cache 2GB DDR3-800 memory Nvidia GeForce 9400M GPU 64GB solid-state drive Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR connectivity Wi-Fi 802.11a/b/g/n connectivity 1 USB 2.0 socket 1 Mini Display Port Lithium ion 5100mA battery

Looks too good to be true. Or does it?

9to5 via Gizmodo.

See another photo after the jump.… Read more

Chechen soldiers' Flinstonian phone charger

Updated at 2:43 p.m. PDT: A couple of keen readers with better engineering backgrounds than us pointed out that the "blue thing" is a generator, not a capacitor. We're sorry our Russian isn't as good as it could be.

Earlier Thursday, we brought you the DIY arcade cabinet, a feat of great ingenuity. But now I find this: a homemade, DIY, dynamo-powered cell phone charger. According to English Russia (one of the greatest sites on the Web,) Chechen soldiers made it to keep their phones charged while stationed in the woods without electricity.

This … Read more

Vote now for Miss Nuclear Reactor 2009

What would you do, in this age of green power and greener pastures, to improve the image of the nuclear power industry?

And what would you do if you happened to live in the country where the nuclear power industry brought you, um, Chernobyl?

Well, the Russians, traditionalists to the bitter end, have come up with a brainwave of a quite elevated frequency. Yes, an online beauty pageant.

Who, on this Thursday that seems surrounded only by woes, can resist logging on to this sumptuous contest to find the most beautiful woman working in the Russian nuclear power industry?

In … Read more

U.S. and Russian satellites collide

In an unprecedented space collision, a commercial Iridium communications satellite and a defunct Russian satellite ran into each other Tuesday above northern Siberia, creating a cloud of wreckage, officials said today. The international space station does not appear to be threatened by the debris, they said, but it's not yet clear whether it poses a risk to any other military or civilian satellites.

"They collided at an altitude of 790 kilometers (491 miles) over northern Siberia Tuesday about noon Washington time," said Nicholas Johnson, NASA's chief scientist for orbital debris at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. "The U.S. space surveillance network detected a large number of debris from both objects."

Air Force Brig. Gen. Michael Carey, deputy director of global operations with U.S. Strategic Command, the agency responsible for space surveillance, said initial radar tracking detected some 600 pieces of debris. He identified the Russian spacecraft as Cosmos 2251, a communications relay station launched in June 1993, and said the satellite is believed to have been non-operational for the past 10 years or so.

"As of about 12 hours ago, I think the head count was up (to around) 600 pieces," Carey told CBS News late today. "It's going to take about two days before we get a solid picture of what the debris fields look like. But you, I think, can imply that the majority of that should be probably along the same line as the original orbits."

He said U.S. STRATCOM routinely tracks about 18,000 objects in space, including satellites and debris, that are 3.9 inches across or larger. Tracking priority and "conjunction analysis"--identifying which objects may pose a threat to manned spacecraft--is the first priority.

"It's going to take a while" to get an accurate count of the debris fragments, Johnson said. "It's very, very difficult to discriminate all those objects when they're really close together. And so, over the next couple of days, we'll have a much better understanding."

Asked which satellite was at fault, Johnson said "they ran into each other. Nothing has the right of way up there. We don't have an air traffic controller in space. There is no universal way of knowing what's coming in your direction." … Read more