Indiana University and Oak Ridge National Laboratory researchers have developed a method for finding where malicious systems originate. The researchers performed a statistical analysis of Internet Protocol (IP) addresses from blacklists to identify Internet service providers, hosting services, or other autonomous systems with high levels of blacklisted IP addresses. “We wanted to be able to say if a particular network is doing a good job of cleaning up its machines,” says Oak Ridge researcher Craig Shue. The researchers found that some autonomous systems have more than 80 percent of their IP addresses blacklisted. Three U.S.-based hosting providers accounted for more than six percent of one of the blacklists, a disproportionately large percentage for the size of the systems. “This indicates that some [autonomous systems] have either too lax a security policy or may be intentionally harboring cybercrime,” the researchers say. The next step is to evaluate the quality of the blacklist data.
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The U.S. government is exploring ways to combat and deter cyberattacks from abroad. After a recent Pentagon simulated cyberattack, it became clear that the enemy had all the advantages–stealth, anonymity, and unpredictability. The situation has led some in the government to compare it to that of the Cold War era, and there is intense debate inside and outside the government about what the United States can realistically threaten. Diplomatic demarche, formal protest, economic retaliation, and criminal prosecution have all been suggested as possible responses to increased cyberattacks. “We are now in the phase that we found ourselves in during the early 1950s, after the Soviets got the bomb,” says Harvard University professor Joseph Nye. The Internet has blurred the line between military and civilian targets because an enemy can cripple a target without ever aiming at the government or military, which hinders the U.S. Department of Defense’s authority to intervene. The U.S. government has responded to increasing cyberattacks by creating a new United States Cyber Command, run though the Defense Department.

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University of Bath researchers led by professor Peter Hall and Ph.D. candidate Chris Li have developed software that enables a computer to process video of a tree and then generate lifelike computer animations of trees and the movement of branches and leaves in the wind. The program allows users to draw around the tree outline in the first frame of the video, and then make a model of the tree and track the movement of branches and leaves in the video. Algorithms copy this movement, enabling the software to generate trees that are slightly different from each other. Li says the program would be a helpful tool for animators and computer game designers. “Our system will make it faster and cheaper for animators to create animated backgrounds,” he says. “In the future, we want to use this same technique to animate other objects like clouds, water, fire, and smoke.”

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The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) will award $30 million across two to four projects to redesign the Internet via new security, reliability, and collaborative applications, under the aegis of its Future Internet Architectures (FIA) program. “Proposals should not focus on making the existing Internet better through incremental changes, but rather should focus on designing comprehensive architectures that can meet the challenges and opportunities of the 21st century,” NSF says. The proposals should seek out transformative research that could potentially facilitate the generation of architectures that extend outside of current core networking components, mechanisms, and application requirements. The NSF also wants researchers to develop more efficient ways to disseminate information and manage users’ identities while accounting for emerging wireless and optical technologies. The NSF says FIA proposals must feature prototype plans, and may mandate the employment of research networks such as Global Environment for Network Innovations or the National Cyber Range.

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The revolution in texting, social networking, and crowdsourcing has enabled innovations such as the 4636 texting service, which is aiding the disaster relief efforts in Haiti by recruiting scores of volunteers to help translate messages that could mean the difference between life and death. Another crowdsourcing initiative is CrisisCommons, which has organized thousands of volunteers to enhance the map of Haiti available on the open source OpenStreetMap site. Other projects CrisisCommons is spearheading include one to build a Craigslist-style “we need, we have” Web site to connect people offering resources to those that need them. The proliferation of mobile communications infrastructure to the developing world has supported the emergence of new tools for using text messaging, run by relatively small organizations that can work fast using limited resources in difficult conditions. This places them in a pivotal position as facilitators of disaster relief. Individuals and organizations have been galvanized to collaborate via social networking media by the realization that large-scale activities can be coordinated through online networks.

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The European Union-funded EURACE project has developed simulation software capable of predicting interactions between large populations of different economic actors. The software uses the Flexible Large-scale Agent Modeling Environment simulation technology, which was developed for computer-generated images in movies. Each simulated agent is given individual and realistic behaviors and interactions to demonstrate how markets will evolve, which the researchers say makes the large-scale simulations better at testing new policies and potential changes in society. “The results of this research project will complement traditional economic statistics and assumptions about how economic actors react by enabling better testing of a policy’s effects on people while still on the drawing board,” says the EU Commissioner for Information Society and Media Viviane Reding. The simulations use computer-based experiments to focus on the relationships between large populations of different economic actors throughout numerous interconnected markets. This is the first time that this type of simulation technology has been applied on such a large scale using high-powered computing. By connecting hundreds of thousands of small simulated actions and reactions throughout the economy, the software can provide policy-makers with more accurate predictions of how people and the economy will react to policy changes.

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The number of foreign scientists that earned Ph.D.s in science and engineering in the United States continues to grow, despite a weak job market and increased opportunities at home, according to a study by the U.S. Energy Department’s Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education. The study found that 62 percent of foreigners who earned Ph.D.s in science and engineering at U.S. universities in 2002 were still in the U.S. in 2007, and 60 percent of those receiving Ph.D.s in 1997 were still in the U.S. a decade later. Foreign scientists account for about 40 percent of all science and engineering Ph.D. holders in the U.S. The Energy Department’s Michael Finn says that Ph.D. graduates in computer science and the physical sciences are the most likely to stay in the United States after graduation. However, other analysts say that foreign scientists are more likely to return home, especially due to the current job market. “I have no doubt that the 2009 data will show a dramatic shift,” says Duke University professor Vivek Wadwha. According to a recent National Science Foundation survey, there were 158,430 foreign science and engineering students enrolled in U.S. graduate programs in April 2009, up eight percent from the previous year.

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Researchers at Switzerland’s Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL) have incorporated cloud computing technology into Dimmunix, a new tool designed to make programs immune to future recurrences of bugs. When a bug manifests in software for the first time, Dimmunix saves its signature, then observes the response of the computer and records a trace, which enables the tool to recognize the bug the next time. When the bug appears again, Dimmunix automatically changes the execution of the program so it continues to run smoothly. The use of cloud computing technology means the tool can protect an entire network of computers from bugs, even in an environment such as the Internet. EPFL professor George Candea compares Dimmunix to the way the human immune system develops antibodies after an infection. “Subsequently, when the immune system encounters the same pathogen once again, the body recognizes it and knows how to effectively fight the illness,” he says. Dimmunix is available online for free.

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China has demonstrated the most growth in scientific research of any country in the past three decades and is on pace to overtake the United States as the world’s scientific leader by 2020, according to a recent Thomson Reuters study. The study found that China has experienced a 64-fold increase in peer-reviewed scientific papers since 1981. “China is out on its own, far ahead of the pack,” says the Royal Society of London’s James Wilsdon. Chinese researchers also have become more eager to work with international colleagues, with almost nine percent of Chinese-based papers having at least one U.S.-based co-author. Three main factors are driving China’s boom of scientific research, Wilsdon says. The government has made an enormous financial investment, new scientific breakthroughs are organized to flow from basic science to commercial applications, and Chinese researchers based in the United States and Europe are being recruited back to China.

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Researchers at IBM’s Zurich Research Laboratories have developed magnetic tape technology that can store 29.5 billion bits per square inch, which would allow a cartridge to store about 35 terabytes of data, more than 40 times the storage capacity of current cartridges and several times more than a hard disk of similar size. The researchers used a magnetic medium called barium ferrite, and, by working with Fujifilm, were able to orientate the barium ferrite magnetic particles so that their magnetic fields protrude perpendicularly from the tape, instead of lengthways. This arrangement allows more bits to be stored in a given area, and also strengthens the magnetic fields. Additionally, thinner tape can be used, allowing 12 percent more tape to be stored on a single spooled cartridge. Increasing the density of data on a tape makes it more difficult to reliably read information, which was already a problem due to electromagnetic interference and because the heads retain a certain amount of residual magnetism from readings. To solve these problems, the IBM researchers developed new signal processing algorithms that simultaneously process data and predict the effect that electromagnetic noise will have on subsequent readings.

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