Computer flight glitch hits south UK

9 July 2013 Last updated at 09:46 ET

Flights in southern England have suffered minor delays because of air traffic control computer problems.

Nats, the national air traffic control body, said UK airspace was not shut, nor were all flights in and out of the UK suspended - as one airport had said.

The problem was apparently caused by a "rogue flight plan", resolved by a re-boot of the computer system at Nats' Swanwick, Southampton, control centre.

Operations were returning to normal by lunchtime, Nats said.

Outbound flights were by then being delayed by no more than 20 minutes.

Nats said: "Operations are now returning to normal and we are working with the airports, airlines and Eurocontrol (the European air traffic management body) to clear the backlog of flights to ensure disruption is kept to a minimum.

"We regret any inconvenience this technical problem has caused, however our first priority will always be the safety of the flying public."

Jersey Airport had tweeted just after 10:00 BST on Tuesday that the computer failure at Swanwick had "resulted in the temporary suspension of all flights in and out of UK air space."

In an update 25 minutes later, the airport said there was "once again movement in UK skies. However, some delays may result."

The airport said passengers could check-in as usual.

7,086 flights

Flights were also delayed at East Midlands Airport and Southampton Airport.

Southampton Airport suffered delays in the morning, but by 14:00 BST said there were "a few short delays" although passengers could check-in as usual.

A spokeswoman for Gatwick Airport earlier said "there are minor delays particularly with flights to Jersey, where the airspace issue is happening."

She said flights from Europe could be delayed by the restrictions placed around Jersey's airspace.

Low-cost operator Easyjet said there were no delays or flight problems.

Heathrow Airport, the UK's largest hub, had delays of 20-30 minutes at one point. British Airways said all its flights were operating as scheduled.

Nats provides air traffic navigation services to aircraft flying through UK controlled airspace and at several UK and international airports. Its website said it handled 7,086 flights on Monday.

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Wimbledon causes social media surge

8 July 2013 Last updated at 12:33 ET By Zoe Kleinman Technology reporter, BBC News

Twitter recorded more than 6.6 million tweets about Wimbledon during the two-week tennis championships.

During last year's tournament the figure was just 2.5 million, according to analysis by Wimbledon partner IBM.

Facebook reported more than 20 million posts, comments and "likes" relating to the competition.

Mobile phone provider EE said there was a 39% increase in traffic on its 4G service during the men's final on 7 July.

On the same day, Google recorded more than two million searches for match winner Andy Murray.

During the same time period, more than 500,000 people chose to search for information about his girlfriend Kim Sears.

Over the course of the championships, the Facebook profile of Murray's rival Novak Djokovic attracted 3.1 million "likes". That was three times as many as Murray, who had 1.3m at the time of writing.

This trend was reflected by the women's finalists, with winner Marion Bartoli attracting 18,412 "likes" for her official page while her opponent Sabine Lisicki gathered 290,000.

Murray's victorious tweet: "Can't believe what's just happened!!!!" was re-tweeted more than 77,000 times in just over an hour, Twitter said in a blog post.

High demand

However some sports websites struggled to keep up with the demand for information about the tournament.

According to website monitoring service Keynote, 25% of visitors to the Eurosport website were unable to see pages during the men's final, while loading times for Tennis.co.uk took up to 15 seconds at peak times.

The recent combination of two big sporting events - Wimbledon and the final Lions rugby test in Australia - put added pressure on websites, said Robert Castley, Performance Management Expert at Keynote.

"From analysing site performance over Wimbledon this year, we can see how some sites have lagged behind and will have, as a result, lost some of their loyal visitors," he explained.

"In a world where the next well-performing website is only a click away, drops in service and lengthy load times should simply be a thing of the past."

He added that while most websites coped well with the surge in demand, it was important that the big headlines were easy to find.

"We are all well aware of the depth of information on the internet, but when Murray hit that last ball, all anyone really wanted to know was whether Djokovic had made the return," he said.

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Warcraft to test in-game payments

8 July 2013 Last updated at 06:51 ET

World of Warcraft maker Blizzard is to start experimenting with a system that lets players use real money to buy goods in the game.

Blizzard revealed the experiment in a message posted to the WoW chat forums.

Before now players have only been able to spend real money in out-of-game stores to buy pets and mounts for their characters.

The first item players can buy is a potion that boosts the experience points they gain from kills and loot.

The Enduring Elixir of Wisdom boosts experience rewards by 100% and is currently only available on the game's public test servers. To use it, players must be controlling a character of level 85 or above.

A Blizzard community manager called Zarhym said the elixir was one of the elements Blizzard was using to test in-game purchases. Other elements would appear on those test realms soon, they suggested.

"We are currently exploring the possibility of adding a way for players in certain regions to make purchases directly within the game," Zarhym wrote, adding that Blizzard would provide more details soon.

It is not clear which WoW players would be the first to get in-game purchases in the full game or when the switch would happen. Industry experts speculated that it would take place first in Asia where the bulk of WoW's players are located.

The move is widely seen as an attempt by WoW to shore up its declining player base. In May, Blizzard reported that 1.3 million people stopped playing the game in the first three months of 2013. About 8.3 million people are now believed to still be playing. In 2010, subscriber numbers peaked at 12 million.

Previous attempts to make the game more attractive included making it free to play up to level 20 and introducing new playable races.

WoW is facing increasing competition from other massively playable online games that remain free to play throughout. Many of these have already gone down the route that Blizzard is contemplating by letting players use real money to buy gear, boosts and other equipment for their characters.

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Hackers 'target S Korean military'

8 July 2013 Last updated at 09:28 ET

Hackers who wiped tens of thousands of PC hard drives in South Korea earlier this year also appear to be targeting the country's military secrets, according to a report.

A study by McAfee Labs said the group has created malware which scanned systems for keywords including "weapon", "US Army" and "secret".

It said that once a computer's contents had been catalogued, the attackers could "grab documents at will".

South Korea has played down the threat.

Its defence ministry told the Associated Press news agency that it was technically impossible to have lost classified reports because the computers on which it stored military secrets were not connected to the net.

A spokesman for the Pentagon said it planned to review the report.

Social network

McAfee said the attacks were part of a long-term spying operation dating back to at least 2009 which it called Operation Troy because the name of the ancient city repeatedly appeared in the hackers' code.

It began investigating the group following an attack in March which caused data held on PCs used by several banks and TV networks to be deleted.

Although the security firm said that the malware used to wipe the disks was distinct from that used to hunt for the military secrets, it said there were so many similarities between the two that it believed they must be created by the same team.

It traced the spying effort back to at least 2009 when it said the hackers managed to place an exploit on a military social networking site. It added that it believed the code was also spread through the use of "spear phishing" - email or other messages masquerading as official communications which were designed to fool specific individuals into handing over logins and other sensitive information.

The report said that once the malware was in place it searched the infected systems for "interesting" documents.

To do this it scanned for a variety of Korean and English-language keywords.

The study lists dozens of examples including "tactics", "brigade", "logistics" and "Operation Key Resolve" - a military exercise involving both South Korean and US forces carried out every year. McAfee said it had opted to withhold other "sensitive" terms at the request of US officials.

The report explained the software then flagged which computers appeared to have the most valuable contents and uploaded copies of their directories to the attackers' servers.

It said the hackers were then able to pick and choose which files to download in order to keep network traffic to a minimum, helping them avoid detection.

McAfee also warned that it had discovered a version of the spying malware which had the ability to destroy data in a way similar to the one used against the civilian targets.

"This capability could be devastating if military networks were to suddenly be wiped after an adversary had gathered intelligence," it said.

"There was at least one limitation, however. We found the malware of February 2011 could wipe its targets only if it was detected that it was being debugged or analysed by a security product."

Wiper function

A spokesman for South Korea's government denied classified documents would have been at risk since the computer network that stored them was not connected to the net.

"It's physically separated," said Kim Min-Seok.

However, one of the report's authors suggested there was still a risk.

"It is not entirely impossible to extract information from a closed network that is disconnected from the internet," said senior threat researcher Ryan Sherstobitoff.

"[But] it would require some extensive planning and understanding of the internal layout to stage such an exfiltration [unauthorised data transfer] to the external world."

The report does not name who McAfee believes to be responsible, however South Korean officials have previously said that the 20 March attack "resembled North Korea's past hacking patterns".

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Phone shows directions on windscreen

8 July 2013 Last updated at 12:31 ET

Sat-nav firm Garmin has made a portable head-up display (HUD) for cars that projects turn-by-turn directions on to a vehicle's windscreen.

The portable HUD works with a smartphone and Garmin app to generate navigation information.

The gadget can project directional arrows, distances, current speed and speed limits on the windscreen.

Information is projected via the HUD's attached reflector lens or on to a plastic film stuck to the window glass.

The navigation system can also provide voice prompts via a smartphone's speaker or a car stereo that works with the Bluetooth short range radio technology. The app associated with the sat-nav system is available for iPhones, Android phones and Windows Phone 8 handsets.

The HUD automatically adjusts brightness levels to ensure that projected information is easy to read during the day and at night.

The Garmin HUD looked "interesting", said Tim Edwards, a principal engineer in the future transport technology division at motor industry research firm Mira.

"Car makers are starting to do this themselves but their challenge has always been development lifecycles," he said. "Your smartphone changes almost daily but there's a limit to how fast a car can be updated."

Mr Edwards said HUDs were starting to be standard in mid-range vehicles and were no longer confined to top-of-the-line models.

However, he said, the add-ons and gadgets produced by firms such as Panasonic and Garmin that people use on their own cars might be a better driver's aide than those made by car manufacturers.

"In a car, a HUD is usually built in and you cannot update it," he said.

HUDs that project information on to windscreens can cut down on driver distraction as people spend less time looking down at instruments and more with their eyes on the road, he added.

Such systems were likely to become more necessary as vehicles got progressively more autonomous because drivers would need to be quickly told if they suddenly needed to take over, said Mr Edwards.

Garmin said its HUD would cost about $130 (£86) when it went on sale in late summer. Regional maps for the associated Garmin app will cost about $30 (£20) each.

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Post Office finds computer defect

8 July 2013 Last updated at 15:10 ET By Matt Prodger Home affairs correspondent

The Post Office has admitted that software defects have occurred with a computer system at the centre of a bitter dispute with some of its 11,500 sub-postmasters across the UK.

More than 100 say they were wrongly prosecuted or made to repay money after computers made non-existent shortfalls.

Some of them lost their homes as a result and a few went to prison.

The Post Office said the report showed its system was effective but said it would improve training and support.

Over the past year, independent investigators Second Sight, who were employed by the Post Office, have been examining a handful of the sub-postmasters' claims.

Although their review found no evidence of systemic problems with the core software, it did find bugs in it.

It pinpointed two specific occasions, in 2011 and 2012, when the Post Office identified defects itself which resulted in a shortfall of up to £9,000 at 76 branches.

The Post Office later made good those losses and the sub-postmasters were not held liable.

'Further improvement'

Sub-postmasters, who run the smaller post offices in the UK, are not directly employed by the Post Office but are contracted to run their branches as businesses.

They are responsible for balancing the books themselves, using the Post Office's Horizon computer system which processes all transactions.

A vocal minority of sub-postmasters have claimed for years that they were wrongly accused of theft after their Post Office computers apparently notified them of shortages that sometimes amounted to tens of thousands of pounds.

They were forced to pay in the missing amounts themselves, lost their contracts and in some cases went to jail.

Continue reading the main story

"Start Quote

"We're all really, really angry. We want justice for what has been awful. Some people have gone to prison"

End Quote Former sub-postmaster Jo Hamilton

Second Sight said the Post Office's initial investigation failed at first to identify the root cause of the problems.

The report says more help should have been given to sub-postmasters, who had no way of defending themselves.

And it concludes that further investigation is required.

More than 100 sub-postmasters have registered an interest in suing the Post Office over the prosecutions.

Jo Hamilton, who used to run a sub-post office from her village shop in South Warnborough, Hampshire, told BBC News things started to go wrong in 2005.

"I got to the end of one week and I was £2,000 short so I rang the helpdesk and they told me to do various things and then it said I was £4,000 short.

"They then said I had to pay them the £4,000 because that's what my contract says - that I would make good any losses.

"Then while I was repaying that it jumped up to £9,000."

System 'confidence'

Ms Hamilton said that, by the time the figure reached £36,000, she lied to the Post Office - wrongly telling them the books were balancing just so that she could open the office the next day.

As result of that, she pleaded guilty to false accounting.

Continue reading the main story

"Start Quote

The interim review makes clear that the Horizon computer system and its supporting processes function effectively across our network"

End Quote Post Office chief executive Paula Vennells

She has been paying back the money ever since.

She says the sub-postmasters who have registered an interest in bringing a legal claim are "all really, really angry".

"We want justice for what has been awful. Some people have gone to prison.

"One gentleman had worked for the Royal Mail for 40 years and he ends up spending his 60th birthday in prison - you don't suddenly turn into a criminal at that age."

Post Office chief executive Paula Vennells said: "We commissioned this independent review to address concerns that have been raised about the Horizon system and we welcome the broad thrust of the interim findings."

She said: "The interim review makes clear that the Horizon computer system and its supporting processes function effectively across our network.

"As the review notes, it is used by around 68,000 people in more than 11,500 branches, successfully processing more than six million transactions every day.

"The review underlines our cause for confidence in the overall system."

She said the review raised questions about the training and support "offered to some sub-postmasters and we are determined to address these issues", adding that, "in many of these cases", improvements had already been made,

And she pledged to make "further improvements in this area and take better account of individual requirements and circumstances going forward".

The Post Office has proposed setting up a working group to investigate further.

It also suggested a review chaired by an independent figure to work out how an independent safety net might be introduced to adjudicate in disputed cases in the future.

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Solar headphones can charge mobiles

9 July 2013 Last updated at 08:16 ET

A Glasgow designer has unveiled a prototype pair of headphones which he claims can harness solar power to keep mobile devices charged.

Andrew Anderson launched the OnBeat headphones on crowdfunding site Kickstarter and hopes to have them on sale by early 2014.

The headphone band is fitted with a flexible solar cell with a charge capacity of 0.55 watts.

The energy generated is stored in two small lithium batteries.

Concealed within both earpads, the batteries charge the device they are plugged into as it is playing.

Mr Anderson hopes to raise £200,000 to get the headphones into production.

"We are still working on the design and prototype," he told the BBC.

"We need to improve the headphones - people want to know about noise cancellation."

He admitted that his father Frank had come up with the idea.

"It's really simple - you would think it had already been done," he said.

"You can buy solar chargers for phones but the thing is it's like you're carrying two phones around."

The idea of using renewable sources to charge devices is proving popular among developers.

While you walk

A number of inventors have looked at harnessing the energy generated by walking. One project seeking crowdfunding via Kickstarter in the US is a shoe insole that can be used to charge batteries.

A walk of between 2.5 - 5 miles is required to charge an average iPhone battery, says the team at Solepower, which developed the prototype at Carnegie Mellon University.

"We developed a proof-of-concept prototype for lighting up shoes so students could easily see where they were walking at night," say its website.

"We quickly realised that the power generation concept was more universal than small lights.

"We're inventors at heart and our goal is to solve problems using cool technology. Plus, we'd reeeaaallly like our phones to stop dying."

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Death threat Facebook troll jailed

9 July 2013 Last updated at 08:59 ET

A British man who threatened to kill 200 people in the US, in posts he made under a false name on Facebook, has been jailed for more than two years.

Reece Elliott, 24, of Foss Way, South Shields, made the threat in February on online memorial pages for two Tennessee girls killed in car accidents.

About 3,000 pupils in Warren County missed school the next day as a result.

Elliott, who pleaded guilty at Newcastle Crown Court in April, was jailed for two years and four months.

The father-of-one admitted one count of making a threat to kill and eight of sending grossly offensive messages. He had been held in custody since his arrest.

Elliott targeted a tribute page to 17-year-old Caitlin Talley, a popular pupil at Warren County High, who had died in a car accident in October.

He also posted comments on the site of a 15-year-old girl who cannot be named.

Schools 'lockdown'

Using a false name, he wrote on the RIP Caitlin Talley page: "My father has three guns. I'm planning on killing him first and putting him in a dumpster.

"Then I'm taking the motor and I'm going in fast. I'm gonna kill hopefully at least 200 before I kill myself. So you want to tell the deputy, I'm on my way."

Continue reading the main story

Investigating reports of criminal behaviour on social network sites has its challenges, but we have staff who are trained in navigating these systems and identifying who the offenders are. "

End Quote Det Ch InspGed Noble Northumbria Police

He added: "I'm killing 200 people minimum at school. I will be on CNN."

At his first appearance at South Tyneside Magistrates' Court in February, Gary Buckley, prosecuting, said: "The residents of Warren County and all the people who have access to the Facebook page were clearly concerned.

"I am told that the local authority immediately put all the local schools in the area on what was called lockdown.

"Because of the hysteria caused, around 3,000 children were kept off school on that specific day."

Sentencing Elliott to 28 months in jail, Judge James Goss QC, the Recorder of Newcastle, told him the offences were driven by "no more than self-indulgent nastiness".

He added Elliott's early guilty plea and genuine remorse had been taken into account.

Two months before Elliott posted the threats, 20 children and six adults were shot and killed at Sandy Hook elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut.

After the posts were found to have originated in the UK, the FBI contacted the Metropolitan Police, who in turn worked with Northumbria officers.

'Complex investigation'

Elliott contacted his solicitor and walked into his local police station to admit what he had done when he realised the outcry he had caused.

Det Ch Insp Ged Noble, who led the investigation on Tyneside, said: "It was established that Elliott did not pose any physical threat to any schools, either here or in America.

"However, his actions were extremely worrying and distressing for the families involved and clearly crossed the line to criminal behaviour.

"Today's sentencing marks the end of what has been a complex investigation. From the outset we have worked very closely with law enforcement agencies in the USA and our Crown Prosecution Service.

"Investigating reports of criminal behaviour on social network sites has its challenges, but we have staff who are trained in navigating these systems and identifying who the offenders are.

"New guidelines on dealing with people who post offensive messages using social media have been released by the Director of Public Prosecutions and we will continue to work closely with the Crown Prosecution Service to take action against those who cross the line from their right to free speech to committing criminal offences."

The court heard Elliott had 17 previous convictions for 28 offences, including at the age of 16 an attempted robbery on a bookmakers when he was armed with an axe, and a racially aggravated public order offence in a pizza shop.

John Wilkinson, defending said Elliott was described by a psychiatrist as emotionally immature and impulsive.

He said his client could not explain his behaviour, which the defendant admitted was "idiotic, childish and pathetic".

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Vodafone under fire over new charges

9 July 2013 Last updated at 09:20 ET

Vodafone will soon charge its pay-as-you-go customers by the minute rather than the second - a move that will raise the cost of most calls.

It means a call lasting one minute and one second will now be charged as two minutes - costing 50p instead of 25p.

The phone network said the change - which comes into force from 1 August - would "simplify" charges for its customers.

Other networks, such as T-Mobile and Orange, also apply this billing method.

Vodafone sent text messages to its pay-as-you-go customers notifying them of the change.

"No more complicated pricing by the second," read a statement on the Vodafone website. "Just clear, straightforward per-minute charges.

"So if your call is a minute and 37 seconds long, it'll be charged as two minutes. That way, you'll always know exactly how many minutes you have left."

Some customers described the message as "patronising".

'Lead balloon'

Posting on Vodafone's support forum, user Funboy said: "This is being introduced to make more money for [Vodafone] pure and simple.

"It doesn't make anything simpler other than the fact that PAYG customers will essentially pay more for calls."

Calls for pay-as-you-go customers on Vodafone currently cost 25p per minute - with a minimum of one minute's charge for each call.

Telecoms expert Adam Kirby from uSwitch.com added to the criticism.

"While simpler and clearer pricing is always welcomed, it shouldn't come with the sting in the tail of increased bills," he said.

"But the real gripe is the way the message was communicated. Sending a text may be a quick, simple and cheap way to communicate with your friends, family and even your boss, but Vodafone breaking the news about price changes this way may be a bit of a stretch.

"The short and sharp nature of a text may explain why the message failed to tell the whole story - and so went down like a lead balloon with some customers."

'Generous allowance'

Vodafone has defended the change, saying in a statement: "We believe that by offering propositions with a generous allowance of minutes, we continue to offer our customers great value.

"Many of our competitors already offer price plans charged in this way."

Customers with Orange or T-Mobile are already charged on a per-minute basis.

However, O2 and Virgin Mobile still have a per-second model, with a one-minute minimum charge.

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Emergency broadcasts 'can be hacked'

9 July 2013 Last updated at 12:06 ET By Dave Lee Technology reporter, BBC News

The system used to broadcast to the United States in times of national crisis can be hacked, researchers have warned.

The Emergency Alerting System (EAS) was set up to allow the president to talk to the entire country within 10 minutes of a disaster.

Security specialists IOActive said one TV network's output "was interrupted by news of a zombie apocalypse".

Lead researcher Mike Davis said the system needed to be re-engineered.

IOActive has released a guidance sheet for concerned broadcasters looking to protect their system.

'Extremely dangerous'

In February, weaknesses in the system - which was introduced in 1997, replacing an older set-up - were exposed by hackers.

"Earlier this year we were shown an example of an intrusion on the EAS when the Montana Television Network's regular programming was interrupted by news of a zombie apocalypse," said Mr Davis.

Continue reading the main story

Bodies of the dead are rising from their graves and attacking the living"

End Quote Fake public service announcement

"Although there was no zombie apocalypse, it did highlight just how vulnerable the system is."

The message, which was also played out on a radio station in Michigan, said: "Civil authorities in your area have reported that the bodies of the dead are rising from their graves and attacking the living.

"Follow the messages onscreen that will be updated as information becomes available.

"Do not attempt to approach or apprehend these bodies as they are considered extremely dangerous."

Station bosses later apologised for any alarm or distress to listeners brought on by the unexpected alert.

UK testing

In the UK, no such emergency broadcast system is in place.

"We don't have an alerting system similar to that in this country at the moment," a Cabinet Office spokeswoman told the BBC.

However, the government is set to launch trials later in the year of a new "public emergency alert system".

Mooted plans include alert systems which span a variety of platforms, including the internet and mobile.

Social media will also be key, according to consultation documents published on Gov.uk.

"The popularity of social media makes it an ideal platform for communication with people and for disseminating additional information in the aftermath of an emergency," the document reads, before remarking that security must be a high priority to prevent false alarms.

If a national emergency were to take place today, broadcasters such as the BBC have contingency plans to ensure broadcasts can continue even if key locations are inactive.

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