The Malaysian Insider :: Features
The Malaysian Insider :: Features |
| “Area 51” landing site for U2 planes, not UFOs Posted: 16 Aug 2013 06:47 PM PDT Area 51 has long been fodder for science fiction films and wild UFO (unidentified flying object) tales claiming the US government imposed secrecy over the site northwest of Las Vegas to cover up evidence of extra-terrestrials touching down on Earth. Instead of encounters with flying saucers, the documents released by the CIA on Thursday recount a less sensational history of Area 51 - as a testing range for the government's U-2 spy plane during the Cold War. The CIA in-house history makes no mention of the legendary "Roswell incident," when a weather balloon crashed in New Mexico in 1947. UFO true believers allege it was an alien spacecraft that went down, and that Area 51's hangars had hidden evidence of extra-terrestrial corpses. But according to the CIA, the government secrecy surrounding Area 51 was not about Martians but about hiding a new spy plane from the Soviets. The U-2 reconnaissance aircraft was designed to snoop on The Soviet Union at high-altitude, and its development was top-secret. In April 1955, the CIA chose a remote dry lakebed in the Nevada desert as a testing ground, which was designated on maps as Area 51. Test flights for the U-2 aircraft were conducted at a much higher altitude than commercial airliners or other military planes. In the 1950s, commercial planes flew at between 10,000 and 20,000 feet and warplanes such as B-47 reached altitudes of less than 40,000 feet. The U-2 planes flew at above 60,000 feet, and reports of unidentified flying objects in the Nevada desert started to roll in, the report said. "High altitude testing of the U-2 soon led to an unexpected side effect - a tremendous increase in reports of unidentified flying objects (UFOs)," it said. The reports of UFOs often came from pilots from commercial airliners in the early evening hours, with the U-2 plane's silver wings reflecting the rays of the sun. The surveillance planes appeared to be "fiery objects" high in the sky, it said. "At this time, no one believed manned flight was possible above 60,000 feet, so no one expected to see an object so high in the sky," it said. The commercial pilots and other observers on the ground wrote letters to an Air Force unit in Dayton, Ohio charged with investigating such sightings. Anxious to avoid exposing the ultra-secret U-2 program, Air Force officers explained the sightings as merely due to natural phenomena, though they knew the high-flying U-2 was the true cause. U-2 and other surveillance flights "accounted for more than one-half of all UFO reports during the late 1950s and most of the 1960s," it said. The 400-page report, titled "Central Intelligence Agency and Overhead reconnaissance: The U-2 and Oxcart Programs, 1954-1974," was released as a result of a Freedom of Information request dating to 2005 from the National Security Archives at George Washington University. The study was published in classified form for spy agencies in 1992 and a heavily censored version was published in 1998. Area 51's location has been an open secret for years but government documents released previously had not acknowledged its existence and role in such a detailed way. Officials also had referred to a location "near Groom Lake." The CIA report said at the time officials decided to nickname the site "Paradise Ranch" to make it sound more attractive to potential workers. The in-house history refers to Area 51 in passing, as the report is devoted mainly to recounting how the CIA developed the U-2 "Dragon Lady" and other "eyes in the sky" to spy on the Soviets. Other stealthy planes have been tested at the site, including the SR-71 Blackbird, the F-117A fighter and the B-2 bomber. - AFP, August 17, 2013. |
| Virus targets the social network in new fraud twist Posted: 16 Aug 2013 06:18 PM PDT As social media has become increasingly influential in shaping reputations, hackers have used their computer skills to create and sell false endorsements - such as "likes" and "followers" - that purport to come from users of Facebook , its photo-sharing app Instagram, Twitter, Google's YouTube, LinkedIn and other popular websites. In the latest twist, a computer virus widely used to steal credit card data, known as Zeus, has been modified to create bogus Instagram "likes" that can be used to generate buzz for a company or individual, according to cyber experts at RSA, the security division of EMC Corp. These fake "likes" are sold in batches of 1,000 on Internet hacker forums, where cyber criminals also flog credit card numbers and other information stolen from PCs. According to RSA, 1,000 Instagram "followers" can be bought for US$15 (RM49.16) and 1,000 Instagram "likes" go for US$30, whereas 1,000 credit card numbers cost as little as US$6. It may seem odd that fake social media accounts would be worth more than real credit card numbers, but online marketing experts say some people are willing to spend heavily to make a splash on the Internet, seeking buzz for its own sake or for a business purpose, such as making a new product seem popular. "People perceive importance on what is trending," said Victor Pan, a senior data analyst with WordStream, which advises companies on online marketing. "It is the bandwagon effect." Facebook, which has nearly 1.2 billion users, said it is in the process of beefing up security on Instagram, which it bought last year for US$1 billion. Instagram, which has about 130 million active users, will have the same security measures that Facebook uses, said spokesman Michael Kirkland. He encouraged users to report suspicious activity through links on Facebook sites and apps. "We work hard to limit spam on our service and prohibit the creation of accounts through unauthorized or automated means," Kirkland said. Knowing when to stop The modified Zeus virus is the first piece of malicious software uncovered to date that has been used to post false "likes" on a social network, according to experts who track cyber crime. Fraudsters most commonly manipulate "likes" using automated software programs. The modified version of Zeus controls infected computers from a central server, forcing them to post likes for specific users. They could also be given marching orders to engage in other operations or download other types of malicious software, according to RSA. Cyber criminals have used Zeus to infect hundreds of millions of PCs since the virus first surfaced more than five years ago, according to Don Jackson, a senior security researcher with Dell SecureWorks. That the virus is now being adapted to target Instagram is a sign of the rising importance of social media in marketing, and the increasing sophistication of hackers trying to profit from the trend. Online marketing consultant Will Mitchell said he sometimes advises clients to buy bogus social-networking traffic, but only to get an early foothold online. When asked about the ethics of faking endorsements, Mitchell replied, "It's fine to do for the first 100, but I always advise stopping after that." He said one of his clients once bought more than 300,000 "likes" on Facebook against his advice, a move that Mitchell felt damaged the client's reputation. "It was just ridiculous," he said. "Everybody knew what they were doing." Still, experts say schemes to manipulate social networks are unlikely to go away. Creating fake social media accounts can also be used for more nefarious purposes than creating fake "likes," such as identity theft. "The accounts are always just a means to an end. The criminals are always looking to profit," said computer security expert Chris Grier, a University of California at Berkeley research scientist who spent a year working on a team that investigated fake accounts on Twitter. - Reuters, August 17, 2013. |
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