Virus may knock millions off the Internet on Monday

About a quarter-million computer users around the world are at risk of losing Internet access on Monday because of malicious software at the heart of a hacking scam that the US authorities shut down in November, 2011.

Some blogs and news reports hyped the risk of an outage, warning of a potential "blackout" and describing the Alureon malware as the "Internet Doomsday" virus.

Yet experts said only a tiny fraction of computer users were at risk, and Internet providers would be on call to quickly restore service. They said they considered the threat to be small compared with more-prevalent viruses such as Zeus and SpyEye, which infect millions of PCs and are used to commit financial fraud.

As of this week, about 245,000 computers worldwide were still infected by Alureon and its brethren, according to security firm Deteque. That included 45,355 computers in the United States.

The viruses were designed to redirect Internet traffic through rogue DNS servers controlled by criminals, according to the FBI. DNS servers are computer switchboards that direct Web traffic.

When authorities took down the rogue servers, a federal judge in New York ordered that temporary servers be kept in place while the victims' machines were repaired. The temporary servers will shut down at 12:01 a.m. EDT on Monday, which means the infected PCs that have not been fixed will no longer be able to connect to the Internet.

Some US Internet providers, including AT&T Inc and Time Warner Cable, have made temporary arrangements so that their customers will be able to access the Internet using the address of the rogue DNS servers.

Information on how to identify and clean up infections can be found on a website that a group of security firms and other experts set up: www.dcwg.org.

"It's a very easy one to fix," said Gunter Ollmann, vice president of research for security company Damballa. "There are plenty of tools available."

Many of the machines that remain infected are probably not in active use since most victims were notified of the problem, said security expert Johannes Ullrich, who runs the Internet Storm Center, which monitors Web threats.

The United States has charged seven people for orchestrating the worldwide Internet fraud. Six were arrested in Estonia, while the seventh, who was living in Russia, is still at large. Tallinn has so far extradited two of the men to New York where they appeared in Manhattan federal court.

Delhi wakes up to pre-monsoon showers

New Delhi: The much awaited rain has brought some relief to the national capital that has been reeling under high temperatures. Parts of Delhi woke up to pre-monsoon showers this morning and the Met department has predicted rain and thundershowers over the weekend. 

The rains could bring down the temperatures to a minimum of 29 and 28 degree Celsius.

The delayed southwest monsoon also finally reached Himachal Pradesh. Showers lashed capital Shimla, Dharamsala, Manali and other towns, leading to a sharp fall in temperature across the state. The Met department has warned of heavy rains in next 48 hours.


However down south, the past month has been traumatic for farmers in north and central Karnataka. Many parts of the state have not recorded any rainfall during the first half of the monsoon. The state and the central governments have released over Rs. 300cr rupees as relief fund towards drought affected farmers.

Assamese poet Hiren Bhattacharyya passes away

Guwahati: Award-winning Assamese poet Hiren Bhattacharyya, 80, died of lung infection at a private hospital in Guwahati on Wednesday.

Bhattacharyya, popularly known as Hiruda, was undergoing treatment at Dispur Hospital since June 14. 

He breathed his last breath at 11.20 a.m. on Wednesday.

Known as the "Poet of Love and Sunshine", Bhattacharyya was honoured with the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1992 and Assam Valley Literary Award in 2000.

He penned at least 11 collections of poetry and books on nursery rhymes.

Many of his poems have been turned into songs by renowned Assamese singers.

His most popular collection, "Sugandhi Pokhila" ("Fragrant Butterflies"), has been translated into English.

ATM for blind launched in Sharjah

Sharjah, United Arab Emirates: In a first in the Middle East as well as the United Arab Emirates (UAE), a teller machine for blind and visually impaired people has been launched in Sharjah by the Sharjah Islamic Bank.

The ATM features a large Braille keypad, high resolution screen, wide keys, headphone and external speaker to ensure the user's privacy.

The user needs to choose fewer options than in a normal ATM.

Though the machine is designed for the visually impaired, it can also be used by others.

The ATM is located at the Emirates Association for the Blind headquarters in Sharjah, where visually impaired people will be trained to use the machine by a team from the bank.

The ruler of Sharjah, Sheikh Sultan bin Mohammed Al Qasimi, had recently ordered banks in the emirate to offer facilities to the blind in response to a telephone call made by Manar Al Hamadi, a blind lawyer.

The Sharjah Islamic Bank later opened a bank account for the lawyer.    

Scientists to unveil milestone in Higgs Boson or God Particle hunt

London: Scientists hunting the elusive subatomic 'Higgs' particle will unveil findings on Wednesday that take them nearer to understanding how the Big Bang at the dawn of time gave rise to stars, planets and even life.

Physicists who have been smashing particles together near light-speed at the CERN laboratory near Geneva have already seen tantalising glimpses of the "Higgs boson", the missing piece of the fundamental theory of physics known as the Standard Model.

The world of science now awaits a mass of evidence big enough to be deemed a formal discovery. The secrecy surrounding Wednesday's announcement has fuelled speculation that nearly 40 years of research have reached a climax.


Data harvested from CERN's Large Hadron Collider, the biggest particle accelerator in the world, could also shed light on the make-up of the poorly understood 'dark matter' and "dark energy" that make up 96 percent of the universe. It may even point the way to research into the possibility of parallel universes.

CERN is planning to beam the announcement live around the world to a physics conference inMelbourne, Australia. Related events are planned in countries involved in the project, including Britain. The unusual level of stage management has fuelled the sense that big news is on the cards.

On Monday, U.S. physicists said they had found the strongest evidence yet of the existence of the Higgs in a mass of data collected from the now-mothballed Tevatron particle accelerator, run by the Fermi National Accelerator Lab outside Chicago.
"It will be interesting to see how it lines up with CERN's results on Wednesday," said CERN spokesmanJames Gillies.

Some scientists working on the project have told Reuters they expect the unveiling of a formal discovery while others expect it to fall just short.

With thousands of physicists involved, divided into two separate teams called Atlas and CMS, CERNinsists the full picture will not be clear to anyone until a seminar shortly before Wednesday's announcement.

"Even CERN's director general won't know much before the seminar reveals the exact results," said Pauline Gagnon, a Canadian particle physicist working on Atlas. "They are being finalised at the last minute after much scrutiny."

The Higgs particle, although crucial for understanding how the universe was formed, remains theoretical. It is the last undiscovered piece of the Standard Model that describes the fundamental make-up of the universe. The model is for physicists what the theory of evolution is for biologists.

Scientists say the existence of dark matter and dark energy suggests the Standard Model, if validated by a Higgs discovery, is just the first layer of a more complex theory that includes the vast bulk of the universe that is now poorly understood.

"The Standard Model has a few major flaws; the Higgs boson discovery would only fix one of them," said Gagnon.

"We still have no clue regarding what makes 96 percent of the content of the universe. This should keep us physicists busy for a few more decades."