In his first public appearance since the beginning of the emails row Phil Jones tells MPs he will be cleared of accusationsRead our live coverage from the hearingThe scientist at the centre of a media storm over global warming research admitted today he had sent "awful emails" but said he expected to be cleared of accusations that he tried to pervert the scientific process.Phil Jones, head of the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, told a parliamentary inquiry that there was nothing in the hundreds of emails released on to the internet last year that supported the claims."I was just commenting that those papers weren't very good," Jones said. "There is nothing that [shows] that me or the CRU were trying to pervert the peer review process in any way."In his first...

Live coverage of the science and technology committee inquiry into disclosure of climate data by the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East AngliaFind out about the witnesses and terms of reference hereScientists and sceptics to face parliamentary inquiry into emails3.07pm: The sceptic Lord Lawson is complaining that the upcoming election has meant the STC committee has too little time. Lawson says the terms of reference of the UEA inquiry are OK.He says he is most concerned about the allegations that scientists tried to suppress other research.Lawson is now complaining that the UEA inquiry panel is not balanced - Phil Campbell the editor of Nature has resigned already.Lawson is now suggesting geologist Geoffrey Boulton is also not inpartial.Lawson says that's...

An invitation to find out about better sex is spreading virally around Twitter – but only leads to identity theft and malwareThousands of Twitter users have seen their accounts hijacked after a viral phishing attack which sends out messages saying "this you??" or "hey, i've been having better sex and longer with this here" and other sex-related "direct" messages.Among those who fell victim were the Press Complaints Commission and the BBC correspondent Nick Higham - and the Guardian's head of audio Matt Wells.The purpose of the attack, which began early on Thursday morning, is initially to draw people to the sites that hijack the accounts, and possibly install malware able to steal passwords on the user's computer. Another purpose may be simple identity theft: because people often use...

Submission ahead of next week's parliamentary inquiry 'strongly rejects' accusations university lost or manipulated climate dataThe university at the centre of the row over emails sent by climate scientists today rejected accusations that it had lost or manipulated scientific research.The University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit (CRU) has been under fire since hacked emails, which sceptics claimed showed scientists manipulating climate data, were leaked online last year.In a submission to parliament's science and technology committee, which is investigating the disclosure of climate data from the unit, the university said it "strongly rejected" accusations that it had manipulated or selected figures to exaggerate global warming.The university also denied suggestions that it had...

Head of the Climate Research Unit at the University East Anglia says he would consider correcting his paper on the degree of warming in ChinaThe climate expert at the centre of a media storm over the release of emails onto the internet has admitted that he did not follow correct procedures over a key scientific paper.In an interview with the science journal Nature, Phil Jones, the head of the Climate Research Unit (CRU) at the University East Anglia, admitted it was "not acceptable" that records underpinning a 1990 global warming study have been lost.The missing records make it impossible to verify claims that rural weather stations in developing China were not significantly moved, as it states in the 1990 paper, which was published in Nature. "It's not acceptable ... [it's] not best...

A design feature - or possibly bug - or possibly both - means that Internet Explorer can be turned into a web server which will leave your computer's files open to being read online, according to a hacker who demonstrated it at the Blackhat DC conference.Network World reports that "The flaw, said to extend across all versions of Internet Explorer, is not subject to a patching fix, according to Jorge Luis Alvarez Medina, the Argentina-based security consultant with Core Security Technologies who elaborated on the attack technique during his demo. Indeed, Microsoft advised anyone concerned about the potential for this type of attack to run IE in "protected mode," a workaround that Medina also advised. "Microsoft has, not unsurprisingly, issued a security advisory about it.It's broadly...

Internet groups fear alliance means US government could access personal informationGoogle's decision to enlist the help of the National Security Agency in tackling cyber attacks has caused alarm among internet groups and bloggers, who fear that users' personal information could be accessed by the US government.The Washington Post reported yesterday that the internet giant had turned to the NSA, which conducts surveillance and codebreaking for the federal government, in the wake of a cyber attack it believes came from China.The agency is responsible for securing the US administration's computer networks against similar breaches, and is said to be helping Google to understand and analyse the attacks.Sources say that the agreement will not allow the NSA to view users' searches or access...

Winner of our free 1TB portable external hard drive giveaway from WD announced, congrats! Also, are you on Facebook? If you are, we've just launched our fan page, another way to stay up to date with us and of course our weekly free gadget giveaways. How to turn your iPhone or iPod Touch into an iPad While there is still some time to go before anyone will be able to get their hands on an iPad. Those of you who are already dreaming of having the new Apple device may start “pretending” that you have one. If you have the iPhone or the iPod Touch and have had it jailbroken, you can now change the theme / UI on your device so that it looks literally the same as that of the iPad which runs the iPhone OS version 3.2. In fact, if you go through the entire list we have provided below,...

The Sony Playstation 3 has finally been ‘hacked’. The man claiming to have found his way into the PS3 is George Hotz (or Geohot) who was the first person to hack into Apple’s iPhone. But people have been questioning whether or not the PS3 has actually been ‘hacked’ as the CELL processor which is the power behind the PS3 is meant to have impenetrable internal decryption algorithms. So firstly there is the question whether the PS3 has been hacked at all? Now I’m not an expert on hacking as I’ve never tried it in my life, but if Hotz has hacked his way into the PS3 then we should be seeing high levels of piracy starting on the PS3 within the coming weeks surely? If not, then what has he actually hacked into? Running codes via OS systems like Linux to change a few things?...

Win a free 1TB portable external hard drive from Western Digital! Also, are you on Facebook? If you are, we've just launched our fan page, another way to stay up to date with us and of course our weekly free gadget giveaways. How to add / enable multitouch on Google Nexus One Many speculate that the fact the Google Nexus One doesn’t have multitouch enabled is because Google have had a deal with Apple and agreed not to enable this. However, is it possible? The Nexus One certainly has the hardware capabable of doing this, its just restricted from doing so that’s all. That’s why, we all saw this coming. Android hacker – Cyanogen has created a hack which allows modification Google Android OS 2.1 (which currently comes with the Nexus One) to enable multitouch...

• Personal data and tutorials in hacking offered online• Founder of site traced to London internet cafeTo the casual observer, there was little to distinguish the Java Bean internet cafe in Wembley from the hundreds of others dotted around the capital. But to surveillance officers staking it out month after month, this unremarkable venue was the key to busting a remarkable and sophisticated network of cyber criminals.From the bank of computers inside, a former pizza bar worker ran an international cyber "supermarket" selling stolen credit card and account details costing the banking industry tens of millions.Renukanth Subramaniam, 33, was revealed today as the founder and a major "orchestrator" of the secret ­DarkMarket website, where elite fraudsters bought and sold personal data,...

Verisign's iDefense Labs says IP addresses of attack 'correspond to single foreign entity consisting either of agents of Chinese state or proxies thereof'An American internet security firm says it has traced the sophisticated cyber-attack against Google and 30 other US companies back to the Chinese government "or its proxies". In its announcement that it might quit China, Google stopped short of accusing the Chinese government of responsibility for the attacks. However, the report from Verisign's iDefense Labs said the internet addresses "of the attack correspond to a single foreign entity consisting either of agents of the Chinese state or proxies thereof".Internet attacks are difficult to trace to their source as attackers often use several computers, sometimes in different countries,...

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Win a Facebook robot - Pingo! It's our last giveaway of 2009! Also, are you on Facebook? If you are, we've just launched our fan page, another way to stay up to date with us and of course our weekly free gadget giveaways. Latest Nokia N900 hack turns the mobile tablet into a PS3 controller Due to arrive in the New Year here in the UK via Vodafone, Nokia’s relatively new N900 Maemo mobile phone tablet gets turned into a controller for the PlayStation 3 game console. The hack in question is in fact a new application currently still being improved and is in its early stages. Its known as BlueMaemo Bluetooth emulator and allows the N900 to mimic bluetooth devices. Its developer Valério Domingos humbly points out that the purpose of connecting up to a PS3 is purely for menu navigation...

Win a Facebook robot - Pingo! It's our last giveaway of 2009! Now available: N64 emulator for iPhone supports bluetooth Wiimote ZodTTD a master at developing emulators has released a pretty amazing piece of work. Just released onto Cydia for $2.50 is N64iPhone, an N64 emulator application for iPhone which will allow you to play N64 game roms on your handheld device, we believe it should probably work for iPod Touch users as well. What’s more is that ZodTTD has added a bonus to the app, users can play with their Wiimote via bluetooth! The only catch as you will imagine is that you need to have your iPod Touch or iPhone jailbroken first, this is so that you will be given access to Cydia. Here’s a video demoing how the N64 emulator application works… [via Gizmodo]...

For the past couple of weeks, many big-wigs are meeting in Copenhagen for a chit-chat about climate change. This happens against the backdrop of the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit email hacking. This is said by some to offer evidence that climate scientists have manipulated data in order to boost the case that climate change is man-made. The emphasis on whether or not climate change is man-made confuses me. For instance, the Met Office’s response to the hacking seeks to underline the fact that climate change is man-made: “The bottom line is that temperatures continue to rise and humans are responsible for it.” Why is there so much concern over whether or not changes in temperature, and the knock-on effects that result, are man-made? Would...

Files outline South Korea and Washington's strategy in event of war on the peninsulaSouth Korea's military is investigating a cyber attack in which North Korean hackers may have stolen secret defence plans outlining Seoul and Washington's strategy in the event of war on the Korean peninsula.The highly sensitive information, codenamed Oplan 5027, may have found its way into hostile hands last month after a South Korean officer used an unsecured USB memory stick to download it.It reportedly contained a summary of military operations involving South Korean and US troops should North Korea conduct a pre-emptive strike or attempt to invade.According to the Chosun Ilbo, a South Korean newspaper, the document outlines troop deployments, a list of North Korean targets, amphibious landing...

'Dangerous, deceitful' attempts to derail Copenhagen summit condemnedGordon Brown tonight led a chorus of condemnation against "flat-earth" climate change sceptics who have tried to derail the Copenhagen summit by casting doubt on the evidence for global warming.Sceptics in the UK and the US have moved to capitalise on a series of hacked emails from climate change scientists at the University of East Anglia, claiming they show attempts to hide information that does not support the case for human activity causing rising temperatures.On the eve of the Copenhagen summit, Saudi Arabia and Republican members of the US Congress have used the emails to claim the need for urgent action to cut carbon emissions has been undermined.But tonight the prime minister, his environment secretary, Ed...

Investigator appointed by University of East Anglia to examine whether hacked exchanges suggest wrongdoingA senior civil servant has been appointed to conduct an independent review by next spring into emails hackers stole and published from the University of East Anglia's climate research unit (CRU). The announcement that Sir Muir Russell will investigate allegations of wrongdoing on the behalf of the CRU came as Saudi Arabia's lead climate negotiator said the emails would have a "huge impact" on UN climate talks starting in Copenhagen next week.Announcing Russell's appointment, the university said the inquiry would look at four key allegations including examining whether the leaked exchanges between climate scientists demonstrated any manipulation or suppression of data. The review will...

Channel 4 may have canceled Big Brother, but this week we resurrect the concept as we talk to Josh Harris, the subject of the recent film We Live In Public. As both an internet pioneer and Truman Show-style subject, we'll be finding out what drove him to film the lives of complete strangers and himself.There's also a look at what the launch of Freeview HD - the first service to offer free high definition channels over the air, without a dish or cable installation - means for the UK.On top of all that, we'll be asking you to send us your 2009 highlights and 2010 predictions - leave us your tech highlights of 2009 and what things you think will be big next year in the comments below. Finally, we'll discuss Tivo's return to the UK, as well as Bobbie's take on the latest in Gary McKinnon's...

• Home secretary says hacker's fate is 'heavy burden'• Timeline: Gary McKinnon's fight against extraditionHome secretary Alan Johnson has defended his decision not to step into the case of Pentagon hacker Gary McKinnon, who faces extradition to the United States for breaking into US government computers eight years ago.McKinnon, 43, is due to be extradited to Virginia amid allegations that he caused hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of damage to US government computers - but campaigners say he should be tried in the UK.Last week Johnson said he did not have the power to intervene, and today reiterated his reasoning after McKinnon's MP, David Burrowes, tabled an urgent question in parliament."I'm the only person who can make this decision and I have to make it on the basis...

Information security is a very important thing and something which sadly is ignored by the majority of people. You can see yourself how bad things are when you are constantly getting MSN messages from 'friends' telling you about some awesome pictures of you. All these messages are generated automatically by malware or viruses to... Read the full post at shaolintiger.com....

Rajendra Pachauri says there is 'virtually no possibility' of a few scientists biasing IPCC's advice, after UAE hacking breachThere is "virtually no possibility" of a few scientists biasing the advice given to governments by the UN's top global warming body, its chair said today.Rajendra Pachauri defended the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in the wake of apparent suggestions in emails between climate scientists at the University of East Anglia that they had prevented work they did not agree with from being included in the panel's fourth assessment report, which was published in 2007.The emails were made public this month after a hacker illegally obtained them from servers at the university.Pachauri said the large number of contributors and rigorous peer review mechanism...

Email sent to weatherman suggests hackers had access to Climatic Research Unit's systems for longer than first suspectedComputer hackers who broke into the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) server at the University of East Anglia had access to its systems for more than a month.The full data – covering 1,000 emails and 3,000 documents in which the most recent document and email is dated 12 November – came to wider notice when a copy was posted on a web server in Russia on 19 November.But a month earlier a BBC weatherman who had expressed doubts about climate change on his blog was sent a sample of the email exchanges, suggesting the hackers already had access to the private system.The university declined to answer questions about the setup and security of the computers used by CRU...

Computer hacker Gary McKinnon said to be at serious risk of suicide after home secretary allows his extradition to the USThe mother of computer hacker Gary McKinnon has criticised the home secretary's decision to extradite her son to the US as "disgusting".McKinnon, who has Asperger's syndrome, is said to be at serious risk of suicide after Alan Johnson rejected a last-ditch attempt to prevent his extradition.In a letter today the home secretary ordered McKinnon's removal to the US on charges of breaching US military and Nasa computers, despite claims by his lawyers that extradition would make the 43-year-old's death "virtually certain"."The secretary of state is of the firm view that McKinnon's extradition would not be incompatible with his [human] rights," said the letter, dated 26...

• Alan Johnson quashes last-ditch attempt to halt extradition• Family fear hacker with Asperger's is at serious risk of suicideComputer hacker Gary McKinnon, who has Asperger's syndrome, is at serious risk of suicide, relatives said today, after the home secretary rejected a last-ditch attempt to prevent his extradition to the US.In a letter today Alan Johnson ordered McKinnon's removal to the US on charges of breaching US military and Nasa computers, despite claims by his lawyers that extradition would make the 43-year-old's death "virtually certain"."The secretary of state is of the firm view that McKinnon's extradition would not be incompatible with his [human] rights," said the letter, dated 26 November. "His extradition to the United States must proceed forthwith."The decision,...

Hundreds of emails and documents exchanged between world's leading climate scientists stolen by hackers and leaked onlineHundreds of private emails and documents allegedly exchanged between some of the world's leading climate scientists over the past 13 years have been stolen by hackers and leaked online, it emerged today.The computer files were apparently accessed earlier this week from servers at the UK's University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit, a world-renowned centre focused on the study of natural and anthropogenic climate change.Climate change sceptics who have studied the emails allege that they provide "smoking gun" evidence that some of the climatologists colluded in manipulating data to support the widely held view that climate change is real and is being largely...

Readers: Win a brand new 32GB iPod Touch for free! Video: How to protect your iPhone and iPod Touch from RickRoll SSH hack For iPhone and iPod Touch who jailbreak and use SSH to access their devices, the “Rickroll worm” or RickRoll SSH hack is something you definitely want to avoid if possible. The fact that attacks like these have been possible make you think that far more serious and malicious attacks can happen in the future. Check out the video below on how to take a few simple steps to protect your iPhone or iPod Touch from the RickRoll hack: Related posts Tip: How to remove iPhone 3GS passcode PIN and encryption in minutes iPhone OS 3.0 unlock: New ultrasn0w unlocks iPhone 3G on any bootloader Video: iPhone Dev Team demos iPhone 3G unlock Video: Installing...

Half million people may have details compromised despite technicians interrupting 'sophisticated' attack on recruitment siteThe Guardian has emailed "up to half a million" users of its UK-based Jobs website to tell them that some of their personal data may have been compromised by "a sophisticated and deliberate hack" on Friday night.A Guardian spokesperson said the site has about 10 million unique users per year, and that "the hack was stopped before it was completed"."As soon as we were alerted to the fact that there was a problem, we dealt with it, in line with the information commissioner's guidance on data protection," said the spokesperson. "We felt it was important to be transparent and alert our users as soon as possible."Yesterday , the Guardian put a security notice on its Jobs...

According to a new survey by a company that has plenty to gain from the results, companies are potentially exposing their customers to all manner of data theft by failing to erase recorded calls containing personal data and credit card information. The survey by Veritape, which sells business software for recording phone calls in call centres – nothing to gain in this situation at all, then – claims just three per cent of UK call centres comply with industry guidelines; the other 97 per cent store unedited customer calls. Less than four in ten businesses were aware of the Payment Card Industry rules which state card details must not be stored once transactions have been completed. Viritape say it is “relatively straightforward” for a hacker to data mine these call...

Microsoft has confirmed that the publication of thousands of Hotmail passwords was the result of a phishing attack against users of the popular email service.Precise details of the strike, which was first uncovered on Monday, remain unclear. But in a statement, the American software company said that the culprit had not breached its security, and had instead fooled Hotmail users into handing over their details."Over the weekend, Microsoft learned that several thousand Windows Live Hotmail customers' credentials were exposed on a third-party site due to a likely phishing scheme," it said. "Upon learning of the issue, we immediately requested that the credentials be removed and launched an investigation to determine the impact to customers. As part of that investigation, we determined that...

Facebook has acted to close down a series of fake accounts that were being used by computer criminals to target the site's users.According to Roger Thompson, chief research officer with antivirus company AVG Labs, a rising number of bogus profiles were being used to try and tempt the social network's users into downloading viruses.In a post on the AVG Labs blog, he explained how the fake accounts had appeared, with a request to download a video. If unsuspecting users clicked on the link, it downloaded a piece of malicious software to their computer."Clearly, the data snatchers have found a way to automate the creation of Facebook accounts," Thompson wrote. "I'm sure Facebook will deactivate all these accounts as quickly as they find them, but it can't be an easy thing for them to...

This one is for all the geeks, if you've been into tech for a long time you've probably heard of Cliff Stoll and his book The Cuckoo's Egg and his paper Stalking The Wiley Hacker. PBS made "Nova" dramatization of his book starring Cliff himself called "The KGB, CIA, Computer and Me", and someone has finally [...] Read the full post at shaolintiger.com....

Readers: We're giving away a free i-gotU portable GPS travel logger! iPhone 3.1 - don’t update even if you only jailbreak, iTunes 9 is safe! As we have reported just a few days ago, if you’re an iPhone 3G / 3GS user who’s unlocked your iPhone using ultrasn0w, you’re advised not to update to the latest iPhone OS 3.1.1 (3.1) which was released earlier this week. The iPhone Dev Team has confirmed that should you do so it could possibility result in a permanent update to your iPhone’s modern firmware - from 04.26.08 in iPhone OS 3.0 to 05.11.07, making it difficult to unlock using the Dev Team’s unlocking tools in the future. Despite previously mentioning just iPhone 3G and 3GS, we’d now like to also warn first gen iPhone users as well - don’t...

Older versions of Wordpress are vulnerable to a subtle attack that hides itself while adding spam. Is this a turning point for the free product?Wordpress blogs, one of the most prevalent among custom install blogs (and used by organisations including Downing Street and the Daily Telegraph) are vulnerable - and being hit - by a worm that affects any old (ie before 2.8.4) version.Details are here (and also on Wordpress's site). As Matt Mullenweg, who has played a key part in the development and commercialisation of Wordpress, points out, it's not much fun if you get hit: Right now there is a worm making its way around old, unpatched versions of WordPress. This particular worm, like many before it, is clever: it registers a user, uses a security bug (fixed earlier in the year) to allow...

Readers: We're giving away a carbon fiber iPhone 3G/3GS case! This LG Crystal GD900 is waterproof (but not yours) Before you guys check out this video, if you have a LG Crystal GD900, don’t go throwing yours into the fish tank! Even though it may seem like the same phone, it is in fact somewhat different. The one swimming along side with the fish in this video has actually been modified with a touch of transparent food membrane, giving it basically a waterproof case. [via pestaola.gr] Related posts LG GD900 Crystal with transparent keyboard feels so unreal! Video: Multitouch on T-Mobile G1? Video: Demo of LG Crystal GD900 transparent keypad Ben Heck’s latest laptop mod - the Commodore 64 laptop Ben Heck competitor: Xteaphn mods a Portable Wii notebook...

Readers: We're giving away a carbon fiber iPhone 3G/3GS case! Video: Apple keyboard hack reveals how vulnerable Apple products can be You and I may not be thinking about it as we cheerfully type away on our Mac keyboards but actually our Apple keyboards are highly vulnerable to tweaks and malicious attacks, one honest hacker recently revealed. At this year’s Black Hat conference, K. Chen has revealed that a simple tweak can allow him to install keyloggers right into the very heart (firmware) of Apple keyboards. These keyboards like any computer hardware has to have at least some sort of memory, 8Kb of flash memory and 256 bytes of RAM to be precise. Using only a tiny amount of free memory, a key stroke logging client can be used to record and store potentially confidential...

• Attack that hit Facebook and Twitter 'aimed at blog'• Russian conduct in South Ossetia condemnedThe Georgian blogger who fell victim to yesterday's enormous cyber assault that hit LiveJournal, Facebook and Twitter, affecting hundreds of millions of web users around the world, has blamed the Kremlin for the attack.The blogger – a 34-year-old economics lecturer called Georgy, better known to his online readers as Cyxymu – said he believed the denial-of-service strike was an attempt to silence his criticism of Russia's conduct in the war over the disputed South Ossetia region, which began a year ago today."Maybe it was carried out by ordinary hackers but I'm certain the order came from the Russian government," he told the Guardian from his office in the Georgian capital, Tbilisi....

Blogger claims attack on Twitter, Facebook and LiveJournal was part of plot to silence his criticism of the KremlinThe Georgian blogger known as Cyxymu, who was yesterday the victim of a cyber assault that affected hundreds of millions of web users around the world, has blamed the attack on the Kremlin.Speaking to the Guardian from an office in the Georgian capital, Tbilisi, he said he believed the denial-of-service strike that hit LiveJournal, Facebook and Twitter stemmed from an attempt to silence his criticism over Russia's conduct in the war over the disputed South Ossetia region, which began a year ago today."Maybe it was carried out by ordinary hackers but I'm certain the order came from the Russian government," said the blogger, whose monicker is a latinised version of the Russian...

There were emotional scenes outside the high court today after computer hacker Gary McKinnon lost a further attempt to avoid his extradition to America on charges of breaching US military and Nasa computers.McKinnon, who has been diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome, would suffer from a "severe mental breakdown" if forced to serve up to 60 years in an American jail, his mother, Janis Sharp, said, pleading with politicians to intervene."Why aren't they stopping the extradition of a man who is clearly vulnerable and who on the accepted evidence suffers from Asperger's?" Sharp said. "Gary is clearly someone who is not equipped to deal with the American penal system and there is clear evidence that he will suffer a severe mental breakdown if extradited."In a judgment Sharp described as...