2005
Year of the Rooster
Islamic calendar 1425-26

1,000 million Internet users
Population of India now exceeds that of China
New particle accelerator completed at CERN - can we go beyond quarks?
Mars probe brings back first samples from the Red Planet

Teenager's computer smarts save three in attic fire
U.S. Institute of Genomic Research releases DNA map - NADA leads wave of protest
Finnish Net shoppers dissatisfied with current consumer goods distribution
White House and Pentagon to get protective infrasound "overcoat"
Seclock I-A-S VoiceKey brings new confidence to homes, offices
Uproar in new suburbs after datanet vandals reprogram home control systems

Helsingin Sanomat in English (Web version) 7.3.2005

Teenager's computer smarts save three in attic fire

A 16-year-old pupil at the Kulosaari IT High School in East Helsinki saved at least three lives with her quick thinking and computer skills. Fire Department recommends award of Life-Saving Medal.

Fire broke out in the six-storey apartment complex on Mannerheimintie at around 3 a.m. on Tuesday morning. The blaze spread rapidly through electrical conduits and ventilation ducts, causing a lot of acrid smoke. Katri Nurmes, a 16-year-old student at the specialist computer sciences high school in Kulosaari, was alone at home at the time and was awakened by the apartment's electrical fire alarm at roughly 3.30 a.m. She saw smoke coming from the kitchen and under the door to the landing outside, and she immediately called 112 to alert fire and rescue services.

At the same time, showing great forethought, she quickly planned ways of raising the alarm among the other sleeping residents of the condominium. She ordered her PC to search for the telephone numbers of all persons listed at that address. The search engine could only find some twenty numbers out of approximately 100 apartments in the building, but she quickly sent these subscribers a message on the fire by group voicemail.

After this, Katri entered the Helsinki Arena virtual city and taxied herself directly to her own house. Entering the building, she collected the telephone numbers of residents on each floor and in each of the four blocks that make up the apartment complex, and sent group voicemail to these numbers, warning of the spreading blaze. She urged residents to go to their balconies and shout across to their next-door neighbours to make sure that they were awake and aware of the situation. She also advised them to close all doors and windows, in order to starve the fire of oxygen.

By the time the first fire department units arrived on the scene, six minutes later, Katri herself and all the other residents were on their balconies awaiting the ladder trucks. Three grateful residents reported after they had been lifted to safety that without the voicemail alarm from Katri, they would probably not have woken up in time.

Only two persons were taken to hospital with mild respiratory problems from inhaling smoke, and both were released after first aid treatment. The damage caused by the fire, which apparently started in the attic, was limited to one floor of the building, and is estimated at around EUR 500,000.

The Helsinki Fire and Rescue Department has suggested that Katri Nurmes be awarded a Life-Saving Medal for her quick-witted and responsible actions. An HFRD spokesman said that in cases like these fatalities are usually a result of asphyxia from smoke or toxic gases, but in this instance the risks were minimized by Katri's prompt wake-up calls.

Marco Fuhrman, Head of the Department's ADP Unit, commented that the fire and ambulance services have considered introducing a similar system to that employed by Katri Nurmes. The regional emergency centre switchboard would send a computer-driven voicemail message to all apartments in a burning building, or to adjacent buildings threatened by a spreading fire. Fuhrman noted, however, that there are still a number of practical hurdles standing in the way of such an approach. Telephone registers are incomplete and often out of date, and a further obstacle is presented by the Office of the Data Protection Ombudsman, which has for instance refused to allow combining of the locational and personal data of mobile phone users.

It must also be said that use of the virtual city might not always be as smooth or as speedy as in this incident. According to Marco Fuhrman, by no means all buildings have telephone numbers collected in downstairs hallways, but they are usually given individually on the door of each apartment, and in a situation such as a fire, there would not be enough time to gather them all.

Katri Nurmes really only developed an interest in computing about five years ago, when the data network and telephone network were fully integrated. Nowadays she is in daily contact with twenty or thirty online friends around the world via videophone, voicemail, and videodiscussion groups. In spite of her obvious talents in this direction, Katri intends to study archeology when she leaves school.

Queensland Medical Review - InterWeb 22.4.2005

U.S. Institute of Genomic Research releases DNA map - NADA leads wave of protest

The task of deciphering and charting the entire DNA or genome of humans is complete. The U.S.-based Institute of Genomic Research (TIGR), a non-profit research establishment in Rockville, MD, reported on Monday that the sequencing of the more than 3 billion letters of human DNA had been successfully carried out. The human genome contains all the instructions - upwards of 60,000 genes - required to design and run the human organism.

The genome charting process began some nine years ago, when biochemist Dr. J. Craig Venter developed a sequencing method . This greatly speeded up the laborious process of sequencing the human genome and building a database to integrate medical and other data with the basic Dna sequence. At the same time, a consortium of research establishments was put together for the task, under the umbrella of TIGR.

TIGR has also announced work on human polymorphisms, the biochemists' term for commonly found DNA variants at certain sites on the genome - the "vive la difference" variations that make each individual unique. The object of the exercise will be to systematically search out these variations. In more simplistic terms, the hunt is on to discover the nature of the gene that makes for, say, an optimist rather than a pessimist outlook on life, or the one that determines whether we are left- or right-handed. Some of this work had of course been touched on before, but it was rather random and dislocated.

The mapping of DNA and the prizing open of its many secrets has met with increasing opposition from the outset. Alongside the customary knee-jerk reactions of futurology doomwatchers, there have been worries amongs labour organizations and data privacy authorities over the genome sequencing exercise, and particularly in the wake of the arrival of the Denator gene-reader in the workplace. They fear among other things that employers or insurance companies will begin to to demand from staff and prospective policy-holders their complete personal genome breakdown, and that they would discriminate against those whose Denator results indicated a tendency towards certain diseases, or states such as depression or alcoholism. The opposition has been fuelled by reports of staggering profits - mainly from intellectual property rights - being made by the companies involved in the sequencing of the human genome. On another front, the insurers themselves are concerned that streetwise consumers might make use of information on their own DNA programming - for instance a genetic flaw - and time the taking out of life insurance accordingly, thus "beating the system" and minimizing their insurance premiums.

The anti-mapping barricades have also been manned by representatives of NADA (the Natural Development Association), which vigorously opposes any tampering with the natural development of plants, animals, or humankind. NADA's ranks have also been swelled in recent years by a considerable body of eminent scientists who fear that personal genome charts will spark of a new brand of racism. Their alarm is increased by the knowledge that the military establishments in several countries have shown great interest in the field of genetic mapping.

Numerous African countries, along with France, Sweden, and Finland tabled a motion for the UN General Assembly last September, which would, if ratified, demand the deleting of all gene mapping results from databases worldwide. Political analysts are doubtful, however, that the motion will find enough support to pass into international law.

RetailNET 24.8.2005

Finnish Net shoppers dissatisfied with current consumer goods distribution

According to a recent survey, citizens in high-tech Finland are very unhappy with the way their netshopping needs are met by the current consumer goods trade.

(Helsinki, Thursday)

What's eating Finnish shoppers? An extensive consumer survey carried out by Gallup-Nielsen in this small Scandinavian republic, which still gamely advertises itself as "the most wired nation on earth", indicates that only some 32% of respondents use the datanets for their current consumer goods shopping. The same study indicates, however, that an impressive 83% of households use the nets for buying other goods and services.

Finnish consumers are particularly browned off, it seems, by the distribution channels for their net groceries purchases. Two models exist, both dating from back in the 1990s, when this country (population just under 5 million in an area slightly larger than Nevada) embarked on its voyage of discovery in the world of networking, mobile telephony, and virtual reality. The so-called "kiosk model" was designed by Mika Panzar, then working for the National Consumer Administration. This called for goods to be held in short-term storage at neighbourhood kiosks or convenience stores, which offered ample space for cold storage of fresh produce. Consumers would then collect the products they had ordered online from these local outlets. The major objection to the NCA scheme has been the relatively long distances required (although far shorter than to the retailers actually supplying the goods) to go and collect the items. This system is more commonly found among smaller specialist shops, including the few specialist butchers and greengrocers left in the country, while the more typical megamarkets are mostly owned by large chains , who have devised their own distribution channels. The four main current consumer goods trading chains have their own delivery vans, which bring the goods direct to the customers' homes. Here the problems have been rather different - what happens if the household is empty and there are no separate cold storage facilities outside for delivery services? Finland has enjoyed a warm, dry summer this year, and stores have been swamped with "Something rotten in the state of Finland" complaints about meat products going off, milk that is undrinkable, and frozen goods that have completely thawed out.

It is interesting to note that back in 1997 the then Lady Mayoress of Helsinki Ms. Eeva-Riitta Siitonen suggested that buildings should be fitted with exterior cold storage facilities - a kind of lockable refrigerator - for each apartment for just this purpose, in much the same way as all households have a mailbox. Nevertheless, these cold storage facilities for delivery trucks did not enter the city's building codes until late in 2001, and they have been mandatory only on all new dwellings built from the beginning of this year. In some older apartment blocks the City has financed retrofit projects to convert other areas, for instance bicycle stores, into suitable refrigerated spaces.

The latest development in what seems to be an ongoing battle of wills is that the main retail chains have sent a jointly-signed memorandum to the municipal authorities, demanding that they promote more effectively the building of cold stores in old houses. This was greeted icily by the Confederation of Finnish Local Authorities, who replied that the precarious financial state of many smaller communities meant that building grants for such delivery storage were more likely to decline than increase. The CFLA then raised the spectre of the European Union, which has been discussing complaints over whether local communities should assist in the building of these kind of facilities in any shape or form. Municipalities in some EU member-states have complained that this is a kind of trade subsidy loophole for the retailers, and in direct contravention of EU regulations. If the EU Commission rules in favour of the municipalities, then the retailers themselves will have to assist in building the refrigerated storage, or alternatively abandon the online shopping experiment - something that would inevitably give an embarrassing dent to the country's record in this field.

WebNews 8.9.2005

White House and Pentagon to get protective infrasound "overcoat"

Well-placed sources in Washington report that the U.S. Budget for 2006 will contain outlays of some USD 4,200 million for the protection of the nation's important strategic sites with infrasound fields.

The decision on infrasound protection was taken after the successful quelling of the Los Angeles AIDS riots during the summer. L.A. police riot squads used portable infrasound generators on the rioters and looters, and brought the disturbance to a relatively peaceful end within an hour. On the strength of these field-trials, such key sites as the White House complex, the Pentagon, the most important foreign legations, and the UN Headquarters in New York will all be equipped with a chain of generators.

Infrasound is known as a very powerful stunning and paralysing agent, and carries the added advantage of not being lethal in use. The principle is based on very low sounds at frequencies well below the 20 hertz threshold of normal human hearing. At high volumes, however, these sound waves cause the hearer to lose all sense of time and place, and also provoke intense nausea. If the intensity of sound is sufficient, any person struck by the infrasound waves also loses control of his bowels, and will become completely incontinent. After the recent incident in Los Angeles, which was suffering a heatwave at the time, the L.A. Police Department noted that the device was extremely effective in operation, but that the stench left behind was enough to turn one's stomach. The aim in shielding important strategic buildings with an infrasound "overcoat" is to prevent - without bloodshed - possible attacks by terrorist groups or crowds of rioters.

The United States Army began the development of battlefield infrasound equipment some ten years ago, and reportedly infrasound was also tested in the seige of the headquarters of the Branch Davidian cult in Waco, Texas in 1993. Installation of the first generator networks around buildings in the capital and New York is expected to get under way next spring.

Advertisement from Compumedia 30.9.2005

Seclock I-A-S VoiceKey brings new confidence to homes, offices

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Until now, voicekeys have relied on two vowel sounds for recognition, the letters I and A. Voicesec's new Seclock is the first to incorporate a third sound, the consonant S. At the same time, the Voicesec laboratories have developed a computer model of the micro-oscillations present in the human voice, forming an acoustic image of the mouth, the nose, the larynx and respiratory tract, and the body-shape of the individual subject This image shows how the sound is created and how it resonates in each individual.

Simulation of the factors influencing an acoustic event is extremely precise work - the model delivers an accuracy of 0.01mm on all parameters. The model also takes account of normal changes taking place in and around the vocal organs, such as various distances from the microphone, tiredness, shortness of breath through exertion or illness, the current state of the speaker's digestion, removal or filling of teeth, and any temporary inflammations or swellings, down to the microlevel of mouth ulcers.

All previous generations of voicekeys have demanded that the speaker be at a regular distance from the lock, and have required a matched pattern for the pitch and speed of delivery when the sound password is fed to the locking system. This has naturally often led to problems with doors that refuse to open, perhaps because you are carrying a bulky object or have just climbed 26 flights of stairs. These headaches are now a thing of the past: Seclock opens safely and surely to accredited personnel or family members from as far away as 20 feet (around 6 metres), and quite irrespective of the speed or pitch of the speaker's delivery.

The SIMM5 module that operates as the system's memory can easily be located almost anywhere. The likelihood of finding two identical combinations of sound-prints or that someone could forge a print of an accredited person is so infinitesimal - try winning the jackpot in the weekly Virtual BigSix Lottery ten times in a row and you'll know what we mean - that we offer a lifetime guarantee against unlawful entry on all Seclock models.

But the best is yet to come...

Seclock is less expensive to buy and install than nearly all voiceprint security systems, while offering an entirely new standard in reliability. When you consider the peace of mind it brings to your concerns over file security, storage areas, or your personal residence. We live in troubled times, but more than 5,000 simulated tests by independent international security standards institutes have shown that Seclock is currently the state-of-the-art in ensuring that YOU will not become the next victim of intruders.

Contact us for details and a free demonstration at:
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The Times ONLINE 25.10.2005

Uproar in new suburbs after datanet vandals reprogram home control systems

Home environment control systems in several dwelling areas on the outskirts of Milton Keynes will be disconnected from the public networks after hacking break-ins by apparently well-organized groups of vandals.

Milton Keynes, Friday

Computer viruses and hackers breaking through datanet security firewalls have tested the patience of residents in several of the new suburbs featuring fully automated ambient control. The city worst affected has been the industrial new town of Milton Keynes in Buckinghamshire, originally developed in the late 1960s, and the home of the Open University. Milton Keynes was among the first locations to introduce such "smart housing" in suburbs such as Stonyfield, Llewelyn, and Uffington, added during the late 1990s. The property control networks were at the time hooked up - at the demand of the residents - to the public nets. Consequently, the people living in these areas have been able to monitor and direct their properties from their workplace or while travelling. In the light of the obvious breaches of security that have occurred in recent weeks, the decision is about to be reversed.

Residents have complained that their portable remote control devices are periodically going completely haywire, and issuing absurd commands to the house's system. When the owner enters a room in the building, the music stops and the lighting fades down to a bare glimmer. The door speakerphone chats happily (and often highly embarrassingly) to visitors who call when the owner is away, instead of hooking up the caller to the residents' mobile videophone. Toilets flush and baths fill at all hours, entire central heating systems switch off in February with no warning, fire alarms leap into action without the slightest provocation, and the cooker turns itself on even when the family is away for the weekend.

As he deposited a mangled piece of electrical equipment in his dustbin, one red-eyed householder in Stonyfield reported wearily that the previous night he had had to remove all the light-bulbs individually in order to be able to sleep. This was not enough, however, for at 4.30 am his video-CD wall had erupted into life with a screening of Armageddon II. Finally, in desperation, he silenced Bruce Willis with a sledgehammer. He went on to say that he was grateful for the small mercy that his house did not have closed-circuit control cameras. He was, he said, willing to allow hackers the doubtful pleasure of prying into the contents of his refrigerator - the mains supply to which was fortunately not routed through the data system - but the idea of surveillance cameras running amok in the bedrooms and bathrooms was too much to think about.

The technical design and installation of the Stonyfield and Uffington systems was in the hands of LON Automatica of Cambridge. Marcus Jones, head of security for the company, said that the system is basically well firewalled, but that the residents themselves have brought the trouble on their own heads.

"What has happened here is that the householders have been careless and have downloaded viruses into their own data systems, and these have been able to spread outwards and infect the entire control network. Then by picking up and reproducing the residents' own passwords the viruses have had no trouble collecting the codes they require to take command of the control system. On top of this, some of the viruses have been programmed to distribute passwords to hackers on the outside. Things can only be brought back on an even keel by closing the viruses and the hackers out of the system. This will take us a day or two at least, and we shall have to shut down the entire network. Naturally we can't get started on the clean-up job before we get in touch with all the residents, because all doors and all the other automated functions will have to be reset to manual first."

At least in Stonyfield, the awkward situation has led to a very strained atmosphere between neighbours, with residents suspecting one another of being responsible for allowing the initial viruses to infiltrate the system. Many are even keen to see the back of automatic ambient and climate control. They are fed up with the unreliabilty of the system, and with the fact that their next-door neighbours seem to care nothing for matters of data protection.

Hannula I. & Linturi R. 1998: 100 Phenomena.
Yritysmikrot Oy, Helsinki 1998. Copyright notices ISBN 952-9508-18-2