When the piece of malware given the name “Flame” was found last month, initial analysis indicated that it did not share code with Stuxnet and Duqu, two previously discovered programs also directed at Iran and other nations in the Middle East. However, researchers at the Kaspersky Lab have found that a chunk of early Stuxnet code called “resource 207″ is also found in Flame, which indicates a connection between the authors of both programs.
An early version of Stuxnet from 2009 included the resource 207 module, which helped spread the virus to new machines via USB drives by exploiting a then-unknown security flaw in the Microsoft Windows operating system. The later incarnation of Stuxnet could accomplish the same task with different sections of code, and resource 207 was discarded. But when Kaspersky Lab researchers began studying an early module of Flame, they found its code bore a strong resemblance to Stuxnet’s resource 207. They believe that Flame was created first (which means it must date back to at least 2009), and its module lent a hand to the early stages of Stuxnet until the younger malware had been developed enough to stand on its own.
This beautiful golden earring, decorated with figures of goats, was one of a trove of jewelry pieces that were wrapped in cloth and stuffed into a jar discovered by archaeologists at the Tel Meggido dig in Israel. When the team flushed the jar’s interior with water, earrings, a ring, and carnelian beads came tumbling out.
They aren’t sure why the jewelry was in the jar, but they posit that it could have been hidden there by the inhabitants of the home where the jar was found for safekeeping. The layer of soil where the find occurred dates from the 11th century BCE, a period when Meggido was under Egyptian rule, and the team believes the jewelry is either of Egyptian origin or inspired by Egyptian designs.
Image courtesy of American Friends of Tel Aviv University
Two wooden coffin lids, painted with Egyptian symbols, were recently seized by the Israeli Antiquities Authority. Carbon dating of the lids has revealed that they are truly ancient: one is between 2,800 and 3,000 years old, dating from the Iron Age, the other between 3,600 and 3,400 years old, from the late Bronze Age. Read More
On November 28th Israel’s legislature unanimously passed a bill that outlaws the declawing of cats, except for certain medical reasons, making it a crime punishable by up to one year in prison and a fine of about $20,000 (or 75,000 shekels).
Declawing is a somewhat misleading term; in the procedure, called an onychectomy, the veterinarian typically removes all or most of the cat’s outer toe joint, bone and all. As declawing opponents have often pointed out, the human equivalent would be the amputation of your fingertips at or just above your third knuckle. Cats also use their toes/nails to walk upon; the Israel bill says the ban will help cats move around more normally, avoid certain medical complications, and defend themselves.
Last year, Google raised the ire of many when it confessed that its city-mapping Street View vehicles unintentionally gathered unencrypted Wi-Fi data as they rolled past people’s abodes. To fix its image and to fend off lawsuits, the company soon tightened its privacy policies and ensured that its Street View cars stopped collecting that information. But the controversies just won’t stop. Google is now trying to convince privacy-conscious Swiss officials to drop the country’s tight Street View restrictions, while security-conscious Israeli officials are concerned that the technology will help terrorists.
Twenty-seven countries have been partially mapped via Street View, a Google product that provides 360-degree panoramic views from ground level. The company creates these images by sending groups of camera-studded vehicles to various parts of the world to snap pictures as they drive.
Although Switzerland is home to one of Google’s largest offices outside the United States, the country has strict privacy laws that have prevented Google from loading new Street View images of Switzerland for the past year. On Thursday, Google petitioned a Swiss court to lift this ban. The search engine company told Switzerland’s Federal Administrative Court that its technology automatically conceals the identity of faces and license plates, and that it is no different from rival services.
It took Turkish bees to make Israel flow with milk and honey.
When archaeologist Amihai Mazar and colleagues turned up 3,000-year-old remains of hundreds of preserved beehives from the ancient town of Tel Rehov in 2007, it was the first confirmation of the ancient beekeeping suggested by Egyptian paintings and Biblical references. Now, three years later, the team has published a paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences with the analysis of the “honeybee workers, drones, pupae, and larvae” found inside those hives. Surprise—they’re from Turkey, hundreds of miles away.
The findings “would imply an incredible amount of commodity trading of bees,” said bee expert Gene Kritsky of the College of Mount St. Joseph in Cincinnati, editor of American Entomologist. The importation of Italian bees to the United States in the 1860s “was thought to be a big deal then,” he said, “but the Israelis may have been doing this as far back as the first millennium BC” [Los Angeles Times].