By Leslie Horn
Is Apple planning an AirPort refresh? Several Apple-watching blogs are reporting that supplies of AirPort, AirPort Extreme, and Time Capsule are scant at best, which suggests an update could be on its way.
"Sources" and "readers" have told TUAW that many Apple Stores are completely out of the devices.
"We've heard nothing in the tech grapevine about upcoming refreshes to the AirPort line of products, but generally when Apple's inventory channels get constrained like this, it's a good sign that a product update is imminent," TUAW noted.
MacRumors also chimed in to report that AirPort and Time Capsule product stock is quickly dwindling at Apple retail locations. MacRumors cited its own sources and readers that told the blog of Apple sales reps "indicating that no new shipments appeared to be planned."
Considering Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference kicks off next week (June 6) in Cupertino, a product announcement could be coming in a few days. Apple has said the focus of WWDC will be on software, and earlier this week, the company divulged that CEO Steve Jobs will unveil iCloud and iOS 5 in the keynote address at WWDC. However, there is speculation that an AirPort-esque product with some sort of tie-in to iCloud could also debut at the conference.
According to unconfirmed reports, there's one piece of hardware that Apple fanboys probably shouldn't hold out for at WWDC. Many sources have speculated that the iPhone 5 won't appear at the conference, as earlier iPhones have in the past.
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2011/06/02
Spyware, the FBI, and The Failure of ISPs
Why can't ISPs routinely look at network activity and use deep-packet sniffing to find infected machines and tell the customer in the first place?
Operation Adeona, it was called. It involved the FBI. Spyware. Intrigue. Controversy. The FBI took it upon itself to attack one of the miserable botnets that plagues the Internet to figure out how to intercept its "calling home function." And essentially it ended up giving it new and less destructive instructions. Let me try to explain.
Botnets generally consist of thousands of infected computers that have some specific piece of malware installed. Your computer at home may be one of them. The malicious code is usually in the form of a Trojan Horse that was planted by a Web site or some code you mistakenly clicked on. Once installed on your computer it doesn't really do much until called into action.
The idea nowadays is to inhabit your machine for nefarious purposes including mailing spam from your account, pinging a target computer to harass someone, or even to do odd sorts of market research. Most of the time these infected machines do their dirty work after hours and seldom during the day when an observant owner might spot the dubious activity.
It is a public nuisance. I cannot emphasize enough how people should run some good scanners to ferret out these programs. Millions of machines are infected.
Anyway, so the FBI decided to counterattack one of the major botnets called Coreflood, which is used to loot bank accounts. The FBI was to replace the servers communicating with infected Coreflood machines with its own servers, and also to disable the Coreflood malware on the infected machines. This process seems to have gonewell and the botnet was mostly silenced and had no way of getting any more nefarious instructions, rendering it useless. The problem is that the code is still on the machines. Now it gets dicey.
Is the FBI Going Too Far?
The FBI wants to take things a step further and let the code phone home to get an instruction to remove itself from the infected machines. In other words, it wants to haveeach personal computer erase code without the permission of its owner. Thus a controversy is now brewing.
Privacy advocates see this as the beginning of the end insofar as government interference with private PCs goes. It would be pretty effortless to snoop on personal machines and perhaps find illegal MP3 files or fake copies of Windows or whatever. Then the government could erase the copies or have you arrested or disable your machine completely. These are justified fears, but I do not see any of this current process actually leading to that.
In this instance the FBI appears to have been quite careful about everything and is showing no signs of being the camel head in the tent. I'd love to see the FBI uninstall these Trojans from any machine that would accept the uninstall code. There is a fear that doing this might damage some machines somehow. Perhaps the uninstall would take place while the machine was being used and a disk access was affected by the uninstall and important data was lost. There are a lot of possibilities and most are bad.
But the FBI is collecting the ping information from the machines, and some people hope that the Agency could work with ISPs and tell the specific owners of the machines that their machine is infected and they need to take action. This idea is the most reasonable approach as far as I'm concerned.
The Role ISPs Should Be Playing
But here is the element missing from the whole mess: None of this should be necessary. ISPs should be monitoring their networks themselves and looking for botnets everywhere.
I had a machine once that was infected and sending out millions of pings while I chatted with tech support. I ran a virus scanner and found some Trojan; I erased it, and the machine was great after that.
The tech support guy saw the machine was doing this and reported it to me. Why can't all the ISPs routinely look at the activity on the network and use deep-packet sniffing to find these infected machines and tell the customer in the first place? How hard can it be? It's believed they can deep-sniff a Skype call, why not find these bots? After all, it would save bandwidth and be a benefit to everyone.
I have no objection to the FBI trying to fix the problem, but
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Operation Adeona, it was called. It involved the FBI. Spyware. Intrigue. Controversy. The FBI took it upon itself to attack one of the miserable botnets that plagues the Internet to figure out how to intercept its "calling home function." And essentially it ended up giving it new and less destructive instructions. Let me try to explain.
Botnets generally consist of thousands of infected computers that have some specific piece of malware installed. Your computer at home may be one of them. The malicious code is usually in the form of a Trojan Horse that was planted by a Web site or some code you mistakenly clicked on. Once installed on your computer it doesn't really do much until called into action.
The idea nowadays is to inhabit your machine for nefarious purposes including mailing spam from your account, pinging a target computer to harass someone, or even to do odd sorts of market research. Most of the time these infected machines do their dirty work after hours and seldom during the day when an observant owner might spot the dubious activity.
It is a public nuisance. I cannot emphasize enough how people should run some good scanners to ferret out these programs. Millions of machines are infected.
Anyway, so the FBI decided to counterattack one of the major botnets called Coreflood, which is used to loot bank accounts. The FBI was to replace the servers communicating with infected Coreflood machines with its own servers, and also to disable the Coreflood malware on the infected machines. This process seems to have gonewell and the botnet was mostly silenced and had no way of getting any more nefarious instructions, rendering it useless. The problem is that the code is still on the machines. Now it gets dicey.
Is the FBI Going Too Far?
The FBI wants to take things a step further and let the code phone home to get an instruction to remove itself from the infected machines. In other words, it wants to haveeach personal computer erase code without the permission of its owner. Thus a controversy is now brewing.
Privacy advocates see this as the beginning of the end insofar as government interference with private PCs goes. It would be pretty effortless to snoop on personal machines and perhaps find illegal MP3 files or fake copies of Windows or whatever. Then the government could erase the copies or have you arrested or disable your machine completely. These are justified fears, but I do not see any of this current process actually leading to that.
In this instance the FBI appears to have been quite careful about everything and is showing no signs of being the camel head in the tent. I'd love to see the FBI uninstall these Trojans from any machine that would accept the uninstall code. There is a fear that doing this might damage some machines somehow. Perhaps the uninstall would take place while the machine was being used and a disk access was affected by the uninstall and important data was lost. There are a lot of possibilities and most are bad.
But the FBI is collecting the ping information from the machines, and some people hope that the Agency could work with ISPs and tell the specific owners of the machines that their machine is infected and they need to take action. This idea is the most reasonable approach as far as I'm concerned.
The Role ISPs Should Be Playing
But here is the element missing from the whole mess: None of this should be necessary. ISPs should be monitoring their networks themselves and looking for botnets everywhere.
I had a machine once that was infected and sending out millions of pings while I chatted with tech support. I ran a virus scanner and found some Trojan; I erased it, and the machine was great after that.
The tech support guy saw the machine was doing this and reported it to me. Why can't all the ISPs routinely look at the activity on the network and use deep-packet sniffing to find these infected machines and tell the customer in the first place? How hard can it be? It's believed they can deep-sniff a Skype call, why not find these bots? After all, it would save bandwidth and be a benefit to everyone.
I have no objection to the FBI trying to fix the problem, but
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Porting Windows 8 on the ARM Chip?
There seems to be an outbreak of stupidity in the computing world, as various factions are up in ARMs (pun intended) over Microsoft's desire to port Windows 8 on to the ARM chip, so people can have a very low-powered option on tablets. One can also assume that the ARM chip will show up elsewhere.
So at a shareholder meeting, Intel said that people running Windows on the ARM chip will find that their older Windows software will not work. Now there seems to be some backlash from various Microsofties and other folks accusing Intel of being "misleading."
Excuse me? How are they being misleading? Old X86 software expecting to find an X86 chip underneath the Windows' umbrella will not work on an ARM chip. I suppose it could work if an emulator could be cobbled together, and the software could be tricked into seeing an X86 chip, and the code could be ground up by the emulator and sent to ARM for execution, but can you imagine that? What a nightmare. Generally speaking, emulators only work when the chip doing the emulation is more powerful, not less powerful than the chip they are emulating. This would be laughable.
Microsoft says that Intel is misleading the public, but would not comment in any detail as to how the public is being misled. It seems to me that Intel is just being honest about the situation and Microsoft is playing games.
Of course, much of the brouhaha stems from the irksome idea that Windows will be ported to an ARM chip. And while you can be sure that all the Microsoft apps will be recompiled for the ARM chip, most other Windows software will not be ported to ARM. I am not expecting to see a full blown copy of Photoshop, for example, running on the ARM chip anytime soon.
The real commentary here is that Microsoft is tired of being two steps behind in the tablet business and needs to find a way to get in on the action before it is too late and Apple and Android own the space.
The way I see it, it is already too late unless Microsoft does something other than Windows on ARM.
Meanwhile, Intel should do two things: 1.) Find a way to compete with ARM in low-powered computing and 2.) Quit fretting about Windows on ARM. Who cares?
Intel needs to recall the olden days in the early 1990s when Microsoft decided that it was going to port Windows NT on to every chip it could. So it moved NT onto the PowerPC chip and a couple of other non-Intel chips. The PowerPC version was actually in the wild and was dynamite. But at the end of the day, it was a waste of time for Microsoft, and the whole project was scrapped. As I recall, there was even some talk about Windows on a mainframe.
I actually appreciate the fact that Microsoft realizes that it cannot live as a perpetual common law wife with Intel X86. There is no security in that relationship. But this ARM action is all futile.
I have been stunned over the years trying to figure out why Microsoft cannot develop alternative operating systems that have nothing to do with Windows. You know, like something that has no legacy dating back to the 8080 chip. Microsoft did play around in the Unix space for a while with Xenix, and there is a phone OS I suppose. But even the phone OS is based on old, original Windows. It's not the same sort of thing that Apple and Android are doing.
This is what Microsoft needs to do: something different. And Intel should ignore this altogether, although I suppose the company was kind of minding its own business when the fight broke out.
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So at a shareholder meeting, Intel said that people running Windows on the ARM chip will find that their older Windows software will not work. Now there seems to be some backlash from various Microsofties and other folks accusing Intel of being "misleading."
Excuse me? How are they being misleading? Old X86 software expecting to find an X86 chip underneath the Windows' umbrella will not work on an ARM chip. I suppose it could work if an emulator could be cobbled together, and the software could be tricked into seeing an X86 chip, and the code could be ground up by the emulator and sent to ARM for execution, but can you imagine that? What a nightmare. Generally speaking, emulators only work when the chip doing the emulation is more powerful, not less powerful than the chip they are emulating. This would be laughable.
Microsoft says that Intel is misleading the public, but would not comment in any detail as to how the public is being misled. It seems to me that Intel is just being honest about the situation and Microsoft is playing games.
Of course, much of the brouhaha stems from the irksome idea that Windows will be ported to an ARM chip. And while you can be sure that all the Microsoft apps will be recompiled for the ARM chip, most other Windows software will not be ported to ARM. I am not expecting to see a full blown copy of Photoshop, for example, running on the ARM chip anytime soon.
The real commentary here is that Microsoft is tired of being two steps behind in the tablet business and needs to find a way to get in on the action before it is too late and Apple and Android own the space.
The way I see it, it is already too late unless Microsoft does something other than Windows on ARM.
Meanwhile, Intel should do two things: 1.) Find a way to compete with ARM in low-powered computing and 2.) Quit fretting about Windows on ARM. Who cares?
Intel needs to recall the olden days in the early 1990s when Microsoft decided that it was going to port Windows NT on to every chip it could. So it moved NT onto the PowerPC chip and a couple of other non-Intel chips. The PowerPC version was actually in the wild and was dynamite. But at the end of the day, it was a waste of time for Microsoft, and the whole project was scrapped. As I recall, there was even some talk about Windows on a mainframe.
I actually appreciate the fact that Microsoft realizes that it cannot live as a perpetual common law wife with Intel X86. There is no security in that relationship. But this ARM action is all futile.
I have been stunned over the years trying to figure out why Microsoft cannot develop alternative operating systems that have nothing to do with Windows. You know, like something that has no legacy dating back to the 8080 chip. Microsoft did play around in the Unix space for a while with Xenix, and there is a phone OS I suppose. But even the phone OS is based on old, original Windows. It's not the same sort of thing that Apple and Android are doing.
This is what Microsoft needs to do: something different. And Intel should ignore this altogether, although I suppose the company was kind of minding its own business when the fight broke out.
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McAfee: Malware Skyrockets in First Quarter
By Chloe Albanesius
Malware is apparently the new spam. McAfee tracked more than six million unique malware samples in the first quarter, making it the most active quarter for malware ever.
"It's been a busy start to 2011 for cybercriminals," Vincent Weafer, senior vice president of McAfee Labs, said in a statement.
February was the most active malware month with 2.75 million samples, McAfee said. The company also tracked more than 350,000 fake anti-virus software samples in March 2011, its highest levels in more than a year. Spam, however, was at its lowest levels since 2007, thanks in part to the demise of the Rustock botnet.
"Even though this past quarter once again showed that spam has slowed, it doesn't mean that cybercriminals aren't actively pursuing alternate avenues," Weafer continued. "We're seeing a lot of emerging threats, such as Android malware and new botnets attempting to take over where Rustock left off, that will have a significant impact on the activity we see quarter after quarter."
Symbian is still the most popular OS for mobile malware, but Android is making gains to come in at number two. Part of the problem, McAfee said, is that Google allows side-loading of Android apps and does not have a centralized place where it checks apps for suspicious behavior.
Google this week removed more than two dozen apps from the Android Market due to malware. Mobile security firm NetQuin also identified malware on at least 20 Android apps that auto-dialed phones to incur high user fees.
On the spam front, McAfee tracked 1.5 trillion messages per day, but that is less than half of what it was one year ago.
In September, government agencies here and abroad arrested dozens of international cyber-gangsters responsible for the Zeus botnet, while Rustock went down in March thanks to Microsoft, anti-malware company FireEye, the University of Washington, and pharmaceutical firm Pfizer.
McAfee warned, however, that Zeus' author is working to merge the Zeus source code with the SpyEye botnet, which can affect banking and online transactions. There is also competition from other botnets like Maazben, Bobaz, Lethic, Cutwail, and Grum.
"There was a strong uptick in new botnet infections toward the end of Q1, most likely due to the reseeding process, where cybercriminals slow down activity in order to spend time rebuilding botnets," McAfee said. "The botnet takedowns have resulted in an increase in the price of sending spam on the underground marketplace, showing that the laws of supply and demand also apply to cybercrime."
Why are people falling for these threats? Not surprisingly, sophisticated cyber criminals try to mask their schemes in pretty packages. Spam promoting physical products was the most popular way to lure people in; beware of iPad and HDTV emails, apparently. McAfee also noticed a rise in "banker" Trojans, which lure people in with things like UPS, FedEx, USPS, and the IRS. Spammers are also taking advantage of current events, like the Japan earthquake and tsunamis.
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Malware is apparently the new spam. McAfee tracked more than six million unique malware samples in the first quarter, making it the most active quarter for malware ever.
"It's been a busy start to 2011 for cybercriminals," Vincent Weafer, senior vice president of McAfee Labs, said in a statement.
February was the most active malware month with 2.75 million samples, McAfee said. The company also tracked more than 350,000 fake anti-virus software samples in March 2011, its highest levels in more than a year. Spam, however, was at its lowest levels since 2007, thanks in part to the demise of the Rustock botnet.
"Even though this past quarter once again showed that spam has slowed, it doesn't mean that cybercriminals aren't actively pursuing alternate avenues," Weafer continued. "We're seeing a lot of emerging threats, such as Android malware and new botnets attempting to take over where Rustock left off, that will have a significant impact on the activity we see quarter after quarter."
Symbian is still the most popular OS for mobile malware, but Android is making gains to come in at number two. Part of the problem, McAfee said, is that Google allows side-loading of Android apps and does not have a centralized place where it checks apps for suspicious behavior.
Google this week removed more than two dozen apps from the Android Market due to malware. Mobile security firm NetQuin also identified malware on at least 20 Android apps that auto-dialed phones to incur high user fees.
On the spam front, McAfee tracked 1.5 trillion messages per day, but that is less than half of what it was one year ago.
In September, government agencies here and abroad arrested dozens of international cyber-gangsters responsible for the Zeus botnet, while Rustock went down in March thanks to Microsoft, anti-malware company FireEye, the University of Washington, and pharmaceutical firm Pfizer.
McAfee warned, however, that Zeus' author is working to merge the Zeus source code with the SpyEye botnet, which can affect banking and online transactions. There is also competition from other botnets like Maazben, Bobaz, Lethic, Cutwail, and Grum.
"There was a strong uptick in new botnet infections toward the end of Q1, most likely due to the reseeding process, where cybercriminals slow down activity in order to spend time rebuilding botnets," McAfee said. "The botnet takedowns have resulted in an increase in the price of sending spam on the underground marketplace, showing that the laws of supply and demand also apply to cybercrime."
Why are people falling for these threats? Not surprisingly, sophisticated cyber criminals try to mask their schemes in pretty packages. Spam promoting physical products was the most popular way to lure people in; beware of iPad and HDTV emails, apparently. McAfee also noticed a rise in "banker" Trojans, which lure people in with things like UPS, FedEx, USPS, and the IRS. Spammers are also taking advantage of current events, like the Japan earthquake and tsunamis.
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Hacker concern on the rise, White House warns of potential cyber strikes
The United States is warning that a cyber attack -- presumably if it is devastating enough -- could result in real-world military retaliation.
Easier said than done.
In the wake of a significant new hacking attempt against Lockheed Martin Corp, experts say it could be extremely difficult to know fast enough with any certainty where an attack came from. Sophisticated hackers can mask their tracks and make it look like a cyber strike came from somewhere else.
There are also hard questions about the legality of such reprisals and the fact that other responses, like financial sanctions or cyber countermeasures, may be more appropriate than military action, analysts say.
"There are a lot of challenges to retaliating to a cyber attack," said Kristin Lord, author of a new report on U.S. cyber strategy at the Center for a New American Security, a Washington-based think tank.
"It is extremely difficult to establish attribution, to link a specific attack to a specific actor, like a foreign government."
The White House stated plainly in a report last month that Washington would respond to hostile acts in cyberspace "as we would to any other threat to our country" -- a position articulated in the past by U.S. officials.
The Pentagon, which is finalizing its own report, due out in June, on the Obama administration's emerging strategy to deal with the cyber threat, acknowledged that possibility on Tuesday.
"A response to a cyber incident or attack on the U.S. would not necessarily be a cyber response ... all appropriate options would be on the table," Colonel Dave Lapan, a Pentagon spokesman, said.
The sophistication of hackers and frequency of the attacks came back into focus after a May 21 attack on Lockheed Martin, the Pentagon's top arms supplier.
Lockheed said the "tenacious" cyber attack on its network was part of a pattern of attacks on it from around the world. The U.S. Defense Department estimates that over 100 foreign intelligence organizations have attempted to break into U.S. networks.
Every year, hackers steal enough data from U.S. government agencies, businesses and universities to fill the U.S. Library of Congress many times over, officials say.
BEHIND THE CURVE
Several current and former national security officials said U.S. intelligence agencies did not appear particularly concerned about the Lockheed attack. One official said that similar cyber attacks directed at defense contractors and government agencies occurred all the time.
Some critics say the Obama administration is not moving fast enough to keep up with the cyber threat or to develop a strategy that fully addresses concerns about privacy and oversight in the cyber domain.
"The United States, in general, is well behind the curve," said Sami Saydjari, president of the privately held Cyber Defense Agency, pointing to "significant strategic advances" out of countries like China and Russia.
China has generally emerged as a prime suspect when it comes to keyboard-launched espionage against U.S. interests, but proving Beijing is behind any future plot would be difficult because of hackers' ability to misdirect, analysts say. China has denied any connection to cyber attacks.
The Pentagon's upcoming report is not expected to address different doomsday scenarios, or offer what Washington's response would be if, say, hackers wiped out Wall Street financial data, plunged the U.S. Northeast into darkness or hacked U.S. warships' computers.
"We're not going to necessarily lay out -- 'if this happens, we will do this.' Because again the point is if we are attacked, we reserve the right to do any number of things in response," Lapan said.
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Easier said than done.
In the wake of a significant new hacking attempt against Lockheed Martin Corp, experts say it could be extremely difficult to know fast enough with any certainty where an attack came from. Sophisticated hackers can mask their tracks and make it look like a cyber strike came from somewhere else.
There are also hard questions about the legality of such reprisals and the fact that other responses, like financial sanctions or cyber countermeasures, may be more appropriate than military action, analysts say.
"There are a lot of challenges to retaliating to a cyber attack," said Kristin Lord, author of a new report on U.S. cyber strategy at the Center for a New American Security, a Washington-based think tank.
"It is extremely difficult to establish attribution, to link a specific attack to a specific actor, like a foreign government."
The White House stated plainly in a report last month that Washington would respond to hostile acts in cyberspace "as we would to any other threat to our country" -- a position articulated in the past by U.S. officials.
The Pentagon, which is finalizing its own report, due out in June, on the Obama administration's emerging strategy to deal with the cyber threat, acknowledged that possibility on Tuesday.
"A response to a cyber incident or attack on the U.S. would not necessarily be a cyber response ... all appropriate options would be on the table," Colonel Dave Lapan, a Pentagon spokesman, said.
The sophistication of hackers and frequency of the attacks came back into focus after a May 21 attack on Lockheed Martin, the Pentagon's top arms supplier.
Lockheed said the "tenacious" cyber attack on its network was part of a pattern of attacks on it from around the world. The U.S. Defense Department estimates that over 100 foreign intelligence organizations have attempted to break into U.S. networks.
Every year, hackers steal enough data from U.S. government agencies, businesses and universities to fill the U.S. Library of Congress many times over, officials say.
BEHIND THE CURVE
Several current and former national security officials said U.S. intelligence agencies did not appear particularly concerned about the Lockheed attack. One official said that similar cyber attacks directed at defense contractors and government agencies occurred all the time.
Some critics say the Obama administration is not moving fast enough to keep up with the cyber threat or to develop a strategy that fully addresses concerns about privacy and oversight in the cyber domain.
"The United States, in general, is well behind the curve," said Sami Saydjari, president of the privately held Cyber Defense Agency, pointing to "significant strategic advances" out of countries like China and Russia.
China has generally emerged as a prime suspect when it comes to keyboard-launched espionage against U.S. interests, but proving Beijing is behind any future plot would be difficult because of hackers' ability to misdirect, analysts say. China has denied any connection to cyber attacks.
The Pentagon's upcoming report is not expected to address different doomsday scenarios, or offer what Washington's response would be if, say, hackers wiped out Wall Street financial data, plunged the U.S. Northeast into darkness or hacked U.S. warships' computers.
"We're not going to necessarily lay out -- 'if this happens, we will do this.' Because again the point is if we are attacked, we reserve the right to do any number of things in response," Lapan said.
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French minister resigns after 2 women claim foot massages escalated into sexual attacks
A minister under French President Nicolas Sarkozy has resigned after two former female colleagues said he sexually assaulted them while giving them foot massages.
French officials opened a probe last week against George Tron, a junior civil service minister and mayor of the southern Paris suburb of Draveil, after two women said he sexually assaulted them separately between 2007 and 2010.
Both women said they were inspired to come forward after former International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strass-Kahn was accused of attempting to rape a hotel maid in New York earlier this month.
"When I see that a chambermaid was capable of taking on Dominique Strauss-Kahn, I tell myself I don't have the right to stay silent," one of the woman, who was not identified, told Le Parisien newspaper.
"Other women may be suffering what I suffered. I have to help them. We must break this code of silence," she said.
Once prosecutors finish examining the womens' claims, they can decide whether to pursue or drop a case against him.
Tron said he quit because he didn't want to be a burden to the government, but insisted he was innocent.
He slammed the accusations as a "personal vendetta" by the women, who he says were fired from their city jobs for fraud and unfit behavior.
He also took aim at Sarkozy's political rivals, saying they were trying to capitalize on the Strauss-Kahn case.
"I am not naive. They are trying to echo what's happening on the other side of the Atlantic," he told the AFP.
Strauss-Kahn, a member of the Socialist Party, was seen as Sarkozy's main opponent in next year's elections.
Both women, who are 34 and 36, said that the attacks took place while Tron was giving them foot massages at the town hall in Draveil.
Tron is a well-known practitioner of reflexology, a therapeutic treatment that involves massaging certain areas of the feet and hands.
His passion for the technique has earned him the nickname "the foot fetishist" and the "Chinese masseur," and one minister told the The Telegraph that he has massaged "a thousand" women's feet in the past.
A statement from Prime Minister Francois Fillon's office praised Tron for his "courage" and said he was acting in the general interest by quitting.
Tron's lawyer, Olivier Schnerb, said the accusations were "unjust" and that Tron was considering suing the women for "malicious slander."
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French officials opened a probe last week against George Tron, a junior civil service minister and mayor of the southern Paris suburb of Draveil, after two women said he sexually assaulted them separately between 2007 and 2010.
Both women said they were inspired to come forward after former International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strass-Kahn was accused of attempting to rape a hotel maid in New York earlier this month.
"When I see that a chambermaid was capable of taking on Dominique Strauss-Kahn, I tell myself I don't have the right to stay silent," one of the woman, who was not identified, told Le Parisien newspaper.
"Other women may be suffering what I suffered. I have to help them. We must break this code of silence," she said.
Once prosecutors finish examining the womens' claims, they can decide whether to pursue or drop a case against him.
Tron said he quit because he didn't want to be a burden to the government, but insisted he was innocent.
He slammed the accusations as a "personal vendetta" by the women, who he says were fired from their city jobs for fraud and unfit behavior.
He also took aim at Sarkozy's political rivals, saying they were trying to capitalize on the Strauss-Kahn case.
"I am not naive. They are trying to echo what's happening on the other side of the Atlantic," he told the AFP.
Strauss-Kahn, a member of the Socialist Party, was seen as Sarkozy's main opponent in next year's elections.
Both women, who are 34 and 36, said that the attacks took place while Tron was giving them foot massages at the town hall in Draveil.
Tron is a well-known practitioner of reflexology, a therapeutic treatment that involves massaging certain areas of the feet and hands.
His passion for the technique has earned him the nickname "the foot fetishist" and the "Chinese masseur," and one minister told the The Telegraph that he has massaged "a thousand" women's feet in the past.
A statement from Prime Minister Francois Fillon's office praised Tron for his "courage" and said he was acting in the general interest by quitting.
Tron's lawyer, Olivier Schnerb, said the accusations were "unjust" and that Tron was considering suing the women for "malicious slander."
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Beauty queen Katya Koren stoned to death by Muslims for being in pageant
A would-be teen beauty queen was stoned to death after her participation in a Ukranian pageant reportedly infuriated local Muslim youths.
Katya Koren, 19, was targeted by three fellow teens who said her seventh-place finish in the beauty contest was a violation of Muslim laws, according to British newspaper reports.
One of the suspects, identified as 16-year-old Bihal Gaziev, told authorities that he had no regrets about the stoning because the dark-haired Koren "violated the laws of Sharia."
The teen's battered body was found buried in the forest near her village in the Crimea section of the Ukraine. She had disappeared a week earlier.
Koren, described by friends as a stylish dresser, finished seventh in the beauty pageant. The British newspapers said the girl, just like her attackers, was a Muslim.
Stoning became a major international issue last year when an Iranian woman was sentenced to die by the barbaric method after her conviction for adultery.
The woman had killed her abusive, drug-addicted husband - and was sentenced to serve 10 years for the killing. The adultery charge carried the death penalty.
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Katya Koren, 19, was targeted by three fellow teens who said her seventh-place finish in the beauty contest was a violation of Muslim laws, according to British newspaper reports.
One of the suspects, identified as 16-year-old Bihal Gaziev, told authorities that he had no regrets about the stoning because the dark-haired Koren "violated the laws of Sharia."
The teen's battered body was found buried in the forest near her village in the Crimea section of the Ukraine. She had disappeared a week earlier.
Koren, described by friends as a stylish dresser, finished seventh in the beauty pageant. The British newspapers said the girl, just like her attackers, was a Muslim.
Stoning became a major international issue last year when an Iranian woman was sentenced to die by the barbaric method after her conviction for adultery.
The woman had killed her abusive, drug-addicted husband - and was sentenced to serve 10 years for the killing. The adultery charge carried the death penalty.
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Crocodile sinks teeth into dentist on fishing trip in Australia
An Australian dentist had a close encounter with the kind of teeth he didn't want to examine too closely.
Bruce Rudeforth, 59, was fishing with a friend in Secure Bay, near Derby, Australia, last week, when a saltwater crocodile leaped into his boat and bit into the dentist's shoulder, the West Australian newspaper reported.
"Out of the corner of my eye, this thing came at me," Rudeforth told the newspaper.
"It bit into my shoulder and I stood up and gave it one in the throat with my free elbow," he said. "I presume that's what made it let go."
After being knocked off by the elbow, the crocodile slid off the boat and into the water - only to return again and force the pair to fight it off with an oar.
Rudeforth suffered puncture wounds from the attack, but his brother-in-law Peter Elias, another dentist, stitched up the wounds. And rather than cut his trip short, the bandaged Rudeforth and his friends continued fishing for the next few days. At the very least, no matter what else he caught, he'd come home with a doozy of a fish tale.
"It takes a lot to organize a trip like that, so why come home?" he told the West Australian
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Bruce Rudeforth, 59, was fishing with a friend in Secure Bay, near Derby, Australia, last week, when a saltwater crocodile leaped into his boat and bit into the dentist's shoulder, the West Australian newspaper reported.
"Out of the corner of my eye, this thing came at me," Rudeforth told the newspaper.
"It bit into my shoulder and I stood up and gave it one in the throat with my free elbow," he said. "I presume that's what made it let go."
After being knocked off by the elbow, the crocodile slid off the boat and into the water - only to return again and force the pair to fight it off with an oar.
Rudeforth suffered puncture wounds from the attack, but his brother-in-law Peter Elias, another dentist, stitched up the wounds. And rather than cut his trip short, the bandaged Rudeforth and his friends continued fishing for the next few days. At the very least, no matter what else he caught, he'd come home with a doozy of a fish tale.
"It takes a lot to organize a trip like that, so why come home?" he told the West Australian
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Woman dies after plunging over brink of Niagara Falls
A woman in her mid-30s plummeted to her death after being swept over Niagara Falls, officials said.
Rescuers were called to the scene at around 4:30 p.m. on Tuesday after tourists reported spotting a woman in the rapids above Horseshoe Falls, the Niagara River's massive 174-foot drop.
Witnesses aboard the Maid of the Mist, which ferries sightseers to the foot of the falls, told Buffalo's WIVB television that the woman appeared to be alive before she was sent over the brink.
She was dead when a rescue boat pulled her out of the water, officials said.
Police were still investigating what the woman was doing in the falls, but they had ruled out foul play.
The woman was not identified because police were working on locating her family.
Her death came less than a day after the Erie County Sheriff's Department pulled two men to safety after their boat's engine died and drifted to within 700 feet of the falls' edge.
According to unofficial counts, 15 people have intentionally gone over the falls, either in barrels or some other sort of craft, since 1901. It's illegal, and daredevils face strict fines
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Rescuers were called to the scene at around 4:30 p.m. on Tuesday after tourists reported spotting a woman in the rapids above Horseshoe Falls, the Niagara River's massive 174-foot drop.
Witnesses aboard the Maid of the Mist, which ferries sightseers to the foot of the falls, told Buffalo's WIVB television that the woman appeared to be alive before she was sent over the brink.
She was dead when a rescue boat pulled her out of the water, officials said.
Police were still investigating what the woman was doing in the falls, but they had ruled out foul play.
The woman was not identified because police were working on locating her family.
Her death came less than a day after the Erie County Sheriff's Department pulled two men to safety after their boat's engine died and drifted to within 700 feet of the falls' edge.
According to unofficial counts, 15 people have intentionally gone over the falls, either in barrels or some other sort of craft, since 1901. It's illegal, and daredevils face strict fines
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Jeffrey Ritter, man accused of sexually assaulting 85-year-old woman, claims, 'I didn't do it'
A depraved drifter living in Brooklyn with a transgender girlfriend was busted Thursday in the vicious sex assault of a 85-year-old woman on the upper East Side, police said.
Jeffrey Ritter, 32, was nabbed in an East New York apartment around 1 a.m. after cops got a tip from a neighbor who recognized him from surveillance footage shown on TV.
"\[The caller\] described the individual in front of the building, saying he looked very much like the person in the tapes we showed," said Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly.
Ritter was charged with criminal sexual act, robbery and sexual abuse, cops said.
"I didn't do it! I didn't do it!" the heavily tattooed suspect yelled Thursday morning, after cursing at reporters outside the NYPD Special Victim's Unit headquarters in East Harlem.
Ritter, who works as an itinerant tatoo artist, had moved into the Brooklyn apartment with his strapping girlfriend about six months ago and did odd jobs around the building, neighbors said.
He has a tattoo of the New York Yankees logo beneath his left eye, the name "Tahtianna" above his left eyebrow. On one side of his neck are the words "Slow Poke," and on the other the initials "SHLK" for "Six Hood Latin Kings," a gang in Chicago.
The shocking Memorial Day attack occurred in one of the city's wealthiest zip codes - just a few blocks from Mayor Bloomberg's home.
The 100-pound victim was taking a stroll at 5:40 a.m. when she encountered the sicko, who was lurking around Madison Ave. and E. 83rd St., pretending to talk on a cell phone.
Surveillance footage showed the beefy Ritter wrap his bulging, tattooed arms around the elderly woman's head and drag her into a sunken stoop of a luxury home.
Ritter then allegedly forced her to perform oral sex and stole her ring before fleeing.
Raised in Minnesota, Ritter has drifted around the country for much of the past decade and has 11 arrests in five states, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said.
The most serious was a 2001 conviction in Nebraska for attempted sexual assault for which he was sentenced to four years in prison and required to register as a sex offender.
Authorities say Ritter and an accomplice were working as traveling magazine salesman when they approached a 23-year-old woman and 16-year-old boy in a car, robbed them and threatened to rape and kill the woman.
In a bizarre twist, cops initially arrested Ritter's identical twin brother in the assault, but eventually realized their mistake.
Newspaper reports at the time noted that both twins sported matching teardrop tattoos on their faces.
When investigators initially picked Ritter up in Brooklyn, they charged him with failing to register in New York as a sex offender.
Under interrogation, Ritter confessed to Monday's assault on the elderly woman, Kelly said.
Neighbors in Brooklyn said Ritter was an odd figure in the building and often talked about women in a way that gave them the creeps.
"It's like obsessive, the way he talks about it," said neighbor Kendrick Murray. "Some people brag about it different. He was more dirty. It's too graphic. You don't have to tell me that."
Murray, 32, said he and his wife saw reports of the assault on TV and immediately thought of their neighbor when the surveillance images were shown.
"\[We\] were like, 'That might be him' when we saw the tattoos. Me and her made a bet," he said. "It's a good thing the cops arrested him. I live here with my kids. I would have whooped his ass."
Investigators say they believe Ritter may have been responsible for another attempted rape on the upper East Side on May 22.
Kelly said investigators still have no direct information tying Ritter to that incident, but that he will be put in a lineup.
With Sarah Armaghan, John Lauinger, Melissa Grace and Whitney Evans
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Jeffrey Ritter, 32, was nabbed in an East New York apartment around 1 a.m. after cops got a tip from a neighbor who recognized him from surveillance footage shown on TV.
"\[The caller\] described the individual in front of the building, saying he looked very much like the person in the tapes we showed," said Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly.
Ritter was charged with criminal sexual act, robbery and sexual abuse, cops said.
"I didn't do it! I didn't do it!" the heavily tattooed suspect yelled Thursday morning, after cursing at reporters outside the NYPD Special Victim's Unit headquarters in East Harlem.
Ritter, who works as an itinerant tatoo artist, had moved into the Brooklyn apartment with his strapping girlfriend about six months ago and did odd jobs around the building, neighbors said.
He has a tattoo of the New York Yankees logo beneath his left eye, the name "Tahtianna" above his left eyebrow. On one side of his neck are the words "Slow Poke," and on the other the initials "SHLK" for "Six Hood Latin Kings," a gang in Chicago.
The shocking Memorial Day attack occurred in one of the city's wealthiest zip codes - just a few blocks from Mayor Bloomberg's home.
The 100-pound victim was taking a stroll at 5:40 a.m. when she encountered the sicko, who was lurking around Madison Ave. and E. 83rd St., pretending to talk on a cell phone.
Surveillance footage showed the beefy Ritter wrap his bulging, tattooed arms around the elderly woman's head and drag her into a sunken stoop of a luxury home.
Ritter then allegedly forced her to perform oral sex and stole her ring before fleeing.
Raised in Minnesota, Ritter has drifted around the country for much of the past decade and has 11 arrests in five states, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said.
The most serious was a 2001 conviction in Nebraska for attempted sexual assault for which he was sentenced to four years in prison and required to register as a sex offender.
Authorities say Ritter and an accomplice were working as traveling magazine salesman when they approached a 23-year-old woman and 16-year-old boy in a car, robbed them and threatened to rape and kill the woman.
In a bizarre twist, cops initially arrested Ritter's identical twin brother in the assault, but eventually realized their mistake.
Newspaper reports at the time noted that both twins sported matching teardrop tattoos on their faces.
When investigators initially picked Ritter up in Brooklyn, they charged him with failing to register in New York as a sex offender.
Under interrogation, Ritter confessed to Monday's assault on the elderly woman, Kelly said.
Neighbors in Brooklyn said Ritter was an odd figure in the building and often talked about women in a way that gave them the creeps.
"It's like obsessive, the way he talks about it," said neighbor Kendrick Murray. "Some people brag about it different. He was more dirty. It's too graphic. You don't have to tell me that."
Murray, 32, said he and his wife saw reports of the assault on TV and immediately thought of their neighbor when the surveillance images were shown.
"\[We\] were like, 'That might be him' when we saw the tattoos. Me and her made a bet," he said. "It's a good thing the cops arrested him. I live here with my kids. I would have whooped his ass."
Investigators say they believe Ritter may have been responsible for another attempted rape on the upper East Side on May 22.
Kelly said investigators still have no direct information tying Ritter to that incident, but that he will be put in a lineup.
With Sarah Armaghan, John Lauinger, Melissa Grace and Whitney Evans
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Native American festival, Drums Along the Hudson, celebrates ninth year in Inwood Hill Park
Thousands turned out for an annual festival that has become a driving force of Native American pride in upper Manhattan.
Drums Along the Hudson, which celebrated its ninth year last week, provided visitors at Inwood Hill Park with an up- close and personal look at Native American culture.
The free event, sponsored by Lotus Music & Dance, is known for hosting the only open-air powwow in Manhattan.
"For most people, it's their first time seeing Native Americans in their regalia," said festival co-creator Carl Nelson.
But the festival, which started out with a focus on Native American culture, has expanded. This year, Indian, Tibetan and Spanish cultures were also celebrated.
"The dancers were amazing," said Nelson, who said the dance performances were among the many highlights of the May 22 extravaganza.
"People got to see dancers from different parts of the world," he said. "It was a huge success."
Other notable performances included a group of kids from Harlem's Public School 208 who performed Brazilian, Native American and African dances.
Among the honorees at the festival was Elizabeth Jordan, a notable philanthropist and international photographer.
Nelson said he can't wait for next year's event, which he expects to be their biggest festival of all.
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Drums Along the Hudson, which celebrated its ninth year last week, provided visitors at Inwood Hill Park with an up- close and personal look at Native American culture.
The free event, sponsored by Lotus Music & Dance, is known for hosting the only open-air powwow in Manhattan.
"For most people, it's their first time seeing Native Americans in their regalia," said festival co-creator Carl Nelson.
But the festival, which started out with a focus on Native American culture, has expanded. This year, Indian, Tibetan and Spanish cultures were also celebrated.
"The dancers were amazing," said Nelson, who said the dance performances were among the many highlights of the May 22 extravaganza.
"People got to see dancers from different parts of the world," he said. "It was a huge success."
Other notable performances included a group of kids from Harlem's Public School 208 who performed Brazilian, Native American and African dances.
Among the honorees at the festival was Elizabeth Jordan, a notable philanthropist and international photographer.
Nelson said he can't wait for next year's event, which he expects to be their biggest festival of all.
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Hackers get into Sony network again
A hacker group in the US has claimed to have attacked the Sony network.
The group said it broken into Sony servers to steal more than one million passwords, email addresses and other information.
Lulz Security, a well known hacker organization, said it had easily hacked into the Sony database, where it was able to access the unencrypted passwords and other data which had been given by Sony customers.
As of Thursday, Sony had not confirmed the breach.
In April, hackers broke into Sony's PlayStation network and stole data from more than 77 million accounts. hermes birkin
Sony had to shut down its network and other services following the event. It was closed for nearly a month.
But, only this week, Sony stated the PlayStation network would be fully restored in the US and Europe.
It also said it had secured its security systemshermes bags
The group said it broken into Sony servers to steal more than one million passwords, email addresses and other information.
Lulz Security, a well known hacker organization, said it had easily hacked into the Sony database, where it was able to access the unencrypted passwords and other data which had been given by Sony customers.
As of Thursday, Sony had not confirmed the breach.
In April, hackers broke into Sony's PlayStation network and stole data from more than 77 million accounts. hermes birkin
Sony had to shut down its network and other services following the event. It was closed for nearly a month.
But, only this week, Sony stated the PlayStation network would be fully restored in the US and Europe.
It also said it had secured its security systemshermes bags
Mitt Romney becomes another Republican candidate for presidency
The former Massachusetts governor, Mitt Romney, has put his name forward to join the US presidential race.
The Republican candidate announced his 2012 campaign on Thursday in the northeastern state of New Hampshire.
In front of supporters, he said he would deny President Obama another term as he had "failed America."
Romney, at the start of his second run for president, proclaimed he would slash government spending, repeal President Obama’s health care reforms, and make job creation a top priority.
Up to Thursday, Romney had only been alluding to a bid for the White House.
Polls in the US show him as the slight leader for the Republican nomination against several other contenders. hermes birkin
Former US House Speaker Newt Gingrich, current Texas Representative Ron Paul and former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty have also announced their candidacies.
Former Alaska governor Sarah Palin has not said whether she will enter the racehermes bags
The Republican candidate announced his 2012 campaign on Thursday in the northeastern state of New Hampshire.
In front of supporters, he said he would deny President Obama another term as he had "failed America."
Romney, at the start of his second run for president, proclaimed he would slash government spending, repeal President Obama’s health care reforms, and make job creation a top priority.
Up to Thursday, Romney had only been alluding to a bid for the White House.
Polls in the US show him as the slight leader for the Republican nomination against several other contenders. hermes birkin
Former US House Speaker Newt Gingrich, current Texas Representative Ron Paul and former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty have also announced their candidacies.
Former Alaska governor Sarah Palin has not said whether she will enter the racehermes bags
Utah State basketball: Aggies clinch a share of the WAC title
By Enda Curran
SYDNEY -(MarketWatch)- Sales of new cars and trucks in Australia fell a seasonally adjusted 10.6% in May from April, according to industry figures issued Friday.
The Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries said in its monthly VFACTS report that 77,406 vehicles were sold in May 2011, 13.2% less than in May 2010 in original terms.
Year-to-date industry sales were 400,084 vehicles, down 5.3% or 22,362 vehicles from the same time a year earlier.
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SYDNEY -(MarketWatch)- Sales of new cars and trucks in Australia fell a seasonally adjusted 10.6% in May from April, according to industry figures issued Friday.
The Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries said in its monthly VFACTS report that 77,406 vehicles were sold in May 2011, 13.2% less than in May 2010 in original terms.
Year-to-date industry sales were 400,084 vehicles, down 5.3% or 22,362 vehicles from the same time a year earlier.
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Pedestrian, 89, Is Killed in Upper Manhattan
An 89-year-old woman was killed in Upper Manhattan on Thursday when a pickup truck involved in a chain-reaction crash smashed into a crowd of pedestrians, the police said.
The woman was standing on the corner of West 145th Street and Seventh Avenue when the accident occurred just after noon. The driver of a silver Lincoln Town Car livery cab was turning left onto 145th Street when he was struck by a Toyota pickup truck traveling south on Seventh Avenue, the police said. The collision sent the Town Car barreling onto the sidewalk, where officials said it struck a group of pedestrians, including the woman who was killed, Leonia White, and at least three others.
Paramedics took the woman to Harlem Hospital, where she was pronounced dead. The driver of the livery cab and three pedestrians were taken to St. Luke’s Hospital with minor injuries. All were in stable condition Thursday afternoon, the police said.
Witnesses said after the accident that the intersection was known to be particularly hazardous for pedestrians. Detectives were investigating, but said no criminality was suspected.
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The woman was standing on the corner of West 145th Street and Seventh Avenue when the accident occurred just after noon. The driver of a silver Lincoln Town Car livery cab was turning left onto 145th Street when he was struck by a Toyota pickup truck traveling south on Seventh Avenue, the police said. The collision sent the Town Car barreling onto the sidewalk, where officials said it struck a group of pedestrians, including the woman who was killed, Leonia White, and at least three others.
Paramedics took the woman to Harlem Hospital, where she was pronounced dead. The driver of the livery cab and three pedestrians were taken to St. Luke’s Hospital with minor injuries. All were in stable condition Thursday afternoon, the police said.
Witnesses said after the accident that the intersection was known to be particularly hazardous for pedestrians. Detectives were investigating, but said no criminality was suspected.
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