Was Alan Turing murdered?

Code-breaking genius Alan Turing was murdered, a new book claims. The brilliant mathematician who cracked Hitler's Engima wartime code machines was found dead in 1954 at the age of 41. Author Roger Bristow claims a note from the pathologist casts doubt over the official conclusion of suicide. The post mortem report said he died from cyanide poisoning, but the note adds that: 'Death appears to be due to violence.'

Mr. Bristow, a former mayor who has spent almost 30 years researching Turing and his work at Bletchley Park, said he was carrying out secret work before his death. He believes the code-cracker was killed by the FBI because he had information that would be 'extremely damaging or embarrassing.' Mr Bristow adds that Turing had been working on the top secret operation Verona, deciphering wartime radio signals to identify Russian agents in the United States. He describes how some of the agents managed to get themselves into highly prominent positions, with one even becoming a personal assistant to President Roosevelt.

Turing, who was prosecuted for being gay, was found dead in his bedroom in Wilmslow, Cheshire in June 1954. Two years earlier he had been convicted of gross indecency and sentenced to chemical castration. A post mortem found traces of potassium cyanide in his body - a substance he used for his chemical experiments.

'My theory is that he had stumbled upon some information that could be extremely damaging or embarrassing to certain people in America. 'His body was found on the Tuesday morning and he was buried by Wednesday afternoon. How could proper tests have been conducted in that time? 'Also there is no evidence he was depressed before his death. In fact there are reports from neighbours that he seemed cheerful. 'But the final sentence on the pathologist report says it all: 'Death appears to be due to violence.'

Daily Mail Online

Alan Turing Must Be Pardoned

Alan Turing looks set to receive a pardon, after the government lent its support to a Bill that would overturn the wartime codebreaker's conviction for being gay. Turing took his own life with cyanide in 1954 at the age of 41 - he had been sentenced to chemical castration for the crime of gross indecency.

The mathematician, one of the fathers of computer science, worked at the British government's Second World War code-breaking headquarters at Bletchley Park. He is best known for having cracked the messages sent by the German Enigma machines and is credited with saving the country from starvation.

Last year the government rejected demands that he be granted a pardon as he had not been wrongly convicted at the time, even if that law no longer existed. "A posthumous pardon was not considered appropriate as Alan Turing was properly convicted of what at the time was a criminal offence," Lib Dem justice minister Lord McNally said.

Huffington Post

NATO-Commissioned Report Says Killing Hackers Is Basically OK

Cyber-warfare is all well and civilized when it's confined to a tit-for-tat hacking of banks, but it's got the potential to spiral out of control real fast. To try and prevent that, and save the world from a hacked-WoW-account-induced apocalypse, NATO's comissioned a set of international laws to try and make cyber-warfare more…civilized.

Despite how it might seem, war's actually relatively civilized. Agreements like the Geneva Conventions and Ottowa Treaty lay down laws as to how warfare should be conducted - be nice to your prisoners and no blowing people up with landmines, for example - and the UN charter explains when war might be justified, say for self-defence. But none of those were written with cyber-warfare in mind, which is difficult when the Americans are going round hacking the Iranians, the Koreans are hacking each other and China's just hacking everyone.

In an attempt to make some sense of the mess, NATO (basically the Western powers-that-be) commissioned a report from a bunch of legal experts at the ‘NATO Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence' to suggest some rules for cyber-warfare. Well, the report's in, and the suggestions are kinda surprising.

Basically, cyber attacks which cause "physical damage, injury or death" constitute a ‘use of force', and thus can be retaliated to with real physical weapons. Equally surprising is the classification of civilian hacktivists as legitimate targets during war.

More on gizmodo.com

Operation “Red October,” an Advanced Cyber-Espionage Campaign

Today Kaspersky Lab published a new research report which identified an elusive cyber-espionage campaign targeting diplomatic, governmental and scientific research organizations in several countries for at least five years. The primary focus of this campaign targets countries in Eastern Europe, former USSR Republics, and countries in Central Asia, although victims can be found everywhere, including Western Europe and North America.

The main objective of the attackers was to gather sensitive documents from the compromised organizations, which included geopolitical intelligence, credentials to access classified computer systems, and data from personal mobile devices and network equipment.

Kaspersky Lab

Japanese Government working on cyberweapon

The Japanese Defense Ministry is in the process of developing a computer virus capable of tracking, identifying and disabling sources of cyber-attacks, The Yomiuri Shimbun has learned. The development of the virtual cyberweapon was launched in 2008. Since then, the weapon has been tested in a closed network environment.

Cyberweapons are said to already be in use in countries such as the United States and China. However, in Japan there is no provision on the use of cyberweapons against external parties in existing legislation on foreign attacks. With this in mind, the Defense Ministry and Foreign Ministry have begun legislative consideration regarding the matter, according to sources.

The most distinctive feature of the new virus is its ability to trace cyber-attack sources. It can identify not only the immediate source of attack, but also all "springboard" computers used to transmit the virus. The virus also has the ability to disable the attacking program and collect relevant information. 

The Daily Yomiuri

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