NASA says 200-yard long asteroid will miss Earth

NASA scientists have recalculated the path of a large asteroid known as Apophis and now say it has only a very slim chance of banging into Earth. Initially, Apophis was thought to have a 2.7% chance of impacting Earth in 2029. Additional observations of the asteroid ruled out any possibility of an impact in 2029. The new data were documented by near-Earth object scientists Steve Chesley and Paul Chodas at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. The Apophis asteroid is approximately the size of two-and-a-half football fields and updated computational techniques and newly available data indicate the probability of an Earth encounter on April 13, 2036, for Apophis has dropped from one-in-45,000 to about four-in-a million, NASA stated. They will present their updated findings at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society's Division for Planetary Sciences in Puerto Rico this week.

The information provided a more accurate glimpse of Apophis' orbit well into the latter part of this century. The recalculated trajectory came from scientists at the University of Hawaii's Institute for Astronomy in Manoa and its 88-inch telescope, located near the summit of Mauna Kea. Among the findings is another close encounter by the asteroid with Earth in 2068 with chance of impact currently at approximately three-in-a-million. NASA detects and tracks asteroids and comets passing close to Earth through its Near Earth-Object Observations Program or "Spaceguard." The program has been in the news lately as a National Academy of Sciences report said that while the space agency is tasked with watching out for huge chunks of space rocks that could smash into the earth, it has been denied the money to actually do the job. As with earlier orbital estimates where Earth impacts in 2029 and 2036 could not initially be ruled out due to the need for additional data, it is expected that the 2068 encounter will diminish in probability as more information about Apophis is acquired, NASA said. The problem is that while Congress mandated four years ago that NASA detect and track 90% of space rocks known as near earth objects (NEO) 140 kilometer in diameter or larger, it has not authorized any funds to build additional observatories, either in space or on the ground, to help NASA achieve its goals, according to a wide-ranging interim report on the topic released by the National Academy of Sciences this week.

NASA does carry out the "Spaceguard Survey" to find NEOs greater than 1 kilometer in diameter, and this program is currently budgeted at $4.1 million per year for FY 2006 through FY 2012. The report notes that United States is the only country that currently has an operating survey/detection program for discovering near-Earth objects; Canada and Germany are both building spacecraft that may contribute to the discovery of near-Earth objects. The report notes that NASA has managed to accomplish some of the killer asteroids mandate with existing telescopes but with over 6,000 known objects and countless others the task is relentless. However, neither mission will detect fainter or smaller objects than ground-based telescopes. Existing surveys are not designed for this purpose; they are designed to discover more-distant NEOs and to provide years of advance notice for possible impacts. The report goes on to state: Imminent impacts (such as those with very short warning times of hours or weeks) may require an improvement in current discovery capabilities. In the past, objects with short warning times have been discovered serendipitously as part of surveys having different objectives.

Search strategies for discovering imminent impacts need to be considered, and current surveys may need to be changed.

Start-up unveils storage platform for large-scale Web applications

A storage company emerged from stealth mode this week with software designed to efficiently manage the file serving needs of Internet applications such as social networks, online ad serving and software-as-a-service.  Nine data storage companies to watch MaxiScale announced the Flex Software Platform, which is installed on commodity gear, such as a bank of Apache Web servers. Retrieving a small file with the MaxiScale system requires just one I/O operation, a feature that eliminates bottlenecks caused by systems that require multiple I/O operations for each small file retrieval, says IDC storage analyst Noemi Greyzdorf. "They built a very interesting file system that handles small files – files that are one megabyte or smaller – incredibly efficiently," Greyzdorf says Configurations start with as few as four nodes but can scale up to 50,000 servers, the company says. The goal is to improve performance and reduce cost, space and power requirements for Web companies that have to deal with large numbers of small files. "We think people deploying Web applications have been paying too much money and we're out to change that," says Gary Orenstein, vice president of marketing for MaxiScale. Instead of using expensive storage boxes with interconnects like InfiniBand or Fibre Channel, MaxiScale recommends using Flex with 2TB SATA drives and says the Flex system relies on IP and Ethernet connections. "We're using standards-based, commodity hardware for everything," Orenstein says.

Maxiscale's first publicly named customer is AdMob, a mobile advertising marketplace that has served more than 110 billion ad impressions in the last three years. Flex uses a patent-pending Peer Set architecture that replicates file data and metadata across SATA drives, allowing for load balancing and resiliency to multiple hardware failures. Based in Sunnyvale, Calif., and founded in 2007, MaxiScale has $17 million in venture financing from investors NEA, El Dorado Ventures and Silicon Valley Bank. Flex software is available now and pricing starts at $6,000 for four nodes allowing up to 32TB of storage. MaxiScale was co-founded by CEO Gianluca Rattazzi, who previously founded Meridian Data, Parallan, P-Com and BlueArc; and CTO Francesco Lacapra, who previously held executive roles at Olivetti, Quantum and BlueArc. Follow Jon Brodkin on Twitter.

DHS faces challenge in hiring 1,000 security experts

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security's effort to hire some 1,000 new cybersecurity experts could hit a wall because such skills are increasingly hard to find, according to security experts. Alan Paller, research director with the SANS Institute, a Bethesda, Md.-based computer training and certification organization, said DHS has a critical need for strong technicsal skills among its security professionals who handle tasks like intrusion analysis, malware reverse engineering, security auditing, secure code analysis, penetration testing and forensics. "That's what DHS needs and is trying to hire," he said, adding that the agency faces strong competition for such skills from other government agencies like the National Security Agency along with private sector companies. DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano announced last week that the U.S. Offices of Personnel Management and Management and Budget has agreed to allow the agency hire up to 1,000 security experts over the next three years to ramp up its cybersecurity efforts. The problem for all of the organizations, Paller said, is there aren't enough security professionals to meet the need. "DHS will be forced to hire weaker people and the cost of the very strong people will skyrocket," Paller predicted.

The agency needs to address issues that have contributed to a relatively high turnover rate among mid-level to senior cybersecurity professionals at the agency, Kreitner said. Clint Kreitner, president and CEO at the Center for Internet Security (CIS), added that DHS must also create "leadership stability and consistency" before it can hope to attract the right kind of talent. The DHS' National Cyber Security Division, which oversees day-to-day cybersecurity efforts, has seen a "tremendous amount of turnover," Kreitner said. "It has been a revolving door." Many of the security professionals have gone on tothe private sector. "My guess is they don't feel like they are contributing as much as they would like to. President Barack Obama's continuing delay in appointing a White House cybersecurity coordinator has also been "a source of discouragement to many who are wondering whether the realty will match the rhetoric," on cybersecurity matters, Kreitner said. If people felt they were being effective they would stay longer," he said.

Obama announced the creation of the position in May. Pescatore conceded that an agency with the DHS mission has more information security needs than the typical company, the plan to hire 1,000 new workers is "incredibly silly and hard to do. John Pescatore, an analyst with Gartner Inc in Stamford, Conn., questioned whether the DHS, which employs some 200,000 workers overall, really needs 1,000 new security experts to meet its requirements. "For a typical private industry company of that size, you might see at most 200 information security staff -1,000 would be unheard of," he said. They don't need that many. [Even] if they did, they would be much better off training existing staff to become skilled in information security." he said. The NSA increasing security leadership has led to increasing calls for the DHS to oversee the defense of government and commercial interests in cyber space.

The announcement about the DHS hiring plans come amid continuing questions about cybersecurity leadership . Critics have said that the NSA and the Department of Defense continue to exert more leadership on cybersecurity issues.

iTunes competitor doubleTwist gains Amazon MP3 store

We mentioned doubleTwist back in February when the Mac version debuted, but the latest update to the media management software has added a major new feature that positions it directly as an iTunes competitor: you can now buy music directly in doubleTwist from the Amazon MP3 store. Music is all that's on offer here, and as on Amazon's Web site, you can play 30 second samples of tracks and purchase individual songs or albums. The store bears a passing resemblance to the iTunes Store, albeit trimmed down in both appearance and content: it lacks the same glut of information and media that Apple's offering has accumulated throughout the years. Upon buying media, doubleTwist will automatically download the files and then allow you to sync them to any device that the software supports.

It also supports digital cameras and portable game consoles like the PSP. However, while the Windows version supports syncing with the iPod and the iPhone, this capability is still not available on the Mac, though doubleTwist says it's scheduled for a future update. As always, doubleTwist's major strength is acting as a conduit for transferring music, photos, and videos onto a veritable cornucopia of multimedia devices that aren't supported by iTunes, including BlackBerry, Android, and Windows Mobile devices. While doubleTwist isn't nearly as mature as iTunes-basic amenities like shuffle and a track time display are missing-its underlying framework seems sound. So far, the store is only available in the Mac version of doubleTwist, but the Windows version is scheduled for release in the next week or so. I can't help but think that Palm would have been better off hitching its wagon to a legitimate program like this for the Pre's syncing needs, instead of repeatedly attempting to make an end run around Apple by hacking its way into iTunes.

The program is a free download, but requires Mac OS X 10.5 or later.

New ICANN agreement runs into criticism

A new agreement between the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) and the U.S. Department of Commerce that creates international oversight of the nonprofit operator of the Internet's domain name system may not provide enough accountability, some critics said. ICANN and the U.S. Department of Commerce (DOC) announced the new agreement on the day an 11-year series of agreements expired. The agreement, announced Wednesday, seemed to enjoy widespread support, but some critics questioned how new review teams overseeing ICANN would be independent and whether the new agreement represented average Internet users.

Under those agreements, the U.S. government provided primary oversight of ICANN. One of the main changes in the new agreement, called an Affirmation of Commitments, is the creation of new review panels, which would check ICANN's compliance with the agreement every three years. They're likely to produce the politics that already exist within ICANN." ICANN has a long history of disagreement among stakeholder groups and calls by other nations for the U.S. to give up its oversight role. Volunteers would serve on those review teams, as would independent experts and representatives of the ICANN board of directors and the DOC. The problem is that ICANN's chairman or CEO and the chairman of ICANN's Governmental Affairs Committee (GAC), selected by all the nations involved with ICANN, would have the final say on the makeup of those review teams, said Brenden Kuerbis, operations director the Internet Governance Project, a group of academics focusing on Internet governance issues. "The review panels are not external to ICANN," Kuerbis said Thursday at an ICANN forum hosted by the Congressional Internet Caucus. "They're selected by the very people responsible for what ICANN does. ICANN's major problem isn't a lack of oversight, it's a lack of clearly defined rules for the organization and standards to measure performance, Kuerbis added. "If these rules don't exist - and they still don't - the review panels ... can just become another layer of politics and second-guessing, superimposed on what is already a messy and pretty diffuse process," he said. There will be public comment on membership of the review teams, and ICANN's board and CEO don't control GAC, he said. "It's going to be extremely hard [for ICANN] to game the process," he said.

However, ICANN Vice President Paul Levins disagreed that the review teams will be made up of ICANN allies. Another criticism of the new agreement is that it was negotiated between ICANN and DOC in secret, even as the agreement calls on ICANN to be accountable and transparent to the public and to use a bottom-up decision-making process. "Whatever deliberation occurred prior to the approval of this 'affirmation of commitments' was entirely secret - except for those favorite friends ICANN chose to invite into the smoke-filled room, or to whom the deliberations or decisions were leaked," Edward Hasbrouck, a travel blogger and ICANN critic wrote on ICANNwatch.org, an ICANN watchdog site. "In fact, the completely secret, nontransparent and unaccountable way in which these 'commitments' were adopted is clear and compelling evidence of ICANN's continuing 'lack' of any actual commitment to these principles, or indeed to any transparency or accountability; its continuing commitment to lie - as loudly and as prominently as it can - about its lack of accountability and transparency; and the continuing need for 'real' transparency and accountability," the blog post continued. It's clear that ICANN received input from outside groups, and the agreement addressed major concerns about U.S. control over ICANN, said Steve DelBianco, executive director of NetChoice, an e-commerce trade group and frequent ICANN critic. But other ICANN watchers offered support for the new agreement. The new agreement gives the U.S. government a continued role in ICANN oversight, but it spreads out the oversight to other governments and the private sector, he said. "ICANN's independence day will be known as Sept. 30, 2009," DelBianco said. "[The agreement] is very clever in the way it balances some of those forces that were speaking out." GAC, which has complained of not having enough oversight of ICANN, will now have more control, he said. "The way we relieved the pressure [on ICANN] was to give governments more say," he said.

Other supporters of the new agreement included registrar Go Daddy, the Software and Information Industry Association, and U.S. Representative Henry Waxman, a California Democrat and chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. "This agreement is a perfect example of how a public-private partnership can work to the advantage of all stakeholders," Waxman said in a statement. "It will help insure that the Internet remains stable and secure for the people around the world who use it for work, study, entertainment, or to stay in touch with family and friends."