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People involved in a project to maintain a secret layer of the internet have turned to Amazon to add bandwidth to the service.

The Tor Project offers a channel for people wanting to route their online communications anonymously.

It has been used by activists to avoid censorship as well as those seeking anonymity for more nefarious reasons.

Use of Amazon's cloud service will make it harder for governments to track, experts say.

Onion router
 
Amazon's cloud service - dubbed EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud) offers virtual computer capacity.

The Tor developers are calling on people to sign up to the service in order to run a bridge - a vital point of the secret network through which communications are routed.

"By setting up a bridge, you donate bandwidth to the Tor network and help improve the safety and speed at which users can access the internet," the Tor project developers said in a blog.

"Setting up a Tor bridge on Amazon EC2 is simple and will only take you a couple of minutes," it promised.

Users wishing to take part in the bridging project, need to be subscribed to the Amazon service.

It normally costs $30 (?19) a month. However, Amazon is currently offering a year's worth of free storage as part of a promotion, which Tor developers believe their users will qualify for.

Amachai Shulman, chief technology officer of data security firm Imperva believes that cloud services could have a big impact on Tor.

"It creates more places and better places to hide," he said.

"With cloud services it will be easier to create a substantial number of bridges. Amazon is hosting millions of applications and it will be difficult for governments to distinguish between normal access to Amazon's cloud and Tor access," he said.

Tor is short for The Onion Router, so named because of the multi-layered nature of the way it is run. It is also known as the dark net.

It has been in development since 2002 and works by separating the way communications are routed via the internet from the person sending them.

Data is sent through a complex network of 'relays' or bridges run by volunteers around the world. When someone receives data routed via Tor it appears to come from the last person in the relay rather than from the original sender.

Internet addresses are encrypted to add to anonymity.

Ugly face
 
The Tor Project has been praised for offering people living in repressive regimes an opportunity to communicate freely with others without fear of punishment. Activists have used it in Iran and Egypt.

But it is also used to distribute copyrighted content.

The people behind the Newzbin 2 website are suggesting its members use the network to continue sharing illegal downloads after BT blocked access to the site in the UK.

Tor is also used by people wanting to share images of child abuse. Hacktivist group Anonymous recently launched Operation Darknet which targets such abuse groups operating via the network.

"There is an ugly face to Tor," said Mr Shulman. "Studies suggest that most of the bandwidth is taken by pirated content."

While cloud services are unlikely to make Tor mainstream, the more bridges there are, the more anonymous the network becomes.

Imperva research estimates that there are currently "a few thousand" exit nodes on Tor - the points at which communications reveal themselves on the wider internet.

"There could be far more other nodes but it gives a sense of the size of the community," said Mr Shulman.

Access to Tor is not limited to fixed line communications.

Android users can access it via an application called Orbot and earlier this week Apple approved Covert Browser for iPad to be sold in its App Store, the first official iOS app that allows users to route their online communications through Tor.

Source: BBC News

Warren Buffett - one of the world's most closely watched investors - has disclosed building a 5.4% stake in IBM.

Mr Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway fund started buying shares in the firm in March, eventually spending around $10.7bn (?6.7bn).

The billionaire had steered away from technology firms in the past.

However, he said that he had been impressed by IBM's road map for how it planned to attract IT firms outside the US to sign up to its services.

"If you're in some country around the world and you're developing your IT department you're probably going to feel more comfortable with IBM than with many companies," he told the US television station CNBC.

He said he started buying the stock after he read IBM's 2010 annual report and spoke to technology professionals in the businesses his fund had already invested in.

He said he realised there was a lot of "continuity" in the US-headquartered business.

"It is a big deal for a big company to change auditors, change law firms, or change IT support," he said.

"There's a fair amount of presumption in many places that if you're with IBM, you stay with them."

Revelation
 
Mr Buffett said he had not told IBM's chief executive, Sam Palmisano, about the investment before announcing it on TV. He added that he does not plan to increase his stake which was why he was comfortable talking about it.

Until now the US bank, State Street, was the biggest known investor in IBM by a clear margin. A September filing revealed the lender owned 5.5% of of the firm.

When asked about other investments Mr Buffett noted that he would never buy stock in Microsoft because of his friendship with the company's founder and chairman Bill Gates.

Mr Buffett's actions are closely monitored by other investors because of his track record for spotting and buying undervalued stocks. However, IBM's shares only rose slightly after the broadcast.

"He is looking for a business that will have double digit bottom line growth and will be reasonably stable in good times and bad," Louis Miscioscia, managing director at financial advisors Collins Stewart, told the BBC.

"That is what IBM shares offer, bearing in mind their software and services business is very consistent."

IBM said it is not commenting on the news at this time.

Source: BBC News

A US doctor is trying to pioneer a laser treatment that changes patients' eye colour.

Dr Gregg Homer claims 20 seconds of laser light can remove pigment in brown eyes so they gradually turn blue.

He is now seeking up to $750,000 (?468,000) of investment to continue clinical trials.

However, other eye experts urge caution because destroying eye pigment can cause sight problems if too much light is allowed to enter the pupil.

Stroma Medical, the company set up to commercialise the process, estimates it will take at least 18 months to finish the safety tests.

'Irreversible'
 
The process involves a computerised scanning system that takes a picture of the iris and works out which areas to treat.

The laser is then fired, using a proprietary pattern, hitting one spot of the iris at a time.

When it has hit every spot it then starts again, repeating the process several times.

Continue reading the main story
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Start Quote
The pigment is there for a reason. If it is lost you can get problems such as glare or double vision?
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Larry Benjamin
 
Stoke Mandeville Hospital, UK
 However the treatment only takes 20 seconds.

"The laser agitates the pigment on the surface of the iris," Dr Homer - the firm's chairman and chief scientific officer - told the BBC.

"We use two frequencies that are absorbed by dark pigment, and it is fully absorbed so there is no danger of damage to the rest of the eye.

"It heats it up and changes the structure of the pigment cells. The body recognises they are damaged tissue and sends out a protein. This recruits another feature that is like little pac-men that digest the tissue at a molecular level."

After the first week of treatment, the eye colour turns darker as the tissue changes its characteristics.

Then the digestion process starts, and after a further one to three weeks the blueness appears.

Since the pigment - called melanin - does not regenerate the treatment is irreversible.

Lasers are already used to remove the substance in skin to help treat brown spots and freckles.

Safety concerns
 
Other eye experts have expressed reservations.

"The pigment is there for a reason. If the pigment is lost you can get problems such as glare or double vision," said Larry Benjamin, a consultant eye surgeon at Stoke Mandeville Hospital, in the UK.

"Having no eye pigment would be like having a camera aperture with a transparent blade. You wouldn't be able to control the light getting in."

Dr Homer said that he only removes the pigment from the eye's surface.

"This is only around one third to one half as thick as the pigment at the back of the iris and has no medical significance," he said.

He also claimed patients would be less sensitive to light than those born with blue eyes. He reasoned that brown-eyed people have more pigment in the other areas of their eyeballs, and most of it will be left untouched.

"We run tests for 15 different safety examination procedures. We run the tests before and after the treatment, and the following day, and the following weeks, and the following months and the following three months.

"Thus far we have no evidence of any injury."

Testing in Mexico

Dr Homer originally worked as an entertainment lawyer in Los Angeles, but gave up full-time practice in the mid-1990s to study biology at Stanford University in California.

He said he filed his first patent for the laser treatment in 2001. But it was not until 2004 that he began carrying out experiments on animals at a hospital facility.

To fund his research he used his own savings, attracted investments from venture capital funds and secured a government grant. Dr Homer said he has raised $2.5m to date.

Tests on humans initially involved cadavers, and then moved on to live patients in Mexico in August 2010.

"From a regulatory perspective it is easier," Dr Homer said, "and I can speak Spanish fluently so I can closely monitor how everyone is doing."

Seventeen people have been treated so far. All are very short-sighted. They have been offered lens transplants in return for taking part.

Dr Homer said the work is checked by a board of ophthalmology experts to ensure it is up to standard.

The new funds will be used to complete safety trials with a further three people.

Stroma Medical then intends to raise a further $15m to manufacture hundreds of lasers and launch overseas - ideally within 18 months.

A US launch is planned in three years' time, because it takes longer to get regulatory approval there.

Stroma Medical believes the treatment will be popular; its survey of 2,500 people suggested 17% of Americans would want it if they knew it was completely safe. A further 35% would seriously consider it.

There is also evidence of a growing desire to alter eye colour overseas - a recent study in Singapore reported growing demand for cosmetic contact lenses.

A malicious piece of software designed for iPhones and iPads has been created to show that Apple's app store is not immune to malware.

The code was designed to look like a stock price tracker, but was also able to steal data.

Experts said that the proof-of-concept program was a "significant threat" to the app store.

Apple declined to comment. It also removed the app and barred the developer from its store.

The software was created by security expert and hacker Charlie Miller to demonstrate Apple's vulnerabilities.

The firm accepted the program to its iTunes app store in September. Two months later Mr Miller revealed that it contained malware that could remotely download pictures and contacts.

"Until now you could just download everything from the app store and not worry about it being malicious. Now you have no idea what an app might do," he said.

The InstaStock app took advantage of a recent update to Apple's mobile operating system which allowed non-approved code to be added to installed apps for the first time.

A few hours after Mr Miller disclosed the flaw, he received an email from Apple which said he was barred from the iOS developer program for violating its terms and conditions.

He wrote on Twitter: "First they give researchers access to developer programs, (although I paid for mine) then they kick them out.. for doing research. Me angry."

Mr Miller has made something of a habit of exposing Apple's security flaws.

In 2009 he identified a bug in the iPhone's text-messaging system that allowed attackers to gain remote control over the devices.

He has since exposed other vulnerabilities in Apple's Mac and mobile platforms.

Mr Miller plans to present his research at a security conference in Taiwan on 17 November.

Jail-broken
 
The app he created was described as "the most significant threat yet to Apple's app store economy", by independent mobile analyst Ian Fogg.

"Apple has been widely criticised for the way in which it limits what code developers can use but this suggests that it was probably right to do that," he added.

To date Apple's biggest security threat has been to the minority of its devices that have been modified.

So-called jail-broken handsets appeal to more tech-savvy users who want to introduce non-Apple approved software to their handsets.

However, many experts believe Apple's app store is still more secure than many of its rivals'.

"The Android marketplace has a supply chain that is rather less controlled and therefore offers more potential to malware writers," said Graham Titterington, an analyst with research firm Ovum.

But he added that this malicious iPhone app could be "the first of many".

Source: BBC News