Archive for 2013
What Are Your Options Now For Secure Email?
It's shockingly, disturbingly easy for the government to snoop on your emails. Here are your weapons in the fight for your email privacy.
Many of us had assumed our feeble Gmail passwords were secure enough to keep prying eyes out of our email accounts. (I used a letter, a number, and a symbol!) But with revelations that the NSA can pretty much demand any email service turn over valuable and private information about our email, more attention has been turning to secure, encrypted email services.
In the past week, two of the most prominent--Lavabit and Secret Circle--have shut down voluntarily rather than be forced to comply with real or potential NSA requests (which are legally binding). Lavabit shut down after, we assume, receiving legal demands for information. Lavabit posted a message saying the creator can't "legally share" what the impetus for shutting it down was, but that he chose that option, along with erasing all his data, rather than submit to government demands. Secret Circle did not receive a requests, but merely "saw the writing on the wall" and voluntarily deleted everything.
So what can you use now?
Email encryption is pretty wonky, but basically it boils down to this: email is basically not secure. There are steps you can take to protect yourself, through both free and paid services, but the U.S. government has shown its willingness to compel even legendary secure email services like Lavabit--which Edward Snowden used for five years--to shut down. If you're truly paranoid, here are your options.
Instant Messaging
Instant messaging, often referred to in security circles as "synchronous communication," is, surprisingly, often more secure than email. The way to go here is with a setup called OTR, or Off The Record Messaging. OTR was set up to provide deniability for metadata, which means that unlike with many less-secure kinds of email, even if somehow you get your hands on a transcript, there's no way to prove exactly who was communicating. Each individual message is highly encrypted using AES keys, which means that any hacker would have to decrypt each message to get the entire conversation--and decrypting one AES key is a task worthy of a team of hackers. OTR is also fairly easy to use; you can get a plugin for popular chat clients like Adium, Pidgin, and IM+ (the latter costs extra).
Back to Email
But, okay, say you need asynchronous communication, meaning you have to send a message and have the receiver open it at some later point. There are ways to make email really difficult to crack, though the fact that the U.S. has the legal authority to demand metadata throws a real wrench into the whole setup. Still! There are still some for-pay email providers (largely based outside the U.S., now) that use powerful security like OpenPGP and public-key encryption, and which swear they won't let the man snoop in your data.
Public-key encryption is an underlying idea beneath most secure digital messaging. Each user has two keys: a public key and a private key. These are mathematically related, though it is essentially impossible to figure out the private key from only the public key. Imagine that you have a box. Only you have the key to open it. But you can send this box, unlocked, to anyone, so it's public, and they can put whatever they want in the box. Then that person locks the box, so now even they can't get it open. They send the locked box back to you, and you open it with your private key. If you want to respond, you've got to do the same with their unlocked box. The major benefit is that you never have to share your key with anyone else.
OpenPGP is software that uses public-key encryption; it's free to use (hence the "open" part) and is available on a wide variety of platforms. It handles the creation and authentication of keys, among other things. PGP stands for "Pretty Good Privacy," which isn't that encouraging, but it's the most widely used cryptographic standard in the world.
GnuPG: GnuPG is a very popular free implementation of OpenPGP. You can use GPG with one of a variety of front-ends as a plugin for encrypting your emails through your choice of email programs, from Apple Mail to Outlook to Gmail. But they require some setup, and there are paid services that will handle it all for you and which offer advanced features like hidden IP addresses, destruction of files after a period, and offsite storage in friendlier countries. And this is a very popular option for those who can figure out how to use them; it's the most popular recommendation on this Slashdot thread, for example.
But! Assuming you're not ready to set up your own email encryption, you want to look for email services that use OpenPGP. Here are some options:
Countermail: Countermail is a paid service which keeps its servers in Sweden. It uses OpenPGP, but also has some advanced options like a hardware USB key, so nobody can even start the email process without inserting a USB drive into the computer. Countermail also does not use any hard drives during the sending of emails--they actually use CDs--so there's no chance of your IP address being logged anywhere. It's not cheap, though; you can buy it in packages, the cheapest of which is 24 months for $100.
Bitmessage: Bitmessage is a newish service, created in the style of Bitcoin. It also uses public-key encryption, but when you send an email, it mixes it with all other emails being sent, which makes it pretty much impossible for anyone in the middle to figure out from where the email was sent. They also don't have any information as to the receiver of the email, so each individual message contains the data from every other message that's also going through Bitmessage. The receiver's key, however, only retrieves the message that was intended for his or her inbox. Messages are also not archived; to keep from having a bazillion old emails floating around, being downloaded all the time, messages are deleted after two days. It's completely decentralized, which might make it the best option for those who fear the government. Who is the government going to issue a request to? There's nobody in charge!
NeoMailbox: Based in Switzerland, NeoMailbox is a traditional paid service like Countermail. It uses OpenPGP encryption, but also has some nice features, like the option to choose your own domain or use an unlimited amount of disposable email addresses. It also might be the easiest to use; it plugs into lots of existing mail services like Thunderbird, Outlook, and even has an Android app. Depending on how much storage you need, NeoMailbox ranges from $50 a year (1GB) to $110 a year (10GB).
Hushmail: Hushmail is perhaps the best-known alternative to Lavabit and Secret Circle. It's also available for free, at least for some basic features, which is pretty nice. For free, you get OpenPGP encryption, 25MB of storage, any domain you want, and a nice web-based service. For a little extra you can more storage and your IP address hidden. But Hushmail has been controversial; it's based in Vancouver, and has previously handed over records when requested by the British Columbia government. Hushmail says it won't respond to foreign demands, but I'd recommend one of the other services instead, just in case.
Another interesting possibility is Pond, an asynchronous communication service that has its messages expire a week after they're opened, with no exceptions. It isn't ready yet, though; its creator says "Dear God, please don't use Pond for anything real yet." But it's promising.
Snow sensing helps to predict water shortages
"OUR water supply is always under threat." Like most farmers in California's fertile San Joaquin valley, Zachary Sheely is dependent on snowmelt from the Sierra Nevada mountains for his livelihood. But the snows have become sparse and inconsistent, complicating decisions on which crops to grow. "We are getting more and more years in a row with extreme conditions so the risk to our crops is huge," he says.
Help could soon be at hand. A pair of airborne sensors developed by NASA, coupled with on-the-ground smartphone apps, could make the lives of farmers like Sheely a little easier.
Estimates of the volume of snow on a mountain and the meltwater it will produce are usually made manually, so are error-prone. "They go out there with sticks to measure snow depth," Sheely says. This makes planning which crops to grow a nightmare. If Sheely knew water was going to be scarce, he could cut back on thirsty crops like almonds and grapes. "These are huge decisions with huge risks attached for farmers," he says.
Estimates of the volume of snow on a mountain and the meltwater it will produce are usually made manually, so are error-prone. "They go out there with sticks to measure snow depth," Sheely says. This makes planning which crops to grow a nightmare. If Sheely knew water was going to be scarce, he could cut back on thirsty crops like almonds and grapes. "These are huge decisions with huge risks attached for farmers," he says.
To change that, Tom Painter and a team of engineers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL) have equipped a light aircraft with two sensors that can precisely measure the volume of snow present while flying over mountain ranges. A laser-based radar measures the depth and density of the snow, so the amount of water present can be determined, while a spectrometer measures how much sunlight the snow is reflecting and absorbing. This can predict how fast it will melt and run down into the valleys in the summer.
In April, the plane, called the Airborne Snow Observatory, began a three-year series of test flights over two mountain water sources in the US: the Tuolumne river basin in the Sierras and the Uncompahgre river in the Upper Colorado river basin.
Early results look good. The flights allow for accurate mapping of the snow cover and reveal how much meltwater it is expected to generate. Within 24 hours, this information can be supplied to farms and water-using businesses like power stations. The flights – currently operating once a week – are making one thing clear: "Snowpack is going fast this year. It's very, very dry," Painter told New Scientist.
In California, snowpack was only around 17 per cent of its average May volume, according to the California Department of Water Resources in Sacramento. As a result, farmers may only get a fraction of the water they need this summer, says Sheely, who has already decided to leave a tenth of his land fallow.
The situation is equally tense further east, in the basins fed by snow in the Rocky Mountains. "The Colorado river basin has been experiencing drought conditions dating back to 1999," says Anne Castle, assistant secretary for water and science at the US Department of the Interior. "All areas in the basin are struggling with the prospect of permanently reduced supplies, so water managers would welcome earlier, better and more detailed forecasts.
Richard Atwater, executive director of the Southern California Water Committee, says JPL's snowpack maps will result in "better decisions on storing or releasing water behind each dam and reservoir", helping save water for long, hot summers.
Meanwhile, Sheely is being proactive. Working with Colorado-based agri-tech company AgWorld, he has developed an iPad app that helps farmers make the most of drier conditions. He hopes the app will establish a collaborative network in which farmers input and share data on local conditions in a bid to make their irrigation operations more efficient and sustainable. He plans to enable later versions to incorporate the snowmelt predictions made by the Airborne Snow Observatory, plus soil moisture readings from sensors placed in fields – giving the growers an unprecedented picture of their crops' prospects.
Gayle Holman of farming advocacy group Westlands Water District thinks farmers like Sheely are the future. "His apps for advanced irrigation practices enable growers to utilise state-of-the-art water conservation practices," she says. "Growers like Sheely have become part of the solution for water supply reliability."
Ultra Elevator with Carbon- Fiber Tape Takes You Higher
Going up? Elevators can now carry people to the top of a kilometre-high skyscraper in a single run. The key is the development of a super-light and super-strong lift-hoisting cable. The sheer weight of the steel cable that hoists today's elevators has prevented them going any higher than 500 metres in one go.
That means, for instance, that people in Dubai's 828-metre-high Burj Khalifa tower, currently the world's tallest building, have to switch lifts to go above the 500-metre mark. But lifts in the nascent Kingdom Tower in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia – due to top out above 1 kilometre in 2019 – could use the new technology to zoom to the top in one go.
With at least 20 buildings more than 500 metres high on architects' drawing boards around the world, and more expected as megacities proliferate, lift maker Kone Corporation of Espoo, Finland, has been engineering ways to move people up and down them in more convenient and less energy-intensive ways. In London yesterday it revealed its solution: UltraRope.
With at least 20 buildings more than 500 metres high on architects' drawing boards around the world, and more expected as megacities proliferate, lift maker Kone Corporation of Espoo, Finland, has been engineering ways to move people up and down them in more convenient and less energy-intensive ways. In London yesterday it revealed its solution: UltraRope.
Instead of interwound steel hawsers, Kone's hoisting line comprises four carbon-fibre tapes sealed in transparent plastic about 4 centimetres wide and 4 millimetres thick. It's more like a belt than a rope and looks like a school ruler shot through with magnetic tapes.
UltraRope beats steel for tensile strength but weighs only one-seventh as much. "That's a tremendous amount of steel you won't have to move around the building," says Kone's head of technology, Johannes de Jong. "And it will last longer than steel too."
The material has been under test in a 333-metre-deep mineshaft in Lohja, Finland, since 2004. That may seem a long time, but because lives will depend on UltraRope, de Jong and his colleagues had to ensure it ages safely. As well as repeatedly heating and cooling it to tropical and arctic temperatures to accelerate the ageing process, they also tested its fire resistance and even the effect that tools dropped down a lift shaft could have on it. It has now passed all European Union and US certification tests, de Jong says.
UltraRope will also save energy. Simulating its use in a 640-metre-high building, Kone found that the elevator used 11 per cent less electrical power than a steel-cabled version.
Kone's main rival, Otis Elevator of Farmington, Connecticut, is also looking at carbon fibre for use in future ultra-tall buildings. However, the US company is thinking of using the material to strengthen steel cables.
"UltraRope is one of the biggest breakthroughs since the advent of the [Otis] safety elevator 150 years ago," says Antony Wood, executive director of the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat in Chicago.
"The biggest limiting factor in building higher until now has been the steel rope weight – and we have reached the limit of that technology at 500 metres."
With 200,000 people moving to, or being born into, urbanised environments every day, according to the UN, Wood sees building ever upwards in megacities as a valid – though difficult – answer to housing people. "Where will all those people go? Horizontally expanding suburbs? If they do that, we're all screwed."
Automatic Counting & Packing of incense sticks using PLC
At
present we have many machines on making incense sticks. Machines are even
faster in making the sticks, but the count & packing is done manually,
which may have certain effects on the industry. So to overcome the effects the
system should be automated. As Incense sticks are counted manually, the sticks
may get damage in some cases. The automation process is required here so that
the process is maintained in a proper order.
PROGRAMMABLE LOGIC CONTROL (PLC)
The first PLC was developed by group of engineers at general motors 1968, when searching for an alternative to replace the relay control systems.
- Simple programming
- program changing without system intervention
- smaller, cheaper & more reliable
- simple & low cost maintenance
For instance, even if program optimization and thus a reduction of required memory capacity initially still represented an important key task for the programmer, nowadays this is hardly of any significance.
Subsequent development resulted in a system which enabled the simple connection of binary signals. The requirements as to how these signals were to be connected was specified in the control program.
Since then, three decades have passed, during which the enormous progress made in the development of micro electronics did not stop short of programmable logic controllers.
Basic design of a PLC:
The function of an input module is to convert incoming signals into signals which can be processed by the PLC and to pass these to the central control unit. The Reverse task is performed by an output module. This Converts the PLC Signal into signals suitable for the
actuators.
Depending on how the central control unit is connected to the input and output modules, differentiation can be made between compact PLCs . A wide range of variants exists, particularly in the case of more recent PLCs. These include both modular as well as compact characteristics and important features such as
spacing saving, flexibility and scope for expansion.
The hardware design for a programmable logic controller is such that it is able to withstand typical industrial environments as regard signal levels, heat, humidity, fluctuations in current supply and mechanical impact.
ELECTRO-PNEUMATICS
ELECTRO-PNEUMATICS
Electro-pneumatics is successfully used in many areas of industrial automation. Production, assembly and packaging systems worldwide are driven by electro-pneumatic control systems.
The change in
requirements together with technical advances has had a considerable impact on
the appearance of controls. In the signal control section, the relay has
increasingly been replaced by the programmable logic controller in order to
meet the growing demand for more flexibility. Modern electro-pneumatic controls
also implement new concepts in the power section to meet the needs of modern
industrial practice. Examples of this are the valve terminal, bus networking
and proportional pneumatics.
Tag :
Technology
PNEUMATICS (PNEUMATIC SYSTEM)
PNEUMATIC SYSTEM
Fluid is that deforms continuously
on the application of shear stress, no matter how much small is it. Fluid
comprises both gases and liquid. The technique of using liquid for power
transmission is called as hydraulics, while which uses gases for power
transmission is called Pneumatics. In most hydraulics system mineral oils will
be used, while in most pneumatic system atmospheric air will be used.
Tag :
Technology
INDUSTRIAL AUTOMATION
Automation is a process in which an idea is implemented to reduce human effort in the overall process. It's widely used in industrial areas, as man power is applied more. so, in order to reduce the man power we're going for automation of work group.
Automation comes under different ways in the application point of you. some of them are like power station automation , substation automation, industrial automation, and so on. We can apply automation anywhere we needed depending up on the requirement, purpose and utilization of resource is to be done.
Automation have following advantages in any application:
- Low cost of operation
- Productivity increases
- production cost decreases
- overall capital cost will be low
- control is easy.
Tag :
Technology
