| February, 2008 |  |
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FAA worries on-board Net opens jets to cyberattack
The government is enacting rules to stop a new kind of cyberthreat: a computer attack that could compromise the safety of the much-anticipated Boeing 787 Dreamliner.
The Dreamliner, scheduled to go into service by the end of the year, is built with unprecedented on-board networks and Internet access that could tempt a hacker to tamper with the jet, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. The agency wrote little-noticed rules last week that require a design preventing hacker access.
Dreamliner will be pre-wired for passenger Internet connections. Computers will also control the jet’s flight controls and monitor the aircraft’s health, sending streams of data back to airline ground stations.
Such computerization “may result in security vulnerabilities from intentional or unintentional corruption of data and systems critical to the safety and maintenance of the airplane,” the FAA wrote.
How much control a hacker could gain is unclear. Computers operating a jet’s functions, such as steering, are made with layers of redundancy designed to make them impossible to tamper with.
Boeing has been aware of the need for special protections on the 787 for more than a decade and has already built in extra security, said Chuck Royalty, who heads the firm’s computer security for the jet.
Royalty said Boeing is installing firewalls and other protections. “It’s a very structured approach to ensure that we don’t leave any gaps,” Royalty said.
Avivah Litan, an Internet security analyst with Gartner Inc., said hackers are relentless. Boeing needs “to put up a big firewall or there will be a lot of leakage,” Litan said.
The first 787 jets will not have Internet access, said Boeing spokeswoman Lori Gunter. The service will begin in 2009 or 2010, she said.
ARRL QSL Bureau Sees Rise in Number of Cards Sent
Despite the fact that sunspots have been virtually non-existent, the ARRL Outgoing QSL Service is doing a brisk business. “We are seeing bigger numbers this year as compared to last year,” says ARRL Outgoing QSL Service Manager Sharon Taratula. “It’s amazing, considering where we are in the sunspot cycle.” In 2007, the Outgoing QSL Service sent out 1,035,225 QSL cards, she says, compared with 1,000,475 cards sent during 2006 — a difference of 34,750 QSLs. The volume of outgoing QSL cards reflects the trend, although not all cards received — especially those destined for rarer DXCC entities — go out right away in the monthly mailings to foreign bureaus. In 2005, the Bureau sent out 1,137,550 cards. “Now that the new solar cycle is here, we should see even more cards,” Taratula said. In the last solar cycle (Cycle 23), the number of cards shipped via the ARRL Outgoing QSL Service topped 1.9 million cards in the 2001-2002 period. The Outgoing QSL Service sorts and forwards QSLs received from US radio amateurs to bureaus in more than 220 countries.
Radio ham claims record-breaking QSO score
A Macedonian radio amateur has claimed the largest number of QSOs as a single operator in
the 21st century. Vladimir Kovacesci, Z35M has submitted a proposal to Guinness World
Records to add a new category of ‘Largest number of contacts for 5 years in a row’. He claims
140,000 QSOs in the period 2001 to 2005. His all-time total since 1984 is a massive 320,000
contacts. His best year was 2001, when he made 43,300 QSOs, a European single year record.
[RSGB via QRZ]
Willis Island DXpedition
After the successful DXpedition to Norfolk in February 2007 where VK9DNX logged more than 60.000 QSOs the next activity is planned from Willis Island (OC-007) in October 2008.
The same experienced team, comprised of DJ7EO, DJ9RR,DL1MGB, DL3DXX, DL5LYM, DL6FBL, DL8OH and DL8WPX will be QRV with four high power stations in CW/SSB/RTTY on 160m-10m for about 17 days.
More information can be found at: http://willis2008.dl1mgb.com
[DXNL via Southgate ARC]
| Swan Islands DXpedition | New BRATS Phone Number | |
| HQ8R QRV from March 15-23, 2008. Iota NA-35, Grid EK87.. [E-Ham] | BRATS InfoLine number has been changed to 410-461-1212 |
| February, 2008 | |
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