Somali Pirates Convicted in Seychelles

The JURIST reports a Seychelles court has sentenced a group of Somalis to 10 years in prison for piracy.

The 11 men were apprehended in the Indian Ocean following the attempted hijacking of a Seychelles coastguard ship in December. The trial began in March, after Seychelles amended its criminal code to allow universal jurisdiction in piracy cases. Eight of the men were convicted of piracy, and three others of aiding and abetting piracy.

This is the first conviction for the UN-supported court for prosecution of pirates captured by the European Union Naval Force Somalia (EU NAVFOR).

Broadband Measures and Marketing

The Ofcom report on UK Broadband says 97% of 1,500 residential connections in May 2010 (18 million tests) received speeds lower than what was advertised to them.

We found that average download speeds remain well below the speeds which some ISPs continue to advertise: the average download speed received in May 2009 of 5.2Mbit/s compares to an average headline speed of 11.5Mbit/s, equivalent to 46% of the headline speed.

65% of the UK is said to have broadband at home. Perhaps the most important statistic for security research is this one:

It is estimated that around 2.75 million households, are currently incapable of receiving a minimum speed of 2Mbit/s which the Government has targeted as part of its universal service commitment.

This compares to 40% of American homes have no broadband and 30% have no Internet access at all.

Germany and Greece have the highest penetration increase rate (3%), according to the OECD, while Korea (94.3%) and Iceland (83.2%) have the highest percentage already connected.

These numbers beg several questions related to the economics of threats, especially in terms of bot-infected computers.

Delivering WiFi over 50km

We often debate signal bleed in wireless audits. This NY Times report has a fun and detailed look at a wireless signal that works across the 50km between Windblown California Islands and San Francisco.

Both atmospheric attenuation and refraction cause signals to fade. The engineers tackled these problems with several steps, including using powerful antennas and narrow channels. An IEEE 802.11n radio can use channels as wide as 40Mhz, but Pozar limited the channel width to 10MHz, creating a more focused signal. This sacrificed speed for distance.

“Because we’re going over 50 kilometers of water, I’m being extremely conservative. So I’ve actually cranked this back to only around 12 megabits,” Pozar said.