The government, in the wake terror threats, is planning to set up a centralised system to monitor communications on mobile phones, landlines and the Internet.
The Centre for Development of Telematics (C-DoT), a telecom research and development organisation, is working on the Telecom Security project, which will help the government to monitor both calls in the country through a centralised system.
Talking about the project, C-DoT Executive Director P V Acharya said, "It is viewed as a national project.
Basically, it is about monitoring certain messages or conversations so that we can ensure security of the country.
Essentially, our technology will provide an interface to operator of any service or technology and it will give them access to the messages traversing through their network," he said. The present system of surveillance is managed by individual operators, and a phone is tapped and call details are given when law enforcement agencies ask for them."
The government has a Signal Intelligence Agency, a joint service organisation manned by personnel from the Army, Navy and Air Force, which monitors military links (wireless) of other countries. However, it does not have a centralised monitoring system for voice calls on the mobile, landlines and internet.
The government has not yet decided on how the surveillance system will work.
"We will just provide an opportunity to this ... but how this would be done depends on the agreement between the operators and the government," Acharya said.
Declining to share technical details of the project, Acharya said the first phase of the project will cost Rs 400 crore. It will end next year. The need for lawful intervention is being felt more after the terror attacks in November last year, when the terrorists were in contact with their instructors on the phone.
New figures have revealed that local councils and police in Britain access telephone and e-mail records of people in the country at least 1400 times a day.
According to The Telegraph, this figure is equivalent to spying on one in every 78 adults, leading to claims that Britain had "sleepwalked into a surveillance society".
The official report also disclosed that hundreds of errors had been made in these "interception" operations, with the wrong phone numbers or emails being monitored.
The figures will fuel concerns over the use of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act by public bodies.
The Act gives authorities – including councils, the police and intelligence agencies – the power to request access to confidential communications data, including lists of telephone numbers dialled and email addresses to which messages have been sent.
Councils have been accused of using the powers, which were originally intended to tackle terrorism and organised crime, for trivial matters such as littering and dog fouling.
Only last month, it emerged that councils and other official bodies had used hidden tracking devices to spy on members of the public.
Sir Paul Kennedy, the interception of communications commissioner, who reviews requests made under the Act, compiled the latest figures.
CBI submits report on Ayodhya case missing files
Lucknow: The CBI on Monday filed its interim report on the 23 missing files related to the Ayodhya title suits in a special court.
Additional solicitor general Ashok Nigam filed the interim report in a sealed cover before the special full bench comprising justices S.R. Alam, Sudhir Agarwal and Justice D.V. Sharma as directed by the court in its earlier order on July 15 last.
On the court's query whether the State government was cooperating with the investigations, Mr. Nigam said it was fully cooperating and assured that the investigations would be completed within September 21 time frame set by the court.
Nigam also requested the court to keep the report in a sealed cover.
In its earlier order, the court while directing the CBI to take over investigations of the missing files related to the Ram Janmbhoomi-Babri mosque land dispute and completing it in two months time had also directed the CBI to submit an interim report on August 24.
Source: PTI
24/08/2009
Fernandes wants apology from Cong for 'Coffingate' allegations
New Delhi: With his name not figuring in the CBI chargesheet in the coffin scam, former defence minister George Fernandes today demanded an apology from Congress for alleging his involvement in the 2002 case.
With his name not figuring in the CBI chargesheet in the coffin scam, former defence minister George Fernandes on Monday demanded an apology from Congress for alleging his involvement in the 2002 case.
"I needed no 'clean chit' from the CBI to know that the aluminium casket purchase issue had never even come to my table during my tenure as defence minister let alone my drinking the blood of martyrs, as the Congress accused me of doing," the JD-U leader said in a press statement in New Delhi.
Fernandes had come under the scanner following allegations that poor quality aluminium caskets were bought
from the US at "exorbitant rates" to transport bodies of Kargil martyrs.
The CBI filed a chargesheet in the scam on August 19 against four people, including two retired Army officials and
one serving officer, but did not name the ex-minister.
Accusing the Congress of 'demoralising' the troops by launching a "false political attack" on him, Fernandes said,
"Can we expect even a squeak of an apology?"
Source: PTI
24/08/2009
Pakistan to probe Benazir Bhutto's murder again
Islamabad: More than a year and half after she was assassinated, the Pakistan government today set up a fresh probe into the killing of former premier Benazir Bhutto.
The new probe team would comprise law-enforcement and intelligence officials and headed by the director of the Special Investigation Group of the Federal Investigation Agency, a unit that is also probing last year's Mumbai attacks.
The move comes in the wake of a decision by an anti-terrorism court in Rawalpindi to defer the hearing of a case related to her killing, following a request from the government.
The setting up of the new probe comes as the United Nations has formed an inquiry commission to determine the facts and circumstances of Bhutto's killing. Members of the commission, which will submit its report by the end of this year, are currently in Pakistan to conduct inquiries.
However, the UN has made it clear that its team would not have the mandate of an official probe.
Police and other law enforcement agencies, including the FIA, according to the Dawn newspaper, had completed their investigation of the case and submitted a chargesheet to the anti-terrorism court.
Five people charged with involvement in the assassination were being tried by the court in the high-security Adiala Jail.
Source: PTI
24/08/2009Imran Khan's biography details his 'love life' at Oxford
London: Though his cricketing career was still in its early stages in the mid-1970s, Imran Khan's "love life" was a constant and he generally brought a 'special' girl with him to his matches, claims a biography of Pakistan's cricketer-turned politician.
"One female undergraduate recalls having feigned an interest in the game ... just to be near him. Imran made it immediately clear to his companion that he was a man of no small ambition, displaying 'brass' which impressed her," the book penned by acclaimed biographer Christopher Sandford said.
It claimed that Imran generally brought a 'special' girl with him to his matches, or even to watch him practice in the Parks nets.
The 402-page biography noted that 56-year-old Imran, who had studied at Oxford University, was particularly fortunate to play his cricket at the Parks, a handsome, tree-lined ground that was only a short-walk from Keble.
"In the summer term his practice was to go directly from his early morning tutorial to the playing field, returning home again for a late dinner. An Oxford team-mate named Simon Porter remembers him as 'more inherently gifted, obviously (but) also more driven' than his colleagues.
"It wasn't unknown for Imran to attract a 'small harem' of supporters to the ground for even the most insignificant fixture," the book claimed. Another colleague remembers that, on losing his wicket in one inter-college game, Imran went straight to the area where "a blonde in a sports car was waiting for him. He jumped in, and that was the last we saw of him for two days," according to the biography.
A subsequent Oxford girlfriend, another blonde now called Karen-Wishart, thought Imran a 'physically beautiful' man whose charm was nonetheless limited in its scope.
One evening the two of them went off together to 'a little flat above a fruit and veg shop' in the Oxford suburbs. Looking back on the episode years later, Wishart was left to conclude that Imran was a 'music and roses at night, pat on the bum in the morning' type, the biography said.
'I never said Imran slept with Benazir'
In an interview with CNN-IBN, author Christopher Sandford has denied to have written about physical relationship between Imran Khan and Benazir Bhutto. "I am not saying at all that he (Imran) slept with Bhutto.I said there might be some gossip to the extent ... I did not believe in the gossip," he told the channel.
Source: PTI, agencies
Al-Qaeda remains 'very capable' of attacking US: Mullen
Al-Qaeda remains "very capable" and focused on attacking the United States, a top American military official said on Sunday, adding the situation in Afghanistan is "serious" and "deteriorating" as the militants have found a "safe haven in Pakistan."
"Afghanistan is very vulnerable in terms of Taliban and extremists taking over again, and I don't think that threat is going to go away.
They still plot against us," Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman, Joint Chief of Staff told the NBC news channel in an interview.
"(They) still very capable, very focused on it, the leadership is. They also are able to both train and support and finance, and so that capability is still significant and one which we are very focused on making sure that (9/11) doesn't happen again," he said.
Appearing on Meet the Press programme, Mullen said, they are linked, they have a safe haven in Pakistan.
"Across that border in Pakistan, they provide the safe haven for Al- Qaeda. They also feed fires into Afghanistan. Al-Qaeda would very much like to see Kabul become the capital that it was before essentially run by extremists".
In a separate interview to the CNN, Mullen said the situation in Afghanistan "is serious and it is deteriorating, and I have said that over the last couple of years, the Taliban insurgency has gotten better, more sophisticated."
"Their tactics in my recent visits out there and talking with our troops certainly indicate that," he said.
The top US military officer said the US military is "very focused on defeating Al-Qaeda and the Taliban network in Afghanistan and Pakistan and making sure that it doesn't happen again," referring to the 9/11 attacks.
He said, "They see us as something they want to kill in terms of as many American lives as possible in that regard. We are very focused on executing that mission."
"I am very mindful and concerned about the threat that's there; the strategy really focuses on defeating Al-Qaeda and their extremist allies. That's where the original 9/11 attacks came from that region. They have now moved to Pakistan," the Admiral said.
Noting that the mission the President gave to the US army is to defeat and disrupt Al-Qaeda and its extremist allies, he said, "That's very specific, and that includes the Taliban, which has grown to be much more sophisticated in the last two to three years and is a much tougher enemy in that regard."
"So, in that regard, it's very much linked and, again, it's the mission that the military has right now to focus -- and General McChrystal is doing this -- focus on the security for the people, focus on the Afghan people," he said.
Responding to a question, Mullen said a fresh assessment of current situation in Afghanistan is going on and no decision has been made by the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation / US commander there on the increase in number of troops.
"We are not at a point yet where he's (NATO/US commander) made any decisions about asking for additional troops," Mullen said.
He said "From military perspective, I believe we have got to start to turn this thing around from a security standpoint in the next 12 to 18 months."
"I think after that we'd have a better view of how long it's going to take and what we need to do. We are just getting the pieces in place from the President's new strategy in March on the ground now both on the military side we have put forces there, and we will add more this year -- and on the civilian side. So it is going to take us a while to understand that," he pointed out.
Appearing on the CNN talk show, the US Ambassador to Afghanistan, Lt Gen (rtd) Karl Eikenberry, said, "We have a very difficult situation in parts of Afghanistan today."
However, he added, "What we do have for the first time, I believe, since 2002, we have a very clear strategy, and matched against that we have sufficient -- we have resources that are being mobilised."
PTI
IGL gets first supplies of RIL gas from KG-D6
New Delhi: Reliance Industries' Bay of Bengal gas has reached the national capital with CNG retailer Indraprastha Gas Ltd receiving the first supplies from KG-D6 fields Monday morning.
"We have begun drawing KG-D6 gas from this morning. We received about 0.2 million standard cubic meters per day of gas today which would be ramped up in coming days," an IGL official said.
IGL had earlier this month signed a Gas Sales and Purchase Agreement (GSPA) to buy 0.308 mmscmd of gas from RIL.
"With this, we have stopped taking regassified-LNG," the official said, adding RIL gas was cheaper than imported LNG.
The KG-D6 gas would meet the increased demand for compressed natural gas (CNG) by automobiles and piped natural gas by households and industries.
"The delivered cost of KG-D6 gas will be about Rs 12 per cubic metre as against Rs 13.40 per cubic metre of LNG," he said.
He said the volume will increase to 0.5 mmscmd by March 2010 and in five years the KG gas requirement would be 2.1 mmscmd.
The delivered price of RIL gas, after including taxes and transportation charges including those paid to GAIL, will be $6.7-6.8 per million British thermal unit as against the liquefied natural gas (LNG) price of $7.25 per mmBtu.
IGL is the first city gas company to sign the GSPA with RIL.
Besides IGL, Mahanagar Gas Ltd, which retails CNG in Mumbai, has been allocated 0.37 mmscmd and Hindustan Petroleum 0.49 mmscmd for its CNG operations in Ahmedabad, sources said.
State gas utility GAIL's subsidiaries Avantika Gas Ltd has been given 0.012 mmscmd for Indore and 0.0012 mmscmd for Ujjain, Green Gas Ltd 0.15 mmscmd and Sabarmati Gas Ltd 0.077 mmscmd.
RIL is currently producing 36-37 mmscmd gas from KG-D6, half of which goes to power plants. The firm has the capacity to produce 60 mmscmd but is constrained to produce less as the government is yet to identify customers for buying gas beyond the initial 40 mmscmd, allocated primarily to fertiliser and power producers in accordance with the Gas Utilisation Policy.
RIL cannot sell gas to these and other users, including its own refineries, which are starved of the fuel, unless allocation is approved by the government.
Source: PTI
LTTE tried to buy nuclear weapons: Media reports
Colombo: In a startling disclosure, the detained LTTE chief Kumaran Pathmanathan has told investigators that the rebels had tried to acquire nuclear weapons and know-how to be used against the Sri Lankan army.
A media report has said that Pathmanathan who was recently arrested in South East Asian country has told interrogators that his organisation had tried to acquire nuclear weapons and technology from western countries.
"LTTE had been the first terrorist outfit that had tried to obtain nuclear power. Had they been successful in obtaining nuclear power, it would have flowed into the hands of other terror organisations too", the Nation newspaper said quoting military analysts.
"KP has revealed that the arms purchased with the money collected were shipped to the LTTE.
How he purchased anti-aircraft missiles from arms dealers in the USA has been disclosed", the newspaper said.
Meanwhile, the former commander of LTTE Supremo Velupillai Prabhakaran and cabinet minister in the Sri Lankan government, Karuna Amman say it may be difficult to find a successor to KP.
"They (LTTE) can't do anything because all international networks were controlled by KP himself", Amman said.
"Because after the LTTE was defeated and Prabhakaran was killed, Kumaran Padmanathan announced that he was the leader. So I am glad he is arrested and in police custody. The LTTE can never come up again", Amman said.
54-year-old Pathmanathan succeeded as LTTE chief after Vellupillai Prabhakaran was killed along with most of the top rebel leaders in May this year.
"KP was handpicked by Prabhakaran as their international liaison for arms dealing, purchasing and handling their funds. KP is an intelligent man. He speaks many languages which is why he was chosen", Amman told the newspaper.
Source: PTI
Malegaon: M'shtra challenges revocation of MCOCA provisions
Mumbai: The Maharashtra Government has filed an appeal in the Bombay High Court challenging the revocation of the provisions of Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) in the September 2008 Malegaon blasts case.
The Court on Monday adjourned the matter to September 8 after directing the state to serve a copy of the appeal to all the 11 arrested in the case.
A special MCOCA court had on July 31 dropped all charges of MCOCA from the case after observing that the accused are not part of an organised crime syndicate.
The state in its appeal before the High Court had said that the order of the special court was "unconstitutional and bad in law."
The ATS had arrested 11 persons, including Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur and Lieutenant Colonel Prasad Purohit for allegedly carrying out blasts at Malegaon in September last year that killed six people and injured several others.
PTI
D. Murali
Chennai: Computer technology is now used extensively by many terrorist groups and extremist movements, observes Gus Martin in 'Understanding Terrorism: Challenges, perspectives, and issues,' third edition (www.sagepublications.com). It is not uncommon for their Web sites to be visually attractive, user-friendly, and interactive, he adds.
"Music, photographs, videos, and written propaganda are easily posted on Web pages. Many of these postings portray the sense of a peaceful and rich culture of a downtrodden group. Graphic, gory, or otherwise moving images are skilfully posted, sometimes as photo essays that 'loop' for continuous play…A 'virtual world' of like-minded extremists thrives on the Internet."
As a counterpoint to such online activity, there are organisations that independently monitor extremist Web sites for their origin and content, the author notes. He mentions, as example, SITE (the Search for International Terrorist Entities) Intelligence Group, which maintains a Web site dedicated to identifying Web postings by several extremist organisations and terrorist groups.
Worryingly for the peace-lovers, there is a great deal of information on the Net about bomb assembly, poisoning, weapons construction, mixing lethal chemicals, and so on. "For example, information about how to engage in computer hacking is easy to acquire… There is also an underground of people who create computer viruses for reasons that range from personal entertainment to anarchistic sentiment."
Cyberwar is no longer an abstract concept, Martin cautions. "The increasing availability of new technologies, when combined with the motivations and morality of the New Terrorism, suggests very strongly that technology will be an increasingly potent weapon in the arsenals of terrorists."
Compulsory read.
Information worker
The core of Microsoft's business is the 'information worker,' informs 'Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Server 2007' by Elaine Anderson, Bruno Aziza, Joey Fitts, Steve Hoberecht and Tim Kashani (www.wileyindia.com). But, who is an information worker? 'Anybody who is an active participant in a business information flow or business information process,' reads a definition by Jeff Raikes, president of Microsoft's Business Division.
With the information worker business unit delivering about $18 billion in revenue to Microsoft annually, or around a third of the total revenue, the company pays great attention to this community, the authors note.
"In addition to a development team that is focused on the user interface (UI) and that was responsible for developing the Office Fluent user interface, Microsoft's Office development organisation has a dedicated user experience group called the Office Design Group, which focuses on the usability and design elements of the Office user interface."
The CEIP or Customer Experience Improvement Program, a voluntary, opt-in initiative that collects anonymous information about errors, system performance, and frequency, marked a significant advance in Microsoft's ability to understand and react to real-world use and scenarios, the authors find.
Useful guidance about Microsoft's performance management and business intelligence offering.
English vs Kannada
Never before in Karnataka's history has the economic value of English education been as visible as in the opportunities offered by the new economy, writes Janaki Nair in one of the essays included in 'Language and Politics in India,' edited by Asha Sarangi (www.oup.com).
The author sees the queasy polarity of views on the subject: "N. R. Narayana Murthy's plea for a massive expansion of English education to wrest the opportunities offered by the global market for software production has been matched by an equal and opposite response among Kannada protagonists."
The overwhelming dominance of English as an internationally hegemonic language, in the commercial, financial, scientific, or IT fields, or the dominance of Hindi and Tamil in the cultural spheres (for example, TV and cinema) leaves Kannada to its lonely reign over the literary sphere, or within the space of domesticity, Nair discovers.
"Strenuous attempts to make Kannada the administrative language of the region have done little to recast the segmented linguistic market or compensate for the division of labour between languages that has emerged. Although Kannada has been the official language of the state since 1963, and is by and large the language of governance, this does not sufficiently remedy its dominated status."
A book that would make you wish that technology helped in building bridges between languages.
Permission and right
What is the difference between permission and right? A permission, in the Microsoft world, is your level of access to a resource such as a file, folder, or object, explains Glen E. Clarke in 'CompTIA Network+ Certification Study Guide,' fourth edition (www.tatamcgrawhill.com).
The permission is a characteristic of the resource and not a characteristic of the user account, he clarifies. "For example, if you would like to give Bob the read permission to a file, you would go to the properties of that file and set the permissions. Notice that you do not go to the user account to assign the permissions."
A right, in contrast, is your privilege within the operating system to perform a task. "For example, when companies deploy Windows XP Professional to all client systems on the network, users are surprised that they cannot change the time on the computer if they want to. This is because they do not have the Change System Time right."
Interestingly, a right can at times override permissions, Clarke informs. He gives the example of configuring folders that contain sensitive data with permissions that do not allow administrators access to these folders. But can the administrator still perform his job of backing up the folder? Yes, says Clarke, because the administrator has the right to back up files; "although he has no permission to the folder, he can read from the folder when running backup software."
Instructive material.
Tailpiece
"Fly, flew, flown. Right?"
"Flu, flee, fled!"
BookPeek.blogspot.comhttp://www.hindu.com/thehindu/holnus/002200908122122.htm
National
| BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING | ||
| The draft rules under the amendments to the Information Technology Act give the government the power to block any web content in the interest of the nation, reports Hemchhaya De | ||
Some in the Fourth Estate are an anxious lot these days. They wonder how the government can possibly go ahead with plans that are apparently targeted at gagging news portals and other websites not only during emergency situations but even during normal times if it is deemed necessary. In May this year, the department of information technology under the ministry of communication and information drew up draft rules under the amendments to the Information Technology (IT) Act that seek to monitor, among other things, news content on the web. "The rules under the Act will be enforced shortly," says a senior central government official who does not wish to be identified. Section 69 of the Information Technology Amendment Act, 2008, gives the government the power to intercept, monitor or decrypt any information transmitted, received or stored in any "computer resource" in a public or a private place. Under Section 2K of the IT Act, 2000, a "computer resource" implies a "computer, computer system, network, data, computer database or software." The recently introduced draft rules further amplify the provisions of the Act. It states that once a person complains against any information posted on the web, the authority concerned will decide whether it goes against the interests of the sovereignty or integrity of India, defence of India, security of the state, friendly relations with foreign states, public order or whether it amounts to incitement to commit any cognisable offence. If it is felt that the information needs to be blocked, a "request" will be sent to a "designated officer" selected by the secretary of the central IT department. A committee headed by the designated officer will decide whether the request should be accepted or not. If the committee's recommendation is approved, the designated officer will ask the web host to take off the information from the website within a prescribed time limit. The IT Act of 2000 focused mainly on the decryption of messages. Section 69 of the latest legislation broadens its scope by including interception and monitoring. Of course, the official line of argument is that such steps are imperative in times of national emergency and on grounds of the country's sovereignty, defence, public order, foreign relations and other concerns. "But the powers will be exercised not only when national security interests are threatened but also when cognisable offences are committed," says Anoop Narayanan, partner, Majumdar & Co International Lawyers, a Mumbai-based law firm. Some feel that such stringent legal provisions subvert the very idea of freedom in cyberspace. "If these rules are enforced, the biggest losers will be bloggers and independent or citizen journalists who don't enjoy the kind of support that big media organisations do," says Kiruba Shankar, popular blogger and CEO of Chennai-based IT firms Business Blogging and F5ive Technologies. "The beauty of the web is that we can express ourselves freely and honestly. But how can we record our experiences and views sincerely when such rules can become a potent tool of abuse?" He continues, "As it is, high-ranking government officials can easily track any information on the web as and when it appears. So why do they need to bring in more draconian laws?" Lawyers say that this is a routine argument against censorship. Though the Indian Constitution guarantees freedom of expression under Article 19, people should bear in mind that there are "reasonable restrictions" on such liberty. "No one has the right to post anything and everything on the web. And national concerns will always take precedence," says Joy Sengupta, criminal lawyer, Calcutta High Court. In the US, for example, there are national centres to monitor web content. Although the US government lays considerable emphasis on the right to privacy and freedom of speech, national security concerns are being given greater priority than ever after the 9/11 attacks. Among existing laws in the country, the Indian Telegraph Act of 1885 gives the government the right to intercept messages or other forms of communication as well. Clause 5(2) of the Act states: "On the occurrence of any public emergency, or in the interest of public safety, the Central Government or a State Government or any officer specially authorised in this behalf by the Central Government or a State Government may…direct that any message or class of messages to or from any person or class of persons, or relating to any particular subject, brought for transmission by or transmitted or received by any telegraph…shall be intercepted or detained, or shall be disclosed to the Government making the order…" In 1991, the People's Union for Civil Liberties challenged this clause on the ground that it curbed the constitutional right to freedom of speech and expression and the right to life and personal liberty. Delivering its judgement, the Supreme Court observed that "unless a public emergency has occurred or the interest of public safety demands, the authorities have no jurisdiction to exercise the powers" as specified under 5(2). A public emergency was defined by the court as the "prevailing of a sudden condition or state of affairs affecting the people at large calling for immediate action." Says Narayanan, "If we look at this example, we see that although the citizens' fundamental right to privacy and freedom of speech and expression can be subject to reasonable restrictions in the interest of national security, the government must use such rights carefully and with adequate guidelines." Legal experts feel that the new amendments to the IT law could be more intrusive than the Indian Telegraph Act. One of the lacunae in the draft rules under the Act is that there seems to be no provision to give the affected web host a hearing before or after his or her portal is blocked. "Therein lies the arbitrariness of the draft rules. If officials are taking about seven days to complete procedures leading to blocking a website, why can't the affected party get a pre or post-decisional hearing," argues Joymalya Bagchi, senior criminal lawyer, Calcutta High Court. There is also a certain vagueness in the draft rules about the ambit of jurisdiction. "What happens if the information is posted from outside India? It's not clear from the rules how that will be tackled," says Shameek Sen, assistant professor, who specialises in media law at the National University of Juridical Sciences, Calcutta. However, the draft rules do have some safeguards. For example, a review committee will meet every two months to check whether or not orders to block portals have been issued in accordance with the IT Act. Still, web professionals are far from convinced. "At a time when the country is opening up its economic policies, the draft rules under the amendments to the IT Act will take our country back by at least 20 years," says Shankar. |
Murdoch signals end of free news
 Mr Murdoch has warned of possible job losses |
News Corp is set to start charging online customers for news content across all its websites.
The media giant is looking for additional revenue streams after announcing big losses.
The company lost $3.4bn (£2bn) in the year to the end of June, which chief executive Rupert Murdoch said had been "the most difficult in recent history".
News Corp owns the Times and Sun newspapers in the UK and the New York Post and Wall Street Journal in the US.
'Revolution'
 |  We intend to charge for all our news websites. I believe that if we are successful, we will be followed by other media  Rupert Murdoch, chief executive, News Corp |
Mr Murdoch said he was "satisfied" that the company could produce "significant revenues from the sale of digital delivery of newspaper content".
"The digital revolution has opened many new and inexpensive methods of distribution," he added.
"But it has not made content free. Accordingly, we intend to charge for all our news websites. I believe that if we are successful, we will be followed by other media.
"Quality journalism is not cheap, and an industry that gives away its content is simply cannibalising its ability to produce good reporting," he said.
In order to stop readers from moving to the huge number of free news websites, Mr Murdoch said News Corp would simply make its content "better and differentiate it from other people".
What a ridiculous idea. Why would anyone pay for news from the web?
Charging options
Newspapers across the world are considering the best way to make money from the internet, particularly in a time of falling advertising revenues.
The risk is that charges may alienate readers who have become used to free content and deter advertisers.
When the New York Times abandoned its subscription model - visits to its website jumped from about 12 million per day to almost 20 million per day, said the former general manager of NYTimes.com, Vivian Schiller.
Ms Schiller, now chief executive at National Public Radio (NPR) in the US, told the BBC's PM programme that the higher audience had "more value than the limited number of people who were prepared to pay for content".
However last month the paper said it was studying different ways to charge for access to its website. The Financial Times and Wall Street Journal already charge readers.
Different news organisations have tried alternative charging structures - either pay-per-article or a monthly subscription fee.
| In its recent earnings report, the Financial Times said it was seeking to rely less on advertising revenue and more on subscriptions  |
The FT allows users to access a certain number of stories for nothing each month; if they want to access more than that, they need to subscribe.
'Well-differentiated content'
Some analysts say that financial newspapers are better placed to charge readers for online content, because of the specialist nature of the information they provide.
Alfonso Marone, analyst and partner at Value Partners Group, told the BBC that the model could work "for well-known publications - for must-read, must-know content. The Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times are already charging for content, for example," he said.
He believes that a micro-charging structure, where readers pay just 5p or 10p to access an article, might work. "This is less than the price of an SMS [text message]," he argued.
"This is definitely the way the [newspaper] industry is going," he concluded.
Sly Bailey, the chief executive of Trinity Mirror, said that while a "paid online model already exists for unique, high value and well-differentiated content", she doubted "that it is possible for publishers to charge for general news content when the same content is given away for free by the BBC, Google News and others".
"I don't think this is about what Rupert Murdoch wants. It's about what the consumer is prepared to pay for. And why would you pay when you can get the same thing somewhere else for free?" she said.
Recovery
News Corp has suffered from falling advertising revenues.
"Our financial performance clearly reflects the weak economic environment that we confronted throughout the year," Mr Murdoch said.
He did, however, say that there were signs of life in the advertising market.
"I think the worst may be behind us, but there are no clear signs yet of a fast economic recovery."
He added that News Corp was "particularly well-placed for the coming recovery".
New Corp's $3.4bn loss was due to $8.9bn in write-downs already announced, compared with a $5.4bn profit a year earlier.
Revenues at the media giant, which owns BSkyB and 20th Century Fox, fell 7.8%.
In the fourth quarter of its financial year, News Corp lost $203m compared with a net profit of $1.1bn in the same period a year ago.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8186701.stmUS man 'stole 130m card numbers'
 The card details were allegedly stolen from three firms, including 7-Eleven |
US prosecutors have charged a man with stealing data relating to 130 million credit and debit cards.
Officials say it is the biggest case of identity theft in American history.
They say Albert Gonzalez, 28, and two un-named Russian co-conspirators hacked into the payment systems of retailers, including the 7-Eleven chain.
Prosecutors say they aimed to sell the data on. If convicted, Mr Gonzalez faces up to 20 years in jail for wire fraud and five years for conspiracy.
He would also have to pay a fine of $250,000 (£150,000) for each of the two charges.
| FROM THE TODAY PROGRAMME |
'Standard' attack
Mr Gonzalez used a technique known as an "SQL injection attack" to access the databases and steal information, the US Department of Justice (DoJ) said.
Edward Wilding, a fraud investigator, told the BBC that this method was "a pretty standard way" for fraudsters to try to access personal data.
It "exploits any vulnerability in a firewall and inserts a code to gather information," he explained.
However, he added that this case probably "involved extremely well researched, especially configured codes, not standard attack codes downloaded from the internet".
Mr Wilding said that chip-and-pin did provide some protection against SQL attacks, but there was little consumers could do to protect themselves against this kind of fraud.
"The real vulnerability, I suspect, is internet and telephone transactions. But this is a failure in the configuration of [corporate] firewalls," he said.
Further charges
Mr Gonzales' corporate victims included Heartland Payment Systems - a card payment processor - convenience store 7-Eleven and Hannaford Brothers, a supermarket chain, the DoJ said.
According to the indictment, the group researched the credit and debit card systems used by their victims, attacked their networks and sent the data to computer servers they operated in California, Illinois, Latvia, the Netherlands and Ukraine.
The data could then be sold on, enabling others to make fraudulent purchases, it said.
Mr Gonzalez, who had once been an informant for the US Secret Service helping to track hackers, is already in custody on separate charges of hacking into the computer systems of a national restaurant chain and eight major retailers, including TJ Maxx, involving the theft of data related to 40 million credit cards.
Mr Gonzales is scheduled to go on trial for these charges in 2010.
This latest case will raise fresh concerns about the security of credit and debit cards used in the United States, the BBC's Greg Wood reports.
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| Advani loses figure of speech - Aide quits, election team breaks up | |
| SANJAY K. JHA | |
New Delhi, Aug. 23: L.K. Advani's team of aides that played a key role during the last general election appears to have broken up. All these advisers have fallen out with the leadership on the issues of ideological rigidity and the nature of the BJP-RSS relationship. Key Advani aide Sudheendra Kulkarni today formally snapped his "active association" with the BJP. Journalist Swapan Dasgupta has launched a scathing attack on the party leadership for expelling Jaswant Singh, and Chandan Mitra is being blamed for the Bal Apte committee report — which attributed the poll defeat to the Advani-centric campaign — even as the party now dismisses the report as non-existent. Several other advisers of the BJP, political and apolitical, say in private conversation that Advani has overreached himself by promising to continue as leader of the Opposition for the next five years. Kulkarni, technically not a BJP member since 2005, headed the think tank that ran Advani's campaign for Prime Minister. He also wrote Advani's speeches and was primarily responsible for their liberal content, including the praise for Mohammad Ali Jinnah during his 2005 Pakistan visit. Although Kulkarni said he was parting ways because of "ideological differences", Jaswant claimed he had been persuaded to "resign". The BJP had a few weeks ago virtually disowned Kulkarni, who had written several articles after the election results suggesting Advani had been weakened by infighting and RSS interference. Sushma Swaraj had then told the media that Kulkarni had nothing to do with the party. But Advani did not disown Kulkarni, who attended the release of the Urdu version of the leader's book, My Country My Life, early this month. It is now obvious that Advani was ready to tolerate Kulkarni's attack on the RSS but did not want him any more when he said the views expressed by Jaswant and Advani on Jinnah had "no essential difference". Kulkarni criticised Jaswant's expulsion as graceless. Claiming he would not be able to make any meaningful contribution to the party, Kulkarni said he needed the freedom to express his views and be sincere to his convictions. Dasgupta, who was on the BJP's strategy committee for the general election, has ridiculed the "perverse symbolism" of sacking somebody for writing a book. He has also argued the BJP needs autonomy from the RSS and suggested a moderate agenda for the future despite being a Narendra Modi supporter. He has asserted that Advani should vacate the space for a younger leader. Fellow journalist Mitra, a member of the committee that drafted the Apte report, has joined the chorus rejecting the existence of the report. Yet, middle-rung leaders who did not attend the chintan baithak keep asking reporters for a copy of the report. Mitra, who has defended the expulsion of Jaswant, hasn't appeared too inclined to defend Advani against Jaswant's damning charges. Asked about Jaswant's allegation that Advani had lied about his role in the Kandahar terrorist trade-off, he said people could judge for themselves since both politicians had made their claims on camera. |
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