Oz Met Office hacked

The Australian Bureau of Meteorology has apparently been hacked.

China blamed for 'massive' cyber attack on Bureau of Meteorology computer

China is being blamed for a major cyber attack on the computers at the Bureau of Meteorology, which has compromised sensitive systems across the Federal Government.

Key points:

• ABC told there is little doubt the "massive" breach came from China
• Motivation for attack could be commercial, strategic or both
• Bureau provides critical information to a host of agencies, including link to Defence Department
• Could "take years and cost hundreds of millions of dollars to fix"

This seems like a bit of an odd target, doesn't it?

Slightly scary robot

More evidence of changing GW narrative

Interesting to see the success of the Our Climate iPhone app - Anthony reports that it has made the front of the US iTunes store, despite efforts to denigrate it at the Guardian.

All I need now is for Graun to print a really bitchy review of HSI to send my sales stratospheric...

Matt Ridley at TED

This is fun...

Peer reviewers acting as gatekeepers

Not a climate science story this one, but one from the world of stem cell research. The themes are remarkably similar to those emerging from the Climategate emails though:

Stem cell experts say they believe a small group of scientists is effectively vetoing high quality science from publication in journals.

In some cases they say it might be done to deliberately stifle research that is in competition with their own.

What I want for Christmas...

...and it will probably take that long for it to be available in the UK, but doesn't the Skiff e-reader look sexy?

Tagged

Carl Gardner has tagged me for one of those round robin meme thingies. Apparently I have to tell everyone about my mobile phone and also to name one of my heroes.

There's a bit of a problem with the first bit in that I don't actually have a mobile phone, although I occasionally borrow the missus' one - an antique Nokia with a negative street cred score. I did own one once, when my job at the time required it, but I hated it with a vengeance. I don't want to be contactable at any time. (Also, what is it about a mobile which makes the battery warning bleeper go off only in the middle of the night?)

A hero - that's a bit tricky too, not being given to hero-worship. People who have done good things in difficult circumstances flit in and out of my attention all the time. At the moment it's John Adams. He'll do.

For Christmas I want....

One of these.

Snooper-free searching

Ixquick is a search engine that doesn't log your IP address as you surf. It comes complete with a Firefox addin.

Surfin' without snoopin'. Sounds good to me. I'll be giving it a try over the next few days.

Very cool add in for Firefox

I've just got myself a very cool add-in for Firefox called Hyperwords. This is what I've been looking for for ages. Select a bit of text and you get a pop-up menu which will take you anywhere on the internet you want to go - Wikipedia, search engines, shops, Technorati, you name it. Select a number and you can do currency conversions on it, you can tag things in delicious.

The menus are configurable, so you only get the functionality you want, and there's all sorts of clever tailoring you can do as well. 

Well worth a look for Firefox users.