U.S. Cyber Infrastructure Vulnerable to Attacks

By YOCHI J. DREAZEN and SIOBHAN GORMAN

WASHINGTON -- The government is struggling to keep pace with the growing number of attacks on its computer networks, potentially leaving key military and civilian systems vulnerable to overseas hackers, senior U.S. officials said Tuesday.

At several hearings on Capitol Hill, officials from each branch of the armed forces said the nation's cyber defenses were being challenged like never before by sophisticated, well-organized efforts to disrupt important systems and steal classified information.

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"Threats in cyberspace move at the speed of light, and we are literally under attack every day as our networks are constantly probed and our adversaries seek to exploit vulnerabilities," Lt. Gen. William Shelton, the Air Force's chief information officer, told a House Armed Services Committee panel.

The Pentagon's top information-security official, Robert Lentz, said the Defense Department detected 360 million attempts to penetrate its networks last year, up from six million in 2006. The Pentagon recently disclosed that it had spent $100 million in the past six months repairing damage from cyber attacks.

The officials declined to specify the source of the attacks, but top military and civilian officials believe that most of the hacking attempts originate in Russia and China, which have been pouring resources into cyber espionage in recent years. Russian and Chinese officials have denied any wrongdoing.

The hearings come amid growing evidence that sophisticated overseas hackers are regularly penetrating important U.S. networks. The Wall Street Journal has reported that overseas hackers breached both the nation's electricity grid and the Pentagon's biggest weapons program, the $300 billion Joint Strike Fighter.

"I'd like to say that our networks are secure but that would not be correct," said Army Lt. Gen. Keith Alexander, who runs the National Security Agency. "We have vulnerabilities."

The Obama administration recently completed a 60-day review of the government's efforts to protect key public and private networks. The administration is expected soon to appoint a new White House cybersecurity chief, though the final deliberations over the report have sparked internal White House turf battles.

ROBERT GATES

Later this month, the Pentagon will create a new military "cyber command" to coordinate the defense of Pentagon computer networks and improve U.S. offensive capabilities in cyberwarfare. Gen. Alexander, who is expected to lead the new command, said it would ensure the Pentagon was capable of "evolving to meet and overcome" cyber threats.

Still, officials warned Tuesday that federal systems remain vulnerable to attack. Gregory Wilshusen, the director of information security for the Government Accountability Office, said most "federal systems are not sufficiently protected to consistently thwart cyber threats." Lax cyber security at the Los Alamos National Lab, for example, put unclassified nuclear data at risk of theft or compromise. The GAO found that in 2008, 23 of 24 major agencies surveyed didn't have adequate computer security protections in place.

Lawmakers at a House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing compared the government's inability to protect networks and acquisitions programs to the lapses that led to the fall of Rome.

That theme continued in the House Armed Services Committee. "The Joint Strike Fighter program highlights a vulnerability that currently exists," said Rep. Jeff Miller (R., Fla.).

Robert Carey, the Navy's chief information officer, said defense contractors needed to do more to protect their systems from overseas hackers. He said the attempts to steal information were "advanced, persistent, sophisticated, always changing and well-resourced."

Army Lt. Gen. Keith Alexander, who is expected to lead the new command, called for a "partnership" between the government and the private sector. He acknowledged potential obstacles, including the difficulty of giving private companies access to classified intelligence on specific cyber attacks and possible corporate reluctance to spend the money necessary to better protect its networks.

Many civil-liberties groups and companies are wary about giving the government broad access to commercial systems and networks. Pending legislation would establish federal standards for key elements of private industry.

Gen. Alexander said the government was training a new generation of computer network experts. In April, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said the Pentagon aims to quadruple the number of such staffers over time.

Still, Gen. Alexander cautioned that the current cybersecurity training efforts for military personnel, civilian officials and contractors were "inadequate" and "must be improved."

Source: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124153427633287573.html

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Negotiating the Freelance Economy

By SARAH E. NEEDLEMAN

In April 2008, Rebecca Haden lost her job when the small store she managed went out of business. A year later, she's working as many as 40 hours a week and earning much more than she did before -- even though she still doesn't have a job. Her formula? Freelancing her Web skills.

Ms. Haden, of Fayetteville, Ark., is among a growing number of professionals who are making ends meet by working on a project-by-project contract basis. Even as permanent- and temp-job opportunities are shrinking, the amount of contract work to be found on freelance-jobs sites is expanding. What's more, it's moving beyond computer-programming and graphic-design gigs for small employers to include listings from larger companies and assignments in fields such as accounting, law, engineering and sales.

Between January and March, employers posted 70,500 of these work-for-hire positions onElance.com and 43,000 on Odesk.com, which represents increases of 35% and 105%, respectively, from the same period in 2008. Sologig.com, which lists remote and on-site freelance jobs, says its average monthly postings have more than doubled to around 13,500 per month in the past year. In March, there were 750 jobs listed on VirtualAssistants.com, versus 400 in March 2008.

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Spencer Tirey for The Wall Street Journal

Rebecca Haden has landed a steady supply of project-based work, in part by using freelance-job site Odesk.

At the same time, the number of U.S. workers employed by temporary-help-services firms in March fell 27% to 1.8 million from the same month in 2008, according to the Labor Department.

As the recession takes hold, more employers are using freelance workers to avoid the expenses associated with hiring permanent staff, says Fabio Rosati, chief executive officer of Mountain View, Calif.-based Elance. "The power of online work is that it's immediate, cost-effective and flexible," he says.

Indeed, freelance workers are often cheaper and more flexible than temp workers, whose jobs, though short-term, tend to be full-time, subject to temp-agency fees, and bound by agency restrictions, such as limits on the permanent hiring of temps.

Mr-SEO.com, an online marketing firm with eight employees, began using freelance help a year ago to handle tasks in Web-site development, administrative services and copywriting. The five-year-old Seattle-based company hired 17 freelancers through Guru.com for projects that lasted as little as a few days or as long as eight months and counting. "It gives us the flexibility to expand our work force depending on client demand," says Greg Gaskill, the company's president.

Like many workers who turn to freelance positions, Ms. Haden, a 51-year-old mother of four, didn't plan to take on piecemeal work after her layoff. At first, she approached a local Internet company about a permanent job doing Web optimization -- a technique for boosting a site's search-engine rankings. It was a skill she had learned while overseeing her former employer's online store and blog. The firm wasn't hiring, but it offered her a short freelance assignment. She accepted.

Ms. Haden, who holds a master's degree in linguistics, wrote about the experience for a popular blog on Web optimization. "People started approaching me with work pretty soon after that," she says.

'I Just Do the Fun Stuff'

One gig she landed introduced her to Odesk, which, like some other contract-job sites, can monitor freelancers' work. Since then, Ms. Haden says she's landed a steady supply of Web-optimization assignments through Odesk, as well as through her personal Web site and blog. Most months, she earns more than double her previous income. Ms. Haden says the work has been fulfilling, and she has put her permanent-job search on hold indefinitely. "I get to pick and choose what I do now," she says. "And I just do the fun stuff."

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Many other laid-off professionals appear to be taking up freelancing, either as a new career or as a way to weather the downturn. Freelance-job sites say membership among individuals, which is free in many cases, has risen sharply. For example, Guru.com has nearly 878,000 freelance members today, up from around 760,000 a year ago.

Freelance-job sites also say they're seeing more midsize and large employers posting assignments, and the jobs have expanded into more business functions, such as finance, manufacturing and law. For example, roughly 1,700 new jobs were added to the sales and marketing category on Elance in March, a 50% increase from a year ago. That's led to new types of contract workers, too.

Last month, Lynn Welch became one of those new freelancers when she began a 96-hour home-based consulting stint for Axsys Technologies Inc., a large, publicly traded manufacturer of infrared technologies based in Rocky Hill, Conn. She was laid off in March from a senior marketing position at a midsize technology firm and says her Axsys contract is one of four freelance assignments she's landed either through networking or Guru. She's so far earned roughly $10,000 from freelance gigs in online marketing.

Pitfalls of Contract Work

Despite her successes, Ms. Welch, who is 40 and lives in a Washington, D.C., suburb, says she still deals with some of the pitfalls that come with contract work. For example, she says she once spent several hours researching and explaining how she'd handle a potential project, but didn't get the gig. "Some [employers] want to pick your brain and have no intention of paying you," she says. Now Ms. Welch is more cautious about sharing information with employers before a contract is signed. "If they're asking for a lot of details, that's a warning sign," she says.

Sites like Odesk, Guru and Elance guarantee payment after jobs are completed in return for commissions of about 6% to 10% of freelancers' fees. But many other sites hold individuals fully responsible for billing clients and collecting payments.

There are other downsides to freelancing, from the lack of health coverage and paid time off to the need to make your own retirement contributions. Striking out on your own also requires regularly searching for and vetting potential new assignments, while ensuring that you complete on time the ones you've already secured. Furthermore, you may need to invest in equipment such as computer software and a business phone line.

Carving Out a Niche

Should you decide to take up contract work, there are ways to help ensure the process goes smoothly. First, make sure to be very specific about your skills and expertise when you fill out a profile on a freelance job site, says Kate Lister, author of "Undressed for Success: The Naked Truth About Making Money at Home." Doing so will help you stand out from the competition. "You want to carve out a niche," she says.

To figure out how much to charge for your work, research the rates that experienced freelancers demand for similar services, suggests Ms. Lister. The information can usually be found in members' profiles on freelance job sites. "Look at their portfolios and ask yourself, could I produce that level of work? Could I do much better than that?" she says. After settling on a figure, Ms. Lister suggests starting out at a slightly lower rate to build a track record.

Another option is to offer to work for just a few hours at first to prove yourself, suggests Gower Idrees, founder of RareBrain Capital LP, a consulting firm specializing in high-growth businesses in The Woodlands, Texas. Since early 2007, Mr. Idrees has hired about 1,500 freelancers from Guru -- including former big-company executives, many as consultants. "I've used them in every way possible," he says.

Mr. Idrees recommends discussing potential projects with hiring managers over the phone whenever possible, rather than using email, in order to build trust and negotiate a fair pay rate. That way, a potential freelancer "can educate [the company] on what the challenges really are," he explains. Sometimes, he says, employers aren't aware just how many hours a project will require.

Source: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124157147509390007.html

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Pressure Mounting On Australia's Ambitious Carbon Trading Plan

By Phil Mercer  Sydney 03 May 2009

Australia's bold plans for a carbon emissions trading scheme are under threat after the conservative opposition in Canberra hardened its stance against it. Critics of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's proposal say it would cost jobs and provoke economic uncertainty for the next 20 years.

Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd (file photo)

The prime minister wants the legislation - a proposal that would become the world's most sweeping emissions trading system - passed by the end of next month.

Under the bill, companies would have to buy permits for every ton of carbon they emit, a system designed to provide financial incentives for those that reduce their pollution. It would cover about 75 percent of emissions from Australia's 1,000 largest polluters.

Critics say that new, independent research proves the system will damage the Australian economy and cost jobs if it is introduced at a time of global recession.

Conservative lawmaker Andrew Robb says the government should delay its controversial plans.

"This report establishes very clearly that the government has got serious work to do to fix this deeply flawed scheme that they have put in place. Do not put in jeopardy tens of thousands of Australian jobs," said Robb.

The left-of-center Mr. Rudd wants the scheme to be working by July of next year.

The measures need the approval of the country's upper house of parliament, the Senate, which the government does not control.

Vehicles and a barn burn in bushfires 125 kilometers west of Melbourne, Australia, 07 Feb 2009

It needs the support of Greens Senators, who argue the scheme does not go far enough to protect the environment.

Climate Change minister Penny Wong is adamant she can convince skeptics to change their mind and that the plans will get parliamentary approval.

"All I can say is that we are determined to act in the national interest and the national interest means that we are determined to get this legislation through," said Wong.

Australia, one of the world's worst per capita emitters of greenhouse gases, warns that without tough environmental measures the country would lose jobs and key industries, including agriculture and tourism.

A long-standing drought, along with recent devastating bushfires and widespread floods have given some scientists more reason to think that the vast continent is likely to be one of the countries hardest hit by a shifting climate.

Skeptics argue, however, that rising temperatures and warmer oceans are part of a natural cycle and are not convinced the changes are a result of man's pollution.  

Source: http://www.voanews.com/english/2009-05-03-voa7.cfm

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Alternative Energy's Fortunes Shift With the Winds

One Man's Effort to Build a Turbine Company Reflects the Ups and Downs of Oil, the Economy and Commitment

Cedar Rapids, Iowa -- James Dehlsen has spent decades trying to build a bigger and better machine to convert a breeze into electricity.

As much as anyone, he helped create the modern wind-power business, riding waves of interest in alternative energy and weathering downturns when that enthusiasm died down. At this point in the cycle, he doesn't exactly have the wind at his back.

"The industry has been impacted pretty heavily," says Mr. Dehlsen, chairman of Clipper Windpower, one of a few U.S. wind-turbine makers. Asked about the demand for turbines, he says: "It's not up."

Jeffrey Ball/The Wall Street Journal

Just a few months ago, Clipper Windpower's turbines were in high demand. The company recently laid off workers.

President Barack Obama and politicians of both parties vow a renewable-energy revolution. The ups and downs of Mr. Dehlsen's company show both the promise and the difficulty of that vision. Creating reliable energy from a fuel as fickle as the wind is difficult. Doing so without predictable and prolonged help from Capitol Hill and Wall Street is all but impossible.

Few industries are as hard to change as energy. Fossil fuel, entrenched and convenient, follows a boom-and-bust cycle that keeps interrupting the development and adoption of alternatives. The interest in renewable energy rises with the price of oil and falls with it, too. Phasing in new energy sources on a scale big enough to matter would take consistent effort over decades -- something that, so far, hasn't happened in the biggest oil-consuming country in the world.

Europe has been more consistent. Longstanding subsidies there have incubated renewable-energy companies that now have gone global -- much like higher gasoline taxes have pushed most Europeans away from gas-guzzling cars. In good economic times, the U.S. chose not to match Europe's renewable-energy subsidies. So Europe, which generally isn't as windy as the U.S., emerged early on as a global wind-power leader.

Before the recession hit last fall, renewable energy, such as wind farms, were seeing a boom in jobs, growth and funding. But now financing has dried up and layoffs are occurring. Jeffrey Ball reports from Iowa

Today's recession is whipsawing renewable-energy companies regardless of their nationality. According to New Energy Finance, an industry analyst, new investment in "clean energy" -- sources such as wind, solar and biofuels -- sank 53% globally in the first quarter from the same period last year. Layoffs and production cutbacks are spreading throughout the industry, which just months ago was soaring. In response, the U.S. is moving to boost its subsidies, largely to generate what Mr. Obama calls "green jobs."

That's a big opportunity for Clipper -- if it can get past the recession. In the past few months, Clipper has laid off one-quarter of the workers at its factory in this Rust Belt city, and it has slashed its production of wind turbines by more than half. Like many of its competitors, it's spending huge sums fixing mechanical problems that couldn't have come at a worse time. The industry might have ironed out those glitches had it developed without the fits and starts.

Today's wind turbines weigh more than 300 tons and stand some 300 feet tall. Climbing their internal ladders to the top requires wearing a mountaineer-style safety harness and takes 10 or 15 sweaty minutes. Their three fiberglass blades slice through a circle of airspace covering nearly two acres. The blades turn gears, which run generators, which produce electricity.

When Mr. Dehlsen started his first wind company in 1980, turbines were "made in people's garages," he recalls. At the time, oil prices were surging, and tax breaks for new sources of energy were waiting to be exploited. Mr. Dehlsen's company, Zond Systems, began importing turbines from Vestas, a Danish equipment maker then entering the wind business.

By 1985, the good times had ended. Oil prices sank, Washington withdrew the tax credits, and private financing for wind power dried up.

Mr. Dehlsen spent the next two decades trying to develop turbines that would produce more power at lower cost. In 2000, he sold Zond to Enron, then a highflying energy company. The following year, he founded Clipper and began developing an even bigger turbine. In 2005, he tested it in a howling Wyoming snowstorm.

His timing was good. Once again, oil prices were rising, another U.S. tax break was in place, and investors were pouring money into wind.

Clipper leased an abandoned printing-press factory in Cedar Rapids and retooled it to make turbines. The location was sensible if not sexy. The windiest solid swath of the U.S. is a corridor stretching from Texas to the Dakotas. Iowa sits along it.

The arrival of Clipper and other wind-energy companies was a blessing for Iowa, which had been losing manufacturing jobs. Among those hired was Jeff Pottebaum, who was a maintenance worker at a local hospital before Clipper hired him in 2006 for $15 an hour. "I thought I had the world by the tail," the 41-year-old says.

In 2007, Clipper's first full year of production, cracks developed on the blades of some turbines the company had installed, and the teeth on some turbines' gears began to wear prematurely. In response, Clipper reinforced the blades of all its turbines. It also brought the gearboxes of all its turbines back to the factory to check and, if necessary, repair. Then, last year, more problems emerged with blades and with a few gearboxes. Those prompted additional fixes. Clipper says the problems originated with suppliers.

But the industry can't control the economy. Last fall, the debt markets collapsed, the recession set in, and orders for new turbines screeched to a halt. Clipper halved production, to about four turbines per week. In January, it laid off about 80 workers, including Mr. Pottebaum.

"I was with a company where I thought the sky was the limit," says Mr. Pottebaum, who now has a temporary job in landscaping. He would return to Clipper, he says, "in a heartbeat."

Other wind-turbine makers also have had layoffs -- enough to worry Iowa Gov. Chet Culver. "We've got to help them hold on," he says between meetings at the state capitol. Gov. Culver is glad that several wind-turbine companies -- including those based abroad -- have set up factories in his state. "Long-term, I think this is probably the strongest sector of our economy," he says. "I can't predict today what the future is going to be -- how long these companies are going to have to struggle."

Clipper is seeking a loan guarantee under the Obama administration's economic-stimulus plan. At the Cedar Rapids plant, Clipper's chief executive, Douglas Pertz, invokes national interest as a reason the government should help his firm. As the country assists its automotive icons, he argues, it also should help loosen up funding for its renewable-energy companies. It would be problematic for the country "for Clipper to not survive," he says. Yet the renewable-energy industry is one of many sectors competing for stimulus aid.

Vestas has grown into a global wind-power juggernaut largely because of the reliability of European renewable-energy policy, says Roby Roberts, a Vestas senior vice president. "It takes continuity, predictability and consistency, and that's not what the U.S. has ever had," he says. Vestas now is expanding in the U.S., he says, largely because the U.S. is implementing more supportive policy.

Out behind Clipper's plant, shrink-wrapped in plastic, the finished pieces of wind turbines are piling up as they wait to be picked up by buyers facing financial difficulty themselves.

Write to Jeffrey Ball at jeffrey.ball@wsj.com

  Source: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124113394573975093.html

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How One College Is Snagging So Many Students?

By LAURA FITZPATRICK – Sat May 2, 2:00 am ET

For high school seniors, May 1 was D-Day. Decision Day. After weeks of weighing the pros and cons, they had until the last mail pickup on Friday to postmark a deposit to reserve a spot in next year's freshman class. In this spring of economic certainty, many nationally known schools are sweating over whether they'll enroll, or "yield," enough students to fill the class - an outcome officials won't know for sure until all the deposits are tallied over the coming weeks. But in a tiny corner of Kentucky, one little college is doing just fine. Berea College is on track to yield 78% of the students it accepted this year - and thereby beat Harvard's 2008 haul. The school's secret? Free tuition. (See TIME's photos inside a public boarding school)

At Berea, which was founded in 1855 as the first integrated college in the South, all 1,530 students work at least 10 hours a week in a campus or service job, earning $3.80 an hour and four years of free tuition. Eighty percent of the school's operating costs are funded by its endowment and the rest comes from donations, a tough combination these days: the school announced on Friday that it would lay off 30 employees, or 5% of the staff. Berea did not, however, back off from its commitment to offering a free education, and this year, not surprisingly, as applications cratered at some expensive schools, Berea notched a 15% increase. And more of the students applying were of a higher academic caliber. The number who received the school's top "four-star" academic rating jumped 10%, raising the average GPA of admitted students to 3.48. All of which might be expected after an October survey from MeritAid.com found that 57% of high school seniors were considering a less prestigious school for financial reasons. Berea is used to getting high-quality students who say affordability is a major factor, says Joe Bagnoli, associate provost for enrollment. "This year, there were just more of them." (See how schools are willing to give more financial aid.)

What the school didn't expect, however, was to hang on to so many of those top students. Typically, while admissions officials say Berea has a 54% chance of snagging a student who scores between 540 and 650 on the verbal section of the SAT, the chance of enrolling an applicant who gets between 660 and 800 is only 40%. Case in point: Bagnoli says he received a call on May 1 from a parent who reported that his daughter had gotten into Stanford, where her financial aid would cover four years of tuition, room, board and fees as well as a travel stipend. "They didn't know how they could pass up the opportunity," Bagnoli notes. (See how tolearn from Ivy League professors for free.)

But few schools can afford that kind of largesse. And this year, more students who may have been admitted to (pricily) prestigious schools are passing them up and opting to go to Berea instead. While a 78% yield would not be an increase from last year, it would not be a decrease, either - as Bagnoli says it almost certainly would have been in flusher times.

With some deposits arriving Friday and others still en route, Bagnoli says he expects the school's yield to hold steady at 78% - or even possibly rise. "It would be a little presumptuous of me to say that's going to happen," he says. "But I wouldn't be surprised."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20090502/us_time/08599189548200

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