The security industry found its dream enemy in 2013 -- and new technical challenges too

IDG News Service - 2013 was the year we learned we must encrypt our data if we don't want the likes of the U.S. National Security Agency or the U.K. Government Communications Headquarters reading it as it crosses the Internet.

The security industry has the enemy it always dreamed of to help it make the case for encryption adoption, but users looking to secure their data and communications need to be wary of claims made in marketing messages. Securing data in motion is the priority, experts say, and some large Internet firms are already making progress in this area, but encrypting data at rest without losing its usefulness will prove a greater challenge.

"The NSA's surveillance has opened the eyes of many people around the world," Lamar Bailey, director of security research and development at security firm Tripwire said via email. "Security professionals have always known that this style of surveillance is possible with the right resources, but this episode has been a big wake-up call for everyone. Many countries and companies outside the U.S. are now taking a harder, more in-depth look at software and hardware that comes from the U.S., although the silver lining is that mainstream users are now more concerned with encrypting data and reviewing how their information is being shared."

The public debate sparked by the surveillance revelations in recent months has prompted some encouraging responses already: Google has encrypted the links between its data centers; Yahoo is working to do the same and has promised to enable SSL encryption by default for webmail and other services, and Twitter has enabled an SSL feature called forward secrecy, already implemented by Google and Facebook, which makes mass decryption of SSL traffic hard even if the website operator's master private key is compromised.

Some software vendors started developing alternatives to existing communication technologies, with the goal of providing end-to-end encryption and making upstream data interception harder. Secure communications provider Silent Circle launched an effort called the Dark Mail Alliance to develop a private a secure email protocol that encrypts metadata, not just message contents; Pirate Bay co-founder Peter Sunde is working with others on a secure crowd-funded mobile messaging application called Hemlis with distributed infrastructure hosted in privacy-friendly jurisdictions, and BitTorrent, the company behind the popular file-sharing protocol of the same name, is developing a peer-to-peer instant messaging application that encrypts messages directly between users and doesn't rely on central servers.

These and other examples send a clear message: securing the data transport channels to prevent unwanted upstream interception is a priority. The Internet Engineering Task Force, an organization that develops Internet standards, is already working toward this goal. Together with other Internet infrastructure groups, IETF expressed concern that the reported mass monitoring and surveillance by government agencies undermines the trust and confidence of Internet users globally.

The IDG News Service is a Network World affiliate.

View the original article here

New dispatch system could save money for trucking industry, make life easier for drivers

View the original article here

2013 economic outlook for global chemical industry

The 2013 outlook for the global chemical industry—a $3 trillion enterprise that impacts virtually every other sector of the economy—is the topic of the cover story in this week's edition of Chemical & Engineering News. C&EN is the weekly newsmagazine of the American Chemical Society, the world's largest scientific society.

Titled "World Chemical Outlook" and compiled by a team of 10 editors and correspondents, the annual feature forecasts chemical industry growth rates in various regions, including a modest 1.9 percent increase in the United States (compared to 1.5 percent growth in 2012) and a 0.5 percent increase in Europe (an improvement from the 2.0 percent contraction in 2012).

The story describes several bright spots dotting that generally overcast landscape. U.S. chemical manufacturers, for instance, can look forward to another year of low-priced natural gas to fuel their facilities and provide cheap raw materials. Producers of "fine chemicals," highly pure substances produced in relatively small amounts for medications, pesticides and other products, should do better than the industry as a whole. Likewise, makers of scientific instruments for the energy, environmental, forensics and food markets also are upbeat about 2013 sales.

More information: "World Chemical Outlook"—cen.acs.org/articles/91/i2/World-Chemical-Outlook.html

Provided by American Chemical Society

View the original article here

Propylene oxide: Light may recast copper as chemical industry 'holy grail'

Wouldn't it be convenient if you could reverse the rusting of your car by shining a bright light on it? It turns out that this concept works for undoing oxidation on copper nanoparticles, and it could lead to an environmentally friendly production process for an important industrial chemical, University of Michigan engineers have discovered.

"We report a new physical phenomenon that has potentially significant practical implications," said Suljo Linic, an associate professor of chemical engineering, who led the study, which is published in the March 29 issue of Science.

Copper's newfound ability to shake off oxygen attached to its surface could allow it to act as a catalyst for a long-sought reaction, causing oxygen molecules to bind with propylene molecules in the way that forms propylene oxide. Propylene oxide is a precursor for making many plastics, toiletries and other household products such as antifreeze, paints and insulating foams. To meet demand for these products, the U.S. produces more than 2.4 million metric tons of propylene oxide per year, worth about $4.9 billion.

Unfortunately, producing propylene oxide involves a complex chain of reactions that generate unwanted chemicals. The process that provides about half of the propylene oxide in the U.S. also produces about twice as many tons of salt.

A catalyst that can coax propylene and oxygen to form propylene oxide in a direct reaction, avoiding the waste, has been called a "holy grail" of catalysis. Metallic copper showed promise, but it had—until now—been written off because it tends to bind itself to oxygen, forming copper oxide, which has poor catalytic properties.

"Copper in metallic form has this unique electronic structure that activates the reaction pathway for propylene oxide more than the undesired pathways," said Marimuthu Andiappan, a graduate student in chemical engineering and first author on the paper.

Metallic copper prefers to bind oxygen with two of the propylene's carbon atoms, forming propylene oxide. Copper oxide, on the other hand, tends to break the propylene down into carbon dioxide or attach the oxygen to only one carbon atom, resulting in the herbicide acrolein.

However, Andiappan, Linic, and former chemical engineering graduate student Jianwen Zhang found that if copper is cleverly structured, light can reverse its oxidation. The team made copper nanoparticles about 40 nanometers across, or roughly one-hundredth of the thickness of a strand of spider silk. They peppered tiny particles of clear silica with the nanoparticles and then floated a gas of propylene and oxygen over the resulting dust.

In the dark, the copper oxidized, and only 20 percent of the gas converted to propylene oxide. But under white light, five times the sun's intensity, the copper stayed in the metallic state and turned 50 percent of the propylene into propylene oxide.

"To our knowledge, this is the first time anyone has shown that light can be used to switch the oxidation state from an oxide to a metallic state," Andiappan said.

The metallic copper under the oxidized surface concentrated the light, freeing electrons from copper atoms. Those electrons then broke the bonds between the copper and oxygen.

A new kind of reactor that can illuminate the catalyst will be needed to bring this potentially cheap and environmentally friendly way of making propylene oxide to industry.

"Theoretically, it is possible to use mirrors to focus sunlight and get this much intensity," Andiappan said.

"We are just scratching the surface," Linic said. "I can envision many processes that wouldn't be possible with conventional strategies, where changing the oxidation state during the reaction or driving reactions with light could affect the outcome dramatically."

More information: "Tuning Selectivity in Propylene Epoxidation by Plasmon Mediated Photo-Switching of Cu Oxidation State," by A. Marimuthu et al, Science, 2013.

Journal reference: Science

Provided by University of Michigan

View the original article here