Tiversa, headquartered in Cranberry Township, Pa., reportedly discovered a security breach that led to the transfer of military information to an Iranian IP address, according to WPXI. The information is said to include planned engineering upgrades, avionic schematics, and computer network information.

The channel quoted the company’s CEO, Bob Boback, who said Tiversa found a file containing the entire blueprints and avionics package for Marine One.

“What appears to be a defense contractor in Bethesda, Md., had a file-sharing program on one of their systems that also contained highly sensitive blueprints for Marine One,” Boback told WPXI.

Tiversa makes products that monitor the sharing of files online. A representative for the company was not immediately available for comment.

Boback believes that the files probably were transferred through a peer-to-peer file-sharing network such as LimeWire or BearShare, then compromised.

Data about Obama’s helicopter breached via P2P?

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The image — that is no longer on the site but which was obtained by The News, Pakistan’s English language daily newspaper — shows what appear to be three Predator drones outside a hangar at the end of the runway. The Times also obtained a copy of the image, whose co-ordinates confirm that it is the Shamsi airfield, also known as Bandari, about 200 miles southwest of the Pakistani city of Quetta.

An investigation by The Times yesterday revealed that the CIA was secretly using Shamsi to launch the Predator drones that observe and attack al-Qaeda and Taleban militants around Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan.

US special forces used the airbase during the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, but the Pakistani Government said in 2006 that the Americans had left. Both sides have since denied repeatedly that Washington has used, or is using, Pakistani bases to launch drones. Pakistan has also demanded that the US cease drone attacks on its tribal area, which have increased over the last year, allegedly killing several “high-value” targets as well as many civilians.

The Google Earth image now suggests that the US began launching Predators from Shamsi — built by Arab sheiks for falconry trips — at least three years ago.

The advantage of Shamsi is that it provides a discreet launchpad within minutes of Quetta — a known Taleban staging post — as well as Taleban infiltration routes into Afghanistan and potential militant targets farther afield.

Google Earth’s current image of Shamsi — about 100 miles south of the Afghan border and 100 miles east of the Iranian one — undoubtedly shows the same airstrip as the image from 2006.

There are no visible drones, but it does show that several new buildings and other structures have been erected since 2006, including what appears to be a hangar large enough to fit three drones. Perimeter defences — apparently made from the same blast-proof barriers used at US and Nato bases in Afghanistan — have also been set up around the hangar.

A compound on the other side of the runway appears to have sufficient housing for several dozen people, as well as neatly tended lawns. Three military aviation experts shown the image said that the aircraft appeared to be MQ1 Predator unmanned aerial vehicles — the model used by the CIA to observe and strike militants on the Afghan border.

The MQ1 Predator carries two laser-guided Hellfire missiles, and can fly for up to 454 miles, at speed of up to 135mph, and at altitudes of up to 25,000ft, according to the US Air Force website www.af.mil

The News reported that the drones were Global Hawks — which are generally used only for reconnaissance, flying for up to 36 hours, at more than 400mph and an altitude of up to 60,000ft. Damian Kemp, an aviation editor with Jane’s Defence Weekly, said that the three drones in the image appeared to have wingspans of 48-50ft.

“The wingspan of an MQ1 Predator A model is 55ft. On this basis it is possible that these are Predator-As,” he said. “They are certainly not RQ-4A Global Hawks (which have a wingspan of 116ft 2in).”

Pakistan’s only drones are Italian Galileo Falcos, which were delivered in 2007, according to a report in last month’s Jane’s World Air Forces.

A military spokesman at the US Embassy in Islamabad declined to comment on the images — or the revelations in The Times yesterday.

Major-General Athar Abbas, Pakistan’s chief military spokesman, was not immediately available for comment. He admitted on Tuesday that US forces were using Shamsi, but only for logistics.

He also said that the Americans were using another air base in the city of Jacobabad for logistics and military operations. Pakistan gave the US permission to use Shamsi, Jacobabad and two other bases — Pasni and Dalbadin — for the invasion of Afghanistan in October 2001.

The image of the US drones at Shamsi highlights the extraordinary power — and potential security risks — of Google Earth.

Several governments have asked it to remove or blur images of sensitive locations such as military bases, nuclear reactors and government buildings. Some have also accused the company of helping terrorists, as in 2007, when its images of British military bases were found in the homes of Iraqi insurgents.

Last year India said that the militants who attacked Mumbai in November had used Google Earth to familiarise themselves with their targets. Google Street View, which offers ground-level, 360-degree views, also ran into controversy last year when the Pentagon asked it to remove some online images of military bases in America.

Google Earth reveals secret history of US base in Pakistan

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Rights groups condemned the conviction and sentencing of the scientists, brothers Arash and Kamyar Alaei. It was the latest instance of the hard-line government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad targeting Iranians with Western connections and depicting them as tools for an American campaign to overthrow the Islamic republic.

Iran’s state news agency said Monday that the Alaei brothers, and two others convicted in the same case, were leading a CIA-funded effort to recruit other scientists, doctors and professions to foment a “soft overthrow” or velvet revolution in Iran.

“They aimed at creating social crisis, street demonstrations and ethnic disputes,” the general director of the Intelligence Ministry’s counterespionage section said, according to the state-run IRNA news agency. The director, who was not identified in the report, said the four had already recruited dozens of people and said the CIA spent some $32 million on the plot.

The conviction and sentencing of the four was announced Saturday — but the Alaeis, who were arrested in June, were not identified as among those convicted until Monday’s IRNA report. The other two defendants have not been named. While it was announced that all four were sentenced to prison, the length of the sentences has not been made public.

The four were tried in a one-day, closed-door court session in December.

The allegations are similar to those Iran made against four Iranian-Americans in 2007, including academic Haleh Esfandiari. Those four were imprisoned or had their passports confiscated for several months until they were released and allowed to return to the U.S. They all denied the allegations.

While several of those four were involved in democracy-building activities — perhaps explaining why they attracted the attention of Iranian authorities — the Alaei brothers have been strictly apolitical, focusing on AIDS prevention, said Sarah Kolloch, of the Massachusetts-based Physicians for Human Rights.

The Alaeis have run a clinic in Tehran and run HIV/AIDS treatment and prevention programs in Iran, focusing particularly on at-risk sectors like prostitutes and drug users. They have also held training courses for Afghan and Tajik medical workers.

“We don’t know why they were targeted. Most of their presentations were about innovative work in Iran on HIV prevention. If anything, Iran should have been excited that something positive like this was coming from Iran,” Kolloch said.

Public discussion of AIDS and HIV virus was long taboo in Iran, but in recent years the government has taken one of the most open approaches in the Mideast to the problem. State television has shown programs emphasizing how the virus is transmitted and urging people to avoid sex outside of marriage.

In December, the health minister acknowledged that there were more than 18,000 HIV-positive citizens registered and that the actual number of cases could be as high as 100,000. It blamed not only drug use but also “illegal sexual relations,” referring to adultery, prostitution and homosexuality — a rare admission that such phenomena exist in Iran.

The prosecution of the Alaeis appeared to have more to do with their contacts with the United States than with their AIDS work.

The doctors’ lawyer, Masoud Shafii, told the Associated Press they were tried under a law by which anyone who cooperates with a foreign hostile government against Iran could receive between one to 10 years in prison.

“But their foreign cooperation and relations were only scientific and cultural and not against the country,” he said. Shafii said he did not know the length of their sentence because he and the Alaei family had not been officially notified of the verdict. He said he would appeal.

The Alaeis traveled extensively to international conferences on AIDS, and Kamyar Alaei was pursuing a doctorate at the SUNY Albany School of Public Health in Albany, New York. The two attended a 2006 conference in Colorado sponsored in part by the U.S. State Department, but did so with the knowledge of the Iranian government, said Hadi Ghaemi, of the New York-based International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran.

“This has been a trend by the Ahmadinejad government — anyone who is promoting Iran internationally can be accused of spying, especially the scientific and academic community,” Ghaemi said.

He said he believed the prosecution was an attempt by Ahmadinejad ahead of presidential elections due later this year to show the Iranian public that his government is “uncovering so-called coup plots” against Iran.

Tension between the Washington and Tehran has been high in recent years over Iran’s nuclear program and Tehran’s alleged arming of Shiite militias in Iraq.

The Associated Press: Iranian AIDS doctors sentenced to prison

The body of local tribesman Shahjir Khan, 25, was found early Tuesday dumped in the central market of Miranshah, the main town in the North Waziristan tribal district, a security official told AFP.

A note found with Khan’s body said he had been hanged because he had spied on Taliban activities and passed information to the United States, the official said.

The bullet-riddled body of an Afghan refugee identified as Akram Khan was found late Monday near the village of Sarobi, some 10 kilometres (six miles) south of Miranshah, with a similar note, he said.

Militants have killed dozens of local tribesmen and Afghan refugees on charges of spying, mainly for the Pakistani government or US forces operating across the border in Afghanistan.

Elsewhere, Taliban militants in Mohmand tribal district late Monday kidnapped an 11-member jirga, or peace delegation of tribal elders, from neighbouring Bajaur tribal district, a local administration official said.

The official said the elders were snatched during a mission to urge the Taliban not to fire rockets on Khar, the main town in Bajaur, where troops have been fighting militants since early August.

Regional administration deputy chief Iqbal Khattak confirmed to AFP that the kidnapping had taken place but gave no further details.

In the village of Mamoond, also in Bajaur, Taliban militants set fire to the homes of four tribal elders for backing the Pakistani government, residents said.

Pakistan’s lawless tribal areas have been wracked by violence since hundreds of Taliban and Al-Qaeda rebels sought refuge in the region after the US-led invasion of Afghanistan toppled the hardline Taliban regime in late 2001.

AFP: Taliban kill two US ‘spies’ in Pakistan: official

Wo Weihan’s family had appealed for clemency, saying that the scientist was tortured into admitting that he was a spy. He was sentenced last year.

The 59-year-old man, who ran his own medical research company in Beijing, was arrested in early 2005.

Among other things, he was convicted of passing Chinese military secrets to Taiwan, which China considers a renegade province.

Court documents said he spied for an organisation called The Grand Alliance for the Reunification of China under the Three Principles of the People between 1989 and 2003.

This group is under the auspices of Taiwan’s new ruling party, the Kuomintang, according to China.

His daughter, Ran Chen, who holds an Austrian passport, said her father’s death had been confirmed by the Austrian embassy in Beijing.

Mr Wo’s family alleged that he had been denied access to a lawyer for a year.

A spokeswoman for the United States’ embassy in Beijing condemned the execution.

Susan Stevenson told the AFP news agency that the US was “deeply disturbed and dismayed”.

BBC NEWS

In its annual report presented to the US congress on Thursday, the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission said China was already stealing “vast amounts of sensitive information from US computer networks”.

It said networks owned by the US government, defence contractors and US businesses were the focus of Chinese cyber attacks.

“China is aggressively pursuing cyber warfare capabilities that may provide it with an asymmetric advantage against the United States,” the commission said.

“In a conflict situation, this advantage would reduce current US conventional military dominance.”

The commission’s report was released on the same day that a separate study by US intelligence agencies forecast a decline in US economic and political dominance over the next two decades, with rising powers such as China and India competing for influence and access to scarce resources.

In its report, the commission also warned that China’s space programme posed a growing security challenge and potential threat to the US.

“Although some Chinese space programmes have no explicit military intent, many space systems – such as communications, navigation, meteorological, and imagery systems – are dual-use in nature,” the report’s authors warned.

The report quoted Cai Fengzhen, an officer in China’s People’s Liberation Army, as saying that the “area above ground, airspace and outer space are inseparable and integrated. They are the strategic commanding height of modern informationalised warfare.”

“If this becomes Chinese policy,” the report said, “it could set the stage for conflict with the United States and other nations that expect the right of passage for their spacecraft.”

‘Heavy-handed’

The commission, made up of six Democrats and six Republicans, was set up in 2000 to advise, investigate and report on economic and national security issues between China and the US.

In its report, running to almost 400 pages, the panel also criticised China for exercising “heavy-handed government control” over its economy and “continuing arms sales and military support to rogue regimes” such as Sudan, Myanmar and Iran.

On the economic front, it said “China relies on heavy-handed government control over its economy to maintain an export advantage over other countries”.

As a result, the report said, “China has amassed nearly two trillion dollars in foreign exchange and has increasingly used its hoard to manipulate currency trading and diplomatic relations with other nations”.

But it was China’s expanding space and computer warfare programmes which took the bulk of the commission’s attention – referring to Chinese capabilities in these fields as “impressive but disturbing”.

The commission recommended that congress step up funding across a range of areas including “additional funding for military, intelligence and homeland security programmes that monitor and protect critical American computer networks”.

China has yet to officially comment on the commission’s findings, although it has responded to past reports by saying it does not try to undermine other countries’ interests and seeks healthy ties with the US.

Al Jazeera English

Physicist Quan-Sheng Shu, 68, a naturalised American citizen born in Shanghai, pleaded guilty in a district court in Norfolk, Virginia, yesterday to selling rocket technology to China and bribing Chinese officials to secure a lucrative contract for his high-tech company. The US has an arms embargo on China.

Qin Gang, a spokesman for China’s foreign ministry, said today that allegations that his country was stealing space technology were being made with “ulterior motives and … in vain”.

Shu sold technology to China for the development of hydrogen-propelled rockets and cryogenics equipment for the fuelling system of launch facilities between 2003 and 2007. But Shu’s lawyer said the case had nothing to do with espionage or treason.

The Chinese government is developing a launch facility, in the southern island province of Hainan, which will house liquid-propelled vehicles designed to send space stations and satellites into orbit. The project is overseen by an arm of the People’s Liberation Army.

Prosecutors said Shu, the president of the American company Amac International, had directed employees to falsify information to circumvent US laws. He was also charged with bribing Chinese officials to award a $4m (£2.7m) hydrogen liquefier contract to a French company acting as an Amac intermediary.

Shu received more than $386,000 in commissions for securing the contract, but has already agreed to forfeit that money. He faces up to 10 years’ imprisonment on each arms count and five years for the bribery charge, plus fines of up to $2.5m. He will be sentenced in April.

US authorities have prosecuted more than a dozen cases of either traditional spying or economic espionage related to China in recent years.

guardian.co.uk

Ali Jarrah, 50, a Lebanese citizen, and his brother Youssef, from Marj in the Bekaa valley, were arrested last week by the Lebanese army, which charged them with espionage. A third suspect has also been held, sources close to the investigation said. All three face the death penalty.

The spy ring has been linked to the assassination of Imad Mughniyeh, a leading figure in Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shi’ite militia, who was killed in a bomb blast in Damascus in February. Hezbollah’s leader, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, blamed Israel for the attack and vowed to take revenge.

Mughniyeh has long been a target for Israel and America. He was responsible for bombing the US marine barracks and embassy in Beirut in 1983, in which more than 350 died, and was behind an attack on the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires in 1992, which killed 29.

One source suggested the brothers may have been “spotters”, part of an observation team that monitored Mughniyeh’s movements shortly before his death. Others said there was no direct evidence of this. According to the Lebanese army, Jarrah and his brother were found to possess “communication devices and other sophisticated equipment”.

Lebanese investigators impounded a Mitsubishi Pajero 4×4 parked in front of Jarrah’s home. The vehicle was said to be fitted with advanced surveillance equipment.

“Some equipment was found in his house; other items were hidden in a vehicle,” said a security official who claimed the men had also been monitoring the movement of officials crossing the Syrian-Lebanese border.

According to Lebanese sources, the Jarrah brothers were recruited by Israel during the 1980s, when the Israeli army controlled large swathes of southern Lebanon.

Ali Jarrah is said to have joined militant Palestinian groups, which enabled him to travel between Lebanon and Syria and move around Damascus without attracting suspicion.

Sources close to the investigation said Jarrah had confessed to having been recruited by the Israelis to gather intelligence on militant Palestinian organisations in Lebanon.

Only in recent years had he started to monitor senior figures in Hezbollah, it was claimed. A statement issued by the Lebanese army said the two men had admitted to “gathering information on political party offices and monitoring the movements of party figures for the enemy”.

The Beirut paper As-Safir reported that during the war with Israel in southern Lebanon in 2006, Jarrah was seen with a video camera at relief centres connected to Hezbollah. “Was he pinpointing security targets in the Bekaa?” it asked.

According to the paper, investigators are attempting to determine whether a video camera fixed inside Jarrah’s car was directly connected by a satellite link to controllers in Israel.

Since the death of Mughniyeh, who was killed instantly when a booby-trapped headrest in his 4×4 exploded, Hezbollah has been determined to track down his assassins.

The brothers had apparently been frequent visitors to the Kfar Sousa district of Damascus where Mughniyeh, who had an American bounty of $5m (£3.2m) on his head, was finally identified.

According to some reports, Jarrah was first picked up in the southern suburbs of Beirut by Hezbollah security men on July 7, after being suspected of having had a role in Mughniyeh’s assassination.

Hezbollah is said to have finally handed Jarrah to the Lebanese authorities after questioning him for nearly four months.

According to Lebanese security sources, the brothers are distantly related to Ziad Jarrah, one of the hijackers of United Airlines Flight 93, which crashed into a Pennsylvania field on September 11, 2001, killing everyone on board. Their families come from the same town in the Bekaa valley.

The Israeli government has refused to comment on the arrests.

Times Online