Army says to end the operation :Red Mosque
As we stated
http://www.updateplace.com/2007/07/top-stories/pakistani-forces-started-operations-against-red-mosque/
July 9, 2007
July 2, 2007
600 people Killed, Pakistan calls for flood victim Aid
Pakistan has called on the international community to sent aid to about one million people left homeless by massive flooding which has killed 600 people in the past 10 days.
The country has been battered by early monsoon storms, which have also affected Afghanistan and India, and more bad weather is predicted.
A cyclone in Baluchistan was the worst to hit the province in at least 100 years
Water levels had begun falling in parts Pakistan on Monday, allowing rescuers to reach areas that had been cut off for days, officials said. Southern Pakistan was hit hardest.
A cyclone last week brought torrential rain and flooding to large tracts of the mostly flat Baluchistan province.
Cyclone devastation
The cyclone and floods, the worst in Baluchistan since records began nearly 100 years ago, have affected up to two million people and killed about 110.
An estimated 250,000 people are homeless.
The cyclone hit three days after ferocious wind and rain killed about 230 people in the southern city of Karachi.
Following a two-day tour of the flooded area on Sunday, Shaukat Aziz, Pakistan’s prime minister, asked for relief and rehabilitation aid from foreign countries, international agencies and private donors.
He said more helicopters would be added to army efforts to ferry food, medicine and other relief supplies to areas of Baluchistan.
Relief push
Ali Gul Kurd, deputy provincial relief commissioner, said that the weather was generally clear on Monday and rescuers were taking advantage to push into areas that have been cut off for nearly a week.
He said: “The water level is definitely going down … we’re slowly reaching even the worst-hit areas.”
More than two dozen military helicopters aided in search, rescue and relief operations
The military was helping organise rescue and relief efforts with six C-130 cargo aircraft and more than two dozen helicopters carrying out search and rescue and relief operations.
Aid was taken by rail and distributed in the town of Sibi while the coastal belt was supplied by sea.
Camps for the homeless, who have been crowding into schools, were also being set up.
But Kurd said: “We don’t have tents. Some non-governmental organisations have made commitments but we’ve also asked the Punjab government to supply us tents immediately.”
Punjab is the centre of Pakistan’s textile and tent-making industry.
Continued rains
The floods, the worst in Pakistan since 1992, are the second natural disaster to strike the country in 20 months. An earthquake hit northern mountains in October 2005, killing 73,000 people.
Kurd said snakes and gastro-intestinal problems were also major headaches. Meteorologists said southern parts of Sindh province and Baluchistan’s coastal belt faced more bad weather this week.
Flooding has also hit Pakistan’s Khyber Pass area, killing about 50 people.
In Afghanistan, Nato peacekeepers have been helping after floods killed more than 40 people, destroyed roads and damaged homes and irrigation works.
In India, about 180 people have been killed in storms and floods over the past 10 days.
The seasonal rain is vital for the region’s agriculture and economy. It also brings relief after many hot, dry months but every year the rains kill hundreds of people.
May 7, 2007
Bush’s popularity hits new low
The public approval rating for the US president has hit an all-time low of 28 per cent and nearly two-thirds of Americans think George Bush is “stubborn and unwilling to admit his mistakes”.
The Newsweek poll released on Saturday found Bush’s rating one percentage point lower than his father at the lowest point in his term in office.
Almost 62 per cent of Americans disapprove
of Bush’s execution of the Iraq war
Almost 62 per cent of Americans disapprove of Bush’s execution of the Iraq war, while 30 per cent think his actions show he is “willing to take political risks” to do what is right, Newsweek reported.
The last US leader to be as unpopular as Bush was Jimmy Carter who also scored 28 per cent in 1979 in the wake of the Iran hostage crisis.
Bush burden
Bush’s unpopularity may hurt Republican hopes of keeping the White House in 2008.
People Views
“The US has to withdraw completely from Iraq”
Munzir Baig, Muscat, Oman
The poll also suggested that Democratic frontrunners have a promising lead over potential Republican contenders across the board, with Barack Obama, the Illinois senator, recording the best performance so far.
Obama bested Rudolph Giuliani, the Republican frontrunner and former New York mayor, by 50 per cent to 43 per cent among registered voters who responded to the Newsweek poll.
He also topped John McCain, the Arizona senator, by 52 per cent to 39 per cent and defeated Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, by 58 per cent to 29 per cent, the poll indicated.
The other popular Democratic candidate, Hillary Clinton, who is New York senator, topped Giuliani by 49 per cent to 46 per cent, and beat McCain by 50 per cent to 44 per cent.
She led Romney by 57 per cent to 35 per cent, the poll found.
The poll, conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates International on Wednesday and Thursday, interviewed 1,001 adults 18 and older.
It had a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.
May 6, 2007
US troops admit abusing IRAQIS
Almost one in ten US combat troops deployed in Iraq have mistreated a civilian, according to a new survey conducted by an army mental health advisory team.
The report, released on Friday, also found that less than half of the soldiers and marines surveyed would report a fellow serviceman for killing or injuring an innocent Iraqi.
US involvement in Iraq have been dogged by claims of mistreatment of Iraqi detainees and civilians
“Soldiers with high levels of anger, who had experienced high levels of combat or who screened positive for mental health symptoms were nearly twice as likely to mistreat noncombatants,” Major General Gale Pollock, the acting army surgeon general, told reporters at a press conference.
The most common mistreatment reported by soldiers and marines was that of insulting non-combatants in their presence, the report said.
The survey showed that 55 per cent of US army soldiers, and only 40 per cent of marines, would report a fellow serviceman for killing or injuring an innocent non-combatant.
The survey, which shows increasing rates of mental health problems for troops on extended or multiple deployments in Iraq, was the first to include questions on ethics and ethical training.
As such, the report stresses the findings cannot be compared “with any other group of military personnel”.
Survey findings
The 89-page report found that the US troops surveyed had on average:
Insulted or cursed at non-combatants in their presence:
Marines - 30%
Soldiers - 28%
Damaged or destroyed Iraqi property when it was not necessary:
Marines - 12%
Soldiers - 9%
Physically hit or kicked non-combatants when it was not necessary:
Marines - 7%
Soldiers - 4%
Torture
More than a third of the 1,320 soldiers and 447 marines surveyed said that torture should be allowed to save the life of a fellow soldier or marine, while almost 38 per cent said torture should be allowed in order to gather “important information about insurgents”.
“These men and women have been seeing their friends injured and I think that having that thought is normal,” said Pollock, but she added: “They’re not acting on those thoughts. They’re not torturing the people.”
The survey showed only 47 per cent of soldiers and 38 per cent of marines agreed that non-combatants should be treated with dignity and respect.
US operations in Iraq have been dogged by claims of mistreatment of Iraqi detainees and civilians, including revelations of abuse at Abu Ghraib prison in 2004 and reports of the killing of 24 Iraqi civilians by Marines in Haditha in November 19, 2005.
Mental health
Only 47 per cent of soldiers agreed non-combatants should be treated with dignity
The main aim of the report was to assess the mental health of soldiers and marines involved in operations in Iraq.
The report showed the rate of anxiety, depression and acute stress stood at 22 per cent among soldiers deployed in Iraq for more than six months.
It also recorded an average of 16.1 suicides per year per 100,000 soldiers for those involved in Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Overall, about 20 per cent of army soldiers and 15 per cent of marines showed mental health symptoms of either anxiety, depression or acute stress.
Among army soldiers, 27 per cent of those with more than one tour of duty tested positive for a mental health problem, versus 17 per cent for soldiers on their first deployment.
Morale among soldiers was worse than among marines, which it said was explained in part by the marines’ shorter six month tours.
The report recommended that the army’s year-long tours in Iraq either be shortened or soldiers be given 18 to 36 months between deployment to recover.
But instead, the army is moving in the opposite direction, with Robert Gates, the US defence secretary, announcing extended tours for US soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan of up to 15 months instead of one year.
The army is struggling to allow units a year at home between deployments.
The survey was conducted by US army medical experts between August 28 and October 3, last year.
Azeris jailed for ‘insulting Islam’
A court in Azerbaijan has jailed two journalists for writing and printing a newspaper article that was critical of the Islamic religion and the Prophet Muhammad.
Samir Sadagatoglu, chief editor of the Senet weekly newspaper, was sentenced to four years in prison on Friday, while Rafik Tagi, a journalist at the paper, was given three years.
The skyline of Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, reflects the country’s mix of modernity and tradition [EPA]
he court ruled that their article ‘Europe and us’ was insulting to Islam and Muslims for saying that European societies were more successful than Muslim ones because Christian teachings were based on peace and tolerance while Islamic values, based on the teachings and actions of Muhammad, were not.
It was announced during sentencing that … the article contained ideas charged with hatred for Islam and the Prophet Mohammad and these actions of the paper were directed towards inciting religious hatred and enmity,” the court’s spokesman said after the guilty verdict was announced.
The newspaper article provoked widespread anger in Azerbaijan, a secular but predominantly Shia Muslim country, and elsewhere in the region when it was first published on November 9, 2006.
Soon after the article appeared, an Iranian cleric - angered by its depiction of Islam as a violent religion - offered his house to anyone who killed the journalists, Reuters reported on Friday.
Freedom of speech
The two journalists - both of whom are Muslims - have said that the trial in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, was an attack on their right to freedom of speech.
“A person can’t be condemned for their opinions,” Sadagatogli told the court.
Isakhan Ashurov, the lawyer for the two Azeri journalists, said the trial had violated articles of the European Convention on Human Rights which protect freedom of expression.
Reporters Without Borders, a Paris-based media watchdog, criticised the court’s decision.
“While it is understandable that some members of the public may have been shocked by the article’s content and tone, the imposition of prison sentences and fatwas is outrageous,” the organisation said in a statement posted on its website.
“It should be remembered that these are not criminals but two journalists who were just expressing their views.”
At the court’s final session in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, fighting broke out in the courtroom as Muslims who were watching the proceedings tried to kill the two journalists, the AFP newsagency reported.
Iranian fatwa
Last November, Grand Ayatollah Sheikh Muhammad Fazel Lankarani, a senior Shia scholar from Tabriz, a mainly Azeri city in northern Iran, ruled that the two journalists should be killed for writing and publishing the article.
“Such a person is an apostate in view of his confessions, if he is a Muslim,” Lankarani ruled in a fatwa - or religious ruling - published on his website.
“If he had been an unbeliever (Kafir), he is considered as someone who has insulted the Prophet and in any case, given his confessions, it is necessary for every individual who has an access to him to kill him.
“The person in charge of the said newspaper, who published such thoughts and beliefs consciously and knowingly, should be dealt with in the same manner. We pray to Almighty Allah to grant Muslims and Islam protection from the evils of their enemies.”
Ashurov, the journalists’ lawyer, has previously said that he would appeal if the men were convicted.
Row over Iraq oil law
A draft law being considered by the Iraqi parliament would enable US companies to take control of Iraq’s oil industry, oil experts in the country say.
The proposed bill, approved by the Iraqi government in February after months of wrangling, opens the country’s oil sector to foreign investors 35 years after it was nationalised.
“The law is designed for the benefit of US oil companies,” Ramzy Salman, an Iraqi economist who worked for the Iraqi oil ministry for 30 years, said.
“If approved, it would take things back to where they were before the nationalisation of Iraq’s oil in 1972.”
But he said the situation would be reversed when Iraqis regained their “true sovereignty”.
‘Serious gaps’
Salman said: “If there is something that should be worked on, it is the [Iraqi] constitution.
“The constitution contains serious gaps in terms of who is in charge of the oil and its revenues … [despite the] oil in Iraq being under every Iraqi river, desert, marsh and farm.”
The new law, if approved, would authorise production share agreements (PSAs), which offer huge profits for foreign oil companies.
PSAs are normally ideal for poorer countries exploring virgin lands or wanting to extract oil from fields where the resource is well below the surface and are designed to protect investors from the risks involved in such exploration projects.
‘Completely inappropriate’
But Iraqi oil experts say investors face virtually no risk, as the country’s oil is the cheapest to extract worldwide, and is of such a high quality that it sells at a premium on world markets.
Issam al-Chalabi, Iraq’s former oil minister, said PSAs were completely inappropriate for Iraq.
He said: “An oil barrel in most of Iraq’s oilfields costs between 50 cents and one dollar to extract. Iraq’s fields are also proven, and investing in them is risk-free.
“These kinds of agreements are normally given when there is a risk, as the case in Sudan, Yemen and several other countries, where companies invest money with great risk that they would not find oil, or they find difficult to extract oil.”
Political motives
Al-Chalabi said PSAs were a highly profitable formula for oil companies and in many cases they were granted for “political reasons”.
“Under no circumstances would Iraq relinquish its authority, its responsibility and its control over Iraq’s natural resources”
Hussein Shahristani
“In the 1990s, the government of Saddam Hussein gave PSAs to Russian and Chinese oil companies, but it was more of a political decision than economic,” al-Chalabi said.
“The US and its allies lobbied in the 1990s against Iraq in order to tighten UN sanctions, while Iraq was betting on Russia and China to help remove or at least ease the sanctions.”
He said the contracted Russian and Chinese oil companies were mostly government-owned.
The 12.5 per cent profit protected by the new law is also disputed by many as being too high.
Al-Chalabi said the percentage was excessive given current oil prices.
“Iraq’s PSA with the Chinese and Russians gave a profit percentage less than 10 per cent when the oil barrel price was around $25, but now the barrel is over $60 which means the percentage of 12.5 per cent is too high,” he said.
Break-up of Iraq
The draft law would give Iraq’s provinces a free hand in giving exploration and production contracts, which some fear will lead to a decline in the authority of the central government over the country’s main resource.
Observers say that if the new law is approved, it will also encourage separatists in the oil-rich provinces to split off.
Eventually the break-up of Iraq would be impossible to prevent.
Iraq’s constitution allows governorates to form a semi-independent regions, which enjoy full rights in controlling natural resources.
Dhafir al-Ani, an Iraqi member of parliament, said: “The proposed oil law is the best possible in the current situation.
“However, if there are some gaps in it, then the reason is the constitution, which contains several controversial issues and needs to reconsidered.”
Government denial
Iraqi officials insisted in a forum held in Dubai last month that the bill due to be submitted to parliament will keep the country’s oil wealth in Iraqi hands and benefit all of its warring communities.
“Under no circumstances would Iraq relinquish its authority, its responsibility and its control over Iraq’s natural resources,” Hussein Shahristani, the country’s oil minister, told reporters in the United Arab Emirates.
Muhammad Bahr al-Ullom, who laid the early foundations of the current draft oil law when he served as Iraq’s first post-war oil minsiter in 2004, has told reporters that he is in favour of the new law. He said it would not put Iraq’s oil at the hands of foreign oil companies and it would not devide Iraq.
Al Jazeera.net contacted Bahr al-Uloom in Iraq and agreed with him to call a few hours later for a telephone interview. However, there was no answer to a telephone call at the appointed time or when subsequent attempts to reach him were made.
Kurds and the new law
Ashti Hawrami, oil minister for the Iraqi Kurdish region, said at the Dubai conference that the Kurds would reject any ammendments to the suggested law and that they would go ahead with deals they have already made, whether the law was approved or not.
Al-Ani agreed with Salman that the proposed law was a “political” deal to strengthen US allies in Iraq.
He said: “We are a democratically elected legistlative body, if we would blindly approve anything presented to us, then why are we there?
“I prefer we go home. We have increasing signs that the law is a political deal.”
Iraq’s Kurdish semi-autonomous region has already given PSAs to foreign oil companies, and is in favour of the proposed oil law.
The region may well gain control of the oil-rich governorate of Kirkuk through a referendum due to be held later this year.
If the new law is approved and the Kirkuk referendum came in favour of the Kurds, the Kurdish region would enjoy huge economic power.
Turks rally to support secularism
Thousands of Turks have gathered in two western cities in the third anti-government protest in a month amid a conflict over the role of religion in the country’s politics.
Saturday’s protests in Canakkale and Manisa, near the Aegean coast, follow huge pro-secular rallies in Ankara and Istanbul attended by more than a million people.
Marchers called for Abdullah Gul, the presidential candidate of the ruling AK party, whose roots are in political Islam, to withdraw from the election.
Many demonstrators carried Turkish flags and posters of Kemal Ataturk, Turkey’s founder who insisted on a separation of religion and state.
In Manisa, crowds shouted: “Turkey is secular and will remain secular. Count how many of us there are, Tayyip [Turkey's prime minister].”
Snap elections
Political tension is running high after a warning from the pro-secular army against Gul and a court decision to annul the first round of parliamentary voting for head of state.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan has come under heavy pressure in the run-up to presidential elections, with secularists fearing that he would expand his party’s control by appointing Gul, the country’s foreign minister
The pressure led Erdogan to call for early parliamentary elections, which are scheduled for July 22.
A measure is also being debated in parliament to allow the president to be elected directly by the people, rather than by parliament, which is dominated by members of Erdogan’s party.
‘Shadow’
Gul said in an interview with The Financial Times that he would secure a majority if a popular vote was held to decide who should be the country’s president.
Speaking to the newspaper on Saturday, he was critical of the court that decided on Tuesday to annul the first-round parliamentary vote on the presidency.
Gul said: “As the foreign minister, I respect and observe the court’s decision, but that doesn’t mean I am happy with it.”
He referred to the crisis over the presidency, which prompted the military to threaten to intervene and protect the country’s secular order, as a “shadow”.
Gul said: “Our responsibility is to remove this shadow and to put everything on the right path.”
Meanwhile, two Turkish parties merged on Saturday, which could strengthen the opposition against the ruling AK party in July’s general election.
The ANAP and True Path parties, which have 20 and four seats respectively in the 550-seat parliament, announced the merger at a joint news conference and said their new name would be the Democrat party.
March 26, 2007
Russia, China in appeal to Iran
China and Russia are urging Iran to meet United Nations demands regarding its nuclear programme.
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin and China’s Hu Jintao jointly said they wanted to find a “mutually acceptable solution” to Iran’s “nuclear problem”.
Both nations - UN Security Council permanent members - said disputes over Iran and North Korea’s nuclear projects should be resolved peacefully.
Iran has refused to cease uranium enrichment, prompting UN sanctions.
Over the weekend Iran in response said it would reduce its co-operation with the International Atomic Energy Agency.
The statement by Russia and China comes as Mr Hu is on a three day visit to Russia to promote trade and energy links.
The joint statement by Russia and China comes as the US claims that Iran’s nuclear programme is a means to develop nuclear weapons.
Iran rejects this, saying its nuclear programme is aimed at producing nuclear energy alone.
‘Major importance’
In a joint statement, China and Russia said Iran’s civilian nuclear programme should be “resolved exclusively in a peaceful way, through negotiations.”
This emphasis on peaceful talks was echoed for North Korea.
“We have agreed that strategic co-operation between China and Russia has major importance for international affairs in creating a favourable atmosphere, in making relations more democratic and ensuring global peace,” said Mr Hu.
Both nations pledged to work on “bilateral long term strategic co-operation” on energy, but no new deals have as yet been signed.
They also promised to improve “co-operation with Central Asian countries in the political, trade and economic spheres”.
Intel Pours $2.5B Into China Chip Plant
Intel plans to build a $2.5 billion facility in China to make chip wafers using 300-millimeter technology. Work will start later this year and the plant will begin initial production runs in the first half of 2010, the company said. At least initially, the plant will make chipsets that support Intel’s main PC and server microprocessor business lines.
Chipmaker Intel (Nasdaq: INTC) Latest News about Intel announced Monday it would build a US$2.5 billion wafer fabrication facility in northeast China, the company’s latest and largest investment to date in the booming country.
The plant — which will also be Intel’s first fabrication plant, or fab, anywhere in Asia — will be located in the coastal city of Dalian in Liaoning Province in China’s northeast corner and will make chip wafers using 300-millimeter technology.
Santa Clara, Calif.-based Intel said the investment marks the first time since 1992 — when it built a fab in Ireland — that the company has constructed an entirely new fab from the ground up on a new site. Most investments in new production capabilities since then have come in the form of expanded capacity at existing sites.
‘Fastest-Growing Major Market’
Work will start later this year and the Dalian plant — to be known as Fab 68 — will begin initial production runs in the first half of 2010, the company said. At least initially, the plant will make chipsets that support Intel’s main PC and server Back up your business with HP’s ProLiant ML150 Server - just $1,299. microprocessor business lines.
“China is our fastest-growing major market and we believe it’s critical that we invest in markets that will provide for future growth to better serve our customers,” said Intel President and CEO Paul Otellini. In fact, China last year became the largest global market for chips, according to data from research firm iSuppli.
The deal had been in the works for weeks, since the Chinese government cleared the way for Intel to build. Shares of Intel were trading lower Monday in a down market, dropping less than 1 percent to $19.15.
Old Pros
Though Intel has not built a fab in China yet, the investment is far from its first in the country. Intel has had a presence in China for more than 20 years, Otellini said.
“Over that time we’ve invested in excess of $1.3 billion in assembly test facilities and research and development,” he stated. “This new investment will bring our total to just under $4 billion, making Intel one of the largest foreign investors in China.”
It was not clear what type of agreement was made between Intel and the Chinese government to make the investment happen or whether Chinese officials directed Intel toward the city of Dalian. China has been trying to help other parts of the country benefit from the influx of foreign investment that has been focused largely around Beijing and other southern China cites.
Less Waste
Intel noted the plant will use 300-millimeter wafers, which have less waste and are more environmentally friendly than older approaches that used smaller wafers — from which chips themselves are cut.
Still, Intel may hold back some of its latest technology from the fab, using a 90-nanometer manufacturing process rather than 65-nanometer process being rolled out or the 45 nanometer considered next generation. While that decision may have been made to appease U.S. lawmakers and others concerned about outsourcing Latest News about Outsourcing, the more basic, 90-nanometer chips are also better suited for the lower-priced markets prevalent in the Asia region.
Intel has long been known to favor a varied approach to locating its manufacturing capacity, even though it has yet to build a plant in Asia. Intel is already working on three next-generation fabs to built in Oregon, Arizona and in Israel, where the plants will go up alongside existing facilities.
Location, Location, Location
Dalian’s location is a strategic one for Intel as well. Close to China’s borders with Russia and North Korea, the city is also located on a peninsula in the East China Sea and will offer easy access to much of the Asian marketplace.
The Intel investment will help transform what had been an industrial part of the country’s economy into a more modern technology center, stated Zhang Xiaoqiang, vice chairman of China’s National Development and Reform Commission. The partnership is expected to yield multiple benefits for the region, including workforce training and improved infrastructure and health care delivery to rural areas of the country, he added.
Intel’s investment could help break down some of the final barriers to greater investment by western companies in China, including concerns about theft of intellectual property. While those concerns remain, Intel may be signaling that it’s comfortable the Chinese government will offer its technology some level of protection as the chips are sold to nearby PC factories.
Tracking Growth Trends
Intel is now eager to be able to sell chips to China-based manufacturers, in large part because it is one of the major growth markets in the PC business today and in the future, Gartner (NYSE: IT) Latest News about Gartner analyst Charles Smulders told the E-Commerce Times.
China is also poised to become an increasingly important manufacturing center for other devices that use silicon chips, he noted. Non-PC uses of silicon chips are what has been driving the recent run of double-digit annual growth rates for the semiconductor industry, according to a recent statement by the Semiconductor Industry Association.
“Intel and the other chipmakers are seeing where the growth trends are headed and recognizing they have to act now to be ready to take advantage of what will happen over the next decade,” Smulders concluded.
Windows weakness can lead to network traffic hijacks
A problem in the way Windows PCs obtain network settings could let attackers hijack traffic, security researchers said Saturday.
The problem occurs because of a design bug in the system used by Windows PCs to obtain proxy settings, researchers with security firm IOActive said at the ShmooCon hacker conference here. As a result, an attacker with access to a network at a corporation, for example, could insert a malicious proxy and see all the traffic, the researchers said.
“The upshot of it is that I can become your proxy server without you knowing about it,” Chris Paget, director of research and development at IOActive, said in an interview after his presentation on the problem. “I can put up the equivalent of a detour sign on your network and redirect all the traffic.”
Chris Paget, director of research and
development at IOActive, during his
ShmooCon presentation. An attacker can set up that “detour sign” because Internet Explorer on Windows PCs by default searches for a proxy server using the Web Proxy Autodiscovery Protocol, or WPAD, Paget said. It turns out that an attacker can easily register a proxy server on a network using the Windows Internet Naming Service, or WINS, and other network services including the Domain Name System, or DNS, he said.
“When IE starts up, it will ask the network where its proxy server is,” Paget said. “It is really easy to put up your hand and say: ‘Here I am.’”
Microsoft acknowledged the problem in a support article published Saturday on its TechNet Web site. “If an entity can surreptitiously register a WPAD entry in DNS or in WINS clients may be able to route their Internet traffic through a malicious proxy server,” Microsoft said in its support article.
If an attack is successful, all traffic on a network will flow through the attacker’s proxy. This means the attacker can access all the data, redirect and manipulate it and carry out all kinds of other nefarious acts, Paget said.
Still, the proxy problem isn’t a critical security issue, Paget and fellow IOActive security expert Dan Kaminsky said. An attack is possible only with access to the target network, not from the Internet, they noted. “The biggest risk inside a corporation would come from a malicious insider,” Paget said. “This is not worthy of mass panic or critical advisories.”
That doesn’t remove the need to fix the problem. Insider threats are real. Also, the proxy problem may be appealing to attackers who find it increasingly hard to exploit other vulnerabilities, Kaminsky said
“Buffer overflows and other bugs have gotten a lot harder to do, so design issues like this have gotten a lot more interesting for attackers,” he said.
Problems with WPAD aren’t new. Seven years ago Microsoft patched IE 5 because the browser would search for a proxy server on the Internet if it failed to find one on its local network. That let a malicious hacker give settings to the browser that would facilitate a broader attack.
Such a problem was exploited by somebody who registered the domain name “wpad.org.uk” and served a “wpad.dat” file with proxy information to Windows PCs looking for it. As a result the people using those PCs ended up on an online auction Web site regardless of the address they typed into their browser.
In its support article, Microsoft lists steps for network administrators to address the WPAD problem. The steps reserve static WPAD DNS host names and to reserve WPAD WINS name records. As a result, an attacker’s malicious WPAD name will no longer work, which will foil the malicious proxy trick, Paget said.