Can Power from Space Compete?

Satellite solar power (SSP) has been suggested as an alternative to terrestrial energy resources for electricity generation. In this study, we consider the market for electricity from the present to 2020, roughly the year when many experts expect SSP to be technically achievable. We identify several key challenges for SSP in competing with conventional electricity generation in developed and developing countries, discuss the role of market and economic analysis as technical development of SSP continues during the coming years, and suggest future research directions to improve understanding of the potential economic viability of SSP.

Data collection system: Earth Resources Technology Satellite-1

Subjects covered at the meeting concerned results on the overall data collection system including sensors, interface hardware, power supplies, environmental enclosures, data transmission, processing and distribution, maintenance and integration in resources management systems

Kansas environmental and resource study: A Great Plains model, tasks 1-6

There are no author identified significant results in this report. Environmental and resources investigations in Kansas utilizing ERTS-1 imagery are summarized for the following areas: (1) use of feature extraction techniqued for texture context information in ERTS imagery; (2) interpretation and automatic image enhancement; (3) water use, production, and disease detection and predictions for wheat; (4) ERTS-1 agricultural statistics; (5) monitoring fresh water resources; and (6) ground pattern analysis in the Great Plains

Rapid methods of landslide hazard mapping : Fiji case study

A landslide hazard probability map can help planners (1) prepare for, and/or mitigate against, the effects of landsliding on communities and infrastructure, and (2) avoid or minimise the risks associated with new developments. The aims of the project were to establish, by means of studies in a few test areas, a generic method by which remote sensing and data analysis using a geographic information system (GIS) could provide a provisional landslide hazard zonation map. The provision of basic hazard information is an underpinning theme of the UN’s International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction (IDNDR). It is an essential requirement for disaster preparedness and mitigation planning. This report forms part of BGS project 92/7 (R5554) ‘Rapid assessment of landslip hazards’ Carried out under the ODA/BGS Technology Development and Research Programme as part of the British Government’s provision of aid to developing countries. It provides a detailed technical account of work undertaken in a test area in Viti Levu in collaboration with Fiji Mineral Resources Department. The study represents a demonstration of a methodology that is applicable to many developing countries. The underlying principle is that relationships between past landsliding events, interpreted from remote sensing, and factors such as the geology, relief, soils etc provide the basis for modelling where future landslides are most likely to occur. This is achieved using a GIS by ‘weighting’ each class of each variable (e.g. each lithology ‘class’ of the variable ‘geology’) according to the proportion of landslides occurring within it compared to the regional average. Combinations of variables, produced by summing the weights in individual classes, provide ‘models’ of landslide probability. The approach is empirical but has the advantage of potentially being able to provide regional scale hazard maps over large areas quickly and cheaply; this is unlikely to be achieved using conventional ground-based geotechnical methods. In Fiji, landslides are usually triggered by intense rain storms commonly associated with tropical cyclones. However, the regional distribution of landslides has not been mapped nor is it known how far geology and landscape influence the location and severity of landsliding events. The report discusses the remote sensing and GIS methodology, and describes the results of the pilot study over an area of 713 km2 in south east Viti Levu. The landslide model uses geology, elevation, slope angle, slope aspect, soil type, and forest cover as inputs. The resulting provisional landslide hazard zonation map, divided into high, medium and low zones of landslide hazard probability, suggests that whilst rainfall is the immediate cause, others controls do exert a significant influence. It is recommended that consideration be given in Fiji to implementing the techniques as part of a national strategic plan for landslide hazard zonation mapping

Chip and Skim: cloning EMV cards with the pre-play attack

EMV, also known as "Chip and PIN", is the leading system for card payments worldwide. It is used throughout Europe and much of Asia, and is starting to be introduced in North America too. Payment cards contain a chip so they can execute an authentication protocol. This protocol requires point-of-sale (POS) terminals or ATMs to generate a nonce, called the unpredictable number, for each transaction to ensure it is fresh. We have discovered that some EMV implementers have merely used counters, timestamps or home-grown algorithms to supply this number. This exposes them to a "pre-play" attack which is indistinguishable from card cloning from the standpoint of the logs available to the card-issuing bank, and can be carried out even if it is impossible to clone a card physically (in the sense of extracting the key material and loading it into another card). Card cloning is the very type of fraud that EMV was supposed to prevent. We describe how we detected the vulnerability, a survey methodology we developed to chart the scope of the weakness, evidence from ATM and terminal experiments in the field, and our implementation of proof-of-concept attacks. We found flaws in widely-used ATMs from the largest manufacturers. We can now explain at least some of the increasing number of frauds in which victims are refused refunds by banks which claim that EMV cards cannot be cloned and that a customer involved in a dispute must therefore be mistaken or complicit. Pre-play attacks may also be carried out by malware in an ATM or POS terminal, or by a man-in-the-middle between the terminal and the acquirer. We explore the design and implementation mistakes that enabled the flaw to evade detection until now: shortcomings of the EMV specification, of the EMV kernel certification process, of implementation testing, formal analysis, or monitoring customer complaints. Finally we discuss countermeasures