Tag Archive for: Uncertainty

Under the shadow of uncertainty, students of foreign universities hope to pursue their dreams

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PUNE Anush Chauthai, a 25-year-old student, was all set to fly to Canada on March 28, 2020 to pursue a university specialised course in Digital Forensic and Cyber Security when the lockdown in India grounded his plan.

Anush is among the many students pursuing degrees or wanting to study from the foreign universities whose plans have been disrupted by the Covid pandemic. Their period of uncertainty has now changed into anxiety as the virus-related restrictions have extended in many parts of the world.

“I had begun the application process for permanent citizenship in Canada two years back. After I received the clearance documents around March 13-14 last year, I had planned to leave on March 28, but all flights after March 20 were cancelled,” said Anush of Sinhgad road, who did his Masters in Computer Network from New Zealand.

Like, Anush, another student Rohit Mahajan, a city architect, who wanted to pursue a post graduate degree in Construction Management from a university in the United States, had to postpone his date of joining the course due to the pandemic.

“I had applied in August last year for the spring batch. It was supposed to start in January 2021. I had finalised to join the Texas A&M university. With the Covid outbreak, I waited till October-November hoping that the number of positive cases will drop. By December, I decided that come what may, I will go to the US and I started applying for the visa dates, but could not get the dates. I was told that there was a lot of backlog of previous applications as the visa offices were closed. Hence, I differed my intake to fall in July-end,” said Rohit.

Meanwhile, most of the students who were studying in China and returned to India after they were evacuated last year are continuing their education online. Though, after a year, they are trying to get adjusted to the routine of virtual classes.

On January 31, 2020, Jaydip Devkate, a 21-year-medical student from Pimpri-Chinchwad, left his college located in Xianning city in Hubei province in China with her 30 batchmates to return to India. He was looking forward to resume offline studies when the Covid situation would normalise.

“We are still waiting for the official…

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Russian hack brings changes, uncertainty to U.S. court system

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Trial lawyer Robert Fisher is handling one of America’s most prominent counterintelligence cases, defending an MIT scientist charged with secretly helping China. But how he’ll handle the logistics of the case could feel old school: Under new court rules, he’ll have to print out any highly sensitive documents and hand-deliver them to the courthouse.

Until recently, even the most secretive material — about wiretaps, witnesses and national security concerns — could be filed electronically. But that changed after the massive Russian hacking campaign that breached the U.S. court system’s electronic case files and those of scores of other federal agencies and private companies.

The new rules for filing sensitive documents are one of the clearest ways the hack has affected the court system. But the full impact remains unknown. Hackers probably gained access to the vast trove of confidential information hidden in sealed documents, including trade secrets, espionage targets, whistleblower reports and arrest warrants. It could take years to learn what information was obtained and what hackers are doing with it.

It’s also not clear that the intrusion has been stopped, prompting the rules on paper filings. Those documents are now uploaded to a stand-alone computer at the courthouse — one not connected to the network or Internet. That means lawyers cannot access the documents from outside the courthouse.

Fisher is defending Gang Chen, a nanotechnology researcher fighting charges that he defrauded the U.S.

“It would be cumbersome if we do have to start filing pleadings during the litigation on paper. That’s going to be more difficult,” Fisher said. “Particularly during COVID. Most of us are working from home.”

The Russian intrusion through the SolarWinds software has President Biden in an early tussle with his Russian counterpart, President Vladimir Putin, and U.S. senators are worried about the “grave risk” to U.S. intelligence.

The Administrative Office of U.S. Courts confirmed the court system breach on Jan. 6, joining a victims’ list that includes the State Department, the National Institutes of Health, tech companies and an unknown number of Fortune 500…

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Uncertainty clouds debate on Russia’s suspected role in election hacks

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How do you prove Russia meddled with the presidential election?

That’s a question the U.S. government is facing, but may never fully answer, at least not publicly. 

Last week, the U.S. punished Russia, claiming the country’s cyberspies hacked Democratic groups and figures during the election season.

However, missing from last week’s announcement was any new evidence — or a smoking gun — proving the Kremlin’s involvement. This isn’t sitting well with everyone in the security industry, especially since identifying the culprit of any cyberattack is no easy matter.

“Maybe Russia did do it, but until we have sufficient evidence, it’s a mistake to move forward,” said Jeffrey Carr, a cybersecurity consultant.   

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