It could have been completely accidental but Pakistan Telecom, in trying to comply with a Pakistan government censorship order, hijacked part of Youtube’s internet routing last night.

Renesys blog tells us:

Just before 18:48 UTC, Pakistan Telecom, in response to government order to block access to YouTube  started advertising a route for 208.65.153.0/24 to its provider, PCCW (AS 3491).

This action began due to a Pakistan government edict that access to Youtube should be blocked within Pakistan due to content related to the Danish cartoons featuring pictoral representations of the Islamic prophet Muhammad.

The effects lasted outside of Pakistan for about half an hour but quickly raised questions as to whether Pakistan Telecom should be trusted to advertise routes and whether countries and telecoms companies who use such methods for censorship are a risk to the internet in general.

You can read more about how Pakistan Telecom managed to break global routing for everyone else on Renesys site. 

You’ll have probably heard on the news today that Virgin Atlantic flew an empty Boeing 747 from London to Amsterdam with one engine running on a 20% biofuel mix.

According to Flight Global , the biofuel was supposedly an algae derived fuel stored in a test-specific tank and used to partially power one of the 747’s General Electric CF6-80C2 engines. The engine which apparently had a short TBO was to be immediately removed and inspected after the flight. Other press sources today suggest that the biofuel was coconut derived.

I made a calculation a while back to find out the ammount of coconut plantation required for a Boeing 747 flight from London to Beijing, China.

• Distance London to Beijing: 5059 miles.
• Cruise Speed of Boeing 747-400: 576mph
• Fuel consumption of Boeing 747-400: ~3200 usg/hour

So, the flight time would be approximately 8 hours 47 minutes (not strictly counting takeoff and approach) and the average fuel burned would be about 28,096 US gallons.

Now, coconut plantations provide (at best) 230 US gallons of biofuel per acre.

This would mean that for one flight in one direction for a Boeing 747 100% fueled by coconut derived biofuel, you would need a plantation of 122 acres for one year.

This is equivalent to the area covered by about 60 football pitches. Where on earth (literally) are all these plantations supposed to go? Want to fly back from Beijing? Double the size of the plantation for that one return flight!

Note that the figures for the calculation aren’t checked as they’re hard to find authoritative sources for. Needless to say, the end result is never going to be a trivial figure.

Just picked this up from this article on the BBC News Politics section.

As at 19:08

It said the government has promised funding for two pupils from every sixth form and college in the country to visit the Nazi concentration camp where millions of Jews were murdered during the World War I.

(Emphasis mine)

Close, but no cigar.

Update: They fixed it by 19:30

Space Shuttle Atlantis returned safely to Kennedy Space Center yesterday after completing STS-122 to the International Space Station which saw the delivery and installation of the ESA European Columbus science labaratory.

As Atlantis landed, Endeavor was already at the launch pad in preparation for STS-123, also to the ISS, which is penciled in to launch in just over three weeks time on the 11th of March. Endeavor will be carrying the pressurised section of the Japanese JAXA science module.

…well disrupted at least.

The US Department of Defense today released a statement describing how the US Navy Triconderoga class Aegis Guided Missile Cruiser USS Lake Erie (CG-70) fired a single, modified RIM-161 Standard Missile 3 (SM-3) from the Pacific ocean and hit the errant spy-satellite which, they say, was travelling at “over 17,000mph”. Arleigh-Burke class Aegis Guided Missile Destroyers USS Decatur (DDG-73) and USS Russell (DDG-59) also took part in the operation as backups for USS Lake Erie.

It is reported that in another Pentagon statement, the speed of USA-193 was 22,783mph when shot at about 133 miles altitude (71 miles into ’space’ which officially begins at 62 miles in altitude). The DoD statement says that the debris from the satellite will mostly burn up within 24-48 hours and the rest within 40 days. However, a Professor Richard Crowther, a ’space debris expert’ with the STFC, was quoted in a BBC article stating that in his opinion, up to 25% of the satellite’s mass could still survive re-entry.

“USA-193″ as it is called by amateur satellite trackers or NROL-21 by it’s launch number, was believed to be a radar reconnaissance satellite launched in December 2006 but which failed to deploy into proper operation. The orbit of the satellite had been decaying ever since and the US government stated their reason for ‘destroying’ the satellite was to protect humans from the risks of the satellite’s near half-ton of hydrazine fuel stored on board. Unfortunately, US officials no cannot say whether the fuel tank was properly destroyed by the AEGIS missile and, as such, there could now be 450kg of hydrazine ice flying around the planet pending re-entry. If you happen to see a spacecraft fuel-tank lying around some time soon, don’t go near it.

Of course, Russia and China have immediately accused the USA of ASAT willy-waving. The fact that the interception and destruction occurred outside the atmosphere means that at least part of the Outerspace Treaty on weapon use in space has been violated. China is calling for more information about the operation as (presumably) they believe this to have been a deliberate ASAT technology test and it doesn’t help the USA’s position much that they decried China’s recent ASAT test. Russia is just out-and-out calling this an ABM test and you can see their point. If Aegis can hit an object flying at 17,000mph + at 133 miles, it can probably hit slower, lower ICBMs. Aegis is after all, by design, an Anti Ballistic-Missile defence system.

Ultimately, all is fair in international love and cold war

Update: Fixed km/miles mistake.

Update 16:49: I’ve just watched the intercept video and the press officer states that the intercept occurred at 153 nautical miles altitude. This is equivalent to the 133 ‘international’ standard miles that I mention.

The emergency bill for nationalisation of failed bank Northern Rock was debated to the end of it’s second reading last night in the House of Commons and some rather interesting facts were thrown at the government who were represented by chief secretary to the treasury Yvette Cooper.

First of all, the Guardian newspaper, back at the end of November last year discovered that 70% (some £53 billion) of Northern Rock’s loan book was held by an off-shore operation known as Granite based in Jersey. Granite is not owned by Northern Rock.

This, of course, came out last night in the commons and it became quickly clear that the public would not be receiving ownership of Granite which holds the ‘good’ assets of Northern Rock. A well prepared Tory pointed out, due to contractual obligations, Granite would also be able to pull in further assets from Northern Rock after the bank has become nationalised!

Conservative MP Ken Clarke said:

“The best assets are in Granite…

…It looks as though there is a contract enabling more assets to be drawn in and it is the rubbish in the assets that we are now nationalising.”

The best Yvette Cooper could do was attempt a truculent look which instead conveyed an expression of extreme discomfort. Clearly she was none the wiser and had been badly briefed on the Granite situation (if at all!). She was apparently unable to answer questions from members with regard to Granite.

Liberal Democrat spokesman Vince Cable put it well:

“What is going on here appears to be not public ownership of Northern Rock but an asset-stripping operation designed to benefit whoever, we don’t know. This is a very serious development.”

I don’t think there was a third reading for the Commons (I fell asleep) so the bill now passes to the House of Lords who will hopefully tear it to shreds and save us from being sold down the river (yet again).

Also of interest is the draft text [pdf] of the bill itself. It makes no mention whatsoever of ‘Northern Rock’. Effectively, the legislation could be used to nationalise any UK bank. It makes one wonder just how many banks Labour intend to nationalise.