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Theory rival spy 'trained in the dark arts of the secret services' murdered British agent Mystery of second mobile phone containing video of victim dancing naked in nothing but cowboy boots

By Daniel Miller

PUBLISHED: 05:54 EST, 6 May 2012 | UPDATED: 02:16 EST, 7 May 2012

Murdered by a foreign agent? MI6 codebreaker Gareth Williams

Detectives investigating the mysterious death of the body-in-the-bag spy believe a killer could have slipped back into his flat through a skylight to cover his tracks, it has been claimed.

MI6 codebreaker Gareth Williams was found dead in his London flat in 2010. A coroner ruled that he was 'probably killed illegally and his family remain convinced he was the victim of a rival agent.

Many close to the case believe he was assassinated by a spy working for foreign powers because of his work for MI6 and the US National Security Agency.

Speculation over the exact nature of his work has been growing since Foreign Secretary William Hague signed a public interest in order to stop details being released on security grounds.

It has been claimed that MI6 and the government eavesdropping centre GCHQ, to which Williams was attached, have been working on a computer virus designed to disrupt Iran's nuclear programme.

Questions are also being asked as to how MI6 came into possession of a second iPhone belonging to Mr Williams when Police found only one at his flat.

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Did spy-in-bag killer slip back into the flat through skylight to cover his tracks? New theory emerges over MI6 ...

The Issue: The increase in fatalities due to C. diff, the deadliest virus contracted in US hospitals.

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As a medical provider, weve been trying to shed light on the issue of hospital infections (A Killer Hospitals Pretend To Fight, PostOpinion, Besty McCaughey).

The instance of nosocomial infections in hospitals is rampant and often under-reported. Many hospitals do not publish their number of infections annually in an effort to avoid negative press and public scrutiny.

However, in the instance of spine surgery, some studies report a 20-plus percent rate of post-operative infection.

Our practice focuses on minimally invasive outpatient spine surgery. As of today, weve done over 600 surgeries with a 0 percent infection rate.

The benefits of outpatient surgery far overwhelm those of hospital surgeries. Patients return home from surgery the same day, substantially reducing the risk of infection.

Despite these results, insurers are still hesitant to refer patients to outpatient centers and continue to refer patients to hospitals where they are at a significant risk for post-operative infection.

Daniel Goldberg

Director

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And the sick get sicker

Its hard to know which is worse, the dying or the lying.

Four times as many people are dying from a hospital infection called C. diff as a decade ago, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Its the No. 1 hospital-infection killer in much of the nation, including New York. It kills more people than dreaded Staph infections, and about as many as AIDS.

What about the lying? Well, hospital personnel often tell patients and families that antibiotics are to blame. Sorry: The real culprit is inadequate cleaning in hospitals.

C. diff spreads through the hospital on nurses uniforms, wheelchairs, bed sheets, call buttons and other surfaces. It can survive on surfaces for months. Patients touch these surfaces, then pick up food without washing their hands first, and swallow the germ along with their food. Once in the gastro-intestinal tract, C. diff can cause severe diarrhea, sometimes resulting in deadly complications.

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A killer hospitals pretend to fight

ScienceDaily (Apr. 30, 2012) Like a police officer calling for backup while also keeping a strong hold on a suspected criminal, immune cells in the brain take a two-tier approach to fighting off a threat, new research from the University of Michigan Health System finds.

For the first time, the scientists managed to capture that reaction in action, showing how certain immune cells locked onto a model of virus-infected brain cells, while also sending signals to neighboring uninfected cells to let them know about the immune attack.

The findings may help research on how the brain fights off viruses and tumors. It also aids the search for ways to harness the immune response to attack and kill brain tumor cells -- or to calm the overzealous self-attack that occurs in people with certain autoimmune diseases.

Published online April 30 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the findings illuminate how cells called CD8+ T cells, or "killer" T cells, carry out their police-like role. Pedro Lowenstein, M.D., Ph.D., professor in the Department of Neurosurgery at the U-M Medical School, led the research team.

He explains that the research yields new insight into the nature of the "gasket" that forms between killer T cells and their target cells, i.e., infected -- or tumor -- cells. Killer T cells go after cells when they detect the presence of foreign proteins, called antigens, on the cell surface.

The gasket-like structure creates an area between the two cells called an immunological synapse -- and has been thought of by some scientists as a tight seal. Studies, including previous ones by Lowenstein's team, have suggested that it allows the killer T cell to lock on to its target and bombard it first with molecules called cytokines, and then with chemicals that break down the infected cell and kill it.

But other scientists have shown that when killer T cells are attacking infected cells, the cytokines they release seem to cause a reaction in many neighboring, uninfected cells -- suggesting a very open connection. These latter studies question the role of immunological synapses.

Using a unique live-cell imaging technique developed by the team, the new results show that the gasket connection focuses the T cell attack on the infected cell, but is leaky. This creates a two-tier response when a killer T cell goes after an infection.

"The T cell targets the infected cell preferentially, but it also secretes cytokines that reach a number of other cells in the neighborhood," says Lowenstein. "The immunological synapse fails to restrict how far cytokines can spread."

The research team, including U-M postdoctoral fellow Nicholas Sanderson, Ph.D., made the finding using a live-cell imaging method they developed that allows them to detect how many cells are exposed to the cytokine interferon gamma.

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How does the immune system fight off threats to the brain?

Is your text message inbox filled with more spam than texts from your real friends? The spam might be coming from that free version of Angry Birds you just downloaded from Google Play. Next time, search for and download apps from TrustGo Anti-Virus and Mobile Security version 1.0.6 (free). TrustGo, a new mobile security player, pioneers a killer feature: a secure, meta-search engine for apps that warns you not just of malware and permissions, but of intrusive ad networks. Unfortunately, TrustGo tested poorly when it came to detecting and blocking malware, such as viruses, Trojans, spyware, and root kits.

The app also comes with the usual basket of mobile security utilities, like remote controls, an app auditor, safe browser, and backup for contacts. TrustGo is offering all its features free for a limited time, and then it will shuffle some of these utilities to a paid Premium version.

S.A.F.E. App Searches My favorite feature in TrustGo is its "patent-pending" Secure App Finder Engine (SAFE), essentially a metasearch of over 1.5 million apps from more over 200 third-party app stores (and Google Play). Theoretically all the apps are scanned for malicious code, excessive permissions, and intrusive ad networks, by TrustGo's cloud network, which scans new apps every day.

Intrusive ad networks are probably the greatest threat to mobile devices these days, because there aren't any policies that limit how much information a mobile ad network can extract or push from your device. This issue first came to light this year, when a developer discovered that the Path app for iOS was extracting entire address books without a users' permission. The ad network 'Airpush' is also notorious for spewing spam texts and annoying ads in your notifications bar. It's not malware, but if given a choice, most users probably wouldn't want it peeking into their devices.

SAFE has four categories: Certified, Low Risk, High Risk, and Malicious. Malicious indicates a Trojan horse, worm, virus, or spyware. Certified indicates the app poses no threat. Low and High risk categories rank different levels of exploitation from ad networks to device modifications.

I searched for the Instagram app, and SAFE displayed results from three different app stores; all were Certified. It also listed a couple related apps as High Risk,like Instagram Porn Babes and Sketchgram 4 Instagram. When you tap the High Risk button, TrustGo displays the rationale behind the rating (the latter app contained AirPush). You can still download the app if you don't mind taking such risks.

I did find one inconsistency, though. Some apps that SAFE warned were risky went through TrustGo's app scan, a separate feature, as perfectly safe. Clearly, SAFE is strong on warning of app privacy intrusion, but TrustGo is weak on detecting.

Furthermore the SAFE search mechanism gives the Certified label to rooting apps, like 'z4root,' which actually shares code with other apps. It's not malicious, but certainly ambiguous. BitDefender's app auditor warns of rooting apps.

Poor Antivirus Protection TrustGo's otherwise-excellent app search engine is overshadowed by its poor virus detection. According to a March report by independent testing lab AV-test.org, TrustGo picked up only 30-40 percent of all the malware fed to it. Although TrustGo responded saying AV-Test reviewed a beta release, AV-Test told me there was no mention of the word "beta" in the app's documentation or screenshots. Since the February test however, TrustGo has released an incremental update with new virus definitions, but there's no test result for this available for that so far.

Meanwhile ten mobile security apps aced AV-Test.org's analysis, detected more than 90 percent of malware families. This includes Lookout for Android ($29.99/year direct, 4.5 stars), F-Secure Mobile Security, Kaspersky, Zoner, and McAfee.

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TrustGo Antivirus and Mobile Security 1.0.6 (for Android)