Large Hadron boffin arrested on terrorism suspicion
No more atom-smashing for you
Regcast training : Hyper-V 3.0, VM high availability and disaster recovery
An atomic physicist who worked at the European Organization for Nuclear Research for six years has been arrested on suspicion he had links to an Al Qaeda affiliate in North Africa.
The unnamed man had been assigned to an analysis project for the organization, better known as CERN, since 2003, the group said in a press release. He had no contact with anything that could be used for terrorism, it added. He was arrested Thursday in the French city of Vienne.
His detention came as two brothers also suspected of having ties to Al Qaeda were arrested in in Vienne on a warrant issued by an antiterrorism judge at the Paris prosecutor's office. Police didn't release their names or nationalities, but the Associated Press reported they were aged 25 and 32.
Shortly after coming online last year, CERN's LHC, or Large Hadron Collider, was downed by a faulty electrical connection between two magnets in the 17-mile doughnut-shaped atom smasher. It has been under repair ever since.
A CERN spokeswoman assured the AP there were no indications of sabotage and that the arrested physicist had access only to the experiment he was working on and not to the tunnel itself.
CERN is providing support to French authorities investigating the arrested man. More from the Associated Press and The New York Times is here and here. ®
COMMENTS
If it's the CIA...
...then it's just that he once went on his holidays to north Africa. If only they could tell the difference between terrorist links and tourist links.
It's the one with the Merkin-English dicitionary in the pocket.
It's worse than that (Jim...)
"...best delete all those "grow your penis now" and "if you send me £x ill pay you £million when i get it from wherever" spam mails, wouldnt want them to be considered links to terrorism now would you?.."
James 68
What! Delete them and be found guilty of hiding evidence, perverting the course of justice, etc, ect?
Only MPs and the police can hide evidence and get away with it...
Re: Six degrees of Kevin Bacon
"How many of us unknowingly have six degrees of separation from Al Qaeda?"
When the government's IMP internet surveillance project is fully on stream everyone and their granny will be flagged up as 'terrists'. Guilt by association will be the only standard of proof required and the death sentence will be mandatory. Naturally, 'Honourable Members' and their corporate buddies will get a free pass.
But not to worry, the security services will be too busy wading through the millions of false positives that occur to annoy the rest of us. And presumably they wont have much time to chase down the real threats to our country either. New Labour, same old shit.
IT infrastructure monitoring strategies
Agentless Backup is Not a Myth
Top 10 SIEM implementer’s checklist
Steps to Take Before Choosing a Business Continuity Partner
Requirements Checklist for Choosing a Cloud Backup and Recovery Service Provider
