Cyber-attack disrupts distribution of

multiple US newspapers
Several US newspapers suffered major printing and delivery disruptions on
Saturday following a cyber-attack.

The attack led to delayed distribution of The Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune,
Baltimore Sun and other titles belonging to Tribune Publishing.

The company said it first detected the malware on Friday, which hit papers sharing the
same printing plant.
The attack is believed to have come from outside the US, the LA Times said.

West Coast editions of the Wall Street Journal and The New York Times, which share
the same production platform in Los Angeles, were also affected.

"We believe the intention of the attack was to disable infrastructure, more specifically
servers, as opposed to looking to steal information," an anonymous source with
knowledge of the attack told the LA Times.

Tribune Publishing spokeswoman Marisa Kollias confirmed this in a statement, saying

the virus hurt back-office systems used to publish and produce "newspapers across our
properties".

"Every market across the company was impacted," Ms Kollias said, refusing to give
more specifications on the disruptions, according to the LA Times.
Other publications owned by the company include the New York Daily News, Orlando
Sentinel and the Annapolis Capital-Gazette, whose staff were the targets of a deadly
shooting earlier this year.

Another publication, the Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel was also "crippled this weekend
by a computer virus that shut down production and hampered phone lines," according to
a story on its website.

"We are aware of reports of a potential cyber incident affecting several news outlets and
are working with our government and industry partners to better understand the
situation," a Department of Homeland Security official said in a statement.

Investigators at the Federal Bureau of Investigations were not immediately available for
comment.
Net's founding father Dr Larry Roberts
dies aged 81

American scientist Larry Roberts who helped design and build the forerunner of
the internet has died aged 81.

In the late 1960s, he ran the part of the US Advanced Research Projects Agency (Arpa)
given the job of creating a computer network called Arpanet.

He also recruited engineers to build and test the hardware and software required to get
the system running.

Arpanet pioneered technologies underpinning the internet that are still used today.

Data design

Dr Roberts is recognised as one of the four founding fathers of the internet along with
Bob Kahn, Vint Cerf and Len Kleinrock.

The son of two chemists, Dr Roberts reportedly chose electronics as a field of study
because it was more forward-looking.
"I wanted something new, not old like chemistry," he told Katie Hafner in an interview
with the New York Times.

Two key developments credited to Dr Roberts include the layout of the original network
and the way it shuffled data between its nodes.
Dr Roberts decided on a distributed layout for the elements of the network, rather than a
centralised system, and decreed that data should be split into small chunks or packets
as it travelled to its destination.

This packet-switching system, as it came to be known, drew on work done in the UK by

Donald Davies at the National Physical Laboratory.

The first four computers were connected to Arpanet in 1969 and it grew rapidly as
universities and other research institutions joined it.

Dr Roberts was also keen for Arpanet to be put to practical use and he encouraged
early users to adopt email to improve communication and collaboration.

Arpanet persisted until 1983 when it was folded into the larger internet and became one
part of that network.
After leaving Arpa, Dr Roberts had a distinguished career founding and then running a
series of networking start-ups.

Dr Roberts died on 26 December of a heart attack, his family said.

Severn Bridge shuts as drone flown

from tower
A main route between England and Wales was closed after a man climbed a
bridge and flew a drone from the top.

Traffic was stopped on the M48 - the older of two Severn crossings - because of
"concern for welfare," police said.

The man, in his 20s, came down voluntarily from the 47m (154ft) bridge tower and was
arrested on suspicion of causing a public nuisance.

Highways England said it was deeply concerned and that "a person has put their life at
serious risk".

"The incident was quickly spotted on our security cameras and reported to police and
thankfully there was no injury or worse on this occasion," it said.

"Appropriate security is in place on the bridge, we are liaising with Avon and Somerset
Police and will be undertaking investigations to determine if any damage was caused
during the incident."

Police said: "Officers attended the M48 Severn Bridge at 08:10 this morning after
concerns were raised for a man who appeared to have climbed one of the towers and
was flying a drone off it."

The original Severn Bridge opened in 1966 and until recently was a toll road, but it is
now free to cross.

Drone activity recently caused the closure of Gatwick Airport for several days.

About 1,000 flights were affected during the chaos between 19 and 21 December when
drones were seen near the runway.