Do you recall “WannaCry”, the nasty malware of early 2017 that tried to infect your computer and encrypt all its contents? It was unfortunate for those whose device got encrypted, as all data was lost unless you dared to pay the ransom requested by the attackers. And even if you’d paid, it was not certain that you would get your data back – that’s why we usually do not suggest paying any ransom… Now attackers have started increasing the pressure. In the past, infections blocked computers, stopping them from working, spreading their infection, or making fun of their owners. Then, networks of devices were misused to spam the world, attack web sites and web services. Staying silent and monitoring owner activity came next: spying on your banking activities, your passwords, etc. “Ransomware” like “WannaCry” holding your data hostage was the last level (“Ransomware - when it is too late..."). And now comes the next level: “Doxware”.

For many of us, our computer, and even more so our laptop, smartphone or tablet, are the central digital focal points of our lives: we store our personal photos and videos on them, as well as lots of private documents, and we use them as a central hub to access our bank accounts, to communicate with our closest friends (on Facebook, Twitter), or to consult our favourite health application to check out our wellbeing. Where is your smartphone now? You recall that panic when you do not know where it is? With a successful attack against our devices, lots is lost. “Ransomware” destroys our local data, malware like “Dridex” extracts banking and transaction details to extort money, other malware aims at harvesting the passwords for your social media accounts, etc. Already bad, isn’t it? “Doxware” is taking this to the next level. The word stems from “Doxing” (where “dox” is an abbreviation for “documents”), which is the Internet-based practice of researching and broadcasting private or identifiable information (especially personally identifiable information) about an individual or organisation. Like “Ransomware”, “Doxware” will encrypt your hard disk and ask you to pay some ransom money to get that data decrypted. But this time, a simple backup won’t help as the attackers will also threaten to expose all your personal and private data on the Internet if you don’t pay… It’s a difficult call to make, isn’t it?

Thus, keeping your devices secure is once more essential for your privacy and the protection of your (digital) belongings. Keeping your computer, smartphone and tablet up-to-date is one of the central paradigms of computer security. Only if they are kept updated can you be sure that at least the known vulnerabilities and weaknesses are fixed and your device cannot be exploited:

• If you have a personal computer with your own Windows operating system, check for “Windows Update” in the program listing on the Start button. Switch to the recommended “automatic” update method!
• On Linux distributions, make sure that you regularly run “yum update” or even better, enable automatic updates. Don’t forget to reboot your computer when a new kernel is installed, in order to properly apply kernel patches!
• For Apple Macs, use the software update mechanism, which is accessible under the Apple menu.
• For iOS or Android devices, check out the system settings.

Running antivirus software on your Windows or Mac device is a great plus, giving you additional protection and prevention capabilities. And such software comes for free for CERN personnel. The CERN anti-virus software for Windows and Mac can also be used at home… for free! If you can, get rid of Acrobat Reader, Flash and Java as these applications are regularly exploited to break into computers. If you can’t, make sure that these and any other applications are kept up-to-date. If you are in doubt (and are running a Windows system), you can install and run this fine program from Secunia which checks your computer for outdated software. Take care with your password and only provide it to websites you fully trust. Never put your passwords in e-mails, not even in reply to someone asking for it. And have separate passwords for different web services. Finally, infection vectors are usually either malicious e-mails or websites. Hence, STOP – THINK – DON’T CLICK when considering clicking on a link or opening an attachment. Only proceed if you trust the origin of the attachment/link. Here are some hints on how to identify malicious e-mails. Yes, it is very difficult. But it is this weakness of human nature that attackers try to exploit first…

Do you want to learn more about computer security incidents and issues at CERN? Follow our Monthly Report. For further information, questions or help, visit our website or contact us at Computer.Security@cern.ch.

From 6 to 8 October, THE Port Association held the fourth edition of the Humanitarian Hackathon at CERN’s IdeaSquare. This year, 64 participants, 12 mentors and 10 coaches from THE Port gathered together to tackle five humanitarian-related challenges.

After a two-month phase of preparation by videoconference and a 60-hour productive sprint, the teams created six prototypes and proofs of concept, which were presented in CERN’s Globe of Science and Innovation in front of a local and international audience.

The teams created a wearable device monitoring the evolution of Parkinson’s disease symptoms for research purposes, a cheap, ready-to-use and sonified wobble board designed for use by lower-limb amputees’ performing their own physiotherapy, and a decentralised open network for better communication between non-profit governmental organisations.

Three smartphone applications were also developed: the first is able to make an enhanced age assessment of migrant children, the second is connected to a smart recycling bin with a recognition and reward system, aiming to promote environmental education and to improve the conditions in refugee camps, and the third is able to assess what is needed to achieve renewable electrification in remote rural communities. 

The participants were an intercultural and interdisciplinary blend of humanitarians, scientists, engineers, computer scientists, students, entrepreneurs and communicators. In total, 40 nationalities were represented, with people coming from as far as Kenya, Martinique, India, Taiwan and the USA to take part in the Humanitarian Hackathon.

Now that this first step in THE Port’s mission has been successfully accomplished,  it is time to bring those projects further towards implementation in the field. To do so, THE Port will continue supporting the teams by facilitating contact within its networks and community, by organising key meetings and contextual side-events and by supporting their communication efforts.

If you are interested in supporting or participating in one of the above-mentioned projects, contact THE Port at info@theport.ch.

A recording of the final presentation can be found at https://cdsweb.cern.ch/record/2288117.

Once more, the LHC has revealed a new side to its extraordinary flexibility. So far, collisions of protons, lead nuclei, and protons with lead nuclei have been performed on a regular basis. On Thursday 12 October, a new species joined this particle zoo. Fully stripped xenon (Xe) nuclei were successfully injected into both beam pipes, accelerated and collided for the very first time. This special heavy-ion physics run was added into the schedule just after a high-intensity proton physics fill, and was completed in less than one day. The four LHC experiments collected Xe-Xe collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 5.44 TeV per colliding nucleon pair.

As part of the NA61 fixed-target physics programme, the injector complex currently provides Xe ions to the SPS. This opened up the possibility of also extracting Xe beams and sending them to the LHC. Even though xenon collisions were not originally part of the LHC schedule, the physics results obtained during the stunningly successful 18-hour proton-lead pilot run in 2012 supported the idea of a short Xe-Xe run following a similar rapid implementation plan. This was a unique opportunity, since Xe, or indeed any other any other particle apart from protons and lead nuclei, may never again be available in the injector chain. Colliding xenon nuclei at the LHC beam energy of 2.72 TeV per nucleon, opens up significant new physics potential, elucidating the system-size dependence of the rich phenomena observed in the Quark-Gluon Plasma. This was the highest energy to which such nuclei have ever been accelerated and the xenon isotope with an atomic mass number of A=129 and a charge of Z=54 probes an intermediate region between the LHC’s lead (A=208, Z=82) and proton (A=1, Z=1) beams.

For this year’s heavy-ion operation of the CERN accelerator complex, the ion source connected to Linac3 was modified to produce xenon ions. After being stripped of all electrons on the way from the linac through LEIR and the PS, the Xe nuclei arrive in the SPS, from where they will be extracted to the North Area for eight weeks from 23 October. Injecting them into the LHC required careful setup of a special SPS cycle and optimisation of the beam quality (emittance and intensity) to collider level in the injectors. In order to minimise the setup time for this run in the LHC and give the experiments more time to take data, the current LHC proton physics configuration was used with only minor modifications. Nevertheless, the RF frequency, the synchronisation between the SPS and the LHC, the transfer lines and the injection kickers all had to be adapted to the new beam. The only change made to the collision configuration was a reduction of the crossing angle in the ALICE detector to allow neutrons to pass unimpeded to its zero-degree calorimeter (ZDC) forward detectors.

Establishing the first circulating Xe bunch in the LHC and optimising the beam parameters took about four hours. The LHC was then filled with 20 bunches per ring, providing between 8 and 16 collisions per experiment. This was the maximum allowed, because the total number of particles per beam had to stay below the ‘safe beam limit’ of 3 × 10¹¹ charges for reasons of machine protection. The subsequent acceleration, squeeze and collision-finding steps went smoothly. Collimation loss maps were carried out to certify safe operation with the new beam species (heavy ions have much more complicated interactions with collimators than protons). Unfortunately, this first fill was lost at the very moment that ‘Stable Beams’ were declared. The LHC was refilled, taking advantage of an opportunity to accept higher bunch intensity and, therefore, luminosity. This time, the LHC went on to successfully deliver 6 hours of physics data, during which ATLAS and CMS collected a few µb^-1 of integrated luminosity. ALICE and LHCb collected considerably less because of the focusing scheme inherited from proton operation. At the end of the fill, scans were performed in LHCb and CMS for luminosity calibration and the fill ended with some additional loss maps for collimation studies.

Along the way, we obtained a wealth of data on the behaviour of the LHC itself with the new species of beam particle. This will allow us to test theories of how the beams evolve, their interactions with collimators and the ultra-peripheral collision effects that can affect collider performance.

Following this fill for physics data-taking, the beams were renewed with a similar number of Xe ions to perform a machine development study on the test installation for crystal collimation at high energy.

A new user facility for accelerator R&D, the CERN Linear Electron Accelerator for Research (CLEAR), started operation in August and is ready to provide beam for experiments. CLEAR evolved from the former CLIC Test Facility 3 (CTF3) used by the Compact Linear Collider (CLIC), which ended its successful programme in December 2016. Following approval of the CLEAR proposal, the necessary hardware modifications started in January and the facility is now able to host and test a broad range of ideas in the accelerator field.

CLEAR’s primary goal is to enhance and complement the existing accelerator R&D programme at CERN, as well as offering a training infrastructure for future accelerator physicists and engineers. The focus is on general accelerator R&D and component studies for existing and possible future accelerator applications. This includes studies of high-gradient acceleration methods, such as CLIC X‑band and plasma technologies, as well as prototyping and validation of accelerator components for the High-Luminosity LHC upgrade.

The scientific programme for 2017 includes: a combined test of critical CLIC technologies, continuing previous tests performed at CTF3; measurements of radiation effects on electronic components to be installed on space missions in a Jovian environment and for dosimetry tests aimed at medical applications; beam instrumentation R&D; and the use of plasma for beam focusing. Further experiments, such as those exploring THz radiation for accelerator applications and direct impedance measurements of equipment to be installed in CERN accelerators, are also planned.

The experimental programme for 2018 and beyond is still open to new and challenging proposals. An international scientific committee is currently being formed to prioritise proposals, and a user request form is available at the CLEAR website: cern.ch/clear.

This article first appeared in the November 2017 issue of the CERN Courier. You can read the original here:  http://cerncourier.com/cws/article/cern/70118.

Grab your friends and neighbours and take a wander around the Automnales. In between tasting longeole sausage and watching a demonstration of amazing kitchen gadgets, introduce them to CERN. This year, CERN is the guest of honour at Geneva’s huge local fair, which will take place at Palexpo from 10 to 19 November. It’s an opportunity for us to present CERN to people who would never have thought of visiting the Laboratory otherwise.

The CERN stand, whose structure represents a particle collision, will consist of 1000 square metres of exhibits and activities. Your friends and family will have the chance to find out all about the particle physics adventure and to meet researchers and other CERN personnel. All aspects of fundamental research and its applications will be presented using exhibits, activities, films, quizzes and even virtual reality headsets.

Everyone, regardless of their age or previous knowledge, will find activities to suit them. No fewer than 160 volunteers from CERN have offered to give their time to introduce the Laboratory to the 150 000 people expected to visit the fair.

The theme of this year’s Automnales is “Passionately!” That’s very appropriate, since scientific research is a fascinating field driven by passionate people. Come and share that passion at our stand!

The Automnales will take place at Palexpo from 10 to 19 November and will be open from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday to Saturday and from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Sundays. Admission will be free of charge after 7 p.m.

A limited number of invitations will be available for pick-up from Thursday 8 November at the Reception in building 33.
Maximum 5 per person, while stock lasts.

The CERN stand will be located in Hall 1 and will offer a wide range of activities.

Activities available throughout

• Virtual reality tours- Duration: about 5 minutes.
  Virtual reality headsets will offer visitors the chance to see the LHC accelerator, a detector and the Data Centre up close.
• Proton football - Duration: about 5 minutes.
  How can we make a Higgs at the Automnales? By playing proton football! Take a shot and try to make the protons collide with as much energy as possible.  
• HEAL: protons fror health - Duration: about 5 minutes.
  A game designed to teach people about the role of accelerators in medicine.  
• Info screens, posters, objects, etc. - Duration: a few minutes for each item.
  Multimedia screens, informative posters and various objects take visitors on a journey into CERN’s world.

Shows

• Quiz and "CERN in 15 minutes" - Duration: 20 minutes. For ages 12 and up. In French.
  After taking part in a quiz to test what you know (or think you know) about the Laboratory, learn about CERN in five steps. This is followed by a public question and answer session.
• Fun With Physics - Duration: 45 minutes. For ages 7 and up.In French.
  The surprising properties of liquid nitrogen: smash a rubber tube using a hammer or make a train levitate - it’s not magic, it’s science!  
• The electric show - Hosted by the University of Geneva’s Physiscope - Duration: 45 minutes. For ages 10 and up. In French.
  What goes on inside the electrical circuits that power lamps or TVs? Is there any electricity in the air? Does the human body conduct electricity? Find out the answers to all these questions with the Electric Show!  
• Virtual guided tours - Duration: 45 minutes. For ages 12 and up. In French.
  See the control rooms of the ATLAS, CMS and LHCb detectors in real time, and take the opportunity to ask the researchers about their daily work.  
• Particle tracking - Duration: 45 minutes. For ages 12 and up.In French.
  Find out how we can use a pixel detector, just like those used in the LHC experiments, along with a normal tablet to observe some of the particles surrounding us.  

Activities for young audiences

• Code science - Duration: 45 minutes. For ages 7 and up (minors must be accompanied by an adult). Places limited. Children will be taught how to programme a robotic arm or a touch screen, two technologies used every day at CERN.
• Cloud chambers- Duration: 45 minutes. For ages 12 and up (minors must be accompanied by an adult). Places limited.
  Participants will have the chance to build their own particle detector and then use it, just a few minutes later, to observe the particles that are all around us, some of which come from space.
• Physics at home - Duration: 15 minutes. For ages 6 and up (minors must be accompanied by an adult). Places limited.
  Fun experiments using household objects will demonstrate the principles on which CERN’s accelerators rely.

Film screenings (The programme will be shown on-screen. Free of charge, no reservation required.)

• Bienvenue au CERN - Every 15 minutes. In French. A physicist presents all aspects of CERN.
• Big science – Big data - Duration: 15 minutes. For ages 10 and up. In French. A short film about CERN’s incredible computing infrastructure, which is capable of collecting and storing tens of millions of gigabytes of data every year. 
• Big science – Big Bang - Duration: 15 minutes. For ages 10 and up. In French. A short film about the LHC, the biggest particle accelerator in the world. 
• Sur les routes de la science: le côté sombre de l'Univers - Duration: 47 minutes. For ages 12 and up. In French. The “ordinary” matter that we know about makes up only 15% of the matter in the Universe. The rest, referred to as “dark matter”, remains a mystery. Two journalists investigate.
• Taming the quantum world - Duration: 46 minutes. For ages 14 and up. In English with French subtitles.
• The relationship between computing and quantum physics.
• BBC horizon: Inside CERN - Duration: 59 minutes. For ages 12 and up. In English with French subtitles. 
• The ups and downs of fundamental research, from the excitement of a possible discovery to the disappointment when the signals fade away.

Why do computers remain unpatched? Why are passwords lost even today? Why do people still open malicious attachments? Why is encryption not always embraced? Is the major problem with understanding cybersecurity that it is not tangible? You can’t touch it. You can’t smell it. You can’t hear it. While computers and smartphones can be touched/smelled/heard, their apps and your data can’t. That makes cybersecurity abstract and easy to ignore, forgotten as soon as the mind focuses elsewhere.

In the real world, we have become accustomed to acting securely. We lock our houses and shut the windows when going on holiday. If the lock or window is broken, we get it fixed. If some stranger asks us for our credit card PIN, we tell them to get lost. The same applies if a stranger offers us, for example, a small bag of white powder and asks us to carry it across the border: we (should) decline and leave. And, for sure, we do not shout out intimate details about recent family problems, illnesses, affairs and so on.

On the other hand, we usually also store lots of (digital) valuables in our computers: bank information, private correspondence, family photos and videos. For some of us, our whole life is accessible through our computer (see our Bulletin article “Open door, open screen, open life..."), but we struggle to keep our computers up to date such that basic digital protections are in place. Some people reply if they receive an e-mail from a stranger, in an unusual context, possibly even in a foreign language, asking for their Apple ID, Office 365 account details or CERN password. Sure, they won’t have given away their PIN. But such e-mails are like any other unverified communications in the open with strangers. Only the context transforms the stranger and the conversation into something tangible and trustworthy (or not). The same holds for web links: every blue, underlined text pointing to another webpage is nothing other than a potential “small bag of white powder” offered to us by a stranger. Only the context makes it trustworthy (or malicious). Also, if you do not use encrypted channels (e.g. HTTPS, SSH or VPN), your digital communication with the world is public – whether you’re browsing the web, posting on Facebook or accessing your inbox. All unencrypted communication is shouted out aloud to those who want to listen…

So, please think a bit more about the real world. Think about the protection of your valuables at home. Think of your PIN. Of small bags offered in dark places. About the way you talk about family business. Then do the same in the virtual world: keep your computer, laptop and smartphone up to date, protect your password, STOP --- THINK --- DON’T CLICK, and make sure that you use “HTTPS” when browsing (check for the “https://” in your browser’s URL address bar --- the “s” is important). 

Do you want to learn more about computer security incidents and issues at CERN? Follow our Monthly Report. For further information, questions or help, visit our website or contact us at Computer.Security@cern.ch.

On Monday, 30 October, the CERN Control Centre operators announced good news: the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) had successfully met its production target for 2017, delivering more than 45 inverse femtobarns* to the ATLAS and CMS experiments. This achievement was all the more impressive as it was ahead of schedule.

The LHC is continuing to provide physics data to the experiments. Yet, earlier this year, it seemed unlikely that this target would be achieved. An issue had developed in the interconnection between two magnets, collectively known as 16L2, which was affecting machine performance. Then, in early September, thanks to effective and creative collaboration between various teams at CERN, several ways to deal with the technical issue were developed, enabling the LHC and its injector chain to reach top performances again. In addition, by the end of September, the 2017 production run had been shortened by bringing special runs planned for 2018 forward to 2017, putting yet more pressure on the operators to deliver in a shorter time frame. 

Nonetheless, with the target met, as well as another milestone achieved on Thursday, 2 November when stable beams were declared with a peak luminosity of 2.05 x 10³⁴cm^-2s^-1, more than twice the design luminosity, the LHC has once again shown its excellence. 

Lately the peak luminosity has been levelled down to 1.5 x 10³⁴ cm^-2s^-1 to avoid too much pile-up of events in the ATLAS and CMS detectors. However, on 2 November this was not done for two reasons: firstly to have the ATLAS and CMS detectors working under a high pile-up regime and secondly to gain more insight into the actual cooling margins of the triplet magnets that are situated on either side of the ATLAS and CMS experiments and absorb much of the collision debris.

The 2017 physics run will end this year, with 15 days of special runs plus a machine development period before the winter shutdown begins on 4 December, one week earlier than initially scheduled. At that point, the year-end technical stop (YETS) will be used to help consolidate and improve the machine and the experiments, ahead of the restart in spring 2018, ready to try and increase the integrated luminosity to 90 fb^-1, the goal set for 2017 and 2018.  

* The inverse femtobarn (fb^-1) is the unit of measurement for integrated luminosity, indicating the cumulative number of potential collisions. One inverse femtobarn corresponds to around 100 million million collisions.

On 16 November at 18:00, a premiere screening of the film The Sense of Beauty will take place in the Main Auditorium. 

The Sense of Beauty is a film by Valerio Jalongo, produced at CERN with the participation of many of the theorists, experimentalists and technicians working in the laboratory.

An introduction the CERN Director-General Fabiola Gianotti will precede the screening and a Q&A session will conclude the evening.

At the beginning of September, CERN’s computing systems came under attack. Adversaries tried to find their way into CERN’s Windows infrastructure with the aim of taking over the essential central Domain Controllers. And the experts from the University of Toronto did a great job!

Reviewing CERN’s computer security defences is part of our catalogue of best practices, as it is naturally better to identify suboptimal configurations under friendly fire than to succumb to evil BlackHats exploiting them for their malicious deeds. Therefore, CERN’s Computer Security Team repeatedly reviews and audits the various computing services, control systems, web applications, and software implemented and deployed at CERN.

But having an independent review can shed light from a different angle and highlight weaknesses and vulnerabilities missed by our audits. Enter the University of Toronto, where Allan Stojanovic and his team of professional hackers took up the challenge of trying to break into CERN, namely its Windows computing infrastructure.

During the first weekend of September 2017, Allan and his colleagues scanned CERN’s computing infrastructure as it is visible from the Internet – the “reconnaissance” phase. Having identified potential areas of interest, they then tried to take over servers and websites belonging to the Windows computing infrastructure – i.e. they tried to penetrate computing facilities that are usually protected behind CERN’s outer perimeter firewall.

Once inside, their mandate would have allowed them to continue as far as they could to show that they could have taken over administrator rights on the so-called central Domain Controllers, the core systems of the Windows infrastructure. Becoming administrators of those servers would have provided them with full access to any other centrally managed Windows system at CERN. In order to avoid any accidental damage, every step taken by them was coordinated and authorised by CERN’s Computing Security Officer. After three days of heavy poking, some frustration, and lots of pizza and coffee, the exercise ended and Allan provided CERN with a detailed report of significant, less significant and collateral areas for improvement. Thank you very much, Allan and colleagues!!! All of those weaknesses have now been addressed.

And we have not finished yet. The IT department and the Computer Security team is considering teaming up with other professional companies and teams to further poke around for areas for improvement under the umbrella of CERN’s WhiteHat Challenge. Given the complexity and vastness of CERN’s computing facilities, there must be more weaknesses!

And you can join in: if you also want to become a penetration tester and learn how to detect vulnerabilities, poke for weaknesses and identify potential areas for improving CERN’s computer security in general – or the security of your computing service, control system, web application or software in particular – sign up to the WhiteHat Challenge. Roughly 140 people plus six universities have done so far, constantly improving CERN’s computer security defences!

Do you want to learn more about computer security incidents and issues at CERN? Follow our Monthly Report. For further information, questions or help, visit our website or contact us at Computer.Security@cern.ch.

On 1 November 2007, the very first student of the special German Doctoral Student Programme at CERN (Wolfgang Gentner Scholarships) began his work, sponsored by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF).

On the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the Gentner Programme, which is based on cooperation between BMBF, CERN and DESY, the regular meeting of students and their supervisors held on 25 October 2017 was dedicated to celebrating this event.

Guest speaker Thomas Roth from BMBF highlighted the success of the programme, and the first "Gentner Doktor", who is now working at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), gave some insights into his time as a Gentner Doctoral Student and his later career. Students' presentations and a poster session completed the programme for the “Gentner Day”.

Students, university supervisors and CERN groups are benefiting greatly from the Gentner Programme, which was recently extended by 3 + 3 years until 2023, with a significant increae in funding.

See also the article published last year about the arrival of the 100^th student.

On Friday, 10 November, the final beams of the 2017 proton run circulated in the LHC. The run ended, as it does every year, with a round-up of the luminosity performance. The LHC has far exceeded its target for 2017. It has provided its two major experiments, ATLAS and CMS, with 50 inverse femtobarns of data, i.e. 5 million billion collisions.

This result is all the more remarkable because the machine experts had to overcome a serious setback. A vacuum problem in the beam pipe of a magnet cell limited the number of bunches that could circulate in the machine. Several teams were brought in to find a solution. Notably, the arrangement of the bunches in the beams was changed. After a few weeks, luminosity started to increase again.

At the same time, over the course of the year, the operators have optimised the operating parameters. Using a new system, the Achromatic Telescopic Squeezing (ATS) scheme (see the text below) put in place this year, they have notably reduced the size of the beams when they meet at the centre of the experiments (the more squeezed the beams, the more collisions occur each time they meet). Last year, the operators managed to obtain 40 collisions at each bunch crossing, with each bunch containing 100 billion particles. In 2017, up to 60 collisions were produced at each crossing.

Thanks to these improvements, the instantaneous luminosity record was smashed, reaching 2.06 x 10³⁴ cm^-2s^-1, twice the nominal value.

The LHC will continue to operate for another three weeks for two special runs and operation studies. The first special run will consist of carrying out proton collisions at 5.02 TeV, the same energy as that planned for next year’s lead-ion runs. This will enable physicists to collect data with protons and set a reference for the comparison with the lead-ion data.

The second special run, at very low luminosity and high beta*, will provide data for the TOTEM and ATLAS/ALFA experiments. The energy will be limited to 450 GeV, i.e. the injection energy into the LHC.

Finally, the operators will carry out a “machine development” campaign. Over a period of one week, they will perform operating tests to improve the accelerator’s performance still further, including tests with the Achromatic Telescopic Squeezing scheme.

The magic of the Achromatic Telescopic Squeezing scheme

At the beginning of the year, it was decided to make significant modifications to the LHC optics in order to make the optics compatible with the Achromatic Telescopic Squeezing (ATS) scheme. This scheme offers innovative and complementary optics manipulations in order to reduce the beta*, which quantifies the beam spot size at the interaction point. This scheme is now accepted as being the most cost-effective and robust way to reach the very challenging beta* target of 10-15 cm for the HL-LHC, which otherwise would be intrinsically limited.

 The first challenge that had to be overcome to enable early implementation of the scheme in the LHC was to demonstrate an ATS-compatible version of the LHC optics at the  intermediate beta* of 40 cm, as already reached in 2016 (hence intermediate from the HL-LHC perspective but already beyond the LHC’s design value of 55 cm). The second challenge was to commission the scheme’s telescopic techniques, to be deployed later in the year. These techniques contributed to the existing LHC’s record-breaking performances, helping it to achieve a 30‑cm beta*, almost a factor of two below its design value. 

This week, come and learn about how waste is sorted and recovered in the Main Building (500), where the contractor responsible for collecting waste at CERN*, in partnership with the SMB department, will explain how to sort waste at CERN for optimal recycling. We can all make a difference, however small, to help protect the environment, so get involved!

What is recycled?

Paper, card, PET, aluminium cans, glass, Nespresso capsules, wood and worksite waste: in 2016, CERN produced no less than 5700 tonnes of waste, about 50% of which was recycled. How can we improve on this? With your help! Numerous waste containers, skips and bins for recyclable materials are provided on the CERN sites – please use them!

In particular:

• Every office has a paper/card recycling box.
• Recycling bins for PET items, aluminium cans and Nespresso capsules are available throughout the CERN sites**. Several skips for these kinds of waste have also been installed near Building 156 (Meyrin site) and Building 904 (Prévessin site).
• 19 recycling containers for glass bottles are spread out across the Meyrin and Prévessin sites.
• For larger volumes, skips ranging from 4 to 40 m³ in volume are available.

Moreover, to facilitate the recycling of worksite waste, any firm working for CERN can make use of the waste collection service. To promote the use of this service, we have established a procedure for informing worksite managers about CERN’s waste sorting and recycling policy. This service ensures better traceability of CERN’s worksite waste and a reduction in the amount of waste that is not sorted for recycling, as such waste is now separated out at the source into the different categories (wood, inert waste, scrap metal, etc.), which was very difficult before.

CERN’s waste is sent to a recycling plant in Switzerland, where it goes through a second, more thorough, sorting process. Each different type of waste then goes through the appropriate recycling or recovery process: paper/card is recycled into new paper; used wood can, for example, be used to make chipboard; scrap metal goes to steelworks; glass can be used in the manufacture of glass wool; certain plastics can be recycled into polystyrene, etc.

What is incinerated?

Waste to be incinerated (including the domestic waste collected by the cleaning service) is disposed of in containers outside each building. This waste is then sent to a recycling plant in Switzerland, where any potentially recyclable materials are extracted. The remaining non-recyclable waste is then sent to a Swiss incineration plant located near CERN, where it is converted into electrical and thermal energy.

What about the restaurants?

At the moment, not enough recycling bins are provided in the Novae restaurants at CERN. To address this issue, five recycling stations for the disposal of household waste, PET items and compostable coffee cups will be installed in Restaurant 1. Other recycling solutions will be implemented gradually in CERN’s restaurants. Glass bottles and organic waste are already recycled by Novae staff in the kitchens.

Of course, it’s not enough just to throw your rubbish into a recycling bin; please make sure you put each material in the correct bin - this is essential!

(In particular, please note that plastic cups are not PET.)

*The firms responsible for waste sorting and treatment were selected by means of a tender process using the criteria of proximity to the site, with a view to minimising CO₂ emissions resulting from transport.

**For more information on sorting and recycling at CERN, please see the SMB department’s website.

On Sunday, 19 November, the curtain came down on the Automnales, bringing to a close ten days of activities and exchanges at CERN’s magnificent blue stand. Some 145 000 people attended the fair, and most of them stopped at the CERN stand. There, they learnt about fundamental science by taking part in activities and workshops and meeting volunteers, who shared their passion for research. 114 workshops, shows and presentations complemented the continuous activities. 159 pupils came especially to visit the CERN stand, as did around 150 elderly people each morning. A huge thank you to the 172 volunteers who welcomed, guided and informed the public with great enthusiasm. Relive the event in pictures.

Do not deflect your attention, or you might miss an important achievement on the way to the high-luminosity era of the LHC. Like the completion of the new deflection magnets which will transfer the beam between the first two elements of the CERN accelerator complex, Linear Accelerator 4 (Linac4) and the Proton Synchrotron Booster (PSB).

As part of the LHC Injector Upgrade (LIU) project, the Vertical Booster Injection Septum Magnets (BISMV10) successfully passed their final test on 8 November. Hosted in their vacuum tank, they will be installed on the transfer line between LINAC 4 and the four superimposed rings of the PS Booster during the second Long Shutdown in 2019-2020.

In the future configuration, the beam coming from Linac4 will be divided in slices with the help of kicker magnets installed on the transfer line. Each slice will then be vertically deflected by the new septum magnets to reach the first, the second and the fourth ring of the PS Booster. Since ring number three is at the same level as the incoming beam, no deflection is required for it.

Septum magnets are designed in such way that the magnetic field stays only in the magnet gap through which the beam passes. The leakage magnetic field on the outside of the septum is kept to an absolute minimum. This allows the septum magnets to be positioned as close as possible to the circulating beams in the PS Booster without inducing any unwanted oscillations. It also allows the beam that goes to ring three to pass unaffected between the two magnets. 

The predecessors of the new magnets, currently in use, are made of ferrite and are only capable of dealing with a 50 MeV beam coming from Linac2. The new system, on the other hand, is able to deflect the 160 MeV beam of negative hydrogen ions produced by Linac4. Each of the six new magnets is made of stacks of one thousand five hundred steel laminations, each one 350 microns thick. 

The upgrade of another component on the transfer line, the Beam Injection Distributor (BIDIS) which cuts the beam from Linac4 in six individual slices, is also currently in its final stages of testing. In early 2018 the assembly of new septum magnets based on the eddy current principle for the injection of the beam in the Proton Synchrotron will begin.

On 5 October, at 10.00 a.m., the fire alarms in two of the biggest office buildings on CERN's Meyrin site – 30 and 112 – were set off for a fire drill. The safety procedure was organised by the Safety Offices of the Engineering and Technology departments, in collaboration with the CERN Fire Brigade.

"It took 12 minutes to complete all the required exercises – exiting the buildings, gathering at the nearest meeting point and calmly waiting for the Fire Brigade to arrive. This is a very good result given the fact that nearly 400 people work in the two buildings," said Simon Chérault, deputy safety officer of the Engineering department.

The exercise was carried out thanks to good coordination between the Territorial Safety Officers, the Emergency Guides and the Fire Brigade. “Evacuation drills allow us to test the working conditions and effectiveness of all fire and emergency equipment. They also strengthen the safety culture already adopted by the personnel. The feedback we receive from such exercises helps us implement continuous improvement of the safety measures at CERN,” explained Simon.

A high level of safety for all people on its sites is a key priority for CERN. Each year, fire drills are organised for around 20 different buildings. Recently, another type of safety exercise – a mock road accident – was organised by CERN in collaboration with the University Hospitals of Geneva (HUG).

At its last meeting, the CERN Council approved the Management’s proposal for CERN to apply to become an Observer to the SESAME Council.

SESAME is the new synchrotron for the Middle East and neighbouring regions. The machine started operation last January and the first experiments should start in the coming weeks.

What makes SESAME unique is the collaboration it has brought about between scientists from its eight Members in the region: Cyprus, Egypt, Iran, Israel, Jordan, Pakistan, the Palestinian Authority and Turkey.

CERN has been a staunch supporter of SESAME ever since the mid-1990s, when certain discussions in the CERN cafeteria turned to the subject of applying the CERN model to other regions. CERN was established in the aftermath of the Second World War as a place for promoting both excellent science and peaceful collaboration between formerly belligerent nations. Could CERN’s success be emulated elsewhere?

The idea took root in the Middle East, and slowly began to grow. Since then, three former CERN Directors-General have held the position of President of the SESAME Council, and CERN has provided tangible help, with EU support, through the CESSAMag project whereby it supplied the magnet system for SESAME’s main ring. CERN is now contributing to another EU project, Open SESAME, which offers valuable training to SESAME staff and users.

Now, with SESAME about to bear fruit as its experimental programme gets under way, it is a natural next step for CERN to apply to become an Observer.

"CERN has always stood by SESAME and offered its valuable support to help bring SESAME to where it is today,” said SESAME Director Khaled Toukan. “The recent vote by the CERN Council giving CERN the go-ahead to apply for Observer status is indeed another pillar of CERN’s support, helping SESAME fulfill its goals." The proposal will be discussed at the next meeting of the SESAME Council in December.

On 19 October, CERN signed a collaboration agreement with the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Norway’s largest engineering school.

NTNU and CERN have a long tradition of collaboration in training students through the CERN doctoral, fellowship and technical student programmes and for joint projects in the field of knowledge and technology transfer. In many cases, these programmes serve as a gateway to research and development projects.

With this agreement, NTNU and CERN will further their shared wish to work together in training a new generation of engineers in all fields of interest common to both institutes, such as electrical, electronic, mechanical and process engineering, mechatronics, information and communications technology, artificial intelligence and machine learning.

Do you recall “WannaCry”, the nasty malware of early 2017 that tried to infect your computer and encrypt all its contents? It was unfortunate for those whose device got encrypted, as all data was lost unless you dared to pay the ransom requested by the attackers. And even if you’d paid, it was not certain that you would get your data back – that’s why we usually do not suggest paying any ransom… Now attackers have started increasing the pressure. In the past, infections blocked computers, stopping them from working, spreading their infection, or making fun of their owners. Then, networks of devices were misused to spam the world, attack web sites and web services. Staying silent and monitoring owner activity came next: spying on your banking activities, your passwords, etc. “Ransomware” like “WannaCry” holding your data hostage was the last level (“Ransomware - when it is too late..."). And now comes the next level: “Doxware”.

For many of us, our computer, and even more so our laptop, smartphone or tablet, are the central digital focal points of our lives: we store our personal photos and videos on them, as well as lots of private documents, and we use them as a central hub to access our bank accounts, to communicate with our closest friends (on Facebook, Twitter), or to consult our favourite health application to check out our wellbeing. Where is your smartphone now? You recall that panic when you do not know where it is? With a successful attack against our devices, lots is lost. “Ransomware” destroys our local data, malware like “Dridex” extracts banking and transaction details to extort money, other malware aims at harvesting the passwords for your social media accounts, etc. Already bad, isn’t it? “Doxware” is taking this to the next level. The word stems from “Doxing” (where “dox” is an abbreviation for “documents”), which is the Internet-based practice of researching and broadcasting private or identifiable information (especially personally identifiable information) about an individual or organisation. Like “Ransomware”, “Doxware” will encrypt your hard disk and ask you to pay some ransom money to get that data decrypted. But this time, a simple backup won’t help as the attackers will also threaten to expose all your personal and private data on the Internet if you don’t pay… It’s a difficult call to make, isn’t it?

Thus, keeping your devices secure is once more essential for your privacy and the protection of your (digital) belongings. Keeping your computer, smartphone and tablet up-to-date is one of the central paradigms of computer security. Only if they are kept updated can you be sure that at least the known vulnerabilities and weaknesses are fixed and your device cannot be exploited:

• If you have a personal computer with your own Windows operating system, check for “Windows Update” in the program listing on the Start button. Switch to the recommended “automatic” update method!
• On Linux distributions, make sure that you regularly run “yum update” or even better, enable automatic updates. Don’t forget to reboot your computer when a new kernel is installed, in order to properly apply kernel patches!
• For Apple Macs, use the software update mechanism, which is accessible under the Apple menu.
• For iOS or Android devices, check out the system settings.

Running antivirus software on your Windows or Mac device is a great plus, giving you additional protection and prevention capabilities. And such software comes for free for CERN personnel. The CERN anti-virus software for Windows and Mac can also be used at home… for free! If you can, get rid of Acrobat Reader, Flash and Java as these applications are regularly exploited to break into computers. If you can’t, make sure that these and any other applications are kept up-to-date. If you are in doubt (and are running a Windows system), you can install and run this fine program from Secunia which checks your computer for outdated software. Take care with your password and only provide it to websites you fully trust. Never put your passwords in e-mails, not even in reply to someone asking for it. And have separate passwords for different web services. Finally, infection vectors are usually either malicious e-mails or websites. Hence, STOP – THINK – DON’T CLICK when considering clicking on a link or opening an attachment. Only proceed if you trust the origin of the attachment/link. Here are some hints on how to identify malicious e-mails. Yes, it is very difficult. But it is this weakness of human nature that attackers try to exploit first…

Do you want to learn more about computer security incidents and issues at CERN? Follow our Monthly Report. For further information, questions or help, visit our website or contact us at Computer.Security@cern.ch.

From 6 to 8 October, THE Port Association held the fourth edition of the Humanitarian Hackathon at CERN’s IdeaSquare. This year, 64 participants, 12 mentors and 10 coaches from THE Port gathered together to tackle five humanitarian-related challenges.

After a two-month phase of preparation by videoconference and a 60-hour productive sprint, the teams created six prototypes and proofs of concept, which were presented in CERN’s Globe of Science and Innovation in front of a local and international audience.

The teams created a wearable device monitoring the evolution of Parkinson’s disease symptoms for research purposes, a cheap, ready-to-use and sonified wobble board designed for use by lower-limb amputees’ performing their own physiotherapy, and a decentralised open network for better communication between non-profit governmental organisations.

Three smartphone applications were also developed: the first is able to make an enhanced age assessment of migrant children, the second is connected to a smart recycling bin with a recognition and reward system, aiming to promote environmental education and to improve the conditions in refugee camps, and the third is able to assess what is needed to achieve renewable electrification in remote rural communities. 

The participants were an intercultural and interdisciplinary blend of humanitarians, scientists, engineers, computer scientists, students, entrepreneurs and communicators. In total, 40 nationalities were represented, with people coming from as far as Kenya, Martinique, India, Taiwan and the USA to take part in the Humanitarian Hackathon.

Now that this first step in THE Port’s mission has been successfully accomplished,  it is time to bring those projects further towards implementation in the field. To do so, THE Port will continue supporting the teams by facilitating contact within its networks and community, by organising key meetings and contextual side-events and by supporting their communication efforts.

If you are interested in supporting or participating in one of the above-mentioned projects, contact THE Port at info@theport.ch.

A recording of the final presentation can be found at https://cdsweb.cern.ch/record/2288117.

Once more, the LHC has revealed a new side to its extraordinary flexibility. So far, collisions of protons, lead nuclei, and protons with lead nuclei have been performed on a regular basis. On Thursday 12 October, a new species joined this particle zoo. Fully stripped xenon (Xe) nuclei were successfully injected into both beam pipes, accelerated and collided for the very first time. This special heavy-ion physics run was added into the schedule just after a high-intensity proton physics fill, and was completed in less than one day. The four LHC experiments collected Xe-Xe collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 5.44 TeV per colliding nucleon pair.

As part of the NA61 fixed-target physics programme, the injector complex currently provides Xe ions to the SPS. This opened up the possibility of also extracting Xe beams and sending them to the LHC. Even though xenon collisions were not originally part of the LHC schedule, the physics results obtained during the stunningly successful 18-hour proton-lead pilot run in 2012 supported the idea of a short Xe-Xe run following a similar rapid implementation plan. This was a unique opportunity, since Xe, or indeed any other particle apart from protons and lead nuclei, may never again be available in the injector chain. Colliding xenon nuclei at the LHC beam energy of 2.72 TeV per nucleon, opens up significant new physics potential, elucidating the system-size dependence of the rich phenomena observed in the Quark-Gluon Plasma. This was the highest energy to which such nuclei have ever been accelerated and the xenon isotope with an atomic mass number of A=129 and a charge of Z=54 probes an intermediate region between the LHC’s lead (A=208, Z=82) and proton (A=1, Z=1) beams.

For this year’s heavy-ion operation of the CERN accelerator complex, the ion source connected to Linac3 was modified to produce xenon ions. After being stripped of all electrons on the way from the linac through LEIR and the PS, the Xe nuclei arrive in the SPS, from where they will be extracted to the North Area for eight weeks from 23 October. Injecting them into the LHC required careful setup of a special SPS cycle and optimisation of the beam quality (emittance and intensity) to collider level in the injectors. In order to minimise the setup time for this run in the LHC and give the experiments more time to take data, the current LHC proton physics configuration was used with only minor modifications. Nevertheless, the RF frequency, the synchronisation between the SPS and the LHC, the transfer lines and the injection kickers all had to be adapted to the new beam. The only change made to the collision configuration was a reduction of the crossing angle in the ALICE detector to allow neutrons to pass unimpeded to its zero-degree calorimeter (ZDC) forward detectors.

Establishing the first circulating Xe bunch in the LHC and optimising the beam parameters took about four hours. The LHC was then filled with 20 bunches per ring, providing between 8 and 16 collisions per experiment. This was the maximum allowed, because the total number of particles per beam had to stay below the ‘safe beam limit’ of 3 × 10¹¹ charges for reasons of machine protection. The subsequent acceleration, squeeze and collision-finding steps went smoothly. Collimation loss maps were carried out to certify safe operation with the new beam species (heavy ions have much more complicated interactions with collimators than protons). Unfortunately, this first fill was lost at the very moment that ‘Stable Beams’ were declared. The LHC was refilled, taking advantage of an opportunity to accept higher bunch intensity and, therefore, luminosity. This time, the LHC went on to successfully deliver 6 hours of physics data, during which ATLAS and CMS collected a few µb^-1 of integrated luminosity. ALICE and LHCb collected considerably less because of the focusing scheme inherited from proton operation. At the end of the fill, scans were performed in LHCb and CMS for luminosity calibration and the fill ended with some additional loss maps for collimation studies.

Along the way, we obtained a wealth of data on the behaviour of the LHC itself with the new species of beam particle. This will allow us to test theories of how the beams evolve, their interactions with collimators and the ultra-peripheral collision effects that can affect collider performance.

Following this fill for physics data-taking, the beams were renewed with a similar number of Xe ions to perform a machine development study on the test installation for crystal collimation at high energy.