A Metal Coating That Repairs Itself

Electroplated metal could be used to make self-healing construction materials, car parts, and machinery.

By Prachi Patel

Airplanes, cars, and ships that don't corrode are the promise of self-healing paint coatings and polymer materials. Now researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Manufacturing Engineering and Automation in Stuttgart, Germany have come up with a metal coating that may be able to repair itself after sustaining damage.

Healing bubbles: Tiny fluid-filled capsules a few hundred nanometers wide are dispersed throughout a thin electroplated metal layer. The capsules could be filled with polymers to make metal coatings that repair themselves. Credit: Fraunhofer IPA

The self-healing metal can be electroplated, which opens up applications in construction, car manufacturing, and other industries that use or manufacture steel machines. (Nuts, bolts, and screws made of steel, which is susceptible to corrosion, are already electroplated with rustproof metals such as zinc and chromium.)

The new coating is around 15 micrometers thick and contains polymer capsules a few hundred nanometers in diameter. When the plating is scratched, the capsules should burst and release their contents - which could be a polymer capable of sealing the crack, or corrosion-inhibiting liquids.

So far, the researchers have made nanocapsule-infused coatings from metals or alloys including copper, zinc, and nickel. In principle, it should be possible to make them from any metal that can be electroplated, says Harald Holeczek, a Fraunhofer researcher who was involved in the work.

Although Holeczek and his colleagues haven't yet demonstrated the material's self-healing property, being able to incorporate liquid-filled nanocapsules into electroplated layers is significant, says Michael Kessler, a materials science and engineering professor at Iowa State University. "This is the first self-healing coating that can be electroplated," he says. "The advantage is that electroplating is a widely used industrial process."

The liquid inside the nanocapsules could be tailored to a variety of purposes. For instance, capsules in the plating of ball bearings could be filled with mineral oils to make the bearings self-lubricating. Capsules filled with colored liquids or scented oils could make metal parts that change color or release an odor when they are damaged. Better yet, several different types of capsules could be incorporated inside a metal layer, Holeczek says. For instance, it may be possible to "use color or scent in an upper layer to signal wear or damage and use some inhibition agent in a deeper layer to prevent severe damage."

Electroplating involves passing a current through an electrolyte solution containing positive metal ions. The object that needs to be coated is given a negative charge and immersed in the electrolyte. The positive ions are attracted to the negative surface, creating a thin layer of metal.

The Fraunhofer researchers make the nanocapsules separately before adding them to an electrolyte solution. But making capsules that survive the electroplating process was not easy--the harsh electrolytes can easily degrade the capsules, Holeczek says. Additionally, "the very tiny capsules tend to stick to each other once introduced in an aqueous medium." So the researchers had to add a proprietary mix of chemicals to the electrolyte solution, and to the capsules themselves, to prevent this from happening.

As a result, the nanocapsules can be integrated into the thin plating without affecting its hardness and other mechanical properties, Holeczek says. They are also distributed evenly through the metal layer, which means there's a better chance that the capsules will open even when damage is minor.

Paul Braun, a materials science and engineering professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, has made a microcapsule healing system that can be added to a wide range of paints and protective coatings and is now being marketed. He says that making the capsules too small could defeat the purpose: "If you have a 15-micrometer-wide scratch, then you can't release enough material to fill the crack plane."

However, once the researchers come up with the appropriate chemistries to show that the material can heal itself, Braun says, it could "open up a whole new opportunity space."

http://www.technologyreview.com/computing/23138/

DOE Energy Hubs on the Brink

Research centers conceived to speed energy-related research are facing a tough battle in Congress.

By Kevin Bullis

A major effort to revamp research and development at the Department of Energy, which Energy Secretary Steven Chu says is critical to solving energy-related challenges, hangs in the balance as the Obama administration attempts to make its case to a skeptical Congress.

Bell's Nobels: Steven Chu, speaking at MIT on the subject of energy innovation hubs, cited the success of Bell Laboratories at spurring invention. The inset is a slide from his talk, picturing the inventors of the transistor and the first of many Nobel Prize winners, including Chu, from Bell Labs. Credit: MIT World/Technology Review

Last month, the House and Senate committees responsible for appropriating money to the Department of Energy shot down Chu's proposed "Energy Innovation Hubs," with the House killing funding for all but one of the eight proposed hubs and the Senate provisionally funding only three. The House committee called the hubs redundant and criticized the Department of Energy for a lack of planning and clear communication about them. Since then, the department has issued much more detailed accounts of the hubs, and the Obama administration has said it "strongly opposes" the committee's decision to cut the requested funds.

Each hub would bring together top researchers under one roof to address one of eight "grand challenges" related to energy and would be modeled on the Manhattan Project, which developed the atomic bomb, and the legendary Bell Laboratories, where the invention of the transistor and the development of information theory, among other things, helped make possible the semiconductor industry and the Internet.

"The intent is to create a fierce sense of urgency to deliver solutions," says a report released by the DOE in response to congressional criticism. (For a full list of the eight challenges, and detailed descriptions of the hubs, click here and here.)

The idea to create hubs was inspired by Chu's own tenure as a researcher at Bell Labs. These well-funded research facilities featured top researchers, who had the authority to decide quickly whether or not to fund a new project, based on discussions with the researchers who came up with the idea. "You could say no within an hour, and you could say yes within a day or a week," he said at a talk earlier this year at MIT. What's more, the close proximity of leading experts in a variety of fields made it easy to find out what work had been done in an area and what pitfalls should be avoided. After talking to a couple of people, "you were likely to be sitting down with a world expert," he said. At Bell Labs, research ran the gamut from basic efforts to explore how the world works to research that applied those findings and developed technical solutions--stages of research and development that are typically kept separate at universities and national laboratories.

The proposed innovation hubs would mimic this approach, with managers located on-site rather than behind a desk in Washington. They would be funded for five years at a time, freeing researchers from yearly funding cycles that make planning difficult. And the funding would be substantial--$35 million for the first year and $25 million per year thereafter. In comparison, research projects at universities typically receive $150,000 a year. To obtain a second round of five-year funding, the hubs would have to show significant progress in proving that their new technologies can work, with the goal of developing something that industry could bring to market.

The innovation hubs could correct some historical shortcomings of the Department of Energy, according to Chu. In the past, the department has not focused on commercializing technologies, and most of its efforts have revolved not around renewable energy but rather around cleaning up after nuclear weapons development, says Mark Muro, a fellow and policy director at the Brookings Institution in Washington, DC. "The reason Steven Chu wanted eight of them, dispersed across the entire corpus of the lab's research activities, was essentially to transform the culture and practices of the lab system," he says.

But some experts say that replicating Bell Labs today isn't a good idea, and likely isn't even possible. "So many people have tried to build a mini-Bell Labs and it has never quite succeeded," says Howard Anderson, a professor at MIT's Sloan School of Management and a venture capitalist. For one thing, when Bell Labs was at its height, "they didn't have 125 venture-capital firms ready to suck off all the brightest guys all at once," he says. When venture capitalists "see someone with a breakthrough who is on a government salary, we say, come over here, take $5 million, a chance to be rich." Over time, the hubs could be drained of the top talent essential to them functioning well.

But William Aulet, director of the MIT Entrepreneurship Center, says that the Bell Labs approach has been superseded in industry by a new approach exemplified by companies such Cisco, which draw on many outside researchers and are open to spinning off technology into other companies. He says that while clusters of researchers are definitely a good idea, a more open, Cisco-type approach will ultimately be more effective than a lab that tries to do everything itself. Aulet is encouraged that more-recent descriptions of the hubs by the DOE include ties to industry, which could help foster such an open model.

The appropriations bills from the House and Senate committees are now awaiting conference, so there's a chance that funding for the hubs could be restored before a final vote. What's more, the Waxman-Markey energy and climate-change bill that's working its way through Congress also has a provision for very similar energy innovation hubs.

http://www.technologyreview.com/energy/23126/

A Browser's View of Your Computer

Researchers reveal how attackers may be able to peer into users' computers over the Web.

By Erica Naone

The Internet is already a difficult place to maintain privacy, and now two security researchers have revealed new ways to spy on Web users via the browser. At a presentation at DEFCON 17, a hacking conference held in Las Vegas last week, the researchers showed a variety of ways to snoop on people online, despite the privacy tools employed by most browsers.

Credit: Technology Review

Robert Hansen, CEO and founder of the Internet security company SecTheory, and Joshua Abraham, a security consultant for the security company Rapid7, demonstrated how to do everything from obtain details of the software running on a user's system to gain complete control of a computer. If the attacker can convince the user to visit a website he controls, perhaps through a link in an e-mail, a number of attacks on the user's browser become possible.

The attacks worked with minimal participation from the user and, in one case, none at all.

"Your privacy is up to whichever site you're visiting and what browser you're using," says Hansen, who emphasizes that users cannot trust the privacy controls built into a browser to keep them safe. "[Browser] privacy buttons are just a basic protection," he says. In many cases, they're mainly designed for benign situations, such as protecting a user's privacy from other members of a household. To a determined attacker, however, Hansen says these privacy protections aren't enough.

Hansen and Abraham showed how an attacker could build up detailed information about a user and her system with a variety of simple tricks. For example, by persuading a user to cut and paste a particular URL into a browser bar, an attacker can discover the person's username and the name assigned to her computer, and can gain access to files on that system. Similar attacks can detect what plug-ins the user has installed in her browser.

This sort of information can be used to build a targeted attack against a particular user, Abraham says. Knowing which plug-ins a user has installed, for example, makes it easier to break into a system using a software flaw.

Hansen and Abraham raised privacy concerns about Google Safe Browsing, a commonly used extension for the Firefox Web browser that is designed to warn users about malicious websites. The researchers say that the tool performs that function well, but it also regularly issues a cookie that could be used to track all of the websites that a user visits. This information could be revealed if, for example, a government chose to subpoena the data.

Abraham went on to demonstrate a Java applet--code that runs inside the browser--that could grant an attacker access to a user's machine, including encrypted files, and to the machine's microphone. To pull this off, the attacker has to get the user to click twice--once to visit a page the attacker control, and once to click through a browser warning. However, Abraham says that an attacker could disguise the applet as legitimate software related to programs the user has already installed.

While many of the attacks revealed by the pair need to be customized to a particular person, Abraham says it might be worth the effort if, for example, an attacker is trying to gain access to a particular company network.

Hansen adds that the attacks don't call for much technical skill. "Most of the hard work has already been done for you," he says, since many of the tools needed to pull off the attacks are freely available online.

Kate McKinley, a security researcher with San Francisco-based iSec Partners who studies browser privacy, agrees that plug-ins such as Flash can open up privacy holes. She notes that most browsers offer a feature that clears private data, but says this often doesn't cover what is stored in plug-ins or certain newer browser features. Cookies stored in Flash, for example, can persist even when a user switches browsers, since they store data in a different dedicated location.

Users can protect themselves, Hansen says, but this means changing their online habits. For example, users need to get into the habit of questioning any dialogue boxes that are thrown up by the browser. "Are you willing to trade off usability for your security and privacy?" he asks. "There's no easy answer, but we need to raise awareness of these issues."

http://www.technologyreview.com/web/23136/

Scaling Up a Quantum Computer

A series of sustained quantum operations shows promise for developing a practical device.

By Kate Greene

Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in Boulder, CO, have demonstrated multiple computing operations on quantum bits--a crucial step toward building a practical quantum computer.

Shine on, ions: Beryllium ions are trapped inside the dark slit on the left side of this chip. When researchers focus lasers on the ions, the ions can be used to perform quantum calculations. Credit: J. Jost at NIST

Quantum computers have the potential to perform calculations far faster than the classical computers used today. This superior computing power comes from the fact that these computers use quantum bits, or qubits, which can represent both a 1 and a 0 at the same time, in contrast to classical bits that can represent only a 1 or a 0. Scientists take a number of different approaches to creating qubits. At NIST, the researchers use beryllium ions stored within so-called ion traps. Lasers are used to control the ions' electronic states, depending on the frequency to which the laser light is tuned. The electronic states of the ions and their interactions determine the quantum operations that the machine performs.

Over the past few decades, researchers have made steady progress toward a quantum computer, for instance, by storing quantum data or performing logic operations on qubits. But the NIST work, which is published online today by the journal Science, pieces together several crucial steps for the first time. The work involved putting an ion into a desired state, storing qubit data in it, performing logical operations on one or two of the qubits, transferring that information among different locations, and finally reading out the qubit result individually. Importantly, the researchers show that they can perform one operation after another in a single experiment.

"This is the next step in trying to put a quantum computer together," says Dave Wineland, lead researcher on the project. "It's nice to have reached this stage."

The NIST team performed five quantum logic operations and 10 transport operations (meaning they moved the qubit from one part of the system to another) in series, while reliably maintaining the states of their ions--a tricky task because the ions can easily be knocked out of their prepared state. In other words, the researchers had to be careful that they didn't lose quantum combinations of 1s and 0s while they manipulated their ions.

One of the major problems in performing multiple operations is that the ions heat up after a single operation, in which laser beams, tuned to specific frequencies, adjust the energy level of electrons. Once this happens, explains Jonathan Home, a postdoctoral researcher at NIST, the researchers can't do any further operations because the qubits can no longer hold both a 1 and a 0. To solve this problem, the researchers added magnesium ions to the mix. These ions are cooled with another set of lasers and, though the cold magnesium ions are not used for computation, they effectively chill the beryllium ions, keeping them in a stable state.

A second challenge when repeating operations inside this type of quantum computer is making sure that the ions are protected from stray magnetic fields that can also cause them to lose their quantum state. To solve this problem, the researchers chose specific energy-levels within which the ions are temporarily impervious to changes in surrounding magnetic fields. This maintains the qubit's state for up to 15 seconds, plenty of time, says Home, to perform a series of millisecond-long operations. "Our particular choice of levels doesn't change with the magnetic field," he says. "We don't have to worry about the lifetime of the qubits anymore."

The experiment is a "milestone accomplishment," says Isaac Chuang, a professor in the electrical engineering, computer science, and physics departments at MIT. "Very much like the early evolution of transistors into calculators, this work demonstrates a complete assembly of basic steps needed for a scalable quantum computer." Chuang adds that the research "sets the bar" for other quantum computing systems.

In demonstrations, the researchers manipulated two qubits at a time. For ion trap systems, the maximum number of qubits used in varying experiments so far is less than 10. In order to outperform a classical computer, the researchers would need to perform operations on 30 or more qubits, suspects Home, something he thinks could happen in the next five to 10 years. While quantum computers hold promise for breaking ultrasecure encryption codes, he says that early quantum computers will mostly likely be used to simulate physical systems, for example, the electronic properties of materials.

But to get there, the researchers will need to improve their system. Currently, it performs with 94 percent accuracy. For a quantum computer to be reliable enough to use, it must be 99.99 percent accurate. A major factor affecting the accuracy of the system is the intensity fluctuations of the lasers that perform the operations on the ions. However, new, more-reliable, and more-powerful ultraviolet lasers could solve this problem, says Home.

http://www.technologyreview.com/computing/23137/

Q&A: Aneesh Chopra, National CTO

The presidential adviser explains how information technology can reboot America.

By David Talbot

In announcing the appointment of Aneesh Chopra as the nation's first chief technology officer (CTO) in April, President Barack Obama said Chopra would "promote technological innovation to help achieve our most urgent priorities." So far, Chopra's federal policy focus has been on leveraging information technology to revamp health care, education, and the energy infrastructure.

Credit: David Deal

Chopra works within the Office of Science and Technology Policy under presidential science adviser John Holdren but also directly advises the president on technology policy--a new role in the executive branch. His job is distinct from that of Vivek Kundra, the nation's chief information officer (CIO), who provides oversight of the government's information-technology contracts and efforts to make the federal government more open and efficient.

Before he took the CTO post, Chopra served as Virginia's technology secretary. His efforts ranged from forging public-private initiatives on rural broadband expansion to launching a competition for iPhone apps to aid middle-school math students. Chopra, who is 37, spoke recently with Technology Review.

Technology Review: Why do we need a national CTO?

Aneesh Chopra: President Obama has suggested there is a thoughtful role for technology and innovation across a wide range of priorities. While we have had White House leadership on technology policy in the past, this Administration has taken a broader view of the power and potential of technology to reduce health-care costs, deliver energy efficiency through smart-grid applications, and improve the skills of the workforce.

TR: Some economists see little evidence that federal spending on broadband will have a payback for the economy. How does spending $10,000 to get broadband to a rural farmhouse help the economy?

AC: It's not just broadband for the sake of laying pipe and capacity--it's about spurring innovative applications. Our teams at the commerce and agriculture departments are collaborating with the private sector not only to extend access where service today doesn't exist, but also to achieve a wider range of goals. We envision innovation in health care through telemedicine, distance learning, and even smart-grid infrastructure.

One example of rural application innovation we championed in Virginia was creating regional, shared e-911 services powered by broadband. In funding this with seed capital, we anticipated both improvements in emergency coverage and reductions in long-term costs. And it is conceivable that a grant that supports a rural farmhouse would open up higher-wage telework opportunities to that resident.

TR: What will make government more effective at promoting these kinds of technology applications?

AC: Government's role in promoting technology has traditionally been in the investment of basic R&D or the procurement of goods and services. It is my intention as CTO to focus on public-private collaboration to operate between those two extremes. In some cases, we might invest in a more targeted R&D opportunity that would bring private sector resources, universities, and the public sector together on a given problem. In others, we might use a procurement opportunity to spur market innovation.

TR: How would that work?

AC: For example, defensesolutions.gov is a website that seeks to drive innovation towards Department of Defense needs. Instead of procuring a specific device described by a multi-thousand-item specification, the department asks for a solution, such as "How do you field-test for the presence of explosives, drugs, and gunshot residue?" By leaving room for unanticipated and potentially disruptive technologies in the private sector, we can procure an innovative solution. Dozens of ideas have already been submitted to defensesolutions.gov, and a few are already gaining traction.

TR:That method might find you a disruptive technology--but on health IT, aren't there plenty of well-established electronic medical records technologies out there?

AC: Yes, but to receive stimulus funds, health-care providers will have to demonstrate meaningful use of technology to improve care quality, lower costs, or improve patient engagement and communication. I am focused on helping ensure the "meaningful use" criteria are designed to spur health reform and promote new products or services. Today, we don't have benchmarks differentiating the various products. When we do, we are confident the market will drive towards better value in achieving them.

TR:Is "meaningful use" an idea that should be more broadly applied?

AC: I would love to see this model apply in other areas where we see policy benefit in the adoption and use of IT.

TR:On the smart-grid, power utilities can prove "meaningful use" of existing technologies by documenting reduced electricity demand. Right now, though, the investment decisions are left mainly to 50 sets of state regulators and local utilities, and implementation is spotty. How can the federal government fix this?

AC: The federal role there has been very clear. First, we are seeding capital investment in this space through the Recovery Act--$4.5 billion for matching funds and demonstration projects. These initial projects are crucial to proving the value of the smart grid. Once the business case has been demonstrated, we believe that state and local decision-makers will continue investing in the build-out. Secondly, we are working through NIST [National Institute of Standards and Technology] on open standards to ensure the interoperability, reliability, and security of the smart grid. As we saw with the Internet, open standards enable innovation and scalability. These federal initiatives are complementary and in a collaborative spirit with state regulators and industry.

TR:Looking past these initial efforts, you are working on a broader policy document about spurring innovation. Can you give us at least a broad outline of what a national innovation policy would look like? What would it cover? What would be its goals?

AC: The Administration has three key goals for strengthening America's competitiveness and driving innovation. The first is improving the environment for private-sector innovation. This includes efforts to make the Research and Experimentation Tax Credit permanent, to encourage small businesses with targeted capital-gains tax reductions and improved access to capital, and to reform our patent system.

Second, we must invest in the building blocks of innovation such as human capital, fundamental research, and infrastructure. The president has committed to double the budgets of key science agencies, triple the number of National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowships, improve public school performance in science and math, and restore America's leadership in college attainment.

Finally, we must harness innovation to address key national priorities, including accelerating the transition to a low-carbon economy, allowing Americans to lead longer, healthier lives, and making government more open and transparent. All of this must be done with a view towards concrete measurable outcomes.

http://www.technologyreview.com/communications/23127/

Bringing Graphene to Market

A startup's conductive graphene inks can be used to print RFID antennas

By Katherine Bourzac

A startup company in Jessup, MD, hopes later this year to bring to market one of the first products based on the nanomaterial graphene. Vorbeck Materials is making conductive inks based on graphene that can be used to print RFID antennas and electrical contacts for flexible displays. The company, which is banking on the low cost of the graphene inks, has an agreement with the German chemical giant BASF and last month received $5.1 million in financing from private-investment firm Stoneham Partners.

Crumpled graphene: Conductive inks made by startup company Vorbeck Materials contain crumpled graphene. This atomic-force microscope image is colorized to show the topography of a piece of graphene of the type used in the inks; red areas are higher and blue are lower. Credit: Ilhan Aksay and Hannes Schniepp

Since it was first created in the lab in 2004, graphene has been hailed as a wonder material: the two-dimensional sheets of carbon atoms are the strongest material ever tested, and graphene's electrical properties make it a potential replacement for silicon in faster computer chips. Synthesizing pristine graphene of the quality needed to make transistors, though, remains a painstaking process that, as yet, can't be done on an industrial scale, though researchers are working on this problem.

Vorbeck Materials is making what company scientific advisor Ilhan Aksay calls "defective" graphene in large quantities. Though the electrical properties of the graphene aren't good enough to support transistors, it's still strong and conductive.

Vorbeck Materials licensed their method for making "crumpled" graphene from Aksay, a professor of chemical engineering at Princeton University. Vorbeck Materials says the inks made with this crumpled graphene are conductive and cheap enough to compete with silver and carbon inks currently used in displays and RFID-tag antennas. (Another startup working on defective graphene, Graphene Energy of Austin, TX, is using a similar form of the material to make electrodes for ultracapacitors.)

Aksay's method begins by oxidizing the graphite with acids, then separating it into atom-thin sheets. The expanded graphite is then rapidly heated, creating carbon dioxide gas that builds up pressure, forcing the graphene sheets apart. This process is common, says Aksay, but his research group developed monitoring methods to improve the yield and ensure that the graphene sheets completely separate. The sheets are then heated to remove the oxygen groups. "The conductivity nears that of pristine graphene, but the sheets are crumpled so they don't stack together again," says Aksay. The resulting powder can be added to a solvent to make inks or added to polymers to make composites such as tough tire rubber.

Most conductive inks on the market are made out of silver particles. These inks can be printed using cheap techniques but the inks themselves are expensive. Silver is used instead of cheaper metals because it is less prone to oxidation. Silver inks are more conductive than Vorbeck's graphene ink, says company president John Lettow, but also much more expensive. They also have to be heat-treated after they're applied, which means they can't be printed on polymers and other heat-sensitive materials. Graphene ink requires no heat treatment and is more conductive than other carbon-based alternatives to silver inks.

Potential applications for the inks, Lettow says, include antennas for cheap RFID tags printed on paper and electrical contacts for displays. Nick Colaneri, director of the Flexible Display Center at Arizona State University, says the inks' conductivity may limit their application in displays to low-resolution devices.

Vorbeck Materials is in talks with electronics manufacturers to develop inks to their specifications. Lettow says the company will begin selling graphene inks by the end of the year.

http://www.technologyreview.com/business/23129/

Rogue Pharmacies Dominate Bing's Ads

Illegitimate pharmacies account for 90 percent of drug ads on Microsoft's Bing, according to a new report.

By Kristina Grifantini

The pharmacy ads that appear alongside search results on Microsoft's Bing are dominated by "rogue" companies, according to a report released yesterday by KnujOn, a spam-monitoring company, and LegitScript, a firm that verifies online pharmacies.

Fake drugs: Researchers ordered counterfeit Cialis (left, yellow) by clicking a Bing advertisement for affordabledrugs.com that redirected to a rogue Internet pharmacy, expressdelivery.biz. Credit: LegitScript/KnujOn

Multimedia See a video showing illegal pharmacies advertised via Bing.

The report investigates the ads that appear when a person enters search terms such as "generic meds" or "online pharmacy" into Bing. Of the 69 advertisers that the company investigated, only seven were deemed to be legitimate. The remaining 62 did not require a prescription, in violation of US law, did not have a US address or offered to ship drugs from outside of the US.

"We were able to get prescription drugs without a prescription, and some were counterfeit," says John Horton, founder of LegitScript. LegitScript states that over 40,000 online pharmacies do not meet the certifications of the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy (NABP), which stipulate that companies must have a valid pharmacy license, a location in the US, and only dispense medicine with a valid prescription.

For certain drugs, federal law states not only that a user needs a prescription but also that the prescribing doctor must have a bona fide relationship with the patient, generally consisting of face-to-face contact and the sharing of medical information. The US Drug Enforcement Administration also prohibits certain controlled drugs from being imported into the US. The FDA also recommends that consumers buy pharmaceuticals online only from companies that are based in the US, require a prescription, and are licensed by the NABP. These regulations aim to prevent the abuse of prescription drugs and the dangers of taking unregulated medicine that may be adulterated, expired, or toxic.

Many of the pharmaceutical ads on major search engines do not comply with these standards, Bruen says. "Almost 90 percent of the pharmacy ads that we reviewed are for fake pharmacies. This has been going on for a while," he adds.

The new report examined 10 online pharmacies in closer detail and confirmed through the websites' FAQs or through live-chats that no prescription was needed to order prescription drugs. In two cases, the researchers purchased prescription drugs, one of which turned out to be counterfeit.

"If you look on the major search engines, you will find ads from pharmacies that are not legitimate, selling controlled substances," says Susan Foster, vice president and director of policy research at the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CAMA) at Columbia University.

No prescription: Researchers live-chatted with a representative from rx-medical-center.com. A live-chat correspondent assured them that they did not need a prescription to order a muscle relaxant postmarked from India. Credit: LegitScript/KnujOn

Bing, Google, and Yahoo all verify the legitimacy of online pharmacies by using PharmacyChecker, which covers overseas pharmacies in addition to US-based ones. For an online pharmacy to meet PharmacyChecker's standards, it must be licensed with a pharmacy board, require prescriptions based on face-to-face doctor-patient meetings, comply with patient-privacy laws, and have valid contact information and sufficient online encryption.

PharmacyChecker also covers Canadian pharmacies, because they undergo a regulation process as rigorous as the FDA's, according to Tod Cooperman, president of PharmacyChecker. "None of those 10 pharmacies [examined in the report] are approved members of the PharmacyChecker program," says Cooperman. He was unable to explain why ads for unverified pharmacies showed up on Bing.

"They shouldn't advertise any pharmaceuticals until they figure out ways to [regulate]," says Bruen. "They should require that anyone who uses specific drug names in their search criteria disclose their pharmacy license and brick-and-mortar location."

To sell ads, search engines typically run an auction for certain search keywords, with popular search terms, such as "Viagra," costing more. Every time a user clicks on a search ad, the seller pays the search engine a fee, ranging from a few cents to a few dollars, depending on the keyword. In this bidding system, Horton suggests that the abundance of illegal pharmacy ads may overwhelm legitimate ones. "If the drugs they're selling are counterfeit or knockoffs, they have lower costs than legitimate pharmacies," says Horton. "The rogue Internet pharmacies have more money to bid on advertising [and] drive up the auction rates, to the detriment of legitimate advertisers."

Bruen, who monitors large, organized spam networks, also found that many online pharmacies are tied to spam groups. By looking at domain registration records, they found that some pharmacies were located in Russia, India, or Panama, despite stating that they were based elsewhere.

E. J. Hilbert, a former FBI agent and the head of online security for Epic Advertising, says that search engines shouldn't allow advertisers to display one website address and then direct a user to a different one. "Why would you call it dailymedrx.com when it redirects to k2med.com, which is located in Russia?" he asks. Hilbert also suggests that search engines check the domain names of their advertisers to see where they are really based. "If an advertiser is bidding a lot higher for a keyword like "Viagra' than others, it may be a red flag that they are illegitimate, he adds.

"The online advertising market is a multibillion-dollar business," Hilbert says. "The profit model is in favor of 'run the ads and buyer beware,' versus being consumer conscious."

Last year, NABP, the American Pharmacists Association, and CAMA wrote to major search engines expressing concern about fraudulent pharmacies. "We never heard back from Google and Yahoo," says Foster. "We did eventually hear back from Microsoft [and] they indicated that they would look into the problem."

Horton and Bruen say that they plan to investigate additional search engines.

http://www.technologyreview.com/web/23128/