Catch up on stories from the past week (and beyond) at the Slashdot story archive

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×

Submission + - Swiss physicist builds complete Intel 4004 computer out of SMD transistors (4004.com)

Submitted by mcpublic
mcpublic writes: To celebrate the 52nd Anniversary of Intel's November 15, 1971 product launch of the now-historic 4004 microprocessor, Swiss physicist, Klaus Scheffler, in a world's first, built a complete 4-bit computer based on Intel's original 4004 schematics using nearly 4,000 discrete SMD transistors on three giant printed circuit boards. He proved his computer works stand-alone by running an algorithm that computes digits of Pi. This achievement was an international collaboration with Hungarian mathematician, Lajos Kintli, who worked with Scheffler from afar to debug the printed circuit "microprocessor," by writing assembly-language algorithms for the 4004, "board bring-up" test software running on a Teensy, and Kintli's indispensable circuit analyzer and verification software that made it possible for Sheffler to build and debug his fledgeling, printed circuit 4004 incrementally, comparing it against "oscilloscope traces" from Kintli's known-working simulation of the entire 4004-family chip-set. But Scheffler did not stop there. After he got his transistor 4004 working, he went on to build a transistor 4002 RAM and a hybrid ROM+I/O board to create a complete, stand-alone, 4-bit computer. This project is a testament that a "big hack" (the good kind) can be accomplished by a small team of dedicated hobbyists or even solo, working just a few hours a week, yet persisting for months despite the inevitable technical challenges.

Submission + - SPAM: LockBit hacker gang leaks stolen Boeing files

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: A Russia-linked hacker gang has leaked sensitive files stolen from key US defense contractor Boeing, just a day after the group was blamed for a bank cyberattack that disrupted US Treasuries markets.

LockBit, a ransomware gang that extorts its victims by encrypting their systems and releasing their data unless payment is made, published the stolen Boeing files on its darkweb site early Friday.

The group was also tied to a Thursday cyber attack on the US financial services division of Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), the world's largest bank by assets.

The breach obstructed ICBC's ability to settle US Treasuries transactions, forcing the bank to send couriers with USB drives around Manhattan to clear the deals in an astonishing disruption to the US financial system, Bloomberg reported.

'We've seen back-to-back attacks against a massive defense contractor and a massive financial institution. It's concerning,' Brett Callow, a threat analyst with cybersecurity firm Emsisoft, told DailyMail.com.
Link to Original Source

Submission + - Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak in hospital

Submitted by Alain Williams
Alain Williams writes: Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak is in hospital in Mexico, according to multiple reports.
It is not currently clear what the cause is. The 73-year-old was in Mexico City attending the World Business Forum (WBF), a business conference.
An unnamed source from the WBF said that Mr Wozniak fainted on Wednesday afternoon at the event, according to the CNN news website.

Submission + - Russian Cyberattack Disrupted Ukraine Power Grid Amid Mass Missile Strikes (securityweek.com)

Submitted by wiredmikey
wiredmikey writes: Threat hunters at Mandiant are shining the spotlight on a pair of previously undocumented operational technology (OT) attacks by Russia’s “Sandworm” hackers that caused an unplanned power outage and coincided with mass missile strikes on critical infrastructure across Ukraine.

The attacks, which spanned several months and culminated in two disruptive events last October, leveraged what Mandiant is describing as a “novel technique” for impacting industrial control systems (ICS) and OT.

“This attack represents the latest evolution in Russia’s cyber physical attack capability,” the company warned, noting a “growing maturity of Russia’s offensive OT arsenal that includes the ability to pinpoint novel OT threat vectors, develop new capabilities, and leverage different types of OT infrastructure to execute attacks.

Submission + - Euclid telescope: First images revealed from 'dark Universe' mission (bbc.com)

Submitted by AmiMoJo
AmiMoJo writes: Europe's Euclid telescope is ready to begin its quest to understand the greatest mysteries in the Universe. Exquisite imagery from the space observatory shows its capabilities to be exceptional. Over the next six years, Euclid will survey a third of the heavens to get some clues about the nature of so-called dark matter and dark energy.

The €1.4bn (£1.2bn) Euclid telescope went into space in July. Since then, engineers have been fine-tuning it. There were some early worries. Initially, Euclid's optics couldn't lock on to stars to take a steady image. This required new software for the telescope's fine guidance sensor. Engineers also found some stray light was polluting pictures when the observatory was pointed in a certain way. But with these issues all now resolved, Euclid is good to go — as evidenced by the release of five sample images on Tuesday.

Submission + - "Encryption king" arrested in Istanbul (404media.co)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Hakan Ayik, an infamous drug trafficker who also popularized the use of certain brands of encrypted phones around the world, was arrested during a series of dramatic raids in Turkey last week. At one point a group of heavily armed Turkish tactical officers in brown and gray camouflage piled outside an apartment and banged on the door repeatedly. They then smashed the door down and moved inside with a riot shield, according to a video tweeted by Turkey’s Minister of the Interior. The video then showed a photograph of Ayik, shirtless and on his knees while staring straight ahead, surrounded by multiple officers.
It was a moment that capped off the arrest of Australia’s most wanted man, and a sign that Turkey is no longer a safe haven to organized criminals. But it was also something of a closing act on Anom, a brand of encrypted phone that the FBI secretly took over and managed for years after inserting a backdoor into the product, allowing agents to read tens of millions of messages sent across it. Ayik unknowingly helped the FBI gain that piercing insight into organized crime by selling the devices to other criminal associates. Given Ayik’s position as a trusted authority on what communications tools drug traffickers should use, one associate even referred to him as the “encryption king” in an Anom message I’ve seen.

Submission + - 12 V Battery Problem Forces Toyota To Recall 1.8 Million SUVs (arstechnica.com) 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: There's plenty of fear, uncertainty, and doubt about electric cars and the potential risk of battery fires, but the regular old 12 V battery is responsible for Toyota issuing a recall for more than 1.8 million cars this week. Toyota says the problem is due to differences in the sizes of replacement batteries—some have smaller tops than others, and if a smaller-top battery isn't held in properly by its clamp, the battery could move under hard cornering, letting the positive terminal contact the clamp, causing a short-circuit and possible fire risk.

The problem affects 2013–2018 RAV4s—about 1,854,000 of them, according to Toyota. The official National Highway Traffic Safety Administration safety recall notice has not yet been posted, but NHTSA's Office of Defects Investigation has had an open case looking into the problem since February 2021, after 11 complaints about "non-crash thermal events" starting in the engine bays of RAV4s. Toyota says that it's working on a new hold-down clamp, battery tray, and positive terminal cover. Once those are ready, the automaker will replace those components for free. The automaker says owners should be contacted about the recall by late December.

Submission + - Microsoft vs Linux 1998 (catb.org)

Submitted by mtaht
mtaht writes: Today is the 25th anniversary of the infamous "Halloween documents", which were leaked memos from within Microsoft about how they intended to deal with the "Linux threat" at the time. Judge for yourself as to how the world changed (or not) at those moments.

Submission + - Sodium batteries as an alternative to lithium (economist.com)

Submitted by echo123
echo123 writes: Unlike lithium, sodium is cheap and abundant. It makes up most of the salt in the oceans. And chemists have found that layered-oxide cathodes which use sodium rather than lithium can get by without cobalt or nickel to jazz them up. The idea of making sodium-ion (or Na-ion) batteries at scale is therefore gaining traction. Engineers are tweaking designs. Factories, particularly in China, are springing up. For the first time since the Li-ion revolution began, lithium’s place on the electrochemical pedestal is being challenged.

Lithium and sodium, members of a group called the alkali metals, sit just below hydrogen in the first column of the Periodic Table. Alkali metals are famously reactive. (Dropping some in water will give you a lot of fizzing. Others will produce explosions.) This is because the outermost shell of electrons surrounding the nucleus of an alkali-metal atom has but a single occupant. These “valence” electrons are easily shed, creating positive ions (cations) that can link up with negative counterparts (anions), such as hydroxyl ions derived from water. The results are compounds like lithium hydroxide and sodium chloride, better known as table salt.

Small size and a low weight are crucial for phones, and at least desirable in cars. But they do not matter everywhere. Sodium batteries could work for grid-scale storage, home storage and heavy forms of transport, such as lorries and ships.

Sodium batteries do look attractive. For grid storage, they seem like serious competitors with LFPs—though they will also have to compete with other novel approaches, such as vanadium flow-batteries. Their chief rivals in the lorry and shipping markets are probably hydrogen fuel cells, but these are an untested technology that rely on an as-yet-unbuilt infrastructure to supply the hydrogen.

Submission + - Scrums are cancer

Submitted by RUs1729
RUs1729 writes: Interesting discussion at devops.com (https://devops.com/scrum-cancer-linux-6-5-richixbw) in which the case is made that scrums are worse than useless. Let fireworks begin.

Submission + - Free paper-based math game designed using LibreOffice Calc (pairsmathgame.com)

Submitted by pshapiro
pshapiro writes: One of the best ways to address education equity issues is to boost learning opportunities in the home. This fun, free math game — designed at a public library — was created to spur conversations about numbers. Originally created for middle school students, versions for younger students have also been designed. All versions of the game may be freely downloaded, printed, and photocopied.

A large, vinyl banner can be purchased for mounting in a principal's office, community center, children's hospital, etc. The small vinyl banner is well-suited for school or public libraries who would like to circulate this game — as they would any loaned library item. This game might also appeal to the elderly who are interested in keeping their minds sharp.

Slashdot Top Deals

Solutions are obvious if one only has the optical power to observe them over the horizon. -- K.A. Arsdall

Close