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Earth

Brazil Proposes a New Type of Fund To Protect Tropical Forests 18

Posted by msmash from the green-for-green dept.
Brazil is set to announce Thursday the establishment of a multibillion-dollar fund designed to pay countries to keep their tropical forests standing. The Tropical Forest Forever Facility would deliver $4 billion per year to as many as 74 countries that maintain their forest cover. The fund requires $25 billion from governments and philanthropies to begin operations.

Private investors would contribute the remaining $100 billion. Brazil has committed $1 billion. Countries would receive around $4 per hectare of standing forest after using satellite imagery to verify forests remain in place. Nations with annual deforestation rates above 0.5% are ineligible for payouts. Indonesia, which has rapidly lost forests to palm-oil cultivation and mining, cannot participate. One-fifth of the payments are designated for forest communities. The World Bank is managing the fund.

Submission + - New Drug Kills Cancer 20,000x More Effectively With No Detectable Side Effects (scitechdaily.com) 2

Submitted by fahrbot-bot
fahrbot-bot writes: SciTechDaily is reporting that researchers at Northwestern University have redesigned the molecular structure of a well-known chemotherapy drug, greatly increasing its solubility, effectiveness, and safety.

For this study, the scientists created the drug entirely from scratch as a spherical nucleic acid (SNA), a nanoscale structure that incorporates the drug into DNA strands surrounding tiny spheres. This innovative design transforms a compound that normally dissolves poorly and works weakly into a highly potent, precisely targeted treatment that spares healthy cells from damage.

When tested in a small animal model of acute myeloid leukemia (AML), an aggressive and hard-to-treat blood cancer, the SNA-based version showed remarkable results. It entered leukemia cells 12.5 times more efficiently, destroyed them up to 20,000 times more effectively, and slowed cancer progression by a factor of 59, all without causing noticeable side effects.

“In animal models, we demonstrated that we can stop tumors in their tracks,” said Northwestern’s Chad A. Mirkin, who led the study. “If this translates to human patients, it’s a really exciting advance. It would mean more effective chemotherapy, better response rates and fewer side effects. That’s always the goal with any sort of cancer treatment.”
Virtualization

Linux Ported to WebAssembly, Boots in a Browser Tab (phoronix.com) 54

Posted by EditorDavid from the shell-games dept.
"During the past two years or so I have been slow-rolling an effort to port the Linux kernel to WebAssembly," reads a surprising post on the Linux kernel mailing list. I'm now at the point where the kernel boots and I can run basic programs from a shell. As you will see if you play around with it for a bit, it's not very stable and will crash sooner or later, but I think this is a good first step. Wasm is not necessarily only targeting the web, but that's how I have been developing this project... This is Linux, booting in your browser tab, accelerated by Wasm.
Phoronix warns that "there are stability issues and it didn't take me long either to trigger crashes for this Linux kernel WASM port when running within Google Chrome."
Privacy

Manufacturer Remotely Bricks Smart Vacuum After Its Owner Blocked It From Collecting Data (tomshardware.com) 120

Posted by EditorDavid from the sucking-dirt-and-data dept.
"An engineer got curious about how his iLife A11 smart vacuum worked and monitored the network traffic coming from the device," writes Tom's Hardware.

"That's when he noticed it was constantly sending logs and telemetry data to the manufacturer — something he hadn't consented to." The user, Harishankar, decided to block the telemetry servers' IP addresses on his network, while keeping the firmware and OTA servers open. While his smart gadget worked for a while, it just refused to turn on soon after... He sent it to the service center multiple times, wherein the technicians would turn it on and see nothing wrong with the vacuum. When they returned it to him, it would work for a few days and then fail to boot again... [H]e decided to disassemble the thing to determine what killed it and to see if he could get it working again...

[He discovered] a GD32F103 microcontroller to manage its plethora of sensors, including Lidar, gyroscopes, and encoders. He created PCB connectors and wrote Python scripts to control them with a computer, presumably to test each piece individually and identify what went wrong. From there, he built a Raspberry Pi joystick to manually drive the vacuum, proving that there was nothing wrong with the hardware. From this, he looked at its software and operating system, and that's where he discovered the dark truth: his smart vacuum was a security nightmare and a black hole for his personal data.

First of all, it's Android Debug Bridge, which gives him full root access to the vacuum, wasn't protected by any kind of password or encryption. The manufacturer added a makeshift security protocol by omitting a crucial file, which caused it to disconnect soon after booting, but Harishankar easily bypassed it. He then discovered that it used Google Cartographer to build a live 3D map of his home. This isn't unusual, by far. After all, it's a smart vacuum, and it needs that data to navigate around his home. However, the concerning thing is that it was sending off all this data to the manufacturer's server. It makes sense for the device to send this data to the manufacturer, as its onboard SoC is nowhere near powerful enough to process all that data. However, it seems that iLife did not clear this with its customers.

Furthermore, the engineer made one disturbing discovery — deep in the logs of his non-functioning smart vacuum, he found a command with a timestamp that matched exactly the time the gadget stopped working. This was clearly a kill command, and after he reversed it and rebooted the appliance, it roared back to life.
Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader registrations_suck for sharing the article.

Comment Re:Is CSAM profitable? (Score 1) 28

I remember the first time I used my passport - in 1983 - to discover (because the spook at Immigration didn't close the door behind him) that I'd already accrued several pages of notes accessible (to the right users) via my passport number.

Privacy was cherished.

Maybe by people. Not by "the Authorities". Never by "the Authorities".

Comment Re:Is CSAM profitable? (Score 1) 28

And your owners/ managers, honouring no such binding oath, are the ones who dictate which services (profitable, of course) are supported and promoted, and which are denigrated and downgraded.

Now you know how Joe Random Prelate felt, setting the chestnuts out for Joe Random Pope's latest whore-party.

I believed tech could transform the world for the good

Transform the world, maybe. But as it turned out, it just became a tool for humans (sub-species businessmen) to make personal profit.

I'm just astonished that you could have such an optimistic opinion of humanity in ... was that the 1980s?

Comment Two people listening to the same thing? (Score 1) 26

Definite DCMA violation there.
What do you mean, "I was using the analogue hole to listen to [sound] with the person in the same room as me."

Into the tumbrel ; off to the guillotine.

Didn't people foresee this? Back when a 4-digit UID actually meant something? In the late 1990s?

Comment Well, why would you trust an enemy ... (Score 1) 10

To store your governmental data.

I'm sure Googazon will be hauled over the coals by @NSA for not adhering to their contracts, and Amagle will respond "Your president did this, we can't physically force people to send us their data - even with your breakable encryption."

What could compel a sovereign power ( a word some Americans use, without understanding it) to store their data with a hostile power?

OK - here's an idea : you, as a government, instruct your "spooks" to send false data, suitably encrypted, for storage on $Enemy$ servers, knowing that $Enemy$ will decrypt them (thinking you you know nothing about this) and then they will think they have genuine "intelligence" "treasure", When, in fact, their treasure is shit.

Didn't anyone in the NSA/ CIA read any of John Le Carré's books?

Emperor's new leaky condom, and they're the ones getting fucked.
Youtube

10M People Watched a YouTuber Shim a Lock; the Lock Company Sued Him. Bad Idea. (arstechnica.com) 57

Posted by msmash from the streisand-effect-strikes-again dept.
Trevor McNally posts videos of himself opening locks. The former Marine has 7 million followers and nearly 10 million people watched him open a Proven Industries trailer hitch lock in April using a shim cut from an aluminum can. The Florida company responded by filing a federal lawsuit in May charging McNally with eight offenses. Judge Mary Scriven denied the preliminary injunction request in June and found the video was fair use.

McNally's followers then flooded the company with harassment. Proven dismissed the case in July and asked the court to seal the records. The company had initiated litigation over a video that all parties acknowledged was accurate. ArsTechnica adds: Judging from the number of times the lawsuit talks about 1) ridicule and 2) harassment, it seems like the case quickly became a personal one for Proven's owner and employees, who felt either mocked or threatened. That's understandable, but being mocked is not illegal and should never have led to a lawsuit or a copyright claim. As for online harassment, it remains a serious and unresolved issue, but launching a personal vendetta -- and on pretty flimsy legal grounds -- against McNally himself was patently unwise. (Doubly so given that McNally had a huge following and had already responded to DMCA takedowns by creating further videos on the subject; this wasn't someone who would simply be intimidated by a lawsuit.)

In the end, Proven's lawsuit likely cost the company serious time and cash -- and generated little but bad publicity.

Comment Down to expected standards (Score 1) 1

by RockDoctor (#65764310) Attached to: The empty search for dark matter

I don't normally waste my effort on reading sites like Phys.Org when I can find the original paper instead. Crap like this is why.

to scintillate, which is a fancy science word for "sparkle." We see the sparkle; we detect dark matter.

No. Bollocks. We see the scintillation, we run it through a spectrometer. Depending on the wavelength of the scintillation we may be seeing an intrinsic decay from some isotope of the detector material (noble gas, whatever ; sodium iodide is a popular industrial scintillator, with a moderate slew of potential contaminants). Or we may be seeing some background radiation from the surrounding rock. Or we may be seeing a cosmic ray from the small furry flatulent creatures of Alpha Centauri. It's a very long way from "see sparkle" to "collect Nobel".

In the unlikely event that one of the writers of Phys.Org actually reads this, this sort of slop is why you're considered 4th or 5th rate - if that high. If you've got a retarded English graduate in the editorial seat ... c'mon, you're physicists : practical demonstration of launch technologies involving his char and a high window? Clickbait article on adding mains-powered in-chair heating to a 7$ office chair? Do something practical. And make sure the blame attaches to a second English Graduate in "Management", to kill two stones with one bird.

Of course, it could have been written by AI. The standard is that low.
Privacy

Mother Describes the Dark Side of Apple's Family Sharing (wired.com) 140

Posted by BeauHD from the PSA dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from 9to5Mac: A mother with court-ordered custody of her children has described how Apple's Family Sharing feature can be weaponized by a former partner. Apple support staff were unable to assist her when she reported her former partner using the service in controlling and coercive ways... [...] Namely, Family Sharing gives all the control to one parent, not to both equally. The parent not identified as the organizer is unable to withdraw their children from this control, even when they have a court order granting them custody. As one woman's story shows, this can allow the feature which allows it to be weaponized by an abusive former partner.

Wired reports: "The lack of dual-organizer roles, leaving other parents effectively as subordinate admins with more limited power, can prove limiting and frustrating in blended and shared households. And in darker scenarios, a single-organizer setup isn't merely inconvenient -- it can be dangerous. Kate (name changed to protect her privacy and safety) knows this firsthand. When her marriage collapsed, she says, her now ex-husband, the designated organizer, essentially weaponized Family Sharing. He tracked their children's locations, counted their screen minutes and demanded they account for them, and imposed draconian limits during Kate's custody days while lifting them on his own [...] After they separated, Kate's ex refused to disband the family group. But without his consent, the children couldn't be transferred to a new one. "I wrongly assumed being the custodial parent with a court order meant I'd be able to have Apple move my children to a new family group, with me as the organizer," says Kate. But Apple couldn't help. Support staff sympathized but said their hands were tied because the organizer holds the power." Although users can "abandon the accounts and start again with new Apple IDs," the report notes that doing so means losing all purchased apps, along with potentially years' worth of photos and videos.

Submission + - Facebook admits it is the masturbation epicenter of the world (torrentfreak.com)

Submitted by Mr. Dollar Ton
Mr. Dollar Ton writes: Meta is using a classic BitTorrent defense in its legal battle with adult film producer Strike 3 Holdings. In its motion to dismiss, the tech company argues that IP-address evidence is insufficient to prove who the infringer is. Meta further counters that the "sporadic" downloads on its corporate network began years before its relevant AI research started. Instead of AI training, Meta argues the activity was likely just for "private personal use"
Television

4K or 8K TVs Offer No Distinguishable Benefit Over Similarly Sized 2K Screen in Average Living Room, Scientists Say (theguardian.com) 141

Posted by msmash from the heartbreaking dept.
Many modern living rooms are now dominated by a huge television, but researchers say there might be little point in plumping for an ultra-high-definition model. From a report: Scientists at the University of Cambridge and Meta, the company that owns Facebook, have found that for an average-sized living room a 4K or 8K screen offers no noticeable benefit over a similarly sized 2K screen of the sort often used in computer monitors and laptops. In other words, there is no tangible difference when it comes to how sharp an image appears to our eyes.

"At a certain viewing distance, it doesn't matter how many pixels you add. It's just, I suppose, wasteful because your eye can't really detect it," said Dr Maliha Ashraf, the first author of the study from the University of Cambridge. Ashraf and colleagues, writing in the journal Nature Communications, report how they set about determining the resolution limit of the human eye, noting that while 20/20 vision implies the eye can distinguish 60 pixels per degree (PPD), most people with normal or corrected vision can see better than that. "If you design or judge display resolution based only on 20/20 vision, you'll underestimate what people can really see," Ashraf said. "That's why we directly measured how many pixels people can actually distinguish."

The team used a 27in, 4K monitor mounted on a mobile cage that enabled it to be moved towards or away from the viewer. At each distance, 18 participants with normal vision, or vision corrected to be normal, were shown two types of image in a random order. One type of image had one-pixel-wide vertical lines in black and white, red and green or yellow and violet, while the other was just a plain grey block. Participants were then asked to indicate which of the two images contained the lines. "When the lines become too fine or the screen resolution too high, the pattern looks no different from a plain grey image," Ashraf said. "We measured the point where people could just barely tell them apart. That's what we call the resolution limit."

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