167229387
submission
mspohr writes:
In all, recently published research from Black Lotus Labs, the research arm of networking and application technology company Lumen, identified more than 12,000 servers—all running Microsoft domain controllers hosting the company’s Active Directory services—that were regularly used to magnify the size of distributed-denial-of-service attacks, or DDoSes.
Over the past year, a growing source of reflection attacks has been the Connectionless Lightweight Directory Access Protocol. A Microsoft derivation of the industry-standard Lightweight Directory Access Protocol, CLDAP uses User Datagram Protocol packets so Windows clients can discover services for authenticating users.
“Many versions of MS Server still in operation have a CLDAP service on by default,” Chad Davis, a researcher at Black Lotus Labs, wrote in an email. “When these domain controllers are not exposed to the open Internet (which is true for the vast majority of the deployments), this UDP service is harmless. But on the open Internet, all UDP services are vulnerable to reflection.”
166760443
submission
mspohr writes:
This paper really pushes the envelope,â said neuroscientist Tomasz Nowakowski, of the University of California, San Francisco, who uses brain organoids in his research on neurodevelopmental disorders but was not involved in the new work. âoeThe field is desperate for more experimental models. And whatâ(TM)s really important about this study is it demonstrates that brain organoids can complete their maturation trajectory when transplanted.
Within weeks, cells from the rats began to move into the organoids, building blood vessels that supported their growth alongside the animalsâ(TM) own. From these organoids, millions of new neurons sprouted, sending out axons and wiring into circuits throughout the ratsâ(TM) brains, including deep into the thalamus, a region responsible for relaying sensory signals such as touch and temperature. Six months later, about one-third of the brain hemisphere that received the transplant was made up of human cells.
166276319
submission
mspohr writes:
A major bug in Appleâ(TM)s latest iPhone is causing the camera to physically fail when using apps such as TikTok, Snapchat and Instagram, some owners have reported.
The bug in the companyâ(TM)s iPhone 14 Pro Max, the most expensive model in the iPhone 14 range, appears to affect the optical image stabilisation (OIS) feature, which uses a motor to eliminate the effects of camera shake when taking pictures. Opening the camera in certain apps causes the OIS motor to go haywire, causing audible grinding sounds and physically vibrating the entire phone.
The vibration does not occur when using the built-in camera app, suggesting the problemâ(TM)s roots are in a software fault. However, some have warned affected users to limit their usage of apps that trigger the bug, in case excess vibration causes permanent damage to the OIS system.
The company has previously warned users about potential damage to the OIS motor, particularly in situations where their phones are experiencing significant vibration. In January this year, the company published a long warning note for users about the risk of mounting their iPhones near âoehigh-power motorcycle enginesâ.
160696928
submission
mspohr writes:
By March 22, a Russian tech industry trade group estimated that between 50,000 and 70,000 tech workers had left the country and that an additional 70,000 to 100,000 would soon follow. They are part of a much larger exodus of workers from Russia, but their departure could have an even more lasting impact on the countryâ(TM)s economy.
The long-run impact may be more significant than the short-run impact,â said Barry Ickes, head of the economics department at Pennsylvania State University, who specializes in the Russian economy. âoeEventually, Russia has to diversify its economy away from oil and gas, and it has to accelerate productivity growth. Tech was a natural way of doing that.â
Before all this started, Russia had such a strong technology base,â Mr. Taganov said. âoeNow, we have a brain drain that will continue for the next five to 10 years.â
160220113
submission
mspohr writes:
Rival cryptocurrency etherium is shifting to another system â" âoeproof of stakeâ â" that it believes will reduce its energy use by 99%. In the proof of stake model, miners pledge their coins to verify transactions; adding inaccurate information leads to penalties.
Coal plants which were dormant or slated to be closed are now being revived and solely dedicated to bitcoin mining. Gas plants, which in many cases were increasingly economically uncompetitive, are also now being dedicated to bitcoin mining. We are seeing this all across the country,â said Brune.
Imagine the Saudis sitting on all that oil, which has a cost of about ½ cent per kilowatt hour â" no renewable can match that,â Larsen said. âoeBitcoin mining could be this endless monetization engine for fossil fuels. That would be a nightmare.â
155955609
submission
mspohr writes:
"Despite the repeated warnings of health leaders, our failure to put vaccines into the arms of people in the developing world is now coming back to haunt us. We were forewarned – and yet here we are."
"In the absence of mass vaccination, Covid is not only spreading uninhibited among unprotected people but is mutating, with new variants emerging out of the poorest countries and now threatening to unleash themselves on even fully vaccinated people in the richest countries of the world."
"The result is that even now only 3% of people in low-income countries are fully vaccinated, while the figure exceeds 60% in both high-income countries and upper-middle-income countries. Every day, for every vaccine delivered as first vaccines in the poorest countries, six times as many doses are being administered as third and booster vaccines in the richest parts of the world. This vaccine inequality is the main reason why the WHO is predicting 200 million more cases on top of the 260 million so far. And after 5 million deaths to Covid, another 5 million are thought to be possible in the next year and more."Link to Original Source
152978099
submission
mspohr writes:
Some of Americaâ(TM)s most prominent companies, including Apple, Amazon, Microsoft and Disney, are backing business groups that are fighting landmark climate legislation, despite their own promises to combat the climate crisis, a new analysis has found.
A clutch of corporate lobby groups and organizations have mobilized to oppose the proposed $3.5tn budget bill put forward by Democrats, which contains unprecedented measures to drive down planet-heating gases. The reconciliation bill has been called the âoethe most significant climate action in our countryâ(TM)s historyâ by Chuck Schumer, the Democratic leader in the US Senate.
None of the companies contacted by the Guardian would rebuke the stance of the lobby groups they are part of and none said they would review their links to these groups.
âoeHiding behind these shady groups doesnâ(TM)t just put our environment at risk â" it puts these companiesâ(TM) household names and reputations in serious jeopardy,â Herrig said.
149260901
submission
mspohr writes:
No one is safe
iPhone
But itâ(TM)s also because they have a reputation for security. Dating back to the earliest days of the mobile platform, Apple fought to ensure that hacking iOS was hard, that downloading software was easy and safe, and that installing patches to protect against newly discovered vulnerabilities was the norm.
And yet Pegasus has worked, in one way or another, on iOS for at least five years. The latest version of the software is even capable of exploiting a brand-new iPhone 12 running iOS 14.6, the newest version of the operating system available to normal users. More than that: the version of Pegasus that infects those phones is a âoezero-clickâ exploit. There is no dodgy link to click, or malicious attachment to open. Simply receiving the message is enough to become a victim of the malware.
There are ways round some of these problems. Digital forensics does still work on iPhones â" despite, rather than because, of Appleâ(TM)s stance. In fact, thatâ(TM)s the other reason why Iâ(TM)ve focused on iPhones rather than Android devices here. Because while the NSO Group was good at covering its tracks, it wasnâ(TM)t perfect. On Android devices, the relative openness of the platform seems to have allowed the company to successfully erase all its traces, meaning that we have very little idea which of the Android users who were targeted by Pegasus were successfully affected.
143392534
submission
mspohr writes:
Data strikes, inspired by the idea of labor strikes, which involve withholding or deleting your data so a tech firm cannot use itâ"leaving a platform or installing privacy tools, for instance.
Data poisoning, which involves contributing meaningless or harmful data. AdNauseam, for example, is a browser extension that clicks on every single ad served to you, thus confusing Googleâ(TM)s ad-targeting algorithms.
Conscious data contribution, which involves giving meaningful data to the competitor of a platform you want to protest, such as by uploading your Facebook photos to Tumblr instead.
What if millions of people were to coordinate to poison a tech giantâ(TM)s data well, though? That might just give them some leverage to assert their demands.
142485300
submission
mspohr writes:
Very interesting interview with Gu Youyang who developed COVID modeling program last March which was more accurate than any of the others. ([spam URL stripped]).
Interesting that he did this by simplifying the assumptions and data entered into the model.
"Actually, that's one of the reasons I got started in modeling COVID, because everything was shut down in March. Like many Americans, it impacted me. I was just curious to see where COVID was going, when it could potentially be improved."
"I think the answer to that would be better phrased as what inputs did I not use, because the only input that I did use was previous deaths. I feel like the other models out there were using too many inputs, too many data sources."
The existing models at the time, back in March 2020, weren't doing as great of a job as I thought they could do. So I took a shot at building my own model to see what I could do. I guess it took off from there."
"From my experience, when the signal in the data is so low, the data quality is low, so the more data you give it, the worse your outputs tend to be. That's why I didn't want to make it too complicated and I just decided that I was going to use deaths, and I wanted to make it as simple as possible. I just built the whole model in, I think, less than a week. From the beginning to when I had the website live, it was around a week."
He's now working on a new model to predict herd immunity.Link to Original Source
134737619
submission
mspohr writes:
"The growth of digital information seems truly unstoppable," Vopson explains. "According to IBM and other big data research sources, 90 percent of the world's data today has been created in the last 10 years alone. In some ways, the current COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated this process as more digital content is used and produced than ever before."
This problem goes beyond energy alone, Vopson says. He also postulates that information can move between states of mass and energy just like any other type of matter. Should this assumption be true, it could mean that the sheer amount of energy required to produce this data could be equated to mass as well â" in fact, Vopson estimates that information alone could equal half the Earth's total mass by 2245.
What about entropy?
133360450
submission
mspohr writes:
Looks like Huawei is going to fight back against the US for the sanctions it has imposed on the company... using the US patent system (which recently made some changes to FRAND to make it even easier to sue).
They're starting with Verizon and its suppliers, HP and Cisco.
"It has filed patent infringement claims against Verizon for its own technology and for products Verizon has acquired from Cisco and Hewlett-Packard and demanded royalty payments for hundreds of patents. Huawei’s patents may not even be practiced in the firms’ accused products, but Huawei is using the legal process to compel court discovery on Verizon’s and its suppliers’ confidential information to enrich Huawei’s knowledge of competitors’ products and technology. "
"It is likely that the Trump Administration simply had not considered how Huawei would turn US patent law against US companies, since the President and his team have consistently led the charge to rid Chinese-controlled companies from the communications infrastructure in the US and abroad, especially in 5G."
Didn't see that coming?
119998592
submission
mspohr writes:
"Top Democrats on Tuesday proposed tough new privacy laws to rein in the US’s tech companies after a series of scandals that have shaken confidence in the companies and exposed the personal data of millions of consumers."
"The act resembles Europe’s sweeping General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) legislation, passed in 2016. It would force tech companies to disclose the personal information they have collected, delete or correct inaccurate or incomplete information and allow consumers to block the sale of their information."
The bill’s sponsors are all Democrats and include presidential candidate Senator Amy Klobuchar. “Companies continue to profit off of the personal data they collect from Americans, but they leave consumers completely in the dark about how their personal information is being used,” she said. “It’s time for Congress to pass comprehensive privacy legislation.”
105961850
submission
mspohr writes:
The headline story is that itâ(TM)s not so much about the nature of digital technology as about a new mutant form of capitalism that has found a way to use tech for its purposes. The name Zuboff has given to the new variant is âoesurveillance capitalismâ. It works by providing free services that billions of people cheerfully use, enabling the providers of those services to monitor the behaviour of those users in astonishing detail â" often without their explicit consent.
The Future of Capitalism
It is no longer enough to automate information flows about us; the goal now is to automate us. These processes are meticulously designed to produce ignorance by circumventing individual awareness and thus eliminate any possibility of self-determination. As one data scientist explained to me, âoeWe can engineer the context around a particular behaviour and force change that way⦠We are learning how to write the music, and then we let the music make them dance.â
104783404
submission
mspohr writes:
Interesting article gives the inside scoop on the design and operation of Apples phenomenally successful stores.
"Those ‘geniuses’ in the bright, sleek Apple store are underpaid, overhyped and characters in a well-managed fiction story"
"The Apple store was explicitly designed as a brand embassy rather than a dedicated source of technical knowledge. As Ron Johnson, the former Target executive who came up with the concept, told the Harvard Business Review, “People come to the Apple store for the experience – and they’re willing to pay a premium for that Apple is in the relationship business as much as the computer business.”
"“The limitations of hierarchy have forced a search for other mechanisms of social control,” the authors said. The mechanisms they proposed consisted, at root, of treating employees as nominal stakeholders in business success, but within narrow limits that would increase rather than challenge shareholder profitability."
"Products are clapped, customers waiting overnight to buy them are clapped, their purchases are clapped, claps are clapped. Clap, clap, clap. “My hands would sting from all the clapping,” said one manager. Claps, cheers, performances of rapturous engagement provided, by design, a ready-mixed social glue to bind teams together, reaffirming both the character of the brand and employees’ cultish devotion to it."
