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Submission + - Physicists create first room-temperature quantum material (phys.org)

Submitted by alternative_right
alternative_right writes: In a study published in Nature, LSU physicists have developed the first room-temperature quantum material capable of distinguishing and transporting different quantum states of light, overcoming one of the biggest challenges in quantum materials research. Led by Associate Professor of Physics Omar S. Magaña-Loaiza, the work establishes a general design principle for engineering an entirely new class of quantum materials, opening new possibilities for quantum computing, secure communications, sensing technologies and advanced energy systems.

Submission + - How Microsoft's "Little Workaround" Created a Major Pentagon Threat (propublica.org)

Submitted by joshuark
joshuark writes: ProPublica Reporter Renee Dudley heard Microsoft was running tech support for the U.S. Defense Department through China, the country’s biggest cybersecurity adversary.

The arrangement was called “digital escorting.” She thought it sounded like a conspiracy theory — until she started looking into it. This is the story of what she found and how her investigation changed government policy.

Microsoft is using engineers in China to help maintain the Defense Department’s computer systems — with minimal supervision by U.S. personnel — leaving some of the nation’s most sensitive data vulnerable to hacking from its leading cyber adversary, a ProPublica investigation has found.

The arrangement, which was critical to Microsoft winning the federal government’s cloud computing business a decade ago, relies on U.S. citizens with security clearances to oversee the work and serve as a barrier against espionage and sabotage.

National security and cybersecurity experts in the Trump administration contacted by ProPublica were also surprised to learn that such an arrangement was in place, especially at a time when the U.S. intelligence community and leading members of Congress and the Trump administration view China’s digital prowess as a top threat to the country.

Microsoft uses the escort system to handle the government’s most sensitive information that falls below “classified.” According to the government, this “high impact level” category includes “data that involves the protection of life and financial ruin.” The “loss of confidentiality, integrity, or availability” of this information “could be expected to have a severe or catastrophic adverse effect” on operations, assets and individuals, the government has said. In the Defense Department, the data is categorized as “Impact Level” 4 and 5 and includes materials that directly support military operations.

“If someone ran a script called ‘fix_servers.sh’ but it actually did something malicious then [escorts] would have no idea,” a former Microsoft engineer who worked on the escort system, told ProPublica in an email. That said, he maintained that the “scope of systems they could disrupt” is limited.

In an emailed statement, the Defense Information Systems Agency said that cloud service providers “are required to establish and maintain controls for vetting and using qualified specialists,” but the agency did not respond to ProPublica’s questions regarding the digital escorts’ qualifications.

It’s unclear whether other cloud providers to the federal government use digital escorts as part of their tech support. Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud declined to comment on the record for this article. Oracle did not respond to requests for comment.

A spokesperson for the inspector general — whose office is supposed to operate independently in order to investigate potential waste, fraud and abuse — told ProPublica they were not authorized to speak about the issue and directed questions to DISA public affairs.

Submission + - The Mind-Bending Company That Gets a Million Job Applications—and Rejects (archive.ph) 2

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: Getting an offer from Bending Spoons, which owns AOL, has become harder than getting into Harvard

It’s a mind-bending number. The most cutthroat banks and consulting firms brag about hiring rates of 1%. Citadel and Citadel Securities took 0.36% of the quants who applied for internships this summer. NASA lets in 0.1% of those who want to be astronauts. But 0.04%? It means that getting a job at Bending Spoons is 100 times harder than getting into Harvard.

The company is run by executives in their 30s and early 40s. The employees are mostly in their 20s and 30s and have never worked anywhere else. Many are younger than the brands they take over.
“Being able to spot people who are unusually talented and motivated very early in their careers, then giving them unusually high levels of responsibility and coaching, has been an absolutely key advantage for us,” said Ferrari, who is 41.

It’s a key part of the business model, too. When Bending Spoons buys a company, it begins each radical transformation by slashing most of the acquired employees—and replacing them with the much leaner team of Spooners.

There are now about 700 people who made it through the notorious hiring process and now work in technical, product and growth roles across the organization. They move from one Bending Spoons acquisition to the next, making what Ferrari calls “very deep changes”—rewriting the code, rebuilding the infrastructure, redesigning the user interface. And they are “held to particularly demanding performance standards,” the company promises.

In fact, an entire team of Spooners does nothing but evaluate other Spooners and potential Spooners.

Submission + - China Recovers Orbital Rocket with Net Capturing System (spacenews.com)

Submitted by hackingbear
hackingbear writes: The first Long March 10B rocket lifted off at 12:15 a.m. Eastern (0415 UTC) July 10 from Hainan Commercial Space Launch Site on the southern island province of Hainan. The China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC) confirmed the successful recovery of the rocket’s first stage 11 minutes later, using a sea platform equipped with a net capture system, a world first. Videos emerging in the minutes following showed a controlled, powered descent with black smoke billowing from the top of the first stage, followed by capture by the Linghang Zhe (“navigator”) sea recovery vessel, with hooks deployed from the booster caught by a tensioned net. The recovery occurred six minutes after separation of the first and second stages. The full success of the flight with insertion of an unnamed satellite into orbit was confirmed by CASC more than 90 minutes after liftoff, representing a huge boost to both China’s desire to develop reusable rocket capabilities, and for its crewed lunar program. The five-meter-diameter, two-stage Long March 10B is 63 meters long, with a mass of 760,000 kilograms at liftoff and has a low Earth orbit payload capacity of 16,000 kg in reusable mode. The full, tri-core Long March 10 will be used to launch astronauts and a landing stack to the moon, with China committed to landing a pair of astronauts on the lunar surface before 2030.

Submission + - A China-linked hacking group is quietly living inside Microsoft IIS servers (nerds.xyz)

Submitted by BrianFagioli
BrianFagioli writes: ReliaQuest says it uncovered a previously unknown China-linked hacking cluster called OP-512 that has reportedly been targeting outdated Microsoft IIS servers running unsupported .NET Framework software. According to the security company, the attackers used custom web shells, encrypted command channels, timestomping, and DNS-based âoephone homeâ techniques designed to evade traditional antivirus detection and maintain long-term access for espionage operations.

The company claims its âoeAgentic AIâ platform pieced together what initially looked like unrelated low-level security events into a single coordinated intrusion. ReliaQuest says the malware framework generates cryptographically unique deployments that make signature-based detection ineffective. The report also warns that organizations still exposing legacy IIS infrastructure to the internet remain attractive targets for increasingly sophisticated state-linked attackers.

Comment Re:The Ukrainians aren't winning. (Score 1) 321

3) a man with no arms and one leg will be a reminder for decades.

Haven''t you learned anything from Russian history? Don't you really know how Stalin dealt with many of the cripples from WW II? Putin will most likely do the same, so public life will not be tainted by the presence of war invalids.

Submission + - Thanks to robots, Ukraine is now talking about winning, not just surviving (defenseone.com)

Submitted by fjo3
fjo3 writes: A small but growing number of European officials and analysts are saying what four years ago was unthinkable: Ukraine isn’t just surviving its grueling war with Russia, it is in some ways thriving and may even be on a path to victory.

This isn’t yet captured in headlines—for example, about last weekend’s barrage of Russian drones and missiles around Ukraine—but in the details, like how some 90 percent were intercepted.

Several long-term trends have shifted in Ukraine’s favor, and the core reason is its fierce focus on AI and robotics.

Submission + - Microsoft Deliberately Bricking All Office for Mac 2019/2021 Installations (osnews.com) 2

Submitted by joshuark
joshuark writes: MacOS users who opted to buy a copy of Microsoft Office for macOS back in 2019 or 2021, eschewing the Office 365 subscription, so you could keep on using Office 2019/2021 forever if you wanted to. Just like in the old days.

Consumer Rights Wiki reports:

"Microsoft Office 2019 and 2021 for Mac view-only conversion (2026) is a scheduled remote degradation of perpetually-licensed Microsoft Office software for macOS and iOS, set for July 13, 2026 when a license-validation certificate used by the Office apps expires.[1] After Office 2019 for Mac reached end of support in October 2023, Microsoft assured customers their installed apps would "continue to function."[2] The July 13, 2026 conversion instead drops the apps into a Microsoft-defined "reduced functionality mode," in which files can be opened and viewed but not edited or saved.[1][3] By May 30, 2026, the original 2023 end-of-support page had been re-dated and rewritten on Microsoft's site; the "continue to function" clause was removed.[4][2]" https://consumerrights.wiki/w/...

Microsoft’s advice to the users they’re stealing from is to keep using the applications as mere viewers, switch to the free Office 365 web applications, pay for a 365 subscription, or buy a brand new regular copy of Office 2024. None of these make any sense, and clearly, all of this should be illegal, but it’s not because the software industry is a clown show.

Comment Re:"Just eat less, keep input output" know-it-alls (Score 1) 116

by Aviation Pete (#66169092) Attached to: Ozempic May Be Reshaping the Brain, Scientists Say

Your constant hunger is as much a result of habits or boredom as of an empty stomach.

When I did my masters, I was forced to use the crappy MS Fortran compiler of the day, and resolved I will not go to lunch before the code compiles. Turns out that I reached this state only at 3 or 4 in the afternoon when the canteen had long closed. Did that for a week and felt no hunger around lunchtime anymore.

So your habit of stuffing something in your mouth every two hours makes sure you will feel hungry after the next two hours. Yes, it does cost some discipline to break that habit, but you will be surprised how quickly you will adapt and will be able to work for a longer stretch. Same with boredom - your visit at the fridge is as much a result of desiring variety as of being hungry. Kick that habit, do something that keeps your mind occupied, and you will go without feeling the need to eat something for much longer stretches.

It is a matter of eating less, after all.

Submission + - I found a second vote.gov -- and it's registered to the White House

Submitted by As_I_Please
As_I_Please writes: The Drey Dossier reports that the National Design Studio, an office created by executive order and which reports only to the White House, has been building copies of federal agency websites like vote.gov, passports.gov, login.gov and others.

What [the National Design Studio] is doing is taking the parts of the federal government that touch you directly, your prescription, your voter registration, your passport, your federal login, out of the agencies that legally own them and rebuilding them on White House infrastructure. Vote.gov belongs to the Election Assistance Commission, and the studio built a copy. Passports belong to the State Department, and the studio is building a replacement this week. Login.gov belonged to GSA, and the studio’s guy runs it now.

Trump has said publicly that this infrastructure is for other presidents, and he is right about that. It is the one thing in this story I take him at his word on. The infrastructure outlasts him. Whoever wins in 2028 inherits the websites, the vendors, the data, and the hardware, sealed and waiting.

NDS Infrastructure Map — my live working github map of every National Design Studio subdomain I have found, filterable by status, registrant, and parent domain. If you want to retrace this investigation or watch new subdomains appear in real time, start here.

Submission + - China Is Testing Its State Surveillance Model Abroad (nytimes.com)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: When a remote Pacific village asked for help with rowdy youth, the Chinese police arrived with a surveillance system. Then came the backlash.

Their solution was to introduce an obscure Mao-era community surveillance system: the Fengqiao Experience.

Named after Fengqiao, a town in eastern China, the system encouraged neighbors to spy and snitch on one another to root out political enemies. The system has been revived under Mr. Xi as part of a push to snuff out any challenges to the Chinese Communist Party.

In China, the system calls for the police to monitor individual households in sprawling apartment complexes, in one example assigning each unit a color code that denoted whether occupants presented a security risk. The police have also visited the homes of minority groups like Tibetans and Uyghurs to promote party policies. Government workers have visited churches to give “anti-cult” lectures. And companies are required to register their employees in police databases.

The idea of introducing such a heavy-handed style of state surveillance in the Solomon Islands alarmed local politicians and observers in nearby countries like Australia, who worried it could give the government the tools to stifle freedoms.

The Fengqiao pilot was suspended after an outcry. And the election this month of Matthew Wale, a prime minister who has historically been skeptical of Beijing, raises questions about China’s foothold in the country, and whether its ideas travel as easily as the party hopes.

Comment Re:What was the argument against Airbus? (Score 1) 43

Airbus has a flight laws system. That flight laws system which would have told the pilot they were in a stall failed because of ice accumulation during a thunderstorm.

The pilot didn't know they were in the stall because the otherwise highly redundant system which should have warned him didn't work.

WRONG. The system was off, precisely because the sensor had faulty readings. Any pilot with a bit of Airbus training should have been able to read the state the autopilot was in (Direct Law), because there is an illuminated indicator for this. In an Airbus A340, a reversion from Normal Law to Direct Law is explicitly indicated to the crew on the FMA (Flight Mode Annunciator) at the top of each Primary Flight Display. In Direct Law, most protections are off and the stick commands are directly used for control deflections precisely because the basis for the proper functioning of the protections is not present anymore. This is to protect the pilot from computer errors. Of course, this assumes a halfway competent pilot at the controls and not a complete idiot.

To use a car analogy: You are basically arguing that the car shouldn't have skidded with the brake pedal fully depressed, because the antilock system should have worked. But in that case, the equivalent to the antilock system had switched itself off because the inputs for its proper operation were not available.

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