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Journal Journal: " There is more to life than DNA alone. " 43

Journal by smittyoneeach
It's not clear who ever claimed that DNA alone is the sum of life.

I contended that life is initialized when the DNA is complete, i.e. conception.

In software terms, this somewhat similar to a constructor function for a class.

There is absolutely no subsequent, post-DNA-complete moment when one can be said to transition from "not-life" to "life".

THAT is my argument.

Submission + - Better Benchmarks for AI (science.org)

Submitted by silverjacket
silverjacket writes: AI benchmarks have lots of problems. Models might achieve superhuman scores, then fail in the real world. Or benchmarks might miss biases or blindspots. A feature in Science magazine reports that researchers are proposing not only better benchmarks, but better methods for constructing them.

Submission + - Botnet That Hid For 18 Months (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: It’s not the kind of security discovery that happens often. A previously unknown hacker group used a novel backdoor, top-notch tradecraft, and software engineering to create an espionage botnet that was largely invisible in many victim networks. The group, which security firm Mandiant is calling UNC3524, has spent the past 18 months burrowing into victims’ networks with unusual stealth. In cases where the group is ejected, it wastes no time reinfecting the victim environment and picking up where things left off. There are many keys to its stealth, including:

— The use of a unique backdoor Mandiant calls Quietexit, which runs on load balancers, wireless access point controllers, and other types of IoT devices that don’t support antivirus or endpoint detection. This makes detection through traditional means difficult.
— Customized versions of the backdoor that use file names and creation dates that are similar to legitimate files used on a specific infected device.
— A live-off-the-land approach that favors common Windows programming interfaces and tools over custom code with the goal of leaving as light a footprint as possible.
— An unusual way a second-stage backdoor connects to attacker-controlled infrastructure by, in essence, acting as a TLS-encrypted server that proxies data through the SOCKS protocol.

The SOCKS tunnel allowed the hackers to effectively connect their control servers to a victim’s network where they could then execute tools without leaving traces on any of the victims' computers. A secondary backdoor provided an alternate means of access to infected networks. It was based on a version of the legitimate reGeorg webshell that had been heavily obfuscated to make detection harder. The threat actor used it in the event the primary backdoor stopped working. [...] One of the ways the hackers maintain a low profile is by favoring standard Windows protocols over malware to move laterally. To move to systems of interest, UNC3524 used a customized version of WMIEXEC, a tool that uses Windows Management Instrumentation to establish a shell on the remote system. Eventually, Quietexit executes its final objective: accessing email accounts of executives and IT personnel in hopes of obtaining documents related to things like corporate development, mergers and acquisitions, and large financial transactions.

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