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Comment Re:Pretty crazy this is going to Tencent... (Score 4, Insightful) 26

by william.mcsweeney (#61133012) Attached to: How a Malicious Actor Targeted a Go Package On GitHub
Or not... Being a big tech company they no surprise offer wide variety services (https://intl.cloud.tencent.com/) that anyone can pay to use. If someone hosts something malicious on AWS does that mean Amazon and the US government are complicit participants? Not everything is a conspiracy.

Submission + - The Air Force Is Having To Reverse Engineer Parts Of Its Own Stealth Bomber (thedrive.com) 2

Submitted by AmiMoJo
AmiMoJo writes: In a surprising turn of events, the United States government is calling upon its country’s industry to reverse engineer components for the Air Force’s B-2 Spirit stealth bomber. An official call for this highly unusual kind of assistance was put out today on the U.S. government’s contracting website beta.SAM.gov. Mark Thompson, a national-security analyst at the Project On Government Oversight, brought our attention to the notice, which seeks an engineering effort that will reverse engineer key parts for the B2’s Load Heat Exchangers. While it is not exactly clear what part of the aircraft’s many complex and exotic subsystems these heat exchangers relate to, the bomber has no shortage of avionics systems, for example, which could require cooling.

While it’s hard to say exactly why this approach is being taken now, it indicates that the original plans for these components are unavailable or the manufacturing processes and tooling used to produce them no longer exists. This could be the result of them having been so secretive that, at some point, they were inadvertently destroyed altogether. They could also have been simply misplaced, or the parts may have been produced by a smaller contractor that has long since disappeared, taking the bespoke tooling with it.

Submission + - SPAM: US Issues Warning After Microsoft Says China Hacked Its Mail Server Program

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The U.S. has issued an emergency warning after Microsoft said it caught China hacking into its mail and calendar server program, called Exchange. The perpetrator, Microsoft said in a blog post, is a hacker group that the company has “high confidence” is working for the Chinese government and primarily spies on American targets. The latest software update for Exchange blocks the hackers, prompting the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency to issue a rare emergency directive that requires all government networks do so.

CISA, the U.S.’s primary defensive cybersecurity agency, rarely exercises its authority to demand the entire U.S. government take protective steps to protect its cybersecurity. The move was necessary, the agency announced, because the Exchange hackers are able “to gain persistent system access.” All government agencies have until noon Friday to download the latest software update. In a separate blog post, Microsoft Vice President Tom Burt wrote that the hackers have recently spied on a wide range of American targets, including disease researchers, law firms and defense contractors. There was no immediate indication that the hack led to significant exploitation of U.S. government computer networks. But the announcement marks the second instance in recent months that the U.S. scrambled to address a widespread hacking campaign believed be the work of foreign government spies.
Link to Original Source

Submission + - China's 'Sharp Eyes' Program Aims to Surveil 100% of Public Space (medium.com)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: One of China’s largest and most pervasive surveillance networks got its start in a small county about seven hours north of Shanghai.

In 2013, the local government in Pingyi County began installing tens of thousands of security cameras across urban and rural areas — more than 28,500 in total by 2016. Even the smallest villages had at least six security cameras installed, according to state media.

Those cameras weren’t just monitored by police and automated facial recognition algorithms. Through special TV boxes installed in their homes, local residents could watch live security footage and press a button to summon police if they saw anything amiss. The security footage could also be viewed on smartphones.

In 2015 the Chinese government announced that a similar program would be rolled out across China, with a particular focus on remote and rural towns. It was called the “Xueliang Project,” or Sharp Eyes, a reference to a quote from communist China’s former revolutionary leader Mao Zedong who once wrote that “the people have sharp eyes” when looking out for neighbors not living up to communist values.

China’s next five-year plan, which covers 2021 to 2025, places specific emphasis on giving social governance to local municipalities via the grid system, as well as building out even more security projects, to “strengthen construction of the prevention and control system for public security.”

This means the future of China’s surveillance apparatus likely looks a lot like Sharp Eyes: More power and social control given to local governments, so neighbors watch neighbors.

Submission + - SPAM: CVS, Walgreens Look for Big Data Reward From Covid-19 Vaccinations

Submitted by Thelasko
Thelasko writes: Administering Covid-19 vaccines comes with a valuable perk for retail pharmacies: access to troves of consumer data.

Chains such as CVS Health Corp., Walmart Inc. and Walgreens-Boots Alliance, Inc. are collecting data from millions of customers as they sign up for shots, enrolling them in patient systems and having recipients register customer profiles.

The retailers say they are using the information to promote their stores and services, tailor marketing and keep in touch with consumers. The companies also say the information is critical in streamlining vaccinations and improving record-keeping, while ensuring only qualified people are receiving shots.
Link to Original Source

Submission + - SPAM: How CRISPR can create more ethical eggs

Submitted by wooloohoo
wooloohoo writes: There are two types of chickens: the broilers that we eat and the layers that produce the eggs. The layers don’t have enough meat to make them useful for human consumption and since only hens can lay eggs, that leaves the male layers useless. As a result, billions of newly hatched male layer chicks are killed each year.

Now the Israeli ag-tech startup eggXYt has found a way to humanely address this dilemma through the use of CRISPR — the gene editing technique that allows scientists to make targeted, specific genetic tweaks.

[...] by using CRISPR, eggXYt’s scientists can edit the genes of chickens to make them lay sex-detectable eggs.
Link to Original Source

Comment Re:Unfortunatly it is the only way to go. (Score 1) 118

by william.mcsweeney (#17723648) Attached to: MySpace Sues Spam King
The only reason spam exists is because it works. If people would stop buying what the spam is selling they would no longer make a profit. Filing lawsuits against them may take some of their profits, but as long as there is a constant income from people responding to the spam they need not worry. The best method of making it stop would most likely be educating people not to buy from it.

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