Monthly Archives: October 2012

Apple’s iPhone Tracking you again In iOS 6

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IFA or IDFA stands for “identifier for advertisers.” It’s a random, anonymous number that is assigned to a user and their device. It is temporary and can be blocked, like a cookie.

When you look at an app, or browse the web, your presence generates a call for an ad. The publisher’s site that you’re looking at then passes the IFA to the ad server. The advertiser is then able to know that a specific iPhone user is looking at a specific publication and can serve an ad targeting that user. IFA becomes particularly useful, for instance, if an ad server notices that a particular IFA is looking at a lot of different car sites. Perhaps that user is interested in buying a new car. They’ll likely start seeing a lot of car ads on their iPhone.

More importantly, IFA will allow advertisers to track the user all the way to “conversion” — which for most advertisers consists of an app download. Previously, advertisers had no idea whether their ads actually drove people to download apps or buy things. Now IFA will tell them.

The IFA does not identify you personally — it merely provides a bunch of aggregate audience data that advertisers can target with ads.

IFA: Apple's iPhone Tracking In iOS 6 – Business Insider.

Fortunately you can turn it off this time.

Beyond light speed – possible in theory using special relativity

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University of Adelaide applied mathematicians have extended Einstein’s theory of special relativity to work beyond the speed of light.

Einstein’s theory holds that nothing could move faster than the speed of light, but Professor Jim Hill and Dr Barry Cox in the University’s School of Mathematical Sciences have developed new formulas that allow for travel beyond this limit.

The research has been published in the prestigious Proceedings of the Royal Society A in a paper, ‘Einstein’s special relativity beyond the speed of light’. Their formulas extend special relativity to a situation where the relative velocity can be infinite, and can be used to describe motion at speeds faster than light.

“We are mathematicians, not physicists, so we’ve approached this problem from a theoretical mathematical perspective,” said Dr Cox. “Should it, however, be proven that motion faster than light is possible, then that would be game changing.

via Extending Einstein's theory beyond light speed | Science Codex.

DNA has a 521-year half-life – so no cloning dinosaurs

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By comparing the specimens’ ages and degrees of DNA degradation, the researchers calculated that DNA has a half-life of 521 years. That means that after 521 years, half of the bonds between nucleotides in the backbone of a sample would have broken; after another 521 years half of the remaining bonds would have gone; and so on.

The team predicts that even in a bone at an ideal preservation temperature of −5 ºC, effectively every bond would be destroyed after a maximum of 6.8 million years. The DNA would cease to be readable much earlier — perhaps after roughly 1.5 million years, when the remaining strands would be too short to give meaningful information.

DNA has a 521-year half-life : Nature News & Comment.

Alchemy! Superman-strength bacteria produce 24-karat gold

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the metal-tolerant bacteria Cupriavidus metallidurans can grow on massive concentrations of gold chloride — or liquid gold, a toxic chemical compound found in nature.

Brown and Kashefi fed the bacteria unprecedented amounts of gold chloride, mimicking the process they believe happens in nature. In about a week, the bacteria transformed the toxins and produced a gold nugget.

via Superman-strength bacteria produce 24-karat gold.

Authentication Implications in Uniquely Identifiable Graphics Cards | threatpost

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The researchers realized that apparently identical graphics processors are actually different in subtle, unforgeable ways. A piece of software developed by the researchers is capable of discerning these fine differences. The order of magnitude of these differences is so minute, in fact, that manufacturing equipment is incapable of manipulating or replicating them. Thus, the fine-grained manufacturing differences can act as a sort of a key to reliably distinguish each of the processors from one another.

The implication of this discovery is that such differences can be used as PUFs to securely link the graphics cards, and by extension, the computers in which they reside and the persons using them, to specific online accounts.

Authentication Implications in Uniquely Identifiable Graphics Cards | threatpost.

To Encourage Biking, Lose the Helmets

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Yes, wearing a helmet will protect you some if you fall at certain speeds, but those accidents are very rare. If you feel that strongly about it, you should wear one when climbing a ladder and whilst taking a bath.

But because people wear helmets on bikes, it makes it look like biking is a high risk activity, which discourages them from biking.

To Encourage Biking, Lose the Helmets – Slashdot.