Airgap attack from 6 metres by reading your CPU electromagnetic signals

All CPUs emit electromagnetic signals when they are performing tasks, and the first thing these researchers discovered was that binary ones and zeroes emit different levels. The second thing they discovered is that electromagnetic radiation is also emitted by the voltage fluctuations and that it can be read from up to six meters away. These signals, by the way, are known as side-channels, and they are well-documented in the cryptography field.

via An Airgap Won't Secure Your Computer Anymore | Hacked.

People Can Be Convinced They Committed a Crime That Never Happened

Evidence from some wrongful-conviction cases suggests that suspects can be questioned in ways that lead them to falsely believe in and confess to committing crimes they didn’t actually commit. New research provides lab-based evidence for this phenomenon, showing that innocent adult participants can be convinced, over the course of a few hours, that they had perpetrated crimes as serious as assault with a weapon in their teenage years.

[…]

All participants need to generate a richly detailed false memory is 3 hours in a friendly interview environment, where the interviewer introduces a few wrong details and uses poor memory-retrieval techniques.”

via People Can Be Convinced They Committed a Crime That Never Happened – Association for Psychological Science.

Toyota understands that patents stifle innovation, allows the use of Hydrogen Fuel Cell patents royalty free to foster innovation

Toyota is opening the door to the hydrogen future, making available thousands of hydrogen fuel cell patents royalty free. Announced today at the 2015 Consumer Electronics Show, this Toyota initiative will spur development and introduction of innovative fuel cell technologies around the world.

Toyota will invite royalty-free use of approximately 5,680 fuel cell related patents held globally, including critical technologies developed for the new Toyota Mirai. The list includes approximately 1,970 patents related to fuel cell stacks, 290 associated with high-pressure hydrogen tanks, 3,350 related to fuel cell system software control and 70 patents related to hydrogen production and supply.

“At Toyota, we believe that when good ideas are shared, great things can happen,”

via Toyota Opens the Door and Invites the Industry to the Hydrogen Future | Corporate.

We get an extra second on june 30th 2015

To authorities responsible for the measurement and distribution of time UTC TIME STEP on the 1st of July 2015 A positive leap second will be introduced at the end of June 2015. The sequence of dates of the UTC second markers will be: 2015 June 30, 23h 59m 59s 2015 June 30, 23h 59m 60s 2015 July 1, 0h 0m 0s The difference between UTC and the International Atomic Time TAI is: from 2012 July 1, 0h UTC, to 2015 July 1 0h UTC : UTC-TAI = – 35s from 2015 July 1, 0h UTC, until further notice : UTC-TAI = – 36s

via .

Let’s see computers cope with that!

NL old spyboss uses Charlie Hebdo to invade your privacy

He wants to use it to couple databases such as the license plate data they gather everywhere in NL with the tax database, creating huge centralised databases. Because centralised databases are great! Especially when everyone can access them. Do people never learn? Centralised databases are a very very bad idea.

Privacy volgende slachtoffer van Charlie Hebdo-aanslag – Webwereld.

fitlet – tiny fanless pc, competes with Intel NUC

CompuLab is introducing fitlet – a miniature 0.22l fanless quad-core PC that is not only packing more features than any other PC in its class, but is also designed from the ground up for unprecedented openness: Memory, storage, networking, extension cards and operating system can all be easily installed and upgraded by the user.

The Linux version of fitlet was developed with the Linux Mint team and will be available under the “MintBox Mini” brand.

fitlet is powered by latest AMD low-power APU and is built into a sleek, passively-cooled ruggedized housing. Three fitlet models are offered in various configurations ranging from a plug-and-play Windows PC to a barebone system priced at $129. All models come with a 5 year warranty.

via fitlet press release.

Indian Science Congress doing well.

There were a lot of controversies generated at the Indian Science Congress earlier this month, including claims of ancient aircraft in India, the use of plastic surgery there, and ways to divine underground water sources using herbal paste on the feet. One argument that could be tested using some form of evidence was the assertion by Science Minister Harsh Vardhan that the Pythagorean theorem was discovered in India

via Fields Medal Winner Manjul Bhargava On the Pythagorean Theorem Controversy – Slashdot.

KeySweeper – a DIY usb wall charger that logs keystrokes from MS wireless keyboards

KeySweeper is a stealthy Arduino-based device, camouflaged as a functioning USB wall charger, that wirelessly and passively sniffs, decrypts, logs and reports back all keystrokes from any Microsoft wireless keyboards (which use a proprietary 2.4GHz RF protocol) in the area.

Keystrokes are sent back to the KeySweeper operator over the Internet via an optional GSM chip, or can be stored on a flash chip and delivered wirelessly when a secondary KeySweeper device comes within wireless range of the target KeySweeper. A web based tool allows live keystroke monitoring.

via KeySweeper.

Antibiotic Pulled From Dirt Ends 25-Year Drug Drought – Bloomberg

Scientists have discovered an antibiotic capable of fighting infections that kill hundreds of thousands of people each year, a breakthrough that could lead to the field’s first major new drug in more than a quarter-century.The experimental drug, which was isolated from a sample of New England dirt, is called teixobactin. It hasn’t yet been tested in people, though it cured all mice infected with antibiotic-resistant staphylococci bacteria that usually kills 90 percent of the animals, according to a study published today in the journal Nature. Bacteria appear to have a particularly difficult time developing resistance to the drug, potentially overcoming a major problem with existing antibiotics.

via Antibiotic Pulled From Dirt Ends 25-Year Drug Drought – Bloomberg.

new role for proteins: assembling amino acids without DNA and RNA

Results from a study published on Jan. 2 in Science defy textbook science, showing for the first time that the building blocks of a protein, called amino acids, can be assembled without blueprints – DNA and an intermediate template called messenger RNA (mRNA). A team of researchers has observed a case in which another protein specifies which amino acids are added.

via Defying textbook science, study finds new role for proteins.

Besides Lifestyle and Inherited Genes, Cancer Risk Also 66% Tied to Bad Luck

The researchers, from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, analyzed published scientific papers to identify the number of stem cells, and the rate of stem-cell division, among 31 tissue types, though not for breast and prostate tissue, which they excluded from the analysis. Then they compared the total number of lifetime stem-cell divisions in each tissue against a person’s lifetime risk of developing cancer in that tissue in the U.S.

The correlation between these parameters suggests that two-thirds of the difference in cancer risk among various tissue types can be blamed on random, or “stochastic,” mutations in DNA occurring during stem-cell division, and only one-third on hereditary or environmental factors like smoking, the researchers conclude. “Thus, the stochastic effects of DNA replication appear to be the major contributor to cancer in humans,” they wrote.

via Besides Lifestyle and Inherited Genes, Cancer Risk Also Tied to Bad Luck – WSJ.