Daily Archives: July 24, 2020

test detects cancer four years before conventional diagnosis using a blood test

Posted on by

Early detection has the potential to reduce cancer mortality, but an effective screening test must demonstrate asymptomatic cancer detection years before conventional diagnosis in a longitudinal study. In the Taizhou Longitudinal Study (TZL), 123,115 healthy subjects provided plasma samples for long-term storage and were then monitored for cancer occurrence. Here we report the preliminary results of PanSeer, a noninvasive blood test based on circulating tumor DNA methylation, on TZL plasma samples from 605 asymptomatic individuals, 191 of whom were later diagnosed with stomach, esophageal, colorectal, lung or liver cancer within four years of blood draw. We also assay plasma samples from an additional 223 cancer patients, plus 200 primary tumor and normal tissues. We show that PanSeer detects five common types of cancer in 88% (95% CI: 80–93%) of post-diagnosis patients with a specificity of 96% (95% CI: 93–98%), We also demonstrate that PanSeer detects cancer in 95% (95% CI: 89–98%) of asymptomatic individuals who were later diagnosed, though future longitudinal studies are required to confirm this result. These results demonstrate that cancer can be non-invasively detected up to four years before current standard of care.

Source: Non-invasive early detection of cancer four years before conventional diagnosis using a blood test | Nature Communications

China successfully launches Mars probe that packs an orbiter, lander, rover

Posted on by

China has successfully launched a Mars probe.

The middle kingdom’s previous red planet effort, 2011’s Yinghuo-1, rode on a Russian rocket that failed to leave Earth orbit and therefore did not fulfill its orbital observation mission.

For this new mission, dubbed Tianwen-1, China has used its own Long March 5 heavy lifter and packed in an orbiter, lander and rover.

Chinese State media has confirmed the launch and a People’s Daily social media post includes video of a rocket heading upwards and says it’s Mars-bound.

China’s being typically cagey about the mission, which is believed to plan a landing with a combination of parachutes and airbags before the rover deploys a range of instruments capable of investigating Martian magnetic fields, geology and chemistry. The orbiter packs a camera capable of two-metre resolution from a height of 400kms, plus more magnetosphere-sensing kit.

If the mission succeeds, China will join the USA, Soviet Union, European Union and India as successful sponsors of Mars missions. Only the USA, Soviet Union and EU have landed rovers on the red planet.

Source: China successfully launches Mars probe that packs an orbiter, lander, rover • The Register

Twitter hack latest: Up to 36 compromised accounts had their private messages read – including a Dutch politician’s

Posted on by

Twitter has admitted that the naughty folk who hijacked verified accounts last week read a portion of hacked users’ direct messages.

Among the 36 Twitter users whose direct messages (DMs), email addresses and phone numbers were definitely accessed by account hijackers last week was one Dutch politician, the microblogging platform said overnight.

“We believe that for up to 36 of the 130 targeted accounts, the attackers accessed the DM inbox, including 1 elected official in the Netherlands. To date, we have no indication that any other former or current elected official had their DMs accessed,” Twitter said in an updated post.

The hack happened after an individual or persons unknown gained access to Twitter’s administrative tools, allegedly after bribing a company insider.

As we reported last week, a number of Twitter accounts belonging to high-profile individuals were compromised. Those accounts all have blue ticks, indicating that they really do belong to whomever’s name and mugshot they bear.

Source: Twitter hack latest: Up to 36 compromised accounts had their private messages read – including a Dutch politician’s • The Register

Fitness freaks flummoxed as massive global Garmin outage leaves them high and dry for hours

Posted on by

Garmin’s Connect service has been down for more than seven hours today to the frustration of fitness enthusiasts keen to upload running times or synchronise with other services such as Strava. So, too, is the company’s web shop and support forums.

Users have expressed obvious concern that such an extended outage is indicative of a problem beyond maintenance, worrying perhaps about their personal data stored there, and for sure the company’s communication has been poor.

Garmin Connect lets owners of Garmin devices such as fitness trackers and smart watches upload their activity, enabling analysis of activity, achievements, and optionally sharing with friends. It can be linked with other services like Strava so data uploaded to Garmin Connect also appears there.

[…]

Initially the Garmin social media accounts were for the most part silent on the matter. “@GarminFitness @Garmin @GarminUK Garmin Connect has now been down for over 6 hours. Your forums are returning a runtime error and are down. Not one of these three accounts has even mentioned this,” said one customer.

[…]

A customer was quick to comment that “the fact that this makes my watch not talk to my phone makes me upset”. The phone is working, the watch is working, both are nearby, but data has to go to the internet and back for the two to communicate. It is an IoT issue, which nobody notices while connectivity is good.

“What’s going on @Garmin. Something don’t feel right. You can’t get us to buy watches and make it part of our daily lives and one day just to AWOL,” complained another.

Strava has pointed users at a support note explaining how to upload a file in .FIT format directly, though this is a tedious process compared to wireless synchronisation.

We have asked Garmin for more information. ®

Updated to add

It is suspected that Garmin has been hit by the WastedLocker ransomware, ZDNet reports citing the manufacturer’s staff on Twitter and an article from Taiwan that Garmin’s production line will be shut for two days due to a computer virus.

Source: Fitness freaks flummoxed as massive global Garmin outage leaves them high and dry for hours • The Register

And this is why we like stuff that isn’t in the cloud

US accuses Chinese-Made Drones with Security Weakness: the possiblity to update their software

Posted on by

In two reports, the researchers contended that an app on Google’s Android operating system that powers drones made by China-based Da Jiang Innovations, or DJI, collects large amounts of personal information that could be exploited by the Beijing government. Hundreds of thousands of customers across the world use the app to pilot their rotor-powered, camera-mounted aircraft.

The world’s largest maker of commercial drones, DJI has found itself increasingly in the cross hairs of the United States government, as have other successful Chinese companies. The Pentagon has banned the use of its drones, and in January the Interior Department decided to continue grounding its fleet of the company’s drones over security fears. DJI said the decision was about politics, not software vulnerabilities.

[…]

The security research firms that documented it, Synacktiv, based in France, and GRIMM, located outside Washington, found that the app not only collected information from phones but that DJI can also update it without Google reviewing the changes before they are passed on to consumers. That could violate Google’s Android developer terms of service.

The changes are also difficult for users to review, the researchers said, and even when the app appears to be closed, it awaits instructions from afar, they found.

“The phone has access to everything the drone is doing, but the information we are talking about is phone information,” said Tiphaine Romand-Latapie, a Synacktiv engineer. “We don’t see why DJI would need that data.”

[…]

Synacktiv did not identify any malicious uploads but simply raised the prospect that the drone app could be used that way.

A New York Times analysis of the software confirmed the functionality. An attempt to update the app directly from DJI’s servers delivered a message indicating that the phone The Times used “did not meet the qualifications for an update package.”

Source: Popular Chinese-Made Drone Is Found to Have Security Weakness – The New York Times

Note: nowhere do they say what data is supposedly being stolen, in fact they admit there has been no data stolen as far as they have seen. This is stirring the pot: you want your stuff to get updates in life. That’s called security.

Facebook settles unauthorised use of facial recognition for $650 million

Posted on by

Facebook has agreed to pay a total of $650 million in a landmark class action lawsuit over the company’s unauthorized use of facial recognition, a new court filing shows.

The filing represents a revised settlement that increases the total payout by $100 million and comes after a federal judge balked at the original proposal on the grounds it did not adequately punish Facebook.

The settlement covers any Facebook user in Illinois whose picture appeared on the site after 2011. According to the new document, those users can each expect to receive between $200 and $400 depending on how many people file a claim.

The case represents one of the biggest payouts for privacy violations to date, and contrasts sharply with other settlements such as that for the notorious data breach at Equifax—for which victims are expected to received almost nothing.

The Facebook lawsuit came about as a result of a unique state law in Illinois, which obliges companies to get permission before using facial recognition technology on their customers.

The law has ensnared not just Facebook, but also the likes of Google and photo service Shutterfly. The companies had insisted in court that the law did not apply to their activities, and lobbied the Illinois legislature to rule they were exempt, but these efforts fell short.

The final Facebook settlement is likely to be approved later this year, meaning Illinois residents will be poised to collect a payout in 2021.

The judge overseeing the settlement rejected the initial proposal in June on the grounds that the Illinois law provides penalties of $5,000, meaning Facebook could have been obliged to pay $47 billion—an amount far exceeding what the company agreed to pay under the settlement.

“We are focused on settling as it is in the best interest of our community and our shareholders to move past this matter,” said a Facebook spokesperson.

Edelson PC, the law firm representing the plaintiffs, declined to comment on the revised deal.

Source: Facebook adds $100 million to facial recognition settlement | Fortune

Amazon Met With Startups About Investing, Then Launched Competing Products

Posted on by

When Amazon.com’s venture-capital fund invested in DefinedCrowd, it gained access to the technology startup’s finances and other confidential information. Nearly four years later, in April, Amazon’s cloud-computing unit launched an artificial-intelligence product that does almost exactly what DefinedCrowd does, said DefinedCrowd founder and Chief Executive Daniela Braga. The new offering from Amazon Web Services, called A2I, competes directly “with one of our bread-and-butter foundational products” that collects and labels data, said Ms. Braga. After seeing the A2I announcement, Ms. Braga limited the Amazon fundâ(TM)s access to her company’s data and diluted its stake by 90% by raising more capital. Ms. Braga is one of more than two dozen entrepreneurs, investors and deal advisers interviewed by The Wall Street Journal who said Amazon appeared to use the investment and deal-making process to help develop competing products.

In some cases, Amazon’s decision to launch a competing product devastated the business in which it invested. In other cases, it met with startups about potential takeovers, sought to understand how their technology works, then declined to invest and later introduced similar Amazon-branded products, according to some of the entrepreneurs and investors. An Amazon spokesman said the company doesn’t use confidential information that companies share with it to build competing products. Dealing with Amazon is often a double-edged sword for entrepreneurs. Amazon’s size and presence in many industries, including cloud-computing, electronic devices and logistics, can make it beneficial to work with. But revealing too much information could expose companies to competitive risks.

Source: Amazon Met With Startups About Investing, Then Launched Competing Products – Slashdot

I have been talking about the vast market powers of the monopolists and exactly this case with Amazon since early 2019

Instacart Customers’ Data Is Being Sold Online, but Instacart has it’s fingers in it’s ears, pretends nothing is wrong

Posted on by

The personal information of what could be hundreds of thousands of Instacart customers is being sold on the dark web. This data includes names, the last four digits of credit card numbers, and order histories, and appears to have affected customers who used the grocery delivery service as recently as yesterday.

As of Wednesday, sellers in two dark web stores were offering information from what appeared to be 278,531 accounts, although some of those may be duplicates or not genuine. As of April, Instacart had “millions of customers across the US and Canada,” according to a company spokesperson.

The company denied there had been a breach of its data.

“We are not aware of any data breach at this time. We take data protection and privacy very seriously,” an Instacart spokesperson told BuzzFeed News. “Outside of the Instacart platform, attackers may target individuals using phishing or credential stuffing techniques. In instances where we believe a customer’s account may have been compromised through an external phishing scam outside of the Instacart platform or other action, we proactively communicate to our customers to auto-force them to update their password.”

The source of the information, which also included email addresses and shopping data, was unknown, but appeared to have been uploaded from at least June until today.

“It’s looking recent and totally legit,” Nick Espinosa, the head of cybersecurity firm Security Fanatics, told BuzzFeed News after reviewing the accounts being sold.

Two women whose personal information was for sale confirmed they were Instacart customers, that their last order date and amount matched what appeared on the dark web, and that the credit card information belonged to them.

Source: Instacart Customers’ Data Is Being Sold Online

Amazon’s auditing of Alexa Skills is so good, these boffins got all 200+ rule-breaking apps past the reviewers

Posted on by

Amazon claims it reviews the software created by third-party developers for its Alexa voice assistant platform, yet US academics were able to create more than 200 policy-violating Alexa Skills and get them certified.

In a paper [PDF] presented at the US Federal Trade Commission’s PrivacyCon 2020 event this week, Clemson University researchers Long Cheng, Christin Wilson, Song Liao, Jeffrey Alan Young, Daniel Dong, and Hongxin Hu describe the ineffectiveness of Amazon’s Skills approval process.

The researchers have also set up a website to present their findings.

Like Android and iOS apps, Alexa Skills have to be submitted for review before they’re available to be used with Amazon’s Alexa service. Also like Android and iOS, the Amazon’s review process sometimes misses rule-breaking code.

In the researchers’ test, sometimes was every time: The e-commerce giant’s review system granted approval for every one of 234 rule-flouting Skills submitted over a 12-month period.

“Surprisingly, the certification process is not implemented in a proper and effective manner, as opposed to what is claimed that ‘policy-violating skills will be rejected or suspended,'” the paper says. “Second, vulnerable skills exist in Amazon’s skills store, and thus users (children, in particular) are at risk when using [voice assistant] services.”

Amazon disputes some of the findings and suggests that the way the research was done skewed the results by removing rule-breaking Skills after certification, but before other systems like post-certification audits might have caught the offending voice assistant code.

The devil is in the details

Alexa hardware has been hijacked by security researchers for eavesdropping and the software on these devices poses similar security risks, but the research paper concerns itself specifically with content in Alexa Skills that violates Amazon’s rules.

Alexa content prohibitions include limitations on activities like collecting information from children, collecting health information, sexually explicit content, descriptions of graphic violence, self-harm instructions, references to Nazis or hate symbols, hate speech, the promotion drugs, terrorism, or other illegal activities, and so on.

Getting around these rules involved tactics like adding a counter to Skill code, so the app only starts spewing hate speech after several sessions. The paper cites a range of problems with the way Amazon reviews Skills, including inconsistencies where rejected content gets accepted after resubmission, vetting tools that can’t recognize cloned code submitted by multiple developer accounts, excessive trust in developers, and negligence in spotting data harvesting even when the violations are made obvious.

Amazon also does not require developers to re-certify their Skills if the backend code – run on developers’ servers – changes. It’s thus possible for Skills to turn malicious if the developer alters the backend code or an attacker compromises a well-intentioned developer’s server.

As part of the project, the researchers also examined 825 published Skills for kids that either had a privacy policy or a negative review. Among these, 52 had policy violations. Negative comments by users mention unexpected advertisements, inappropriate language, and efforts to collect personal information.

Source: Amazon’s auditing of Alexa Skills is so good, these boffins got all 200+ rule-breaking apps past the reviewers • The Register

The Record Industry Is Going After Parody Songs Written By an Algorithm

Posted on by

Georgia Tech researcher Mark Riedl didn’t expect that his machine learning model “Weird A.I. Yankovic,” which generates new rhyming lyrics for existing songs would cause any trouble. But it did.

On May 15, Reidl posted an AI-generated lyric video featuring the instrumental to Michael Jackson’s “Beat It.” It was taken down on July 14, Reidl tweeted, after Twitter received a Digital Millennium Copyright Act takedown notice for copyright infringement from the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, which represents major and independent record companies.

“I am fairly convinced that my videos fall under fair use,” Riedl told Motherboard of his AI creation, which is obviously inspired by Weird Al’s parodies. Riedl said his other AI-generated lyric videos posted to Twitter have not been taken down.

Riedl has contested the takedown with Twitter but has not received a response. Twitter also did not respond to Motherboard’s request for comment.

The incident raises the question of what role machine learning plays when it comes to the already nuanced and complicated rules of fair use, which allows for the use of a copyrighted work in certain circumstances, including educational uses and as part of a “transformative” work. Fair use also protects parody in some circumstances.

Riedl, whose research focuses on the study of artificial intelligence and storytelling for entertainment, says the model was created as a personal project and outside his role at Georgia Tech. “Weird A.I. Yankovic generates alternative lyrics that match the rhyme and syllables schemes of existing songs. These alternative lyrics can then be sung to the original tune,” Riedl said. “Rhymes are chosen, and two neural networks, GPT-2 and XLNET, are then used to generate each line, word by word.”

Source: The Record Industry Is Going After Parody Songs Written By an Algorithm

Oddly enough, game publishers seem to be able to contest DMCA on YouTube in 20 minutes when they are at a convention. It’s like it’s not being applied fairly at all…

KFC will test lab-grown chicken nuggets made with a 3D bioprinter this fall in Russia

Posted on by
  • KFC announced on July 16 it would test chicken nuggets made with 3D bioprinting technology in Russia this fall.
  • The chain partnered with 3D Bioprinting Solutions to create a chicken nugget that will mimic the taste and appearance of its original nuggets at a fraction of the environmental cost.
  • The release will be the first time a major chain will sell a lab-grown meat product and may serve as a proof-of-concept for the much-hyped cell-based meat industry.
  • Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.

KFC will test chicken nuggets made with 3D bioprinting technology in Moscow, Russia, this fall, the chain announced in a July 16 press release.

The chicken chain has partnered with 3D Bioprinting Solutions to create a chicken nugget made in a lab with chicken and plant cells using bioprinting. Bioprinting, which uses 3D-printing techniques to combine biological material, is used in medicine to create tissue and even organs.

The 3D-printed chicken nuggets will closely mimic the taste and appearance of KFC’s original chicken nuggets, according to the press release. KFC expects the production of 3D-printed nuggets to be more environmentally friendly than the production process of its traditional chicken nuggets. The fall release will mark the first debut of a lab-grown chicken nugget at a global fast-food chain like KFC.

Source: KFC will test lab-grown chicken nuggets made with a 3D bioprinter this fall in Russia

Russia tested satellite-to-satellite shooter, say UK and USA

Posted on by

The USA and UK have alleged that Russia last week trialled an in-orbit satellite-killer weapon.

US Space Force chief of operations General John Raymond put his name to a statement that says on July 15th Russia “injected a new object into orbit from Cosmos 2543”, a satellite that Moscow insists is a maintenance vehicle but which the USA believes is a weapons platform.

Cosmos 2543 sidled up to another Russian satellite before releasing the object that moved at around 700 km/h.

The UK’s Ministry of Defence popped up a Tweet about the incident:

The Outer Space Treaty prohibits the use of weapons in space, so if Moscow has conducted a weapons test it has been very naughty indeed. However it is widely believed that several nations posses missiles that could reach space to attack satellites.

Such attacks are important because satellite play a significant role assisting and directing terrestrial conflicts.

Moscow loves a show of force: in 2018 it revealed hypersonic warheads, a nuclear-powered submarine drone, cruise missiles with nearly unlimited range, and a ground-based laser weapon, but claimed none would be used for anything other than retaliation.

Whatever it was that Cosmos 2543 launched appears to have been rather less exotic

Source: Russia tested satellite-to-satellite shooter, say UK and USA • The Register

Google aims at Amazon and fires: List your products on Google Shopping for free

Posted on by

we’re advancing our plans to make it free for merchants to sell on Google. Beginning next week, search results on the Google Shopping tab will consist primarily of free listings, helping merchants better connect with consumers, regardless of whether they advertise on Google. With hundreds of millions of shopping searches on Google each day, we know that many retailers have the items people need in stock and ready to ship, but are less discoverable online.

For retailers, this change means free exposure to millions of people who come to Google every day for their shopping needs. For shoppers, it means more products from more stores, discoverable through the Google Shopping tab. For advertisers, this means paid campaigns can now be augmented with free listings. If you’re an existing user of Merchant Center and Shopping ads, you don’t have to do anything to take advantage of the free listings, and for new users of Merchant Center, we’ll continue working to streamline the onboarding process over the coming weeks and months.

These changes will take effect in the U.S. before the end of April, and we aim to expand this globally before the end of the year. Our help center has more details on how to participate in free product listings and Shopping ads.

We’re also kicking off a new partnership with PayPal to allow merchants to link their accounts. This will speed up our onboarding process and ensure we’re surfacing the highest quality results for our users. And we’re continuing to work closely with many of our existing partners that help merchants manage their products and inventory, including Shopify, WooCommerce, and BigCommerce, to make digital commerce more accessible for businesses of all sizes.

Source: List your products on Google Shopping for free – The Keyword

Copyright Claims Block Star Trek, Cartoon Network Comic-Con Panels video streams. Somehow they get to fix DMCA in 20 minutes – why doesn’t the  rest of the world?

Posted on by

It wouldn’t be a virtual event without a few technical difficulties. Though I can’t imagine the media giants showcasing at San Diego Comic-Con’s online event were worried about copyright violations affecting their panels. Considering, you know, they’re the ones that own the copyright.

Of course, that’s exactly what happened.

On Thursday, ViacomCBS livestreamed an hour-long panel for this year’s virtual SDCC to showcase properties in its ever-expansive Star Trek universe such as Picard, Discovery, and the upcoming Star Trek: Lower Decks. The stream briefly went dark, however, after YouTube’s copyright bots flagged the stream and replaced it with a warning that read: “Video unavailable: This video contains content from CBS CID, who has blocked it on copyright grounds.”

The hiccup occurred as the cast and producers of Discovery performed an “enhanced” read-through of the show’s season 2 finale accompanied by sound effects and on-screen storyboards. Evidently, the video sounded enough like the real deal to trigger YouTube’s software, even if it was obvious from looking at the stream that it wasn’t pirated content.

It only took about 20 minutes for the feed to be restored, but the irony of CBS’s own panel running afoul of its copyright (even accidentally) was too good for audiences to gloss over. As noted by io9’s Beth Elderkin, a later Cartoon Network panel livestream was similarly pulled offline over a copyright claim from its parent company, Turner Broadcasting.

Source: Copyright Claims Block Star Trek, Cartoon Network Comic-Con Panels