Daily Archives: August 14, 2021

Lamborghini Countach LPI800-4 Hybrid v12

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The Lamborghini Countach LPI800-4 is a futuristic limited edition that pays homage to the original and recreated for the 21st century. Head of design a Lamborghini Mitja Borkert took cues from the various iterations of the Countach to inspire his latest creation. The Countach’s distinctive wedge-shapes silhouette has been retained, with a single line from the nose to the tail, a design trait that runs through all V12 Lambos.

The final outline references the first LP500 and LP400 production versions. The face was inspired by the Quattrovalvole edition and the wheel arches have a hexagonal theme. There is no fixed rear wing as seen in later designs of the Countach. The distinctive NACA air intakes are cut into the side and doors of the Countach LPI800-4. Access for occupants is via the famous scissor doors, first introduced on the Countach and a Lamborghini V12 signature.

Under the slatted engine cover is, naturally, a V12 engine that can rev to almost 9 000 r/min. The 6,5-litre engine is naturally aspirated but it does have an electrical boost component integrated into the transmission that is powered by a supercapacitor. Total system power output is rated as 600 kW. Like all the modern V12 Lambos power is directed to all four wheels. Lamborghini says the Countach can blitz the 0-100 km/h run in just 2,8 seconds, can complete the 0-200 km/h dash in 8,6 seconds and it has a top speed of 355 km/h.

Source: Lamborghini Countach LPI800-4 Debuts [w/video] – Double Apex

Absolutely gorgeous!

Rockstar Begins A War On Modders For ‘GTA’ Games For Totally Unclear Reasons

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[…]Rockstar Games has previously had its own run-in with its modding community, banning modders who attempted to shift GTA5’s online gameplay to dedicated servers that would allow mods to be used, since Rockstar’s servers don’t allow mods. What it’s now doing in issuing copyright notices on modders who have been forklifting older Rockstar assets into newer GTA games, however, is totally different.

Grand Theft Auto publisher Take-Two has issued copyright takedown notices for several mods on LibertyCity.net, according to a post from the site. The mods either inserted content from older Rockstar games into newer ones, or combined content from similar Rockstar games into one larger game. The mods included material from Grand Theft Auto 3, San Andreas, Vice City, Mahunt, and Bully.

This has been a legally active year for Take-Two, starting with takedown notices for reverse-engineered versions of GTA3 and Vice City. Those projects were later restored. Since then, Take-Two has issued takedowns for mods that move content from older Grand Theft Auto games into GTA5, as well as mods that combine older games from the GTA3 generation into one. That lead to a group of modders preemptively taking down their 14-year-old mod for San Andreas in case they were next on Take-Two’s list.

All of this is partially notable because it’s new. Like many games released for the PC, the GTA series has enjoyed a healthy modding community. And Rockstar, previously, has largely left this modding community alone. Which is generally smart, as mods such as the ones the community produces are fantastic ways to both keep a game fresh as it ages and lure in new players to the original game by enticing them with mods that meet their particular interests. I’ll never forget a Doom mod that replaced all of the original MIDI soundtrack files with MIDI versions of 90’s alternative grunge music. That mod caused me to play Doom all over again from start to finish.

But now Rockstar Games has flipped the script and is busily taking these fan mods down. Why? Well, no one is certain, but likely for the most obvious reason of all.

One reason a company might become more concerned with this kind of copyright infringement is that it’s planning to release a similar product and wants to be sure that its claim to the material can’t be challenged. It’s speculative at this point, but that tracks with the rumors we heard earlier this year that Take-Two is working on remakes of the PS2 Grand Theft Auto games.

In other words, Rockstar appears to be completely happy to reap all the benefits from the modding community right up until the moment it thinks it can make more money with re-releases, at which point the company cries “Copyright!” The company may well be within its rights to operate that way, but why in the world would the modding community ever work on Rockstar games again?

Source: Rockstar Begins A War On Modders For ‘GTA’ Games For Totally Unclear Reasons | Techdirt

Senators ask Amazon how it will use palm print data from its stores

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If you’re concerned that Amazon might misuse palm print data from its One service, you’re not alone. TechCrunch reports that Senators Amy Klobuchar, Bill Cassidy and Jon Ossoff have sent a letter to new Amazon chief Andy Jassy asking him to explain how the company might expand use of One’s palm print system beyond stores like Amazon Go and Whole Foods. They’re also worried the biometric payment data might be used for more than payments, such as for ads and tracking.

The politicians are concerned that Amazon One reportedly uploads palm print data to the cloud, creating “unique” security issues. The move also casts doubt on Amazon’s “respect” for user privacy, the senators said.

In addition to asking about expansion plans, the senators wanted Jassy to outline the number of third-party One clients, the privacy protections for those clients and their customers and the size of the One user base. The trio gave Amazon until August 26th to provide an answer.

[…]

The company has offered $10 in credit to potential One users, raising questions about its eagerness to collect palm print data. This also isn’t the first time Amazon has clashed with government

[…]

Amazon declined to comment, but pointed to an earlier blog post where it said One palm images were never stored on-device and were sent encrypted to a “highly secure” cloud space devoted just to One content.

Source: Senators ask Amazon how it will use palm print data from its stores (updated) | Engadget

Basically having these palm prints all in the cloud is really an incredibly insecure way to keep all this biometric data of people that they can’t ever change, short of burning their palms off.

Poly Network Offers $500k Reward to Hacker Who Stole $611 Million and then returned it

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A cryptocurrency platform that was hacked and had hundreds of millions of dollars stolen from it has now offered the thief a “reward” of $500,000 after the criminal returned almost all of the money.

A few days ago a hacker exploited a vulnerability in the blockchain technology of decentralized finance (DeFi) platform Poly Network, pilfering a whopping $611 million in various tokens—the crypto equivalent of a gargantuan bank robbery. It is thought to be the largest robbery of its kind in DeFi history.

The company subsequently posted an absurd open letter to the thief that began “Dear Hacker” and proceeded to beg for its money back while also insinuating that the criminal would ultimately be caught by police.

Amazingly, this tactic seemed to work—and the hacker (or hackers) began returning the crypto. As of Friday, almost the entirety of the massive haul had been returned to blockchain accounts controlled by the company, though a sizable $33 million in Tether coin still remains frozen in an account solely controlled by the thief.

After this, Poly weirdly started calling the hacker “Mr. White Hat”—essentially dubbing them a virtuous penetration tester rather than a disruptive criminal. Even more strange, on Friday Poly Network confirmed to Reuters that it had offered $500,000 to the cybercriminal, dubbing it a “bug bounty.”

Bug bounties are programs wherein a company will pay cyber-pros to find holes in its IT defenses. However, such programs are typically commissioned by companies and addressed by well-known infosec professionals, not conducted unprompted and ad-hoc by rogue, anonymous hackers. Similarly, I’ve never heard of a penetration tester stealing hundreds of millions of dollars from a company as part of their test.

Nonetheless, Poly Network apparently told the hacker: “Since, we (Poly Network) believe your action is white hat behavior, we plan to offer you a $500,000 bug bounty after you complete the refund fully. Also we assure you that you will not be accountable for this incident.” We reached out to the company to try to independently confirm these reports.

The hacker reportedly refused to take the crypto platform up on its offer, opting instead to post a series of public messages in one of the crypto wallets that was used to return funds. Dubbed “Q & A sessions,” the posts purport to explain why the heist took place. The self-interviews were shared over social media by Tom Robinson, co-founder of crypto-tracking firm Elliptic. In one of them, the hacker explains:

Q: WHY HACKING?
A: FOR FUN 🙂

Q: WHY POLY NETWORK?
A: CROSS CHAIN HACKING IS HOT

Q: WHY TRANSFERRING TOKENS
A: TO KEEP IT SAFE.

In another post, the hacker purportedly proclaimed, “I’m not interested in money!” and said, “I would like to give them tips on how to secure their networks,” apparently referencing the blockchain provider.

So, yeah, what do we think here, folks? Is the hacker:

  • A) a good samaritan who stole the better part of a billion dollars to teach a crypto company a lesson?
  • B) a spineless weasel who realized they were in tremendous levels of shit and decided to engineer a way out of their criminal deed?

The answer is unclear at the moment, but gee, does it make for quality entertainment. Tune in next week for a new episode of Misadventures in De-Fi Cybersecurity. Thrilling stuff, no?

Source: Poly Network Offers Reward to Hacker Who Stole $611 Million

Engineers make critical advance in quantum computer design

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They discovered a new technique they say will be capable of controlling millions of spin qubits—the basic units of information in a silicon quantum processor.

Until now, quantum computer engineers and scientists have worked with a proof-of-concept model of quantum processors by demonstrating the control of only a handful of qubits.

[…]

“Up until this point, controlling electron spin qubits relied on us delivering microwave magnetic fields by putting a current through a wire right beside the ,” Dr. Pla says.

“This poses some real challenges if we want to scale up to the millions of qubits that a quantum computer will need to solve globally significant problems, such as the design of new vaccines.

“First off, the magnetic fields drop off really quickly with distance, so we can only control those qubits closest to the wire. That means we would need to add more and more wires as we brought in more and more qubits, which would take up a lot of real estate on the chip.”

And since the chip must operate at freezing cold temperatures, below -270°C, Dr. Pla says introducing more wires would generate way too much heat in the chip, interfering with the reliability of the qubits.

[…]

Rather than having thousands of control wires on the same thumbnail-sized silicon chip that also needs to contain millions of qubits, the team looked at the feasibility of generating a from above the chip that could manipulate all of the qubits simultaneously.

[…]

Dr. Pla and the team introduced a new component directly above the silicon chip—a crystal prism called a dielectric resonator. When microwaves are directed into the resonator, it focuses the wavelength of the microwaves down to a much smaller size.

“The dielectric resonator shrinks the wavelength down below one millimeter, so we now have a very efficient conversion of microwave power into the magnetic field that controls the spins of all the qubits.

“There are two key innovations here. The first is that we don’t have to put in a lot of power to get a strong driving field for the qubits, which crucially means we don’t generate much heat. The second is that the field is very uniform across the chip, so that millions of qubits all experience the same level of control.”

[…]

Source: Engineers make critical advance in quantum computer design