Month: December 2021

EV startup Nikola (who showed video of car rolling down hill as being powered) settles with U.S. for $125 million

Posted on by Robin Edgar

Electric- and hydrogen-powered truck startup Nikola has agreed to a $125 million settlement over charges that it defrauded investors after misleading them about its products, technical advances and financial prospects. Nikola violated the antifraud and disclosure control provisions of the federal securities laws, the Securities and Exchange Commission said Tuesday. In July the founder and Read more about EV startup Nikola (who showed video of car rolling down hill as being powered) settles with U.S. for $125 million[…]

Amazon’s AWS logs third outage this month, affecting Slack, Epic Games Store, Asana and more

Posted on by Robin Edgar

Amazon’s crucial web services business AWS has experienced problems today due to a power outage, affecting services like Slack, Imgur, and the Epic Games store for some users. It’s not looking good if you’re working from home, with some Slack users unable to view or upload images and work management tool Asana also hit by Read more about Amazon’s AWS logs third outage this month, affecting Slack, Epic Games Store, Asana and more[…]

US returns $154 Million in bitcoins stolen by Sony employee

Posted on by Robin Edgar

[…] According to court documents, Ishii switched the transfer address for a Sony Life transaction to use a Silvergate Bank account under his control.. Ishii later converted the stolen funds into more than 3879 bitcoins via A Coinbase set up to automatically transfer all added funds to an offline cryptocurrency cold wallet with a Bitcoin Read more about US returns $154 Million in bitcoins stolen by Sony employee[…]

How NSO Group’s zero-click iPhone-Hacking Exploit Works

Posted on by Robin Edgar

[…] researchers managed to technically deconstruct just how one of the company’s notorious “zero-click” attacks work. Indeed, researchers with Google’s Project Zero published a detailed break-down that shows how an NSO exploit, dubbed “FORCEDENTRY,” can swiftly and silently take over a phone. […] Initial details about it were captured by Citizen Lab, a research unit Read more about How NSO Group’s zero-click iPhone-Hacking Exploit Works[…]

Tesla Is Selling 2021 Model 3s With Degraded Batteries From 2017

Posted on by Robin Edgar

When someone buys a new car, they generally expect to be getting a vehicle that’s fully up-to-date, not one built with leftover parts. Tesla customers who don’t read the fine print, though, could accidentally end up paying the price for a “new” Model 3 with a years-old battery, one which Tesla acknowledges may have already Read more about Tesla Is Selling 2021 Model 3s With Degraded Batteries From 2017[…]

DARPA Open Sources Resources to Aid Evaluation of Adversarial AI Defenses

Posted on by Robin Edgar

[…]DARPA’s Guaranteeing AI Robustness against Deception (GARD) program […] focuses on a few core objectives. One of which is the development of a testbed for characterizing ML defenses and assessing the scope of their applicability […] Ensuring that emerging defenses are keeping pace with – or surpassing – the capabilities of known attacks is critical Read more about DARPA Open Sources Resources to Aid Evaluation of Adversarial AI Defenses[…]

minDALL-E creates images based on text input

Posted on by Robin Edgar

minDALL-E on Conceptual Captions minDALL-E, named after minGPT, is a 1.3B text-to-image generation model trained on 14 million image-text pairs for non-commercial purposes. Environment Setup Basic setup Other packages Model Checkpoint Model structure (two-stage autoregressive model) Stage1: Unlike the original DALL-E [1], we replace Discrete VAE with VQGAN [2] to generate high-quality samples effectively. We Read more about minDALL-E creates images based on text input[…]

This App Will Tell Android Users If an AirTag Is Tracking Them

Posted on by Robin Edgar

Apple’s AirTags and Find My service can be helpful for finding things you lose—but they also introduce a big privacy problem. While those of us on iOS have had some tools for fighting those issues, Apple left those of us on Android without much to work with. A new Android AirTag finder app finally addresses Read more about This App Will Tell Android Users If an AirTag Is Tracking Them[…]

Researchers Teach Human Brain Cells in a Dish to Play “Pong”

Posted on by Robin Edgar

[…] Researchers at the biotechnology startup Cortical Labs have created “mini-brains“ consisting of 800,000 to one million living human brain cells in a petri dish, New Scientist reports. The cells are placed on top of a microelectrode array that analyzes the neural activity. […] To teach the mini-brains the game, the team created a simplified Read more about Researchers Teach Human Brain Cells in a Dish to Play “Pong”[…]

Cryptocurrency ‘rug pulls’ cheated investors out of ‘$8bn’

Posted on by Robin Edgar

First, come up with a catchy name for a cryptocurrency project. Next, convince the credulous to buy associated digital tokens. Finally, abandon the project and keep investors’ funds. This “rug pulling” scam lacks sophistication but evidently it works. According to Chainalysis, a blockchain data biz, separating cryptocoin buyers from their money in this manner has Read more about Cryptocurrency ‘rug pulls’ cheated investors out of ‘$8bn’[…]

Bitcoin’s Inequality Problem Is Putting the Dollar to Shame 0.01% owns 27% of all BTC

Posted on by Robin Edgar

[…] new research detailed in The Wall Street Journal suggests its inequality problems are worse than the United States’ disgraceful performance under the dollar. An incredible feat considering income inequality in 2020 America was the highest of all G7 nations according to data from Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development viewed by Pew Research. That Read more about Bitcoin’s Inequality Problem Is Putting the Dollar to Shame 0.01% owns 27% of all BTC[…]

Malaysia in pocket of big business: Passes Bill to Imprison Illegal Streaming (even devices!) for 20 years

Posted on by Robin Edgar

Laws that forbid the illegal uploading and downloading of copyrighted content are common around the world but the rise of streaming has sometimes exposed gaps in legislation. Piracy-equipped Kodi devices, illegal streaming apps, and similar tools have led legal specialists to attempt to apply laws that didn’t envision the technology. In Malaysia, for example, it Read more about Malaysia in pocket of big business: Passes Bill to Imprison Illegal Streaming (even devices!) for 20 years[…]

Bad things come in threes: Apache reveals another Log4J bug

Posted on by Robin Edgar

The Apache Software Foundation (ASF) has revealed a third bug in its Log4 Java-based open-source logging library Log4j. CVE-2021-45105 is a 7.5/10-rated infinite recursion bug that was present in Log4j2 versions 2.0-alpha1 through 2.16.0. The fix is version 2.17.0 of Log4j. That’s the third new version of the tool in the last ten days. In Read more about Bad things come in threes: Apache reveals another Log4J bug[…]

Researchers uncover the surprising cause of the Little Ice Age in 1300s

Posted on by Robin Edgar

New research from the University of Massachusetts Amherst provides a novel answer to one of the persistent questions in historical climatology, environmental history and the earth sciences: what caused the Little Ice Age? The answer, we now know, is a paradox: warming. The Little Ice Age was one of the coldest periods of the past Read more about Researchers uncover the surprising cause of the Little Ice Age in 1300s[…]

How China Uses Western Influencers As Pawns In Its Propaganda War

Posted on by Robin Edgar

According to the New York Times, China is recruiting YouTubers to report on the country in a positive light and counter the West’s increasingly negative perceptions. “The videos have a casual, homespun feel. But on the other side of the camera often stands a large apparatus of government organizers, state-controlled news media and other official Read more about How China Uses Western Influencers As Pawns In Its Propaganda War[…]

The FDA Just Approved Eye Drops to Correct Aging near sighted Vision

Posted on by Robin Edgar

[…] It’s estimated that a quarter of the world’s population is affected by the condition known as presbyopia, which is one of the many unfortunate side effects of aging that typically starts affecting people in their 40s. The condition limits a person’s ability to focus on nearby objects, such as small print […] he use Read more about The FDA Just Approved Eye Drops to Correct Aging near sighted Vision[…]

Banks, ISPs Increasingly Embrace ‘Voice Print’ Authentication Despite Growing Security Risk

Posted on by Robin Edgar

While it’s certainly possible to sometimes do biometrics well, a long line of companies frequently… don’t. Voice print authentication is particularly shaky, especially given the rise of inexpensive voice deepfake technology. But, much like the continued use of text-message two-factor authentication (which is increasingly shown to not be secure), it apparently doesn’t matter to a Read more about Banks, ISPs Increasingly Embrace ‘Voice Print’ Authentication Despite Growing Security Risk[…]

Why our electronics break: what we can learn from nearly 10 years of repairs over 50k broken items

Posted on by Robin Edgar

We now have data on over 21,000 broken items and what was done to fix them. This information comes from volunteers at our own events and others who use our community repair platform, restarters.net. Thanks to our partners in the Open Repair Alliance who also collect this kind of data, we were able to include Read more about Why our electronics break: what we can learn from nearly 10 years of repairs over 50k broken items[…]

Apple Removes All References to Controversial CSAM Scanning Feature – where they would scan all the pictures you took

Posted on by Robin Edgar

Apple has quietly nixed all mentions of CSAM from its Child Safety webpage, suggesting its controversial plan to detect child sexual abuse images on iPhones and iPads may hang in the balance following significant criticism of its methods. Apple in August announced a planned suite of new child safety features, including scanning users’ iCloud Photos Read more about Apple Removes All References to Controversial CSAM Scanning Feature – where they would scan all the pictures you took[…]

Hackers Steal $135 Million From Users of Crypto Gaming Company

Posted on by Robin Edgar

In the latest hack targeting cryptocurrency investors, hackers stole around $135 million from users of the  blockchain gaming company VulcanForge, according to the company. The hackers stole the private keys to access 96 wallets, siphoning off 4.5 million PYR, which is VulcanForge’s token that can be used across its ecosystem, the company said in a Read more about Hackers Steal $135 Million From Users of Crypto Gaming Company[…]

Ukraine arrests 51 for selling data of 300 million people in US, EU

Posted on by Robin Edgar

Ukrainian law enforcement arrested 51 suspects believed to have been selling stolen personal data on hacking forums belonging to hundreds of millions worldwide, including Ukraine, the US, and Europe. “As a result of the operation, about 100 databases of personal data relevant for 2020-2021 were seized,” the Cyberpolice Department of the National Police of Ukraine Read more about Ukraine arrests 51 for selling data of 300 million people in US, EU[…]

Gumtree users’ locations were visible by pressing F12, wouldn’t pay bug bounty to finder

Posted on by Robin Edgar

UK online used goods bazaar Gumtree exposed its users’ home addresses in the source code of its webpages, and then tried to squirm out of a bug bounty after infosec bods alerted it to the flaw. British company Pen Test Partners (PTP) spotted the data leakage, which meant anyone could view a Gumtree user’s name Read more about Gumtree users’ locations were visible by pressing F12, wouldn’t pay bug bounty to finder[…]

Don’t Buy an HDMI 2.1 TV Before You Read the Fine Print

Posted on by Robin Edgar

[…]If deciphering every version of HDMI wasn’t already tedious enough, we now know that the latest and greatest HDMI 2.1 standard, well, isn’t very standardized. A TFTCentral investigation revealed that the TV or monitor you purchase with “HDMI 2.1″ might not support any of the latest features. TFTCentral smelled something fishy when it saw that Read more about Don’t Buy an HDMI 2.1 TV Before You Read the Fine Print[…]

New IBM and Samsung transistors could be key to super-efficient vertical chips

Posted on by Robin Edgar

IBM and Samsung claim they’ve made a breakthrough in semiconductor design. On day one of the IEDM conference in San Francisco, the two companies unveiled a new design for stacking transistors vertically on a chip. With current processors and SoCs, transistors lie flat on the surface of the silicon, and then electric current flows from Read more about New IBM and Samsung transistors could be key to super-efficient vertical chips[…]

This Air Force Targeting AI Thought It Had a 90% Success Rate. It Was More Like 25%

Posted on by Robin Edgar

If the Pentagon is going to rely on algorithms and artificial intelligence, it’s got to solve the problem of “brittle AI.” A top Air Force official recently illustrated just how far there is to go. In a recent test, an experimental target recognition program performed well when all of the conditions were perfect, but a Read more about This Air Force Targeting AI Thought It Had a 90% Success Rate. It Was More Like 25%[…]