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upstart writes:

Democrats introduce bill to ban collection of reproductive health data:

Rep. Sara Jacobs (D-Calif.) and Sens. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) introduced legislation Tuesday that would bar companies from retaining data about users' reproductive health without consent.

The bill would also give people the power to demand companies disclose and delete the data as well as the power to sue companies for violations of the law.

[...] The Democrats' My Body, My Data Act would protect personal data collected by entities not currently covered by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), including data collected by apps, cellphones and search engines.

Also see: Pass the "My Body, My Data" Act:

Privacy fears should never stand in the way of healthcare. That's why this common-sense bill will require businesses and non-governmental organizations to act responsibly with personal information concerning reproductive health care. Specifically, it restricts them from collecting, using, retaining, or disclosing reproductive health information that isn't essential to providing the service someone asks them for.

These restrictions apply to companies that collect personal information related to a person's reproductive or sexual health. That includes information such as data related to pregnancy, menstruation, surgery, termination of pregnancy, contraception, basal body temperature or diagnoses. The bill would protect people who, for example, use fertility or period-tracking apps or are seeking information about reproductive health services.

[...] Finally, while Rep. Jacobs' bill establishes an important national privacy foundation for everyone, it also leaves room for states to pass stronger or complementary laws to protect the data privacy of those seeking reproductive health care.

Link to the bill.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

RansomHouse extortion group claims AMD as its latest victim:

AMD said it is investigating a potential data breach after RansomHouse, a relatively new data cybercrime operation, claims to have extorted data from the U.S. chipmaker.

An AMD spokesperson told TechCrunch that the company "is aware of a bad actor claiming to be in possession of stolen data," adding that "an investigation is currently underway."

RansomHouse, which earlier this month claimed responsibility for a cyberattack on Shoprite, Africa's largest retailer, claims to have breached AMD on January 5 to steal 450GB of data. The group claims to be targeting companies with weak security, and claimed it was able to compromise AMD due to the use of weak passwords throughout the organization.

"An era of high-end technology, progress and top security... there's so much in these words for the crowds. But it seems those are still just beautiful words when even technology giants like AMD use simple passwords to protect their networks from intrusion," RansomHouse wrote on its data leak site. "It is a shame those are real passwords used by AMD employees, but a bigger shame to AMD Security Department which gets significant financing according to the documents we got our hands on — all thanks to these passwords."

A portion of the stolen data leaked by RansomHouse and seen by TechCrunch suggests that AMD employees were using passwords as simple as "password," "123456" and "Welcome1." [...]

upstart writes:

A court in the British Virgin Islands has ordered the liquidation of Singapore-based Three Arrows Capital, underlining the crisis gripping the cryptocurrency sector:

Three Arrows Capital, a cryptocurrency-focused hedge fund, has plunged into liquidation, deepening the crisis engulfing the global digital assets sector.

Sky News has learnt that partners from Teneo in the British Virgin Islands has been lined up to handle the insolvency of the Singapore-based firm, which was set up in 2012 by Su Zhu and Kyle Davies.

Cryptocurrency insiders said on Wednesday that the liquidation would be a significant moment in the current unravelling of the cryptocurrency sector, which has grown at breakneck speed in recent years.

The firm's demise is likely to raise further questions, however, about the regulatory oversight to which cryptocurrencies and other digital assets are subject in the world's major financial centres.

[...] The crypto landscape is experiencing tumultuous change amid a collapse in valuations of assets such as stablecoins - digital currencies pegged to the value of assets such as the US dollar or gold.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

FBI warning: Crooks are using deepfakes to apply for remote tech jobs:

Scammers or criminals are using deepfakes and stolen personally identifiable information during online job interviews for remote roles, according to the FBI.

The use of deepfakes or synthetic audio, image and video content created with AI or machine-learning technologies has been on the radar as a potential phishing threat for several years.

The FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) now says it's seen an increase in complaints reporting the use of deepfakes and stolen personally identifiable information to apply for remote work roles, mostly in tech.

With some offices asking staff to return to work, one job category where there has been a strong push for remote work to continue is in information technology.

Reports to IC3 have mostly concerned remote vacancies in information technology, programming, database, and software-related job functions.

Highlighting the risk to an organization of hiring a fraudulent applicant, the FBI notes that "some of the reported positions include access to customer PII, financial data, corporate IT databases and/or proprietary information."

upstart writes:

Sea Corals Found To Be a Source of an Elusive "Anti-Cancer" Compound:

The ocean floor is riddled with mysteries, but scientists have just discovered one of its best-kept secrets. For the last 25 years, researchers have been looking for the source of a natural chemical that has shown promise in preliminary studies for treating cancer. Now, researchers at the University of Utah Health report that easy-to-find soft corals—flexible corals that resemble underwater plants—make the elusive compound.

After determining the source, the researchers went on to discover the animal's code for synthesizing the chemical. They were able to carry out the initial stages of re-creating the soft coral chemical in the laboratory by following those directions.

"This is the first time we have been able to do this with any drug lead on Earth," says Eric Schmidt, Ph.D., professor of medicinal chemistry at the University of Utah Health. He led the study with Paul Scesa, Ph.D., postdoctoral scientist and first author, and Zhenjian Lin, Ph.D., assistant research professor.

The breakthrough opens the door to generating the compound in big enough quantities for rigorous testing, which could one day result in a new cancer-fighting tool.

DannyB writes:

TechDirt: Not Even Your 'Smart' Jacuzzi Is Safe From The Internet Of Broken Things

The Internet of things — aka the tendency to bring Internet connectivity to devices whether they need them or not — has provided no shortage of both tragedy and comedy. "Smart" locks that are easy to bypass, "smart" fridges that leak your email credentials, or even "smart" barbies that spy on toddlers are all pretty much par for the course in an industry with lax privacy and security standards.

Even your traditional hot tub isn't immune from the stupidity. Hot tub vendor SmartTub thought it might be nice to control your hot tub from your phone (because walking to the tub and quickly turning a dial is clearly too much to ask).

But like so many IOT vendors more interested in the marketing potential than the reality, they allegedly implemented it without including basic levels of security standards for their website administration panel, allowing hackers to access and control hot tubs, all over the planet. And not just SmartTub brands, but numerous brands from numerous manufacturers, everywhere [. . . .]

For those who need reminders, let us not forget prior SN (horror) stories:

• IoT Pet feeders that stop feeding pets
• Peloton treadmills
• Insteon smart home lighting and other controls
• Smart male chastity devices that won't unlock, need metal grinder to remove

Original Submission

upstart writes:

First Circuit Court of Appeals Upholds Eight Months of Warrantless 24/7 Video Surveillance:

A federal appellate court in Massachusetts has issued a ruling that effectively allows federal agents in Puerto Rico and most of New England to secretly watch and videorecord all activity in front of anyone's home 24 hours a day, for as long as they want—and all without a warrant. This case, United States v. Moore-Bush, conflicts with a ruling from Massachusetts's highest court, which held in 2020 in Commonwealth v. Mora that the Massachusetts constitution requires a warrant for the same surveillance.

In Moore-Bush, federal investigators mounted a high-definition, remotely-controlled surveillance camera on a utility pole facing the home where Nia Moore-Bush lived with her mother. The camera allowed investigators to surveil their residence twenty-four hours a day for eight months, zoom in on faces and license plates within the camera's view, and replay the footage at a later date.

In a deeply fractured opinion, the First Circuit Court of Appeals ultimately allowed the government to use the footage in this case, overturning an earlier trial court ruling that would have suppressed the evidence.

EFF joined the ACLU and the Center for Democracy & Technology in an amicus brief at the First Circuit's rehearing en banc (where all the active judges in the circuit rehear the case),. We argued that modern pole camera surveillance represents a radical transformation of the police's ability to monitor suspects and goes far beyond anything that could have been contemplated by the drafters of the Fourth Amendment. Pole cameras allow police to cheaply and secretly surveil a suspect continuously for months on end, to zoom in on phone screens or documents, and to create a perfect record that can be searched and reviewed at any time in the future. None of these capabilities would be possible with a traditional stakeout. Finally, we urged the judges to consider the equity implications of finding that a person has no reasonable expectation of privacy as to activities in their exposed front yard, as this would grant greater Fourth Amendment protection to homeowners with the resources to erect high fences or hedges than to renters or those without the means to build such protections.

The government argued in Moore-Bush that a 2009 First Circuit case called United States v. Bucci governed the outcome in this case because it upheld similar pole camera surveillance. The trial court distinguished Bucci, finding the Supreme Court's landmark 2018 holding in Carpenter v. United States, effectively changed the game. Like the cell site location information at issue in Carpenter, the trial court held long-term, comprehensive, continuous video surveillance of the front of a person's home violates their reasonable expectation of privacy. Given this, the trial court suppressed the pole camera evidence.

[Ed's Comment: That is NOT the end result - please continue reading. (Added 30-06-2022 06:18 UTC. JR)]

Freeman writes:

https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/06/pig-heart-transplant-failed-as-its-heart-muscle-cells-died/

Earlier this year, news broke of the first experimental xenotransplantation: A human patient with heart disease received a heart from a pig that had been genetically engineered to avoid rejection. While initially successful, the experiment ended two months later when the transplant failed, leading to the death of the patient. At the time, the team didn't disclose any details regarding what went wrong. But this week saw the publication of a research paper that goes through everything that happened to prepare for the transplant and the weeks following.

Critically, this includes the eventual failure of the transplant, which was triggered by the death of many of the muscle cells in the transplanted heart. But the reason for that death isn't clear, and the typical signs of rejection by the immune system weren't present. So, we're going to have to wait a while to understand what went wrong.

[...] The presence of an apparent pig cytomegalovirus was worrying, but the researchers indicate there's some question about whether the tests that picked it up might have been recognizing a closely related human virus—one that's often associated with organ transplant problems.

So, for now, it's not clear what happened with this transplant or what the significance of the apparent viral infection is. Obviously, the team has lots of material to work with to try to figure out what went on, and there's a long, long list of potential experiments to do with it. And there are also additional xenotransplant trials in the works, so it may not be long before we have a better sense of whether this was something specific to this transplant or a general risk of xenotransplantation.

Previously:
Man Who Received a Heart Transplant From a Pig Has Died

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Zero-trust troubles and more ransomware regulation make tech analyst Gartner's list of factors you need to plan for:

Many businesses will fail to see the benefits of their zero trust efforts over the next few years, while legislation around paying off ransomware gangs will be extended and attacks on operational technology may have real-life consequences, according to set of cybersecurity predictions.

The list comes from tech analyst Gartner, which said business leaders should build these strategic planning assumptions into their security strategies for the next two years.

"We can't fall into old habits and try to treat everything the same as we did in the past," said Gartner senior director analyst Richard Addiscott. "Most security and risk leaders now recognize that major disruption is only one crisis away. We can't control it, but we can evolve our thinking, our philosophy, our program and our architecture."

1. Consumer privacy rights will be extended
2. By 2025, 80% of enterprises will adopt a strategy to unify web, cloud services and private application access
3. Many organizations will embrace zero trust, but fail to realize the benefits
4. Cybersecurity will become key to choosing business partners
5. Ransomware payment legislation will rise
6. Hackers will weaponize operational technology environments to cause human casualties
7. Resilience will be about more than just cybersecurity
8. Cybersecurity will matter for the CEO's bonus

Do you think "businesses" will include critical infrastructure like power plants and hospitals, or will they need to be forced/incentivized?

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Arm Immortalis Flagship GPU Includes Hardware-Based Ray Tracing

Arm has announced a new GPU family, targeting ultimate gaming experiences on next-gen flagship smartphones. The first of its new 'beyond-Mali' breed is the Immortalis-G715, and it comes with a sizable and realistically lit feather in its cap. It's "the first Arm GPU to offer hardware-based ray tracing support on mobile." Immortalis won't replace Mali graphics, though, and this is evidenced by Arm announcing two new Mali GPUs today, with many advanced graphical quality and performance features.

It's interesting to see Arm launching hardware accelerated ray tracing on mobile, at a time when even beefy desktop PCs with GPUs eating hundreds of watts require complementary technologies such as DLSS and FSR for the sake of frame rates and responsiveness. There are some technologies available for Arm GPUs that might help boost frame rates, though. Immortalis and new Mali GPUs both support Variable Rate Shading (VRS) and Adaptive Performance in Unity titles, for example. Additionally, the new GPUs from Arm are all said to offer 15% better rasterization performance and improved efficiency compared to the previous generation.

[...] Interestingly, Arm says that the ray tracing hardware in the Immortalis GPU only uses 4% of the shader core area, while delivering more than a 300% performance improvement through the hardware acceleration.

Press release.

Related: Samsung Announces Exynos 2200 SoC with AMD RDNA2 Graphics

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Ancient microbes may help us find extraterrestrial life forms:

The earliest living things, including bacteria and single-celled organisms called archaea, inhabited a primarily oceanic planet without an ozone layer to protect them from the sun's radiation. These microbes evolved rhodopsins—proteins with the ability to turn sunlight into energy, using them to power cellular processes.

[...] Rhodopsins are related to rods and cones in human eyes that enable us to distinguish between light and dark and see colors. They are also widely distributed among modern organisms and environments like saltern ponds, which present a rainbow of vibrant colors.

Using machine learning, the research team analyzed rhodopsin protein sequences from all over the world and tracked how they evolved over time. Then, they created a type of family tree that allowed them to reconstruct rhodopsins from 2.5 to 4 billion years ago, and the conditions that they likely faced.

"Life as we know it is as much an expression of the conditions on our planet as it is of life itself. We resurrected ancient DNA sequences of one molecule, and it allowed us to link to the biology and environment of the past," said University of Wisconsin-Madison astrobiologist and study lead Betul Kacar.

upstart writes:

Clinics offering debunked cancer treatments are still allowed to advertise, despite the company's stated efforts to control medical misinformation:

The ad reads like an offer of salvation: Cancer kills many people. But there is hope in Apatone, a proprietary vitamin C–based mixture, that is "KILLING cancer." The substance, an unproven treatment that is not approved by the FDA, is not available in the United States. If you want Apatone, the ad suggests, you need to travel to a clinic in Mexico.

If you're on Facebook or Instagram and Meta has determined you may be interested in cancer treatments, it's possible you've seen this ad, or one of the 20 or so others recently running from the CHIPSA hospital in Mexico near the US border, all of which are publicly listed in Meta's Ad Library. They are part of a pattern on Facebook of ads that make misleading or false health claims, targeted at cancer patients.

Evidence from Facebook and Instagram users, medical researchers, and its own Ad Library suggests that Meta is rife with ads containing sensational health claims, which the company directly profits from. The misleading ads may remain unchallenged for months and even years. Some of the ads reviewed by MIT Technology Review promoted treatments that have been proved to cause acute physical harm in some cases. Other ads pointed users toward highly expensive treatments with dubious outcomes.

Mystery Rocket Crashes Into Moon but No Country Will Take Credit

upstart writes:

You may recall this story from March: A Dead Chinese Rocket is Crashing Into the Moon on Friday, and Scientists Can't Wait. It seems that nobody wants to admit to owning it - but NASA have now got a picture that might help resolve that question.

Mystery rocket crashes into Moon but no country will take credit:

NASA scientists are baffled by a mystery spacecraft that crashed into the moon, creating two large craters.

The rocket has been tracked through space since 2015, but no one has claimed it. It was travelling at more than 5 kilometres a second when it hit the lunar surface on March 4 this year – and new images by NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter show that the impact was unlike anything they had seen before.

"Surprisingly, the crater is actually two craters, an eastern one (18m diameter) superimposed on a western one (16m diameter)," scientists from NASA and Arizona State University wrote in a post.

"The double crater was unexpected and may indicate that the body had large masses at each end. Typically a spent rocket has mass concentrated at the motor end; the rest of the rocket stage mainly consists of an empty fuel tank. Since the origin of the rocket body remains uncertain, the double nature of the crater may indicate its identity."

Amateur astronomers first pointed the finger at SpaceX, but then recalculated it was likely to be from a 2014 Chinese lunar mission (Chang'e 5-T1). China has contested this, saying that booster had "safely entered the Earth's atmosphere and was completely incinerated".

AnonTechie writes:

Dartmouth College

Robots, artificial intelligence, and other automation technologies enable companies to produce more. They also displace workers from their jobs, wreaking havoc on those who have no other training and are financially vulnerable.

Research by Dartmouth and Massachusetts Institute of Technology economists featured in this week's National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) Working Papers says the speed of automation is excessive and should be cut in half.

"Firms do not necessarily take into account the consequences that automation has for their workers. Instead, they tend to focus on the value that automation will bring to the firm and its shareholders," says co-author Nathan Zorzi, an assistant professor of economics.

"Automation can benefit society as a whole. But it also comes at a cost in the short run. It displaces workers who can be financially vulnerable," says Zorzi. "The government should tax automation to slow down its adoption while these workers retrain and transition to new jobs."

[Also Covered By]: Phys.Org

[Journal Reference]: Inefficient Automation [PDF (732Kb)]

While the race is on for more automation and cost reduction, this paper suggests exactly the opposite. What do you think ?

Original Submission

upstart writes:

What sea cucumbers can teach us about self-defense:

Sea cucumbers are a food delicacy in south Asia where their cultivation is a multi-million-dollar industry. The molecules they produce to defend their ecological niche at the bottom of the ocean are highly valued for their medicinal properties.

These curious marine animals produce a category of molecule known as triterpenoid saponins which are widespread in plants, but rare in animals.

Until now the question of how they evolved their unusual ability to produce these molecules has been unexplained. An international research collaboration investigated the genome of sea cucumbers and compared them with those of other Echinoderms, such as sea stars and sea urchins. Analysis showed that an enzyme found across all kingdoms of life that makes sterols, essential for building membranes and hormones, was missing in sea cucumber.

In sea cucumbers this sterol-producing function had been diverted to produce two new genes in this enzyme family. Using molecular biology, the researchers isolated the genes, transferred them to yeast and analysed the extracts.

This showed that the genes have acquired new functions; one of them makes an alternative type of saponin that the sea cucumber uses for self-defence, and the other produces molecules that protect the creature from the toxic effects of its own chemicals.

Chemical analysis showed that these genes required for the synthesis of self-defence compounds were expressed more in the outside layers of tissue.

Journal Reference:
Thimmappa, Ramesha, Wang, Shi, Zheng, Minyan, et al. Biosynthesis of saponin defensive compounds in sea cucumbers [open], Nature Chemical Biology (DOI: 10.1038/s41589-022-01054-y)

Original Submission