SoylentNews

"upstart" writes:

Submitted via IRC for Bytram

Microsoft says mandatory password changing is “ancient and obsolete”

Microsoft is finally catching on to a maxim that security experts have almost universally accepted for years: periodic password changes are likely to do more harm than good.

In a largely overlooked post published late last month, Microsoft said it was removing periodic password changes from the security baseline settings it recommends for customers and auditors. After decades of Microsoft recommending passwords be changed regularly, Microsoft employee Aaron Margosis said the requirement is an “ancient and obsolete mitigation of very low value.”

The change of heart is largely the result of research that shows passwords are most prone to cracking when they’re easy for end users to remember, such as when they use a name or phrase from a favorite movie or book. Over the past decade, hackers have mined real-world password breaches to assemble dictionaries of millions of words. Combined with super-fast graphics cards, the hackers can make huge numbers of guesses in off-line attacks, which occur when they steal the cryptographically scrambled hashes that represent the plaintext user passwords.

[...]Margosis was clear that the changes in no way affect recommended minimum password length, history, or complexity. And, as he also pointed out, Microsoft continues to urge people to use multifactor authentication.

The changes to Microsoft’s security baseline settings won’t change the defaults included in Windows server versions, which Margosis said continue to be 42 days, less than even the 60 days suggested in the old baseline settings. Still, the baseline change is likely to give employees ammunition when advocating for changes inside their own organizations. Jeremi Gosney, a password security expert and the founder and CEO of Terahash, said it’s also likely to help companies push back against auditors, who often find companies out of compliance unless they have enacted password changes within a set amount of time.

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upstart writes in with a submission, via IRC, for AnonymousLuser

Twitter acquires AI startup to help it fight fake news

Twitter has acquired London startup Fabula AI, which is working on a technology to detect fake news. On its website, Fabula says its patented technology called Geometric Deep Learning exhibits high success rates when it comes to identifying and spotting online disinformation. Twitter didn't mention how it plans to use the technology, though, only that Fabula will give the company the ability to "analyze very large and complex datasets." The startup's tech and talent will serve as the social network's "key driver" in its efforts to make people feel safe, to help them see more relevant information and "to improve the health of the conversation" on the platform.

[...] TechCrunch conducted an in-depth analysis of the Fabula AI's fake news detection capabilities in February and determined that it has an accuracy of 93 percent. It's hard to imagine Twitter not putting it to good use in the face of increasing scrutiny over the role social media platforms play in the spread of fake news online. But for now, we'll have to wait and see how the website uses its creation.

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upstart writes:

Submitted via IRC for Bytram

Researchers suggest a link between the solar cycle and the tidal effects of Venus, the Earth and Jupiter

The Sun's activity is determined by the Sun's magnetic field. Two combined effects are responsible for the latter: The omega and the alpha effect. Exactly where and how the alpha effect originates is currently unknown. Researchers at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) are putting forward a new theory for this in the journal Solar Physics. Their calculations suggest that tidal forces from Venus, the Earth and Jupiter can directly influence the Sun's activity.

[...] "Interestingly, every 11.07 years, the Sun and the planets Venus, the Earth and Jupiter are aligned. We asked ourselves: Is it a coincidence that the solar cycle corresponds with the cycle of the conjunction or the opposition of the three planets?" ponders Stefani. Although this question is by no means new, up to now scientists could not identify a plausible physical mechanism for how the very weak tidal effects of Venus, the Earth and Jupiter could influence the Sun's dynamo.

[...] There is significant lack of clarity regarding the position and cause of the alpha effect, which uses the toroidal field to create a poloidal field - the latter running along the Sun's lines of longitude. According to a prevalent theory, the alpha effect's place of origin is near the sunspots, on the Sun's surface. The Dresden researchers have chosen an alternative approach which links the alpha effect to the right- or left-handedness of the Tayler instability. In turn, the Tayler instability arises due to strongly developed toroidal fields in the tachocline. "That way we can essentially also locate the alpha effect in the tachocline," says Frank Stefani.

Now the HZDR scientists have discovered the first evidence for the Tayler instability also oscillating back and forth between right- and left-handedness. What is special about this is that the reversal happens with virtually no change to the flow energy. This means that very small forces are enough to initiate an oscillation in the alpha effect. "Our calculations show that planetary tidal forces act here as minute external pace setters. The oscillation in the alpha effect, which is triggered approximately every eleven years, could cause the polarity reversal of the solar magnetic field and, ultimately, dictate the 22-year cycle of the solar dynamo," according to Stefani.

Journal entry at: https://arxiv.org/abs/1511.09335v2

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upstart writes in with a submission, via IRC, for AnonymousLuser

China's CRISPR Babies Could Face Earlier Death

When the Chinese scientist He Jiankui created the first gene-edited children, he dreamed of improving the world. He believed the genetic alteration he added to twin girls born last year would protect them from HIV. Human embryo editing, he said, would bring new hope to millions.

Instead, he may have put the twins at risk of an early death.

A new report finds that genetic mutations similar to those He created, to a gene called CCR5, shortens people's lives by an average of 1.9 years.

[...] Now, Nielsen and colleague Xinzhu Wei say they've proved that inheriting two broken copies of CCR5 is bad for you. Their report, published in Nature Medicine, describes how they studied the genetic makeup of thousands of middle-aged members of the UK Biobank. The first thing they noticed was that the number of volunteers in the database with the double mutation was appreciably smaller than expected by chance.

"That tells us there is a process that removes individuals with two copies, and that process is probably natural selection. People die," Nielsen says. For those with the mutation who did volunteer for the database, the bad luck continued. When Nielsen compared volunteers' DNA with death records, he found that those with two non-working CCR5 genes had a higher mortality rate.

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"upstart" writes:

Submitted via IRC for Bytram

New telescope to investigate mysterious light flashes on the moon

For centuries people have noticed odd flashes and other inexplicable lights on the surface of the moon. Possible explanations range from meteors to moonquakes to UFOs, but they have yet to be proven. A new telescope in Spain hopes to provide more data and perhaps an answer to the mystery.

So-called "lunar transient phenomena" can refer to flashes of light on the moon that are either fleeting or longer-lasting. Some areas of the lunar surface have also been seen to darken randomly.

[...] The new lunar telescope north of Seville, Spain, includes two cameras that watch the moon every night for the odd flashes. A team led by Hakan Kayal, professor of space technology at Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg in Bavaria, Germany, will then analyze photo and video sequences of the event.

When the telescope and the team observe the lunar phenomenon, they'll compare their results to data from the European Space Agency, which also keeps a constant eye on the moon.

"If the same thing was seen there, the event can be considered confirmed," Kayal explained in a release Friday.

[...] While the telescope is already in operation, more work remains to tweak the artificial intelligence and other software that'll help the system discern actual lunar transient phenomena from more mundane events like birds or airplanes flying in front of the cameras.

Kayal hopes to have the whole system dialed in and working on solving the mystery in about a year.

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canopic jug writes:

A recent ban on certain customers has motivated Eric S Raymond (ESR) to write on how dangerous software as a service is to our freedom. It's a brief blog post where he goes through a specific case, points to the pre-existing warning signs that are ignored, and summarizes:

It’s 2019 and I feel like I shouldn’t have to restate the obvious, but if you want to keep control of your business[,] the software you rely on needs to be open-source. All of it. All of it. And you can’t afford it to be tethered to a service provider even if the software itself is nominally open source.

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"upstart" writes:

Submitted via IRC for Bytram

Brush your teeth -- postpone Alzheimer's

The researchers have determined that gum disease (gingivitis) plays a decisive role in whether a person developes Alzheimer´s or not.

"We discovered DNA-based proof that the bacteria causing gingivitis can move from the mouth to the brain," says researcher Piotr Mydel at Broegelmanns Research Laboratory, Department of Clinical Science, University of Bergen (UiB).

The bacteria produces a protein that destroys nerve cells in the brain, which in turn leads to loss of memory and ultimately, Alzheimer´s.

The study is published in Science Advances.

Mydel points out that the bacteria is not causing Alzheimer´s alone, but the presence of these bacteria raise the risk for developing the disease substantially and are also implicated in a more rapid progression of the disease. However, the good news is that this study shows that there are some things you can do yourself to slow down Alzheimer´s.

“Brush your teeth and use floss”.

Mydel adds that it is important, if you have established gingivitis and have Alzheimer´s in your family, to go to your dentist regularly and clean your teeth properly.

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Phoenix666 writes:

BBC:

The Ásatrú faith, one of Iceland's fastest growing religions, combines Norse mythology with ecological awareness – and it's open to all
...
The blót¹ had been organised by the Ásatrú Association of Iceland, a pagan faith group that is currently one of the country's fastest growing religions, having almost quadrupled its membership in a decade, albeit from a low base of 1,275 people in 2009 to 4,473 in 2018.
...
The Ásatrú faith also celebrates Old Norse mythology and its pantheon of morally ambiguous deities – gods such as Odin, Thor and Loki – that came to Iceland during the Viking Age, when the island was settled by Norwegian famers looking for new pastures. These deities were worshipped across this 'land of fire and ice' until the year 1000, when, under pressure from the influential Norwegian crown, the country abandoned heathenry and adopted Christianity.

If your Jedi faith has been shaken by the apostasy of The Last Jedi and the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster doesn't work with your gluten allergy, Ásatrú might be for you...

¹ A changing of the season ceremony - Ed

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"upstart" writes:

Submitted via IRC for Bytram

International Astronomical Union:

Over the past decades, considerable effort has gone into designing, building, and deploying satellites for many important purposes. Recently networks, known as satellite constellations, have been deployed and are planned in ever greater numbers in mainly low-Earth orbits for a variety of purposes, including providing communication services to underserved or remote areas. Until this year, the number of such satellites was below 200, but that number is now increasing rapidly, with plans to deploy potentially tens of thousands of them. In that event, satellite constellations will soon outnumber all previously launched satellites.

The International Astronomical Union (IAU) is concerned about these satellite constellations. The organisation, in general, embraces the principle of a dark and radio-quiet sky as not only essential to advancing our understanding of the Universe of which we are a part, but also as a resource for all humanity and for the protection of nocturnal wildlife. We do not yet understand the impact of thousands of these visible satellites scattered across the night sky and despite their good intentions, these satellite constellations may threaten both.

The scientific concerns are twofold. Firstly, the surfaces of these satellites are often made of highly reflective metal, and reflections from the Sun in the hours after sunset and before sunrise make them appear as slow-moving dots in the night sky. Although most of these reflections may be so faint that they are hard to pick out with the naked eye, they can be detrimental to the sensitive capabilities of large ground-based astronomical telescopes, including the extreme wide-angle survey telescopes currently under construction. Secondly, despite notable efforts to avoid interfering with radio astronomy frequencies, aggregate radio signals emitted from the satellite constellations can still threaten astronomical observations at radio wavelengths. Recent advances in radio astronomy, such as producing the first image of a black hole or understanding more about the formation of planetary systems, were only possible through concerted efforts in safeguarding the radio sky from interference.

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martyb writes:

Samsung and AMD Partner up for Mobile GPUs:

Samsung and AMD are teaming up to develop mobile graphics using AMD's Radeon GPU technology.

[...] The graphics systems will be high-performance and ultra-low power, and aimed at mobile devices including smartphones.

Radeon graphics are already being used across PC, console, cloud and high-performance computing, AMD CEO Lisa Su said.

[...] Terms include Samsung paying AMD licensing fees and royalties for its Radeon technology, and AMD licensing custom graphics intellectual property based on RDNA architecture.

[...] Samsung will also integrate Radeon graphics into all of its future system-on-a-chip offerings for mobile applications.

I wonder if this will play a role in AMD's APU (Accelerated Processing Unit) integrated graphics efforts?

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martyb writes:

Rolls-Royce Wants to Shatter the Electric Plane Speed Record:

Rolls' electric racing plane was first announced earlier in 2019, and while on the face of things, its 500 horsepower rating and propeller-style propulsion may seem a bit old-fashioned, ACCEL as it's known is anything but. In fact, Rolls-Royce plans to use it to set a speed record.

ACCEL -- which stands for "accelerating electrification of flight" -- makes use of several unique design ideas to further its record-breaking agenda. The 750-volt battery pack being used in the racer features 6,000 individual cells that together will offer 200 miles of range. To spin its single low-speed propeller, ACCEL uses three lightweight electric motors, stacked together which deliver a combined 500 hp.

The shape of the plane is reminiscent of the racing monoplanes of the 1930s and 40s, as well as the sleek fighters employed by the Allies during World War II. This means that ACCEL features a sleek mono-wing design with a long and narrow fuselage that should allow the modestly-powered aircraft to exceed 300 miles per hour.

They hope to undertake an attempt at the current electric plane speed record — set in 2017 by Siemens at 210mph — sometime in 2020 in the UK.

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"upstart" writes:

Submitted via IRC for SoyCow4463

Reverse Engineering of a Not-so-Secure IoT Device

The ‘Internet of Things’ is coming! It started as an overused marketing hype with no real use case (who needs internet connected fridges? Who wants the internet connected toilet paper?).

New ‘things’ start to pop up, useful or not: From smart bulbs (Philips Hue), thermostats (Nest), smart TV (Samsung and others) up to voice assistants (Alexa, Cortana, Google). You might even have installed one of these, right? What about temperature and humidity sensors? Probably there is nothing wrong with that?

But what would you think if one morning you find a strange unknown device installed under your working desk, connected to the cloud and internet?

This article uses an example of an IoT monitoring/sensor device. The device had been deployed in shared rooms (e.g. meeting rooms) as well placed under the desk of individual employees. This article describes the investigation and analysis of that device, the possible problems along with proposed improvements.

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RandomFactor writes:

Yale University Researchers have figured out how to save the stochastic life of Schrödinger's cat.

Schrödinger's cat is a well-known paradox used to illustrate the concept of superposition -- the ability for two opposite states to exist simultaneously -- and unpredictability in quantum physics. The idea is that a cat is placed in a sealed box with a radioactive source and a poison that will be triggered if an atom of the radioactive substance decays. The superposition theory of quantum physics suggests that until someone opens the box, the cat is both alive and dead, a superposition of states. Opening the box to observe the cat causes it to abruptly change its quantum state randomly, forcing it to be either dead or alive

The "quantum jump" is the discrete and random collapse from uncertainty into a single reality when observed.

The experiment, performed in the lab of Yale professor Michel Devoret and proposed by lead author Zlatko Minev, peers into the actual workings of a quantum jump for the first time. The results reveal a surprising finding that contradicts Danish physicist Niels Bohr's established view -- the jumps are neither abrupt nor as random as previously thought.

Quantum jumps were theorized originally by Bohr in 1913, but not observed until the 1980s. These jumps occur every time a qubit is measured.

"Despite that," added Minev, "We wanted to know if it would be possible to get an advance warning signal that a jump is about to occur imminently."

Phoenix666 writes:

BBC:

We all want to fit in. Never more so than at work which means most of us sink significant time and money into trying to get our heads around all the hidden dress codes and etiquette.

This dutiful compliance with office norms signals we are knowledgeable, resourceful and that we belong, says Rick Harbaugh, an associate professor of business economics at Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business.

But would a more off-the-wall approach be a better investment?
...
Standing out, rather than fitting in, could in fact be the smarter route to success. A phrase coined in a study published in the Journal of Consumer Research in 2014, the “red sneaker effect”, revealed we confer higher status and competence on mavericks versus conformists.

Here's your chance, if you've ever wanted to be The Man with One Red Shoe...

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Phoenix666 writes:

Cal Newport:

When people contemplate the declutter process..., in which you spend 30 days away from optional technology as a prelude to simplifying your digital life, they often predict that the main challenge will be compensating for the benefits and features they’ll miss out on.

But this prediction is almost always wrong. Most people report that after a week or so of some mild withdrawal symptoms, they’re surprised by how little they miss the features of services like Twitter or Instagram.

The real problem — and this surprised me — is figuring out how to deal with all the free time this move toward minimalism suddenly injects into your life.
...

“I learned that a lot of actions in my day are mindless. We all have much more time than we think we do; we just fill it with lots of scrolling.”

…

“Here’s what I realized: I am addicted to using my phone, specifically, using my phone to curtail boredom during ‘free periods’ in my life…My problem, which is apparently common amongst people who have done this same digital fast, is that I didn’t have a good downtime activity to engage in.”

TFA is a plug for a book on the subject, but unplugging from technology is a theme that is cropping up more often lately. What have Soylentils' experiences been?

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