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AndyTheAbsurd submitted a link, via IRC, which became the inspiration for this story.

Tech's Most Controversial Startup Now Makes Drone-Killing Robots:

Jason Levin stood on a craggy hill on a Southern California ranch in late July and prepared to destroy a drone. First he grabbed the controls for an Up Air One, a remote control hobbyist model that retails for about $300, and steered it until it was hovering about 100 feet above the ground. Next he used a laptop to activate a system he'd spent the past several months building.

A second drone roughly the size of the Up Air quadcopter spun into action, buzzing like a mechanical wasp as it ascended to about 20 feet below its target. As it hovered, a crowd of Levin's colleagues gathered around. A prompt appeared on-screen asking for permission to attack. Levin tapped a button, and the second drone, dubbed the Interceptor, shot upward, striking the Up Air One at 100 mph. The two aircraft somersaulted skyward briefly, then they plummeted back to earth and landed with two satisfying thuds. Levin grinned and explained that he hadn't been controlling the Interceptor after telling it to attack—it finds targets and steers toward them on its own. If the first collision doesn't take its quarry down, the drone can circle back and strike a second and third time, all by itself. "It's a good feeling as an engineer," he said. "You've put in the work, and it knows what to do. It's like sending your kid off to college."

Small Satellite Launcher Virgin Orbit Announces Plans to Send Tiny Vehicles to Mars

upstart writes:

Small satellite launcher Virgin Orbit announces plans to send tiny vehicles to Mars, submitted by SoyCow137, and Virgin Orbit aims to launch world's first commercial Mars satellite mission submitted by Bytram

Virgin Orbit has big plans to send small spacecraft to Mars, as soon as 2022. The company — an offshoot of Richard Branson's space tourism company Virgin Galactic — announced today that it is partnering with nearly a dozen Polish universities and a Polish satellite maker called SatRevolution to design up to three robotic missions to the Red Planet over the next decade.

If successful, these missions could be the first purely commercial trips to Mars. Up until now, only four organizations have ever successfully made it to the Red Planet, and all of them have been government-led space organizations. Commercial companies like SpaceX have vowed to send spacecraft to Earth's neighbor, but so far, Mars has been the sole domain of nation-states. "It's still a pretty small club, and none of them have been something quite like this where it's a consortium of companies and universities," Will Pomerantz, the vice president of special projects at Virgin Orbit, tells The Verge. Plus, all of these space agency vehicles have typically been large — comparable to the size of buses and cars.

But the Virgin Orbit team was inspired to take on this endeavor thanks to NASA's recent InSight mission, which sent a lander to Mars in November of 2018. When the InSight lander launched, two small standardized spacecraft the size of cereal boxes — known as CubeSats — launched along with it, and traveled all the way to Mars trailing behind the vehicle. It marked the first time that CubeSats, or any small spacecraft of that size, had journeyed beyond the orbit of Earth and out into deep space. The pair of satellites performed exactly as intended, relaying signals from InSight back to Earth, proving that small satellites could be valuable on deep space missions for very low costs.

Now, Virgin Orbit says it has figured out a way to send vehicles as light as 110 pounds (50 kilograms) into deep space with the company's future rocket, called LauncherOne. Most of Virgin Orbit's business plan revolves around launching small- to medium-sized satellites into low Earth orbit with the rocket, but Pomerantz says it's possible to go even farther. "We spent some time internally looking at what the options are, and sort of discovered that we actually think we can do some things that are fairly interesting to places like the Moon and Mars, and the moons of Mars, and Venus, and maybe a couple of the asteroids in the asteroid belt," he says.

Original Submission #1  Original Submission #2 

upstart writes:

Submitted via IRC for SoyCow1337

Senators pressure Visa and Mastercard over work on Facebook's blockchain project

'If you take this on, you can expect a high level of scrutiny from regulators'

Lawmakers have begun actively pressuring members of the Libra Association, the international blockchain payments project led by Facebook, to reconsider their involvement with the group.

In a new letter sent to the CEOs of Visa, Mastercard, and Stripe, Sens. Brian Schatz (D-HI) and Sherrod Brown (D-OH) warn of enormous risks inherent in the Libra project, including facilitating criminal and terrorist financing and destabilizing the global financial system. The letter also suggests the companies would face increased oversight from financial regulators in their conventional, non-blockchain businesses if they continue with the association.

"Facebook appears to want the benefits of engaging in financial activities without the responsibility of being regulated as a financial services company," the letters read. "If you take this on, you can expect a high level of scrutiny from regulators not only on Libra-related activities, but on all payment activities."

Republicans have also been skeptical of the project, with Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) describing it as Facebook "expanding their monopoly."

As payment processors, all three companies face significant federal regulatory burdens, including from the Federal Trade Commission, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and the Department of Justice. Facebook is already facing growing scrutiny from those agencies — particularly the FTC, which reached a $5 billion settlement with the company earlier this year. None of the three payment processors immediately responded to a request for comment.

Previously:
PayPal Withdraws Support for Facebook’s Libra Cryptocurrency
Visa, Mastercard Reportedly Reconsidering Support For Facebook's Libra
Stormclouds Gather for Facebook's Libra Currency

Original Submission

An Anonymous Coward writes:

In Modern Australia Alcohol Buzzes Bees as seen around Parliament House where bees are dropping to the ground to sit out their boozy afternoon pollen skulling after being kicked out of the hive. High temperatures in Australia can cause nectar in flowers to ferment which affects bees collecting pollen for making honey. The drunkard bees are refused entry to the hive so the alcohol in their system doesn't affect the honey in the hive. Sadly, this has been known to kill the drunk bees with their corpses littering the grounds around the hallowed halls of Australian politics.

I wonder if the government hits them with an alcohol tax.

Original Submission

"exec" writes:

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

A new study from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis sheds light on how human gut microbes break down processed foods -- especially potentially harmful chemical changes often produced during modern food manufacturing processes.

Reporting Oct. 9 in the journal Cell Host & Microbe, scientists have identified a specific human gut bacterial strain that breaks down the chemical fructoselysine, and turns it into harmless byproducts. Fructoselysine is in a class of chemicals called Maillard Reaction Products, which are formed during food processing. Some of these chemicals have been linked to harmful health effects. These findings raise the prospect that it may be possible to use such knowledge of the gut microbiome to help develop healthier, more nutritious processed foods.

The study was conducted in mice that were raised under sterile conditions, given known collections of human gut microbes and fed diets containing processed food ingredients.

"This study gives us a deeper view of how components of our modern diets are metabolized by gut microbes, including the breakdown of components that may be unhealthy for us," said Jeffrey I. Gordon, MD, the Dr. Robert J. Glaser Distinguished University Professor and director of the Edison Family Center for Genome Sciences & Systems Biology. "We now have a way to identify these human gut microbes and how they metabolize harmful food chemicals into innocuous byproducts."

upstart writes:

Submitted via IRC for SoyCow1337

American Airlines says it will resume flights with Boeing's 737 Max jets in January

American Airlines will resume flights with Boeing's 737 Max jets in January 2020. In a statement posted online on October 9th, the airline says it expects software updates to result in the beleaguered jet's re-certification by federal aviation authorities "later this year."

Boeing is expected to submit its final certification package to the FAA later this year. Anticipating this, American says it expects to "slowly phase in the MAX for commercial service" starting January 16th, and will "increase flying on the aircraft throughout the month and into February."

The FAA ordered the grounding of all Boeing 737 Max jets after two deadly crashes in October 2018 and March 2019 that killed a total of 346 people. Both crashes have been linked to a piece of software that Boeing had installed on the 737 Max known as the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System, or MCAS.

[...]A flight attendants union issued a statement calling on American and other carriers to prioritize safety. "It will be imperative that my members are assured of the complete safety of this aircraft before taking it back up in the air," said Lori Bassani, national president of the Association of Professional Flight Attendants, which represents 28,000 flight attendants at American Airlines. "Our airline crews and passengers deserve to have the highest level of assurances prior to re-entry into the air space. Our lives and passengers' lives depend on it and our lives are not for sale."

Remind me not to fly in January.

[Sure! "Don't fly in January." =) --martyb]

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Submitted via IRC for Bytram

Father of Unix Ken Thompson checkmated as his old password has finally been cracked

Back in 2014, developer Leah Neukirchen found an /etc/passwd file among a file dump from the BSD 3 source tree that included the passwords used by various computer science pioneers, including Dennis Ritchie, Ken Thompson, Brian Kernighan, Steve Bourne, and Bill Joy.

As she explained in a blog post on Wednesday, she decided at the time to try cracking the password hashes, created using DES-based crypt(3), using various cracking tools like John the Ripper and hashcat.

When the subject surfaced on the Unix Heritage Society mailing list last week, Neukirchen responded with 20 cracked passwords from the file that's she'd broken five years ago. Five hashed passwords, however, remained elusive, including Thompson's.

ZghOT0eRm4U9s

"Even an exhaustive search over all lower-case letters and digits took several days (back in 2014) and yielded no result," wrote Neukirchen, who wondered whether Thompson might somehow have used uppercase or special characters.

upstart writes:

Submitted via IRC for SoyCow1337

Amazon's Prime Video app disappears from the App Store [Updated] – TechCrunch

In what we understand was a “technical issue”, the Amazon Prime Video app disappeared from the Apple App Store, making it unavailable for new downloads or updates to users both on iOS and Apple TV. Twitter users began to tweet to Amazon for help about the problem on Friday morning, to which Amazon’s support channels have yet to reply.

[Update: we’ve learned the issue is technical in nature, but we have no further information as to the details of the problem. The app should be back shortly.]

[Update 2: Amazon has now offered a comment on the disappearance.

"Earlier today, there was a technical glitch that impacted the Prime Video app on iOS and tvOS devices," an Amazon spokesperson said. "The issue has been resolved, and the Prime Video app is now once again available in the App Store."

Earlier post continues below:

The app’s disappearance was earlier reported by AppleInsider, iMore and others.

The most likely reason for the app’s removal is a technical one — an issue with the update could have caused it to be temporarily pulled, perhaps.

What’s not likely is that Amazon Prime Video is gone for good.

Original Submission

An Anonymous Coward writes:

ANU shares knowledge on major breach into systems that exposed 19 years of staff and student records.

In early November 2018, a sophisticated actor gained unauthorised access to the ANU network. This attack resulted in the breach of part of the network known as the Enterprise Systems Domain (ESD), which houses our human resources, financial management, student administration and enterprise e-forms systems.

By gaining access to ESD, the actor was able to copy and steal an unknown quantity of data contained in the above systems. There is some evidence to suggest the same actor attempted to regain access to ESD during February 2019, but this second attack was ultimately unsuccessful.

[...] At the time of the public announcement, ANU was not able to ascertain how much data or specifically which fields might have been accessed. As such it was assumed that all data, dating back some 19 years, had been potentially affected and reported as such to err on the side of caution. More recent forensic analysis has been able to determine that the amount of data taken is much less than 19 years' worth; although it is not possible to determine how many, or precisely which, records were taken. This analysis is based on duration of exfiltration activity and known, albeit incomplete, data volumes.

ANU worked closely with, and reported findings to, the Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC) and the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC), before public notification. During the intervening two weeks between the detection of the breach and the public announcement on Tuesday 4 June 2019, we implemented a range of additional security controls inside ESD and the broader network – many of these activities were to expedite hardening measures already scheduled for implementation.

Page has more background:
https://www.anu.edu.au/news/all-news/data-breach

Report in pdf:
https://imagedepot.anu.edu.au/scapa/Website/SCAPA190209_Public_report_web_2.pdf

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

Australia's incumbent telco Telstra has announced it is planning to switch off its 3G network in June 2024 and refarm the spectrum for its 5G network.

The telco said until that time, it would look to boost its 4G coverage to a "materially equivalent size and reach" compared to the 3G network. To achieve this, Telstra will look at areas serviced only by 3G and assess its product portfolio, the company said.

[...] 5G services were switched on by Telstra a year ago, with the launch covering 50 base stations.

The telco expects 5G to be a strong growth engine, CEO Andy Penn said during the company's annual retail shareholder day last month.

"ARPUs¹ tend to increase, particularly in the early stages of a rollout," Penn said. "So we see that happening in 5G as well as we look forward over the next couple of years."

Penn added that with second generation 5G chips heading into devices later this year, the company expects 5G uptake to increase.

"I think what history has shown us is that, as we put these technologies in the hands of our customers, they respond very positively and it's tended to lead to improvement in revenues across the industry," he said.

[1] ARPU - Average revenue per user

Original Submission

"exec" writes:

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

Just by breathing or wearing deodorant, you have more influence over your office space than you might think, a growing body of evidence shows. But could these basic acts of existence also be polluting the air in the office room where you work?

To find out, a team of engineers at Purdue University has been conducting one of the largest studies of its kind in the office spaces of a building rigged with thousands of sensors. The goal is to identify all types of indoor air contaminants and recommend ways to control them through how a building is designed and operated.

"If we want to provide better air quality for office workers to improve their productivity, it is important to first understand what's in the air and what factors influence the emissions and removal of pollutants," said Brandon Boor, an assistant professor of civil engineering with a courtesy appointment in environmental and ecological engineering.

The data is showing that people and ventilation systems greatly impact the chemistry of indoor air -- possibly more than anything else in an office space. The researchers will present their initial findings at the 2019 American Association for Aerosol Research Conference in Portland, Oregon, Oct. 14-18.

"The chemistry of indoor air is dynamic. It changes throughout the day based on outdoor conditions, how the ventilation system operates and occupancy patterns in the office," Boor said.

The building, called the Living Labs at Purdue's Ray W. Herrick Laboratories, uses an array of sensors to precisely monitor four open-plan office spaces and to track the flow of indoor and outdoor air through the ventilation system. The team developed a new technique to track occupancy by embedding temperature sensors in each desk chair.

Through use of the Living Labs, Boor's team has begun to identify previously unknown behaviors of chemicals called volatile organic compounds, such as how they are transformed in ventilation systems and removed by filters.

"We wanted to shed light on the behind-the-scenes role ventilation systems have on the air we breathe," Boor said.

-- submitted from IRC

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

Twitter says it was just an accident that caused the microblogging giant to let advertisers use private information to better target their marketing materials at users.

The social networking giant on Tuesday admitted to an "error" that let advertisers have access to the private information customers had given Twitter in order to place additional security protections on their accounts.

"We recently discovered that when you provided an email address or phone number for safety or security purposes (for example, two-factor authentication) this data may have inadvertently been used for advertising purposes, specifically in our Tailored Audiences and Partner Audiences advertising system," Twitter said.

"When an advertiser uploaded their marketing list, we may have matched people on Twitter to their list based on the email or phone number the Twitter account holder provided for safety and security purposes. This was an error and we apologize."

Twitter assures users that no "personal" information was shared, though we're not sure what Twitter would consider "personal information" if your phone number and email address do not meet the bar.

"We cannot say with certainty how many people were impacted by this, but in an effort to be transparent, we wanted to make everyone aware. No personal data was ever shared externally with our partners or any other third parties," the mea cupa reads.

"As of September 17, we have addressed the issue that allowed this to occur and are no longer using phone numbers or email addresses collected for safety or security purposes for advertising."

[...] Aside from being a violation of privacy and potential legal liability for Twitter, the incident will have the added effect of making users less safe by discouraging them from using phone numbers and email verification as additional levels of security.

All in all, this is a bad look for Twitter that isn't likely to go away any time soon.

Original Submission

JoeMerchant writes:

I'm a driver for Uber and Lyft — here's exactly how much I make in one week on the job

The final tally was about $257 for less than 14 hours of work — or about $19 an hour.

Read on for a detailed breakdown of how much I made driving for Uber and Lyft, including some of the most unusual passengers and some mishaps I had along the way....

I put 291.1 miles on my Prius, using about 5.75 gallons of gas, which is about $13.22 in gas expenses for my area...

I had to then find who was open on a Sunday to replace the flat tire. While I was on the phone calling places, I figured I might as well get four new tires altogether, and an oil change too, since my car was almost due for those. Safety first... It was $430.22 to fix my car.

One estimate of the Prius TCO for 5 years / 75,000 miles is $34,067 - or $0.454 per mile, beating the IRS mileage rate of $0.58. This guy doesn't come off as one who does his own work or otherwise keeps that TCO down...

Interesting that he even neglected his gas money in his hourly "income" quotation, factoring in $0.50/mile TCO instead. His net income is around $112 for a self (likely under) estimated 14 hours of work (isn't calling around town on a Sunday to get your car fixed also work?), or $8 per hour. I suppose it's good for the self-esteem if you don't think of yourself putting your life at risk for less than minimum wage.

Anyone here eager to get out and live that gig economy lifestyle?

Original Submission

upstart writes for SoyCow9088:

Muhstik Ransomware Victim Hacks Back, Releases Decryption Keys

Since the end of September, an attacker has been hacking into publicly exposed QNAP NAS devices and encrypting the files on them. This ransomware has been named Muhstik based on the .muhstik extension appended to encrypted files.

The attacker would then demand 0.09 bitcoins, or approximately $700 USD, for a victim to get their files  back.

After paying a ransom of €670, a victim named Tobias Frömel said enough is enough, and hacked back the attacker's command and control server.

Frömel told BleepingComputer that the server contained web shells that allowed him to get access to the PHP script that generates passwords for a new victim. The relevant portion of the PHP script from the command and control server that generates a key and inserts it into the database can be seen below.

Frömel told us that he used the same web shell to create a new PHP file based on the key generator and used it to output the HWIDs, which are unique per victim, and decryption keys for the 2,858 Muhstik victims stored in the database.

The HWIDs and their associated decryption keys were then shared with the victims in BleepingComputer's Muhstik support and help topic and with victims on Twitter. This post includes a link to the keys on Pastebin and a free decryptor uploaded to Mega.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

Law enforcement agents in New York City have been able to crack iPhones in-house since January 2018 — some 18 months before the capability was revealed by the company supplying the technology.

It was June 2019 that Israeli forensics firm Cellebrite announced that its “new” UFED Premium product would, for the first time, allow customers to unlock iPhones in their own offices, rather than have to send them to the company’s own labs. But a new report today found that the product has been in use for far longer than this…

The original announcement made it sound like Universal Forensic Extraction Device Premium was brand-new.

The only on-premise solution for law enforcement agencies to unlock and extract crucial mobile phone evidence from all iOS and high-end Android devices.

A comprehensive solution to access iOS and high-end Android devices.

Bypass or determine locks and perform a full file system extraction on any iOS device, or a physical extraction or full file system (File-Based Encryption) extraction on many high-end Android devices, to get much more data than what is possible through logical extractions and other conventional means.

Gain access to third-party app data, chat conversations, downloaded emails and email attachments, deleted content, and more, increase your chances of finding the incriminating evidence and bringing your case to a resolution.

But a OneZero report says it has proof that the Manhattan District Attorney’s office had already been using the product to crack iPhones in-house for 18 months by that time.

[...]A contract obtained by OneZero shows that the Manhattan District Attorney’s office — one of the largest and most influential prosecution offices in the country — has had UFED Premium in-house since January 2018. According to the contract, the DA’s office agreed to pay Cellebrite about $200,000 over three years for UFED Premium.

Original Submission