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Freeman writes:

Not so IDLE hands: FBI program offers companies data protection via deception

The Federal Bureau of Investigations is in many ways on the front lines of the fight against both cybercrime and cyber-espionage in the US. These days, the organization responds to everything from ransomware attacks to data thefts by foreign government-sponsored hackers. But the FBI has begun to play a role in the defense of networks before attacks have been carried out as well, forming partnerships with some companies to help prevent the loss of critical data.

Sometimes, that involves field agents proactively contacting companies when they have information of a threat—as two FBI agents did when they caught wind of researchers trying to alert casinos of vulnerabilities they said they had found in casino kiosk systems. "We have agents in every field office spending a large amount of time going out to companies in their area of responsibility establishing relationships," Long T. Chu, acting assistant section chief for the FBI's Cyber Engagement and Intelligence Section, told Ars. "And this is really key right now—before there's a problem, providing information to help these companies prepare their defenses. And we try to provide as specific information as we can."

But the FBI is not stopping its consultative role at simply alerting companies to threats. An FBI flyer shown to Ars by a source broadly outlined a new program aimed at helping companies fight data theft "caused by an insider with illicit access (or systems administrator), or by a remote cyber actor." The program, called IDLE (Illicit Data Loss Exploitation), does this by creating "decoy data that is used to confuse illicit... collection and end use of stolen data." It's a form of defensive deception—or as officials would prefer to refer to it, obfuscation—that the FBI hopes will derail all types of attackers, particularly advanced threats from outside and inside the network.

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Phoenix666 writes:

Phys.org reports:

Our research focuses on the structure and incentives of various customer service centers to explain why consumers perpetually experience hassles when seeking refunds.

What we found is not encouraging.

Many complaint processes are actually designed to help companies retain profits by limiting the number of customers who can successfully resolve their complaints.

The best strategy to resolve your complaint is to instantly go hyper-nuclear.

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upstart writes in with an IRC submission for chromas:

Facebook is developing its own OS to reduce dependence on Android:

Despite the recent privacy scandals, mishandling of user data, and a potential federal injunction looming in the distance, Facebook seems to be going full steam ahead with its ambitions. According to a recent report by The Information, the company is now developing its own operating system to reduce dependency on Google’s Android. The development, as per The Verge, is being led by Mark Lucovsky — an ex-Microsoft official who co-authored the Windows NT operating system.

While the report provides a limited amount of information about how Facebook plans to use the new operating system, it does point out that currently Facebook’s Oculus and Portal devices run on a modified version of Android. This leads us to believe that with its new operating system the company plans to replace Android on its VR and smart devices. And one of Facebook’s AR and VR heads, Ficus Kirkpatrick, mirrors this sentiment. According to Kirkpatrick, “it’s possible” that Facebook’s future hardware won’t need to rely on Google’s software which could possibly remove Google’s control over the company’s hardware.

Andrew Bosworth, Facebook’s head of hardware, also told The Information that the company “want(s) to make sure the next generation has space for us. We don’t think we can trust the marketplace or competitors to ensure that’s the case. And so we’re going to do it ourselves.” Along with the aforementioned Oculus and Portal devices, Facebook is also working on AR glasses. Bosworth reveals that these glasses, codenamed “Orion”, could arrive as early as 2023. Interestingly, Apple is also expected to come out with its own pair of AR glasses around the same time. Facebook is reportedly also working on a brain control interface for its glasses, which could allow users to control them with their thoughts.

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PiMuNu writes:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-50855395

The Boeing company is going to have to cut short the uncrewed demonstration flight of its new astronaut capsule.

The Starliner launched successfully on its Atlas rocket from Florida, but then suffered technical problems that prevented it from taking the correct path to the International Space Station.

It appears the capsule burnt too much fuel as it operated its engines, leaving an insufficient supply to complete its mission.

Starliner will now come back to Earth. A landing is planned in the New Mexico desert in about 48 hours.

See also:

• https://spacenews.com/starliner-suffers-off-nominal-orbital-insertion-after-launch/

• https://spacenews.com/starliner-anomaly-to-prevent-iss-docking/

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upstart writes in with an IRC submission for chromas:

Ethiopia celebrates launch of first satellite:

Ethiopia launched its first satellite on Friday, a landmark achievement for the country's space programme that caps a banner year for the African space industry.

The launch of the Ethiopian Remote Sensing Satellite (ETRSS) took place at a space station in China, though scores of Ethiopian and Chinese officials and scientists gathered at the Entoto Observatory and Research Centre outside the capital, Addis Ababa, early Friday to watch a live broadcast.

"This will be a foundation for our historic journey to prosperity," Deputy Prime Minister Demeke Mekonnen said in a speech. "This technological infrastructure is important even if it's delayed."

It is the eighth launch of an African satellite this year, topping the previous record of seven in 2017, according to Temidayo Oniosun, managing director of Space in Africa, a Nigeria-based firm that tracks African space programmes.

"We can say that 2019 is pretty much the best year in the history of the African space industry," Oniosun told AFP.

The launch makes Ethiopia the eleventh African country to put a satellite into space. Egypt was the first in 1998.

All told, 41 African satellites have now been launched—38 from individual countries and three more that were multilateral efforts, Oniosun said.

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upstart writes in with an IRC submission for chromas:

Cox owes $1 billion to record labels for harboring music pirates, jury decides:

Over the past few years, record labels have been suing ISPs for not removing music pirates from their services, and today, the record labels may have won a tremendous victory. A US District Court jury has found Cox Communications liable for piracy infringement of more than 10,000 musical works, and as a result, has awarded $1 billion in damages to Sony Music, Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group and EMI, as reported by Billboard and Variety.

Essentially, the recording industry just showed that a jury will buy its argument that an ISP should be held liable for failing to kick a music pirate off its network. And similar lawsuits like the one Cox lost today have been filed against Charter, Charter subsidiary Bright House Networks, RCN, and Grande Communications, so there's a chance that rulings against those companies could go similarly.

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MrPlow writes:

Submitted via IRC for SoyCow4408

In a recently published paper in Science Advances, Feng Ding of the Center for Multidimensional Carbon Materials, within the Institute of Basic Science (IBS, South Korea) and colleagues, have achieved the creation of a specific type of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) with a selectivity of 90%, and expanded the current theory that explains the synthesis of these promising nano-cylinders. CNTs are incredibly strong and light nanomaterials made of carbon with superior current carrying capacity and very high thermal conductivity, making them ideal for electronic applications. Although CNTs are considered as some of the most interesting materials for the future, scientists are still struggling for their controllable synthesis.

MrPlow writes:

Submitted via IRC for SoyCow4408

Deepfake technology uses deep neural networks to convincingly replace one face with another in a video. The technology has obvious potential for abuse and is becoming ever more widely accessible. Many good articles have been written about the important social and political implications of this trend.

This isn't one of those articles. Instead, in classic Ars Technica fashion, I'm going to take a close look at the technology itself: how does deepfake software work? How hard is it to use—and how good are the results?

I thought the best way to answer these questions would be to create a deepfake of my own. My Ars overlords gave me a few days to play around with deepfake software and a $1,000 cloud computing budget. A couple of weeks later, I have my result, which you can see above. I started with a video of Mark Zuckerberg testifying before Congress and replaced his face with that of Lieutenant Commander Data (Brent Spiner) from Star Trek: The Next Generation. Total spent: $552.

The video isn't perfect. It doesn't quite capture the full details of Data's face, and if you look closely you can see some artifacts around the edges.

Still, what's remarkable is that a neophyte like me can create fairly convincing video so quickly and for so little money. And there's every reason to think deepfake technology will continue to get better, faster, and cheaper in the coming years.

In this article I'll take you with me on my deepfake journey. I'll explain each step required to create a deepfake video. Along the way, I'll explain how the underlying technology works and explore some of its limitations.

Source: https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/12/how-i-created-a-deepfake-of-mark-zuckerberg-and-star-treks-data/

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Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

Meerkat clans perform a 'war dance' to frighten opponents and protect their territory, according to a new UCL and University of Cambridge study.

Published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, this is the first empirical study to reveal intergroup aggression.

[...] The study reveals that in more than half of interactions (64.7%) meerkat clans' exhibit aggression by either chasing or doing a 'war dance', where a meerkat displays an erect tail and puffed-out fur, possibly to make the group appear larger than its size.

[...] Dr. Dyble concluded: "If we want to fully understand violence in human societies, we need to understand its evolutionary roots. This requires us to understand why other animal groups fight, and what do they gain or lose from doing so. We show that although aggression only occasionally results in an individual being killed, winning fights with neighbouring groups is critical to maintaining a territory. In the harsh semi-desert of the Kalahari, a good quality territory is critical to a group's survival and long-term success."

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"upstart" writes:

Submitted via IRC for SoyCow4408

How does our Milky Way galaxy get its spiral form?

A question that has long puzzled scientists is how our Milky Way galaxy which has an elegant spiral shape with long arms, took this form.

Universities Space Research Association today announced that new observations of another galaxy are shedding light on how spiral-shaped galaxies like our own get their iconic shape.

According to research from the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA), magnetic fields play a strong role in shaping these galaxies. "Magnetic fields are invisible, but they may influence the evolution of a galaxy," said Dr. Enrique Lopez-Rodriguez, a Universities Space Research Association scientist at the SOFIA Science Center at NASA's Ames Research Center in California's Silicon Valley. "We have a pretty good understanding of how gravity affects galactic structures, but we're just starting to learn the role magnetic fields play."

Magnetic fields in the spiral galaxy are aligned with the spiral arms across the entire galaxy—more than 24,000 light years across. The magnetic field alignment with the star formation implies that the gravitational forces that created the galaxy's spiral shape is also compressing the magnetic field. The alignment supports the leading theory of how the arms are forced into their spiral shape known as "density wave theory."

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"upstart" writes:

Submitted via IRC for chromas

Declining dementia rates may be due to generational differences in lifetime lead exposure

To the medical community's surprise, several studies from the US, Canada, and Europe suggest a promising downward trend in the incidence and prevalence of dementia. Important risk factors for dementia, such as mid-life obesity and mid-life diabetes, have been increasing rapidly, so the decline in dementia incidence is particularly perplexing.

A new hypothesis by University of Toronto Professor Esme Fuller-Thomson, recently published in the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease, suggests that the declining dementia rates may be a result of generational differences in lifetime exposure to lead. U of T pharmacy student ZhiDi (Judy) Deng, co-authored the article.

While the negative impact of lead exposure on the IQ of children is well-known, less attention has been paid to the cumulative effects of a lifetime of exposure on older adults' cognition and dementia. Given previous levels of lead exposure, we believe further exploration of the of this hypothesis is warranted."

Fuller Thomson, director of the Institute of Life Course and Aging and professor at the Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work

[...] The authors suggest that next steps to assess the validity of this hypothesis could include: comparing 1990s assessment of blood lead levels to current Medicare records, assessing lead levels in teeth and tibia bones (which serve as proxies for life-time exposure) when conducting post-mortems of brains for dementia, and examining the association between particular gene variants associated with higher lead uptake and dementia incidence.

"If lifetime lead exposure is found to be a major contributor to dementia, we can expect continued improvements in the incidence of dementia for many more decades as each succeeding generation had fewer years of exposure to the neurotoxin," says Deng.

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stormwyrm writes:

The case of Newsweek journalist Kurt Eichenwald, who on December 15, 2016 received a nasty animated GIF on Twitter which triggered an epileptic seizure (previous SN coverage here, here, and here) set off a highly unusual court battle, which is now coming to a head. John Rayne Rivello, the one who sent Eichenwald the GIF that caused his seizure, is expected to plead guilty to aggravated assault. The Washington Post reports:

The GIF set off a highly unusual court battle that is expected to equip those in similar circumstances with a new tool for battling threatening trolls and cyberbullies. On Monday, the man accused of sending Eichenwald the moving image, John Rayne Rivello, was set to appear in a Dallas County district court. A last-minute rescheduling delayed the proceeding until Jan. 31, but Rivello is still expected to plead guilty to aggravated assault. And he may be the first of many.

The Epilepsy Foundation announced on Monday it lodged a sweeping slate of criminal complaints against a legion of copycats who targeted people with epilepsy and sent them an onslaught of strobe GIFs — a frightening phenomenon that unfolded in a short period of time during the organization's marking of National Epilepsy Awareness Month in November.

With Rivello's expected guilty plea, the foundation has a legal road map for fighting back.

Freeman writes:

The US government is entitled to every cent Edward Snowden earns from publishing his memoir, Permanent Record, a federal judge ruled on Tuesday.
[...]
Snowden is still in exile in Russia, where he has been stranded since 2013. The classified documents Snowden leaked to multiple journalists that year sparked an intense debate over US surveillance practices and inspired some modest reforms. Snowden faces near-certain prosecution for espionage if he returns to the US.

The US Department of Justice filed a lawsuit on September 17, the day Snowden's book first went on sale, seeking to seize Snowden's book profits. On Tuesday, just three months later, Judge Liam O'Grady granted the government's motion for summary judgment.
[...]
The judge also ruled that Snowden had breached his contractual responsibilities by giving speeches at the TED conference and other venues.
[...]
"Both the CIA and NSA secrecy agreements prohibit unauthorized publication of certain information, and Permanent Record discusses those types of information," O'Grady wrote. As a result, "the government is entitled to summary judgment."

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/12/us-government-is-entitled-to-all-snowden-book-proceeds-judge-rules/

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Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

Tens of thousands of students and staff at a university in Germany had to queue up this week after a malware infection on its campus network forced the college to reset everyone's account passwords.

The Justus Liebig University Gießen (JLU) says that a "suspected cyber attack" this month has caused it to shut down most of its online services for several days, and reset their logins.

In order to get new credentials, the school is requiring students to appear in person, meaning some 38,000 people have to show up with identification to get their passwords changed. Here's what that looks like...

"For security reasons, the university computing center has issued new passwords for all 38,000 JLU email accounts," a translation of the uni's alert reads. "All employees and students have to collect their new personal password personally."

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"upstart" writes:

Submitted via IRC for Bytram

Escher: Etch-a-Sketch As A Service

For better or for worse, the tech world has fully committed to pushing as many of their products into “The Cloud” as possible. Of course, readers of Hackaday see right through the corporate buzzwords. It’s all just a fancy way of saying you have to poke some server over the Internet every time you want to use the service. In a way, [Matt Welsh] has perfectly demonstrated this concept with Escher. It’s a normal Etch-a-Sketch, but since somebody else owns it and you’ve got to have an active Internet connection to use it, that makes it an honorary citizen of the Cloud.

Escher takes the form of a 3D printed mount and replacement knobs for the classic drawing toy that allow two NEMA 17 steppers to stand in for human hands. Thanks to the clever design, [Matt] can easily pull the Etch-a-Sketch out and use it the old fashioned way, though admittedly the ergonomics of holding onto the geared knobs might take a little getting used to. But who wants to use their hands, anyway?

[...] It probably will come as little surprise to hear this isn’t the first automatic Etch-a-Sketch that’s graced these pages over the years, but this might be the most fully realized version we’ve seen yet.

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