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upstart writes in with an IRC submission for Bytram:

No joy for all you Rover McRoverface fans: NASA's next Mars bot is christened Perseverance:

NASA's latest Martian rover, due to launch in July and being assembled right now, finally has a name: Perseverance.

The moniker was chosen by Alexander Mather, a seventh-grade student – that's Year 8 in England and Wales, or 11 to 13 years old, depending on where you are – at Braddock Secondary School in Virginia. Mather, who won NASA's "Name the Rover" to well, name the rover, was visited on Thursday by Thomas Zurbuchen, a top brass at the US space agency.

[...] "Alex's entry captured the spirit of exploration," gushed Zurbuchen in announcing the Martian robot's name.

"Alex and his classmates are the Artemis Generation, and they're going to be taking the next steps into space that lead to Mars. That inspiring work will always require perseverance. We can't wait to see that nameplate on Mars."

Original Submission

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for Bytram:

Electric cars may not get cuter than the Microlino 2.0 - Roadshow:

The Iso Isetta is one of numerous cult classic cars the 20th century bestowed on us. Quickly, it earned the nickname "bubble car" due to, well, the fact it kind of looks like a bubble.

Now, it's poised for a return, thanks to Switzerland's Micro Mobility. The company previously revealed its intentions to create a new, electric version of the bubble car back in 2016, but on Wednesday, the Microlino 2.0 debuted.

[...] As the company continues to ready the electric bubble car for production, the price holds firm. Those who place a reservation will pay roughly $13,500 for the car when it's ready for delivery. Easily, I could see this challenging the Citroen Ami in Europe as long as Micro Mobility puts together a quality car. We should see the first cars ready for customers in 2021.

Wikipedia entry for the original Isetta "Bubble Car"

Original Submission

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for Bytram:

Apple's new App Store policies fight spam and abuse but also allow ads in notifications:

Earlier this week, Apple notified app developers of a revised set of App Store review guidelines—the rules by which Apple curates its iOS/iPadOS, tvOS, watchOS, and macOS App Stores.

Among many other things, the revised rules expand the definition of what constitutes a spam app, clarify that developers are able to use push notifications to serve ads to users (provided users explicitly opt in to them), and limit submissions of certain types apps to trusted organizations in regulated or sensitive industries.

The most controversial of these changes has been the clear statement that developers can serve ads to users via push notifications. At one point in the past, Apple's guidelines stated that push notifications "should not be used for advertising, promotions, or direct marketing purposes or to send sensitive personal or confidential information." Now the guidelines state:

Push Notifications must not be required for the app to function, and should not be used to send sensitive personal or confidential information. Push Notifications should not be used for promotions or direct marketing purposes unless customers have explicitly opted in to receive them via consent language displayed in your app's UI, and you provide a method in your app for a user to opt out from receiving such messages.

Pixel Envy's Nick Heer noted that Apple was already failing to enforce the original language, so this seems like capitulation to what some developers have been doing for a while, perhaps in response to difficulty policing this consistently. Heer also points out that there is not currently a pre-baked way for developers to sort between types of notifications, so the "you provide a method in your app for a user to opt out from receiving such messages" language may still curb some of this behavior.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

Itokawa would normally be a fairly average near-Earth asteroid -- a rocky mass measuring only a few hundred metres in diameter, which orbits the sun amid countless other celestial bodies and repeatedly crosses the orbit of the Earth. But there is one fact that sets Itokawa apart: in 2005 it became[sic received?] a visit from Earth. The Japanese space agency JAXA sent the Hayabusa probe to Itokawa, which collected soil samples and brought them safely back to Earth -- for the first time in the history of space travel. This valuable cargo arrived in 2010 and since then, the samples have been the subject of intensive research.

A team from Japan and Jena has now succeeded in coaxing a previously undiscovered secret from some of these tiny sample particles: the surface of the dust grains is covered with tiny wafer-thin crystals of iron. This observation surprised Prof. Falko Langenhorst and Dr Dennis Harries of Friedrich Schiller University in Jena. After all, over the last 10 years, research teams all over the world have exhaustively studied the structure and chemical composition of the dust particles from Itokawa, and no one had noticed the iron 'whiskers'. It was only when Japanese researcher Dr Toru Matsumoto, who is spending a year as a visiting scientist with the Analytical Mineralogy group at the Institute of Geosciences in Jena, examined the particles with a transmission electron microscope that he was able to locate the crystals using high-resolution images.

[...] This discovery is exciting not only because the tiny iron 'whiskers' -- which have since been shown on other particles from the asteroid as well -- had previously been missed. Of particular interest is how they were formed. "These structures are the consequence of cosmic influences on the surface of the asteroid," explains Falko Langenhorst. In addition to rocks, high-energy particles from the solar wind also strike the asteroid's surface, thus weathering it. An important constituent of the asteroid is the mineral troilite, in which iron and sulphur are bound. "As a result of space weathering, the iron is released from the troilite and deposited on the surface in the form of the needles that have now been discovered," says the mineralogist Langenhorst. The sulphur from the iron sulphide then evaporates into the surrounding vacuum in the form of gaseous sulphur compounds.

[Emphasis in original. --martyb]

Journal Reference:

Toru Matsumoto, Dennis Harries, Falko Langenhorst, Akira Miyake, Takaaki Noguchi. Iron whiskers on asteroid Itokawa indicate sulfide destruction by space weathering. Nature Communications, 2020; 11 (1) DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-14758-3

Original Submission

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for Bytram:

Paper that claimed the Sun caused global warming gets retracted:

A paper published last June was catnip for those who are desperate to explain climate change with anything but human-caused greenhouse gas emissions. It was also apparently wrong enough to be retracted this week by the journal that published it, even though its authors objected.

The paper's headline conclusion was that it described a newly discovered cycle in the motion of the Sun, one that put us 300 years into what would be a thousand-year warming period for the Earth. Nevermind that we've been directly measuring the incoming radiation from the Sun and there has been no increase to explain the observed global warming—or that there is no evidence of a 2,000 year temperature cycle in the paleoclimate record.

Those obvious issues didn't stop some people from taking this study as proof that past warming was natural, and only mild and unavoidable warming lies in our future.

Original Submission

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for Bytram:

One for the super rich fanbois: Ultra-rare functional Apple-1 computer goes on auction:

Deep-pocketed fans of historical computing gear, take note: a fully functional Apple-1 computer is going under the hammer, with a guide price of $300,000.

The sale, which is currently live, is being run by the Boston-based RR Auction. The lot consists of the computer, which dates back to 1976, as well as a handful of compatible peripherals from the period including a keyboard, monitor and cassette interface.

Jobs and Wozniak produced the Apple-1 in two distinct batches: the first used the MOS 6502 microprocessors, while the second used a white ceramic Synertek C6502 CPU, and landed with a few cosmetic differences, with the capacitors coming in an all-yellow cladding.

The latter is rarer. Much rarer.

Known as the "NTI model" due to a marking on the logic board, it's believed that only two examples still exist. And this is the model that RR Auction has under the hammer.

Original Submission

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for Bytram:

How drones can hear walls: Mathematicians show that sound can be used to locate flat surfaces:

One drone, four microphones and a loudspeaker: nothing more is needed to determine the position of walls and other flat surfaces within a room. This has been mathematically proved by Prof. Gregor Kemper of the Technical University of Munich and Prof. Mireille Boutin of Purdue University in Indiana, USA.

Can walls and flat surfaces be recognized using sound waves? Mathematicians have been studying this question from a theoretical standpoint for quite some time.

"The basic scenario is a room with flat walls, and maybe a ceiling and a floor," explains Prof. Gregor Kemper of the Chair of Algorithmic Algebra at TUM. The room is not assumed to be rectangular. It is also possible to measure the slope of the walls. Several microphones and a loudspeaker are contained in the room.

Previous studies have already mathematically proven that four microphones and a loudspeaker are sufficient to pinpoint the walls and also calculate their inclination. To prepare for this, the microphones have to be brought into the room at random positions, which will take quite some time and in some situations will be altogether impossible.

That is why Kemper and Boutin took the idea one step further. In their theoretical approach, they mounted the loudspeaker and four microphones on a drone -- making measurement much more practical, because the equipment does not have to be installed in the room.

[...] The question of how likely it is for such ghost walls to arise in the measurement process leads to the core statement of the paper: Kemper and Boutin have proved that the drone's freedom of motion is sufficient for the probability of placing it in a "good" position -- meaning a position where no ghost walls are detected -- to be equal to 1. In other words, such a placement is a near certainty.

"The six degrees of freedom of the drone are sufficient for the microphones to be almost certainly in an optimal position for the measurement," says Kemper. The only prerequisite is that the microphones are not arranged in a common plane on the drone.

Mireille Boutin, Gregor Kemper. A Drone Can Hear the Shape of a Room. SIAM Journal on Applied Algebra and Geometry, 2020; 4 (1): 123 DOI: 10.1137/19M1248534

Original Submission

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for Bytram:

One billion Android devices at risk of hacking:

More than a billion Android devices are at risk of being hacked because they are no longer protected by security updates, watchdog Which? has suggested.

The vulnerability could leave users around the world exposed to the danger of data theft, ransom demands and other malware attacks.

Anyone using an Android phone released in 2012 or earlier should be especially concerned, it said.

[...] Google's own data suggests that 42.1% of Android users worldwide are on version 6.0 of its operating system or below.

According to the Android security bulletin, there were no security patches issued for the Android system in 2019 for versions below 7.0.

[...] How to check whether your phone is vulnerable and what to do

• If your Android device is more than two years old, check whether it can be updated to a newer version of the operating system. If you are on an earlier version than Android 7.0 Nougat, try to update via Settings SystemAdvanced System update
• If you can't update, your phone could be at risk of being hacked, especially if you are running a version of Android 4 or lower. If this is the case be careful about downloading apps outside the Google Play store
• Also be wary of suspicious SMS or MMS messages
• Back up data in at least two places (a hard drive and a cloud service)
• Install a mobile anti-virus via an app, but bear in mind that the choice is limited for older phones

DannyB writes:

Intel x86 Root of Trust: loss of trust

The scenario that Intel system architects, engineers, and security specialists perhaps feared most is now a reality. A vulnerability has been found in the ROM of the Intel Converged Security and Management Engine (CSME). This vulnerability jeopardizes everything Intel has done to build the root of trust and lay a solid security foundation on the company's platforms. The problem is not only that it is impossible to fix firmware errors that are hard-coded in the Mask ROM of microprocessors and chipsets. The larger worry is that, because this vulnerability allows a compromise at the hardware level, it destroys the chain of trust for the platform as a whole.

[...] Intel CSME is the cryptographic basis for hardware security technologies developed by Intel and used everywhere, such as DRM, fTPM, and Intel Identity Protection. In its firmware, Intel CSME implements EPID (Enhanced Privacy ID). EPID is a procedure for remote attestation of trusted systems that allows identifying individual computers unambiguously and anonymously, which has a number of uses: these include protecting digital content, securing financial transactions, and performing IoT attestation. Intel CSME firmware also implements the TPM software module, which allows storing encryption keys without needing an additional TPM chip—and many computers do not have such chips.

Intel tried to make this root of trust as secure as possible. Intel's security is designed so that even arbitrary code execution in any Intel CSME firmware module would not jeopardize the root cryptographic key (Chipset Key), but only the specific functions of that particular module. Plus, as the thinking went, any risks could be easily mitigated by changing encryption keys via the security version number (SVN) mechanism.

[...] Unfortunately, no security system is perfect. Like all security architectures, Intel's had a weakness: the boot ROM, in this case. An early-stage vulnerability in ROM enables control over reading of the Chipset Key and generation of all other encryption keys. One of these keys is for the Integrity Control Value Blob (ICVB). With this key, attackers can forge the code of any Intel CSME firmware module in a way that authenticity checks cannot detect. This is functionally equivalent to a breach of the private key for the Intel CSME firmware digital signature, but limited to a specific platform.

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for Bytram:

FCC to require anti-robocall tech after "voluntary" plan didn't work out:

Phone companies would be required to deploy technology that prevents spoofing of Caller ID under a plan announced today by Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai.

Pai framed it as his own decision, with his announcement saying the chairman "proposed a major step forward... to protect consumers against spoofed robocalls." But in reality the FCC was ordered by Congress and President Trump to implement this new rule. The requirement on the FCC was part of the TRACED Act that was signed into law in December 2019. Pai previously hoped that all carriers would deploy the technology voluntarily.

"I'm excited about the proposal I'm advancing today: requiring phone companies to adopt a caller ID authentication framework called STIR/SHAKEN," Pai said in his announcement. "Widespread implementation will give American consumers a lot more peace of mind when they pick up the phone." The FCC will vote on the measure at its March 31 meeting.

Previously:
AT&T Ramps Up its Fight Against Robocalls With Call Validation Feature
FCC Approves Plan to Stop Robocalls!
Anti-Robocall Bill Passes Senate
The Robocall Crisis Will Never Totally be Fixed
FCC Pushes Carriers to Implement Caller ID Authentication by 2019
Robocallers "Evolved" to Sidestep New Call Blocking Rules, 35 State AGs Tell FCC

Original Submission

aristarchus writes:

Gizmodo reports:

DuckDuckGo, a privacy-focused tech company, today launched something called Tracker Radar—an open-source, automatically generated and continually updated list that currently contains more than 5,000 domains that more than 1,700 companies use to track people online.

The idea behind Tracker Radar, first reported by CNET, is to share the data DuckDuckGo has collected to create a better set of tracker blockers. DuckDuckGo says that the majority of existing tracker data falls into two types: block lists and in-browser tracker identification. The issue is the former relies on crowd-sourcing and manual maintenance. The latter is difficult to scale and also can be potentially abused due to the fact it's generating a list based on your actual browsing habits. Tracker Radar supposedly gets around some of these issues by looking at the most common cross-site trackers and including a host of information about their behavior, things like prevalence, fingerprinting, cookies, and privacy policies, among other considerations.

See DuckDuckGo's Tracker Radar GitHub page for the list and other tools.

Obligatory alt-aristarchus comment: If it walks like a duckduckgo, and it quacks like a duckduckgo, it's got privacy like a duckduckgo! Thanks, Google!

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Proposed US law is "Trojan horse" to stop online encryption, critics say:

Two Republicans and two Democrats in the US Senate have proposed a law that aims to combat sexual exploitation of children online, but critics of the bill call it a "Trojan horse" that could harm Americans' security by reducing access to encryption. The EARN IT (Eliminating Abusive and Rampant Neglect of Interactive Technologies) Act "would create incentives for companies to 'earn' liability protection for violations of laws related to online child sexual abuse material," an announcement by the bill's supporters said today.

Under current law, Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act provides website operators broad legal immunity for hosting third-party content. A 2018 law known as FOSTA-SESTA chipped away at that immunity for content related to prostitution and sex trafficking, and the EARN IT Act would further weaken immunity for website operators who fail to take certain to-be-determined measures to find and remove child sexual-abuse material.

In a related development today, US Attorney General William Barr gave a speech calling for an analysis of how Section 230 affects "incentives for platforms to address [child sexual exploitation] crimes and the availability of civil remedies to the victims."

[...] Stewart Baker, who was formerly assistant secretary for policy at the Department of Homeland Security and general counsel at the National Security Agency, wrote in a blog post that "there is nothing radical" about the bill. "The risk of liability isn't likely to kill encryption or end Internet security," Baker wrote. But Baker acknowledged that the bill will likely make the decision to offer encryption a more difficult one for tech companies

Related:
U.S. Congress Passes SESTA/FOSTA Law
DoJ Lets Cops Know SESTA/FOSTA Is For Shutting Down Websites, Not Busting Sex Traffickers
Crypto Wars: US AG William Barr and UK Home Secretary Priti Patel Shake Fists at Facebook
Senate Judiciary Committee Interrogates Apple, Facebook about Crypto

Original Submission

martyb writes:

Caffeine boosts problem-solving ability but not creativity, study indicates:

"In Western cultures, caffeine is stereotypically associated with creative occupations and lifestyles, from writers and their coffee to programmers and their energy drinks, and there's more than a kernel of truth to these stereotypes," wrote Darya Zabelina, assistant professor of psychology and first author of the study recently published in the journal Consciousness and Cognition.

While the cognitive benefits of caffeine -- increased alertness, improved vigilance, enhanced focus and improved motor performance -- are well established, she said, the stimulant's affect on creativity is less known.

In the paper, Zabelina differentiates "convergent" from "divergent" thinking. The former is defined as seeking a specific solution to a problem, for example, the "correct" answer. The latter is characterized by idea generation where a large set of apt, novel or interesting responses would be suitable. Caffeine was shown to improve convergent thinking in the study, while consuming it had no significant impact on divergent thinking.

Journal Reference:
Darya L. Zabelina, Paul J. Silvia. Percolating ideas: The effects of caffeine on creative thinking and problem solving. Consciousness and Cognition, 2020; 79: 102899 DOI: 10.1016/j.concog.2020.102899

I wonder if she drank coffee to help her come up with that conclusion?

Original Submission

An Anonymous Coward writes:

The Australian government is investigating implementing age verification to access porn online following a failed UK age verification scheme. Children's charity eChildhood claims that "a third of students aged eight and under attempted to access online pornography in the past six months" including through advertising popups. No mention has been made about how effective the Australian plan will be and what exact measures may be taken to block access online.

The UK proposed making users visiting porn sites prove they were 18. The government abandoned the plan in October after a series of major technical issues.

The Australian report said three "crucial factors" needed to be sorted out to succeed where the UK scheme failed.

These included ensuring a level playing field for regulation, making age verification easy for consumers to use and raising public awareness of the need for age verification.

[...]Advocacy group Collective Shout said UK research found 28 per cent [of] children aged 11 to 12 had seen pornography online. In the 15 to 16 age group, the number jumped to 65 per cent.

The Internet routes around damage.

Original Submission

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for SoyCow4275:

Surprise! Students get an unexpected glimpse of a black hole 30,000 light-years away:

Peering into deep space with an instrument they built, a group of students and researchers caught a surprising glimpse of a newly discovered black hole 30,000 light-years from Earth.

In the fall of 2019, students and researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University were working with an instrument that they designed and now operate, the Regolith X-Ray Imaging Spectrometer (REXIS), which is on board NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft. While using the shoebox-size instrument to observe the asteroid Bennu, the spacecraft's destination, the team made an unexpected detection: a new black hole in the constellation Columba.

REXIS measures X-rays that are emitted from objects like Bennu in response to solar radiation. On Nov. 11, 2019, the collaborative group of researchers and students spotted X-rays radiating from a point off the edge of Bennu.

[...] Upon further analysis, the team found that the X-rays seen off the edge of Bennu were coming from a newly flaring black hole X-ray binary. The black hole, known as MAXI J0637-430, was discovered just a week before these observations by researchers using Japan's MAXI telescope, which operates from aboard the International Space Station. The X-rays were also detected by NASA's Neutron Star Interior Composition Explorer (NICER) telescope, which is also on the space station. Although both telescopes were able to detect the X-rays from low Earth orbit, REXIS detected the event while millions of miles from Earth. This observation marks the first time that such an outburst has been detected from interplanetary space, according to the statement.

Original Submission