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upstart writes in with an IRC submission for Bytram:

Now that everyone's using Zoom, here are some privacy risks you need to watch out for:

Now that you've finished choosing your custom Zoom background, mercifully sparing your fellow workers-from-home the sight of a growing pile of gym socks behind your desk, you might think you've got a handle on the conference call software du jour. Unfortunately, there are a few other data security considerations to make if you want to hide your dirty laundry.

Privacy experts have previously expressed concerns about Zoom: In 2019, the video-conferencing software experienced both a webcam hacking scandal, and a bug that allowed snooping users to potentially join video meetings they hadn't been invited to. This month, the Electronic Frontier Foundation cautioned users working from home about the software's onboard privacy features.

[...]Here are some of the privacy vulnerabilities in Zoom that you should watch out for while working remotely.

[...] Tattle-Tale
Whether you're using Zoom's desktop client or mobile app, a meeting host can enable a built-in option which alerts them if any attendees go more than 30 seconds without Zoom being in focus on their screen.

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for SoyCow8162:

Cyber insurer Chubb had data stolen in Maze ransomware attack – TechCrunch:

Chubb, a major cybersecurity insurance provider for businesses hit by data breaches, has itself become a target of a data breach.

The insurance giant told TechCrunch it was investigating a "security incident" involving the unauthorized access to data belonging to an unnamed third-party. Chubb spokesperson Jeffrey Zack said the company had "no evidence" the incident affected Chubb's own network and that its network "remains fully operational." But the spokesperson declined to comment further or answer any of our questions, including if its customers were affected.

Brett Callow, a threat analyst at security firm Emsisoft, first alerted TechCrunch to the breach on Thursday. According to Callow, the security incident was a data-stealing ransomware attack launched by the Maze ransomware group. Maze not only spreads across a network, infecting and encrypting every computer in its path, it also exfiltrates the data to the attackers' servers where it is held for ransom. If a ransom isn't paid, the attackers publish the files online.

[...] Callow said the attackers behind the incident posted a listing on their website claiming to have data stolen from Chubb in earlier in March. The listing included the names and email addresses of three senior executives, including CEO Evan Greenberg.

Original Submission

DannyB writes:

Seven Stages of Open Software

This post lays out the different stages of openness in Open Source Software (OSS) and the benefits and costs of each.

[...] Is Linux as open as TensorFlow? How about my personal project? Is that the same? [ . . . . ]

To help give depth to this topic, this post structures opening software into a sequence of stages of openness.

1. Publicly visible source code: We uploaded our code to GitHub
2. Licensed for reuse: And let people use it for free
3. Accepting contributions: And if they submit a patch, we'll take the time to look at it, and work with them to merge it in
4. Open development: And when we work we'll make sure that all of our communication happens in the open as well, so that others can see what we're doing and why
5. Open decision making: And that communication will be open to the public, so that everyone can weigh in, vote, and determine what happens to the project
6. Multi-institution engagement: So much so that no single institution or individual has control over the project
7. Retirement: So now we can retire, and know that the software will live on forever

To be clear, I'm not advocating that going deeper into this hierarchy is a good thing. Often it's more productive to stop somewhere around 3 to 5 [ . . . ]

What about code written merely to solve one person's problem or to amuse themself?

Original Submission

DannyB writes:

Plasma Bigscreen Is A New Smart TV Experience Powered By Raspberry Pi 4 And KDE

Want to turn your dumb TV into a smart one? Or maybe you'd prefer to have a more privacy respecting, open source operating system powering your TV experience? Just take one part KDE Plasma, one part Rasbperry Pi 4, and one part Mycroft AI voice assistant, and you've got Plasma Bigscreen. It's a new venture that transforms the KDE Linux desktop into a "10 foot experience" using the speed and flexibility of KDE Neon, complete with voice control and Alexa-like assistant skills.

Smart TVs are becoming more and more complete computers, but unfortunately there the experience tends to be a tight walled garden between proprietary platform, services and privacy-infringing features. Features which are very cool, like voice control, but in order to not pose a threat to the user privacy should be on a free software stack and depending less on proprietary cloud platforms where possible. -- Plasma Bigscreen developer Marco Marin

Plasma Bigscreen is just entering Beta, and is currently available to download and install on the Raspberry Pi 4. On paper, it looks incredible promising for a few reasons:

Other features include: Privacy-focused (i.e., locally-processed) voice control as well as free (as in beer and as in libre) open source software that can be controlled with a remote or mouse/keyboard. Further, security updates are more likely to be created and made available with a popular operating system and browser.

If it is truly controllable by the user, then it could be turned into a "dumb" TV which would be deprived of some advertising.

Original Submission

DannyB writes:

SpaceX has won a big NASA contract to fly cargo to the Moon

"This is another critical piece of our plan to return to the Moon sustainably."

[...] Last summer, NASA put out a call for companies who would be willing to deliver cargo to a proposed station in orbit around the Moon, called the Lunar Gateway. On Friday, NASA announced that the first award under this "Gateway Logistics" contract would go to SpaceX.

The company has proposed using its Falcon Heavy rocket to deliver a modified version of its Dragon spacecraft, called Dragon XL, to the Lunar Gateway. After delivering cargo, experiments and other supplies, the spacecraft would be required to remain docked at the Gateway for a year before "autonomous" disposal.

"This contract award is another critical piece of our plan to return to the Moon sustainably," NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said in a news release. "The Gateway is the cornerstone of the long-term Artemis architecture, and this deep space commercial cargo capability integrates yet another American industry partner into our plans for human exploration at the Moon in preparation for a future mission to Mars."

SpaceX's most powerful rocket will send NASA cargo to the moon's orbit to supply astronauts:

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration on Friday picked SpaceX as the first supplier to bring cargo to the agency's Gateway station in orbit around the moon, a big contract win for Elon Musk's space company.

SpaceX said it will use a new variation of its cargo spacecraft, called Dragon XL, to carry "more than 5 metric tons of cargo to Gateway in lunar orbit." The company will lift the spacecraft using its Falcon Heavy rocket, the most powerful rocket in the world.

I thought SLS was going to return us to the moon.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

While some of our body's cells divide in a matter of hours, the process of making sperm, meiosis, alone takes about 14 days from start to finish. And fully six of those days are spent in the stage known as the pachytene, when pairs of chromosomes from an individual's mother and father align and connect.

"This stage is really important, because the pair needs to be aligned for the exchange of genetic material between those two chromosomes," says P. Jeremy Wang, a biologist in Penn's School of Veterinary Medicine. "If anything goes wrong at this stage, it can cause a defect in meiosis and problems in the resulting sperm, leading to infertility, pregnancy loss, or birth defects."

In a new paper in Science Advances, Wang and colleagues have identified an enzyme that plays a crucial role in maintaining this chromosomal pairing during the pachytene stage of meiosis. Without this protein, named SKP1, meiosis cannot proceed to metaphase, the next major developmental stage involved in generating sperm cells.

The finding may help overcome hurdles that have stood in the way of treating certain forms of male infertility, in which a man makes no sperm but in whom sperm's precursor cells, spermatogonia, can be found.

"Reproductive technologies like in vitro fertilization have made a huge difference for infertile patients, but the male needs to have at least some sperm," says Wang. "If the male has no sperm, then the only option is to use donor sperm. But if you can find these spermatogonia, the pre-meiotic germ cells, they could be induced to go through meiosis and make sperm. So SKP1 could be part of the solution to ensuring meiosis continues."

Wang is also hopeful that his finding could aid in basic research on sperm development that his and many other labs pursue. "Right now we use animals to do our research; we don't have a cell culture system to produce sperm," he says. "Manipulating SKP1 and the pathway in which it acts could allow us to set up an in vitro system to produce sperm artificially, which would be a boon for our studies."

[...] "Now that we know SKP1 is required, we're looking for the proteins it interacts with upstream and downstream so we can study this pathway," says Wang.

Journal Reference:

Yongjuan Guan, N. Adrian Leu, Jun Ma, Lukáš Chmátal, Gordon Ruthel, Jordana C. Bloom, Michael A. Lampson, John C. Schimenti, Mengcheng Luo, P. Jeremy Wang. SKP1 drives the prophase I to metaphase I transition during male meiosis. Science Advances, 2020; 6 (13): eaaz2129 DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.aaz2129

Original Submission

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for SoyCow8162:

SpaceX encounters problem just before Crew Dragon parachute test:

SpaceX just experienced a hiccup in the lead-up to its first crewed flight.

The California-based company hauled a test article of its Crew Dragon capsule skyward with a helicopter on Tuesday (March 24), to help prove out the vehicle's parachute system ahead of the historic Demo-2 mission.

Demo-2, which is currently scheduled to launch in mid- to late May, will carry NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley to the International Space Station (ISS). It will be the first crewed orbital flight to launch from U.S. soil since NASA's space shuttle fleet retired in July 2011.

But the parachutes never got a chance to show their stuff. "During a planned parachute drop test today, the test article suspended underneath the helicopter became unstable," SpaceX said Tuesday in an emailed statement.

"Out of an abundance of caution and to keep the helicopter crew safe, the pilot pulled the emergency release," the statement added. "As the helicopter was not yet at target conditions, the test article was not armed, and as such, the parachute system did not initiate the parachute deployment sequence. While the test article was lost, this was not a failure of the parachute system, and most importantly, no one was injured. NASA and SpaceX are working together to determine the testing plan going forward in advance of Crew Dragon's second demonstration mission."

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

We are unabashed fans of [The History Guy’s] YouTube channel, although his history videos aren’t always about technology, and even when they are, they don’t always dig into the depths that we’d like to see. That’s understandable since the channel is a general interest channel. However, for this piece on James Clerk Maxwell, he brought in [Arvin Ash] to handle the science side. While [The History Guy] talked about Maxwell’s life and contributions, [Arvin] has a complimentary video covering the math behind the equations. [...]

Deriving Maxwell’s equations is a math nightmare, but [Arvin] doesn’t do that. He uses some amazing graphics to explain how the equations relate electricity and magnetism. A great deal of our modern world — especially related to any sort of radio technology — builds on these four concise equations.

One thing we didn’t realize is how wide-ranging Maxwell’s interest were. He contributed to astronomy by explaining Saturn’s rings, derived statistical laws about gasses, and worked on color vision, including creating the first light-fast color photograph. He also contributed to thermodynamics, control theory, and optics. Those were the days!

Original Submission

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for AndyTheAbsurd:

School quits video calls after naked man 'guessed' the meeting link – TechCrunch:

A school in Norway has stopped using popular video conferencing service Whereby after a naked man apparently "guessed" the link to a video lesson.

According to Norwegian state broadcaster NRK, the man exposed himself in front of several young children over the video call. The theory, according to the report, is that the man guessed the meeting ID and joined the video call.

One expert quoted in the story said some are "looking" for links.

Last year security researchers told TechCrunch that malicious users could access and listen in to Zoom and Webex video meetings by cycling through different permutations of meeting IDs in bulk. The researchers said the flaw worked because many meetings were not protected by a passcode.

Original Submission

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for SoyCow8162:

Amazon says it unintentionally hid some competitors' faster delivery options:

Amazon surprised millions of customers last weekend when it confirmed it had pushed back delivery of many nonessential items until late April so it could more urgently fulfill orders for essential items amid the online shopping frenzy caused by the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic.

But Recode has learned it's been possible to get some of these nonessential items much faster — it's just that Amazon has hidden listings from competing sellers on its marketplace that promise to deliver these same products at earlier dates.

In categories ranging from sporting goods to office equipment, Amazon sellers have been offering some of these same items at the same or lower prices and with earlier delivery dates than Amazon has. But the Amazon algorithm that decides which seller wins a given product sale for a listing has favored items sold directly by Amazon — or by an Amazon seller storing the goods in Amazon's warehouses — even when those offers are accompanied by much later delivery promises. In Amazon's ecosystem, winning a sale of an item sold by multiple sellers is known as winning the "Buy Box."

After Recode alerted Amazon to the issue, a company spokesperson said the hidden listings are unintentional and that the company is urgently working on a fix.

Original Submission

martyb writes:

How stable is deep ocean circulation in warmer climate? Altered circulation might have cooled northern areas of North America and Europe

If circulation of deep waters in the Atlantic stops or slows due to climate change, it could cause cooling in northern North America and Europe – a scenario that has occurred during past cold glacial periods.

Now, a Rutgers coauthored study suggests that short-term disruptions of deep ocean circulation [also] occurred during warm interglacial periods in the last 450,000 years, and may happen again.

Ironically, melting of the polar ice sheet in the Arctic region in a warmer world, resulting in more fresh water entering the ocean and altering circulation, might have caused previous coolings.

[...] The study, published in the journal Science and led by scientists at the University of Bergen in Norway, follows a 2014 study on the same topic.

"These findings suggest that our climate system, which depends greatly on deep ocean circulation, is critically poised near a tipping point for abrupt disruptions," said coauthor Yair Rosenthal, a distinguished professor in the Department of Marine and Coastal Sciences and Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Rutgers University–New Brunswick. "Although the disruptions in circulation and possible coolings may be relatively short-lived – lasting maybe a century or more – the consequences might be large."

The warm North Atlantic Current -- the northernmost part of the Gulf Stream -- flows into the Greenland Sea. It becomes progressively colder and saltier due to heat loss to the air, eventually sinking and forming the North Atlantic Deep Water formation -- a mass of deep, cold water that flows southward. Melting of the polar ice sheet in the Arctic region would result in more fresh water entering the ocean and disrupting that circulation pattern, potentially causing cooling in northern areas of Europe and North America.

[...] The latest study covers three other warm interglacial periods within the past 450,000 years. During all of them, regardless of the degree of global warming, the scientists found similar century-long disruptions of the North Atlantic Deep Water formation. And they found that such disruptions are more easily achieved than once believed and took place in climate conditions similar to those we may soon face with global warming.

Journal Reference:
Eirik Vinje Galaasen, Ulysses S. Ninnemann, Augustin Kessler, et al. Interglacial instability of North Atlantic Deep Water ventilation. Science, 2020 DOI: 10.1126/science.aay6381

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

Eight and a half years into its grand tour of the solar system, NASA's Voyager 2 spacecraft was ready for another encounter. It was Jan. 24, 1986, and soon it would meet the mysterious seventh planet, icy-cold Uranus.

Over the next few hours, Voyager 2 flew within 50,600 miles (81,433 kilometers) of Uranus' cloud tops, collecting data that revealed two new rings, 11 new moons and temperatures below minus 353 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 214 degrees Celsius). The dataset is still the only up-close measurements we have ever made of the planet.

Three decades later, scientists reinspecting that data found one more secret.

Unbeknownst to the entire space physics community, 34 years ago Voyager 2 flew through a plasmoid, a giant magnetic bubble that may have been whisking Uranus's atmosphere out to space. The finding, reported in Geophysical Research Letters, raises new questions about the planet's one-of-a-kind magnetic environment.

[...] Readings from inside the plasmoid — as Voyager 2 flew through it — hinted at its origins. Whereas some plasmoids have a twisted internal magnetic field, DiBraccio and Gershman observed smooth, closed magnetic loops. Such loop-like plasmoids are typically formed as a spinning planet flings bits of its atmosphere to space. "Centrifugal forces take over, and the plasmoid pinches off," Gershman said. According to their estimates, plasmoids like that one could account for between 15 and 55% of atmospheric mass loss at Uranus, a greater proportion than either Jupiter or Saturn. It may well be the dominant way Uranus sheds its atmosphere to space.

How has plasmoid escape changed Uranus over time? With only one set of observations, it's hard to say.

"Imagine if one spacecraft just flew through this room and tried to characterize the entire Earth," DiBraccio said. "Obviously it's not going to show you anything about what the Sahara or Antarctica is like."

But the findings help focus new questions about the planet. The remaining mystery is part of the draw. "It's why I love planetary science," DiBraccio said. "You're always going somewhere you don't really know."

More information: Gina A. DiBraccio et al. Voyager 2 constraints on plasmoid‐based transport at Uranus, Geophysical Research Letters (2019). DOI: 10.1029/2019GL083909

Original Submission

martyb writes:

Microsoft staff giggle beneath the weight of a 52,000-person Reply-All email storm:

Team Redmond stokes the flames as an exercise in black humor

[...] Microsoft is right now groaning under the weight of a 52,000-person internal Reply-All email storm.

The Register understands this one started with a new offer from Microsoft's internal store about discount software deals. While that offer was generous, it didn't apply to all Microsoft staff everywhere, which prompted an early Reply-All message asking why not. And then the snowball started rolling, and nothing could stop it.

We understand the mail went throughout Microsoft – enterprise, cloud and even Xbox folks found it in their inboxes.

Our Microsoft sources tell us staff are now hitting Reply All for the sheer fun of it, posting frivolous messages that celebrate the ridiculousness of the situation.

Laughter is the best medicine?

Original Submission

DannyB writes:

10 Most(ly dead) Influential Programming Languages:

The other day I read 20 most significant programming languages in history, a "preposterous table I just made up." He certainly got preposterous right: he lists Go as "most significant" but not ALGOL, Smalltalk, or ML. He also leaves off Pascal because it's "mostly dead". Preposterous! That defeats the whole point of what "significant in history" means.

So let's talk about some "mostly dead" languages and why they matter so much.

Disclaimer: Yeah not all of these are dead and not all of these are forgotten. Like most people have heard of Smalltalk, right? Also there's probably like a billion mistakes in this, because when you're doing a survey of 60 years of computing history you're gonna get some things wrong. Feel free to yell at me if you see anything!

Disclaimer 2: Yeah I know some of these are "first to invent" and others are "first to popularize". History is complicated!

^<no-sarcasm>
If there were one perfect language we would all be using it already.
_{</no-sarcasm>}

Recently:
(2020-03-11) Top 7 Dying Programming Languages to Avoid Studying in 2019-2020

Original Submission

martyb writes:

Coronavirus: Six heartening stories you may have missed:

It's been just over two weeks since the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the coronavirus outbreak, which first appeared in the Chinese city of Wuhan in late December, a global pandemic.

[...] Infections, the rates of which have accelerated since the outbreak began, have touched nearly every corner of the world and prompted unprecedented and widespread travel restrictions and business closures that threaten a global recession. At least three billion people, including India's 1.3 billion population, have been ordered to stay home.

Even as new cases in China have dropped dramatically, leading to the easing of many restrictions, places such as Italy, Spain, Iran, and the United States have become new hot spots for the virus, for which there is no vaccine or proven treatment.

[...] WHO launches global trial of possible treatments

The WHO launched a global trial to quickly assess the most promising treatments for the virus and the disease it causes. The organisation is currently looking at four drugs or drug combinations that were developed for other illnesses and are already approved for human use and could be made widely available.

[...] UK call for volunteers exceeds expectations

United Kingdom Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Tuesday night called for 250,000 volunteers to help deliver groceries and medicine to the most vulnerable citizens who have been ordered to self-isolate.

Within 24 hours, more than 400,000 people had signed up. That number soon rose to more than half a million, according to the BBC - larger than Britain's armed forces, which currently stand at just over 192,000.

[...] Air pollution drops

A silver lining of countries locking down across the planet, grinding transport and most industry to halt, has been a marked decline in air pollution.

Satellite imagery has shown pollution in China plummeting as large swaths of the country shut down at the height of the outbreak there.

The European Environment Agency (EEA) on Wednesday confirmed that the concentration of pollutants, in particular nitrogen dioxide, which is largely caused by road transport, recently massively declined in Europe "especially in major cities under lockdown measures".

[...] Italy coronavirus outbreak 'peak' may soon be reached

Italy has so far recorded more than 8,000 deaths and over 80,000 infections.

On Saturday, Italy recorded its highest daily death toll of 793 new fatalities from COVID-19.

However, since then the daily toll, while remaining high, has not surpassed that number. Daily new cases have also leveled off.

[...] US hospitals prepare to use blood plasma as treatment

[...] The US Food and Drug Administration said it is expediting approving the use of recovered patients' plasma to treat the newly infected.

When a person gets infected by a particular virus, the body starts making specially designed proteins called antibodies to fight the infection. After the person recovers, those antibodies float in survivors' blood - specifically in the plasma, the liquid part of blood - for months, even years.

Injecting the plasma into another infected patient could boost the body's ability to fight the infection, lessening the severity of the disease and freeing up hospital resources.

[...] Cuban doctors sent to help overwhelmed Italian health system

Cuba has dispatched a brigade of doctors and nurses to Italy to aid in the fight against coronavirus, following a request from the worst-affected Lombardy region.

[...] Cuba has sent its "armies of white robes" to disaster sites around the world since its 1959 revolution. However, the 52-strong brigade of medical personnel represents the first time Cuba has sent an emergency contingent to Italy, which has been brought to its knees by the pandemic, despite being one of the world's richest countries.

Original Submission