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upstart writes:

Elon Musk Reveals Real Reason He Supports Dogecoin, Says Many People at Tesla and Spacex Own DOGE – Altcoins Bitcoin News:

Tesla and Spacex CEO Elon Musk revealed Sunday the real reason he began supporting dogecoin. He noted that many people he talks to at both companies own the meme cryptocurrency.

Responding to a tweet by dogecoin holder Glauber Contessoto, who said the appeal for DOGE is real, referencing a survey that found about a third of U.S. crypto holders own the meme cryptocurrency, Musk wrote:

Lots of people I talked to on the production lines at Tesla or building rockets at Spacex own Doge. They aren’t financial experts or Silicon Valley technologists. That’s why I decided to support Doge — it felt like the people’s crypto.

The Doge community welcomes Musk’s comment and support. “Most of us don’t come from privileged backgrounds and honestly can’t relate to the experts in Silicon Valley,” Contessoto responded. “We just want to believe in a crypto that represents us all. Dogecoin is the little guy personified in crypto which is why we love it. We appreciate your support, Elon.”

[...] Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only. It is not a direct offer or solicitation of an offer to buy or sell, or a recommendation or endorsement of any products, services, or companies. Bitcoin.com does not provide investment, tax, legal, or accounting advice. Neither the company nor the author is responsible, directly or indirectly, for any damage or loss caused or alleged to be caused by or in connection with the use of or reliance on any content, goods or services mentioned in this article.

Original Submission

Freeman writes:

Children poisoned by birthday cake decorations loaded with lead, copper:

A recent baking trend of using "luster dusts" to give cake frostings and decorations a shimmery look has poisoned young children with heavy metals in at least two states, health researchers warn in a new report published Friday.

[...] Alarmingly, the health department investigated 28 other inedible luster dusts from the bakery that produced the toxic cake. The other dusts contained elevated levels of aluminum, barium, chromium, copper, iron, lead, manganese, nickel, and zinc, the investigators found. And after visiting other commercial bakeries, health investigators realized there was widespread use of such inedible luster dusts. The department subsequently issued health guidance to the bakeries to stop using inedible dusts, and the FDA issued an advisory.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Hive ransomware now encrypts Linux and FreeBSD systems:

The Hive ransomware gang now also encrypts Linux and FreeBSD using new malware variants specifically developed to target these platforms.

However, as Slovak internet security firm ESET discovered, Hive's new encryptors are still in development and still lack functionality.

The Linux variant also proved to be quite buggy during ESET's analysis, with the encryption completely failing when the malware was executed with an explicit path.

It also comes with support for a single command line parameter (-no-wipe). In contrast, Hive's Windows ransomware comes with up to 5 execution options, including killing processes and skipping disk cleaning, uninteresting files, and older files.

The ransomware's Linux version also fails to trigger the encryption if executed without root privileges because it attempts to drop the ransom note on compromised devices' root file systems.

"Just like the Windows version, these variants are written in Golang, but the strings, package names and function names have been obfuscated, likely with gobfuscate," ESET Research Labs said.

[...] In the past, the Snatch and PureLocker ransomware operations have also used Linux variants on their attacks.

Original Submission

Freeman writes:

FCC defends Starlink approval as Viasat, Dish urge court to block SpaceX license:

With oral arguments scheduled for December 3, final briefs were filed on Tuesday by the FCC, Viasat, Dish, and SpaceX. Judges at the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit previously rejected Viasat's motion for a stay that would have halted SpaceX's ongoing launches of low-Earth-orbit (LEO) satellites pending the resolution of the lawsuit. Judges found that Viasat failed to show that it is likely to win its case alleging that the FCC improperly approved the satellite launches. Judges said at the time that Viasat did not meet "the stringent requirements for a stay pending court review" but granted a motion to expedite the appeal.

[...] (Update 9:39 pm EDT: After this article published, a lawyer who has been observing the case pointed out to us that the briefs we described as new are largely identical to ones that were previously filed. This week's filings were submitted on the October 26 deadline for final briefs, but the FCC brief was also submitted in a largely identical form on September 21. The only major difference is that the new versions have page citations to a joint appendix. We didn't cover these briefs at the time they were originally filed, and they are still relevant for the oral arguments scheduled for December 3; the rest of this article is unchanged.)

Previously:
Amazon Asked FCC to Reject Starlink Plan Because it Can't Compete, SpaceX Says
Blue Origin Employees Are Jumping Ship
Judges Reject Viasat's Plea to Stop SpaceX's Starlink Satellite Launches

Original Submission

DannyB writes:

From TechDirt:Swiss Court Says ProtonMail Isn't A Telecom, Isn't Obligated To Retain Data On Users

Background:

ProtonMail offers encrypted email, something that suggests it's more privacy conscious than others operating in the same arena. But, being located in Switzerland, it's subject to that country's laws. That has caused some friction between its privacy protection claims and its obligations to the Swiss government, which, earlier this year, rubbed French activists the wrong way when their IP addresses were handed over to French authorities.

The problem here wasn't necessarily the compliance with local laws. It was Proton's claim that it did not retain this information. If it truly didn't, it would not have been able to comply with this request. But it is required by local law to retain a certain amount of information. This incident coming to light resulted in ProtonMail altering the wording on its site to reflect this fact. It no longer claimed it did not retain this info. The new statement merely says this info "belongs" to users and Proton's encryption ensures it won't end up in the hands of advertisers.

The news:

[...] these retention obligations that have been challenged. These obligations undercut earlier promises made by Proton to its users -- the ones that resulted in a rewrite of its privacy guarantees as well as its cooperation with French authorities.

Fortunately for ProtonMail and its users, surveillance of the service will go back to being more limited. The Swiss Federal Administrative Court has sided with Proton, finding that it is not a service provider under the definitions included in the data retention law.

Tools can be used for bad things. Therefore we must carefully monitor their use and users. Computers can be weapons. Just ask anyone who has been hit over the head by a laptop.

See Also:
ProtonMail Deletes 'We Don't Log Your IP' Boast From Website After French Climate Activist Reported

ProtonMail logged IP address of French activist after order by Swiss authorities

Original Submission

upstart writes:

A fridge-size asteroid skimmed Earth this week in the third-closest fly-by ever:

A sneaky space rock sped by Antarctica on Sunday without any advance warning and narrowly avoided being fully incinerated by Earth's atmosphere.

Asteroid 2021 UA1 goes down as the third-closest fly-by of our planet by a near-Earth object that didn't end in an impact. The cosmic boulder is estimated to be about two meters (6.6 feet) in diameter, the size of a large appliance or a golf cart.

[...] 2021 UA1 passed over Antarctica on Sunday evening Pacific time at an altitude of about 1,800 miles (3,000 kilometers). That's higher than where the International Space Station orbits but significantly closer than the ring of large communications satellites in geostationary orbit.

[...] 2021 UA approached us from the direction of the sun -- just like the Chelyabinsk bolide[*], which was undetected before impact -- making it impossible for astronomers to spot ahead of time. Upcoming missions like NASA's NEO Surveyor are designed to eliminate this blind spot.

[*] Chelyabinsk meteor on Wikipedia.

Also at minorplanetcenter.net and Wikipedia.

Original Submission

An Anonymous Coward writes:

Air-gapped networks are wired with Ethernet cables since wireless connections are strictly prohibited.

In this paper we present LANTENNA - a new type of electromagnetic attack allowing adversaries to leak sensitive data from isolated, air-gapped networks. Malicious code in air-gapped computers gathers sensitive data and then encodes it over radio waves emanating from the Ethernet cables, using them as antennas. A nearby receiving device can intercept the signals wirelessly, decode the data, and send it to the attacker. We discuss the exfiltration techniques, examine the covert channel characteristics, and provide implementation details. Notably, the malicious code can run in an ordinary user-mode process and successfully operate from within a virtual machine. We evaluate the covert channel in different scenarios and present a set of countermeasures. Our experiments show that with the LANTENNA attack, data can be exfiltrated from air-gapped computers to a distance of several meters away.

See LANtenna hack spies on your data from across the room! (Sort of) for a well-written (albeit a bit long) expansion of the report as well as some effective counter-measures.

Journal Reference:
Mordechai Guri. LANTENNA: Exfiltrating Data from Air-Gapped Networks via Ethernet Cables, (DOI: 10.1109/COMPSAC51774.2021.00106)

Original Submission

Intel Targeting Zettascale (1000 Exaflops) by 2027?

takyon writes:

'We will not rest until the periodic table is exhausted' says Intel CEO on quest to keep Moore's Law alive

[Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger] showed a chart tracking the semiconductor giant progressing along a trend line to 1 trillion transistors per device by 2030. "Today we are predicting that we will maintain or even go faster than Moore's law for the next decade,"[*] Gelsinger said.

[...] In a Q&A session after his keynote, Gelsinger revealed that achieving zettascale computing using Intel technology "in 2027 is a huge internal initiative."

Intel Aims For Zettaflops By 2027, Pushes Aurora Above 2 Exaflops

"But to me, the other thing that's really exciting in the space is our Zetta Initiative, where we have said we are going to be the first to zettascale by a wide margin," Gelsinger told The Next Platform. "And we are laying out as part of the Zetta Initiative what we have to do in the processor, in the fabric, in the interconnect, and in the memory architecture — what we have to do for the accelerators, and the software architecture to do it. So, zettascale in 2027 is a huge internal initiative that is going to bring many of our technologies together. 1,000X in five years? That's pretty phenomenal."

[...] If you built a zettaflops Aurora machine today, assuming all of the information that we have is correct, it would take 411.5X as many nodes to do the job. So, that would be somewhere around 3.7 million nodes with 7.4 million CPUs and 22.2 million GPUs burning a mind-sizzling 24.7 gigawatts. Yes, gigawatts. Clearly, we are going to need some serious Moore's Law effects in transistors and packaging.

upstart writes:

Chicago Car Thieves Now Target Locksmiths For Key Fobs And Programming Devices:

Robbers are targeting locksmiths and their fob programmers. Detectives issued an alert about two incidents and another one that happened just five days ago.

[...] Michael Payton talked about how a mobile locksmith was feeling after he was held at gunpoint near 38th and Wabash five days ago. Payton said the locksmith told him something strange.

"Someone called and said their keys were locked inside the car and when he got there, they pulled out weapons and took whatever property, equipment he had in the vehicle," Payton said.

The locksmith was robbed at gunpoint in broad daylight. The robbery is similar to two others involving mobile locksmiths. Police said in each case, the victims were responding to requests to reprogram vehicle keys.

When they arrived, they were surrounded by two to four armed men, then their vehicle reprogramming devices and key fobs were taken.

See also: Car thieves target Milwaukee locksmiths to steal key fob programmer

upstart writes:

Emergency Google Chrome update fixes zero-days used in attacks:

Google has released Chrome 95.0.4638.69 for Windows, Mac, and Linux to fix two zero-day vulnerabilities that attackers have actively exploited.

"Google is aware that exploits for CVE-2021-38000 and CVE-2021-38003 exist in the wild," Google disclosed in the list of security fixes in today's Google Chrome release.

upstart writes:

All Windows versions impacted by new LPE zero-day vulnerability:

looorg writes:

Facebook is changing its name to Meta as it focuses on the virtual world

Facebook is now a meta product.

I'm not certain which name is worse; meta or alphabet

I doubt it will wash away the stink, people will still refer to it as Facebook just as everyone just appear to call all things google related to alphabet.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/10/28/facebook-meta-name-change/
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/10/28/facebook-changes-company-name-to-meta.html

Original Submission

martyb writes:

Is a master's in computer science worth it? A consideration checklist:

A computer science master's degree could help you meet your career and salary goals. Read on to learn if it's right for you and how to choose a program.

While a computer science master's degree opens personal and professional opportunities, it may not be a good fit for everyone.

A master's degree in computer science incorporates theoretical content and practical activities and builds on existing knowledge and skills. Most computer science master's degree students have a bachelor's degree in computer science or a related field.

With a master's degree, computer science professionals can advance to managerial and leadership roles. A master's in computer science also allows for increased specialization within the larger discipline.

Here are some things to consider while you determine if a master's in computer science is right for you and find the best one to meet your needs.

takyon writes:

NASA wants to buy SLS rockets at half price, fly them into the 2050s

NASA has asked the US aerospace industry how it would go about "maximizing the long-term efficiency and sustainability" of the Space Launch System rocket and its associated ground systems.

[...] In its request NASA says it would like to fly the SLS rocket for "30 years or more" as a national capability. Moreover, the agency wants the rocket to become a "sustainable and affordable system for moving humans and large cargo payloads to cislunar and deep-space destinations."

[...] Among the rocket's chief architects was then-Florida Senator Bill Nelson, who steered billions of dollars to Kennedy Space Center in his home state for upgraded ground systems equipment to support the rocket. Back in 2011, he proudly said the rocket would be delivered on time and on budget.

"This rocket is coming in at the cost of... not only what we estimated in the NASA Authorization act, but less," Nelson said at the time. "The cost of the rocket over a five- to six-year period in the NASA authorization bill was to be no more than $11.5 billion. This costs $10 billion for the rocket." Later, he went further, saying, "If we can't do a rocket for $11.5 billion, we ought to close up shop."

After more than 10 years, and more than $30 billion spent on the rocket and its ground systems, NASA has not closed up shop. Rather, Nelson has ascended to become the space agency's administrator.

Previously:

*SPOILER* (click to show) *SPOILER* (click to hide)

Artemis Program Requires More Cash to Reach Moon by 2024; SLS Could Cost 1,000x More Than Starship
NASA OIG: Tell Congress that Moon Rocket is Over Budget and Behind Schedule
NASA Spent a Decade and Nearly $1 Billion for a Single Launch Tower
NASA Will Pay a Staggering $146 Million for Each SLS Rocket Engine
Charlie Bolden Says the Quiet Part Out Loud: SLS Rocket Will Go Away
NASA Lays out $28 Billion Plan to Return Astronauts to the Moon in 2024
NASA SLS Megarocket Shortage Causes Tug-of-war Between Moon Missions, Europa Exploration
SLS: Nasa 'Megarocket' Assembly Begins in Florida
NASA's Europa Clipper has been Liberated from the Space Launch System
After a Decade, NASA's Big Rocket Fails its First Real Test
NASA's Massive Artemis Moon Rocket Set for Second Hot Fire Test Today 1500 EDT (1900 UTC)
NASA Has Begun a Study of the SLS Rocket's Affordability [Updated]
COVID-19 Pandemic Estimated to Cost NASA $3 Billion

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Neutrino result heralds new chapter in physics:

Current theories suggest that, shortly after the Big Bang, there were equal amounts of matter and its shadowy mirror-image anti-matter. However, when matter collides with anti-matter, they violently annihilate each other, releasing energy. If there were equal amounts in the early Universe, they should have cancelled each other out.

Instead, most of the Universe today is made of matter, with much smaller amounts of anti-matter.

Some scientists believe that, contained within the neutrino's flavour-changing, is the cosmic sleight-of-hand that enabled some matter to survive after the Big Bang and create the planets, stars and galaxies that make up the Universe.

In the 1990s, an experiment called the Liquid Scintillator Neutrino Detector experiment at the US Department for Energy's Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico saw the production of more electron neutrinos than could be explained by the three-neutrino flavour-flipping theory. That result was confirmed by a separate experiment in 2002.

Physicists proposed the existence of a fourth flavour called the sterile neutrino. They believed this form of the particle could explain the over-production of electron neutrinos and, crucially, give an insight into why the particles change flavour.

chromas writes:

Microsoft now rolling out Windows 11 to more eligible devices:

Microsoft is now rolling out the Windows 11 upgrade to more eligible Windows devices as part of a phased rollout designed to deliver a smooth upgrade experience.

"The availability of Windows 11 has been increased and we are leveraging our latest generation machine learning model to offer the upgrade to an expanded set of eligible devices," Microsoft said in an update to the Windows health dashboard.

[...] Windows 10 users can upgrade to Windows 11 via Windows Update as long as their computers come with compatible hardware.

To install Windows 11 on eligible devices, they also need to run Windows 10 2004 and later and have installed at least the September 2021 updates.

Original Submission