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Freeman writes:

The secret US mission to bolster Ukraine’s cyber defenses ahead of Russia’s invasion:

Months before the Russian invasion, a team of Americans fanned out across Ukraine looking for a very specific kind of threat.

Some were soldiers, with the US Army’s Cyber Command. Others were civilian contractors and some employees of American companies that help defend critical infrastructure from the kind of cyber attacks that Russian agencies had inflicted upon Ukraine for years.

The US had been helping Ukraine bolster its cyber defenses for years, ever since an infamous 2015 attack on its power grid left part of Kyiv without electricity for hours.

But this surge of US personnel in October and November was different: it was in preparation of impending war. People familiar with the operation described an urgency in the hunt for hidden malware, the kind which Russia could have planted, then left dormant in preparation to launch a devastating cyber attack alongside a more conventional ground invasion.

Experts warn that Russia may yet unleash a devastating online attack on Ukrainian infrastructure of the sort that has long been expected by western officials. But years of work, paired with the past two months of targeted bolstering, may explain why Ukrainian networks have held up so far.

Original Submission

takyon writes:

A man who got the 1st pig heart transplant has died after 2 months

The first person to receive a heart transplant from a pig has died, two months after the groundbreaking experiment, the Maryland hospital that performed the surgery announced Wednesday.

David Bennett, 57, died Tuesday at the University of Maryland Medical Center. Doctors didn't give an exact cause of death, saying only that his condition had begun deteriorating several days earlier.

[...] Prior attempts at such transplants — or xenotransplantation — have failed largely because patients' bodies rapidly rejected the animal organ. This time, the Maryland surgeons used a heart from a gene-edited pig: Scientists had modified the animal to remove pig genes that trigger the hyper-fast rejection and add human genes to help the body accept the organ.

At first the pig heart was functioning, and the Maryland hospital issued periodic updates that Bennett seemed to be slowly recovering. Last month, the hospital released video of him watching the Super Bowl from his hospital bed while working with his physical therapist.

Bennett survived significantly longer with the gene-edited pig heart than one of the last milestones in xenotransplantation — when Baby Fae, a dying California infant, lived 21 days with a baboon's heart in 1984.

[...] One next question is whether scientists have learned enough from Bennett's experience and some other recent experiments with gene-edited pig organs to persuade the FDA to allow a clinical trial — possibly with an organ such as a kidney that isn't immediately fatal if it fails.

Previously: Surgeons Smash Records With Pig-to-Primate Organ Transplants
Surgeons Successfully Transplant Genetically Modified Pig Heart Into Human Patient

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Meet Apple's Enormous 20-Core M1 Ultra Processor, the Brains in the New Mac Studio Machine:

Apple on Tuesday announced its highest-end M1 Mac processor to date, a model that links two M1 Max chips together into a single package with 20 processing cores, 64 graphics cores, and support for up to 128GB of memory. The chip, with a remarkable 114 billion transistors, debuted at Apple's March product launch event and powers the high-end $3,999 configuration of the new Mac Studio desktop computer.

The chip uses dedicated circuitry on last year's M1 Max with a high-speed silicon link called UltraFusion to marry the two processors together without a complicated design that would mean problems for programmers, Apple said. It's emblematic of the increasing push across the semiconductor industry to use packaging technology to link smaller chip elements into one larger processor.

UltraFusion employs a technique called a silicon interposer, essentially a layer in the chip package with 10,000 high-speed links between the two slices of silicon. "This is a super clever approach to maximize a mature design," said Creative Strategies analyst Ben Bajarin. Compared to the first-generation M1, the M1 Ultra has seven times as many transistors, the basic electronic building block in a processor.

upstart writes:

Needy, overconfident voice assistants are wearing on their owners' last nerves:

[...] "Hey Alexa, play 'Despacito,'" [Kate] Compton said into the ether from her home in Evanston, Ill., where she teaches computer science at Northwestern University. A nearby smart speaker launched into an explanation: The Luis Fonsi song was not available, but it could be if Compton paid for a subscription. Alexa proceeded to walk us through the pricing plans.

Compton tried again: "Hey Alexa, play classical music."

"Here's a station you might like," Alexa said tentatively, adding that the songs were hosted on Amazon Music.

Americans welcomed voice assistants into their homes on claims that Siri, Alexa and Google Assistant would be like quasi-human helpers, seamlessly managing our appointments, grocery lists and music libraries. From 2019 to 2021, the use of voice assistants among online adults in the United States rose to 30 percent from 21 percent, according to data from market research firm Forrester. Of the options, Siri is the most popular — 34 percent of us have interacted with Apple's voice assistant in the last year. Amazon's Alexa is next with 32 percent; 25 percent have used Google Assistant; and Microsoft's Cortana and Samsung's Bixby trail behind with five percent each.

upstart writes:

NVIDIA's Stolen Code-Signing Certs Used to Sign Malware:

NVIDIA certificates are being used to sign malware, enabling malicious programs to pose as legitimate and slide past security safeguards on Windows machines.

Two of NVIDIA's code-signing certificates were part of the Feb. 23 Lapsus$ Group ransomware attack the company suffered – certificates that are now being used to sign malware so malicious programs can slide past security safeguards on Windows machines.

The Feb. 23 attack saw 1TB of data bleed from the graphics processing units (GPUs) maker: a haul that included data on hardware schematics, firmware, drivers, email accounts and password hashes for more than 71,000 employees, and more.

Security researchers noted last week that malicious binaries were being signed with the stolen certificates to come off like legitimate NVIDIA programs, and that they had appeared in the malware sample database VirusTotal.

[...] Both of the stolen NVIDIA code-signing certificates are expired, but they're still recognized by Windows, which allow a driver signed with the certificates to be loaded in the operating system, according to reports.

upstart writes:

Critical Bugs Expose Hundreds of Thousands of Medical Devices and ATMs:

Specialized health care devices, from imaging tools like CT scanners to diagnostic lab equipment, are often inadequately protected on hospital networks. Now, new findings about seven vulnerabilities in an Internet of Things remote management tool underscore the interconnected exposures in medical devices and the broader IoT ecosystem.

Researchers from the health care security firm CyberMDX, which was acquired last month by the IoT security firm Forescout, found seven easily exploited vulnerabilities, collectively dubbed Access:7, in the IoT remote access tool PTC Axeda. The platform can be used with any embedded device, but has proven particularly popular in medical equipment. The researchers also found that some companies have used it to remotely manage ATMs, vending machines, barcode scanning systems, and some industrial manufacturing equipment. The researchers estimate that the Access:7 vulnerabilities are in hundreds of thousands of devices in all. In a review of its own customers, Forescout found more than 2,000 vulnerable systems.

"You can imagine the type of impact an attacker could have when they can either exfiltrate data from medical equipment or other sensitive devices, potentially tamper with lab results, make critical devices unavailable, or take them over entirely," says Daniel dos Santos, head of security research at Forescout.

Freeman writes:

How to save the International Space Station and prevent the dreaded "gap":

In the 10 days since Russia invaded Ukraine, relations between the first nation to reach space and the Western world have been stripped to the bone.

To wit: Europe's space agency has canceled several launches on Russian rockets, a contract between privately held OneWeb and Roscosmos for six Soyuz launches has been nullified, Europe suspended work on its ExoMars exploration mission that was set to use a Russian rocket and lander, and Russia has vowed to stop selling rocket engines to US launch companies.

Virtually every diplomatic and economic tie between Russia's space industry and Europe and the United States has been severed but one—the International Space Station.

In addition to these actions, Russia's chief spaceflight official, Dmitry Rogozin, has been bombastic since the war's outbreak, vacillating between jingoistic and nationalistic statements on Twitter and threats about how the ISS partnership could end. Moreover, the Kremlin-aligned publication RIA Novosti even created a creepy video showing Russians leaving their American colleagues behind in space.

But Rogozin has not crossed any red lines with his deeds. Although the intemperate space chief has taken every punitive and symbolic step that Roscosmos can in response to Western sanctions, he has stopped short of huge, partnership-breaking actions.

[...] The US space agency's chief of human spaceflight operations, Kathy Lueders, said last week that it would be a "sad day" if NASA and Russia stopped working together on the space station.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Objection: No one can understand what you're saying: Study identifies ways that lawyers could make their written documents easier for the average person to read:

After analyzing thousands of legal contracts and comparing them to other types of texts, the researchers found that lawyers have a habit of frequently inserting long definitions in the middle of sentences. Linguists have previously demonstrated that this type of structure, known as "center-embedding," makes text much more difficult to understand.

While center-embedding had the most significant effect on comprehension difficulty, the MIT study found that the use of unnecessary jargon also contributes.

"It's not a secret that legal language is very hard to understand. It's borderline incomprehensible a lot of the time," says Edward Gibson, an MIT professor of brain and cognitive sciences and the senior author of the new paper. "In this study, we're documenting in detail what the problem is."

The researchers hope that their findings will lead to greater awareness of this issue and stimulate efforts to make legal documents more accessible to the general public.

"Making legal language more straightforward would help people understand their rights and obligations better, and therefore be less susceptible to being unnecessarily punished or not being able to benefit from their entitled rights," says Eric Martinez, a recent law school graduate and licensed attorney who is now a graduate student in brain and cognitive sciences at MIT.

Journal Reference:
Eric Martínez, Francis Mollica, Edward Gibson. Poor writing, not specialized concepts, drives processing difficulty in legal language. Cognition, 2022; 224: 105070 DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2022.105070

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Lead exposure in last century shrank IQ scores of half of Americans, study finds: Leaded gasoline calculated to have stolen more than 800 million cumulative IQ points since the 1940s:

A new study calculates that exposure to car exhaust from leaded gas during childhood stole a collective 824 million IQ points from more than 170 million Americans alive today, about half the population of the United States.

The findings, from Aaron Reuben, a PhD candidate in clinical psychology at Duke University, and colleagues at Florida State University, suggest that Americans born before 1996 may now be at greater risk for lead-related health problems, such as faster aging of the brain. Leaded gas for cars was banned in the U.S. in 1996, but the researchers say that anyone born before the end of that era, and especially those at the peak of its use in the 1960s and 1970s, had concerningly high lead exposures as children.

[...] Lead is neurotoxic and can erode brain cells after it enters the body. As such, there is no safe level of exposure at any point in life, health experts say. Young children are especially vulnerable to lead's ability to impair brain development and lower cognitive ability. Unfortunately, no matter what age, our brains are ill-equipped for keeping it at bay.

"Lead is able to reach the bloodstream once it's inhaled as dust, or ingested, or consumed in water," Reuben said. "In the bloodstream, it's able to pass into the brain through the blood-brain barrier, which is quite good at keeping a lot of toxicants and pathogens out of the brain, but not all of them."

upstart writes:

Extending the battery life of small drones to strengthen security on U.S. Border:

To address the problem of low-capacity batteries on border drones, Gino Lim, R. Larry and Gerlene (Gerri) R. Snider Endowed Chair of Industrial Engineering, proposes the use of drones with a built-in wireless electrification line (E-line) battery charging system. Lim pioneered that technology in 2017.

"Smart border patrol using small-size drones may provide significant help in patrolling areas inaccessible to patrol agents, reduce agent response time, and increase the safety of patrol agents working in dangerous regions. To strengthen border security and reduce the need for patrolling via human agents, we propose the use of drones coupled with the use of E-lines for continuous border surveillance," Lim reports in the journal Computers & Industrial Engineering. The paper's first author is Navid Ahmadian, a former doctoral student in Lim's lab.

The E-line system charges the drones during their surveillance, enables a continuous and seamless flight over the border and eliminates the need for battery charging stations. Continuous monitoring sends live information about different locations of the borderline to the designated control centers, helping enhance border security and reducing the necessity of systems operated by people.

"This work provides an optimization model to determine the optimal number of drones, the optimal length of the E-line, and the optimal location of the E-line system required for border surveillance," said Lim.

Journal Reference:
Navid Ahmadiana, Gino J. Lim, Maryam Torabbeigi, et al. Smart border patrol using drones and wireless charging system under budget limitation, Computers & Industrial Engineering (2021) (DOI: 10.1016/j.cie.2021.107891)

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Russia mulls legalizing software piracy as it's cut off from Western tech:

With sanctions against Russia starting to bite, the Kremlin is mulling ways to keep businesses and the government running. The latest is a creative twist on state asset seizures, only instead of the government taking over an oil refinery, for example, Russia is considering legalizing software piracy.

Russian law already allows for the government to authorize—"without consent of the patent holder"—the use of any intellectual property "in case of emergency related to ensuring the defense and security of the state." The government hasn't taken that step yet, but it may soon, according to a report from Russian business newspaper Kommersant, spotted and translated by Kyle Mitchell, an attorney who specializes in technology law. It's yet another sign of a Cyber Curtain that's increasingly separating Russia from the West.

The plan would create "a compulsory licensing mechanism for software, databases, and technology for integrated microcircuits," the Kommersant said. It would only apply to companies from countries that have imposed sanctions. While the article doesn't name names, many large Western firms—some of which would be likely targets—have drastically scaled back business in Russia. So far, Microsoft has suspended sales of new products and services in Russia, Apple has stopped selling devices, and Samsung has stopped selling both devices and chips.

Presumably, any move by the Kremlin to "seize" IP would exempt Chinese companies, which are reportedly considering how to press their advantage. Smartphone-makers Xiaomi and Honor stand to gain, as do Chinese automakers. Still, any gains aren't guaranteed since doing business in Russia has become riddled with problems, spanning everything from logistics to finance.

Also at TorrentFreak.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Gene-edited beef cattle get regulatory clearance in US:

U.S. regulators on Monday cleared the way for the sale of beef from gene-edited cattle in coming years after the Food and Drug Administration concluded the animals do not raise any safety concerns.

The cattle by Recombinetics are the third genetically altered animals given the green light for human consumption in the U.S. after salmon and pigs. Many other foods already are made with genetically modified ingredients from crops like soybeans and corn.

The cattle reviewed by the FDA had genes altered with a technology called CRISPR to have short, slick coats that let them more easily withstand hot weather. Cattle that aren't stressed by heat might pack on weight more easily, making for more efficient meat production.

The company did not say when home cooks or restaurants might be able to buy the beef, but the FDA said it could reach the market in as early as two years.

Unlike the salmon and pigs, the cattle did not have to go through a years long approval process. The FDA said the cattle were exempt from that because their genetic makeup is similar to other existing cattle and the trait can be found naturally in some breeds.

Dr. Steven Solomon, director of the FDA's Center for Veterinary Medicine, said the agency's review of Recombinetics' cattle took several months. He said there's no reason meat from the animals or their offspring would need to be labeled differently.

Original Submission

An Anonymous Coward writes:

https://www.theregister.com/2022/03/08/in_brief_security/ [theregister.com]

"A Linux local privilege escalation flaw dubbed Dirty Pipe has been discovered and disclosed along with proof-of-concept exploit code.

The flaw, CVE-2022-0847, was introduced in kernel version 5.8 and fixed in versions 5.16.11, 5.15.25, and 5.10.102.

It can be exploited by a normal logged-in user or a rogue running program to gain root-level privileges; it can also be used by malicious apps to take over vulnerable Android devices. If your phone is running an affected Linux kernel version – which you can find under About Phone and software information in the Settings app, typically – be aware that a rogue application could exploit Dirty Pipe to hijack your handset, tablet, or gadget.

[...] Max Kellermann said he found the programming blunder and reported it to the kernel security team in February, which issued patches within a few days. By now these should be filtering through to affected Linux distributions. Android will take longer: we're not aware of any official updates yet."

[...] If you're running Linux, check for security updates from your distro and install.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Optimism may promote emotional well-being by limiting how often one experiences stressful situations: Identifying psychosocial factors that could serve as treatment targets to promote living longer and in good health:

When it comes to dealing with day-to-day stressors, such as household chores or arguments with others, a new study has found that being more or less optimistic did not make a difference in how older men emotionally reacted to or recovered from these stressors. However, optimism appeared to promote emotional well-being by limiting how often older men experience stressful situations or changing the way they interpret situations as stressful.

[...] The researchers found more optimistic men reported not only lower negative mood but also more positive mood (beyond simply not feeling negative). They also reported having fewer stressors which was unrelated to their higher positive mood but explained their lower levels of negative mood.

[...] "Stress, on the other hand, is known to have a negative impact on our health. By looking at whether optimistic people handle day-to-day stressors differently, our findings add to knowledge about how optimism may promote good health as people age," says Lee.

Journal Reference:
Lewina O Lee, PhD; Francine Grodstein, ScD; Claudia Trudel-Fitzgerald, PhD; et al. Optimism, Daily Stressors, and Emotional Well-Being Over Two Decades in a Cohort of Aging Men [open], The Journals of Gerontology: Series B (DOI: 10.1093/geronb/gbac025)

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Common houseplants can improve air quality indoors:

Ordinary potted house plants can potentially make a significant contribution to reducing air pollution in homes and offices, according to new research led by the University of Birmingham and in partnership with the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS).

During a series of experiments monitoring common houseplants exposed to nitrogen dioxide (NO2)—a common pollutant—researchers calculated that in some conditions, the plants could be able to reduce NO2 by as much as 20 percent. The results are published in Air Quality Atmosphere and Health.

The researchers tested three houseplants commonly found in UK homes, easy to maintain and not overly expensive to buy. They included Peace lily (Spathiphyllum wallisii), Corn plant (Dracaena fragrans) and fern arum (Zamioculcas zamiifolia).

Each plant was put, by itself, into a test chamber containing levels of NO2 comparable to an office situated next to a busy road.

Over a period of one hour, the team calculated that all the plants, regardless of species, were able to remove around half the NO2 in the chamber. The performance of the plants was not dependent on the plants' environment, for example whether it was in light or dark conditions, and whether the soil was wet or dry.

Lead researcher Dr. Christian Pfrang said: "The plants we chose were all very different from each other, yet they all showed strikingly similar abilities to remove NO2 from the atmosphere. This is very different from the way indoor plants take up CO2 in our earlier work, which is strongly dependent on environmental factors such as night time or daytime, or soil water content."

Journal Reference:
Curtis Gubb, Tijana Blanusa, Alistair Griffiths, et al. Potted plants can remove the pollutant nitrogen dioxide indoors [open], Air Quality, Atmosphere & Health (DOI: 10.1007/s11869-022-01171-6)

Original Submission