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upstart writes:

Honoring Peter Eckersley, Who Made the Internet a Safer Place for Everyone:

With deep sadness, EFF mourns the loss of our friend, the technologist, activist, and cybersecurity expert Peter Eckersley. Peter worked at EFF for a dozen years and was EFF's Chief Computer Scientist for many of those. Peter was a tremendous force in making the internet a safer place. He was recently diagnosed with colon cancer and passed away suddenly on Friday.

The impact of Peter's work on encrypting the web cannot be overstated. The fact that transport layer encryption on the web is so ubiquitous that it's nearly invisible is thanks to the work Peter began. [...]

While encrypting the web would have been enough, Peter played a central role in many groundbreaking projects to create free, open source tools that protect the privacy of users' internet experience by encrypting communications between web servers and users. Peter's work at EFF included privacy and security projects such as Panopticlick, HTTPS Everywhere, Switzerland, Certbot, Privacy Badger, and the SSL Observatory.

His most ambitious project was probably Let's Encrypt, the free and automated certificate authority, which entered public beta in 2015. [...]

By 2017 it had issued 100 million certificates; by 2021, about 90% of all web page visits use HTTPS. As of today it has issued over a billion certificates to over 280 million websites.

[...] Peter left EFF in 2018 to focus on studying and calling attention to the malicious use of artificial intelligence and machine learning. He founded AI Objectives Institute, a collaboration between major technology companies, civil society, and academia, to ensure that AI is designed and used to benefit humanity.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

The long-awaited Ethereum Merge is happening next week, and it's one of the most important days in cryptocurrency history. Arcane as it sounds, the Merge matters whether or not you're a blockchain believer or a crypto critic. If it's successful, the process will lower ethereum's massive electricity requirements by over 99%.

That is of huge consequence. Skeptics of cryptocurrency typically argue that coins like bitcoin and ether are useless, and that they consume enormous amounts of electricity. The first point is polarizing and subjective, but the second is unequivocally true. In an era when more people than ever view climate change mitigation as society's highest priority, the carbon emissions of bitcoin and ethereum are too conspicuous to ignore. 

In the Merge, ethereum will adopt a system known as proof of stake, which has been planned since 2014, before the blockchain's creation. Because of its technical complexity, and the increasingly large amount of money at risk, it has been delayed multiple times. The Merge is part of what in the past was called "ether 2.0," a series of upgrades that reshape the blockchain's foundations.

"We've been working on proof of stake for about seven years now," ethereum co-creator Vitalik Buterin said at the Eth Shanghai conference in March, "but finally all of that work is coming together." 

The Ethereum Merge is scheduled to occur between Sept. 13 and Sept. 15. [...]

An Anonymous Coward writes:

https://www.phoronix.com/news/GNU-C-Language-Manual

GNU founder Richard Stallman has recently been working on crafting a GNU C Language introduction and reference manual.

Stallman announced today the release of the GNU C Language Introduction & Reference Manual for covering the GNU extensions to the C programming language.

The manual is written as Texi files and is published under the GNU Free Documentation License, v1.3+.

• This manual explains the C language for use with the GNU Compiler Collection (GCC) on the GNU/Linux system and other systems. We refer to this dialect as GNU C. If you already know C, you can use this as a reference manual.
• If you understand basic concepts of programming but know nothing about C, you can read this manual sequentially from the beginning to learn the C language.
• If you are a beginner to programming, we recommend you first learn a language with automatic garbage collection and no explicit pointers, rather than starting with C. Good choices include Lisp, Scheme, Python and Java. C's explicit pointers mean that programmers must be careful to avoid certain kinds of errors.

Original Submission

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-61585886

Buckingham Palace has announced that Queen Elizabeth II has died.

hubie writes:

Projects funded by the National Institutes of Health increasingly employ subjective and promotional language in describing research:

The language used in grant applications is becoming increasingly hyperbolic, a study published last week (August 25) in JAMA Network Open finds. The study found that 130 research-hyping adjectives were used at a 1,378 percent higher frequency on average in funded application abstracts from 2020 than in those from 1985. "The findings in this study should serve to sensitize applicants, reviewers, and funding agencies to the increasing prevalence of subjective, promotional language in funding applications," the authors write.

The team, comprised of two linguists and a biomedical researcher, began by using software to annotate the parts of speech in more than 900,000 abstracts in the National Institutes for Health (NIH) archive of funded projects. They then compared the frequency of adjectives between projects funded in 1985 and those funded in 2020, looking specifically for what they considered hype: "hyperbolic and/or subjective language that may be used to glamorize, promote, or exaggerate aspects of research," according to the paper. While there was no statistically significant difference in the overall prevalence of adjectives between those two years, 1,888 of the descriptors exhibited marked shifts in frequency, 139 of which the researchers deemed to be hype.

Of those 139, 130 were used more often in 2020 than in 1985—including words like "transformative" and "impactful," which increased in frequency by 8,190 percent and 6,465 percent, respectively. The word "sustainable" was more than 25,000 percent more common in the more recent set of abstracts, and some hype adjectives were not seen at all in 1985, such as "renowned," "incredible," "groundbreaking," and "stellar." Meanwhile, the hype adjectives "major," "important," "detailed," and "ultimate" showed some of the largest decreases in frequency.

[...] After all, the words themselves "don't actually really say much," coauthor and linguist Neil Millar of the University of Tsukuba in Japan tells STAT. And other studies have found increases in hype in published research, press releases, and science journalism.

Journal Reference:
Neil Millar; Bojan Batalo; Brian Budgell; Trends in the Use of Promotional Language (Hype) in Abstracts of Successful National Institutes of Health Grant Applications, 1985-2020 [open], JAMA Netw Open. 2022;5(8):e2228676. DOI: 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2022.28676

Original Submission

upstart writes:

G7 countries beat UK in global broadband speed test again:

For the second year in a row, the UK is second worst in the G7 league of industrial nations for broadband speed, only faster than Italy, according to a report published today.

Beating the UK's 72.06Mbps mean download speed globally was Japan in ninth place overall (with an average of 122.33Mbps); France (10th with 120.01Mbps); the United States (in 11th place with 119.01Mbps); Canada (17th, with 106.80Mbps) and Germany, which was 33rd in the rankings (with an average of 72.95Mbps).

As for Italy, which languishes in 56th place with an average download speed of 46.77Mbps, according to Eurostat's 2022 Digital Economy and Society Index, more than half of the country's population still lacks basic digital skills and an FTTH Council Europe study in September 2021 said Italy's full-fiber household penetration would hit 10 percent by the end of last year. However, Rome is attempting to remedy this, and in 2021 set out an Italian Strategy for Ultra Broadband called Plan Italy 1 Giga, with an allocation of €3.8 billion and the aim of providing 1Gbps in download and 200Mbps upload speeds, covering 8.5 million households by 2026. In June this year, the country's €6 billion telecoms incumbent, Telecom Italia, signed an MoU to spin off its fiber network assets and merge them with state-backed rival Open Fiber, seemingly with the aim of creating a single fiber network operator in Italy. Shareholders, bondholders, and regulators have yet to approve the deal.

At 72.06Mbps, the UK average puts it in 19th place out of 28 states in Western Europe, or tenth slowest. Average speeds in the UK are roughly 73 percent of the Western European average (99.00Mbps) – which is an improvement on last year's results.

Commenting on the worldwide rankings, Dan Howdle, consumer telecoms analyst at Cable.co.uk, said: "The fastest average speeds in the world are no longer accelerating away from the rest of the field, since FTTP/pure fibre saturation is hitting its current limits in many of the fastest locations."

Howdle added: "In all cases, those countries ranking highest are those with a strong focus on pure fiber (FTTP) networks, with those countries dawdling too much on FTTC and ADSL solutions slipping further down year on year."

I live in France but in a rural area. These speeds might be good for major cities but there is little chance of fibre being available to anyone around here for at least another 2 years.

Original Submission

Appalbarry wrote in with a submission which became:

Several years ago I read about and applied to join a class action lawsuit against Microsoft for something bad that they did. I didn't honestly remember just what they were accused of doing, but lo and behold my cheque arrived today! $128 Canadian (97.17 United States Dollar).

The page describing the suit says:

The Class Action lawsuits were commenced in British Columbia, Ontario and Québec, but include Canadian residents in all provinces and territories. The Class Actions alleged that Microsoft and Microsoft Canada were involved in a conspiracy to illegally increase prices for certain Microsoft products.

It also notes:

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

Pneumocell, a company specializing in inflatable structures, submitted a study to the European Space Agency laying out the concept for an inflatable lunar habitat.

A vision of a future moon settlement is assembled from semi-buried inflatable habitats. Sited beside the lunar poles in regions of near-perpetual solar illumination, mirrors positioned above each habitat would reflect sunlight into greenhouses within the doughnut-shaped habitats.

Once inflated, these habitats would be buried under 4–5 m of lunar regolith for radiation and micrometeorite protection. Above each habitat a truss holding a mirror membrane would be erected, designed to rotate to follow the sun through the sky. Sunlight from the mirror would be directed down through an artificial crater, from which another cone-shaped mirror reflects it into the surrounding greenhouse.

A slicker and more marketable version of their concept can be found on their website.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Brain electrodes designed to mimic the hippocampus appear to boost the encoding of memories—and are twice as effective in people with poor memory:

A unique form of brain stimulation appears to boost people's ability to remember new information—by mimicking the way our brains create memories.

The "memory prosthesis," which involves inserting an electrode deep into the brain, also seems to work in people with memory disorders—and is even more effective in people who had poor memory to begin with, according to new research. In the future, more advanced versions of the memory prosthesis could help people with memory loss due to brain injuries or as a result of aging or degenerative diseases like Alzheimer's, say the researchers behind the work.

It works by copying what happens in the hippocampus—a seahorse-shaped region deep in the brain that plays a crucial role in memory. The brain structure not only helps us form short-term memories but also appears to direct memories to other regions for long-term storage.

[...] Song, Hampson, and their colleagues, who published their findings in the journal Frontiers in Human Neuroscience in July, hope that their memory prosthesis could one day be widely used to restore memory in people with memory disorders.

An Anonymous Coward writes:

Ransomware groups want to make as much money as possible - that means they're going after more varied targets:

There's been a big rise in ransomware attacks targeting Linux as cyber criminals look to expand their options and exploit an operating system that is often overlooked when businesses think about security.

According to analysis by cybersecurity researchers at Trend Micro, Linux servers are "increasingly coming under fire" from ransomware attacks, with detections up by 75% over the course of the last year as cyber criminals look to expand their attacks beyond Windows operating systems. 

[...] Researchers note that ransomware groups are increasingly tailoring their attacks to focus specifically on Linux systems.

For example, LockBit is one of the most prolific and successful ransomware operations of recent times and now offers the option of a Linux-based variant that is designed to target Linux systems and has been used to conduct attacks in the wild. 

[...] And it isn't just ransomware groups that are increasingly turning their attentions towards Linux – according to Trend Micro, there's been a 145% increase in Linux-based cryptocurrency-mining malware attacks, where cyber criminals secretly exploit the power of infected computers and servers to mine for cryptocurrency for themselves. 

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

The antibody could greatly improve our ability to defend against future variants.

Therapeutic antibodies that were effective early in the pandemic have lost their efficacy as SARS-CoV-2 has changed and mutated, and more recent variants, particularly Omicron, have learned how to circumvent the antibodies our systems produce in response to vaccinations. We may be able to better guard against possible variations thanks to a new, widely neutralizing antibody created at Boston Children’s Hospital. In tests, it neutralized all known SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern, including all Omicron variants.

“We hope that this humanized antibody will prove to be as effective at neutralizing SARS-CoV-2 in patients as it has proven to be thus far in preclinical evaluations,” says Frederick Alt, Ph.D., of the Program in Cellular and Molecular Medicine at Boston Children’s Hospital, who co-led the research.

In a study that was published in Science Immunology, Alt and Sai Luo, Ph.D., utilized a modified version of a humanized mouse model that his lab had previously used to look for broadly neutralizing antibodies to HIV, another virus that often mutates. Since the mice effectively have built-in human immune systems, the model closely resembles how the trial-and-error process our immune system uses to create increasingly effective antibodies.

The researchers initially introduced two human gene segments into the mice, causing their B cells to create a wide repertoire of humanized antibodies in a short period of time. They subsequently exposed the mice to the original Wuhan-Hu-1 strain of the virus’s SARS-CoV-2 spike protein, which is the main protein targeted by our antibodies and current vaccines. The modified mice developed nine lineages, or “families,” of humanized antibodies that bonded to the spike in response.

Journal Reference:
Sai Luo, Jun Zhang, Alex J.B. Kreutzberger, et aj. An Antibody from Single Human VH-rearranging Mouse Neutralizes All SARS-CoV-2 Variants Through BA.5 by Inhibiting Membrane Fusion 11 August 2022, Science Immunology. DOI: 10.1126/sciimmunol.add5446

Original Submission

An Anonymous Coward writes:

NASA issued a Request For Information (RFI) "to assess industry's capability to design, develop, manufacture, launch, and provide the on-orbit operation to enable a controlled re-entry and the safe deorbit [of] the ISS." The general plan lays out possible steps in the deorbit process, ending with "the final reentry burn resulting in a controlled reentry of the ISS within a pre-defined, uninhabited entry corridor." The RFI and its attached presentation slides are very interesting reading, even if you're not preparing for an eventual proposal.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

AMD Ryzen 7000 Series CPUs Reportedly Run Hot, Up to 95C - ExtremeTech:

Right after AMD's launch of Zen 4, we now have a report of its new CPUs running at blistering temperatures. This isn't a huge shock since AMD is notably increasing TDP for Zen 4 in order to crank the clocks. However, Zen 3 was famous for its efficiency, especially compared with its competition from Intel. So while Intel's chips have always run a bit hot under full load, that wasn't the case with AMD's consumer CPUs. That might change with Zen 4, though. According to a new report, the Ryzen 9 7950X can get as hot as 95C. The mainstream Ryzen 5 7600X can also hit temps as high as 90C. Keep in mind these are engineering samples though, so this might not be the case with actual retail CPUs.

News of the surprisingly high temps comes from a normally reliable source: Enthusiast Citizen at Bilibili, via Wccftech. It was previously reported that AMD would allow for up to 230W to be consumed by its flagship CPU. In a post, he notes when that happens, the 7950X can hit 95C [203F]. This is a CPU with a 5.7GHz boost clock, but he says it struggles to maintain 5GHz at that temperature. The 7600X is also reported to consume 120W under full load, and to run at 90C.

This could be partially due to the tiny size of AMD's triplets, which the company says are half the size of Alder Lake's monolithic dies. Raptor Lake has the same design, and Enthusiast Citizen concludes Intel's 13th generation CPU will easily vanquish AMD's Zen 4 flagship. "Multi-core 7950X will basically lose to 13900K without suspense. The heat accumulation combined with the temperature wall will cause 7950X under heavy loads to be unable to maintain 5G, 230W 95 degrees, and it will be ashes when it comes out," he wrote.

It should be noted that 230W is in the vicinity of the Core i9-13900K's power envelope, which is reportedly around 250W. However, Intel is also reportedly planning an "extreme performance" mode on some high-end motherboards that will let it consume up to 350W. However, we doubt a lot of people will use that feature given the cooling requirements. It also needs to be said that like Alder Lake and assumedly Raptor Lake, the Ryzen CPU will only hit those temps under intense, all-core workloads. That's not something that will typically happen when casually gaming.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

The chips are down: Putin scrambles for high-tech parts as his arsenal goes up in smoke:

It's the microchips that look set to get Vladimir Putin in the end. Six months into its invasion of Ukraine, Russia is being throttled by a severe technology deficit inflicted by sanctions.

Having fired off (or lost in combat) way more of their missile firepower than they originally anticipated, Moscow's soldiers are now increasingly relying on ancient stocks of primitive Soviet-era munitions while Western-armed Ukrainian forces are battling to turn the tide in a southern counteroffensive with pinpoint strikes on munition dumps and key infrastructure such as bridges.

Kyiv is acutely aware that the outcome of the war is likely to hinge on whether Russia finds a way to regain access to high-tech chips, and is out to ensure it doesn't get them. In order to flag the danger, Ukraine is sending out international warnings that the Kremlin has drawn up shopping lists of semiconductors, transformers, connectors, casings, transistors, insulators and other components, most made by companies in the U.S., Germany, the Netherlands, the U.K., Taiwan and Japan, among others, which it needs to fuel its war effort.

POLITICO has seen one of the Russian lists, which is divided into three priority categories, from the most critical components to the least. It even includes the price per item that Moscow expects to pay, down to the last kopeck. While POLITICO could not independently verify the provenance of the list, two experts in military supply chains confirmed it was in line with other research findings about Russia's military equipment and needs.

At first glance, Russia shouldn't be able to acquire the most sensitive tech on the lists. With only very basic domestic technology, the Kremlin has relied on key players in the U.S., the EU and Japan for semiconductors as suppliers over the past years and these should be out of grasp thanks to sanctions. The difficulty would emerge in whether an intermediary country such as China were to buy technologies, then sell them on to Moscow. In extreme cases, Russians appear to be clawing chips out of household appliances like fridges.

Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal stressed the war had come to an inflection point where the technological edge was proving decisive.

An Anonymous Coward writes:

Microsoft Defender falsely detects Win32/Hive.ZY in Google Chrome, Electron apps

A recent bug in security intelligence updates for Microsoft Defender is causing it to incorrectly detect Chrome-based browsers and other Electron-based apps as potential malware. Microsoft Edge and other such apps are flagged as suspicious, reporting the threat as Behavior:Win32/Hive.ZY. The issue seems to be resolved when upgrading to version 1.373.1537.0 of the security intelligence updates, and the changelog reports an update to the threat detection for Behavior:Win32/Hive.ZY. After updating Microsoft Defender's security intelligence, the false positive disappears, and no further action is needed.

The false positive appears to be linked to detecting behaviors that would indicate the presence of Hive ransomware. It's obviously a good thing to detect Hive ransomware and block it, but this panicked many users over the weekend whose computers warned them upon opening many trusted applications. Details are scarce as to what went wrong in the Microsoft Defender definitions and how the false positive occurred, but the issue seems to have been resolved with the latest definitions.

Although Microsoft Edge does not contain the Hive ransomware, some users might suggest that Edge was correctly identified as malware, and that the rest of Windows should have been flagged as well.

Original Submission