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upstart writes:

The attack framework of probable Chinese origin used by cybercriminals has been discovered:

A standalone Command and Control (C2) server called "Alchimist" was recently discovered by Cisco Talos. The framework has been designed to run attacks via standalone GoLang-based executables that can be distributed easily. The framework found by Talos contains both the whole web user interface and the payloads.

[...] Alchimist, whose name has been given by its developer, uses GoLang-based assets, which are custom-made embedded packages, to store all the resources needed for its operations as a C2 server. During initialization, all its content is placed in hard coded folders, namely /tmp/Res for the web interface, HTML files and more folders, and /tmp/Res/Payload for its payloads for Windows and Linux operating systems.

A self-signed certificate without any server name is also dropped in the /tmp folder (Figure A), together with its key for use in HTTPS communications. That certificate could be found on five different IP addresses on the Internet at the time of the research, all of them used for Alchimist.

[...] Most common features expected to handle Remote Administration Tool (RAT) malware are implemented in the interface, yet one stands out according to the researchers: The ability to generate PowerShell and wget code snippets for Windows and Linux systems. These commands might be embedded in malicious documents, LNK files or any other kind of files used for initial compromise, and download/install the additional payload provided by the framework: the Insekt RAT.

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

In 1999, 29-year-old Anna Bågenholm survived a body temperature of 13.7 degrees Celsius (56.7 degrees Fahrenheit), after a skiing accident sent her under ice in a river. Her heart did not beat for several hours. The story was later relayed by the BBC.

Now, a group of researchers in Oslo have come closer to explaining what happens in cells that experience deep cooling.

Their work is relevant for both hibernation and accidental hypothermia. It has ramifications for treating trauma patients in hospitals, neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's and, in the future, might help humans travel in space.

[...] "We started looking at them in our favorite model organism, the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans," he says.

[...] They saw that if they cool the C. elegans in a particular way, they will survive for a very long time without affecting the total lifespan.

[...] "We started looking at what happens in this organism and, while doing genetics on this model, we realized that there are certain manipulations we can do that make the survival of these animals in the cold even more effective."

An Anonymous Coward writes:

The idea that humans could be frozen and later brought back has survived for decades:

When Aaron Drake flew from Arizona to the Yinfeng Biological Group in China’s eastern Jinan province in 2016, he was whisked into a state-of-the-art biotech hub. More than 1,000 staffers—including an army of PhDs and MDs—were working on things like studies of the stem cells in umbilical cord blood. The center specialized in research on human cells, from gene testing to tailored cancer treatments. 

But it also had other plans: cylindrical stainless-steel tanks would eventually contain corpses suspended in liquid nitrogen. The tanks weren’t installed yet, but Yinfeng hoped Drake would help with that while it invested some $7 million to get the new project off the ground. As its high-profile new hire, he was there to guide China’s first forays into cryonics, or freezing corpses for reanimation.

[...] The foundation, and cryonics in general, had long survived outside of mainstream acceptance. Typically shunned by the scientific community, cryonics is best known for its appearance in sci-fi films like 2001: A Space Odyssey. But its adherents have held on to a dream that at some point in the future, advances in medicine will allow for resuscitation and additional years on Earth. [...]

[...] Still, the field remains rooted in faith rather than any real evidence that it works. “It’s a hopeless aspiration that reveals an appalling ignorance of biology,” says Clive Coen, a neuroscientist and professor at King’s College London.

upstart writes:

Critical VM2 flaw lets attackers run code outside the sandbox:

Researchers are warning of a critical remote code execution flaw in 'vm2', a JavaScript sandbox library downloaded over 16 million times per month via the NPM package repository.

The vm2 vulnerability is tracked as CVE-2022-36067 and received a severity rating of 10.0, the maximum score in the CVSS system, as it could allow attackers to escape the sandbox environment and run commands on a host system.

Sandboxes are meant to be an isolated environment that is walled off from the rest of the operating system. However, as developers commonly use sandboxes to run or test potentially unsafe code, the ability to "escape" from this confined environment and execute code on the host is a massive security problem.

[...] "The reporter's POC bypassed the logic above since vm2 missed wrapping specific methods related to the "WeakMap" JavaScript built-in type," the researchers explain in their report.

"This allowed the attacker to provide their own implementation of "prepareStackTrace," then trigger an error, and escape the sandbox."

[...] Software developers are urged to update to the latest VM2 version and replace older releases in their projects as soon as possible.

For end users, it is important to note that it could take a while before virtualization software tools relying on VM2 apply the available security update.

As we saw with Log4Shell, a critical security problem in a widely deployed open-source library may persist for extended periods without the impacted users even knowing they're vulnerable due to the obscurity in the supply chain.

If you use a sandbox solution, check if it relies on VM2 and whether it's using the latest version.

Secure javascript????

Original Submission

upstart writes:

The Court wrestled with who gets to decide the meaning of art:

In 1981 the photographer Lynn Goldsmith took a portrait of Prince. He sits alone on a white background, wearing a blank expression with a glint of light in his eyes. In 1984 Andy Warhol used that photo to create art. Warhol altered the image, adjusting the angle of Prince's face, layering on swaths of color, darkening the edges, and adding hand-drawn outlines and other details in a series of 16 silkscreen prints.

40 years later, the artwork is at the center of a Supreme Court case that could change the course of American art, copyright law, and even the state of the internet. The question is whether Warhol's work was fair use, or if he violated Goldsmith's copyright. In oral arguments on Wednesday, the Court wrestled with the finer points of the issue, and to put it mildly, it's pretty complicated.

Did Warhol create an entirely new work of art, or was it just a derivative reinterpretation of Goldsmith's photo? If the art is found to be derivative, the Warhol Foundation will owe Goldsmith millions in fees, royalties, and perhaps additional damages. But the implications of the Supreme Court's impending decision are a much bigger deal than a few million dollars.

[...] You don't have to pay the original artist if it's fair use, which is determined based on four factors: the purpose you're using it for, the nature of the art, how substantially you used the original work, and how your new art affects the market for the original. The lawyers, in this case, focused on the first and fourth factors, purpose and the market.

upstart writes:

Biotechnology startup TurtleTree wants to change the way people consume milk:

Cows are out—at least as far as milking goes. The replacement: cell-based milk. The company says it is able to create raw milk using cells from mammals. The cells are then grown in TurtleTree's labs and milk is ultimately produced. In giant bioreactors, the cells stick to tiny straws, the fluid is then drawn through the straws, and milk comes out the other end.

[...] Most startups fail, and TurtleTree will need to produce a food product consumers will buy. Alternative dairy products already exist, but Lin said that plant-based milk produces less of important protein components than cows milk.

[...] TurtleTree's products will also need the approval of the federal Food and Drug Administration. Cell-based milk is currently not approved for purchase.

[...] There's been limited research on the market for cell-based milk with one study calling it a niche product. But a niche product with limited sales could still be a financial goldmine in the $871 billion global dairy industry.

[...] But even if everything goes right for TurtleTree, cell-based milk won't be flying off the supermarket shelves without great taste.

upstart writes:

1.41GW, in fact – enough to power around one million homes:

There is a wealth of untapped hydroelectric potential in the United States – around 1.41GW of energy flowing through pipes, irrigation channels, and aqueducts.

Scientists at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) reached this conclusion after what they described as a first-of-its-kind study examining the potential power generation of small and micro-scale hydroelectric generators bolted on to existing water infrastructure.

Using both existing data from water regulators and "novel remote sensing and feature detection techniques," the ORNL team said it was taking the first step in not only understanding the US's untapped conduit hydropower potential, but also to raise awareness that such a power source exists.

"For all its benefits, the biggest barrier is a general lack of awareness of conduit hydropower's potential," said Shih-Chieh Kao, ORNL's water power program manager.

[...] For the sake of generating power, ORNL said it considers any "manmade water conveyance that is operated for the distribution of water for agricultural, municipal, or industrial consumption and not primarily for the generation of electricity" as a tappable source. Most deployments would tend toward the very small scale – existing conduit hydro projects top out at less than 10MW, the team explains.

upstart writes:

A scaled-down prototype of the aerobot balloon recently completed tests above Nevada's Black Rock Desert:

NASA wants to send a giant silver balloon to the hellish world of Venus, where the floating robot would explore the toxic Venusian atmosphere. Functional tests of a smaller prototype recently took place in a Nevada desert in preparation for this upcoming mission to the solar system's inferno.

The prototype of the aerial robotic balloon, or aerobot, just completed two successful test flights above the Black Rock Desert in Nevada. A team of scientists and engineers from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory watched from below as the shimmery balloon flew at an altitude of about 4,000 feet (1,000 meters). Conditions in this part of Earth's atmosphere are somewhat similar to conditions found on Venus, but at heights reaching 180,000 feet (55 kilometers) above its scorched surface.

[...] The team behind the aerobot balloon designed it with multilayered material that includes an acid-proof coating, a metallization layer to reduce solar heating, and a rigid inner layer that makes it capable of carrying science instruments, according to NASA. [...]

It's also not just one balloon—it's more of a "balloon within a balloon" design. A rigid inner reservoir is filled with helium under high pressure, which gets tucked inside a larger outer helium balloon that can expand and contract. [...]

DeathMonkey writes:

The Synthetic Party, a new Danish political party with an artificially intelligent representative and policies derived from AI, is eyeing a seat in parliament as it hopes to run in the country's November general election.

The party was founded in May by the artist collective Computer Lars and the non-profit art and tech organization MindFuture Foundation. The Synthetic Party's public face and figurehead is the AI chatbot Leader Lars, which is programmed on the policies of Danish fringe parties since 1970 and is meant to represent the values of the 20 percent of Danes who do not vote in the election. Leader Lars won't be on the ballot anywhere, but the human members of The Synthetic Party are committed to carrying out their AI-derived platform.

"We're representing the data of all fringe parties, so it's all of the parties who are trying to get elected into parliament but don't have a seat. So it's a person who has formed a political vision of their own that they would like to realize, but they usually don't have the money or resources to do so," Asker Staunæs, the creator of the party and an artist-researcher at MindFuture, told Motherboard.

[...] So far, The Synthetic Party has only 11 signatures out of the 20,000 that would make it eligible to run in this November's election. If the party were to be in the parliament, Staunæs said that it would be the AI powering policies and its agenda, and humans acting as the interpreter of the program.

This Danish Political Party Is Led by an AI

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

A new material is set to provide us with faster and higher resolution displays. Hokkaido University researchers explain what makes this material so special, opening the door to its application and further development.

All displays consist of a lattice of tiny dots of light, called pixels, the brightness of which can be individually controlled. The total number of pixels—and therefore, the resolution and display size—is limited by how many of these pixels can be addressed within a given fraction of a second. Therefore, display manufacturers try, in the pixel control units, to use materials that exhibit a very high "electron mobility," which is a measure for how quickly current will start to flow through a control unit as a response to voltage being applied—and thus, how quick the pixel is.

A new material called ITZO (for its constituent elements indium, tin, zinc and oxygen) promises to be up to seven times faster than the current state-of-the-art material. However, it has not been clear where this improvement comes from, hampering its adoption for industrial applications.

Hokkaido University material scientist Hiromichi Ohta and his team used their unique measurement technique to clarify this point. In their recent paper published in the journal ACS Applied Electronic Materials, they showed that the higher electron mobility results from the unusual fact that in ITZO films of sufficient thickness, free charges accumulate at the interface with the carrier material and thus enable passing-through electrons to travel through the bulk of the material unhindered.

Elon Musk under federal investigation over Twitter deal:

Elon Musk is under a federal investigation related to his $44 billion takeover deal for Twitter.

The news came from a court filing made public on Thursday about the latest in ongoing legal disputes between the billionaire and the social network.

While the filing said he was under investigation, it did not say what the focus was.

"This game of 'hide the ball' must end," the company said in the court filing.

Mr Musk did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Twitter - which sued Mr Musk in July to force him to close the deal - said lawyers for the Tesla CEO had claimed "investigative privilege" when refusing to hand over documents it wanted.

It also said it had requested that Mr Musk's attorneys produce their communications with federal authorities months ago, but they had not done so.

hubie writes:

Research suggests behaviour of co-workers can mirror hostility of their leaders:

A new study has found that hostile behaviours from "abusive" bosses can lead to co-workers adopting similar behaviour, leading to a toxic atmosphere of insecurity and exhaustion in the workplace.

[...] Examples of hostile behaviour in the workplace considered by the researchers included use of inappropriate language, sexual harassment, outbursts, humiliation and misuse of power.

[...] The study also reported an association between experiencing hostile behaviour from leaders and emotional exhaustion and job insecurity, suggesting that mistreatment from peers can damage employees' confidence in their job and their role within an organisation.

[...] Co-author Dr Nadeem Khalid, Senior Lecturer in Entrepreneurship and Strategy at ARU, said:

It's clear from our study that hostile behaviour at the top of a workplace is not only likely to be damaging to individuals in terms of their emotional exhaustion and job security, it is also likely to encourage other employees to act in unethical ways, creating a toxic environment across the entire organisation.

That effluent flows downhill perhaps isn't too surprising, but do you think the converse is true, or is it really the case that nice guys finish last?

Journal Reference:
Miao Li, Ammar Ahmed, Obed Rashdi Syed, et al., Impact of abusive leader behavior on employee job insecurity: A mediating roles of emotional exhaustion and abusive peer behavior, Front Psychol, 2022. DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.947258

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

The University of Gothenburg has deployed three underwater robots in the Baltic waters around the leaks on the Nord Stream gas pipelines. This is done to be able to follow how chemistry and life in the sea changes over time due to the large release of methane gas. In addition, research vessel Skagerak is set to deploy on a new expedition to the Baltic Sea to test run the large, unmanned vessel Ran.

The expedition with R/V Skagerak was not the only measure the university's researchers took when the Nord Stream pipelines began to leak methane gas. With the help of the Voice of the Ocean foundation, VOTO, three remote-controlled underwater robots were placed in the area. They will move around the sea and record water data continuously for the next 15 weeks.

"They are called gliders and are provided by VOTO, who also manages their operation. The robots can give us measurements over a series of time about how the chemistry and quality of the water is affected by the natural gas leak," says oceanographer Bastien Queste at the University of Gothenburg.

Since March 2021, VOTO has had two gliders in the area which functions as one of the foundation's ocean observatories and where the water quality is measured non-stop. The robots go down to the bottom and then turn up to the surface, something that is repeated over a preset distance. Every time the glider is at the surface, the latest measurement data is sent to the researchers via satellite. Thus, plenty of data from this area already exists from before. One of the three additional robots that was dropped into the sea last week has been equipped by the manufacturer Alseamar with a special sensor to be able to measure the change in the methane content over the next 15 weeks.

"Last week's expedition provided valuable data and a snapshot of the state of the ocean immediately after the leakage occurred. With the new robots in place, we receive continuous reports on the state of the water near the Nord stream pipeline leaks. They are deployed solely for this purpose," says Bastien Queste.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Fallen Arecibo Observatory to be transformed into STEM education centre:

The famous observatory, once the largest radio telescope on Earth, collapsed in 2020 after a number of its cables began to fail.

The US National Science Foundation (NSF) has decided to turn the iconic Arecibo Observatory into a STEM-focused education centre.

The 305-metre radio telescope, made internationally famous by movies such as GoldenEye and Contact, was regarded as a beacon for breakthrough science.

The observatory operated for 57 years but was set to be decommissioned in 2020 after a series of incidents left it damaged beyond repair. The platform collapsed at the end of 2020 after a third cable snapped off.

Before the observatory collapsed, the NSF stated that even if repairs were made to Arecibo, the structure would still present long-term stability issues. Rather than rebuild, the NSF has decided to turn the site into a multidisciplinary centre to serve as a hub for STEM education and outreach.

The new education centre will work to promote learning and teaching within STEM and broaden participation. The centre will also seek to build and leverage existing and new collaborations and support fundamental STEM education research.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Techie reported to management for failing to fix a stapler:

On Call The seasons turn, the tides ebb and flow. Just as regularly, each Friday The Register delvers another instalment of On-Call, our reader-contributed tale of another sad constant: IT people being asked to do amazingly dumb things.

This week, meet a reader we'll Regomize as "Phil" who shared a short and sweet tale of his time as a senior systems engineer.

That grand title reflects the skills and qualifications required to tend a sizable fleet of virtualized servers and their respective operating systems.

Which made the support call we recount today all the stranger – because it came from an executive assistant who needed help to fix an electric stapler.

[...] This machine was not even located in the facility wherein Phil toiled. Instead, the call came from another office several states away.

Phil nonetheless tried to help, starting with the – pardon the pun – staple tactics of asking the user if the device was plugged in and then requesting it be turned off and on again.

When that proved ineffective, Phil asked the executive assistant what he felt an IT person hundreds of miles away could do to repair the stapler.

"It plugs into the wall, isn't that what IT fixes?" was the non sequitur reply. Phil's response was to suggest the user contact their facilities department and order a new stapler.

For offering that sensible advice, Phil became the subject of a complaint to corporate that labelled the IT team "unresponsive."

What amusing things have you been asked to do which were nothing to do with your job? For those of you who have worked on help desks, what are your most amusing recollections of problems you have been faced with?

Original Submission