SoylentNews

upstart writes:

Investigations triggered by the cracking of encrypted phones three years ago have so far led to more than 6,500 arrests worldwide and the seizure of hundreds of tons of drugs:

The announcement underscored the staggering scale of criminality — mainly drugs and arms smuggling and money laundering — that was uncovered as a result of police and prosecutors effectively listening in to criminals using encrypted EncroChat phones.

"It helped to prevent violent attacks, attempted murders, corruption and large-scale drug transports, as well as obtain large-scale information on organised crime," European Union police and judicial cooperation agencies Europol and Eurojust said in a statement.

The French and Dutch investigation gained access to more than 115 million encrypted communications between some 60,000 criminals via servers in the northern French town of Roubaix, prosecutors said at a news conference in the nearby city of Lille.

[...] EncroChat sold phones for around 1,000 euros ($1,094) worldwide and offered subscriptions with global coverage for 1,500 euros ($1,641) per six months. The devices were marketed as offering complete anonymity and were said to be untraceable and easy to erase if a user was arrested.

French law enforcement authorities launched investigations into the company operating EncroChat in 2017. The probe led to a device being installed that was able to evade the phones' encryption and gain access to users' communications.

[...] The FBI and other law enforcement agencies went a step further and created an encrypted service — ANOM — that was marketed to criminals in a global sting that led to the arrest of more than 800 suspects and seizure of more than 32 metric tons (35.2 tons) of drugs, including cocaine, cannabis, amphetamines and methamphetamines.

Original Submission

hubie writes:

Aided by station-mounted cameras, fans are breathing new life into America's forgotten railway towns – online and IRL:

The world of railfans and trainspotters is hardly new. Since the advent of the railroad, hobbyists and professionals have taken photos of local trains, traveled to see their favorite railways, and simply passed the time sitting on platforms to enjoy the view.

But the community saw a digital boost during the pandemic, when the act of watching livestreams of trains soared in popularity. Many say they were drawn in by the community around the feeds, the romantic lore and history of rail travel in the US, and the regularity of trains passing through at a time when the world felt chaotic.

"A lot of people said during lockdown the camera really saved their sanity, because it was a way to connect with people they weren't able to see in person at the time," said Robert Scott, a railfan who volunteers as a moderator for a live camera in Chehalis, Washington. "Some people keep the feed on 24 hours a day in the background because they like the familiarity of the regular passing of trains."

Today there are an increasing number of live rail-stream hubs, including RailwayCams, RailStream, and RailServe.com. One of the most popular is Virtual Railfan, founded in 2009 by a lifelong train obsessive named Michael Cyr. Cyr said he was sitting on the platform of a rail station in Folkston, Georgia – a small town with a big local railfan culture – when he realized his hobby could be brought online, allowing more people to engage. The following year, the first Virtual Railfan camera was set up in Folkston and attracted a few dozen viewers, a crowd that eventually grew to several hundred.

The company advertises itself as offering one of the most realistic online trainspotting experiences, featuring live audio and 1080HD cameras – many of which can be moved to see different angles of the incoming locomotives. "We wanted to bring the whole experience," Cyr said. "If you can't be there, we're going to be the next best thing." Virtual Railfan takes in revenue from paid memberships that offer additional features like playbacks of older streams and advertisements from its YouTube channels.

fliptop writes:

A new artificial intelligence-based technique for measuring fluid flow around the brain's blood vessels could have big implications for developing treatments for diseases such as Alzheimer's:

The perivascular spaces that surround cerebral blood vessels transport water-like fluids around the brain and help sweep away waste. Alterations in the fluid flow are linked to neurological conditions, including Alzheimer's, small vessel disease, strokes, and traumatic brain injuries but are difficult to measure in vivo.

A multidisciplinary team of mechanical engineers, neuroscientists, and computer scientists led by University of Rochester Associate Professor Douglas Kelley developed novel AI velocimetry measurements to accurately calculate brain fluid flow. The results are outlined in a study published by Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

[...] The work builds upon years of experiments led by study coauthor Maiken Nedergaard, the codirector of Rochester's Center for Translational Neuromedicine. The group has previously been able to conduct two-dimensional studies on the fluid flow in perivascular spaces by injecting tiny particles into the fluid and measuring their position and velocity over time. But scientists needed more complex measurements to understand the full intricacy of the system—and exploring such a vital, fluid system is a challenge.

Journal Reference: Artificial intelligence velocimetry reveals in vivo flow rates, pressure gradients, and shear stresses in murine perivascular flows - https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2217744120

Originally spotted on The Eponymous Pickle.

Related: Single Brain Scan Can Diagnose Alzheimer's Disease Quickly and Accurately

Original Submission

Freeman writes:

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/06/wingpt-is-a-windows-3-1-ai-chatbot-for-your-old-ibm-compatible-desktop/

Microsoft is working to integrate ChatGPT-based technology into more and more places in Windows 11, but it isn't doing the same for older versions of Windows. Those of you with an old Windows 3.1 or Windows 95 PC can breathe easy, though, because the same developer who created the Windows 3.1 version of Wordle has returned with a Windows 3.1 ChatGPT client called WinGPT. .

[...]

An even bigger problem with getting any Internet-connected software running on old 16- and 32-bit versions of Windows in 2023 is that most of the modern web is encrypted, and older operating systems don't support modern SSL/TLS protocols. Many Internet-connected retro projects, including browsers and chat clients, rely on some kind of proxy to get around this, using a modern system to talk to the internet and decrypt data, and passing that decrypted data to the old PC on your local network.

To get WinGPT working without a proxy, the Dialup.net developer has also developed a 16-bit port of the WolfSSL library to support TLS 1.2 and 1.3 connections on the ancient operating system. This port is, as the developer says, "not secure, not reliable, and there is no warranty," and it should be used for entertainment purposes only. The port doesn't verify security certificates and uses "a fake random number generator" to function.

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Webb Makes First Detection of Crucial Carbon Molecule

A team of international scientists has used NASA's James Webb Space Telescope to detect a new carbon compound in space for the first time. Known as methyl cation (pronounced cat-eye-on) (CH₃⁺), the molecule is important because it aids the formation of more complex carbon-based molecules. Methyl cation was detected in a young star system, with a protoplanetary disk, known as d203-506, which is located about 1,350 light-years away in the Orion Nebula.

Carbon compounds form the foundations of all known life, and as such are particularly interesting to scientists working to understand both how life developed on Earth, and how it could potentially develop elsewhere in our universe. The study of interstellar organic (carbon-containing) chemistry, which Webb is opening in new ways, is an area of keen fascination to many astronomers.

Methenium (AKA methylium, carbenium, methyl cation, or protonated methylene).

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Jail terms for sharing or creating explicit images without consent:

People caught sharing or creating explicit images without consent could face time in jail in England and Wales.

Amendments to the Online Safety Bill will introduce a six-month prison term for sharing deepfake and revenge porn. This would rise to two years if intent to cause distress, alarm or humiliation, or to obtain sexual gratification can be proved.

Those who share an image for sexual gratification could also be placed on the sex offenders' register.

"Revenge porn" is sharing an intimate image without consent. "Deepfake porn" involves creating a fake explicit image or video of a person. Revenge porn was criminalised in 2015 but up until now prosecutors had to prove there was an intention to cause humiliation or distress.

[...] The government announced its intention to legislate last year, and the amendments are part of the Online Safety Bill, which is due to be voted on by MPs later this month before it becomes law.

owl writes:

https://www.5volts.ch/posts/mfmreader/

I still have some floppy drives laying around and I always planned to integrated them into my new SBC projects. In the 1990s I had once built a floppy disk controller for an Apple II and also built a SBC around a 65SC816 processor with a floppy disk controller using WD2797 FDC chips. Both worked quite will. FDCs are now obsolete and so I thought about emulating a FDC using a microcontroller. I also could have used new old stock controllers but that was not my intention.

In the internet you find several discussions about this topic and in many cases the conclusion was that it is not possible to read floppies without a controller. However there are also some projects describing a floppy disk emulator using a microcontroller with no or only little hardware support. Also there are several projects that read the raw MFM data and send it to a PC to decode the data. I was really tempted to give it a try.

My goal was to read and write HD floppies without any additional hardware and be able to read and write the content of individual sectors.

Original Submission

MIT brain science researchers took a look at comprehension of (and preference for) the use of legalese (legal language used in contracts and so on) vs. the same thoughts expressed in simple sentences. While lawyers did better at understanding their own dialect, nearly everyone, lawyer or not, preferred ordinary English. https://news.mit.edu/2023/new-study-lawyers-legalese-0529

Parsing legal language

Since at least the 1970s, when President Richard Nixon declared that federal regulations should be written in "layman's terms," efforts have been made to try to simplify legal documents. However, another study by Martínez, Mollica, and Gibson, not yet published, suggests that legal language has changed very little since that time.

The MIT team began studying the structure and comprehensibility of legal language several years ago, when Martínez, who became interested in the topic as a student at Harvard Law School, joined Gibson's lab as a research assistant and then a PhD student.

In a study published last year, Gibson, Martínez, and Mollica used a text analysis tool to compare legal documents to many other types of texts, including newspapers, movie scripts, and academic papers. Among the features identified as more common in legal documents, one stood out as making the texts harder to read: long definitions inserted in the middle of sentences.

Linguists have previously shown that this type of structure, known as center-embedding, makes text much more difficult to understand. When the MIT team tested people on their ability to understand and recall the meaning of a legal text, their performance improved significantly when center-embedded structures were replaced with more straightforward sentences, with terms defined separately.

More detail in TFA along with references to related work.

I've had to read my share of contracts and complex NDA/secrecy agreements, some of which were pretty sneaky, others very easy to follow. In my experience, the long sentence with strings of qualifiers in the middle is common, but once you know that is the structure it is possible to mentally assemble the start and end of the sentence and understand what's being said. Then add back in all the conditions where it applies, or does not apply.

I've been caught out a couple of times to my business and financial embarrassment. Once burned I've learned that, when there is a lot on the line, reading the fine print is often worth the effort. I've also learned that a contract presented to me isn't always cast in stone--reasoned objections are often negotiable and clauses can be struck or modified. While always an option, I resist hiring a lawyer, preferring to work through the language myself.

Full paper here, https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2302672120 behind a paywall for me (perhaps the text is available elsewhere?)

Original Submission

Freeman writes:

https://arstechnica.com/google/2023/06/rip-to-my-pixel-fold-dead-after-four-days/

A flame that burns twice as bright burns half as long. That was my brief experience with the Pixel Fold, which was a wonderful little device until the display died, along with my hopes and dreams. I barely used it, but it was beautiful.

I didn't do anything to deserve this. The phone sat on my desk while I wrote about it, and I would occasionally stop to poke the screen, take a screenshot, or open and close it. It was never dropped or exposed to a significant amount of grit, nor had it gone through the years of normal wear and tear that phones are expected to survive. This was the lightest possible usage of a phone, and it still broke.

The flexible OLED screen died after four days. The bottom 10 pixels of the Pixel Fold went dead first, forming a white line of 100 percent brightness pixels that blazed across the bottom of the screen.
[...]
Manufacturers keep wanting to brush off the significant durability issues of flexible OLED displays, thinking that if they just shove the devices onto the market, everything will work out. That hasn't been the case, though, and any time you see a foldable phone for sale, you don't have to look far to see reports of dead displays. I'm sure we'll see several reports of broken Pixel Folds once the unit hits the general public. Corning may save us with an exterior foldable glass cover, but until then, buying any foldable feels like a gamble.

Original Submission

kreuzfeld writes:

Free-software aficionado Ploum has an interesting take on Meta and the Fediverse:

There are rumours that Meta would become "Fediverse compatible". You could follow people on Instagram from your Mastodon account. I don't know if those rumours have a grain of truth, if it is even possible for Meta to consider it. But there's one thing my own experience with XMPP and OOXML taught me: if Meta joins the Fediverse, Meta will be the only one winning.

Read the full article here.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Extending Earth's Internet to Mars With Orbital Data Servers:

You've done it. After years of effort and training, sacrifice, and pain, you become an astronaut and have finally set foot on Mars. Time to post your triumph on TikTok for that sweet social media cred. If only you can get a signal.

While that might seem like a silly scenario, the need for internet connectivity on Mars is real. It's not just a matter of allowing astronauts to doomscroll and post on Reddit. Landing humans on Mars will require a tremendous amount of data transfer with Earth, which is not easy. So how can we create an information network on Mars that is robust enough for both logistic and personal needs? A paper posted on the arxiv proposes an idea.

[...] One of these ideas, as the paper outlines, is edge computing. Although you probably don't notice it, edge computing is why you can watch streaming services like Netflix and Disney+. It takes a tremendous amount of bandwidth to stream television and movies, so streaming services distribute their servers to get you better speeds. [...]

This latest work looks at what it would take to have an edge computing network around Mars. The key is not only to have data locally accessible, but also to have a certain level of redundancy. So they propose building a constellation of satellites around Mars. Their system would have 9 satellites each in 9 orbital planes, for a total of 81 satellites. As with many constellations, the satellites would communicate with each other to have redundant backups of data. This means various landing sites on Mars would be able to communicate with 2 or 3 satellites at any given time. For extended missions, ground-based servers could be used for even faster data retrieval.

Building such a system would not be cheap, so the authors propose building the constellation in stages. As exploratory missions to Mars lay the groundwork for crewed landing, a few constellation satellites could go along for the ride. By the time long-term stations are being built, the constellation could already be in place.

Journal Reference:
Pfandzelter, Tobias, and David Bermbach. "Can Orbital Servers Provide Mars-Wide Edge Computing?" arXiv preprint arXiv:2306.09756 (2023).

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Australia gives Twitter legal notice to clean up online hate content:

Twitter now has 28 days to respond to the legal notice from Australia and detail what the social media website is doing to deal with online hate posted on its platform, which accounts for the most complaints over the past year. Continuing violations could lead to daily fines of up to AU$700,000 ($474,670).

The social media platform is the source of one in three complaints sent to Australia's online safety regulator, eSafety.

The number of reported online abuse on Twitter also has been climbing since Elon Musk took control of the company last October, according to eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant. She noted that the spike in complaints coincided with Twitter's move to cut its global workforce from 8,000 to 1,500, which included its trust and safety teams. The company also removed its public policy presence in Australia.

In addition, Musk announced a "general amnesty" in November, during which 62,000 banned or suspended users reportedly were reinstated to the platform, including 75 that had more than 1 million followers, said Inman Grant. She also pointed to the reinstatement of previously banned accounts that "emboldened extreme polarizers, peddlers of outrage and hate." These included neo-Nazis in Australia and overseas.

While Twitter's current terms of use and policies prohibit hateful conduct on the site, the increase in complaints to eSafety and reports of hate content that remained on the platform indicate that Twitter is unlikely to be enforcing its rules, she noted.

Citing eSafety's own research, she said almost one in five Australians had experienced some form of online hate.

"Twitter appears to have dropped the ball on tackling hate," Inman Grant said. "We need accountability from these platforms and action to protect their users. You cannot have accountability without transparency and that's what legal notices like this one [issued by eSafety] are designed to achieve."

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Microsoft Says It Will Build a Quantum Supercomputer Within Ten Years:

Microsoft yesterday announced its very own roadmap towards building a quantum supercomputer, crystallizing its path along the company's years-long research into topological qubits. Just last year, Microsoft had the breakthrough it "bet" would pay-off out of its research into topological qubits, an (even more) exotic qubit type than usual. Now, the company is saying it can get from the research breakthrough towards a functional quantum supercomputer in less than a decade.

[...] Now, that's. quite an aggressive "roadmap". Of course, Microsoft has been on the road it has publicly committed to for a while now - the company has advanced its research into quantum computing in numerous other areas, even with the lack of a single, coherent, topological qubit being shown until last year. There are many areas of quantum computing that could be worked on while Microsoft waited for its topological qubits to come to pass - such as control mechanisms, noise reduction, deployment, and others. Areas where the company's research was already aligned with the certainty that they'd actually be able to produce, entangle, and keep them coherent.

"Today, we're really at this foundational implementation level," Svore told TechCrunch. "We have noisy intermediate-scale quantum machines. They're built around physical qubits and they're not yet reliable enough to do something practical and advantageous in terms of something useful. For science or for the commercial industry. The next level we need to get to as an industry is the resilient level. We need to be able to operate not just with physical qubits but we need to take those physical qubits and put them into an error-correcting code and use them as a unit to serve as a logical qubit."

Essentially, Microsoft has to do the same work that other companies have been doing on their own qubits: Microsoft has to scale the number of qubits it can deploy; it has to make sure those qubits are resilient (stable) so they can be used for complex calculations; and it has to find ways to reduce the error rate. Microsoft expects it will achieve its quantum supercomputer once it can reach a rate of one million quantum operations per second, with a failure rate of one per trillion operations.

Ford: the US Can't Compete With China on Electric Vehicles, for Now

upstart writes:

"We need to be ready, and we're getting ready":

Bill Ford, executive chairman of Ford Motor Company, has warned that when it comes to the production of electric vehicles, the United States is still not ready to compete with China. Speaking about China's EV industry during an interview with CNN's Fareed Zakaria GPS, Ford said "They developed very quickly, and they developed them in large scale. And now they're exporting them [...] They're not here but they'll come here we think, at some point, we need to be ready, and we're getting ready."

The US automaker in February announced that it would be investing $3.5 billion in building an electric vehicle plant in Michigan. Reuters writes that the deal will use technology from Chinese battery company Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Ltd, which led to Senator Marco Rubio asking the Biden administration to review the deal. Ford says the Michigan battery plant is a chance for Ford engineers to learn the technology and use it for themselves.

"It [Michigan] is a wholly owned Ford facility. They'll be our employees, and all we're doing is licensing the technology. That's it." Ford said.

[...] Buttigieg added that the US must build relationships domestically and internationally for raw materials and refining capacity. Chinese firms make up more than half of the EV battery market and provide as much as 90% of the demand for some battery materials.

hubie writes:

Butterfly tree of life reveals an origin in North America:

About 100 million years ago, a group of trendsetting moths started flying during the day rather than at night, taking advantage of nectar-rich flowers that had co-evolved with bees. This single event led to the evolution of all butterflies.

Scientists have known the precise timing of this event since 2019, when a large-scale analysis of DNA discounted the reigning hypothesis that pressure from bats prompted the evolution of butterflies after the extinction of dinosaurs.

Now, scientists have discovered where the first butterflies originated and which plants they relied on for food.

Before reaching these conclusions, researchers from dozens of countries had to create the world's largest butterfly tree of life, assembled with DNA from more than 2,000 species representing all butterfly families and 92% of genera. Using this framework as a guide, they traced the movements and feeding habits of butterflies through time in a four-dimensional puzzle that led back to North and Central America. According to their results, published today in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution, this is where the first butterflies took flight.

[...] There are some 19,000 butterfly species, and piecing together the 100 million-year history of the group required information about their modern distributions and host plants. Prior to this study, there was no single place that researchers could go to access that type of data.

"In many cases, the information we needed existed in field guides that hadn't been digitized and were written in various languages," Kawahara said.

Undeterred, the authors decided to make their own, publicly available database, painstakingly translating and transferring the contents of books, museum collections and isolated web pages into a single digital repository.