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fliptop writes:

The incident exposes the growing vulnerabilities tied to digital ID systems and mandatory KYC (know your customer) data collection:

A US-based online gift card retailer has resolved a critical data exposure incident that left highly sensitive customer identity documents accessible on the internet, raising concerns about the growing risks posed by mandatory data collection under "know your customer" (KYC) and digital ID regulations.

The issue came to light when a security researcher, known by the alias JayeLTee, discovered an unprotected storage server linked to MyGiftCardSupply. According to TechCrunch, the server, which lacked even basic password protection, contained hundreds of thousands of government-issued IDs, including driver's licenses and passports, as well as selfies submitted by customers. These documents are required by the company to comply with US anti-money laundering laws, which mandate identity verification for certain transactions.

Despite an attempt by JayeLTee to notify MyGiftCardSupply about the exposure, the company did not respond until TechCrunch reported the breach. MyGiftCardSupply's founder, Sam Gastro, later confirmed the issue. "The files are now secure, and we are doing a full audit of the KYC verification procedure," Gastro stated. He also pledged that the company would delete identity documents promptly after verification in the future.

[...] According to JayeLTee, the server, hosted on Microsoft's Azure cloud platform, contained over 600,000 images of identity documents and selfies from approximately 200,000 customers. These materials are a part of controversial KYC procedures, intended to confirm identities and prevent fraud.

Related: Chinese Organized Crime's Latest U.S. Target: Gift Cards

Original Submission

hubie writes:

Social media addiction can reduce grey matter, shorten attention spans, weaken memory, and distort core cognitive functions, according to recent research:

"Brain rot" was named the Oxford Word of the Year for 2024 after a public vote involving more than 37,000 people. Oxford University Press defines the concept as "the supposed deterioration of a person's mental or intellectual state, especially viewed as the result of over consumption of material (now particularly online content) considered to be trivial or unchallenging."

According to Oxford's language experts, the term reflects growing concerns about "the impact of consuming excessive amounts of low-quality online content, especially on social media." The term increased in usage frequency by 230% between 2023 and 2024.

But brain rot is not just a linguistic quirk. Over the past decade, scientific studies have shown that consuming excessive amounts of junk content — including sensationalist news, conspiracy theories and vacuous entertainment — can profoundly affect our brains. In other words, "rot" may not be that big of an exaggeration when it comes to describing the impact of low-quality online content.

Research from prestigious institutions such as Harvard Medical School, Oxford University, and King's College London — cited by The Guardian — reveals that social media consumption can reduce grey matter, shorten attention spans, weaken memory, and distort core cognitive functions.

[...] The problem, says the researcher, is that social media users are constantly exposed to rapidly changing and variable stimuli — such as Instagram notifications, WhatsApp messages, or news alerts — that have addictive potential. This means users are constantly switching their focus, which undermines their ability to concentrate effectively.

[...] In December, psychologist Carlos Losada offered advice to EL PAÍS on how to avoid falling into the trap of doomscrolling — or, in other words, being consumed by the endless cycle of junk content amplified by algorithms. His recommendations included recognizing the problem, making a conscious effort to disconnect, and engaging in activities that require physical presence, such as meeting friends or playing sports.

"These activities are critical for brain health and overall wellbeing, helping to balance the potentially damaging effects of prolonged screen use," explains Moshel, who stresses that the type of content consumed plays a pivotal role in shaping brain anatomy. "Focus on both the quality and quantity of screen time. Prioritize educational content that avoids addictive features. Set clear, age-appropriate limits on daily screen use and encourage regular breaks."

Original Submission

hubie writes:

Hollow-eyed insincere robot posters are already flooding Meta's sites and they're everything we dreaded:

Update 1/03/24: After the publication of this article, Meta told 404 Media that it had begun to delete the AI-generated accounts and that many had been managed by humans. Since then, Meta has deleted the accounts. Our original story follows below.

As I stared into the dead-eyed visage of "Carter," one of Meta's new AI posters, I remembered a line from Dawn of the Dead. "When there's no more room in hell, the dead will walk the Earth."

Something about George Romero's 1978 film about doomed survivors riding out the zombie apocalypse in a shopping mall feels resonant today as I look across Meta's suite of AI-created profiles. The movie's blue-skinned corpses don't know they're dead. They just wander through the shopping center on autopilot, looking for something new to consume.

That's how many of our social media spaces feel now. Digital town squares populated by undead posters, zombies spouting lines they learned from an LLM, the digested material from decades of the internet spewed back at the audience. That's what Meta is selling now.

Meta's various sites have over 3 billion users, an incredible percentage of the world's population. But businesses demand constant growth and, not content with almost half of the living people on the planet, Meta has decided to cut out the middle-man. It is flooding Facebook and Instagram with AI-generated posters of its own creation.

A December 27, 2024 article in Financial Times laid out the vision. "We expect these AIs to actually, over time, exist on our platforms, kind of in the same way that accounts do," Connor Hayes, vice president of generative AI at Meta, told the outlet. "They'll have bios and profile pictures and be able to generate and share content powered by AI on the platform . . . that's where we see all of this going."

[...] The AIs don't seem to be faring well on Instagram. They have low engagement numbers and people are calling them out as AI slop. It's different on Facebook, where the norm has been AI-powered slop for a year now. The post has 13 likes and 2 comments on Instagram and 192 likes, 112 comments, and 33 shares on Facebook. Many of the comments are spam, links to other profiles, or phishing bait of one kind or another.

But it's all interaction and, on a spreadsheet, that's all that matters.

[...] The AI apocalypse is here and it's far stupider and more depressing than we were promised. Instead of being hunted down by a gleaming metal skeleton in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, we are surrounded by zombies endlessly repeating our own posts back to us.

And the worst is yet to come. Remember that to power these nightmares Big Tech is going to revive the nuclear power industry. That's our future. A barren mall kept alight with nuclear power, filled with the dead and the never-born.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

The iPhone 6 and Apple Watch were two devices owned by the lead plaintiff in the lawsuit:

Apple has agreed to pay $95m (£77m) to settle a court case alleging some of its devices were listening to people without their permission.

The tech giant was accused of eavesdropping on its customers through its virtual assistant Siri.

The claimants also allege voice recordings were shared with advertisers.

Apple, which has not admitted any wrongdoing, has been approached for comment.

In the preliminary settlement, the tech firm denies any wrongdoing, as well as claims that it "recorded, disclosed to third parties, or failed to delete, conversations recorded as the result of a Siri activation" without consent.

Apple's lawyers also say they will confirm they have "permanently deleted individual Siri audio recordings collected by Apple prior to October 2019".

But the claimants say the tech firm recorded people who activated the virtual assistant unintentionally - without using the phrase "Hey, Siri" to wake it.

And they say advertisers who received the recordings could then look for keywords in them to better target ads.

[...] According to the court documents, each claimant - who has to be based in the US -could be paid up to $20 per Siri-enabled device they owned between 2014 and 2019.

In this case, the lawyers could take 30% of the fee plus expenses - which comes to just under $30m.

By settling, Apple not only denies wrongdoing, but it also avoids the risk of facing a court case which could potentially mean a much larger pay out.

The California company earned $94.9bn in the three months up to 28 September 2024.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

The Great White North recognizes our need for more sources for these crucial elements.

The Canadian government released its Canadian Critical Mineral Strategy Annual Report 2024, highlighting the progress and further plans the nation has made in expanding its mining industry to produce critical minerals, including rare earth elements. The EE Times says that Canada’s Critical Minerals Center of Excellence at Natural Resources Canada works “to identify and support strategic projects within the semiconductor supply chain.”

The report defines a critical mineral with a threatened supply chain and must have a reasonable chance of being produced in the country. Furthermore, it must meet one or more of the following criteria: it is essential to Canadian economic and national security, it is needed for Canada to hit its net-zero target, and it allows the country to be a sustainable and strategic partner in the global supply chain. Currently, there are 34 critical minerals on the Canadian list, but the following six are a priority for the government: lithium, graphite, nickel, cobalt, copper, and rare earth elements.

Rare earth minerals are used to make the latest chips, but, as their name suggests, they’re not as abundant as other minerals like silicon or iron. The ongoing tensions between China and the rest of the Western world have even moved the former to tighten export controls for its supply of these crucial elements, leading to increased pricing of these products. This has led other countries like Australia to find alternative sources for these products to help alleviate the supply crunch and keep semiconductor production going. Aside from this, lithium, nickel, and copper are also crucial elements in producing EVs and the battery technology they require.

However, one industry executive says this move is too little, too late for Canada, noting that putting up a new mine in the country takes at least 10 to 15 years owing to strict regulations. CMC Microsystems CEO Gordon Harling said in his personal capacity that the U.S., China, and Australia already have a head start in production and are “much less likely to slow things down for environmental reasons” compared to Canada. He added, “The other fly in the ointment is that a new battery chemistry could show up at any moment, which eliminates the need for lithium.”

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

While the majority of the bill was allowed to proceed, two elements were blocked over concerns that they may infringe tech companies’ First Amendment rights.

A US district judge has blocked the state of California from enforcing parts of a bill aimed at safeguarding children and teenagers from social media, following a lawsuit filed by tech lobbying group NetChoice.

Senate Bill 976, also known as the Protecting Our Kids from Social Media Addiction Act, was initially passed in September of last year and prevents social media companies from purposely providing an addictive content feed to minors without the consent of their parents.

While judge Edward J Davila denied NetChoice’s motion for an injunction to stop the law in its entirety – thus allowing most elements of the bill to come into effect – he did block some elements of the bill from proceeding after finding they may infringe tech companies’ First Amendment rights.

Specifically, he blocked two elements of the bill: one that proposed restrictions on night-time notifications for minors and another that compelled social media companies to disclose the number of minors using their platforms.

upstart writes:

Once you get over the ick factor, new technologies are efficiently transforming human waste into agricultural solutions:

This system, called Varcor, was designed by the Seattle engineering firm Sedron Technologies and is owned by the San Francisco–based company Generate Upcycle. Wastewater treatment plants across the country are using high heat, composting, and devices akin to pressure cookers to transform leftover biomass into rich fertilizers, mulches, and other soil additives with names like Bloom and TAGRO (short for "Tacoma Grow"). Some process the wastewater in a separate step to extract phosphorus—an essential plant nutrient and a common element in the human diet—and layer it to form round pellets, in a technique a bit like building pearls. This technology, developed by a St. Louis–based company called Ostara, creates a slow-release fertilizer that can be sold back to farmers.

"We love tackling the yuck factor head-on," says the CEO of Epic Cleantec, which transforms wastewater into clean water and a natural soil additive.

Even portable toilets can be vehicles for nutrient recovery, through nitrogen-capturing methods developed by "peecycling" groups like the Rich Earth Institute and Wasted in Vermont and by Sanitation360 AB in Sweden. Because our protein-rich diets contain abundant nitrogen, the element can be readily recycled from both urine and feces.

Making fertilizer from the nutrients that we and other animals excrete has a long and colorful history; for generations it helped Indigenous cultures around the world create exceptionally fertile soil. These systems fell out of favor in Western culture, but researchers and engineers have joined advocates in reframing feces, urine, and their ingredients as invaluable natural resources to reuse instead of waste products to burn or bury. Several companies are now showing how to safely scale up the transformation with energy-efficient technologies. "We love tackling the yuck factor head-on," says Aaron Tartakovsky, cofounder and CEO of Epic Cleantec, which uses a chemical reaction and heat to transform wastewater into clean water and a natural soil additive.

taylorvich writes:

https://newatlas.com/good-thinking/indent-data-storage/

Cuneiform, the world's oldest form of writing, involved making indentations in clay tablets. Scientists have now developed a data storage system that's like cuneiform on steroids – and it's capable of storing more data than a typical hard disc drive.

The experimental new technology was created by Abigail Mann and colleagues at Australia's Flinders University.

Instead of a clay tablet, the system utilizes an inexpensive polymer film composed of sulfur and a chemical compound known as dicyclopentadiene. Data is stored on that film in the form of a series of nanoscale indentations. These tiny indents are made (and read) using a fine-tip probe mounted on an atomic force microscope ... not by a reed stylus.

In previous attempts at such "indent-based" data storage systems, the indents served as binary code. The presence of an indent represented a 1, while the absence of an indent represented a 0.

Not only were the polymer substrates that were used in these earlier systems difficult to produce, they also weren't very stable or finely workable. That's where the Flinders polymer comes in.

It's sensitive enough that the depth of each indent can be precisely tweaked. As a result, instead of data being stored via two-state binary code, it can be stored via a three-state ternary code in which the absence of an indent is a 0, a 0.3- to 1.0-nanometer-deep indent is a 1, and a 1.5- to 2.5-nanometer-deep indent is a 2.

This capability boosts the system's data density four-fold over binary coding.

What's more, the indents remain intact and readable until the polymer is heated to 140 ºC (284 ºF) for just 10 seconds, thus erasing it. The film can then be rewritten with new data. In tests performed so far, the material remained functional through four write-read-erase-rewrite cycles.

As an added bonus, the indent-writing process can be performed at room temperature, keeping the system's energy requirements relatively low.

"This research unlocks the potential for using simple, renewable polysulfides in probe-based mechanical data storage, offering a potential lower-energy, higher density and more sustainable alternative to current technologies," says Mann, who is a PhD student in Flinders' College of Science and Engineering.

Journal Reference: Probe-Based Mechanical Data Storage on Polymers Made by Inverse Vulcanization, Abigail K. Mann, Samuel J. Tonkin, Pankaj Sharma, et al., First published: 16 December 2024 https://doi.org/10.1002/advs.202409438

Original Submission

AnonTechie writes:

Dark energy does not exist, some scientists have claimed – which could help get rid of one of the universe's biggest mysteries.

For a century, scientists have thought that the universe was expanding in all directions. To make that assumption work, astronomers have used the concept of dark energy.

Dark energy cannot be seen directly and has never been proven. But scientists have suggested that it must exist because of the effect is seemingly exerts on the universe and as it is needed to help resolve some fundamental problems in our understanding of the cosmos.

Now, however, researchers from the University of Canterbury say that the universe is not actually expanding equally in all directions. Instead, it is growing in a "lumpier" way, in more varied directions.

[...] "Dark energy is a misidentification of variations in the kinetic energy of expansion, which is not uniform in a Universe as lumpy as the one we actually live in.

[Source]: The Independent

[Abstract]: Supernovae evidence for foundational change to cosmological models

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society Letters.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

This basement seismometer is relatively compact yet still sensitive enough to detect the low-frequency vibrations from distant earthquakes.

In September of 2023, I wrote in these pages about using a Raspberry Pi–based seismometer—a Raspberry Shake—to record earthquakes. But as time went by, I found the results disappointing. In retrospect, I realize that my creation was struggling to overcome a fundamental hurdle.

I live on the tectonically stable U.S. East Coast, so the only earthquakes I could hope to detect would be ones taking place far away. Unfortunately, the signals from distant quakes have relatively low vibrational frequencies, and the compact geophone sensor in a Raspberry Shake is meant for higher frequencies.

I had initially considered other sorts of DIY seismometers, and I was put off by how large and ungainly they were. But my disappointment with the Raspberry Shake drove me to construct a seismometer that represents a good compromise: It’s not so large (about 60 centimeters across), and its resonant frequency (about 0.2 Hertz) is low enough to make it better at sensing distant earthquakes.

My new design is for a horizontal-pendulum seismometer, which contains a pendulum that swings horizontally—or almost so, being inclined just a smidge. Think of a fence gate with its two hinges not quite aligned vertically. It has a stable position in the middle, but when it’s nudged, the restoring force is very weak, so the gate makes slow oscillations back and forth.

[...] Most DIY seismometers use a magnet and coil to sense motion as the moving magnet induces a current in the fixed coil. That’s a tricky proposition in a long-period seismometer, because the relative motion of the magnet is so slow that only very faint electrical signals are induced in the coil. One of the more sophisticated designs I saw online called for an LVDT (linear variable differential transformer), but such devices seem hard to come by. Instead, I adopted a strategy I hadn’t seen used in any other homebrewed seismometer: employing a Hall-effect magnetometer to sense position. All I needed was a small neodymium magnet attached to the boom and an inexpensive Hall-effect sensor board positioned beneath it. It worked just great.

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

Because of the increasing number of undersea cable disruptions happening in the past couple of years, NATO is building on a system that will locate damage to undersea cables with an accuracy of one meter and find more routes that data can take if a disruption does occur in a particular line. This project will be called HEIST, says the IEEE in a report, which stands for Hybrid Space-Submarine Architecture Ensuring Infosec of Telecommunications.

The value of transactions transmitted through undersea cables exceeds $10 trillion in total, with Henric Johnson, the vice-chancellor of Blekinge Institute of Technology (BTH) and HEIST testbed coordinator, saying, “What we’re talking about now is critical infrastructure in the society.” BTH, located in Karlskrona, near the southern coast of Sweden, is one of the partners in the HEIST program. Engineers will work there to develop smart systems that allow cable breaks to be quickly located and develop protocols to quickly and automatically reroute the affected data to satellites.

“We have had incidents of cables that have been sabotaged between Sweden, Estonia, and Finland,” added Johnson. “So those incidents are, for us, a reality.”

Although it may seem that undersea cables are tough infrastructure because of the environment they’re in, these intercontinental connections are very fragile. That’s because these cables, about the thickness of a garden hose, lie on the seafloor instead of being buried underneath. Anything dragging on the ocean floor—a sea creature, a loose anchor, or a submarine—could easily damage or even sever these communications cables.

This shows how fragile our internet-driven world is, especially given that over 95% of global data traffic is carried through these undersea fiber optics. About a hundred cable cuts happen each year, with about 600 undersea cables globally, meaning that about 16% of global connections are down yearly. Although there are specially designed ships stationed worldwide to repair faults as soon as they happen, these often take days or weeks and could cost millions of dollars.

ElizabethGreene writes:

Eric Raymond has a lovely essay here: http://www.catb.org/esr/structure-packing/ that describes some non-intuitive behavior in how compilers assemble structures in memory. The default is to pad structures out with empty bytes to align data types around arbitrary byte boundaries for similarly non-intuitive reasons.

If you don't immediately understand why this struct is 12 or 16 bytes long, it's worth reading.

struct Foo {
  char *p; /* 4 or 8 bytes */
  char c; /* 1 byte */
  int x; /* 4 bytes */
}

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

Finland’s National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) discovered anchor drag marks on the seabed after mapping it from start to finish. However, Finnish news outlet Helsingin Sanomat reports that the authorities are still looking for the anchor that caused the damage. NBI Detective Chief Inspector Sami Paila says, “So far, a possible anchor detachment point has not been confirmed.”

The investigation focuses on the Eagle S, suspected of dragging its anchor on Christmas Day to cut the Estlink 2 power cable and several other internet and communications cables connecting Finland and Estonia. Authorities have already boarded the ship, but its anchor is reportedly missing. The authorities then sailed the Eagle S into Finland's territorial waters. They moved it to an even more secure anchorage in Svartbäck to facilitate the investigation, with other ships restricted from approaching the ship to maintain security. Its crew has also remained aboard for further questioning, with Finnish Customs authorities also looking into its cargo.

“The vessel’s captain and crew have remained on board and active during the move [from its original stopping point]. Once anchored, we will resume investigative procedures, focusing on whether this ship caused the damage,” said Helsinki Police Superintendent Heikki Porola to Finland’s national broadcasting company Yle.

The investigators discovered anchor drag marks on the seabed just a day after moving the ship. “East of that point, there are several tens of kilometers [of dragging], if we are not talking about almost a hundred kilometers,” says Paila. He added, “The track ends where the ship lifted the anchor chain.”

Because of this, Finland is adding aggravated telecommunications interference to the charges against the Eagle S and its crew. This is in addition to the initial aggravated arson charge and the aggravated regulation offense that Finland customs is investigating regarding the oil cargo it carries.

Sources say the Eagle S is part of Russia’s “shadow fleet,” a collection of poorly maintained ships with murky ownership and registration that the country uses to circumvent sanctions and smuggle its oil exports despite the embargoes.

This is the second such incident in the last two months. In mid-November, a Chinese vessel, Yi Peng 3, is suspected of cutting undersea cables connecting Lithuania to Sweden and Germany to Finland. Underwater cameras also revealed drag marks that coincided with the vessel's maneuvers, further proving that it dragged its anchor to cause the damage.

Related:
    • Undersea Power Cable Connecting Finland And Estonia Experiences Outage Capacity Reduced To 35%
    • Chinese Ship's Crew Suspected of Deliberately Dragging Anchor for 100 Miles to Cut Baltic Cables

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

According to a letter from the U.S. Treasury Department to lawmakers revealed on Monday, Dec. 30, Chinese-backed hackers successfully infiltrated the department’s systems and stole government documents this month.

The breach, first reported by Reuters, highlights yet another instance of state-sponsored cyber espionage targeting U.S. government employees — just moments after AT&T and Verizon finally dealt with Salt Typhoon. In a statement to Senator Sherrod Brown, chair of the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, the Treasury confirmed that the attack occurred in December.

In the letter, the department states that the breach was flagged by a third-party cybersecurity vendor, BeyondTrust, which discovered that the attackers had compromised a key used to secure a cloud-based service. That service was integral to providing remote technical support to end users within the department's offices.

"With access to the stolen key, the threat actor was able [to] override the service’s security, remotely access certain Treasury DO user workstations, and access certain unclassified documents maintained by those users," the letter reads.

The Treasury revealed it was alerted to the breach on Dec. 8 and is collaborating with the FBI and the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) to evaluate the scope of the incident. Reuters reports that the FBI has yet to respond to requests for comment, while CISA redirected inquiries back to the Treasury.

Original Submission

looorg writes:

https://www.tomshardware.com/desktops/indiana-bakery-still-using-commodore-64s-originally-released-in-1982-as-point-of-sale-terminals

These things pop up every now and then. The last one I recall now was some car-autorepair-shop in Poland that still used one for some function.

Indiana bakery still using Commodore 64s originally released in 1982 as cash registers — Hilligoss Bakery in Brownsburg sticks to the BASICs

While this may seem questionable— particularly in an era where it seems that nearly all business customers are being pushed to regularly upgrade their PCs— it's actually quite sensible when you consider the processing power required to do Point of Sale transactions, which isn't very much. Even for its age,

It's a very sturdy machine in that regard. You get a large keyboard. There are very few things that can actually break. A lot of them can also break and the machine will still work, just not those things. You could just remove a bunch of chips and still have a working machine -- if you don't [need] sound and a few peripherals. They are not essential in that regard.

Overall, we can't help but appreciate the prudence of Hilligoss Bakery here by not opting for unneeded hardware upgrades when what they have already works. Why create e-waste and spend money you don't have to when your existing retro hardware not only works fine but gives customers something to talk about? Seems like a win-win.

I somehow doubt they do it cause they don't want to create e-waste. That said if they have their own built system running on them they could just start to get "TheC64Mini" as replacement hardware.

Original Submission