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hubie writes:

By identifying clouds in data collected by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, the public can increase scientists' understanding of the Red Planet's atmosphere:

NASA scientists hope to solve a fundamental mystery about Mars' atmosphere, and you can help. They've organized a project called Cloudspotting on Mars that invites the public to identify Martian clouds using the citizen science platform Zooniverse. The information may help researchers figure out why the planet's atmosphere is just 1% as dense as Earth's even though ample evidence suggests the planet used to have a much thicker atmosphere.

The air pressure is so low that liquid water simply vaporizes from the planet's surface into the atmosphere. But billions of years ago, lakes and rivers covered Mars, suggesting the atmosphere must have been thicker then.

[...] "We want to learn what triggers the formation of clouds – especially water ice clouds, which could teach us how high water vapor gets in the atmosphere – and during which seasons," said Marek Slipski, a postdoctoral researcher at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California.

That's where Cloudspotting on Mars comes in. The project revolves around a 16-year record of data from the agency's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), which has been studying the Red Planet since 2006. The spacecraft's Mars Climate Sounder instrument studies the atmosphere in infrared light, which is invisible to the human eye. In measurements taken by the instrument as MRO orbits Mars, clouds appear as arches. The team needs help sifting through that data on Zooniverse, marking the arches so that the scientists can more efficiently study where in the atmosphere they occur.

[...] While scientists have experimented with algorithms to identify the arches in Mars Climate Sounder data, it's much easier for humans to spot them by eye. But Kleinboehl said the Cloudspotting project may also help train better algorithms that could do this work in the future. In addition, the project includes occasional webinars in which participants can hear from scientists about how the data will be used.

Cloudspotting on Mars is the first planetary science project to be funded by NASA's Citizen Science Seed Funding program. The project is conducted in collaboration with the International Institute for Astronautical Sciences. For more NASA citizen science opportunities, go to science.nasa.gov/citizenscience.

Original Submission

[* AC Friendly *]

upstart writes:

California sets nation's toughest plastics reduction rules:

Companies selling shampoo, food and other products wrapped in plastic have a decade to cut down on their use of the polluting material if they want their wares on California store shelves.

Major legislation passed and signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom on Thursday aims to significantly reduce single-use plastic packaging in the state and drastically boost recycling rates for what remains. It sets the nation's most stringent requirements for the use of plastic packaging, with lawmakers saying they hope it sets a precedent for other states to follow.

[...] Under the bill, plastic producers would have to reduce plastics in single-use products 10% by 2027, increasing to 25% by 2032. That reduction in plastic packaging can be met through a combination of reducing package sizing, switching to a different material or making the product easily reusable or refillable. Also by 2032, plastic would have to be recycled at a rate of 65%, a massive jump from today's rates. It wouldn't apply to plastic beverage bottles, which have their own recycling rules.

Efforts to limit plastic packaging have failed in the Legislature for years, but the threat of a similar ballot measure going before voters in November prompted business groups to come to the negotiating table. The measure's three main backers withdrew it from the ballot after the bill passed, though they expressed concern the plastics industry will try to weaken the requirements.

[...] It does not ban styrofoam food packaging but would require it to be recycled at a rate of 30% by 2028, which some supporters said is a de facto ban because the material can't be recycled. The ballot measure would have banned the material outright. It would have given more power to the state recycling agency to implement the rules rather than letting industry organize itself.

Sen. Ben Allen, a Santa Monica Democrat who led negotiations on the bill, said it represented an example of two groups that are often at odds—environmentalists and industry—coming together to make positive change.

[...] Joshua Baca of the American Chemistry Council, which represents the plastics industry, said the bill unfairly caps the amount of post-consumer recycled plastic that can be used to meet the 25% reduction requirement and limits "new, innovative recycling technologies."

The bill bans incineration and combustion of plastic, but leaves open the possibility for some forms of so-called chemical recycling.

[* AC Friendly *)

looorg writes:

Lockbit ransomware gang creates first malicious bug bounty program:

Today, the Lockbit ransomware gang announced the launch of Lockbit 3.0, a new ransomware-as-a-service offering and a bug bounty program.

According to Lockbit's leak site, as part of the bug bounty program, the cyber gang will pay all security researchers, ethical and unethical hackers "to provide Personally Identifiable Information (PII) on high-profile individuals and web exploits in exchange for remuneration ranging from $1,000 to $1 million."

[...] "A key focus of the bug bounty program are defensive measures: preventing security researchers and law enforcement from finding bugs in its leak sites or ransomware, identifying ways that members including the affiliate program boss could be doxed, as well as funding bugs within the messaging software used by the group for internal communications and the Tor network itself," Narang said.

The writing on the wall is that Lockbit's adversarial approach is about to get much more sophisticated. "Anyone that still doubts cybercriminal gangs have reached a level of maturity that rivals the organizations they target, may need to reassess," said Mike Parkin, senior technical engineer at Vulcan Cyber.

[...] "This should have every enterprise looking at the security of their internal supply chain, including who and what has access to their code, and any secrets in it. Unethical bounty programs like this turn passwords and keys in code into gold for everybody who has access to your code," said Casey Bisson, head of product and developer enablement at BluBracket.

Lockbit 3.0 Ransomware bughunting for $$$ So the makers of ransomware are now offering bug-bounties to find bugs in their software and info to doxx them. Rewards ranging from $1k to millions. Question is can you trust them to pay out if you find something? And if you find something wouldn't it be more appropriate to send them to jail with it? Or if you are a crook wouldn't you use what you found against them? Isn't it also a security risk for them to share code for their malware ransomware with outsiders?

I guess the question is: if you found something would you (1) give it to them for the bounty (2) use it against them to steal their shit (3) turn it over to law enforcement?

We are currently trying to prevent the site from being abused by spammers and trolls. That is my priority task at the moment.

The method we have chosen involves restricting posting to logged in users only - i.e. only those who have an account and are prepared to log in before posting.

I understand how frustrating it might be to feel that you are being ostracised from the site - that is not our intention. I appreciate that the majority of you contribute positively to the site and you have not been forgotten. Your usual contribution is obvious when I look at the significantly reduced number of comments made in the stories that are being published. There is discussion going on to resolve the 2 diametrically opposed requirements but this is not an easy problem to solve.

For the time being there is no easy solution. I know that you want to express your feelings - I haven't even managed to get the feelings of those who are still using the main site yet. Only a small number of our usual accounts are even aware that there has been a problem yet as they haven't logged on for a day or two. They might not do so in the next few days particularly as it is a holiday weekend for many of you. You will have to be patient. There are also some who are trying to use this as another opportunity to create dissent amongst you. All I can ask it that you remember that not all ACs have your best interests at heart.

For those of you who looked at the AC Friendly story (A Brief History of Zork or 'Eaten by a Grue' ) you will know that it has already been targetted by our resident spammer, and I have had to remove the ability for ACs to comment in it. Please don't blame me - another AC who is claiming to be APK is responsible and any privileges we give to you we automatically give to him too.

Please feel free to leave your views in the comments to this journal. We cannot protect it - we have no control over who journal authors permit to comment in them, nor can we protect the comments from bots etc. I am leaving it wide open so that you can say whatever you wish to say. Your comments WILL be read but do not expect immediate answers to any questions. I will be working on the site all weekend but most of the other staff will be enjoying the holiday. I have a lot to do and will not be concentrating on this journal - but I will pop in from time to time.