How White Hat Hackers Stole Crypto Keys from an Offline Laptop in Another Room
In recent years, air-gapped computers, which are disconnected from the internet so hackers can not remotely access their contents, have become a regular target for security researchers. Now, researchers from Tel Aviv University and Technion have gone a step further than past efforts, and found a way to steal data from air-gapped machines while their equipment is in another room.
“By measuring the target’s electromagnetic emanations, the attack extracts the secret decryption key within seconds, from a target located in an adjacent room across a wall,” Daniel Genkin, Lev Pachmanov, Itamar Pipman, and Eran Tromer write in a recently published paper. The research will be presented at the upcoming RSA Conference on March 3.
“The attack in its current form uses lab equipment that costs about $3000 and, as
shown in the photos, is somewhat unwieldy,” Tromer told Motherboard in an email. “However, experience shows that once the physical phenomena are understood in the lab, the attack setup can be miniaturized and simplified.”
Samsung warns customers not to discuss personal information in front of smart TVs
Samsung has confirmed that its “smart TV” sets are listening to customers’ every word, and the company is warning customers not to speak about personal information while near the TV sets.
The company revealed that the voice activation feature on its smart TVs will capture all nearby conversations. The TV sets can share the information, including sensitive data, with Samsung as well as third-party services.
The news comes after Shane Harris at The Daily Beast pointed out a troubling line in Samsung’s privacy policy: “Please be aware that if your spoken words include personal or other sensitive information, that information will be among the data captured and transmitted to a third party.”
‘Mini-brains’ developed at Johns Hopkins could reshape brain research, drug testing
Researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health have grown tiny, barely visible “mini-brains,” balls of human neurons and other cells that mimic some of the brain’s structures and functionality. The development of the mini-brains could dramatically change brain research and drug testing, replacing hundreds of thousands of animals used now in neurology labs.
Performing research using these three-dimensional mini-brains—which grow and form brain-like structures on their own over the course of eight weeks—should be superior to studying mice and rats because they are derived from human cells instead of rodents, researchers say. The findings will be presented at the American Association for the Advancement of Science conference in Washington, D.C., this weekend.
“Ninety-five percent of drugs that look promising when tested in animal models fail once they are tested in humans at great expense of time and money,” says study leader Thomas Hartung, professor of environmental health sciences at the Bloomberg School
http://hub.jhu.edu/2016/02/12/mini-brains-drug-testing
LIGO Sees First Ever Gravitational Waves
On September 14, 2015 at 09:50:45 UTC the two detectors of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory simultaneously observed a transient gravitational-wave signal. The signal sweeps upwards in frequency from 35 to 250 Hz with a peak gravitational-wave strain of 1.0×10−21. It matches the waveform predicted by general relativity for the inspiral and merger of a pair of black holes and the ringdown of the resulting single black hole.
http://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.116.061102#fulltext
Poor air quality kills 5.5 million worldwide annually
New research shows that more than 5.5 million people die prematurely every year due to household and outdoor air pollution. More than half of deaths occur in two of the world’s fastest growing economies, China and India.
Power plants, industrial manufacturing, vehicle exhaust and burning coal and wood all release small particles into the air that are dangerous to a person’s health. New research, presented today at the 2016 annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), found that despite efforts to limit future emissions, the number of premature deaths linked to air pollution will climb over the next two decades unless more aggressive targets are set.
http://phys.org/news/2016-02-poor-air-quality-million-worldwide.html#jCp
Most precise measurement of reactor antineutrino spectrum reveals intriguing surprise
The Daya Bay Collaboration now provides the most precise model-independent measurement of the energy spectrum of these elusive particles, and a new measurement of total antineutrino flux. The data were gathered by analyzing more than 300,000 reactor antineutrinos collected over the course of 217 days. The most challenging part of this work was to accurately calibrate the energy response of the detectors. Through dedicated calibration and analysis effort, Daya Bay was able to measure the neutrino energy to an unprecedented precision, better than 1 percent, over a broad energy range of the reactor antineutrinos.
The measured reactor antineutrino spectrum shows a surprising feature: an excess of antineutrinos at an energy of around 5 million electron volts (MeV) compared with theoretical expectations. This represents a deviation of about 10 percent between the experimental measurement and calculations based on the theoretical models—well beyond the uncertainties—leading to a discrepancy of up to four standard deviations. “This unexpected disagreement between our observation and predictions strongly suggested that the current calculations would need some refinement,” commented Kam-Biu Luk of the University of California at Berkeley and DOE’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, a co-spokesperson of the Daya Bay Collaboration. Two other experiments have shown a similar excess at this energy, though with less precision than the new Daya Bay result.
http://phys.org/news/2016-02-precise-reactor-antineutrino-spectrum-reveals.html#jCp
Exclusive: In boost to self-driving cars, U.S. tells Google computers can qualify as drivers
U.S. vehicle safety regulators have said the artificial intelligence system piloting a self-driving Google car could be considered the driver under federal law, a major step toward ultimately winning approval for autonomous vehicles on the roads.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration told Google, a unit of Alphabet Inc (GOOGL.O), of its decision in a previously unreported Feb. 4 letter to the company posted on the agency’s website this week.
Google’s self-driving car unit on Nov. 12 submitted a proposed design for a self-driving car that has “no need for a human driver,” the letter to Google from National Highway Traffic Safety Administration Chief Counsel Paul Hemmersbaugh said.
“NHTSA will interpret ‘driver’ in the context of Google’s described motor vehicle design as referring to the (self-driving system), and not to any of the vehicle occupants,” NHTSA’s letter said.
China Just Became the World Leader in Nuclear Fusion Research
China announced last week a major breakthrough in the realm of nuclear fusion research. The Chinese Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST), was able to heat hydrogen gas to a temperature of near 50 million degrees Celsius for an unprecedented 102 seconds. While this is nowhere near the hottest temperature that has ever been achieved in nuclear fusion research, that distinction belongs to the Large Hadron Collider which reached 4 trillion degrees Celsius, it is the longest amount of time one has been maintained.
Germany was the previous world leader in nuclear fusion research when it was abe to heat hydrogen gas to 80 million degrees Celsius for a quarter of a second. This was considered a huge breakthrough in the amount of time we could maintain these levels of temperatures. With China’s new record of 102 seconds, this represents a massive step forward in nuclear fusion, with the goal being a length of time long enough for us to effectively harness the energy produced from the reaction.
http://www.techienews.co.uk/9742391/china-just-became-the-world-leader-in-nuclear-fusion-research/
Meet the drone that already delivers your packages, Kiva robot teardown
There’s been a lot of talk about package delivery via flying drones. While this is an interesting vision of the future, current economics make this an unlikely substitute for base-load ground delivery for the next 5–10 years. Flying delivery drones can make a compelling marketing tool or ultra-premium feature, but their current hype doesn’t mesh with immediate reality.
Meanwhile, the robotic systems powering warehouse distribution centers are an engineering marvel far more elegant than flying drones. Tens of thousands of mobile (ground-based) drones are already in operation and helping deliver your packages today. One of these systems was originally built by a Kiva Systems based in the Boston area. I was able to get my hands on an older generation, end-of-life Kiva bot and cracked open its bright orange shell to expose a brilliant piece of engineering; this post shares the fruits of Kiva’s hard work.
http://robohub.org/meet-the-drone-that-already-delivers-your-packages-kiva-robot-teardown/
Microsoft serves Azure from the sea bed
The project aims to show it is possible to quickly deploy “edge” data centers in the sea, close to people who live near the coast: ”Project Natick is focused on a cloud future that can help better serve customers in areas which are near large bodies of water,” says the site, pointing out that half the world’s population are near coastlines.
“The vision of operating containerized datacenters offshore near major population centers anticipates a highly interactive future requiring data resources located close to users,” the project explains. “Deepwater deployment offers ready access to cooling, renewable power sources, and a controlled environment.”
http://www.datacenterdynamics.com/design-build/microsoft-serves-azure-from-the-sea-bed/95628.article
Australia Cuts 110 Climate Scientist Jobs
With an ax rather than a scalpel, Australia’s federal science agency last week chopped off its climate research arm in a decision that has stunned scientists and left employees dispirited.
As many as 110 out of 140 positions at the atmosphere and oceans division at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) will be cut, Larry Marshall, the agency’s chief executive, told staff Friday. Another 120 positions will be cut from the land and water program. Across the agency, 350 climate staff will be moved into new roles unrelated to their specialty.
Because the science is settled there is no need for more basic research, the government says
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/australia-cuts-110-climate-scientist-jobs/
