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Post by dudleyhatter on Apr 24, 2019 21:23:42 GMT
Amazing
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Post by gazz on May 8, 2019 9:54:25 GMT
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Post by dudleyhatter on May 8, 2019 19:22:28 GMT
And she is so matter of fact about it! Brilliant.
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Post by gazz on May 11, 2019 2:47:54 GMT
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Post by gazz on May 15, 2019 13:17:57 GMT
I don't update this thread often enough, so here you go: -------------------------------------- What To Do About the Nasty New Intel Chip FlawAn entire class of vulnerabilities in Intel chips allows attackers to steal data directly from the processor, according to new reports from a group of cybersecurity researchers from around the world. Intel, Apple, Google and Microsoft among other tech giants have released patches to address the flaws.
Today is a very good day to update all your devices and apps — and then turn auto-update on forever. Updating is one of the easiest and surest ways to quickly secure your devices. In the case of these new bugs, updating everything is the best thing you can do right now.
Apple, Google, and Microsoft have already released patches addressing the flaws. Everyone should update to the latest versions of MacOS, Windows, Android, and Chrome. The exploits don’t impact iPhones, iPads or the Apple Watch, TechCrunch reported. Google and Microsoft cloud customers are currently protected, we’ve reached out to Amazon to ask how they are addressing the issues for their cloud customers and will update when we hear back.
What are the bugs?
The bugs, which impact every Intel chip made since 2011, exploit a flaw in a chip feature called “speculative execution” so that attackers can steal sensitive data directly from a device’s CPU. That means an attacker could steal browser history, passwords, encryption keys or many more types of sensitive data.
No one knows if the bugs have been exploited by real attackers in the real world. Researchers say it’s difficult or impossible to tell because, unlike most other kinds of hacking, exploitation of these flaws may not leave any traces.
What do they do?
These new attacks are reminiscent of Meltdown and Spectre, two vulnerabilities in Intel chips that were revealed last year. The attacks are based on how Intel chips perform speculative execution, a feature where, in an attempt to optimize performance, the chip predicts and executes tasks before it’s even asked to do so. The new flaws show that attackers can use speculative execution to steal sensitive data as the chip works.
The researchers who found the bug put together a detailed website and wrote a white paper diving into their discoveries. From the white paper:
“While programs normally only see their own data, a malicious program can exploit the fill buffers to get hold of secrets currently processed by other running programs. These secrets can be user-level secrets, such as browser history, website content, user keys, and passwords, or system-level secrets, such as disk encryption keys. The attack does not only work on personal computers but can also be exploited in the cloud.”
You should read the researchers’ website if you want to immerse yourself in the nitty-gritty technical details. What we hope to do in this article is to give you a high-level overview of what went wrong and then offer guidance on what exactly the new vulnerabilities mean for you.
The one-sentence takeaway for 99 percent of people, as mentioned above, is to update your devices right away.
The exploits discovered have names like ZombieLoad, Fallout, Store-to-leak forwarding, Meltdown UC and RIDL for “Rogue In-Flight Data Load.” Intel themselves calls the flaws “Microarchitectural Data Sampling” or MDS, a name that substitutes as a well-designed sleeping pill.
Here’s a crash course in the exploits: The ZombieLoad attack allows a hacker to spy on private browsing data and other sensitive data while Fallout and RIDL leak sensitive data across security boundaries. Store-to-leak forwarding and Meltdown UC combine with previously known exploits related to the Meltdown and Spectre vulnerabilities to steal sensitive data from the CPU.
In a message to Gizmodo, an Intel spokesperson said that MDS “is already addressed at the hardware level in many of our recent 8th and 9th Generation Intel® Core™ processors, as well as the 2nd Generation Intel® Xeon® Scalable processor family. For other affected products, mitigation is available through microcode updates, coupled with corresponding updates to operating system and hypervisor software that are available starting today.”
Here’s a video from researchers showing the ZombieLoad exploit in action. In this case, attackers are spying on a user as she visits websites — they’re able to succeed even though she’s using security and privacy-focused tools like the Tor Browser and the DuckDuckGo search engine. Ultimately, none of that matters in the face of these attacks.
“It’s kind of like we treat the CPU as a network of components, and we basically eavesdrop on the traffic between them,” Cristiano Giuffrida, a researcher on the project, told Wired. “We hear anything that these components exchange.”
Patches released by Intel will likely have a small but real impact on performance ranging from three percent on consumer devices to nine percent on data center machines.
Although there is no indication one way or the other as to whether this has ever been exploited in the wild, the smart move is to update quickly and often in order to protect yourself as best you can.----------------------------------------- It has taken Microshaft just 8 short years to recognise this flaw, I guess you only get that kind of rapid support from the very best in the business! 👍 I bet all those daft tw##s who bought AMD-based PCs are feeling some serious buyer's remorse right now!
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Post by gazz on Jun 1, 2019 0:06:37 GMT
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Post by gazz on Jun 1, 2019 15:43:07 GMT
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Post by gazz on Jun 1, 2019 16:45:16 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Jun 5, 2019 19:57:37 GMT
Perhaps this should come under the heading of low tech thread but this morning I came across one of our welders using a piece of high speed steel he'd fished out of the skip as a hot plate which he was keeping warm with a blow torch on which he was cooking his breakfast! Given that I'm trying to introduce a Health and Safety Management system into the business I could weep. I contented myself by nicking a piece of his bacon and walking off gently shaking my head.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 6, 2019 13:00:42 GMT
Now I'm a jet-setter, flying every couple of weeks I noticed a few people wearing their own headphones and looking like tw##s.
After a bit of research I treated myself to the best ones currently on the market. Sony WH-1000XM3.
I can only say that noise-cancelling headphones are a brilliant invention and Sony have nailed it.
Expensive but worth every penny.
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Post by gazz on Jun 6, 2019 17:07:44 GMT
Metal Foam Stops .50 Caliber Rounds As Well As Steel
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Post by gazz on Jun 7, 2019 11:15:11 GMT
Researchers Propose Solar Methanol Island Using Ocean CO2
A PNAS paper published this week outlines a plan to establish 70 islands of solar panels, each 328 feet in diameter, that sends electricity to a hard-hulled ship that acts as an oceanic factory. "This factory uses desalinization and electrolysis equipment to extract hydrogen gas (H2) and carbon dioxide (CO2) from the surrounding ocean water," reports Ars Technica. "It then uses these products to create methanol, a liquid fuel that can be added into, or substituted for, transportation fuels. Every so often, a ship comes to offload the methanol and take it to a supply center on land." From the report:The researchers estimated that we would need approximately 170,000 of these solar island systems to be able to produce enough green methanol to replace all fossil fuels used in long-haul transportation. While that seems like a lot, it's theoretically possible, even if we restrict these systems to ocean expanses where waves don't reach more than seven feet high and there's enough sunlight to meet the system's yearly average need.
Still, the authors admit that this is just the description of a possible prototype: whether it's practical to build or not will depend on the cost of the technology that supports the system, as well as the cost of competing forms of energy used in transportation. Cleaning and maintaining this equipment in a marine environment is also a concern, and the researchers admit that there may be room for alternate setups (like making another fuel instead of methanol) that might make more economic sense. For now, though, it's a compelling idea to avoid additional fossil fuel extraction that is within reach using existing technology.
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Post by dudleyhatter on Jun 7, 2019 16:29:07 GMT
Fascinating concept, I wouldn’t have thought there was enough sea with waves so small, especially out of the way of sea lanes.
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Post by gazz on Jun 7, 2019 22:54:08 GMT
NASA Is Opening the ISS to Tourists—but Don't Worry, You Can't Afford It Starting as early as next year, NASA will make the International Space Station available to space tourists and other business ventures. Sounds exciting, but the associated costs are far beyond what most of us can afford.
NASA doesn’t fully own the ISS, nor is the space agency currently capable of independently delivering astronauts to orbit, but that’s not stopping it from opening the space station to the commercial sector. In an announcement made earlier today, NASA’s Chief Financial Officer Jeff DeWit said the space agency is making the space station available to business ventures and private astronauts “as we’ve never done before,” as reported by Yahoo News.
Many companies already use the ISS to conduct commercial research and development, but the new effort is intended to broaden the scope even further and include other activities such as space tourism, as NASA explained in a press release.
NASA said the private ISS flights will start as early as 2020, with missions lasting up to 30 days. A stay aboard the Hotel ISS, however, won’t come cheap, with the New York Times reporting a cost of $35,000 per night. Broken down, that’s $22,500 for access to supplies, an additional $11,250 for stuff like water, oxygen, and use of the toilet, and $50 per gigabyte when using the station’s data downlink (yikes, you’ll want to limit the number of selfies you send to friends back down on Earth), as per a new NASA directive. Extrapolate these costs over 30 days and the bill suddenly ramps up to over $1 million. And because each short-duration stay will include four seats, more math tells us that NASA could earn as much as $4.2 million per mission.
That said, NASA will only do this twice a year, so its profits are limited. The real reason for doing this is to work toward the privatization of the space station, and to free up resources as it plans for its apparent 2024 Moon mission.
NASA also said that it won’t be involved with the shuttling of tourists to the space station. Private entities will have to charter a flight with a commercial spaceflight solution currently being developed under NASA’s Commercial Crew Program. As it stands, that means booking a flight with SpaceX or Boeing, both of which are currently developing crew modules (though with some difficulty, in the case of SpaceX). The NYT is reporting that Bigelow Aerospace has already reserved four launches with SpaceX, and Axiom Space, which wants to fly tourists to the ISS next year, is planning to do the same.
Oh, and if you thought the nightly rate at the ISS was expensive, it’s nothing compared to the cost of getting there. A BBC post claims the cost per flight could be as high as $60 million, which is the same price NASA will need to pay to send its own astronauts to orbit.
Finally, NASA won’t be vetting the incoming crews. Again, that will fall upon the companies themselves, who will need to make sure that prospective private astronauts “meet NASA’s medical standards and the training and certification procedures for International Space Station crew members.” So for a stay at the ISS, not only do you need to be rich, you basically need to be as fit and trained as a real astronaut. Good luck.
Interestingly, among the other new policies announced today, NASA will make one space station port, along with its associated utilities, available for vendors to attach their own commercial modules, which they’ll use to conduct their various activities. Sadly, companies won’t be able to do whatever they want up there, like set up an extraterrestrial escape room, as they have to follow NASA’s rules.
As noted, NASA doesn’t own the ISS. It’s a co-operative program involving Europe, Russia, Canada, Japan, and the United States, and it functions under a set of international agreements. It’s not immediately obvious that the U.S. can suddenly privatize the station, or do whatever they want with it.
“It will be very hard to turn ISS into a truly commercial outpost because of the international agreements that the United States is involved in,” Frank Slazer, the vice president of space systems for the Aerospace Industries Association, told the Washington Post back in 2018. “It’s inherently always going to be an international construct that requires U.S. government involvement and multi-national cooperation,” he told the Post.
Indeed, it’ll be quite some time, if ever, before the private sector fully occupies the ISS. Still, today’s announcement strongly suggests NASA is taking a step back from ISS-related activities as it focuses on the pending Moon mission.gizmodo.com/nasa-is-opening-the-iss-to-tourists-but-dont-worry-you-1835334514/amp
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Post by gazz on Jun 8, 2019 13:40:16 GMT
Here's the Aska flying car that could whisk you to work in 2025Ready or not, here comes a new flying car design: the Aska, a dual-purpose vehicle designed both to drive on roads and to fly through the air so you can loft yourself over the gridlock. After working on the design for two years, startup NFT will unveil a model of the Aska at an Israeli conference on Monday. We're revealing the design exclusively here, along with the company's plan to test-fly it in the first quarter of 2020 and to start selling it in 2025. The newly named Aska -- Japanese for flying bird -- will be the size of a large SUV when on the road and will fit three passengers, said Chief Executive Maki Kaplinsky. Passengers will drive to a nearby open area the size of a few parking spaces, most likely a designated spot near a highway or in a big parking lot. There, the Aska will extend its wings, take off vertically and fly autonomously for a typical range up to 150 miles -- no pilot required. Then it'll descend to another open space and drive the last distance to its destination. Building a flying car won't be easy. It's been nearly 80 years since automotive pioneer Henry Ford wrote in 1940, "Mark my word: A combination airplane and motor car is coming." But drone flying and navigation technology, combined with increasing urban congestion, have begun changing people's assumptions about what's possible. Sales will start slowly, with the US market for electric-powered vertical takeoff and landing (EVTOL) aircraft doubling from $3.4 billion in 2025 to $6.8 billion in 2035, Deloitte projected. But then dropping costs, greater social acceptance and battery technology progress should lead to a five-year surge to $17.7 billion in 2040. Best of both worlds -- or worst?Hybrid designs like NFT's that bridge two worlds can be dogged by compromises. But NFT believes the Aska's aircraft-car combination will succeed through door-to-door convenience. If you have to take an Uber car to a launch pad, hail a flying taxi, then hail another Uber at the other end of the flight, you'll spend so much time waiting for connections that you might as well have just driven a boring old car stuck on the ground. "You're solving the problem of traffic, the problem of wasting time," said Maki Kaplinksy, who co-founded the company with her husband, NFT Chairman Guy Kaplinsky. "We have the most efficient and most comfortable way of commuting for the future." NFT's Aska flying car -- shown in a computer rendering -- is designed to drive on the road then fly one to three passengers up to 150 miles. NFT, short for Next Future Transportation, expects the Aska to cost about $200,000 to start with, with prices dropping to a more attainable $50,000 range. But more likely, people will pay only to use them through a subscription service or through one-off trips, with pricing closer to the $200 to $300 people pay monthly for ordinary car expenses like payments, fuel, insurance and maintenance. "We are not building something for rich people," Guy Kaplinsky said. "We are building something that everyone will be able to afford." The Aska's flying car designThe Aska is about 20 feet long in its road configuration, with wings folded across its back. When set up to fly, it'll have a wingspan of about 40 feet. It doesn't need a runway. Ducted fans enclosed within the wings and piercing the body of the vehicle itself will propel the aircraft vertically. After takeoff, rear-facing fans will thrust it forward so the wings can generate lift and the Aska can fly longer distances more efficiently than a more drone-like design can. Using wings -- not just rotors -- brings other advantages, Guy Kaplinsky said. They let the Aska glide down to a landing zone in a quiet spiral descent. That gliding ability also is useful for an emergency landing if there's a severe mechanical problem. Its electric motors are powered by batteries that can be recharged with a conventional fuel motor to extend the Aska's range. The maximum flight range is 350 miles -- but that's with a single passenger. Read more here: www.cnet.com/google-amp/news/aska-flying-car-could-whisk-you-to-work-in-2025/
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