February 11, 2018 – Tech Today w/ Ken May

‘Sinking’ Pacific Nation Tuvalu Is Actually Getting Bigger

mi shares a report from Phys.Org: The Pacific nation of Tuvalu — long seen as a prime candidate to disappear as climate change forces up sea levels — is actually growing in size, new research shows. A University of Auckland study examined changes in the geography of Tuvalu’s nine atolls and 101 reef islands between 1971 and 2014, using aerial photographs and satellite imagery. It found eight of the atolls and almost three-quarters of the islands grew during the study period, lifting Tuvalu’s total land area by 2.9 percent, even though sea levels in the country rose at twice the global average. Co-author Paul Kench said the research, published Friday in the journal Nature Communications, challenged the assumption that low-lying island nations would be swamped as the sea rose. It found factors such as wave patterns and sediment dumped by storms could offset the erosion caused by rising water levels. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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‘Sinking’ Pacific Nation Tuvalu Is Actually Getting Bigger

Hackers Manage To Run Linux On a Nintendo Switch

Romain Dillet reports via TechCrunch: Hacker group fail0verflow shared a photo of a Nintendo Switch running Debian, a distribution of Linux. The group claims that Nintendo can’t fix the vulnerability with future firmware patches. According to fail0verflow, there’s a flaw in the boot ROM in Nvidia’s Tegra X1 system-on-a-chip. When your console starts, it reads and executes a piece of code stored in a read-only memory (hence the name ROM). This code contains instructions about the booting process. It means that the boot ROM is stored on the chip when Nvidia manufactures it and it can’t be altered in any way after that. Even if Nintendo issues a software update, this software update won’t affect the boot ROM. And as the console loads the boot ROM immediately after pressing the power button, there’s no way to bypass it. The only way to fix it would be to manufacture new Nvidia Tegra X1 chips. So it’s possible that Nintendo asks Nvidia to fix the issue so that new consoles don’t have this vulnerability. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Italian cryptocurrency exchange BitGrail loses $170 million

One of the biggest problems with cryptocurrency exchanges is that they’re a juicy, enticing target for high-tech criminals. Case in point, Italian exchange BitGrail, which lost $170 million worth of Nano tokens, a little-known digital coin previously called RaiBlocks. BitGrail is the second exchange that lost of massive amount of money this year — and it’s only February — following Tokyo-based Coincheck, which lost between $400 and $534 million worth of coins in a cyberattack on its internet-connected wallet back in January. BitGrail announced on its website that it lost $170 million to fraudulent transactions and that it has already reported them to authorities. It has suspended all withdrawals and deposits “in order to conduct further verifications.” However, unlike Coincheck, which promised to give users their money back, BitGrail founder Francesco “The Bomber” Firano announced on Twitter that there’s no way to refund 100 percent of what users lost. While BitGrail’s loss is in no way as massive as Mt. Gox’s , it’s still steeped in controversy. The Nano team said that they have no “reason to believe the loss was due to an issue in the Nano protocol” and that the “problems appear to be related to BitGrail’s software.” They also published a copy of their conversation with the exchange’s founder and said that Franceso suggested they modify the ledger to cover his losses. It doesn’t help that BitGrail recently required users to verify their accounts to be able to withdraw their coins beyond a certain amount, and some people have reportedly been waiting for verification since December. More recently, the exchange announced that it would no longer serve non-EU users due to what it said are legal complications. Team Nano wrote in their latest statement: “We now have sufficient reason to believe that Firano has been misleading the Nano Core Team and the community regarding the solvency of the BitGrail exchange for a significant period of time.” On Twitter, Francesco said Nano’s claims are nothing but “unfounded allegations.” He added that he told the police that the Nano team published their private convo, which could compromise the investigation. In the wake of the unfounded accusations made against me by the dev team and of the dissemination of private conversations that compromise police investigations, Bitgrail s.r.l. is forced to contact the police in order to protect its rights and users — Francesco The Bomber (@bomberfrancy) February 10, 2018 NANO on BitGrail have been stolen. Unfortunately there is no way to give it back to you at 100% (we only got 4 MLN XRN right now). The devs, as you have guessed, dont want to collaborate — Francesco The Bomber (@bomberfrancy) February 9, 2018 Source: The Wall Street Journal

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Italian cryptocurrency exchange BitGrail loses $170 million

Equifax breach may have exposed more data than first thought

The 2017 Equifax data breach was already extremely serious by itself, but there are hints it was somehow worse. CNN has learned that Equifax told the US Senate Banking Committee that more data may have been exposed than initially determined. The hack may have compromised more driver’s license info, such as the issuing data and host state, as well as tax IDs. In theory, it would be that much easier for intruders to commit fraud. The breach compromised about 145.5 million people, although their level of exposure varied wildly. About 10.9 million Americans’ driver’s licenses were embroiled in the hack, and just a small fraction of the exposed UK licenses (just under 700, 000) had enough info to jeopardize the victims’ privacy. Equifax stressed to CNN that the initial list of exposed data was never meant to be the final, definitive account of the scope of the problem. And that’s not unheard of — companies frequently deliver rough assessments of the damage in the immediate aftermath and refine the numbers as they learn more. However, that explanation might not be enough for officials. Senators are already clamoring for a thorough investigation , and want to know the full extent of what happened. This update gives them more of what they want, but it also raises the question of why the company is still determining the scope of the breach nearly half a year after it was made public. Source: CNN Money

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Equifax breach may have exposed more data than first thought

MoviePass adds 500,000 subscribers within a month

MoviePass’ $10-per-month subscription service was a hit from the start, enough to crash the company’s website when it was first announced. It looks like demand isn’t slowing down anytime soon either: it has gained 500, 000 more subscribers merely a month after it reached 1.5 million users. The fact that MoviePass cut off members’ access to some popular AMC theaters had little effect, if any. It’s easy to see why 2 million would sign up: for 10 bucks a month — an ongoing promo even cuts the price down to $7.95 — they’re entitled to see one 2D film a day, every day, without paying extra. In 2017, members bought $110 million worth of tickets and generated an additional $146 million in ticket sales by bringing non-members to showings. MoviePass chief Mitch Lowe said in a statement: “We’re giving people a reason to go back to the movie theaters, and they’re going in droves. With awards season here, we hope we can make Hollywood and exhibitors very happy by filling seats with eager audiences.” As Bloomberg said, though, all these new users are both a blessing and a curse to the company. Every time a member watches a movie, the service pays for that subscriber’s ticket at full price. It loses money for every member that watches two movies a month, and its accountants apparently already warned the company that its system might not be viable in the long run. AMC shares the same sentiment and once called the business model unsustainable. It’s like turning “lead into gold, ” the theater chain said in a statement last year. So, how does MoviePass plan to make money if subscribers aren’t bringing in the cash? It’s hoping to sell ads, merchandise and data on moviegoers’ habits, as well as to get a cut of theaters’ refreshment sales as they go up from all the viewers it brings to cinemas. The company is also hoping to convince theater chains to sell it tickets for its members at a discounted rate. It’s unclear if MoviePass is already making headway with those plans, but when it dropped several AMC locations from its list, it said that the theaters it works with is subject to change as it “continue[s] to strive for mutually-beneficial relationships with” them. AMC chief Adam Aron has been quite a vocal critic of the service and already proclaimed that the chain has no intention of sharing its admissions or concessions revenue. Source: Bloomberg , Variety

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MoviePass adds 500,000 subscribers within a month