culture – Page 31 – Tech Today w/ Ken May

Carbon nanotube transistors push up against quantum uncertainty limits

Enlarge / A diagram of the transistors built in this paper, next to a false-colored image of the actual hardware. Atomically thin materials like graphene and carbon nanotubes have the potential to provide significant benefits compared to today’s electronics, like smaller features, lower operating voltages, and more efficient performance. So, even though we’re struggling to figure out how to use them in bulk manufactured electronics, lots of organizations are spending money, brains, and time to work that out. Note the phrasing above—potential. Since it’s been incredibly hard to make transistors based on these materials, we aren’t entirely sure how all of them will behave. A group of researchers from China’s Peking University decided it was time to cut down on some of the uncertainty. The answer they came up with? Transistors made with carbon nanotubes and graphene perform so well that they’re pushing up against the fundamental limits set by Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle. That still doesn’t mean we can make a chip full of these things, but it does show it’s worth the continued effort to try to figure out how. Read 10 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Carbon nanotube transistors push up against quantum uncertainty limits

It’s shockingly easy to hijack a Samsung SmartCam camera

Enlarge Smart cameras marketed under the Samsung brand name are vulnerable to attacks that allow hackers to gain full control, a status that allows the viewing of what are supposed to be private video feeds, researchers said. The remote code-execution vulnerability has been confirmed in the Samsung SmartCam SNH-1011, but the researchers said they suspect other models in the same product line are also susceptible. The flaw allows attackers to inject commands into a Web interface built into the devices. The bug resides in PHP code responsible for updating a video monitoring system known as iWatch. It stems from the failure to properly filter malicious input included in the name of uploaded files. As a result, attackers who know the IP address of a vulnerable camera can exploit the vulnerability to inject commands that are executed with unfettered root privileges. “The iWatch Install.php vulnerability can be exploited by crafting a special filename which is then stored within a tar command passed to a php system() call,” the researchers wrote in a blog post published to the Exploitee.rs website. “Because the webserver runs as root, the filename is user supplied, and the input is used without sanitization, we are able to inject our own commands within the achieve root remote command execution.” Read 5 remaining paragraphs | Comments

How a robot got Super Mario 64 and Portal “running” on an SNES

If you missed it live, watch TASBot’s AGDQ 2017 run then read about it below. Can you really, playably emulate games like Super Mario 64 and Portal on a stock standard SNES only by hacking in through the controller ports? The answer is still no, but for a brief moment at this week’s Awesome Games Done Quick (AGDQ) speedrunning marathon, it certainly looked like the impossible finally became possible. For years now , AGDQ has featured a block where TASBot (the Tool-Assisted Speedrun Robot) performs literally superhuman feats on classic consoles simply by sending data through the controller ports thousands of times per second. This year’s block (viewable above) started off simply enough, with some show-offy perfect play of Galaga and Gradius on the new NES Classic hardware (a system that TASbot organizer Allan Cecil says is “absolutely horrible” when it comes to automation). After that, TASBot moved on to a few “total control runs,” exploiting known glitches in Super Mario Bros. 3 and Mega Man to insert arbitrary code on the NES. This is nothing new for the computer-driven TASBot —the basics of the tricks vary by game, but they generally involve using buffer overflows to get into memory, then bootstrapping a loader that starts reading and executing a stream of controller inputs as raw assembly level opcodes. The method was taken to ridiculous extremes last year, when TASbot managed to “beat” Super Mario Bros. 3 in less than a second with a very specific total control glitch. Read 19 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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How a robot got Super Mario 64 and Portal “running” on an SNES

Congress will consider proposal to raise H-1B minimum wage to $100,000

Enlarge / Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., is one of two sponsors on an H-1B reform bill. He’s pictured here House Republican Conference meeting in 2015. (credit: Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call via Getty) President-Elect Donald Trump is just a week away from taking office. From the start of his campaign, he has promised big changes to the US immigration system. For both Trump’s advisers and members of Congress, the H-1B visa program, which allows many foreign workers to fill technology jobs, is a particular focus. One major change to that system is already under discussion: making it harder for companies to use H-1B workers to replace Americans by simply giving the foreign workers a raise. The “Protect and Grow American Jobs Act,” introduced last week by Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif. and Scott Peters, D-Calif., would significantly raise the wages of workers who get H-1B visas. If the bill becomes law, the minimum wage paid to H-1B workers would rise to at least $100,000 annually, and be adjusted it for inflation. Right now, the minimum is $60,000. The sponsors say that would go a long way towards fixing some of the abuses of the H-1B program, which critics say is currently used to simply replace American workers with cheaper, foreign replacements. In 2013, the top nine companies acquiring H-1B visas were technology outsourcing firms, according to an analysis by a critic of the H-1B program. (The 10th is Microsoft.) The thinking goes that if minimum H-1B salaries are brought closer to what high-skilled tech employment really pays, the economic incentive to use it as a worker-replacement program will drop off. Read 9 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Verizon boosts top FiOS speeds to 750Mbps, has multi-gigabit in works

Enlarge (credit: Matthew Stevens ) Verizon will start offering a 750Mbps Internet package for $150 a month in parts of its FiOS fiber-to-the-home territory, the company announced today. “FiOS Instant Internet” with symmetrical upload and download speeds of 750Mbps will launch Saturday “to nearly seven million homes and businesses in greater New York City/northern New Jersey, Philadelphia and Richmond, [Virginia] with more to follow in 2017,” Verizon’s announcement said. The Boston and Norfolk, Virginia markets will get the new speed tier later in the first quarter, the company said. This is an improvement over the top speed tiers currently advertised on the FiOS website , which lists 300Mbps for $170 a month and 500Mbps for $270, plus taxes, equipment charges, and other fees. Those are promotional prices that last only a year before increasing. Read 8 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Verizon boosts top FiOS speeds to 750Mbps, has multi-gigabit in works

How hackers made life hell for a CIA boss and other top US officials

Enlarge (credit: Flickr user Erica Zabowski ) A North Carolina man has pleaded guilty to a conspiracy that illegally accessed the e-mail and social media accounts of Central Intelligence Director John Brennan and other senior government officials and then used that access to leak sensitive information and make personal threats. Justin Gray Liverman, 24, of Morehead City, North Carolina, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to violate the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, commit identity theft, and make harassing, anonymous phone calls, federal prosecutors said Friday . Among the 10 people targeted in the conspiracy were Brennan; then-Deputy FBI Director Mark Giuliano; National Intelligence Director James R. Clapper; Greg Mecher, the husband of White House Communication Director Jen Psaki; and other government officials. The group called itself Crackas with Attitude, and it was led by a co-conspirator going by the name of Cracka. “She talks mad shit abt snowden,” Liverman said on December 10, 2015 in an online chat with Cracka, referring to a target who is believed to be Psaki, according to a statement of facts signed by Liverman and filed in US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. (The document refers to Mecher and Psaki as Victim 3 and the spouse of Victim 3 respectively.) “If you come across anything related to [Victim 3’s spouse] let me know. If you find her cell or home number omg gimme.” Liverman went on to say he wanted to “phonebomb the shitt [sic] outta” Psaki. Read 7 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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How hackers made life hell for a CIA boss and other top US officials

Verizon purges unlimited data customers, targets those using 200GB

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images | Spencer Platt) Verizon Wireless customers with unlimited data plans who use more than 200GB a month will have to switch to limited plans next month or be disconnected, a company spokesperson confirmed today. Since Verizon stopped offering unlimited data to new smartphone customers in 2011, this change affects only longtime customers who were allowed to hang on to the old plans. Verizon could simply force all customers who aren’t under contract to switch to new plans, but instead it has periodically made moves that reduce the numbers of unlimited data subscribers. “Because our network is a shared resource and we need to ensure all customers have a great mobile experience with Verizon, we are notifying a small group of customers on unlimited plans who use more than 200GB a month that they must move to a Verizon Plan by February 16, 2017,” Verizon spokesperson Kelly Crummey told Ars today. Read 5 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Feds may let Playpen child porn suspect go to keep concealing their source code

Enlarge (credit: ullstein bild / Getty Images News) Rather than disclose the source code that the FBI used to target a child porn suspect, federal prosecutors in Tacoma, Washington recently dropped their appeal in United States v. Michaud . The case is just one of 135 federal prosecutions nationwide involving the Tor-hidden child porn website Playpen. The vast effort to bust Playpen has raised significant questions about the ethics, oversight, capabilities, and limitations of the government’s ability to hack criminal suspects. In United States v. Michaud , Jay Michaud of Vancouver, Washington allegedly logged on to Playpen in 2015. But unbeknownst to him at that point, federal investigators were temporarily operating the site for 13 days before shutting it down. As authorities controlled Playpen, the FBI deployed a sneaky piece of software (a “network investigative technique (NIT),” dubbed by many security experts as malware), which allowed them to reveal Playpen users’ true IP addresses. With that information in hand, identifying those suspects became trivial. Read 7 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Feds may let Playpen child porn suspect go to keep concealing their source code

Yahoo to change name to Altaba once Verizon buys brand and operations

(credit: Photograph by Randy Stewart ) Yahoo, one of the Internet’s most venerable companies, won’t exist for much longer. Verizon confirmed plans to acquire Yahoo for $4.8 billion in July , and a new financial filing from Yahoo includes details of what’s going to happen next. However, Verizon has promised that—if the increasingly bumpy buyout completes—the Yahoo brand will live on. July’s proposed sale included the firm’s operating business, but it didn’t include the big chunk of Chinese e-commerce site Alibaba owned by Yahoo, and it didn’t include certain other assets, mostly shares of Asia-based companies and non-core patents. What remains, according to SEC paperwork filed on Monday, will be rolled into a publicly-traded investment company called Altaba. The size of the board will be reduced to five directors, and many key executives will leave, including—as expected—Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer and Yahoo co-founder David Filo. Also out are Eddy Hartenstein, Richard Hill, Jane Shaw, and Maynard Webb. The departures are not “due to any disagreement with the company on any matter relating to the company’s operations, policies, or practices,” Yahoo’s filing said. Read 4 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Yahoo to change name to Altaba once Verizon buys brand and operations

Breakthrough Starshot to fund planet-hunting hardware for telescope

Enlarge / The VISIR instrument before its impending upgrades. (credit: ESO ) Today, the European Southern Observatory announced an agreement with Breakthrough Starshot, the group dedicated to sending hardware to return data from the nearest stars. The agreement would see Breakthrough Starshot fund the development of new hardware that would allow the ESO’s Very Large Telescope to become an efficient planet hunter. The goal is presumably to confirm there’s something in the Alpha Centauri system worth sending hardware to image. Breakthrough Starshot’s audacious plan involves using ground-based lasers and light sails to accelerate tiny craft to a significant fraction of the speed of light. This would allow the craft to visit the stars of the Alpha Centauri system within decades. The company’s goal is to get data back to Earth while many of the people alive today are still around. Getting meaningful data requires a detailed understanding of the Alpha Centauri system, which is where the new telescope hardware will come in. Last year, scientists confirmed the existence of an exoplanet orbiting the closest star of the three-star system, Proxima Centauri. But we’ll want to know significantly more about it, its orbit, and whether there are signs of any other planets in the system before we send spacecraft. The other two stars of Alpha Centauri are also worth a closer look. Read 5 remaining paragraphs | Comments