even-the-most – Ken May

Quantum encryption is now fast enough for voice calls

Quantum encryption is theoretically a dream for security, as you can’t even inspect the data without altering it. However, it’s currently several times slower than the conventional kind, which makes it impractical for voice calls or streaming video. Science may have come to the rescue, though: researchers have developed a quantum encryption key distribution system that promises to be five to 10 times faster than existing methods, or roughly on par with conventional encryption when run in parallel. The trick was to cram more data into each photon. Normally, you can only encode one bit per photon by using a weak laser. The team discovered that it could encode two bits by tweaking the release time of photons and using high-speed photon detectors to track these changes. Effectively, they’re giving photons properties they couldn’t have before. There’s a lot of effort left before this becomes practical, not the least of which is the size: a transmitter/receiver combo would be about as large as a computer. It’s more realistic than you might think, mind you. All the parts beyond the single-photon detector are readily available, and it could even be used for “free space” (read: over the air) transmissions. Eventually, there may be a time when you could hold a secure voice chat knowing that even the most determined spy couldn’t listen in. Via: Phys.org Source: Science Advances

Email scheme stole $100 million from two US tech companies

It’s tempting to assume that technology workers are intelligent enough to avoid email fraud , but that’s not always the case. Both the FBI and the state of New York have charged a Lithuanian man, Evaldas Rimasauskas, with perpetrating a phishing campaign that siphoned $100 million away from two US tech companies companies. They’re both choosing to remain unnamed, although one is a “multinational online social media company” — you can probably whip up a short list of candidates based on that description. The scheme wasn’t particularly complicated, either, and mostly relied on less-than-attentive employees. Between 2013 and 2015 (possibly earlier), Rimasauskas allegedly ran a fake company in Latvia that had the same name as an “Asian-based computer hardware manufacturer.” He used this bogus firm to fool victims into responding to phishing emails, getting them to wire millions of dollars to his bank accounts in Latvia and Cyprus. The fraudster quickly spread the money to accounts elsewhere in the world (including Lithuania, Hong Kong, Hungary and Slovakia), and even sent forged documents to the banks to convince them that the large sums of money were legitimate. If the charges (which include wire fraud, identity theft and money laundering) hold up, Rimasaukas faces stiff punishment. He’s looking at a minimum of 2 years in prison if he’s found guilty of identity theft, and each of the remaining charges could get him up to 20 years behind bars. However, it’s also safe to say that his targets are learning a hard lesson, too. Even the most tech-savvy companies can fall prey to online fraud, and they may need to step up their security measures (including staff education) to prevent similar incidents. Source: Department of Justice

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Email scheme stole $100 million from two US tech companies

New brain-computer interface breaks through locked-in syndrome

Researchers have been using brain-computer interfaces to interact with patients suffering from locked-in syndrome for a few years now. But a new system from the Wyss Center for Bio and Neuroengineering in Switzerland may finally allow even the most immobile patients communicate with the outside world. There are degrees to locked-in syndrome. The lesser variety only allows those suffering from it to raise or lower their eyes and blink, they’re fully paralyzed otherwise. Fully locked-in syndrome prohibits even that degree of movement. So rather than rely on optical keyboards as previous studies have, the Wyss team developed a means of reading patient’s minds directly by measuring the flow of oxygenated blood flowing through their brains. The study was published Tuesday on the journal PLOS . The team relied on the help of four patients who suffer from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS aka Lou Gehrig’s Disease), a motor neuron disorder that progressively destroys the nervous system’s ability to control the body’s muscles. The Wyss researchers first used near-infrared spectroscopy and electroencephalography (EEG) to measure the brain’s blood oxygenation and electrical activity levels. The patients were then asked basic yes or no questions while the machines recorded changes in those metrics. “The machine records the blood flow… and calculates how (it) changes during “yes” and during “no”, and the computer develops an idea, a pattern, ” Wyss neuroscientist, Niels Birbaumer, told Reuters . “And after a while, we know what the patient is thinking, when he thinks “yes”, or when he thinks “no”, and from that we calculate the answer.” After enough training, the system managed a 70 percent accuracy rate for standard Y/N questions like, “Is this your husband?” More interestingly, when asked “Are you happy?” all four respondents, 100 percent of the time, answered “yes”. The team hopes to leverage this data into future research in hopes that people paralyzed by disease or injury can lead fuller lives. Via: Reuters Source: PLOS

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New brain-computer interface breaks through locked-in syndrome