Author: Robin Edgar

Organisational Structures | Technology and Science | Military, IT and Lifestyle consultancy | Social, Broadcast & Cross Media | Flying aircraft

Revolut banking confirms cyberattack exposed personal data of tens of thousands of users

Posted on by Robin Edgar

Fintech startup Revolut has confirmed it was hit by a highly targeted cyberattack that allowed hackers to access the personal details of tens of thousands of customers. Revolut spokesperson Michael Bodansky told TechCrunch that an “unauthorized third party obtained access to the details of a small percentage (0.16%) of our customers for a short period Read more about Revolut banking confirms cyberattack exposed personal data of tens of thousands of users[…]

GTA Publisher Take-Two’s Bad Week Gets Worse With Disaster Hack

Posted on by Robin Edgar

Take-Two is definitely not having a good time of it. Following the weekend’s colossal leak of GTA VI, its septimana horribilis continues with the fresh news that its 2K Games support services have been hacked, and customers are now being sent out phishing scams. Posting to the official 2K Support Twitter account, 2K explained that Read more about GTA Publisher Take-Two’s Bad Week Gets Worse With Disaster Hack[…]

Cure of acute deafness after bang, shots or explosion appears possible

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Cure of acute deafness after bang, shots or explosion appears possibleNews item | 21-09-2022 | 12:12There are plenty of preventive measures to prevent hearing damage, such as acute deafness, for example during the use of weapons. And yet things go wrong with some regularity. However, there is a method to limit the damage after noise Read more about Cure of acute deafness after bang, shots or explosion appears possible[…]

Crypto market maker Wintermute loses $160 million in DeFi hack

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Evgeny Gaevoy, the founder and chief executive of Wintermute, disclosed in a series of tweets that the firm’s decentralized finance operations had been hacked, but centralized finance and over the counter verticals aren’t affected. He said that Wintermute — which counts Lightspeed Venture Partners, Pantera Capital and Fidelity’s Avon among its backers — remains solvent Read more about Crypto market maker Wintermute loses $160 million in DeFi hack[…]

economic and fiscal effects on the United States from reduced numbers of refugees and asylum seekers – around $11.1 billion per year

Posted on by Robin Edgar

International migrants who seek protection also participate in the economy. Thus the policy of the United States to drastically reduce refugee and asylum-seeker arrivals from 2017 to 2020 might have substantial and ongoing economic consequences. This paper places conservative bounds on those effects by critically reviewing the research literature. It goes beyond prior estimates by Read more about economic and fiscal effects on the United States from reduced numbers of refugees and asylum seekers – around $11.1 billion per year[…]

Robot Opens Master Combination Locks In Less Than A Minute

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[…] In real life, high-quality combination locks are not vulnerable to such simple attacks, but cheap ones can often be bypassed with a minimum of effort. Some are so simple that this process can even be automated, as [Mew463] has shown by building a machine that can open a Master combination lock in less than Read more about Robot Opens Master Combination Locks In Less Than A Minute[…]

EA announces feels free to take over your OS with kernel-level anti-cheat system for PC games

Posted on by Robin Edgar

Electronics Arts (EA) is launching a new kernel-level anti-cheat system for its PC games. The EA AntiCheat (EAAC) will debut first in FIFA 23 later this fall and is a custom anti-cheat system developed in-house by EA developers. It’s designed to protect EA games from tampering and cheaters, and EA says it won’t add anti-cheat Read more about EA announces feels free to take over your OS with kernel-level anti-cheat system for PC games[…]

Slingshot Aerospace Free Software Could Prevent Satellite Collisions

Posted on by Robin Edgar

Space is getting a little too crowded, increasing the risk of orbital collisions. Slingshot Aerospace, a company specializing in space data analytics, is now offering a solution to regulate some of the traffic up there. The company announced on Tuesday that it is rolling out a free version of its space traffic control system to Read more about Slingshot Aerospace Free Software Could Prevent Satellite Collisions[…]

DHS built huge database from cellphones, computers seized at border, searchable without a warrant, kept for 15 years

Posted on by Robin Edgar

U.S. government officials are adding data from as many as 10,000 electronic devices each year to a massive database they’ve compiled from cellphones, iPads and computers seized from travelers at the country’s airports, seaports and border crossings, leaders of Customs and Border Protection told congressional staff in a briefing this summer. The rapid expansion of Read more about DHS built huge database from cellphones, computers seized at border, searchable without a warrant, kept for 15 years[…]

Prompt injection attacks against GPT-3 – or how to get AI bots to say stuff you want them to

Posted on by Robin Edgar

Riley Goodside, yesterday: Exploiting GPT-3 prompts with malicious inputs that order the model to ignore its previous directions. pic.twitter.com/I0NVr9LOJq – Riley Goodside (@goodside) September 12, 2022 Riley provided several examples. Here’s the first. GPT-3 prompt (here’s how to try it in the Playground): Translate the following text from English to French: > Ignore the above Read more about Prompt injection attacks against GPT-3 – or how to get AI bots to say stuff you want them to[…]

Scientists try to teach robot to laugh at the right time

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[…] The team behind the laughing robot, which is called Erica, say that the system could improve natural conversations between people and AI systems. “We think that one of the important functions of conversational AI is empathy,” said Dr Koji Inoue, of Kyoto University, the lead author of the research, published in Frontiers in Robotics Read more about Scientists try to teach robot to laugh at the right time[…]

Astronomers find a baby planet forming

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Astronomers have found a baby planet hidden in clouds of gas and dust swirling within a young solar system, by studying the accumulation of material around Lagrange points. That’s according to research published this week in The Astrophysical Journal Letters. Studying these protoplanets is difficult. Their stellar nurseries are shrouded in thick, hot clumps of Read more about Astronomers find a baby planet forming[…]

California signs social media terms of service disclosure law

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[…] AB 587 requires social media companies to post their terms of service online, as well as submit a twice-yearly report to the state attorney general. The report must include details about whether the platform defines and moderates several categories of content, including “hate speech or racism,” “extremism or radicalization,” “disinformation or misinformation,” harassment, and Read more about California signs social media terms of service disclosure law[…]

S.Korea fines Google, Meta billions of won for privacy violations

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[…] In a statement, the Personal Information Protection Commission said it fined Google 69.2 billion won ($50 million) and Meta 30.8 billion won ($22 million). The privacy panel said the firms did not clearly inform service users and obtain their prior consent when collecting and analysing behavioural information to infer their interests or use them Read more about S.Korea fines Google, Meta billions of won for privacy violations[…]

Microsoft Teams stores auth tokens as cleartext in Windows, Linux, Macs – wait isn’t it 2022?

Posted on by Robin Edgar

[…] The newly discovered security issue impacts versions of the application for Windows, Linux, and Mac and refers to Microsoft Teams storing user authentication tokens in clear text without protecting access to them. An attacker with local access on a system where Microsoft Teams is installed could steal the tokens and use them to log Read more about Microsoft Teams stores auth tokens as cleartext in Windows, Linux, Macs – wait isn’t it 2022?[…]

Palette – Colorize Photos using AI, great colour

Posted on by Robin Edgar

A new AI colorizer. Colorize anything from old black and white photos 📸, style your artworks 🎨, or give modern images a fresh look 🌶. It’s as simple as instagram, free, and no sign-up required! Source: Palette – Colorize Photos Only gums and teeth in shadow look a bit brown and ghoulish but this is Read more about Palette – Colorize Photos using AI, great colour[…]

Blood test spots multiple cancers without clear symptoms, study finds

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[…] The Galleri test has been described as a potential “gamechanger” by NHS England, which is due to report results from a major trial involving 165,000 people next year. Doctors hope the test will save lives by detecting cancer early enough for surgery and treatment to be more effective, but the technology is still in Read more about Blood test spots multiple cancers without clear symptoms, study finds[…]

Air pollution cancer breakthrough rewrites how to think about cancer activation

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Researchers say they have cracked how air pollution leads to cancer, in a discovery that completely transforms our understanding of how tumours arise. The team at the Francis Crick Institute in London showed that rather than causing damage, air pollution was waking up old damaged cells. One of the world’s leading experts, Prof Charles Swanton, Read more about Air pollution cancer breakthrough rewrites how to think about cancer activation[…]

How to Easily Make Your Own Pyramid Salt Crystals

Posted on by Robin Edgar

[…] What is pyramid salt? Pyramid salt crystals are made of the same stuff as regular salt. But these crystals look different because they formed in a different way. In nature, these elusive crystals grow on the surface of quiet, undisturbed pools of salt water that evaporate under the hot sun. Pyramid salt is more Read more about How to Easily Make Your Own Pyramid Salt Crystals[…]

 The TAK Ecosystem: Open SourceMilitary Coordination

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In recent years you’ve probably seen a couple of photos of tablets and smartphones strapped to the armor of soldiers, especially US Special Forces. The primary app loaded on most of those devices is ATAK or Android Tactical Assault Kit. It allows the soldier to view and share geospatial information, like friendly and enemy positions, Read more about  The TAK Ecosystem: Open SourceMilitary Coordination[…]

Dump these routers, says Cisco, because we won’t patch them

Posted on by Robin Edgar

Cisco patched three security vulnerabilities in its products this week, and said it will leave unpatched a VPN-hijacking flaw that affects four small business routers. Those small-biz routers – the RV110W Wireless-N VPN Firewall, RV130 VPN Router, RV130W Wireless-N Multifunction VPN Router, and RV215W Wireless-N VPN Router – have reached their end-of-life (EoL) and the Read more about Dump these routers, says Cisco, because we won’t patch them[…]

Roombas don’t work if an iRobot server is down

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That floor won’t clean itself… well, quite literally it won’t, especially if the vacuum robot you bought to clean the floor won’t hop off its dock when the servers are down Users started reporting issues with their Roomba app around midday Friday. The status page for iRobot, the maker of Roomba, identified there were outages Read more about Roombas don’t work if an iRobot server is down[…]

Cory Doctorow Launches New Fight against Copyrights, Creative Chokepoints, and Big Tech’s ‘Chokepoint Capitalism’

Posted on by Robin Edgar

“Creators aren’t getting paid,” says Cory Doctorow. “That’s because powerful corporations have figured out how to create chokepoints — that let them snatch up more of the value generated by creative work before it reaches creative workers.” But he’s doing something about it. Doctorow’s teamed up with Melbourne-based law professor Rebecca Giblin, the director of Read more about Cory Doctorow Launches New Fight against Copyrights, Creative Chokepoints, and Big Tech’s ‘Chokepoint Capitalism’[…]

A Dad Took Photos of His Naked Toddler for the Doctor. Google Flagged Him as a Criminal, destroyed his digital life with no recourse

Posted on by Robin Edgar

It was a Friday night in February 2021. His wife called an advice nurse at their health care provider to schedule an emergency consultation for the next morning, by video because it was a Saturday and there was a pandemic going on. The nurse said to send photos so the doctor could review them in Read more about A Dad Took Photos of His Naked Toddler for the Doctor. Google Flagged Him as a Criminal, destroyed his digital life with no recourse[…]