Author: esimantiras

Russian passport control now utilizes AI-driven technology

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Russian passport control now utilizes AI-driven technology

 

 

source: militaryaerospace.com  |  Photo by Tima Miroshnichenko from Pexels  | contributed by Artemus FAN, Steve Jones

 

Passport e-gates will also be expanded for use in most Russian airports under the plans in an attempt to significantly improve the efficiency of Border Force officials’ services, AviationPros reports.

 

Smart Engines’ AI-driven software was equipped in passport e-gates Sapsan at Sheremetyevo International Airport SVO for contactless border control on international flights. Passport e-gates will also be expanded for use in most Russian airports under the plans in an attempt to significantly improve the efficiency of Border Force officials’ services by reducing the manual identity and security checks.

OCR technology scans data from passports, allowing to automate the process of checking documents. The advanced AI software eliminates security breaches and is completely secure for both passengers and airports’ border control systems. This solution helps border force officials to comply both with the local & international security standards (GDPR, CCPA, and others) for personal data processing to satisfy the strict demands of regulators. SDK doesn’t transfer data and images for processing to Smart Engines or to any third-party services, doesn’t save data or images (the processing is carried out in the e-gates’ local RAM) and doesn’t require internet access.

The automated system for passport control Sapsan with built-in Smart Engines OCR was developed by GazIntech. As of now, Smart ID Engine has been installed in 20 Sapsan passport e-gates. Based on the latest biometric recognition algorithms and high-tech hardware, Sapsan accelerates the process of passenger control, making it convenient and understandable for citizens, which in turn significantly reduces waiting time at the borders, ensuring optimum security.

Smart ID Engine is a comprehensive AI-based tool for automatic ID scanning with document authentication, data consistency checking of over 1810 types of ID documents from 210 issues worldwide, being installed in e-gates, queuing at passport controls could become a thing of the past. According to SVO officials, passenger satisfaction has increased significantly since the installation of the e-gates with AI-driven software. As for the throughput, it increased three times at the border control.

“With increased international demand in border control security, time is of the essence more than ever before: no one can afford being late for a flight yet everyone wants to pass through border control securely. We are proud that our state-of-the-art technologies save time for both passengers and border control officials,” says Dr. Vladimir Arlazarov, CEO at Smart Engines.

 

Soon when you walk down the street, 3-D creatures could try to sell you something

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Soon when you walk down the street, 3-D creatures could try to sell you something

source: washingtonpost.com, contributed by Artemus founder, Bob Wallace  |  image:  pixabay.com

A new form of outdoor advertising is slowly taking hold. But experts warn of overload.

check out related videos at https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/12/03/3d-advertising-newest-outdoor-innovation/

 

It all began with a floating cat.

The giant feline suddenly appeared suspended over Tokyo’s Shinjuku train station. Throughout the summer, it stretched awake in the morning, meowed at passersby during rush hour and curled into a sleepy ball after midnight.

The cat, along with a cresting ocean wave above the streets of Seoul, wasn’t a biology experiment gone awry. It was a 3-D anamorphic outdoor ad, a proof-of-concept from several Asian design firms. The pieces would inspire principals at British ad company Ocean Outdoor, owner of many public screens across Europe, to create tools for a 3-D ad platform called DeepScreen. Part art installation, part “1984″-esque vision, the results hint at what our commercialized outdoor spaces might soon look like.

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WHEN SOFTWARE BUGS GO NUCLEAR: TESTING A DIGITAL ARSENAL

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WHEN SOFTWARE BUGS GO NUCLEAR: TESTING A DIGITAL ARSENAL

 

source: warontherocks.com, contributed by Artemus founder, Bob Wallace  |  Photo by Markus Spiske from Pexels

 

What if the next ransomware attack on U.S. soil involves a nuclear weapon?  What measures are being taken to ensure that this terrifying hypothetical never becomes a reality?

The weapons in the U.S. nuclear stockpile undergo frequent flight testing as a component of the National Nuclear Security Administration’s Stockpile Stewardship Program to ensure their safety, security, and reliability. However, weapon designs are changing, incorporating more digital components and communications. Legacy weapons used analog signaling and mechanical switching for most operations.  Digitally upgraded weapons rely on software, and standard software-testing practices are inadequate protection against failures when the code underpins life-or-death mechanisms.

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Be Careful If You Get a Strange USB Drive in the Mail – It Might Be a Virus

Posted on by esimantiras

Be Careful If You Get a Strange USB Drive in the Mail – It Might Be a Virus

 

source: idropnews.com, contributed by Artemus founder, Bob Wallace  |  image: pixabay.com

 

Cybercriminals have found a novel way to install malicious software on your computer. Instead of using online tools, they’re sending USB drives directly to victims in the mail throughout the United States.

According to the FBI, a cybercrime group is mailing out physical USB drives hoping that the potential victims connect them to their computers.

The cybercriminals used the United States Postal Service and United Parcel Service to send all the USB drives. But they didn’t send just drives. They also made sure to impersonate the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The messages claimed that the USB drives contained a COVID-19 warning. Other mailed USBs claimed that they were from Amazon and that they had an Amazon gift card inside.

This is nothing new since cyber attackers have often used phishing to impersonate big companies and organizations to make you trust them.

According to the report, these USB drives contain malware known as BadUSB attacks. This malicious software lets the cybercriminal control the computer with the USB drive to do things like create new commands on the computer, install different types of malicious software, or redirect traffic.

Unfortunately, this isn’t the first time this happened. Back in 2020, there was another attack with a similar process, and cybercriminals sent out a bunch of USB drives in the mail.

That time, the mail claimed that it was a gift card from Best Buy, but in reality, it was also a BadUSB malware that was used to install malware and exploit other vulnerabilities in many organizations’ PCs. They also were used to deploy many ransomware strains like BlackBatter and REvil.

Needless to say, you need to be careful of what you get in the mail and what you plug into your computer. Even if the package is addressed to you, you should avoid at all costs plugging one into your computer.

If the USB drive comes from a company or a person you’re familiar with—and you trust– try contacting them to make sure they actually sent you the USB drive. Even then, if it isn’t actually anything important, you should try to avoid using the USB drive in your computer to prevent any possible cyber attacks.

 

IRS Will Require Facial Recognition Scans to Access Your Taxes Online

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IRS Will Require Facial Recognition Scans to Access Your Taxes Online

 

source: gizmodo.com, contributed by Artemus FAN, Stephen Page  |  image:  stockvault.com

You will have to submit sensitive government documents, your Social Security number, credit history, and a face scan to ID.me, a third-party company.

 

Editor’s note: This article has been updated to clarify that you can still file and pay taxes without logging into an IRS account or providing biometric data. This contradicts information an IRS spokesperson previously provided to Gizmodo. See the full details in the frustrating correction below.

Online tax filers in the United States will soon be required to submit a selfie to a third-party identity verification company using facial recognition tech in order to access their IRS accounts.

Starting this summer, according to an IRS spokesperson, users with an IRS.gov account will no longer be able to log in with a simple username and password. Instead, they will need to provide a government identification document, a selfie, and copies of their bills to Virginian-based identity verification firm ID.me to confirm their identity. That change, first noticed by Krebs on Security, marks a major shift for the Internal Revenue Service, which previously allowed users to access their IRS accounts without submitting personal biometric data.

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Apple AirTags – ‘A perfect tool for stalking’

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Apple AirTags – ‘A perfect tool for stalking’

 

source:  bbc.com  |  image: pixabay.com

 

Amber Norsworthy lives in Mississippi with her four children.

It had just turned 3pm when she got home on 27 December. She received a notification on her phone.

“My phone made a ding that I’d never heard before”, she says.

The notification told her that an unknown device had been following her movements.

Ms Norsworthy, who’s 32, went on to the ‘Find My’ app on her iPhone.

“It showed me my whole route. It said ‘the last time the owner saw your location was 15:02’ and I was like, ‘that’s now, I’m at home’.”

She rang the police, who told her they didn’t know what to do. She has yet to find the device, which she believes is somewhere in her car. She says Apple Support was able to confirm it was an AirTag. “I watch my surroundings very closely now,” she says.

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OPINON: 4 Industries on the Brink of Technological Disruption

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OPINON: 4 Industries on the Brink of Technological Disruption

 

source: technewsworld.com  |  image:  pixabay.com

One of the stories told in management classes as an example of a recurring mistake companies make when their industry is transitioning focuses on buggy makers at the turn of the last century.

Those that figured out they were in the personal transportation business pivoted to cars. Most of the others that thought they were only in the buggy business became extinct because their market moved to cars, and they didn’t.

Seems obvious after the fact, but clearly at the time it didn’t seem obvious at all because most buggy makers and those that sold horses and did blacksmithing went out of business.

In the case of autonomous cars, we are looking at moving from car ownership to a service like Uber that will provide a car just when we need it.

But, going further, initially with services like Zoom and eventually with the metaverse extending the concept of holoportation — coupled with drone delivery and the pandemic — will we even need cars as much, or at all, in the future?

Holoportation, or the use of avatars to travel virtually, is not considered personal transportation today. But if it is successful, it could eliminate most personal transportation in the future, and in turn put existing car makers in the same category as those buggy makers were a century ago.

Should holoportation be considered part of the transportation industry, or should existing personal transportation be considered part of old school collaboration, social networking, and shopping?

Let’s talk about some of these big coming technology disruptions. Then we’ll close with my product of the week, a head-mounted display from TCL called the Nxtwear Air that could become this year’s must-have gadget.

Personal Transportation

Before the pandemic, personal transportation was mostly focused on cars with air transport, human powered transport, and even motorcycles largely falling into different classes. But with the increased use of video conferencing and collaboration products like Zoom, Teams, and Webex, the need for business travel has taken a significant hit.

Among the cool stuff at CES this year, Portl and La Vitre demonstrated a way to visit family and friends virtually, while a solution from ARHT Media called Holopresence showed how you can speak at any remote event without ever leaving your home, yet appear to actually be there.

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NCA: Kids as Young as Nine Have Launched DDoS Attacks

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NCA: Kids as Young as Nine Have Launched DDoS Attacks

source: infosecurity-magazine.com  | Photo by SoraShimazaki from Pexels

UK police have launched another initiative designed to persuade young people not to get involved in cybercrime after claiming that children as young as nine have launched DDoS attacks in the past.

The National Crime Agency (NCA) has teamed up with Schools Broadband, part of ISP the Talk Straight Group, on a new education campaign.

It said that students searching for specific terms associated with DDoS and other cybercrimes would be shown a warning message and suggested redirection to the Cyber Choices website. The aim is to educate young people about the Computer Misuse Act and the consequences of cybercrime.

A trial scheme is said to have significantly reduced searches for terms such as “stresser” and “booter” associated with DDoS, and it will now be rolled out nationwide to over 2000 primary and secondary schools.

The NCA said data from its National Cyber Crime Unit (NCCU) reveals a 107% increase in reports from the police cyber prevent network of students deploying DDoS attacks from 2019 to 2020.

The median age for referrals to the NCCU’s Prevent team is reportedly 15, but some offenders are as young as nine.

“Education is a key pillar in preventing crime and these messages highlight the risks and consequences of committing cyber offenses, which can result in a criminal record,” saidJohn Denley, deputy director of the NCA’s NCCU.

“Law enforcement plays a critical role in tackling cybercrime and keeping the country safe. School outreach is important to educate a younger audience and this initiative will continue to help divert young people away from criminality.”

A National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) report from 2019, which polled 430 schools across the UK, found that over a fifth (21%) reported unauthorized use of computers, networks or servers by pupils – almost twice the number (11%) who claimed the same of staff.

The report warned that such schools might be at risk of failing GDPR compliance as a result.

6 Ways to Delete Yourself From the Internet

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6 Ways to Delete Yourself From the Internet

source: wired.com | image by pexels.com

You’ll never be able to get a clean slate—but you can significantly downsize your digital footprint.

DEPENDING ON WHEN you were born, there’s a good chance you’ve spent either several decades online or have never known an offline world. Whatever the case, the internet and its advertising giants know a huge amount about your life.

Amazon, Facebook, and Google all have reams of data about you—including your likes and dislikes, health information and social connections—but they’re not the only ones. Countless murky data brokers that you’ve never heard of collect huge quantities of information about you and sell it on. This data is then used by other companies you’ve likely never heard of to nudge you into buying more stuff. On top of that, all your ancient web forum comments and ill-advised social media posts are still out there, waiting to turn you into a milkshake duck.

At this stage it’s going to be very difficult to completely delete yourself from the internet, but there are some steps you can take to remove a lot of it. Removing personal information and deleting accounts is a fiddly process, so it’s better to break it down into a few smaller steps and tackle them over time.

Opt Out From Data Brokers

Collecting and selling your data is big business. In 2019 the US state of Vermont passed a law requiring all companies buying and selling third-party personal information to register: In response, more than 120 firms logged their details. They included companies building search tools to look up individuals, firms handling location data, and those specializing in your health data. These companies collect everything from your name, address, and date of birth to your social security number, buying habits, and where you went to school and for how long.

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Meta alerts 50,000 users to targeting by ‘surveillance-for-hire’ companies

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Meta alerts 50,000 users to targeting by

‘surveillance-for-hire’ companies

 

source: theverge.com  |  image from meta.com. | contributed by FAN, Stephen Page

The users, including journalists and human rights activists, were based in more than 100 countries around the world

Facebook’s parent company Meta has alerted 50,000 users of Facebook and Instagram that their accounts were spied on by commercial “surveillance-for-hire” schemes around the globe.

The users were targeted by seven entities and located in more than 100 countries, according to an update posted on Meta’s news page today.

Targets included journalists, dissidents, critics of authoritarian regimes, families of opposition, and human rights activists, the post said. The surveillance was uncovered in a monthslong investigation in which Meta identified spying groups and removed them from the platform.

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