Author: esimantiras

The Birth of Spy Tech: From the ‘Detectifone’ to a Bugged Martini

Posted on by esimantiras

The Birth of Spy Tech: From the ‘Detectifone’ to a Bugged Martini

source: wired.com  |  image: pixabay.com

The urge to snoop is as old as time—and by the 1950s, the electronic listening invasion had begun.

 

This is excerpted from The Listeners: A History of Wiretapping in the United States by Brian Hochman published by Harvard University Press.

EAVESDROPPING TECHNOLOGIES OF various sorts have been around for centuries. Prior to the invention of recorded sound, the vast majority of listening devices were extensions of the built environment. Perhaps nodding to the origins of the practice (listening under the eaves of someone else’s home, where rain drops from the roof to the ground), early modern architects designed buildings with structural features that amplified private speech. The Jesuit polymath Athanasius Kircher devised cone-shaped ventilation ducts for palaces and courts that allowed the curious to overhear conversations. Catherine de’ Medici is said to have installed similar structures in the Louvre to keep tabs on individuals who might have plotted against her. Architectural listening systems weren’t always a product of intentional design. Domes in St. Paul’s Cathedral in London and the US Capitol building are inadvertent “whispering galleries” that enable people to hear conversations held on the other side of the room. Archaeologists have discovered acoustical arrangements like these dating back to 3000 BC. Many were used for eavesdropping.

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Could we engineer a vehicle with a nearly limitless power source?

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Could we engineer a vehicle with a nearly limitless power source?

source: interestingengineering.com  |  image: pixabay.com

 

Iron ore company Fortescue had a vision of such a vehicle.

Imagine a mass-transport vehicle with a nearly limitless power source. It would solve almost all transportation-related problems.

But what would it look like and how would it operate? 

First of all, it would need to have a sizeable cargo capacity. Second, it would need to be fast. Lastly, it would need to be highly efficient. That means it would need to be cheap to operate and maintain, otherwise, it would be an impractical option for most.

Iron ore company Fortescue had a vision of such a vehicle in order to significantly cut down the operational cost of their mining business. They imagined a self-charging battery-powered train.

They even came up with an ambitious name for this new vehicle: the Infinity Train. With this, they could ferry iron ore from their mines at a minimal cost.

This Infinity train would run on gravity batteries and Fortescue’s plan is to build railways from their mines to receiving areas below, where the ore can be shipped out to customers.

Can the firm’s vision come true? Will we see a future where infinity vehicles will exist? How will they be engineered and how will they be made to be safe? This video answers all these questions and more.

CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE VIDEO AT INTERESTINGENGINEERING.COM

Firewall: Definition, technology and facts

Posted on by esimantiras

 

Firewall: Definition, technology and facts

source: livescience.com  |  image: pexels.com

 

Learn how a firewall filters out cyber-threats, while still letting you access everything you want to look at online.

 

A firewall is a  online security measure to protect your computer from viruses and other malicious attacks. You can use the internet to communicate with around 4.9 billion people worldwide, according to the International Telecommunication Union, and access more knowledge than at any other time in history. 

The downside is that everybody also has access to you. This includes hackers and viruses that want to steal your data, take control of your computer or even destroy it.

To stop this from happening, a firewall controls the data flowing between your computer and the internet, according to the Canadian Conference on Electrical and Computer Engineering. Think of this like a border guard checking your passport when you go on holiday. A firewall inspects data to make sure it has the right permissions. If it does, it can pass through — if it doesn’t, it’s instantly blocked.

 

FIREWALL SECURITY: YOUR FIRST LINE OF DEFENSE

A firewall works at your computer’s ports. When we’re talking about computer networking, a port isn’t the same as a jack or socket you plug your monitor into. Rather it’s a virtual entry point where your computer exchanges information with other networks. 

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‘Really alarming’: the rise of smart cameras used to catch maskless students in US schools

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‘Really alarming’: the rise of smart cameras used to catch maskless students in US schools

source: theguardian.com  |  image: pexels.com

 

Schools brought in surveillance cameras to monitor mask compliance and other Covid risks – and while masks are on their way out, the cameras aren’t

 

When students in suburban Atlanta returned to school for in-person classes amid the pandemic, they were required to mask up, like in many places across the US. Yet in this 95,000-student district, officials took mask compliance a step further than most.

Through a network of security cameras, officials harnessed artificial intelligence to identify students whose masks drooped below their noses.

“If they say a picture is worth a thousand words, if I send you a piece of video – it’s probably worth a million,” said Paul Hildreth, the district’s emergency operations coordinator. “You really can’t deny, ‘Oh yeah, that’s me, I took my mask off.’”

The school district in Fulton county had installed the surveillance network, by Motorola-owned Avigilon, years before the pandemic shuttered schools nationwide in 2020. Out of fear of mass school shootings, districts in recent years have increasingly deployed controversial surveillance networks like cameras with facial recognition and gun detection.

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Russian hackers targeted NATO, eastern European militaries: GoogleRussian hackers targeted NATO, eastern European militaries: Google

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Russian hackers targeted NATO, eastern European militaries: Google

source: indianexpress.com  |  image: pexels.com

Russia, which is now under heavy Western economic sanctions following its decision to invade Ukraine on Feb. 24, regularly denies accusations of mounting cyber attacks on Western targets.

 

Russian hackers have recently attempted to penetrate the networks of NATO and the militaries of some eastern European countries, Google’s Threat Analysis Group said in a report published on Wednesday.

The report did not say which militaries had been targeted in what Google described as “credential phishing campaigns” launched by a Russian-based group called Coldriver, or Callisto.

“These campaigns were sent using newly created Gmail accounts to non-Google accounts, so the success rate of these campaigns is unknown,” the report said.

NATO was not immediately available for comment on the report.

Russia, which is now under heavy Western economic sanctions following its decision to invade Ukraine on Feb. 24, regularly denies accusations of mounting cyber attacks on Western targets.

In 2019, Finnish cybersecurity firm F-Secure Labs described Callisto as an unidentified and advanced threat actor “interested in intelligence gathering related to foreign and security policy” in Europe.

The group also targeted a NATO Centre of Excellence, Wednesday’s Google report said, without elaborating.

In a statement, the centre did not directly address Google’s report but said: “We see malicious cyber activity on a daily basis.”

Blue, yellow and gray zone: The cyber factor in Ukraine

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Blue, yellow and gray zone: The cyber factor in Ukraine

source: c4isrnet.com  |  image: pexels.com

 

WASHINGTON — As Russia massed troops along its border with Ukraine over the last few months, it was unclear whether Russian President Vladimir Putin would invade. But if he did, experts warned, Russia would bombard the nation with a series of cyberattacks to sow confusion and weaken its resolve.

On Feb. 24, Putin unveiled his plans. Moscow’s war machine rolled into the Eastern European nation. The combined Russian air, land and sea assault was preceded by waves of cyberattacks, the sort of gray-zone meddling analysts and defense officials had foreseen. Websites were hamstrung. Malware coursed through computers. Communications were hampered.

But the full-fledged cyberwar some feared has not materialized. There has been no digital devastation of critical infrastructure, no damning disinformation.

“Apparently, it’s less than we thought would have happened at this point,” said Charles Munns, a retired U.S. Navy vice admiral who has advised the Defense and Energy departments. “It’s more of a 20th century invasion, with tanks and missiles and airplanes.”

A brief cyber history of Ukraine

Both Russia and Ukraine have a history with cyberattacks — the former leveraging the domain to wreak havoc, and the latter often finding itself on the receiving end.

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BBC World Service resurrects shortwave broadcasts in war-torn Ukraine

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source: tpr.org  |  image:  pixabay.com  |  contributed by Artemus FAN Steve Jones

 

The BBC has resurrected an old school way of broadcasting in order to reach people in the crisis area of Ukraine: Shortwave radio. What is shortwave, and why has the BBC decided to begin using it again?

It’s almost a forgotten technology in the United States, except for some Americans of a certain age, or maybe their parents or grandparents or even great grandparents.

Shortwave was used extensively during World War II and the Cold War. For many years, shortwave broadcasts were spread around the world over Voice of America. Russia had Radio Moscow and other countries had their own shortwave broadcasts.

What exactly is shortwave radio?

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New, New Solid-State Battery News From MIT

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source: cleantechnica.com  |  images:  pixabay.com  |  contributed by Artemus FAN Steve Page

 

We all know — or think we know — that a solid-state battery is better than a battery with a liquid or semi-liquid electrolytes. A solid-state battery has a lower risk of thermal runaway (what ordinary people call fires). It also has a higher energy density, can charge and discharge more rapidly, performs better in cold temperatures, and lasts longer. So why isn’t everyone using them to power their battery electric vehicles?

The answer is, nobody knows how to manufacture them outside of the laboratory — yet — but scientists are getting closer all the time. According to MIT, one of the main stumbling blocks to making a solid-state battery is that instabilities in the boundary between the solid electrolyte layer and the two electrodes on either side can dramatically shorten its life. Adding special coatings to improve the bonding between the layers solves some of the problems but adds to the expense of manufacturing.

A team of researchers at MIT and Brookhaven National Laboratory has come up with a way of achieving results that equal or surpass the durability of coated surfaces without the need for coatings. The key is to eliminate any trace of carbon dioxide during a critical step in the manufacturing process known as sintering.

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Apple Just Gave AirTag Owners a Major Warning

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It’s a lesson in platform responsibility.

 

source: Inc.com  |  image: pexels.com  | contributed by Artemus FAN Steve Page

Apple’s AirTag trackers are one of the most useful, yet controversial products the company has introduced in a long time. They’re great for sticking in or on things you might lose, like your keys, for example. I have several, and they’re great. I don’t tend to lose things, but there have been a few times when they give me extra peace of mind, knowing that my backpack isn’t going to accidentally disappear. 

The problem is that, simply put, AirTags work too well. Everything about them is perfect for something you want to track. They’re small, they’re very accurate, and they exist in an ecosystem of a billion iPhones capable of transmitting their location back to you.

As a result, they’re also ripe for abuse. A New York Times article this week demonstrated just how easy it is to track someone using an AirTag. That might not seem like a problem if you’re talking about your son riding his bike, but it gets problematic quickly when you think about the nefarious possibilities. 

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War in Ukraine Brings Out Scammers Trying to Exploit Donations

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War in Ukraine Brings Out Scammers Trying to Exploit Donations

source: cnet.com | Photo by Katie Godowski from Pexels

 

The world has responded to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine with an outpouring of support for the Ukrainian people. That hasn’t escaped the notice of scammers, who are all too willing to take advantage of people’s desire to help.

One scam email sports a logo in the blue and yellow colors of the Ukrainian flag. It asks for donations to a humanitarian organization in the form of US dollars and a handful of cryptocurrencies. Other bogus emails ask recipients to send money to help children or to buy weapons for the Ukrainian military.

Fake charity websites are popping up, too. Researchers at ESET, a Slovakia-based antivirus company, said they’d discovered a handful of sites using the colors of Ukraine’s flag and dramatic images of soldiers and explosions. The websites solicit “aid,” ESET said, but they don’t provide specifics as to how the money will be used.

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