At Least 700,000 Routers Given To Customers By ISPs Are Vulnerable To Hacking
More than 700,000 ADSL routers provided to customers by ISPs around the world contain serious flaws that allow remote hackers to take control of them.
Most of the routers have a 'directory traversal' flaw in a firmware component called webproc.cgi that allows hackers to extract sensitive configuration data, including administrative credentials.
The flaw isn't new and has been reported by multiple researchers since 2011 in various router models.
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Update on man playing God and making Him very upset with those who persist...
We've previously discussed a system called CRISPR-cas9, which is dramatically reducing the cost and effort required to do gene editing.
In fact, the barrier to entry is now so low that a group of biologists is calling for a moratorium on using the method to modify the human genome.
Writing in the journal Science (abstract), the scientists warn that we've reached the point where the ethical questions surrounding DNA alteration can be put off no longer.
David Baltimore, one of the group's members, said, "You could exert control over human heredity with this technique, and that is why we are raising the issue.
... I personally think we are just not smart enough — and won't be for a very long time — to feel comfortable about the consequences of changing heredity, even in a single individual."
Another group of scientists called for a similar halt to human germline modification, and the International Society for Stem Cell Research says it agrees.
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For years Amazon investors saw a hemorrhage of money with no returns. That is about to
Amazon.com announced the launch Thursday of its one-hour delivery service, Prime Now, in select zip codes in Baltimore and Miami.
It initially launched in Manhattan in December. The one-hour service, available to Amazon Prime subscribers through the Prime Now mobile app, costs $7.99. Two-hour delivery is free.
From the article:
"Amazon Prime's success has blown away the company's projections and 'petrified' local and national retailers, said Howard Davidowitz, chairman of Davidowitz & Associates, a national retail consulting and investment banking firm headquartered in New York City.
'If you're a retailer and you're not scared of Amazon ... you should be,' he said.
'They are the change agent. They are leading the change in retail.'"
Amazon Wins US Regulators' Approval To Test-fly Drone
"Amazon.com Inc has won U.S. federal regulators' approval to test a delivery drone, as the e-commerce giant pursues a vision of speeding packages to customers through the air amid public concern over the safety and privacy implications.
The Federal Aviation Administration said on Thursday it had issued an experimental airworthiness certificate to an Amazon unit and its prototype drone design, allowing it to conduct outdoor test flights on private, rural land in Washington state.
The experimental certificate applies to a particular drone design and Amazon must obtain a new certification for test flights if it modifies the drone.
In return, the company must supply monthly data to the regulators, and conduct flights at 400 feet (120 meters) or below and in 'visual meteorological conditions,' according to the FAA's certificate.
The drone operators must also have a private pilots' license and current medical certification."
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Luxury Swiss watchmaker Tag Heuer has announced it will be designing a smartwatch in partnership with U.S. tech giants Google and Intel.
The watch is to rival similar devices in the consumer wearables market, specifically the much-anticipated Apple Watch.
Tag is the first watchmaker to join with Google, however it is thought the deal will also welcome collaborations with other high-quality LVMH brands, such as Hublot and Zenith.
The watch will be available toward the end of the year, with price structures and functionality details announced shortly before its release.
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A lot of Americans refuse to go to the polls and vote their choices, thusly not participating in this great experiment in democracy. Leaving the choices to those with money.
CNN reports that when asked how to offset the influence of big money in politics, President Barack Obama suggested it's time to make voting a requirement.
"Other countries have mandatory voting," said Obama "It would be transformative if everybody voted — that would counteract money more than anything," he said, adding it was the first time he had shared the idea publicly.
"The people who tend not to vote are young, they're lower income, they're skewed more heavily towards immigrant groups and minority groups.
There's a reason why some folks try to keep them away from the polls."
( Not entirely true, a lot of professionals refuse to vote, surgeons, lawyers and such, they feel "What's the point, the money always wins." )
At least 26 countries have compulsory voting, according to the Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance.
Failure to vote is punishable by a fine in countries such as Australia and Belgium; if you fail to pay your fine in Belgium, you could go to prison.
Less than 37% of eligible voters actually voted in the 2014 midterm elections, according to The Pew Charitable Trusts.
That means about 144 million Americans — more than the population of Russia — skipped out. Critics of mandatory voting have questioned the practicality of passing and enforcing such a requirement; others say that freedom also means the freedom not to do something.
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Hal 2001
The state of security is going to improve greatly at airports and borders.
This is a very good thing...
Last week, a trio of Google researchers published a paper on a new artificial intelligence system dubbed FaceNet that it claims represents the most accurate approach yet to recognizing human faces.
FaceNet achieved nearly 100-percent accuracy on a popular facial-recognition dataset called Labeled Faces in the Wild, which includes more than 13,000 pictures of faces from across the web.
Trained on a massive 260-million-image dataset, FaceNet performed with better than 86 percent accuracy.
The approach Google's researchers took goes beyond simply verifying whether two faces are the same. Its system can also put a name to a face—classic facial recognition—and even present collections of faces that look the most similar or the most distinct.
Every advance in facial recognition makes me think of Paul Theroux's dystopian Ozone.
US Customs knows your face
"The facial recognition pilot program launched last week by U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which civil liberties advocates say could lead to new potentially privacy-invading programs, is just the first of three biometric experiments that the feds are getting ready to launch.
The three experiments involve new controversial technologies like iris and face scanner kiosks, which CBP plans to deploy at the Mexican border, and facial recognition software, according to a leaked document obtained by Motherboard.
All three pilots are part of a broader Customs and Border Protection program to modernize screenings at American entry and exit ports, including at the highly politicized Mexican border, with the aid of new biometric technologies.
The program is known as Apex Air Entry and Exit Re-Engineering Project, according to the leaked slides.
These pilot programs have the goal of "identifying and implementing" biometric technologies that can be used at American borders to improve the immigration system as well as US national security, according to the slides."
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