Archive for the 'Technology' Category
A ‘Blockchain Bandit’ Is Guessing Private Keys and Scoring Millions
April 24th, 2019Via: Wired: In the process, and as detailed in a paper they published Tuesday, the researchers not only found that cryptocurrency users have in the last few years stored their crypto treasure with hundreds of easily guessable private keys, but also uncovered what they call a “blockchain bandit.” A single Ethereum account seems to have […]
U.S. Government Spent Over $500m on Fake Al-Qaeda Propaganda Videos that Tracked Location of Viewers
April 22nd, 2019My guess is that even I would be shocked if we knew the extent of America’s ongoing PSYOP with regard to media. Via: Independent: A former contractor for a UK-based public relations firm says that the Pentagon paid more than half a billion dollars for the production and dissemination of fake Al-Qaeda videos that portrayed […]
Tesla Autonomy Day Presentation
April 22nd, 2019This is a fairly technical presentation for analysts. Personally, I doubt that Tesla is going to have a widely available robotaxi service anytime soon, but, at a minimum, this makes for interesting listening with regard to their efforts to devise the custom hardware and software necessary for autonomous driving. I queued the video to the […]
SpaceX Will Begin Starlink Satellite Launches in May
April 17th, 2019Via: Teslarati: SpaceX has announced a launch target of May 2019 for the first batch of operational Starlink satellites in a sign that the proposed internet satellite constellation has reached a major milestone, effectively transitioning from pure research and development to serious manufacturing. R&D will continue as SpaceX Starlink engineers work to implement the true […]
Mush, Spot, Mush!
April 16th, 2019The sound… Via: Boston Dynamics: It only takes 10 Spotpower (SP) to haul a truck across the Boston Dynamics parking lot (~1 degree uphill, truck in neutral). These Spot robots are coming off the production line now and will be available for a range of applications soon.
We’re All Being Judged By a Secret ‘Trustworthiness’ Score
April 15th, 2019Via: Slashdot: Nearly everything we buy, how we buy, and where we’re buying from is secretly fed into AI-powered verification services that help companies guard against credit-card and other forms of fraud, according to the Wall Street Journal. More than 16,000 signals are analyzed by a service called Sift, which generates a “Sift score” ranging […]
2 million Kiwis Have Police Alert on Their Names
April 15th, 2019Via: New Zealand Herald: Nearly two million people appear in a New Zealand police intelligence system with an alert against their name, inquiries by the Otago Daily Times have revealed. Those in the database are generally flagged without their knowledge, and a leading security analyst says the broad sweep of the system raises privacy concerns. […]
Facebook Put Hidden Messages ‘Big Brother Is Watching’ and ‘The Masons Were Here’ in Tens of Thousands VR Controllers
April 15th, 2019Via: Business Insider: Facebook said it accidentally hid bizarre and “inappropriate” messages inside “tens of thousands” of virtual-reality controllers, including “Big Brother is Watching” and “The Masons Were Here.” Nate Mitchell, the cofounder of Oculus, the Facebook-owned VR company, said on Twitter on Friday that the company inadvertently printed some unusual messages in its Touch […]
Tracking Phones, Google Is a Dragnet for the Police
April 13th, 2019Via: New York Times: The warrants, which draw on an enormous Google database employees call Sensorvault, turn the business of tracking cellphone users’ locations into a digital dragnet for law enforcement. In an era of ubiquitous data gathering by tech companies, it is just the latest example of how personal information — where you go, […]
The U.S. Government’s Indictment of Julian Assange Poses Grave Threats to Press Freedom
April 12th, 2019Via: The Intercept: …the indictment seeks to criminalize what journalists are not only permitted but ethically required to do: take steps to help their sources maintain their anonymity. As longtime Assange lawyer Barry Pollack put it: “The factual allegations … boil down to encouraging a source to provide him information and taking efforts to protect […]
