Even When Told Not To, Windows 10 Won’t Stop Talking to Microsoft
August 18th, 2015Via: ArsTechnica:
For example, even with Cortana and searching the Web from the Start menu disabled, opening Start and typing will send a request to www.bing.com to request a file called threshold.appcache which appears to contain some Cortana information, even though Cortana is disabled. The request for this file appears to contain a random machine ID that persists across reboots.
Some of the traffic is obviously harmless. On connecting to a new network, Windows machines try to request two URLs (www.msftncsi.com/ncsi.txt and ipv6.msftncsi.com/ncsi.txt, the former over IPv4, the latter over IPv6) to ascertain whether a given network is routed to the Internet and if there is a captive portal in the way (NCSI stands for “Network Connection Status Indicator”). These requests are very bare, with no machine IDs or other data sent. If you want to turn even these off there is a way to do so, but the privacy impact is minimal.
Some of the traffic looks harmless but feels like it shouldn’t be happening. For example, even with no Live tiles pinned to Start (and hence no obvious need to poll for new tile data), Windows 10 seems to download new tile info from MSN’s network from time to time, using unencrypted HTTP to do so. While again the requests contain no identifying information, it’s not clear why they’re occurring at all, given that they have no corresponding tile.
Other traffic looks a little more troublesome. Windows 10 will periodically send data to a Microsoft server named ssw.live.com. This server seems to be used for OneDrive and some other Microsoft services. Windows 10 seems to transmit information to the server even when OneDrive is disabled and logins are using a local account that isn’t connected to a Microsoft Account. The exact nature of the information being sent isn’t clear—it appears to be referencing telemetry settings—and again, it’s not clear why any data is being sent at all.
Long Range Strike Bomber Already a Snowballing Disaster
August 18th, 2015Via: Fiscal Times:
The price on the U.S. Air Force’s next-generation bomber was just raised. Again.
Last year, Air Force officials told Congress that the cost for the 10-year research and development phase for the Long-Range Strike Bomber would be $33.1 billion between fiscal years 2015 through 2025. But this year the price skyrocketed. The Air Force said the cost for fiscal 2016 to 2026 would be $58.4 billion, a 19 percent increase.
The service explained the discrepancy, first reported by Bloomberg, by saying both figures were wrong and that the actual cost is really 14 percent more.
“The correct 10-year cost entry for both … reports is $41.7 billion as the program costs have remained stable,” Air Force spokesperson Ed Gulick said in a statement.
The service “is working through the appropriate processes to ensure” the report, requested by lawmakers is “corrected, and that our reports in subsequent years are accurate,” he added. The Air Force has estimated it would cost $55 billion to build as many as 100 new bombers, or around $550 million per aircraft.
Northrop Grumman and a Boeing-Lockheed Martin joint venture are competing to build the new stealth bomber. The service could award the contract sometime in September or October, which is already a slip from a previous timetable of a June or July announcement.
If you think you’ve heard it all before, you have. The embattled F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, which is estimated to cost well over $1.5 trillion, has so many technical problems that it as of March this year it couldn’t pass basic requirements needed to fly in combat. Even so, the project has soared $170 billion over budget to date.
Pentagon Planning Sharp Increase in Drone Flights by 2019
August 17th, 2015Via: Reuters:
The Pentagon is planning a sharp increase in daily drone flights over conflict zones around the globe in the next four years as it tries to meet the reconnaissance and air strike needs of combatant commanders, a spokesman said on Monday.
Navy Captain Jeff Davis, a Defense Department spokesman, said the number of unmanned drone flights, known as combat air patrols, would be increased by about 50 percent by 2019 – from between 60 and 65 a day to about 90.
“We’ve seen a steady demand signal from all of our geographic combatant commanders to have more of this capability,” Davis told reporters at the Pentagon.
The planes are used in the fight against Islamic State militants in Syria and Iraq, in the conflict in Afghanistan, against extremist groups like al Shabab in Somalia and to gather intelligence in the Pacific.
The plan to expand flights of drones like the MQ-1 Predator and the MQ-9 Reaper comes despite recent warnings from a senior Air Force commander that the drone fleet and its operators were being stretched to the breaking point.
Long Term Data Storage in DNA
August 17th, 2015Via: Independent:
DNA has the advantage over hard drives in that it is an extremely dense form of data storage with the potential to survive for long periods of time. An external hard drive for instance is about the size of a paperback book, can store about five terabytes of data and might last 50 years.
In contrast, an ounce (28 grams) of DNA could fit on a penny, store 300,000 terabytes of memory and palaeontologists have shown the information stored in DNA recovered from fossils can survive for up to a million years.
One of the remaining problems, other than the currently exorbitant cost of making DNA for digital storage, is to be able to retrieve the information quickly and easily, which is why Dr Grass is working on a method of labelling specific places on the DNA molecule to make it easier to search.
Two Women Make History by Passing Army’s Elite Ranger School
August 17th, 2015Via: NBC:
For the first time ever, two women have successfully completed the Army’s elite Ranger school, one of the toughest combat training courses in the world, the Army said Monday.
The female soldiers weren’t identified beyond being described as West Point-trained officers. They were among 96 soldiers who will graduate Friday at Fort Benning, Georgia, with the coveted Ranger tab, the Army said.
The 96 soldiers were winnowed from 400 — 19 of them women — who started the course on April 20. Over the following weeks, more than three-quarters of the trainees fell short of making it through grueling training marked by limited meals, sleep deprivation and physical tests in harsh conditions — all while hauling a 60-pound rucksack.
Minimum-Wage Offensive Could Speed Arrival of Robot-Powered Restaurants
August 17th, 2015“Enjoy any higher minimum wages while you can because the Rise of the Machines grinds steadily onward, and the goal is to eliminate as many human workers from corporate payrolls as possible.”
—Seattle Hikes Minimum Wage to $15 Per Hour
Via: Washington Post:
The avalanche of rising costs is why franchisers are aggressively looking for technology that can allow them to produce more food faster with higher quality and lower waste. Dave Brewer is chief operating officer with Middleby Corp., which owns dozens of kitchen equipment brands, and is constantly developing new ways to optimize performance and minimize cost.
“The miracle is, the wage increase is driving the interest,” Brewer said. “But the innovation and the automation, they’re going after it even before the wages go up. Why wait?”
Fab11: Making Robots
August 16th, 2015Via: YouTube:
NSA Spying Relies on AT&T’s ‘Extreme Willingness to Help’
August 15th, 2015NSAT&T: Since 1985.
Via: ProPublica:
The National Security Agency’s ability to spy on vast quantities of Internet traffic passing through the United States has relied on its extraordinary, decades-long partnership with a single company: the telecom giant AT&T.
While it has been long known that American telecommunications companies worked closely with the spy agency, newly disclosed NSA documents show that the relationship with AT&T has been considered unique and especially productive. One document described it as “highly collaborative,” while another lauded the company’s “extreme willingness to help.”
AT&T’s cooperation has involved a broad range of classified activities, according to the documents, which date from 2003 to 2013. AT&T has given the NSA access, through several methods covered under different legal rules, to billions of emails as they have flowed across its domestic networks. It provided technical assistance in carrying out a secret court order permitting the wiretapping of all Internet communications at the United Nations headquarters, a customer of AT&T.
The NSA’s top-secret budget in 2013 for the AT&T partnership was more than twice that of the next-largest such program, according to the documents. The company installed surveillance equipment in at least 17 of its Internet hubs on American soil, far more than its similarly sized competitor, Verizon. And its engineers were the first to try out new surveillance technologies invented by the eavesdropping agency.
One document reminds NSA officials to be polite when visiting AT&T facilities, noting: “This is a partnership, not a contractual relationship.”
…
Fairview is one of its oldest programs. It began in 1985, the year after antitrust regulators broke up the Ma Bell telephone monopoly and its long-distance division became AT&T Communications. An analysis of the Fairview documents by The Times and ProPublica reveals a constellation of evidence that points to AT&T as that program’s partner. Several former intelligence officials confirmed that finding.
Flashback 2007: AT&T Invents Programming Language for Mass Surveillance
NSA Preparing Quantum Resistant Encryption Algorithms
August 15th, 2015Via: National Security Agency:
IAD recognizes that there will be a move, in the not distant future, to a quantum resistant algorithm suite. Based on experience in deploying Suite B, we have determined to start planning and communicating early about the upcoming transition to quantum resistant algorithms. Our ultimate goal is to provide cost effective security against a potential quantum computer. We are working with partners across the USG, vendors, and standards bodies to ensure there is a clear plan for getting a new suite of algorithms that are developed in an open and transparent manner that will form the foundation of our next Suite of cryptographic algorithms.
Until this new suite is developed and products are available implementing the quantum resistant suite, we will rely on current algorithms. For those partners and vendors that have not yet made the transition to Suite B algorithms, we recommend not making a significant expenditure to do so at this point but instead to prepare for the upcoming quantum resistant algorithm transition.
For those vendors and partners that have already transitioned to Suite B, we recognize that this took a great deal of effort on your part, and we thank you for your efforts. We look forward to your continued support as we work together to improve information security for National Security customers against the threat of a quantum computer being developed. Unfortunately, the growth of elliptic curve use has bumped up against the fact of continued progress in the research on quantum computing, necessitating a re-evaluation of our cryptographic strategy.
Related: Microsoft: Securing Today’s Data Against Tomorrow’s Quantum Computers
Apple Is Building a Self-Driving Car in Silicon Valley
August 14th, 2015Via: Guardian:
Apple is building a self-driving car in Silicon Valley, and is scouting for secure locations in the San Francisco Bay area to test it, the Guardian has learned. Documents show the oft-rumoured Apple car project appears to be further along than many suspected.
In May, engineers from Apple’s secretive Special Project group met with officials from GoMentum Station, a 2,100-acre former naval base near San Francisco that is being turned into a high-security testing ground for autonomous vehicles.
In correspondence obtained by the Guardian under a public records act request, Apple engineer Frank Fearon wrote: “We would … like to get an understanding of timing and availability for the space, and how we would need to coordinate around other parties who would be using [it].”
Apple declined to comment.
GoMentum Station is on the old Concord naval weapons station, a disused second world war-era facility with 20 miles of paved highways and city streets. The base is closed to the public and guarded by the military, making it, officials claim, “the largest secure test facility in the world” for the “testing validation and commercialization of connected vehicle (CV) applications and autonomous vehicles (AV) technologies to define the next generation of transportation network infrastructure.” Mercedes-Benz and Honda have already carried out experiments with self-driving cars behind its barbed-wire fences.
This security is bound to appeal to Apple, which has hundreds of engineers quietly working on automotive technologies in an anonymous office building in Sunnyvale, four miles from its main campus in Cupertino. Details of the project are still unknown but it seems that Apple has a self-driving car almost ready for the road. In late May, Jack Hall, program manager for autonomous vehicles at GoMentum Station, wrote to Fearon to postpone a tour of the facility but noted: “We would still like to meet in order to keep everything moving and to meet your testing schedule.”
