Stealth camera takes pictures virtually in the dark

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In the team’s setup, low-intensity pulses of visible laser light scan an object of interest. The laser fires a pulse at a given location until a single reflected photon is recorded by a detector; each illuminated location corresponds to a pixel in the final image.

Variations in the time it takes for photons from the laser pulses to be reflected back from the object provides depth information about the body — a standard way of revealing three-dimensional structure. However, the algorithm developed by Kirmani and his colleagues provides that information using one-hundredth the number of photons required by existing light detection and ranging (LIDAR) techniques, which are commonly used in remote mapping or measuring forest biomass, for instance.

via Stealth camera takes pictures virtually in the dark : Nature News & Comment.

Bitcoin Thefts Surge, DDoS Hackers Take Millions

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Bitcoin users have echoed that suggestion. “One note of warning: don’t trust any online wallet,” read a comment on a recent Guardian feature. “The two biggest ones have already been robbed. Use your own wallet on your own computer and back it up on a USB stick.”

“Remember, you don’t have to keep your Bitcoins online with someone else: you can store your Bitcoins yourself, encrypted and offline,” said Ducklin at Sophos.

via Bitcoin Thefts Surge, DDoS Hackers Take Millions – InformationWeek.

Magnetic tape to the rescue

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Tape will never be the whole answer to storing data, according to Dr Eleftheriou. But it forms a crucial part of a “storage hierarchy”. At the top of this are so-called hot data, those that need to be available for immediate access. These are best held in flash memory. Lukewarm data—those that people need to access frequently, but not instantaneously—are best stored on disks. Cold data, the stuff in long-term storage, can be recorded on tape. This cold store is by far the biggest repository. A report published in 2008 by Andrew Leung of the University of California, Santa Cruz, found that in general, 90% of an organisation’s data becomes cold after a couple of months.

via Monitor: Magnetic tape to the rescue | The Economist.

Firms race to transmit Wall Street data at nearly light speed

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Through a series of microwave towers, the dish beams market data 734 miles to the Chicago Mercantile Exchange’s computer warehouse in Aurora, Ill., in 4.13 milliseconds, or about 95% of the theoretical speed of light, according to the company.

Fiber-optic cables, which are made up of long strands of glass, carry data at roughly 65% of light speed.

via Firms race to transmit Wall Street data at nearly light speed – latimes.com.

Why next man on Moon will be Chinese

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A Chinese Long March rocket is scheduled to blast off to the Moon on Sunday evening at about 6pm British time carrying a small robotic rover that will touch down on to the lunar surface in about two weeks’ time – the first soft landing on the Earth’s only natural satellite since 1976.

The take-off from the Xichang Satellite Launch Centre in Sichuan Province marks the latest stage in China’s grand ambitions not just to put a man on Moon by the end of the next decade, but to build a permanent lunar base from which it can plan missions to Mars and beyond.

via In the footsteps of the US: Why next man on Moon will be Chinese – Science – News – The Independent.

14 MEPs emails intercepted by a hacker thanks to Microsoft flaws

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My best guess is that what they did was to impersonate the EP-EXT wifi network and steal our credentials from the login page (https://wifiauth.europarl.europa.eu/, now no longer available, see screenshot below for what it more-or-less used to look like). In this scenario, after I automatically connect to the rogue WiFi (because my phone recognizes the SSID), it presents me with the familiar login page, but this time it’s not HTTPS but plain HTTP. So, no warning about a self-signed certificate is presented to the user.

After I type in my credentials, the rogue WiFi is turned off for a minute or more, so my phone re-connects to the real EP-EXT network and I am asked for my credentials again. I would probably think that I mistyped the password or something and not think twice about it. After a minute the rogue WiFi goes back online, waiting for the next victim.

via epfsug – Re: Ang.: [EPFSUG] 14 MEPs emails intercepted by a hacker thanks to Microsoft flaws – arc.

This is classic MITM where a user inadvertently accepts a different certificate than provided from the mail server which allows the man in the middle access to the encrypted stream.  Always be on the lookout for those pop up notifications.  An attacker can’t get to an encrypted stream without your permission — even on an unsecured open wifi.

From: Temporary Switch-off of the EP Public WI-FI Network. EP Private Wi-Fi Network Still Available.

The Parliament has been subject for a man-in-the-middle attack, where a hacker has captured the communication between private smartphones and the public Wi-Fi of the Parliament (EP-EXT Network).

The consequence is that some individual mail-boxes have been compromised. All concerned users have already been contacted and asked to change their password.

As a precaution, the Parliament has therefore decided to switch-off the public Wi-Fi network until further notice, and we invite you to contact the ITEC Service Desk in order to install an EP software certificate on all the devices that you use to access the EP IT systems (email, etc..).

Startup Cuts Lithium-Ion Battery Costs

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So far, SolidEnergy has made small, hand-built battery cells, similar to what you would find in a cell phone, using equipment and experts at an A123 Systems lab near Boston. (A123 Systems went bankrupt last year, and was acquired by the Chinese company Wanxiang.) These experimental cells store 30 percent more energy than conventional lithium-ion batteries, but the company calculates that the approach could eventually lead to a 40 percent improvement.

via Startup Cuts Lithium-Ion Battery Costs | MIT Technology Review.

Young adult readers ‘prefer printed to ebooks’

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The top-rated reasons for preferring physical to digital products were: “I like to hold the product” (51%), “I am not restricted to a particular device” (20%), “I can easily share it” (10%), “I like the packaging” (9%), and “I can sell it when used” (6%).

via Young adult readers ‘prefer printed to ebooks’ | Books | theguardian.com.

Double Robotics – Telepresence Robot for Telecommuters

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Double is the ultimate tool for telecommuting. From anywhere in the world, you have a physical presence in the office and can speak to co-workers at anytime. Double is a remotely controlled, mobile teleconferencing system, enabling conversations to happen anywhere and anytime.

via Double Robotics – Telepresence Robot for Telecommuters.

These do seem a little creepy. They appear built on Segway tech and priced at $2500. There could be some use for these such as being able to walk around a museum as shown in the video below. How much would someone pay to do walk around on your own at the Louvre in Paris without having to fly there? Perhaps one day these robots become ubiquitous to a point where entire meeting rooms consist of nothing but these robots talking with other robots.

Double by Double Robotics – Buy Now from Double Robotics on Vimeo.

On Covert Acoustical Mesh Networks in Air

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Different applications of covert acoustical mesh networks are presented, including the use for remote keylogging over multiple hops. It is shown that the concept of a covert acoustical mesh network renders many conventional security concepts useless, as acoustical communications are usually not considered. Finally, countermeasures against covert acoustical mesh networks are discussed, including the use of lowpass filtering in computing systems and a host-based intrusion detection system for analyzing audio input and output in order to detect any irregularities.

via On Covert Acoustical Mesh Networks in Air – Volume 8, No. 11, November 2013 – Journal of Communications.