Author Archives: mea

SpaceX Falcon 9 Returns to Flight, Sticks Landing at Cape Canaveral

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Employees at SpaceX’s Hawthorne, California headquarters cheered emphatically as a bright orange speck blazed into view on video screens tracking the landing. Just before touchdown, the first stage deployed its landing legs and came into view against the darkened Cape Canaveral sky. The rocket settled onto the landing pad and the single center engine shut down, marking a giant leap forward in SpaceX’s quest for reusable rocketry.

Source: SpaceX Falcon 9 Returns to Flight, Sticks Landing at Cape Canaveral

“Unauthorized code” in Juniper firewalls decrypts encrypted VPN traffic

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As involved as that process was, getting unauthorized code covertly installed into an official operating system and keeping it there for years would appear to be an even more complicated—and brazen—undertaking. This 2013 article published by Der Spiegel reported that an NSA operation known as FEEDTHROUGH worked against Juniper firewalls and gave the agency persistent backdoor access.

Source: “Unauthorized code” in Juniper firewalls decrypts encrypted VPN traffic | Ars Technica

Brazil court orders WhatsApp messaging to be suspended

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The move against WhatsApp comes as Brazilian phone companies have urged the government to restrict the use of free voice-over-internet services offered through WhatsApp.

The phone companies argue that the rise of WhatsApp has damaged their businesses.

Source: Brazil court orders WhatsApp messaging to be suspended – BBC News

Philips Hue Excludes 3rd Party Bulbs With Firmware Update

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Philips just released firmware for the Philips Hue bridge that may permanently sever access to any “non-approved” ZigBee bulbs. We previously covered third party support in January 2015, when Philips indicated it was not blocked – and have since benefited.

Source: Philips Hue Excludes 3rd Party Bulbs With Firmware Update

Sometimes it’s better never to upgrade firmware.  Don’t fix what isn’t broke.  As a general rule firmware should never need upgrading.

NASA, Google reveal quantum computing leap

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Quantum computers rely on fundamentally different principles to today’s computers, in which each bit represents either a zero or a one. In quantum computing, each bit can be both a zero and a one simultaneously. So while three conventional bits can represent any of eight values (2^3), three qubits, as they’re called, can represent all eight values at once. That means calculations can theoretically be performed at much higher speeds.

Source: NASA, Google reveal quantum computing leap | CIO

AVG, McAfee, Kaspersky Fix Common Vulnerability in Their Antivirus Products

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The security bug relates to the fact that the AVG antivirus creates a memory space with full RWX (read-write-execute) privileges where it normally runs. For that particular version of the AVG antivirus, this memory space was not randomized and was often shared with other applications, like, for example, Acrobat Reader or the enSilo product that collided with the antivirus.

If an attacker knew about the antivirus’ predictable behavior and where this address space was, they could force their malicious code to execute inside that memory address and have the same privileges as the antivirus process (which is system-level).

Source: AVG, McAfee, Kaspersky Fix Common Vulnerability in Their Antivirus Products

Streaming Video Is 70 Percent of Broadband Use

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Again, it’s not surprising to learn that broadband is moving from “the thing that brings you websites and email” to “the thing that brings you video.” But change over time drives it home: Sandvine says that five years ago, video/audio represented 35 percent of prime-time usage. Now it has doubled, to 70 percent.

Source: Streaming Video Is 70 Percent of Broadband Use – Sandvine | Re/code

Q-carbon: A new phase of carbon so hard it forms diamonds when melted

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Diamond, being the world’s hardest substance, has a range of uses in creating cutting and polishing tools across industries from mining to medicine. The challenge is that diamond is expensive to mine and to manufacture, requiring high temperatures and high pressures. But by mixing up the substrates and controlling the rate of cooling, Narayan and his team have discovered they can create tiny diamonds within the Q-carbon.

Source: Q-carbon: A new phase of carbon so hard it forms diamonds when melted

Quest to drill into Earth’s mantle restarts

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Normally, the crust–mantle boundary is thought to be marked by a feature known as the Mohorovičić discontinuity, or ‘Moho’, at which seismic waves change velocity. But at Atlantis Bank, the mantle is thought to bubble up as far as 2.5 kilometres above the Moho, making it easier to reach.

Reaching these deep-Earth frontiers “is one of the great scientific endeavours of the century”, says Henry Dick, a geophysicist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts and co-leader of the expedition.

Source: Quest to drill into Earth’s mantle restarts : Nature News & Comment