MIT: Underwater to Atmosphere Radio Communications Perfected
Incroyable! Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers have developed what could very well be the 'holy grail' of submarine-to-surface communications. Monikered TARF, the system ostensibly converts SONAR to RADAR with no mid-processing steps required. Absolutely superb work, and today's Must Read.
Telegram Updated, Amidst Kremlin Capers, Apple Angst →
News from over the weekend - via 9to5Mac writer Michael Potuck, focusing on Telegram; of which, the encrypted messaging iOS app has been permitted to publish the latest update to their bits - via Apple Inc. (Nasdaq: AAPL) iTunes App Store. This, despite the declaration of illegality by Kremlin Apparatchiki. Today's Must Read.
The Voice Assistant Gambit →
Nicole Kobie, writing at New Scientist, tells the tale of newly researched voice assistant attack vectors leveraging signalling flaws (via an ultrasound attack) within both Apple Inc.'s (NasdaqGS: AAPL) and Amazon.com Inc.'s (NasdaqGS: AMZN) voice assitant offerings Siri and Alexa, respectively. The 'Dominoe Effect' of the ultrasound flaws in these products/services traverses down the device foodchain to Alexa and soo-to-be Siri enabled third party devices... Perhaps new protective sound generating devices are in order?
All Amazon and Apple Links in this Post are Non-affiliate
Brain Meet Internet →
Superlative study (funded by the Department of Defense - Army Research Office) - via Duke University's Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Durham, Nort Carolina and the Salk Institute for Biological Studies - Integrative Biology Laboratory in La Jolla, California - targeting the apparent similarities between artifical and biologic network implementations. Today's must read!
“The founders of the Internet spent a lot of time considering how to make information flow efficiently,” says Salk Assistant Professor Saket Navlakha, coauthor of the new study that appears online in Neural Computation on February 9, 2017. “Finding that an engineered system and an evolved biological one arise at a similar solution to a problem is really interesting.”
Suit of Bose →
News of an interesting privacy related lawsuit, via Fortune writer Jeff John Roberts, is now swirling around personal electronics manufacturer Bose Corporation. Apparently, collecting data (and a viloation of the so-called Wire Tap Act (Codified in 18 U.S.C. §§ 2510-2522)) - through a companion app to the company's best-in-class noise canceling headphones, and the misuse thereof, is the gist... Stay Tuned. Hat Tip
"The complaint accuses Boston-based Bose of violating the WireTap Act and a variety of state privacy laws, adding that a person's audio history can include a window into a person's life and views. "Indeed, one’s personal audio selections – including music, radio broadcast, Podcast, and lecture choices – provide an incredible amount of insight into his or her personality, behavior, political views, and personal identity," says the complaint, noting a person's audio history may contain files like LGBT podcasts or Muslim call-to-prayer recordings." - via Fortune writer Jeff John Roberts
Lightly... Squeezed →
News via the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) of NIST physicists efforts to cool down a component has yeilded an unexpected result. The effort utilized squeezed light (microwaves within an electromagnetic cavity, if you will) to cool the apparatus below the theoretical limit, in this case, below the so-called quantum limit.
Soghoian, Your Smartphone is a Civil Rights Issue →
Dr. Soghoian's Take...
Tip O' The Hat to Firewall Consultants!
SIM'd
Well done (and mercifully brief) Subscriber Identity Module teardown. via Firewall Consultants.
Automated Cryptographic Validation Protocol (ACVP) →
Via Richard Chirgwin writing at El Reg, detailing the efforts by NIST (here's the project page)(and their private industry partner Cisco) to automate cryptographic validation.
Burners, The Tightening
Well wrought thought piece on the use, and misuse, of prepaid cellular telephony hardware, the so-call Burner, and the effort to enforce regulations thereto. Entitled Burner Phones: Will Tightening Restrictions on Prepaid Cell Phones Solve Anything? Certainly today's Must Read post...