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ReHacked vol. 207: Isaac Asimov's 3 laws of Robotics, People Had To Be Convinced of the Usefulness of Electricity, SETI@home is in hibernation and more

ReHacked vol. 207: Isaac Asimov's 3 laws of Robotics, People Had To Be Convinced of the Usefulness of Electricity, SETI@home is in hibernation and more
‘Sonata No. 5 (Sonata of the Sea). Finale’, 1908, by M.K. Ciurlionis. PICTURE Courtesy of M. K. Ciurlionis National Museum of Art

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People Had To Be Convinced of the Usefulness of Electricity | Smart News| Smithsonian Magazine #history

In 1920, electricity wasn’t something that many people thought they needed, says the Library of Congress. New York Edison still had to push businesses to adopt not just their technology, but the technology of electricity to begin with.

They also had to outshine the competition. By 1900, there were 30 electricity companies in the New York City area. In 1920, New York Edison built a brand new power generation facility that could generate 770,000 kilowatt-hours. For reference, the city of New York City now uses about 100,000 kilowatt-hours per minute.


SETI@home is in hibernation. #datascience

We are no longer distributing tasks. The SETI@home message boards will continue to operate, and we'll continue working on the back-end data analysis. Maybe we'll even find ET!

Thanks to everyone for your support over the years. We encourage you to keep crunching for science.



A Growing Number of Scientists Are Convinced the Future Influences the Past #science #philosophy

“Our instincts of time and causation are our deepest, strongest instincts that physicists and philosophers—and humans—are loath to give up,” said one scientist.



Google finds 18 zero-day vulnerabilities in Samsung Exynos chipsets #hardware #security

Project Zero, Google's zero-day bug-hunting team, discovered and reported 18 zero-day vulnerabilities in Samsung’s Exynos chipsets used in mobile devices, wearables, and cars.

The Exynos modem security flaws were reported between late 2022 and early 2023. Four of the eighteen zero-days were identified as the most serious, enabling remote code execution from the Internet to the baseband.

These Internet-to-baseband remote code execution (RCE) bugs (including CVE-2023-24033 and three others still waiting for a CVE-ID) allow attackers to compromise vulnerable devices remotely and without any user interaction.

"The baseband software does not properly check the format types of accept-type attribute specified by the SDP, which can lead to a denial of service or code execution in Samsung Baseband Modem," Samsung says in a security advisory describing the CVE-2023-24033 vulnerability.


Japanese corner from TokyoWeekender

Is Japan Finally Ready for a Post-Pandemic Reality? | Tokyo Weekender #health #culture

An honest opinion about Japan's ever-complicated relationship with face masks in a post-pandemic world

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FromSoftware Produces the World’s Most Punishing Video Games | Tokyo Weekender #software

The Tokyo-based studio that made its name by pushing gamers to their limits

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Koffee Mameya Kakeru Elevates Coffee to New Heights | Tokyo Weekender #art

Koffee Mameya Kakeru offers an experience unlike anything we’ve ever seen or tasted


Generative AI is overrated, long live old-school AI | Encord #ai #software #datascience

TLDR; Don't be dazzled by generative AI's creative charm! Predictive AI, though less flashy, remains crucial for solving real-world challenges and unleashing AI's true potential. By merging the powers of both AI types and closing the prototype-to-production gap, we'll accelerate the AI revolution and transform our world. Keep an eye on both these AI stars to witness the future unfold.


This is What Happens When Your Phone is Spying on You #privacy #security #software

Spyware apps surreptitiously run on a device, most often without the device owner’s awareness. They collect a range of sensitive information such as location, texts and calls, as well as audio and video. Some apps can even stream live audio and video. All this information is delivered to an abuser via an online spyware portal.

Spyware apps are marketed directly to the general public and are relatively cheap–typically between $30 and $100 per month. They are easy to install on a  smartphone and require no specialized knowledge to deploy or operate. But users need to have temporary physical access to their target’s device and the ability to install apps that are not in the pre-approved app stores.


Russian Assets Reportedly Banned From Export At The Baikonur Cosmodrome By Kazakh Authorities - TLP News #politics

In March 2023, reports emerged that Kazakh authorities introduced a formal ban on the export of TsENKI assets from Baikonur into Russia and issued orders for the local head of the organization not to leave the country. These unofficial reports, if proven true, could potentially bring an end to the Baiterek project and upend the entire Soyuz-5 rocket development programme. The reasons behind the reported ban of export of TsENKI's assets in Baikonur are currently unclear. However, it is possible that they may be linked to tensions between Russia and Kazakhstan over the use of the spaceport. Russia has leased the Baikonur Cosmodrome from Kazakhstan since the collapse of the Soviet Union, but the two countries have been negotiating a new agreement for the use of the site.


Credit Suisse finds 'material weakness' in its financial reporting, scraps exec bonuses | CNN Business #economy

Credit Suisse acknowledged “material weakness” in its financial reporting Tuesday as it scrapped bonuses for top executives in the wake of the bank’s worst annual performance since the global financial crisis.

The embattled Swiss lender also said chairman Axel Lehmann had proposed to “voluntarily waive” a share award worth 1.5 million Swiss francs ($1.6 million) for the 2022-2023 financial year, given the firm’s “poor financial performance.”

Credit Suisse (CSGKF) said in its annual report that it had found “the group’s internal control over financial reporting was not effective” because it failed to adequately identify potential risks to financial statements.


Home · Wiki · Kali Linux / kali-purple / Documentation · GitLab #software #security

Kali Purple started out as a proof of concept, evolved into a framework, then a platform, and now it has become so big that we don't even have a word for it anymore so why don't we just call it a movement.

A movement to make enterprise grade security accessible to everyone.

Remember what we did a decade ago with Kali Linux?

Or with Backtrack before that?

We made offensive security accessible to everyone. No expensive licenses required, no need for commercial grade infrastructure, no writing code or compiling tools to make it all work...

Just download Kali Linux and do your thing.


Did this Lithuanian invent abstraction? M.K. Ciurlionis, at Dulwich Picture Gallery, reviewed | The Spectator #art #history

Mikalojus Konstantinas Ciurlionis is not just Lithuania’s most famous artist; he is also the country’s most famous composer. On his death in 1911 he left more than 400 musical compositions and more than 300 artistic ones, the latter squeezed into six short years before pneumonia carried him off aged 35. The son of a church organist, he was a musical prodigy, mastering the piano aged five and the organ aged six. But in 1902, after completing his musical studies in Warsaw and Leipzig, he decided to become an artist.


Influencer Parents and Their Children Are Rethinking Growing Up On Social Media | Teen Vogue #society #media #psychology

Claire, whose name has been changed to protect her privacy, has never known a life that doesn’t include a camera being pointed in her direction. The first time she went viral, she was a toddler. When the family’s channel started to rake in the views, Claire says both her parents left their jobs because the revenue from the YouTube channel was enough to support the family and to land them a nicer house and new car. “That’s not fair that I have to support everyone,” she said. “I try not to be resentful but I kind of [am].” Once, she told her dad she didn’t want to do YouTube videos anymore and he told her they would have to move out of their house and her parents would have to go back to work, leaving no money for “nice things.”


HSBC swoops in to rescue UK arm of Silicon Valley Bank - BBC News #economy

HSBC has swooped to buy the UK arm of collapsed US Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), bringing relief to UK tech firms who warned they could go bust without help.

Customers and businesses who had been unable to withdraw their money will now be able to access it as normal.

The government and the Bank of England led the talks and worked through the night to scramble together the deal, which involves no taxpayer money.

HSBC said it paid just £1 for the SVB's UK arm.


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Dainius