A new report is showing that internet routers have significant security flaws that could allow a hacker to take control of your computer without ever putting a virus onto the actual computer.
Security officials have found “backdoors” in routers produced by NetGear and Linksys, two of the biggest selling router manufacturers. The security flaws allow a hacker to take control of the router and guide your web browser to fake websites that could look like Google, Facebook or a host of other sites.
The hackers would then steal personal information that you enter into the spoofed websites.
Many internet service providers give a cable or DSL modem with a built-in router that could be compromised by hackers depending on the manufacturer.
Security officials recommend placing a password on your router with an unusually long string of letters and numbers to make it unlikely a causal hacker will take the time to try and crack the long code.
Scientists are working on a technology that would eliminate genetic disease in newborns by combining the DNA of three people instead of two in a single embryo.
However, the announcement of the study raised the alarm that the scientists would open the door for people to create “designer babies” with special features such as eye color, hair color or skin.
Food and Drug Administration officials are meeting over the next two days with the scientists in the project to see if they will allow testing on humans. The process is currently only approved to be used on monkeys.
“Once you make this change, if a female arises from the process and goes on to have children, that change is passed on, so it’s forever,” Phil Yeske, chief science officer of the United Mitochondrial Disease Foundation, told Bloomberg. “That’s uncharted territory; we just don’t know what it means. Permanent change of the human germline has never been done before, and we don’t know what will happen in future generations.”
Four monkeys have been created using the process and have been healthy through their first three years.
They make blockbuster movies about asteroids this size.
An asteroid the size of three football fields is set to make a close brush with Earth Monday night. The near-Earth asteroid, known as 2000 EM26, will not hit the planet but will pass close enough to be seen clearly by orbiting cameras.
Scientists say the asteroid is flying at 27,000 miles per hour and will pass about 8.8 lunar distances from Earth. (A lunar distance is the space between the Earth and the moon or approximately 238,900 miles.)
Operators of the Slooh Space Camera are using the arrival of the asteroid to raise awareness of the fact many asteroids are not found until they are days away from the planet.
“We continue to discover these potentially hazardous asteroids — sometimes only days before they make their close approaches to Earth,” said Paul Cox, Slooh’s technical and research director. “Slooh’s asteroid research campaign is gathering momentum with Slooh members using the Slooh robotic telescopes to monitor this huge population of potentially hazardous space rocks. We need to find them before they find us!”
The fly by comes almost exactly a year after an asteroid exploded over Chelyabinsk, Russia, with the energy equivalent of 20 atomic bombs. On that day, scientists were focused on another near-Earth object’s passing, 2012 DA14, and did not notice the space rock that exploded over Russia.
NASA will be streaming video of the asteroid’s passing starting around 9 p.m. Eastern time on their website space.com.
A new technology claims to allow customers to pay for purchases by using a scan of their veins.
The program is called Pulse Wallet and the device is scanner similar to the point of sale devices where you slide your credit or debit card. Pulse Wallet links to a credit card or other payment methods so that a customer can leave all identifying information at home.
The founders say the technology has many benefits.
In addition to being used in retail locations, the device can be used by airlines as a new form of boarding pass. They say because the form and scan of veins is unique to each person…and people don’t really know what the pattern of their veins looks like…it gives them a password that no thief can steal.
The company says that there are no traces for someone to find like fingerprints and the person would have to be alive with the limb attached because blood flow is needed to perform the scan.
If you thought your cell phone, laptop or other electronics were draining faster than usual during the unusual bitter cold, you’re not wrong.
Electronic experts say the bitter cold drains batteries faster so people who depend on their cell phones in remote locations need to make sure they recharge often and have chargers in their car in the event of an emergency.
One computer expert said that Apple computers are especially vulnerable to the cold.
“Apple is rated from I believe 32 degrees to roughly 95 degrees,” David Greer of Digital Doc told CBS. “Samsung is rated from minus, negative 4 to up to 128.”
Greer also warned of the importance of not trying to rapidly heat your phone or computer if it’s cold. Greer said you risk major damage to the devices if you do not allow them to slowly reach room temperature.
He suggests making sure you keep your phone in a jacket or close to your body to keep it warm.
The Obama administration said Tuesday they plan to review the privacy implications of facial recognition technology ahead of reported plans to implement the system nationwide in the next two years.
A Commerce Department spokesman said they recognize the concerns of privacy advocates and tech groups and will be working with them to specifically identify the problems with the technology.
“Facial recognition technology has the potential to improve services for consumers, support innovation by businesses, and affect identification and authentication online and offline,” Larry Strickling, the administrator of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration told The Hill. “However, the technology poses distinct consumer privacy challenges … and the importance of securing faceprints and ensuring consumers’ appropriate control over their data is clear.”
Concerns about the technology first arose when Facebook began cataloging user profile pictures into a system that allowed them to auto-tag photos of people. Several Democratic senators applauded the Commerce Department decision to further investigate the situation.
“Clear policies that support consumer privacy are crucial as facial recognition technology is developed and deployed,” Democratic Senator Ed Markey of Massachusetts said.
A groundbreaking study has shown that the brains of men and women actually do operate differently.
The study from the University of Pennsylvania shows that men’s brains typically have connections that run from the front of the brain to the back on the same sides of the brain, where women’s brains have connections that run from side to side. The difference in the way the brain is “hardwired” occurs during adolescence.
The researchers say the physical differences in the brain could explain why men are generally better at tasks involving muscle control while women are better at verbal tasks such as remembering conversations.
“These maps show us a stark difference – and complementarity – in the architecture of the human brain that helps to provide a potential neural basis as to why men excel at certain tasks, and women at others,” Radiology professor Ragini Verma said in a statement. “What we’ve identified is that, when looked at in groups, there are connections in the brain that are hardwired differently in men and women. Functional tests have already shown that when they carry out certain tasks, men and women engage different parts of the brain.”
A separate study last month found that genes in the brain also showed significant genetic differences between the sexes.
Scientists are concerned that something is very wrong with the sun.
The sun is supposed to be at the peak of an 11-year solar cycle, or what is called the “solar maximum.” This is when the sun’s magnetic poles usually reverse and cause such intense waves of magnetic force that it disrupts satellite communications and could even damage Earth’s electrical systems.
However, one NASA scientist said the current peak is “a total punk.”
A second NASA physicist called it “the weakest in 200 years.”
Andres Munzo-Jaramillo of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics told the Wall Street Journal there is no scientist alive who has been a solar cycle as weak as the current one.
Another puzzling factor for scientists is the lack of a flip in the sun’s two magnetic poles. The sun’s north pole reversed its polarity a year ago but the south pole has stayed the same resulting in the sun being out of sync. They expect the south pole to correct itself within the next month.
Some scientists say this weakened maximum could lead to a longer state of depressed solar activity or even a decrease in the sun’s luminosity.
A report in the journal Nature shows that monkeys can be cleared of Simian Immunodeficiency Virus (SIV) through the use of a new vaccine.
The vaccine cleared the virus from 9 of 16 inoculated monkeys. The scientists say the process now provides a blueprint for testing a vaccine for HIV in humans. Continue reading →
In a surprising rebuke to those predicting an “ice-free Arctic in 2013” the level of Arctic sea ice has increased 60% from 2012 levels.
The Arctic sea ice averaged 2.35 million miles in August 2013 compared to a low point of 1.32 million in September 2012. The total ice cover within standard deviation of the 30-year average. Continue reading →
