Tag: technology

Hopes Dashed: LK-99 Falls Short Of Room-Temperature Superconductor Glory

Less than a week after South Korean researchers claimed in two new papers that they had developed a superconductor that operates at room temperature under standard atmospheric pressure,which would have mind-blowing implications for transmitting electricity with zero resistance at normal temperatures, all hopes have been dashed by an already-skeptical scientific community.

In response to the alleged discovery, several labs got to work recreating the superconductor, known as LK-99. Alas, none of them were a success, IFLScience reports.

“When we are measuring superconductors, the most obvious property of a superconductor is zero resistance,” said Professor Susie Speller of the Oxford Centre for Applied Superconductivity, in comments to IFLScience in a previous deep-dive on LK-99. “What you look for is for the material to have some resistance. You cool it down, and suddenly it should lose that resistance, and it should be absolutely zero when it’s in the superconducting state. You should see a very clear change in resistance at the temperature where it starts to superconduct.”

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Scientist Suggests Feasibility of Faster-Than-Light Travel within the Boundaries of Einstein’s Physics

The idea of faster-than-light (FTL) travel has captivated human imagination for decades, fueled by science fiction’s portrayal of interstellar journeys that traverse the vast cosmos in the blink of an eye. While the concept has long been considered implausible due to Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity, recent claims by a daring scientist suggest that FTL travel might not be as far-fetched as previously thought. This potential breakthrough could revolutionize our understanding of the universe and reshape the boundaries of human exploration.

Einstein’s Relativity and the Cosmic Speed Limit

Albert Einstein’s theories of special and general relativity are pillars of modern physics, setting forth the framework for understanding the fundamental behavior of space, time, and gravity. One of the most renowned consequences of these theories is the assertion that the speed of light is the ultimate cosmic speed limit – nothing can travel faster than light in a vacuum. This assertion has not only been supported by countless experiments but has also been instrumental in shaping our understanding of the universe.

The Challenge of Faster-Than-Light Travel

The idea of FTL travel, while popular in science fiction, has been met with skepticism by the scientific community. The energy required to propel an object to or beyond the speed of light using conventional methods seems insurmountable, and the associated implications, including time dilation and causality violations, challenge the very fabric of reality as we know it.

However, recent developments in theoretical physics have sparked new discussions about the feasibility of FTL travel within the framework of Einstein’s theories. Dr. Amelia Rodriguez, a theoretical physicist at the forefront of this debate, claims that there might be loopholes in Einstein’s equations that could potentially allow for FTL travel without violating the laws of physics.

Warp Drives and Alcubierre’s Theory

Dr. Rodriguez’s work draws inspiration from Miguel Alcubierre’s “warp drive” concept proposed in the 1990s. Alcubierre’s theory involves the creation of a “warp bubble” around a spacecraft, effectively contracting space in front of it and expanding space behind it. This manipulation of spacetime would allow the spacecraft to “ride” on the wave created by the bubble, potentially enabling speeds faster than light without the spacecraft itself exceeding the speed of light within its local frame of reference.

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Controversial Eyeball-Scanning Worldcoin To Allow Governments To Use Its Digital ID System

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s Worldcoin is a good example of private companies doing their bit to push and introduce digital ID schemes to as many people as possible – although this effort is usually done by governments, and supported by various lobbies.

And now, Worldcoin has announced that it will be even more helpful to governments, by allowing them to use the system of biometric scanning it employs to sign users up. Other companies will be given the same privilege.

The intention is clearly to get as many people as possible on board, hence the “generosity” with sharing the iris scanning tech, as well as that designed to verify people’s identity.

And it’s no secret: “We are on this mission of building the biggest financial and identity community that we can,” is how Tools for Humanity (a company behind Worldcoin) executive Ricardo Macieira put it.

The mission marches on despite concerns not only from privacy focused non-profits and advocates, but also institutions in various countries that are tasked with protecting data privacy.

People – and the number mentioned in reports these days is 2.2 million so far – sign up to Worldcoin by giving up biometric data contained in their eyes, i.e., irises.

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From Covert To Overt: UK Govt & Businesses Unleash Facial Recognition Technologies Across Urban Landscape

The Home Office is encouraging police forces across the country to make use of live facial recognition technologies for routine law enforcement. Retailers are also embracing the technology to monitor their customers. 

It increasingly seems that the UK decoupled from the European Union, its rules and regulations, only for its government to take the country in a progressively more authoritarian direction. This is, of course, a generalised trend among ostensibly “liberal democracies” just about everywhere, including EU Member States, as they increasingly adopt the trappings and tactics of more authoritarian regimes, such as restricting free speech, cancelling people and weakening the rule of law. But the UK is most definitely at the leading edge of this trend. A case in point is the Home Office’s naked enthusiasm for biometric surveillance and control technologies.

This week, for example, The Guardian revealed that the Minister for Policing Chris Philip and other senior figures of the Home Office had held a closed-door meeting with Simon Gordon, the founder of Facewatch, a leading facial recognition retail security company, in March. The main outcome of the meeting was that the government would lobby the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) on the benefits of using live facial recognition (LFR) technologies in retail settings. LFR involves hooking up facial recognition cameras to databases containing photos of people. Images from the cameras can then be screened against those photos to see if they match.

The lobbying effort was apparently successful. Just weeks after reaching out to the ICO, the ICO sent a letter to Facewatch affirming that the company “has a legitimate purpose for using people’s information for the detection and prevention of crime” and that its services broadly comply with UK Data Protection laws, which the Sunak government and UK intelligence agencies are trying to gut. As the Guardian report notes, “the UK’s data protection and information bill proposes to abolish the role of the government-appointed surveillance camera commissioner along with the requirement for a surveillance camera code of practice.”

The ICO’s approval gives legal cover to a practice that is already well established. Facewatch has been scanning the faces of British shoppers in thousands of retail stores across the UK for years. The cameras scan faces as people enter a store and screens them against a database of known offenders, alerting shop assistants if a “subject of interest” has entered. Shops using the technologies have placed notices in their windows (such as the one below) informing customers that facial recognition technologies are in operation, “to protect” the shop’s “employees, customers and stock.” But it is far from clear how many shoppers actually take notice of the notices.

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USAF Conducts First-AI Flight With Stealth Drone

The Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) completed the first-ever flight of an AFRL-developed stealth drone powered by artificial intelligence software.

On July 25, the machine-learning-trained, artificial intelligence-powered XQ-58A Valkyrie flew a three-hour sortie at Florida’s Eglin Air Force Base.

“The mission proved out a multi-layer safety framework on an AI/ML-flown uncrewed aircraft and demonstrated an AI/ML agent solving a tactically relevant “challenge problem” during airborne operations,” said Col. Tucker Hamilton, chief, of AI Test and Operations, for the Department of the USAF.

Hamilton continued, “This sortie officially enables the ability to develop AI/ML agents that will execute modern air-to-air and air-to-surface skills that are immediately transferrable to other autonomy programs.”

Eglin has become the testing ground for advanced autonomous systems within the USAF. Last November, the service received two Valkyrie stealth drones assigned to the 40th Flight Test Squadron.

In past press releases, AFRL describes the Valkyrie as a “high-speed, long-range, low-cost unmanned platform designed to offer maximum utility at minimum cost.”

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Deepfake Fraud Surges More Than 1000%, Insiders Say It’s Just The Beginning

As the line between fact and fiction gets harder to distinguish, online criminals need just two hours to create a realistic, computer-generated “deepfake” product that can ruin someone’s life.

The surge in popularity of hyper-realistic photos, audio, and videos developed with artificial intelligence (AI)—commonly known as deepfakes—has become an internet sensation.

It’s also giving cyber villains an edge in the crime world.

Between 2022 and the first quarter of this year, deepfake use in fraud catapulted 1,200 percent in the United States alone.

Though it’s not just an American problem.

In the same analysis, deepfakes used for scam purposes exploded in Canada, Germany, and the United Kingdom. In the study, the United States accounted for 4.3 percent of global deepfake fraud cases.

Meanwhile, AI experts and cybercrime investigators say we’re just at the tip of the iceberg. The rabbit hole of deepfake fraud potential just keeps going.

“I believe the No. 1 incentive for cyber criminals to commit cybercrime is law enforcement and their inability to keep up,” Michael Roberts told The Epoch Times.

Mr. Roberts is a professional investigator and the founder of the pioneer company Rexxfield, which helps victims of web-based attacks.

He also started PICDO, a cyber crime disruption organization, and has run counter-hacking education for branches of the U.S. and Australian militaries as well as NATO.

Mr. Roberts said legal systems in the Western world are “hopelessly overwhelmed” by online fraud cases, many of which include deepfake attacks. Moreover, the cases that get investigated without hiring a private firm are cherry-picked.

“And even then, it [the case] doesn’t get resolved,” he said.

The market for deepfake detection was valued at $3.86 billion dollars in 2020 and is expected to grow 42 percent annually through 2026, according to an HSRC report.

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Researchers claim US-registered cloud host facilitated state-backed cyberattacks

A little-known cloud company provided web hosting and internet services to more than two dozen different state-sponsored hacking groups and commercial spyware operators, according to researchers at cybersecurity company Halcyon.

In a report released on Tuesday, Halcyon said it had identified that the U.S.-registered company Cloudzy was “knowingly or unwittingly” acting as a command-and-control provider (C2P) to well-known state-sponsored hacking groups. C2Ps are internet providers that allow hackers to host virtual private servers and other anonymized services used by ransomware affiliates to carry out cyberattacks and extortion.

Halcyon said that the two-dozen groups that rely on Cloudzy include the China-backed espionage group APT10; North Korea-backed hackers Kimsuky; and Kremlin-backed groups Turla, Nobelium and FIN12.

FIN12 was the subject of a joint FBI-CISA advisory in October 2020 after carrying out a spate of ransomware attacks targeting the U.S. healthcare industry. In its report, Halcyon said that Cloudzy — then doing business as Router Hosting — hosted at least 40 command and control servers used by FIN12 during its cyberattacks.

The list of groups facilitated by Cloudzy also includes hacking groups from Iran, Pakistan and Vietnam, along with Tel Aviv-based malware maker Candiru, which sells its phone-snooping spyware to government customers. Candiru was sanctioned by the U.S. government in 2021 for engaging in activities contrary to U.S. national security.

Halcyon says that about half of the total servers hosted by Cloudzy appear to be directly supporting malicious activity.

The cybersecurity firm concluded that although the cloud host is registered in the U.S., Halcyon says it has “high confidence” that the cloud host is a cutout for AbrNOC, a cloud host that operates out of the Iranian capital of Tehran, which could put American customers in conflict with U.S. government sanctions.

Cloudzy, which claims to operate out of New York City, is registered in Wyoming, while a support phone number listed by the company is linked to a different address in Las Vegas. AbrNOC shares the same logo as Cloudzy, albeit in a different color, and also shares the same fictitiously named employees, according to Halcyon researchers. A man named Hannan Nozari is listed as abrNOC’s CEO and identifies himself as the founder of both web hosts companies in his Twitter bio, as well as a “Noob on the Internet.”

Nozari did not respond to messages sent by TechCrunch via LinkedIn and email, and TechCrunch was unable to reach anyone at Cloudzy via the number listed on the company’s website.

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The LK-99 superconductor could be world changing or a total hoax. Here’s why you should care either way

Outside of Sheldon Cooper and The Big Bang Theory, physics generally isn’t part of the day-to-day conversation for most people. But a recent claim from scientists has everyone paying attention. A trio of physicists claims to have created a superconductor, dubbed LK-99, that works at room temperature and ambient pressure. 

In basic terms, that means they might have discovered a material that can conduct electricity with no notable resistance, meaning it loses zero energy. And, if that’s true, it could be world altering.

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AI search of Neanderthal proteins resurrects ‘extinct’ antibiotics

Bioengineers have used artificial intelligence (AI) to bring molecules back from the dead1.

To perform this molecular ‘de-extinction’, the researchers applied computational methods to data about proteins from both modern humans (Homo sapiens) and our long-extinct relatives, Neanderthals (Homo neanderthalensis) and Denisovans. This allowed the authors to identify molecules that can kill disease-causing bacteria — and that could inspire new drugs to treat human infections.

“We’re motivated by the notion of bringing back molecules from the past to address problems that we have today,” says Cesar de la Fuente, a co-author of the study and a bioengineer at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. The study was published on 28 July in Cell Host & Microbe1.

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This Disinformation Is Just for You

IT’S NOW WELL understood that generative AI will increase the spread of disinformation on the internet. From deepfakes to fake news articles to bots, AI will generate not only more disinformation, but more convincing disinformation. But what people are only starting to understand is how disinformation will become more targeted and better able to engage with people and sway their opinions.

When Russia tried to influence the 2016 US presidential election via the now disbanded Internet Research Agency, the operation was run by humans who often had little cultural fluency or even fluency in the English language and so were not always able to relate to the groups they were targeting. With generative AI tools, those waging disinformation campaigns will be able to finely tune their approach by profiling individuals and groups. These operatives can produce content that seems legitimate and relatable to the people on the other end and even target individuals with personalized disinformation based on data they’ve collected. Generative AI will also make it much easier to produce disinformation and will thus increase the amount of disinformation that’s freely flowing on the internet, experts say.

“Generative AI lowers the financial barrier for creating content that’s tailored to certain audiences,” says Kate Starbird, an associate professor in the Department of Human Centered Design & Engineering at the University of Washington. “You can tailor it to audiences and make sure the narrative hits on the values and beliefs of those audiences, as well as the strategic part of the narrative.”

Rather than producing just a handful of articles a day,  Starbird adds, “You can actually write one article and tailor it to 12 different audiences. It takes five minutes for each one of them.”

Considering how much content people post to social media and other platforms, it’s very easy to collect data to build a disinformation campaign. Once operatives are able to profile different groups of people throughout a country, they can teach the generative AI system they’re using to create content that manipulates those targets in highly sophisticated ways.

“You’re going to see that capacity to fine-tune. You’re going to see that precision increase. You’re going to see the relevancy increase,” says Renee Diresta, the technical research manager at Stanford Internet Observatory.

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