Archive
The sound made by your computer could give away your encryption keys…
One of the first computers I was ever allowed to use all on my own was a superannuated ICL-1901A, controlled from a Teletype Model 33.
One of the processor’s address lines was wired up to a speaker inside the teletype, producing an audible click every time that address bit changed.
The idea was that you could, quite literally, listen to your code running.
Loops, in particular, tended to produce recognisable patterns of sound, as the program counter iterated over the same set of memory adresses repeatedly.
This was a great help in debugging – you could count your way through a matrix multiplication, for instance, and keep track of how far your code ran before it crashed.
You could even craft your loops (or the data you fed into them) to produce predictable frequencies for predictable lengths of time, thus producing vaguely tuneful – and sometimes even recognisable – musical output.
Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose
So it was with considerable amusement that I read a Full Article Here
‘Internet Doomsday’: FBI Gives New Deadline to Disinfect Computer of Malicious Malware by July 9 or Else
Earlier this year, we reported that any computer infected with a nasty piece of malware could be shunned from using the Internet by the feds. The deadline for that was March 8 but an extension was ordered to provide users with more time to clean up computers. Now, Federal Bureau of Investigation has said all must be virus free by July 9 or be subject to was PC World calls “Internet doomsday.”
The malware is a piece called DNS Changer Trojan that was the work of six men from Estonia who were arrested and charged in 2011. The malware infected more than 4 million computers in 100 countries and is relatively easy to spread, hence why the government is ready to stop those with the virus from accessing the Internet.
(Related: Seven charged for infecting 4 million computers with ‘false advertising’ malware)
Individuals and companies have been working to scrub the malware from their systems but as of March at least one computer in half of all Fortune 500 companies was infected and more than two dozen government agencies had a carrier as well. PC world reports that estimates are more than 350,000 computers are still infected. Read more…
Computer Can Pick You Out From Your Eyes In A Crowd: ‘Needle in Haystack’ Search Capability
nanopatentsandinnovations.blogspot
Identifying people by acquiring pictures of their eyes is becoming easier, according to a new report* from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). NIST researchers evaluated the performance of iris recognition software from 11 different organizations and found that some techniques produced very rapid results—though this speed was often at the cost of accuracy.

Credit: Talbott/NIST
Computer Program to Read Human Thoughts!

An X-ray shows one of the patients in the study with electrodes all over their brain (Pic: Adeen Flinker/UC Berkeley)
Computer Program to Read Human Thoughts! A research that appeared recently in the journal PLoS Biology has revealed about a way of using a computer program to help read a person’s brain and then put the findings into words.
A group of neuroscientists at the University of California Berkeley said that the technique could be beneficial for patients who have speech impairment or are affected by stroke and degenerative disease. The research is said to be capable of taking mind reading to a new level.
In order to reach at the conclusion, the study researchers conducted an experiment in which they enrolled brain surgery patients. They inserted electrodes in the skulls of the patients and connected them with a computer program. They did it so they could know the working of temporal lobe which is associated with the processing of speech and images.
It was revealed that the computer program was successful in analyzing the brain and could also reproduce the Read more…
Study says humans now use the internet as our main ‘memory’ – instead of our heads

Helping hand? Harvard researchers found that we now use the internet to remember 'for us' - and decide not to store facts if we think we can Google them later
The Internet is becoming our main source of memory instead of our own brains, a study has concluded.
In the age of Google, our minds are adapting so that we are experts at knowing where to find information even though we don’t recall what it is.
The researchers found that when we want to know something we use the Internet as an ‘external memory’ just as computers use an external hard drive.
Nowadays we are so reliant on our smart phones and laptops that we go into ‘withdrawal when we can’t find out something immediately’.
And such is our dependence that having our Internet connection severed is growing ‘more and more like losing a friend’.
Researchers from Harvard University, the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Columbia University in the U.S. carried out four tests to check their theory.
They involved giving test participants a trivia quiz and then seeing whether they recognised Read more…
Cybercrime Fight Costing Companies More This Year
Cybercrime cost corporations 56 percent more this year than last, according to an annual study from the Ponemon Institute and sponsored by ArcSight, an HP company.
“Cybercrimes can do serious harm to an organization’s bottom line,” said the study, which found that the median cost related to cybercrime to the 50 companies in the survey was $5.9 million.
Larry Ponemon, founder and chairman of the Traverse, Mich., company that bears his name, told PCWorld there have been several root causes for the bump up in the cost of cyber crime. “Sophisticated stealthy types of cyber crime are happening more frequently,” he said.
When the study was done last year, he explained, more visible forms of cybercrime dominated the Read more…
CIA Director Leon Panetta Warns of Possible Cyber-Pearl Harbor
Top Intelligence-Security Officials Say Computer Attacks Increasing
By JASON RYAN
Top U.S. intelligence officials have raised concerns about the growing vulnerability the United States faces from cyberwarfare threats and malicious computer activity that CIA Director Leon Panetta said “represents the battleground for the future.”
“The potential for the next Pearl Harbor could very well be a cyber-attack,” he testified on Capitol Hill Thursday before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.
Director of National Intelligence James Clapper also appeared, telling the committee, “This threat is increasing in scope and scale, and its impact is difficult to overstate.”
There are roughly 60,000 new malicious computer programs identified each day, Clapper said, citing industry estimates.
“Some of these are what we define as advanced, persistent threats, which are Read more…
You must be logged in to post a comment.