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dr tech

Why Computers Can Never Generate Truly Random Numbers - 0 views

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    "There are still algorithms involved in true random number generators, and algorithms are never truly random."
dr tech

Encryption Lava Lamps - San Francisco, California - Atlas Obscura - 1 views

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    "As the lava lamps bubble and swirl, a video camera on the ceiling monitors their unpredictable changes and connects the footage to a computer, which converts the randomness into a virtually unhackable code.  Why use lava lamps for encryption instead of computer-generated code? Since computer codes are created by machines with relatively predictable patterns, it is entirely possible for hackers to guess their algorithms, posing a security risk. Lava lamps, on the other hand, add to the equation the sheer randomness of the physical world, making it nearly impossible for hackers to break through."
dr tech

Paralyzed Patients Can Now Control Android Tablets With Their Minds - 0 views

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    "This month, in an open-access study published in PLOS One, a team reported the first brain implant system that lets patients use their thoughts to navigate an off-the-shelf Android tablet. Compared to previous generations, this system doesn't require training-for example, learning to type on a different, non-QWERTY keyboard-or specialized interface equipment. With just her thoughts, T6 was able to send emails, chat with other paralyzed patients in the trial, Google random questions, and even shop on Amazon. For the first time since she became paralyzed, T6 regained access to the entire commercially-available Google Play ecosystem and the digital world."
dr tech

'Remember the Internet': An Encyclopedia of Online Life - The Atlantic - 0 views

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    "At the same time, the internet is constantly disappearing. It's a world of broken links and missing files-often because the people in charge cast things off on a whim. In 2019, MySpace lost 50 million music files and apologized for "the inconvenience." Around the same time, Flickr started deleting photos at random. Even though many of Vine's most unnerving or charming or "iconic" six-second videos have been preserved, its community was shattered when the platform was shut down. It doesn't help that the internet has no attention span and no loyalty: What isn't erased or deleted can still be quickly forgotten, buried under a pile of new platforms, new subcultures, and new joke formats. The feed refreshes, and so does the entire topography of the web."
dr tech

'Missing from desk': AI webcam raises remote surveillance concerns | Working from home | The Guardian - 0 views

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    "Explained by "Anna", a desk-sitting avatar complete with an artificial voice, the video introduces TP Observer as "a risk-mitigation tool that monitors and tracks real time employee behaviour, and detects any violations to pre-set business rules". Anna explains that this means home workers will have an AI-enabled webcam added to their computers that recognises their face, tags their location and scans for "breaches" of rules at random points during a shift."
dr tech

New cryptocurrency Chia blamed for hard drive shortages | Cryptocurrencies | The Guardian - 0 views

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    "But Chia's replacement for bitcoin's energy-intensive "proof of work" system, called "proof of space and time", instead requires users to devote massive amounts of hard drive space to generating and storing random numbers, with rewards doled out to those with the most space used up"
dr tech

Alexa and Google Home abused to eavesdrop and phish passwords | Ars Technica - 0 views

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    "Now, there's a new concern: malicious apps developed by third parties and hosted by Amazon or Google. The threat isn't just theoretical. Whitehat hackers at Germany's Security Research Labs developed eight apps-four Alexa "skills" and four Google Home "actions"-that all passed Amazon or Google security-vetting processes. The skills or actions posed as simple apps for checking horoscopes, with the exception of one, which masqueraded as a random-number generator. Behind the scenes, these "smart spies," as the researchers call them, surreptitiously eavesdropped on users and phished for their passwords."
dr tech

North Dakota's COVID-19 contact tracing app leaks location data to Foursquare and a Google Ads ID: Report / Boing Boing - 0 views

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    "The app, called Care19, and produced by a company called ProudCrowd that also makes a location-based social networking app for North Dakota State sports fans, generates a random ID number for each person who uses it. Then, it can "anonymously cache the individual's locations throughout the day," storing information about where people spent at least 10 minutes at a time, according to the state website. If users test positive for the coronavirus, they can provide that information to the North Dakota Department of Health for contact-tracing purposes so that other people who spent time near virus patients can potentially be notified."
dr tech

Facebook asked for nudes to help stop revenge porn and it worked. Can our culture change next? | Arwa Mahdawi | The Guardian - 0 views

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    "Here's how the program, which has been developed in partnership with SWGfL, a UK-based non-profit behind the Revenge Porn Helpline, works. If you've shared an intimate image with someone and are worried that that person might do something nefarious with it, you can send the images to content moderators at Facebook to be "hashed"- essentially the image is assigned a digital fingerprint. If someone then tries to upload that image to Facebook it can be quickly identified and blocked. It's obviously not a silver bullet for stopping revenge porn, and it requires putting a lot of trust in Facebook and accepting that a random content moderator is going to be looking at your naked photos, but it gives people a little bit of control over their images."
dr tech

Why is everyone saying Instagram is rubbish now - and what's TikTok got to do with it? | Australia news | The Guardian - 0 views

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    "The upshot is that people are getting way more videos in their Instagram feeds, and it's going full screen for those videos, so it scrolls like TikTok. But that's not all: people are now also seeing "suggested posts", which works in a TikTok-style algorithm that brings in random posts from people you don't follow into your feed."
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