Lifeboat Foundation

April 2020

Field programmable gate arrays, FPGAs for short, are flexibly programmable computer chips that are considered very secure components in many applications. In a joint research project, scientists from the Horst Görtz Institute for IT Security at Ruhr-Universität Bochum and from Max Planck Institute for Security and Privacy have now discovered that a critical vulnerability is hidden in these chips. They called the security bug “Starbleed.” Attackers can gain complete control over the chips and their functionalities via the vulnerability. Since the bug is integrated into the hardware, the security risk can only be removed by replacing the chips. The manufacturer of the FPGAs has been informed by the researchers and has already reacted.

The security researchers will present the results of their work at the 29th Usenix Security Symposium to be held in August 2020 in Boston, Massachusetts, U.S… The scientific paper has been available for download on the Usenix website since April 15, 2020.

Continue reading “Critical ‘Starbleed’ vulnerability in FPGA chips identified” »

Data from millions of smartphones tells us which parts of the country have reopened.

Artificial intelligence is everywhere, from the robots manufacturing cars in factories to the smartphone in your pocket, and understanding what AI actually is will give you a better understanding of the technology that surrounds us.

Professor Mark Lee is a computer scientist at Aberystwyth University. His new book, How to Grow a Robot, is all about how to design robots and artificial intelligence so that they are more social, more friendly, more playful – more human.

Whether you’re a beginner or deep into all things AI, as an expert in artificial intelligence, Mark’s pick of science books about machine learning and intelligent algorithms will have you thinking in ones and zeros in no time.

Samsung has a hardened version of the Galaxy S20, but don’t reach for your credit card — it’s not what you were expecting, and you probably can’t get one. The company has introduced a Galaxy S20 Tactical Edition that, as the name suggests, is designed to meet the needs of the US military and federal government. It touts two layers of encryption strong enough to handle top secret data and connects to tactical radios and mission systems out of the box.

There are combat-related conveniences, too. One mode can turn the display on and off while you’re wearing night vision goggles, while a stealth mode turns off LTE and and mutes all RF broadcasts to eliminate even the slightest chance of eavesdropping. It’s also easy to unlock the phone in landscape mode so that you can quickly launch an app while the device is mounted to your chest.

This is otherwise a run-of-the-mill Galaxy S20 with a 6.2-inch, 1440p display, a Snapdragon 865 processor, 12GB of RAM, 128GB of expandable storage, a 4,000mAh battery and the usual arrays of front and rear cameras. Although Samsung shows the Tactical Edition in a rugged casing, there’s no mention of the phone itself being rugged.

How will we interact with our electronic #devices in the #future? https://bit.ly/2Tm59F6

Touchscreens, keyboards and mice are the three dominant ways for us to interact with our devices in modern times. However, with the development of some new technologies (including #VoiceControl, #BrainComputerInterface, #brainwaves control, #gesture control, muscular signals interpretation and so forth), many start to ask: What will be the next way for us to talk to our machines?

Continue reading “How will we interact with our electronic devices in the future?” »

Apple’s AR glasses are supposedly called Apple Glass, a leaker revealed, and the product is set to be unveiled during the iPhone 12 launch event. The coronavirus health crisis might force Apple to postpone the reveal to the first quarter of next year.

Fingerprints and DNA are widely known forms of biometrics, thanks to crime dramas on television. But as technology advances the Internet of Things, the interconnection of computer devices in common objects, other forms of biometrics are sought for security. For example, distinctive physical characteristics of users are increasingly used in computer science as forms of identification and access restriction. Smartphones use fingerprints, iris scans and face recognition in this way. Other biometrics that are likely to come into use include retinas, veins and palm prints.

The ear is another potential biometric. According to research published recently in the Journal of Electronic Imaging, ear recognition technology, or “earprints,” could one day be used as personal identification to secure smart homes via smartphones.

From navigation to remote banking, mobile device users rely on a variety of applications to streamline daily tasks, communicate, and dramatically increase productivity. While exceedingly useful, the ecosystem of third-party applications utilizes a number of sensors – microphones, GPS, pedometers, cameras – and user interactions to collect data used to enable functionality. Troves of sensitive personal data about users are accessible to these applications and as defense and commercial mobile device users become increasingly reliant on the technology, there are growing concerns around the challenge this creates for preserving user privacy.

Under DARPA’s Brandeis program, a team of researchers led by Two Six Labs and Raytheon BBN Technologies have developed a platform called Privacy Enhancements for Android (PE for Android) to explore more expressive concepts in regulating access to private information on mobile devices. PE for Android seeks to create an extensible privacy system that abstracts away the details of various privacy-preserving technologies, allowing application developers to utilize state-of-the-art privacy techniques, such as secure multi-party computation and differential privacy, without knowledge of their underlying esoteric technologies. Importantly, PE for Android allows mobile device users to take ownership of their private information by presenting them with more intuitive controls and permission enforcement options.

The researchers behind PE for Android today released a white paper detailing the platform’s capabilities and functionality, and published an open source release of its code to GitHub. In open sourcing PE for Android, the researchers aim to make it easier for the open-source Android community and researchers to employ enhanced privacy-preserving technologies within Android apps while also encouraging them to help address the platform’s current limitations and build upon its initial efforts.

may 2020

Thousands of Swedes have been pioneering the use of futuristic microchips that are implanted under the skin of the hand.

The technology is used for everyday tasks like accessing your smartphone, opening the front door or setting an alarm.

Continue reading “Will microchip implants be the next big thing in Europe?” »