Ars Technica – Meat allergy from tick bites is on the rise—and US doctors are in the dark

Jul 282023
 

Enlarge / A vector ecologist displays a vial of live lone star ticks. (credit: Getty | Ben McCanna)
A little over a decade ago, researchers discovered that bites from lone star ticks could cause some people to develop a food allergy to meat and meat products—an allergic condition called alpha-gal syndrome (AGS), which can vary from mild to life-threatening.
The condition is named after a carbohydrate called galactose-α-1,3-galactose (aka alpha-gal), which is commonly found on proteins in most mammals—with the important exception of primates, like humans. Alpha-gal shows up on all sorts of non-primate mammalian tissue, which means it’s also in meat—such as pork, beef, rabbit, and lamb—and animal products, like milk and gelatin….

External feed Read More at the Source: https://arstechnica.com/?p=1957268

 2023-07-28  Comments Off on Ars Technica – Meat allergy from tick bites is on the rise—and US doctors are in the dark

Hackaday – A Simple One-Handed Solder Feeder

Jul 282023
 

Soldering can get frustrating when you’re working fast. It often feels like you don’t have enough hands, particularly on jobs where you need to keep feeding solder in a hurry. To solve that issue, [mulcmu] developed a simple one-handed solder feeder.
The solder is fed out of the tip by simply dragging it with the thumb.
The intended use-case is for busy work like soldering long pin headers. The one-handed device allows solder to be continually fed while the other hand uses the soldering iron. It solves a long-running problem for [mulcmu], after their experiments with techniques inspired by TIG welding came to nought.
The design uses a pen-like form factor. A 3D-printed hollow tube has a wire ferrule…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://hackaday.com/2023/07/27/a-simple-one-handed-solder-feeder/

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The Onion – Elderly Senators Amused To Discover Their Strokes Syncing Up

Jul 282023
 

WASHINGTON—Discovering the phenomenon as they all received emergency medical attention at the same time, several elderly senators reportedly found it amusing Thursday that their strokes seemed to be syncing up. “I’ve heard of this happening, but I honestly thought it was a myth,” a distant, glassy-eyed Mitch McConnell…

Read more…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://www.theonion.com/elderly-senators-amused-to-discover-their-strokes-synci-1850683176

 2023-07-28  Comments Off on The Onion – Elderly Senators Amused To Discover Their Strokes Syncing Up

The Intercept – Texas State Police Purchased Israeli Phone-Tracking Software for “Border Emergency”

Jul 272023
 

The Texas Department of Public Safety purchased access to powerful software capable of locating and following people through their phones as part of Republican Gov. Greg Abbott’s “border security disaster” efforts, according to documents reviewed by The Intercept. In 2021, Abbott proclaimed that the “surge of individuals unlawfully crossing the Texas-Mexico border posed an ongoing and imminent threat of disaster” to the state and its residents. Among other effects, the disaster declaration opened a spigot of government money to a variety of private firms ostensibly paid to help patrol and blockade the state’s border with Mexico. One of the private companies that got in on the cash disbursements was Cobwebs Technologies, a little-known Israeli surveillance contractor….

External feed Read More at the Source: https://theintercept.com/2023/07/26/texas-phone-tracking-border-surveillance/

 2023-07-27  Comments Off on The Intercept – Texas State Police Purchased Israeli Phone-Tracking Software for “Border Emergency”

Techdirt. – Federal Judge Says State Troopers’ ‘Kansas Two Step’ Bullshit Violates The Rights Of Drivers

Jul 272023
 

For years, Kansas Highway Patrol troopers have stopped motorists on interstate highways. That’s the job. But the job became much more interesting when neighboring states legalized marijuana. Colorado led the way, with others following, but Colorado’s actions have had the most impact on the KHP. Missouri’s more recent legalization has only compounded the problem facing drivers on Kansas highways.
Thanks to the fact that there’s legal weed right over the border, KHP troopers are assuming anyone with out of state plates is headed to enjoy legal activities (in Colorado and Missouri) that are still illegal in Kansas. Opportunism is the name of the game. And that game means KHP troopers routinely violate rights, not to mention ignore…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://www.techdirt.com/2023/07/26/federal-judge-says-state-troopers-kansas-two-step-bullshit-violates-the-rights-of-drivers/

 2023-07-27  Comments Off on Techdirt. – Federal Judge Says State Troopers’ ‘Kansas Two Step’ Bullshit Violates The Rights Of Drivers

Motherboard – A Major Climate System Will Collapse Decades Ahead of Schedule and Unleash Devastation, Scientists Predict

Jul 262023
 

An important system of currents in the Atlantic Ocean could collapse this century under the pressure of human-driven climate change, triggering “a major tipping element in the climate system” that will have devastating impacts on people and ecosystems, reports a new study.   The new research reveals a far grimmer view of the North Atlantic’s future than the most recent predictions from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and underscores the urgency of transitioning away from the consumption of fossil fuels to curb the greenhouse gas emissions that are driving warming global temperatures. The Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC) acts like a huge conveyor belt that delivers warm water from the equator to the poles and…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/y3wbn7/a-major-climate-system-will-collapse-decades-ahead-of-schedule-and-unleash-devastation-scientists-predict

 2023-07-26  Comments Off on Motherboard – A Major Climate System Will Collapse Decades Ahead of Schedule and Unleash Devastation, Scientists Predict

Ars Technica – Encryption-breaking, password-leaking bug in many AMD CPUs could take months to fix

Jul 262023
 

Enlarge (credit: AMD)
A recently disclosed bug in many of AMD’s newer consumer, workstation, and server processors can cause the chips to leak data at a rate of up to 30 kilobytes per core per second, writes Tavis Ormandy, a member of Google’s Project Zero security team. Executed properly, the so-called “Zenbleed” vulnerability (CVE-2023-20593) could give attackers access to encryption keys and root and user passwords, along with other sensitive data from any system using a CPU based on AMD’s Zen 2 architecture.
The bug allows attackers to swipe data from a CPU’s registers. Modern processors attempt to speed up operations by guessing what they’ll be asked to do next, called “speculative execution.” But…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://arstechnica.com/?p=1956383

 2023-07-26  Comments Off on Ars Technica – Encryption-breaking, password-leaking bug in many AMD CPUs could take months to fix

Biometric Update – BI2 Technologies’ iris recognition solution offered free to US border sheriffs

Jul 262023
 

Biometrics recognition company BI2 Technologies will give sheriffs in 31 U.S. border counties  free access to its iris biometric-based Mobile Offender Recognition & Information System (MORIS), according to a July 19 statement. The iris recognition software, which works from one meter away and includes liveness detection, scans and processes biometric data using Apple, Android and Microsoft handheld devices. Data is compared to a national offender database. Investments into homeland security are growing. For fiscal 2023, The Department of Homeland Security fiscal 2023 budget is $97.3 billion, up from last year’s $91 billion and 2021’s $87.1 billion budget. Government officials have been gathering iris biometrics since the 2014 pilot of the Next Generation Identification Iris Service,…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://www.biometricupdate.com/202307/bi2-technologies-iris-recognition-solution-offered-free-to-us-border-sheriffs

 2023-07-26  Comments Off on Biometric Update – BI2 Technologies’ iris recognition solution offered free to US border sheriffs

see shy jo – become ungoogleable

Jul 222023
 

I’ve removed my website from indexing by Google.
The proximate cause is Google’s new effort to
DRM the web,
but there is of course so much more. This is a unique time, when it’s actually feasible to become ungoogleable
without losing much. Nobody really expects to be able to find anything of
value in a Google search now, so if they’re looking for me or something I’ve
made and don’t find it, they’ll use some other approach. I’ve looked over the kind of traffic that Google refers to my website, and
it will not be a significant loss even if those people fail to find me by
some other means. Over 30% of the traffic to this website is rss feeds.
Google just doesn’t matter…

External feed Read More at the Source: http://joeyh.name/blog/entry/become_ungoogleable/

 2023-07-22  Comments Off on see shy jo – become ungoogleable

Deeplinks – Young People Should Oppose the Kids Online Safety Act

Jul 222023
 

Next week, Congress plans to move a bill forward that is opposed by dozens of organizations, digital rights protectors, LGBTQ+ activists, and human rights defenders: the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA). As we’ve written before, KOSA would lead to censorship and privacy invasions for all social media users. But the most impacted groups will be young people, who the bill purports to help by banishing to a second-class internet. 
What’s often been left out of the debate over KOSA is how young people feel about this. In fact, many teenagers already oppose the bill. Young TikTok users have been rallying one another to call and email legislators to push back on the bill, and videos describing what’s…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/07/young-people-should-oppose-kids-online-safety-act

 2023-07-22  Comments Off on Deeplinks – Young People Should Oppose the Kids Online Safety Act

Biometric Update – US seeks comment on age-estimation idea to protect children, Yoti requests approval

Jul 222023
 

Businesses are asking U.S. regulators to approve facial age estimation as a tool for segregating people online by age and, in turn, the government is seeking comment on the idea. The businesses are digital ID software company Yoti, Epic Games subsidiary SuperAwesome and the Entertainment Software Rating Board. They want the Federal Trade Commission to allow online content and services firms to rebuff children by using software that analyzes facial biometrics with a degree of privacy. Specifically, the three petitioners want it to be legal for companies to add the age-estimation software to other tools the industry can use under the federal Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, or COPPA. The FTC will accept comment on…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://www.biometricupdate.com/202307/us-seeks-comment-on-age-estimation-idea-to-protect-children-yoti-requests-approval

 2023-07-22  Comments Off on Biometric Update – US seeks comment on age-estimation idea to protect children, Yoti requests approval

Richard Stallman’s Political Notes – James Hansen on global heating

Jul 222023
 

*The world is shifting towards a superheated climate not seen in the
past 1m years, prior to human existence, because “we are damned fools”
for not acting upon warnings over the climate crisis, according to
James Hansen, the US scientist who alerted the world to the greenhouse effect in the 1980s.*

External feed Read More at the Source: https://stallman.org/archives/2023-may-aug.html#21_July_2023_(James_Hansen_on_global_heating)

 2023-07-22  Comments Off on Richard Stallman’s Political Notes – James Hansen on global heating

Techdirt. – Bill Limiting Data Broker Sales To Law Enforcement Moves Forward

Jul 212023
 

The Supreme Court made it clear in 2018 with its Carpenter decision: gathering historical cell site location info in bulk was impermissible under the Fourth Amendment. If law enforcement wanted to engage in third-party-enabled long term tracking of suspects via this info, it needed to get a warrant first.
That ruling seemed to make everything crystal clear. But it didn’t. Law enforcement sought other ways to obtain this same data without having to run anything by a judge. Central to the Carpenter decision were cell service providers. This was the government approaching these providers to obtain location data dating back to whatever data investigators thought might be useful.
The Carpenter decision rolled back a bit of the Third…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://www.techdirt.com/2023/07/21/wyden-bill-targeting-data-broker-sales-to-law-enforcement-passes-in-the-house/

 2023-07-21  Comments Off on Techdirt. – Bill Limiting Data Broker Sales To Law Enforcement Moves Forward

The Register – RIP Kevin Mitnick: Former most-wanted hacker dies at 59

Jul 202023
 

Tributes paid to husband, father, son and rogue-turned-consultant

Obit  Kevin Mitnick, probably the world’s most-famous computer hacker – and subsequently writer, public speaker, and security consultant – has succumbed to pancreatic cancer. He was 59.…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2023/07/20/kevin_mitnick_obit/

 2023-07-20  Comments Off on The Register – RIP Kevin Mitnick: Former most-wanted hacker dies at 59

see shy jo – Joey Hess: become ungoogleable

Jul 192023
 

I’ve removed my website from indexing by Google.
The proximate cause is Google’s new effort to
DRM the web,
but there is of course so much more. This is a unique time, when it’s actually feasible to become ungoogleable
without losing much. Nobody really expects to be able to find anything of
value in a Google search now, so if they’re looking for me or something I’ve
made and don’t find it, they’ll use some other approach. I’ve looked over the kind of traffic that Google refers to my website, and
it will not be a significant loss even if those people fail to find me by
some other means. Over 30% of the traffic to this website is rss feeds.
Google just doesn’t…

External feed Read More at the Source: http://joeyh.name/blog/entry/become_ungoogleable/

 2023-07-19  Comments Off on see shy jo – Joey Hess: become ungoogleable

Ars Technica – Something in space has been lighting up every 20 minutes since 1988

Jul 192023
 

Enlarge / Most of the explanations for this phenomenon involve a neutron star, depicted above. These explanations are uniformly terrible. (credit: MARK GARLICK/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY)
On Wednesday, researchers announced the discovery of a new astronomical enigma. The new object, GPM J1839–10, behaves a bit like a pulsar, sending out regular bursts of radio energy. But the physics that drives pulsars means that they’d stop emitting if they slowed down too much, and almost every pulsar we know of blinks at least once per minute.
GPM J1839–10 takes 22 minutes between pulses. We have no idea what kind of physics or what kind of objects can power that.
A persistent transient
GPM J1839–10 was discovered in a…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://arstechnica.com/?p=1955110

 2023-07-19  Comments Off on Ars Technica – Something in space has been lighting up every 20 minutes since 1988

Biometric Update – Startup’s doorbell would match a visitor biometrics to social media

Jul 192023
 

A doorbell company wants to enable its buyers to identify visitors against images from social networks such as Facebook and Instagram. Irvinei announced its doorbell promising a device with integrated fingerprint biometrics and facial recognition access control, an 8-megapixel camera and “AI-powered edge lighting.” According to the firm, the product will launch soon on Kickstarter. In a video, Irvinei suggests homeowners connect their social media accounts to its system in order to match visitors’ faces. The company has provided few details of its facial recognition software. “Connecting your social media profile will enable Irvinei to recognize your friends, foes – or in-laws – so you’ll always be in control of your home,” the video says….

External feed Read More at the Source: https://www.biometricupdate.com/202307/startups-doorbell-would-match-a-visitor-biometrics-to-social-media

 2023-07-19  Comments Off on Biometric Update – Startup’s doorbell would match a visitor biometrics to social media

Techdirt. – Another City Ditches ShotSpotter, Says It Can’t Show The System Helped Reduce Violent Crime

Jul 192023
 

ShotSpotter has routinely claimed its system of mics and location info is crucial to reducing gun crime. The theory is that if you can hear it, you can respond to it, even if officers can’t physically hear these gunshots themselves.
The problem with this assertion is that there’s a margin of error. The system can’t be perfect, so it’s always going to generate false positives and negatives. The tech is backstopped by human analysts, but records show these analysts don’t receive any specified training, aren’t actually acoustic experts, and, if needed, will alter reports at the request of law enforcement.
Then there’s the real world application of this tech. It’s relatively inexpensive as far as law enforcement tech…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://www.techdirt.com/2023/07/19/another-city-ditches-shotspotter-says-it-cant-show-the-system-helped-reduce-violent-crime/

 2023-07-19  Comments Off on Techdirt. – Another City Ditches ShotSpotter, Says It Can’t Show The System Helped Reduce Violent Crime
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