Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
Toggle light / dark theme

Blog

Category: government – Page 166

Not cool, China.

(Reuters) — Hackers behind a massive breach at hotel group Marriott International left clues suggesting they were working for a Chinese government intelligence gathering operation, according to sources familiar with the matter.

Marriott said last week that a hack that began four years ago had exposed the records of up to 500 million customers in its Starwood hotels reservation system.

Private investigators looking into the breach have found hacking tools, techniques and procedures previously used in attacks attributed to Chinese hackers, said three sources who were not authorized to discuss the company’s private probe into the attack.

Continue reading “China emerges as lead suspect in Marriott data hack” | >

The longer-term answer is to develop and scale up the quantum communication network and, subsequently, the quantum internet. This will take major investments from governments. However, countries will benefit from the greater security offered13. For example, Canada keeps its census data secret for 92 years, a term that only quantum cryptography can assure. Government agencies could use quantum-secured blockchain platforms to protect citizens’ personal financial and health data. Countries leading major research efforts in quantum technologies, such as China, the United States and members of the European Union, will be among the early adopters. They should invest immediately in research. Blockchains should be a case study for Europe’s Quantum Key Distribution Testbed programme, for example.

Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies will founder unless they integrate quantum technologies, warn Aleksey K. Fedorov, Evgeniy O. Kiktenko and Alexander I. Lvovsky. Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies will founder unless they integrate quantum technologies, warn Aleksey K. Fedorov, Evgeniy O. Kiktenko and Alexander I. Lvovsky.

Read more

By 2020, China plans to assign each of its 1.4 billion citizens a “social credit score” that will determine what people are allowed to do, and where they rank in society.

It’s part of a broad effort in China to build a so-called reputation system that will measure, in theory, the credibility of government officials and businesses, in addition to citizens. The Chinese government says the system will boost “trust” nationwide and build a culture of “sincerity.”

Read more

Hundreds of children with cancer are resorting to inferior treatment because of a failure to open two flagship specialist centres, experts have warned.

NHS officials have admitted that no patient has yet received state-of-the-art proton beam therapy (PBT) at either its new London or Manchester sites, despite a Government pledge to be treating 1,500 a year by 2018.

Leading oncologists have called for transparency after two promised opening dates at The Christie NHS Foundation Trust were missed this year and the deadline quietly pushed back.

Read more

Killer asteroids might be a bigger threat than you think.

  • Small asteroids can strike Earth with the force of many nuclear weapons and destroy entire cities.
  • A small fraction of such asteroids is estimated to have been found, but NASA is supposed to find 90% of them by 2020.
  • Retired astronaut Rusty Schweickart says a relatively inexpensive space telescope, called the Near-Earth Object Camera, could find these space rocks — and quickly.
  • NASA has denied full funding to NEOCam multiple times because the agency’s mission selection process is weighted against the telescope.
  • NEOCam’s supporters say the telescope needs just $40 million more in NASA’s budget to launch into space.
  • It’s up to President Trump and Congress to raise NASA’s budget enough to support the mission.

A former NASA astronaut says the agency he used to work for has a duty to protect civilians from killer asteroids, but that it isn’t meeting that obligation.

The threat of asteroid strikes might seem as abstract as outer space itself. But the risk, while infrequent, is real — and potentially more deadly than the threat posed by some of the most powerful nuclear weapons ever detonated.

Continue reading “Astronaut says a neglected telescope is NASA’s best chance of defending Earth from ‘city killer’ asteroids — ‘for God’s sake, fund it’” | >

QUT chemistry researchers have discovered cheaper and more efficient materials for producing hydrogen for the storage of renewable energy that could replace current water-splitting catalysts.

Professor Anthony O’Mullane said the potential for the chemical storage of renewable energy in the form of hydrogen was being investigated around the world.

“The Australian Government is interested in developing a hydrogen export industry to export our abundant renewable energy,” said Professor O’Mullane from QUT’s Science and Engineering Faculty.

Read more

Here’s a 2-min video of my recent talk in #Dubai for the inaugural #GSTalksUAE event. I was really excited that the UAE Prime Minister’s Office brought me in to talk specifically on #transhumanism and how it might improve Government Services. In the last year, many countries around the world have been getting in touch with me to better understand transhumanism and our changing #future. Click on the link to watch the video: https://www.instagram.com/p/BqcN2bUHnwA/?utm_source=ig_share…9IE5_ASuEA

Read more

Location data beamed from GPS satellites are used by smartphones, car navigation systems, the microchip in your dog’s neck and guided missiles — and all those satellites are controlled by the U.S. Air Force. That makes the Chinese government uncomfortable, so it’s developing an alternative that a U.S. security analyst calls one of the largest space programs the country has undertaken.

The Beidou Navigation System will be accessible worldwide by 2020.

Read more

However, the gap from Cape Campbell, where the main rupture ended in the South Island, and the New Zealand capital Wellington at the bottom of the North Island is still more than 50km.

At least 25 fault lines ruptured in the 2016 quake, which earthquake geologist Rob Langridge from the government’s geoscience research organisation GNS Science said made it one of the most complex earthquakes observed anywhere in the world.

Fellow GNS scientist Sigrun Hreinsdottir told the Stuff website on Friday that the sheer number of faults made it difficult to distinguish which was responsible for the post-quake creep.

Read more