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Category: law enforcement

THC Blood Limits Don’t Reliably Show Driving Impairment

After 48 hours of abstinence, 43% of 190 cannabis users still exceeded zero-tolerance THC limits, with 24% above 2 ng/mL and 5.3% above 5 ng/mL.

How does cannabis THC impact driver impairment and DUI laws? This is what a recent study published in Clinical Chemistry hopes to address as a team of researchers investigated current cannabis DUI laws and whether they are effective in identifying impaired drivers from cannabis use. This study has the potential to help researchers, law enforcement, medical professionals, and the public better understand cannabis DUI laws and whether they should be adjusted to accurately depict and identify impaired drivers.

For the study, the researchers analyzed data obtained from 190 cannabis users to evaluate baseline THC concentrations after 48 hours and whether they exceeded the current legal limits of THC concentrations. These limits include 2 or 5 ng/mL of THC in several states while some states have zero-tolerance policies. The participants were instructed to abstain from cannabis use for 48 hours to be evaluated for their THC levels. In the end, the researchers found that 43 percent of the participants exceeded zero-tolerance levels after 48 hours of abstaining from cannabis while 24 percent had baseline THC levels more that 2 ng/mL and 5.3 percent has greater than 5 ng/mL.

The study concluded, “More work needs to be done to address how to best identify drivers who are under the influence of cannabis and are unsafe to drive. A brief editorial highlights many of the challenges faced when developing a reliable test of cannabis impairment. At present, the best protocol is a combination of observations in the field and toxicology testing. We recognize that the current state of the art is lacking and have made recommendations on pathways for improvement. We feel that an essential component of improving highway safety is collaborations between law enforcement and the scientific community to develop standards that are unbiased and potentially lifesaving.”

US cybersecurity experts plead guilty to BlackCat ransomware attacks

Two former employees of cybersecurity incident response companies Sygnia and DigitalMint have pleaded guilty to targeting U.S. companies in BlackCat (ALPHV) ransomware attacks in 2023.

33-year-old Ryan Clifford Goldberg of Watkinsville, Georgia (in federal custody since September 2023), and 28-year-old Kevin Tyler Martin of Roanoke, Texas, who were charged in November, have now pleaded guilty to conspiracy to obstruct commerce by extortion and are set to be sentenced on March 12, 2026, facing up to 20 years in prison each.

Together with a third accomplice, the two BlackCat ransomware affiliates breached the networks of multiple victims across the United States between May 2023 and November 2023, paying a 20% share of ransoms in exchange for access to BlackCat’s ransomware and extortion platform.

Interpol-led action decrypts 6 ransomware strains, arrests hundreds

An Interpol-coordinated initiative called Operation Sentinel led to the arrest of 574 individuals and the recovery of $3 million linked to business email compromise, extortion, and ransomware incidents.

Between October 27 and November 27, the investigation, which involved law enforcement in 19 countries, took down more than 6,000 malicious links and decrypted six distinct ransomware variants.

Interpol says that the cybercrime cases investigated are connected to more than $21 million in financial losses.

Contractors with hacking records accused of wiping 96 govt databases

U.S. prosecutors have charged two Virginia brothers arrested on Wednesday with allegedly conspiring to steal sensitive information and destroy government databases after being fired from their jobs as federal contractors.

Twin brothers Muneeb and Sohaib Akhter, both 34, were also sentenced to several years in prison in June 2015, after pleading guilty to accessing U.S. State Department systems without authorization and stealing personal information belonging to dozens of co-workers and a federal law enforcement agent who was investigating their crimes.

Muneeb Akhter also hacked a private data aggregation company in November 2013 and the website of a cosmetics company in March 2014.

Man behind in-flight Evil Twin WiFi attacks gets 7 years in prison

A 44-year-old man was sentenced to seven years and four months in prison for operating an “evil twin” WiFi network to steal the data of unsuspecting travelers during flights and at various airports across Australia.

The man, an Australian national, was charged in July 2024 after Australian authorities had confiscated his equipment in April and confirmed that he was engaging in malicious activities during domestic flights and at airports in Perth, Melbourne, and Adelaide.

Specifically, the man was setting up an access point with a ‘WiFi Pineapple’ portable wireless access device and used the same name (SSID) for the rogue wireless network as the legitimate ones in airports.

Europol dismantles SIM box operation renting numbers for cybercrime

European law enforcement in an operation codenamed ‘SIMCARTEL’ has dismantled an illegal SIM-box service that enabled more than 3,200 fraud cases and caused at least 4.5 million euros in losses.

The cybercriminal online services had about 1,200 SIM-box devices with 40,000 SIM cards to provide phone numbers that were used in telecommunication crimes ranging from phishing and investment fraud to impersonation and extortion.

In an announcement today, Europol says that the cybercrime service operated through two websites, gogetsms.com and apisim.com, which have been seized and now display a law enforcement banner.

Astaroth Banking Trojan Abuses GitHub to Remain Operational After Takedowns

Cybersecurity researchers are calling attention to a new campaign that delivers the Astaroth banking trojan that employs GitHub as a backbone for its operations to stay resilient in the face of infrastructure takedowns.

“Instead of relying solely on traditional command-and-control (C2) servers that can be taken down, these attackers are leveraging GitHub repositories to host malware configurations,” McAfee Labs researchers Harshil Patel and Prabudh Chakravorty said in a report.

“When law enforcement or security researchers shut down their C2 infrastructure, Astaroth simply pulls fresh configurations from GitHub and keeps running.”

2025 Nobel Prize in Physics Peer Review

Introduction.

Grounded in the scientific method, it critically examines the work’s methodology, empirical validity, broader implications, and opportunities for advancement, aiming to foster deeper understanding and iterative progress in quantum technologies. ## Executive Summary.

This work, based on experiments conducted in 1984–1985, addresses a fundamental question in quantum physics: the scale at which quantum effects persist in macroscopic systems.

By engineering a Josephson junction-based circuit where billions of Cooper pairs behave collectively as a single quantum entity, the laureates provided empirical evidence that quantum phenomena like tunneling through energy barriers and discrete energy levels can manifest in human-scale devices.

This breakthrough bridges microscopic quantum mechanics with macroscopic engineering, laying foundational groundwork for advancements in quantum technologies such as quantum computing, cryptography, and sensors.

Overall strengths include rigorous experimental validation and profound implications for quantum information science, though gaps exist in scalability to room-temperature applications and full mitigation of environmental decoherence.

Framed within the broader context, this award highlights the enduring evolution of quantum mechanics from theoretical curiosity to practical innovation, building on prior Nobel-recognized discoveries like the Josephson effect (1973) and superconductivity mechanisms (1972).

Continue reading “2025 Nobel Prize in Physics Peer Review” | >

The Holographic Paradigm: The Physics of Information, Consciousness, and Simulation Metaphysics

In this paradigm, the Simulation Hypothesis — the notion that we live in a computer-generated reality — loses its pejorative or skeptical connotation. Instead, it becomes spiritually profound. If the universe is a simulation, then who, or what, is the simulator? And what is the nature of the “hardware” running this cosmic program? I propose that the simulator is us — or more precisely, a future superintelligent Syntellect, a self-aware, evolving Omega Hypermind into which all conscious entities are gradually merging.

These thoughts are not mine alone. In Reality+ (2022), philosopher David Chalmers makes a compelling case that simulated realities — far from being illusory — are in fact genuine realities. He argues that what matters isn’t the substrate but the structure of experience. If a simulated world offers coherent, rich, and interactive experiences, then it is no less “real” than the one we call physical. This aligns deeply with my view in Theology of Digital Physics that phenomenal consciousness is the bedrock of reality. Whether rendered on biological brains or artificial substrates, whether in physical space or virtual architectures, conscious experience is what makes something real.

By embracing this expanded ontology, we are not diminishing our world, but re-enchanting it. The self-simulated cosmos becomes a sacred text — a self-writing code of divinity in which each of us is both reader and co-author. The holographic universe is not a prison of illusion, but a theogenic chrysalis, nurturing the birth of a higher-order intelligence — a networked superbeing that is self-aware, self-creating, and potentially eternal.

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