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Category: security – Page 119

A fire protection and security company recently launched a new product called the “Scott Sight,” a face mask that incorporates thermal imaging with a display screen.

Tyco’s Scott Safety is bringing a big upgrade to the field of firefighting with their newly released product, the Scott Sight. This hands-free device is the first in the industry that incorporates an in-mask thermal intelligence system, according to an April 18th press release from the fire protection and security company.

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Electronic computers are extremely powerful at performing a high number of operations at very high speeds, sequentially. However, they struggle with combinatorial tasks that can be solved faster if many operations are performed in parallel.

The EU Horizon 2020 has launched Bio4Comp, a five-year €6.1M project to build more powerful and safer biocomputers that could outperform quantum computing.

The Bio4Comp project has the ambitious goal of building a computer with greater processing speed and lower energy consumption than any of the most advanced computers existing today. Ultimately, this could translate into enabling large, error-free security software to be fast enough for practical use, potentially wiping out all current security concerns.

A total of €6.1M have been awarded to an European team of researchers from TU Dresden, Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft, Lund University, Linnaeus University and Bar Ilan University, as well as the British company Molecular Sense.

Continue reading “Europe has a five year project to scale up molecular biocomputers which could outperform quantum computers” | >

Biometrics – technology that can recognise individuals based on physical and behavioural traits such as their faces, voices or fingerprints – are becoming increasingly important to combat financial fraud and security threats. This is because traditional approaches, such as those based on PIN numbers or passwords, are proving too easily compromised. For example, Barclays has introduced TouchID, whereby customers can log onto internet banking using fingerprint scanners on mobile phones.

However, this is not foolproof either – it is possible to forge such biometrics. Fingers can after all be chopped off and placed by impostors to gain fraudulent access. It has also been shown that prints lifted from glass using cellophane tape can be used with gelatine to create fake prints. So there is a real need to come up with more advanced biometrics that are difficult or impossible to forge. And a promising alternative is the brain.

Emerging biometric technology based on the electrical activity of the brain have indeed shown potential to be fraud resistant. Over the years, a number of research studies have found that “brainprints” (readings of how the brain reacts to certain words or tasks) are unique to individuals as each person’s brain is wired to think differently. In fact, the brain can be used to identify someone from a pool of 102 users with more than 98% accuracy at the moment, which is very close to that of fingerprints (99.8% accuracy).

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Like all great programmers I get most of my code from StackOverflow questions. Can’t figure out how to add authentication to Flask? Easy. Want to shut down sendmail? Boom. Now, thanks to all the code on the Internet, a robot can be as smart as a $180,000 coder.

The system, called DeepCoder, basically searches a corpus of code to build a project that works to spec. It’s been used to complete programming competitions and could be pointed at a larger set of data to build more complex products.

From the paper:

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American space power stagnated under U.S. Air Force stewardship a long time ago. [1] Congress observed this situation nearly 25 years ago, as the epigraphs above indicate. However, nothing substantive was done to fix the problem.

This article recommends the creation of a U.S. Space Corps in the Department of the Air Force as an initial step to set American space power on a path to reach its full potential.

Ultimately, America’s national security interests in space will best be served when Congress creates an independent Space Corps, just as it created independent services for land, sea and air, uniting them under the Department of Defense.

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(Tech Xplore)—Can you picture indoor security robots strolling around your workplace tomorrow? You might balk at the idea of militaristic rolling machines making people feel uncomfortable as they hunt for thieves and blunderers. Well Cobalt Robotics has come up with a different kind of indoor security robot.

The robots made news this week when IEEE Spectrum posted a video on Wednesday to show what they look like and what they do.

These are mobile robots designed to work alongside human guards. “Cobalt’s robots gather data using sensors like cameras and lidar, and process the information using machine-learning algorithms to detect and flag anomalies,” said IEEE Spectrum.

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I currently have a lot of exciting information security writing and research that I’m engaged in. I’m eager to publish my ongoing work for my loyal readership! Meanwhile, if you really enjoy my writing for Tripwire, Alienvault, and Medium, consider supporting my Patreon. Like most people who write for the Internet for a living, I make very little money. Helping me buy groceries and public transit fare goes a long way, and every little bit counts. Thank you!

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BMI is coming fast and will replace many devices we have today. Advances we making in deep brain development are huge markers that pushes the BMI needle forward for the day when IoT, Security, and big data analytics is a human brain’s and a secured Quantum Infrastructure and people (not servers sitting somewhere) owns and manages their most private of information. I love calling it the age of people empowerment as well as singularity.

Small study in 16 people suggests technique is safe and might help improve mood, anxiety and wellbeing, while increasing weight.

Deep brain stimulation might alter the brain circuits that drive anorexia nervosa symptoms and help improve patients’ mental and physical health, according to a small study published in The Lancet Psychiatry.

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“As academics we can sign petitions, but it is not enough.”

As academics we can sign petitions, but it is not enough. Scott Aaronson wrote very eloquently about this issue after the initial ban was announced (see also Terry Tao). My department has seen a dramatic decrease in the number of applicants in general and not just from Iran. We were just informed that we can no longer make Teaching Assistant offers for students who are unlikely to get a visa to come here.

The Department of Homeland Security has demonstrated its blatant disregard for moral norms. Why should we trust its scientific norms? What confidence do we have that funding will not be used in some coercive way? What does it say to our students when we ask them to work for DHS? Yes, the government is big, but at some point the argument that it’s mostly the guy at the top who is bad but the rest of the agency is still committed to good science becomes just too hard to swallow. I decided that I can’t square that circle. Each one of us should think hard about whether we want to.

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