Lifeboat Foundation

Security experts from paluno, the Ruhr Institute for Software Technology at the University of Duisburg-Essen (UDE) have developed a new technique that, for the first time, enables fuzz testing of protected memory areas in modern processors. Their method revealed many vulnerabilities in security-critical software.

Intel’s “Software Guard Extension” (SGX) is a widely used technology to protect sensitive data from misuse. It helps developers in shielding a certain memory area from the rest of a computer. A password manager, for example, can be executed safely in such an enclave, even if the rest of the system is corrupted by malware.

However, it is not uncommon for errors to creep in during the programming of the enclaves. Already in 2020, the paluno team from Prof. Dr. Lucas Davi discovered and published several vulnerabilities in SGX enclaves. Now, together with partners form the CASA cluster of excellence, the researchers have achieved another breakthrough in the analysis techniques: Their latest development enables the fuzz testing of enclaves, which is much more effective than the previously used symbolic execution. The idea behind fuzz testing is to feed a large number of inputs into a program in order to gain insights into the structure of the code.

A curious thing happened when MIT researchers Adam Vernon and Ronald Garcia Ruiz, along an international team of scientists, recently performed an experiment in which a sensitive laser spectroscopy technique was used to measure how the nuclear electromagnetic properties of indium isotopes evolve when an extreme number of neutrons are added to the nucleus. These nuclei do not exist in nature, and once created, their lifetimes can be as short as a fraction of a second, so the team artificially created the nuclei using a particle accelerator at the CERN research facility in Switzerland. By using a combination of multiple lasers and an ion trap, the team isolated the isotopes of interest and performed precision measurements of atoms containing these exotic nuclei. In turn, it allowed the extraction of their nuclear properties.

Vernon, a postdoc in the Laboratory for Nuclear Science (LNS); Garcia Ruiz, an assistant professor of physics and LNS affiliate; and their colleagues achieved a surprising result. When measuring a nucleus with a certain “magic” number of neutrons—82—the magnetic field of the nucleus exhibited a drastic change, and the properties of these very complex nuclei appear to be governed by just one of the protons of the nucleus.

“The new observation at 82 total neutrons changes this picture of the nucleus. We had to come up with new nuclear theories to explain the result,” says Vernon.

Inflatable soft actuators that can change shape with a simple increase in pressure can be powerful, lightweight, and flexible components for soft robotic systems. But there’s a problem: These actuators always deform in the same way upon pressurization.

To enhance the functionality of soft robots, it is important to enable additional and more complex modes of deformation in soft actuators.

Continue reading “Complex motions for simple actuators” »

The agency’s former employee says he’s been made a scapegoat for a massive WikiLeaks exposé.

A former CIA software engineer has been convicted on all nine counts in a New York court, with jurors pronouncing him guilty of leaking sensitive data to Wikileaks in what is believed to be the largest breach in the agency’s history to date. A sentencing date is still pending, with another unrelated trial against the man ahead.

On Wednesday, Joshua Schulte heard district judge Jesse M. Furman read out a guilty verdict in a federal court in New York, with charges including stealing and transmitting classified information as well as obstruction of justice.

Circa 2021

With the help of safe-haven laws, which allow parents to anonymously surrender their babies, Monica Kelsey has installed more than ninety baby boxes—mailbox-like receptacles for infants—in five states.

By briefly inhibiting other cells, neurogliaform cells in the CA1 region of the hippocampus ensure that current perception and memories of past experiences can be processed both separately and in combination with each other.

White House asks the public for ideas on what to do when we return to the Moon and cislunar space.

The U.S. has plans to return to the moon by the middle of this decade through NASA’s Artemis Program. But going back to the lunar surface and cislunar space isn’t just about putting boots on the ground. That’s why the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy on behalf of the Cislunar Science and Technology Subcommittee of the National Science and Technology Council has issued a request for ideas (RFI) with a deadline of Wednesday, July 20, 2022, for interested parties to make submissions.

The U.S. government has defined cislunar space as the entire region beyond Earth’s geostationary orbit subject to the gravity of both our planet and the Moon. The RFI covers both orbiting and lunar surface activities.

Continue reading “U.S. Government’s Office of Science and Technology Issues Call for Cislunar Strategies” »

Forcing them to become servants could have a bad outcome. See the latest episode of The Orville, “From Unknown Graves”. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt12037520

Ron HelwigThe Orville keeps getting better. It’s already the best Trek.

Continue reading “SpaceX Starship: Where is Musk’s mega rocket now?” »

Breaking the previous record by 60 percent.

The team behind the first Chinese X-ray astronomy satellite, Insight-HXMT, has discovered the strongest magnetic field directly measured in the universe hitherto.

It is a known fact that neutron stars generate the strongest magnetic fields in the universe. These magnetic fields, close to a neutron star’s surface, can only be measured accurately and directly by looking for cyclon resonance scattering features (CRSF). The Insight-HXMT team discovered a cyclotron absorption line with an energy of 146 keV in the neutron star X-ray binary Swift J0243.6+6124, which translates to a surface magnetic field of more than 1.6 billion Tesla.