The CRISPR gene-editing system is usually known for helping scientists treat genetic diseases, but the technology has a whole range of possible uses in synthetic biology too. Now researchers at ETH Zurich have used CRISPR to build functional biocomputers inside human cells.
A computer science student has scraped seven million Venmo transactions to prove that users’ public activity can still be easily obtained, a year after a privacy researcher downloaded hundreds of millions of Venmo transactions in a similar feat.
Dan Salmon said he scraped the transactions during a cumulative six months to raise awareness and warn users to set their Venmo payments to private.
The peer-to-peer mobile payments service faced criticism last year after Hang Do Thi Duc, a former Mozilla fellow, downloaded 207 million transactions. The scraping effort was possible because Venmo payments between users are public by default. The scrapable data inspired several new projects — including a bot that tweeted out every time someone bought drugs.
STORY SUMMARY
HONOLULU, Hawaiʻi — The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center issued a threat message, saying that there was no threat to Hawaiʻi but the tsunami waves were possible closer to the earthquake center.
A hacking group linked to the Russian government has been attempting to breach the U.S. power grid, Wired reports.
Security experts from the non-profit group the Electric Information Sharing and Analysis Center (E-ISAC) and security firm Dragos tracked the hackers — and warn that the group has been probing the grid for weaknesses, searching for ways that they could access U.S. systems.
Even though there are no signs that the group has succeeded in accessing the power grid, the attacks still have experts worried. And that’s partly because of the history of this particular hacking group: Xenotime, who created the infamous Triton malware. In late 2017, Triton attacked critical infrastructure such as the industrial control systems used in power plants, and it could have been used to cause massive destruction through tampering with power plant controls. That lead it to be labeled the “world’s most murderous malware.”
Gone are the days when a store’s security cameras only mattered to shoplifters.
Now, with the rising prevalence of surveillance systems constantly monitored by artificial intelligence, ubiquitous security systems can watch, learn about, and discriminate against shoppers more than ever before.
That’s the gist of a new ACLU report titled “The Dawn of Robot Surveillance,” about how emerging AI technology enables security companies to constantly monitor and collect data about people — opening new possibilities in which power is abused or underserved communities are overpoliced.
The world’s most exciting festival of ideas and discovery London ExCeL October 10–13 2019.
