We would like to let our customers know that all OSH Park boards are manufactured in the United States, and we will be operating on a normal schedule during Lunar New Year:
In total, the researchers identified approximately 2.7 billion DNA base pairs, which is around 90 percent the size of the human genome. There's nothing particularly special about that size, especially considering that the axolotl genome is 10 times larger than the human genome. It's going to take some time to fully understand and appreciate the intricacies of the giant squid's genetic profile, but these preliminary results are already helping to explain some of its more remarkable features.
As usual, you can also use this squid post to talk about the security stories in the news that I haven't covered.
The next feature for the geolocator-globe, a plugin to display the current night hemisphere with increasing levels of darkness, depending on the state of twilight. The distinction is between civil twilight, which lasts from sunset until the sun is 6 degrees below the horizon, followed by nautical twilight until 12 degrees and finally astronomical twilight lasting to 18 degrees below. In reverse order the same is true for dawn. The subsolar point, where the Sun is directly above, is market with a small yellow circle.
[Update: javascript Date object only knows local time, therefore the timezone offset needs to be calculated from that. For this Celestial also gets a new function: Celestial.timezone(tz) for setting and with no argument getting current timezone.]
A small update for the Geomarker plugin as well, where the marker is invisible when the current position on the globe is rotated out of view.
// This plugin shows concentric hemispheres with increasing opacities,
// specifically to show the dark side with increasing levels of twilight.
function hemisphere(options) {
var pos = {},
options = options || {};
options.color = options.color || 'black';
options.alpha = options.alpha || 0.12;
// Current antisolar point, directly opposite of the Sun
var setOrigin = function(lng, lat) {
pos.lng = lng;
pos.lat = lat;
};
var drawHemisphere = function(context, planet, pos) {
// First, the subsolar point as a small yellow circle with black border
context.fillStyle = "#ff0";
context.lineStyle = "#000";
var circle = d3.geo.circle().origin([pos.lng + 180, -pos.lat]).angle(1.5)();
context.beginPath();
planet.path.context(context)(circle);
context.fill();
context.stroke();
context.fillStyle = options.color;
context.globalAlpha = options.alpha;
// Draw the concentric circles of darkness with the Sun at 0째, 6째, 12째 and 18째 below the horizon
for (var i = 0; i <= 3; i++) {
circle = d3.geo.circle().origin([pos.lng, pos.lat]).angle(90 - i*6)();
context.beginPath();
planet.path.context(context)(circle);
context.fill();
}
};
return function(planet) {
planet.plugins.hemisphere = {
origin: setOrigin
};
planet.onInit(function() {});
planet.onDraw(function() {
if (!pos.hasOwnProperty("lat")) return;
planet.withSavedContext(function(context) {
drawHemisphere(context, planet, pos);
});
});
};
};
// callback funtion, where the celestial map data is used to update the geolocator globe
Celestial.addCallback(function () {
// put the marker on the current location
var loc = Celestial.location();
globe.plugins.markers.remove("*");
globe.plugins.markers.add(loc[1], loc[0]);
// Sun location, current date and timezone offset
var sol = Celestial.getPlanet("sol"),
dt = Celestial.date(),
tz = Celestial.timezone() - dt.getTimezoneOffset();
if (sol) {
// lat & lng of current nadir point directly opposite the solar position
var lat = -sol.pos[1],
// Simple assumption: UTC time equals sun angle from Greenwich meridian, trap: dt still is local
lng = -(dt.getUTCHours() * 3600 + dt.getUTCMinutes() * 60 + dt.getUTCSeconds() + tz * 60) / 3600 * 15;
var antisol = [lat, lng];
globe.plugins.hemisphere.origin(antisol[1], antisol[0]);
}
});
Time zone still needs to be set manually and horizontal refraction isn't considered yet, so the result need not be entirely accurate.
Some of the local characters at the Frontenac Radio Group meeting last night, held at the County Ambulance Logistics Base.
Instead of being out in the cold warehouse next to the command vehicles and support trucks, these guys snuck into the Chief's office.
As a group we are very fortunate to be able to use the logistics base for our meetings. Â It also has the benefit that the paramedics, and their supervisors, know who was are.
In this 20-second time exposure made on Jan. 16, 2020 you can see the trails of five Starlink satellites. I added the yellow dots to the start of each trail so you could better interpret how the five looked to the naked eye. The satellites were all about magnitude 3 and each about 5° from one another as they marched up the southwestern sky in succession. Bob King
I know a lot of you including myself didnât get to see the most recent batch of 60 Starlink satellites that launched on Jan. 6. They simply didnât clear the horizon from many U.S. locations or were visible before dawn for only a few brief seconds.
But recently Iâve noticed theyâre making some nice appearances in the evening sky. The satellites are fainter than during the initial week of launch, but I saw a remarkable display of them last night (Jan. 16) despite light pollution from the city of Duluth. Beginning at 6:47 p.m., one after another rose up from the southwestern horizon as if shot out of a cannon. They appeared about 5 seconds apart and were all about magnitude 3 (one level fainter than the stars of the Big Dipper).
This Heavens Above map shows the path that a batch of 38 Starlink satellites will take over Duluth, Minn. region. Saturday evening Jan. 18. They âriseâ in the southwestern sky not far from Venus and move to the left or east, finishing at 6 p.m. If you then wait 7 minutes, a second brighter group of 21 more will follow along a similar path starting at 6:07 p.m. Times are given in 24-hour military time, so 17:51 = 5:51 p.m. Courtesy of Chris Peat
I used binoculars at first but discovered I could see them faintly with the naked eye. Each climbed to about 25° altitude and then quickly disappeared as if swallowed by an invisible black hole in the sky. Of course, it was Earthâs shadow up to its usual tricks. When any satellite moves into the shadow, itâs eclipsed just the moon is eclipsed by our planetâs shadow at full moon.
I saw about 40 Starlinks total. It was hard to keep count because they just kept coming ⦠and coming. Their average separation was about 5° but that varied. Some were closer, some farther apart. You can get all the information you need to see them in the early evening sky this coming week by going to Heavens Above and clicking on the Starlink â all objects from third launch link on left side of the page. That will take you to a long list of many dozens of satellites along with viewing times, altitudes and so on. Youâre most interested in the times and the magnitude. Magnitude is a measure of an astronomical objectâs brightness. The smaller the number, the brighter the object.
This simulation shows an âaerial viewâ from 4,354 miles (7,007 km) altitude of 24 sets of 60 Starlink satellites orbiting the Earth. Satellites in yellow are in sunlight; those in red in shadow. Tom Ruen
Look for batches of passes where the magnitude is around 4 or brighter. If you only see those for magnitude 5, thatâs still OK but youâll definitely need binoculars. Have them handy anyway. Any pair, even in light-polluted conditions, can pick out 4th and 5th magnitude satellites with ease. Click on the first pass in a series and youâll get a map showing where to look for it. Successive passes will follow almost exactly the same path, so if you spot one Starlink, just watch and wait. One after another will appear along the same path car headlights on a freeway. They may be up to a half-minute or so apart so be patient.
I enjoyed the sight, but it was tempered by concern about the future of our starry skies and how these launches could forever change its appearance and our experience. Iâll be looking for the next set of passes when the sky clears again and hope you will, too. When you go out, be aware of when it gets dark. To see magnitude 3 Starlinks it has to be at least an hour after sunset. Click here to find your sunset time. More questions? Just ask.
From predicting outbreaks of infectious disease to predicting the likelihood of an asthma attack, Geospatial AI and medicine are transforming healthcare.
A bull-taming festival in India, icy purification in Tokyo, locusts in Ethiopia, speed skating in the Netherlands, illuminated hats in Switzerland, fashion in Berlin and Paris, an iguana claw in Germany, a âComing of Ageâ ceremony in Tokyo, bushfires in Australia, and much more.
A resident splashes water on a vehicle covered in ash mixed with rainwater as Taal Volcano erupts on January 12, 2020 in Talisay, Batangas province, Philippines.
(
Ezra Acayan / Getty)
Progress in converting the station to VHF has ground to a halt. The Diamond Tri-Plexer that I ordered around the first of December has been further delayed.
At first, I was told to expect it around Christmas. Now they tell me itâs not expected to ship until mid-March. This thing must be made of pure Unobtanium and frankly, it puts me off Diamond. Iâve started looking for an alternative, but that unit has the precise pairings Iâm looking for. 144, 432, and 1.2G with 12-inch tails and fittings that match the three different antenna connectors on the IC-9700 and the incoming feedline connector.
ICOM IC-9700
If I can find another unit that meets my requirements, Iâll buy it and at least get the new transceiver on the air using FM. Itâs nearly three months old and has yet to be used!
But everything else is on hold. Weâre having a new roof installed sometime over the next 6 weeks. The mild winter weather has emboldened our contractor and now heâd like to do the work during his off-season and will give us a discount to do it sooner rather than later. So, Iâm not keen to install any aerials overhead in the work space over the house until thatâs complete.
By the end of March, I should have a new roof and the beginnings of an aluminum antenna garden. But for the moment, my radio life has hit the pause button. Not that there still isnât plenty of other things to be done. My QSL backlog is impressive, even by my own standards and I should be working on that.Â
Itâs not all bad. The pause has given me time to better plan and prepare for the new and improved ham radio shack. Iâve created some drawings that document all the connections and cable routings. All the IP addresses and network settings have been recorded and Iâve created a detailed bill of materials for everything in the hope that it will make replacement easier if ever needed.
Iâve even labeled all the power lines and cables and scanned all the manuals and receipts so I can access them in an instant, wherever I roam.
I guess the moral of the story is patience, and that radio downtime can be valuable, if you use the time wisely.
What is the maximum distance along the Earth's surface that is normally covered in one hop using the F2 region?
B007-003-002 A. 2000 km (1250 miles)Â B. 300 km (190 miles)Â C. 4000 km (2500 miles) D. None, the F2 region does not support radio-wave propagation There are at least a dozen questions in the Canadian Basic Question Bank that touch on propagation, this is just one of them. The science of RF propagation can take volumes to explain, letâs see if we can summarize the basics. Radio propagation is the behavior of radio waves as they travel, or are propagated, from one point to another, or into various parts of the atmosphere. As a form of electromagnetic radiation, like light waves, radio waves are affected by the phenomena of reflection, refraction, diffraction, absorption, polarization, and scattering. Radio propagation is affected by the daily changes of water vapor in the troposp here and ionization in the upper atmosphere influenced by the Sun. Understanding the effects of varying conditions on radio propagation has many practical applications, from choosing frequencies for Amateur Radio contacts, to designing reliable mobile telephone systems, to radio navigation, to operation of radar systems. Several different types of propagation are used in practical radio transmission systems. Line-of-sight propagation means radio waves which travel in a straight line from the transmitting antenna to the receiving antenna. It does not necessarily require a cleared sight path; at lower frequencies radio waves can pass through building walls and foliage. Line of sight transmission is used in short to medium range radio transmission such as garage door openers, cell phones, cordless phones, walkie-talkies, wireless networks, FM radio and television broadcasting and radar, and satellite communication, such as satellite television. Line-of-sight transmission on the surface of the Earth is limited to the distance to the visual horizon, about 40 miles. It is the only propagation method possible at microwave frequencies and above. At microwave frequencies moisture in the atmosphere (rain fade) can degrade transmission. At lower frequencies in the MF, LF, and VLF bands, due to diffraction radio waves, can bend over obstacles like hills, and travel beyond the horizon as surface waves which follow the contour of the Earth. These are called ground waves. AM broadcasting stations use ground waves to cover their listening areas. As the frequency gets lower the attenuation with distance decreases, so very low frequency (VLF) and extremely low frequency (ELF) ground waves can be used to communicate worldwide. VLF and ELF waves can penetrate significant distances through water and earth, and these frequencies are used for mine communication and military communication with submerged submarines. At medium wave and shortwave frequencies (MF and HF bands) radio waves can reflect or refract from a layer of charged particles (ions) high in the atmosphere, called the ionosphere. So radio waves transmitted at an angle into the sky can be reflected back to Earth beyond the horizon, at great distances, even transcontinental distances. This is called skywave or "skip" propagation. It is used by amateur radio operators to talk to other countries, for diplomatic communications, and by international shortwave broadcasting stations. Skywave communication is variable, dependent on conditions in the upper atmosphere, and can be disrupted by events like solar flares, it is most reliable at night and in the winter. Due to its changing nature, since the advent of communication satellites in the 1960s many long range communication needs that previously used skywaves now use satellites. Solar activity has a cycle of approximately 11 years. During this period, sunspot activity rises to a peak and gradually falls again to a low level.Â
An international panel of scientists co-chaired by NOAA and NASA release reports every few months on the state of the sunspot cycle. This is probably the most accurate source in terms of what is likely to happen. Current Sunspot Cycle 24 gave a smoothed sunspot number maximum of about 69 in the late Summer of 2013. The smoothed sunspot number reached 68.9 in August 2013, the official maximum. Now, at the start of 2020 we should be at or near the bottom and it is hoped things will start to improve. We are currently seven years into Cycle 24. The current predicted and observed size makes this the smallest sunspot cycle since Cycle 14 which had a maximum of 64.2 in February of 1906. Back in April of 2019, the previous report predicted that the solar minimum would likely happen between July 2019 and September 2020. In the most recent report dated December 2019, they are predicting that the minimum has been pushed back. They predict that it will now occur sometime between November 2019 and October 2020.
As for the upcoming Solar Cycle 25, they are still predicting that it will be similar in intensity to the last solar cycle with a smoothed sunspot number (SSN) of 115. The peak is predicted to occur between November 2024 and March 2026. When sunspot activity increases, the reflecting capabilities of the F1 layer surrounding earth enable high frequency short-wave communications. The highest-reflecting layer, the F2 layer, which is approximately 200 miles (320 km) above earth, receives ultraviolet radiation from the sun, causing ionization of the gases within this layer. During the daytime when sunspot activity is at a maximum, the F2 layer can become intensely ionized due to radiation from the sun. When solar activity is sufficiently high, the MUF (Maximum Usable Frequency) rises, hence the ionization density is sufficient to reflect signals well into the 30 â 50 MHz VHF spectrum. Since the MUF progressively increases, F2 reception on lower frequencies can support potential low band amateur radio paths. A rising MUF will initially affect the 27 MHz CB band, and the amateur 28 MHz 10 meter band before reaching 45-55 MHz TV and the 6 Meter amateur band. The F2 MUF generally increases at a slower rate compared to the Es MUF. Since the height of the F2 layer is some 200 miles (320 km), it follows that single-hop F2 signals will be received at thousands rather than hundreds of miles. A single-hop F2 signal will usually be around 2,000 miles (3,200 km) minimum. A maximum F2 single-hop can reach up to approximately 2,500 miles (4,000 km). Multi-hop F2 propagation has enabled low-band VHF reception to over 11,000 miles (17,700 km). The correct answer to our question "What is the maximum distance along the Earth's surface that is normally covered in one hop using the F2 region?"Â therefore is (C) 4,000 Km (2,500 miles)Â ~ John VE7TI
In a former job, I had a coworker who liked and respected me much more than I liked and respected him. But I was pleasant and professional to him, so he didnât realize the disparity in our attitudes. We had various managers who we reported to on different days. He had a specific problem with one of the managers, an African American woman I respected and liked. I defended her to my coworker more than once, but he was oblivious. Literally oblivious, like he couldnât even hear my defense of her.
One day he asked me to read a letter he was sending to someone three rungs up the ladder from us, two up from the manager in question, explaining exactly why he didnât think she should be employed by our company anymore. He asked me to read it and tell him what I thought.
It was hand-written, in very large letters, and spoke specifically about how she dressed, what parts of her body her clothing accentuated, and what kind of impression her appearance gave, in his opinion. âWhoreâ was one of the nicer words involved.
He signed his name to this letter, by the way.
Strangely, I found myself torn. I didnât want someone saying these things about the manager, but I knew that sending the letter would do tremendous damage to the career of the guy who sent it and, if anything, demonstrate to the higher-ups exactly what she had to put up with.
In the end I did what I thought was the decent thing and told him that he shouldnât send the letter, because I didnât agree with anything in it and that I thought it would reflect badly on him. To show you how oblivious he was, he came in the next day with a smug look on his face and told me he sent it.
I never saw any sign that the note caused any damage to the managerâs career, and while the letter writer wasnât fired, he certainly never got promoted past the position he was in.
As always, thanks for using my Amazon Affiliate links (US, UK, Canada).
The most recent BSD Now episode is unfortunately not all about legacy hardware as I would enjoy, despite the title, but the usual mix of news items â mostly about new platforms to find BSD.
Canis Minor the Small Dog is one of two dogs â the other is Canis Major â that follow Orion on his hunt across the sky. The constellationâs brightest star is Procyon which means âbefore the dogâ and refers to the face that Procyon rises before Sirius. Sidney Hall, Uraniaâs Mirror
Weâre naturally drawn to the bright and obvious in the night sky. Everyone knows Orion the hunter and many of us can find Sirius in Canis Major the Big Dog. Ditto for the Big Dipper. All this attention-grabbing leaves the lesser constellations to ply the sky with far fewer admirers. Letâs do something to correct that. Weâll start with a surprisingly easy but virtually unknown star group â at least among the general populace â called Canis Minor the Little Dog.
First, let me say that Canis Minor hardly looks like its name. Two stars comprise the entire constellation. Connect them with a line and youâve got a bone to toss to an actual dog. Maybe. But the simplicity of the group make it easy to see and remember. Moreover, itâs super easy to find.
With a little help from Betelgeuse and SIrius you can connect to Procyon and Canis Minor the little dog. The three stars connect to form a big, bright triangle, each side about two fists long. Stellarium
Go out around 8:30-9 p.m. in mid-January and face southeast. Straight off youâll see the three stars in a row that define Orionâs Belt. Shoot an arrow through the belt down toward the horizon, and it will pierce brilliant Sirius along the way. Sirius shines about two fists below Orion. Its brilliance and twinkle are matchless.
Now, thrust your balled fist to the sky and mark off a little more than two fists to the upper left of Sirius. Youâll see a bright star there â thatâs Procyon (PRO-see-on), Canis Minorâs brightest star and the 8th brightest star in the sky. I hope youâre asking yourself âwhere have you been all my life?â right now. How nice to finally make its acquaintance. A fainter star will catch your eye just a few degrees to the upper right of Procyon called Gomeisa. Sketch a line between them in your mindâs eye and thatâs Canis Minor.Â
Three bright stars â Sirius, Procyon and Betelgeuse â outline the Winter Triangle asterism. Bob King
It gets better. If you now draw a line from Procyon to Betelgeuse (in Orion) and from there back down to Sirius youâll be staring at a big, nearly-equilateral triangle. Skywatchers call it the Winter Triangle. Summerâs got one. Why not winter, right? Figures composed of easy, bright stars that are either a part of a constellation or combine stars from several constellations are called asterisms. Orionâs Belt is the most famous of them.
While youâre out admiring Canis Minor be sure to give a look at Betelgeuse. This famous red supergiant star can shine as brightly as Procyon (magnitude 0.4), but it has faded dramatically over the past two months. Click here for additional information about the starâs history-making âfainting.â
This was our dog Sammy and her namesake, Sirius the Dog Star. Bob King
Procyon is one of Earthâs nearest neighbors at just 11.5 light years away. After the Alpha Centauri system and Sirius, the Little Dog Star is the third closest bright star in the sky. If you replaced the sun with Procyon youâd immediately regret doing so. The star is only a little hotter but twice as big, so things would heat up here in a hurry. Itâs also orbited by a tiny, planet-sized companion star called a white dwarf called Procyon B. Speaking of white, Sirius appears very white to the naked eye. Compare it next time to cooler Procyon, which appears yellow in contrast, then swing over to orange-red Betelgeuse for the complete color fiesta.
The name Procyon comes from the ancient Greek âbefore the dogâ and refers to the star rising before Sirius (a.k.a. the Dog Star) does. Let that be an acknowledgement that little dogs count too.
Via Ben Feist on twitter:Â âComing soon! Apollo 13 in Real Time!
Includes 7,200 hours of mission control audio as they work to save the crew.
Created by a small team including @steveslater1987@dave_charney@ke6jjj
Will launch in March. The 50th anniversary starts April 11. https://apolloinrealtime.org âÂ
While we continue to labor over the question of planets around Alpha Centauri A and B, Proxima Centauri â that tiny red dwarf with an unusually interesting planet in the habitable zone â remains a robust source of new work. Itâs surely going to be an early target for whatever interstellar probes we eventually send, and is the presumptive first destination of Breakthrough Starshot. Now we have news of a possible second planet here, though well outside the habitable zone. Nonetheless, Proxima Centauri c, if it is there, commands the attention.
Image: This is Figure 5 from the paper. Caption: Outcomes of the combined analysis of the astrometric and RV datasets. Left: True mass of Proxima c versus the sine of the orbital inclination, as obtained from the astrometric simulations. The black line is the simulated exact solution, the blue dots represent the values derived from the Gaia astrometry alone, while the red dots are the values derived by combining the Gaia astrometry with the radial velocities. Right: Fractional deviation of the true mass (defined as the difference between the simulated and retrieved masses for Proxima c divided by the simulated value) versus sine of the orbital inclination. Credit: Damasso et al.
Remember that when dealing with radial velocity results, we can only draw conclusions on the minimum mass in question, as we donât know how the system is inclined around the star. The researchers find that by analyzing the photometric data and spectroscopic results, they cannot explain the planetary signal through stellar activity, but they also argue that a good deal of follow-up work is needed through a variety of means. The paper notes, for example, that Proxima was observed with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) in 2017, with an unknown source detected at 1.6 AU. Is this evidence for Proxima c?
Itâs quite an interesting question, and one that involves more than a new planet:
ALMA imaging could corroborate the existence of Proxima c if the secondary 1.3-mm source is confirmed: In this sense, ALMA follow-up observations will be essential. In (28), the possible existence of a cold dust belt at â¼30 AU, with inclination of 45°, is also mentioned. If Proxima c orbits on the same plane, its real mass would be mc = 8.2 Mâ
Image: Artistâs impression of dust belts around Proxima Centauri. Discovered in data from the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile, the cold dust appears to be in a region between one to four times as far from Proxima Centauri as the Earth is from the Sun. The data also hint at the presence of an even cooler outer dust belt and may indicate the presence of an elaborate planetary system. These structures are similar to the much larger belts in the Solar System and are also expected to be made from particles of rock and ice that failed to form planets. Such belts may also prove useful in helping us investigate the presence of a possible second planet around this star. Credit: ESO / M. Kornmesser.
But Gaia astrometry is also crucial, for there is some evidence of an anomaly in Proximaâs tangential velocity that, if confirmed, would be compatible with the existence of a planet with a mass in the 10 to 20 Earth range, and a distance between 1 and 2 AU. Further work with Gaia data is clearly in the cards:
Given the target brightness and the expected minimum size of the astrometric signatureâ¦, Gaia alone should clearly detect the astrometric signal of the candidate planet at the end of the 5-year nominal mission, all the more so in case of a true inclination angle significantly less than 90°. Proxima is one of the very few stars in the Sunâs backyard for which Gaia alone might be sensitive to an intermediate separation planetary companion in the super-Earth mass regime.
A final consideration is that while the flux contrast between the hypothetical Proxima c and the parent star (depending on albedo, among other things) is beyond the capabilities of our current direct imaging technologies, the apparent separation of planet and star should be accessible to future high-contrast imaging instruments, perhaps the European Extremely Large Telescope, which the paper mentions along with other ground- and space-based instruments. So we have what the authors describe as âa very challenging target,â but one with huge interest for astronomers continuing to characterize this closest of all stellar systems.
It seems premature to get too far into a discussion of how Proxima c formed, since we have yet to confirm it. However, the authors make the case that if it is there, this planet would challenge us to explain how it formed so far beyond the snowline, where super-Earths could take advantage of the accumulation of ices. Perhaps the protoplanetary disk here was warmer than weâve assumed. In any case, the apparent circularity of the orbit and the absence of more massive planets closer in makes migration from the inner system unlikely. And I think we should leave formation issues there while we await new work, especially the authors note, from ALMA.
The Damasso paper reanalyzing the Proxima Centauri radial velocity data in 2017 is âProxima Centauri reloaded: Unravelling the stellar noise in radial velocities,â Astronomy & Astrophysics 599, A126 (2017) (abstract/ preprint). The new Damasso et al. paper is âA low-mass planet candidate orbiting Proxima Centauri at a distance of 1.5 AU,â Science Advances Vol. 6, No. 3 (15 January 2020). Full text.
Itâs with mixed sentiments that we share that Planetâs RapidEye constellation will be retired at the end of March 2020. After 11 years of faithfully gathering imagery, it has aged gracefully, to say the least.
RapidEye has gone above and beyond, making invaluable contributions to our global Earth observation dataset since being acquired from BlackBridge in 2015. The constellation has been in operation nearly four years longer than its design life and has generated the largest global archive of five meter satellite imagery to date.
Having surpassed its mission, and in accordance with Planetâs satellite operating license, we have chosen to retire the satellites proactively, staying committed to space exploration best practices and space debris regulations.
Since being launched into sun-synchronous orbit aboard the Dnepr rocket in Kazakhstan in 2008, the five RapidEye satellites have:
Orbited the Earth more than 305,000 times
Traveled a distance of nearly 13,422,000,000 kilometers, which is over 89 times the distance between the Earth and the Sun
Taken more than 660,000 pictures of Earthâs total landmass, which is equal to more than 15 billion square kilometers of imagery data
RapidEye satellites will no longer collect imagery for commercial or noncommercial use, but their contributions to Earth observation will always remain in our digital memories. Planet remains the steward of RapidEyeâs vast archive of impressive imagery, which customers will continue to leverage.
With support from our teams, customers who use RapidEye imagery will transition to our Next-Generation PlanetScope products, which provide higher spatial resolution as well as continuity with the Red, Green, Blue, Near Infrared and Red-Edge bands.
While there are no plans to build a second generation of RapidEye satellites, Planet forecasts that our Next-Generation PlanetScope product will meet, or exceed, RapidEyeâs historical coverage of Earthâs landmass. We also will continue to invest in future iterations of Dove satellites, creating significant enhancements to our medium-resolution PlanetScope imagery.
RapidEye has been a vital contributor to Planetâs mission of making change visible, accessible and actionable. Though the satellites remained active for just over a decade, their impact on the field of aerospace will be remembered for many a lifetime.
Here is a series of images collected as a tribute to RapidEyeâs contributions:
From June 2011 to April 2012, Puyehue-Cordón Caulle covered 16 square kilometers of the Andes in a lava flow about 30 meters thick. These RapidEye images show the area shortly before the eruptionâon March 24, 2011 and eight years later on March 10, 2019. (c) 2011 and 2019, Planet Labs Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Over the course of a decade, Switzerlandâs Pizol Galcier wasted away, transforming from an active glacier into scattered snow fields. The imagery was captured on September 8, 2009 (left) and August 9, 2019 (right). (c) 2019, Planet Labs Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Shenzhen, in Chinaâs Pearl River Delta, grew tremendously during the life of the RapidEye constellation. This image pair, from May 1, 2009 and November 5, 2019, shows the transformation of the area around Qianhai Bay. (c) 2019, Planet Labs Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Since filling in the late 1990s, the Toshka Lakes in southern Egypt have fluctuated wildly due to changes in rainfall over the Nile River Watershed. These changes are visible in complex fossil shorelines in the dry lake-bed. These RapidEye images show the changes in one of the lakes from January 9, 2011 to February 28, 2019. (c) 2011 and 2019, Planet Labs Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Customers who need any guidance or help during the period of transition from RapidEye to Next-Generation PlanetScope can reach out to the customer success team or support@planet.com.Â
A rendering of SpaceXâs Crew Dragon on top of the Falcon 9 rocket | Image: SpaceX
Early Saturday morning, SpaceX plans to launch a Falcon 9 rocket from Florida that will most likely break apart in midair just a few minutes after takeoff. The rocketâs demise is part of a planned test flight thatâs supposed to demonstrate SpaceXâs ability to handle a catastrophic failure of one of its vehicles. If the test goes well, SpaceX will be closer than ever to putting people on its Falcon 9 rocket for the first time this year.
Known as the in-flight abort test, this is one of the last major milestones that SpaceX must meet as part of NASAâs Commercial Crew program. Itâs a government initiative aimed at developing new American-made spacecraft to launch NASA astronauts from the US once again. For the last six years, SpaceX has...
We partnered with Driven Data and the World Bank to develop the Open Cities AI Challenge. This challenge uses machine learning to extract building footprints in unmapped areas to promote disaster resilience.
The security risks inherent in Chinese-made 5G networking equipment are easy to understand. Because the companies that make the equipment are subservient to the Chinese government, they could be forced to include backdoors in the hardware or software to give Beijing remote access. Eavesdropping is also a risk, although efforts to listen in would almost certainly be detectable. More insidious is the possibility that Beijing could use its access to degrade or disrupt communications services in the event of a larger geopolitical conflict. Since the internet, especially the "internet of things," is expected to rely heavily on 5G infrastructure, potential Chinese infiltration is a serious national security threat.
But keeping untrusted companies like Huawei out of Western infrastructure isn't enough to secure 5G. Neither is banning Chinese microchips, software, or programmers. Security vulnerabilities in the standards足the protocols and software for 5G足ensure that vulnerabilities will remain, regardless of who provides the hardware and software. These insecurities are a result of market forces that prioritize costs over security and of governments, including the United States, that want to preserve the option of surveillance in 5G networks. If the United States is serious about tackling the national security threats related to an insecure 5G network, it needs to rethink the extent to which it values corporate profits and government espionage over security.
To be sure, there are significant security improvements in 5G over 4G足in encryption, authentication, integrity protection, privacy, and network availability. But the enhancements aren't enough.
The 5G security problems are threefold. First, the standards are simply too complex to implement securely. This is true for all software, but the 5G protocols offer particular difficulties. Because of how it is designed, the system blurs the wireless portion of the network connecting phones with base stations and the core portion that routes data around the world. Additionally, much of the network is virtualized, meaning that it will rely on software running on dynamically configurable hardware. This design dramatically increases the points vulnerable to attack, as does the expected massive increase in both things connected to the network and the data flying about it.
Second, there's so much backward compatibility built into the 5G network that older vulnerabilities remain. 5G is an evolution of the decade-old 4G network, and most networks will mix generations. Without the ability to do a clean break from 4G to 5G, it will simply be impossible to improve security in some areas. Attackers may be able to force 5G systems to use more vulnerable 4G protocols, for example, and 5G networks will inherit many existing problems.
Third, the 5G standards committees missed many opportunities to improve security. Many of the new security features in 5G are optional, and network operators can choose not to implement them. The same happened with 4G; operators even ignored security features defined as mandatory in the standard because implementing them was expensive. But even worse, for 5G, development, performance, cost, and time to market were all prioritized over security, which was treated as an afterthought.
Already problems are being discovered. In November 2019, researchers publishedvulnerabilities that allow 5G users to be tracked in real time, be sent fake emergency alerts, or be disconnected from the 5G network altogether. And this wasn't the first reporting to findissues in 5G protocols and implementations.
Chinese, Iranians, North Koreans, and Russians have been breaking into U.S. networks for years without having any control over the hardware, the software, or the companies that produce the devices. (And the U.S. National Security Agency, or NSA, has been breaking into foreign networks for years without having to coerce companies into deliberately adding backdoors.) Nothing in 5G prevents these activities from continuing, even increasing, in the future.
Solutions are few and far between and not very satisfying. It's really too late to secure 5G networks. Susan Gordon, then-U.S. principal deputy director of national intelligence, had it right when she said last March: "You have to presume a dirty network." Indeed, the United States needs to accept 5G's insecurities and build secure systems on top of it. In some cases, doing so isn't hard: Adding encryption to an iPhone or a messaging system like WhatsApp provides security from eavesdropping, and distributed protocols provide security from disruption足regardless of how insecure the network they operate on is. In other cases, it's impossible. If your smartphone is vulnerable to a downloaded exploit, it doesn't matter how secure the networking protocols are. Often, the task will be somewhere in between these two extremes.
5G security is just one of the many areas in which near-term corporate profits prevailed against broader social good. In a capitalist free market economy, the only solution is to regulate companies, and the United States has not shown any serious appetite for that.
What's more, U.S. intelligence agencies like the NSA rely on inadvertent insecurities for their worldwide data collection efforts, and law enforcement agencies like the FBI have even tried to introduce new ones to make their own data collection efforts easier. Again, near-term self-interest has so far triumphed over society's long-term best interests.
In turn, rather than mustering a major effort to fix 5G, what's most likely to happen is that the United States will muddle along with the problems the network has, as it has done for decades. Maybe things will be different with 6G, which is starting to be discussed in technical standards committees. The U.S. House of Representatives just passed a bill directing the State Department to participate in the international standards-setting process so that it is just run by telecommunications operators and more interested countries, but there is no chance of that measure becoming law.
The geopolitics of 5G are complicated, involving a lot more than security. China is subsidizing the purchase of its companies' networking equipment in countries around the world. The technology will quickly become critical national infrastructure, and security problems will become life-threatening. Both criminal attacks and government cyber-operations will become more common and more damaging. Eventually, Washington will have do so something. That something will be difficult and expensive足let's hope it won't also be too late.
Back in December, I visitedNicolas Collinsat the School of the Art Institute in Chicago and got to see one of the latest creations that he is using in class. The beautiful traces wind their way into the classic LM386 audio amp for an expressive overdriven effect:
We recently visited the awesome Nicolas Collins at the School of the Art Institute in Chicago and got to play one of the latest creations that he is using in class. These beautiful traces wind their way into the classic LM386 audio amp for an expressive overdriven effect pic.twitter.com/LSQzn3xarK
⦠provides a long-needed, practical, and engaging introduction to the craft of making â as well as creatively cannibalizing â electronic circuits for artistic purposes. With a sense of adventure and no prior knowledge, the reader can subvert the intentions designed into devices such as radios and toys to discover a new sonic world. At a time when computers dominate music production, this book offers a rare glimpse into the core technology of early live electronic music, as well as more recent developments at the hands of emerging artists. In addition to advice on hacking found electronics, the reader learns how to make contact microphones, pickups for electromagnetic fields, oscillators, distortion boxes, and unusual signal processors cheaply and quickly.
Yesterday's Microsoft Windows patches included a fix for a critical vulnerability in the system's crypto library.
A spoofing vulnerability exists in the way Windows CryptoAPI (Crypt32.dll) validates Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC) certificates.
An attacker could exploit the vulnerability by using a spoofed code-signing certificate to sign a malicious executable, making it appear the file was from a trusted, legitimate source. The user would have no way of knowing the file was malicious, because the digital signature would appear to be from a trusted provider.
A successful exploit could also allow the attacker to conduct man-in-the-middle attacks and decrypt confidential information on user connections to the affected software.
That's really bad, and you should all patch your system right now, before you finish reading this blog post.
This is a zero-day vulnerability, meaning that it was not detected in the wild before the patch was released. It was discovered by security researchers. Interestingly, it was discovered by NSA security researchers, and the NSA security advisory gives a lot more information about it than the Microsoft advisory does.
Exploitation of the vulnerability allows attackers to defeat trusted network connections and deliver executable code while appearing as legitimately trusted entities. Examples where validation of trust may be impacted include:
HTTPS connections
Signed files and emails
Signed executable code launched as user-mode processes
The vulnerability places Windows endpoints at risk to a broad range of exploitation vectors. NSA assesses the vulnerability to be severe and that sophisticated cyber actors will understand the underlying flaw very quickly and, if exploited, would render the previously mentioned platforms as fundamentally vulnerable.The consequences of not patching the vulnerability are severe and widespread. Remote exploitation tools will likely be made quickly and widely available.Rapid adoption of the patch is the only known mitigation at this time and should be the primary focus for all network owners.
Early yesterday morning, NSA's Cybersecurity Directorate head Anne Neuberger hosted a media call where she talked about the vulnerability and -- to my shock -- took questions from the attendees. According to her, the NSA discovered this vulnerability as part of its security research. (If it found it in some other nation's cyberweapons stash -- my personal favorite theory -- she declined to say.) She did not answer when asked how long ago the NSA discovered the vulnerability. She said that this is not the first time the NSA sent Microsoft a vulnerability to fix, but it was the first time it has publicly taken credit for the discovery. The reason is that the NSA is trying to rebuild trust with the security community, and this disclosure is a result of its new initiative to share findings more quickly and more often.
Barring any other information, I would take the NSA at its word here. So, good for it.
And -- seriously -- patch your systems now: Windows 10 and Windows Server 2016/2019. Assume that this vulnerability has already been weaponized, probably by criminals and certainly by major governments. Even assume that the NSA is using this vulnerability -- why wouldn't it?
I for some reason set line height properties in the style sheet for dragonflybsd.org years ago, and it made scroll bars appear around all <pre> text. Itâs taken me years, but I finally removed it. Anyone notice other effects than the lack of those odd scrollbars?
   My five older brothers built something similar or akin to what might be called a Rat Rod today.  The origin was a 1951 Studebakerâ¦using the frame (which had been shortened by three feet), engine, and other parts.Â
    In the following photos are my brother Jimmy, who was driving, Iâm in the middle with the âcoolâ cowboy hat, and my brother, Phillip.
   My older brothers, Richard, Jimmy, Ronny, Donnie and Phillip, worked on fabricating âThe Bugâ as it was called.  I was a bit too young, and mostly just enjoyed watching.  Sometimes I would assist by handing them wrenches or anything else they might need.  Â
   Improvements were made over the next year with the installation of a mid-50âs Chrysler Hemi engine, which had much more horsepower than the Studebaker.   Â
   The sad looking tires, especially the front white-walls, were changed to better looking wheels.  Additions were made to the body, however, still constructed of wood panels.  With a larger budget, many improvements could have been made, butâ¦.
   My brother, Donnie, being in high school drove the school bus in the background.  It is an early 50âs model Chevrolet.
An astronomical telescope purchase in 1963: Â Â
   It was my brother Jimmy, who had already purchased (at the time of the photo) a 60mm f/15 equatorially mounted refractor from Sears, at a cost of $100.  This would be the equivalent of $835 in 2019.  An expensive telescope for sure.
   Two years later, I would begin using this telescope to observe deep-sky objects, and a lifelong interest in astronomy would follow, even to this day.
Roger Ivester  Â
 Now going to the future and current:   Â
   As time progressed, and with an improved budget, my brother Phillip would become a race car and engine builder.  He would also win 164 drag racing  events, over a thirty year period. Â
The following photo was made in September 2019: Â Â Â
   Phillip still has two race cars, and continues to race this car, as well as his second âalmostâ identical car, and will race again in 2020.    Â
Over the past few days Iâve put in about 18 hours trying various methods of programming the ID-5100 so it would be useful for a blind ham. Iâve discussed the problems with the radio and its very limited speech synthesizer in the past couple of posts. To recap significant issues:
The Speech Synthesizer will only announce frequency (not channel, not name).
While the radio defaults to a dual screen mode (left/right), there is only a single âHOMEâ button, which means there is no way for a blind ham to find where they are on one of the two sides. Not even a âbeepâ when the knob is rotated to channel zero
Loading programming from the SD card sometimes results in the radio staying configured as it was, and other times knocks it into dual screen mode. It would be nice if the only thing it did was load the channel memory and not mess up the screen settings.
The entire surface of the screen is active, and if a blind ham accidentally brushes up against the screen it can enter a menu that the ham canât get out of. Fortunately cycling power usually brings thing back. Butâ¦
The DR (Digital Repeater) function is sticky. If you accidentally get into DR mode, cycling power wonât get it back. And that mode is simply not usable by a blind ham as they canât locate and follow the screen prompts (which are NOT announced by the Speech Synthesizer). The only way a blind ham knows they have fallen into the DR mode is that turning the channel knob will announce different call signs of the DSTAR repeaters. Upon hearing that, the ham needs to press the DR button to toggle it out of that mode.
What we decided to do is the following:
Set the radio in a single screen mode, in MR Mode
Program all the local repeaters, simplex channels, and DSTAR into the first 99 memories (called âALLâ).
Program channel zero as the local NOAA Weather Channel â since this is on 24Ã7, that makes for a nice audio reference that says we are on channel zero. Pressing the âHOMEâ button will bring us to that channel.
Clockwise rotation of the channel knob will move to higher channel numbers, which we used for Analog Repeaters and Simplex channels.
Counterclockwise rotation of the channel knob (away from the Home) brings us to our DSTAR repeater. That is channel 99. Thatâs the position we use to chat through the DSTAR repeater normally. Lower channel numbers provide Information, Echo, Unlink, and various Reflector Link Commands. After using those commands we have to remember to get back to channel 99 before speaking (press home then one click counterclockwise).
There are likely different ways to accomplish the same thing. I hope someone has an easier way to use the radio for a blind ham. But the above is what 18 hours of effort produced.
Relatively minor changes to the radio firmware, such as optionally reading the âNameâ field from the programming, giving the channel number rather than the frequency, and having a left side/right side âHOMEâ program would have made things MUCH easier. Despite decades of awareness and legal requirements like the ADA, it is still very much a sighted world.
The Orion Nebula, seen here below Orionâs Belt (center), is part of an enormous complex of gas and dust called the Orion Molecular Cloud complex. Rogelio Bernal Andreo / CC BY-SA 3.0
Wonder where all the stuff that made the solar system came from? Trees, rocks, clouds, air ⦠even your dog. They all started as gases formed shortly after the Big Bang, combined with dust blown into space by later generations of stars. The solar system coalesced 4.6 billion years ago from within a denser clot of gas and dust inside a molecular cloud about 65 light years across.
How stars form inside molecular clouds â from cold gas to young stars (protostars) embedded in their birth dust. The Milky Way Galaxy contains between 1000 and 2000 giant molecular clouds. James Schombert / University of Oregon
Molecular clouds are just what they sound like â enormous clouds of gas and dust where low temperatures encourage the formation and preservation of many types of molecules. Denser regions inside the cloud are called âcores.â Here, gravityâs grip crushes and heats the material to form newborn suns. The Orion Nebula and surroundings are a good example of a current molecular cloud where tens of thousands of stellar newborns are blooming like dandelions in May.
Clouds contain mostly hydrogen and helium, the most common gases in the universe. They formed 380,000 years after the Big Bang, an event that occurred 13.7 billion years ago. 10 percent of the atoms in your body are hydrogen. Each connects every one of us to nearly the beginning of time.
But weâre also made of more complex elements like oxygen, carbon and nitrogen. Where did these come from? Theyâre the gifts of dying stars, manufactured through nuclear fusion within the starâs core and released into space when the star is near the end of its life. In fusion, simpler elements like hydrogen and helium fuse under the heat and pressure in a starâs core to become more complex elements like carbon and oxygen.
Artistâs impression of a red giant star blowing out gas and dust as bubbles of hot gas rise from its core. These seed space with fresh matter that can gather to form a new generation of stars. JAXA/ISAS/LIRA
Stars like the sun expand and cool to become red giants. Molecules form in their atmospheres, and gusty stellar winds waft them into space. Other stars explode as supernovae and blast their all manner of elements into space which combine to produce huge quantities of dust. The material gathers with red giant dust into molecular clouds, where new stars are forged, and the entire process begins again. In this way the universe recreates itself, fashioning new from old and forever surprising us with novelty.
These are highly magnified views of several grains of silicon carbide star dust found in the Murchison meteorite. Heck et al, doi: 10.1073/pnas.1904573117
Most of the material in the solar system dates back to about 4.6 billion years ago, but Prof. Philipp Heck, a curator at the Field Museum and lead author of a new study, found star dust dating back more than 5.5 billion years in the Murchison meteorite. Fragments of the carbon-rich meteorite that fell in Australia in 1969 were dissolved into a paste that smelled âlike rotten peanut butterâ according to the scientists. Heck and his team then extracted 40 grains of silicon carbide (also known as carborundum, an abrasive) from this goo and dated them by examining how cosmic ray bombardment had altered their composition. Cosmic rays are atomic nuclei â usually protons â whipping around the galaxy at incredible speeds, up to 99.6 percent that of light.
Based on their ages, which range from 4.6 to older than 5.5 billion years, the granules were here long before the sun and planets were born. In fact, these microscopic bits are now the oldest material thatâs ever been dated. Their composition points to an origin in powerful winds blowing from a long-ago generation of red giant stars.
âTheyâre solid samples of stars, real stardust,â said Heck.
And they seeded that long-ago cloud that grew into the sun and planets. Heck found more grains than expected which leads him to believe they formed during a time of vigorous star formation about 7 billion years ago. Ancient as the solar system is, it blows the mind to think what preceded it.
Every thing and everybody has a story. While all the specialized equipment and physics may feel intimidating at times, storytelling is at the heart of astronomy. This new discovery extends the story of the sun and planets further back in time, and in effect, the story of you and me.
Leaving from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, on January 5, a group of 560 competitors began the 42nd annual Dakar Rally: a 12-day, 4,660-mile (7,500-kilometer) off-roading adventure held entirely in Saudi Arabia this year. The race used to be held in Africa, until 2008, when unrest in Mauritania forced organizers to move to South America, where it was hosted until this year. The vehiclesâwhich include specialized cars, trucks, motorcycles, and quad bikesâare currently on stage 10 of 12 stages that lead to Qiddiya, in Riyadh, on January 17. Here is a look at Dakar 2020 in progress, as teams race to the finish line.
Mini's Argentine drivers Orlando Terranova and Bernardo Grue compete during stage 3 of the Dakar 2020 around Neom, Saudi Arabia, on January 7, 2020.
(
Franck Fife / AFP / Getty)
CITPâs Tech Policy Clinic submitted a Comment to the Federal Trade Commission in connection with its review of the COPPA Rule to protect childrenâs privacy online. Our Comment explains why it is important to update the COPPA Rule to keep it current with new privacy risks, especially as children spend increasing amounts of time online on a variety of connected devices.
What is the Childrenâs Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA)?
As background, Congress in 1998 gave the FTC authority to issue rules that govern how online commercial service providers should collect, use or disclose information about children under the age of 13. The FTC issued the first version of the Rule in 2000 which requires providers to place parents in control over what information is collected from their young children online. The Rule applies to both providers of services directed to children under 13 as well as those serving a general audience who have actual knowledge that they are collecting, using, or disclosing personal information from children under 13. This Rule was subsequently revised, after a period of public comment, in 2013 to account for technological developments, including the pervasive use of mobile apps. In 2019, the FTC announced it was revisiting the Rule in light of ongoing questions about the efficacy of the Rule in a data-fueled online marketplace and soliciting public comment on potential improvements to the Rule.Â
Core Recommendations to Update the COPPA Rule
Our Comment makes three main points:
We encourage the FTC to develop rules that promote external scrutiny of provider practices by making the providerâs choices about how they are complying with the Rule available in a transparent and machine-readable format.Â
We recommend that the FTC allow providers to rely on an exemption from collecting or tracking information related to âinternal operationsâ only under extremely limited circumstances, otherwise the exception risks swallowing the rule.Â
We offer some suggestions on how education technology providers should be responsive to parents and recommend that the FTC conduct further studies about how such technology is being used in practice.Â
We elaborate on each point below.
Enabling Effective External Compliance Checks Through Transparency
One of the central challenges with the COPPA Rule today is that it is very difficult for external observers (parents, researchers, journalists or advocacy groups) to understand how an online provider has decided to comply with the Rule. For example, it is not clear if a site believes it is in compliance with the Rule because it argues that none of its content is directed at children or because it has implemented rules that seek appropriate consent before gathering information about users. Making a providerâs choices on compliance transparent will enable meaningful external scrutiny of practices and hold providers to account.Â
Under the COPPA Rule providers are responsible for determining whether or not a service is child directed by looking to a variety of factors. If the service is directed at children, then the provider must ensure they have verified parental consent before collecting information about users. If the audience is of mixed age, then the provider must ensure that it does not collect information about users under the age of 13 without parental consent.
The determination about whether a service is child directed, as the FTC explains, includes factors such as âits subject matter, visual content, use of animated characters or child-oriented activities and incentives, music or other audio content, age of models, presence of child celebrities or celebrities who appeal to children, language or other characteristics of the Web site or online service, as well as whether advertising promoting or appearing on the Web site or online service is directed to children . . . [and] competent and reliable empirical evidence regarding audience composition, and evidence regarding the intended audience.â If the service is child directed and children under the age of 13 are the primary audience, then it is âprimarily child directed.â If services that are child directed, but do not target children as the primary audience, they are âchild directed, but mixed audienceâ services under the COPPA Rule.Â
If a mixed audience service seeks to collect information about users it can choose to implement an age gate to ensure it does not collect data about underage users. An age gate is, a mechanism that asks users to provide their age or date of birth in an age-neutral way.Â
Our principal recommendation is that the COPPA Rule should be revised to explicitly facilitate external scrutiny by requiring providers to make their design choices more open to external review. Specifically, we suggest that the FTC should make sites or services disclose, in a machine-readable format, whether they consider themselves, in whole or part, âdirected to childrenâ under COPPA. This allows academic researchers (or parents) to examine what the provider is actually doing to protect childrenâs privacy.Â
We also recommend that the FTC establish a requirement that, if a website or online service is using an age gate as part of its determination that it is not child directed, it must publicly post a description of the operation of the age gate and what steps it took to validate that children under 13 cannot circumvent the age gate.Â
In addition, drawing on our work on online dark patterns, we suggest that the FTC examine the verifiable parental consent mechanisms used by providers to ensure that parents are being given the opportunity to make fully informed and free choices about their childâs privacy.Â
Finally, we suggest some ways that platforms such as iOS or Android can be enlisted by the FTC to play a more effective role in screening users and verifying ages.
Restrict Providers from Relying on the âInternal Operationsâ Exception
Another significant issue with current practices is that providers rely on an exception for providing parental notice and obtaining consent before collecting personal information when they use persistent identifiers for âinternal operations.â The 2013 revisions to the Rule included this new exception, but required it to be used for a limited set of circumstances necessary to deliver the service. It appears many providers now use that exception for a wide variety of purposes that go well beyond what is strictly necessary to deliver the service. In particular, users have no external way to verify whether certain persistent identifiers, such as cookies, are being used for impermissible purposes. Therefore, our Comment urges the FTC to require providers to be transparent about how they rely on the âinternal operationsâ exception when using certain persistent identifiers and limit the circumstances when the providers are allowed to use such an exception.
Give Parents Control Over Information Collected by Educational Technology Service Providers
Finally, our Comment addresses the FTCâs query about whether a specific exception for parental consent is warranted for the growing market of providers of educational technology services to children (and their parents) in the classroom and at home. We recommend that the FTC should study the use of educational technology in the field before considering a specific exception to parental consent. In particular, we explain that any rule should cover the following issues: First, parents should be told, in an accessible manner, what data educational technology providers collect about their children, how that data is used, who has access to the data, and how long it is retained. Parents should also have the right to request that data about their children are deleted. Second, school administrators should be given guidance on how to make informed decisions about selecting educational technology providers, develop policies that preserve student privacy, and train educators to implement those policies. Third, the rule should clarify how school administrators and educational technology providers are accountable to parents for how data about their children are collected, used and maintained. Fourth, the FTC needs to clearly define what is meant by âeducational purposesâ in the classroom in considering any exceptions for parental consent.
* The Comment was principally drafted by Jonathan Mayer and Mihir Kshirsagar, along with Marshini Chetty, Edward W. Felten, Arunesh Mathur, Arvind Narayanan, Victor Ongkowijaya, Matthew J. Salganik, Madelyn Sanfilippo, and Ari Ezra Waldman.
We rightly celebrate exoplanet discoveries from dedicated space missions like TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite), watching the work go from initial concept to first light in space and early results. But letâs not forget the growing usefulness of older data, tapped and analyzed in new ways to reveal hidden gems. Thus recent work out of the Carnegie Institution for Science, where Fabo Feng and Paul Butler have mined the archives of the Ultraviolet and Visual Echelle Spectrograph survey of 33 nearby red dwarf stars, a project operational from 2000 to 2007.
The duo have uncovered five newly discovered exoplanets and eight more candidates, all found orbiting nearby red dwarf stars. Two of these are conceivably in the habitable zone, putting nearby stars GJ180 and GJ229A into position as potential targets for next-generation instruments. Both of these stars host super-Earths (7.5 and 7.9 times the mass of Earth), with orbital periods of 106 and 122 days respectively. Like the other planets unveiled in the discovery paper in The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series, these worlds were all found using radial velocity methods, uniquely powerful when deployed on low-mass red dwarfs.
Temperate super-Earths are interesting in their own right, but one of these has a particular claim to our attention, as lead author Feng explains:
âMany planets that orbit red dwarfs in the habitable zone are tidally locked, meaning that the period at which they spin around their axes is the same as the period at which they orbit their host star. This is similar to how our Moon is tidally locked to Earth, meaning that we only ever see one side of it from here. As a result, these exoplanets [have] a very cold permanent night on one side and very hot permanent day on the otherânot good for habitability. GJ180d is the nearest temperate super-Earth to us that is not tidally locked to its star, which probably boosts its likelihood of being able to host and sustain life.â
But GJ229Ac is also intriguing, a possibly temperate super-Earth in a system where the host star has a brown dwarf companion. That object, GJ229B, was one of the first brown dwarfs to be imaged, making this system an interesting testbed for planet formation models. We also have a Neptune-class planet orbiting GJ433 well out of the habitable zone, far enough from its star that the authors see it as a realistic candidate for future direct imaging. The planet is the coldest Neptune-like world weâve yet found around another star, and also the nearest to Earth.
Image: Artistâs concept of GJ229Ac, the nearest temperate super-Earth to us that is in a system in which the host star has a brown dwarf companion. Credit: Robin Dienel, courtesy of the Carnegie Institution for Science.
Efforts like this donât stop with a single dataset, but rely on multiple follow-ups to increase the fidelity of the data. Thus Feng and Butler used the Planet Finder Spectrograph at Las Campanas (Chile), ESOâs HARPS spectrograph (High Accuracy Radial Velocity Planet Searcher) at La Silla, and HIRES (High Resolution Echelle Spectrometer) at the Keck Observatory in a combination that, in Butlerâs words, âincreases the number of observations and the time baseline, and minimizes instrumental biases.â
I think Feng and Butler are right to emphasize the utility of the UVES data. From the paper:
The most important observation in a precision velocity data set is the first observation because observers cannot go back in time. For most of the stars in the UVES M Dwarf program, these are the first observations taken with state-of-the-art precision. This data set is all the more remarkable for focusing on some [of] the nearest stars, and the stars most likely to harbor detectable potentially habitable planets. These observations will continue to be important in finding and constraining planets around these stars for decades to come. We do not expect this to be the final word on this remarkable data set. We look forward to future researchers reanalyzing this data set with a superior Doppler reduction package, and producing the surprises that emerge from better measurement precision.
All of which emphasizes how creative we are learning to be with the data that in recent decades have been cascading in quantity, quality and importance. Nice work by the UVES M Dwarf team. As the paper goes on to say: âStarting back in the infancy of precision velocity measurements, they boldly went straight to the heart of the most interesting and challenging problem, finding potentially habitable planets around the nearest stars.â
And kudos to Feng and Butler for dedicating their paper to Carnegie astronomer and system manager Sandy Keiser, who died suddenly in 2017 during the analysis of the data from which these results emerged, but not before she produced work critical to this paper.
The paper is Butler et al., âA Reanalysis of the UVES M Dwarf Planet Search Program,â Astronomical Journal Vol. 158, No. 6 (2 December 2019). Abstract.
This morning, NASA astronauts Jessica Meir and Christina Koch are recreating their history-making all-female spacewalk. The pair will head outside the International Space Station today to do some more upgrades. Itâll be just the second time in history that two women have suited up â without any men â and performed a spacewalk together. And if all goes to plan, the pair could do it all again next week.
The purpose of todayâs spacewalk isnât all that remarkable, otherwise. Koch and Meir are tasked with continuing the multiyear process of swapping out batteries on the outside of the ISS. For decades, the space station relied on nickel-hydrogen batteries to store energy generated by the vehicleâs solar panels. But since 2017, NASA has been...
Machined out these small aluminium charge wells for deployment charges for rocketry. I have used small copper plumbers endcaps before now but needed slightly more capacity and IÂ wanted to try and make them in a way that the E-match wires would sit flush through a small slot, making them easier to seal. As I use Pyrodex rather than BP it's important that the seal is good to contain the Pyrodex correctly.Â
             Â
Machining them was pretty easy, I turned some stock down to 20mm diameter and centre drilled a 5mm hole for an M5 fixing (I potentially could have used smaller but I needed 5mm to give clearance for the home ground HSS boring bar). Then I bored them out to leave a 3mm wall thickness and parted them off on the lathe.
Having parted them off I decided that they were a little too long for my needs and I milled a couple of mm off each of them as there is no use carrying that weight if you don't need it! I then used a small endmill to mill the small slot.
It's nice to be able to try these ideas and I love machining parts for rockets... I mean I could just buy everything but where the fun in that! :)
e wish that all the beautiful animations that are available today to understand math and electronics had been around when we were in school. Nonetheless, they are there for todayâs students and [Learn Engineering] has another gorgeous one covering LC oscillation. Check it out, below.
If you are thoroughly grounded â no pun intended â in LC circuits, you probably wonât learn anything new. However, the animations are worth watching, just to admire them, if nothing else.
We were amused by his statement: â⦠looks as if the capacitor is saying: âyou take the energyâ and the inductor then says, âno, you take my energy.ââ Then we were further amused by [Seraphâs] comment which added, âResistance in the circuit: âAlright, Iâll take the energy, then.ââ
Of course, there are other ways to think of an LC circuit. The math isnât that hard. Most of us learned that the circuitâs mechanical analog is a mass on a spring or a pendulum. The massâs potential energy stretches out the spring until the spring then pulls it back until the potential energy of the mass pulls it back down.
If you want to experiment virtually, try the Falstad simulator. Just remember that if you think the sine wave isnât dampening to look at the scale. As the sine wave dampens, the simulator will adjust the scale so you keep seeing approximately the same size sine wave.
I'll be at RSA Conference 2020 in San Francisco. On Wednesday, February 26, at 2:50 PM, I'll be part of a panel on "How to Reduce Supply Chain Risk: Lessons from Efforts to Block Huawei." On Thursday, February 27, at 9:20 AM, I'm giving a keynote on "Hacking Society."
I'm speaking at SecIT by Heise in Hannover, Germany on March 26, 2020.
Microsoft today released updates to plug 50 security holes in various flavors of Windows and related software. The patch batch includes a fix for a flaw in Windows 10 and server equivalents of this operating system that prompted an unprecedented public warning from the U.S. National Security Agency. This month also marks the end of mainstream support for Windows 7, a still broadly-used operating system that will no longer be supplied with security updates.
As first reported Monday by KrebsOnSecurity, Microsoft addressed a severe bug (CVE-2020-0601) in Windows 10 and Windows Server 2016/19 reported by the NSA that allows an attacker to spoof the digital signature tied to a specific piece of software. Such a weakness could be abused by attackers to make malware appear to be a benign program that was produced and signed by a legitimate software company.
An advisory (PDF) released today by the NSA says the flaw may have far more wide-ranging security implications, noting that the âexploitation of the vulnerability allows attackers to defeat trusted network connections and deliver executable code while appearing as legitimately trusted entities.â
âNSA assesses the vulnerability to be severe and that sophisticated cyber actors will understand the underlying flaw very quickly and, if exploited, would render the previously mentioned platforms as fundamentally vulnerable,â the advisory continues. âThe consequences of not patching the vulnerability are severe and widespread.â
Matthew Green, an associate professor in the computer science department at Johns Hopkins University, said the flaw involves an apparent implementation weakness in a component of recent Windows versions responsible for validating the legitimacy of authentication requests for a panoply of security functions in the operating system.
Green said attackers can use this weakness to impersonate everything from trusted Web sites to the source of software updates for Windows and other programs.
âImagine if I wanted to pick the lock in your front door,â Green analogized. âIt might be hard for me to come up with a key that will open your door, but what if I could tamper with or present both the key and the lock at the same time?â
Kenneth White, security principal at the software company MongoDB, equated the vulnerability to a phone call that gets routed to a party you didnât intend to reach.
âYou pick up the phone, dial a number and assume youâre talking to your bank or Microsoft or whomever, but the part of the software that confirms who youâre talking to is flawed,â White said. âThatâs pretty bad, especially when your system is saying download this piece of software or patch automatically and itâs being done in the background.â
Both Green and White said it likely will be a matter of hours or days before security researchers and/or bad guys work out ways to exploit this bug, given the stakes involved. Indeed, already this evening KrebsOnSecurity has seen indications that people are teasing out such methods, which will likely be posted publicly online soon.
According to security vendor Qualys, only eight of the 50 flaws fixed in todayâs patch roundup from Microsoft earned the companyâs most dire âcriticalâ rating, a designation reserved for bugs that can be exploited remotely by malware or miscreants to seize complete control over the target computer without any help from users.
Once again, some of those critical flaws include security weaknesses in the way Windows implements Remote Desktop connections, a feature that allows systems to be accessed, viewed and controlled as if the user was seated directly in front of the remote computer. Other critical patches include updates for the Web browsers and Web scripting engines built into Windows, as well as fixes for ASP.NET and the .NET Framework.
The security fix for the CVE-2020-0601 bug and others detailed in this post will be offered to Windows users as part of a bundle of patches released today by Microsoft. To see whether any updates are available for your Windows computer, go to the Start menu and type âWindows Update,â then let the system scan for any available patches.
Keep in mind that while staying up-to-date on Windows patches is a must, itâs important to make sure youâre updating only after youâve backed up your important data and files. A reliable backup means youâre not losing your mind when the odd buggy patch causes problems booting the system. So do yourself a favor and backup your files before installing any patches. Windows 10 even has some built-in tools to help you do that, either on a per-file/folder basis or by making a complete and bootable copy of your hard drive all at once.
Today also marks the last month in which Microsoft will ship security updates for Windows 7 home/personal users. I count myself among some 30 percent of Windows users who still like and (ab)use this operating system in one form or another, and am sad that this day has come to pass. But if you rely on this OS for day-to-day use, itâs probably time to think about upgrading to something newer.
That might be a computer with Windows 10. Or maybe you have always wanted that shiny MacOS computer. If cost is a primary motivator and the user you have in mind doesnât do much with the system other than browsing the Web, perhaps a Chromebook or an older machine with a recent version of Linux is the answer. Whichever system you choose, itâs important to pick one that fits the ownerâs needs and provides security updates on an ongoing basis.
As always, if you experience glitches or problems installing any of these patches this month, please consider leaving a comment about it below; thereâs a better-than-even chance other readers have experienced the same and may chime in here with some helpful tips.
Iâve driven across the entire country twice. Whenever someone tells me theyâre thinking of doing the cross-country road-trip, I ask the same question. âDo you really need to?â
Itâs a great question, because they can deduce what my final answer will be without them having to answer my question themselves.
Donât get me wrong. Itâs a beautiful, fascinating country. But man, thereâs a lot of it. Like, a surprising amount. Especially Texas. We went a little crazy on the Texas, and thatâs coming from someone who has driven all over Montana.
As always, thanks for using my Amazon Affiliate links (US, UK, Canada).
Indigenous, Civil liberties, Human Rights & Labour Groups Condemn Exclusion Zone
For immediate release
VANCOUVER, Coast Salish Territories â The Union of BC Indian Chiefs, BC Civil Liberties Association, British Columbia Government and Service Employeesâ Union, and Professor Margot Young from the UBC Allard School of Law will be speaking at a press conference at UBCIC office, 312 Main Street, 4th floor boardroom, on Wednesday January 15, 2020 at 1 pm regarding the RCMP Exclusion Zone established at the 27km mark on the Morrice Forest Service Road West in Wetâsuwetâen territories.
According to UBCICGrand Chief Stewart Phillip, âWe expect the provincial government and BC RCMP to honour the Supreme Court of Canadaâs precedent-setting Delgamuukw/Gisdayâway case and the United Nations Declaration on the Right of Indigenous Peoples in all their decisions and actions. For Wetâsuwetâen people to be denied access to their own territories as a result of a police exclusion zone smacks of outright racism and the colonial-era pass system sanctioned by the so-called rule of law, which our people survived for far too long.â
The BCCLA is filing legal complaints for Delee Alexis Nikal and Cody Thomas Merriman (Wedlidi) to the Civilian Review and Complaints Commission for the RCMP. Both Nikal and Merriman were separately bringing food and emergency supplies but were denied entry and access at the RCMP exclusion zone, in contravention of the RCMPâs own statements and Nikal and Merrimanâs inherent Indigenous and Charter-protected rights.
âWe are extremely concerned about the use of exclusion zones prohibiting Wetâsuwetâen people, the public, and media from accessing Wetâsuwetâen territories. The Wetâsuwetâen assert continuous jurisdiction and unextinguished rights and land title, and the Charter protects liberty, mobility, freedom of the press, and the right not to be arbitrarily detained. This exclusion zone constitutes a serious violation of both the Indigenous rights and Charter-protected rights of Wetâsuwetâen people and their family members,â states Harsha Walia, Executive Director of the BC Civil Liberties Association.
âAs a trade union committed to supporting the full implementation of the calls to action of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the recommendations of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, we are deeply troubled by the use of exclusion zones prohibiting access to Wetâsuwetâen territories,â says Paul Finch, BCGEU Treasurer. âItâs imperative that the RCMP, Coastal Gaslink and the provincial government work with the Wetâsuwetâen clan and elected leadership to resolve the current dispute in the spirit of the principles articulated in those documents.â
The Wetâsuwetâen Hereditary Chiefs have submitted a formal request to the United Nations, following the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discriminationâs call for Canada to uphold free, prior, and informed consent. Constitutional legal expert and Professor at UBCâs Allard School of Law, Margot Young, states, âInternational law is absolutely central to resolution of this situation. All levels of government are bound by treaties signed by Canada, and Canadian constitutional law is to be informed by these human rights obligations. United Nations concerns are not to be lightly cast aside.â
Media inquiries:
Delee Alexis Nikal, Gidimtâen Clan, Wetâsuwetâen: 250-961-9642
Cody Thomas Merriman (Wedlidi), Haida: 250-877-2438
Grand Chief Stewart Phillip, President of UBCIC: 250-490-5314
Harsha Walia, Executive Director, BCCLA: 778-885-0040
Professor Margot Young, Professor in the UBC Allard School of Law: 778-926-6990
British Columbia Government and Service Employeesâ Union: communications@bcgeu.ca
Press conference details:
WHEN:Â Wednesday January 15, 2020; 1:00 PM P.S.T.
WHERE: Union of BC Indian Chiefs boardroom, 4th floor- 312 Main Street (entrance on Cordova)
My struggles continue to get a useful programming set for Ryanâs ID-5100. Iâve been at this for many hours over the past few days. Every time I think Iâve worked out something that might be useful, some quirk shows up that turns it into a dead end.
At one point I thought I would take advantage of the dual sides of the radio. Use the Left Side (normally called âAâ) for DSTAR and the Right Side âBâ for Analog. My thinking was that there are far more Analog repeaters in the area, and that would simplify what has to go on with the DSTAR side.
So I programmed all the active channels into the âALLâ memory list. Then I set the right side of the radio to work on Bank A (which I labeled âAnalogâ) and the left side to Bank B (which I labeled âDSTARâ). I thought I was all set. However Icom proved me wrong for two reasons. On the DSTAR side, ALL the memories have the same frequency (because they are for the same DSTAR repeater, but have different âURCALLâ functions). So the Speech Button says the same thing as you rotate the knob. And the WORST thing is there is only a single âHomeâ function (which beeps when you get to it). If you defined home as Channel 1 on the B side (analog), and happened to be on the A side for DSTAR, then hit the home button, it will change the left side of the radio to be on the âBâ bank â DANG. With only a single HOME, that meant you could not tell where you were in the channel list on the DSTAR side. DOUBLE DANG.
After much head-butting, Iâve decided to go back to a single list of all repeaters in the area, with the repeaters most commonly used in lower memory slots. I then set up memory slot 0 to be the local Weather Station. So it is easy for Ryan to find âhomeâ â he turns the dial until he hears the weather broadcast. From that position, if he rotates clockwise, he will step through the analog channels, and he can hear the frequency readout. As long as he memorizes that heâs fine. Then on the DSTAR side, I put his DSTAR Repeater into channel 99, then the Info function into 98, Echo into 97, Unlink into 96, Link to Ref069C in 95, etc. So he can find the home position then count clicks counterclockwise to get to the function he needs. At least the DSTAR Repeater will announce what he is linked to, so he will get audio confirmation.
Sadly this involves a LOT of memorization and careful counting of knob clicks to be useful for a sightless ham. Icom has shown their synthesizer can speak any number or letter. Would it have been so hard for them to announce channel number when in the Memory Recall Mode (channels), or frequency when in the VFO Mode? And how about allowing the user to optionally hear the alphanumeric âNameâ field? Sure would have been nice to hear âW1SYE INFOâ when the knob is rotated to that slot.
3548 Eurybates is a Jupiter trojan, one of the family of objects that have moved within the Lagrange points around Jupiter for billions of years (the term is libration, meaning these asteroids actually oscillate around the Lagrange points). Consider them trapped objects, of consequence because they have so much to tell us about the early Solar System. The Lucy mission aims to visit both populations (the âGreeksâ and the âTrojansâ) at Jupiterâs L4 and L5 Lagrangians when it heads for Jupiter following launch in 2021.
Image: During the course of its mission, Lucy will fly by six Jupiter Trojans. This time-lapsed animation shows the movements of the inner planets (Mercury, brown; Venus, white; Earth, blue; Mars, red), Jupiter (orange), and the two Trojan swarms (green) during the course of the Lucy mission. Credit: Astronomical Institute of CAS/Petr Scheirich (used with permission).
Right now the focus is on Eurybates as mission planning continues, for weâve just learned thanks to the Hubble instrumentâs Wide Field Camera 3 that this asteroid has a moon, an object more than 6,000 times fainter than Eurybates itself. According to mission principal investigator Hal Levison (Southwest Research Institute), that implies a diameter of less than 1 kilometer. The tiny moon will be among the smallest asteroids visited by Lucy, which is intended to perform flybys of six trojans, as well as a main belt asteroid along the way.
Thomas Statler is a Lucy program scientist at NASA headquarters in Washington:
âThere are only a handful of known Trojan asteroids with satellites, and the presence of a satellite is particularly interesting for Eurybates. Itâs the largest member of the only confirmed Trojan collisional family â roughly 100 asteroids all traceable to, and probably fragments from, the same collision.â
It took three tries with Hubble to confirm the satelliteâs existence, a tricky job given the objectâs faintness and unknown orbit around the much brighter Eurybates. Now the task is to figure out when it will become visible again, for Eurybates wonât be observable until well clear of the Sun, which wonât happen until June. No major changes to the existing flight planning are needed to incorporate the small moon into the mission, but refining its orbit around the asteroid will help scientists schedule the best observing time during the Eurybates encounter.
Image: This diagram illustrates Lucyâs orbital path. The spacecraftâs path (green) is shown in a frame of reference where Jupiter remains stationary, giving the trajectory its pretzel-like shape. After launch in October 2021, Lucy has two close Earth flybys before encountering its Trojan targets. In the L4 cloud Lucy will fly by (3548) Eurybates (white), (15094) Polymele (pink), (11351) Leucus (red), and (21900) Orus (red) from 2027-2028. After diving past Earth again Lucy will visit the L5 cloud and encounter the (617) Patroclus-Menoetius binary (pink) in 2033. As a bonus, in 2025 on the way to the L4, Lucy flies by a small Main Belt asteroid, (52246) Donaldjohanson (white), named for the discoverer of the Lucy fossil. After flying by the Patroclus-Menoetius binary in 2033, Lucy will continue cycling between the two Trojan clouds every six years. Credit: Southwest Research Institute.
We already have one binary to look forward to, for Patroclus, in the L5 cloud, has a small satellite called Menoetius. Note how stuffed with interesting things these Lagrangian points seem to be. We have D-type asteroids like Patroclus, which likely have water ice in the interior, as well as C- and P- class asteroids, the latter darker and bearing more similarities to Kuiper Belt objects than main belt asteroids. All are thought to be rich in volatiles. Our explorations here should offer insights into primordial planet-building materials in the early Solar System.
The judging for the eighth annual Ocean Art Underwater Photo Contest, organized by the Underwater Photography Guide, has wrapped up, and the winning images and photographers have been announced. Greg Lecoeur took Best in Show with his image of a crabeater seal in Antarctica. The contest organizers have shared with us some of the winners and honorable mentions below, from the 16 categories of underwater photography. Captions were written by the individual photographers and have been lightly edited for content.
A new feature for my d3-celestial star map: Celestial.addCallback allows to define a callback function that will be executed in the local client context every time the map is redrawn. This enables other display elements to react to changes, for example the marker position in the geolocator-globe above. Usage is pretty simple: add an anonymous function as the parameter for addCallback:
Celestial.addCallback(function () {
var loc = Celestial.location();
globe.plugins.markers.remove("*");
globe.plugins.markers.add(loc[1], loc[0]);
});
It also demonstrates the other new feature, a geo-marker, implemented as a plugin for the geolocator-globe. This takes the position of the last mouse position and puts a marker on it. These can be of different colors and sizes, so can be added in any form or number you like. The remove function takes an asterisk to remove all, an arry index or the exact position to remove one.
function markers(config) {
var marks = [];
config = config || {};
var addMark = function(lng, lat, options) {
options = options || {};
options.color = options.color || config.color || 'white';
options.size = options.size || config.size || 5;
var mark = { options: options };
if (config.latitudeFirst) {
mark.lat = lng;
mark.lng = lat;
} else {
mark.lng = lng;
mark.lat = lat;
}
marks.push(mark);
};
var removeMark = function(lng, lat) {
if (lng === "*") {
marks = [];
return;
}
if (arguments.length === 1 && lng < marks.length) {
marks.splice(lng, 1);
return;
}
if (arguments.length === 2) {
for (var i=0; i <= marks.length; i++) {
if (marks[i].lng === lng && marks[i].lat === lat) {
marks.splice(i, 1);
return;
}
}
}
}
var drawMarks = function(planet, context) {
for (var i = 0; i < marks.length; i++) {
var mark = marks[i];
drawMark(planet, context, mark);
}
};
var drawMark = function(planet, context, mark) {
var color = mark.options.color,
size = mark.options.size * 5,
pos = planet.projection([mark.lng, mark.lat]);
context.fillStyle = color;
context.beginPath();
context.moveTo(pos[0], pos[1]);
context.arc(pos[0], pos[1] - size, size/2, Math.PI, 0);
context.fill();
context.fillStyle = "#fff";
context.beginPath();
context.arc(pos[0], pos[1]- size, size/4, 0, 2 * Math.PI);
context.fill();
};
return function (planet) {
planet.plugins.markers = {
add: addMark,
remove: removeMark
};
planet.onDraw(function() {
planet.withSavedContext(function(context) {
drawMarks(planet, context);
});
});
};
};
Sometimes you get 2 nice tips: I like seeing this NetBSD->FreeBSD->DragonFly cross pollination in this commit, and also now I know I can fsck a FAT volume on BSD.
3rd bonus: that last sentence sounds terribly rude.
For the past four years or so I have been receiving increasingly frequent requests for either guest posts, or links to external sites (or sometimes both). The requests have increased in number ever since I started posting about my use of OpenVPN. Many of these requests want me to point to their commercial VPN site. The requests all look something like this:
Hi.
My name is Foo. I represent Bar. I found your blog on google and read your article on âXâ. I think your readers will like our discussion about âXâ on our site. Would you be willing to host a guest post by us, or one of our affiliates, promoting the use of âYâ? It would also be really good if you could link to our site from your article.
We are really flexible, so we could totally negotiate about special deals.
Now, the least irritating of these requests tend to come to the correct email address (which shows they have read the âaboutâ page) rather than âpostmaster@baldric.netâ or some other speculative email address, and they are also directly relevant to the article in question (which shows they have actually read that too). But unfortunately, a depressingly large number of requests point to article âXâ which has nothing whatsoever to do with their site (which may be a commercial site of tangential, at best, relevance to anything I write about). The worst type of request merely asks for me to point to some external resource from some random post on trivia.
I very, very, very rarely respond to any such requests. And I never, ever respond to persistent, repeated requests from the same source.
One particularly laughable request came in about three years ago. It asked me to point to an on-line password generator/checker (not a smart thing to do). I tried it with an XKCD style password like âsoldieravailablecrossmagnetâ and got the stupid response:
âWeak Password
It would take a computer about 507 quintillion years to crack your
password.â
Weak password eh?
It should be obvious, but in case it isnât Iâll spell it out here (and in an addition to my âaboutâ page).
This is a personal blog. It is avowedly and intentionally non-commercial in nature. I pay for this blog from my own resources simply because I want to. I do not seek, nor will I accept, any sponsored content or linkages of any kind. Any external resources I point to are there simply because I have personally found those resources interesting or useful. So please do not ask me to point to your site. Please do not ask me for sponsored content. Please do not ask me for guest posts. If you do, it simply proves that you have not done your research properly â so you will be ignored.
I first started using Linksys NSLU2s (aka âslugsâ) in early 2008. Back then I considered them quite useful and I even ran webservers and local apt-caches on them. But realistically they are (and even then, were) a tad underpowered. Worse, since Debian on the XScale-IXP42x hasnât been updated for several years, the slugs are probably vulnerable to several exploits. The latest version of Debian available for the slugs is probably that which I have running (âuname -aâ shows âLinux slug 3.2.0-6-ixp4xx #1 Debian 3.2.102-1 armv5telâ).
The advent of the Raspberry Pi (astonishingly eight years ago now) brought a much more powerful and flexible device into the hands of the masses â and it didnât need complex re-flashing procedures to get a general purpose linux installation running on it. Over the christmas period last year I added two more Pis (Pi 4s this time) to my network and finally got around to retiring my slugs (well, actually I still have one running, but I will get around to replacing that too soon).
On replacing the slugs I noticed that the 1TB disk I bought as additional storage for my main slug had been running almost non-stop (apart from the occasional reboot) since March 2009. I think that is a remarkably good lifetime for a consumer grade hard disk. Certainly I have had internal disks fail at much lower usage timescales. I have even had supposedly more robust, and certainly way more expensive, disks fail on high end Sun workstations and servers in my professional life.
So if you are in the market for new consumer grade disks, I think I can safely recommend Toshiba.
BusKill is designed to wipe your laptop (Linux only) if it is snatched from you in a public place:
The idea is to connect the BusKill cable to your Linux laptop on one end, and to your belt, on the other end. When someone yanks your laptop from your lap or table, the USB cable disconnects from the laptop and triggers a udev script [1, 2, 3] that executes a series of preset operations.
These can be something as simple as activating your screensaver or shutting down your device (forcing the thief to bypass your laptop's authentication mechanism before accessing any data), but the script can also be configured to wipe the device or delete certain folders (to prevent thieves from retrieving any sensitive data or accessing secure business backends).
Clever idea, but I -- and my guess is most people -- would be much more likely to stand up from the table, forgetting that the cable was attached, and yanking it out. My problem with pretty much all systems like this is the likelihood of false alarms.
EDITED TO ADD (1/14): There are Bluetooth devices that will automatically encrypt a laptop when the device isn't in proximity. That's a much better interface than a cable.
After 20+ years of programming, I wanted to get some understanding of the electronics that make my career possible.
I had built the basic individual logic gates with transistors on a breadboard, but to build anything meaningful I needed loads of them and so I bought a somewhat random collection of logic chips on Amazon which introduced me to the 7400-series and the concept of datasheets.
After a few simple projects I wanted to build something more useful: a quartz clock with LED display.
I took a 5 month sabbatical from work and software in general to get into digital electronics, and somehow managed to build my son an actual clock (no uC or code) using @digikey, @kicad_pcb, @oshpark and @Hacksterio.
Sources tell KrebsOnSecurity that Microsoft Corp. is slated to release a software update on Tuesday to fix an extraordinarily serious security vulnerability in a core cryptographic component present in all versions of Windows. Those sources say Microsoft has quietly shipped a patch for the bug to branches of the U.S. military and to other high-value customers/targets that manage key Internet infrastructure, and that those organizations have been asked to sign agreements preventing them from disclosing details of the flaw prior to Jan. 14, the first Patch Tuesday of 2020.
According to sources, the vulnerability in question resides in a Windows component known as crypt32.dll, a Windows module that Microsoft says handles âcertificate and cryptographic messaging functions in the CryptoAPI.â The Microsoft CryptoAPIÂ provides services that enable developers to secure Windows-based applications using cryptography, and includes functionality for encrypting and decrypting data using digital certificates.
A critical vulnerability in this Windows component could have wide-ranging security implications for a number of important Windows functions, including authentication on Windows desktops and servers, the protection of sensitive data handled by Microsoftâs Internet Explorer/Edge browsers, as well as a number of third-party applications and tools.
Equally concerning, a flaw in crypt32.dll might also be abused to spoof the digital signature tied to a specific piece of software. Such a weakness could be exploited by attackers to make malware appear to be a benign program that was produced and signed by a legitimate software company.
This component was introduced into Windows more than 20 years ago â back in Windows NT 4.0. Consequently, all versions of Windows are likely affected (including Windows XP, which is no longer being supported with patches from Microsoft).
Microsoft has not yet responded to requests for comment. However, KrebsOnSecurity has heard rumblings from several sources over the past 48 hours that this Patch Tuesday (tomorrow) will include a doozy of an update that will need to be addressed immediately by all organizations running Windows.
Update 7:49 p.m. ET: Microsoft responded, saying that it does not discuss the details of reported vulnerabilities before an update is available. The company also said it does ânot release production-ready updates ahead of regular Update Tuesday schedule. âThrough our Security Update Validation Program (SUVP), we release advance versions of our updates for the purpose of validation and interoperability testing in lab environments,â Microsoft said in a written statement. âParticipants in this program are contractually disallowed from applying the fix to any system outside of this purpose and may not apply it to production infrastructure.â
Original story:
Will Dormann, a security researcher who authors many of the vulnerability reports for the CERT Coordination Center (CERT-CC), tweeted today that âpeople should perhaps pay very close attention to installing tomorrowâs Microsoft Patch Tuesday updates in a timely manner. Even more so than others. I donât knowâ¦just call it a hunch?â Dormann declined to elaborate on that teaser.
It could be that the timing and topic here (cryptography) is nothing more than a coincidence, but KrebsOnSecurity today received a heads up from the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) stating that NSAâs Director of Cybersecurity Anne Neuberger is slated to host a call on Jan. 14 with the news media that âwill provide advanced notification of a current NSA cybersecurity issue.â
The NSAâs public affairs folks did not respond to requests for more information on the nature or purpose of the discussion. The invitation from the agency said only that the call âreflects NSAâs efforts to enhance dialogue with industry partners regarding its work in the cybersecurity domain.â
Stay tuned for tomorrowâs coverage of Patch Tuesday and possibly more information on this particular vulnerability.
Update, Jan. 14, 9:20 a.m. ET: The NSAâs Neuberger said in a media call this morning that the agency did indeed report this vulnerability to Microsoft, and that this was the first time Microsoft will have credited NSA for reporting a security flaw. Neuberger said NSA researchers discovered the bug in their own research, and that Microsoftâs advisory later today will state that Microsoft has seen no active exploitation of it yet.
According to the NSA, the problem exists in Windows 10 and Windows Server 2016. Asked why the NSA was focusing on this particular vulnerability, Neuberger said the concern was that it âmakes trust vulnerable.â The agency declined to say when it discovered the flaw, and that it would wait until Microsoft releases a patch for it later today before discussing further details of the vulnerability.
Update, 1:47 p.m. ET: Microsoft has released updates for this flaw (CVE-2020-0601). Their advisory is here. The NSAâs writeup (PDF) includes quite a bit more detail, as does the advisory from CERT.
Iâve commented a few times about a young ham that I spent about 18 months getting ready for his Technician License. This was a bit more difficult journey due to Ryan being blind. After a year of being on the air, the ham radio bug has bitten him full force, and he is now an excellent Phone Contest Operator. The best news is that we are about half way through his General License.
As difficult as passing the exam was for Ryan, it is painful to see how absolutely horrible modern radio gear is to operate, when you put yourself in the shoes of a blind person. While Kenwood does a reasonable job on some of their radios, I have to say that Icom should be the poster boy of how NOT to do things (as a sighted ham, I am a big fan of Icom gear and use several of their radios daily).
To expand Ryanâs horizons beyond local repeaters, he really wanted a DSTAR radio for Christmas. In order to have a RF solution that can reach the local DSTAR repeater, that meant something more powerful than the Kenwood THD74 (which Iâve helped another blind ham use). Ryan was given an Icom ID-5100A for Christmas.
One would think that the presence of a âSpeechâ button on the front panel meant that Icom had thought things through. Sadly that isnât the case at all. The radio will announce the frequency of the active VFO or memory channel, and the mode (FM or DV â sometimes), but nothing more (although it will announce a call sign if you are in the DR mode, which canât be used by a sightless ham). Really?
How is a blind ham supposed to move through dozens of repeater channels by frequency alone? The speech module can clearly read any text phonetically. Why not announce a channel NUMBER and call sign/location? It should have been possible.
My biggest concern is the large front panel touch screen. Accidentally brushing up against that screen can drive you into a menu system that a sightless ham cannot navigate at all (as the backup button appears in different locations on the screen). Fortunately, for the most part, you can get back to someplace reasonable by cycling power (not an optimal approach)
More horrifying is the âDRâ Digital Repeater Mode. If you accidentally bump that button, you are stuck in that mode, where Icom has a list of DSTAR repeaters (that hasnât been updated in five+ years I might add). Cycling power wonât get you out of it! Essentially one bump and the rig is rendered useless to a sightless ham.
All vendors can do better. This stuff isnât rocket science. Simply close you eyes and try to use your rig. Effective solutions can be achieved with a bit of effort.  Ironic that the maligned $25 BaoFeng UV5R can be operated by a sightless ham since every keystroke is announced by their speech function.
Hams seem to LOVE bells and whistles. This has driven vendors to use touch screens and deep menu systems. These are hard enough for a sighted ham, and impossible to use without decent speech synthesis for blind hams.
Philippine authorities are warning of a possible âexplosive eruption,â after Taal Volcano vented yesterday, spewing ash up to nine miles into the sky. Photographers captured the spectacular event, which generated countless lightning strikes in and around the ash column. Hundreds of thousands of residents within a 10-mile radius of the volcano are now being evacuated, and flights in and out of Manila have been disrupted.
Lightning strikes as a column of ash rises from the crater of Taal Volcano as it erupts on January 12, 2020, as seen from Tagaytay, Cavite province, Philippines.
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Ezra Acayan / Getty)
KrebsOnSecurity heard from a reader in South Africa who recently received a text message stating his lost iPhone X had been found. The message addressed him by name and said he could view the location of his wayward device by visiting the link https://maps-icloud[.]com â which is most definitely not a legitimate Apple or iCloud link and is one of countless spoofing Appleâs âFind Myâ service for locating lost Apple devices.
While maps-icloud[.]com is not a particularly convincing phishing domain, a review of the Russian server where that domain is hosted reveals a slew of far more persuasive links spoofing Appleâs brand. Almost all of these include encryption certificates (start with âhttps://) and begin with the subdomains âapple.â or âicloud.â followed by a domain name starting with âcom-â.
Here are just a few examples (the phishing links in this post have been hobbled with brackets to keep them from being clickable):
Savvy readers here no doubt already know this, but to find the true domain referenced in a link, look to the right of âhttp(s)://â until you encounter the first forward slash (/). The domain directly to the left of that first slash is the true destination; anything that precedes the second dot to the left of that first slash is a subdomain and should be ignored for the purposes of determining the true domain name.
For instance, in the case of the imaginary link below, example.com is the true destination, not apple.com:
https://www.apple.com.example.com/findmyphone/
Of course, any domain can be used as a redirect to any other domain. Case in point: Targets of the phishing domains above who are undecided on whether the link refers to a legitimate Apple site might seek to load the base domain into a Web browser (minus the customization in the remainder of the link after the first forward slash). To assuage such concerns, the phishers in this case will forward anyone visiting those base domains to Appleâs legitimate iCloud login page (icloud.com).
The best advice to sidestep phishing scams is to avoid clicking on links that arrive unbidden in emails, text messages and other mediums. Most phishing scams invoke a temporal element that warns of dire consequences should you fail to respond or act quickly. If youâre unsure whether the message is legitimate, take a deep breath and visit the site or service in question manually â ideally, using a browser bookmark so as to avoid potential typosquatting sites.
Our Sun is a G2V type star, or to use less formidable parlance, a yellow dwarf. It was inevitable that as we began considering planets around other stars (well before the first of these were discovered), we would imagine solar-class stars as the best place to look for life, but attention has swung to other possibilities in recent years, especially toward red dwarfs, which comprise a high percentage of all the stars in the galaxy. Now it seems that the problems of M-dwarfs are causing a reconsideration of the class in between, the K-class orange dwarfs.
Alpha Centauri B is such a star, although its proximity to Centauri A may raise problems in planet formation that we have yet to observe. Fortunately, our long-distance exploration of the Centauri stars is well underway, and we should have new information about what orbits the two primary stars here within a few short years. If we were to find a habitable zone rocky world around Centauri B, one thing that makes it interesting is the longevity of such stars.
Unlike our Sun, which is about halfway through its 10 billion year lifetime, orange dwarfs can live for tens of billions of years, offering abundant opportunity for lifeâs growth and evolution. While not as ubiquitous as M-dwarfs, K-dwarfs appear to be about three times more numerous than G-dwarfs like the Sun. These percentages are always being adjusted, of course, but Iâve seen estimates of G-dwarfs between 3 and 8 percent of the stellar population. A higher population of K-dwarfs, though, gives us plenty of search space for planets possibly bearing life.
How likely are the various kinds of stars to produce habitable conditions around them? M-dwarfs give us fantastically longer lifetimes (into the trillions of years), but at the recent meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Hawaii, Edward Guinan and Scott Engle (Villanova University) described the extreme levels of UV and X-ray radiation through flares and coronal mass ejections that planets in the habitable zones of these stars can receive, with the real possibility of atmospheres being stripped away. âWeâre not so optimistic anymore about the chances of finding advanced life around many M stars,â Guinan said.
Guinan and Engle have been engaged in a project called GoldiloKs at Villanova, in which they work with undergraduate students to measure factors like age, rotation rate, and radiation exposure in a sampling of stars ranging across primarily G- and K-class stars. The Hubble instrument, Chandra X-ray Observatory, and ESAâs XMM-Newton satellite are involved in the observations, with Hubble particularly useful for assessing radiation from the K-dwarfs. Lacking the intense magnetic fields powering up X-ray and UV emissions, these stars produce a scant 1/100th as much radiation as would be received by a habitable zone world around an M-dwarf.
To Guinan, these orange dwarfs are indeed the Goldilocks stars:
âK-dwarf stars are in the âsweet spot,â with properties intermediate between the rarer, more luminous, but shorter-lived solar-type stars (G stars) and the more numerous red dwarf stars (M stars). The K stars, especially the warmer ones, have the best of all worlds. If you are looking for planets with habitability, the abundance of K stars pump up your chances of finding life.â
Image: This infographic compares the characteristics of three classes of stars in our galaxy: Sunlike stars are classified as G stars; stars less massive and cooler than our Sun are K dwarfs; and even fainter and cooler stars are the reddish M dwarfs. The graphic compares the stars in terms of several important variables. The habitable zones, potentially capable of hosting life-bearing planets, are wider for hotter stars. The longevity for red dwarf M stars can exceed 100 billion years. K dwarf ages can range from 15 to 45 billion years. And, our Sun only lasts for 10 billion years. The relative amount of harmful radiation (to life as we know it) that stars emit can be 80 to 500 times more intense for M dwarfs relative to our Sun, but only 5 to 25 times more intense for the orange K dwarfs. Red dwarfs make up the bulk of the Milky Wayâs population, about 73%. Sunlike stars are merely 6% of the population, and K dwarfs are at 13%. When these four variables are balanced, the most suitable stars for potentially hosting advanced life forms are K dwarfs. Credit: NASA, ESA, and Z. Levy (STScI).
We have about 1,000 orange dwarfs within 100 light years of the Sun, making these interesting targets for future study. Whereas our own planet will face a habitable zone that gradually moves outward as the Sun begins to swell â weâre in deep trouble in a billion years or so â K-dwarfs see much slower migration of the habitable zone, with an increase in brightness by about 10-15 percent over the Sunâs entire lifetime. No wonder Guinan and Engle single out K-star hosts like Kepler-442 and Epsilon Eridani for extra attention. Indeed, Kepler-442 b is a rocky world circling a K5 star that Guinan calls âa Goldilocks planet hosted by a Goldilocks star.â
Addendum: I had inexplicably included Tau Ceti above as a K-class star (and yes, I had already had my morning coffee, so I have no excuses). Thanks to readers Alan and Michal Barcikowski for pointing out the error. Tau Ceti is a cool G8 dwarf, with mass about 70 percent of the Sunâs.
Higher biodiversity made Earth more habitable in the long term. If this is a general feature of inhabited planets, that is to say, that planets tend to become more habitable once they are inhabited, a host star slightly less massive than the Sun should be favorable for superhabitability. These so-called K-dwarf stars have lifetimes that are longer than the age of the Universe. Consequently, if they are much older than the Sun, then life has had more time to emerge on their potentially habitable planets and moons, and â once occurred â it would have had more time to âtuneâ its ecosystem to make it even more habitable.
Back to Guinan and Engle, whose work over the past 30 years has included X-ray, UV and photometric studies of F- and G-class stars, a corresponding study of M-dwarfs that lasted a decade, and now the collection of similar data for K-dwarfs. My point here is that the K-dwarf work takes place within the context of a robust dataset painstakingly gathered across a wide range of spectral types, giving these two researchersâ conclusions substantial heft.
Is Earth, then, only âmarginally habitableâ when compared to planets that could exist around stars more benign than our Sun? Itâs a fascinating thought that demands we examine our own anthropocentrism while at the same time bolstering our target list for future observatories.
Heller and Armstrongâs paper is âSuperhabitable Worlds,â Astrobiology Vol. 14, No. 1 (2014). Abstract available. Iâm sure a paper from Guinan and Engle is in the works. For now, however, have a look at Cuntz & Guinan, âAbout Exobiology: The Case for Dwarf K Stars,â Astrophysical Journal Vol. 827, No. 1 10 August 2016 (abstract).
Presidential campaign season is officially, officially, upon us now, which means it's time to confront the weird and insidious ways in which technology is warping politics. One of the biggest threats on the horizon: artificial personas are coming, and they're poised to take over political debate. The risk arises from two separate threads coming together: artificial intelligence-driven text generation and social media chatbots. These computer-generated "people" will drown out actual human discussions on the Internet.
Text-generation software is already good enough to fool most people most of the time. It's writing news stories, particularly in sportsandfinance. It's talking with customers on merchant websites. It's writing convincing op-eds on topics in the news (though there are limitations). And it's being used to bulk up "pink-slime journalism" -- websites meant to appear like legitimate local news outlets but that publish propaganda instead.
There's a record of algorithmic content pretending to be from individuals, as well. In 2017, the Federal Communications Commission had an online public-commenting period for its plans to repeal net neutrality. A staggering 22 million comments were received. Many of them -- maybe half -- werefake, using stolen identities. These comments were also crude; 1.3 million were generated from the same template, with some words altered to make them appear unique. They didn't stand up to even cursory scrutiny.
These efforts will only get more sophisticated. In a recent experiment, Harvard senior Max Weiss used a text-generation program to create 1,000 comments in response to a government call on a Medicaid issue. These comments were all unique, and sounded like real people advocating for a specific policy position. They fooled the Medicaid.gov administrators, who accepted them as genuine concerns from actual human beings. This being research, Weiss subsequently identified the comments and asked for them to be removed, so that no actual policy debate would be unfairly biased. The next group to try this won't be so honorable.
Chatbots have been skewing social-media discussions for years. About a fifth of all tweets about the 2016 presidential election were published by bots, according to one estimate, as were about a third of all tweets about that year's Brexit vote. An Oxford Internet Institute report from last year found evidence of bots being used to spread propaganda in 50 countries. These tended to be simple programs mindlessly repeating slogans: a quarter million pro-Saudi "We all have trust in Mohammed bin Salman" tweets following the 2018 murder of Jamal Khashoggi, for example. Detecting many bots with a few followers each is harder than detecting a few bots with lots of followers. And measuring the effectiveness of these bots is difficult. The best analyses indicate that they did not affect the 2016 US presidential election. More likely, they distort people's sense of public sentiment and their faith in reasoned political debate. We are all in the middle of a novel social experiment.
Over the years, algorithmic bots have evolved to have personas. They have fake names, fake bios, and fake photos -- sometimes generated by AI. Instead of endlessly spewing propaganda, they post only occasionally. Researchers can detect that these are bots and not people, based on their patterns of posting, but the bot technology is getting better all the time, outpacing tracking attempts. Future groups won't be so easily identified. They'll embed themselves in human social groups better. Their propaganda will be subtle, and interwoven in tweets about topics relevant to those social groups.
Combine these two trends and you have the recipe for nonhuman chatter to overwhelm actual political speech.
Soon, AI-driven personas will be able to write personalized letters to newspapers and elected officials, submit individual comments to public rule-making processes, and intelligently debate political issues on social media. They will be able to comment on social-media posts, news sites, and elsewhere, creating persistent personas that seem real even to someone scrutinizing them. They will be able to pose as individuals on social media and send personalized texts. They will be replicated in the millions and engage on the issues around the clock, sending billions of messages, long and short. Putting all this together, they'll be able to drown out any actual debate on the Internet. Not just on social media, but everywhere there's commentary.
Maybe these persona bots will be controlled by foreign actors. Maybe it'll be domestic political groups. Maybe it'll be the candidates themselves. Most likely, it'll be everybody. The most important lesson from the 2016 election about misinformation isn't that misinformation occurred; it is how cheap and easy misinforming people was. Future technological improvements will make it all even more affordable.
Our future will consist of boisterous political debate, mostly bots arguing with other bots. This is not what we think of when we laud the marketplace of ideas, or any democratic political process. Democracy requires two things to function properly: information and agency. Artificial personas can starve people of both.
Solutions are hard to imagine. We can regulate the use of bots -- a proposed California law would require bots to identify themselves -- but that is effective only against legitimate influence campaigns, such as advertising. Surreptitious influence operations will be much harder to detect. The most obvious defense is to develop and standardize better authentication methods. If social networks verify that an actual person is behind each account, then they can better weed out fake personas. But fake accounts are already regularly created for real people without their knowledge or consent, and anonymous speech is essential for robust political debate, especially when speakers are from disadvantaged or marginalized communities. We don't have an authentication system that both protects privacy and scales to the billions of users.
We can hope that our ability to identify artificial personas keeps up with our ability to disguise them. If the arms race between deep fakes and deep-fake detectors is any guide, that'll be hard as well. The technologies of obfuscation always seem one step ahead of the technologies of detection. And artificial personas will be designed to act exactly like real people.
In the end, any solutions have to be nontechnical. We have to recognize the limitations of online political conversation, and again prioritize face-to-face interactions. These are harder to automate, and we know the people we're talking with are actual people. This would be a cultural shift away from the internet and text, stepping back from social media and comment threads. Today that seems like a completely unrealistic solution.
Misinformation efforts are now common around the globe, conducted in more than 70 countries. This is the normal way to push propaganda in countries with authoritarian leanings, and it's becoming the way to run a political campaign, for either a candidate or an issue.
Artificial personas are the future of propaganda. And while they may not be effective in tilting debate to one side or another, they easily drown out debate entirely. We don't know the effect of that noise on democracy, only that it'll be pernicious, and that it's inevitable.
The year 2019 was an astronomical time for Planet. Twenty SuperDove satellites entered orbit aboard the ISROâs PSLV-C45 in the spring and 12 more hitched a ride into space in winter, with the latter marking Planetâs 25th successful launch. Since the companyâs inception a decade ago, we have launched over 400 satellites into spaceâand have now imaged all the Earthâs land an average of over 1,000 times!
But perhaps most exciting was our more terrestrial news activities over the past year.
â We hosted Explore 19, our first-ever global user conference, which had an attendance of over 400 customers, both current and prospective. (Watch the Explore 19 video recap here.) At the event, we made a series of exciting announcements:
â We added talent across every department, and are especially proud to report that we increased our numbers of women/non-binary employees in leadership by 24 percent year over year through an intentional focus on equity and inclusion. We also grew our executive team, hiring Martin van Ryswyk as our new SVP of Product.
â We launched Planet Orbit, a new partner ecosystem across verticals to better serve end users and help scale our business globally. We also launched Professional Services so that customers can more easily navigate our platform and APIs, build applications to optimize return on investment, and integrate imagery into their tech stack more efficiently. We also started our first Customer Advisory Board to help ensure that we always have our finger on the pulse of the market and our customers.
â We established Planet Federal as a subsidiary of Planet Inc. so that we can continue to grow partnerships with government entities and organizations like the National Reconnaissance Office and NASA, the latter of which has seen success with using our data to track key climate variables.
â We formed many impactful partnerships, including:
Satellites for Climate Action, a new initiative that will use satellite data to inform and accelerate climate protection. The initiative spawned from a partnership between Planet, California Governor Gavin Newsom and United Nations Secretary-Generalâs Special Envoy for Climate Action Michael R. Bloomberg.
The California Forest Observatory (CFO), a platform that will be designed to dynamically map forest structure and fuel loads down to the tree level and provide a clearer picture of wildfire risk. The CFO comes from a partnership with the Moore Foundation, Salo Sciences and Vibrant Planet.
A rendering of SpaceXâs Crew Dragon on top of the Falcon 9 rocket | Image: SpaceX
pic.twitter.com/LSQzn3xarK
As first reported Monday by KrebsOnSecurity, Microsoft addressed a severe bug (CVE-2020-0601) in Windows 10 and Windows Server 2016/19 reported by the NSA that allows an attacker to spoof the digital signature tied to a specific piece of software. Such a weakness could be abused by attackers to make malware appear to be a benign program that was produced and signed by a legitimate software company.
SpaceXâs most recent batch of 60 Starlink satellites launched in January. | Image: SpaceX
