Cyborg Cockroach Sparks Ethics Debate

 

At the TEDx conference in Detroit last week, RoboRoach #12 scuttled across the exhibition floor, pursued not by an exterminator but by a gaggle of fascinated onlookers. Wearing a tiny backpack of microelectronics on its shell, the cockroach—a member of the Blaptica dubia species—zigzagged along the corridor in a twitchy fashion, its direction controlled by the brush of a finger against an iPhone touch screen (as seen in video above).

RoboRoach #12 and its brethren are billed as a do-it-yourself neuroscience experiment that allows students to create their own “cyborg” insects. The roach was the main feature of the TEDx talk by Greg Gage and Tim Marzullo, co-founders of an educational company called Backyard Brains. After a summer Kickstarter campaign raised enough money to let them hone their insect creation, the pair used the Detroit presentation to show it off and announce that starting in November, the company will, for $99, begin shipping live cockroaches across the nation, accompanied by a microelectronic hardware and surgical kits geared toward students as young as 10 years old.

That news, however, hasn’t been greeted warmly by everyone. Gage and Marzullo, both trained as neuroscientists and engineers, say that the purpose of the project is to spur a “neuro-revolution” by inspiring more kids to join the fields when they grow up, but some critics say the project is sending the wrong message. "They encourage amateurs to operate invasively on living organisms" and "encourage thinking of complex living organisms as mere machines or tools," says Michael Allen Fox, a professor of philosophy at Queen's University in Kingston, Canada.

“It’s kind of weird to control via your smartphone a living organism,” says William Newman, a presenter at TEDx and managing principal at the Newport Consulting Group, who got to play with a RoboRoach at the conference. At the same time, he says, he is pleased that the project will teach students about the neuroscience behind brain stimulation treatments that are being used to treat two of his friends with Parkinson’s disease.

The roaches’ movements to the right or left are controlled by electrodes that feed into their antennae and receive signals by remote control—via the Bluetooth signals emitted by smartphones. To attach the device to the insect, students are instructed to douse the insect in ice water to “anesthetize” it, sand a patch of shell on its head so that the superglue and electrodes will stick, and then insert a groundwire into the insect’s thorax. Next, they must carefully trim the insect’s antennae, and insert silver electrodes into them. Ultimately, these wires receive electrical impulses from a circuit affixed to the insect’s back.

Gage says the roaches feel little pain from the stimulation, to which they quickly adapt. But the notion that the insects aren’t seriously harmed by having body parts cut off is “disingenuous,” says animal behavior scientist Jonathan Balcombe of the Humane Society University in Washington, D.C. “If it was discovered that a teacher was having students use magnifying glasses to burn ants and then look at their tissue, how would people react?”

Gage says that in his experience, working carefully and closely with insects and other animals in experiments can sensitize students to the fact that roaches “are actually similar to us and have the same neurons that we have.” He also notes that the company doesn’t kill their own roaches after the experiments, but sends them to a “retirement” tank that the team calls Shady Acres. Although they may be missing legs or antennae, the insects tend to get on with their lives after the experiments, he says. “They do what they like to do: make babies, eat, and poop.”

“I try not to downplay the fact that in science we use animal models and a lot of times they are killed,” Gage says. “As scientists, we do this all the time, but it happens behind closed doors.” By following the surgical instructions, he says, all students learn that they have to care for the roaches—treating wounds by “putting a little Vaseline” on them, and minimizing suffering whenever possible. Still, Gage acknowledges, “we get a lot of e-mails telling us we’re teaching kids to be psychopaths.”

The RoboRoach “gives you a way of playing with living things,” like a short-lived version of the forbidden “Imperius Curse” in the Harry Potter novels, says bioethicist Gregory Kaebnick of the Hastings Center in Garrison, New York. He finds the product “unpleasant,” but adds that he won’t be calling for a boycott, either. “I’ll just be happy that I found a cleverly marketed consumer item that I am very happy not to own.”

Source: Science Mag

How The NSA Deploys Malware: An In-Depth Look at the New Revelations

We've long suspected that the NSA, the world's premiere spy agency, was pretty good at breaking into computers. But now, thanks to an article by security expert Bruce Schneier—who is working with the Guardian to go through the Snowden documents—we have a much more detailed view of how the NSA uses exploits in order to infect the computers of targeted users. The template for attacking people with malware used by the NSA is in widespread use by criminals and fraudsters, as well as foreign intelligence agencies, so it's important to understand and defend against this threat to avoid being a victim to the plethora of attackers out there.

How Does Malware Work Exactly?

Deploying malware over the web generally involves two steps. First, as an attacker, you have to get your victim to visit a website under your control. Second, you have to get software—known as malware—installed on the victim's computer in order to gain control of that machine. This formula isn't universal, but is often how web-based malware attacks proceed.

In order to accomplish the first step of getting a user to visit a site under your control, an attacker might email the victim text that contains a link to the website in question, in a so-called phishing attack. The NSA reportedly uses phishing attacks sometimes, but we've learned that this step usually proceeds via a so-called “man-in-the-middle” attack.1 The NSA controls a set of servers codenamed “Quantum” that sit on the Internet backbone, and these servers are used to redirect targets away from their intended destinations to still other NSA-controlled servers that are responsible for the injection of malware. So, for example, if a targeted user visits “yahoo.com”, the target's browser will display the ordinary Yahoo! landing page but will actually be communicating with a server controlled by the NSA. This malicious version of Yahoo!'s website will tell the victim's browser to make a request in a background to another server controlled by the NSA which is used to deploy malware.

Once a victim visits a malicious website, how does the attacker actually infect the computer? Perhaps the most straightforward method is to trick the user into downloading and running software. A cleverly designed pop-up advertisement may convince a user to download and install the attacker's malware, for example.

But this method does not always work, and relies on a user taking action to download and run software. Instead, attackers can exploit software vulnerabilities in the browser that the victim is using in order to gain access to her computer. When a victim's browser loads a website, the software has to perform tasks like parsing text given to it by the server, and will often load browser plugins like Flash that run code given to it by the server, in addition to executing Javascript code given to it by the server. But browser software—which is becoming increasingly complex as the web gains more functionality—doesn't work perfectly. Like all software, it has bugs, and sometimes those bugs are exploitable security vulnerabilities that allow an attacker to gain access to a victim's computer just because a particular website was visited. Once browser vendors discover vulnerabilities, they are generally patched, but sometimes a user has out of date software that is still vulnerable to known attack. Other times, the vulnerabilities are known only to the attacker and not to the browser vendor; these are called zero-day vulnerabilities.

The NSA has a set of servers on the public Internet with the code name “FoxAcid” used to deploy malware. Once their Quantum servers redirect targets to a specially crafted URL hosted on a FoxAcid server, software on that FoxAcid server selects from a toolkit of exploits in order to gain access to the user's computer. Presumably this toolkit has both known public exploits that rely on a user's software being out of date, as well as zero-day exploits which are generally saved for high value targets.2 The agency then reportedly uses this initial malware to install longer lasting malware.

Once an attacker has successfully infected a victim with malware, the attacker generally has full access to the user's machines: she can record key strokes (which will reveal passwords and other sensitive information), turn on a web cam, or read any data on the victim's computer.

What Can Users Do To Protect Themselves?

We hope that these revelations spur browser vendors to action, both to harden their systems against exploits, and to attempt to detect and block the malware URLs used by the FoxAcid servers.

In the meantime, users concerned about their security should practice good security hygiene. Always keep your software up to date—especially browser plugins like Flash that require manual updates. Make sure you can distinguish between legitimate updates and pop-up ads that masquerade as software updates. Never click a suspicious looking link in an email.

For users who want to go an extra step towards being more secure—and we think everyone should be in this camp—consider making plugins like Flash and Java “click-to-play” so that they are not executed on any given web page until you affirmatively click them. For Chromium and Chrome, this option is available in Settings => Show Advanced Settings => Privacy => Content Settings => Plug-ins. For Firefox, this functionality is available by installing a browser Add-On like “Click to Play per-element”. Plugins can also be uninstalled or turned off completely. Users should also use ad blocking software to stop unnecessary web requests to third party advertisers and web trackers, and our HTTPS Everywhere add-on in order to encrypt connections to websites with HTTPS as much as possible.

Finally, for users who are willing to notice some more pain when browsing the web, consider using an add-on like NotScripts (Chrome) or NoScript (Firefox) to limit the execution of scripts. This means you will have to click to allow scripts to run, and since Javascript is very prevalent, you will have to click a lot. For Firefox users, RequestPolicy is another useful add-on that stops third-party resources from loading on a page by default. Once again, as third-party resources are popular, this will disrupt ordinary browsing a fair amount. Finally, for the ultra paranoid, HTTP Nowhere will disable all HTTP traffic completely, forcing your browsing experience to be entirely encrypted, and making it so that only websites that offer an HTTPS connection are available to browse.

Conclusion

The NSA's system for deploying malware isn't particularly novel, but getting some insight into how it works should help users and browser and software vendors better defend against these types of attacks, making us all safer against criminals, foreign intelligence agencies, and a host of attackers. That's why we think it's critical that the NSA come clean about its capabilities and where the common security holes are—our online security depends on it.

Source: EFF

Widely Popular Nanoparticles Could Be Giving You Cancer, Nutritional Deficiencies

There is a bit of controversy revolving around nanoparticles, which involve the manipulation of elements as well as other matter on an atomic and molecular scale. Found in consumer products, many foods, and in pharmaceutical drugs, nanoparticles are increasingly being found in more products every year. Many people assume nanoparticles are safe, but they have actually been shown to pose a threat to your health.

Nanoparticles Shown to be Dangerous, Block Nutrient Absorption

According to the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies (PEN), over 1,300 manufacturer nanotechnology-enabled products are in the global commercial marketplace. Nanoparticles can be found in car batteries, appliances, aluminum foil, non-stick cookware, and is especially present in health and fitness items. PEN Director David Rejeski states:

“The use of nanotechnology in consumer products continues to grow on a rapid and consistent basis…when we launched the inventory in March 2006 it contained 212 products. If the current trend continues, the number of products could reach 3,400 by 2020.”

Nanotechnology is much like organism-based biotechnology, where even supporters of the technologies know there needs to be more long term testing to determine safety. Genetically modified foods have already been shown to cause numerous health and environmental complications, but they continue to be pushed. Similarly, nanotechnology is believed by some to be the ‘next industrial revolution’, but like genetically modified foods, it has never been proven totally safe for use or consumption.

A recent study published in the journal Nature titled “Oral exposure to polystyrene nanoparticles affects iron absorption” examined chickens fed a diet which included polystyrene nanoparticles. Researchers found that intestinal changes affecting iron absorption occurred due to the polystyrene nanoparticles. They also expect to see an alteration in absorption of calcium, copper, zinc, and vitamins A, D, E, and K.

Another study conducted in 2004 found that nanoparticles cause brain damage in fish and other aquatic species.

In addition, Oxford University and Montreal University in 1997 linked titanium dioxide and zinc oxide nanoparticles in sunscreen to free radical and DNA damage. But still, even in 2011, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration declined to put any warning labels on sunscreens that contain nanomaterials.

Scientists worry about the place nanoparticles have in our society. These particles have fundamentally different physical, biological, and chemical properties than their larger counterparts, and continue to be shown as a danger to human health.

Source: Natural Society

Facebook Building Major Artificial Intelligence System To Understand Who We Are

Meaningful artificial intelligence has been the aim of computer science since Alan Turing first imagined, in the 1950s, a computer that “passed” as human. Hollywood movies began shortly thereafter to depict computers with human-like intelligence. But, like so many things, artificial intelligence has been much harder to achieve in reality than in the movies.

But following research breakthroughs about five years ago, leading tech companies, including Microsoft, IBM and Google, have begun investing big money in artificial intelligence applications.

Facebook, not wanting to be left behind, is flexing its muscles, too. In addition to expanding its use of facial recognition, the company is developing deep learning software to understand what its users say and do online, a spokesman confirmed for Singularity Hub. (The project was first reported in MIT’s Technology Review.)

Much of Wall Street’s interest in Facebook, albeit fickle, has stemmed from the potential commercial value of what the social network knows about its users. Unless Facebook is considering major changes to its business plan, the company will use artificial intelligence to learn more about its users than what they share.

And Facebook has a lot of data from which an artificial learning setup could draw inferences.

“Places like Google and Facebook now have so much data that the kinds of networks you can train and the kinds of things you can learn from that have basically been unimaginable,” Bhiksha Raj, a machine learning expert at Carnegie Mellon University, told Singularity Hub.

“If you feed all this information, the computer is basically going to develop the ability to make sense of the inputs. Then you’ve trained a network that can scan your page and those of your friends and tell you all kinds of things about you that you hadn’t put out there, and that really is the holy grail for all of these companies,” Raj said.

It’s possible, too, that the agreements that govern what Facebook does with users’ data won’t apply to the data the company generates about its users with its neural networks.

“It’s kind of no man’s land at this point. We haven’t gotten to the point where people have begun worrying about that kind of thing, but we’re going to get there pretty fast,” Raj said.

Notable deep learning projects have already allowed computers to recognize in photos and videos the faces of humans and cats and to identify the emotions behind written content even when they’re not stated explicitly. And before Facebook acquired the company in 2012, Face.com claimed its software could identify which photographed smiles were genuine and which were fake.

Facebook has more experience with facial recognition applications of artificial intelligence, but it moved in to natural language processing with the search feature it launched this summer.

Facebook’s current staffing for the AI project suggests the company will use deep learning to dive deeper into both computer vision and natural language processing. Face.com co-founder Yaniv Taigman and Lubomir Bourdev will contribute expertise on computer vision. But natural language expert Srini Narayanan is building the project’s staff, and Graph Search veteran Keith Adams will also move to the AI project.

Facebook has poached Marc’Aurelio Ranzato from Google’s deep learning project, likely to deliver expertise in how to start the computers learning. Ranzato studied under Geoffrey Hinton, the University of Toronto computer scientist whose research into how best to train deep neural networks has spurred much of the current activity in the field.

Deep learning builds on the longtime use of “neural networks,” or computing systems that simulate the teamwork among neurons in the human brain. Instead of having each neuron, or detector, look for a particular input, which requires too many detectors to be plausible, scientists assign each layer a different task that builds on the first.

“You’re attempting to [have the computer] learn a succession of levels of representation of increasing complexity and abstraction,” Christopher Manning explained in an influential video tutorial on deep learning.

Once the layers have been set up, they can be fine-tuned to handle different sorts of inputs. In other words, such a system will be a big investment for Facebook but one that promises big payoffs.

Source: Singularity Hub

Now MasterCard Wants Your Fingerprints…

Earlier this week, USA Today reported that massive payment processor MasterCard had joined the FIDO alliance. FIDO is an acronym for Fast IDentity Online, and the group describes itself as:

Image: Mastercard.

The FIDO (Fast IDentity Online) Alliance is a 501(c)6 non-profit organization nominally formed in July 2012 to address the lack of interoperability among strong authentication devices as well as the problems users face with creating and remembering multiple usernames and passwords. The FIDO Alliance plans to change the nature of authentication by developing specifications that define an open, scalable, interoperable set of mechanisms that supplant reliance on passwords to securely authenticate users of online services. This new standard for security devices and browser plugins will allow any website or cloud application to interface with a broad variety of existing and future FIDO-enabled devices that the user has for online security.

USA Today reports that:

SAN FRANCISCO — MasterCard is joining the FIDO Alliance, signaling that the payment network is getting interested in using fingerprints and other biometric data to identify people for online payments.

MasterCard will be the first major payment network to join FIDO. The Alliance is developing an open industry standard for biometric data such as fingerprints to be used for identification online. The goal is to replace clunky passwords and take friction out of logging on and purchasing using mobile devices.

It’s for your own good, and it’ll probably fight terrorism too!

Apple’s new iPhone 5s smartphone has a fingerprint sensor, but the tech giant is not part of FIDO. However, Google is part of the Alliance, and devices running Google’s Android operating system will have fingerprint sensors by next year.

I’m sure the folks at the Department of Homeland Security will be more than happy that the financial giant will make mass collection under its Biometric Optical Surveillance System (BOSS) that much easier. Serfs up suckers!

Full article here.

Bitcoin Seized – Its Days are Numbered

 

U.S. agents have shut down what became known as the Silk Road Bitcoin Site where hackers and drug dealers sold their illegal wares using Bitcoins, and arrested founder Ross William Ulbricht this week on charges of money laundering, conspiracy to commit drug trafficking and other crimes.

The government is after Bitcoin and focus on concerns about criminal activity to justify taking down what they see as avoiding taxes. In August, New York regulators subpoenaed 22 companies active in the Bitcoin economy, including well-known venture-capital firms like Google Ventures and Andreessen Horowitz, seeking to uncover possible illegality.

I have stated before. I do not see where the government will sit on its hands when the G20 is already agreeing to hunting down money everywhere. They think if they can collect taxes, then they will retain power. That will fail. Nonetheless, we are in the age of Massive Deflation as government eats their own to sustain their own power.

Source: Armstrong Economics

US government shutdown: banks stockpiling cash

America’s biggest banks are stockpiling extra cash in their ATMs, amid fears that the government shutdown and the threat of a US default will induce a sudden panic among their customers.

Major banks have increased the amount of funds by around a third, and are holding daily meetings in sealed rooms to map out their contingency plans, according to well-placed sources.

In some cases, they are discussing the possibility of extending free credit to customers who do not receive the Social Security payments they would normally rely on, because of the ongoing services blackout.

The US government shut down on Tuesday, after the White House and the Republicans failed to come to an agreement over a stop-gap budget needed to keep scores of services running. Up to 800,000 public sector workers have been put on unpaid leave, and around 1m more are being asked to work for free, in what is the first shutdown for 17 years.

Tensions are now mounting that the faultlines exposed by the shutdown will also affect negotiations over America’s self-imposed $16.7 trillion borrowing limit.

Congress has until October 17 to agree a deal to extend the debt ceiling, or face an unprecented default on US sovereign debt, which could in turn trigger another global recession.

Source: The Telegraph