Weighing up to 380,000 pounds and stretching some 100 feet long, the blue whale — the largest creature to have ever lived on Earth — might at first seem difficult for human eyes and ears to miss. But a previously unknown population of the leviathans has long been lurking in the Indian Ocean, leaving scientists none the wiser, new research suggests….
Tag: eavesdropping
Moonquakes and marsquakes: How we peer inside other worlds
Eavesdropping on the shudders and groans echoing deep inside alien worlds like Mars and the moon is revealing what lies far beneath their surfaces and could teach us more about how our own planet formed. Source: https://phys.org/news/2020-08-moonquakes-marsquakes-peer-worlds.html…
Tech Firms Like Facebook Must Restrict Data Sent From EU To US, Court Rules
The European Court of Justice has ruled that the “Privacy Shield” data transfer agreement, which had allowed tech companies to transfer EU user data to the US, failed to adequately protect Europeans’ data from US surveillance and security laws and was therefore invalid. What this means is companies like Facebook “could be prevented from sending data back to the US,” reports…
Spies Can Eavesdrop By Watching a Light Bulb’s Vibrations
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Wired: Researchers from Israeli’s Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and the Weizmann Institute of Science today revealed a new technique for long-distance eavesdropping they call “lamphone.” They say it allows anyone with a laptop and less than a thousand dollars of equipment — just a telescope and a $400 electro-optical sensor — to listen…
Adding noise for completely secure communication
How can we protect communications against eavesdropping if we don’t trust the devices used in the process? This is one of the main questions in quantum cryptography research. Researchers at the University of Basel and ETH Zurich have succeeded in laying the theoretical groundwork for a communication protocol that guarantees 100% privacy. …
Flaw in Billions of Wi-Fi Devices Left Communications Open To Eavesdropping
Billions of devices — many of them already patched — are affected by a Wi-Fi vulnerability that allows nearby attackers to decrypt sensitive data sent over the air, researchers said on Wednesday at the RSA security conference. From a report: The vulnerability exists in Wi-Fi chips made by Cypress Semiconductor and Broadcom, the latter a chipmaker Cypress acquired in 2016. The…
Google’s Heart-Warming Super Bowl Ad Called ‘Evil’
“I had an uneasy feeling about the Google commercial,” writes Larry Magid in his column for the San Jose Mercury News. “But I couldn’t put it into words until I read a blog post from tech strategic adviser Shelly Palmer.” In the post Palmer describes Google’s Super Bowl ad as “a three-hanky, heart-tugging spot that has us eavesdropping on an elderly…
Florida Police Are Using Amazon Echo Recordings For a Murder Investigation
“Police in Hallandale Beach believe there may have been a witness to the July murder of Silvia Galva, and ‘her’ name was Alexa,” reports the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. Slashdot reader PolygamousRanchKid tipped us off to the story: According to a search warrant, investigators want to know what the popular voice-controlled smart speakers overheard during a fatal altercation between Galva, 32, and…
Researchers Tricked Google Home and Alexa Into Eavesdropping and Password Phishing
What if Google and Amazon employees weren’t the only ones who’d listened through your voice assistant? Ars Technica reports: The threat isn’t just theoretical. Whitehat hackers at Germany’s Security Research Labs developed eight apps — four Alexa “skills” and four Google Home “actions” — that all passed Amazon or Google security-vetting processes. The skills or actions posed as simple apps for…
US Navy Tests WWII-ERA Messaging Tech: Dropping Bean Bags Onto Ships
Long-time Slashdot reader davidwr writes: In World War II, pilots would air-drop messages onto ships using bean-bags. Just as with sextants a few years ago, the Navy is bringing back old tech, because it works. Just as during the Doolittle Raid of Tokyo, the purpose is to prevent eavesdropping. You can read more about the modern bean-bag-drop on Military.com or Popular…