Wednesday, July 20, 2022

I bet the Chinese sold these cheap. I would have…

https://techcrunch.com/2022/07/19/micodus-gps-tracker-exposing-vehicle-locations/

Security flaws in a popular GPS tracker are exposing a million vehicle locations

Security vulnerabilities in a popular Chinese-built GPS vehicle tracker can be easily exploited to track and remotely cut the engines of at least a million vehicles around the world, according to new research. Worse, the company that makes the GPS trackers has made no effort to fix them.

Cybersecurity startup BitSight said it found six vulnerabilities in the MV720, a hardwired GPS tracker built by MiCODUS, a Shenzhen-based electronics maker, which claims more than 1.5 million GPS trackers in use today across more than 420,000 customers worldwide, including companies with fleets of vehicles, law enforcement agencies, militaries and national governments. BitSight said in its report that it also found the GPS trackers used by Fortune 50 companies and a nuclear power plant operator.

But the security flaws can be easily and remotely exploited to track any vehicle in real time, access past routes and cut the engines of vehicles in motion.





Global warming. (Al Gore strikes again!) What temperature triggers the same thing in your neighborhood?

https://www.theregister.com/2022/07/19/google_oracle_cloud/

Google, Oracle cloud servers wilt in UK heatwave, take down websites

Cloud services and servers hosted by Google and Oracle in the UK have dropped offline due to cooling issues as the nation experiences a record-breaking heatwave.

When the mercury hit 40.3C (104.5F) in eastern England, the highest ever registered by a country not used to these conditions, datacenters couldn't take the heat. Selected machines were powered off to avoid long-term damage, causing some resources, services, and virtual machines to become unavailable, taking down unlucky websites and the like.





Perspective.

https://www.huntonprivacyblog.com/2022/07/19/california-privacy-protection-agency-issues-memo-opposing-federal-privacy-legislation-and-california-democrats-join-the-cause/

California Privacy Protection Agency Issues Memo Opposing Federal Privacy Legislation, and California Democrats Join the Cause

On July 1, 2022, the California Privacy Protection Agency (“CPPA”) sent U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi a memo outlining how H.R. 8152, the bipartisan American Data Privacy and Protection Act (“ADPPA” or the “Act”), would lessen privacy protections for Californians, and California Democrats have joined the cause.





Fairly basic security. Select a program at random. Can IT tell you what application it belongs to? When it was last updated? Are there multiple copies used in many applications?

https://www.csoonline.com/article/3667309/what-is-an-sbom-software-bill-of-materials-explained.html#tk.rss_all

What is an SBOM? Software bill of materials explained

An SBOM is a detailed guide to what's inside your software. It helps vendors and buyers alike keep track of software components for better software supply chain security.

An SBOM is a formal, structured record that not only details the components of a software product, but also describes their supply chain relationship. An SBOM outlines both what packages and libraries went into your application and the relationship between those packages and libraries and other upstream projects—something that's of particular importance when it comes to reused code and open source.





Resources. (Search for AI)

https://www.bespacific.com/mit-press-opens-access-to-3480-books/

MIT Press opens access to 3480 books

Via @RobertaArielli, https://www.robertadalessandro.it/@mitpress as opened the access to 3480 books, within the MIT Press Direct program. There are 196 #linguistics books, and 3480 books in all disciplines, and counting. https://direct.mit.edu/books/search-r





Tools & Techniques.

https://scitechdaily.com/a-beginners-guide-to-quantum-programming/

A Beginner’s Guide to Quantum Programming

As quantum computers proliferate and become more widely available, would-be quantum programmers are left scratching their brains over how to get started in the field. A new beginner’s guide offers a complete introduction to quantum algorithms and their implementation on existing hardware.

Writing quantum algorithms is radically different from writing classical computing programs and requires some understanding of quantum principles and the mathematics behind them,” said Andrey Y. Lokhov, a scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory and lead author of the recently published guide in ACM Transactions on Quantum Computing. “Our guide helps quantum programmers get started in the field, which is bound to grow as more and more quantum computers with more and more qubits become commonplace.”



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