An e-pi-c day is coming! On 3.14.15 at 9:26:53; the date/time will correspond to the first 10 digits of the mathematical constant pi (3.141592653). This happens only once per century — a truly once-in-a-lifetime event for most people. The mathematical constant, which is the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter, can be used…
Achieving Efficient, Strongly Consistent Data Storage
One of the fundamental and open problems in computer science is effective data storage. Unfortunately, magnetic and flash storage devices alone have proven to be unreliable to guarantee data availability and survivability, due to their frequent and unpredictable failures. Replication has been the prominent technique to prevent data loss. By replication, copies of the data…
Security Gaps Discovered in 39,890 Online Databases
Due to a misconfigured open source database upon which millions of online stores and platforms from all over the world base their services, anyone had the ability to call up or modify several million pieces of customer data online including names, addresses and e-mails. According to the Center for IT-Security, Privacy and Accountability (CISPA) in…
Digital Disease Detection: Using Big Data to Detect Outbreaks
Personal information taken from social media, blogs, page views and so on is used to detect disease outbreaks, but does this violate our privacy, consent and trust? Dr. Effy Vayena from the University of Zurich and colleagues have mapped the numerous ethical challenges confronting digital disease detection (DDD) and propose a framework to address the…
Biosurveillance Gateway Supports Centralized Global Disease Response
LOS ALAMOS, NM — A new online resource, called the Biosurveillance Gateway, is in place at Los Alamos National Laboratory, providing a centralized portal for all news, information, resources and research related to biosurveillance at the laboratory. “The goal of the site is to support global disease surveillance, providing useful tools developed at Los Alamos…
Self-powered Intelligent Keyboard could Provide New Layer of Biometric Security
By analyzing such parameters as the force applied by key presses and the time interval between them, a new self-powered non-mechanical intelligent keyboard could provide a stronger layer of security for computer users. The self-powered device generates electricity when a user’s fingertips contact the multi-layer plastic materials that make up the device. “This intelligent keyboard…
Cybersecurity Expert Warns Not Enough Being Done to Prevent Highly Destructive Cyberattacks on Critical Infrastructure
Research Triangle Park, NC — Inadequate training and a culture of complacency among many owners and operators of critical infrastructure are significantly raising the risks of highly damaging cyberattack throughout the world. That’s the viewpoint expressed by Steve Mustard, an industrial cybersecurity subject-matter expert of the International Society of Automation (ISA), as well as a…
Obama Unveils Cybersecurity Proposals in Advance of State of the Union Address
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama has said that recent cyberthreats to Sony and the military’s U.S. Central Command are reminders of the serious threats facing the nation. Obama laid out plans on January 13, 2015, as part of a push for new cybersecurity legislation that increases government information-sharing and protects businesses from lawsuits for…
Smart Homes: Working to Prevent a Cybersecurity Nightmare
Imagine the smart home of the future. Thanks to a central controller and Wi-Fi, not only does the thermostat power up and warm or cool the house as you are heading home, smart light bulbs come on low at dusk and brighten up as the sky gets darker; your washing machine starts a load of…
Global Quantum Communications No Longer the Stuff of Fiction
Following years of tests in physics laboratories, the first quantum technologies are slowly emerging into wider applications. One example is quantum cryptography — an encryption method providing an almost full guarantee of secure data transmission, currently being introduced by military forces and banking institutions. Processing quantum information and sending it over long distances has, so…
Cybersecurity: Computer Scientist Sees New Possibilities for Ocular Biometrics
While many of us rely on passwords to protect our identity, there’s more sophisticated identity recognition technology called biometrics that we could use. Security measures that use biometrics rely on a person’s unique characteristics and traits rather than on what that person can remember, such as a password. Ocular biometrics, in particular, relies on iris…
NIST Cloud Computing Roadmap Reflects Worldwide Input
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has published the final version of the US Government Cloud Computing Technology Roadmap, Volumes I and II. The roadmap focuses on strategic and tactical objectives to support the federal government’s accelerated adoption of cloud computing. This final document reflects the input from more than 200 comments on…
Accelerating Use of Molecular Profiling in Cancer Treatment Selection
Armonk, NY — IBM announced that Caris Life Sciences is using IBM technical computing and storage technology to accelerate the company’s molecular profiling services for cancer patients. These services deliver critically important information to help oncologists develop tailored therapeutic plans for each patient’s unique cancer, which could lead to better health outcomes and reduced costs…
Cyber Research Center Announced at LSU
BATON ROUGE, LA — Governor Bobby Jindal and Louisiana State University (LSU) President and Chancellor F. King Alexander have announced the creation of the LSU Transformational Technology and Cyber Research Center (TTCRC), which will pursue major federal and commercial research projects in applied technology fields. Initially, the TTCRC will be funded in part by the…
Secure Computing for the Everyman: Quantum Computing goes to Market
LOS ALAMOS, NM — The largest information technology agreement ever signed by Los Alamos National Laboratory brings the potential for truly secure data encryption to the marketplace after nearly 20 years of development at the nation’s national-security science laboratory. “Quantum systems represent the best hope for truly secure data encryption, because they store or transmit…
Improved Method Lets Computers Know You Are Human
BIRMINGHAM, AL – CAPTCHA services that require users to recognize and type in static distorted characters may be a method of the past, according to studies published by researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. CAPTCHAs represent a security mechanism that is often seen as a necessary hassle by Web services providers — necessary…
National Security: Lessons Learned Drawn from Perfect Heists
LIVERMORE, CA — In 2003, the unthinkable happened at Belgium’s Antwerp Diamond Center. Thieves broke into its reputedly impenetrable vault and made off with hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of diamonds, gold, cash and other valuables. Through years of meticulous planning, they got past police officers less than 200 feet away, access controls into…
New Supercomputing Center to Support Big Data and Analytics, Cybersecurity and other STEM Skills
ARMONK, NY and LAKELAND, FL — Florida Polytechnic University, Flagship Solutions Group and IBM have announced a new supercomputing center at the University composed of IBM high performance systems, software and cloud-based storage, to help educate students in emerging technology fields. Florida Polytechnic University is the newest addition to the State University System of Florida and…
The Root(kit) of all Evil: Software Criminals are Winning the Arms Race
Ah, sad news in the Hice household. The patient is terminal, and I’m keeping it alive on life support. I keep wallowing in self-pity and ask myself, “Why me?” I feel as though I’m somehow responsible for the illness. Well, OK, I’m definitely responsible, why lie? I may as well have been sharing blood-soaked hypos…
Share Button, Web Site Plug-Ins can be used to Track You against Your Will
One in 18 of the world’s top 100,000 Web sites track users without their consent using a previously undetected cookie-like tracking mechanism embedded in ‘share’ buttons. A new study by researchers at KU Leuven and Princeton University provides the first large-scale investigation of the mechanism and is the first to confirm its use on actual…
Digital Crime-Fighters Face Technical Challenges with Cloud Computing
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has issued for public review and comment a draft report summarizing 65 challenges that cloud computing poses to forensics investigators who uncover, gather, examine and interpret digital evidence to help solve crimes. The report, NIST Cloud Computing Forensic Science Challenges,* was prepared by the NIST Cloud Computing…
Own Your Own Data: System allows you to Pick and Choose what Data to Share
Cellphone metadata has been in the news quite a bit lately, but the National Security Agency isn’t the only organization that collects information about people’s online behavior. Newly downloaded cellphone apps routinely ask to access your location information, your address book or other apps and, of course, Web sites like Amazon or Netflix track your…
Transparent Two-Sided Touchable Display Wall Developed
Daejeon, Republic of Korea — At a busy shopping mall, shoppers walk by store windows to find attractive items to purchase. Through the windows, shoppers can see the products displayed, but may have a hard time imagining doing something beyond just looking, such as touching the displayed items or communicating with sales assistants inside the…
Who’s Using your Data?
By now, most people feel comfortable conducting financial transactions on the Web. The cryptographic schemes that protect online banking and credit card purchases have proven their reliability over decades. As more of our data moves online, a more pressing concern may be its inadvertent misuse by people authorized to access it. Every month seems to…
Cold War-style Spy Games Re-join Cyber-attacks, Other Espionage Ops
OSLO, Norway (AP) — In early March, a mysterious ship the size of a large passenger ferry left a Romanian wharf, glided through the narrow Bosporus that separates Europe and Asia, and plotted a course toward Scandinavia. About a month later, at the fenced-in headquarters of Norway’s military intelligence service, the country’s spy chief disclosed…