Chris Urmson, lobbyist for, and director of, Google’s Self-driving Car division, will soon be lobbying senators for federal help in getting driver-less cars to the public market. He is expected to pitch to the Senate Commerce Committee that the technology will improve safety, and cut costs for roads, trains and buses with the notion that robot cars will save us from ourselves. But will they?
The president seems to think so, as he offered $4 billion of tax-payer money to help fund the project, and the U.S. Transportation Department tends to agree, saying that automated vehicles would be able to drive closer together which would allow for more cars on the road and higher speeds without the risk of human error. Plus, congestion would be decreased due to the fact that each car can be GPS’d to a server to look for open parking spaces.
However, a few skeptics wonder if this new invention would make congestion better or worse. The fad of having a self-driving car may deter people from using public transportation and there may inevitably be more independent cars on the road.
While it’s not specifically built for dieting help, the new smart refrigerator can be used much like any tablet PC. Use it for looking up recipes, keeping track of your nutrition, timing your cooking, and even keeping track of your daily schedule.
From cyber relationships, S&M culture and child abuse to biohacking, content moderation and nootropics, Dark Net finally puts into moving pictures what blogs have been typing up a storm about for the past few years.
At first glance the show seems like your run-of-the-mill cyber culture documentary, but the topics being explored are of a much more taboo persuasion — and it’s not just the underground pedophile networks accessed via Tor we’re talking about.
While Dark Net covers a lot of ground in technology subculture, it also serves as a bit of a transhumanist playground, discussing cutting edge and controversial topics such as RFID chip implants and other biohacks, nootropics, artificial intelligence girlfriends, and more. The main topic, however, seems to be the nature of human relationships being altered, augmented, and even hindered by technology, and it’s not difficult to understand why.
Through the internet, the impact of technology on our lives is both unprecedented and undeniable. Exploring subcultures and trends such as sadomasochism, porn addiction, and even internet addiction, Dark Net attempts to bring to light some otherwise undisclosed topics the most people refuse to talk about openly.
Dark Net is on Showtime, Thursday nights.
Max Klaassen
Public enema xenomorphic robot from the dimension Zrgauddon.
We live in a time where auto theft is incredibly impractical. Criminals in 2015 struggle to figure out how to get past electronic security and alarm systems, reflecting an over 90% drop in NYC auto theft since the early 90’s. These days, even a successfully stolen vehicle can be recovered with GPS tracking and incidences of theft are often caught on video.
It might seem like convenience is weakness but since car theft is way down, this might not hold true at the moment. The security holes that seem most vulnerable to exploitation revolve around a key fob. Fobs are those small black electronic keys that everyone uses to unlock their car these days. They work by using A pre-determined electronic signal that must be authenticated by the CAN system. If the authentication checks out, the doors unlock. In newer cars, the engine will start via push button if the fob is in the immediate vicinity of the car so the driver doesn’t have to fish them out of her pocket.
Etymology of the word fob: Written evidence of the word's usage has been traced to 1888. Almost no one uses a pocket watch these days but a fob was originally an ornament attached to a pocket watch chain. The word hung around as an ocassional, outdated way to refer to key chains. In the 80's, the consumer market was introduced to devices that allowed a car to be unlocked or started remotely. The small electronic device was easily attached to the conventional set of carkeys, and within a few years the term fob key was generally used to describe any electronic key entry system that stored a code in a device, including hotel keycards as well as the remote car unlocking device usually described by the word.
Let’s take a look at three ways a fob key can be hacked.
Recording FOB signals for replay. This is one of those urban legends that’s been around since at least 2008. The story goes: thieves record the key fob signal and can later replay it with a dummy fob. The car can’t tell the difference and unlocks/starts as if the correct key fob has been used. It’s easy for the thief to control the schedule and catch the victim unawares because it doesn’t have to interact with the fob in real time. Sounds like the most effective way to hack a key fob, right? Problem is, each signal is unique, created with an algorithm than includes time. If the devices are not synchronized the fob can’t open the lock. A recorded signal played back wouldn’t open the lock. The conventional wisdom is that the devices, proprietary knowledge and experience needed to make this method work are not worth a stolen car’s worth of risk. Secrets leak but honestly, a team organized enough to steal a car this way would be able to use the same skills to make a lot more money legally. Lastly, if you could reverse engineer and record fob signals the FBI would already be watching you. The demographic that used to steal cars in the 90’s were largely not like the fast and furious franchise. The idea that a huge tech security op could be thwarted isn’t necessarily far fetched but there are no recorded cases. Not one. For that to change, someone needs to figure out how the sync code is incorporated into the algorithm and apparently no one has.
Amplifying FOB signal to trigger auto unlock feature. Not only is this method genius but it is rumored to be already in use. Eyewitnesses claim to have seen this in use and it sparked theories about the methodology. Unlike recording a signal, amplification is a lot cheaper and requires almost no proprietary knowledge of the code to pull off. It works like this: A device picks up a range of frequencies that the key fob is giving off and increases the range. Some cars feature the ability to sense the authentic key fob in a five foot range and auto-unlock or autostart their ignitions. With a signal amp, the engine can theoretically be started if the real key fob is within 30 feet. So, the keys can be on your nightstand but the car thinks you are at the car door. The thief can then open the door, sit in the drivers seat and the ignition can be pushbutton triggered as if the key fob was in the car with the thief. I thought about repeating some of the anecdotes I found online about this method but none of them are confirmed. No one has tested it but it looks like a signal booster can be bought online for pretty cheap if you know what to buy($17 – $300). Last week, NYT ran a piece about signal boosting. You can read that here.
Random signal generator. So unique frequency codes means you can’t record the signal and reuse it without a proprietary algorithm but signal amplification might not work on some systems in the near future. The rumors of it working successfully already have car companies working on a sensitive enough receiver that it would be sensitive to distortion and interference caused by the amp. But there are exceptions, where the signal is not random, such as a service codes. Manufacturers have overriding unlock codes and reset devices to assist with lost key fobs and maintenance/emergency cases. When these codes are leaked, they often open up a brief but large hole in security, during which thousands of cars can be swiped. The main reason it isn’t happening already is more about organized crime not being organized enough to plan and exploit that security hole. Or, you know, maybe the codes just haven’t leaked yet.
Hardware construction.
Constructing the hardware components needed takes specialized knowledge of hardware. Searching for information about this stuff if bound to attract NSA attention when followed by parts being ordered. The kind of guy who likes to sit in a workshop ordering parts and tinkering all day isn’t always the one who wants to go out and take risks with newer, higher-end cars. That is the kind of multifaceted thief NYC was famous for back before the numbers plunged in the 90’s but the hardware is becoming more and more esoteric. People are not as apt to work on devices that have such small parts on projects that run with such high risk. For that reason, there is more money to be made in producing a bunch of low-cost black market devices that are already calibrated and tested to work. Buying this device on the street and using it before selling it off again might leave a smaller trail than building it in a sketchy apartment-turned-lab that is sure to be searched if a heist goes wrong.
Paper trail & identity theft.
Technology has made it really difficult to even take the car int he first place but once you have a stolen car they are almost impossible to get rid of these days. There can be multiple tracking devices and serial number locations in one car and if the operation isn’t extremely current, the likelihood of the car being found in red hands goes up quickly.
Once the car is stolen, a tech-savvy thief would need special equipment to access the on-board computer and do things like disable the GPS system, take any additional tracking system offline, and disable tech support from manipulating the vehicle’s electronics. Equipment to hack the car’s CAN system has been expensive and shrouded in mystery for the last couple decades but in recent days the internet has united hackers and security researchers to create custom hardware like CANtact Device Lets you Hack a Car’s CPU for $60.
Jonathan Howard
Jonathan is a freelance writer living in Brooklyn, NY
Humans can only perceive three dimensional space but theoretical math works out just fine when manipulating objects in four or more spacial dimensions. Mathematicians, scientists and philosophers still debate whether higher spacial dimensions actually exist.
It’s hard to imagine higher dimensions. Even one additional spatial dimension is hard to see with your inner mind’s eye. If you want to imagine six, seven or eight spacial dimensions it isn’t just hard – no one’s even truly conceptualized hyperspace. It’s what makes the subject compelling but also what makes it frustrating to talk about. The examples theorists are able to use to help people “visualize” what can’t be seen must work within human limitations, and are thus second and third dimensional examples of a higher dimensional concept or object.
“Wait a second,” some of you are wondering, “Isn’t TIME the fourth dimension?”
This article is about spacial dimensions only. Personally, I agree with Amrit Sorli and Davide Fiscaletti’s work which I feel adequately proves that time is NOT a spacial dimension. If you want to debate this issue further, you can read my reasoning in my follow up piece, Time: fourth dimension or nah?, also available on Cosmoso.net
One of the most basic exercises in multidimensional theory is to imagine moving in a fourth. The distance between you and everything around you stays the same but in some fourth dimension you are moving. Most people can’t truly do this imagination game because there in nothing in our three spacial dimensions to compare the experience to.
Flatland
In the famous book about spacial dimensions, Flatland, living, two-dimensional beings existed in a universe that was merely two dimensions. A being with three dimensions, such as a sphere, would appear as a circle able to change circumference as it moved through a third dimension no one in flatland has ever conceptualized.
Humans evolved to notice changes in our three-dimensional environment, inheriting our ancestors ability to conceptualize space in three dimensions as a hardwired trait that actually stops us from conceptualizing other aspects of reality that might nonetheless exist. Other people see hyperspace as a theoretical construct of mathematics that doesn’t describe anything in reality, pointing to the lack of evidence of other dimensions.
Tesseracts Predate Computer-assisted Modelling.
A Tesseract. Many people in the advanced math classrooms of my generation of high school students struggled to wrap their heads around tesseracts without moving diagrams. If a picture is worth a thousand words are we talking animated gifs and words used to describe three dimensional space or should we make up a new saying?
We are able to conceptualize three dimensions in the abstract when we watch TV, look at a painting, or play a video-game. Anytime we look at a screen we watch a two dimensional image from a point outside that dimension. Having an outside point of view for a three dimensional space could give us a way to artificially understand a higher spatial dimension. Until that time comes, we are sort of stuck explaining fourth dimensions by demonstrating how it would look on a two dimensional screen which we view from a third dimensional viewpoint.
It’s kind of like imagining “one million”; you can prove it mathematically to yourself, you can count to it and you know how valuable it is but you can’t truly picture one million of anything. Trying to explain this conceptualization problem with words is pretty tough because your brain is not equipped to handle it. Humans try to wrap their minds around it and dream up ways to explain hyperspace to each other anyways.
4D Rubix Puzzle
A rubix cube is particularly compelling as a multi-dimensional teaching tool, because it puts spacial dimensions in the abstract in the first place, and then gives the cube the ability to change the dimensional orientation of a third of it’s mass. It’s hard to wrap your head around a normal three dimensional rubix puzzle. By adding another dimension and using the same principle, one can ALMOST imagine that fourth spacial dimension. Most people can’t solve a three dimensional Rubix puzzle but if you think you are ready for the fourth dimension, you can download it and play it on your two dimensional screen, here: Magic Cube 4D
If you don’t think you’re ready to try and solve that puzzle but you want to know more you can watch this roughly 1/2 hour video about it:
Miegakure
While Miegakure is still under development, it’s set for release in 2015. Interactive games like this can spur collaborative thinking from a larger pool of collaborators – and make game developers tons of money.
If you want something a little less abstract than Rubix, check out this prototype for Miegakure, the surreal PlayStation 4 game that lets the user explore a four dimensionally capable world through three dimensional spaces that connect to each other through higher dimensions. It’s a great idea that makes everyone have the initial thought of wondering how the heck they coded it. Then the idea sinks in and you realize they wrote the code first and played with the visual manifestation as they went. It’s a great metaphor for the idea in the first place; begins as a concept rather than an observation. The essence of the argument against hyperspace actually existing is the lack of physical evidence. Unlike a ghost story or a spiritual, religious attempt to explain the supernatural, there is actually mathematical evidence that seems to make higher dimensions possible. It has logical evidence as opposed to empirical data. There are ways to observe without using human senses but it’s difficult to prove an observation of something the majority of humans have trouble even seeing with their mind’s eye, so to speak.
One day we might be able to use technology to increase our understanding of this abstract concept, and manipulate an entirely new kind of media. For now we are stuck with two and three dimensional visual aids and an mental block put in place by aeons of evolution.
Read More about Hyperspace on Cosmoso.net~!
Jonathan Howard
Jonathan is a freelance writer living in Brooklyn, NY
Computers are everywhere in medicine. If you have an operation, your surgeon might study the best practices online before the procedure. If you are diagnosed with a difficult-to-treat cancer, chances are your doctor will use an online database to find an appropriate clinical trial. And, if you develop a rash, you’ll probably use the Internet to find out what it might be.
Donald Lindberg, the outgoing director of the National Institutes of Health National Library of Medicine, had a hand in making these resources widely available. Since he joined the NLM in 1984, he saw the promise in putting research online so that doctors could have the latest medical advancements at their fingertips. And he wanted that same option for patients as they’ve become increasingly engaged in navigating their own care.
“When I first arrived at NLM, I didn’t come prepared to change anything, but technology was changing all around all of us,”Lindberg said. “We’ve had to make major changes or else we would have become obsolete.” TheNational Library of Medicine, which is the world’s largest medical library, was founded in the 1800s and initially sent out a monthly guide to medical research. As technology has evolved, so have the methods the library uses to disseminate information to patients and providers.
He still remembers his early days at NIH, when information-sharing technology involved phone companies and point-to-point transmissions. But the advent of computers and the World Wide Web changed all of that.
Lindberg, who pioneered the first use of computers in medicine in the 1960s, was involved during his 30-year tenure with almost every government-funded sorting initiative of new and old medical information — the 1998 creation of Medline Plus for consumers to find out general medical information; the 1997 creation of Clinicaltrials.gov, the largest global registry for these types of studies; and the management and installment of Visible Humans, an online library of digital images based on the anatomy of a man and woman.
Lindberg, who retired April 1, recently spoke with KHN’s Lisa Gillespie about his NLM experience and what he thinks is next on the horizon. An edited transcript of their conversation follows.
Q: What are some of the biggest changes that took place during your time at NLM and shaped the experience of being a doctor or patient?
A: The introduction of computer interpretation of EKGs in the study of the heart was one piece of pavement in the road of success for computers. That was greeted pretty much with support from patients and doctors, though doctors were [also] concerned in making sure the stuff was right. I would say most are not experts [in interpreting this technology], especially in the case of general practitioners. It was a big deal for a computer to do that, and it was rapidly accepted.
Q: You were involved in the creation and roll out of many systems to help doctors and patients. Which ones have made the greatest impact?
A: Medline Plus, a database that tells you things like what chemicals and drugs get into mother’s milk, has had a lot of influence. If you’re lactating, it is of great interest. The major change in our whole field was Human Genome Project. That project has produced millions and even billions of facts that would only achieve meaning if they were put together to answer questions, [which was done through Medline Plus].
A very current one is clinicaltrials.gov. [The concept] started at the National Institutes of Health, and even there, if you asked “how many clinical trials are going on?” there was no answer. There wasn’t even a list. We were surprised to discover that. … Everyone agreed there should be records [of trials]. In Israel, for instance, they saw what we were doing and said it was going to take too much money to do it [themselves], so they started putting their records in our system. Clinicaltrials.gov now has 150,000 trials [listed in theglobal database].
Q: As NLM created and implemented computer applications, did health care providers shape what information was shared and how technology was used?
A: At one point, I was trying to do things the nurses would like. The chief of nursing came to me and said the computer was a wonderful thing. I asked her what she liked about it, and she said, “well, it’ll give me an alphabetized list of names on the ward.” That’s not a great accomplishment, but it’s what they wanted. We tried to keep our eyes out for things like that.
Q: What are the biggest technological innovations you’ve seen?
A: The idea of telemedicine is a very powerful one, and it’s been with us for a long time. Once we get improved gear [for its use], there will be a new application that I couldn’t have thought of. Take tele-dermatology. There aren’t enough experts. … So the basic idea is that once you have digital cameras, you send [case information] to an expert who will look at it and give an opinion. A dermatologist told me once about a patient who had obvious dermatitis problems and had spent five years going to doctors who couldn’t treat it. The guy was unemployable because his condition was so severe that he couldn’t move around. And it got cured [using telemedicine].
Q: What are your predictions for the future? Especially at the NLM?
A: The idea of the informed patient will dominate changes. You can’t underestimate patients. [Now] versus when I got started … they’re willing to participate in medical-decision making. Back then, patients didn’t want an active role in their own management. Smart doctors now encourage it. That will make a big difference. Now they [are starting to] understand prevention … and they’ll understand end-of-life care. How aggressive the treatment is should be based on the patient’s wishes, but they have to understand [the choices].
Could emerging tech present new forensics in the suspicious early demise of controversial Rolling Stone reporter, Michael Hastings? How cheaper hardware and open-sourced coding could shed new light on a murder as the possibility of remotely hacking today’s cars gains traction.
Hacking your car might already be possible. This tweet by NYT tech writer, Nick Bilton, is a great example:
Just saw 2 kids walk up to my LOCKED car, press a button on a device which unlocked the car, and broke in. So much for our keyless future.
Weeks back, I wrote a short piece about CANtact, a $60 device that enables you to interface with a car’s onboard computer through your laptop’s USB port. Eric Evenchick presented CANtact at Black Hat Asia 2015 security conference in Singapore. The onboard CPU of a motor-vehicle is called the CAN, for Controller Area Network. Evenchick hopes his device’s affordability will spur programmers to reverse engineer the firmware and proprietary languages various CAN systems use.
I got feedback on the CANtact story about a seemingly unrelated topic: The Death of Michael Hastings. Hastings was Rolling Stone and Buzzfeed contributor who became very vocal about the surveillance state when the U.S. Department of Justice started investigating reporters in 2013. Hastings coined the term “war on journalism” when the Obama Administration sanctioned limitations on journalists ability to report when the White House considered it a security risk. Buzzfeed ran his last story, “Why Democrats Love to Spy On Americans”, June 7, 2013. Hastings is considered suspicious by many Americans after he died in an explosive, high -speed automobile accident, June 18, 2013, in Los Angeles, CA.
Check out one of the last interviews with Michael Hastings and scroll down for a description of the oft repeated conspiracy theory surrounding his untimely death.
The Michael Hastings Conspiracy Theory:
Unlike a lot of post-millennium conspiracy theories, which usually start online, this one actually began on television. Reporters were already contentious about the limitations the Obama admin. were attempting to impose and it seemed like extremely suspicious timing that one of the leaders of the criticism against censorship was suddenly killed. The internet ran with it and some Americans considered the crash as suspicious at the time. Public opinion is often without the merit of hard evidence, though, and this case was no different. Not everyone considered the media coverage unbiased, considering the political stake journalists had in the issue.
The first solid argument that Hasting didn’t die by accident came from Richard A. Clarke, a former U.S. National Coordinator for Security, Infrastructure Protection, and Counter-terrorism(what a title~!), who called the crash “consistent with a car cyber attack”. The conspiracy theory gestating around water coolers and message boards was truly born when Clarke went public with this outright accusation:
“There is reason to believe that intelligence agencies for major powers—including the United States—know how to remotely seize control of a car. So if there were a cyber attack on [Hastings’] car—and I’m not saying there was, I think whoever did it would probably get away with it.”
Next, WikiLeaks announced that Hastings reached out to a Wikileaks lawyer Jennifer Robinson only a few hours before the crash.
Army Staff Sergent Joe Biggs came forward with an email he thought might help in a murder investigation. The email was CCed to a few of Hastings’ colleagues, stating he was “onto a big story” and planned to “go off the radar”. Perhaps the most incriminating detail is that he warned the addressees of this email to expect a visit from the FBI. The FBI denied Hastings was being investigated in a formal press release.
LA Weekly admitted Hastings was preparing a new installment of what had been an ongoing story involving the CIA. Hastings’ wife, Elise Jordan, confirmed he had been working on a story profiling CIA Director John O. Brennan.
The case against foul play:
I have to admit, I got sucked in for a second but Cosmoso is a science blog and I personally believe an important part of science is to maintain rational skepticism. The details I listed above are the undisputed facts. You can research online and verify them. It might seem really likely that Hastings was onto something and silenced by some sort of foul play leading to a car accident but there is no hard evidence, no smoking gun, no suspects and nothing really proving he was a victim of murder.
The rumor online has always been that there are suspicious aspects to the explosion. Cars don’t always explode when they crash but Frank Markus director of Motor Trend said the ensuing fire after the crash was consistent with most high-speed car crashes. The usual conspiracy theorist reaction is to suspect this kind of testimony to have some advantage or involvement thus “proving” it biased. It’s pretty difficult to do that in the case of Frank Markus, who just directs a magazine and website about cars.
Hastings’ own family doesn’t seem to think the death was suspicious. His brother, Jonathan, later revealed Michael seemed “manic” in the days leading up to the crash. Elise Jordan, his wife told the press it was “just a really tragic accident”
A host of The Young Turks who was close with Hastings once said Hastings’ friends had noticed he was agitated and tense. Michael often complained that he was being followed and watched. It’s easy to dismiss the conspiracy theory when you consider it may have stemmed from the line of work he chose.
Maybe the government conspiracy angle is red herring.
Reporting on the FBI, the Military, the Whitehouse, or the CIA are what reporters do. People did it before and since. Those government organizations have accountability in ways that would make an assassination pretty unlikely.
If it wasn’t the government who would have wanted to kill Hastings?
A lot of people, it turns out. Hastings had publicly confirmed he received several death-threats after his infamous Rolling Stone article criticizing and exposing General McChrystal. Considering the United States long history of reactionary violence an alternate theory is that military personnel performed an unsanctioned hit on Hastings during a time when many right wing Americans considered the journalist unpatriotic.
Here’s where the tech comes into play:
Hastings had told USA Today his car had recently been “tampered with”, without any real explanation of what that means but most people in 2013 would assume it means physical tampering with the brakes or planting a bug. In any case he said he was scared and planned to leave town.
Now it’s only two years later, and people are starting to see how a little bit of inside knowledge of how the CAN computer works in a modern vehicle can be used to do some serious harm. We might never know if this was a murder, an assassination or an accident but hacking a car remotely seemed like a joke at the time; two years later no one is laughing.
Jonathan Howard
Jonathan is a freelance writer living in Brooklyn, NY
After 40 years since Bill Gates and Paul Allen established their software company that ended up becoming the staple of computing operating systems at the dawn of the internet age, Gates, who’s long since given up the full-time role at Microsoft, still feels sentimental, hopeful and ambitious about the future of the company and computing as we enter the new millennium at full technological speed.
Friday 4/3/2015 10:33AM
From: Bill Gates
To: Microsoft — All Employees
Subject: Microsoft’s 40th Anniversary
Tomorrow is a special day: Microsoft’s 40th anniversary.
Early on, Paul Allen and I set the goal of a computer on every desk and in every home. It was a bold idea and a lot of people thought we were out of our minds to imagine it was possible. It is amazing to think about how far computing has come since then, and we can all be proud of the role Microsoft played in that revolution.
Today though, I am thinking much more about Microsoft’s future than its past. I believe computing will evolve faster in the next 10 years than it ever has before. We already live in a multi-platform world, and computing will become even more pervasive. We are nearing the point where computers and robots will be able to see, move and interact naturally, unlocking many new applications and empowering people even more.
Under Satya’s leadership, Microsoft is better positions than ever to lead these advances. We have the resources and drive to solve tough problems. We are engaged in every facet of modern computing and have the deepest commitment to research in the industry. In my role as technical advisor to Satya, I get to join product reviews and am impressed by the vision and talent I see. The result is evident in products like Cortana, Skype Translator, and HoloLens-and those are just a few of the many innovations that are on the way.
In the coming years, Microsoft has the opportunity to react even more people and organizations around the world. Technology is still out of reach for many people, because it is complex or expensive, of they simply do not have access. So I hope you will think about what you can do to make the power of technology accessible to everyone, to connect people to each other, and make personal computing available everywhere even as the very notion of what a PC delivers makes its way into all devices.
We have accomplished a lot together during our first 40 years and empowered countless businesses and people to realize their full potential. But what matters most now is what we do next. Thank you for helping make Microsoft a fantastic company now and for decades to come.