Month: January 2016

(credit: US DOE)

Coal-fired plants and other human activities release mercury into the environment, where some of it ends up converted into methyl mercury, a potent neurotoxin. Because of this toxicity, the Environmental Protection Agency is currently in the process of tightening emissions rules at US power plants.

Global estimates of how much mercury we're emitting indicates that humanity is putting more of the substance into the atmosphere. But various direct measurements of the amount in the environment have been declining slowly over the past few decades. So where's the missing mercury? A new study suggests that we've cleaned it up while getting different pollutants under control.

Mercury emissions actually come in two forms. Some of it is released as neutral atoms, which are able to circulate widely in the atmosphere before being oxidized and falling to the surface. Another portion of the emissions are already oxidized and result in local contamination.

Enlarge (credit: US Navy)

If you thought MD5 was banished from HTTPS encryption, you'd be wrong. It turns out the fatally weak cryptographic hash function, along with its only slightly stronger SHA1 cousin, are still widely used in the transport layer security protocol that underpins HTTPS. Now, researchers have devised a series of attacks that exploit the weaknesses to break or degrade key protections provided not only by HTTPS but also other encryption protocols, including Internet Protocol Security and secure shell.

The attacks have been dubbed SLOTH—short for security losses from obsolete and truncated transcript hashes. The name is also a not-so-subtle rebuke of the collective laziness of the community that maintains crucial security regimens forming a cornerstone of Internet security. And if the criticism seems harsh, consider this: MD5-based signatures weren't introduced in TLS until version 1.2, which was released in 2008. That was the same year researchers exploited cryptographic weaknesses in MD5 that allowed them to spoof valid HTTPS certificates for any domain they wanted. Although SHA1 is considerably more resistant to so-called cryptographic collision attacks, it too is considered to be at least theoretically broken. (MD5 signatures were subsequently banned in TLS certificates but not other key aspects of the protocol.)

"Notably, we have found a number of unsafe uses of MD5 in various Internet protocols, yielding exploitable chosen-prefix and generic collision attacks," the researchers wrote in a technical paper scheduled to be discussed Wednesday at the Real World Cryptography Conference 2016 in Stanford, California. "We also found several unsafe uses of SHA1 that will become dangerous when more efficient collision-finding algorithms for SHA1 are discovered."

OMG no way. (credit: CNBC)

In the wake of New Year's weekend, the news seemed inevitable. Some high school kids faked their identities on Airbnb, rented a nice couple's house in Oakland, California, and absolutely trashed the place during a giant party. It was yet another dark tale about the company, which seems poised to overtake Uber in the contest to become the most successful service that generates reams of bad publicity.

Objectively speaking, Airbnb's business is booming. Valued at $25.5 billion, it raised $1.5 billion in investments over the summer, followed by another $100 million in November. In March of last year, the company's future prospects brightened considerably when the Hawaii Supreme Court ruled that online travel companies like Airbnb are not responsible for paying hotel occupancy taxes. In May, the company reported that it had almost a million guests per night. And yet its public image keeps taking a beating.

Some of Airbnb's troubles began when the company decided to intervene in San Francisco municipal politics. In October, Airbnb spent $8 million to post what many observers called "passive aggressive" ads in bus shelters all over San Francisco. "Dear Public Library System," one read. "We hope you use some of the $12 million in hotel taxes to keep the library open later. Love, Airbnb." Read another: "Dear Public Works, Please use some of the $12 million in hotel taxes to install more electric vehicle charging stations. Love, Airbnb." The references were to Airbnb caving to pressure from San Francisco to charge a 14 percent hotel tax to its guests (the same tax that people pay at San Francisco hotels). But the goal of the campaign was to defeat Proposition F, which would have made it unlawful for people to rent out their properties for more than 75 days consecutively per year. Dubbed "the Airbnb law," F was eventually defeated. But even people who thought F was a bad idea were still revolted by the tone-deaf propaganda campaign, which portrayed Airbnb as some kind of do-gooder pal of local city government when in fact they'd fought to avoid paying municipal taxes.

In 2010, Panasonic made the odd decision to stop producing the Technics SL-1200MK2, a turntable that's as much a part of pop culture as it is one of the most revered and reliable ever made. DJs, who depended on the 1200's powerful direct drive motor and solid tone arm to manipulate the sound of records without skipping, had to rely on the second hand market or alternative brands if they needed a new scratch machine. Although, given that units made in the '70s are still going strong, perhaps there wasn't as big a need for Panasonic to keep making the 1200s as the online petitions claimed.

Still, six years on, Panasonic has decided that now's the time to bring back the legendary SL-1200 turntable, Technics branding included. There is a limited-edition 50th Anniversary Grand Class SL-1200GAE, which is limited to 1200 units and goes on sale this summer, and a non-limited Grand Class 1200G, which goes on sale towards the tail end of the year. Panasonic promises DJ-level reliability and audiophile-grade sound quality from both models.

Audiophile-grade sound quality isn't typically associated with the 1200, thanks to its use of a direct drive motor, as opposed to the belt-driven motor often used in an audiophile turntable. The high-torque direct drive motor is excellent for stability, very low wow and flutter (how much the pitch varies during playback), and swift start/stop speeds, but has been criticised in the past for suffering from "cogging," where small speed fluctuations from the motor are transferred though the stylus, causing a degradation in sound quality.

(credit: Andrew Cunningham)

Samsung has upped its smartwatch game with what it's calling premium materials and high-end style. The company announced two new Gear S2 smartwatches at its CES press event, one encased in 18K rose gold and the other in platinum. While these finishes are more luxe than the all-black Gear S2 Classic released in 2015, they won't be that much more expensive. According to Samsung, the gold and platinum finishes sit atop of the devices' stainless steel frames.

Samsung also announced that the Gear S2 collection will support Samsung Pay with NFC, although a specific time for that feature hasn't been announced. Continuing the luxury trend, Samsung released a few new straps and bracelets for the smartwatch, as well as new watchfaces created in partnership with artists including Keith Haring, Jean-Michael Basquiat, and Jeremyville.

You'll soon be able to pay using Samsung Pay and NFC from the smartwatches. (credit: Andrew Cunningham)

But arguably the most exciting announcement about the Gear S2 range is that they will work with iOS devices at some point. Samsung only briefly mentioned this during its press conference, so not much else is known about when its smartwatches will be able to work with Apple devices.