Month: January 2017

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The Guardian roiled security professionals everywhere on Friday when it published an article claiming a backdoor in Facebook's WhatsApp messaging service allows attackers to intercept and read encrypted messages. It's not a backdoor—at least as that term is defined by most security experts. Most would probably agree it's not even a vulnerability. Rather, it's a limitation in what cryptography can do in an app that caters to more than 1 billion users.

At issue is the way WhatsApp behaves when an end user's encryption key changes. By default, the app will use the new key to encrypt messages without ever informing the sender of the change. By enabling a security setting, users can configure WhatsApp to notify the sender that a recently transmitted message used a new key.

Critics of Friday's Guardian post, and most encryption practitioners, argue such behavior is common in encryption apps and often a necessary requirement. Among other things, it lets existing WhatsApp users who buy a new phone continue an ongoing conversation thread.

Enlarge / The Falcon 9 rocket for Saturday's Iridium NEXT launch is shown on the pad Friday morning. (credit: SpaceX)

Today SpaceX will attempt to launch its Falcon 9 rocket for the first time since a fueling accident on Sept. 1, 2016, which destroyed the booster and its satellite payload on the launch pad. The instantaneous launch window for Saturday's attempt opens at 12:54pm ET (17:54pm UK), with liftoff occurring from Space Launch Complex 4E at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

After a rather quick investigation into the September accident, in which SpaceX concluded that one of three composite overwrapped pressure vessels inside the rocket's second stage liquid oxygen tank failed, the company has modified the fueling process. By taking a slower approach with its load and go fueling method, SpaceX expects to put less stress on the pressure vessels.

During SpaceX's last successful mission, the launch of JCSAT-16 in August, fueling of kerosene and liquid oxygen both began 35 minutes before launch. Now the company says kerosene loading will begin 70 minutes before launch, with liquid oxygen fueling beginning at 45 minutes prior.

Enlarge (credit: Lily Robotics)

A San Francisco-based drone startup that raised $34 million in pre-orders folded on Thursday, the same day the company, Lily Robotics, was sued by the local district attorney in county court. The city accuses Lily Robotics of engaging in false advertising and unlawful business practices.

The company's story is reminiscent of the now-defunct Torquing Group, a Wales-based firm that raised $3.4 million (the largest European Kickstarter project to date) to build a drone called the Zano that ended up not going anywhere, either.

In 2015, Lily Robotics released a slick YouTube promo video demonstrating its drone, calling it the world’s first “throw-and-shoot camera.” It received widespread, breathless coverage from various other media outlets, ranging from Wired to TechCrunch. Lily Robotics' founders were named on the “Forbes 30 under 30” list in 2015. And in addition to its pre-orders, the startup took in $15 million in venture capital, according to CrunchBase.

Enlarge / The announcement of the Creators Update in October 2016.

Mike Ybarra, head of platform engineering for Xbox, has revealed some of the gaming-oriented improvements coming to the Windows 10 Creators Update later this year.

Chief among the changes is a new "Game Mode" that will improve the performance of games—both traditional Win32 games and new UWP (Universal Windows Platform) games from the Windows Store. Hints of this mode have appeared in recent Insider Preview builds of Windows, but it's still not clear what the mode actually does or how it does it. Ybarra's post confirms that the feature is coming, saying that it's a "big update" for Windows, but he doesn't reveal what the mode will actually do to improve performance.

On the Xbox One, the Guide is being made instantly accessible with just a single press of the Xbox button. It's also being enhanced, including the ability to start recording GameDVR clips and change the recorded length. Background music controls are being added, and Cortana will have a new design.

Enlarge / President-elect Donald Trump meets with House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) at the US Capitol. (credit: Getty | Zach Gibson)

A GOP-affiliated group is spending more than $1.4 million to run digital and television advertisements that laud a Republican plan to replace the Affordable Care Act—despite the fact that the party has yet to present any such plan, Roll Call reports.

The ads have been launched by the American Action Network, a conservative advocacy group linked to House GOP leadership. These materials say the unidentified plan will create a health insurance system that has “more choices,” “better care,” and “lower costs” than the ACA. The ads began running Thursday and Friday in districts of vulnerable Republicans, GOP leaders, and “rank-and-file” Republicans from very conservative states.

The roll out of the ads coincides with voting in the Senate and House on budget resolution legislation that paves the way for defunding and dismantling the ACA through a budget reconciliation process. The party is expected to go ahead with repealing the ACA despite not having a replacement plan in place.

Hospital-associated Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) bacteria. (credit: NIAID)

Thanks to microscopy, early biologists were able to make a binary distinction: there were eukaryotes and bacteria. The former had large, complex cells with internal compartments, while the latter were largely featureless. Which raised an obvious question: how did that apparently giant leap in complexity come about? While DNA sequencing provided some hints as to the relations among different branches on the tree of life, the unique features of eukaryotes and the genes that enabled them appeared to have no real antecedents.

Until recently, that is. Last year, a hydrothermal vent in the Arctic named Loki's Castle yielded organisms that picked up the name Lokiarchaea. Now, researchers have used Lokiarchaea's genome to find a large group of related species that they are naming the Asgard superphylum. Genetically, these organisms are the closest relatives of complex cells. The relationship is so close that all organisms with complex cells may simply be one branch of this group.

Domain names

One of the big ideas in biology is what's called the three domains of life. Genetic data revealed that we couldn't simply divide all living things into complex eukaryotes and simple bacteria. Instead, two very distinct groups lurked behind the seemingly simple cell architecture we used to call bacteria. While one of these groups retained the name bacteria, the second was called archaea to reflect its distinct lineage from early in life's history. Bacteria, archaea, and eukaryotes thus made up the three domains of life.