Month: April 2021

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Ransomware operators have delivered a stunning ultimatum to Washington, DC’s Metropolitan Police Department: pay them $50 million or they’ll leak the identities of confidential informants to street gangs.

Babuk, as the group calls itself, said on Monday that it had obtained 250GB of sensitive data after hacking the MPD network. The group’s site on the darkweb has posted dozens of images of what appear to be sensitive MPD documents. One screenshot shows a Windows directory titled Disciplinary Files. Each of the 28 files shown lists a name. A check of four of the names shows they all belong to MPD officers.

Other images appeared to show persons-of-interest names and photos, a screenshot of a folder named Gang Database, chief’s reports, lists of arrests, and a document listing the name and address of a confidential informant.

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The snow hasn’t completely melted in the Sierra Nevada, but most of California is already deep into a drought. Over 96 percent of the Golden State is experiencing moderate to exceptional drought, compared with 36 percent last year, which was the worst year for wildfires since record keeping began. Meanwhile, in the San Bernardino National Forest, Nestlé continues to pump hundreds of thousands of gallons a week to sell as bottled water.

The folks at California’s State Water Resources Control Board aren’t amused. This week, they issued a cease-and-desist order, demanding that Nestlé “immediately cease all unauthorized diversions of water.”

Nestlé has been pumping water from a creek that feeds the Santa Ana River, which supplies a significant portion of Orange County’s drinking water. The company argues that it has water rights to the creek that date back to 1865, and while the water board admits that may be true, the board says that the company has grossly overdrawn its amount.

Enlarge / The BrainGate research consortium has achieved the first human use of a high-bandwidth, wireless brain-computer interface, enabling tetraplegic participants in a clinical trial to use the device without being tethered by a cable. (credit: kentoh/iStock/Getty Images)

Coming on the heels of the Neuralink announcement earlier this month—complete with video showing a monkey playing Pong with its mind, thanks to a wireless brain implant—researchers with the BrainGate Consortium has successfully demonstrated a high-bandwidth wireless brain-computer interface (BCI) in two tetraplegic human subjects. The researchers described their work in a recent paper published in the journal IEEE Transactions in Biomedical Engineering.

BCIs interact with brain cells, recording the electrical activity of neurons and translating those signals into action. Such systems generally involve electrode sensors to record neuronal activity, a chipset to transmit the signals, and computer algorithms to translate the signals. BCIs can be external, similar to medical EEGs in that the electrodes are placed onto the scalp or forehead with a wearable cap; or they can be implanted directly into the brain. The former are less invasive but can be less accurate because there is more noise interfering with the signals; the latter require brain surgery, which can be risky.

BrainGate is an implanted device, used in research efforts focused on treating patients with spinal cord injuries or Lou Gehrig's disease. Back in 2012, two paralyzed subjects with BrainGate implants successfully controlled a robotic arm; since then, subjects have been able to type on computers and use tablet apps. That BrainGate system employs a large, gray box cable, tethering the implanted sensor array to the external computers that decode the signals. This has restricted the system's usefulness because technicians need to be on site during operation and take the cable with them when they finish a session.