Month: January 2022

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images)

A fake two-factor-authentication app that has been downloaded some 10,000 times from Google Play surreptitiously installed a known banking-fraud trojan that scoured infected phones for financial data and other personal information, security firm Pradeo said.

2FA Authenticator went live on Google Play two weeks ago, posing as an alternative to legitimate 2FA apps from Google, Twilio, and other trusted companies. In fact, researchers from security firm Pradeo said on Thursday, the app steals personal data from user devices and uses it to determine whether infected phones should download and install a banking trojan already known to have infected thousands of phones in the past.

The vulturs are circling

Discovered last year by security firm ThreatFabric, Vultur is an advanced piece of Android malware. One of its many innovations is its use of a real implementation of the VNC screen-sharing application to mirror screens of infected devices so attackers can glean in real time the login credentials and other sensitive data from banking and finance apps.

Enlarge / OrienSpace is planning a series of rockets, from Gravity 1 through Gravity 4, over the coming decade. (credit: OrienSpace)

Welcome to Edition 4.30 of the Rocket Report! There is plenty to discuss this week with NASA significantly expanding its support for the development of commercial rockets and a spicy new rocket tax proposal in the Land of Enchantment.

As always, we welcome reader submissions, and if you don't want to miss an issue, please subscribe using the box below (the form will not appear on AMP-enabled versions of the site). Each report will include information on small-, medium-, and heavy-lift rockets as well as a quick look ahead at the next three launches on the calendar.

NASA beefs up venture-class launch program. Back in October 2015, NASA initiated what it called a "Venture Class Launch Services" program to foster the development of commercial launch services. The first contracts went to Firefly, Rocket Lab, and Virgin Galactic (later to become Virgin Orbit). Since then, all three companies have launched a rocket, and Rocket Lab and Virgin Orbit have operational orbital rockets. In December 2020, NASA funded "round two" of the program, supporting Firefly, Relativity Space, and Astra with contracts to launch small satellites. The value of these contracts was relatively small (less than $10 million each) but provided investors in these companies with confidence.

Enlarge / Virtual worlds might be digital, but they can be as real and meaningful as our physical world, philosopher David Chalmers argues in his new book, Reality+: Virtual Worlds and the Problems of Philosophy. (credit: Aurich Lawson | Getty Images | David Chalmers)

There's a famous scene in The Matrix where Neo goes to see The Oracle. He meets another potential in the waiting room: a young child who seemingly bends a spoon with his mind. Noticing Neo's fascination, he tells him, "Do not try and bend the spoon. That's impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth." And what is that truth? "There is no spoon," the child says.

The implication is that the Matrix is an illusion, a false world constructed by the machines to keep human beings sedated and docile while their bodies serve as batteries to power the Matrix. But what if this assumption is wrong, and the Matrix were instead just as real as the physical world? In that case, the child would more accurately have said, "Try to realize the truth. There is a spoon—a digital spoon."

That's the central argument of a new book, Reality+: Virtual Worlds and the Problems of Philosophy, by New York University philosopher David Chalmers. The Australian-born Chalmers is perhaps best known for his development in the 1990s of what's known as the hard problem of consciousness. Things like the ability to discriminate, categorize, and react to environmental stimuli; the brain's ability to integrate information; and the difference between wakefulness and sleep can all be explained by identifying an underlying mechanism.