Month: February 2023

Enlarge / Sample ciphertext (F38) found in the archives of the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, now attributed to Mary, Queen of Scots. (credit: Bibliothèque nationale de France)

An international team of code-breakers has successfully cracked the cipher of over 50 mysterious letters unearthed in French archives. The team discovered that the letters had been written by Mary, Queen of Scots, to trusted allies during her imprisonment in England by Queen Elizabeth I (her cousin)—and most were previously unknown to historians. The team described in a new paper published in the journal Cryptologia how they broke Mary's cipher, then decoded and translated several of the letters. The publication coincides with the anniversary of Mary's execution on February 8, 1587.

"This is a truly exciting discovery," said co-author George Lasry, a computer scientist and cryptographer in Israel. "Mary, Queen of Scots, has left an extensive corpus of letters held in various archives. There was prior evidence, however, that other letters from Mary Stuart were missing from those collections, such as those referenced in other sources but not found elsewhere. The letters we have deciphered are most likely part of this lost secret correspondence.” Lasry is part of the multi-disciplinary DECRYPT Project devoted to mapping, digitizing, transcribing, and deciphering historical ciphers.

Mary sought to protect her most private letters from being intercepted and read by hostile parties. For instance, she engaged in what's known as "letter-locking," a common practice at the time to protect private letters from prying eyes. As we've reported previously, Jana Dambrogio, a conservator at MIT Libraries, coined the term "letter-locking" after discovering such letters while a fellow at the Vatican Secret Archives in 2000.

Enlarge / Sample ciphertext (F38) found in the archives of the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, now attributed to Mary, Queen of Scots. (credit: Bibliothèque nationale de France)

An international team of code-breakers has successfully cracked the cipher of over 50 mysterious letters unearthed in French archives. The team discovered that the letters had been written by Mary, Queen of Scots, to trusted allies during her imprisonment in England by Queen Elizabeth I (her cousin)—and most were previously unknown to historians. The team described in a new paper published in the journal Cryptologia how they broke Mary's cipher, then decoded and translated several of the letters. The publication coincides with the anniversary of Mary's execution on February 8, 1587.

"This is a truly exciting discovery," said co-author George Lasry, a computer scientist and cryptographer in Israel. "Mary, Queen of Scots, has left an extensive corpus of letters held in various archives. There was prior evidence, however, that other letters from Mary Stuart were missing from those collections, such as those referenced in other sources but not found elsewhere. The letters we have deciphered are most likely part of this lost secret correspondence.” Lasry is part of the multi-disciplinary DECRYPT Project devoted to mapping, digitizing, transcribing, and deciphering historical ciphers.

Mary sought to protect her most private letters from being intercepted and read by hostile parties. For instance, she engaged in what's known as "letter-locking," a common practice at the time to protect private letters from prying eyes. As we've reported previously, Jana Dambrogio, a conservator at MIT Libraries, coined the term "letter-locking" after discovering such letters while a fellow at the Vatican Secret Archives in 2000.

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  The OnePlus Pad doing its best iPad Pro impersonation.

Android tablets are on their way back, and one of Android's biggest manufacturers (we're talking about OnePlus parent company BBK) is bringing an Android tablet to the US for the first time. Say hello to the OnePlus Pad, an 11.61-inch tablet with an optional keyboard and stylus. We don't know how much it costs, so don't ask. There's also no hard release date, but preorders start in April.

What we do know are the specs. The 11.61-inch display is a 144 Hz LCD, with a resolution of 2800×2000. That's an aspect ratio of 7:5, or a bit wider than a 4:3 display, which OnePlus claims is a "book-like" aspect ratio. The SoC is a MediaTek Dimensity 9000. That's a rarity in the US, but it's basically a generic ARM design for 2022 flagship phones, with one 3.05 GHz ARM Cortex X2 CPU, three A710 CPUs, and four A510 CPUs. It's a 4 nm chip with an ARM Mali-G710 MC10. You also get 8GB of RAM (there's an option for 12GB), 128GB of UFS 3.1 storage, and a 9510 mAh battery. This is not in the super-flagship tablet territory and should (hopefully) come with an affordable price tag.

As always, OnePlus' trademark quick-charging is here, and it's 67 W. On a tiny phone battery, that kind of charging will usually take a phone from 0-100 in around a half hour, but with a big tablet battery, a full charge still takes "just over 60 minutes." In the fine print, OnePlus actually gives a warning against any repair attempts, saying, "The battery has been especially encrypted for safety purposes. Please go to an official OnePlus service center to repair your battery or get a genuine replacement battery." I've never heard of a battery being "encrypted" before, but I think they mean there is a serial number check in the firmware somewhere and that it will presumably refuse to work if you replace it. As for the possibility of an "official OnePlus service center" actually existing, there is a business finder on the OnePlus India website, but not one in the US, so it's looking like mail-in service only.

Enlarge / Sonos One smart speaker. (credit: Getty)

Sonos will release a new flagship speaker "in the coming months," according to a report Monday from The Verge. The publication said this will be called the Era 300 and that Sonos is prioritizing the device's spatial audio capabilities.

The Verge claimed that Sonos is aiming for the Era 300 to be its most accurate speaker yet. It pointed to a heightened focus on making Dolby Atmos content shine, as well as improving music using spatial audio. According to The Verge, the Era 300 will be a "multidirectional speaker built to get the most from spatial audio" by way of a "completely re-architected acoustic design."

We don't have deeper details, like specs or pricing. However, Wi-Fi 6 and a USB-C port are apparently "likely," and Bluetooth support is also possible. According to The Verge, Sonos has at least looked into including all these features on the Era 300.

Enlarge / Google's new "Blur" setting for SafeSearch will soon be the default, blurring explicit images unless you're logged in and over 18. (credit: Aurich Lawson)

Google has debuted a new default SafeSearch setting, somewhere between "on" and "off," that automatically blurs explicit images in search results for most people.

In a blog post timed to Safer Internet Day, Google outlined a number of measures it plans to implement to "protect democracies worldwide," secure high-risk individuals, improve password management, and protect credit card numbers. Tucked into a series of small-to-medium announcements is a notable change to search results, Google's second core product after advertising.

A new setting, rolling out "in the coming months," "will blur explicit imagery if it appears in Search results when SafeSearch filtering isn't turned on," writes Google's Jen Fitzpatrick, senior vice president of Core Systems & Experiences. "This setting will be the new default for people who don't already have the SafeSearch filter turned on, with the option to adjust settings at any time."

Enlarge / Yusuf Mehdi, vice president of Microsoft's modern life and devices group, speaks during an event at the company's headquarters in Redmond, Washington, on Tuesday. (credit: Chona Kasinger/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Fresh off news of an extended partnership last month, Microsoft has announced a new version of its Bing search engine and Edge browser that will integrate ChatGPT-style AI language model technology from OpenAI. These new integrations will allow people to see search results with AI annotations side by side and also chat with an AI model similar to ChatGPT. Microsoft says a limited preview of the new Bing will be available online today.

Microsoft announced the new products during a press event held on Tuesday in Redmond. “It’s a new day in search,” The Verge quotes Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella as saying at the event, taking a clear shot at Google, which has dominated web search for decades. "The race starts today, and we’re going to move and move fast. Most importantly, we want to have a lot of fun innovating again in search, because it’s high time."

(credit: Microsoft)

During the event, Microsoft demonstrated a new version of Bing that displays traditional search results on the left side of the window while providing AI-powered context and annotations on the right side. Microsoft envisions this side-by-side layout as a way to fact check the AI results, allowing the two sources of information to complement each other. ChatGPT is well known for its ability to hallucinate convincing answers out of thin air, and Microsoft appears to be hedging against that tendency.

Enlarge / Aerial view of a dirt road leading up through The Thacker Pass Lithium mining area in the arid Nevada desert. (credit: gchapel | iStock / Getty Images Plus)

Construction will reportedly soon begin on a mine that’s expected to become the United States’ largest source of lithium. This mine is viewed as critical to Joe Biden’s $2 trillion clean energy plan by powering the nation’s increased production of electric vehicles.

On Monday, a US district judge denied the majority of legal challenges raised by environmentalists, ranchers, and indigenous tribes, upholding that the federal government’s decision to approve the Thacker Pass mine in 2020 was largely not made in error. However, chief judge Miranda Du did agree with one of the protesters' claims, ordering the US Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to complete a fresh review to determine if Lithium Americas Corp has the right to deposit waste rock on 1,300 acres of public land that the mining project wants to use as a waste site.

Because this waste site may not contain valuable minerals, there’s a possibility that this land may not be validly claimed as a waste site under current US mining laws, Du wrote in the order. A mining law from 1872 requires that mining projects must validate all claims to public lands before gaining federal approval, and that means Lithium Americas must now provide evidence that valuable minerals have been found on the proposed Thacker Pass waste site to resume the project.