Month: March 2023

Sonos Era 100 im Test: Für viele der bessere Sonos One, aber nicht für alle

Der Era 100 wird den Sonos One ablösen. Wir haben uns im Test die Frage gestellt, ob sich ein Wechsel zum Era 100 lohnt und wenn ja, für wen. Ein Test von Ingo Pakalski (Sonos, Test)

Der Era 100 wird den Sonos One ablösen. Wir haben uns im Test die Frage gestellt, ob sich ein Wechsel zum Era 100 lohnt und wenn ja, für wen. Ein Test von Ingo Pakalski (Sonos, Test)

Android app from China executed 0-day exploit on millions of devices

Fast-growing e-commerce app Pinduoduo had an EvilParcel stow-away.

Android app from China executed 0-day exploit on millions of devices

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images)

Android apps digitally signed by China’s third-biggest e-commerce company exploited a zero-day vulnerability that allowed them to surreptitiously take control of millions of end-user devices to steal personal data and install malicious apps, researchers from security firm Lookout have confirmed.

The malicious versions of the Pinduoduo app were available in third-party markets, which users in China and elsewhere rely on because the official Google Play market is off-limits or not easy to access. No malicious versions were found in Play or Apple’s App Store. Last Monday, TechCrunch reported, Pinduoduo was pulled from Play after Google discovered a malicious version of the app available elsewhere. TechCrunch reported the malicious apps available in third-party markets exploited several zero-days, which are vulnerabilities that are known or exploited before a vendor has a patch available.

Sophisticated attack

A preliminary analysis by Lookout found that at least two off-Play versions of Pinduoduo for Android exploited CVE-2023-20963, the tracking number for an Android vulnerability Google patched in updates that became available to end users two weeks ago. This privilege-escalation flaw, which was exploited prior to Google’s disclosure, allowed the app to perform operations with elevated privileges. The app used these privileges to download code from a developer-designated site and run it within a privileged environment.

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Would building a Dyson sphere be worth it? We ran the numbers.

Here’s the math behind making a star-encompassing megastructure.

Would building a Dyson sphere be worth it? We ran the numbers.

Enlarge (credit: Kevin Gill (CC BY 2.0))

In 1960, visionary physicist Freeman Dyson proposed that an advanced alien civilization would someday quit fooling around with kindergarten-level stuff like wind turbines and nuclear reactors and finally go big, completely enclosing their home star to capture as much solar energy as they possibly could. They would then go on to use that enormous amount of energy to mine bitcoin, make funny videos on social media, delve into the deepest mysteries of the Universe, and enjoy the bounties of their energy-rich civilization.

But what if the alien civilization was… us? What if we decided to build a Dyson sphere around our sun? Could we do it? How much energy would it cost us to rearrange our solar system, and how long would it take to get our investment back? Before we put too much thought into whether humanity is capable of this amazing feat, even theoretically, we should decide if it’s worth the effort. Can we actually achieve a net gain in energy by building a Dyson sphere?

Spherical Dyson cows

I’ll state from the outset that I'm a theoretical cosmologist, not an engineer. I have absolutely no idea how to go about building a bridge, let alone a structure that reshapes the very face of our Solar System. But I’m willing to bet that nobody knows how to engage in these kinds of mega-engineering challenges. We can’t say for certain what kind of advances in which technologies would be necessary to build a structure that even partially encloses the sun. To speculate on that would be science fiction—fun, but not very meaty.

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Solarenergie: Sungrow repariert Solaranlagen und verlängert Garantie

Nach den Ausfällen bei Sungrow-Solarspeicheranlagen hat der Hersteller das Problem erklärt. Betroffene erhalten eine Reparatur und Garantieverlängerung. (Solarenergie, Umweltschutz)

Nach den Ausfällen bei Sungrow-Solarspeicheranlagen hat der Hersteller das Problem erklärt. Betroffene erhalten eine Reparatur und Garantieverlängerung. (Solarenergie, Umweltschutz)