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A proposed FemtoSat is shown in space, with a penny for scale. (credit: Arizona State)

The miniaturization of space continues, unabated. First came CubeSats, measuring about 11cm long and weighing no more than 1.33kg. These small research payloads have helped spur the development of a small satellite launch industry, and using the International Space Station to deploy them has become one of the national lab's hottest commercial activities.

However, the evolution of satellites downward from thousands of kilograms, down to a single kilogram, does not seem to be stopping. On Thursday. Arizona State University announced it is developing FemtoSats, a 3cm cube with a mass of just 35g. These "SunCubes" grew out of a research project begun in 2014 by Jekan Thangavelautham, a professor in the university's School of Earth and Space Exploration.

The FemtoSats will deploy in an almost matryoshka doll-like manner—from a CubeSat fitted with a Jack-in-the-box-like spring. According to the developers, this mechanism will allow the FemtoSat standard to be bootstrapped to the CubeSat standard, allowing FemtoSats to be carried as additional payloads on CubeSat missions. A single deployer could release 27 FemtoSats.

President Barack Obama. (credit: White House)

The White House has reportedly decided not to give public support to legislation that would force tech companies to help law enforcement agencies break into encrypted products.

Reuters reported the news today, attributing it to "sources familiar with the discussion." The draft legislation from Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Richard Burr (R-N.C.) could be introduced this week and "would empower judges to require technology companies such as Apple to help law enforcement crack encrypted data," Reuters wrote.

The Obama administration said in October that it wouldn't seek legislation requiring tech companies to install backdoors in their products. But last month, President Obama said he thinks the government should have some access to encrypted data to investigate terrorist plots and crimes such as child pornography and tax fraud. "You cannot take an absolutist view on this," Obama said at the South By Southwest conference. "If your view is strong encryption no matter what and we can and should create black boxes, that does not strike the balance that we've lived with for 200 or 300 years. And it's fetishizing our phones above every other value. That can't be the right answer."

Enlarge / Felicity Jones stars as Jyn Erso. (credit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wji-BZ0oCwg)

The first installment of the reborn Star Wars is now out for people to watch at home, and the second mainline movie is in production for a December 2017 release. But fans of the Force won’t have to wait until the end of next year to revisit that far, far away galaxy: Disney’s next Star Wars movie actually hits this Christmas. It’s the first in a set of spin-off movies, and as we learned about a year ago, it’s called Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. The first teaser for it landed this morning.

The teaser opens with a soft piano variation on the classic "Force theme" leitmotif (soft piano variations on old movie themes are all the rage these days in trailers!). We’re quickly introduced to plucky cynical misfit Jyn Erso, played by Felicity Jones, who it seems has quite the criminal record in the Galactic Empire. The trailer shows us where and when the film takes place: Erso is recruited by Rebellion leader Mon Mothma for a mission to steal the plans for the Death Star (presumably the first one).

The teaser is short on details and dialog but long on visuals, and the visuals tugged at this old Star Wars fan’s heartstrings. Star Destroyers, Stormtroopers, and spaceships abound; the Death Star’s signature hooting alert klaxon dominates the audio for a big chunk of the trailer as the action ramps up, culminating in a hand-held shot of (again, presumably) Rebellion fighters running along the sand of a beach while Imperial AT-ATs tower over them, firing down at the camera.

Enlarge (credit: A)

MedStar, the health network of 10 Maryland hospitals struck by a ransomware attack last week, has now reportedly brought all its systems back online without paying attackers. But a MedStar spokesperson denied reports that the attack was made possible because the health provider's IT department failed to make fixes to systems that had been issued years ago. Ars will publish an in-depth analysis of the techniques used by the Samsam ransomware attackers this Friday.

Tami Abdollah of the Associated Press reported Tuesday that an anonymous source "familiar with the investigation" of the cyberattack claimed that the flaws that allowed attackers to compromise a JBoss Web application server and attack the network with Samsam crypto-ransomware had been highlighted in security warnings from JBoss maintainer Red Hat, the US government and others in February 2007, March 2010, and again this month.

MedStar denies that the earlier warnings—including one issued as a security advisory by Red Hat in April 2010—had anything to do with the attack, according to the findings of a response team from Symantec. "News reports circulating about the malware attack on MedStar Health’s IT system are incorrect," a MedStar spokesperson said in a statement. "Our partner Symantec, a global leader in cybersecurity, has been on the ground from the start of the situation and has been conducting a thorough forensic analysis, as they have done for many other leading companies around the world. In reference to the attack at MedStar, Symantec said, 'The 2007 and 2010 fixes referenced in the article were not contributing factors in this event.'"