Month: August 2016

With a name or just a general description of some generic event, researchers were able to "spear-phish" half of their test subjects. (credit: Wikipedia)

Security experts often talk about the importance of educating people about the risks of "phishing" e-mails containing links to malicious websites. But sometimes, even awareness isn't enough. A study by researchers at a university in Germany found that about half of the subjects in a recent experiment clicked on links from strangers in e-mails and Facebook messages—even though most of them claimed to be aware of the risks.

The researchers at the Friedrich-Alexander University (FAU) of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Germany, led by FAU Computer Science Department Chair Dr Zinaida Benenson, revealed the initial results of the study at this month's Black Hat security conference. Simulated "spear phishing" attacks were sent to 1,700 test subjects—university students—from fake accounts.

The e-mail and Facebook accounts were set up with the ten most common names in the age group of the targets. The Facebook profiles had varying levels of publicly accessible profile and timeline data—some with public photos and profile photos, and others with minimal data. The messages claimed the links were to photos taken at a New Year's Eve party held a week before the study. Two sets of messages were sent out: in the first, the targets were addressed by their first name; in the second, they were not addressed by name, but more general information about the event allegedly photographed was given. Links sent resolved to a webpage with the message "access denied," but the site logged the clicks by each student.

One of the most famous fossils in human evolutionary history is at the center of a new scientific debate. The fossilized skeleton dubbed "Lucy" was part of an extinct species called Australopithecus afarensis, an early relative of Homo sapiens who was among the first hominins to walk upright. She died 3.18 million years ago, and her remains were discovered in the early 1970s in Ethiopia. Her skeleton is complete enough to give us a good picture of her anatomy, which is part of what led to the current controversy. A study published in Nature this week suggests that a careful analysis of her bones reveals how she died—by falling to her death from a very tall tree. But other scientists say the evidence is thin at best.

University of Texas-Austin anthropologist John Kappelman and his team did a complete X-ray CT scan on Lucy's bones, allowing them to create high-resolution 3-D renders as well as 3-D printouts of her skeleton. By comparing the way her bones had fragmented with contemporary X-rays from people who fell, they came to the conclusion that the fragmentation of her leg bone was "green," that is, it took place right before she died.

Kappelman and his colleagues write, "Although the fractures in Lucy’s humeri provide evidence that she was conscious when she stretched out her arms in an attempt to break her fall, the severity of the numerous compressive fractures and presumed organ damage suggest that death followed swiftly." It appears that the joint in her leg suffered from extreme compression of the type you'd expect in somebody who fell on their feet from a great height, out of a local tree where nests might be as many as 23 meters off the ground. (They estimated this height based on the typical heights of chimpanzee nests today.)

Enlarge / One set of the possible stromatolites—with two slices cut out by the researchers. (credit: Allen Nutman)

In the history of life on Earth, the first chapter is still the most incomplete—and any good epic needs its origin story. The problem with finding that story is preservation. The earliest lifeforms were microscopic sacks of organic chemistry, so finding evidence for them, as far as needles in haystacks go, is not exactly equivalent to spotting a six-foot Apatosaurus bone. To make matters worse, most of the haystack has been burned to a crisp by geology since then.

Fossil evidence goes back about 3.5 billion years, with controversial isotopic signs that might signify life about 3.8 billion years ago (or perhaps even earlier). At this age, you run out of rocks. Although the planet is about 4.5 billion years old, very few rocks have survived for more than 3.5 billion years. The ones that have look their age, metamorphosed so much over the eons that signs of life might have been erased.

Still, the quest to push back the earliest evidence for life goes on. New finds are subject to rigorous debate, and researchers have to work hard to figure out whether a physical process could be responsible for a feature that has the appearance of a fossil.

Samsung announced a new smartwatch today, the Gear S3. Like the Gear S2, this is a Tizen-powered smartwatch with a stainless steel case and a rotating bezel.

Samsung is packing everything it can into its smartwatch this year. There's a bigger, 1.3-inch 360×360 display, an optional LTE version, the addition of MST (Magnetic Secure Transmission) technology for Samsung Pay, a speaker and microphone for calls, GPS, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and a barometer. Bigger isn't always better in the smartwatch world, though, and the Gear S3 sounds like a behemoth—the case has grown from 44mm to 46mm. Compare that to the Apple Watch, which comes in 38mm and 42mm sizes.

For specs, the S3 has a dual-core 1GHz "Exynos" chipset (no model given), 786MB of RAM, 4GB of storage, and a 380mAh battery. The watch is IP68 rated for water and dust protection. There are two different styles to choose from this year: the traditionally styled "Classic" watch—which does not have LTE—and a more rugged-looking "Frontier" version, which comes with LTE baked in. Samsung is promising "3-4 days" on a charge, but that's probably not with LTE turned on. Both watches are 12.9mm thick and are compatible with most 22mm watch bands.

Enlarge (credit: CCAC North Library)

A local Texas judge is tossing a $1 million lawsuit brought by a Dallas pet-sitting business that sued the owners of a pet fish for giving the company a 1-star Yelp review that complained that "Gordy" was overfed.

Among other allegations, Prestigious Pets claimed (PDF) that a Plano couple violated its non-disparagement clause and defamed it on Yelp in last year's review. The Dallas County suit alleged that Michelle and Robert Duchouquette's review about the overfeeding of the tiny betta fish amounted to libel because overfeeding is akin to animal cruelty and a crime.

"I am thankful to have a ruling that supports our right to free speech. We should all have the opportunity to express our opinions without the fear of a lawsuit," Michelle Duchouquette said in a statement.