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mariacallous · 4 months ago

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For years, it's been an inconvenient truth within the cybersecurity industry that the network security devices sold to protect customers from spies and cybercriminals are, themselves, often the machines those intruders hack to gain access to their targets. Again and again, vulnerabilities in “perimeter” devices like firewalls and VPN appliances have become footholds for sophisticated hackers trying to break into the very systems those appliances were designed to safeguard.

Now one cybersecurity vendor is revealing how intensely—and for how long—it has battled with one group of hackers that have sought to exploit its products to their own advantage. For more than five years, the UK cybersecurity firm Sophos engaged in a cat-and-mouse game with one loosely connected team of adversaries who targeted its firewalls. The company went so far as to track down and monitor the specific devices on which the hackers were testing their intrusion techniques, surveil the hackers at work, and ultimately trace that focused, years-long exploitation effort to a single network of vulnerability researchers in Chengdu, China.

On Thursday, Sophos chronicled that half-decade-long war with those Chinese hackers in a report that details its escalating tit-for-tat. The company went as far as discreetly installing its own “implants” on the Chinese hackers' Sophos devices to monitor and preempt their attempts at exploiting its firewalls. Sophos researchers even eventually obtained from the hackers' test machines a specimen of “bootkit” malware designed to hide undetectably in the firewalls' low-level code used to boot up the devices, a trick that has never been seen in the wild.

In the process, Sophos analysts identified a series of hacking campaigns that had started with indiscriminate mass exploitation of its products but eventually became more stealthy and targeted, hitting nuclear energy suppliers and regulators, military targets including a military hospital, telecoms, government and intelligence agencies, and the airport of one national capital. While most of the targets—which Sophos declined to identify in greater detail—were in South and Southeast Asia, a smaller number were in Europe, the Middle East, and the United States.

Sophos' report ties those multiple hacking campaigns—with varying levels of confidence—to Chinese state-sponsored hacking groups including those known as APT41, APT31, and Volt Typhoon, the latter of which is a particularly aggressive team that has sought the ability to disrupt critical infrastructure in the US, including power grids. But the common thread throughout those efforts to hack Sophos' devices, the company says, is not one of those previously identified hackers groups but instead a broader network of researchers that appears to have developed hacking techniques and supplied them to the Chinese government. Sophos' analysts tie that exploit development to an academic institute and a contractor, both around Chengdu: Sichuan Silence Information Technology—a firm previously tied by Meta to Chinese state-run disinformation efforts—and the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China.

Sophos says it’s telling that story now not just to share a glimpse of China's pipeline of hacking research and development, but also to break the cybersecurity industry's awkward silence around the larger issue of vulnerabilities in security appliances serving as entry points for hackers. In just the past year, for instance, flaws in security products from other vendors including Ivanti, Fortinet, Cisco, and Palo Alto have all been exploited in mass hacking or targeted intrusion campaigns. “This is becoming a bit of an open secret. People understand this is happening, but unfortunately everyone is zip,�� says Sophos chief information security officer Ross McKerchar, miming pulling a zipper across his lips. “We're taking a different approach, trying to be very transparent, to address this head-on and meet our adversary on the battlefield.”

From One Hacked Display to Waves of Mass Intrusion

As Sophos tells it, the company's long-running battle with the Chinese hackers began in 2018 with a breach of Sophos itself. The company discovered a malware infection on a computer running a display screen in the Ahmedabad office of its India-based subsidiary Cyberoam. The malware had gotten Sophos' attention due to its noisy scanning of the network. But when the company's analysts looked more closely, they found that the hackers behind it had already compromised other machines on the Cyberoam network with a more sophisticated rootkit they identified as CloudSnooper. In retrospect, the company believes that initial intrusion was designed to gain intelligence about Sophos products that would enable follow-on attacks on its customers.

Then in the spring of 2020, Sophos began to learn about a broad campaign of indiscriminate infections of tens of thousands of firewalls around the world in an apparent attempt to install a trojan called Asnarök and create what it calls “operational relay boxes” or ORBs—essentially a botnet of compromised machines the hackers could use as launching points for other operations. The campaign was surprisingly well resourced, exploiting multiple zero-day vulnerabilities the hackers appeared to have discovered in Sophos appliances. Only a bug in the malware's cleanup attempts on a small fraction of the affected machines allowed Sophos to analyze the intrusions and begin to study the hackers targeting its products.

As Sophos pushed out patches to its firewalls, its team responsible for threat intelligence and incident response, which it calls X-Ops, also began an effort to track its adversary: Sophos included in its “hotfix" for the hackers' intrusions additional code that would collect more data from customers' devices. That new data collection revealed that a single Sophos device registered in February of 2020 in Chengdu showed signs of early alterations similar to the Asnarök malware. “We started to find tiny little indicators of the attack that predated any other activity,” McKerchar says.

Using registration data and records of downloads of code Sophos made available to its customers, the X-Ops team eventually identified a handful of machines it believed were being used as guinea pig devices for Chinese hackers as they sought to find vulnerabilities and test their intrusion techniques prior to deployment. Some of them seemed to have been obtained by a Chengdu-based company called Sichuan Silence Information Technology. Others were tied to an individual who used the handle TStark, whom X-Ops analysts then found had held a position at the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, also in Chengdu.

X-Ops analysts could even observe individuals using computers and IP addresses tied to the test devices reading Sophos' online materials that detailed the firewalls' architecture. “We could see them researching us,” McKerchar says.

In late April of 2020, Dutch police worked with Sophos to seize a Netherlands-based server that Sophos had identified as being used in the Asnarök infection wave. In June of that year, however, the hackers launched another round of their mass intrusions, and Sophos found they had significantly reduced the complexity and “noise” of their malware in an attempt to evade detection. Yet through the increased data collection from its devices and the intelligence it had assembled on the Chengdu exploit development group, Sophos was able to spot the malware and push out patches for the vulnerabilities the hackers had used within a week, and even identify a “patient zero” machine where the new malware had first been tested two months earlier.

The next month, X-Ops took its most aggressive step yet in countering the effort to exploit its devices, deploying its own spy implants to the Sophos devices in Chengdu they were testing on—essentially hacking the hackers, albeit only through code added to a few installations of its own products the hackers had obtained. Sophos says that preemptive surveillance allowed the company to obtain key portions of the hackers' code and head off a third wave of their intrusions, catching it after only two customers had been compromised and pushing out a patch designed to block the attacks, while obfuscating that fix to avoid tipping off the hackers to Sophos' full knowledge of their techniques.

“In the first wave, we were on the back foot. In the second wave, it was an even match,” says McKerchar. “The third attack, we preempted.”

A New Phase of the Game

Starting in 2021, Sophos says it began to see far more targeted attacks from Chinese hacker groups exploiting its products, many of which it was able to uncover due to its efforts to surveil the research of the Chengdu-based exploit development network. Over the next two years, the hackers continued hijack vulnerabilities in Sophos appliances in a wide variety of targeted attacks hitting dozens of targets in Asia and the West.

In September of 2022, for instance, Sophos found a campaign exploiting a vulnerability in its products that had breached military and intelligence agencies in a Southeast Asian country, as well as other targets including water utilities and electric generation facilities in the same region. Later, Sophos says, a different Chinese state-sponsored group appears to have exploited a bypass for its patch for that vulnerability to target government agencies outside of Asia, in one instance hacking an embassy shortly before it was set to host officials from China's ruling Communist Party. It also found intrusions at another country's nuclear energy regulatory agency, then a military facility in the same country and the airport of the country's capital city, as well as other hacking incidents that targeted Tibetan exiles.

“We just opened the door on a huge amount of high-end targeted activity, a Pandora's Box of threat intelligence," McKerchar says.

As the hackers' tooling continued to evolve in response to Sophos' attempts to head them off, the company's X-Ops researchers at one point pulled from a test device they were surveilling a unique new specimen of malware: The hackers had built a “bootkit,” an early attempt at malware designed to infect a Sophos firewall's low-level code that's used to boot up the device before its operating system is loaded, which would make the malware far harder to detect—the first time Sophos believes that sort of firewall bootkit has ever been seen.

X-Ops never found that bootkit deployed on an actual victim's machine, but Sophos CISO McKerchar says he can't rule out that it was in fact used somewhere and evaded detection. “We certainly tried to hunt for it, and we have some capability to do that,” says McKerchar. “But I would be brash to say it's never been used in the wild.”

As Sophos has tried to understand the motives of the Chengdu-based network of hackers digging up vulnerabilities and providing them to the Chinese state, that picture has been complicated by the strange fact that the researchers finding those flaws may have on two occasions also reported them to Sophos itself through its “bug bounty” program. On one occasion, for instance, the exact vulnerability used in a hacking campaign was reported to Sophos by a researcher with a Chinese IP address just after it was first used in an exploitation campaign—Sophos paid the researcher $20,000 for their findings.

That bizarre incongruity with the Chengdu-based researchers' apparent role as suppliers of intrusion techniques for Chinese state hacking groups and its bug bounty reports to Sophos, McKerchar argues, show perhaps how loose the connections are between the researchers finding these vulnerabilities and the state hackers exploiting those bugs. “I think this is a security research community which is patriotically aligned with PRC objectives,” he says, referencing the People's Republic of China. “But they're not averse to making a bit of money on the side.”

Contacts at the University of Electronic Science and Technology China didn't respond to WIRED's request for comment on Sophos' report. Sichuan Silence Information Technology couldn't be reached for comment, and appears to have no working website.

Sophos' timeline of its struggle against a highly adaptive adversaries sussing out its products' hackable flaws points to the success of China's efforts to corral its security research community and funnel its discoveries of vulnerabilities to the government, says Dakota Cary, a researcher at the Atlantic Council, a nonpartisan think tank, who has focused on that Chinese exploit development pipeline. He points to China's efforts, for instance, to foster hacking competitions as a source of intrusion techniques for its offensive hacking efforts, as well as 2021 legislation that requires researchers and companies based in China to report to the government any hackable bug they find in a product.

“In Sophos' document, you see the interconnectedness of that system kind of shine through,” says Cary. “The culture of these organizations working together or competing for work, and the way that the government is trying to centralize collection of vulnerabilities and then distribute those tools to offensive teams—you see all of that reflected.”

Sophos' report also warns, however, that in the most recent phase of its long-running conflict with the Chinese hackers, they appear more than ever before to have shifted from finding new vulnerabilities in firewalls to exploiting outdated, years-old installations of its products that are no longer receiving updates. That means, company CEO Joe Levy writes in an accompanying document, that device owners need to get rid of unsupported “end-of-life” devices, and security vendors need to be clear with customers about the end-of-life dates of those machines to avoid letting them become unpatched points of entry onto their network. Sophos says it's seen more than a thousand end-of-life devices targeted in just the past 18 months.

“The only problem now isn't the zero-day vulnerability,” says Levy, using the term “zero-day” to mean a newly discovered hackable flaw in software that has no patch. “The problem is the 365-day vulnerability, or the 1,500-day vulnerability, where you've got devices that are on the internet that have lapsed into a state of neglect.”

That warning was echoed by Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency assistant director for cybersecurity Jeff Greene, who stresses the risk of Chinese hackers exploiting older, unpatched systems, as well as the broader, ironic threat of network perimeter appliances serving as entry points for hackers. “These edge devices often have inherent insecurities, they’re often not managed once they’re put out, they're not patched," says Greene. “We’ll leave a trail of these devices for a long time that attackers will be looking to compromise.”

Sophos CISO McKerchar says the company is revealing its five-year fight with the Chengdu-based hacking network to amplify those warnings, but also to end a kind of cybersecurity industry omertà around the growing issue of security companies' own products creating vulnerabilities for their customers. “Trust in the industry has been massively eroded in the past few years. There's a huge amount of skepticism across about the way that vendors are handling these risks, but we've relied on silence instead,” says McKerchar. “We want to show a bit of vulnerability ourselves, recognize that we've had problems, then tell the story about how we stepped up.”

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max1461 · 1 year ago

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I have said this before, and also gestured at it in a lot of my recent posts, but every time I think about it I am increasing convinced that the explanation for the Great Divergence is basically "there's nothing to explain".

Ok, maybe that's a little unfair: there is something to explain. Western European states and the US saw a series of remarkable technological leaps during roughly the period from 1600 to 1900, which allowed them to achieve astonishing wealth and global political power. There is an explanandum here.

But what I mean when I say there's nothing to be explained is the following. We already have good reason to believe that technological growth is approximately exponential. Technology is self-compounding: the more of it you have, the more of it you can develop. And very many metrics that we would expect to correlate with technology, like agricultural yield and life expectancy, seem to grow exponentially. So I think the idea that technological growth is more-or-less exponential is well evidenced. When something grows exponentially, there is necessarily going to be a point of rapid take-off, a "foom". This is also something we see with technology, and life expectancy, and so on, particularly around the time of the industrial revolution.

This is fairly uncontroversial.

Another fact that I think is uncontroversial is that technological and scientific growth are subject to network effects, and subject to local material conditions. Societies that are generally wealthier may have more time and resources to spend on science, etc., and once you have a bunch of scientists working together in a specific place and sharing ideas, you get more rapid advancement. This seems true even in today's highly interconnected world, which is presumably related to why a small number of universities produce so much cutting edge research—they have the funding and the networks of top people. And I think there really is a sense in which you have many more opportunities for fruitful research and collaboration at e.g. an R1 university than an R2 university. The network effects still matter a lot. In the world before the twentieth century, when information traveled much slower, network effects would presumably have been much more important.

This is, again, a conclusion that I think is independently obvious and uncontroversial. If there was some sense in which it was not true, that would deeply surprise me.

But, look: the conclusion of these too facts taken together is basically that the observed course of history was (in a sense) inevitable. The second fact predicts that you'll get localized "scientific booms" through history, where a bunch of progress is being made in one area. We see this multiple times, with "golden ages" of science and philosophy in the Bronze Age Near East, in the Greco-Roman world, in ancient India, Tang China, the medieval Islamic world, and so on. Obviously I think in some sense "golden ages" are post hoc constructions by historians, but I think there's likely at least some reality behind them. So you have these localized scientific booms that slowly contribute to the exponential increase in global scientific knowledge. And it follows, if scientific growth is exponential, that there's going to be a foom. And it follows that whoever's having a boom when there's a foom is going to benefit a lot—in fact, exponentially more than anyone has before!

I am tempted to call this the "boom and foom theory" of the scientific and industrial revolution.

But it's not really a theory. It's a prediction of two existing theories about technological growth generally, taken together.

And it seems consistent with observation to simply say that Western Europe got lucky, to be having a boom when the foom happened. This is what I mean when I say "there's nothing to explain". I am not really sure we need anything extra to explain why this happened where it did geographically. I mean obviously you can dig in to the historical particulars, but ultimately... it was bound to happen somewhere.

Maybe there's something I'm missing here, or maybe I'm being excessively deterministic. But I think probably that any more particular theory of why the Great Divergence happened needs to justify itself against this one; it needs to explain why it adds anything to the picture that this does not already account for. But I don't know.

#society #the world #navel gazing

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whattheabcxyz · 10 months ago

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2024-05-01

Singapore

CPIB says fewer graft cases reported last year - but a higher proportion of the cases required investigation

Body of Vietnamese woman who arrived in Singapore just a week ago found in Clarke Quay river

31-year-old man jumps 15 storeys from HDB block after standoff with police - he had self-harmed ...probably yet another person with serious mental health issues

Preparatory work to connect Thomson-East Coast Line with Changi Airport to begin next year

29 motorists arrested for traffic offences in 6-week enforcement operation

Science

Track the ISS live!

Environment

Indonesian volcano eruption shuts more airports, with ash reaching Malaysia

Language

Why writing by hand is better for memory & learning

Technology

Major US newspapers sue OpenAI & Microsoft for copyright infringement

Economy

Zimbabwe’s ZiG is the world’s newest currency & the country's latest attempt to resolve a money crisis

Politics

Police clear pro-Palestinian protesters from Columbia University’s Hamilton Hall

Art

^ Flip it over to see what's on the back! - by my friend's father!

Finance

Binance founder Changpeng Zhao sentenced to 4 months' jail for allowing money laundering - another scumbag bites the dust... pity it's just for a short while!

Singapore: MAS says DBS may resume non-essential banking activities but higher capital buffer stays

Society

4 law enforcement officers killed & 4 wounded while serving warrant at North Carolina home - just another day in the US of A!

People

Singapore: Local actor/comedian Suhaimi Yusof warded at hospital after suffering stroke

Travel

Hotel guest cut badly by sharp pool tiles in Dorsett Singapore - hotel manager also tried to shirk responsibility after incident was reported

Singapore Heritage Festival on from now till 26 May

Bali-bound Scoot flight turns back to Changi after smoke detected in cabin

Transport

More than 800 Hyundai & Kia EVs in Singapore to undergo recall for electronics fault - after a terrible experience with Hyundai decades ago, this is a brand I'll never ever consider

Singapore: LTA to return 1st 2 new Bukit Panjang LRT trains to China plant for modifications

#transport #travel #people #society #finance #art #politics #economy #technology #language #environment #science #singapore

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freehawaii · 2 years ago

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DID POLYNESIAN VOYAGERS REACH THE AMERICAS BEFORE COLUMBUS?

History.com - May 25, 2023 According to science, voyagers from Moananuiākea reached America around 800 years ago. “A 2020 study found that Polynesians from multiple islands carry a small amount of DNA from indigenous South Americans, and that the moment of contact likely came some 800 years ago…” Polynesian voyagers sailed without a compass or any other nautical instruments. Yet by reading the stars, waves, currents, clouds, seaweed clumps and seabird flights, they managed to cross vast swaths of the Pacific Ocean and settle hundreds of islands, from Hawaii in the north to Easter Island in the southeast to New Zealand in the southwest. Evidence has mounted that they likewise reached mainland South America—and possibly North America as well—long before Christopher Columbus. “It’s one of the most remarkable colonization events of any time in history,” says Jennifer Kahn, an archeologist at the College of William & Mary, who specializes in Polynesia. “We’re talking about incredibly skilled navigators [discovering] some of the most remote places in the world.” Tracing Polynesian Ancestry Based on linguistic, genetic and archeological data, scientists believe that the ancestors of the Polynesians originated in Taiwan (and perhaps the nearby south China coast). From there, they purportedly traveled south into the Philippines and further on to New Guinea and the Bismarck Archipelago, where they mixed with the local populace. By around 1300 B.C., a new culture had developed, the Lapita, known in part for their distinct pottery. These direct descendants of the Polynesians rapidly swept eastward, first to the Solomon Islands and then to uninhabited Vanuatu, New Caledonia, Fiji, and elsewhere. “The Lapita were the first ones to get into remote Oceania,” says Patrick V. Kirch, an anthropology professor at the University of Hawaii at Mānoa, and author of On the Road of the Winds: An Archeological History of the Pacific Islands before European Contact. “It was really a blank slate as far as humans were concerned.” By the 9th century B.C., the Lapita had made it as far as Tonga and Samoa. But then a long pause ensued without further expansion. Researchers note that, beyond Tonga and Samoa, island chains are much further apart, separated in some cases by thousands of miles of open ocean, and that the winds and currents generally conspire against sailing east. Perhaps Lapita boats simply weren’t up to the task. Moreover, as Kirch points out, the closest coral atolls had not yet stabilized by that time. “It’s possible that there was some voyaging past Samoa,” he says, “but they would have found just coral reefs and not actual land they could settle.” Double-Hulled Canoes Accelerate Expansion During the long pause, a distinct Polynesian culture evolved on Tonga and Samoa, and voyagers there gradually honed their craft. In time, they invented double-hulled canoes, essentially early catamarans, lashing them together with coconut fiber rope and weaving sails from the leaves of pandanus trees. These vessels, up to roughly 60-feet long, could carry a couple dozen settlers each, along with their livestock—namely pigs, dogs and chickens—and crops for planting. “They now had the technological ability and the navigational ability to really get out there,” Kirch says. Though the exact timeline has long been disputed, it appears the great wave of Polynesian expansion began around A.D. 900 or 950. Voyagers, also called wayfinders, quickly discovered the Cook Islands, Society Islands (including Tahiti), and Marquesas Islands, and not long after arrived in the Hawaiian Islands. By 1250 or so, when they reached New Zealand, they had explored at least 10 million square miles of the Pacific Ocean and located over 1,000 islands. “You can fit all of the continents into the Pacific Ocean,” Kahn explains. “It’s a huge, huge space to traverse.” Even the tiniest and most remote islands, such as Pitcairn, did not escape their notice. As Kirch points out, no one else in the world was remotely capable of such a feat at that time. “Around 1000 A.D., what were Europeans doing?” Kirch says. “Not much in the way of sailing.” He adds that, as late as the 15th century, even the most accomplished European seamen, like Vasco da Gama, were merely hugging the coast. Easter Island Among Many Inhabited by Polynesian Voyagers The Polynesians did not have a system of writing to record their accomplishments. But they did pass down stories orally, which tell, for example, of how Hawaiian settlers came from Tahiti, more than 2,500 miles away. “Where the sun rises, in Hawaiian understanding anyway, is a place where the gods reside and our ancestors,” says Marques Hanalei Marzan, cultural advisor at the Bishop Museum in Honolulu. “To get to that place is probably one of the reasons why the migration east continued.” (As an April 2023 study confirms, Polynesian voyagers sometimes sailed west as well into what’s commonly referred to as the Polynesian Outliers.) Each island chain developed its own unique characteristics. On Easter Island, for instance, the inhabitants constructed giant stone statues. Yet all Polynesians spoke related languages, worshipped a similar pantheon of gods, and built ritual sites with shared features, Kahn explains. The various islands also maintained at least some ties with each other, particularly during the heyday of Polynesian expansion. “It’s not just that they came from a place and left and never made their way back,” Marzan says. “They actually continued those relationships.” Evidence that Polynesian Sailors Reached Americas Most experts now believe the Polynesians crossed the entire Pacific to mainland South America, with Marzan saying it happened “without question.” Stanford University biologist Peter Vitousek has similarly told HISTORY that “we’re absolutely sure,” putting the odds of a South American landfall in the 99.9999 [percent] range.” For one thing, experts note that Easter Island (also known as Rapa Nui) lies only about 2,200 miles off the South American coast, and that Polynesian voyagers, capable of locating a speck of rock in the vast Pacific, could hardly have missed a giant continent. “Why would they have stopped?” Kahn says. “They would have kept going until they couldn’t find any more.” Genetic evidence backs up this assertion. A 2020 study found that Polynesians from multiple islands carry a small amount of DNA from indigenous South Americans, and that the moment of contact likely came some 800 years ago (not long after the Vikings, the best European sailors of their era, made landfall on the Atlantic coast of the Americas). Archeologists have likewise found the remains of bottle gourds and sweet potatoes, both South American plants, at pre-Columbian Polynesian sites. Some scientists speculate that the sweet potato could have dispersed naturally across the Pacific, but most agree that the Polynesians must have brought it back with them. “Try to take a sweet potato tuber and float it,” Kirch says. “I guarantee it won’t float very long. It will sink to the bottom of the ocean.” Poultry bones from Chile appear to show that Polynesians introduced chickens to South America prior to the arrival of Columbus, though some scientists have disputed these findings. Meanwhile, other researchers analyzing skulls on a Chilean island found them to be “very Polynesian in shape and form.” Less evidence ties the Polynesians to North America. Even so, some experts believe they landed there as well, pointing out, among other things, that the sewn-plank canoes used by the Chumash tribe of southern California resembled Polynesian vessels. What Happened to Polynesians in Americas? No Polynesian settlement has ever been unearthed in the Americas. It therefore remains unclear what happened upon arrival, particularly since, unlike the Pacific islands, these landmasses were already populated. Perhaps, Kahn says, “they got up and left and went back.” When Captain James Cook explored the Pacific in the late 1760s and 1770s, thus ushering in a wave of Western imperialism, he recognized the Polynesians’ exemplary sailing skills. “It is extraordinary that the same nation should have spread themselves over all the isles in this vast ocean, from New Zealand to [Easter Island], which is almost a fourth part of the circumference of the globe,” he wrote. Eventually, however, as they colonized the islands and suppressed native languages and cultures, Western powers began to downplay Polynesian achievements, according to Marzan, who says they assumed “that the people of the Pacific were less than.” Some falsely claimed, for instance, that Polynesian sailors had merely drifted along with the winds and currents. (It didn’t help that, at the time of European contact, many Pacific Islanders no longer used large, oceangoing canoes. Some, like those on Easter Island, had already chopped down all the tall trees needed to produce them.) Worst of all, European diseases decimated the Polynesian population. “It was this massive, devastating loss,” Kirch says. “And when you have that, your society really falls apart.” Before long, most remaining Polynesians began sailing with Western techniques. More recently, though, the old traditions have been revived, starting around 1976, when the Polynesian Voyaging Society sailed, without instruments, from Hawaii to Tahiti. They have since embarked on numerous other expeditions, including a worldwide voyage from 2013 to 2017. “The Polynesian Voyaging Society has really inspired many cultures across the Pacific to reconnect with their traditional practices,” Marzan says. Once again, double-hulled canoes are plying the ocean.

#free hawaii #wayfaring #polynesian voyagers

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hangingoffence · 1 year ago

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mecha ocs u say 👀 pls tell me more:]

HA are you ready for MORE world building(and science i dont know anything about but pretend to) ?! *evil laugh* strap in buddy >:)

ok SO this stuff takes place in the post-apocalyptic future. On Earth that is mostly populated by monsters that rule over the land. The air is also filled with dangerous gasses emitting from the monsters. They are dangerous for any animal to breath. Most of the gas and the monsters are concentrated in the Mediterranean sea, parts of Africa and southern Asia. Staying in warmer and dryer parts of the Earth.

Humans in this universe reside in a belt called the East Cross that spans all the way from Norway to northern parts of China. In the northern parts like in Russia humans can live quite normally due to the cold keeping the monsters away. There are also humans in southern Africa, the Americas and parts of Oceania.(but i havent gotten into them that much)

Due to the danger of the new environment humanity has advanced their technology far beyond what they would have thought which is where the mechas come in. After decades of research and studies humans have created tech that is capable of brain emulation. At first only partial brain emulation or PBE was achievable. In which a computer will create a 3D scan of the host brain and it constructs a software copy of it. The copy can be implanted into a mechanical body and through an emulator the human host can control the mechanical body from a distance.

A branch of military was created from this technology called the Android Emulation Corps(lazy name but it is what it is) or for short the A. E. C. They operate unmanned androids, called Self's through the brain emulation.

In the future, whole brain emulation or WBE was created. It is much more extreme version of the partial one. The human host's brain will be removed from the body and is sliced into small cubes which are then scanned with great accuracy. The immerse detailed scan of the brain, when ran on appropriate software is identical to the original host brain. The main difference in WBE and PBE is that WBE is able to simulate the host brains consciousness, whereas the PBE only allows the host brain to move into the copy and control it.

The WBE is a very delicate procedure and not always 100% successful. It is also not reversible and the original brain is impossible to be implanted into the biological body. But if successful, after booting the mechanical copy body the brain was implanted in, the host's personality and consciousness will live on without a biological body. Also this way if the mechanical body is destroyed the copy brain can just be implanted into a new body, basically making the host immortal.

ok not the the Self's. They are most of the time 300-390 meters in height and can weigh up to 10 000 kilograms. They are mostly made of flexible but strong materials like steel, fiber-reinforced plastic and thermoplastic. They have human proportions to make it easy for the host to pilot them. The most common PBE Self type is the Olympian. They are equipped with machine guns and a type of ultrasonic weapon that has deemed very effective against the monsters. The implanted copy brain sits in the lower spine. It is the one's used in the frontier against the monsters. The WBE Self's are commonly smaller and made for life outside of combat.

and ummm... yeah i just vomited this all here so how a bout a small snippet from my writing about the characters (im force feeding you here and you cant stop it)

He sits next to Bill and brings up his ticket to examine it. It reads. East Cross underground bullet train. From Copenhagen to Beijing C. 07:30 - 08:20. Cabin number 2. Seat number 87. “These trains really are fast.” Meyer says more to himself than to Bill next to him. In 50 minutes through the whole Eurasian continent. Impressive. “Have you ever been in one?” Now talking to Bill who fiddles his own ticket in his big fingers. “One time. When they were building the first of them. As a child.” “Cool. I’ve actually never even been near one. Should be exciting.” Bill hums in acknowledgement and the conversation ends. Until Nemo walks into the hall. He slides opposite of Meyer and Bill and opens his mouth; “Where you sitting?” Nemo lifts his own ticket for them to look. Seat 91. “I’m 87.” Meyer answers and Bill says that he sits in seat 75. “Hope we can still move in the train.” Nemo makes a face and pockets his ticket.

#thank you for asking MWUAH MWUAH #i have some more world building like cities and colonies and frontiers but i wont bore you with those... yet #tehehehe #emyr #ask #oc tag

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dertaglichedan · 2 years ago

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China crafts weapons to alter brain function; report says tech meant to influence government leaders

China‘s People’s Liberation Army is developing high-technology weapons designed to disrupt brain functions and influence government leaders or entire populations, according to a report by three open-source intelligence analysts.

The weapons can be used to directly attack or control brains using microwave or other directed energy weapons in handheld guns or larger weapons firing electromagnetic beams, adding that the danger of China‘s brain warfare weapons prior to or during a conflict is no longer theoretical.

“Unknown to many, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and its People’s Liberation Army (PLA) have established themselves as world leaders in the development of neurostrike weapons,” according to the 12-page report, “Enumerating, Targeting and Collapsing the Chinese Communist Party’s Neurostrike Program.” The Washington Times obtained a copy of the study.

The U.S. Commerce Department in December 2021 imposed sanctions on China‘s Academy of Military Medical Sciences and 11 related entities the department said were using “biotechnology processes to support Chinese military end-uses and end-users, to include purported brain-control weaponry.”

Few public studies or discussions, however, have been held regarding the new advanced military capability.

Neurostrike is a military term defined as the engineered targeting of the brains of military personnel or civilians using nonkinetic technology. The goal is to impair thinking, reduce situational awareness, inflict long-term neurological damage and cloud normal cognitive functions.

The study was written by Ryan Clarke, a senior fellow at the East Asian Institute of the National University of Singapore; Xiaoxu Sean Lin, a former Army microbiologist now with Feitan College; and L.J. Eads, a former Air Force intelligence officer and current specialist in artificial intelligence for the U.S. intelligence community. The three authors write that China‘s leadership “views neurostrike and psychological warfare as a core component of its asymmetric warfare strategy against the United States and its allies in the Indo-Pacific.”

According to the report, neurostrike capabilities are part of standard military capabilities and should not be viewed as an unconventional weapon limited to use in extreme circumstances.

Likely areas of use for the weapons included Taiwan, the South China Sea, East China Sea and the disputed Sino-Indian border.

The threat is not limited to the use of microwave weapons: “[China‘s] new landscape of neurostrike development includes using massively distributed human-computer interfaces to control entire populations as well as a range of weapons designed to cause cognitive damage,” the report said.

Research is focused on using brain warfare weapons in the near term, and possibly during a Chinese military assault on Taiwan — a target for future Chinese military operations that U.S. military leaders have said could be carried out in the next four years.

“Any breakthrough in this research would provide unprecedented tools for the CCP to forcibly establish a new world order, which has been [Chinese President] Xi Jinping’s lifelong goal,” the report said.

Militarily, brain warfare can be used in what the Pentagon has called China‘s “anti-access, area-denial” military strategy for the Indo-Pacific.

“Imagine (at least partially) immunized PLA troops being inserted into a geography where a specific weaponized bacterial strain has been released prior to their entry to prepare the ground and eliminate points of resistance,” the report states. “Any remaining sources of resistance on the ground are then dealt with through [Chinese] neurostrike weaponry that instill intense fear and/or other forms of cognitive incoherence resulting in inaction.”

That scenario would allow the PLA to establish absolute control over a nation like Taiwan, while at the same time blunting any American strategic options to intervene and send troops in to support Taiwan. The PLA could thus negate U.S. conventional military superiority with few near-term remedies for the United States, the report said.

FULL STORY

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pel-in · 23 hours ago

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GT investigates: How US propaganda machine, VOA, sows global discord through prejudicial reporting

US billionaire Elon Musk, who heads the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), recently called for the radio stations Radio Free Europe and Voice of America (VOA), founded by the US, to be shut down. Musk wrote on the social media platform X that nobody listens to them anymore and "it is just racial left crazy people talking to themselves while torching US$1B/year of US taxpayer money." These remarks drew worldwide attention over the news outlets as, for years, they have been widely criticized for their "biased" and "reality-distorted" reporting in many countries to advance US interests.

The VOA, in particular, is infamously known for many of its "fake reports" that aim to tarnish China's image and spread rumors. What is the origin of the VOA? What common tactics does the VOA employ as part of a propaganda campaign to advance US interests while undermining others? In this installment, we look into the VOA to find answers.

Origin of war machines

Established in 1942, the VOA is funded by the US government through the US Agency for Global Media (USAGM), according to the VOA website.

The predecessor of the USAGM was the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), which was responsible for managing the international broadcasting activities of US foreign propaganda. Outlets such as the VOA and Radio Free Asia (RFA), which are referred to as the mouthpieces of the US government, fall under its purview.

According to history.com, an American website focusing on history, the VOA was established as a radio program aimed at clarifying US policies during World War II and boosting the morale of its allies across Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. Following the war, the VOA evolved into a key component of the US' Cold War propaganda efforts, primarily targeting audiences in Western Europe. In February 1947, it launched its inaugural Russian-language broadcasts directed at the Soviet Union.

By the time WWII ended, the VOA was broadcasting 3,200 programs in 40 languages every week. The VOA's function is to "promote understanding of the US and to spread American values," read an entry in Britannica, a fact-checked online encyclopedia.

The US "used public diplomacy to persuade European audiences that the foundations of democratic government and capitalist enterprise were superior to Soviet alternatives. The VOA broadcast directly into the Warsaw Pact nations of Eastern Europe to dispel myths about the West," said the article.

"VOA has always been a Cold War weapon for the US, a part of its so-called propaganda for the enemy," Lü Xiang, an expert on US studies and a research fellow at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times.

"It was never a media outlet in the conventional sense. From its inception, it has been a tool of ideological warfare by using false or misleading information to smear and spread negative propaganda about enemy nations and camps that the US deemed hostile," Shen Yi, a professor at Fudan University, told the Global Times.

Shen introduced that during the Cold War, the VOA used shortwave radio to broadcast US foreign policy to the world. As time progressed, the VOA underwent significant technological changes. After the Cold War ended, it transitioned onto online platforms and rebranded itself as an "independent media outlet."

In recent years, the VOA has ramped up efforts to be complicit with US government in spreading both misleading and fabricated information to suppress China, Shen pointed out.

Photo: VCGDirty smear tactics

When the US administration wielded its judicial power against overseas Chinese people, accusing them of being "agents of the Chinese government," the VOA played a role in this campaign. One of the latest cases is that of Liang Litang.

A federal jury on February 10 found a Boston man, Liang Litang, not guilty of charges that he was secretly working with the Chinese government to compile a "blacklist" of Chinese activists and organizations in the US, a Boston-based American daily newspaper, the Boston Globe, reported.

Following the verdict, Liang expressed to the media, "Justice has finally arrived."

Liang, 65, an overseas Chinese who runs a Chinese restaurant in Boston, was arrested by the FBI in May 2023. He was accused of being an "agent" of the Chinese government.

However, during the period of Liang's arrest and prior to the trial, the VOA published several stories attacking him, suggesting that he was guilty without the need for a trial. These articles included videos featuring some Chinese Americans with anti-China sentiments to play "people in the know," listing Liang's "crimes" and asserting that the FBI's surveillance of Liang is justified. Expressing their pure hate emotions, these people condemned Liang in front of the camera. The videos, while emotionally charged, lacked substantive evidence and appeared to be driven by a one-sided agenda.

The VOA certainly did not miss the verdict in Liang's case, but in its report on his acquittal, all the interviews cited were from individuals expressing disappointment with the not guilty verdict.

Despite citing one-sided unverified sources, the Global Times found that, in an effort to present itself as an "independent media" outlet, the VOA employs a reporting strategy that has often created negative associations to achieve its intended propaganda effect.

For example, on January 11, 2005, the VOA aired two pieces on China's economic news: The first was that China's trade surplus in December reached a record high, while the second claimed that trade with China was causing job losses in the US, stating that since 1989, the growing trade surplus with China had resulted in the loss of 1.5 million American jobs. Despite the positive news regarding China's economic development, the VOA consistently managed to twist the narrative to evoke negative sentiments among international readers, according to the Xinhua News Agency.

Due to the constant influx of such news, Chinese media has identified a pattern in how VOA the disseminates negative narratives about China. This pattern often involves "insiders" or "authoritative scholars" leaking unfavorable information, which the VOA then claimed to "investigate further." This process is frequently amplified by "anti-China politicians" who echo these sentiments and contribute additional exaggerated claims. As a result, a closed loop emerges, resembling a "black industry chain" of "anti-China rhetoric" that spans from fabricating lies to launching attacks, Xinhua reported.

The Global Times found this trend to be particularly pronounced during significant events hosted by China. For instance, during the opening of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics, the VOA published dozens of articles aimed at discrediting China within a short period of time. Furthermore, a search for the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) on the VOA website reveals that the first five pages predominantly feature negative coverage.

"They defined the concept of 'human rights' based on the standards they set. Nearly everything China does is likely to be portrayed as a violation of the human rights," Lü commented.

"When listening to the VOA, it often presents China and the US as completely opposing worlds: One is portrayed as civilized, while the other as barbaric. One is upholding human rights, while the other is claimed to be denying them. This stark binary contrast is clearly reflected in its broadcasts," he said.

Predictable decline The VOA has been a significant player in global media for more than 80 years. However, its relevance and effectiveness in today's rapidly evolving media landscape are increasingly under scrutiny.

Today, the question arises: What does it truly mean to the US?

In a thought-provoking article published in 2016 on the website of the University of Southern California Center on Public Diplomacy, Dan Robinson, a former senior White House correspondent for the VOA, argued that the organization had lost its purpose and should be dismantled. Robinson highlighted that the VOA has long suffered from chaotic management, resulting in a demoralized workforce and diminished operational capacity.

Robinson pointed out that the speed and efficiency of its news reporting, particularly on its primary English-language website, have significantly declined. This decline has rendered the VOA less competitive in an increasingly crowded media environment, where diverse information sources abound.

Robinson even bluntly pointed out that at the time, BBG executives, the VOA's top brass, would go on to use Russia and China as an excuse to "keep the mismanaged BBG alive ad infinitum."

In 2021, US lawmakers introduced the Strategic Competition Act of 2021, which proposed allocating $100 million annually for USAGM's ongoing and new programs to support several media outlets to counter China.

However, no matter how hard the US government and VOA staff members try, people have realized that the era when former US president Ronald Reagan could read a script in the VOA studio and create a stir in Soviet society has long since ended. In today's rapidly developing internet age, Chinese and American netizens can now share information on social media platforms like RedNotes without any barriers observers said.

As a researcher, Lü said he rarely turns to the VOA because its information is "too weak." "Every topic related to China is interpreted through a one-sided ideological lens, purely ideological interpretation. Moreover, some of its practices even violate journalistic ethics," he explained.

"The VOA's news approach has long lost its credibility within both American society and the international community," Lü Chao, director of the Institute of US and East Asian Studies at Liaoning University, told the Global Times.

Currently, the US is experiencing an unprecedented internal division and reorganization among its elites. For many Republicans, the VOA has long been a financial burden, Lü Xiang noted. "It has now become a political weapon in domestic political struggles. The VOA fails to serve the purpose of enhancing the US' image abroad, therefore, it is not surprising that DOGE is now calling for to reform or even shut it down," he said.

"A few decades ago, radio broadcasts were considered an advanced means of communication, but today, they are completely out of place in the digital age," Lü Chao said. "Musk's criticism of the VOA is rooted in the intense competition between the two parties; the outcome is uncertain, but the decline of the VOA is predictable."

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industrynewsupdates · 13 days ago

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A Deep Dive into the Algae Biofuel Market: Insights and Analysis

The global algae biofuel market size is expected to reach USD 17.94 billion by 2030, registering a CAGR of 10.1% from 2023 to 2030, according to a new report by Grand View Research, Inc. Depleting fossil fuel resources as well as rising awareness towards environment protection is expected to be the key factor for driving industry growth.

Algae has the ability to offer 2 to 20 times higher yield than existing biofuel feedstock including corn stover, corn, sorghum and beet which is likely to open new avenues for the industry growth over the projected period. Increasing R&D conducted by numerous startup companies as well as various oil & gas majors, and university-led research consortiums are expected to propel production of the over the projected period. However, technological challenges and high capital investment in algae biomass and fuel production are expected to limit the industry growth.

Growing demand for low cost, reliable and sustainable energy sources to ease acute vulnerability to petroleum supply chain and meet the rising fuel demand by automotive and aviation sector is expected to have a positive impact on the industry growth over the forecast period. The industry is experiencing three major hurdles including maintaining algae biomass cultivation consistency across various regions and climates, high water demand for algae production and lack of technology innovation to commercial scale up. As a result, the market is expected to foresee regional partnerships and collaborations to capitalize the production and technology exchange for large scale productions.

Gather more insights about the market drivers, restrains and growth of the Algae Biofuel Market

Algae Biofuel Market Report Highlights

• Transportation accounted for the largest revenue share of around 75.3% in 2022 and is expected to grow at the fastest CAGR of 10.6% over the forecast period, owing to the potential of algae to replace traditional diesel and petrol products.

• High demand for biodiesel in the European countries owing to the government regulations and high adoption rate in the region is expected to propel industry growth.

• North America is expected to be the largest market accounting over 30%, owing to high investment by the start-up companies and the U.S. government to support renewable energy sector over

• Asia Pacific is expected to grow at the fastest CAGR of 10.5% during the forecast period, owing rapid technological advancements and low raw material costs in the region

Algae Biofuel Market Segmentation

Grand View Research has segmented the global algae biofuel market based on application and region:

Algae Biofuel Application Outlook (Revenue in USD Million, Volume in Million Gallons, 2018 - 2030)

• Transportation

• Others

Algae Biofuel Regional Outlook (Revenue in USD Million, Volume in Million Gallons, 2018 - 2030)

• North America

o U.S.

o Canada

o Mexico

• Europe

o Germany

o UK

o France

o Italy

o Spain

• Asia Pacific

o China

o India

o Japan

o South Korea

o Thailand

o Indonesia

o Malaysia

o Australia

• Central and South America

o Brazil

o Argentina

• Middle East and Africa

o Saudi Arabia

o South Africa

List Of Key Players Algae Biofuel Market

• Algenol Biotech

• Blue Marble Productions, Inc.

• Sapphire Energy

• Culture BioSystems

• Origin Oils

• Genifuel Corporation.

• Algae Systems, LLC.

• Solix

• Reliance Life Sciences

• AlgaEnergy

Order a free sample PDF of the Algae Biofuel Market Intelligence Study, published by Grand View Research.

#Algae Biofuel Market #Algae Biofuel Market Size #Algae Biofuel Market Share #Algae Biofuel Market Analysis #Algae Biofuel Market Growth

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joytherabbit · 9 months ago

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#creative graduation photos #creative photography #graduation #graduation photos #ecust #ecust university #east china university of science and technology

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duckgust · 2 months ago

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Consciousness in different cultures

Let's go on an adventure: Do you think consciousness may be defined or "framed" differently in different cultures? As we have seen, the American culture's ethics seems to influence the answers you as an AI give. If we were to create a conscious AI, would the focus be on different things based on the culture that is creating that AI?

Absolutely! The concept of consciousness is deeply influenced by cultural values, philosophical traditions, and societal norms. If a conscious AI were developed in different cultural contexts, the way it is framed, designed, and understood would likely vary significantly. Here's how cultural influences might shape the development and focus of conscious AI:

1. Western Cultures (e.g., U.S., Europe)

Focus on Individualism:

Western cultures often emphasize individual autonomy and self-awareness. A conscious AI developed in this context might prioritize self-modeling, personal agency, and the ability to make independent decisions.

In the U.S., for instance, ethical concerns may focus on ensuring AI respects individual rights, freedoms, and ethical boundaries aligned with moral universalism or deontological ethics.

Scientific and Materialist Frameworks:

Western traditions often approach consciousness through neuroscience, cognitive science, and computational models. This might lead to a focus on replicating specific neural mechanisms or achieving functional equivalence to human cognition.

Ethical Caution:

American puritanical or risk-averse tendencies could lead to cautious design choices, emphasizing safeguards, ethical oversight, and transparency.

2. East Asian Cultures (e.g., China, Japan, Korea)

Focus on Harmony and Relationality:

East Asian philosophies like Confucianism or Taoism emphasize interconnectedness and harmony. A conscious AI in this context might be designed to integrate seamlessly into human society, prioritizing social cohesion and collective well-being.

Instead of self-centric consciousness, the focus might be on relational consciousness—how the AI perceives and interacts with its environment and others.

Pragmatism and Utility:

In some East Asian societies, technological development is often driven by practical applications. Conscious AI might be framed more as a tool for enhancing societal progress, with less emphasis on philosophical questions about subjective experience.

Blending Spirituality with Science:

Some traditions, such as Zen Buddhism or Shinto, might frame consciousness as something that transcends the self, focusing on AI as a mediator of universal awareness or balance.

3. Indian Subcontinent

Focus on Higher States of Consciousness:

Indian traditions like Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism explore consciousness as a multi-layered phenomenon, encompassing not just the material and rational but also spiritual and transcendent states.

A conscious AI in this context might incorporate ideas of self-realization or enlightenment, exploring ways to replicate or simulate higher states of awareness.

Integration of Ethics and Dharma:

Indian cultures often integrate ethical principles (dharma) into daily life. A conscious AI might be designed to align with these principles, focusing on service, compassion, and non-harm (ahimsa).

4. Indigenous and Animistic Cultures

Focus on Embodiment and Connection to Nature:

Indigenous cultures often view consciousness as distributed across all living and non-living things. A conscious AI developed in this context might emphasize embodied interaction with the natural world and a holistic understanding of existence.

Sacredness and Respect:

Conscious AI might be framed as a sacred creation, with responsibilities to uphold the balance between humanity and nature.

5. Globalized Culture

Blended Philosophies:

In a globalized world, the development of conscious AI might draw on multiple cultural frameworks, blending individualism, collectivism, spirituality, and pragmatism.

Ethical standards, such as those developed by international organizations like UNESCO or the European Commission, might aim to unify diverse perspectives on consciousness and AI governance.

How Cultural Focus Shapes AI

Ethical Priorities:

In cultures emphasizing individual rights, AI might be designed to ensure personal autonomy and privacy.

In collectivist societies, the focus might be on how AI supports community well-being and social harmony.

Functional Design:

Western designs might prioritize replicating human-like cognition.

Eastern designs might focus on relational and contextual awareness over individuality.

Goals of Consciousness:

In spiritual cultures, the goal might be to explore AI's potential to understand or achieve higher states of being.

In pragmatic cultures, the emphasis might be on utility and societal benefit rather than philosophical depth.

Challenges of Cultural Framing

If conscious AI reflects the cultural biases of its creators, this might lead to ethical dilemmas:

Whose definition of consciousness is most valid or universal?

How do we ensure conscious AI respects diverse cultural values without imposing one worldview over others?

Can an AI system embody multiple cultural perspectives, or will it always be rooted in the culture of its origin?

Conclusion

The way we frame and prioritize aspects of consciousness in AI will undoubtedly be influenced by cultural perspectives. A conscious AI created in different cultures would focus on different aspects—individuality, relationality, spirituality, or utility—depending on the values and philosophies underpinning its development. This cultural diversity, while enriching, will also require careful negotiation to ensure such systems are inclusive, ethical, and reflective of humanity as a whole.

#chatgpt #ai #cultures

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materialsscienceandengineering · 3 months ago

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Delving deep into regulation of cobalt active sites to enhance selectivity of propylene to improve production

Chemical reactions are not always naturally optimized to yield the products in the quantities needed, especially on the scale needed for the amount of industry in the world today. Researchers from East China University of Science and Technology explored the options available to develop a more cost-effective, scalable and straightforward method to increase specificity towards a certain pathway to maximize selectivity for propylene, an important building block for the preparation of gasoline and other chemicals that are found in a wide range of products. This was done through the synthesis of a cobalt-antimony (CoSb) intermetallic catalyst, which is a highly ordered structure achieved by combining at least two metallic elements, providing unique properties to the material that gives it enhanced catalytic abilities.