TechLetters #140 Hospitals down after a cyberattack. New progress in extracting thoughts directly from the brain. Shor's algorithm improvement?

Security

Threat groups targeting security researchers. "based in an eastern European country, said he was followed on a skiing trip, received threatening phone calls and had to placate his wife after she was sent doctored pictures of him with a female employee … One researcher, based in eastern Europe, and who declined to be named, described coming home to find his home expertly rifled through by “well-trained, discreet and extremely professional” men, who disabled his home security, but missed a new nanny-cam that his wife had placed in a living room. Weeks before, he had identified a Russian government agency responsible for an espionage operation against a Nato government’s email systems. Following the search, his bank account was hacked, his company’s tax documents were doctored and released on the dark web, while his family photographs were traded as trophies on hacker networks”

China warns of “American cyberattacks”. "China's Ministry of State Security warned of data security risks after recent reports identified US intelligence agencies were behind a cyberattack on Wuhan Earthquake Monitoring Center." No evidence shown, caution advised.

Hospital and clinical computer systems cyberattack. In several US states, still down more than 2 weeks after the event (Ransomware?). Effects: closure of emergency rooms, disruption of ambulances; postponed: surgeries, doctor visits, blood takings.

Privacy

Vulnerability in Threshold Signature Scheme (TSS), widely used in Multi-Party Computation. (link)

Technology Policy

Other

Claimed idea for improving the efficiency of Shor's quantum algorithm. The quantum algorithm for factorisation speedup that would famously break RSA encryption/etc (if implemented) by applying it several times and using non-quantum post-processing. Also, just-posted Shor’s lecture notes on quantum computation.

Extracting thoughts about a specific song. Pink Floyd’s Another Brick in the Wall, out of a person's brain. How? Intracranial EEG (iEEG) and AI processing. Might help in treatment of epileptic patients.

---

In case you feel it's worth it to forward this content further:

Subscribed

If you’d like to share: