TechLetters #154 Ransomware on hospitals expected to increase mortality. Cyberattack leaves people without water. Reverse engineering train software. AI act, pay-or-ads "consent". Quantum computers!
Security
Effects of ransomware attacks on hospital operations and patient outcomes. Claim of death following cyberattacks/ransomware. Warning: not direct observations, just estimations. “We estimate that ransomware killed 42-67 patients”.
Hacking a train for fun and profit. Reverse engineering of train software revealed that vendor/producer implemented a geofence lock for trains serviced somewhere else. If the train stayed too long at some GPS coordinates, simple IF clauses locked the train completely. Reverse engineering helps in competition proceedings.
Facebook enabling strong, end-to-end encryption. In messengers in FB Messenger and Instagram. By default. Technical documentation here.
UK US, New Zealand, Australia) point a finger at Russia. Accusation of using cyber operations to interfere in domestic affairs of States.
180 homeowners in Ireland lost access to water for two days due to a politically motivated cyberattack. "equipment was targeted due to the fact it originated in Israel".
Privacy
Subscribe or consent to ads. European Commission official said that user's should have a choice: "no advertising with a subscription to a website, contextual, or targeted advertising". In other words, they validate Meta's "subscribe or consent to ads". They say that "advertisement is an economic and consumer protection concern, not just that of privacy"
From 14 December, users of OpenAI services will be subject only to the Irish Personal Data Protection Authority (DPC). One-stop-shop change. My GDPR complaint was filed in August so it will still be processed outside Ireland.
Technology Policy
EU AI Act agreement reached. Mandatory fundamental rights impact assessment will join the GDPR Data Protection Impact Assessment. The two may be merged, actually. In the coming world of mass data processing, human dignity will be defended not only by #GDPR but also by a specialized act. The AI Act includes risk analysis, restrictions on the use of biometric systems by the police, option to complain, fines up to €35M or 7% of turnover. Now technical details need to be clarified, and then the vote in the European Parliament, Member Stastes must designate enforcing organisations.
Ads or payment. Meta/Facebook is arguing that it is actually European Data Protection Board that ordered them to deploy the choice "see ads or pay $10". They add: "Subscriptions as an alternative to seeing advertising are a well-established and economically viable business model spanning many industries, from news publishing and gaming to music and entertainment ".
Other
IBM debuts a new "quantum computer" processor. 133 qubits with low gate error rate. It still is incapable of doing anything of practical relevance, so be careful about hyping it. They want to improve quantum gate error rates. IBM has also unveiled "quantum computer" with more than 1121 qubits". Also in this case computations of practical relevance are not possible. In overall, having lots of controllable qubits and v. low error rate is critical here. And we're far from it.
Major progress in quantum computing. First quantum computer with a programmable processor based on encoded 48 logical qubits operating with up to 280 physical qubits, with error correction. This is a big deal. Are we nearing the era of useful quantum computation? If this is real, maybe sooner than in 15-500 years. "These results herald the advent of early error-corrected quantum computation and chart a path toward large-scale logical processors."
New quantum algorithm from Google's team. Perhaps with practical uses in simulation of physical systems (coupled oscillators). Exponential speedup. It cannot be faster on non-quantum computers.
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