New Security Loophole allows Spying on Internet Users Visiting Websites and Watching Videos

New security loophole allows spying on internet users visiting websites and watching videos
The “SnailLoad” loophole is based on combining the latency of internet connections with the fingerprinting of online content. Credit: IAIK – TU Graz

Internet users leave many traces on websites and online services. Measures such as firewalls, VPN connections and browser privacy modes are in place to ensure a certain level of data protection. However, a newly discovered security loophole allows bypassing all of these protective measures.

Computer scientists from the Institute of Applied Information Processing and Communication Technology (IAIK) at Graz University of Technology (TU Graz) were able to track users’ online activities in detail simply by monitoring fluctuations in the speed of their internet connection...

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A Hidden Treasure in the Milky Way – Astronomers uncover Ultrabright X-ray Source

Illustration: Alexander Mushtukov: A view towards the black hole in an X-ray binary and the X-rays we see that are reflected from the inner surface of the powerful outflow surrounding the hole. 

Astronomers uncovered that a well-known X-ray binary, whose exact nature has been a mystery to scientists until now, is actually a hidden ultraluminous X-ray source. X-ray binaries are intriguing systems consisting of two celestial bodies: a normal star and a compact, dead object such as a black hole or a neutron star that sucks material from its stellar companion. A few hundred such sources have been identified thus far in our Galaxy...

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Beyond CRISPR: seekRNA delivers a New Pathway for Accurate Gene Editing

Beyond CRISPR: seekRNA delivers a new pathway for accurate gene editing
IS1111 and IS110 family features. Credit: Nature Communications (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-49474-9

Scientists at the University of Sydney have developed a gene-editing tool with greater accuracy and flexibility than the industry standard, CRISPR, which has revolutionized genetic engineering in medicine, agriculture and biotechnology.

SeekRNA uses a programmable ribonucleic acid (RNA) strand that can directly identify sites for insertion in genetic sequences, simplifying the editing process and reducing errors.

The new gene-editing tool is being developed by a team led by Dr. Sandro Ataide in the School of Life and Environmental Sciences. Their findings have been published in Nature Communications.

“We are tremendously excited by the potential for this technology...

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How Nvidia became an AI Giant

NVIDIA
Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain

It all started at a Denny’s in San Jose in 1993. Three engineers—Jensen Huang, Chris Malachowsky and Curtis Priem—gathered at the diner in what is now the heart of Silicon Valley to discuss building a computer chip that would make graphics for video games faster and more realistic. That conversation, and the ones that followed, led to the founding of Nvidia, the tech company that soared through the ranks of the stock market to briefly top Microsoft as the most valuable company in the S&P 500 this week.

The company is now worth over $3.2 trillion, with its dominance as a chipmaker cementing Nvidia’s place as the poster child of the artificial intelligence boom—a moment that Huang, Nvidia’s CEO, has dubbed “the next industrial revolution.”

On...

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