here's what's coming up in the category
five TV newsroom
a man hit the keys to it 59 million
dollars worth of Bitcoin with his
fishing gear which got thrown out and
incinerated while he was in jail firefox
has turned on encrypted DNS by default
to port snooping ISPs automatic pet
feeding systems could starve your pets
in the event of a failure musicians have
algorithmically generated every possible
melody and release them to the public
domain stick around the full details are
coming up later in the show this is the
category-five TV newsroom covering a
week's top texture with a slight linux
bias
I'm Sasha Rickman joined this week by
Robbie Ferguson all right Sasha well
some quick honourable mentions this week
let's get into it
pioneering african-american nasa
mathematician Katherine Johnson has
passed away I want to get into a little
bit about her story and as Johnson
calculated she calculated the rocket
trajectories and earth orbits for NASA's
early space missions she was portrayed
in the 2016 Oscar nominated film hidden
figures and the film tells the story of
an african-american woman whose math
skills helped to put US astronauts John
Glenn into orbit around the earth in
1962
miss Johnston verified the calculations
made by new electronic computers before
his flight imagine that computers were
brand new at the time so we had to like
verify that data and there she was
verifying it making sure that the math
was correct from this new fandangled
device right miss Johnston
miss Johnson pardon me had previously
calculated the trajectories for the
space flight of Alan Shepard the first
American in space and such was her skill
and reputation that Glenn had asked her
specifically to be a part of his mission
and refused to fly unless she verified
the calculations she also helped to
calculate the trajectory from the 1969
Apollo 11 flight to the moon now NASA
Administrator Jim bridenstine describes
miss Johnson as a leader from NASA's
pioneering days he says miss Johnson
helped our helped our nation enlarge the
frontiers of space even as she made huge
strides that also opened doors for women
and people of color
in the universal human quest to explore
space her dedication and skill as a
mathematician helped put humans on the
moon and before that made it possible
for our astronauts to take the first
steps in space that we are now following
on a journey to Mars here in 2020 miss
Johnson was born in a small town in West
Virginia in 1918 she excelled
academically she graduated from high
school at just 14 years old and from
University at 18 NASA notes that her
academic achievements were partially
were particularly pardon me impressive
quote in an era when school for African
Americans normally stopped at 8th grade
for those who could indulge that luxury
to think of education as a luxury at
that time just an astonishing woman
after working as a teacher and being a
stay-at-home mom miss Johnson began
working for NASA's predecessor the
National Advisory Committee for
Aeronautics pardon me they called it
NACA at the time in she started working
there in 1953 Johnson died at a
retirement home in Newport February 24th
at the age of 101 lived a long life
bridenstine described her as quote an
American hero and he stated that her
pioneering legacy will never be
forgotten since we're already on the
subject of mankind traveling to the
Stars the Los Angeles City Council has
approved a SpaceX permit to least 19
acres of land in the city's port for 20
years for a starship rocket facility
space X's new rocket Factory will be for
its mass
next generation rocket called starship
the rocket so far has been developed at
SpaceX's facilities in Texas and Florida
but the new location adds capacity for
SpaceX within driving distance to its
headquarters outside of Los Angeles
International Airport and that's where
the majority of their staff actually
work 6000 employees in an outline of
plans described by government officials
SpaceX's facility will include multiple
buildings for manufacturing such as
blacksmith shops and machining los
angeles officials say that SpaceX is
plan will actually refurbish dilapidated
facilities with a history of vacancy and
vandalism and quote has the potential to
create 130 aerospace jobs the facility
itself would be a large tent-like
structure similar to those that Tesla
was using to ramp up their production of
the cars in recent years the port
location provides SpaceX with immediate
access to water that's a key
transportation item for them for their
immense rocket because they need to get
that from a production facility to the
launch site in either texas or Florida
so SpaceX currently moves falcon 9
rocket s-- across the highway on super
long trucks but starship and it's super
heavy booster would be so large they
wouldn't be able to transplant transport
that by the road so the water is gonna
play a big part in that researchers have
developed an algorithm that could stop
self-driving vehicles from getting into
crashes and traffic jams the algorithm
divides the ground beneath the machines
into a grid the robots learn their
position through technology similar to
GPS and coordinate their own movements
together through sensors that assess
where there's free space
to move Northwestern engineers Michael
Rubinstein says the robots refused to
move to a spot until that spot is free
and until they know that no other robots
are moving to that same spot they are
careful and reserve a space ahead of
time Rubenstein's team tested their
algorithm on a swarm of 100 robots set
up in their lab to cut out any
distractions the robots were only
allowed to sense three or four of their
closest neighbors this restricted their
vision it and it made the system easier
to scale as the robots can interact
locally without needing global
information think about the impact of
that so the advantage of a swarm of
robots is that there is no centralized
controller that can disrupt the whole
system this allows them to work together
to accomplish any task even if one of
them breaks down
this gives the system and obvious
application in warehouse robots but
Rubinstein believes it could actually
also cut traffic and collisions for
self-driving vehicles on the road he
said quote by understanding how to
control our swarm robots to form shapes
we can understand how to control fleets
of autonomous vehicles as they interact
with each other
finally cyber security researchers today
uncovered on a new highly severe
Hardware vulnerability residing in the
widely used Wi-Fi chips manufactured by
Broadcom and Cypress apparently they
power over a billion devices including
smartphones tablets laptops routers and
IOT gadgets dubbed crook K R 0 0 K the
flaw could let nearby remote attackers
intercept and decrypt
some wireless network packets
transmitted over the air by a vulnerable
device the attacker doesn't need to be
connected to the victims wireless
network and the flaw works against
vulnerable devices using wpa2 personal
or wpa2 Enterprise protocols with AES
CCMP encryption ESET researchers said
quote our tests confirmed some client
devices by Amazon echo Kindle Apple the
iPhone iPad MacBook Google's Nexus
device Samsung's Galaxy devices
raspberry PI's PI 3 and show meas redmi
as well as some access points by a soos
and Huawei were vulnerable to crook now
the attack relies on the fact that when
a device suddenly gets disconnected from
the wireless network the Wi-Fi chip
clears the session key in the memory and
it sets it to zero but see the chip
inadvertently transmits all data frames
left in the buffer with an all Z with an
all 0 encryption key even after the
disassociation so it's actually pushing
out that data without encryption so
therefore of course an attacker in a
near proximity to vulnerable devices can
use the flaw to repeat of repeatedly
trigger disassociation by sending D
authentication packets over the air to
capture more data frames quote
potentially containing sensitive data
including DNS ARP ICMP HTTP TCP and TLS
packets basically it's like a
man-in-the-middle without actually
having to be in the middle besides this
since the flaw also affects chips
embedded into wireless routers
the issue also makes it possible for
attackers to intercept and decrypt
network traffic transmitted from
connected devices that are not
vulnerable to crook either attached or
using different Wi-Fi chips so consider
that if you are connecting to a Wi-Fi
hotspot whose hotspot is vulnerable you
are susceptible to crook Apple has
already released patches for its users
some should have issued advisories or
security patches at the time of the
publication and other vendors are still
testing the issue against their devices
watch for patch for patches to mitigate
this problem via software or firmware
updates for your device wow thank you
let's get into the top stories were
following this week in a world where
various mass breaches dictate the use of
strong randomized passwords more than
ever reliable and secure credentials
management is paramount in 2021 Irish
drug dealer has evidently learnt the
lesson the hard way this week the Irish
Times reported the sad tale of Clifton
Collins a 49 year old cannabis grower
from Dublin Collins quietly grew and
sold his product for 12 years and he
amassed a small fortune by using some of
that revenue to buy bitcoins around 20
2011 and 2012 before the price of
cryptocurrency soared but in 2017 state
authorities on a routine overnight
patrol spotted and then arrested Collins
with roughly 2000 dollars of cannabis in
his car the man quickly earned himself a
five-year jail sentence as part of
authorities investigation Ireland
criminal assets Bureau discovered and
confiscated 12 Bitcoin wallets belonging
to Collins totaling nearly 59 million
dollars
reportedly the biggest financial case in
CA B's 25 year history there was only
one problem CA B couldn't access the
accounts because Collins had lost the
keys nervous about having a ton of money
tied up in a single
Collins diversified in 2016 by splitting
his 6,000 bitcoins across 12 newly
created wallets and to further secure
this fortune Collins hid a piece of
paper containing the access codes inside
a fishing rod case at his home
unfortunately a separate criminal broke
into Collins home in 2017 and cleared
his belongings and upon Collins arrest
his former home was cleared out by his
landlord with left-behind belongings
taken to a dump dump workers told State
Police they remember seeing fishing gear
but waste from this particular dump is
set to Germany and China and incinerated
by procedure the fishing rod case has
been missing ever since Collins told the
Irish police that he has had time to
come to terms with the loss of the money
and regarded it as punishment for his
own stupidity this makes me want to cry
right okay Wow so that money would not
have been his in the end which is why
he's kind of okay with losing it because
he's been caught yep back up where are
your backups right I understand that in
the lure box the tackle box is out they
call it tackle box with backups fishing
rod for the main believe me I understand
the idea the concept behind a paper
wallet yeah but paper wallet as a term
doesn't necessarily mean that you have
to print it on a piece of paper which is
susceptible to everything yeah a paper
wallet think about it this way an
offline wallet right like it could be an
encrypted GPG encrypted file on your
hard drive which is also Luke's
encrypted and that can be your
protection and and then back it up all
right you know what six I am slightly
suspicious actually of this story mr.
Collins why when you're released from
jail
if all of a sudden you disappear maybe
you hard excuse me I'm going fishing
elsewhere
oh boy okay so where do you keep your
crypto keys so think about it so your
wallets and your keys your wallet is
reasonably easy to recover as long as
you know your wallet address
it's that private key that you're not
going to be able to recover if you don't
have it so encryption I mean use like
can I skip off can I skip off the set
for a second here Sasha I'm jumping over
here and I know you guys can't see me
but I just want to grab a device right
from Kingston Tech okay so Kingston has
these guys would not stand up against
incinerator though wouldn't stand up
against an incinerator an incinerator
but perfect a dad a traveler mm has an
encryption key pad so save your GPG
encrypted keys yes on this encrypted
with the keypad and then back it up to
multiple devices yes like come up when
you've got millions and millions of
dollars in Bitcoin you can afford to buy
a data traveller mm don't be dumb daft
as they would say this is marish the
raft mister don't be a prat oh come on
now but like yeah right that just breaks
my heart in so many ways but it's just
like okay this guy obviously knew his
way around the cryptocurrency I mean he
but maybe he was just lucky maybe just
blob right time Boulder yeah hurts him
some chattering at the local pub
evidently I'm painting a picture of who
this guy is he's sitting there except in
a pine Guinness listening kisum so I
bought a thousand Bitcoin last week no
that'll never be worth anything they
said he wrote it down on a now
they were taught there are only 20 cents
each like oh my goodness not to be again
s I'm going fishing boys yeah so the
question becomes okay so think about it
where are your keys okay so if you
collect cryptocurrency where are your
keys
how are they safe do you have a device
like a data traveler 2000 from Kingston
I have one and if not get one okay
because this is a great device
two-storey keys on but I wouldn't just I
wouldn't just put my files on here I
would also encrypt those files with GPG
right so you've got multiple layers of
encryption and heck if you want to Luc's
encrypt this as well triple layer
encryption that's fine and then you can
back that up to multiple devices create
a DD image I don't care what you do but
you need to have a backup of your keys
yes and an offline key does not
necessarily mean that there's only one
copy no you can still have backups but I
think that is safer than the paper key
because the paper key can be picked up
by anyone so that robber if he
recognized it and he also had the
wallets I'm saying he I'm just assuming
it was probably a woman but if the
robber was to get a hold of the keys the
private keys on paper as well as the
wallets well they've got all your 69
billion dollars whatever it is a lot of
money a lot of money right right so at
least with encryption you can have
multiple copies of your file backed up
that has your keys
but don't just print B for him when he
gets out after I don't know if his
sentence is up yet but when he gets out
and he's just talking to somebody who's
never met him before and he tells them
the tale he lost so much money they'll
think that he is lying yeah
all right Firefox has begun the process
of switching browser users to cloud
flairs encrypted DNS service this week
the change rolls out across the United
States in the coming weeks
DNS over HTTP
helps keep eavesdroppers from seeing
what DNS lookups your browser is making
potentially making it more difficult for
Internet service providers or other
third parties to monitor what websites
you visit mozilla
embrace of dns over HTTP is fueled in
part by concerns about ISPs monitoring
customers web usage mobile broadband
providers were caught selling their
customers real-time location data to
third parties and internet providers can
use browsing history to deliver targeted
ads wireless and wired internet
providers are suing the state of maine
to stop a web browsing privacy law that
would require ISPs to get customers
opt-in consent before using or sharing
browsing history and other sensitive
data the telecom companies already
convinced Congress to eliminate a
similar federal law in 2017 with web
users already being tracked heavily by
companies like Google and Facebook
Mozilla had said it is embracing DNS
over HTTPS because quote we don't want
to see that business model duplicated in
the middle of a network and it's just a
mistake to use DNS for those purposes
end quote Mozilla said in an
announcement Tuesday quote today we know
that unencrypted DNS is not only
vulnerable to spying but is being
exploited and so we are helping the
Internet to make the shift to more
secure alternatives we do we do this by
performing DNS lookups in encrypted HTTP
connection this helps hide your browsing
history from attackers on the network
and helps prevent data collection by
third parties on the network that ties
your computer to websites you visit end
quote
while Firefox is encrypted DNS uses
CloudFlare by default users can change
that to next DNS in the Firefox setting
or manually enter the address of another
encrypted DNS service Firefox users can
also disable the new default setting if
they don't want to use any of the
encrypted DNS options
Google's plan for encrypted DNS in
Chrome which is still in the
experimental phase and hasn't been
deployed to everyone is a little
different from Mozilla
instead of automatically switching users
to a DNS provider chosen by Google
Chrome sticks with whichever DNS
provider the user has selected if the
user selected DNS provider offers
encrypted lookups and is in the list of
providers chrome automatically upgrades
the user to that DNS providers encrypted
service if the user selected DNS
provider isn't in the list chrome makes
no changes see that makes more sense to
me yeah don't touch my DNS settings
browser ha ha ha Swiss aghhh no I mean
we're gonna we're gonna divide the
community right now my belief is that my
web browser should not touch my DNS it
shouldn't touch my IP address it
shouldn't touch my default gateway right
you're all agreeing with that so why is
it touching my DNS my browser should be
subject to my operating systems DNS
settings my operating system should be
making these decisions
Ubuntu should be saying hey we're gonna
try to encourage our users to use HTTPS
for DNS queries my browser should never
be allowed to override my DNS rights I
see what you're saying that's my opinion
my browser is to be able to surf the web
based on the settings which I have said
in my operating system for TCI
for my tcpip stack for my DNS stack for
my gateway now what about a consumer or
a user who isn't as knowledgeable as you
with the suit them I think that is the
exception to where I think this works
yeah I think this works for the average
Windows user we'll say like the average
home user who just bought a laptop from
the future shop yes from Walmart
and fires it up and installs firefox
hopefully because they're not going to
use edge because they're smarter than
that at least yes right but you trust
your browser and and so that user sure I
mean use HTTP but here's my problem is
that I set I have a pie hole right you
do oh I have a DNS server on my network
that is on a Odroid xu4 in a cloud shell
to that pie hole powered device so pie
hole is the operating system it's a DNS
server uses bi9 and it controls the flow
of DNS through my network so if my kids
go to something that Daddy says is
objectionable it will block it so what
Firefox is saying is I don't care what
daddy says I'm gonna go around what
daddy says and I'm gonna go directly to
CloudFlare and whatever the kids type in
I don't care cuz I'm Firefox I know
what's what yeah so I'm gonna go I'm
gonna circumvent your piehole hi every
time I say it I laugh it's called
piehole okay it's a DNS server yeah so I
block things like advertisements
pornography things like gambling sites
and stuff that I'm that you know yeah
even stuff that I just think that the
kids should maybe approach me about if
they need access to it just so that I
can explain why they might want to be
careful on those sites yeah so so I try
to control those things not from a
control freak perspective but from a I
want to be a parent who protects my
children and in this connected world and
Firefox is saying you know what yeah and
I hate that so if my kids are using
Firefox they are circumventing the
settings that Daddy set up to protect my
kids that I don't like so I but I do
understand for the average person who
goes into Walmart and buys a laptop and
installs Firefox this is safer right
because nobody needs to know what URLs
you are going to write and like Sasha
from 2009 I don't even know when I
started the show mm see Sasha from 2011
wouldn't have known anything about
technology like I wouldn't have known I
would have just loved to Dada
walked into a store picked up a computer
brought it home plugged it in and
probably would have believed any pop-up
that showed up on my computer right and
so those are the people that needs oh
right no absolutely and but like the
adults sure but for her I mean there are
so many great uses for being able and I
understand that the the approach or the
promotional end of it so I mean we'll
say the marketing perspective that
Firefox is using is that this protects
you because now your internet service
provider can't see what domain you go to
so if you punch in a pornographic
website into your url bar your ISP knows
that right but so does daddy and so
Daddy can say I don't want my kids to
see that yes I want to protect them from
that
so please Firefox don't turn that off
yes I have to be able to see those
domains so that's why I have a problem
with it I agree that HTTPS is important
but there are times when maybe Google's
approach is better because Google is
saying if you already have something set
in chrome in your browser in your
operating system we will honor that but
we'll try to switch to HTTPS so Google
is saying if you have a piehole I'll
still go through your piehole but then
Daddy can set the pie holes DNS server
to an HTTP server so the ISP cannot see
what my family is putting in so daddy
can still see it because the browser no
longer has the power to override
but the ISP cannot because my piehole
which is the override of my systems see
that is is able to direct okay so I can
make that decision cuz I'm smart enough
yeah you're smart enough to make that
decision so there should be a process
that Firefox has for some reason
forgotten to put into place there should
be a process of qualifying is this user
capable of making these decisions for
themselves yes or do we actually need to
override for them right okay that's my
perspective please comment below I know
we're probably gonna have some mixed
perspectives here on this topic but my
perspective is from the father who just
wants to protect his kids I like it
thank you
comment below we have to take a quick
break more of this week's top tech
stories are coming up
[Music]
owners of the device designed to release
food for pets say their animals are left
hungry during a week-long
[Music]
however such devices are being trusted
by pet owners pet net allows owners to
schedule and control feeding via
smartphone app one pet owner tweeted my
cat starved for over a week while others
complained about other hardware issues
quote my three Gen 2 feeders constantly
Jam and won't dispense food wrote
another some expressed relief that the
feeders were now back online pet net has
two twitter accounts the official one
has not tweeted since August 2019 but
the support account issued for tweets
between last week and now about the
problems experienced in its first tweet
it said a system outage was affecting
second generation devices and asked
customers not to switch off their feeder
even if it appeared to be offline it
said automatic feeds would quote still
dispense four days later it tweeted
again to say that it hoped to release
more information soon on Friday it said
it's smart feeders were quote returning
online and a system reset was in
progress stuart miles founder of the
tech site pocket-lint says quote as we
go towards a more automated home you
have to acknowledge that somewhere along
the line things will fall over robots
and automated systems have hiccups along
the way it's something we need to get
used to end quote
this particular outage though points to
a need for pet owners to have a back-up
plan a friend or family member to check
in on the pets every couple of days may
be all it takes to ensure that if tech
fails a human is there to ensure things
are safe and care for that makes sense
it really reminds me of the Tesla
automated autonomous vehicles yes and
how there have been some crashes and
it's while they're watching a movie or
talking on the phone or like this is
what okay so this is why I
think robots are gonna take over the
world and all the humans are gonna
totally are well they need us robots
need people as people need robots we got
to keep them in check you can have an
automated cat feeder like I think of
people I know in my daily life that
really could use an automated cat feeder
to help assist them in feeding their cat
but they're not gonna hightail it out
for two weeks and assume that the cat's
gonna be fine with their automated kitty
litter cleaner and their automated hat
feeder like they they're gonna stay
there you can't just trust your cat's
life to technology trying to ever yeah I
like I trust technology yes but when it
comes to life and death health wellness
I think it's important for us to still
be the human right like autonomous
vehicles still have a steering wheel for
a reason yes
you're meant to observe what's going on
around you yeah but sit there and relax
enjoy the music and just kind of look
around and enjoy nature for once be a
passenger but as soon as you start
swerving toward the guardrail be like
grab a hold of the damn steering wheel
and take control right I honestly don't
think that the pet feeder company is at
fault in this systems goal they are they
totally are but our complacency in
trusting a digitally connected device to
provide life-giving food right to our
past
yes is a problem right they didn't say
hey leave your cat alone we know well
maybe they did I didn't see getting
material but understand this is a
connected device that if Wi-Fi goes down
if internet goes down if their servers
go down which is what happened here your
pets will not get fed right think about
that for a second so we need to still
make sure like I I set an automatic
plant feeder yeah when I go away from my
annual vacation
okay and it feeds my cucumbers and it
keeps my garden fed but my sister-in-law
still checks in for us right every
couple days she goes in and waters the
plants and does it make sure
everything's working right cuz I don't
want to come back to a bunch of dead
cucumbers just in case something happens
don't just write willy-nilly trust the
tacit we can as a convenience but please
don't trust it to give life I would
never trust a robot to keep me alive
without human intervention let you say
that now but wait till you're 95 no
there will be people there there will be
nurses there will be people there make
sure the robots are doing the right
thing or pepper
it could be pepper Oh pepper she's so
cute pepper can be my nurse okay -
programmer musicians wrote every
possible melody in existence - a hard
drive in MIDI format copyrighted the
whole thing and then released it all to
the public domain in an attempt to stop
musicians from getting sued programmer
musician and copyright attorney
Damian reel along with musician
programmer Noah Rubin sought to stop
copyright lawsuits that they believe
stifle the creative freedom of artists
often in copyright cases for song
melodies if the artist being sued for
infringement could have possibly had
access to the music they're accused of
copying even if it was something they
listened to just once they can be
accused of subconsciously infringing on
the original content one of the most
notorious examples of this is Tom
Petty's claim that Sam Smith's stay with
me sounded too close to Petty's I won't
back down Smith eventually had to give
Petty co-writing credits on his own
chart-topping songs which entitled petty
to royalties defending a case like that
in court can cost millions of dollars in
legal fees and the outcome is an ever
assured real and Rueben hoped that by
releasing the melodies publicly
they'll prevent a lot of these cases
from standing a chance in court in a
recent talk about the project real
explained that to get there melody
database they algorithmically determined
every melody contained within a single
octave to determine the finite nature of
melodies real and Rubin developed an
algorithm that recorded every possible
eighth note twelve beat melody combo
this used the same basic tactic that
hackers used to guess passwords churning
through every possible combination of
notes until none remained real says this
algorithm works at a rate of 300,000
melodies per second oh I know once a
work is committed to a tangible format
it's considered copyrighted and in MIDI
format notes are just numbers all of the
melodies they've generated as well as
the codes for the algorithm that
generated them are available as open
source materials on github and the
datasets are on the Internet Archive
fantastic thank you guys that is so oh
my goodness this is like this should go
into the files of why didn't we think of
this before
these guys should get a super award like
they should actually get a small royalty
from all of the royalties that these
other big bully
musicians yeah so now I want to download
the entire MIDI set yeah like a tribute
edirol orchestral to all the MIDI notes
and resequenced everything add some drum
loops and let's see what we come up with
I think this is great I think it's it's
obviously novel but it's also a
brilliant way to thwart like this is the
equivalent copyright trolls are the
equivalent of patent trolls in many many
ways so oh yeah that sounds I mean
there's only so many chords we can use
in in our you know 4/4 and 3/4 time yeah
and and they do start like I mean
barenaked ladies you know GD c GD c GD c
mi
like how many songs are gonna fall into
that and and you can creatively have a
thought that is similar to somebody
else's very creative unique thought sure
but you didn't hear it even like it you
can people have said things that I've
said I'm sure without hearing me say
them they're not stealing my thoughts
I just feel like in this particular case
especially the example Tom Petty was
being very Petty I think that since the
only person who is able to create unique
melodies is SIA these days it just comes
down to like seriously there's only so
many melodies that can be made and we're
coming up on a time where in recorded
history there have been so many
recordings made that we're going to
start to see overlap and we have seen
that this is a cool way for them to say
haha we we own them all we've released
them to the public domain well done
thank you so much links below yes go
download the MIDI files sequence them
use them yeah we ate your tracks
be creative yeah big thanks to Roy W
Nash and our community of viewers for
submitting stories to us this week
thanks for watching the category-five TV
newsroom don't forget to Like and
subscribe for all your tech news with a
slight Linux bias and if you appreciate
what we do become a patron at
patreon.com slash newsroom from the
category-five dot TV newsroom i'm sasha
Rickman and i'm robi ferguson