A Critical Device Hack, China’s Social Credit, and More News
Credit to Author: Alex Baker-Whitcomb| Date: Mon, 29 Jul 2019 22:25:39 +0000
A bug is allowing hackers remote access to medical devices, China's social credit score is not actually that dystopian, and we've got a fun robot for kids. Here's the news you need to know, in two minutes or less.
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An operating system bug exposed 200 million critical devices
You may not have heard of VxWorks, but it serves as a secure operating system for continuously functioning devices like medical equipment and elevators. Researchers found a cluster of 11 vulnerabilities in the platform's networking protocols, six of which could conceivably give an attacker remote access to 200 million machines.
How the West got China's social credit program wrong
China's social credit score program is often portrayed as a Black Mirror–type single score that defines your entire life. But in reality, as our writer discovered, it is much more complicated and not quite so dystopian. It is true that the Chinese government tracks its citizens in frightening ways, but there is no single, all-powerful score attached to individuals. At least not yet.
The temperature reached inside a chamber called the Big Red Ball, a blazing hot plasma donut designed by researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison to study solar wind, or "sun burps."
If you're looking for a fantastically fun robot for the kids (this baby even shoots lasers and water beads), look no further than the DJI Robomaster S1. Our reviewer gave it an 8/10.
Here's how to make a boomerang you can safely throw indoors.
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