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Pentagon Warns Military Not to Use Home DNA Kits

Andrew Orr ·

A Department of Defense memo warns U.S. military members about the privacy risks of home DNA kits.

The memo provides little details on how genetic profiles could endanger security, other than noting that potential “inaccuracies” in health information could pose a risk to military personnel, who are required to report medical issues. Most of the health reports provided by DNA companies typically pertain to medical risks, though, such as a predisposition to cancer, rather than diagnosing a condition.

Podcast

Cosmologist Dr. Andrew Friedman (#2) - TMO Background Mode Interview

John Martellaro · · Add Comment

Dr. Andrew Friedman is an astronomer, cosmologist, and data scientist. He’s currently an NSF funded Assistant Research Scientist at the University of California at San Diego Center for Astrophysics & Space Sciences. He is also a Research Affiliate in the MIT Program in Science, Technology and Society. He holds a Ph.D. in Astronomy and Astrophysics from Harvard.

We chatted about the apparent, seemingly contrived conflict between science and religion. We explored some of the sources of this conflict and how, with a good perspective, they are not really at odds. We looked at faith, both in science and religion, Gödel’s incompleteness theorem, proof of God’s existence, varying views about what God is, approaching the subject with humility, and how the Bible cannot really serve as a science textbook. Join us as we get our theology hats on.

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Robocall Fines Rise to $10,000 Per Call

Andrew Orr ·

Congress approved a bill on Thursday that raises the fine for robocall eras up to US$10,000 per call. It’s called the Telephone Robocall Abuse Criminal Enforcement and Deterrence Act (TRACED).

Once TRACED is enacted, the Federal Communications Commission could fine robocallers up to $10,000 per call. It also would require major carriers like AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile to deploy a new technology called STIR/SHAKEN into their networks, which will make it easier for consumers to know if they’re receiving a call from a spoofed number.

Speaking of spoofed numbers, the trick many robocallers use nowadays is to make it appear as if the number they’re calling from is one in your area. Different one each time, making it harder to trace.

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Spotify Encourages Journalists to Plug in Random USB Drives

Andrew Orr ·

As part of a promotion for a podcast, Spotify sent USB drives to journalists. But the move was criticized by computer security researchers.

But anyone with basic security training under their hat — which here at TechCrunch we do — will know to never plug in a USB drive without taking some precautions first.

Plugging in random USB drives is a bigger problem than you might think. Elie Bursztein, a Google security researcher, found in his own research that about half of all people will plug into their computer random USB drives.

I doubt anyone at Spotify was clueless about the security risk. But negative publicity is still publicity.

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A Look Back at The Decade's Worst Hacks

Charlotte Henry ·

As the decade comes to an end, we’re all in a reflective mood. Wired looked back at some of the worst cybersecurity incidents of the last 10-years.

Over the last decade, hacking became less of a novelty and more of a fact of life for billions of people around the world. Regular people lost control of their data, faced invasive surveillance from repressive regimes, had their identities stolen, realized a stranger was lurking on their Netflix account, dealt with government-imposed internet blackouts, or, for the first time ever, literally found themselves caught in the middle of a destructive cyberwar. It’s been apparent for decades that an increasingly computerized world would inevitably invite constant digital threats. But the actual evolution of hacking—with all its scams, criminal black markets, and state sponsored forces—has been characteristically human, not a sterile, dispassionate artifact of an unknown future.