Tag Archive for: Scientists

Scientists install encryption shield to protect advanced Chinese quantum computer from attack

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The new methods are to replace the conventional public-key cryptography system, which could be vulnerable in the face of quantum computers with powerful computing capabilities.

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China denies accusations of state-sponsored hacking from US, UK and New Zealand

China denies accusations of state-sponsored hacking from US, UK and New Zealand

The report quoted Dou Menghan, deputy director of the Anhui Quantum Computing Engineering Research Centre, as saying the “anti-quantum attack shield” was developed and used for the first time by Origin Quantum, the developer of the computer named after the Monkey King of Chinese mythology.

“This shows that China’s home-grown superconducting quantum computer can play both offence and defence in the field of quantum computing,” he said.

“This is also an important exploration of the application of new data security technologies in China.”

Origin launched its first superconducting quantum computer in 2020. The next year, the company delivered the 24-qubit Wuyuan second-generation machine – the country’s first practical quantum computer – making China the third country capable of delivering a complete quantum computing system after Canada and the United States.

The third-generation Wukong is powered by a 72-qubit home-grown superconducting quantum chip, also known as the Wukong chip.

In January, the superfast computer opened remote access to the world, attracting global users from countries such as the US, Bulgaria, Singapore, Japan, Russia and Canada to perform quantum computing tasks.

In traditional computing, a bit is the basic unit of information that represents either zero or one. A quantum bit, or qubit, takes it a step further by being able to represent zero, one, or both simultaneously.

Lawmaker urges China to safeguard tech production chain for a quantum edge

Because quantum computers can simultaneously represent multiple possibilities, they hold theoretical potential for significantly faster and more powerful computation compared to the everyday computers we use now.

But the subatomic particles central to this technology are fragile, short-lived and prone to errors if exposed to minor disturbances from the surroundings. Most…

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Scientists Hack Weather Satellite Data to Quantify Methane Leaks

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(Bloomberg) — Satellites sitting more than 22,200 miles (35,700 kilometers) above the Earth’s surface have been capturing storms and weather data for decades. Now, scientists have essentially hacked the data coming back for another purpose: spotting methane emissions.

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The innovation could have far-reaching consequences for fossil fuel operators unable or unwilling to halt major methane releases because it allows researchers to observe emissions every five minutes and estimate the total amount emitted. The approach, which uses shortwave infrared observations from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites (GOES), can detect large-emitting events of around tens of metric tons an hour or larger.

Satellites observe concentrations of methane from space by analyzing the way sunlight reflects off the Earth. As light passes through a cloud of the gas, its intensity is weakened on certain wavelengths. Methane absorbs light in the short-wave infrared portion of the electromagnetic spectrum. Although the GOES system wasn’t built to detect methane, its sensor includes short-wave infrared channels designed to observe things like snow cover and fire hot spots.

The new technique is already being used by geoanalytics firms and scientists to quantify major emissions events in North America. Kayrros SAS used the approach to estimate that a fossil gas pipeline spewed about 840 metric tons of methane into the atmosphere after it was ruptured by a farmer using an excavator. That’s very close to the 50.9 million cubic feet of gas operator Williams Cos. said leaked, which works out to about 900 metric tons of methane. The short-term climate impact of the event was roughly equal to the annual emissions from 17,000 US cars.

Read more: Regulators Probe Why Williams Took More Than an Hour to Halt a Methane Leak

The new approach, which was executed for the first time last year by scientists at Harvard University, enables near continuous, real-time coverage and contrasts with all other satellites currently used to detect methane, which are in low-Earth orbit and snap images as they circumnavigate the…

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Breaking Down the Code: Computer Scientists Untangle Internet’s Complex Protocols to Unveil Underlying Simplicity

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Undergraduate students taking computer-networking courses often find themselves confronted with an avalanche of acronymic protocols that dictate how the internet works. But underlying the layers of complexity, there exists surprising simplicity in the design of the internet, as illustrated in the February cover feature for Communications of the ACM (Association for Computing Machinery) — a monthly magazine published by the world’s largest educational and scientific computing society.

Looking to cut through that seemingly tangled mess, UCLA computer science professor George Varghese, joined by his colleagues James McCauley of Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts and Scott Shenker of UC Berkeley, set out to explain in this article that the internet’s fundamental design has remained unchanged since its adoption in 1983.

Titled “Extracting the Essential Simplicity of the Internet,” the predominantly non-technical article boils down the internet’s architecture to three key mechanisms: routing, reliability and resolution. They formed the foundation of the ubiquitous global system of interconnected computer networks despite evolving technologies built around the internet.

“Most people understand the power of the internet but few appreciate the brilliance of its design that has allowed the system to accommodate decades of growth, with billions of users and connected devices that process mountains of data in a blink of an eye,” said Varghese, who holds UCLA’s Jonathan B. Postel Endowed Chair in Networking. He has made landmark contributions to network algorithmics, which helped make the internet run faster. His current research emphasis is on network design automation, to help manage and debug computer networks.

The article originated from a guest lecture by Shenker on the internet’s basic routing simplicity in a UCLA undergraduate networking class taught by Varghese. The internet’s long-lasting success, the authors noted, can be attributed to its modest all-purpose design; its modularity that allows it to incorporate innovations at the applications end that are completely distinct from the connecting network layers; and its built-in layers of fail-safe…

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Russian Hackers Targeted US Nuclear Scientists – Eurasia Review

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(EurActiv) — A Russian hacking team known as Cold River targeted three nuclear research laboratories in the United States this past summer, according to internet records reviewed by Reuters and five cyber security experts.

Between August and September, as President Vladimir Putin indicated Russia would be willing to use nuclear weapons to defend its territory, Cold River targeted the Brookhaven (BNL), Argonne (ANL) and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories (LLNL), according to internet records that showed the hackers creating fake login pages for each institution and emailing nuclear scientists in a bid to make them reveal their passwords.

Reuters was unable to determine why the labs were targeted or if any attempted intrusion was successful. A BNL spokesperson declined to comment. LLNL did not respond to a request for comment. An ANL spokesperson referred questions to the US Department of Energy, which declined to comment.

Cold River has escalated its hacking campaign against Kyiv’s allies since the invasion of Ukraine, according to cybersecurity researchers and western government officials. The digital blitz against the US labs occurred as U.N. experts entered Russian-controlled Ukrainian territory to inspect Europe’s biggest atomic power plant and assess the risk of what both sides said could be a devastating radiation disaster amid heavy shelling nearby.

Cold River, which first appeared on the radar of intelligence professionals after targeting Britain’s foreign office in 2016, has been involved in dozens of other high-profile hacking incidents in recent years, according to interviews with nine cybersecurity firms. Reuters traced email accounts used in its hacking operations between 2015 and 2020 to an IT worker in the Russian city of Syktyvkar.

“This is one of the most important hacking groups you’ve never heard of,” said Adam Meyers, senior vice president of intelligence at US cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike. “They are involved in directly supporting Kremlin information operations.”

Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB), the domestic security agency that also conducts espionage campaigns for Moscow, and Russia’s embassy in Washington did not…

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