Tag Archive for: Show

CES 2023 FAIL: Worst in Show for Security and Privacy

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The Consumer Electronics Show wrapped up yesterday. But some vendors faced stiff criticism over their privacy and security stances.

Here are just two lowlights, as selected by iFixit, Repair.org, PIRG, SecuRepairs, the EFF, Consumer Reports, and JerryRigEverything. But you can bet there are many others that have been rushed to market without a thought for the security or privacy of their soon-to-be owners.

This is the way. In today’s SB Blogwatch, we feel fabulous.

Your humble blogwatcher curated these bloggy bits for your entertainment. Not to mention: 2001 remade by Pixar.

This Happened in Vegas — it Should Stay in Vegas

What’s the craic? Tatum Hunter hunts for danger—“It’s 2023, and tech is still pushing unsafe products”:

“Tough questions on safety”
Tech products often hit the market with giant safety and privacy flaws. At the same time, CES, a giant annual consumer electronics exhibition in Las Vegas, brings a flood of new gadgets. It might be pouring gas on a fire.
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The CES show floor buzzed with thousands of companies slinging health wearables, smart TVs, autonomous vehicles and other gadgets that rely on data from our bodies or homes. … But almost none directly address how they treat customer’s data … or their approach to safety and security.
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Media tend not to ask tough questions on safety at CES, and companies tend not to volunteer the information. [Yet] cybercrime … often relies on hastily shipped products.

So who “won” the dubious honor? Thomas Claburn lists the key pair—“Technology has the potential to make life better. This isn’t it”:

“Not created with security in mind”
As the 2023 Consumer Electronics Show winds down, it’s once again time for the Worst in Show Awards, an enumeration of … “terribly, awfully bad” … tech products as determined by various technology advocates. … And this year’s CES vendors delivered.
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Cindy Cohn, executive director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, flagged the Withings U-Scan pee reading smart toilet puck. … The company proclaims, “It provides an immediate snapshot of the body’s balance by monitoring and detecting a large variety of biomarkers found in…

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Security researchers show how to eavesdrop on mobile phone calls by measuring the ear speaker’s tiny vibrations

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While it’s possible that malware on your smartphone could record your calls, it’s an increasingly difficult technical proposition. Instead, researchers from Texas A&M University and colleagues have demonstrated that it’s possible to eavesdrop on phone calls by measuring the tiny vibrations of the ear speaker using a phone’s built-in accelerometers and then decoding that data remotely to determine what was said. They call the method EarSpy. From Security Week:

They conducted tests on the OnePlus 7T and the OnePlus 9 smartphones — both running Android — and found that significantly more data can be captured by the accelerometer from the ear speaker due to the stereo speakers present in these newer models compared to the older model OnePlus phones, which did not have stereo speakers.

The experiments conducted by the academic researchers analyzed the reverberation effect of ear speakers on the accelerometer by extracting time-frequency domain features and spectrograms. The analysis focused on gender recognition, speaker recognition, and speech recognition[…]

When it comes to actual speech, the accuracy was up to 56% for capturing digits spoken in a phone call.

“EarSpy: Spying Caller Speech and Identity through Tiny Vibrations of Smartphone Ear Speakers” (arXiv)

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Live Rogue Valley music, wineries, Clayfolk Show & Sale and more: Nov. 18 – Medford News, Weather, Sports, Breaking News

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Mugs are a perennial favorite at the annual Clayfolk Show & Sale. See listing. Courtesy photo

*Note: To submit your event to Tempo, email information to [email protected].

Friday, Nov. 18

Clayfolk Show & Sale: The 47th annual Fall Clayfolk Show and Sale will be held from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Friday and Saturday, Nov. 18-19, and from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 20, at the Medford Armory, 1701 S. Pacific Highway, Medford. Look for everything from functional housewares to jewelry and sculpture created by more than 60 artists from throughout the Pacific Northwest. Also look for day demonstrations by ceramic artists. Admission is free. A portion of sales go towards annual scholarships for ceramics artists enrolled at a college or art school, as well as ceramics books and videos donated to Jackson and Josephine county libraries. See clayfolk.org.

Spanish Language Group: English speakers with at least an intermediate knowledge of Spanish can meet at 11 a.m. Fridays, at the Santos Community Center, 701 N. Columbus Ave., Medford. Look for casual, supportive conversation and interpretation. Native speakers are welcome to help. Call 541-499-6646.

Medford Garden Club: The club will meet at 1 p.m. Friday, Nov. 18, at Ascension Lutheran Church, 675 Black Oak Drive, Medford. The guest speaker will be Marsha Waite, local Master Garden Association expert and Plant Clinic leader, who will present “Controlling Your Least Favorite Garden Pests.” This presentation will review a few of the worst garden insect pests in our area and how to control them, using mechanical and organic means. See Medford Oregon Garden Club on Facebook or call 541-773-6884.

Adult Crafternoon: Adults 18 and older can meet to learn how to personalize a set of cloth napkins for fall with a leaf print, using locally-gathered leaves at 1:30 p.m. Friday, Nov. 18, at the Talent library, 101 Home St. All materials will be provided. For further details see jcls.org and click on Programs & Events and then JCLS Calendar or call 541-535-4163.

Gold Hill Book Club: The Gold Hill Library Book Club…

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Researchers hack adaptive cruise control, then show how to make it safer – The Reporter

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rep hoque self driving illustration 550pxAdaptive cruise control comes standard on most new vehicles but it can be tricked into causing accidents, according to research from the UAB Department of Computer Science. The researchers also demonstrated a way to alert humans in time for them to take control.Most of us think we’re pretty good behind the wheel. But even the worst driver’s-ed dropout can distinguish a speeding car from one barely inching forward. A new study from computer scientists at UAB shows that advanced driving assistance systems such as adaptive cruise control, now standard equipment on many cars, can be tricked into this exact mistake, however. The work, which will be presented at a global Internet of Things conference this fall, also demonstrates a way to keep the cars grounded in reality to avert disaster.

The study merges two strands of research on the vulnerabilities of modern cars with advanced driving assistance systems.

One focuses on the nerve center of electronic communication in most cars, a hub called the Controller Area Network (CAN) bus. The CAN bus is reliable and cheap and great at prioritizing messages while rolling down the interstate at 70 mph. That is why it is the go-to piece of hardware for passing data between the dozens of electronic control units, or ECUs, in modern cars. These controllers are in charge of everything from airbag deployment to antilock brakes and engine timing. But one thing the CAN bus is not is secure, from physical or wireless attacks, as researchers have demonstrated time and again.

rep hoque self driving adaptive cc 550px“As with most of our systems, cars were designed for performance and security is often an afterthought,” said Ragib Hasan, Ph.D., director of UAB’s SECRET Lab. “This has led to such glaring security issues in cars we use every day. That is why [Aminul] Hoque’s dissertation research in my lab is so important and timely — it has the potential to save countless lives.”Another hot topic for security researchers: how to protect self-driving cars from attacks on their sensors. (Researchers have been able to fool self-driving cars with strategically placed stickers on stop signs, lasers and hacked billboards.) But what if the attack were deeper — getting at the heart of how…

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