Category Archives: Transhuman News

Companies should start preparing or at least planning for likely threats of the future, including quantum computers that can decrypt current encryption in less than a day and humans who hack using implanted devices, said speakers at the SecTor security conference.

Nations and large companies, alike, are investing billions of dollars in quantum computing. While the technology promises to allow uncrackable communications, it also poses a likely threat to current digital infrastructure based on the latest encryption. Symmetric-key encryption, for example, could be cracked more easily using quantum computing, but it can be scaled up to larger key sizes to foil efforts. Public-key encryption, however, will almost certainly be broken by quantum computers in the future.

Such attacks will not be seen for at least five years and likely not a decade either, but they could pose a threat in 20 or 30 years, said Michele Mosca, CEO of evolutionQ, at last week's SecTor. About 83% of quantum-computing experts currently experimenting with the technology believe that breaking RSA-2048 encryption in less than 24 hours is a challenge that will not be solved in a decade, but the same percentage believe the milestone will be reached in less than 30 years, Mosca said.

"The quantum computing train is on the tracks and accelerating, and we need to be ready for it from a cryptographic perspective," he said, urging companies to create a plan to secure their infrastructure. "If you are only a year along a 10-year road map, you don't get to call a timeout to make up for that lost time."

Other threats will likely arrive even sooner and, in some ways, are already here. The biohacking, or transhumanist, movement aims to improve the human body using various technologies, from supplementation to genetic tinkering and from the use of external devices to implantation. The last approach augmenting the human body with devices is already being used for hacking.

Len Noe, a white-hat hacker for Cyberark and biohacker, has turned himself as he likes to say into the attack vector. Noe told SecTor attendees that he has already implanted the NExT chip, a rod-like receiver for near-field communication (NFC) and radio-frequency identification (RFID) signals, as well as its big brother, the 41-mm disk-shaped flexNExT, which performs at longer ranges. An implanted flexEM device, which allows the emulation and cloning of various RF protocols, and the Vivokey Spark 2 "cryptobionic" implant, for strong cryptography, are some of the other devices Noe has had implanted in his hands.

The devices can be used for hacking access entry systems, cloning access cards, and other attacks, he said. Businesses and employees will have to be wary of such devices in the future and should start adding such technology to their threat models.

"Security admins know the normal attack vectors, but how do you address the fact that one of your employees could have a full Linux system underneath their skin?" he says. "With the number of regulations and audits that companies are required to do for compliance, how would you know whether someone has bypassed your security policy and brought a rogue asset into your environment? The short answer is, you wouldn't."

The two presentations at SecTor demonstrated potential threats that most companies don't have to worry about today. However, they both pose significant threats for the future, so companies should start incorporating the possibility of attacks on encryption or through hidden devices as part of their threat model.

The threat of biohackers likely has the most straightforward trajectory, with more powerful devices almost certainly to be implanted in human bodies. Some biohackers have already attempted to implant a single-board computer into their bodies, with less-than-perfect results.

"This is on the outer edge of extreme, even for most biohackers," Noe said. "This is not a simple process, and making sure that the single board computer is completely sealed has caused a number of individuals that have attempted this implant to require emergency removal surgery."

Forward-looking security professionals should assume that individuals will successfully augment themselves with more technology that could be used for hacking.

The impact of quantum computing, however, has a much less well-defined trajectory but will likely have a more far-reaching impact. While the industry needs 100,000 times more processing power and 100 times better error correction, the eventual impact of the universal capability to break currently encrypted data could cause immense harm, according to scientists.

Just as damaging, however, is unprepared businesses rushing to deploy technology, said evolutionQ's Mosca.

"We focus on the possibility that people will use quantum computers to steal information and hijack systems and so on," he said. "That is a real threat and we want to avoid it, but if we avoid it in a sloppy, messy way, that is just as bad. When you deploy software in systems without enough quality assurance, systems crash."

Most major countries have efforts underway to create plans for a post-quantum future. The National Institute of Standards and Technology, for example, is analyzing proposed safe encryption methods and will release recommendations for a quantum-resistant encryption algorithm. Companies that want to get a head start on planning can participate in the Open Quantum Safe project or other similar efforts.

Read this article:
Are You Planning for the Quantum, Transhumanist Threat? - Dark Reading

John Harris is surely right to scorn the grotesque sums being spent on transhumanism (If the super-rich want to live for ever our planet is truly doomed, 7 November), but not all of us can afford, or want to move into, co-housing or a retirement village. Fortunately, a more practical solution is at hand. Research demonstrates consistently that the three most reliable strategies to live longer and well are learning new things, social interaction and physical exercise. All three are readily available from the u3a, a self-help learning organisation for people who have left full-timework.Paul MartinezGedling, Nottinghamshire

John Harris has neglected rather an important consideration: if the super-rich expect to live for, say, 500 years, then they will want the planet to be habitable in 500 years time. Long-term problems require long-term agencies to address them, like the foresters of New College Oxford, who grow oaks centuries inadvance as replacement roof beams for hall and chapel.

If I were a wealthy potential quinquecentenarian, I would be investing in nuclear fusion and rewilding, and promoting negative population growth including for my own brats (currently none).Luce GilmoreCambridge

John Harris does well exposing the ridiculous ambitions of billionaire would-be immortals or long-livers. They should read Gullivers Travels (Part III, chapter 10). Visiting Luggnagg, Gulliver is struck with inexpressible delight on hearing of the immortal Struldbrugs, living like foreigners in their own country. But I afterwards saw five or six of different ages, the youngest not above two hundred years old They are despised and hated by all sorts of people. When one of them is born, it is reckoned ominous.

They were the most mortifying sight I ever beheld; and the women more horrible than the men. Besides the usual deformities in extreme old age, they acquired an additional ghastliness, in proportion to their number of years, which is not to be described Among later writers, John Wyndham perceptively linked age-slowing research to power-seeking in Trouble with Lichen.George BaughMuch Wenlock, Shropshire

The desire of super-rich persons to live forever is either a disease or a delusion, but I am sure there is counselling available for both.Geoff ReidBradford

Have an opinion on anything youve read in the Guardian today? Please email us your letter and it will be considered for publication.

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You dont have to be rich to live long and prosper - The Guardian

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Here's your daily update with everything you need to know on the novel coronavirus situation in B.C.

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Heres your daily update with everything you need to know on the novel coronavirus situation in B.C. for Nov. 15, 2021.

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Well provide summaries of whats going on in B.C. right here so you can get the latest news at a glance. This page will be updated regularly throughout the day, with developments added as they happen.

Check back here for more updates throughout the day. You can also get the latest COVID-19 news delivered to your inbox weeknights at 7 p.m. by subscribing to our newsletter here.

As of the latest figures given on Nov. 15:

Total number of confirmed cases: 213,020 (3,837 active) New cases since Nov. 12: 1,270 Total deaths: 2,273 (16 additional deaths) Hospitalized cases: 376 (down by 8) Intensive care: 116 (down by 8) Total vaccinations: 4,203,257 received first dose; 4,021,455 second doses Recovered from acute infection: 206,665 Long-term care and assisted-living homes, and acute care facilities currently affected: 23

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IN-DEPTH: Here are all the B.C. cases of the novel coronavirus in 2021 | in 2020

COVID-19: Heres everything you need to know about the novel coronavirus

COVID-19: B.C.s vaccine passport is here and this is how it works

COVID-19: Heres how to get your vaccination shot in B.C.

COVID-19: Look up your neighbourhood in our interactive map of case and vaccination rates in B.C.

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B.C. COVID-19 Symptom Self-Assessment Tool

Sixteen more deaths from COVID-19 have been reported in B.C. over the past three days, bringing the total number of people who have died of the virus to 2,273.

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Of the 16 deaths, eight were in the Island Health region, three in Northern Health, two each in Vancouver Coastal Health and Interior Health and one in Fraser Health.

Over the three-day reporting period, there were also 1,270 positive COVID-19 tests: 502 from Nov. 12-13, 387 from Nov. 13-14 and 381 from Nov. 14-15.

Fraser Health continued to have the most number of new cases with 417, followed by 275 in Interior Health, 274 in Northern Health, 183 in Island Health and 121 in Vancouver Coastal Health.

No new health-care facility outbreaks were reported, and those at Mission Memorial Hospital and Cherington Place (Fraser Health) were declared over.

As of Monday, 90.7% of people in B.C. aged 12+ had received at their first COVID-19 vaccine dose, and 86.8% had received a second shot.

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The B.C. government has introduced legislation that it says would prevent disruptive behaviour from affecting schools and health-care facilities.

The Ministry of the Attorney General says the legislation would establish 20-metre zones around hospitals, schools and COVID-19 vaccination and test centres, making it an offence to impede access to the facilities and their services.

The ministry says in a statement on Monday that it would also be an offence to act in a way that could cause service users or providers to be concerned for their physical or mental safety within the access zones.

Premier John Horgan says in the statement that people protesting COVID-19 rules in recent months have blocked access to health-care facilities and schools, and while everyone has a right to protest, such interference is unacceptable.

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Attorney General David Eby says the act developed in partnership with the Ministry of Public Safety would give police the power to make arrests, with potential imprisonment of up to six months, or to issue violation tickets of up to $2,000.

The legislation, which has yet to be passed, would be in place until July 1, 2023, though the province says it may be repealed earlier if its no longer required.

The Canadian Press

Employees in the core federal public sector who have not been fully vaccinated against COVID-19 will be put on unpaid leave today, unless they were already granted an accommodation.

The policy could potentially leave more than 1,000 workers without pay and unable to access employment insurance benefits.

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As of Nov. 3, the vast majority about 95 per cent of federal public servants were reported to be fully vaccinated.

Of the 267,222employees who declared their status, a little over 3,150 have requested some kind of accommodation so they can work without a full slate of vaccines.

The government said 1,255 workers reported that they are completely unvaccinated, which represents about 0.5 per cent of employees whove declared their vaccine status.

There are 7,284 workers with only one shot of a COVID-19 vaccine. They have been given 10 weeks after their first dose to receive their second shot before they are also put on unpaid leave.

The government said it would accommodate employees who cannot be vaccinated for health, religious, or other reasons protected under the Human Rights Act, but Prime Minister Justin Trudeau warned at the outset of the policy that exemptions and accommodations would be difficult to obtain.

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The Treasury Board Secretariat has not yet released how many unvaccinated or partially vaccinated employees have received some kind of accommodation, such as the opportunity to work from home.

Several federal public sector unions have said they plan to file grievances if they feel an employees human rights were not respected.

The largest federal union, the Public Service Alliance of Canada, has encouraged members to be vaccinated if possible.

Canadian Press

Employees in key sectors including health care and education should be fired if they refuse to be vaccinated against COVID-19, a majority of Canadians believe, according to a new poll.

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A majority of Canadians believe airline employees, schoolteachers, first responders, medical professionals, restaurant employees, construction workers and people who work for small businesses should lose their job if they refuse to get vaccinated, Angus Reid Institute said in a statement Monday. In Quebec (65%) and Ontario (71%), support for dismissal of unwilling medical professionals is considerable, despite their provincial governments respective decisions.

The pollsters findings arrived as many organizations grapple with this issue.

Of those who participated in Angus Reids poll, 71% favoured and 27% were against firing unvaccinated on-board airline employees, with 27% opposed.

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The poll found 69% of Canadians were in favour of canning unvaccinated school teachers, police, paramedics, firefighters and medical professionals, with 28% opposed.

Canadians supported giving unvaxxed restaurant employees the pink slip, with 64% in favour and 32% against the action.

A smaller majority 55% backed the firing of unvaxxed trades people and construction workers, compared to 38% who were opposed, and 53% would let go people working for small local businesses who are not vaccinated, although a full 41% would not.

Angus Reid said support for giving unvaccinated workers the boot was strongest in Ontario, B.C., and Atlantic Canada, while Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Quebec were less impressed with the idea.

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Toronto Sun

In a now deleted TikTok video that went viral last week, osteopathic doctor Carrie Madej claimed that a bath containing certain non-harmful ingredients will detoxx the vaxx for those who received the vaccine under mandates.

The Georgia-based doctor suggests a bath of baking soda and epsom salts, saying the bath will provide a radiation detox to extract the radiation she believes is active in the vaccine; benonite clay will remove the poison and the cleaning agent borax will take the nanotechnologies out of you.

According to Madejs website , she is practicing the truth in Jesus through medicine, where a link to a religious exemption form for the vaccine is readily downloadable. In a seminar she gave just weeks ago, she claims that COVID-19 injections are a gateway to transhumanism.

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Anti-vaccination rhetoric is rampant within online communities. Though her vaccine-removal method is unique, Madej is one of many anti-vax influencers that encourage the spread of misinformation. These communities discuss their qualms with being forced to get the jab due to societal pressure or work mandates.

Virologist Angela Rasmussen, an adjunct professor at the University of Saskatchewan, was quick to debunk Madejs myth. Once youre injected, the lifesaving vaccination process has already begun. You cant unring a bell, Rasmussen told NBC News . Its just not physically possible.

Cupping therapy is another self-administered remedial alternative to Dr. Madejs bath concoction. This ancient form of medicine involves creating a suction to the skin in order to accelerate the removal of the vax content.

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The transaction process for the mRNA vaccine is fairly quick. Basically, by the time you get out to your car, sorry, the magic has already started, Rasmussen said.

The spread of such misinformation running amok on social media has caused concern among experts, however, they remain confident that vaccine mandates are successful.

I think it is actually a good sign that these How to undo your vaccine videos are taking off, Rasmussen said. It suggests that a lot of those people who previously were saying vaccines are terrible and I will never do it are, actually, doing it.

Postmedia News

Austria is placing millions of people not fully vaccinated against the coronavirus in lockdown as of Monday to deal with a surge in infections to record levels and the growing strain on intensive-care units, the government said on Sunday.

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Europe is the epicentre of the COVID-19 pandemic again, prompting some governments to consider re-imposing unpopular lockdowns. Austria has one of the continents highest infection rates, with a seven-day incidence of 815 per 100,000 people.

Austria is the first European country to reinstate the same restrictions on daily movements that applied during national lockdowns before vaccines were rolled out, though this time they only affect a minority of the population.

Reuters

Tending bar at the Colony Bar on Granville street was a stable job for Vancouverite Maggie DeVito, until it wasnt.

Once youre in for a long enough time, you kind of know what shifts youre getting and what youre going to be making, said DeVito, an eight-year veteran of the hospitality sector.So, it was, like, quite a blindside to me when everything got shut down in March 2020, she said.

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It wasnt an industry that I had ever imagined that was going to happen to.

Now, in the COVID-19 pandemics upending of the workforce, DeVito is among those who have left a less-secure job with better prospects in other fields web development in her case which is putting a strain on employers now, and not just in hospitality.

In some circles, this trend is referred to as the great resignation. That suggests workers are quitting jobs they dislike in droves seeking better security and better conditions.

Read more HERE.

Derrick Penner

Two new descendants of Delta circulating in Canada that appear to have a survival edge they seem slightly more spreadable tell us SARS-CoV-2 may still have plenty more room to continue adapting to humans, scientists say.

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Its hard to say what the ceiling is, said Jesse Shapiro, an associate professor in the department of microbiology and immunology at Montreals McGill University.

It will keep climbing to find a peak of adaptation. But we dont really know how close to the peak we are.

The two Delta sub-lineages, dubbed AY.25 and AY.27, were first detected in Canada in the spring. Cases have been detected in every province except Prince Edward Island, with the highest numbers in Western Canada. AY.25 isbecoming the predominant circulating strain in Saskatchewan. In Ontario, AY.25 accounted for 31 per cent of 1,670 confirmed cases of COVID-19 sequenced over a recent four-week period.

All told, more than 38,000 genomic sequences of samples from across Canada have beendeposited in a global data portalthats tracking the spread of SARS-CoV-2 variants.

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Read more HERE.

Sharon Kirkey

On Friday, British Columbia reported 992 new cases of COVID-19 and 23 more deaths, raising the death toll in the province to 2,257.

The Health Ministry says 4,265 infections are active across B.C. with 384 people in hospital, including 124 in intensive care.

Fraser Health has the highest number of active infections with 1,575, followed by Interior Health with 862, Northern Health with 645, Island Health with 614 and 510 in the Vancouver Coastal health region.

There are 25 health-care facilities with active COVID-19 outbreaks, including new outbreaks at Abbotsford Regional Hospital and Royal Inland Hospital in Kamloops.

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COVID-19 update for Nov. 15: 1,270 new cases, 16 deaths over three days | B.C. proposes zones around hospitals and schools in response to protests |...

Your smartphone is the great-great grandchild of a crystal set, the earliest consumer wireless device. Given a local AM station, once connected to an antenna and telephone earpiece, a crystal radio was live and crooning.

A variety of common metallic crystals will do the job, chiseled by any kid from the right rock face. Circa 1920s, the most-favored was galena, lead pyrite, mounted in a thimble or metal cup and kissed by a short piece of adjustable wire called a cat whisker.

That kiss changed everything.

Captured by the antenna connected to the cat whisker wire, radio waves were transformed at point of contact between whisker and galena, to electrical energy that powered the earpiece to faint, but audible sound.

No batteries involved. No juice, except that which the crystal extracted from the air. A few extra parts, like tunable coils and capacitors, usually accompanied crystal and cat whisker to help separate stations and make them louder. For that, the cat whiskers crystal kiss was the primal interface between brain and the newborn mediums beckoning OUT THERE of show business, breaking news and live sports.

Before 1920, broadcasting was sporadic and experimental, a mix of corporate and amateur activity. Tinkerers easily assembled their own crystal sets. As big city stations fired-up and made a splash with full-time programming, manufactured crystal sets sold out in department stores, offering easy access to a viral audience of casual listeners with no time to tinker.

Tube radios with loudspeakers followed fast, bloating from table models to cathedral-style consoles quickly replacing crystal sets. Yet crystal radios remained on the scene as a gateway project for electronic hobbyists, and were widely marketed as kits and novelties into the mid-20th century.

Their following continues in electronics subculture. Enthusiasts incremental improvements suggest an obsessive-compulsive grail of something for nothing, like perpetual motion. No batteries, remember?

Kicker is, the AM radio most crystal sets now receive is generally dreadful. Yelling talk shows. Two-hour infomercials. Holy rollers. Moribund music formats. Outside of emergency coverage, AM radio has become an extinction event.

I built my first crystal set from an early-60s educational kit. Once the initial kick wore off, I listened at night in my bunk, dozing in-and-out to whatever station didnt sign-off. Both did by one a.m.

It was a bit of getting away with something. Loosely enforced, TV bedtime remained a red line in some very early-60s households. Usual bedroom radio listening could be iffy after hours in apartments and smaller houses. Given that my crystal set required headphones or an earpiece, it delivered my first on-demand, un-curated media experience, live eyes-shut, between my ears.

No games, no chat, almost no choices. About all my crystal set offered was the most rudimentary media entre. But it was my rudimentary media entre. No debates about what channel to watch. No static about school nights. I was in control and nobody was the wiser. And funny thing about freedom of choice, sometimes the less you have, the more you discover.

Fortunate crystal set listeners received at least one local Top 40 station. I got gravy on my mashed with a second station, a square CBS affiliate that delivered network programming, for which I developed an odd, early taste.

Radio network news, especially that of CBS, still had had terrific cachet. Ed Murrow-era voices like Douglas Edwards, Robert Trout and Richard C. Hottelet were the essence of news, real news, nuclear news, no aldermanic squabbles, real trench-coat Moscow correspondent stuff.

My CBS local also carried Arthur Godfreys morning variety show, its geriatric goofiness most entertaining when I stayed home from school fake sick. Weekends CBS came through again with radio drama like Suspense, and Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar.

This and pre-Beatles pop sufficed as mental foundation on which to build an on-demand media world all my own, a larval Metaverse if you will. Getting more into electronics, I eventually became interactive on shortwave via amateur radio, swapping weather reports with Russian hams mid-Cold War. Still, I sometimes toyed with crystal sets, and do so yet now and then, over 60 years later.

Connecting Jazz Age radios made of rocks with social media might seem a stretch enough to require 100 years of Silly Putty, but not so fast. Its pretty much straight down the middle.

Galena crystals were the first household semiconductor, material that conducts electricity sometimes and sometimes not. The circumstances of the sometimes are critical. And it took some decades of fooling around with a variety of semiconductors variously stuck together and doped with this and that to get to transistors. Which led to microprocessors. And Mark Zuckerberg.

Who tipped the first domino? Like many such wonders, it took one clever global village to invent the crystal radio. German, British, Indian, American and Russian experimenters are variously credited, beginning with work later in the 19th century.

Unraveling that is less interesting to me than the niche spell crystal radios cast for generations, and the larger impact fostered by this original semiconductor. A bigger deal than the wheel? Ill bet an artificially intelligent transhuman might wink and nod.

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Kiss of the Cat Whisker - Splice Today