MonDie

http://thehackernews.com/2014/01/firmware-vulnerability-allows-man-in.html SD cards aren't safe either. Apparently hackers already knew that the firmware on flash memory devices could be rewritten. What's new is that attack code can be hidden there.

I only took one statistics class, but I imagine that slope at inflection point could vary—a sort of center skew—even after both data sets are converted into standard deviations. For example, suppose one variable increases exponentially as the other increases linearly. Perhaps as an initial test, plot them as x and y, then see whether it's curved.

It would still absorb light. It would turn black.

I just read the two ethics papers. "The Moral Imperative for Ectogenesis" explains why developing this technology is important. Gestation entails many burdens and risks, and is in some sense like a nine-month illness. While the child is often produced for the couple, it is presently the woman who must bear these burdens. Contrastingly, our "conception of the good life" is often "instirically tied up with" having genetically-related offspring, yet many people can't except by employing a surrogate, which can be highly problematic e.g. if the surrogate becomes attached. The "Third Era" paper was drawn out and dumb. However, Welin makes the point that, while ectogenesis does mean the fetus would be viable at conception, this option could reduce the conflict. With the fetus outside, the woman's good health, activity level, eating and drinking habits are all unhindered. It could also mean more power for the father. Beyond humans, the researchers who artificially gestated a wobbegong shark hope the same technique could raise numbers for the grey nurse shark. I wonder whether it could allow us to resurrect species without a female of that species, nor even a closely related surrogate. In theory, they would only need some fertilized eggs! Why's nobody doing this with elephant embryos? We still have the frozen mammoth DNA, right? Regarding the cost of developing the technology... http://www.wired.com/2011/09/artificial-shark-uterus/

How about BadUSB? It actually fits my symptoms startlingly well... I'm afraid. http://www.wired.com/2014/07/usb-security/ And unlike harddrive firmware. And this new malware has been on the loose for more than half of a year! http://www.wired.com/2014/10/code-published-for-unfixable-usb-attack/ Apparently a patch was immediately released, but it only works for 3.0 USB devices, and it's only preemptive, preventing anything from writing to the firmware. I wonder what other patches have been released since then. http://www.wired.com/2014/10/unpatchable-usb-malware-now-patchsort/ Fortunately, as far as I can tell, unless it infects some form of non-volatile RAM for persistence, a harddrive erase followed by USB abstinence should be sufficient.

Its "general direction" isn't good enough. If even one gets in, it can colonize.

Apparently mother-infant attachment can still be facilitated.

Wow, what an oversight on our part! Everything is interconnect.

Or surgerically repair the stretching...

Don't trust the first website, nymeta. https://www.mywot.com/en/scorecard/nymeta.co WIRED article on artificially gestated sharks. http://www.wired.com/2011/09/artificial-shark-uterus/ A New Artificial Placenta With a Centrifugal Pump: Long-Term Total Extrauterine Support of a Goat http://www.jtcvsonline.org/article/S0022-5223(98)70401-5/abstract?cc=y= No luck on overviews of current neonatal care techniques, but... Death in the neonatal intensive care unit: changing patterns of end of life care over two decades http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2672727/ Regarding the ethics... The Moral Imperative For Ectogenesis http://annasmajdor.me.uk/ectogenesis_final.pdf The source on this one looks sketchy, but it purports to be a credible paper. Reproductive ectogenesis: The third era of human reproduction and some moral consequences http://diyhpl.us/~bryan/papers2/paperbot/Reproductive%20ectogenesis:%20The%20third%20era%20of%20human%20reproduction%20and%20some%20moral%20consequences.pdf

Bryophytes, ferns, and perhaps others have motile sperm, which of course are unicellular, but apparently the prothalli of ferns, which release the sperm, can move as well! http://biology.stackexchange.com/questions/1008/are-there-any-motile-plants Both gamteophyte locomotion and the gametophyte phase might become more emphasized through natural seleciton. It seems that the trend of plants has been toward sporophyte dominance and distribution of gametes by sporophytic structures, but I don't know whether plants originally gametophyte dominant or it was acquired by the bryophyta.

I noticed that those violet, superimposed rings seen on the backs of the eyelids appear very similar to shower droplets rippling the water surface. Maybe they're generated by propagating waves? Very unscientific, I know.

+1 for the point that people have different backgrounds and so may see or understand different evidence. "Belief" is trivial unless belief is related to action, in which case the proper height of bar depends on the action being taken.

I suppose there is reduced hybrid viability on the one hand, and inbreeding on the other.

Excellent article with respect to the topic at hand. Apparently harddrive firmware is not a realistic concern for most of us. Apparently "Erase Disk" does erase and overwrite the boot partition. Anyway, the Dell BIOS appear to be very outdated, but my hard-reset using the RTCRST jumper (Dell's CMOS jumper) didn't seem to work, as I still have v A09 BIOS, whereas I saw "A04" written on the mainboard. However a BIOS infection might take particular skill. I'm starting to think that repeated infeciton is a good alternative hypothesis to persistent malware. I found this interesting. http://jeremiahgrossman.blogspot.mx/2008/04/intranet-hack-targeting-at-2wire-dsl.html "This type of intranet CSRF hack is super easy to pull off since you only need to place specially-crafted URLs inside of an HTML image tag and post it to any public website. MySpace, WebMail, blogs, message boards, etc. [...]" The same person could infect us repeatedly through email or such. I have long suspected that this was personal, and I have my suspects.

It isn't impossible AFAIK, just unethical. There's a concept called reduced hybrid viability. Some hybrids are extremely dysfunctional and unhealthy that they can't even survive to a reproductive age. In a documentary about Oliver the chimp, a scientist repeats a rumor that it was attempted through artificial insemination, and the resultant offspring was euthanized. Maybe we'll get some much needed gene flow.

I would ditto that, but a paygate might adversely affect the site. I find those topics easier to answer because I don't know enough science. I was working with things like that, e.g. browser addons like LeechBlock, config files, cronjobs, privelege restrictions, hard-to-remember passwords, etc, but a big problem with some of those is that I will continue to think about the topic anyway. However given the adjustments induced by my latest obstacles, I might not need any of it anymore. I almost want to thank my enemy. That's right. Rest assured I will still contribute on occasion, when I have something interesting to say. Anyway, I'm presently enticed beyond this realm. I'm probably just about to retire for a couple weeks at least.

It might be its density at a predefined temperature. wanted to follow this

I think there's something to be said about each. I think a true skeptic would continually question so long as they consider the question important, so continued questioning marks out the "skeptic", as opposed to the "denier" who is simply persuaded of a negative position. However, a healthy, pragmatic skeptic may act as though something's true or false, yet question it indefinitely rather than "move on". As for denial, we all deny some things and accept others, but it apparently has a negative connotation as an "-ism".

Hmm. I'd say anything with a connection and writable media is vulnerable. They'll find a way, and the self-assured ones will be the first to get hit. That stuff stored in the cloud still has to execute on the computer. Plus you technically can't view a webpage without "downloading" it.

It's the base-two equivalent of scientific notation.

Thank you for the suggestion, but the topic is persistent malware that infects firmware. I want to know whether there's malware in use that could infect the firmware of networking devices or computer components. Apparently the NSA can infect harddrive firmware, but even if I were worried about government monitoring, it would be an exercise in futility. The government can get anyone to turn over information at their request. Even HushMail will comply! Plus, I would think that a trained government professional would be keen to hide their presence!

Another user may have long ago, but I've reinstalled multiple times since then, even disabling the wifi. If our network remained infected, however, a man-in-the-middle could replace an official download with a corrupted one. That's why we use checksums. The last time I tried to install the HP printer software, it suddenly warned that the checksum failed, then asked me to log in as root. But I could even be using a corrupted .iso image for the installation, a day zero attack. Although doubtful, maybe we're just getting infected repeatedly with the same malware. Teaching parents to browse safely is like teaching a dog to purr.

I don't think I agree with this. Mathematicians offer proofs all the time.

I strongly suspect that our desktop computer or its network has been infected with persistent malware, and I want to be sure it's removed from my laptops before I use my alternative connection. Perhaps the boot partition is infected, but doesn't even that get rewritten during a Linux reinstall? Maybe I should just zero the drives from a Ubuntu Live boot next time. sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sd* I think I've heard of BIOS rootkits. The BIOS is in part of the motherboard, not the harddrive.