Author: mfeilner

Radioactive Glass Beads May Tell the Terrible Tale of How the Fukushima Meltdown Unfolded – Scientific American … :

“The beads are “the only direct evidence of the debris remaining inside the reactor. That’s the only clue,””

 “It was initially thought all the radioactive cesium released in the Fukushima plumes was in a water-soluble form, and would disperse more or less evenly throughout the environment. But when aerosol specialist Yasuhito Igarashi, then of the University of Tsukuba, and his colleagues examined an air filter from the Meteorological Research Institute in Tsukuba, 170 kilometers southwest of Fukushima, they noticed the filter contained radioactive hotspots. Using specialized imaging techniques they detected high concentrations of radioactive cesium as well as bits of iron and zinc, packed into particles just a couple of microns in diameter (about the size of the average Escherichia coli bacterium).”

“Although less radioactive cesium fell on Tokyo than closer to the plant, a bigger proportion of the total was packed into the microparticles, the team’s findings suggest. However, publication of the full study describing those findings, initially slated for 2017 in Scientific Reports, was postponed after researchers with the Tokyo Metropolitan Industrial Technology Research Institute (TIRI)—which had provided an air filter sample to one of the study’s authors—objected to the study over the sample’s use by the other co-authors. A 2017 investigation by several institutions in Japan found no evidence of wrongdoing by the co-authors—and “there’s never, in any of the discussion, been concern about our scientific results,” says Ewing, the Stanford nuclear materials expert who is also a study co-author.”

… Honi soit qui mal y pense …

“Researchers say a picture of the unusual beads is coming into focus against a backdrop of the Japanese public’s general nuclear wariness, and the government’s desire to put the Fukushima incident behind it—particularly with Tokyo poised to host the 2020 Olympics. “I think, unfortunately, the reaction to this discovery [of the beads] has been not very welcomed in Japan,” says Rod Ewing, a mineralogist and nuclear materials expert who co-directs the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University.”

Oh Really? Who would have thought that…? 

Reality update: Apple-Hacker Patrick Wardle: Ein Mac ist leicht zu hacken – SPIEGEL ONLINE … :

“Schon immer störte sich Wardle an “dieser Mentalität, dass Macs sicher sind, geradezu unhackbar”. Apple selbst habe das so dargestellt, und weil es lange Zeit nur wenig Mac-spezifische Malware gab, hätten es die Nutzer geglaubt. Manche tun es seiner Ansicht nach bis heute. Er will mit diesem Mythos aufräumen, denn die Zeiten haben sich geändert.“

 I couldn’t agree more. Fun fact:I can’t find any US or other English news on that? Am I blind? Feel free to tweet or mail them to me. Isn’t it bitter – he says Windows 10 (sic!) is safer than Apple iOS today. Wow. That’s blasphemy. 

Here’s Wardle’s website: Objective-See … : 

“Mac Malware Warning: this page contains malware & adware! By downloading malware from this site, you waive all rights to claim punitive, incidental and consequential damages resulting from mishandling or self-infection.“

Bonus Addon: 

Apple: US-Luftverkehrsbehörde verbietet MacBook Pro in Flugzeugen | ZEIT ONLINE

Aus Angst vor Bränden haben bereits vier weitere Fluggesellschaften Anfang der Woche die Mitnahme bestimmter Macbook-Pro-Modelle verboten. Medienberichten zufolge sollen Fluggesellschaften der TUI Group Airlines, Thomas Cook Airlines, Air Italy und Air Transa derzeit die Mitnahme der Laptops sowohl im Handgepäck als auch im aufgegebenen Gepäck untersagt haben.

Reality update – Tavis Ormandy auf Twitter:

“I’m publishing some research today, a major design flaw in Windows that’s existed for almost *two decades*. I wrote a blog post on the story of the discovery all the way through to exploitation. https://googleprojectzero.blogspot.com/2019/08/down-rabbit-hole.html …“

His Blog is here and very well worth a read, although it’s long and horrifying: Project Zero: Down the Rabbit-Hole… … : 

“The obvious attack is an unprivileged user injecting commands into an Administrator’s console session, or reading passwords as users log in. Even sandboxed AppContainer processes can perform the same attack. Another interesting attack is taking control of the UAC consent dialog, which runs as NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM. An unprivileged standard user can cause consent.exe to spawn using the “runas” verb with ShellExecute(), then simply become SYSTEM.“