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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER 20 - 25 MARCH 2023
Hello and Welcome,
Meeting TODAY
2023/03/18 — 14:00-16:00 — March, Sat — Web Design 1
Hi everyone,
Our Web Design meeting is on Saturday the 18th at 2 pm live in the Woolley room, SMSA.
We could look at alt text. Alt text is the note placed on an image to tell people what they should be seeing if the picture doesn't load. I found an article on the common mistakes made when writing alt text. We will also discuss what we can do this year.
We will also be online; here are the details:
Topic: SPCTUG Web Design Meeting
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82634658712
Meeting ID: 826 3465 8712
Passcode: webdesign
— Steve South
Meeting This Week
2023/03/21 — 10:00-12:00 — March, Tue — Tuesday Group 1
Meeting Next Week
2023/04/01 — 13:00-14:00 — April, Sat — Penrith Group (NO MEETING) 2
Schedule of Current & Upcoming Meetings
First Tuesday 18:00-20:00 — Main Meeting
First Saturday 13:00-14:00 — Penrith Group
Second Tuesday 18:00-20:00 — Programming
Third Tuesday 10:00-12:00 — Tuesday Group
Third Saturday 14:00-16:00 — Web Design
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2023/03/04 — 13:00-14:00 — March, Sat — Penrith Group (MEETING) 2
2023/03/07 — 18:00-20:00 — March, Tue — Main Meeting 1
2023/03/14 — 18:00-20:00 — March, Tue — Programming 1
2023/03/18 — 14:00-16:00 — March, Sat — Web Design 1
2023/03/21 — 10:00-12:00 — March, Tue — Tuesday Group 1
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2023/04/01 — 13:00-14:00 — April, Sat — Penrith Group (NO MEETING) 2
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1 As decided after assessing the Members' wishes (resumption of face-to-face meetings) via the latest Online Survey.
2 Penrith meetings are held every 2nd month on the 1st Saturday from 1-2 pm. — next meetings: May, July and September 2023.
ASCCA News:Tech News:
Microsoft’s Latest Windows 11 Update Fixes Slow File Copying
See the ReviewGeek article by CORY GUNTHER | @xguntherc | MAR 10, 2023, at 11:51 am EDT.
Windows 11 users who installed the optional 2022 update (version 22H2) in September reported a big problem where copying files took almost twice as long as before. And while the bug mainly affected enterprise customers, regular users experienced similar issues.
While this is a major problem for daily users, enterprise machines constantly copying or transferring files experienced a considerable slowdown in performance. Microsoft quickly acknowledged the problem, and thankfully, the March “Moment 2 patch” reportedly fixes it.
According to WindowsLatest, members of the Insider Program received the hotfix in January and confirmed it indeed fixes this weird bug. Microsoft then confirmed it would be available for the general public in future updates, and that's finally here.
You can get the Windows 11 file copying fix (and much more) with the latest Windows 11 22H2 Moment 2 optional update. Additionally, an upcoming March patch Tuesday release will roll it out to release versions of Windows 11 for everyone else.
This latest update continues Microsoft's efforts to improve Windows 11. Users should notice improved performance, whether doing regular tasks or gaming, less stuttering, faster file copying, and more.
You can also expect a few improvements to the File Explorer, Bluetooth keyboards, and a fix for an odd printer bug some users experienced. Plus, you'll get Bing AI in the taskbar, for better or worse. Grab the update and enjoy the changes.
Republican Bill That Gives Biden Power to Completely Ban TikTok Passes House Committee Super Fast
See the Gizmodo Article by Mack DeGeurin | March 2, 2023, at 2:05 am.
A fast-tracked, vague Republican bill granting the Biden administration the ability to impose a nationwide TikTok ban moved a step closer toward legality on Tuesday after passing a vote in the House Foreign Affairs Committee. If passed into law, the sweeping new legislation would grant the Biden administration the ability to ban TikTok or other foreign software companies believed to be involved in the transfer of "sensitive data." Critics, including the American Civil Liberties Union, say the slipshod bill, introduced just five days ago, was haphazardly written and could potentially open scores of other benign apps up to potential bans.
Democrats on the committee strongly opposed the bill during arguments and amendments, with ranking member Rep. Gregory Meeks of New York claiming the unvetted, overbroad bill "causes more problems than it corrects."
"These are not just bad policies; they would actively undermine our national security," Meeks said.
Republican lawmakers' intense obsession with banning TikTok could potentially inch this bill past the House, but clearing the Democrats' Senate majority is another story. With few Democrats willing to sign on to such a comprehensive, broad bill, the so-called DATA Act will likely be reduced to the increasingly cluttered garbage bin of killed TikTok bans.
"TikTok is the modern-day trojan horse of the CCP used to surveil and exploit american personal information," Texas Rep. Michael McCaul said before the vote. "I have no doubt the PRC [military] will look to weaponize this intelligence as they seek to upend the global balance of power.
How would the new bill ban TikTok?
The proposed bill, authored by Texas Rep. Michael McCaul, revisits Cold War-era Berman amendments that limit the president's ability to regulate informational materials under the International Emergency Powers Act. The regulations say the president does not have the power to block things like books and newspapers. Those rules are essential because TikTok previously invoked them to successfully kill former President Donald Trump’s attempt to ban the app on Apple and Google's apps stores.
Biden previously reversed Trump's TikTok ban but more recently said he was "not sure" if the federal government should move forward with a new ban.
"I know I don’t have it on my phone," the president told Reuters earlier this month.
Now, McCaul's new "Deterring America's Technological Adversaries (DATA) Act" would amend those rules so they would not apply to software companies like TikTok if the companies are involved in the transfer of "sensitive personal data." That means Biden would have a green light to remove the app from the entire country if he saw fit. Specifically, the bill would require Biden to enact a ban if the administration can prove TikTok has knowingly transferred user data to people working for the Chinese government or if the company were found to have helped Chinese surveillance.
"My bill empowers the administration to ban TikTok or any software applications that threaten U.S. national security," McCaul, the bill's author, said in a statement ahead of the hearings. "And make no mistake — TikTok is a security threat." McCaul went on to allege that TikTok offers a "backdoor" to user data before comparing the app to a "spy balloon into your phone."
Democrats on the committee urged McCaul to reconsider the vote, claiming it could have vast unintended consequences and was written without sufficient input from technologists, privacy experts, or other members of Congress. Speaking to lawmakers, Meeks invoked the spectre of the Iraq War and warned colleagues from voting for something they knew little about from a position of fear.
"We should not judge based on fear and speculation," Meeks said.
Others, like California Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove, said Chinese video game makers that don't pose national security threats could become "collateral damage" due to how the bill is currently written. In other cases, Democratic lawmakers warned American companies with large Chinese investors, such as Epic Games, could also get lumped into bans.
Chick-fil-A confirms accounts hacked in months-long "automated" attack
See the BleepingComputer article by Lawrence Abrams | March 2, 2023, at 04:00 pm.
American fast food chain Chick-fil-A has confirmed that over 71,000 customers' accounts were breached in a months-long credential stuffing attack, allowing threat actors to use stored rewards balances and access personal information.
In January, BleepingComputer reported that Chick-fil-A had begun investigating what it described as "suspicious activity" on customers' accounts.
"We are investigating suspicious activity on some customer accounts. We are committed to protecting customers' data and are working quickly to resolve the issue."
At the time, Chick-fil-A set up a support page with information on what customers should do if they detect suspicious activity on their accounts.
This warning came after BleepingComputer emailed Chick-fil-A before Christmas about reports of Chick-fil-A user accounts being stolen in credential-stuffing attacks and sold online.
These accounts were sold for prices ranging from $2 to $200, depending on the rewards account balance and linked payment methods.
One Telegram channel seen by BleepingComputer showed people purchasing these accounts and then sharing pictures of their purchases made through them.
Chick-fil-A confirms credential stuffing attack.
Today, Chick-fil-A confirmed our reporting in a security notice submitted to multiple Attorney General offices, stating that they suffered a credential stuffing attack between December 18th, 2022, and February 12th, 2023. This sustained attack allowed the threat actors to hack 71,473 Chick-fil-A accounts.
"Following a careful investigation, we determined that unauthorized parties launched an automated attack against our website and mobile application between December 18, 2022, and February 12, 2023, using account credentials (e.g., email addresses and passwords) obtained from a third-party source.
Based on our investigation, we determined on February 12, 2023, that the unauthorized parties subsequently accessed information in your Chick-fil-A One account." — Chick-fil-A notification.
The fast food chain is warning impacted customers that threat actors who accessed their account would have also had access to their personal information, including their name, email address, Chick-fil-A One membership number and mobile pay number, QR code, masked credit/debit card number, and the amount of Chick-fil-A credit (e.g., e-gift card balance) on your account (if any).
For some customers, the information may have included birthdays, phone numbers, physical addresses, and the last four digits of credit cards.
In response to the attack, Chick-fil-A forced customers to reset passwords, freeze funds loaded into accounts, and remove any stored payment information from accounts.
Chick-fil-A also states they restored Chick-fil-A One account balances and added rewards to impacted accounts as a way of apologizing.
As the accounts were breached using credentials exposed in other data breaches, impacted users must change their passwords at all sites they frequent, especially if they use the same Chick-fil-A password.
When resetting passwords, use a unique password for each site and store them in a password manager, like Bitwarden, for easy management.
While there is no evidence that personal information was abused, impacted customers should also be on the lookout for potentially targeted phishing emails utilizing this information.
Fun Facts:
Human Brain Cells Could Power Computers
See the InfoPackets article by John Lister on March 14, 2023, at 01:03 pm EDT.
According to a new study, human brain cells could power future computers. Researchers say they've already seen a bunch of brain cells in a petri dish learn to play the old video game, Pong.
The bizarre-sounding concept already has a name: organoid intelligence, or OI. It's already prompted questions about the ethics involved.
While the concept sounds pretty disturbing, the reality wouldn't be as unsettling as it might seem. There's no suggestion we'll be sticking human skulls inside the desktop computer in our living room.
Instead, the idea is that brain cells generated from stem cells could be used to power machines known as bio-computers. They'd be used for specific purposes that make the most of using cells without being affected by the limitations.
Brains Use Less Power
Brains have several advantages over computers, some of them being more fundamental differences in how they work. The way brain cells create electrical patterns connecting neurons makes them much better at learning independently and quickly recognizing patterns.
A classic example is how a human can almost instantly tell whether an image they've never seen before is of a cat or a dog, a task still challenging for artificial intelligence tools.
The human brain is also incredibly energy efficient when processing and storing data compared with computers. (Source: independent.co.uk)
Video Tennis Proves Concept
A recent project involving John Hopkins University and Cortical Labs in Melbourne hooked a mixture of mouse and stem cell-derived human brain cells to a set of electrodes. The researchers then set up an input system connected to the video game, Pong.
The system fired electrodes on the left or right of the "brain" to show whether the ball was at the top or bottom of the screen, while the firing frequency showed how far the ball was from the paddle.
The system was then left to "learn" from these signals, eventually figuring out how its responses moved the paddle and affected the ball's movement. Feedback from the electrodes essentially taught the "brain" how to return the ball in the game. (Source: scienceinpublic.com.au)
The researchers say that although this sounds like traditional artificial intelligence, the difference is that this isn't a computer simulating the way a brain works but instead replicating it.
There's still a long way to go, however. The Pong experiment used around 800,000 mouse and human cells. Follow-up work to develop a bio-computer will begin with 50,000 brain cells, with a long-term target of 10 million, similar to the brain power of a tortoise.
The researchers consider that the minimum required to build a useful bio-computer and even that would be a tiny fraction of the 80 billion or so cells in a human brain.
Meeting Location & Disclaimer
Bob Backstrom
~ Newsletter Editor ~
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