Auto-Immune: "Symbiotes" Could Be Deployed to Thwart Cyber Attacks

Running on CPUs to detect malware targeting embedded computers that run car system and utilities, symbiotes may not only serve as immune systems for their devices, but also help reveal a previously unseen ecosystem of malware

By Charles Q. Choi

PRINTER DANGER: In 2011, computer scientists revealed they could hack into printers and break into every computer linked to these printers. Image: Flickr/James F Clay

Anti-hacker defenses have long focused mainly on protecting personal computers and servers in homes and offices. However, as microchips grow smaller and more powerful, new targets for hackers are becoming widespread—embedded computers such as the electronics handling car engines, brakes and door locks; the routers that form the Internet's backbone; the machines running power plants, rail lines and prison cell doors; and even implantable medical devices such as defibrillators and insulin pumps. Many of these embedded devices can now link with other computers, putting them equally at risk to intruders. Indeed, in October, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta warned that the U.S. faced the threat of a "cyber Pearl Harbor" if it failed to adequately protect these systems, echoing a warning CIA Director John Deutsch gave to Congress in 1996 about an electronic Pearl Harbor (pdf).
Now computer scientists are devising guardians they call symbiotes that could run on embedded computers regardless of the underlying operating systems. In doing so, they may not only help protect the critical infrastructure of nations and corporations but reveal that warfare against these devices may have been going on unseen for years, researchers say.
The problem is worse than you might think. Already research has shown that a vast number of machines lie completely open to attack. For instance, in 2011, after scanning large sections of the Internet, computer scientists Ang Cui and Sal Stolfo at Columbia University identified more than 1.4 million publicly accessible embedded computers in 144 countries that still had factory default passwords that would give anyone with online access total control over the machines. These devices, which make up about one in five of the embedded computers they found (pdf), included routers, video-conferencing units, cable TV boxes and firewalls used to defend computer networks.
These vulnerabilities pose a host of dangers. In 2011 Cui and Stolfo revealed they could hack into printers (pdf) made by Hewlett–Packard with infected documents or by connecting to them online, allowing them to spy on everything printed with those machines and to break into every computer linked to the printers. (HP has since fixed this vulnerability.) Cui also explains it could be easy to develop malicious software or malware that would allow hackers to shut down infected routers just by pinging them an innocuous data packet.
Attacks against embedded system aren't the kind "where criminals are trying to get credit card data," Cui says. "They're more stealthy. More sophisticated. This is corporate espionage–level stuff. Cyber war–level stuff. The people looking to target these systems aren't out to make a big splash, but might aim to take down a country's critical infrastructure."
One problem researchers face in designing safeguards for these vulnerabilities is the incredible diversity found in the programs running embedded computers. For instance, Cui notes that routers made only by Cisco possess about 300,000 different firmware images—the operating systems of embedded computers and their accompanying programs.

origin of intelligence after identifying a 'genetic accident' 500 million years ago

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Agencies : London, Mon Dec 03 2012, 14:35 hrs

Scientists have discovered the origin of intelligence after identifying a 'genetic accident' 500 million years ago when the genes that enabled humans to think and reason evolved.
Researchers led by the University of Edinburgh have discovered how humans - and other mammals - evolved to have intelligence.
They found that intelligence in humans developed as the result of an increase in the number of brain genes in our evolutionary ancestors.
Scientists also believe that the same genes that improved our mental capacity are also responsible for a number of brain disorders.
The researchers suggest that a simple invertebrate animal living in the sea 500 million years ago experienced a 'genetic accident', which resulted in extra copies of these genes being made.
This animal's descendants benefited from these extra genes, leading to behaviourally sophisticated vertebrates – including humans.
"One of the greatest scientific problems is to explain how intelligence and complex behaviours arose during evolution," Professor Seth Grant, of the University of Edinburgh, who led the research, said.
The research, which is detailed in two papers in Nature Neuroscience, also shows a direct link between the evolution of behaviour and the origins of brain diseases.
"This ground breaking work has implications for how we understand the emergence of psychiatric disorders and will offer new avenues for the development of new treatments," said John Williams, Head of Neuroscience and Mental Health at the Wellcome Trust, one of the study funders.
The research team studied the mental abilities of mice and humans, using comparative tasks that involved identifying objects on touch-screen computers.
Researchers then combined results of these behavioural tests with information from the genetic codes of various species to work out when different behaviours evolved.
They found that higher mental functions in humans and mice were controlled by the same genes.
The study also showed that when these genes were mutated or damaged, they impaired higher mental functions.
"Our work shows that the price of higher intelligence and more complex behaviours is more mental illness," Grant said in a statement.
"We can now apply genetics and behavioural testing to help patients with these diseases," said Dr Tim Bussey from Cambridge University, which was also involved in the study.

6 Electronic Devices You Can Control with Your Thoughts

From toys to mind monitoring, brain-computer interface options are already on the market

By David Pogue

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Image: Flickr/br1dotcom

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• Overview

  How Far Away is Mind-Machine Integration?

In my Scientific American column this month, I wrote about the dawn of the brain–computer interface. Forget about keyboard, mouse, touch screens or even voice recognition: the real dream is thinking about what you want your gadget to do.
BCI (brain–computer interface) has long been a favorite of sci-fi movies (paging Professor Xavier!). However, some early BCI products are already for sale. Unfortunately, this isn't the dawn of BCI—it's the pre-dawn. These products are crude, imprecise and sometimes frustratingly nonresponsive—that's how it goes with EEG-based headsets, which pick up only the faintest electroencephalographic echoes of neural activity through the skull. (Beware, in particular, of the toys, which garner Amazon reviews ranging from wildly polarizing to absolutely scathing.) But these technologies are based on real BCI principles, and when they work, they're a fascinating glimpse of mind–machine merging mergers to come. (Below are representative online prices, such as those found on Amazon.)
Star Wars Science Force Trainer ($35): This toy includes a wireless headset, ping-pong ball and a clear plastic tube with a fan beneath. As you concentrate, your brain activity turns up the fan so that it blows a ping-pong ball up a tube. Yoda's voice guides you: "Reach out with your feelings! Use The Force. Do or do not; there is no try."

Mindflex ($47): Mattel's game is another ball-in-an-air-column setup. This time the object is to guide the ball through hoops, hurdles, funnels and a seesaw. You control the fan power, and therefore the height of the foam ball, with your thoughts; you control the ball's horizontal movement through the course with a knob.

Mindflex Duel ($44): For about the same price, you can buy a two-headset version of the Mindflex. In some games, your concentration controls the fan strength—as in the original game; in others, it controls the lateral movement of the sliding fan, so that you and a buddy can have a kind of "think of war" battle.

Neural Impulse Actuator ($107): This "brain mouse" is marketed as a Windows game-playing accessory that lets you control game functions with your thoughts. You can assign it to trigger left-clicks, for example, or to make your character walk or shoot.

MindSet ($199): This $199 headset, from NeuroSky, is a traditional Bluetooth headset, suitable for Skype calls and so on. But it's also an EEG headset, a somewhat less frivolous one than the games described above. The software includes a simple "brain-wave monitor" app, but the real potential lies in the developer kit, which allows programmers to come up with their own MindSet-driven software.

EPOC ($299): Emotiv's $299 headset is the most serious consumer option yet. The wired headset has 16 contacts, and you're supposed to wet them with saline solution for better contact. As a result, the sensitivity is far superior to what you get from the dry-connection, single-contact headsets. The company includes a few starter games and monitors to get you going—but here again, the real promise is the software development kit.

In short, most of the consumer BCI offerings so far fall under the headings "Gimmick" and "Quick Novelty Wear-Off Factor." But sometimes it's not about how well the bear dances—it's that the bear can dance at all.