ብሎክቼይን አዲሱ ኢንተርኔት

By Geleta Gammo

 

ብሎክቼይን ማለት በመሰረቱ ያልተማከለ የመረጃ መዝገብ ነው። በዚህ የመረጃ መዝገብ ላይ የሚመዘገቡ ነገሮች ሁሉ
1፣ ያልተማከለ ነው። ማለት፣ አንድ መረጃ በብሎክቼይን ላይ ሲመዘገብ የመረጃው ቅጂ ከብሎክቼይኑ ጋር በተያያዙ በሚሊዮኖች በሚቆጠሩ ኮምፑተሮች ሁሉ ላይ ይቀመጣል። ይህ ማለት መረጃው ሊጠፋ አይችልም።

ምሳሌ1፣ በስሜ የተመዘገበ የቤት ካርታ ቢኖረኝና ይህንን ብሎክቼይን ላይ ባስመዘግብ ያ የኔን ስም የያዘ ካርታ ተባዝቶ በመላው ዓለም ባሉ ኮምፑተሮች ይቀመጣል። የኔ ኮሙፑተር ቢሰረቅ ካርታው በኔ ስም እስካለ ድረስ ምንም ለውጥ አያመጣም።

ምሳሌ 2፣ አንድ ሰው የህክምና ታሪክ መዝገብ አለው ብንል ይህ መዝገብ በብሎክቼይን ላይ ከተቀመጠ ሁሌም አዲስ ነገር ሲመጣ እየተጨመረበት ይኖራል። ወደ አዲስ ዶክቶር ጋ ሰውዬው ሲሄድ የመዝገብ ቁጥሩን ቁልፍ ለዶክቶሩ ሲሰጠው የታማሚውን የጤና ታሪክ ዶክቶሩ አይቶ የበለጠ ይረዳል።

ምሳሌ3፣ አንድ ሰው ማንነቱን ለማሳወቅ ራሱን ሊያሳውቁ ከሚችሉት ነገሮች ጋር አንድ ጊዜ ራሱን ብሎክቼይን ላይ መመዝገብ ብቻ ነው። ለምሳሌ ፎቶውን የጣት አሻራውን ቢያስቀምጥና ከዚህ መታወቂያው ጋር የቤት ካርታውን ወይም የህክምና መዝገቡን የባምክ ቁጥሩን ቢያያይዝ፣ ሌላ መታወቂያ አያስፈልገውም። የትም ዓለም ቢሄድ ፓስፖርት አያስፈገውም። ማንነቱን ከብሎክ ቼይን ላይ ማሳየት ይችላል። ማሳየት ለሚፈልገው ብቻ ያሳያል።

2፣ መረጃው ተመስርጠው (encrypted) ሆነው ይመዘገባሉ። ይህ ማለት ቁልፉን ከያዘው በስተቀር ማንም ሊያየው አይችለም። ቁልፎቹ ሁለት ናቸው። አንደኛው የባሌበቱ ቁልፍ ሲሆን ሌላው ሌላ ሰው እንዲያይ የሚሰጥ ቁልፍ ነው። ይህ ለሌላ የሚሰጠው በተቀባዩ መታወቂያ ቁልፍ ስለሚመዘገብ የተሰጠው ሰውየ ብቻ ነው ሊያይ የሚችለው። ለሌላ አሳልፎ መስጠት አይችልም። ያንን እንዲያደርግ ፈቃድ ካልተሰጠው በስተቀር። ባለቤቱ በፈለገው ጊዜ ያንን ለሰው የተሰጠ ቁልፍ መሰረዝ ይችላል።

ምስሌ 1፣ የተገለጸው የቤት ካርታ ሙሉ በሙሉ ለሁሉም እንዲታይ፣ የተወሰነው መረጃ ብቻ እንዲታይ፣ ለተወሰነ ሰው ብቻ እንዲታይ ማድረግ ይቻላል። ለምሳሌ የባለቤቱ ስም እንዳይታይና የመሬቱ ስፋት ብቻ ለህዝብ እንዲታይ ማድረግ ይቻላል። ፍርድ ቤት ሲቀርብ ዳኛውና ፖሊስ ብቻ ስሙ ምን እንደሚል ማሳየት ይቻላል።

ምሳሌ3፣ የህክምና መረጃው ለዶር ብቻ እንዲታይ ማድረግ ይቻላል። ዶሩ ህክምናውን ሲጨርስ ለሱ የተዘጋጀው ቁልፍ ከተሰረዘ ዶሩ ተመልሶ መግባት አይችለም።
ነገር ግን ስም ሳይታይ የበሽታው ዓይነት፣ የተወሰደው መድሃኒት፣ ለመዳን የወሰደበት ጊዜ የመሳሰሉት ለሁሉም ዶክቶሮች ወይም ተመራማሪዎች ስም ሳይኖር እንዲታይ ማድረግ ይቻላል። ያ ማለት ተመራማሪዎች ስንተ በዚህ በሽታ ታማሚ እንዳለና የትኛው መድሃኒት እንደሚሰራ ማወቅ ይችላሉ። ይህ ለምርምር በጣም ጠቃሚ ነው። እስከ ዛሬ ያሉ የህክምና ምርምሮችን አስቸጋሪ የሚያደርገው እንዲህ ዓይነት መረጃ አለመገኘት ነው።

ምሳሌ3፣ የጣት አሻራውን ከብሎክ ቼይን ጋር በማመሳከር ማንነቱንና ከየት እንደመጣ እንዲታወቅ አድርጎ ማስመዝገብ ይችላል። ሌላውን መረጃ ተጨማሪ ቁልፍ አድርጎበት። ያ ማለት ሰውዬው የትም አገር ሄዶ ራሱን ቢስት ቢያንስ ማን እንደሆነ ከየት እንደመጣ ወዲያው ይታወቃል። የአደጋ ጊዜ ተጠሪ ቢያስቀምጥና ሁለት ሶስት እንዲህ ዓይነት ሰዎችን አብረው ከፈረሙ ሌላው መረጃው ሁሉ እንዲታይ ማድረግ ይችላል።
ቢሞት አምስት የሚያምናቸው ሰዎች ከፈረሙበት በሱ ስም የተመዘገቡ ንብረቶች ለማዛወር እንዲቻል ማድረግ ይቻላል፡
የመክፈቻ ቁልፉ ቢጠፋበት ማንነቱን የሚገልጹ ቀድሞ የመረጣቸው አምስት ሰዎች እንዲፈርሙ ባምድረግ ማንነቱን ማሳወቅ ይችላል። ያ ማለት ማንም ሌላውን አስመስኦ ምንም ማድረግ አይችልም። (identity theft) አይኖርም።

3፣ በዚህ የመረጃ መዝገብ ላይ የተመዘገበ ነገር መሰረዝ ወይም መቀየር አይቻልም። መረጃው ብሎክቼይን የተባለበትም ምክንያት ለዚህ ነው። መረጃው በጥቅል ጥቅል ተደርጎ ርስበርሱ በተመዘገበበት ጊዜ ቅደም ተከተል ይቀመጣል። ይህ ቅደም ተከተል አይዛነፍም። የመጀመሪያውና የሚቀጥለው መረጃ በጊዜ ማኅተም (time stamp) የተቆራኙ በመሆናቸው በመሃከላቸው አዲስ ነገር ማስገባት አይቻልም።

ምሳሌ1፣ የቤት ካርታው አንዴ ከተመዘገበ ባለቤቱ እስካልፈረመ ድረስ ለዘላለም እዛው ይኖራል። ነገርግን ቤቱ ቢሸጥ ካርታው መዝገቡ ላይ ካርታው ወደየት እንደሄደ ተመዝግቦ ወደ አዲሱ ባለቤት መዝገብ ይገባል። አዲሱ ባለቤት መዝገብ ላይም ካርታው ከየት፣ መቼ እንደመጣ ይመዘገባል። ይህ የተመዘገበው ነገርም ለዘላለም አይጠፋም።

ምሳሌ2፣ ይህንኑ ካርታ ሌላ ዋጋ ያለው ነገር ነው ብንል፣ ለምሳሌ መኪና፣ አልማዝ፣ ወርቅ፣ ብር ነው ብንል ፣ መኪናውም ሆነ አልማዙ፣ ወርቁም ሆነ ብሩ ከየት ተነስቶ ወዴት እንደሄደና ለምን እንደሄደ (በሽያጭ ይሁን በስጦታ) ተመዝግቦ ለዘላለም ይቀመጣል። ማንም ሰው ሊሰርዘው ሊደልዘው አይችልም። አንድ ሰው ራሱ ኮምፑተር ላይ ያለውን ብሎክቼይን ውስጥ ያለውን መረጃ ወደ ኋላ ሄዶ ቢቀይር ምንም ጥቅም የለውም። ምክንያቱም የተቀየረበትን ጊዜ ሌሎች ኮፑተሮች ከራስቸው መረጃ ጋር ስለሚያመሳክሩ አይቀበሉትም።

ይህ ማለት ሙስናና ስርቆት በፍጹም የማይቻል ይሆናል ማለት ነው።

4፣ ብሎክቸይን ሶስተኛ ምስክር አይፈልግ።
አሁ ባለበት ሁኔታ ማንኛውምንም ንብረት ለማስተላለፍ ወይ የውልና መረጃ መሄድ ወይም ምስክሮችን ማቆም ያስፈልጋል። ወይ ፍርድ ቤት መሄድ ያስፈጋል። ይህ ደግሞ ጊዜና ገንዘብ ይፈጃል።

ምሳሌ፣ ቤቴን ወይም መኪናዬን መሸጥ ብፈልግ፣ ሶስተኛ ምስክር ወይም መገናኛ መሄድ አያስፈልገኝም። ሰውዬውንም ማግኘት አያስፈልገኝም። ገዢና ሻጭ ከተስማሙ የብሎክቼይን ውል ይፈራረማሉ። ይህ ውል በብሎክ ቼይን ብልጥ ውል (smart contract) በመባል ይታወቃል።
በመሰረቱ ይህ ውል የኮምፑተር ፕሮግራም ነው። ማንኛውም የኮምፑተር ፕሮግራም በመሰረቱ ትዕዛዝ ነው። ሁሉም ፕሮግራሞች ይህ ሲደረግ ይህንን አድርግ የሚል ትዕዛዞች ናቸው።

ይህ ወደ ውል ሲቀየር ከገዢ አካውንት አንድ መቶ ሺህ ብር ወደ ሻጭ አካውንት ሲገባ የካርታውን ወይም የመኪናውን ስም ወደ ገዢ አዙር ተብሎ የሚጻፍ ውል ነው። በሶስት ቀን ውስጥ ገንዘቡ ካልገባ ውሉ ይሰረዝ የሚልም ሊጨመርበት ይችላል። መያዣ አንድ ሺህ ብር ሲገባ ውሉ የሶስት ቀን ገደቡን እንዲያከብር፣ መያዣ ካልገባ ለ 1 ሰዓት ብቻ እንዲጠብቅም ማዘዝ ይቻላል። የተለያየ ዓይነት ትዕዛዝ መስጠት ይቻላል።

ይህንን ውል ሁለቱም በብሎክቼይን ላይ የግል ቁልፋቸውን በማሳየት ይፈርማሉ። ይህ ውል ከተፈረመ በኋላ በሁለቱም ስምምነት ካልሆነ የትኛውም ወገን በራሱ ሊቀይረው አይችልም። መሰረዝም ማስተካክለም አይቻልም። በዚህ ውል መሰረትም፣ ቤቱም ሆነ መኪናው በውሉ ጊዜ ለሌላ ሰው እንዳይተላለፉ መቆለፍም ይቻላል።
ገዢው የተዋዋሉትን ገንዘብ መጠን በሻጩ አካውንት ሲያስገባ ወዲያውኑ የቤቱ ካርታም ሆነ የመኪና ሊብሬው ወደ ገዢው ይተላለፋል።

ለምሳሌ የመኪናው ቁልፍ ወይም የቤቱ ቤት ቁልፍ በእጅ አሻራ የሚከፈት ቢሆን መኪናው ከዛ በኋላ በቀድሞው ባለቤቱ አሻራ አይከፈትም ማለት ነው። መኪናው አልነሳም ሊልም ይችላል።
ዛሬ ስልኮች ሳይቀሩ በአሻራ መክፈትና መዝጋት በሚቻልበት ጊዜ ይህንን ማድረግ በጣም ቀላል ነው።

5፣ ብሎክቼይንን በመጠቀም የምርጫ ድምጽ መስጠት ይቻላል። በብሎክ ቼይን የተደረገ ምርጫን መስረቅ አይቻልም። ይህ ማለት ዲሞክራሲ….

6፣ የብሎክ ቼይንን ጥቅም ላይ የሚያውል ድርጅት መዝገቡ ሊሰረቅበት አይችልም፣ ጉልበተኛ ሊዘጋው አይችልም፣ ሌቦች፣ ሙሰኞች ሊበሉት አይችሉም…

ዘላለማዊ ይሆናል ማለት ነው።

The 5 Easiest Ways to Protect Yourself Online -Edward Snowden

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In a recent interview with The Intercept, Edward Snowden offered some advice for what average citizens can do to reclaim their privacy. Because the sharing of information should be a conversation, not an enigma buried in a site’s ‘Terms of Service.’

1. This includes Signal, an easy-to-use app that encrypts your mobile phone messages, as long as the person you’re calling or texting also has the app installed. Developed by Open Whisper Systems, the app is available for both iOS and Android.

2. The next easy step is to enable two-factor authentication on your accounts. This way an attacker needs not only your password, but also a physical device, like your smartphone, to get the secondary code that opens your account.

3. A password manager, like KeePassX, will ensure your passwords are diversified across all accounts. So, if one account becomes compromised, they won’t all become compromised.

4. The next step is Tor — install it, use it. It looks very much like your browsing in Firefox, only your traffic will be bounced all across the globe, covering your physical location and identity (to a point). A nice side effect is Tor comes with a JavaScript blocker, which disables ads.

5. “Everybody should be running adblock software, if only from a safety perspective,” Snowden said.

By using these programs, people have already changed the conversation about security and privacy. Apple took note adding DuckDuckGo, the search engine that doesn’t track, as one of the available options on its Safari browser. Earlier this year at CES, a “personal privacy” section made its debut. Even DARPA is working to create services that “[enable] safe and predictable sharing of data in which privacy is preserved.” The ability to take control of your privacy has become more attainable than ever.

The trick is getting more people to adopt these programs (think of it like herd immunity). That’s how we’ll create lasting change.

“I think reform comes with many faces,” Snowden told the site. “There’s legal reform; there’s statutory reform more generally; there are the products and outcomes of judicial decisions.”

The sharing of information should be a conversation — not an enigma buried somewhere in the Terms of Service of a site.

The 5 Easiest Ways to Protect Yourself Online -Edward Snowden

Article Image

In a recent interview with The Intercept, Edward Snowden offered some advice for what average citizens can do to reclaim their privacy. Because the sharing of information should be a conversation, not an enigma buried in a site’s ‘Terms of Service.’

1. This includes Signal, an easy-to-use app that encrypts your mobile phone messages, as long as the person you’re calling or texting also has the app installed. Developed by Open Whisper Systems, the app is available for both iOS and Android.

2. The next easy step is to enable two-factor authentication on your accounts. This way an attacker needs not only your password, but also a physical device, like your smartphone, to get the secondary code that opens your account.

3. A password manager, like KeePassX, will ensure your passwords are diversified across all accounts. So, if one account becomes compromised, they won’t all become compromised.

4. The next step is Tor — install it, use it. It looks very much like your browsing in Firefox, only your traffic will be bounced all across the globe, covering your physical location and identity (to a point). A nice side effect is Tor comes with a JavaScript blocker, which disables ads.

5. “Everybody should be running adblock software, if only from a safety perspective,” Snowden said.

By using these programs, people have already changed the conversation about security and privacy. Apple took note adding DuckDuckGo, the search engine that doesn’t track, as one of the available options on its Safari browser. Earlier this year at CES, a “personal privacy” section made its debut. Even DARPA is working to create services that “[enable] safe and predictable sharing of data in which privacy is preserved.” The ability to take control of your privacy has become more attainable than ever.

The trick is getting more people to adopt these programs (think of it like herd immunity). That’s how we’ll create lasting change.

“I think reform comes with many faces,” Snowden told the site. “There’s legal reform; there’s statutory reform more generally; there are the products and outcomes of judicial decisions.”

The sharing of information should be a conversation — not an enigma buried somewhere in the Terms of Service of a site.

How Web Cams Helped Bring Down the Internet, Briefly

Time

Image result for internet down

In a world where we increasingly live and work in giant webs of internet connectivity—our computers and phones, not to mention cameras, thermostats, garage door openers, kitchen appliances and baby monitors are all now connected to the web, often by default—we find ourselves facing an uncomfortable new reality: How secure is the so-called Internet-of-Things?

That question is front and center in the wake of a massive cyber attack Oct. 21 that left millions of internet users unable to access roughly 1,200 websites, including Twitter, Reddit and Netflix for the better part of a day.

While the attack did cause some economic damage, cybersecurity experts say the bigger issue is the way in which the hackers were able to pull off such a feat. They did it not only by co-opting zombie computers—the typical way that hackers push servers off-line—but by leveraging “tens of millions” of addresses on insecure, internet-connected devices that had been infected with malicious software code, according to Kyle York, the chief strategy officer at Dynamic Network Services Inc., the company that came under attack.

“The obvious point that we learned from last week’s attack is that the Internet of Things has made the threat of a denial-of-service attack more potent than ever before,” Timothy Edgar, a director of law and policy at Brown University’s cybersecurity program, told TIME.

Here’s how it worked.

On Friday morning, hackers launched a massive distributed denial-of-service, or DDOS, attack on a domain-name system called Dynamic Network Services Inc., or Dyn., which serves a crucial role in the Internet infrastructure. A domain name system translates what you type into a URL—”Twitter.com,” say—into the appropriate, numerical IP address and directs you to where you want to go.

In a typical DDOS attack, hackers take over virus-infected computers, known collectively as a “botnet,” and command them to send large numbers of requests, or “garbage packets,” to a server with the intention of overwhelming it—making it impossible for legitimate users to access it as needed.

What made the attack on Friday exceptional, and exceptionally scary for cyber researchers, is that the hackers used not only virus-infected computers, but hundreds of tens or hundreds of internet-connected devices—namely, certain types of security cameras and DVR players—that we don’t really think of as “computers” in the first place. XiongMai Technologies, a Chinese company that manufactures some of the webcams used in the attack, announced Monday that it would recall some of its products.

But such recalls aren’t going to do much at a time when literally millions of new, internet-connected devices are being connected every day, Edgar said. “There are millions and millions of cameras out there on the shelves and in people’s homes and there’s no security on them,” he said. “Going back and making sure that each of these cameras have better security isn’t really possible—it’s a depressing thought.”

According to a 2015 report by the information technology research company Gartner, there are now roughly 6.4 billion internet-connected things worldwide, from smart watches to smart refrigerators to smart web cams. By 2020, Gartner expects that number to bounce to 20.8 billion. That means that even if a relatively small portion of those devices are infected with malware and commandeered in a DDOS attack like the one Friday, hackers could an extraordinary amount of damage either the U.S. economy or, potentially, to national security.

“This particular attack disrupted key services that are a part of people’s daily lives, but no lives were lost,” Chris Petersen, a co-founder of the security analytics firm LogRhythm, told TIME. But, he added, it’s not hard to imagine a scenario in which hackers utilized this same army of devices to disrupt other key services, like hospitals or physical infrastructure projects. “This attack just proves that an attack of this nature could be easily realized,” he said.

Just two weeks before Election Day, cybersecurity experts have, for example, raised the specter that hackers, possible operating on behalf of a nation state, like Russia or China, could plan a similar attack to compromise state and county election websites, which voters rely on to access information about their registration or where their polling places are. Since no voting machines in the U.S. are connected to the internet, it would be extremely difficult for hackers to undermine the actual act of voting, but they could fairly easily succeed in creating the impression that the election had been compromised in some way.

“The possibility of hacking the vote-counting process is quite difficult,” said Edgar. “But the goal is causing chaos on Election Day? That’s pretty simple.”

A large part of the problem is that internet-connected device makers currently do almost nothing to protect their products from cybersecurity threats, Mike Raggo, the chief research officer at the security firm ZeroFOX, which focuses on social media platforms, told TIME. “Manufacturers want you to be able to plug it in and it’s ready to go,” he said. “So most of these devices have a default password, default configuration, default login.” That makes it easy to plug-and-play, but it also makes these devices very vulnerable to attack.

According to Network World, the hackers on Friday used only about 10 to 20% of all the 500,000 or so devices known to be infected with a particular malicious code, known as Mirai, which means that the DDOS attack could easily have been five to ten times larger than what it actually was. “There’s a lot of dry gunpowder left in terms of compromised IoT devices,” Petersen warned.

Consumers can protect themselves to some degree by keeping the software on their devices up to date, changing the default password if its possible, or—for the more sophisticated consumer—hardening up other parts of a home network, said Scott Radcliffe, a former military officer and vice president at FleishmanHillard, where he works on cybersecurity issues. “But it’s a problem of getting the message out. It’s just not intuitive that we have to worry about security on all of these new things.”

On Monday, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson told Politico that his department is working with law enforcement officials and the private sector to produce a strategic plan “in the coming weeks” to guard against similar attacks in the future.

There are currently no state or federal regulations in the U.S. that require even basic cybersecurity protocols on internet-connected devices and appliances. It’s a scenario that creates a vacuum of responsibility, Edgar said.

“You can say, let’s hold manufacturers liable for damaged caused by insecure IoT devices, but how would you do that?” he said, explaining that DDOS attacks can involve hundreds of thousands or millions of devices made by dozens of different manufacturers. “If you’re looking at it from the point of the view of a law firm, how do you define the damage, find plaintiffs and defendants?”

Edgar and others suggest that perhaps the time has come for the government to step in. “There’s a big fear in the high tech community that government regulation is going to kill the goose that laid the golden egg by telling tech companies how to make their devices,” he said, but added that regulations can establish security benchmarks without being prescriptive.

“Look, I’m an entrepreneur,” said Petersen. “I am certainly not someone who wants to see more regulation from a business standpoint. But when I put on my cybersecurity hat and I look at the realities of what is going to protect our nation from devastating cyber serucity attacks, I don’t see much of an alternative except to regulate.”

How Web Cams Helped Bring Down the Internet, Briefly

Time

Image result for internet down

In a world where we increasingly live and work in giant webs of internet connectivity—our computers and phones, not to mention cameras, thermostats, garage door openers, kitchen appliances and baby monitors are all now connected to the web, often by default—we find ourselves facing an uncomfortable new reality: How secure is the so-called Internet-of-Things?

That question is front and center in the wake of a massive cyber attack Oct. 21 that left millions of internet users unable to access roughly 1,200 websites, including Twitter, Reddit and Netflix for the better part of a day.

While the attack did cause some economic damage, cybersecurity experts say the bigger issue is the way in which the hackers were able to pull off such a feat. They did it not only by co-opting zombie computers—the typical way that hackers push servers off-line—but by leveraging “tens of millions” of addresses on insecure, internet-connected devices that had been infected with malicious software code, according to Kyle York, the chief strategy officer at Dynamic Network Services Inc., the company that came under attack.

“The obvious point that we learned from last week’s attack is that the Internet of Things has made the threat of a denial-of-service attack more potent than ever before,” Timothy Edgar, a director of law and policy at Brown University’s cybersecurity program, told TIME.

Here’s how it worked.

On Friday morning, hackers launched a massive distributed denial-of-service, or DDOS, attack on a domain-name system called Dynamic Network Services Inc., or Dyn., which serves a crucial role in the Internet infrastructure. A domain name system translates what you type into a URL—”Twitter.com,” say—into the appropriate, numerical IP address and directs you to where you want to go.

In a typical DDOS attack, hackers take over virus-infected computers, known collectively as a “botnet,” and command them to send large numbers of requests, or “garbage packets,” to a server with the intention of overwhelming it—making it impossible for legitimate users to access it as needed.

What made the attack on Friday exceptional, and exceptionally scary for cyber researchers, is that the hackers used not only virus-infected computers, but hundreds of tens or hundreds of internet-connected devices—namely, certain types of security cameras and DVR players—that we don’t really think of as “computers” in the first place. XiongMai Technologies, a Chinese company that manufactures some of the webcams used in the attack, announced Monday that it would recall some of its products.

But such recalls aren’t going to do much at a time when literally millions of new, internet-connected devices are being connected every day, Edgar said. “There are millions and millions of cameras out there on the shelves and in people’s homes and there’s no security on them,” he said. “Going back and making sure that each of these cameras have better security isn’t really possible—it’s a depressing thought.”

According to a 2015 report by the information technology research company Gartner, there are now roughly 6.4 billion internet-connected things worldwide, from smart watches to smart refrigerators to smart web cams. By 2020, Gartner expects that number to bounce to 20.8 billion. That means that even if a relatively small portion of those devices are infected with malware and commandeered in a DDOS attack like the one Friday, hackers could an extraordinary amount of damage either the U.S. economy or, potentially, to national security.

“This particular attack disrupted key services that are a part of people’s daily lives, but no lives were lost,” Chris Petersen, a co-founder of the security analytics firm LogRhythm, told TIME. But, he added, it’s not hard to imagine a scenario in which hackers utilized this same army of devices to disrupt other key services, like hospitals or physical infrastructure projects. “This attack just proves that an attack of this nature could be easily realized,” he said.

Just two weeks before Election Day, cybersecurity experts have, for example, raised the specter that hackers, possible operating on behalf of a nation state, like Russia or China, could plan a similar attack to compromise state and county election websites, which voters rely on to access information about their registration or where their polling places are. Since no voting machines in the U.S. are connected to the internet, it would be extremely difficult for hackers to undermine the actual act of voting, but they could fairly easily succeed in creating the impression that the election had been compromised in some way.

“The possibility of hacking the vote-counting process is quite difficult,” said Edgar. “But the goal is causing chaos on Election Day? That’s pretty simple.”

A large part of the problem is that internet-connected device makers currently do almost nothing to protect their products from cybersecurity threats, Mike Raggo, the chief research officer at the security firm ZeroFOX, which focuses on social media platforms, told TIME. “Manufacturers want you to be able to plug it in and it’s ready to go,” he said. “So most of these devices have a default password, default configuration, default login.” That makes it easy to plug-and-play, but it also makes these devices very vulnerable to attack.

According to Network World, the hackers on Friday used only about 10 to 20% of all the 500,000 or so devices known to be infected with a particular malicious code, known as Mirai, which means that the DDOS attack could easily have been five to ten times larger than what it actually was. “There’s a lot of dry gunpowder left in terms of compromised IoT devices,” Petersen warned.

Consumers can protect themselves to some degree by keeping the software on their devices up to date, changing the default password if its possible, or—for the more sophisticated consumer—hardening up other parts of a home network, said Scott Radcliffe, a former military officer and vice president at FleishmanHillard, where he works on cybersecurity issues. “But it’s a problem of getting the message out. It’s just not intuitive that we have to worry about security on all of these new things.”

On Monday, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson told Politico that his department is working with law enforcement officials and the private sector to produce a strategic plan “in the coming weeks” to guard against similar attacks in the future.

There are currently no state or federal regulations in the U.S. that require even basic cybersecurity protocols on internet-connected devices and appliances. It’s a scenario that creates a vacuum of responsibility, Edgar said.

“You can say, let’s hold manufacturers liable for damaged caused by insecure IoT devices, but how would you do that?” he said, explaining that DDOS attacks can involve hundreds of thousands or millions of devices made by dozens of different manufacturers. “If you’re looking at it from the point of the view of a law firm, how do you define the damage, find plaintiffs and defendants?”

Edgar and others suggest that perhaps the time has come for the government to step in. “There’s a big fear in the high tech community that government regulation is going to kill the goose that laid the golden egg by telling tech companies how to make their devices,” he said, but added that regulations can establish security benchmarks without being prescriptive.

“Look, I’m an entrepreneur,” said Petersen. “I am certainly not someone who wants to see more regulation from a business standpoint. But when I put on my cybersecurity hat and I look at the realities of what is going to protect our nation from devastating cyber serucity attacks, I don’t see much of an alternative except to regulate.”

How Zero Was Invented?

BigThink

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There are some parts of our knowledge base that we generally take for granted. We use them every day, and they have been very successful in allowing us to conduct our lives. The number system that includes zero is one such practice.  But zero didn’t always exist. It’s a rather genius idea that humanity had to invent after it already knew how to count.

There are two ways that zeroes work. Zero is a placeholder, signifying the absence of value. Zero is also a number in its own right.

Ancient Sumerian scribes used spaces to mark absences, while Babylonians used a sign of two small wedges to differentiate between magnitudes (like our decimal-based system employs zeroes to make a difference between tenths, hundreds and so on). Mayans also had a similar type of marker in their calendars.

Watch this brief history of zero narrated by the mathematician Dr. Hannah Fry for the Royal Institute.  

But in the fifth century, India’s number system was the first to utilize the concept of zero as a number. There is a circle that resembles a zero on the wall of a temple in Gwalior, India which is considered to be the world’s oldest representation of the number. In the 7th century, the Indian mathematician Brahmagupta used small dots to show the zero placeholder, but also recognized it as a number, with a null value that was called “sunya”.

India’s math spread to China and the Middle East cultures, where it was instrumental and developed further. The mathematician Mohammed ibn-Musa al-Khowarizmi utilized zero in algebraic equations and eventually, by about 9th century, zero became part of the Arabic number system looking like the oval we write today.  In Europe, however, Romans opposed zero due to the preference given to their own system based on Roman numerals.  Zero was embraced gradually by Europeans, most famously championed by the Italian mathematician Fibonacci.

As math evolved, zero formed the cornerstone of calculus.  Now it lies in the foundation of modern computing’s binary system of zeros and ones.

Of course, as much as zero has been useful, it carries within itself certain philosophical quandaries. While other numbers can be utilized to refer to existing objects, what object or anything in existence can zero point to? If “nothing” is part of our number system, then does the system itself come into question as a constructed, but not necessarily empirically-derived practice? While other numbers allow for division, you can’t divide by zero. Comedian Steven Wright famously quipped: “Black holes are where God divided by zero.” So can you really have something out of nothing?

Africa and space: the continent starts to look skyward

2016-09-28-1475062701-1959927-Africa.jpg

Most do not associate Africa with the high-tech sphere of “space”. However, in recent years, many countries on the continent have woken up to the potential and usefulness of space technology. In sub-Saharan Africa, Nigeria and South Africa are leading the charge.

What have South Africa and Nigeria have achieved?

Both countries have recognised the usefulness of satellites for earth observation, telecommunications and advancing space science. They have funded and overseen a number of launches.

Nigeria’s space agency, the National Space Research and Development Agency, flies several multimillion-dollar satellites. South Africa launched its first satellite,SUNSAT, in 1999. A second, SumbandilaSat, was launched from Kazakhstan in 2009. A year later, South Africa formed its National Space Agency, SANSA. In 2013, the Cape Peninsula University of Technology launched South Africa’s first CubeSat – a type of nano-satellite, known as ZACUBE-1.

And in early 2015, the Kondor-E satellite built for South Africa in Russia was launched into orbit. It provides all-weather, day-and-night radar imagery for the South African military.

Earth observation satellites can collect data on areas of importance to a country’s economy and well-being such as agriculture, natural disasters and elections. Nigeria has used its satellites to monitor the oil-rich Niger Delta . Its satellites have also been used in election monitoring, providing crucial information about voters who may otherwise have been overlooked by poll workers.

Satellites have also proved useful in the fight against extremist groups such as Boko Haram. In 2014, Nigeria used its SatX and Sat 2 to monitor the group’s movements and to help find the 273 girls it had abducted.

There are limits to how useful satellites can be in these situations. Finding those kidnapped proved difficult because the satellites only have a 2.5 metre resolution. This means that you cannot trace individuals’ movement – you can only get maps of some locations at some particular times.

Also, because satellites move from one location to another, it means that it can take up to four days for one to get into position to take a particular photograph.

Amnesty International has pioneered the use of satellite images for human rights research and advocacy over the past six years using imagery from GeoEye and DigitalGlobe. It has also used satellite imagery to collect information about Boko Haram’s activities. Satellite photos taken in January showed the scale of the group’s atrocities after they attacked the towns of Baga and Doron Baga.

Satellite image of housing in Doro Baga taken in January after a Boko Haram attack.
Amnesty International

South Africa has harnessed earth observation satellite capability to do human settlement mapping. This has enabled it to monitor urbanisation by examining the growth of settlements and the transformation of housing. It provides useful data for service delivery projects and town planning.

As the largest space agency in southern Africa, SANSA frequently provides disaster monitoring and post-disaster assessment for South Africa and the region. Fires and floods are the most common natural disaster. It also monitors space weather effects and forecasts, which are crucial for aviation.

Other African nations are getting involved

Other growing sub-Saharan African countries have recently begun space programmes. Ghana launched its Space Science and Technology Centre in 2012. Kenya started its space programme in 2012. Kenya’s geographic position on the equator makes it ideal to launch satellites into geostationary and other orbits.

Oil- and mineral-rich Angola plans on launching its first satellite, AngoSat-1, into orbit by 2016. It is being built by a Russian consortium.

North African nations are no strangers to space and satellites. Algeria, which established its space agency in 2002, launched five disaster monitoring microsatellites in the 2000s, and an earth observation satellite in 2010. The latter was launched from Chennai, India.

Egypt, like South Africa, now has its own military satellite thanks to Russian assistance. Egypt launched its first satellite in 2007 for scientific research, but has run into recent concerns over human and financial resources.

Along with Sudan, Egypt has been at the forefront to establish a African space agency to combat some of the monetary and skills issues. The African Union Working Group on Space recently approved a draft African space policy and is currently developing a comprehensive space strategy.

However, even if African resources and skillsets are combined, an operational African Space Agency appears to be at least five to ten years away. Countries are focused on growing their own space agencies first. The project will also undoubtedly depend upon political relations between continental powerhouses Nigeria and South Africa, which are at a low.

Its effectiveness will depend on an African country developing domestic satellite launch capability, which is a huge necessary step forward in space exploration. Nevertheless, continued collaboration – such as SANSA working with the Zambia Remote Sensing Centre in a research project using satellite earth observation data for drought, soil and vegetation monitoring – will assist in speeding up the process towards a true continental space alliance.

Government space agencies aside, satellites over rural Africa can help provide Internet connectivity to hundreds of millions of African citizens. In June 2014, only 44% of the 410 million people who live in sub-Saharan Africa were living within 25km of an operational fibre optic network node. Facebook has reportedly been talking to satellite operator Avanti – which owns two broadband satellites over Africa – to help in this endeavour.

There is no question satellites and space exploration have socioeconomic benefits. Satellites can help find mineral resources. Satellites helped uncover an underground aquifer in Kenya’s driest region. The plethora of possible benefits is combined with other crucial hard to quantify advantages. These projects inspire youth, increase national pride and advance education.

But, space endeavours require capital. And for most African countries, capital is a limited commodity.

The Conversation

Scott Firsing, Research Fellow, International Relations, Monash University

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

El Nino floods could displace 100,000 in Ethiopia – U.N.

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In Ethiopia, a Hunger for Science

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UK helping Ethiopia to build Nuclear ‘weapons’

Concerns raised over UK export of nuclear weapon ‘ingredient’ to Ethiopia Reported by Judith Duffy, Herald Scotland THE UK Government has been urged to provide assurances of “strict scrutiny” over the export of material which can be used to manufacture nuclear weapons to a country with defence links to North Korea. Data shows that in

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