Hasta La Gadget!

The Journal editorial page accused ProPublica of misleading readers in a story that hadn’t yet been published.

The New York City Department of Education has become the latest organization to disclose it had private data stolen as part of the far-reaching MOVEit file transfer software hack. In an email sent to parents on Sunday, the agency said the personal information of approximately 45,000 students, including in some cases social security numbers and birth dates, had recently been compromised. The Education Department said the personal information of staff was also accessed but did not share how many teachers and other personnel were affected.

“The safety and security of our students and staff, including their personal information and data, is of the utmost importance for the New York City Department of Education. Our top priority is determining exactly which confidential information was exposed, and the specific impact for each affected individual,” the department said Sunday. “When that determination is made, we will begin preparing notifications to individuals whose confidential information was compromised. Along with the notification, individuals will be offered access to an identity monitoring service.”

The Education Department is one of many organizations affected by the MOVEit hack. Clop, a ransomware gang with suspected pro-Russian ties, claimed responsibility for the cyberattack in early June. The group took advantage of a zero-day vulnerability in the enterprise file transfer software to breach the servers of “hundreds of companies,” including the largest US pension fund. The scale of the New York City Department of Education breach is small compared to some of the other victims caught up in the hack but is notable for including the personal information of minors. In an interview with Bleeping Computer, the Clop gang claimed it would erase any data it obtained from governments, the military and children’s hospitals. It’s unclear if the group includes student data in that final category.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/clop-ransomware-gang-obtained-personal-data-of-45000-new-york-city-students-in-moveit-hack-204655820.html?src=rss

TV shows getting big to the point where they warrant a full-on movie doesn’t always happen. But when it does, it’s significant in some kind of way, even if it’s just the fact that the creators involved managed to pull it off in the first place. And in the case of the movie for CBS’ Twilight Zone, its significance is…

Read more…

NASA has achieved a technological milestone that could one day play an important role in missions to the Moon and beyond. This week, the space agency revealed (via Space.com) that the International Space Station’s Environmental Control and Life Support System (ECLSS) is recycling 98 percent of all water astronauts bring onboard the station. Functionally, you can imagine the system operating in a way similar to the Stillsuits described in Frank Herbert’s Dune. One part of the ECLSS uses “advanced dehumidifiers” to capture moisture the station’s crew breaths and sweat out as they go about their daily tasks.

Another subsystem, the imaginatively named “Urine Processor Assembly,” recovers what astronauts pee with the help of vacuum distillation. According to NASA, the distillation process produces water and a urine brine that still contains reclaimable H20. The agency recently began testing a new device that can extract what water remains in the brine, and it’s thanks to that system that NASA observed a 98 percent water recovery rate on the ISS, where previously the station was recycling about 93 to 94 percent of the water astronauts were bringing aboard.

“This is a very important step forward in the evolution of life support systems,” said NASA’s Christopher Brown, who is part of the team that manages the International Space Station’s life support systems. “Let’s say you collect 100 pounds of water on the station. You lose two pounds of that and the other 98 percent just keeps going around and around. Keeping that running is a pretty awesome achievement.”

If the thought of someone else drinking their urine is causing you to gag, fret not. “The processing is fundamentally similar to some terrestrial water distribution systems, just done in microgravity,” said Jill Williamson, NASA’s ECLSS water subsystems manager. “The crew is not drinking urine; they are drinking water that has been reclaimed, filtered, and cleaned such that it is cleaner than what we drink here on Earth.”

According to Williamson, systems like the ECLSS will be critical as NASA conducts more missions beyond Earth’s orbit. “The less water and oxygen we have to ship up, the more science that can be added to the launch vehicle,” Williamson said. “Reliable, robust regenerative systems mean the crew doesn’t have to worry about it and can focus on the true intent of their mission.”

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/nasa-is-recycling-98-percent-of-astronaut-pee-and-sweat-on-the-iss-into-drinkable-water-184332789.html?src=rss

Splitting films into multiple parts is still a fairly recent phenomenon, and 2023 has multiple “Chapter One” movies playing in theaters. In addition to Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, the first movie in Zack Snyder’s Rebel Moon saga is coming in December, Fast X was its own “Part One” back in May, and next month…

Read more…