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A Nice Little Cryptography Primer

By itss | 28/06/2021
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Pun Intended.

Category: Technology
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  • Japan Issues Tsunami Warning After Magnitude 7.6 Earthquake
    by msmash on 08/12/2025 at 4:57 pm

    A powerful magnitude 7.6 earthquake has shaken Japan, prompting tsunami warnings and orders for residents to evacuate. From a report: A tsunami as high as 3 metres (10ft) could hit the country's north-eastern coast after the earthquake occurred offshore at 11.15pm local time (2.15pm GMT), the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) said. Tsunami warnings were issued for the prefectures of Hokkaido, Aomori and Iwate, and tsunamis from 20-50cm (7-18in) high were observed at several ports, JMA said. The epicentre of the quake was 50 miles (80km) off the coast of Aomori prefecture, at a depth of 30 miles, the agency added. On Japan's one-to-seven scale of seismic intensity, the tremor registered as an "upper six" in Aomori prefecture -- a quake strong enough to make it impossible to keep standing or move without crawling. In such tremors, most heavy furniture can collapse and wall tiles and windowpanes are damaged in many buildings. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

  • How a Cryptocurrency Helps Criminals Launder Money and Evade Sanctions
    by msmash on 08/12/2025 at 4:05 pm

    An investigation has revealed how stablecoins -- cryptocurrencies pegged to the US dollar that exist largely beyond traditional financial oversight -- have become a practical tool for criminals and sanctioned individuals to move funds across borders almost instantly and convert them back into spendable money, often without detection. A Chainalysis report from February estimated that up to $25 billion in illicit transactions involved stablecoins last year. A New York Times reporter tested the system by converting $40 cash at a crypto ATM in Weehawken, New Jersey, into stablecoins and then using a Telegram bot to generate a Visa payment card without any identity verification. The card-issuing service, WantToPay, is incorporated in Hong Kong and led by a Russian entrepreneur in Thailand; it advertises to Russians blocked by US sanctions. Britain last month arrested members of a billion-dollar money laundering network that had purchased a bank in Kyrgyzstan to convert proceeds from drug trafficking and human trafficking into Tether, the most popular stablecoin. Further reading: China's Central Bank Flags Money Laundering and Fraud Concerns With Stablecoins. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

  • The Accounting Uproar Over How Fast an AI Chip Depreciates
    by msmash on 08/12/2025 at 3:30 pm

    Tech giants including Meta, Alphabet, Microsoft and Amazon have all extended the estimated useful lives of their servers and AI equipment over the past five years, sparking a debate among investors about whether these accounting changes are artificially inflating profits. Meta this year increased its depreciation timeline for most servers and network assets to 5.5 years, up from four to five years previously and as little as three years in 2020. The company said the change reduced its depreciation expense by $2.3 billion for the first nine months of 2025. Alphabet and Microsoft now use six-year periods, up from three in 2020. Amazon extended to six years by 2024 but cut back to five years this year for some servers and networking equipment. Michael Burry, the investor portrayed in "The Big Short," called extending useful lives "one of the more common frauds of the modern era" in an article last month. Meta's total depreciation expense for the nine-month period was almost $13 billion against pretax profit exceeding $60 billion. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

  • Paramount Skydance Launches Hostile Bid For WBD After Netflix Wins Bidding War
    by msmash on 08/12/2025 at 2:30 pm

    Paramount Skydance is launching a hostile bid to buy Warner Bros. Discovery after it lost out to Netflix in a months-long bidding war for the legacy assets, the company said Monday. CNBC: Paramount will go straight to WBD shareholders with an all-cash, $30-per-share offer. That's the same bid WBD rejected last week, according to people familiar with the bid who asked not to be named because the details were private. The offer is backstopped with equity financing from the Ellison family and the private-equity firm RedBird Capital and $54 billion of debt commitments from Bank of America, Citi and Apollo Global Management. "We're really here to finish what we started," Ellison told CNBC's "Squawk on the Street" Monday. "We put the company in play." On Friday, Netflix announced a deal to acquire WBD's studio and streaming assets for $72 billion. David Ellison-run Paramount had been bidding for the entirety of Warner Bros. Discovery, including those assets and the company's TV networks like CNN and TNT Sports. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

  • Amazon Pitches AI Tools as Co-Workers While Axing Jobs
    by msmash on 08/12/2025 at 2:00 pm

    Amazon used its annual re:Invent cloud conference in Las Vegas to pitch a vision of the workplace where AI agents serve not as tools but as "co-workers" and "teammates," even as the company proceeds with eliminating roughly 14,000 corporate jobs in its second major workforce reduction in recent years. AWS CEO Matt Garman predicted on stage that autonomous "frontier agents" could represent 80 to 90% of enterprise AI value. Colleen Aubrey, senior vice president of applied AI solutions, described a future where companies manage "teams" of agents capable of working autonomously for hours or days while humans shift into supervisory roles. Amazon has already deployed agentic systems across tens of thousands of its own engineers to triage outages and propose fixes. The company calls these systems "teammates" rather than tools. CEO Andy Jassy has warned that AI would shrink Amazon's workforce, though a spokesperson attributed the current cuts to "reducing bureaucracy" and "removing layers" rather than AI deployment. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

  • Idaho Lab Produces World's First Molten Salt Fuel for Nuclear Reactors
    by EditorDavid on 08/12/2025 at 12:34 pm

    America's Energy Department runs a research lab in Idaho — and this week announced successful results from a ground-breaking experiment. "This is the first time in history that chloride-based molten salt fuel has been produced for a fast reactor," says Bill Phillips, the lab's technical lead for salt synthesis. He calls it "a major milestone for American innovation and a clear signal of our national commitment to advanced nuclear energy." Unlike traditional reactors that use solid fuel rods and water as a coolant, most molten salt reactors rely on liquid fuel — a mixture of salts containing fissile material. This design allows for higher operating temperatures, better fuel efficiency, and enhanced safety. It also opens the door to new applications, including compact nuclear systems for ships and remote installations. "The Molten Chloride Fast Reactor represents a paradigm shift in the nuclear fuel cycle, and the Molten Chloride Reactor Experiment (MCRE) will directly inform the commercialization of that reactor," said Jeff Latkowski, senior vice president of TerraPower and program director for the Molten Chloride Fast Reactor. "Working with world-leading organizations such as INL to successfully synthesize this unique new fuel demonstrates how real progress in Gen IV nuclear is being made together." "The implications for the maritime industry are significant," said Don Wood, senior technical advisor for MCRE. "Molten salt reactors could provide ships with highly efficient, low-maintenance nuclear power, reducing emissions and enabling long-range, uninterrupted travel. The technology could spark the rise of a new nuclear sector — one that is mobile, scalable and globally transformative. More details from America's Energy Department: MCRE will require a total of 72 to 75 batches of fuel salt to go critical, making it the largest fuel production effort at INL since the operations of Experimental Breeder Reactor-II more than 30 years ago. The full-scale demonstration of the new fuel salt synthesis line for MCRE was made possible by a breakthrough in 2024. After years of testing, the team found the right recipe to convert 95 percent of uranium metal feedstock into 18 kilograms of uranium chloride fuel salt in only a few hours — a process that previously took more than a week to complete... After delivering the first batch of fuel salt this fall, the team anticipates delivering four additional batches by March of 2026. MCRE is anticipated to run in 2028 for approximately six months at INL in the Laboratory for Operation and Testing (LOTUS) in the United States test bed. "With the first batch of fuel salt successfully created at INL, researchers will now conduct testing to better understand the physics of the process, with a goal of moving the process to a commercial scale over the next decade," says Cowboy State Daily. Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader schwit1 for sharing the article. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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