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Encryption: A Key Guardian of Our Digital Future

By Chuck Brooks and Bill Bowers.

Every time you send a text, pay for groceries with your phone, or use your health site, you are relying on encryption. It’s an invisible shield that protects your data from prying eyes. Encryption is more than just a technological protection; it is the basis for digital trust.

Encryption is more than just safeguarding data; it is also about protecting people. It helps ensure privacy by protecting persons from spying and exploitation. And it is widely adopted to help ensure digital transaction security. For National Security it serves to protect key infrastructure and government communications. And it has a human rights function by providing citizens with peace of mind by ensuring the safety of their personal information. In places where surveillance is widespread, encryption can even defend free expression and opposition. It is a human right in this digital age.

In my book Inside Cyber: How AI, 5G, IoT, and Quantum Computing Will Transform Privacy and Security, I referred to encryption as the “linchpin of privacy and commerce in a connected society.” Without it, the digital economy would crumble under the strain of criminality, fraud, and spying.

Microsoft: Hackers abuse OAuth error flows to spread malware

Hackers are abusing the legitimate OAuth redirection mechanism to bypass phishing protections in email and browsers to take users to malicious pages.

The attacks target government and public-sector organizations with phishing links that prompt users to authenticate to a malicious application, Microsoft Defender researchers say.

With e-signature requests, Social Security notices, meeting invitations, password resets, or various financial and political topics that contain OAuth redirect URLs. Sometimes, the URLs are embedded in PDF files to evade detection.

National report supports measurement innovation to aid commercial fusion energy and enable new plasma technologies

To operate fusion systems safely and reliably, scientists need to monitor plasma fuel conditions and measure properties like temperature and density that can affect fusion reactions. Making these measurements requires specialized sensors known as diagnostics.

A new report sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) recommends increased investment in America’s fusion diagnostic capabilities, a critical new technology that could provide DOE and Congress with information to speed up the delivery of commercial fusion power plants.

The report was produced as part of the DOE’s 2024 Basic Research Needs Workshop on Measurement Innovation, sponsored by the DOE’s Office of Science’s Fusion Energy Sciences (FES) program. It was chaired by Luis Delgado-Aparicio, head of advanced projects at the DOE’s Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL), and co-chaired by Sean Regan, a distinguished scientist and the director of the Experimental Division at the University of Rochester’s Laboratory for Laser Energetics.

Chinese cyberspies breached dozens of telecom firms, govt agencies

Google’s Threat Intelligence Group (GTIG), Mandiant, and partners disrupted a global espionage campaign attributed to a suspected Chinese threat actor that used SaaS API calls to hide malicious traffic in attacks targeting telecom and government networks.

The campaign has been active since at least 2023 and has impacted 53 organizations in 42 countries, with suspected infections in at least 20 more countries.

The initial access vector is unknown, but the researchers note that the threat actor, which Google tracks internally as UNC2814, has previously gained access by exploiting flaws in web servers and edge systems.

Spain arrests suspected hacktivists for DDoSing govt sites

Spanish authorities have arrested four alleged members of a hacktivist group believed to have carried out cyberattacks targeting government ministries, political parties, and various public institutions.

The group, which called itself “Anonymous Fénix” and claimed they were affiliated with the Anonymous hacker collective, conducted distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks against targets in Spain and several South American countries, according to the Spanish Civil Guard.

The first attacks occurred in April 2023 and peaked after the flash floods that struck Valencia in late October 2024, when the group’s members attacked multiple government websites, claiming Spanish authorities were responsible for the deaths and destruction caused by the storm.

Advances and Integrations of Computer-Assisted Planning,… : Operative Neurosurgery

ONSNew ONSReview Advances and Integrations of Computer-Assisted Planning, Artificial Intelligence, and Predictive Modeling Tools for Laser Interstitial Thermal Therapy in Neurosurgical Oncology by Warman et al Johns Hopkins Medicine Congress of Neurological Surgeons (CNS) Isaac Yang.

E to surrounding healthy tissue, LiTT offers promising therapeutic outcomes for both newly diagnosed and recurrent tumors. However, challenges such as postprocedural edema, unpredictable heat diffusion near blood vessels and ventricles in real time underscore the need for improved planning and monitoring. Incorporating artificial intelligence (AI) presents a viable solution to many of these obstacles. AI has already demonstrated effectiveness in optimizing surgical trajectories, predicting seizure-free outcomes in epilepsy cases, and generating heat distribution maps to guide real-time ablation. This technology could be similarly deployed in neurosurgical oncology to identify patients most likely to benefit from LiTT, refine trajectory planning, and predict tissue-specific heat responses.

Japanese government panel endorses Sumitomo Pharma’s iPS-derived treatment for Parkinson’s

The expert council of the Japanese Ministry of Health has approved two regenerative medicine drugs based on induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) — a cure for Parkinson’s disease and heart failure. If the health minister approves the experts’ decision, Japan will become the first country in the world to allow the commercial sale of such products — almost 20 years after the discovery of the technology itself.

Japan’s health ministry said on Thursday a panel of specialists had endorsed Sumitomo Pharma’s iPS cell-derived treatment for Parkinson’s disease, paving the way for the world’s first medical products based on the technology.

Researcher skeptical of ‘Havana syndrome’ tested secret weapon on himself

“Working in strict secrecy, a government scientist in Norway built a machine capable of emitting powerful pulses of microwave energy and, in an effort to prove such devices are harmless to humans, in 2024 tested it on himself. He suffered neurological symptoms similar to those of ”Havana syndrome,” the unexplained malady that has struck hundreds of U.S. spies and diplomats around the world.

The bizarre story, described by four people familiar with the events, is the latest wrinkle in the decade-long quest to find the causes of Havana syndrome, whose sufferers experience long-lasting effects including cognitive challenges, dizziness and nausea. The U.S. government calls the events Anomalous Health Incidents (AHIs).

The secret test in Norway has not been previously reported. The Norwegian government told the CIA about the results, two of the people said, prompting at least two visits in 2024 to Norway by Pentagon and White House officials.

The CIA investigated a Norwegian government experiment with a pulsed-energy machine in which a researcher built and tested a ”Havana syndrome” device on himself.

The Deflationary Singularity: Why Everything is Going to ZERO w/ Salim Ismail

The rapid advancement of technologies, particularly AI, is driving the world towards an economic singularity where the marginal cost of essentials approaches zero, leading to a deflationary future and a potential transformation of traditional systems and societies ##

## Questions to inspire discussion.

Education Transformation.

🎓 Q: How will AI reduce education time while improving effectiveness?

A: AI will customize education to each child’s learning style, reducing daily learning time to 1 hour per day while delivering 5 times more effective learning compared to traditional methods, with costs falling to zero within 3–5 years and breaking the university industry that currently creates massive student debt.

Healthcare Revolution.

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