Welcome to today’s edition of the Spiceworks Snap!
It’s your daily dose of security and tech news, in brief, along with a mix of other odd or interesting things that might come up. We’re glad you came.
Now, let’s jump right in…
Image by Suzanne from Spiceworks (AI-generated)
Flashback: July 18, 1968: Intel Founded (Read more HERE.)
Security News:
• Critical NVIDIA Container Toolkit Flaw Allows Privilege Escalation on AI Cloud Services (Read more HERE.)
• Google Sues Operators of 10-Million-Device Badbox 2.0 Botnet (Read more HERE.)
• CISA Issues Advisories on Critical ICS Vulnerabilities Across Multiple Sectors (Read more HERE.)
• New Phobos and 8base ransomware decryptor recover files for free (Read more HERE.)
• Microsoft Moving Towards a Password-Free Future (Read more HERE.)
Something Spacy
LIGO Just Saw The Most Massive Black Hole Merger Ever Detected
According to ExtremeTech:
"The Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO) has seen over 300 black hole mergers in its short time in operation, and now it’s seen an event so large—and so rare—that it challenges the extent of modern astronomical theory. The event was between two black holes in the “intermediate” size range—that is, bigger than a so-called stellar mass black hole, and smaller than a so-called supermassive black hole.
Black holes in this intermediate range are thought to be uncommon, since stars in this size range tend to expel most of their mass in supernova events and fail to collapse into black holes. So, for a black hole in this range to exist, it likely had to begin smaller and slowly gobble up mass to grow. In a sense, this makes them proto-supermassive black holes. Because proto-supermassive black holes are rare, an interaction between two of them is even more surprising.
These two black holes merged into a new black hole roughly 225 times the mass of the Sun—but only roughly. The issue is that the two black holes were both spinning rapidly when they met. This confounding attribute makes calculations of their masses less accurate. . . .
LIGO is Earth-based, meaning that the space between the detection components is, maximally, the diameter of the Earth. That’s nowhere near large enough to detect the waves coming off of objects like Sagittarius A.
Thankfully, there’s already a major European space project underway to launch the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna, or LISA. This would put the detectors a million kilometers apart, allowing LISA to detect waves that dwarf those just seen by LIGO."
Learn more HERE.
Something Odd
You Can Now Buy the Keyboard From ‘Severance,’ but It’ll Cost You
According to Lifehacker:
"Good morning, refiners! As you sit down at your desks today, I hope you’re willing to ignore the vaguely dystopian vibes all around you to focus on how awesome and retro your computers are.
No, but seriously, I’m a little jealous of Mark S. for getting to spend his days typing away on such a magnificent, mechanical beast. The hefty looking slates from Severance maybe aren’t enough to make me want to get severed myself, but I do love a good trackball, and his keyboard has one built in.
If you’ve got the same kind of brain sickness that I do, then good news, you can buy the keyboard from Severance right now. It’ll take a hefty donation to Kier first, but hey, at least you get to keep your memories.
Launching soon via Kickstarter, but already available via the company’s own website, Atomic Keyboard is selling a convincing replica of the keyboard from Severance."
Learn more HERE.
Something Interesting
Clever DIYer Turns Old Memory Chips Into a CPU
According to ExtremeTech:
"If you have bins of old PC hardware sitting around—or if you just like DIY projects—this one’s for you. An intrepid YouTuber built himself a functioning processor using a collection of EPROMs, which are outdated memory modules. He soldered parts by hand. He connected hundreds of wires, and he created nearly 2,000 lines of code. Then he capped it off by doing the most logical thing a techie could do with a system: He played The Matrix.
Though the experiment began with him poking around with some old memory to see what it was capable of, it blossomed into a project that took three months and hundreds of hours of work, according to YouTuber Majsterkowanie i nie tylko, or MINT.
“[The project] started with collecting a large amount of old memory chips,” MINT said in the YouTube video. “I started experimenting with them and quickly realized that you can make some really cool things out of these seemingly useless old things.” . . .
MINT went on to create a memory and I/O board, noting that “it allows the processor to communicate with the outside world.” He showed the top of the board and then flipped it to reveal what looked like gray spaghetti: the wires he soldered by hand to connect the components.
Eventually, MINT had to write about 1,800 lines of code to get the CPU up and running. . . . The EPROMINT actually ended up being more capable than old 8-bit CPUs, though in a much larger footprint."
Learn more HERE.
Did You Know?
A secretive Nintendo online playtest has applications opening today.
(Read more HERE.)
Tip of the Day
Be careful with axes.
(Read more HERE.)
IT Zodiac Sign of the Day
Sign of the Circuit Board
(Read more HERE.)
Lucky Hex for the Day
dccf2d9cd
(Read more HERE.)
What was the most interesting story today? Vote in our poll below.
- Flashback 1968: Intel Founded
- NVIDIA Toolkit Flaw Allows Privilege Escalation on AI Cloud Services
- Google Sues Operators of 10-Million-Device Badbox 2.0 Botnet
- CISA Issues Advisories on ICS Vulnerabilities Across Multiple Sectors
- New Phobos and 8base ransomware decryptor recover files for free
- Microsoft Moving Towards a Password-Free Future
- LIGO Just Saw The Most Massive Black Hole Merger Ever Detected
- You Can Now Buy the Keyboard From ‘Severance,’ but It’ll Cost You
- Clever DIYer Turns Old Memory Chips Into a CPU
- Did You Know? A secretive Nintendo online playtest has applications opening today.
- IT Zodiac: Sign of the Circuit Board
- Lucky hex: dccf2d9cd
- None: leave suggestions below
Missed a day? If so, check out previous editions of Snap! HERE.
