Story 2015-06-20

Washington breaks ground on its first animal overpass

by
in environment on (#BY9D)
story imageThis week will mark a first for Washington, as the state breaks ground in construction for their inaugural animal overpass. Interstate 90 in the Northwest cuts through the forests and mountains of the region, having long proved dangerous and fatal for wildlife. Now, the Department of Transportation will begin building a 150 foot-long structure freeway overpass designed specifically for all animals to endure safe passage, set to open in 2019.

While this is the first overpass, four underpasses are already open, and cameras have documented the transit of deer, coyotes, and otters, among others. It is presumed that all animals will look to the overpass, including black bears, cougars, and elk - though perhaps not at the same time. Two more overpasses are in the plans and perhaps more if there is enough money. Such structures have proven successful elsewhere, as more than 20,000 crossings a year from 30 species has been documented in Montana. Banff National Park in Canada has an extensive working of animal crossings, as seen above.

Millions of Samsung Galaxy devices remotely exploitable

by
in security on (#BW4T)
Hackers can easily break into Samsung Galaxy phones and spy on the entire life of their users. A vulnerability in software on the phones lets hackers look through the phones' camera, listen to the microphone, read incoming and outgoing texts and install apps, according to researchers. The hack works by exploiting a problem with the Samsung IME keyboard, a re-packaged version of SwiftKey that the company puts in Samsung Galaxy keyboards. That software periodically asks a server whether it needs updating - but hackers can easily get in the way of that request, pretend to be the server, and send malicious code to the phone.

Researchers have confirmed that the exploit works on versions of the Samsung Galaxy S6, the S6 Edge and Galaxy S4 Mini. But it may also be active on other Samsung Galaxy phones, since the keyboard software is installed on more devices. It doesn't matter if users are using the keyboard or not. Samsung was notified about the vulnerability in December last year. Samsung is reported to have provided a patch to mobile network operators, who must push Android updates out themselves. There is little that owners of the phone can do beyond avoiding insecure WiFi networks. The most worrying part about this is that users can't stop their device from checking for updates. It may be time to grant superuser access to the device owner by default.