Peter's Quasi-Daily Blah-g

Nothing’s ultra-cheap subbrand CMF is restricting users’ independent access to the $200 Phone 1’s depth sensor. It’s a mere 2 MP lens and one of only two sensors on the phone’s exterior, but some users claimed it gave them Superman-like X-ray vision to see through thin plastic or even some bedsheets. 

The CMF Phone 1 has proved popular with the budget-conscious and DIY crowd for the phone’s low price and easily customizable shell. It has a much more constrained look than Nothing’s other products; it features some of the same software featured on Nothing’s recent Phone (2a). It sports a 50 MP primary camera, though two sensors are on the phone’s screw-on chassis. The second is a depth sensor, though it’s not something users can physically access on their own. One YouTuber named Maxwell Lu posted a video purportedly showing how the sensor could see through the rear panel of his TV remote, a beanbag, and some bedsheets.

Nothing’s co-founder and head of marketing, Akis Evangelidis, took to Twitter to confirm the depth sensor’s see-through capabilities. He claimed the depth sensor normally works with the main sensor to create large depth-of-field effects when taking photos in Portrait Mode. Since this sensor doesn’t have an infrared light filter, it could see through some semi-transparent objects. This works best against thin black plastic, though it can see through some other synthetic materials.

Evangelidis said they were updating its phones to remove access to the depth sensor via third-party apps. That was supposed to come in an update sometime this week. Gizmodo reached out to Nothing to confirm if the update has hit users’ phones, and we’ll update this post if we learn more.

Gizmodo could not independently confirm whether this worked as shown. Lu claimed he managed to access the sensor by running a third-party camera app in developer mode. This is very, very similar to a similar controversy with the OnePlus 8 Pro phone back in 2020. That device also had an infrared camera filter feature similar to the CMF Phone 1’s secondary sensor. 

Accessing that camera filter through a third-party app enabled it to see through some thin plastic devices, such as TV remotes. However, it wasn’t possible to do X-ray vision to look through people’s clothes unless you held them very close and they were wearing very thin garments made with some truly off-brand materials.

So it’s not like anybody with a CMF Phone 1 was ever capable of using the depth sensor to become the next breed of public creep, but it was an unintended use for the phone. In that same Twitter thread, Evangelidis complained that “people are trying to come as us from every angle” because “they aren’t comfortable with our success.” 

A group calling itself “NullBulge” published a 1.1-TB trove of data late last week that it claims is a dump of Disney’s internal Slack archive. The data allegedly includes every message and file from nearly 10,000 channels, including unreleased projects, code, images, login credentials, and links to internal websites and APIs.

The hackers claim they got access to the data from a Disney insider and named the alleged collaborator. A person with that name who lists Disney as their current employer did not return WIRED’s request for comment. Whether the hackers actually had inside help remains unconfirmed; they could also have plausibly used info-stealing malware to compromise an employee’s account. Disney did not confirm the breach or return multiple requests for comment about the legitimacy of the stolen data. A Disney spokesperson told the Wall Street Journal that the company “is investigating this matter.”

The data, which appears to have been first published on Thursday, was posted on BreachForums and later taken down, but it is still live on mirror sites.

Roei Sherman, field CTO at Mitiga Security, says he isn’t surprised that a giant like Disney could have a breach of this scale and significance. “Companies are getting breached all the time, especially data theft from the cloud and software-as-a-service platforms,” he says. “It is just easier for attackers and holds bigger rewards."

Sherman, who reviewed the data in the leak, added that “all of it looks legit—a lot of URLs, conversations of employees, some credentials, and other content.”

The NullBulge site says that it is a “hacktivist group protecting artists’ rights and ensuring fair compensation for their work.” The group claims it hacks only targets that violate one of three “sins.” First: “We do not condone any form of promoting crypto currencies or crypto related products/services.” Second: “We believe AI-generated artwork harms the creative industry and should be discouraged.” And third: “Any theft from Patreons, other supportive artist platforms, or artists in general.”

The group’s “wall of knowledge,” where it lists its data dumps, summarizes the philosophy: “What better way to punish someone than getting them in trouble eh?” Previously, the group targeted the Indian content creator Chief Shifter with a “first shaming.” Then in May, NullBulge posted a “second punch” and teased the Disney breach. “Here is one I never thought I would get this quickly … Disney. Yes, that Disney,” NullBuldge wrote, suggesting that the group may be a single person. “The attack has only just started, but we have some good shit. To show we are serious, here is 2 files from inside.”

In addition to the alleged Slack data, NullBulge posted what appears to be detailed information about the individual whom they claim provided the insider access and data. The leak includes medical records and other personally identifying information, plus the alleged contents of the alleged Disney employee’s 1Password password manager. NullBulge claims to have doxxed the individual in retaliation for cutting off communication and access, although whether the employee actually collaborated with the group in the first place remains unconfirmed.

Security researchers have long warned about corporate Slack accounts as a treasure trove for attackers if compromised. The popular team communication platform is owned by Salesforce and is used by an array of prominent organizations, including IBM, Capital One, Uber, and Disney rival Paramount.

“Disney will probably be targeted a lot more now by opportunistic threat actors,” Sherman warns.

I remember my college dorm’s basement had an elaborate recycling area with various trash cans. One was a slim, long, transparent container with a small opening at the top. It was a dedicated trash can for batteries. I never saw it filled up in the one year I lived there, which made me wonder just what my classmates were doing with all their old batteries. I assumed they just tossed their dead Duracells into the trash with little regard for the amount of e-waste already in the world.

This morning, I was very happy to see the announcement of an upcoming battery recycling program funded by the US Department of Energy. This $14 million program, introduced by the Biden Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, aims to install more than 1,000 consumer battery collection points across the US at Staples and Battery Plus stores.

The collection points will serve as drop-off sites where people can safely dump their consumer tech batteries or devices containing them. According to the Wired article, these devices include rechargeable batteries, cell phones, laptops, vacuums, and smartwatches. It specifically points out that EV batteries are not part of the list.

The announcement explains that these devices typically contain precious minerals like nickel, lithium, and graphite, generally sourced from China. This step aims to reuse those minerals, shift towards clean energy manufacturing, and limit imports from China.

Emily Mullin at Wired explains that the battery recycling plan goes beyond reusing its components. It becomes even more necessary when you realize that dumping lithium-ion in a trash can is far from safe anyway. With all that flammable chemicals inside, it’s like a ticking time bomb waiting to go off.

Interestingly, they also highlight that recycling them will still be a considerable challenge despite introducing battery collection points. It’s a task and a half to extract the precious minerals from these batteries. They go as far as to say that “processing these materials can be more expensive than mining them fresh.” Not only is the task difficult to undertake, but it’s also unsafe and very costly.

China is planning its first mission to impact an asteroid in the name of planetary defense. The mission will serve a dual purpose: One craft will impact the asteroid while its partner observes the space rock to learn more about the solar system and its formation.

The China National Space Administration (CNSA) mission may have already selected its target — the near-Earth object (NEO) 2015 XF261, a nearly 100-foot-wide (30 meters) asteroid.

According to the small-body database managed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), 2015 XF261 last came relatively close to Earth just this week, on Tuesday (July 9), when it passed within 31 million miles (50 million kilometers) of our planet. The space rock was traveling at around 26,000 mph (42,000 kph), roughly 30 times faster than the speed of sound.

The nonprofit Planetary Society reported that this is the latest development in asteroid impact mission planning for China, a country that has recently become increasingly interested in planetary defense.

Related: 2 asteroids just zipped by Earth, and NASA caught footage of the action

The Planetary Society pointed to a recent paper in the Journal of Deep Space Exploration that discussed the proposed 2015 XF261-targeting mission.

"For China’s first near-Earth asteroid defense on-orbit verification mission, a defensive disposal demonstration will be carried out on the potential risk of near-Earth asteroids impacting the Earth," the study states. 

"The scientific objectives of the on-orbit verification of asteroid defense and its specific scientific exploration mission will be designed and proposed," it adds. "A scientific payload demand analysis will be carried out, and payload configuration plans and exploration mission requirements will be proposed to provide a decision-making basis for the future implementation of asteroid defense missions."

Following the imapct of DART

The planned mission follows in the footsteps of a groundbreaking NASA planetary defense mission, the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART), which in September 2022 impacted the smaller body in the Didymos binary asteroid system.

The impact of the 1,260-pound (570 kilograms) DART spacecraft on the moonlet Dimorphos, which orbits a larger 2,560-foot (780 m) asteroid called Didymos, at 14,000 mph (22,500 kph) was deemed a success. The impact shifted the orbit of the two asteroids and demonstrated that, with enough lead time, a kinetic impactor could divert a smaller asteroid from an impending collision with Earth.

In October 2024, the European Space Agency (ESA) will launch the Hera spacecraft to the Didymos system to further assess the impact of the DART mission. Hera is expected to rendezvous with Dimorphos and Didymos in 2026.

China’s two-spacecraft 2015 XF261 mission will combine the work of DART and Hera, impacting the NEO and observing its target for between six months and a year after the collision. 

Asteroids like 2015 XF261 are thought to have been created from material left over after the formation of the planets around 4.6 billion years ago. As such, they offer the opportunity to study "unspoiled" material that was the building blocks of the solar system’s worlds, including Earth.

The CNSA mission is expected to launch before 2030, and the final choice of its NEO target will depend on its launch schedule. In April 2024, SINA Technology reported that Wu Weiren, director of China’s Deep Space Exploration Laboratory (DSEL), set a more firm date for the mission’s launch, stating it would blast off in or around 2027.

2015 XF261 is set to pass Earth in March and May 2027, but the asteroid will still be 20 million miles (32 million km) from our planet at the time, and the CNSA will need time to reach it. DART hit Dimorphos when its system was just 7 million miles from Earth, and that journey took 10 months to complete.

The CNSA could get another shot at punching 2015 XF261 in April 2028, when the asteroid will be around 13 million miles (21 million km) away. But the best opportunity for such a mission seems to come in April 2029, when the asteroid will come to within 4.2 million miles (6.8 million km) of Earth. Another good chance will come in April 2030, when 2015 XF261 approaches Earth within around 4.4 million miles (7.1 million km).

This isn’t the first asteroid impact mission proposed by CNSA. In 2023, the Chinese space agency seemed to be planning a planetary defense test to launch in 2025. 

This mission would have set its sights on a different asteroid, known as 2019 VL5. It’s not known why the CNSA seems to have switched from this NEO, which is also about 100 feet (30 m) wide, to 2015 XF261.

A major new study projects that members of Generation X—people born between 1965 and 1980—have a higher rate of developing cancer than their parents and grandparents. And researchers are struggling to identify the reasons why cases are rising. Could it be related to changing diets or exercise habits? Are cancers themselves evolving to be wilier and more pernicious? The new research offers some possible clues.

The model study, published in JAMA Network Open, sifted through cancer surveillance data collected between 1992 and 2018 on 3.8 million people in the U.S. Researchers looked for patterns in invasive cancer cases—those that have spread beyond the original site—within and among Generation X, Baby Boomers (people born in 1946–1964), the Silent Generation (1928–1945) and the Greatest Generation (1908–1927). The findings suggest that medical advances against some cancers—gained by better screening, prevention and treatment—have been overtaken by startling increases in other cancers, including colon, rectal, thyroid, ovarian and prostate cancers. This troubling trend has researchers baffled and scrambling for answers.

“It’s really something that has been observed in multiple studies, and now I think it really is an undeniable fact that we’re seeing cancer rise in younger people,” says Andrew Chan, a gastroenterologist at Massachusetts General Hospital and a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, who was not involved in the new research. “The study really reinforced what we already know but also provided us some additional insights into the trends within particular cancer sites and more detail on the rates of increase within individual groups.”

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Social generations, also called “birth cohorts,” are one useful way of grouping people, explains Philip Rosenberg, a co-author of the study and a principal investigator at the National Cancer Institute (NCI). Tracking cancer rates this way can help researchers line up trends over time with certain parallel events, such as a new risk factor or carcinogenic exposure, or population-wide lifestyle or policy changes. This could provide insight into why certain cancers are developing at higher rates among different age groups—and, hopefully, offer ideas for prevention tactics. “We can finally kind of look at these patterns with a higher resolution that gets at different aspects of the story,” Rosenberg says. “One of the things we were able to do that was really novel was to sort of untangle that under-50 group and really assign the trends to birth cohorts.”

Previous studies have reported that people younger than age 50 are experiencing higher rates of certain types of cancers, particularly those of the digestive system. The rate of colorectal cancer, for example, has been steadily increasing in people younger than age 50, despite incidence rates declining overall in the U.S. The new study showed similar growing trends among Generation X, but “the surprise for me was that it wasn’t just colon and rectum cancers,” Rosenberg says. “It was the number of cancers that was a big surprise.”

Rosenberg and his co-author, NCI scientist Adalberto Miranda-Filho, predict in the new study that members of Generation X will experience increases in the rates of several cancers: those of the thyroid, kidney, rectum and colon. Additionally, women will experience higher rates of pancreatic, ovarian and endometrial cancers, and men will see increases in prostate cancers and leukemia. Generation X men are forecasted to have lower rates of liver and gallbladder cancers, while women are expected to see decreases in cervical cancer. All members of Generation X will also see declining lung cancer rates compared with those of previous generations.

Some of these trends have clearer explanations than others. For instance, improvements against cervical cancer can be linked to more effective screening, while lower lung cancer rates are attributed to significant reductions in tobacco use since the 1960s. “Smoking was a huge driver of not only lung cancer but many [other] cancers,” Rosenberg says. Cancer-detection measures, such as screenings and genetic profiling, have improved and become more widely available—but many researchers insist this isn’t pushing the new overall rates higher. “People are being diagnosed not because [cancers are] being picked up through better diagnostics but because they’re becoming, unfortunately, clinically and symptomatically apparent, and that is something that is not a feature of improved diagnostics,” Chan says. In other words, more cancers are being detected at advanced, invasive stages. “The pace and the magnitude of how much the incidence has risen couldn’t be explained by simply earlier detection.”

Figuring out what is driving rates up has been a more difficult question to answer. Several research groups, including the American Cancer Society and National Cancer Institute, point to diet, exercise and obesity as well-established risk factors that could partly explain the rising rates. These factors are “undeniable,” says Chan, who co-leads an international collaborative group called PROSPECT, which investigates early-onset cancer. And, he adds, “there’s clearly other factors that are driving this rise that have yet to be identified.”

In the case of early-onset colorectal cancer, gastroenterologists including Chan and Kimmie Ng, director of the Young-Onset Colorectal Cancer Center at Dana-Farber Brigham Cancer Center, have been treating more people who do not have any family history of cancer, hereditary conditions, or underlying health issues or lifestyle choices that would raise their risk. “Many of them are not obese. They live very healthy and active lifestyles and they eat healthily, yet they are still being diagnosed with very advanced stages of colon and rectal cancer,” Ng says. “And we are now also starting to see an uptick in very young people coming in with pancreatic cancer, bile duct cancer, appendix cancer—all of these different [gastrointestinal] cancers.”

Researchers are investigating other leads. Changes in food preparation, such as an increase in processed foods and meals, might be a factor—and so might environmental or chemical exposures, such as those from pollution and plastics, says Otis Brawley, a professor of oncology at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Brawley also speculates that changes in the gut microbiome, partly from overuse of antibiotics, might influence colon, rectal and other gastrointestinal cancers. “The bacteria that inhabit people’s colons are different today than they were 60, 70 years ago,” Brawley says. “We know that the stool microbiome is related to things like ulcerative colitis and inflammation of the bowel—and we know that those two things are linked to colon cancer.” He notes, however, that research has not definitively linked the microbiome to colon cancer.

Ng and her colleagues at Dana-Farber are also working on identifying mutations and genetic modifications in younger people who develop colorectal cancer; the researchers want to see if the disease itself is biologically different in younger age groups. “Perhaps [the cancers] are a little more aggressive,” she says. “Maybe it could explain why perhaps many more of them are being diagnosed at stage three or four.”

Chan, Ng and Brawley all agree that it’s likely not just one or two factors at play but rather a convergence of new variables. The timing and duration over which a person faces these risks and exposures will also be important to understand; Chan says more research is needed on lifestyle and environmental risks as early as childhood and even during fetal development. “Carcinogenesis doesn’t happen overnight,” Brawley says. “It’s usually a process over decades.”

Age is still a leading determinant of cancer risk. Data are currently too limited to predict cancer rates for Millennials and Generation Z members, Rosenberg says, but the outlook won’t be promising if trends continue on their current trajectory. He adds that there’s still time for this to change—even for members of Generation X, who are the next group to reach their most cancer-prone years. “There’s no reason why the cancer rate has to stay on those trajectories in the next year, three years, five years down the road,” he says. Rosenberg hopes the recent study can help motivate and inform cancer prevention and research.

“It’s very clear to us that cancer is evolving from a disease which has traditionally been considered a disease of aging to one which affects, really, all age groups,” Chan says. “We need to develop more precision prevention approaches where we start to understand better who’s at risk in the general population and to start to target our efforts more directly to those people to make more headway.”