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An Active! Mail zero-day remote code execution vulnerability is actively exploited in attacks on large organizations in Japan. [...]

Commodore OS Vision (Wikipedie) byl vydán v nové verzi 3.0. Jedná se o linuxovou distribuci určenou pro fanoušky značky Commodore. Předinstalována je na počítačích Commodore 64x.

Chrome will keep third-party cookies, a win for web giant's ad rivals

After six years of work, Google's Privacy Sandbox, technology for delivering ads while protecting privacy, looks like dust in the wind.…

A hacking group dubbed 'Elusive Comet' targets cryptocurrency users in social engineering attacks that exploit Zoom's remote control feature to trick users into granting them access to their machines. [...]

As cyber-agency faces cuts, makes noises about switching up program

Two top officials have resigned from Uncle Sam's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, aka CISA, furthering fears of a brain drain amid White House cuts to the federal workforce.…

Microsoft has released the optional KB5055612 preview cumulative update for Windows 10 22H2 with two changes, including a fix for a GPU paravirtualization bug in Windows Subsystem for Linux 2 (WSL2). [...]

South Korea's largest mobile operator, SK Telecom, is warning that a malware infection allowed threat actors to access sensitive USIM-related information for customers. [...]

In effect: 'Ha ha – the government is borked and so are you'

Ransomware scumbags - potentially those behind the Fog gang - are channeling their inner Elon Musk with their latest ransom note, spotted by researchers at Trend Micro.…

Dark matter with less mass could be driving a mysterious glow emanating from the Milky Way’s core.

Astronomers have long been puzzled by two strange phenomena at the heart of our galaxy. First, the gas in the central molecular zone (CMZ), a dense and chaotic region near the Milky Way’s core, appears to be ionized (meaning it is electrically charged because it has lost electrons) at a surprisingly high rate.

Second, telescopes have detected a mysterious glow of gamma rays with an energy of 511 kilo-electronvolts (keV) (which corresponds to the energy of an electron at rest).

Interestingly, such gamma rays are produced when an electron and its antimatter counterpart—all fundamental charged particles have antimatter versions of themselves that are near identical, but with opposite charge—the positron, collide and annihilate in a flash of light.

The causes of both effects have remained unclear, despite decades of observation. But in a new study, published in Physical Review Letters, my colleagues and I show that both could be linked to one of the most elusive ingredients in the universe: dark matter. In particular, we propose that a new form of dark matter, less massive than the types astronomers typically look for, could be the culprit.

Hidden Process

The CMZ spans almost 700 light years and contains some of the most dense molecular gas in the galaxy. Over the years, scientists have found that this region is unusually ionized, meaning the hydrogen molecules there are being split into charged particles (electrons and nuclei) at a much faster rate than expected.

This could be the result of sources such as cosmic rays and starlight that bombard the gas. However, these alone don’t seem to be able to account for the observed levels.

The other mystery, the 511-keV emission, was first observed in the 1970s, but still has no clearly identified source. Several candidates have been proposed, including supernovas, massive stars, black holes, and neutron stars. However, none fully explain the pattern or intensity of the emission.

We asked a simple question: Could both phenomena be caused by the same hidden process?

Dark matter makes up around 85 percent of the matter in the universe, but it does not emit or absorb light. While its gravitational effects are clear, scientists do not yet know what it is made of.

One possibility, often overlooked, is that dark matter particles could be very light, with masses just a few million electronvolts, far lighter than a proton, and still play a cosmic role. These light dark matter candidates are generally called sub-GeV (giga electronvolts) dark matter particles.

Such dark matter particles may interact with their antiparticles. In our work, we studied what would happen if these light dark matter particles come in contact with their own antiparticles in the galactic center and annihilate each other, producing electrons and positrons.

In the dense gas of the CMZ, these low-energy particles would quickly lose energy and ionize the surrounding hydrogen molecules very efficiently by knocking off their electrons. Because the region is so dense, the particles would not travel far. Instead, they would deposit most of their energy locally, which matches the observed ionization profile quite well.

Using detailed simulations, we found that this simple process, dark matter particles annihilating into electrons and positrons, can naturally explain the ionization rates observed in the CMZ.

Even better, the required properties of the dark matter, such as its mass and interaction strength, do not conflict with any known constraints from the early universe. Dark matter of this kind appears to be a serious option.

The Positron Puzzle

If dark matter is creating positrons in the CMZ, those particles will eventually slow down and eventually annihilate with electrons in the environment, producing gamma-rays at exactly 511-keV energy. This would provide a direct link between the ionization and the mysterious glow.

We found that while dark matter can explain the ionization, it may also be able to replicate some amount of 511-keV radiation as well. This striking finding suggests that the two signals may potentially originate from the same source, light dark matter.

The exact brightness of the 511-keV line depends on several factors, including how efficiently positrons form bound states with electrons and where exactly they annihilate though. These details are still uncertain.

A New Way to Test the Invisible

Regardless of whether the 511-keV emission and CMZ ionization share a common source, the ionization rate in the CMZ is emerging as a valuable new observation to study dark matter. In particular, it provides a way to test models involving light dark matter particles, which are difficult to detect using traditional laboratory experiments.

Move observations of the Milky Way could help test theories of dark matter. ESO/Y. Beletsky, CC BY-SA

In our study, we showed that the predicted ionization profile from dark matter is remarkably flat across the CMZ. This is important, because the observed ionization is indeed spread relatively evenly.

Point sources such as the black hole at the center of the galaxy or cosmic ray sources like supernovas (exploding stars) cannot easily explain this. But a smoothly distributed dark matter halo can.

Our findings suggest that the center of the Milky Way may offer new clues about the fundamental nature of dark matter.

Future telescopes with better resolution will be able to provide more information on the spatial distribution and relationships between the 511-keV line and the CMZ ionization rate. Meanwhile, continued observations of the CMZ may help rule out, or strengthen, the dark matter explanation.

Either way, these strange signals from the heart of the galaxy remind us that the universe is still full of surprises. Sometimes, looking inward, to the dynamic, glowing center of our own galaxy, reveals the most unexpected hints of what lies beyond.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The post New Form of Dark Matter Could Solve Decades-Old Milky Way Mystery appeared first on SingularityHub.

Security bods can earn up to $10K per report

Ransomware threat hunters can now collect rewards of $10,000 for each piece of intel they file under a new bug bounty that aims to squash extortionists.…

One of the biggest problems with today’s AI models is that they tend to simply make up answers when they don’t know what’s going on, something called hallucinations.

You would think that the number of hallucinations would decrease over time, but according to internal tests from Open AI, the opposite is true. The o3 and o4-mini reasoning AI models produce more hallucinations than their predecessors o1, o1-mini, and o3-mini, Techcrunch reports.

In one of the tests, the o3 model hallucinated in 33% of responses, compared to 16% for the o1 and 14.8% for the 03-mini.

Open AI has no idea why this is the case, but the company’s developers are looking into it and hopefully it will get better in the long run.

Cybersecurity researchers have detailed a malware campaign that's targeting Docker environments with a previously undocumented technique to mine cryptocurrency. The activity cluster, per Darktrace and Cado Security, represents a shift from other cryptojacking campaigns that directly deploy miners like XMRig to illicitly profit off the compute resources. This involves deploying a malware strain

Cybersecurity researchers have detailed a malware campaign that's targeting Docker environments with a previously undocumented technique to mine cryptocurrency. The activity cluster, per Darktrace and Cado Security, represents a shift from other cryptojacking campaigns that directly deploy miners like XMRig to illicitly profit off the compute resources. This involves deploying a malware strain Ravie Lakshmananhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09767675513435997467noreply@blogger.com

The recommended Ripple cryptocurrency NPM JavaScript library named "xrpl.js" was compromised to steal XRP wallet seeds and private keys and transfer them to an attacker-controlled server, allowing threat actors to steal all the funds stored in the wallets. [...]

** Zpomalený Android nemusí vždy znamenat nákup nového telefonu ** Přímo v systému najdete řešení na spoustu problémů ** Přinášíme deset tipů a triků, jak Androidům prodloužit život

The United Arab Emirates is planning to use AI to review and adjust existing legislation as well as write entirely new laws, reports the Financial Times. The Middle Eastern country is the first in the world to do so. Other countries are currently using AI to streamline various types of work, but not to create entirely new laws.

The UAE plans, for example, to use AI to see how laws affect the country’s population and economy by creating a database of laws with public sector data. The expectation is that AI will make local laws 70% faster and ensure they can be updated regularly. It is currently unknown what kind of AI system the country’s authorities will use.

“This new legislative system, powered by artificial intelligence, will change the way we create laws and make the process faster and more accurate,” said Sheikh Mohammad bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Emir of Dubai and Prime Minister and Vice President of the United Arab Emirates, according to the country’s state media.

Retailer tight-lipped on details as digital hiccup disrupts customer orders

UK high street mainstay Marks & Spencer told the London Stock Exchange this afternoon it has been managing a "cyber incident" for "the past few days."…

**Microsoft blokuje prvky ActiveX ve Wordu a spol. **Přísné výchozí nastavení prostupuje do Microsoft 365. **Loni blokování zavedly Office 2024.

**Microsoft blokuje prvky ActiveX ve Wordu a spol. **Přísné výchozí nastavení prostupuje do Microsoft 365. **Loni blokování zavedly Office 2024.