Thursday, 30 July 2020

China-linked hackers penetrated Vatican computer network, right before diplomatic negotiations with Beijing

The Vatican is reported to have been hacked by attackers working for China, just before diplomatic negotiations were set to begin between the Vatican and Beijing.

“The Vatican and Beijing are expected to start talks in September over control of the appointment of bishops and the status of houses of worship as part of a renewal of a provisional agreement signed in 2018 that revised the terms of the Catholic Church’s operations in China,” report Jason Horowitz, David Sanger, and Ed Wong at the New York Times:

The attack was detected by Recorded Future, a firm based in Somerville, Mass. The Chinese Communist Party has been waging a broad campaign to tighten its grip on religious groups, in what government leaders have periodically referred to as an effort to “Sinicize religions” in the country.

China officially recognizes five religions, including Catholicism, but the authorities often suspect religious groups and worshipers of undermining the control of the Communist Party and the state, and of threatening the country’s national security.

Chinese hackers and state authorities have often used cyberattacks to try to gather information on groups of Buddhist Tibetans, Muslim Uighurs and Falun Gong practitioners outside China.

But this appears to be the first time that hackers, presumed by cybersecurity experts at Recorded Future to be working for the Chinese state, have been publicly caught directly hacking into the Vatican and the Holy See’s Study Mission to China, the Hong Kong-based group of de facto Vatican representatives who have played a role in negotiating the Catholic Church’s status.

Read more:
The Vatican Is Said to Be Hacked From China Before Talks With Beijing



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Russia convicts yet another American — student Trevor Reed gets 9 years in prison on dubious charges

[Photo: Trevor Reed with his Russian girlfriend Alina. He was visiting her in Moscow when he was arrested and charged with the crime for which he was sentenced today. via freetrevorreed.com]

An American student accused of drunkenly assaulting a group of policemen says he's innocent. Russia is sending him to prison anyway, not long after Vladimir Putin's government locked up American Paul Whelan over similarly dubious charges.

Trevor Reed, a student at the University of North Texas and a former U.S. Marine, was sentenced to nine years in jail on Thursday after a Moscow court decided he was guilty of endangering the lives of two police officers who detained him after a party in the Russian city.

Reed said he could not remember the incident, because he was drunk when he was detained.

Reuters:

His conviction adds a new irritant to already bad relations between Russia and the United States.

Russia last month convicted U.S. citizen Paul Whelan of espionage, despite his protestations of innocence, and sentenced him to 16 years in jail. U.S. investor Michael Calvey is being held under house arrest on fraud charges he denies.

Prosecutors accused Reed of grabbing a police officer who was behind the wheel of a car after he was detained on Aug. 15. That, they said, caused the vehicle to swerve dangerously. He was also accused of elbowing a second officer.

Reed’s defence called the charge against him fraudulent.

His legal team said he should not have been detained in the first place and that the officers had changed their testimony throughout the trial.

Reed travelled to Moscow in May last year to learn Russian and see his Russian girlfriend.

More at Reuters:
Russia hands U.S. student long jail term on police assault charge

Here is the campaign for Reed's release:
FREE TREVOR REED



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Blade Runner-inspired cocktail machine features that Orson Welles' Japanese whisky ad

A super-cool robotic bartender inspired by Blade Runner's Voight-Kampff machine? With an ordering menu screen that shows old Japanese whisky ad starring Orson Welles (giving a "dash of Tokyo-dystopian-future-retro weirdness")?

Yes! Enter the VK-01 Off-World Bartender.

Its creator, Donald Bell of Maker Project Lab, explains:

The year is 2040, and you could use a good drink. People say the best drinks are made in the off-world colonies, by robot bartenders programmed only to serve the elite. Lucky for you, one of those robot bartenders never made it off-world. If you can make it past its security system, you’ll be drinking like an outer space aristocrat.

That’s the concept behind the VK-01 off-world bartender, my Blade Runner-inspired cocktail machine. This machine was my second entry into the Cocktail Robotics Grand Challenge, an annual event in San Francisco where machines are judged on their ingenuity, popularity, and the quality of their drinks.

It’s one of my favorite events. It’s like a Maker Faire without the kids, where every exhibit dispenses alcohol. Sadly, this year it was canceled for COVID. But by the time I heard about the cancellation, I was too deep into this build to give up. I figured, at least it’ll make a good Instructable! So here we are.

Over at Instructables, he shares how he made it using two Raspberry Pi computers, three Arduino boards, booze, lots of know-how and more.



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Mars rover Perseverance launches NASA mission to Red Planet

NASA launched its latest and greatest rover, Perseverance, to Mars on Thursday, from Cape Canaveral in Florida.

“I'm carrying the names of nearly 11 million people, and the hopes and dreams of many more,” tweeted Perseverance before her successful launch into space.



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