Daily Archives: August 15, 2017

INDIANAPOLIS (WTHR) - Many schools and companies across the country use a key card entry system to give employees access to work buildings. We have them here at WTHR. It's a pretty common security strategy.

However, one local security expert said a $30 tool can put a company's security at risk. A few inches and a couple seconds, and your identity can be stolen--at least your key card identity.

Armando Perez, the President and General Manager of Hoosier Security says key cards are still the most common way companies allow entry for their employees. Key cards are supposed to be secure, but retailers overseas are threatening that security with a fairly cheap device.

Selling for about $30 online, card copiers are designed to steal your information. Schools can be especially susceptible.

"These copying devices are so inexpensive now, students can get their hands on them, and there could be all kinds of repercussions there," said Perez. "I don't really want to go into giving anybody any ideas about it, but the people who need to solve the problem are aware of this."

Perez said there's really no regulatory method for stopping the production of these card copiers overseas. He said it's up to companies to upgrade their key cards or scanning equipment, which can be costly.

Since you need to be six inches away from someone to copy their entry card, Perez said it likely won't be a stranger on the street, but could very well be an unsuspecting co-worker. That's why it's hard to catch the copier.

"If somebody from research gets the credentials of someone in accounting, they can now have access to all of the accounting information in the business. Nobody would ever know because it's still a valid credential."

As I test, I let him try to clone my entry card to WTHR.

Fortunately, the device wasn't able to clone my card due to the high frequency it emits. But Perez said other schools and companies may be running lower frequencies. Additionally, he warned better, more expensive copiers may still clone my card.

A carbon fiber wallet, which is built to block the frequency signal, can help, but doesn't make it completely preventable. They come at a hefty price - $150 - and a lot of people don't keep key cards in their wallet.

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'Card cloning' device puts key card entry at risk - WTHR

Hwang Woo-suk, a South Korean stem cell scientist who caused a major stir in the scientific community for academic fraud in 2005, has recently lost a legal battle over the rights to a technique critical to re-creating the woolly mammoth.

According to local reports Tuesday, Hwang had filed a criminal complaint against Park Se-pil of Jeju National University and his research colleagues, accusing them of embezzlement and attempted blackmail.

However, the Seoul Eastern District Prosecutors Office said it did not find sufficient evidence of the claims against Park and his team, closing the case that had been open for years.

The plan was to replicate the mammoth cells in a lab. From the copied cells, researchers would extract the nucleus, which contains the animals genetic information. The nucleus would then be inserted into the eggs of female elephants, the closest living relatives to the now-extinct animal.

Hwangs mammoth cloning project had garnered international attention at the time, even prompting National Geographic to air a detailed documentary on the Korean scientist and his work in 2013.

However, Hwang and his Russian research partners ran into technological hurdles even before the cloning process could begin. For years, the team continuously failed to artificially cultivate the mammoth cells in the lab.

In 2015, Hwang recruited the help of Park and his team, who claimed they were able to successfully cultivate the mammoth cells needed for the nucleus transplant, based on the samples provided by Hwang.

Hwang and Park ended up clashing over the ownership of the cell cultivation technology. Hwang argued that Parks work constitutes a part of his own research and that he thus possesses the sole rights related to all the related experimental methods.

Meanwhile, Park claimed Hwang provided the mammoth cells without prior conditions and the research should be considered a collaborative effort, as his teams cell cultivation method plays a critical role.

According to records, Park refused to hand over his work to Hwang without signing proper terms of agreement, stating that he would rather dispose of the cultivated mammoth cells than freely pass them on to Hwang.

Hwang then sued Park and his team on embezzlement and attempted blackmail. However, the prosecution decided not to pursue the charges of the alleged offenses earlier this month.

The recent investigation has also prompted new allegations that Hwang illegally imported the mammoth samples into Korea without duly reporting to local authorities. Hwang has denied such allegations to the prosecution, according to local reports.

Hwang Woo-suk, 64, is a former professor at the College of Veterinary Medicine at Seoul National University. He was placed at the center of one of the worlds biggest scientific scandals in 2005 for fabricating evidence he had successfully cloned human embryos and yielded stem cell lines from them.

Recently, the disgraced scientist rose to the domestic spotlight for being a close collaborator to Sunchon National University professor Park Ki-young, who was recently appointed as the new chief of the Science, Technology and Innovation Office at Koreas Ministry of Science and ICT.

However, Park, who had been a co-author of Hwangs fraudulent research paper in 2005, resigned from her post last week after the local science community and politicians fiercely opposed her appointment, citing ethical lapses.

By Sohn Ji-young (jys@heraldcorp.com)

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Disgraced Korean scientist Hwang Woo-suk loses legal battle over mammoth cloning tech - The Korea Herald

Updated August 15, 2017 16:45:25

Police are urging people to use the 'tap and go' chip on their bank cards in order to protect themselves from fraud through "ghost" terminals.

Detectives from the NSW fraud squad are investigating a series of fraudulent ATM withdrawals across Sydney's south-west using "cloned" credit and debit cards.

Cloned cards are made by swiping the magnetic strip data and PIN from legitimate cards and then transferring the information to a plastic card with a magnetic strip, often a cheap store loyalty card.

"For a cloned card to be used in an ATM they need to have two pieces of information," Acting Superintendent Matt Craft said.

"They need to have the information on the magnetic strip and your PIN if they don't have your PIN they can't make the transaction.

"So it's about reducing the opportunity for criminal syndicates to get access to your PIN by covering it and making sure people can't see you enter your PIN."

Superintendent Craft said criminal syndicates obtained data from card's magnetic strips using a skimming device attached to an ATM or EFTPOS terminal, or they used so-called "ghost" terminals.

He said magnetic strips were "old technology" and customers should rely on their card's secure chip instead.

"It is very difficult for individuals when they're conducting transactions to identify a device that's been placed on an ATM that shouldn't be there or indeed a ghost terminal," he said.

"Often ghost terminals, which are used to capture your data, look very much like the original device.

"You need to be very cautious about using those devices and wherever you can, you should use the chip and tap that's the most secure way."

The prevalence of card cloning in Australia is much lower than overseas, Superintendent Craft said, but it has risen 13 per cent in the past year.

EFTPOS terminals in taxis, restaurants and small businesses, or skimming devices placed on ATMs, were the most common culprits for card skimming and cloning.

The fraud squad has released CCTV footage of a man who is believed to have used a cloned card to steal several hundred dollars in cash.

The man stole the money from several ATMs at Peakhurst and Roselands in Sydney's southwest on June 19.

He is described as Caucasian, aged in his 30s or 40s with short brown hair and a full beard.

He can be seen wearing a black T-shirt with a yellow and white print on the back, black jeans and white sneakers.

He was also wearing a wrist brace or bandage on his right hand.

Topics: police, consumer-protection, fraud-and-corporate-crime, nsw

First posted August 15, 2017 16:42:55

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Using 'tap and go' will protect against fraud through 'ghost' EFTPOS terminals, police say - ABC Online

Recent headlines have heralded the arrival of gene-edited piglets free of viruses that could stand in the way of safe transplantation of porcine organs into humans. The fact is that such attempts at xenotransplantation are nothing new, and more significantly, that the researchers success is questionable, for both technical and ethical reasons.

Drawings of human-animal hybrids, or chimeras, date back to prehistoric times who can forget the bird-headed man in the French Lascaux cave or the ancient Egyptian deities with human heads on animal bodies such as the Great Sphinx?

Great Sphinx (IAN BARKER)

According to the NIHs A Brief History of Clinical Xenotransplantation, the first attempts to intermingle humans and other species actually began back in the 16th century with xenotransfusions, blood transfusions from animals to humans. By the 19th century, doctors were attempting interspecies skin transplantations using both furless creatures such as frogs who were sometimes skinned alive during the process as well as furry creatures such as sheep, rabbits, dogs, cats, rats, chickens, and pigeons. The first pig-to-human corneal transplant was attempted in 1838. None of these early efforts were believed to be very successful, and it would not have occurred to many at the time that these experiments gave no consideration whatsoever to the suffering of the animals involved. (Heres an even more thorough history of xenotransplantation if youre interested.)

Theres a chronic shortage of human organs available for transplants. Dr. David Klassen, chief medical officer at the United Network for Organ Sharing, tells New York Times that last years 33,600 organ transplants in the U.S. left 116,800 patients still on waiting lists. 22 Americans waiting for organs die each day according to Science. Hence the continued keen interested in xenotransplantation.

Some suggest, however, that with a better, simpler and more ethical solution already available, this may actually reflect the eagerness of scientists to do science more than it does a genuine desire for an answer to a problem. As bioethicist L. Syd M Johnson tells Big Think, The shortage of transplantable organs is a very real problem. Other countries have had great success increasing donations by doing simple things like making everyone a donor, unless they explicitly opt-out. Social engineering is a low-tech solution to the organ shortage, and much safer, easier, and cheaper than the high tech genetic engineering being done to possibly make xenotransplantation possible.

(ELI KRISTMAN)

One of the major stumbling blocks in the transplantation of pig organs which may in other ways be human-compatible are PERVs, an (unfortunate) acronym for porcine endogenous retroviruses. PERVs are gamma retroviruses, genetic remnants of ancient viral infections, and theyre woven into the pig genome. There are multiple types of PERV, but its know that PERV-A and PERV-B, at least, can transfer zoonotic microorganisms infections into human cells that have been combined, in vitro, with pig cells.

The team behind the new research, led by geneticist George Church of Harvard and affiliated with the Broad Institute, one of the patent holders of CRISPR-Cas9 and colleague Luhan Yang, had demonstrated in 2015 that they could inactivate PERVs at all of their 62 sites in the pig genome in an immortalized cell line, and thus prevent those cells from passing them to human cells.

Background: pig chromosomes, foreground: Cas9 (WYSS INSTITUTE)

Now theyve gone the next step, using CRISPR-Cas9 to modify the pig genome and clone actual PERV-inactivated piglets. Church claims the first pig-to-human xenotransplant can happen within two years. Some observers consider this prediction wishful thinking.

First off, its impossible to know if inactivating PERVs is all that needs to be done to make porcine organs safe for humans. Scientists already know that pig genes will need to be modified so they dont provoke rejection in humans, and theyll also have to insert other genes to avoid toxic blood interactions. And then there are the things we dont yet know about.

For one thing, its not entirely clear that PERVs are even really the issue. Cardiac transplant surgeon Muhammad Mohiuddin, whos working with United therapeutics to develop implantable porcine hearts tells Science, At this moment, I dont think we are very worried about PERV. Transplant immunologistDavid Cooper says, If this is required, it will add to the time before pigs can be used for transplants in patients in desperate need. And it will add to the cost of providing pigs for the initial clinical trials.

And then there are the considerable ethical issues, on both the human and animal sides.

Johnson reminds us, In past experiments with xenotransplantation, the human recipients of animal organs have all died, some from hyperacute rejection, which results in rapid death, and many others more slowly. People waiting for lifesaving organs are vulnerable and desperate exactly the kinds of people we should be concerned about using as subjects in exceptionally risky experiments.

Another issue to consider is financial. What were talking about here is growing human-compatible organs in genetically modified pigs. Those organs are not going to be free says Johnson. There will be patents. The organs will be commercially grown in for-profit businesses. There are already economic issues related to access to organ transplantation. What happens to patients who cant pay the price? What effect might commercially grown organs have on organ donation? Will potential organ donors be dis-incentivized to donate?

As far as the animals go, the same long-term concerns hold true. The study itself is also a textbook case of what this research is like for the animals involved. The piglets were carried by 17 sows, into each of whom were implanted200-300 cloned embryos. There were initially 37 PERV-inactive piglets, of which 15 piglets remain alive, and the oldest healthy animals are 4-month old. First off, this means 22 piglets died, with only 15 surviving, a less-than-half success rate for the few embryos that resulted in pregnancy. Of the 15 survivors, 4 of the healthiest are said to be 4 months old, but what about the other 11? What condition are they in?

Johnson points out, Cloning is an expensive and inefficient method of reproduction, with a high failure rate, and its very costly in terms of animal welfare. Before we get to the point where we can use pigs as living organ farms, many, many animals will be sacrificed not just pigs, but also the animals first used to test the transplants. Traditionally, the initial experimental organ recipients have been nonhuman primates.

Are pigs sentient?This one jumped off a truck en route to a slaughterhouse. (ZO JOHNSON-BERMAN)

When one balances how little effort has been expended encouraging organ donation and how much money, effort, and likely animal suffering has been invested in scientific research, the Church teams announcement of their PERV-inactive piglets seems like considerably less than the joyous news its often breathlessly characterized as being. And when one then considers just how much remains unknown about the dangers of xenotransplantation, the new study is perhaps as much a warning as it is a game-changing breakthrough.

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CRISPR-Cleaned Piglets Have Been Cloned for Organ Donation - Big Think