Liberals say they'll bring in a rent-to-own program. But what will it do for Toronto's housing crisis?

Similar program pitched at municipal level in 2018 by Toronto mayoral candidate


Farrah Merali · CBC News · Posted: Aug 27, 2021 

With rental housing prices once again on the rise, and the red-hot real estate market remaining strong, there are widespread calls to address affordability in the city of Toronto. (John Rieti/CBC)

On Tuesday, Liberal leader Justin Trudeau unveiled a multi-billion-dollar housing strategy to help Canadians buy a home at a time when the market is sky high. The plan includes measures to curb the practice of "flipping" homes, the banning of so-called "blind bidding" and a promise to double the first-time homebuyers tax credit.

Part of the plan is to introduce a government-funded rent-to-own program to help renters get on the path to home ownership. The party is promising $1 billion in loans and grants to develop rent-to-own projects with partners from the private, not-for-profit and co-op sectors.

If that sounds familiar to Torontonians — that's because it is.

In 2018, former mayoral candidate Jennifer Keesmaat proposed a similar program for the city.

While some are praising the proposal as a positive initiative that helps renters who are struggling with a down payment, others say it caters to a niche group of constituents, and that housing supply is what all parties need to focus on to make cities like Toronto more affordable.
How it works

"I was actually really pleased when I heard the [Liberals'] announcement," said Keesmaat, a former businesswoman and chief planner for the City of Toronto.

"Because I think what we're beginning to see in this campaign is housing solutions that actually respond to the magnitude of the challenge that we're faced with."
Have an election question for CBC News? Email ask@cbc.ca. Your input helps inform our coverage.

The magnitude of the challenge Keesmaat is speaking about is enormous. The average price for all home types combined in the Greater Toronto Area as of last month is $1,062,256 — up 12.6 per cent compared to July 2020, according to the latest report from the Toronto Regional Real Estate Board.

At the centre of Keesmaat's 2018 campaign for mayor of Toronto was a municipally run rent-to-own program that involved the city dedicating a certain number of new units. The proposal would have allowed renters to apply to pay monthly instalments that would go toward their down payment on the property at a price set at the start of the agreement.

The funds to support the program would have been generated by a proposed tax on luxury homes.

Jennifer Keesmat is a former chief planner of the City of Toronto, who ran for mayor in 2018. At the centre of her mayoral campaign was a pledge to create a rent-to-own program. (Michael Cole/CBC)

"Part of why this policy matters is because it's about recognizing that we all have different housing needs and we also have different housing needs at different stages of our lives. And we need lots of options within that entire housing spectrum " said Keesmat.

Keesmat is now the founder of Markee developments — which designs, builds, and runs affordable rental housing — and says she would welcome the opportunity to work with the federal government on a rent-to-own program. But she acknowledges that plan alone won't help address the affordability crisis.

"It means nothing if it isn't tied to a really profound supply initiative that's about driving housing supply."
Real solutions

Other experts agree with Keesmaat that housing supply is what all federal parties should be focusing on when it comes to addressing affordability.

"Given that we have a housing crisis across Canada, we need to think millions of new homes at affordable prices. That would make a dent in bringing housing prices in line with people's incomes," said Murtaza Haider, professor of real estate management and data science at Toronto's Ryerson University.

Murtaza Haider, a professor of data science and real estate management at Ryerson University in Toronto, believes governments need to look at bigger initiatives to tackle the country's housing crisis. (James Dunne/CBC)

While Haider says ideas like rent-to-own programs do open up the market for a small group of people, he believes governments need to think bigger.

"It's much better to have some relief than not. But we have to take much bolder, much bigger, much larger programs to be able to have housing prices and rents much in step with people's incomes."

Others question whether that $1 billion would be better spent on measures to help lower-income individuals or families who can't even get access to affordable rental housing.

Some experts question whether the program's $1-billion price tag is worth it for a program that caters to a small group of constituents. (Graeme Roy/Canadian Press)

"It's really rental housing that's the big problem. That's where the government should focus its effort," said Frank Clayton, senior research fellow at the Centre for Urban Research and Land Development at Ryerson University.

Clayton said he worries initiatives like a federally run rent-to-own program might increase demand, which would drive up real estate prices if there's no parallel effort to build more housing.

"The focus should be on supply, not demand, because demand will just aggravate what's already happening. And that makes things worse."

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The plan laid out by the Liberal Party of Canada doesn't spell out whether the loans and grants under the proposed program would go to the landlord or to the tenant, or whether the majority of the $1 billion pledged would go to big cities like Toronto or Vancouver where housing prices have continued to soar.

Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau makes a campaign stop in Hamilton, Ont., on Tuesday, Aug 24, 2021. (Sean Kilpatrick/Canadian Press)

It also doesn't say how it would work with municipalities — who are responsible for the approval of development projects — to ensure rent-to-own projects would actually be built, or how it would encourage current landlords to take part in it.

In response to questions from CBC Toronto, the Liberal Party of Canada said: "There are a variety of existing rent-to-own models and the financial structure of each can vary, as will federal support."

The party added that it is "confident that by partnering with municipalities and providing substantial federal funding, we will be able to incentivize the building of new rent-to-own units across the country."
Where the other parties stand

So far, the Liberals are the only party formally pledging a rent-to-own program, but when it comes to supply they're pledging to "build, preserve or repair 1.4 million homes in the next four years" by giving cities tools to speed up construction. The party is also promising to create a $4-billion pool of cash that cities could tap if they help to create "middle-class homes."

Housing has become one of the the main issues in the 2021 federal election campaign, with leaders making various promises to address the affordability crisis. 

(Justin Tang/The Canadian Press, Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press, Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press)

The NDP is pledging to create at least 500,000 units of affordable housing in the next 10 years, while the Conservatives are pledging to build one million homes over three years, and convert at least 15 per cent of federal government property into housing — among other measures.

The Greens are calling for an expansion of the government's Rapid housing Initiative — which creates new affordable housing for vulnerable populations — and to build and acquire a minimum of 300,000 units of affordable housing.

Sweden Risks Blackouts as It Runs Out of Space to Store Nuclear Waste

Barsebäck Nuclear Power Station, Barsebäck, Sweden.
Alastair Philip Wiper—View Pictures/Universal Images Group/Getty Images

BY JESPER STARN / BLOOMBERG
AUGUST 25, 2021 


Sweden has less than a week to decide where to store its nuclear waste or risk having the lights go out.

The Scandinavian country is running out of space to store the waste produced by its six reactors, which supply about a third of the nation’s power. Without a decision before the end of the month, nuclear operators including Vattenfall AB say they will have to start halting plants in just three years.

That would trigger a national power crisis and put Sweden’s net-zero target at risk. As the government meets on Thursday, members of the ruling coalition formed by the Social Democrats and the Green Party are likely to address the issue, which has stalled for more than a year.

“There is no realistic way to replace the nuclear output with such a short notice,” said Torbjorn Wahlborg, head of generation at state-owned Vattenfall, which operates five of Sweden’s six reactors. “On the contrary, the remaining reactors are needed more than ever given the huge growth in demand for power Sweden will need to become carbon neutral.”

Sweden’s case highlights a contentious subject for the nuclear industry, with most countries yet to find a permanent solution to store their spent fuel. To make matters worse, Japan shocked the world earlier this year when it announced plans to dump more than 1 million cubic meters of treated radioactive water from the wrecked Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear power plant into the Pacific Ocean. That’s enough to fill 500 Olympic-size swimming pools.

European countries have taken different stances on nuclear power, with Germany opting to exit, while France and the U.K. are relying on reactors to reach their emissions goals. Sweden, which counts on renewables for a large part of its power production, will need nuclear as well as emission cuts from its heavy industry and transport to reach its net-zero goal by 2045.

Repository versus recycling

It’s been more than a decade since the Swedish Nuclear Fuel and Waste Management Co. filed an application to build a repository. A method that involved putting spent fuel in copper canisters and burying them 500 meters under the ground in bentonite clay has already been approved by neighboring Finland, while Russia has opted for expensive recycling.

In October, the company responsible for disposing all of Sweden’s nuclear waste said it had already won approvals from all necessary courts, authorities and even from the municipality where it wants to build the site. But the government is yet to approve it.

“This is not about taking a stand for or against nuclear power, this is about there being a reliable solution and needing to move ahead with the process,” said Chief Executive Officer Johan Dasht.

Sweden needs to make a decision to avoid exceeding the permit for the interim storage currently being used by the industry. But with the recycling adopted by Russia yet to be cost-effective and Finland still to convince other nations that their methodology will withstand for at least 100,000 years without rusting or leaking, the Swedish government is in a tight spot.

A  decision of this magnitude needs to take all the the time that is necessary, said Environmental Minister Per Bolund. The government is instead proposing to decide on expanding the intermediate storage site and then consider the application to build the repository.

“By splitting up the different decisions the government wants to avoid putting Sweden in a situation that would jeopardize our supply of electricity,” Bolund said in an emailed statement. “There is a significant risk that the coming judicial process will not be completed before the intermediary storage site hits the ceiling of its existing permit.”

For the government—which counts on the anti-nuclear Green Party as a key part of its ruling coalition—the issue is extra delicate. Not only does the industry oppose a split of the application, but so does its own two key expert authorities on the issue. Both the Swedish Radiation Safety Authority and the Swedish Energy Agency opposes a split on the grounds that it poses an even greater risk of getting stuck in a lengthy legal process.

“I find it remarkable that this government is not capable of trusting their own expert authorities in their decision-making,” Dasht said.

—With assistance from Nicholas Larkin and Lars Paulsson.

SUDBURY, ONTARIO

What mining, oil and gas industries can learn from a city that went from major pollution to thriving environment

by Nadia Mykytczuk, The Conversation

For almost 100 years, Sudbury’s community and environment were blanketed in sulfur

 dioxide and metals released from the smelting of nickel ore. Credit: Shutterstock

When Prime Minister Justin Trudeau met with Swedish environmental activist Greta Thunberg in Montréal two years ago, he promised to plant two billion trees by 2030 to help Canada meet its net-zero emissions goal.

Planting trees, however, is hard work. It takes money and planning. But a re-greening roadmap exists.

Sudbury, the largest city in Northern Ontario, transformed itself after decades of environmental devastation, brought on by the mining industry. Other communities and industries, like oil and gas, can replicate the city's efforts to aid in global efforts to fight climate change.

A devastated landscape

For almost 100 years, Sudbury's community and environment were blanketed in sulfur dioxide and metals released from the smelting of nickel ore. The sulfur acidified the soils, rain and lakes. The pollution triggered the complete loss of vegetation, leaving barren rolling hills of blackened rock. It was a devastated landscape.

But 40 years ago, scientists, citizens, governments and mining companies in Sudbury set out with the goal that, no matter how damaged the environment was, it was worth trying to repair it. Since then, city- and industry-led programs have planted 12 million trees and revitalized over 3,400 hectares of land. People now swim and fish in the 330 lakes that fall within the city boundaries and were once highly acidic.

Today, Sudbury has some of the cleanest air in all of Ontario. That's hard to believe given the city once emitted 2.5 million tons of sulfur dioxide per year. In the 1980s, the "Sudbury" became known as a unit of pollution, against which other industrial cities were measured. It's now become known as a unit of restoration.

Sudbury offers proof that it is possible to leave a healthier environment than the one we inherited, and proof that we can change our climate for the better.

Contrast of barren land surround smelters in Sudbury in about 1970 (left) and 2015 (right). Credit: Vale Living with Lakes Centre

Capturing gases

Against the realities of climate change, industrial pollution and urban expansion, stories of environmental recovery and restoration are rare. But a healthy environment doesn't have to come at the expense of industrial activity.

While scientists developed solutions for restoring the land and water, industry re-engineered their processes to reduce and capture their emissions. Sudbury mining companies, Inco and Falconbridge (now Vale and Glencore) led the way in reducing sulfur dioxide release from their smelter. Nickel production continued to grow in spite of more stringent pollution limits.

The Sudbury situation was pivotal in negotiations between Canada and the United States that led to the signing of the 1991 U.S.-Canada Air Quality Agreement. The agreement, also known as the acid rain accord, helped solve the largest environmental issues at the time.

Without strong policy in North America and Europe, acid rain would have continued to threaten forests and fisheries in Canada and the U.S. Now, 30 years later, we can use the same approach with strong regulations on emissions, scientific evidence and solutions, and industrial re-alignment to capture carbon dioxide emissions and make the critical strides needed to meet climate change targets.

Meeting climate targets with mining

Sudbury hasn't solved all of its problems. It still carries a legacy of millions of tons of reactive mine waste materials, which can release acids and metals that can contaminate food webs and drinking water. These have to be managed by industry to avoid impacting the environment and surrounding communities.

Vale and Glencore are working with scientists again to develop new ways of treating, covering and restoring these vast tailings ponds. They are looking for ways to turn these barrens into areas for carbon capture, to grow biofuel crops or to use the land for renewable energy installations.

Acid rain can kill trees, like this woods in Jezera Mountains in the Czech Republic. Credit: Lovecz/Wikimedia

In some cases, these wastes still contain low levels of metals that could not be extracted in the smelter. But we now have the means to capture these metals through low-energy technologies or using bacteria to extract metals from minerals.

The global demand for critical metals like nickel, cobalt and copper is growing to support production of electric vehicles. In the next 25 years, the world will need as much copper as was mined in the past 500 years, according to Rio Tinto, one of the world's largest metals and mining companies. Some of that demand can be met using waste.

Lessons from Sudbury

We cannot meet climate change targets without transitioning away from fossil fuels, but we cannot produce renewable energy technologies like batteries and solar panels without mining the minerals used to make them. We can't let one set of environmental issues replace another.

But we don't have to, and the history of Sudbury shows the way. Community, government, academia and industry can work together to face a massive challenge like climate change.

We need to focus on scientific solutions and move away from the old ways of doing things because "that's how it's always been done." Net-zero and zero-waste mining is possible—and necessary. They are ultimately part of a sustainable energy future.

At the start of this UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, the Sudbury model is an important recipe to apply to climate change. Where we once sacrificed the environment for the sake of industrial expansion, we now need to transition to smarter industrial processes to protect the environment, wean ourselves off fossil fuels and build a more resilient global community in the face of climate change.

How bacteria can recover precious metals from electric vehicle batteries

Provided by The Conversation 

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

US Hacker, 21, details how he breached T-Mobile in WSJ interview

‘Their security is awful,’ John Binns said of T-Mobile as he discussed hacking the personal details of 50 million users.

T-Mobile, which last week confirmed that more than 50 million customer records have been stolen, has also said that it had repaired the security hole that enabled the breach [File: Leonhard Foeger/Reuters]

By Al Jazeera Staff
26 Aug 2021

The 21-year-old American hacker who is taking responsibility for infiltrating T-Mobile’s systems said the wireless company’s weak security helped him access a trove of records with personal details on more than 50 million people, The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported Thursday.

John Binns, who grew up in Virginia in the United States but now lives in Turkey, told the WSJ that he managed to break through T-Mobile’s defences after discovering an unprotected router exposed. Binns has used several online aliases since 2017, and said he had been scanning T-Mobile’s internet addresses for vulnerabilities using a simple tool available to the general public.

“Their security is awful,” said Binns, who has been communicating with the WSJ via Telegram messages from an account that discussed details of the hack before they were widely known.

“I was panicking because I had access to something big,” he added.

Binns has not said whether he has sold any of the data or whether he was paid for the hack, the WSJ reported.

The August hack is the third major customer data leak that T-Mobile has made public in the past two years. According to the company, the latest attack stole an array of personal details from more than 54 million customers including their names, Social Security numbers and birth dates.

Many of the records reported stolen were from prospective clients or former customers that have switched to other carriers.

T-Mobile, which began informing customers of the breach last week, also reminded its users to update passwords and personal identification number (PIN) codes.

The Washington-based company is the second-largest US mobile carrier, with some 90 million mobile phones connecting to its networks.

The Seattle office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is looking into the T-Mobile hack, a person familiar with the matter told the WSJ.

Binns also told the WSJ that it took him about a week to get into the servers.


T-Mobile, which confirmed that more than 50 million customer records have been stolen, has also said that it had repaired the security hole that enabled the breach. It began informing customers of the breach last week.

It remains unclear whether Binns worked alone. In his communications with the WSJ, he described a collaborative effort to crack T-Mobile’s internal databases.

Binns also told the WSJ that he wanted to draw attention to his perceived persecution by the US government.

“Generating noise was one goal,” said Binns.

In his conversations with the WSJ, Binns described an alleged incident in which he says he was kidnapped in Germany and put into a fake mental hospital.

“I have no reason to make up a fake kidnapping story and I’m hoping that someone within the FBI leaks information about that,” he wrote to the WSJ.

Last year, Binns sued the Central Intelligence Agency, FBI and other federal agencies to push them to fulfil a federal records request he had made for information about FBI investigations of botnet attacks.

The complaint is still active in the US District Court for the District of Columbia.

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA

T-Mobile hack: Everything you need to know

More than 50 million T-Mobile customers were affected by the hack and about 48 million social security number were accessed


By Jonathan Greig | August 28, 2021 | Topic: Security


T-Mobile, one of the biggest telecommunications companies in the US, was hacked nearly two weeks ago, exposing the sensitive information of more than 50 million current, former and prospective customers.

Names, addresses, social security numbers, driver's licenses and ID information for about 48 million people were accessed in the hack, which initially came to light on August 16.

Here's everything we know so far.

What is T-Mobile?

T-Mobile is a subsidiary of German telecommunications company Deutsche Telekom AG providing wireless voice, messaging and data services to customers in dozens of countries.

In the US, the company has more than 104 million customers and became the second largest telecommunications company behind Verizon after its $26 billion merger with Sprint in 2018.
How many people are affected by the hack?

T-Mobile released a statement last week confirming that the names, dates of birth, social security numbers, driver's licenses, phone numbers, as well as IMEI and IMSI information for about 7.8 million customers had been stolen in the breach.

Another 40 million former or prospective customers had their names, dates of birth, social security numbers and driver's licenses leaked.

47% of respondents' organizations currently use the technology.
Research provided by TechRepublic Premium

More than 5 million "current postpaid customer accounts" also had information like names, addresses, date of births, phone numbers, IMEIs and IMSIs illegally accessed.

T-Mobile said another 667,000 accounts of former T- Mobile customers had their information stolen alongside a group of 850,000 active T-Mobile prepaid customers, whose names, phone numbers and account PINs were exposed.

The names of 52,000 people with Metro by T-Mobile accounts may also have been accessed, according to T-Mobile.
Who attacked T-Mobile?

A 21-year-old US citizen by the name of John Binns told The Wall Street Journal and Alon Gal, co-founder of cybercrime intelligence firm Hudson Rock, that he is the main culprit behind the attack.

His father, who died when he was two, was American and his mother is Turkish. He and his mother moved back to Turkey when Binns was 18.
How did the attack happen?

Binns, who was born in the US but now lives in Izmir, Turkey, said he conducted the attack from his home. Through Telegram, Binns provided evidence to the Wall Street Journal proving he was behind the T-Mobile attack and told reporters that he originally gained access to T-Mobile's network through an unprotected router in July.

According to the Wall Street Journal, he had been searching for gaps in T-Mobile's defenses through its internet addresses and gained access to a data center near East Wenatchee, Washington where he could explore more than 100 of the company's servers. From there, it took about one week to gain access to the servers that contained the personal data of millions. By August 4 he had stolen millions of files.

"I was panicking because I had access to something big. Their security is awful," Binns told the Wall Street Journal. "Generating noise was one goal."

Binns also spoke with Motherboard and Bleeping Computer to explain some dynamics of the attack.

He told Bleeping Computer that he gained access to T-Mobile's systems through "production, staging, and development servers two weeks ago." He hacked into an Oracle database server that had customer data inside.

To prove it was real, Binns shared a screenshot of his SSH connection to a production server running Oracle with reporters from Bleeping Computer. They did not try to ransom T-Mobile because they already had buyers online, according to their interview with the news outlet.

In his interview with Motherboard, he said he had stolen the data from T-Mobile servers and that T-Mobile managed to eventually kick him out of the breached servers, but not before copies of the data had already been made.

On an underground forum, Binns and others were found selling a sample of the data with 30 million social security numbers and driver licenses for 6 Bitcoin, according to Motherboard and Bleeping Computer.

T-Mobile CEO Mike Sievert explained that the hacker behind the attack "leveraged their knowledge of technical systems, along with specialized tools and capabilities, to gain access to our testing environments and then used brute force attacks and other methods to make their way into other IT servers that included customer data."

"In short, this individual's intent was to break in and steal data, and they succeeded," Sievert said.

Binns claimed he stole 106GB of data but it is unclear whether that is true.
Why did Binns do it?

The 21-year-old Virginia native told the Wall Street Journal and other outlets that he has been targeted by US law enforcement agencies for his alleged involvement in the Satori botnet conspiracy.

He claims US agencies abducted him in Germany and Turkey and tortured him. Binns filed a lawsuit in a district court against the FBI, CIA and Justice Department in November where he said he was being investigated for various cybercrimes and for allegedly being part of the Islamic State militant group, a charge he denies.

"I have no reason to make up a fake kidnapping story and I'm hoping that someone within the FBI leaks information about that," he explained in his messages to the Wall Street Journal.

The lawsuit includes a variety of claims by Binns that the CIA broke into his homes and wiretapped his computers as part of a larger investigation into his alleged cybercrimes. He filed the suit in a Washington DC District Court.

Before he was officially identified, Binns sent Gal a message that was shared on Twitter.

"The breach was done to retaliate against the US for the kidnapping and torture of John Erin Binns (CIA Raven-1) in Germany by CIA and Turkish intelligence agents in 2019. We did it to harm US infrastructure," the message said, according to Gal.
Was Binns alone in conducting the attack?

He would not confirm if the data he stole has already been sold or if someone else paid him to hack into T-Mobile in his interview with The Wall Street Journal.

While Binns did not explicitly say he worked with others on the attack, he did admit that he needed help in acquiring login credentials for databases inside T-Mobile's systems.

Some news outlets have reported that Binns was not the only person selling the stolen T-Mobile data.
When did T-Mobile discover the attack?

The Wall Street Journal story noted that T-Mobile was initially notified of the breach by a cybersecurity company called Unit221B LLC, which said their customer data was being marketed on the dark web.

T-Mobile told ZDNet on August 16 that it was investigating the initial claims that customer data was being sold on the dark web and eventually released a lengthy statement explaining that while the hack did not involve all 100 million of their customers, at least half had their information involved in the hack.
Is law enforcement involved?

T-Mobile CEO Mike Sievert said on August 27 that he could not share more information about the technical details of the attack because they are "actively coordinating with law enforcement on a criminal investigation."

It is unclear what agencies are working on the case and T-Mobile did not respond to questions about this.
What is T-Mobile doing about the hack?

Sievert explained that the company hired Mandiant to conduct an investigation into the incident.

"As of today, we have notified just about every current T-Mobile customer or primary account holder who had data such as name and current address, social security number, or government ID number compromised," he said in a statement

T-Mobile will also put a banner on the MyT-Mobile.com account login page of others letting them know if they were not affected by the attack.

Sievert admitted that the company is still in the process of notifying former and prospective customers, millions of whom also had their information stolen.

In addition to offering just two years of free identity protection services with McAfee's ID Theft Protection Service, T-Mobile said it was recommending customers sign up for "T-Mobile's free scam-blocking protection through Scam Shield."

The company will also be offering "Account Takeover Protection" to postpaid customers, which they said will make it more difficult for customer accounts to be fraudulently ported out and stolen. They urged customers to reset all passwords and PIN numbers as well.

Sievert also announced that T-Mobile had signed "long-term partnerships" with Mandiant and KPMG LLG to beef up their cybersecurity and give the telecommunications giant the "firepower" needed to improve their ability to protect customers from cybercriminals.

"As I previously mentioned, Mandiant has been part of our forensic investigation since the start of the incident, and we are now expanding our relationship to draw on the expertise they've gained from the front lines of large-scale data breaches and use their scalable security solutions to become more resilient to future cyber threats," Sievert added.

"They will support us as we develop an immediate and longer-term strategic plan to mitigate and stabilize cybersecurity risks across our enterprise. Simultaneously, we are partnering with consulting firm KPMG, a recognized global leader in cybersecurity consulting. KPMG's cybersecurity team will bring its deep expertise and interdisciplinary approach to perform a thorough review of all T-Mobile security policies and performance measurement. They will focus on controls to identify gaps and areas of improvement."

Both Mandiant and KPMG will work together to sketch out a plan for T-Mobile to address its cybersecurity gaps in the future.

Has this happened to T-Mobile before?

No attack of this size has hit T-Mobile before, but the company has been attacked multiple times.

Before the attack two weeks ago, the company had announced four data breaches in the last three years. The company disclosed a breach in January after incidents in August 2018, November 2019, and March 2020.

The investigation into the January incident found that hackers accessed around 200,000 customer details such as phone numbers, the number of lines subscribed to an account, and, in some cases, call-related information, which T-Mobile said it collected as part of the normal operation of its wireless service.

The previous breaches included a March 2020 incident where T-Mobile said hackers gained access to both its employees' and customers' data, including employee email accounts, a November 2019 incident where T-Mobile said it "discovered and shut down" unauthorized access to the personal data of its customers, and an August 2018 incident where T-Mobile said hackers gained access to the personal details of 2 million of its customers.

Before it merged with T-Mobile in 2020, Sprint also disclosed two security breaches in 2019 as well, one in May and a second in July.

What happens now?

Binns has not said if he has sold the data he stole, but he told Bleeping Computer that there were already multiple prospective buyers.

Research finally reveals ancient universal equation for the shape of an egg

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF KENT

Researchers from the University of Kent, the Research Institute for Environment Treatment and Vita-Market Ltd have discovered the universal mathematical formula that can describe any bird’s egg existing in nature, a feat which has been unsuccessful until now.

Egg-shape has long attracted the attention of mathematicians, engineers, and biologists from an analytical point of view. The shape has been highly regarded for its evolution as large enough to incubate an embryo, small enough to exit the body in the most efficient way, not roll away once laid, is structurally sound enough to bear weight and be the beginning of life for 10,500 species that have survived since the dinosaurs. The egg has been called the “perfect shape”.

Analysis of all egg shapes used four geometric figures: sphere, ellipsoid, ovoid, and pyriform (conical), with a mathematical formula for the pyriform yet to be derived.

To rectify this, researchers introduced an additional function into the ovoid formula, developing a mathematical model to fit a completely novel geometric shape characterized as the last stage in the evolution of the sphere-ellipsoid, which it is applicable to any egg geometry.

This new universal mathematical formula for egg shape is based on four parameters: egg length, maximum breadth, shift of the vertical axis, and the diameter at one quarter of the egg length.

This long sought-for universal formula is a significant step in understanding not only the egg shape itself, but also how and why it evolved, thus making widespread biological and technological applications possible.

Mathematical descriptions of all basic egg shapes have already found applications in food research, mechanical engineering, agriculture, biosciences, architecture and aeronautics. As an example, this formula can be applied to engineering construction of thin walled vessels of an egg shape, which should be stronger than typical spherical ones.

This new formula is an important breakthrough with multiple applications including:

1. Competent scientific description of a biological object.
   Now that an egg can be described via mathematical formula, work in fields of biological systematics, optimization of technological parameters, egg incubation and selection of poultry will be greatly simplified.
2. Accurate and simple determination of the physical characteristics of a biological object.
   The external properties of an egg are vital for researchers and engineers who develop technologies for incubating, processing, storing and sorting eggs. There is a need for a simple identification process using egg volume, surface area, radius of curvature and other indicators for describing the contours of the egg, which this formula provides.
3. Future biology-inspired engineering.
   The egg is a natural biological system studied to design engineering systems and state-of-the-art technologies. The egg-shaped geometric figure is adopted in architecture, such as London City Hall’s roof and the Gherkin, and construction as it can withstand maximum loads with a minimum consumption of materials, to which this formula can now be easily applied.

Darren Griffin, Professor of Genetics in the University of Kent and PI on the research, said: ‘Biological evolutionary processes such as egg formation must be investigated for mathematical description as a basis for research in evolutionary biology, as demonstrated with this formula. This universal formula can be applied across fundamental disciplines, especially the food and poultry industry, and will serve as an impetus for further investigations inspired by the egg as a research object.’

Dr Michael Romanov, Visiting Researcher at the University of Kent, said: ‘This mathematical equation underlines our understanding and appreciation of a certain philosophical harmony between mathematics and biology, and from those two a way towards further comprehension of our universe, understood neatly in the shape of an egg.’

Dr Valeriy Narushin, former visiting researcher at the University of Kent, said: ‘We look forward to seeing the application of this formula across industries, from art to technology, architecture to agriculture. This breakthrough reveals why such collaborative research from separate disciplines is essential.’

###

The paper ‘Egg and math: introducing a universal formula for egg shape’ is published in Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences (Valeriy G. Narushin, Research Institute for Environment Treatment and Vita-Market Ltd, Ukraine; Dr Michael N. Romanov, University of Kent; Professor Darren K. Griffin, University of Kent).

URL: https://nyaspubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/nyas.14680

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/nyas.14680

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JOURNAL

Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences

DOI

10.1111/nyas.14680 

ARTICLE TITLE

Egg and math: introducing a universal formula for egg shape

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

22-Aug-2021

 

The physics behind a water bear's lumbering gait

Peer-Reviewed Publication

ROCKEFELLER UNIVERSITY

 

IMAGE: TARDIGRADES WALK IN A MANNER CLOSELY RESEMBLING THAT OF INSECTS 500,000 TIMES THEIR SIZE. view more 

CREDIT: JASMINE NIRODY

Plump and ponderous, tardigrades earned the nickname "water bears" when scientists first observed the 0.02-inch-long animals' distinctive lumbering gaits in the 18th century. Their dumpy plod, however, raises the question of why tardigrades evolved to walk at all.

Animals as small and soft as tardigrades seldom have legs and almost never bother walking. For example, round worms of similar size and body type thrash about, slithering their doughy forms over unpredictable substrates. Yet the water bear, a micro-animal so distinct that scientists were forced to assign it to its own phylum, uses eight stubby legs to improbably propel itself through marine and freshwater sediment, across desert dunes, and beneath the soil.

Now, a new study in PNAS analyzes tardigrade gaits and finds that water bears walk in a manner most closely resembling that of insects 500,000 times their size. The discovery implies the existence of either a common ancestor or an evolutionary advantage that explains why one of the smallest and squishiest creatures evolved to walk just like larger, hard-bodied insects.

"Tardigrades have a robust and clear way of moving—they're not these clumsy things stumbling around in the desert or in leaf litter," says Jasmine Nirody, a fellow in Rockefeller's Center for Studies in Physics and Biology. "The similarities between their locomotive strategy and that of much larger insects and arthropods opens up several very interesting evolutionary questions."

Smooth runners

Nirody and colleagues first determined how water bears walk and run. "If you watch tardigrades under a light microscope for long enough, you can capture a wide range of behavior," Nirody says. "We didn't force them to do anything. Sometimes they would be really chill and just want to stroll around the substrate. Other times, they'd see something they like and run towards it."

Nirody found that, at their most leisurely, water bears lumber about half a body length per second. At full throttle, their loping strides carried them two body lengths in the same amount of time. But the surprise came when she observed how a water bear’s feet contact the ground as it gains momentum. Unlike vertebrates, which have distinct gaits for each speed—picture a horse's hooves as it transitions from a walk to a gallop—tardigrades run more like insects, scurrying at increasing speeds without ever changing their basic stepping patterns.

"When vertebrates switch from walking to running, there is a discontinuity," Nirody says. "With arthropods, all stepping patterns exist along the same continuum."

Ancient coordination

Why do tardigrades share a locomotive strategy with much larger, hard-bodied insects?

One possible explanation is that tardigrades, long assumed to fit neatly into no existing taxonomy, may share common ancestors—and even a common neural circuit— with insects such as fruit flies, ants, and other segmented scurrying creatures. In fact, some scientists advocate classifying tardigrades within the proposed panarthropod clade, a catchall group that would assign common shelf space to insects, crustaceans, velvet worms, and water bears.

Another possibility is that there is no ancestral connection between tardigrades and arthropods, but that the unrelated groups of organisms independently arrived at the same walking and running strategies because they were evolutionarily advantageous. Perhaps the best way to navigate unpredictable terrain with a microscopic body is to plod like a water bear.

Nirody is equally fascinated by both possibilities. "If there is some ancestral neural system that controls all of panarthropod walking, we have a lot to learn," she says. "On the other hand, if arthropods and tardigrades converged upon this strategy independently, then there's much to be said about what makes this strategy so palatable for species in different environments."

Beyond the implications for evolutionary biology and the study of animal locomotion, the findings may have ramifications for the burgeoning fields of soft and microscale robotics.

By studying how small animals evolved to move across challenging environments, scientists may be able to design robots that can more efficiently squeeze into small spaces or operate at the microscale. "We don't know much about what happens at the extremes of locomotion—how to make an efficient small walker, or how soft-bodied things should move," Nirody says.

"Tardigrades are an important porthole into soft-bodied, microscale locomotion."

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JOURNAL

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

DOI

10.1073/pnas.2107289118 

ARTICLE TITLE

Tardigrades exhibit robust interlimb coordination across walking speeds and terrains

DEWORMER 

Doctor who promoted ivermectin as a COVID-19 treatment has advised Florida’s governor

Steve Contorno, Kirby Wilson
Sat., August 28, 2021

A California psychiatrist who has advised Gov. Ron DeSantis on the coronavirus pandemic recently promoted a drug for COVID-19 patients that federal disease experts have strongly warned against after a spike in calls to poison control centers.

The surge of interest in the parasite drug, ivermectin, prompted the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Thursday to issue a national alert advising against its use to treat coronavirus. The maker of the drug, Merck, has also said there is “no scientific basis” to claim that ivermectin is effective against COVID-19.

Dr. Mark McDonald of Los Angeles is among a fringe group of outspoken medical professionals who have pushed ivermectin as an alternative to widespread vaccination against coronavirus. McDonald called ivermectin an “effective, safe, inexpensive treatment” in a Aug. 5 Twitter post, and he shared an article by the Jerusalem Post citing a recent study of the drug in Israel.

A wave of online misinformation about ivermectin has led to increased demand, and some people have turned to a version of the drug meant for farm animals. That sparked the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to tweet: “You are not a horse. You are not a cow. Seriously, y’all. Stop it.”

Florida’s Poison Control Center, a state-funded non-profit, has treated 27 ivermectin-related cases in August, with most involving drugs made for livestock. That’s more cases tied to the drug than the center saw in all of last year.

McDonald called people who think ivermectin is a drug for horses “ignoramuses” in a tweet posted Monday. (The drug can treat parasites in both humans and animals like horses.)

In a phone interview, McDonald made clear Friday that people “should not get (ivermectin) from a feed lot.” But he said people are ingesting livestock medicine out of desperation because the federal government was preventing doctors from making the drug available.

McDonald accused the Food and Drug Administration of sidelining ivermectin because it already has spent billions of dollars to “mass vaccinate the population.”

“If the goal of these people is to advance public health and make the public well, why have none of them spoke a single word about prevention and making one healthy to prevent an infection or hospitalization or death?” McDonald said. “I think there is a lot of dishonesty here and cancellation of people who support truth.”

Dr. John Sinnott, the chairman of internal medicine at University of South Florida’s Morsani College of Medicine and an epidemiologist at Tampa General Hospital, said it was “evil” for people to promote ivermectin as a COVID-19 treatment “because it detracts from appropriate care.”

”Any physician who espouses this should be reported to their state medical association,” Sinnott added.

McDonald was one of several doctors summoned by DeSantis for a July closed-door discussion on mask policies in schools. In his comments, he argued that “masking children is child abuse,” according to video of the meeting later released by the governor’s office. He also likened mask mandates to apartheid, South Africa’s racist system of segregation during the 20th century.

At this week’s trial in Tallahassee over the governor’s ban on school mask mandates, attorneys for the state included McDonald’s comments as evidence. But in his ruling against DeSantis on Friday, Leon County Circuit Judge John Cooper was dismissive of McDonald’s opinion.

McDonald is one of several medical professionals from outside the state’s network of public health experts who DeSantis has leaned on for guidance throughout the pandemic. DeSantis has also regularly turned to Dr. Scott Atlas, a Stanford neuroradiologist favored by former President Donald Trump. Atlas reportedly clashed with other White House coronavirus task force members last year for urging Trump to let the virus run its course without government interventions.

And at the mask trial, Florida attorneys called on Stanford University professor Dr. Jay Bhattacharya to defend DeSantis’ order — not state Surgeon General Scott Rivkees. Bhattacharya, an early opponent of business restrictions aimed at curbing the virus’ spread, testified he has been an “informal advisor” to the governor since last September.

In a Friday statement to the Times/Herald, DeSantis spokeswoman Christina Pushaw said McDonald’s inclusion on the school mask panel “does not imply that Governor DeSantis endorses (or opposes) any of Dr. McDonald’s opinions on other subjects.”

“The panel was not about ivermectin,” she said. “It was about forced masking of schoolchildren.”

McDonald has a history of comments that defy the consensus of the greater medical and public healthy community. He shared on social media a graphic that called people who wear masks “retarded,” and he has posted comments skeptical of vaccines.

McDonald has ties to America’s Frontline Doctors, a political organization that medical experts have accused of spreading misinformation about coronavirus and treatments. McDonald spoke at a summit organized by America’s Frontline Doctors, and a picture of him with the group is featured at the top of his Twitter feed.

On Friday, NBC News reported that America’s Frontline Doctors is one of the leading purveyors of ivermectin as a false cure. The organization has built a business around prescribing the drug, the network reported.

Prescriptions for ivermectin jumped to 88,000 in the week ending August 13, up from just a few thousand a week prior to the pandemic and a four-fold increase since July, the CDC said. Meanwhile, ivermectin-related calls to poison control centers are up 400 percent, the agency said.

Dr. Asim Tarabar, an assistant professor of emergency medicine at the Yale School of Medicine and a medical toxicologist, said the poison control figures likely underestimate the problem because many who are taking ivermectin may be experiencing no side effects. Or, they are getting sick from the medicine, but they’re reluctant to pick up the phone, he said.

Ivermectin has been successfully used in developing countries to treat parasites for decades. In the United States, it is approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Association as an oral drug against roundworm and a topical treatment for lice, among other uses. It’s side effects are minor when used correctly, but overdoses can lead to vomiting, confusion, seizures and death, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.

Studies have not demonstrated that ivermectin is effective in treating coronavirus patients and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has advised against off-label use. The National Institutes of Health said in February that clinical studies on ivermectin have varied, with some suggesting some benefits while others showed little or worsening change in patients.

Tarabar said some people’s trust in ivermectin could be explained by a misunderstanding of the scientific process. The drug has been shown in some studies to limit the virus’ ability to reproduce in a laboratory setting, the physician said. But there’s no proof the medicine works that way in the human body.

“Regardless what we believe — left, right, center — scientific rigor has to be followed,” Tarabar said.

 

Study finds mobile telemedicine unit as effective as traditional clinics to treat opioid addiction during COVID-19 pandemic

Research could pave the way for broader use of innovative RV clinic

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND SCHOOL OF MEDICINE

Rural regions in the U.S. have been disproportionately affected by the opioid epidemic, while also having the fewest number of programs to treat opioid use disorder. In an effort to remedy this dire health issue, University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM) researchers reconfigured a recreational vehicle (RV) as a telemedicine mobile treatment unit to determine whether it could provide effective screening and treatment to individuals with opioid use disorder in rural areas. Their research, published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) Network Open, found that the innovative approach to be as successful as traditional brick-and-mortar treatment clinics. The study also found a significant reduction in illicit opioid use among the majority of patients treated on the mobile unit, as well as sustained success in these patients continuing therapy to avoid relapse. 

[Check out this video showing RV unit in action.]

“We are very encouraged by our findings and hope that our model can be replicated throughout the country in places where patients have limited access to health care providers who can treat opioid use disorder,” said study lead author Eric Weintraub, MD, Professor of Psychiatry and Division Head of Addiction Research and Treatment at UMSOM. 

Last year, more than 92,000 Americans died from drug overdoses, a nearly 30 percent increase from 2019, according to a recent report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Most of these deaths were caused by illicit opioid drugs like fentanyl and heroin. While effective medication-based treatments are available, only 1 in 4 people with opioid use disorder receive such treatments. FDA-approved medications including buprenorphine and methadone are able to prevent withdrawal symptoms and reduce cravings in those who stop using illicit drugs and are reported to significantly decrease overdose deaths. Treatment also can include counseling techniques to encourage motivation to change and prevent relapse.

In the new study, the UMSOM researchers used the mobile health unit to evaluate and treat 94 patients with opioid use disorder, all of whom lived in rural areas along the Eastern Shore region of Maryland. These patients accessed the unit for treatment within 10 miles of their respective homes from June to October 2020 – during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. The mobile unit was staffed with a nurse, a substance use counselor, and a peer recovery specialist. Patients were provided with in-person screening and counseling as well as access to a physician via a secure videoconferencing link. Buprenorphine or naloxone were electronically prescribed and sent to a patient’s local pharmacy.

The researchers wanted to measure how effective the mobile unit was at maintaining patients in buprenorphine therapy and decreasing their use of illicit opioids. They found nearly 64 percent of patients remained in treatment after two months and 58 percent after three months, rates that are similar to those seen in traditional in-person substance use treatment programs. Opioid use was reduced, on average, by about one-third, which was also similar to what researchers have seen in traditional clinical settings.

“To our knowledge, this is the first of its kind mobile telemedicine unit to treat opioid use disorders in rural communities,” said Annabelle (Mimi) Belcher, PhD, Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at UMSOM. “We have demonstrated that the model works as well as traditional clinics situated in more populated areas, which is an exciting finding.”

Sarah Kattakuzhy, MD; Aaron Greenblatt, MD; Christopher Welsh, MD; and Alexander Pappas, MD were co-authors on this study. The research was funded by a federal grant from the Health Resources and Services Administration. The telemedicine mobile treatment unit was funded by the Maryland Department of Health’s Behavioral Health Administration.

“Providing patients with access to healthcare via telemedicine and mobile health units has become increasingly important during the COVID-19 pandemic, and our UMSOM faculty continue to innovate in this area,” said E. Albert Reece, MD, PhD, MBA, Executive Vice President for Medical Affairs, UM Baltimore, the John Z. and Akiko K. Bowers Distinguished Professor, and Dean, University of Maryland School of Medicine. "This new study provides evidence that telemedicine and mobile health units really work to provide patients with access to the lifesaving services they need. We will continue to explore other ways to provide mobile healthcare to patients in underserved communities.”

About the University of Maryland School of Medicine

 

Now in its third century, the University of Maryland School of Medicine was chartered in 1807 as the first public medical school in the United States. It continues today as one of the fastest growing, top-tier biomedical research enterprises in the world -- with 46 academic departments, centers, institutes, and programs, and a faculty of more than 3,000 physicians, scientists, and allied health professionals, including members of the National Academy of Medicine and the National Academy of Sciences, and a distinguished two-time winner of the Albert E. Lasker Award in Medical Research.  With an operating budget of more than $1.2 billion, the School of Medicine works closely in partnership with the University of Maryland Medical Center and Medical System to provide research-intensive, academic and clinically based care for nearly 2 million patients each year. The School of Medicine has nearly $600 million in extramural funding, with most of its academic departments highly ranked among all medical schools in the nation in research funding.  As one of the seven professional schools that make up the University of Maryland, Baltimore campus, the School of Medicine has a total population of nearly 9,000 faculty and staff, including 2,500 student trainees, residents, and fellows. The combined School of Medicine and Medical System (“University of Maryland Medicine”) has an annual budget of over $6 billion and an economic impact of nearly $20 billion on the state and local community. The School of Medicine, which ranks as the 8th highest among public medical schools in research productivity (according to the Association of American Medical Colleges profile) is an innovator in translational medicine, with 606 active patents and 52 start-up companies.  In the latest U.S. News & World Report ranking of the Best Medical Schools, published in 2021, the UM School of Medicine is ranked #9 among the 92 public medical schools in the U.S., and in the top 15 percent (#27) of all 192 public and private U.S. medical schools.  The School of Medicine works locally, nationally, and globally, with research and treatment facilities in 36 countries around the world. Visit medschool.umaryland.edu

 

 

 

 

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JOURNAL

JAMA Network Open

DOI

10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2021.18487 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Observational study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Mobile Telemedicine for Buprenorphine Treatment in Rural Populations With Opioid Use Disorder

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

27-Aug-2021