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Future

New High-Tech Helmet Aims To Extract Information From Your Brain

LE MONDE ( France), VICE, USENIX SECURITY (USA)

Worldcrunch

Remember that scene in Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi when Darth Vader learns about Luke’s sister just by reading his thoughts?

"Your thoughts betray you," says Darth Vader

Well the same might just happen to you soon – and if you don’t happen to have a cinnamon-roll-haired twin sister whose existence you’d like to keep a secret, think of all the security PINs and bank accounts details that could be extracted from your non-Jedi mind.

Le Monde reports that using affordable brain-computer interface helmets (simple electroencephalography devices that cost about $500), a group of researchers at the USENIX Security Symposium managed to monitor the brain electrical activity and infer participants’ PIN digits, zip codes and birth dates.

The team, led by Ivan Martinovic of Oxford’s Department of Computer Science, was studying the dangers of brain-computer interface (BCI) devices:

"We take a first step in studying the security implications of such devices and demonstrate that this upcoming technology could be turned against users to reveal their private and secret information. We use inexpensive electroencephalography (EEG) based BCI devices to test the feasibility of simple, yet effective, attacks. The captured EEG signal could reveal the user’s private information about, e.g., bank cards, PIN numbers, area of living, the knowledge of the known persons."

Daniele Perito of the University of California, Berkeley, one of the paper’s authors, told the New York City-based Canadian magazine Vice: "It’s going to be a while, but I think it is going to be much easier to get certain information like someone’s political preference or sexual orientation."

If you have a half-hour to spare and want to understand the risks of side-channel attacks with brain-computer interfaces, the video below explains it all.

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FOCUS: Israel-Palestine War

Why The U.S. Lost Its Leverage In The Middle East — And May Never Get It Back

In the Israel-Hamas war, Qatar now plays the key role in negotiations, while the United States appears increasingly disengaged. Shifts in the region and beyond require that Washington move quickly or risk ceding influence to China and others for the long term.

Photograph of U.S Secretary of State Antony Blinken  shaking hands with sraeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.

November 30, 2023, Tel Aviv, Israel: U.S Secretary of State Antony Blinken shakes hands with Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.

Chuck Kennedy/U.S State/ZUMA
Sébastien Boussois

-Analysis-

PARIS — Upon assuming office in 2008, then-President Barack Obama declared that United States would gradually begin withdrawing from various conflict zones across the globe, initiating a complex process that has had a major impact on the international landscape ever since.

This started with the American departure from Iraq in 2010, and was followed by Donald Trump's presidency, during which the "Make America Great Again" policy redirected attention to America's domestic interests.

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The withdrawal trend resumed under Joe Biden, who ordered the exit of U.S. forces from Afghanistan in 2021. To maintain a foothold in all intricate regions to the east, America requires secure and stable partnerships. The recent struggle in addressing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict demonstrates that Washington increasingly relies on the allied Gulf states for any enduring influence.

Since the collapse of the Camp David Accords in 1999 during Bill Clinton's tenure, Washington has consistently supported Israel without pursuing renewed peace talks that could have led to the establishment of a Palestinian state.

While President Joe Biden's recent challenges in pushing for a Gaza ceasefire met with resistance from an unyielding Benjamin Netanyahu, they also stem from the United States' overall disengagement from the issue over the past two decades. Biden now is seeking to re-engage in the Israel-Palestine matter, yet it is Qatar that is the primary broker for significant negotiations such as the release of hostages in exchange for a ceasefire —a situation the United States lacks the leverage to enforce.

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