The Daily Nerd (November 16th, 2013)

The Daily Nerd (November 16th, 2013) #

‘Force Field’ Could Protect New Weather Satellite, Future Human Missions

A new Canadian satellite — should it launch — might carry a sort of magnetized force field on board to keep charged particles away from vital electronics. Its polar orbit will likely take it through clouds of charged particles high above Earth. If the particles hit crucial components on the spacecraft, it can short out electronics and cause brownouts or complete failure. This has happened several times before, such as to the Japanese ADEOS-II satellite after a large solar storm in 2003.

Quantum memory ‘world record’ smashed

A fragile quantum memory state has been held stable at room temperature for a “world record” 39 minutes — overcoming a key barrier to ultrafast computers.

The second operating system hiding in every mobile phone

I’ve always known this, and I’m sure most of you do too, but we never really talk about it. Every smartphone or other device with mobile communications capability (e.g. 3G or LTE) actually runs not one, but two operating systems. Aside from the operating system that we as end-users see (Android, iOS, PalmOS), it also runs a small operating system that manages everything related to radio. Since this functionality is highly timing-dependent, a real-time operating system is required.

The problem here is clear: these baseband processors and the proprietary, closed software they run are poorly understood, as there’s no proper peer review. 

The insecurity of baseband software is not by error; it’s by design. The standards that govern how these baseband processors and radios work were designed in the ’80s, ending up with a complicated codebase written in the ’90s — complete with a ’90s attitude towards security.