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10 of Today's Really Cool Network & IT Research Projects

Bob Brown | Network World | February 1, 2016

University at Buffalo and Northeastern University researchers are developing hardware and software to enable underwater telecommunications to catch up with over-the-air networks. This advancement could be a boon for search-and-rescue operations, tsunami detection, environmental monitoring and more. Sound waves used underwater are just no match for the radio waves used in over-the-air communications, but the researchers are putting smart software-defined radio technology to work in combination with underwater acoustic modems...

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Drones for Healthcare Powered by 'Open Source'

About a week after Typhoon Haiyan struck the Philippines, one of the Direct Relief partnering organizations called Team Rubicon sought to determine the operational status of the Carigara District Hospital, located northwest of the city of Tacloban. Travel along damaged roads was difficult and slow. Yet, the assessment team was able to provide local officials and aid groups with a rapid and highly accurate visual analysis of damage to the Carigara District Hospital by deploying the latest in close proximity aerial imaging technology, using a Huginn X1 unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) or civil surveillance drone. 

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Investigation: US Power Grid Vulnerable to Foreign Hacks

Garance Burke and Jonathan Fahey | Phys.org | December 21, 2015

Security researcher Brian Wallace was on the trail of hackers who had snatched a California university's housing files when he stumbled into a larger nightmare: Cyberattackers had opened a pathway into the networks running the United States power grid. Digital clues pointed to Iranian hackers. And Wallace found that they had already taken passwords, as well as engineering drawings of dozens of power plants, at least one with the title "Mission Critical." The drawings were so detailed that experts say skilled attackers could have used them, along with other tools and malicious code, to knock out electricity flowing to millions of homes...

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Medical Devices Could Be Lethal in Hands of Hackers

Katie Bo Williams | The Hill | February 27, 2016

It is embarrassingly easy to hack medical devices, experts warn, creating a new security threat that could have life-or-death consequences. Among the many devices vulnerable to hackers are drug infusion pumps, which could be jimmied to deliver a lethal dose, anesthesia machines and Pacemakers. Many medical devices are produced by legacy companies that are new to designing software...

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US Utility Companies Warned About Potential for a Cyberattack After Ukraine’s

David E. Sanger | New York Times | February 29, 2016

The Obama administration has warned the nation’s power companies, water suppliers and transportation networks that sophisticated cyberattack techniques used to bring down part of Ukraine’s power grid two months ago could easily be turned on them. After an extensive inquiry, American investigators concluded that the attack in Ukraine on Dec. 23 may well have been the first power blackout triggered by a cyberattack — a circumstance many have long predicted...

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