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Why Does Stopping a Phone Burglar Seem So Difficult?

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London is a phone theft hotspot

Jeff Blackler/Shutterstock

Even if you haven’t experienced smartphone theft personally, you likely know someone who has. Last year alone, 80,000 mobile phones were reported stolen in London. For those affected, losing a costly device can feel devastating, and navigating the tedious process of replacing it, which holds all your vital information, can be frustrating. So, what can be done to prevent phone theft and better safeguard your personal data?

The explanation involves various factors, including how criminals exploit stolen phones, alongside the failure of tech companies focused on user-friendly designs over security measures, and the lack of coordinated international strategies. In short, it’s a multifaceted issue.

Some victims have expressed frustration with the police for their perceived lack of action against phone thieves. NAV Dugmore, who hails from Wolverhampton, England, had her iPhone snatched just moments after she exited Euston Station in London. “Honestly, it hurt me,” she recalls. “We need better systems to deter them from using stolen phones. I think the police could do more.”

The Metropolitan Police informed her that other thefts had occurred in the same vicinity recently, admitting that the chances of recovery were “nonexistent.” Although Dugmore activated face recognition on her phone, it was unlocked when the thief grabbed it, allowing them to quickly spend £300 at various London stores. The most painful loss for her was a photo of her three young children that wasn’t backed up.

When a phone like Dugmore’s is stolen, it enters a grim cycle with multiple potential fates. The simplest scenario for thieves is to sell the phone, frequently exporting it to other countries. Some may also sell the devices for parts at non-official repair shops. According to Daniel Green, a police inspector in London, the thief was connected to a gang that ships the stolen devices out of the country.

More elaborate crimes can occur as well, such as removing SIM cards to disguise the phone’s identity and using another mobile to access text messages, emails, and websites that require two-factor authentication. This can be somewhat mitigated by setting up a PIN on the SIM card, yet this requires action before theft occurs.

Thieves mainly target unsecured phones, but even safeguarding your device with a PIN isn’t foolproof, warns James O’Sullivan, who runs an app called Nuke, designed to assist those whose phones have been stolen. Thieves might simply observe you enter your PIN or employ clever tactics to outsmart your security measures. For instance, if you trigger and then cancel the emergency SOS feature on an iPhone, access via face or fingerprint recognition is temporarily disabled, necessitating a PIN entry the next time. A skilled thief could document you while you unwittingly do this, preparing to capture the input after reclaiming the phone.

Unlocked devices expand the criminals’ possibilities. Thieves can access online banking apps and cryptocurrency wallets, even scamming the victim’s friends and family for emergency funds. They can also share fraudulent links through social media, fishing for further login information and private data.

What measures can we take? At least the UK government acknowledges the issue. In the latter half of last year, they initiated a crackdown aimed at pressuring smartphone manufacturers to permanently disable stolen devices. They also pledged to conduct research aimed at understanding the dynamics of phone theft and devising solutions.

In theory, technology exists to render stolen phones useless. Each device carries a unique IMEI code, allowing reported stolen codes to be blocked on mobile networks. However, blocked phones can still access the internet through Wi-Fi. For years, the Met Police has urged tech firms to enhance protocols to restrict access to cloud services on stolen phones, making them less desirable to thieves. So far, both Apple and Google have not complied.

This also becomes problematic when trying to enforce restrictions across countries, similar to IMEI blocks. Green hopes that manufacturers will create permanent kill switches to effectively eliminate the incentive for phone theft altogether. “I don’t know if that’s a problem for them,” he remarks. “We need to push more. We’re trying to pick up the pieces on the sidelines, which is a tall order.”

Jordan Hare, a former digital forensics expert with law enforcement now working for private security firm S-RM, states that many phones already possess security features capable of thwarting the most determined criminals. For instance, certain devices will lock automatically if they detect sudden movements, such as being grabbed by a thief.

The issue arises because many of these protective measures are disabled by default. Hare emphasizes that companies design for user convenience, often at the expense of security awareness. “Opting in for these features doesn’t benefit the average consumer, who may not even know they exist,” he explains. “An opt-out approach where users are informed that certain settings are enabled and why they should remain on would be far more effective.”

Meanwhile, other admirable security features, like locating your phone via a web browser, fall short in practicality. If the phone is tracked far from its original location, there’s little a police officer can do without extensive paperwork for search warrants.

Dugmore experienced this firsthand with her stolen iPhone. “The last known location was about ten miles from where my phone was taken,” she recounts. “The police indicated that they wouldn’t be able to retrieve it.” When approached for comment, the Metropolitan Police told New Scientist: “Unfortunately, the investigation couldn’t progress due to the lack of CCTV in the area. We’re aware of the victim’s concerns.”

Most prominent smartphone manufacturers, including New Scientist Samsung, Xiaomi, and Google, did not respond. However, Apple did provide a statement.

“For more than a decade, we’ve been actively addressing this issue through hardware, software, and customer support,” an Apple representative stated. “We are committed to investing in industry-leading tools and features designed to empower users against theft,” although they did not clarify why some security features aren’t activated by default.

Ultimately, preventing smartphone theft hinges on ensuring manufacturers remove any appeal that criminals might find in stolen devices. They possess the capability to control hardware and software, developing features that could entirely secure your phone, its applications, and components against misuse or resale. However, O’Sullivan asserts that it doesn’t appear to be a priority. “To be candid, stolen phones generate considerable profit for those selling new devices.”

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Source: www.newscientist.com

Parents face difficult decisions regarding smartphones, says English Children’s Commissioner

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Parents in England are urged to make tough decisions about their children’s smartphone use rather than trying to be their friends, according to Dame Rachel de Souza. She emphasized the importance of setting boundaries and considering examples of responsible phone use.

Speaking to the Sunday Times, de Souza stressed the need for parents to prioritize their children’s well-being. She advised against giving in to children’s demands for more screen time, highlighting the importance of making tough decisions for their long-term benefit.

She added that parents should provide love, understanding, support, and boundaries, encouraging high aspirations while also setting limits. A recent survey suggested that a quarter of children in the UK spend over four hours a day on internet-enabled devices.

De Souza also emphasized the importance of having open conversations with children about their online activities and monitoring the content they are exposed to. Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson is considering implementing smartphone bans in some schools to address concerns about the impact of social media on children.

While guidelines currently suggest banning phones during lessons, there is no clear enforcement strategy for breaks and lunches. De Souza’s survey of state schools found that the majority already limit mobile phone use during the day.

She believes that schools play a role in addressing these issues but acknowledges that parents must also take responsibility for monitoring their children’s digital activities. Conservative leader Kemi Badenok has questioned the government’s stance on child well-being and school bills related to phone bans.

Overall, there is growing awareness of the need to balance children’s online activities with real-world interactions and boundaries to ensure their well-being.

Source: www.theguardian.com

Why is it difficult to recall memories from the first year of life?

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Challenging assumptions about infant memory, a new Yale-led study shows that 12-month-old young infants can code memory. Findings suggest that infant amnesia – the inability to remember the first few years of our lives – is likely caused by impaired memory retrieval, rather than being unable to form memories in the first place.

Yates et al. The mechanical basis of this infant amnesia was investigated by scanning the brains of awake infants with functional magnetic resonance imaging. Image credit: Kang Heungbo.

Despite childhood being a period of rapid learning, memories from this point do not continue to later childhoods or adults.

In general, humans cannot remember events in the first three years of their lives. This is a phenomenon known as infant amnesia.

The reason why grown-up humans have long-standing blind spots in their episode memories during their early childhood remains the puzzle.

One theory suggests that this occurs. This is because the hippocampus, a brain region important for episodic memory, is not fully developed during infancy.

However, rodent studies challenge this idea that memory traces or sculptures are formed in the infant hippocampus, but are inaccessible over time.

In humans, infants exhibit memory through behaviors such as conditioned responses, mimicking, and recognition of familiar stimuli.

However, it remains unclear whether these abilities are dependent on the hippocampus or other brain structures.

“The characteristic of these types of memories we call episode memories is that you can explain them to others, but that’s off the table when you’re dealing with pre-language toddlers.”

For this study, researchers wanted to identify robust methods for testing temporary memory in infants.

Scientists used an approach that showed images of new faces, objects, or scenes in infants between four months and two years.

After that, after the infant saw several other images, they showed the previously seen images next to the new one.

“When the baby sees something previously, when they see it again, they’re hoping to see more of it,” Professor Torque Brown said.

“In this task, if the toddler is staring at a previously seen image more than the new one next to it, it can be interpreted as the baby perceives it as familiar.”

The authors have pioneered methods for performing functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) with awake infants over the past decade (has been historically difficult due to the short attention span and inability to remain stationary).

Specifically, we assessed whether hippocampal activity is related to infant memory strength.

They discovered that the greater hippocampal activity when infants are looking at new images, the longer they see it when the infant reappears later.

The posterior part of the hippocampus (near the back of the head) where encoding activity was most intense, is the same region that is most associated with adult episodic memory.

These findings were true across a sample of 26 infants, but were the strongest among infants over 12 months (half of the sample group).

“This age effect leads to a more complete theory of how the hippocampus develops to support learning and memory,” Professor Torque Brown said.

Previously, the team found that the hippocampus of a 3 month-old young infant exhibits a different type of memory known as statistical learning.

While the memory of the episode deals with certain events, such as sharing Thai meals with out-of-town visitors last night, statistical learning is to extract patterns across events, such as restaurants that look like restaurants, specific dishes found or typical appearances where they are served seated.

These two types of memory use different neuronal pathways in the hippocampus.

And in previous animal studies, researchers have shown that statistical learning pathways seen in the anterior part of the hippocampus develop faster than that of temporary memory.

Therefore, the authors suspected that episodic memories could appear in childhood for about a year or more.

This developmental progression makes sense when thinking about the needs of babies.

“Statistical learning is about extracting the structure of the world around us,” Professor Torque Brown said.

“This is important for the development of language, vision, concepts, etc., and so I understand why statistical learning is played faster than episodic memory.”

Still, new research shows that episode memories can be encoded by the hippocampus earlier than previously thought, long before the earliest memories that can be reported as adults. So what about these memories?

“There are a few possibilities,” Professor Torque Brown said.

“One thing is that it simply doesn’t last long because memory may not be converted into long-term storage.”

“The other thing is that memories are still there long after encoding and we don’t have access to them.”

“And we think that might be the latter.”

“In our ongoing work, we test whether toddlers, toddlers and children remember home videos taken from the perspective of (young) babies.

“The new findings provide important connections.”

“Human work is significantly compatible with recent animal evidence that infant amnesia is a problem of recovery.”

“We are beginning to track the durability of hippocampal memory throughout childhood and entertain the possibilities of radical science fiction.

study Published in the journal Science.

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Tristan S. Yates et al. 2025. Hippocampal encoding of human infant memory. Science 387 (6740): 1316-1320; doi: 10.1126/science.adt7570

Source: www.sci.news

Firefighting efforts made difficult as water tanks run dry.

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Eric Porth, director of the California Water Resources Institute, mentioned that having more water tanks in the Palisades area could have been beneficial. However, he noted that municipal water systems, like the one in place, are primarily used for extinguishing residential fires and not typically designed for larger scale emergencies. He emphasized that the current situation has resulted in a significant burn scar that is overwhelming the existing water resources.

Los Angeles officials have advised residents to reduce their water consumption in light of the ongoing fire situation. Quiñones, from the water department, highlighted the need for water conservation to ensure that fire departments have enough resources to combat fires effectively.

Furthermore, a 48-hour boil water notice was issued for a specific zip code that includes the Palisades area and neighboring communities due to declining water quality caused by the fire and ash particles in the system.

Ajami expressed concerns about potential water contamination due to the drop in water pressure during the fire. She pointed out that the compromised pipeline infrastructure could allow external contaminants to enter the system.

Mark Gold, director of water scarcity solutions at the Natural Resources Defense Council, emphasized the impact of climate change on the frequency and intensity of fires. He underscored the need to reassess infrastructure in order to better cope with such disasters.

President-elect Donald Trump has criticized California Governor Gavin Newsom for the wildfires in Los Angeles, attributing the situation to a policy dispute regarding water allocation in the state.

In response to Trump’s accusations, Governor Newsom’s communications director clarified that there is no such document as a Water Restoration Proclamation and emphasized Newsom’s commitment to prioritizing public safety and supporting firefighters.

Gold, formerly associated with the Newsom administration, identified infrastructure issues and environmental factors as key contributors to the water resource challenges in Southern California.

Source: www.nbcnews.com

Chimpanzees Perform Better at Difficult Tasks with an Audience present.

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Chimpanzee taking a number test on a touch screen

Akiho Muramatsu

Audience pressure can affect human performance both positively and negatively, and it turns out the same is true for our closest relatives.

Kristen Lin He and his colleagues at Kyoto University in Japan tested groups of six chimpanzees kept at the university's Primate Research Institute on three numerical tasks of varying difficulty.

In the first task, numbers from 1 to 5 appeared in random positions on the screen, and the chimpanzees simply had to touch the numbers in the correct order to receive a reward.

In the second task, the numbers were not adjacent. For example, 1, 3, 5, 7, 11, 15 might appear on the screen. Again, the chimpanzees had to press a number from the minimum value to the maximum value to receive a reward.

Finally, in the most difficult test, when the first digit in the sequence was pressed, the remaining digits were hidden behind a checkered square on the screen. This meant that the chimps had to memorize the positions of the numbers in order to press them in the correct order.

The chimpanzees were tested on this task thousands of times over six years with a variety of audiences, including one to eight human observers, people familiar with chimpanzees, and people new to chimpanzees.

When the task was easy, the chimpanzees performed worse as more people watched. However, on the most difficult task, all six chimpanzees performed better as the audience size increased.

“It was very surprising that performance improved so much as the number of human experimenters increased, because having more humans present can be distracting,” Lin says. “However, the results suggest that this may actually motivate them to perform even better.

“For the easiest tasks, humans may distract them, but for the most difficult tasks, humans can become a stressor and actually motivate them to perform better.”

team members Shinya YamamotoResearchers from Kyoto University also said they were surprised to find this effect in chimpanzees.

“Such audience effects are thought to be unique to humans who live in reputation-based and normative societies, where it is possible to perform well in front of an audience, and others to perform well in front of an audience. Sometimes they perform worse than they do,” he says. “However, our study shows that this audience effect may have evolved in the ape lineage before this type of normative society developed.”

Yamamoto says it's difficult and sometimes dangerous to tease out direct human implications from non-human research. “However, by telling people that chimpanzees are the same way, it may be possible to subtly calm the nerves of people who are extremely nervous in front of others.”

Miguel Llorente A team of researchers from the University of Girona in Spain suggests that it may be possible to further study how audience effects relate to individual chimpanzee personalities.

“To generalize these results to natural chimpanzee behavior, we will investigate these effects with chimpanzee audiences to more fully understand how these dynamics play out in natural social contexts.” “It would also be interesting to understand that,” he says.

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Source: www.newscientist.com

Is Convenience Making Our Lives More Difficult? The Big Idea Examined in this Book

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TThe conveniences of modern life are incredible. Currently, my phone is wirelessly playing some of the greatest hits from the 1700s (like Bach) through a portable speaker. You can easily get a ride, order food to your doorstep, or start chatting on a dating app using the same device. To quote Arthur C. Clarke, for modern humans, this technology is third lawindistinguishable from magic.

It’s understandable that our culture seeks out and celebrates these shortcuts. They eliminate boredom, enhance fun, and save time and effort. However, it’s evident that convenience also has a downside.

Before discussing that, it’s crucial to understand why convenience is so attractive. We often resist doing what’s necessary for progress, whether it’s taxes, a pending report, or training. There’s a sense of inertia behind every well-meaning plan. Why is this resistance and the desire for comfort ingrained in us?

Insights from evolutionary psychology, specifically the concept of “evolutionary mismatch,” can provide clarity. Evolutionary mismatch suggests that we evolved for a hunter-gatherer lifestyle while our environment drastically changed, leaving our instincts out of sync with our surroundings.

Viewing the issue through this evolutionary lens makes sense of our tendency towards lethargy and seeking shortcuts. For early humans, food and energy were scarce and unreliable. Survival meant conserving energy wisely to tackle the challenges they faced.

In today’s world, technology has altered our environment to cater somewhat to our energy-conservation instinct. However, adopting trends that prioritize comfort and convenience may come at a cost. While innovations like washing machines and phones have enriched our lives, excessive convenience may pose challenges rather than easing them.

For instance, the increase in depression and anxiety linked to smartphones and social media is worrying. Also, metabolic issues from sedentary lifestyles and reliance on convenient but low-nutrient foods are on the rise. Loneliness levels have prompted the UK to appoint a ‘Minister for Loneliness’ in 2018, partly due to the technologies fostering such isolation.

Over-reliance on coping mechanisms can exacerbate problems they were meant to solve. Choosing comfort excessively can hinder our ability to face life’s challenges. Some discomfort is vital for our growth and survival, as evidenced by our ancestors’ ability to balance safety and risk intelligently.

Super-convenience has its allure, but it might also deplete us unknowingly, making it harder to achieve true success. Human flourishing hinges not just on survival but on growth, problem-solving, and unity in adversity.

Embracing life’s challenges is essential for personal development. While technology offers convenience, it’s crucial to recognize that overcoming obstacles and discomfort is part of our evolutionary heritage. This lesson is critical for the younger generation.

Dr. Alex Carmi is a psychiatrist, psychotherapist, and speaker. thinking mind Podcast.

Read more

A valid reason for causing bad feelings: Insights from the Frontiers of Evolutionary Psychiatry by Randolph M. Nesse (Penguin, £10.99)

behave: Human Biology at its Best and Worst by Robert Sapolsky (Vintage, £12.99)

anxious generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood is Driving an Epidemic of Mental Illness, by Jonathan Haidt (Allen Lane, £25)

Source: www.theguardian.com

The constraints of machine learning in analyzing galaxies that are difficult to observe

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The recent focus in news has been on the progress of artificial intelligence (AI) in the past couple of years. ChatGPT and DALL·E are examples of AI models that many people associate with AI. AI tools are utilized by astronomers to analyze vast data sets, which would be impractical to manually go through. Machine Learning Algorithms (ML) are crucial for categorizing data based on predetermined parameters derived from previous studies. An example of ML usage is in the identification of elusive patterns in sky surveys by astronomers, though the limitations of this method in classifying objects in space are not thoroughly understood.

To address these limitations, a group of scientists led by Pamela Marchand-Cortes at the University of La Serena in Chile tested the capabilities of ML. They used ML models like Rotation forest, Random forest, and Logit Boost to categorize objects beyond the Milky Way galaxy based on their properties. The team aimed to see if ML could accurately categorize objects already manually classified. The challenge was in the dense region of sky obscured by dust in the Milky Way, known as the “Avoidance Zone.” The team’s experiment showed that ML had difficulty in categorizing objects in this challenging area.

The team gathered and analyzed data from X-ray images to manually identify objects and compare ML’s performance. ML correctly identified large objects like galaxies in only a few instances, showcasing its limitations. Despite the potential for ML to assist in studying obscured regions of the universe, the team recommended training AI models with diverse samples to enhance accuracy in future research.

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Source: sciworthy.com

Improved EV Tax Credits are on the Horizon, but Finding Them is Becoming More Difficult

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The federal tax credit for electric vehicles is about to change in certain ways that will make them much more attractive to buyers. Starting January 1, rebates of up to $7,500 on eligible new vehicles and up to $4,000 on eligible used EVs will be available. when buying a caras opposed to what you have to claim when filing your taxes.

Even better, Over 7,000 car dealers Companies representing nearly half of the country’s new car dealerships have already registered to ensure they can offer in-store rebates.

However, there is a catch. Not many cars may be eligible to receive the full $7,500 credit in the new year, as new restrictions take effect on the components that make up these zero-emission vehicles.

This is the result of these credits being reconsidered as part of President Biden’s anti-inflation law. This process involved a lot of negotiation, particularly with U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin, over the ultimate purpose of the credits. Should they be the lubricant for the sale of zero-emission vehicles to help fight climate change, or a tool to help build an electric vehicle supply chain to North America?

As is often the case, the answer was somewhere in the vague middle. The credit was effectively split in two. If the automaker follows certain guidelines regarding the sourcing of battery materials, the vehicle will receive his $3,500 credit, and if it follows similar rules for battery parts, he will receive an additional $3,500 credit. given. (Beyond that, vehicles must be manufactured in North America to qualify.) Starting in 2024, these sourcing requirements will become even more stringent.

As a result, General Motors stated: Only this week That Chevrolet Volt will be fully tax deductible starting January 1st. Does not apply to the more expensive Cadillac Lyriq and brand new Chevrolet Blazer. GM, the country’s largest automaker, said it must accelerate plans to replace two minor parts in the Blazer and Lyriq to bring them into compliance with new regulations.

Meanwhile, Ford said only its F-150 Lightning is eligible for the full $7,500 credit. The Lincoln Corsair Grand Touring SUV is eligible for half the credit, but the Mustang Mach-E, Lincoln Aviator Grand Touring Plug-in Hybrid, and E-Transit van are not.

Even Tesla, a company particularly good at identifying and qualifying for clean energy credits and subsidies, initially said its long-range and rear-wheel drive Model 3 variants would lose half of their credits. A few days later In fact, they full credit. Tesla also signaled Model Y may be similarly ineligible.

As the new year approaches, more automakers are likely to share which electric vehicles are or are likely to be ineligible for the credit, and ultimately the Treasury Department will create a list on its website.

All of this uncertainty speaks to the level of complexity involved in manufacturing electric vehicles in a world where the majority of the supply chain remains in and around China. But it also highlights the guidelines’ somewhat troubling motivations.

Source: techcrunch.com