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Friday, February 3, 2023

'Explosion in the sky' above Billings Montana where Chinese spy balloon was spotted

Residents report seeing jet zoom by after officials came under fire for refusing to shoot it down

Video of the aftermath reveals a trail of smoke in the sky where the balloon was
US officials called the balloon a 'clear violation of sovereignty' while warning that it wouldn't be shot down because it was hovering over 'sensitive sites'

An explosion in the sky over Billings Montana, where a Chinese spy balloon has been flying over the region, was caught on camera Friday.

Mysterious video of the aftermath shows a trail of smoke in the sky where the balloon was last spotted.

Dolly Moore, who took video of the scene, said she 'saw a jet go by so fast and then explosion in the sky.'

As the video spread on social media, Defense officials have said the balloon over Montana has not exploded.

It comes after the US State Department called the balloon, which was traveling over U.S. airspace at 60,000 feet, a 'clear violation' of U.S. sovereignty, but said it wouldn't be shot down because it was flying over a 'number of sensitive sites.'

Montana witness catches 'explosion in the sky' where spy balloon was

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Video of the aftermath reveals a trail of smoke in the sky where the balloon was when flying over Billings, Montana, on Friday

A US defense official said the balloon is the size of several buses - but doesn't post an immediate threat to Americans. The balloon, pictured over Montana, has been tracked for several days but officials decided not to shoot it down over fears about debris. China claims it is a civilian airship used for meteorological research

The balloon flew over the Aleutian Islands in the northern Pacific Ocean, and then crossed Canadian airspace into the United States

US officials had said that the balloon is large enough that destroying it would rain down debris, risking the safety of people on the ground.

Analysts said the balloon is about the size of 'three buses' and could be fitted with high-tech equipment including cameras, sensors and radar.

F-22 fight jets were mobilized to track the device as it hoved over Montana, which borders Canada, on Wednesday.

A US defense official said it entered US airspace 'a couple days ago' but its exact location was not shared.

Montana Senator Steve Daines, however, warned that the balloon might have been targeting his state's nuclear missile fields.

'Montana plays a vital national security role by housing nuclear missile silos at Malmstrom AFB,' Daines wrote to the Department of Defense.

'Given the increased hostility and destabilization around the globe aimed at the United States and our allies, I am alarmed by the fact that this spy balloon was able to infiltrate the airspace of our country and Montana.'

'Chinese surveillance balloon' spotted over Montana

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A US defense official said the balloon is the size of several buses - but doesn't post an immediate threat to Americans

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11712125/Explosion-sky-Billings-Montana-Chinese-balloon-spotted-U-S-airspace.html

U.S. military members suing 3M seek dismissal of subsidiary's bankruptcy

Current and former U.S. military members suing 3M over allegedly defective military earplugs have asked a U.S. judge to dismiss 3M subsidiary Aearo Technologies' bankruptcy, accusing the company of using bankruptcy to shield itself from litigation, which has grown into the largest mass tort in U.S. history.

The servicemembers' group said late on Thursday that Aearo's Chapter 11 bankruptcy should face the same fate as the bankruptcy of a Johnson & Johnson-created subsidiary, which was used to settle lawsuits alleging J&J baby powder and other talc products caused cancer. A federal appeals court dismissed the bankruptcy strategy this week.

3M Co faces more than 230,000 lawsuits accusing it of selling defective earplugs that caused hearing loss for U.S. military members. The company has sought to settle those lawsuits through Aearo's bankruptcy.

3M's plan faltered when U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Jeffrey Graham in Indianapolis ruled that Aearo's bankruptcy did not stop earplug lawsuits from proceeding against parent company 3M, which is not bankrupt. 3M is appealing that ruling.

Now the servicemembers suing want Graham to go a step further and end Aearo's bankruptcy entirely. In a Thursday court filing, they cited a Monday ruling by the U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia dismissing a bankruptcy case filed by J&J subsidiary LTL Management because neither J&J nor LTL were in "financial distress."

J&J denies the cancer claims and is challenging the 3rd Circuit ruling.

LTL, like Aearo, entered bankruptcy with an agreement that its non-bankrupt parent would fund a settlement of the lawsuits in bankruptcy. Those funding agreements undercut plaintiffs' arguments that 3M and J&J were "hiding assets" from potential creditors, but they also undercut the companies' arguments that they could not afford to fight the lawsuits outside of bankruptcy court.

The committee representing the servicemembers in bankruptcy court said in Thursday's filing that the LTL decision "knocks the props out from under these cases and requires their dismissal."

"Like J&J, 3M is a multi-billion dollar corporate enterprise that is not remotely in financial distress, and therefore should not be able to use the bankruptcy against the servicemembers it injured," plaintiffs' attorneys Bryan Aylstock and Chris Seeger said in a statement.

3M said on Friday it would oppose efforts to dismiss the bankruptcy. It has denied liability, saying its earplugs offered protection to soldiers while allowing them to hear on the battlefield.

Dismissing Aearo's bankruptcy would "needlessly disrupt" settlement negotiations and force 3M back to "protracted litigation in the mass tort system, which after sixteen trials to-date has not provided clarity or certainty," 3M said.

3M has lost 10 of the 16 cases that have gone to trial so far, with about $265 million being awarded in total to 13 plaintiffs.

The lawsuits have been consolidated in federal court in Florida. Aearo placed $1 billion in a trust to settle them and agreed to indemnify 3M for all liability related to the earplugs.

https://www.marketscreener.com/news/latest/U-S-military-members-suing-3M-seek-dismissal-of-subsidiary-s-bankruptcy--42893171/

Hackers who breached ION say ransom paid; company declines comment

The hackers who claimed responsibility for the disruptive breach at financial data firm ION say a ransom has been paid, although they declined to say how much it was or offer any evidence that the money had been handed over.

ION Group declined to comment on the statement. Lockbit communicated the claim to Reuters via its online chat account on Friday but said there was "no way" it would offer details. The FBI did not immediately reply to a request for comment. Britain's National Cyber Security Agency (NCSC), part of Britain's GCHQ eavesdropping intelligence agency, told Reuters it had no comment.

The ransomware outbreak that erupted at ION on Tuesday has disrupted trading and clearing of exchange-traded financial derivatives, causing problems for scores of brokers, sources familiar with the matter told Reuters this week.

Among the many ION clients whose operations were likely to have been affected were ABN Amro Clearing and Intesa Sanpaolo, Italy's biggest bank, according to messages to clients from both banks that were seen by Reuters.

ABN told clients on Wednesday that due to "technical disruption" from ION, some applications were unavailable and were expected to remain so for a "number of days."

It's not clear whether paying the ransom would necessarily speed the clean-up effort. Ransomware works by encrypting vital company data and extorting the victims for payoffs in exchange for the decryption keys. But even if hackers do hand over the keys, it can still take days, weeks or longer to undo the damage to a company's digital infrastructure.

There were already signs that ION and Lockbit might have reached an agreement. ION was removed from Lockbit's extortion website, where victim companies are named and shamed in a bid to force a payout. Experts say that is often a sign that a ransom has been delivered.

"When a victim is delisted, it most commonly means either that the victim has agreed to enter negotiations or that it has paid," said ransomware expert Brett Callow of New Zealand-based cybersecurity company Emsisoft.

Callow said there was an outside chance that there was some other explanation for Lockbit publicly backing off.

"It may mean that ransomware gang got cold feet or decided not to proceed with the extortion for other reasons," he said.

Ransomware has emerged as one of the internet's most expensive and disruptive scourges. As of late Friday, Lockbit's extortion website alone counted 54 victims who were being shaken down, including a television station in California, a school in Brooklyn and a city in Michigan.

https://www.marketscreener.com/quote/stock/INTESA-SANPAOLO-S-P-A-68944/news/Hackers-who-breached-ION-say-ransom-paid-company-declines-comment-42894500/

2nd Chinese spy balloon spotted in skies over Latin America,: Pentagon

A second Chinese spy balloon has been spotted, this time in the skies over Latin America, according to the Pentagon.

It is unclear exactly which country in the region the balloon is hovering over but it does not appear as if it is headed towards the United States, according to CNN.

“We are seeing reports of a balloon transiting Latin America. We now assess it is another Chinese surveillance balloon,” Pentagon press secretary Brig Gen Patrick Ryder said in a statement to the news network.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/china-spy-balloon-latin-america-b2275624.html

Peer-Reviewed Journal Publishes Paper Written Almost Entirely by ChatGPT

Text-generating artificial intelligence (AI) models, such as ChatGPT, have the potential to "revolutionize the field of medical writing" by automating tasks and increasing efficiency throughout the writing process -- at least according to a paper generated by ChatGPT.

While the AI model successfully generated almost all of the text in the peer-reviewed paper published in Radiologyopens in a new tab or window, it required close editing and careful consideration of several factors, such as ethics, copyright, and accuracy, noted Som Biswas, MD, of the University of Tennessee Health Science Center College of Medicine in Memphis.

Biswas said that he used ChatGPT

opens in a new tab or window, a large language model developed by OpenAI, to write the first several sections of the paper using a series of prompts.

"The idea has to come [from] a human and the subheadings have to be conceptualized by a human being, and then it can probably write short paragraphs for each," Biswas told MedPage Today. "Then it has to be edited by a human."

"If ChatGPT can write short paragraphs or jokes, why can't we use it for something more meaningful?" he asked.

Biswas emphasized the need to consider potential ethical and legal mistakes when using AI models, especially since ChatGPT has a track record of plagiarizing. For example, he wrote that using ChatGPT to write letters of recommendation or personal statements could raise concerns about authenticity. Bias and transparency are also areas of concerns when using AI models for writing research papers, he added.

"The use of AI in the writing process and identification of text that has been generated by a machine should be made clear," he wrote in the author-generated portion of the paper.

To that point, Biswas asked ChatGPT to include this note at the beginning of the paper: "The human author of this article would like to state that this entire article was written by ChatGPT."

Despite the advanced technological capabilities they offer, Biswas said that AI models are not well suited for generating innovative ideas. Since "ChatGPT is based on prior data fed to it, eventually it will lead to repetitive text generation and lack of creativity," he noted.

On the other hand, ChatGPT generated a statement of optimism for its own use in research, writing that "the use of these technologies in medical writing has the potential to improve the speed and accuracy of document creation."

In an accompanying editorial

opens in a new tab or window, Felipe C. Kitamura, MD, PhD, of Universidade Federal de São Paulo, said that the paper covered a compelling list of examples for using AI to assist in research writing.

"Large language models could be useful for "real-time assistance or creating drafts for clinical trial protocols, study reports, regulatory documents, patient-facing materials, and translation of medical information into a myriad of languages," wrote Kitamura, who is also the head of Applied Innovation and AI at Dasa, a large healthcare system in Brazil.

"The possibilities seem endless," he added.

However, Kitamura also echoed Biswas's acknowledged study limitations, noting that he is "curious to learn if scientific journals will see an increase in the plagiarism percentage of received manuscripts."

Despite the limitations, Kitamura said that he believes that ChatGPT is worth testing with the proper "discretion."

"ChatGPT has raised the bar, bringing writing support tools to the next level," he wrote. "With proper use, writers can benefit from it."

The use of AI models, specifically large language models similar to ChatGPT, has become a controversial topic in medical research fields. Several prominent publications have recently announced that papers written with any help from these models will not be accepted, including JAMA

opens in a new tab or window journals.

In an editorial published in Scienceopens in a new tab or window, Editor-in-Chief H. Holden Thorp, PhD, wrote that "an AI program cannot be an author," and that violating the journal's policy prohibiting its use "will constitute scientific misconduct no different from altered images or plagiarism of existing works."

Despite publishing this paper written almost entirely by ChatGPT, Radiology recently published an editorialopens in a new tab or window calling large language models "double-edged swords" that will make "it more challenging for journals to evaluate the scientific integrity of submitted manuscripts."

As one of the first medical researchers to use ChatGPT to this extent, Biswas concluded that AI language models are a powerful tool that will need to be applied in carefully considered ways.

"It is definitely much easier, but as far as the thought process that goes into an article, I think that humans still have a very significant role," he said. "We should always remember that the readers are still humans."

Disclosures

Biswas and Kitamura reported no conflicts of interest.

Primary Source

Radiology

Source Reference: opens in a new tab or windowBiswas S "ChatGPT and the future of medical writing" Radiology 2023; DOI: 10.1148/radiol.223312.

Secondary Source