Aug. 20, 2021

Odds of Bennu Hitting the Earth Get Worse

The Astronomy, Technology, and Space Science News Podcast.
SpaceTime Series 24 Episode 95
*Odds of Bennu hitting the Earth get worse
A new study suggests the hazardous Near Earth Asteroid Bennu now has a one in 1,750 chance of slamming into the Earth...

The Astronomy, Technology, and Space Science News Podcast.
SpaceTime Series 24 Episode 95
*Odds of Bennu hitting the Earth get worse
A new study suggests the hazardous Near Earth Asteroid Bennu now has a one in 1,750 chance of slamming into the Earth between now the year 2300.
*Countdown to the Europa clipper mission
NASA’s Europa Clipper mission to the Jovian ice moon Europa may find evidence that fundamentally alters our understanding of the solar system.
*A major failure for India’s space program
An Indian GSLV rocket has failed to place a new weather satellite into orbit after an upper stage failed to ignite.
*Virgin Galactic reopens space tourism ticket sales
Virgin Galactic has reopened ticket says for space tourism flights aboard its winged rocket planes – but the price has skyrocketed from the original quarter million dollars up to a new starting price of around half a million dollars per seat.
*The Science Report
Growing ice loss in the Russian arctic.
COVID-19 may have knocked nine years off the average life spans.
PrEP may be changing the way people think about ‘safe sex’.
Faecal microbiota transplantation from young people to old people could counteract aging.
Alex on Tech is your smart phone spying on you?

The Astronomy, Technology, and Space Science News Podcast.
SpaceTime Series 24 Episode 96
*Red Dwarfs less harmful to exoplanets than previously thought
A new study suggests planets orbiting around red dwarf stars may be more habitable than previously thought.
*Space Station mishap worse than thought
Mission managers at NASA have revealed that the Russian module malfunction which sent the International Space Station out of control for 47 minutes, spun the orbiting outpost around on its axis one and a half times affecting communications and power collection.
*Rocket Lab launches US Space Force payload
Rocket lab has successfully launched a new mission for the United States Space Force. The mission was the first since a rocket failure two months ago.
*China’s busy launch schedule continues
China has launched a new military communications satellite – its fourth launch in a week.
*The Science Report
The Gulf stream losing stability.
The human race is now in a better position to eradicate COVID-19 than it was for polio.
Locally extinct western barred bandicoot returned to Sturt National Park.
New species of ancient crocodile uncovered in southern Chile.
Skeptic's guide to fake COVID jab certificates.

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Transcript

SpaceTime S24E95 AI Transcript

[00:00:00] Stuart: This is space time series 24 episode 95 coming up on space time. The odds of Bonnaroo hitting the earth, get worse countdown to the Europa clipper mission and a major failure for India space program or that, and more coming up. Um, space time.

[00:00:19] VO Guy: Welcome to space time with Stuart Gary

[00:00:39] Stuart: A new study suggests that they're hazardous near-Earth asteroid. Bennu now has a one in 1,750 chance of slamming into the earth between now and the 8 2300. That's a little worse than earlier. Estimates of a one in 2,700 probability. The new predictions are based on a detailed analysis of new orbital tracking [00:01:00] data and characteristics of the 492 meter white space rock obtained by NASA's Osiris-Rex spacecraft.

[00:01:07] Stuart: Then you findings reported the general Icarus significantly reduce uncertainties related to the asteroids, future obit and improve astronomers ability that determined the total impact probability as well as helping to predict the orbits of other asteroids. The program manager, finesses nearer object observation program Kelly fast.

[00:01:26] Stuart: This is the agency's penetrate defense mission is to find and monitor asteroids and comets. They'd come near the earth and pers. This includes undertaking data, astronomical surveys, collecting data to discover previously I know in objects and refine orbital models for them, Osiris Rex was designed to refine and test these models, helping astronomers better predict where Bonnaroo will be when it makes its closest approach to worth.

[00:01:51] Stuart: In 2135 burner will make a close approach to worth. Now it won't hit the planet, but it will pass awfully close. And how [00:02:00] close it passes will be effected by Earth's gravitational interaction with it put simply the fly by will change the news trajectory and consequently future encounters with earth using NASA deep space network and stuff.

[00:02:12] Stuart: The, our computer models scientists were able to significantly shrink and certainly is about the news orbit, determining its total impact probability through to the year 2300 to be around one in 1,750. They were also able to identify a September the 24th, 2182, as the most significant single with a one in 2,700 probability, we have an impact.

[00:02:35] Stuart: And if it were to hit the earth, the result of impact would be the equivalent of 1200 megatons. Currently, Bonneau is one of the two months hazardous asteroids in our solar system, along with another asteroid called 1950 da a 1.1 kilometer wide mountain size space. Uh, Cyrus, Rick spent more than two years in close proximity to Bonnaroo gathering information about its size, [00:03:00] shape mass and composition and monitoring its spin and oval trajectory.

[00:03:04] Stuart: The spacecraft also scooped up a sample of rock and dust from the asteroid surface. It will be delivering that to earth on September the 24th, 2023 for further scientific investigation. The precision measurements of we'll hope astronomers, the turbine, how the asteroids orbit will evolve over time. And whether it will pass through a gravitational keyhole during its 2135 close approach, this keyhole is an area in space which would set Bonneau onto a path towards a future impact with the earth.

[00:03:34] Stuart: The asteroid would to pass through it at the right time due to the effect of Earth's gravitational pull. But as well as gravity, there are other forces also acting on the new, including the effect, the process by which the asteroid surface is heated by the sun during the daytime and releases that head is infrared radiation at night in the process generating a small but measurable amount of force capable over time of deflecting and changing and [00:04:00] asteroids overload.

[00:04:01] Stuart: Uh, Cyrus Ricks determined the Kosky effect on Bonnaroo was the equivalent to an extra mass of about three grapes consistently acting on the asteroid. Now it's a tiny amount. Sure. That's still significant when determining venues, future impact chances over the decades and centuries to come. The authors also considered other perturbing forces, such as the gravity of the sun.

[00:04:24] Stuart: The other planets are moons and more than 300 other asteroids, as well as the drag caused by interplanetary dust, the pressure of the solar wind and even venues, particle ejection events. In fact, the team even took into account the force that Osiris Rex exerted, when performing its touching go sample collection maneuver last year.

[00:04:45] Stuart: Launch from Cape Canaveral in September, 2016, the 2,110 kilogram. Cerus Rick spacecraft arrived at Bonneau in October, 2018. It spent three years orbiting the asteroid out the Jude's as low as five kilometers mapping its [00:05:00] surface, its geology, its composition, its chemical makeup and mineralogy. And of course, collecting those samples for return to work.

[00:05:08] Stuart: This is space time still the calm countdown to NASA's Europa clipper mission, and crash and burn a major failure for India space program, all that, and more still to come on. Space time.

[00:05:36] Stuart: In 16, 10 Galileo paid through his telescope and spotted for bright moons, orbiting Jupiter. The discovery of these Galilean moons as they've been called IO Europa, Gaddy meeting Callisto dispelled once. And for all the long held notion that all celestial bodies revolved around the earth. Now work progressors on the construction of masses, Europe, [00:06:00] eclipse emission, to the Jovian ice moon Europa, which may also find evidence that fundamentally alters their understanding of the solar system Europa as a radius of 1,561 kilometers, it means it's similar in size to the earth.

[00:06:15] Stuart: Data from that is 1989 Galileo probe studying the Jovian system as well as the Hubble space telescope suggest that a massive global subsurface liquid water ocean intending three times more water than all the Earth's oceans combined exists beneath Europa's thick, icy crust. Your average itself has been around for about 4.5 billion years, but its surface is geologically very young and about 60 million years old.

[00:06:42] Stuart: It's incredibly smooth with very few craters, especially compared to somewhere like the moon, which is about the same age. And that suggests that Europa's being continuously resurfacing itself, perhaps through a process, similar to earth, shifting plate tectonics as Roper travels around [00:07:00] Jupiter it's elliptical orbit and the planet strong gravitational pull caused this tiny moon to flex and stretch like a rubber ball in the process producing a lot of internal.

[00:07:11] Stuart: And it's that internal hate, which is maintaining the surface oceans, liquid state hydrothermal energy from the moon's core left over from its formation could also be hitting the ocean at the sea floor. These unique characteristics have led an acid to deem Europa, to be the most promising place in our solar system.

[00:07:31] Stuart: The fine present day environment suitable for some sort of life beyond earth. You see, there's a growing chorus of astrobiologists now believing that life on earth may have began in the hot geothermal events of Earth's Minesh and ridges Kilmeade is below the surface and Europa clipper could tell science more about that potential for life on other worlds.

[00:07:53] Stuart: Importantly while earth and Mars have been swapping rocks for billions of years, thereby leading to the possibility of [00:08:00] life on Mars. If it exists, they're originating on the earth or alternatively life on earth, possibly having started on Mars. Any discovery of life on Europa would most likely have originated there.

[00:08:12] Stuart: And if you have two places in our solar system where life has started independently, and that suggests life may be common throughout the universe. But of course, for life to exist in the oceans of Europa, there needs to be more than just water and energy. It also needs essential chemicals like hydrogen, carbon, and oxygen.

[00:08:31] Stuart: And that's where the rubber clipper mission comes in. It'll try and confirm the existence of these ingredients. The missions launched from the Cape Canaveral space for space in Florida was originally programmed for an Atlas five rocket with a flight time of six years using one gravity assist from Venus and two from the earth.

[00:08:48] Stuart: The mission was led a reprogram for LaunchBoard NASA's new super heavy lift rocket, the SLS on a direct flight. Last thing, just three years. However, ongoing delays with the SLS program as [00:09:00] forced NASA to instead opt for a space X Falcon heavy rocket, basically three Falcon nine rocket strapped together.

[00:09:07] Stuart: That's not Slater for launch in 2024 with Jovi and orbit insertion Slater for 2030. During its five and a half year journey to Jupiter, the spacecraft undertake a fly by of both Mars and the earth using the planet's gravity assist the Slingshot itself, the 780 million kilometers to Jupiter arrival in the Jovian system will bring its own hazards chief of which will be immense radiation belt.

[00:09:32] Stuart: So instead of orbiting Europa directly and soaking up all that harsh radiation Europa clipper will undertake a series of highly Ilan, gated, elliptical orbits, spending as little time in the radiation belts as possible. Well, the further protect the spacecraft it's key electric, it makes we'll be sure that inside a titanium and aluminum compartment in order to minimize radiation exposure.

[00:09:53] Stuart: During its nominal three and a half year mission spacecraft will perform some 45 flybys of Europa [00:10:00] with closest approaches. Varying an altitude from 2,700 kilometers down to just 25 kilometers above the surface. The 6,000 kilograms spacecraft will carry 10 scientific instrument packages. The study Europa's surface ocean interior, geology, chemistry, and habitability.

[00:10:18] Stuart: These includers sub made a resolution wide and narrow angle, visible spectrum camera, a thermal emission Mardi spectral imaging system. The study of the surface of Europa in mid to it for red bands, that'll allow the spacecraft to detect geologically active sites, such as potential events, erupting plumes of water and space.

[00:10:37] Stuart: There'll be an infrared mapping and imaging spectrometer. This study of the surface of Europa mapping, surface composition, identifying the distribution of organic, such as amino acids, salts acid, hydrates water, ice phases, and other minerals. There'll be an ultraviolet spectrograph that it takes small plumes and provide data about the composition and dynamics of the [00:11:00] moon's.

[00:11:00] Stuart: Exosphere. There'll be a Juul frequency. I spent a trading radar designed to characterize rope eyes cross from near the surface down to the ocean. It'll reveal, hidden stretches in the frozen worlds. I show any potential water pockets. It contains. There'll be a plasma magnetic signing instrument to measure plasma and magnetic field surrounding Europa.

[00:11:20] Stuart: These masks, the magnetic induction response of its subsurface ocean, which will be key to determining the shells, thickness, ocean depth and salinity. There's also a mass spectrometer to determine surface composition and that of the subsurface ocean, uh, measuring the tenuous ex-US fee and any surface minerals ejected into space.

[00:11:39] Stuart: And there'll be a surface dust analyze a mass spectrum. It'll measure the composition of small solid particles ejected from Europa, which will provide the opportunity to directly sample the surface as well as any plumes to identify a traces of organic and inorganic compounds in the ice. If objective.

[00:11:57] Stuart: The ability to study areas where you rope [00:12:00] as sub surface ocean could have oozed out onto the surface or re-upped it in plumes or guises into space is especially important. As these locations would provide the opportunity to analyze the composition of Europa subsurface ocean without needing to land or to draw for kilometers of thick ice, potentially contaminating, whatever lies on the knee.

[00:12:21] Stuart: This report from NASA TV,

[00:12:24] Guest: Europa, the most likely place to find life in our solar system today because we think there's a liquid water ocean beneath its surface. And we know that on earth, everywhere that there's water. We find life. So could your Ropa have the ingredients to support life?

[00:12:44] Stuart: We might be actually looking at a body that is presently alive, presently active, and presently undergoing its geology.

[00:12:51] Stuart: There is too much evidence right now, lying around on the surface, the red stuff that suggests that something's going on. Is that an [00:13:00] environment that is habitable for any sort of life form by golly, we really have got to go

[00:13:05] Guest: back and figure that out.

[00:13:14] Guest: We have designed

[00:13:15] Stuart: it Europa mission to take a spacecraft and it set the instruments all the way from planet earth to Jupiter.

[00:13:22] Guest: Previous mission concepts were for a spacecraft that would orbit Europe. But Europa is bathed in radiation from Jupiter. Any mission that goes in the vicinity of Europa is cooked pretty quickly.

[00:13:34] Guest: Instead, we're looking at a mission that will orbit Jupiter, make close flybys of Europa, and then zip out of the high radiation. Kind of like

[00:13:43] Stuart: when I was a kid, we had the sprinklers and we didn't want to be too close to the sprinkler heads. So we would, we would run in and get a little water

[00:13:50] Guest: and then run back out again.

[00:13:52] Guest: This allows us to have a mission that's many years long and to collect and transmit lots and lots of data. As you wrote [00:14:00] orbits, Jupiter, and. And we could measure the gravitational change of Europa by encountering Europa at different points and its orbit on a typical fly by, we would turn on our remote sensing instruments.

[00:14:14] Guest: We would image the surface. We would interrogate the surface with spectroscopy and we would do the same thing on the way out. And we would essentially rinse and repeat and do this many, many times until we understand Europa globally. Images from the Hubble space. Telescope tells us that you Ropa might be erupting clues of water, high into space.

[00:14:37] Guest: If that's true, then we could fly through those plumes with a spacecraft and literally taste it to understand the composition of Europa's interior.

[00:14:45] Stuart: If it does have the ability to Harbor life, how does that work? Exactly. We'll have enough instrumentation to really. Pinpoint exactly how the mechanisms would work for replenishing.

[00:14:56] Stuart: The nutrients in a subsurface

[00:14:58] Guest: ocean [00:15:00] Europa is so important because we want to understand, are we alone in the cosmos? If there is life in Europa, it almost certainly was completely independent from the origin of life on earth. That would mean the origin of life. Must be pretty easy throughout the galaxy and beyond

[00:15:31] Stuart: And in that report from NASA TV, we heard from Europa mission. Project side is rubber pepper, lotto Galileo, mission, project manager, Claudia Alexander, and Europa mission payload manager, Sarah. So SCA, this is space-time still the com crash and burn a major failure for India space program and Virgin galactic reopen space, tourism ticket sells, but they don't come cheap.

[00:15:56] Stuart: All that, a more stored account. Um, space time.[00:16:00]

[00:16:15] Stuart: An Indian GSLV rocket is felled the place in you with a satellite into orbit. After an upper stage fell to ignite the incident happened about six minutes after the Indian space research organizations. GSLV, blasted off from the space center on the bay of Bengal coast, ten

[00:16:34] Guest: nine eight

[00:16:36] Stuart: seven six five four three

[00:16:41] Guest: two.

[00:16:42] Guest: Ron.

[00:16:49] Guest: Very good lunch off the GSSP

[00:16:55] Guest: program of the launch vehicle is designed to enable[00:17:00]

[00:17:02] Guest: which takes about

[00:17:06] Guest: To orient the launch vehicle axis along the intended launch as a month, about 30 seconds into the flight, the gravity done is initiated. Nominal test is 4,815 kilonewtons. The pitch you are enrolled control is through Jim Boyle of L 40 engine. Yes, ABF 10 is traveling eastward after Lyft. Shark coast, the two tickets, two stations that chart will provide the real-time center.

[00:17:33] Guest: Some lift off my next 30 minutes to 500 seconds after liftoff. When geometry loss of signal occurs. Yes, the 1 39

[00:17:41] Stuart: ran out.

[00:17:47] Stuart: fuck the engines. Shut off.

[00:17:52] Guest: The Diaz to stage the odd storable liquid propulsion system is the second stage of the launch baker. It is powered with [00:18:00] high-trust because engine which flew for the first time in GSLV FC eight and uses a longer complaint tank from DSL, VF 11. This stage is loaded with about 42 tons of hypergolic propellants stored in two aluminum allowed tanks of 2.8 meter diamond.

[00:18:18] Guest: Separated by common barricade and this powered with the turbo pump side high-trust because engine the engine is provided with two planes for when using electromechanical actuators, a major flight event has taken place just now that is the separation of the payload fairing via 255 seconds. After the launch, the altitude currently is 122.

[00:18:44] Guest: Kilometers, but all control of DS two was achieved by heart gas storage, second state Indian third stage of the flight, the GST, the cryogenic upper stage, which is the third stage of GSLV [00:19:00] functions on trial. Lox and LH to the stage uses India's first indigenously developed cryogenic engine CE 7.5, which operates in stage conversion cycle cause has the unique feature of thirst and mixture ratio control systems, which can be fine tuned based on mission requirements.

[00:19:22] Guest: The stage uses two steering engines is having two planes and balling provision for pitch your Android control. After continued success, the stage was modified with the length increase to accommodate higher propellant loading for better payload capability. This range. See 15 stage with 15 dance properly.

[00:19:43] Guest: Loading has been flown in GSLB F 11 and a slowing in the present mission and planned in future missions as well. This is the eighth time is race flying indigenous trail stage for GSLB the nominal terms. GST is 32.97 Killarney [00:20:00] the

[00:20:00] Stuart: GSL via geosynchronous satellite launch vehicles first and second stages perform nominally.

[00:20:06] Stuart: But the third and final stage fell to ignite cryogenic

[00:20:10] Guest: engine say the launch of GSLV F 10 has taken place today. And the outcome of the mission will be announced by Israel soon. Right now in the mission control center, senior scientists are in discussion. Of the flight.

[00:20:27] Stuart: And I'll say since this is , but how much, uh, anomaly observed in the collision next stage would not be accomplished to fully the mission was carrying the new with zero three weather satellite, which was designed to provide real-time images to monitor cyclins and other natural disasters.

[00:20:45] Stuart: The satellite, which was to be placed in the geostationary orbit was carrying enough fuel for a 10 year lifespan. The 49 meter tall GSLV is designed to carry up the five tons into low earth orbit and 2.7 tons in a gas station may [00:21:00] transfer orbit. It was the fourth failure of a GSLV launch vehicle in 14 missions.

[00:21:05] Stuart: India's last launch fairly was in 2017. But that involved the smaller four stage peer Sylvie Paula satellite launch vehicle, the 44 meter tall PSLV is designed to carry 3.8 tons in a low earth orbit and 1.3 tons and a geostationary transfer orbit. This is space time still the com Virgin galactic reopen space, tourism ticket sales, and later in the science report.

[00:21:31] Stuart: And you study claims that COVID-19 may have knocked up to nine years of average lifespans, all that, and more still to come on space time.

[00:21:57] Stuart: Virgin galactic is reopened ticket sales [00:22:00] for space, tourism, flights, subordinates wings, rocket plane, but the price has skyrocket from the original quarter of a million dollars. A seat up to a new starting price of around half a million dollars. A ticket. The company expects to start revenue flights from its New Mexico spaceport.

[00:22:15] Stuart: Next year. The move follows a surge in consumer interest. Following last month, successful test flight to an altitude of 86 kilometers, which included the company's boss, Richard Branson, Virgin galactic sourcer planning, or a search flight for the Italian air force next month. And that will include Italian payload specialists conducting experiments during Abbott.

[00:22:36] Stuart: The payloads will include medical instrumentation, measuring the biological effect of transitional phase from gravity to micro gravity on the human body and a study, looking at the chemistry of green fuels under space conditions. This is space time[00:23:00]

[00:23:00] Stuart: and Tom had to take another brief look at some of the other stories making use in science this week with a science report. And your study shows that glaciers and ice caps into archipelagos in the Russian Arctic. And now losing enough milk water to fill nearly 5 million Olympic sized swimming pools every year.

[00:23:18] Stuart: The findings reported in the journal of geophysical research, uh, based on satellite data collected by the European space agencies crier set to space. Site is found the amount of ice loss between 2010 and 2018 would put an area. The size of the Netherlands under two meters of water research has found that warming of the Arctic ocean appears to play a key role in accelerating ice loss from two large groups of islands that border the kerosene.

[00:23:45] Stuart: Scientists from the university of Edinburgh, found the archipelagos, which cover a combined area of 80,000 square kilometers. Lost 11.4 billion, tons of ice every year between 2010 and 2018. A new [00:24:00] study is concluded that COVID-19 may have docked up to nine years of an average lifespan. The findings reported in the journal plus one, uh, based on a new method that looks at the effects of temporary shocks such as the Corona virus on average lifespan.

[00:24:16] Stuart: Researchers call the new metric mean unfulfilled lifespan or Mol, which is the difference between the average age of death. For those have died in a given timeframe and the average age, these individuals would have been expected to reach. Had they not been a temporary shock to mortality rate? The authors show, how M you all can be used to compare the impact of COVID-19 between different regions calculations.

[00:24:40] Stuart: Suggest that lifespans were cut by 8.91 years in New Jersey, 8.9, six years in Mexico city, and 12.7 years in parts of Ecuador. The world health organization, estimates that more than 8 million people have been killed by the COVID-19 Corona virus with over 4.4 million [00:25:00] confirmed fatalities and more than 205 million people infected since the deadly disease was first bread from hand in China, daddy warns that HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis or prep may be changing the way people think about safe sex.

[00:25:17] Stuart: A report in the journal. Plus one found condom use is becoming less of a focus among gay men because of increased reliance on prep. Medication prep is an HIV prevention method in which people who don't have HIV take the aids medication M triggered a bind in combination with tenofovir to reduce their risk of getting HIV.

[00:25:37] Stuart: If they're exposed to the virus, Researchers interviewed gay men and conducted focus groups with doctors involved in prep, prescribing as well as staff working with HIV and LGBT IQ, community organizations, they found that nearly all the men reported that increased access to prep meant they tended to use condoms less for casual sex.

[00:25:57] Stuart: The study also found those evidence of [00:26:00] potentially damaging new norm emerging where prep use was seen as the best form of aids prevention for HIV, negative men, and those who didn't use it were stigmatized. And any study a suggested that fecal microbiota transplantation from young people to old people could counter aging related changes in the brain.

[00:26:20] Stuart: The findings reported in the journal nature. Haven't involved human trials yet, but early studies have found that the transplants reversed age-related changes in the immune system. Researchers also found that recipients improved in several cognitive tests for learning memory and anxiety. Well, if you think your smartphone spying on you, you're probably right.

[00:26:42] Stuart: Apps are already tracking your location and online browsing habits. And some even turn on your phones, cameras, it's microphone to pick up conversations and they can read your notes and messaging. Last year, apple introduced a new feature, showing an orange dot on top of your phone when your microphone's [00:27:00] activated and a green dot when it's your camera.

[00:27:02] Stuart: But it now looks like Apple's crusade to protect your privacy. The big, a have announced plans to start scanning I-phones for illegal content and reporting what they find to law enforcement. The tool called neutral hash will initially be scanning for images of child abuse and moves strongly supported by child protection groups who describe it as a game changer.

[00:27:23] Stuart: It works by comparing pictures on an apple device to a database of known child abuse images, which are translated into numerical codes called hashes. Tech companies, including Microsoft, Google, Facebook, and others have for years been sharing digital fingerprints of child, sexual abuse, images, and apples.

[00:27:40] Stuart: Use those to scan user files stored on its iCloud server for child pornography. But the move has raised concerns among privacy and online security groups, because it could be used by authoritarian governments, despite on citizens monitor their behavior and undertake surveillance of this evidence of protest.

[00:27:59] Stuart: [00:28:00] Privacy groups say Apple's action signal that it's now safe to build technology. You can scan your phone for whatever is deemed prohibited, content review political speech. And if you think it's a once-off think again, local concern hands have been raised, falling revelations that despite assurances by governments, across Australia, that QR code safety check-in data would only ever be used for COVID contact.

[00:28:22] Stuart: Tracing police quickly began accessing the data to trace people's movements. Technology editor, Alex, Roy from it, why? It says you versions of iOS and iPad iOS due to be released later this year, we'll have the new cryptography applications included. Look, it is true to say that apple

[00:28:39] Alex: should have been a bit more upfront about this and could have tried to introduce this.

[00:28:42] Alex: In a better way, because it certainly has caused a lot of concern. But one of the questions asked is could governments force apple to add non CSM, which is the child sexual abuse material images to the hash list, the list of photos that have been determined to be illegal and apple says it will refuse any such [00:29:00] demands, apples.

[00:29:01] Alex: Detection capabilities built solely to detect known C7 images stored in iCloud photos that have been identified by experts at NEC NC MEC and other child safety groups. So, I mean, they go into a lot of details, you know, they say, can Nanci Sam images be injected into the system to flag accounts with things other than say Sam and apple says our process is designed to prevent that from happening instead of image hashes used for matching.

[00:29:25] Alex: Existing images of CSM that have been acquired and validated by set organization. Facebook reported 20 million instances of CSM to the NEC organization last year, and Google reported 546,000 of those. So this could be quite a joke for apple seeing as it does have never a billion iOS users. Hopefully this will make people who engage in this sort of information think twice because they won't be able to hide behind encryption.

[00:29:49] Alex: I mean, we have it, people like WhatsApp saying, oh no, we're never going to be scanning people's images, but that's coming from a company that's owned by Facebook to be playing fast and loose with privacy and going on apology [00:30:00] to us, hopefully out of all of this children will end up being protected.

[00:30:03] Stuart: The problem with stamping at child sexual abuse.

[00:30:05] Stuart: And if they move it a step further to controlling things like terrorism, no one has a problem with that either. No reasonable person. Anyway. But, uh, what's to stop governments from pushing that even further. And that's the real fear. W we recently had a situation where everyone's QR codes were supposed to be only for contact tracing for COVID-19.

[00:30:27] Stuart: We know police immediately. First thing they did when this became available was to start using people's QR codes to find out where they've been. The fact is once you pry the door open, It never closes. It just gets wider.

[00:30:39] Alex: Pandora's box. I mean, Reagan famously said that the Liberty and freedom is not passed down through the bloodstream.

[00:30:45] Alex: It must be fought for by every generation. And you know, apples are saying that they will refuse any such demands. I have forming having refused the FBI. If a government is going to put the screws on apple to get them to force this information out of them, we just have to hope that apple was strong [00:31:00] enough to stand against you.

[00:31:02] Alex: We have the, uh, the government trying to get companies to break the encryption and to allow them to scan, uh, messages for terrorist activity. So could the government ask for political dissidents to be,

[00:31:16] Stuart: it's a question of, if you're in Belarus, for example, they're not going to ask. They're just going to order it.

[00:31:21] Alex: Well, this is where we need the U S to remain the beacon of freedom

[00:31:25] Stuart: and Liberty or avoid from ity.com.

[00:31:45] Guest: And

[00:31:45] Stuart: that's the show for now. The space-time is available every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday through apple podcasts, iTunes, Stitcher, Google podcast, pocket casts, Spotify outcast, Amazon music bites.com, [00:32:00] SoundCloud YouTube favorite podcasts downloaded provider. And from space-time with Stewart, gary.com space times also broadcast through the national science foundation on science own radio and on both iHeart, radio and tune in radio.

[00:32:15] Stuart: And you can help to support our show by visiting the space time store for a range of promotional merchandising goodies, or by becoming a space-time patron, which gives you access to triple episode commercial free versions of the show, as well as lots of Burness audio content, which doesn't go to where access to our exclusive Facebook group and other rewards.

[00:32:34] Stuart: Just go to space time with Stuart, gary.com for full details. And if you want more space time, please check out our blog where you'll find all the stuff we couldn't fit in the show, as well as heaps of images, new stories, loads, videos, and things on the web. I find interesting or amusing, just go to space-time with Stuart, gary.tumbler.com.

[00:32:54] Stuart: That's all one word and that's tumbler without the aid. You can also follow us through at [00:33:00] Stuart, Gary on Twitter at space-time with Stuart Gary on Instagram. Through our space-time YouTube channel and on Facebook, just go to facebook.com forward slash space time with Stuart, Gary and space-time is brought to you in collaboration with Australian sky and telescope magazine. Your window on the universe.

You've been listening to Space-Time with Stuart Gary. This has been another quality podcast production from bitesz.com

Alex Zaharov-ReuttProfile Photo

Alex Zaharov-Reutt

Technology Editor

Alex Zaharov-Reutt is iTWire's Technology Editor is one of Australia’s best-known technology journalists and consumer tech experts, Alex has appeared in his capacity as technology expert on all of Australia’s free-to-air and pay TV networks on all the major news and current affairs programs, on commercial and public radio, and technology, lifestyle and reality TV shows.