Luxafor

Luxafor () is a brand of office productivity tools designed to improve efficiency and communication in workplaces. The brands main product is LED status indicators for use in office settings. Luxafor is a product line under the company SIA Greynut, based in Riga, Latvia. == History == Luxafor was developed by the technology company SIA Greynut. The brand first gained attention through a Kickstarter campaign in 2015, which aimed to fund its initial product, the Luxafor Flag. Although the campaign was unsuccessful in reaching its funding goal, the product was still brought to market. In 2017, Luxafor launched another Kickstarter campaign for the Luxafor Bluetooth, a wireless version of its LED status indicator. This campaign also did not meet its funding goal, but like its predecessor, the product was still developed and released. Despite initial setbacks, Luxafor Bluetooth has become one of the brand's leading products. == Products == Luxafors main product range is LED status indicators, including: === Luxafor Flag === A USB-powered LED indicator that shows different colors to signal the user's availability. === Luxafor Bluetooth === A wireless LED indicator controlled via Bluetooth, integrating with productivity tools like Slack and Microsoft Teams. === Luxafor Switch === An advanced status indicator designed to manage room and workspace availability. === Other === Other Luxafor products include CO2 Dongle, Smart Button, Mute Button, Pomodoro Timer and others. == Features == Luxafor products are known for their customizable indicators, integration capabilities with IFTTT, Zapier, and remote control features. They are compatible with various operating systems, including Windows and macOS, and can be integrated with numerous communication and productivity platforms, like Microsoft Teams and Cisco Jabber.

CrocBITE

CrocBITE (currently CrocAttack) was an online database of wild crocodilian attacks reported on humans in the world. The non-profit online research tool helped to scientifically analyze crocodilian behavior via complex models. Users were encouraged to feed information in a crowdsourcing manner. This website excludes captive crocodilian attacks, as well as non-fatal bites on professional handlers, rangers, staff, or researchers, and crocodilian attacks on pets and livestock, because its primary goal is to analyze natural human-crocodilian conflict in the wild for conservation and management purposes, and that these incidents do are not considered indicative of natural species behavior or typical human-wildlife conflict, as well as not providing enough useful data and helping researchers understand wild population behavior or typical human-wildlife conflict dynamics and helps create safety strategies for people living or working near wild crocodilians, rather than tracking workplace accidents in zoos or farms. While fatal incidents involving handlers are sometimes included on the website, typical captive incidents (such as handlers being bitten by them in zoos) are excluded because they are considered manageable professional risks rather than general public safety threats. == About == The online database was established in 2013 (2013) by Dr Adam Britton, a researcher at Charles Darwin University, his student Brandon Sideleau and Erin Britton. It was a compilation of government records, individual reports, registered contributors and historical data. Dr Simon Pooley, Junior Research fellow, Imperial College London joined hands to further the studies. The collaboration culminated when Dr Pooley met Dr Britton at the IUCN Crocodile Specialist Group, in Louisiana in 2014. The program received funds from Economic and Social Research Council, United Kingdom to the tune of A$30,000 and unspecified resourced plus amount from Big Gecko Crocodilian Research, Crocodillian.com and Charles Darwin University. The research yielded pertinent observations that provide inside into crocodile attacks. It was observed that most attacks on humans occur from bites of Saltwater crocodile as against the popular understanding of Nile crocodiles taking the top spot. This is not, however, believed to be the actual case, as most attacks by the Nile crocodile are believed to go unreported or only reported on a local level. The broad category of Nile crocodile attacks were segmented into West African crocodile and Crocodylus niloticus (the Nile Crocodile) species to get a clear understanding of their respective attack zones. The objective was that the information would be used by communities and conservation managers to help inform and educate people about how to keep safe. The information was vital for Australia and Africa where such attacks are more likely than in other parts of the world. This was the only database of its kind with such comprehensive collection of information made available online. The database is no longer online, and its founder Adam Britton is in custody having pleaded guilty to charges of bestiality on September 25, 2023. It has been rebranded and renamed CrocAttack, and serves as a updated database focusing on human-crocodilian conflict and records over 8,500 incidents from the past decades.

Data room

Data rooms are secure spaces used for housing data, usually of a privileged or confidential nature. They can be physical data rooms, virtual data rooms (VDRs), or data centers. They are primarily used for a variety of corporate purposes, including data storage, document exchange, file sharing, financial transactions, and legal proceedings. Today, data rooms are central to workflows in mergers and acquisitions, venture capital, and corporate restructuring, increasingly utilizing artificial intelligence to securely manage and review large datasets. Historically, data rooms were strictly physical locations heavily guarded and monitored. Today, the vast majority of corporate data rooms are hosted virtually on secure cloud platforms, though physical rooms are still occasionally used for highly sensitive government or proprietary intelligence. == Physical Data Rooms == In mergers and acquisitions (M&A), the traditional data room genuinely consists of a physically secured and continually monitored room, normally in the vendor's offices or those of their legal counsel. Bidders and their advisers visit this room in order to inspect and report on various documents, legal contracts, and financial statements made available during the due diligence process. Historically, physical data rooms presented significant logistical challenges. Often, only one bidder at a time was allowed to enter to maintain document integrity and confidentiality. If new documents or new versions of documents were required, they had to be brought in by courier as hardcopies. Teams involved in large due diligence processes typically had to be flown in from many regions or countries and remain available throughout the process. Because these teams comprised a number of experts in different fields—such as legal counsel, forensic accountants, and industry specialists—the overall cost of keeping such groups on call near the physical data room was often extremely high. == Virtual Data Rooms (VDRs) == To address the costs and logistical bottlenecks of physical data rooms, virtual data rooms (VDRs) were developed to provide secure, online dissemination of confidential information. A VDR is essentially a secure cloud repository with strictly controlled access. Access is managed through secure log-ons supplied by the vendor or authority, which can be disabled at any time if a bidder withdraws from a transaction. Because much of the information released during corporate transactions is highly confidential, VDRs utilize digital rights management (DRM) to control information. Restrictions are applied to the viewers' ability to release data to third parties by disabling forwarding, copying, or printing capabilities. Modern VDRs also employ dynamic watermarking and detailed auditing capabilities. Detailed auditing is required for legal reasons so that a precise digital footprint is kept of who has viewed which version of each document, and for how long. Furthermore, modern VDR platforms are typically built to comply with stringent information security standards such as ISO 27001 and SOC 2. Transitioning from sequential physical data rooms to parallel virtual data rooms has been shown to significantly reduce the duration of M&A transactions while allowing sellers to field multiple bidders simultaneously. == Key Applications == Data rooms are commonly used by legal, accounting, investment banking, and private equity firms. Primary applications include: Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A): VDRs are central to the sell-side M&A process. After potential buyers sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) and review a Confidential Information Memorandum (CIM), they are granted data room access to perform deep financial due diligence, such as Quality of Earnings (QoE) analysis and legal liability assessments. Venture Capital and Startups: Startups use data rooms as a centralized location for key operational data, capitalization tables, and financial projections to streamline due diligence for angel investors and venture capital firms during fundraising rounds. Initial Public Offerings (IPOs): Taking a company public requires intense regulatory scrutiny. Data rooms are used to securely share company histories and financial audits with investment bankers, legal teams, and regulatory bodies. Corporate Restructuring and Insolvency: During bankruptcies or corporate carve-outs, data rooms are used to organize outstanding debt profiles, creditor agreements, and operational liabilities. == Emerging Technologies == In recent years, the management of virtual data rooms has increasingly incorporated Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML). Generative AI and Natural Language Processing (NLP) tools are now integrated into VDRs to automatically index thousands of documents, perform auto-redaction of personally identifiable information (PII), and assist buy-side analysts in identifying hidden liabilities within unstructured text data during the due diligence phase. Modern AI algorithms can extract line items from financial statements to instantly populate structured databases.

Hybrid cryptosystem

In cryptography, a hybrid cryptosystem is one which combines the convenience of a public-key cryptosystem with the efficiency of a symmetric-key cryptosystem. Public-key cryptosystems are convenient in that they do not require the sender and receiver to share a common secret in order to communicate securely. However, they often rely on complicated mathematical computations and are thus generally much more inefficient than comparable symmetric-key cryptosystems. In many applications, the high cost of encrypting long messages in a public-key cryptosystem can be prohibitive. This is addressed by hybrid systems by using a combination of both. A hybrid cryptosystem can be constructed using any two separate cryptosystems: a key encapsulation mechanism, which is a public-key cryptosystem a data encapsulation scheme, which is a symmetric-key cryptosystem The hybrid cryptosystem is itself a public-key system, whose public and private keys are the same as in the key encapsulation scheme. Note that for very long messages the bulk of the work in encryption/decryption is done by the more efficient symmetric-key scheme, while the inefficient public-key scheme is used only to encrypt/decrypt a short key value. == Implementations and standards == All practical implementations of public key cryptography today employ a hybrid system. Examples include the TLS protocol and the SSH protocol, that use a public-key mechanism for key exchange (such as Diffie-Hellman) and a symmetric-key mechanism for data encapsulation (such as AES). The OpenPGP file format and the PKCS#7 file format are other examples. Hybrid Public Key Encryption (HPKE, published as RFC 9180) is a modern standard for generic hybrid encryption. HPKE is used within multiple IETF protocols, including Messaging Layer Security (MLS), Oblivious DNS over HTTPS, Oblivious HTTP, Privacy Preserving Measurement, and TLS Encrypted Client Hello. Envelope encryption is an example of a usage of hybrid cryptosystems in cloud computing. In a cloud context, hybrid cryptosystems also enable centralized key management. == Example == To encrypt a message addressed to Alice in a hybrid cryptosystem, Bob does the following: Obtains Alice's public key. Generates a fresh symmetric key for the data encapsulation scheme. Encrypts the message under the data encapsulation scheme, using the symmetric key just generated. Encrypts the symmetric key under the key encapsulation scheme, using Alice's public key. Sends both of these ciphertexts to Alice. To decrypt this hybrid ciphertext, Alice does the following: Uses her private key to decrypt the symmetric key contained in the key encapsulation segment. Uses this symmetric key to decrypt the message contained in the data encapsulation segment. == Security == If both the key encapsulation and data encapsulation schemes in a hybrid cryptosystem are secure against adaptive chosen ciphertext attacks, then the hybrid scheme inherits that property as well. However, it is possible to construct a hybrid scheme secure against adaptive chosen ciphertext attacks even if the key encapsulation has a slightly weakened security definition (though the security of the data encapsulation must be slightly stronger). == Envelope encryption == Envelope encryption is term used for encrypting with a hybrid cryptosystem used by all major cloud service providers, often as part of a centralized key management system in cloud computing. Envelope encryption gives names to the keys used in hybrid encryption: Data Encryption Keys (abbreviated DEK, and used to encrypt data) and Key Encryption Keys (abbreviated KEK, and used to encrypt the DEKs). In a cloud environment, encryption with envelope encryption involves generating a DEK locally, encrypting one's data using the DEK, and then issuing a request to wrap (encrypt) the DEK with a KEK stored in a potentially more secure service. Then, this wrapped DEK and encrypted message constitute a ciphertext for the scheme. To decrypt a ciphertext, the wrapped DEK is unwrapped (decrypted) via a call to a service, and then the unwrapped DEK is used to decrypt the encrypted message. In addition to the normal advantages of a hybrid cryptosystem, using asymmetric encryption for the KEK in a cloud context provides easier key management and separation of roles, but can be slower. In cloud systems, such as Google Cloud Platform and Amazon Web Services, a key management system (KMS) can be available as a service. In some cases, the key management system will store keys in hardware security modules, which are hardware systems that protect keys with hardware features like intrusion resistance. This means that KEKs can also be more secure because they are stored on secure specialized hardware. Envelope encryption makes centralized key management easier because a centralized key management system only needs to store KEKs, which occupy less space, and requests to the KMS only involve sending wrapped and unwrapped DEKs, which use less bandwidth than transmitting entire messages. Since one KEK can be used to encrypt many DEKs, this also allows for less storage space to be used in the KMS. This also allows for centralized auditing and access control at one point of access.

Data recovery

In computing, data recovery is a process of retrieving deleted, inaccessible, lost, corrupted, damaged, or overwritten data from secondary storage, removable media or files, when the data stored in them cannot be accessed in a usual way. The data is most often salvaged from storage media such as internal or external hard disk drives (HDDs), solid-state drives (SSDs), USB flash drives, magnetic tapes, CDs, DVDs, RAID subsystems, and other electronic devices. Recovery may be required due to physical damage to the storage devices or logical damage to the file system that prevents it from being mounted by the host operating system (OS). Logical failures occur when the hard drive devices are functional but the user or automated-OS cannot retrieve or access data stored on them. Logical failures can occur due to corruption of the engineering chip, lost partitions, firmware failure, or failures during formatting/re-installation. Data recovery can be a very simple or technical challenge. This is why there are specific software companies specialized in this field that help to get back data on your system. == About == The most common data recovery scenarios involve an operating system failure, malfunction of a storage device, logical failure of storage devices, accidental damage or deletion, etc. (typically, on a single-drive, single-partition, single-OS system), in which case the ultimate goal is simply to copy all important files from the damaged media to another new drive. This can be accomplished using a Live CD, or DVD by booting directly from a ROM or a USB drive instead of the corrupted drive in question. Many Live CDs or DVDs provide a means to mount the system drive and backup drives or removable media, and to move the files from the system drive to the backup media with a file manager or optical disc authoring software. Such cases can often be mitigated by disk partitioning and consistently storing valuable data files (or copies of them) on a different partition from the replaceable OS system files. Another scenario involves a drive-level failure, such as a compromised file system or drive partition, or a hard disk drive failure. In any of these cases, the data is not easily read from the media devices. Depending on the situation, solutions involve repairing the logical file system, partition table, or master boot record, or updating the firmware or drive recovery techniques ranging from software-based recovery of corrupted data, to hardware- and software-based recovery of damaged service areas (also known as the hard disk drive's "firmware"), to hardware replacement on a physically damaged drive which allows for the extraction of data to a new drive. If a drive recovery is necessary, the drive itself has typically failed permanently, and the focus is rather on a one-time recovery, salvaging whatever data can be read. In a third scenario, files have been accidentally "deleted" from a storage medium by the users. Typically, the contents of deleted files are not removed immediately from the physical drive; instead, references to them in the directory structure are removed, and thereafter space the deleted data occupy is made available for later data overwriting. In the mind of end users, deleted files cannot be discoverable through a standard file manager, but the deleted data still technically exists on the physical drive. In the meantime, the original file contents remain, often several disconnected fragments, and may be recoverable if not overwritten by other data files. The term "data recovery" is also used in the context of forensic applications or espionage, where data which have been encrypted, hidden, or deleted, rather than damaged, are recovered. Sometimes data present in the computer gets encrypted or hidden due to reasons like virus attacks which can only be recovered by some computer forensic experts. == Physical damage == A wide variety of failures can cause physical damage to storage media, which may result from human errors and natural disasters. CD-ROMs can have their metallic substrate or dye layer scratched off; hard disks can suffer from a multitude of mechanical failures, such as head crashes, PCB failure, and failed motors; tapes can simply break. Physical damage to a hard drive, even in cases where a head crash has occurred, does not necessarily mean permanent data loss. However, in extreme cases, such as prolonged exposure to moisture and corrosion —like the lost Bitcoin hard drive of James Howells, buried in the Newport landfill for over a decade — recovery is usually impossible. In rare cases, forensic techniques such as magnetic force microscopy (MFM) have been explored to detect residual magnetic traces when data holds exceptional value. Other techniques employed by many professional data recovery companies can typically salvage most, if not all, of the data that had been lost when the failure occurred. Of course, there are exceptions to this, such as cases where severe damage to the hard drive platters may have occurred. However, if the hard drive can be repaired and a full image or clone created, then the logical file structure can be rebuilt in most instances. Most physical damage cannot be repaired by end users. For example, opening a hard disk drive in a normal environment can allow airborne dust to settle on the platter and become caught between the platter and the read/write head. During normal operation, read/write heads float 3 to 6 nanometers above the platter surface, and the average dust particles found in a normal environment are typically around 30,000 nanometers in diameter. When these dust particles get caught between the read/write heads and the platter, they can cause new head crashes that further damage the platter and thus compromise the recovery process. Furthermore, end users generally do not have the hardware or technical expertise required to make these repairs. Consequently, data recovery companies are often employed to salvage important data with the more reputable ones using class 100 dust- and static-free cleanrooms. === Recovery techniques === Recovering data from physically damaged hardware can involve multiple techniques. Some damage can be repaired by replacing parts in the hard disk. This alone may make the disk usable, but there may still be logical damage. A specialized disk-imaging procedure is used to recover every readable bit from the surface. Once this image is acquired and saved on a reliable medium, the image can be safely analyzed for logical damage and will possibly allow much of the original file system to be reconstructed. ==== Hardware repair ==== A common misconception is that a damaged printed circuit board (PCB) may be simply replaced during recovery procedures by an identical PCB from a healthy drive. While this may work in rare circumstances on hard disk drives manufactured before 2003, it will not work on newer drives. Electronics boards of modern drives usually contain drive-specific adaptation data (generally a map of bad sectors and tuning parameters) and other information required to properly access data on the drive. Replacement boards often need this information to effectively recover all of the data. The replacement board may need to be reprogrammed. Some manufacturers (Seagate, for example) store this information on a serial EEPROM chip, which can be removed and transferred to the replacement board. Each hard disk drive has what is called a system area or service area; this portion of the drive, which is not directly accessible to the end user, usually contains drive's firmware and adaptive data that helps the drive operate within normal parameters. One function of the system area is to log defective sectors within the drive; essentially telling the drive where it can and cannot write data. The sector lists are also stored on various chips attached to the PCB, and they are unique to each hard disk drive. If the data on the PCB do not match what is stored on the platter, then the drive will not calibrate properly. In most cases the drive heads will click because they are unable to find the data matching what is stored on the PCB. == Logical damage == The term "logical damage" refers to situations in which the error is not a problem in the hardware and requires software-level solutions. === Corrupt partitions and file systems, media errors === In some cases, data on a hard disk drive can be unreadable due to damage to the partition table or file system, or to (intermittent) media errors. In the majority of these cases, at least a portion of the original data can be recovered by repairing the damaged partition table or file system using specialized data recovery software such as TestDisk; software like ddrescue can image media despite intermittent errors, and image raw data when there is partition table or file system damage. This type of data recovery can be performed by people without expertise in drive hardware as it requires no special physica

Alias Eclipse

Eclipse was a professional 2D image editing program available on Silicon Graphics and Windows workstations. Designed to manipulate high-resolution images like digitized movie frames and photographs for print, it offered color correction tools, image processing effects, rudimentary paint features, and spline-based drawing and masking. == History == Eclipse was originally developed in the late 1980s by Full Color Computing, an early provider of photo retouch and color prepress software for Silicon Graphics workstations. Alias Research (later Alias Systems Corporation), a developer of professional 3D graphics applications for the SGI platform, purchased the rights to Eclipse in fall 1990. Alias developed Eclipse through the early to mid-1990s, releasing version 2.5 in 1995 with improvements to the speed of color correction, effects, and rendering. Xyvision's Contex Prepress division purchased exclusive rights to Eclipse from Alias in 1996, and released version 3.0 the following year. Eclipse was subsequently sold to German developer Form & Vision GmbH, which continued development and ported it to the Windows platform. In 1999, Form & Vision released a demo of Eclipse 3.1.3 on the SGI platform which was limited to 1600 x 1600 pixel images, then ceased development of Eclipse on the SGI platform. Eclipse was thereafter developed exclusively for the Windows platform, culminating with version 3.1.4 in 2001. In the same year the firm went bankrupt. == Features == Eclipse was designed to work with very large images that could not be manipulated in real time on contemporary computer systems due to memory limitations, and thus allowed the user to make modifications to a lower-resolution copy of the original image in "proxy mode." Brush strokes, color corrections, and other edits were saved in proxy mode, then applied to the full-size image in post processing. This method also allowed for batch processing of a high-resolution image sequence using the edits applied to the original proxy image. Other features included color correction and separation, warping, special effects, text, and shape masking. Wavelet image compression created by LuraTech was added to Eclipse 3.1.4

List of cryptosystems

A cryptosystem is a set of cryptographic algorithms that map ciphertexts and plaintexts to each other. == Private-key cryptosystems == Private-key cryptosystems use the same key for encryption and decryption. Caesar cipher Substitution cipher Enigma machine Data Encryption Standard Twofish Serpent Camellia Salsa20 ChaCha20 Blowfish CAST5 Kuznyechik RC4 3DES Skipjack Safer IDEA Advanced Encryption Standard, also known as AES and Rijndael. == Public-key cryptosystems == Public-key cryptosystems use a public key for encryption and a private key for decryption. Diffie–Hellman key exchange RSA encryption Rabin cryptosystem Schnorr signature ElGamal encryption Elliptic-curve cryptography Lattice-based cryptography McEliece cryptosystem Multivariate cryptography Isogeny-based cryptography