The green energy group behind a study cited in Consumer Product Safety commissioner Richard Trumka Jr.’s call to ban gas stoves has partnered with the Chinese government to implement an “economy-wide transformation” away from oil and gas.

Colorado-based nonprofit Rocky Mountain Institute, which published the December study that attributes 13 percent of U.S. childhood asthma cases to gas-stove use, is hardly staffed by an objective group of scientists.

The organization is demanding “systemic change and economy-wide transformation” to address a climate crisis it says we must go to great lengths to avoid. In 2013, for example, the Rocky Mountain Institute joined forces with China’s National Development and Reform Commission—the government agency tasked with planning the communist nation’s economy—to produce a report that advised China to replace existing appliances and generators with “clean energy technologies.” The commission went on to set climate goals that included energy reduction targets. When local provinces in 2021 failed to meet those targets, the commission pushed them to implement electricity rations, prompting “dimmed traffic lights that cause chaos” and “half-cooked rice in rice cookers.”

The Rocky Mountain Institute is far from the first green energy group to advocate for the banning of gas stoves, which nearly 40 percent of U.S. homes use. But the nonprofit’s newfound influence reflects the Biden administration’s alignment with the left’s loudest climate activists. President Joe Biden has already proposed a natural gas phaseout in federal buildings, which would ban fossil-fuel equipment in new buildings by 2030. Leading green energy groups applauded the move, which will cost taxpayers millions of dollars annually, the Washington Free Beacon reported in December.

Beyond its public mission statement and work with the Chinese government, the Rocky Mountain Institute’s biases are reflected in its gas-stove study, academic leaders told the Free Beacon. The study—which spans just nine paragraphs—was based on a hodgepodge of different data and methodologies spanning various years and countries, ranging from 2019 U.S. Census data to conclusions from a 2018 analysis in Australia.

Structuring a study that way is questionable, according to Yale University professor of medicine Dr. Harvey Risch. Moreover, the conclusions of the institute’s study differs from what the organization is saying publicly.

“This paper does not do any research on possible association between residential natural gas use and risk of childhood asthma,” Risch told the Free Beacon. “It only calculates a percent of childhood asthma that could be attributable to residential natural gas use and risk of childhood asthma.”

That distinction is important, Risch said, particularly when calling for such a dramatic public policy proposal that would change how tens of millions of Americans prepare their food. The study was also ethically dubious, according to Risch, as its authors stated they held no conflicts of interest despite working for climate change activist groups. The Rocky Mountain Institute’s board, for example, is filled with executives at green energy corporations with a financial interest in banning the use of fossil fuels.

Also included among those board members is Wei Ding, the founder and chairman of the Chinese private equity firm Broad River Capital. Ding started the firm after serving as chairman of the China International Capital Corporation (CICC), a partially state-owned investment bank. Former CICC executives include Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s vice president and right-hand man, Wang Qishan, while the corporation’s website highlights its “deep participation in China’s economic reforms and development” and goal to “serve the nation.” The Rocky Mountain Institute also sits on the China Clean Transportation Partnership, a Chinese green energy nonprofit whose founding members include China’s National Development and Reform Commission and Ministry of Transport.

Sen. J.D. Vance (R., Ohio), who last week called on the Consumer Product Safety Commission to renounce any potential gas-stove ban, said he is alarmed by the institute’s ties to the Chinese Communist Party. The natural gas industry, Vance said, “is critical to our national security,” and its demise would be a boost to our adversary.

“Who benefits from all this? Communist China,” Vance told the Free Beacon. “I think it’s time for the chairman of the Consumer Product Safety Commission to answer some questions before Congress—under oath.”

In addition to the Rocky Mountain Institute’s green energy biases, the nonprofit’s lead authors on the study hold no formal advanced scientific training or education. Talor Gruenwald, who works as a researcher at the group, holds a master of international affairs. Brady Seals, who heads the institute’s “Carbon-Free Buildings” program, graduated with an MBA from the University of South Dakota.

Those facts didn’t stop multiple outlets from covering the study as a disturbing revelation and call for action. The Washington Post ran at least four stories on the study’s findings, with one alleging that gas-stove use “jump-starts childhood asthma.”

“But as more and more information emerges about the health risks—and as the Biden administration focuses in on electrifying household appliances across the country—the move from gas to electric may be a question not of ‘if,’ but of ‘when,'” one of the Post‘s stories concludes.

Trumka, whom Biden tapped as a top federal regulator in 2021, seemingly confirmed that assessment in a Thursday interview. After Trumka’s initial comment floating a gas-stove ban prompted widespread public backlash—and a walkback from the White House—the Democrat told CNN that any regulatory action on the appliance would be “forward-looking” and only apply to “new products.” “We are not looking to go into anyone’s homes and take away items that are already there,” Trumka said. “We don’t do that.”

Those comments likely disappointed the Rocky Mountain Institute, which did not return a request for comment. On Jan. 4, the group—which has pledged to continue its partnership with the Chinese government—explicitly advocated for the removal of existing gas stoves from private homes. “More than 12 percent of U.S. childhood asthma is preventable,” the group said, “if we remove gas stoves from homes and move towards electric stoves instead.”

The post Meet the Green Energy Group Behind the Study That’s Driving Calls To Ban Gas Stoves appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.

Expert discovered that the T95 Android TV box, available for sale on Amazon and AliExpress, came with sophisticated pre-installed malware.

Security researcher, Daniel Milisic, discovered that the T95 Android TV box he purchased on Amazon was infected with sophisticated pre-installed malware.

This Android TV box model is available on Amazon and AliExpress for as low as $40.

The device came with Android 10 (with working Play store) and an Allwinner H616 processor. Milisic discovered pre-loaded malware into its firmware.

Milisic purchased the T95 Android TV box to run Pi-hole, which is a Linux network-level advertisement and Internet tracker blocking application.

After running the Pi-hole he noticed that the box was reaching addresses associated with malware campaigns.

“After searching unsuccessfully for a clean ROM, I set out to remove the malware in a last-ditch effort to make the T95 useful. I found layers on top of layers of malware using tcpflow and nethogs to monitor traffic and traced it back to the offending process/APK which I then removed from the ROM.” the expert wrote on Reddit.

“The final bit of malware I could not track down injects the system_server process and looks to be deeply-baked into the ROM. It’s pretty sophisticated malware, resembling CopyCatin the way it operates. It’s not found by any of the AV products I tried — If anyone can offer guidance on how to find these hooks into system_server please let me know here or via PM.”

The device uses an Android 10 operating system that was signed with test keys. The expert also discovered that it had the Android Debug Bridge (ADB) reachable through the Ethernet port.

The malicious code embedded in the firmware of the device acts like the Android CopyCat malware. The experts pointed out that all the AV products he tested were not able to detect the threat.

Milisic also devised a trick to block the malware using the Pi-hole to change the DNS of the command and control server, YCXRL.COM to 127.0.0.2.

He also created an iptables rule to redirect all DNS to the Pi-hole as the malware/virus/whatever will use external DNS if it can’t resolve.

“By doing this, the C&C server ends up hitting the Pi-hole webserver instead of sending my logins, passwords, and other PII to a Linode in Singapore (currently 139.162.57.135 at time of writing).” continues the expert.

Watch out, the solution proposed by Milisic doesn’t remove the malicious code or disable it, it just neutralizes it interfering with its operations.

In order to determine if s T95 Android TV Box has been infected, the researcher recommends checking the presence of a folder named:

/data/system/Corejava

and a file named

/data/system/shared_prefs/open_preference.xml?

Milisic was not able to test other devices from the same vendor or model to determine if their firmware was infected too.

“Don’t trust cheap Android boxes on AliExpress or Amazon that have firmware signed with test keys. They are stealing your data and (unless you can watch DNS logs) do so without a trace!” Milisic concludes.

Below are the cleanup instructions provided by the researcher on GitHub:

• Reboot into recovery to reset the device or use the Reset option in the ‘about’ menu to Factory Reset the T95
• When device comes back online, connect to adb via USB A-to-A cable or WiFi/Ethernet
• Run the script (WiP!)

Follow me on Twitter: @securityaffairs and Facebook and Mastodon

Pierluigi Paganini

(SecurityAffairs – hacking, malware)

The post T95 Android TV Box sold on Amazon hides sophisticated malware appeared first on Security Affairs.

Even if disasters feel far away, we all live in the same planetary neighborhood. Can we unite in our response to the crisis?

I live in the Bay Area, famous for its mild weather, a place where climate change feels a bit abstract – the problem of people residing in distant lands. It’s easy to scroll through images of the increasing weather disasters – cyclones, tornados, blizzards, floods, mud slides, rising seas and wildfires – feeling horror but also a little smug at the luck of living in the land of year-round shorts and relentless sunshine.

But our luck changed on New Year’s Eve, when a line of killer storms began to assault California, soaking us with 24tn gallons of water, killing 19 people and causing more than 1bn dollars in damages.

Continue reading…

Searchers found both the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder on Monday from a passenger flight that crashed killing at least 68 people in Nepal’s worst plane accident in 30 years, officials said.

The data on the recorders may help investigators determine what caused the Yeti Airlines ATR 72 aircraft, carrying 72 people, to crash in clear weather on Sunday just before landing in the tourist city of Pokhara.

Both recorders were in good shape and would be sent for analysis based on the recommendation of the manufacturer, Teknath Sitaula, an official at Kathmandu airport, told Reuters on Monday.

Under international aviation rules, the crash investigation agency of the country where the plane was designed and built, is automatically part of the investigation.

ATR is based in France and the plane’s engines were manufactured in Canada, by Pratt & Whitney Canada (RTX.N).

Rescuers were battling cloudy weather and poor visibility on Monday as they scoured a river gorge for passengers who are unaccounted for, more than 24 hours after the crash. Sixty-eight bodies have been recovered.

Reuters footage from the crash site showed rescuers looking at the charred remains of the plane near the gorge.

The plane, on a scheduled flight from Kathmandu to Pokhara, gateway to the scenic Annapurna mountain range, was carrying 57 Nepalis, five Indians, four Russians, two South Koreans, and one person each from Argentina, Ireland, Australia and France.

Pokhara police official Ajay K.C. said the search-and-rescue operation, which stopped because of darkness on Sunday, had resumed.

“We will search for the remaining four that are still missing,” he told Reuters. “It is cloudy now… causing a problem in the search.”

All the bodies had been sent to a hospital, he said. A spokesperson for Pokhara airport also said that the weather was hampering rescue efforts, but that clouds were expected to clear later in the day.

Minutes before the aircraft was to land on Sunday, the pilot asked for a change of runway, a spokesperson for Pokhara airport told Reuters on Monday.

“The permission was granted. “We don’t ask (why), whenever a pilot asks we give permission to change approach,” the spokesperson, Anup Joshi, said.

Sunday’s crash underlined the need for the government to split up the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal (CAAN), which both regulates airlines and manages airports, experts said.

“The government must immediately separate the regulatory body and service provider by splitting the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal (CAAN) which is doing both works now,” K.B. Limbu, an aviation expert and a retired pilot, told Reuters.

“This leads to a conflict of interests.”

Asked for comment, Sitaula, the Kathmandu airport official, denied that there was any conflict of interest in the functioning of CAAN.

“The regulatory and service provider (airport management) officials are separate and there is no cross-movement between the two bodies operating under the same organisation,” he said, referring to the CAAN.

There are nine domestic airlines in Nepal, including Yeti Airlines and its unit Tara Air. Yeti and Tara plane crashes have killed at least 165 people in Nepal since 2000 out of a total of 359, according to data from CAAN.

Another 75 people have died in helicopter crashes this century in Nepal, which is home to eight of the world’s 14 highest mountains, including Everest, and where sudden weather changes can make for hazardous conditions.

Experts say air accidents are usually caused by a combination of factors, and investigations can take months or longer.

Anju Khatiwada, the co-pilot of Sunday’s ill-fated aircraft lost her husband Dipak Pokhrel in a similar crash in 2006. Khatiwada’s remains have not been identified but she is feared dead.

Nepal has declared a day of national mourning on Monday and set up a panel to investigate the disaster and suggest measures to avoid such incidents in future.

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