Lock Picking in the Era of Internet of Things

Smart locks are a recent development in the Internet of Things that aim to modernise traditional keybased padlock systems. They allow users to operate the lock with their smartphone instead of carrying around a physical key. Typically, smart locks have a cloud system for sharing access with other people, which makes them ideal for schemes such as communal lockers or bike sharing. One of the smart locks available on the market is that produced by Master Lock. They are an established brand, and unlike many of the single product companies that have provided insecure offerings, Master Lock have so far shown that their locks are reasonably secure and resistant to known attacks such as shimming, fuzzing, and replay attacks. This paper provides a security analysis of the Master Lock Bluetooth padlock. More importantly, it reveals that there were several security vulnerabilities, including a serious one in the Application Programming Interface used by Master Lock to provide a crucial feature for managing access. We carried out a responsible disclosure exercise to Master Lock, but communication proved to be quite a challenge. In the end we managed to establish contact, and as a result the most serious vulnerabilities have now been patched. This indicates that responsible disclosure is a valuable exercise, but we still need better report-and-response mechanisms

A history of parent involvement in organized youth sport:A scoping review

A fundamental step in describing a research field is the review and synthesis of accumulated knowledge. Multiple qualitative reviews have been conducted over the last decade to provide a summary and commentary on the growing literature in the area of youth sport parenting. However, these reviews have focused on contemporary findings in the field, largely ignoring work in the area that began in the late 1960s. In light of this underdiscussed history, there remains a need to highlight the historical foundations of the youth sport parenting literature, the transitions that shaped the trajectory of work, as well as the contemporary research that informs our current understanding. The purpose of this scoping review was to provide a historical analysis of the literature on parent involvement in organized youth sport. In conducting the analysis, we identified key concepts and trajectories that define the field’s foundational (1968–1981), transitional (1982–1998), and contemporary (1999–2020) periods. Specifically, this review not only sought to define and summarize these periods of research but also to use the synthesized knowledge to frame remaining gaps and potential future directions for the field

Advancing the study of parental involvement to optimise the psychosocial development and experiences of young athletes

The purpose of this article is to review and critique the literature in youth sport that specifically relates to parental influence on the experiences and psychosocial development of young athletes. First, we consider the literature examining the extent to which parental involvement in organised youth sport has been associated with psychosocial outcomes in young people. Within this critique, we draw upon what has been learned from the sport-based positive youth development (PYD) and life skills literature. Second, we address conceptual and methodological limitations of existing literature (e.g., homogeneity of samples, oversimplification of parenting in sport, studying parental involvement in isolation) and target key scientific gaps that exist in facilitating our understanding of optimal parental involvement (e.g., raising parental awareness and facilitating opportunities to support psychosocial development, improving coach education to facilitate parent-coach relationships, collaborating with coaches through well designed interventions, working on the “right” assets at the right time). Such gaps represent how parents appear to have been overlooked within the intentional process of psychosocial development. We offer concluding remarks about the future of youth sport in this area and provide specific recommendations to inspire future researchers and practitioners towards the challenge of empowering parents and more fully enabling their potential

APAI Community Crossings Guide for Asphalt Projects

The Asphalt Pavement Association of Indiana (APAI), in collaboration with INDOT and LTAP, has developed a guide to assist cities and towns with Community Crossings requirements, from procurement through construction. This guide includes Indiana requirements for qualification, application instructions, bidding requirements, and a sample contract. Improved bid documents, asphalt specifications, and contracts will lead to better bids and higher quality projects. This is a must-attend session for any community with infrastructure projects in the works

Community-Investor Negotiation Guide 2: Negotiating Contracts with Investors

Deciding whether or not to allow an investor to use community lands and natural resources is one of the most important decisions a community can make. If an investment project is carried out in a respectful and inclusive way, it may help community members to achieve their development goals, which may include creating jobs and local economic opportunities. But investments come with risks. Investment projects may make the land that community members need for farming and other livelihood activities unavailable for some time. They may pollute local rivers, lakes, air, and soils, or block access to sacred areas or water sources. Investment projects may even violate community members’ human rights, or result in communities completely losing their lands. Given these challenges, CCSI partnered with Namati, a legal empowerment organization, to produce two guides aimed at supporting communities and their advisors in their interactions with land-based investors. This Guide (Guide 2) provides practical guidance on the issues to consider when a community has decided to negotiate a contract with an investor. Using example clauses, and guidance boxes for community discussion and seeking legal advice, it describes all of the various sections and clauses that should be in a contract, advises what protective language to try to include in the contract to make it enforceable, and warns against types of problematic contractual language that should be avoided. An earlier guide, Guide 1, sets out practical guidance to help communities and their advisors to prepare both before potential investors arrive, and after an investor has approached a community. It covers topics and activities such as visioning a community’s desired future, understanding how valuable the land is for the community, and ensuring the inclusion of all voices within community decision-making, as well as pointers on meaningful consultation, information access, and knowing the community’s rights. The guides are designed to apply to agriculture and forestry projects, although may have some applicability to agreements reached in other contexts, such as around mining or renewable energy projects

Community-Investor Negotiation Guide 1: Preparing in Advance for Potential Investors

Deciding whether or not to allow an investor to use community lands and natural resources is one of the most important decisions a community can make. If an investment project is carried out in a respectful and inclusive way, it may help community members to achieve their development goals, which may include creating jobs and local economic opportunities. But investments come with risks. Investment projects may make the land that community members need for farming and other livelihood activities unavailable for some time. They may pollute local rivers, lakes, air, and soils, or block access to sacred areas or water sources. Investment projects may even violate community members’ human rights, or result in communities completely losing their lands. Given these challenges, CCSI partnered with Namati, a legal empowerment organization, to produce two guides aimed at supporting communities and their advisors in their interactions with land-based investors. This Guide (Guide 1) sets out practical guidance to help communities and their advisors to prepare before potential investors arrive, and after an investor has approached a community. It covers topics and activities such as visioning a community’s desired future, understanding how valuable the land is for the community, and ensuring the inclusion of all voices within community decision-making, as well as pointers on meaningful consultation, information access, and knowing the community’s rights. A related publication, Guide 2, provides practical guidance on the issues to consider when a community has decided to negotiate a contract with an investor. Using example clauses, and guidance boxes for community discussion and seeking legal advice, it describes all of the various sections and clauses that should be in a contract, advises what protective language to try to include in the contract to make it enforceable, and warns against types of problematic contractual language that should be avoided. The guides are designed to apply to agriculture and forestry projects, although may have some applicability to agreements reached in other contexts, such as around mining or renewable energy projects

The lexicon of antimicrobial peptides: a complete set of arginine and tryptophan sequences

Our understanding of the activity of cationic antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) has focused on well-characterized natural sequences, or limited sets of synthetic peptides designed de novo. We have undertaken a comprehensive investigation of the underlying primary structural features that give rise to the development of activity in AMPs. We consider a complete set of all possible peptides, up to 7 residues long, composed of positively charged arginine (R) and / or hydrophobic tryptophan (W), two features most commonly associated with activity. We found the shortest active peptides were 4 or 5 residues in length, and the overall landscapes of activity against gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria and a yeast were positively correlated. For all three organisms we found a single activity peak corresponding to sequences with around 40% R; the presence of adjacent W duplets and triplets also conferred greater activity. The mechanistic basis of these activities comprises a combination of lipid binding, particularly to negatively charged membranes, and additionally peptide aggregation, a mode of action previously uninvestigated for such peptides. The maximum specific antimicrobial activity appeared to occur in peptides of around 10 residues, suggesting ‘diminishing returns’ for developing larger peptides, when activity is considered per residue of peptide