4.10.07

Gathering "Storm"- Superworm Poses Grave Threat

This is a great article on one of the next generation security threats hitting the internet. It's a worm, a Trojan Horse, and a bot - all rolled into one. Users on Windows that open emails without thinking, this one's for you:

"The Storm worm first appeared at the beginning of the year, hiding in e-mail attachments with the subject line: "230 dead as storm batters Europe." Those who opened the attachment became infected, their computers joining an ever-growing botnet.

Although it's most commonly called a worm, Storm is really more: a worm, a Trojan horse and a bot all rolled into one. It's also the most successful example we have of a new breed of worm, and I've seen estimates that between 1 million and 50 million computers have been infected worldwide.
"

More here.

8.6.07

LOL, Paris Hilton



Have a good cry, bitch

31.5.07

BWAHAHAHAHA!!!! Stupid Kid

30.5.07

Apple Hiding YOUR Account Info In DRM-Free Music



"With great power comes great responsibility, and apparently with DRM-free music comes files embedded with identifying information. Such is the situation with Apple's new DRM-free music: songs sold without DRM still have a user's full name and account e-mail embedded in them, which means that dropping that new DRM-free song on your favorite P2P network could come back to bite you."

Being DRM free is great, but this news is a little disturbing. Unless of course you don't care about your privacy...

29.5.07

The REAL Jack Sparrow


"This week, Johnny Depp as Jack Sparrow brings his mixture of menace and mockery back to the big screen in Pirates Of The Caribbean 3.

But the real pirate he is based on would have eaten the skittish Jack Sparrow for breakfast and spat out his bones into the deep blue sea."


Here's a snippet:

"...those Dutchmen who had not been killed in the fighting were hung from the yardarm, or stripped of their shirts and lashed at the masthead until they lost consciousness in the blistering sun, then mutilated.

The Dutch captain’s ears were cut off and presented to him as a reminder to listen harder when Roberts told him what to do. The torture and butchery did not end until the last Dutchman had been dragged out and carved up in similar fashion."


Lol, awesome!


Read more

26.5.07

Michigan Man Arrested For Using Free Wifi


"A Michigan man is being prosecuted for using a cafe's free WiFi... from his car. Sam Peterson was arrested under a Michigan law barring access to anyone else's network without authorization, according to Michigan TV station WOOD. Since the cafe's WiFi network was reserved for customers, and Peterson never came into the cafe, he was essentially piggybacking off of the open network without authorization."

The arrest came about because Peterson apparently showed up to the Union Street Cafe to use its free WiFi from the comfort of his car, and he did so every single day. A police officer grew suspicious of Peterson and eventually questioned him as to what he was up to. Peterson, not realizing that what he was doing was (at least) ethically questionable, told the officer exactly what he was doing. "I knew that the Union Street had WiFi. I just went down and checked my e-mail and didn't see a problem with that," Peterson told a reporter.


Michigan has a Fraudulent access to computers, computer systems, and computer networks law which would could have landed the guy 5 years in prison and up to $10,000 in fines - just for checking his email. If you have a business with free wifi and you expect only customers to be using it, it's super easy to setup a web portal such as a web page showing a terms of use policy. Without such, these cases are laughable, but scary at the same time.

The scariest part? (italicized below)

"Coincidentally, the cafe owner that Peterson was leeching WiFi off of didn't even realize that what Peterson was doing was a crime at the time. Neither did the police officer. "I had a feeling a law was being broken, but I didn't know exactly what," Sparta police chief Andrew Milanowski told the TV station."

So you can get arrested now on a hunch? Think about that.

17.5.07

Online Communities

14.5.07

Car Accessorizing

I'm not sure what else to call it. I have a couple of stickers on the back window of my truck, but honestly, there are people that adorn their vehicles with stuff that drives me (pun intended?) bonkers.

For example:

The fake testicles hanging under a car but usually found on trucks: Let's see if I can make sense of this. You have no balls so you bought some? Did your significant other own you and cut yours off displaying them like trophies? Thought so.

"Cowboy Up" stickers: stfu with that shit.

The stickers showing the figures of a family (Mom, Dad, kids, etc) with names: Hey guess what?!! The pedofile/stalker/rapist driving behind you now knows your entire family's first name! Two cheers for responsible parenting!! Retards.

Sports stickers (Yankees, Raiders, Nike, etc): Half the people with NY Yankees and Oakland Raider stickers aren't even real fans. They just like the sticker because it's "cool". Maybe it is cool...ON PLANET IDIOT. And the Nike swish? Er, thanks for wearing shoes I guess? What the hell is wrong with you?

CD's and other assorted crap hanging from rearview mirrors: CD's...ok...let's blind other drivers with a .10 cent piece of aluminum and plastic because you think it's got neat "rainbows" on it. Beads are also another good laff. Did you get those from Mardi Gras this year? Slut.

I'm sure there's more, but that's what flooded me in 10 minutes. Thanks for your time.

Some stuff

I find it funny that...

...having a device IN your ear used to signify that you've got hearing problems, but now it's almost "hip" while showing that you're "a busy person".

...people that say "I died laughing" are alive to tell me about it.

...marijuana is illegal yet somehow you don't hear about how many deaths have occurred while driving under the influence of weed.

...people call you on the phone and ask "What's up?"

...in this age of fitness, Kool-Aid still uses a fat guy as a spokesperson.

...people actually give a crap knowing what Paris Hilton is up to. *smart people don't care, you dumb whore*

...people read other people's bitching on the 'net.

9.4.07

Google 411

"Google Voice Local Search is Google’s experimental service to make local-business search accessible over the phone.

To try this service, just dial 1-800-GOOG-411 (1-800-466-4411) from any phone.

Using this service, you can:

* search for a local business by name or category.
You can say "Giovanni's Pizzeria" or just "pizza".

* get connected to the business, free of charge.

* get the details by SMS if you’re using a mobile phone.
Just say "text message".

And it's free. Google doesn’t charge you a thing for the call or for connecting you to the business. Regular phone charges may apply, based on your telephone service provider.

Note: Google Voice Local Search is still in its experimental stage. It may not be available at all times and may not work for all users. We’re fine-tuning the service to get better at recognizing your requests. It’s currently only available in English, in the US, for US business listings."


I tried the service this morning and it works great (although if you talk ghetto, I'm sure the automated system will not like you). I asked it send an SMS to my phone by saying "SMS" and not "text message" as stated above. A text message is the way to go since most likely you're driving or don't have a pen/paper handy. Check it out!

8.4.07

FCC Says "No" To Phones On Planes

April 7, 2007 12:00 AM

"After more than two years of debate, the Federal Communications Commission said no last week to allowing cell phones on airplanes. But the FCC didn't close the door on in-flight Net access, and the Wi-Fi Alliance is ready to jump into the airborne wireless vacuum.

Public demand and wireless technology improvements will spur the development of in-flight Wi-Fi, says Karen Hanley, marketing director at the 300-member Wi-Fi Alliance. A combination of satellite and terrestrial cell towers will likely deliver Wi-Fi data services to aircraft, she says.

In shutting down discussion of cell phone use on planes, the FCC said there was "insufficient technical information" on whether their use could interfere with terrestrial networks. It may reconsider the issue later if "appropriate technical data" becomes available.

In addition to concerns about network interference, the FCC has received thousands of messages from consumers who don't want phones on planes because they don't want to put up with the chatter. That's an issue that still must be resolved, Hanley says. She and the Wi-Fi Alliance are interested in a resolution since once Wi-Fi data services get airborne, it opens up the possibility of Wi-Fi voice services."


Great news. I wasn't looking forward to some cackling hen discussing her bathroom ensemble or some businessman sounding overly important (yet sits in economy) for an entire flight. Options: grab your laptop, a book, or your headphones and STFU.

Good call FCC.

7.4.07

AquaDom - The World's Largest Cylindrical Aquarium


Placed at the lobby of the Radisson SAS Hotel in Berlin, the 25 meters high AquaDom is the largest cylindrical aquarium ever built. Filled with about 900,000 liters of seawater, it contains some 2600 fish of 56 species.




Some of the interior rooms and suites look out over the atrium, offering "ocean views" of the AquaDom.





More pictures including construction details can be found from the original blog.

29.3.07

Ten Of The Best April Fool's Day Hoaxes: US Museum

"From television revealing that spaghetti grows on trees to advertisements for the left-handed burger, the tradition of April Fool's Day stories in the media has a weird and wonderful history.

Here are 10 of the top April Fool's Day pranks ever pulled off, as judged by the San Diego-based Museum of Hoaxes for their notoriety, absurdity, and number of people duped.

-- In 1957, a BBC television show announced that thanks to a mild winter and the virtual elimination of the spaghetti weevil, Swiss farmers were enjoying a bumper spaghetti crop. Footage of Swiss farmers pulling strands of spaghetti from trees prompted a barrage of calls from people wanting to know how to grow their own spaghetti at home.

-- In 1985, Sports Illustrated magazine published a story that a rookie baseball pitcher who could reportedly throw a ball at 270 kilometers per hour (168 miles per hour) was set to join the New York Mets. Finch was said to have mastered his skill -- pitching significantly faster than anyone else has ever managed -- in a Tibetan monastery. Mets fans' celebrations were short-lived.

-- Sweden in 1962 had only one television channel, which broadcast in black and white. The station's technical expert appeared on the news to announce that thanks to a newly developed technology, viewers could convert their existing sets to receive color pictures by pulling a nylon stocking over the screen. In fact, they had to wait until 1970.

-- In 1996, American fast-food chain Taco Bell announced that it had bought Philadelphia's Liberty Bell, a historic symbol of American independence, from the federal government and was renaming it the Taco Liberty Bell.

Outraged citizens called to express their anger before Taco Bell revealed the hoax. Then-White House press secretary Mike McCurry was asked about the sale and said the Lincoln Memorial in Washington had also been sold and was to be renamed the Ford Lincoln Mercury Memorial after the automotive giant.

-- In 1977, British newspaper The Guardian published a seven-page supplement for the 10th anniversary of San Serriffe, a small republic located in the Indian Ocean consisting of several semicolon-shaped islands. A series of articles described the geography and culture of the two main islands, named Upper Caisse and Lower Caisse.

-- In 1992, US National Public Radio announced that Richard Nixon was running for president again. His new campaign slogan was, "I didn't do anything wrong, and I won't do it again." They even had clips of Nixon announcing his candidacy. Listeners flooded the show with calls expressing their outrage. Nixon's voice actually turned out to be that of impersonator Rich Little.

-- In 1998, a newsletter titled New Mexicans for Science and Reason carried an article that the state of Alabama had voted to change the value of pi from 3.14159 to the "Biblical value" of 3.0.

-- Burger King, another American fast-food chain, published a full-page advertisement in USA Today in 1998 announcing the introduction of the "Left-Handed Whopper," specially designed for the 32 million left-handed Americans. According to the advertisement, the new burger included the same ingredients as the original, but the condiments were rotated 180 degrees. The chain said it received thousands of requests for the new burger, as well as orders for the original "right-handed" version.

-- Discover Magazine announced in 1995 that a highly respected biologist, Aprile Pazzo (Italian for April Fool), had discovered a new species in Antarctica: the hotheaded naked ice borer. The creatures were described as having bony plates on their heads that became burning hot, allowing the animals to bore through ice at high speed -- a technique they used to hunt penguins.

-- Noted British astronomer Patrick Moore announced on the radio in 1976 that at 9:47 am, a once-in-a-lifetime astronomical event, in which Pluto would pass behind Jupiter, would cause a gravitational alignment that would reduce the Earth's gravity. Moore told listeners that if they jumped in the air at the exact moment of the planetary alignment, they would experience a floating sensation. Hundreds of people called in to report feeling the sensation."


source

24.3.07

PS3 Dominates Folding@Home

"PlayStation 3 users around the world have found a completely new way to kick ass online. Take a look at the performance statistics for the Folding@home program as of 8am Eastern this morning:



OS Type Current TFLOPS* Active CPUs Total CPUs
Windows 151 158943 1624489
Mac OS X/PowerPC 7 8706 95321
Mac OS X/Intel 7 2700 7184
Linux 35 24924 215628
GPU 41 689 2178
PLAYSTATION®3 251 10238 11172
Total 492 206200 1955972

Take a look at those TFLOPS. That's PS3 machines delivering over 251 trillion floating point operations per second, 100 trillion more than ten times the number of active PC CPUs, and the number is growing every time I refresh the stats page. Say what you will of the PS3 as a game machine, but this is pretty spectacular to see. Warms the cockles something fierce, and I do so love warm cockles."




Some pretty astounding numbers to say the least. Now if only the PS3 had any must-have games...

If you're not familiar with the Folding@Home project, here is some information:

"What is protein folding and how is folding linked to disease? Proteins are biology's workhorses -- its "nanomachines." Before proteins can carry out these important functions, they assemble themselves, or "fold." The process of protein folding, while critical and fundamental to virtually all of biology, in many ways remains a mystery.

Moreover, when proteins do not fold correctly (i.e. "misfold"), there can be serious consequences, including many well known diseases, such as Alzheimer's, Mad Cow (BSE), CJD, ALS, Huntington's, Parkinson's disease, and many Cancers and cancer-related syndromes.

You can help by simply running a piece of software. Folding@Home is a distributed computing project -- people from through out the world download and run software to band together to make one of the largest supercomputers in the world. Every computer makes the project closer to our goals.

Folding@Home uses novel computational methods coupled to distributed computing, to simulate problems thousands to millions of times more challenging than previously achieved."


link

6.3.07

Picture of the Week

3.2.07

The DOT Better Approve Virgin Airlines

Although the airlines is still pending approval from the Department Of Transportation, CEO of Virgin Airlines America Fred Reid is shown here showing off some really nice features of the Airbus A320. Take a look:



Head over to Let VA Fly and learn how you can support their cause.

19.1.07

Amazon Rainforest Destruction

"This is not a small region previewed here: this is millions of acres of trees that have been removed from the Amazonian rainforests and turned into houses and paper. The amount of devestation is so vast that you can easily see its extent from space. Scroll around and zoom in to see the scale of these logging operations."

Link to map

One Digg user calculated that this is about the size of Vermont. I knew I wasn't going to like what I saw, but ffs, that's insane. Interesting that the article I got the quote from doesn't offer any suggestions on what we can do about this.

14.1.07

11.1.07

Well If It Isn't The iPhone...

I'm not going to babble about the technology behind this and I'm sure some of my handful of readers have already seen the millions of articles about this device, but for those that aren't geeky like me (thank goodness), here are some images to wet your appetite:







...and a hands on video. This has to be seen to be believed.



from Apple.com:

"iPhone combines three products — a revolutionary mobile phone, a widescreen iPod with touch controls, and a breakthrough Internet communications device with desktop-class email, web browsing, maps, and searching — into one small and lightweight handheld device. iPhone also introduces an entirely new user interface based on a large multi-touch display and pioneering new software, letting you control everything with just your fingers. So it ushers in an era of software power and sophistication never before seen in a mobile device, completely redefining what you can do on a mobile phone."

More here..

4.1.07

More Social Networking Site Warnings

"A reader writes to mention a TechNewsWorld article about social networking sites. Researchers are finding these places are goldmines for social engineering exercises. Between worm attacks and simple human observation, sites like MySpace are the perfect place to obtain saleable personal information. From the article: "The danger is real, according to a study conducted by CA and the National Cyber Security Alliance (NCSA). In October, the alliance issued its first social networking study examining the link between specific online behaviors and the potential for becoming a victim of cybercrime. Despite all the publicity about sexual predators on sites like MySpace and FaceBook, the alliance took a different approach by measuring the potential for threats such as fraud, identity theft, computer spyware and viruses. Although 57 percent of people who use social networking sites admit to worrying about becoming a victim of cybercrime, they are still divulging information that may put them at risk, as Boyd suggested. Social networkers are also downloading unknown files from other people's profiles, and responding to unsolicited instant messages that could contain worms, the NCSA reported."

Read More

A Classic Ren And Stimpy Moment