Tuesday, July 29, 2008

General Musing


Go to Warp #science

Posted: 28 Jul 2008 09:05 PM CDT


According to Discovery Warp Drive Engine Would Travel Faster Than LightYou just wouldn’t travel faster than light.” It’s apparently the space around the ship which is travelling faster than light, the ship itself would remain stationary.

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links for 2008-07-29

Posted: 28 Jul 2008 08:32 PM CDT

NDE Magazine 4 Out #lockpicking

Posted: 28 Jul 2008 05:22 PM CDT


NDE Magazine #4 just came out, NDE is a lockpicking magazine covering interesting techniques in locks and picks. The ABUS Challenge proved that with enough time and effort any lock can be defeated.

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Why We Can Believe Conspiracies #health

Posted: 28 Jul 2008 04:38 PM CDT


Everybody has some kind of believe in conspiracies, whether they are based on true or false data. The ability to see connections in the world around us is something that led to modern science as we know it. Scientific American reports that Anecdotal Evidence Can Undermine Scientific Results and make us believe there are connections that can’t be substantiated by scientific method.

Our brains have evolved so that they “… pay attention to anecdotes, false positives (believing there is a connection between A and B when there is not) are usually harmless, whereas false negatives (believing there is no connection between A and B when there is) may take you out of the gene pool.

But I still don’t know who was on the grassy knoll.

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Environmental Problem? Just Add Chemicals!

Posted: 28 Jul 2008 04:24 PM CDT


In the article A dash of lime — a new twist that may cut CO2 levels back to pre-industrial levels they go into the details of removing CO2 from the air by adding lime to seawater. “Adding lime to seawater increases alkalinity, boosting seawater’s ability to absorb CO2 from air and reducing the tendency to release it back again. … The process of making lime generates CO2, but adding the lime to seawater absorbs almost twice as much CO2. The overall process is therefore ‘carbon negative’. ” There is a nice Open Source project Cquestrate.

So we have a problem of our own creation, a problem from introducing too much of one chemical into the environment. The solution might be to pour a different chemical into the sea to fix the problem. It could also be completely misguided.

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Podcasts I Like - Security for Business Leaders #podcast

Posted: 28 Jul 2008 03:21 PM CDT


CERT, the first computer security incident response team, produces a bi-weekly podcast series called Security for Business Leaders. The podcasts discuss everything from Corporate Governance, Risk Management and Threats.

Nice high level overview of enterprise security.

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Citizen Engineer - True Love #hack

Posted: 28 Jul 2008 02:27 PM CDT


I just finished watching Citizen Engineer, I’m in love. No honest, there is just something about a girl and her soldering iron. There are two things which are discussed in this first episode Phones

  1. SIM Card Hacking
  2. Payphone Hacking

The first subject is handled a little too fast for my liking and doesn’t cover all the interesting parts, although it is mostly left up the the viewer to try it themselves. Payphone Hacking is covered in depth, it’s divided into 3 sections:

  • Hooking the Payphone up to VoIP
  • Fixing the Payphone so it accepts quarters
  • Creating a system which can be bypassed with a Redbox

It’s geeky, but it’s fun!

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Crunch Time on DNS (CERT #800113) (Update)

Posted: 28 Jul 2008 11:28 AM CDT


I missed updates on the CERT #800113 DNS issue. It seams that we didn’t have the 30 days, as Kaminsky requested, but 13 days. As published by Security Focus on July 22nd and 24th in Kerfuffle erupts as DNS flaw described and Metasploit releases double-whammy for DNS.

I asked my own ISP (XS4all) about this issue, and got the response from the Helpdesk on the 25th:

… although the attack is plausible, it is being over hyped. The chance that this attack will take place is small.

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From e-Gold to Payment Systems (Update) #finance

Posted: 28 Jul 2008 11:01 AM CDT


I reported earlier about e-Gold, Security Focus is now reporting that E-Gold pleads guilty to money laundering.

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Remember The Milk #lifehacks

Posted: 28 Jul 2008 09:09 AM CDT


Remember the Milk is a task oriented system which you can use for your reminders. Sometimes you want to make sure you are reminded of a task, so you can integrate it with your web applications, such as Gmail, Google Calendar, Twitter or NetVibes. With your regular office suite with rss feeds and ical.

And when you upgrade to the paid service they provide you with iPhone, BlackBerry and Windows Mobile software so you can manage your tasks on the go.

Source: LifeHacker

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Selling your book via LinkedIn #networking

Posted: 28 Jul 2008 08:45 AM CDT


About a month ago Gary Unger took the advise of his publisher and joined LinkedIn with the express purpose of promoting his book, he leveraged his network to turn his book into a hit.

Here you can listen to his story.

Source: Stan Relihan
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New X-Files #movie

Posted: 28 Jul 2008 07:18 AM CDT


Next week, September 7th in the Netherlands, they should be releasing a new X-Files movie The X-Files: I Want to Believe. What’s up with the marketing of this movie, why hadn’t I heard of it? Was word of mouth restricted to the fan sites?

I’m excited, I love Sculder and Mully!

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Skype Contains Back Door

Posted: 28 Jul 2008 05:40 AM CDT


According to heise.de the Skype probably contains a back door, which allows connections to be bugged. In Speculation over back door in Skype Might this also mean that it could turn your computer into a bugging device?

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Granite Contains Uranium #health

Posted: 28 Jul 2008 04:57 AM CDT


Your beautiful kitchen could be poisoning you! I though it was very funny when I started reading it. “Granite, as it turns out, contains levels of uranium, which is not only radioactive but releases radon gas as it decays.1” According to the article it can also contain other nuclear materials such as thorium and potassium, although I can’t exactly remember when potassium became nuclear.

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hird Party Cookies

Posted: 28 Jul 2008 03:08 AM CDT


GRC gathers some nice statistics on the use of Third Party Cookies also known as Tracking Cookies. I was amazed by the browsers which have TPC enabled by default, there is nothing immediately dangerous about having TPC enabled. However they have serious implications on the privacy and anonymity, they also make it possible for websites other than the one you are visiting to track you over multiple websites.

I run FireFox 3, but disabled TPC as soon as I installed it.

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