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Archive for November, 2007
MySpace “Hacker” Tells His Story
"If Samy Kamkar plays his cards right, he may be allowed to visit MySpace again in just a few months. For the time being, however, he's not even allowed to touch a computer, following a January 2007 guilty plea for creating what many consider to be the first Web 2.0 worm: the Samy worm. Samy's worm wasn't malicious, but it did force News [...]
What the Google Intranet Looks Like
"What do around 16,000 Google employees stare at in the morning when they’ve arrived at the office? They might be looking at Moma, the name for the Google intranet. The meaning of the name of “Moma†is a mystery even to some of the employees working on it, we heard, but Moma’s mission is prominently displayed on its [...]
HOWTO: Advanced SSH configuration and tunneling
Excellent article/guide to using SSH tunnels to bypass using third pary VPN software. I agree with them on all points. SSH FTW. In a recent Red Hat Magazine article, Paul Frields gave some examples of how SSH port forwarding can be used to remotely gain access to resources, or ports, from a remote location. This article will show a pragmatic [...]
New Google Maps For Smartphones
Attention Microsoft/Apple, this is why everyone loves Google. Just released tonight: Even without GPS, it gets your location automatically via cell phone towers. Working like a charm on my Treo. Is there anything Google can't do? See your location on the map, with or without GPS. Save time and tedious keystrokes finding where you are, [...]
iTunes coverflow clone in flash
I've been searching for an iTunes Coverflow clone in flash, because one of my client asked me to use something like that for a new project. I finally found something decent... Take a look the following link: http://www.quietlyscheming.com/blog/components/tutorial-displayshelf-component/ Now the above opensource product is built for flex2, so [...]
HOWTO: Watch the Fox Prison Break American Express exclusive without a card
Tried to catch up on the Prison Break highlights and came across the Amex Only previews. Well since I don't have an AMEX there's only one choice. Google American Express support numbers. Enter any one of these phone number numbers: 8004924920 8004928468 8005216121 8005253355 8005282122 8005284800 then enter anything longer than 5 [...]
Protecting your IMs from prying eyes with OTR
Leading security researcher and co-creator of the Off-the-Record Messaging (OTR) protocol discusses why you should use OTR to make sure your instant messages remain private. This is especially important given the NSA's recent wiretapping activities and the increasing prominence of Big Brother. Off-the-Record Messaging, commonly referred to as [...]
36 years ago today, D.B. Cooper jumped from a plane and put the U.S. $200,000 in debt
At 2:58pm, PST, on Wednesday, November 24, 1971, the day before Thanksgiving in the United States, a man traveling under the name Dan Cooper hijacked a Boeing 727-051, Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 305, flying from Portland International Airport (PDX) in Portland, Oregon to Seattle, Washington, with the threat of a bomb (he had a briefcase [...]
TI-84+ gets down with USB peripherals
I realize this is somewhat old news, but after sitting around Calculus class playing with my TI-84 Plus graphing calculator, I decided to look around to see what has been hacked onto these things. I thought for sure some tiny distro of linux has been ported to it. I stumbled upon an open-source project called usb8x. This is very cool. "Ever since [...]
Mark Cuban to ISPs: block all P2P traffic
In an open letter to Internet service providers published earlier this week, billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban calls for telecoms to put an end to peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing. Cuban expresses concerns that P2P "freeloaders" are clogging the tubes with commercial content. His letter doesn't focus on piracy, however, and instead primarily [...]
Researchers blast Vista Service Pack 1
A group of researchers has described Microsoft's upcoming Windows Vista Service Pack 1 as a "performance dud". Researchers from the EXO Performance Network claimed that a series of in-house benchmark tests showed that users hoping to receive a speed boost from the update will be disappointed. "After extensive testing of Release To [...]
Leopard’s Aurora Borealis wallpaper in GIMP
Apple finally released their new OS called Leopard about a month ago. One of the things I like the most with Apple, and probably everybody loves too, is that they always release tons of beautiful stuff. From the package box to the t-shirt. Yeah there is a very cool t-shirt as well. And now it’s not different. I loved the space feeling of [...]
HOWTO: make mp3 files smaller
An old friend emailed me over the weekend and asked for some help reducing the size of a MP3 file so he could load it on his wireless phone. Seems he wanted the ringer to sound like a sheep when one certain person called (don't ask), but the MP3 he found was too big for the phone to accept. I did a little research and found a cool little [...]
XSS Cheat Sheet
XSS is Cross Site Scripting. If you don't know how XSS (Cross Site Scripting) works, this page probably won't help you. This page is for people who already understand the basics of XSS attacks but want a deep understanding of the nuances regarding filter evasion. This page will also not show you how to mitigate XSS vectors or how to write the [...]
You’re Not Attractive
And neither is your girlfriend, but in order to stomach the prospect of a long-term relationship, you delude yourself into believing she's better looking than she really is. (This has been suspected for so long that even the Greeks had a euphemism for it.) To see if men (and women) really deceive themselves in this manner, a group of [...]
Your Privacy Is An Illusion
Everyone should already know that Facebook employees can see your profile even if it is private. Now we hear that they are willing to share your private profile with your boss. All he has to do is ask. A poster on the AR-15 Forums, a firearms-enthusiast website, says her bosses asked Facebook for permission to see her profile -- which is normally [...]
iPhone Phoning Home
Big surprise. Apple’s much loved iPhone has a hidden feature, and it’s not going to be welcomed by everyone: it phones home.According to 9 to 5 Mac, the iPhone sends the users IMEI number, IP address and stock quote preferences amongst a number of things via a hidden string to Apple via the Weather and Stock apps. The information [...]
Losing Faith
Snagged this off a forum I frequently browse... So let me start by saying I work at Sears and here are a few of the geniuses we have that bring their car in here. Also I work in the store not in the automotive section. I like to work on cars but only on my own time, not as a full time job. But I am good friends with the guys there and [...]
NIST encryption standard may have NSA backdoor
According to security experts, an algorithm for generating random numbers that is included in an official standard documented by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) could potentially include a backdoor planted by the NSA. In a recent blog entry, cryptographer Bruce Schneier describes research that was presented by his [...]
