Archive for May, 2008

Chinese Hackers Caused 2003 Rolling Blackouts in USA

Chinese hackers caused two power blackouts in the United States in the last half decade, according to the cover story in tomorrow’s National Journal. American intelligence sources confirm that the People’s Liberation Army was responsible for intrusions in 2003 that likely caused North America’s largest blackout, which affected [...]

Women In Bikinis Make Men Spend Stupidly… On Everything

It's no surprise that a woman in a bikini can increase a man's sexual appetite but research in the Journal of Consumer Research says that men who watched sexy videos or even handled lingerie had more appetite for everything - and it impacted their decisions about soda, candy and even money. Authors Bram Van den Bergh, Siegfried DeWitte, and Luk [...]

18-Year-Old Says He Hacked Comcast Because He’s “Tired Of Their Shitty Service”

Here's a technique we'll not be adding to our list of fun ways to escalate your complaint: The 18-year-old who recently hacked Comcast.net and took down the company's homepage and webmail told Wired that it was Comcast's own fault... The hacker, known as EBK, called Comcast to let them know they'd been hacked. The manager scoffed and hung up: "If [...]

HOWTO: Steal $5,000 in Fuel…

Talk about a gas guzzler... Police seized a truck and trailer equipped with a trap door that was used at least three times to siphon thousands of gallons of BP diesel fuel from underground storage tanks at a Tic Toc Food Mart in Mercer County. "You got to have a little respect for this," Hermitage police Deputy Chief Edward Holiga said [...]

Looks like the eeePC is getting some competition from Dell.

8.9-inches dolled up in a sub-$500 price tag with a choice of both Windows XP Home or Ubuntu Linux, 8-in-1 card reader, integrated webcam, direct media playback buttons, and a "host of wireless access options." Expect more next week as the Computex show kicks off. $500

New Smart Phone Hack Could Expose Cell Network

Researchers have hacked a built-in maintenance application found on many smart phones that could open the door to hacking the cellular network itself. David Maynor, CTO for Errata Security, this weekend at the Summercon security confab in Atlanta will demonstrate a tool built by Errata that provides a peek into the inner workings of the cell [...]

A Linux render cluster inside an IKEA cabinet

This is the story of Helmer. A linux cluster in a IKEA Helmer cabinet.... 3D computer rendering are very CPU intensive and the best way so speed up slow render problems, are usually to distribute them on to more computers. Render farms are usually very large, expensive and run using A LOT of energy. I wanted to build something that could be put [...]

Windows 7 Features Revealed

Here's what Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer revealed about Windows 7 at All Things Digital a few minutes ago. The biggest "feature" is the touch and multi-touch integration, which takes many of its roots from Microsoft's Surface Table, and will be available as an interface options for other apps. Here's some more stuff they pulled out, which we [...]

Fedora 9 Puts Your Desktop on a USB Drive

This past week's release of the Fedora 9 Linux makes putting a full-fledged desktop on a portable USB thumb drive a three-click affair. Even better, you don't need Linux installed to create it, you can leave the data on your thumb drive untouched, and any files you create or settings you tweak remain in place the next time you boot up. After the [...]

Vulnerability in Debian OpenSSL could allow attackers to decrypt “secure” Web sessions

Ten days ago, a Debian Security Advisory (DSA-1571-1) was released that detailed a flaw in the OpenSSL cryptographic libraries that affects both Debian and other Linux distributions derived from Debian. Unlike a buffer overflow or many other vulnerabilities, this flaw wasn’t introduced through insecure programming -- quite the opposite. [...]

15-Year-Old Steals Data on 55,000 People in School District Hack

And school isn’t even out for the summer yet: A 15-year-old student allegedly hacked into his Chester County, Pa., high school’s computer network and stole personal information on 55,000 people. The student, who attends the county’s Downingtown West High School, reportedly used a flash drive to siphon off the names, [...]

Lifelock CEO Todd Davis becomes ID theft victim

SAN JOSE, California (AP) -- Todd Davis has dared criminals for two years to try stealing his identity: Ads for his fraud-prevention company, LifeLock, even offer his Social Security number next to his smiling mug. Now, LifeLock customers in Maryland, New Jersey and West Virginia are suing Davis, claiming his service didn't work as promised and [...]

Smile. You’re on Google Street View

Discovering odd or unique images on Google Street View has become a hobby for many people, who post their findings to websites like Streetviewr and Street View Gallery. Some of my favorites from Google Street View...

Two Hidden Features New in Firefox 3

Firefox 3 Release Candidate 1 was revealed to the world last week, which means the final release is only about a month away. If you haven’t yet checked that your site works smoothly in the new browser, now’s the time! A few (understandably) angry Linux users aside, the consensus seems to be that Firefox 3 represents a huge leap [...]

Yamaha wearable motorcycle concept will likely remain just that

It's not often that you see devices huddled under the transportation and wearables categories, but you can certainly consider the above pictured contraption a proud member of each. Created by transportation design student Jake Loniak, the Yamaha Deus Ex Machina is an "electric, single passenger, vertically parking, wearable motorcycle, and the [...]

Microsoft Explains “Richard Gaywood” Ban

We learned the story of Richard Gaywood, the not-so-happy Xbox Live user whose gamertag was banned. Since "RichardGaywood" was both the user's gamertag as well as his legal, honest-to-goodness given name, Kotaku contacted Microsoft to learn the reason behind the ban. Hit the jump for their response... (more...)

Zappos.com is an awesome company. They actually pay new employees to quit.

A friend of mine actually works for Zappos in Las Vegas. He loves his job. Maybe it's time to move. It’s a hard job, answering phones and talking to customers for hours at a time. So when Zappos hires new employees, it provides a four-week training period that immerses them in the company’s strategy, culture, and obsession with [...]

SDTV vs HDTV

PHP rand() on Windows vs. true random

I've always been into scripting things using random numbers based on random functions, like PHP's "rand()" function... but I've never compared these types of functions to true random number generators. Then one day, I stumbled upon Random.org, which is a true random number generating service. The difference is that most random number generating [...]

Department of Homeland Security?

"So I recently discovered a great new running trail one evening- beautiful rolling dirt with old, moss-covered trees. Deer and owls, and not another human being to be found. Only problem is that the trail lay beyond a barb-wire fence, and a "No Trespassing" sign. Went back a week or two later, found the end, and was even more stoked on the [...]