Topics

176

Living Room / Meet “badBIOS,” the mysterious Mac and PC malware that jumps airgaps

« on: November 01, 2013, 02:51 AM »

Be afraid. Be very afraid. This is seriously scary stuff.

http://arstechnica.c...-that-jumps-airgaps/

Three years ago, security consultant Dragos Ruiu was in his lab when he noticed something highly unusual: his MacBook Air, on which he had just installed a fresh copy of OS X, spontaneously updated the firmware that helps it boot. Stranger still, when Ruiu then tried to boot the machine off a CD ROM, it refused. He also found that the machine could delete data and undo configuration changes with no prompting. He didn't know it then, but that odd firmware update would become a high-stakes malware mystery that would consume most of his waking hours.

In the following months, Ruiu observed more odd phenomena that seemed straight out of a science-fiction thriller. A computer running the Open BSD operating system also began to modify its settings and delete its data without explanation or prompting. His network transmitted data specific to the Internet's next-generation IPv6 networking protocol, even from computers that were supposed to have IPv6 completely disabled. Strangest of all was the ability of infected machines to transmit small amounts of network data with other infected machines even when their power cords and Ethernet cables were unplugged and their Wi-Fi and Bluetooth cards were removed. Further investigation soon showed that the list of affected operating systems also included multiple variants of Windows and Linux.

"We were like, 'Okay, we're totally owned,'" Ruiu told Ars. "'We have to erase all our systems and start from scratch,' which we did. It was a very painful exercise. I've been suspicious of stuff around here ever since."

More at the link.

177

Living Room / Facebook Requiring Government ID?

« on: October 29, 2013, 12:08 PM »

It appears that Facebook is now requiring at least some people to provide godvernment issued ID.

http://www.thedrum.c...-government-id-users

Fury at Facebook as login requests “Government ID” from users

Thousands of Facebook users have vented their fury at the social media site on Twitter after they were locked out of the site, and were requested to provide “Government ID” to log back in.

Similar mass lockouts have occurred on Facebook in the past, most recently in January this year. At that time, the ID request was in response to claims that users’ accounts had been hacked.

“This is just a general practice for both Facebook and Instagram to request photo IDs for verification purposes depending on what type of violation may have occurred,” Facebook said at the time.

This is the first mass lockout and ID request to have taken place since the NSA government data trawling revelations, and it seems to have outraged users to a greater extent.

At the time of publication, Facebook have not issued any public comment or confirmation.

Like? Unlike?

178

Living Room / 12-yr-old boy admits to hacking police and government sites for Anonymous

« on: October 27, 2013, 02:09 AM »

This is hilarious on many levels, but still kind of sad:

http://nakedsecurity...sites-for-anonymous/

12-year-old Canadian boy admits to hacking police and government sites for Anonymous

A 12-year-old Canadian boy has pleaded guilty to hacking government and police websites during the 2012 student uprising in Quebec under affiliation with the Anonymous brand of hacktivists.

According to the Toronto Sun, the fifth grader, who lives in the Montreal suburb of Notre-Dame-de-Grâce, appeared in youth court on Thursday, accompanied by his father.

The boy pleaded guilty to three charges related to hacking websites that included those of Montreal police, the Quebec Institute of Public Health, the Chilean government and some non-public sites.

The attacks took some of the sites offline for up to two days, at what police estimated as a cost of $60,000 in damages. A more detailed report will be handed over next month when the boy is sentenced, according to the Toronto Sun.

More at the link.

179

Living Room / Yay! New Laws for Crowdfunding!

« on: October 23, 2013, 10:10 AM »

The SEC is apparently creating laws to do away with bad laws so that people can start businesses.

http://finance.yahoo...aited-105956761.html

Entrepreneurs and start-up companies looking for backing will be able to solicit small investments over the Internet from the general public under a new proposal to be released by U.S. regulators on Wednesday.

The Securities and Exchange Commission's "crowdfunding" plan is a requirement in the Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) Act, a 2012 law enacted with wide bipartisan support that relaxes federal regulations to help spur small business growth.

Equity crowdfunding lets small companies raise money by pooling together tiny investments from people around the country in exchange for a potential financial return.

If adopted by the five-member SEC, the rule would be a major shift in how small U.S. companies can raise money in the private securities market.

Private companies are now only allowed to solicit investors deemed to be "accredited," meaning they have a net worth of $1 million, excluding the value of their home, or an individual annual income over $200,000. The crowdfunding rule would let small businesses raise over $1 million a year by tapping unaccredited investors.

Companies could sell stakes to mom-and-pop investors without registering the securities with the SEC, a move designed to make it cheaper and less cumbersome for struggling startups trying to get their businesses off the ground. They would still be required to raise the money through regulated broker-dealers such as CircleUp or through crowdfunding portals.

Good news for Kickstarter and Indiegogo? They seemed to be doing fine and regular people seemed to be able to use them.

I'm just confuzzled. More bewilderment at the link.

180

Living Room / Razors and Intellectual Property (Patents)

« on: October 17, 2013, 02:37 AM »

This is a rather interesting essay on IP and patents.

http://makkai.com/20...troyed-mens-shaving/

How Intellectual Property Destroyed Men’s Shaving
BY CALLUM | PUBLISHED APRIL 23, 2012
Well over a century ago, a salesman named King Gillette patented the design for his safety razor and went on to found the Gillette Safety Razor Company. His invention made him wealthy as American men rushed to buy his razor blades.

Gillette did not invent the safety razor itself, but rather found a way to manufacture disposable blades that were cheap yet held an edge well. In so doing, Gillette challenged at least two professions: the barber with his straight razor and the blade sharpener with his strop.

It’s a classic example of the principle outlined in Andy Kessler’s book, Eat People. Gillette eliminated the cost and hassle of going to the barber or maintaining one’s razor by providing American men with disposable blades. Now they could shave themselves cheaply and effectively at home.

But that success set the stage for a pattern that would repeat itself over and over again through the twentieth century. See, patents expire after two decades or so, and as they did the Gillette company and its competitors sought new patents in order to protect the lucrative disposable razor business.

This drive for new “patentable” razor technology gave us some minor improvements in the classic double-edged safety razor, and after WWII, it gave us the Schick single-bladed injector razor. By the 1970s most patents for the double-edged safety razor and the single-edged injector razor had expired.

More at the link, and it does get more interesting.

Later in the article it gets into implications for technology today.

181

DC Gamer Club / UBER-CRYPTO CURRENCY COOLNESS! FOR GAMES!

« on: October 15, 2013, 08:17 AM »

YES! ALL CAPS! WHY? BECAUSE THIS IS JUST ALL THAT FRIGGIN' AWESOME!

http://www.coindesk....gamers-win-bitcoins/

LeetCoin enables skilled gamers to win bitcoins

LeetCoin
It seems as if bitcoin and gambling are inexplicably intertwined.

With that in mind, here’s a look at LeetCoin. It’s a platform that allows multiplayer gamers in genres such as first person shooters to really know the score. That’s because the winner gets bitcoins, while the loser gives some BTC away.

The concept of LeetCoin is simple. You sign in with a Steam account – a digital gaming distribution platform – then you are routed to LeetCoin’s servers, where you play Steam-based games through a wagering system. Kingsley Edwards, the developer behind LeetCoin who decided to get involved with bitcoin earlier this year, describes his service as similar to that of a poker table.

“It’s like a poker game. The servers you connect to (via Steam login) are like a table. Each server has a different wager. Right now, it is set at 0.001 bitcoin for each kill,” says Edwards.

More at the link.

http://www.leetcoin.com/

How It Works

• Deposit Bitcoin into your account.
• Authorize one of our high speed game servers.
• Play and Earn! BTC will be transferred instantly to the winner's account.

If you're a hard core gamer, and that didn't get your juices flowing, you're not a hard core gamer.

For the real hard cores, soon you'll be able to put your bitcoins where your mouth is.

182

Living Room / Pirates Jump on “The Walking Dead” Despite Legal Options

« on: October 15, 2013, 02:46 AM »

This is pretty interesting. Seems to raise questions about distribution methods and how they matter.

http://torrentfreak....egal-options-131014/

The start of the fourth season of “The Walking Dead” has resulted in a worldwide piracy craze. More than half a million people downloaded a copy of the show during the first few hours following its premiere, despite efforts to minimize the release lag to 24 hours in 125 countries. Fox had hopes that the global release would curb online piracy but thus far there is little evidence that this is the case, not even in the U.S. where AMC streams the show for free.

...

In part this might be because some prefer the unauthorized download option simply out of habit. This is especially true for U.S. file-sharers. As we reported earlier this year, many people who pay for a Netflix subscription downloaded Netflix’s exclusive Arrested Development release, preferring the download experience over online streaming.

There is also another group, one that simply doesn’t want to pay for a subscription, which is required in Australia for example. It’s also possible that they are just unhappy with the viewing options currently on offer. In many countries viewers still have to tune in at a fixed time slot while many prefer to program their own viewing schedule.

183

Living Room / INTERVIEW: Steve Wozniak on Internet Surveillance

« on: October 15, 2013, 02:35 AM »

Should be an interesting tidbit for a few people. Steve Wozniak certainly ranks among the top few computing demigods.

Published on Oct 13, 2013
Four decades ago, he almost single-handedly kickstarted the PC revolution, co-founding one of the world's largest corporations. Will the technology he helped create liberate humanity, or will it make us more isolated, more addicted to our own enslavement? Is there a secret to innovation and what is The Next Big Thing? Apple co-founder and IT guru Steve Wozniak joins Oksana to mull over these issues.

READ FULL SCRIPT http://on.rt.com/ol0dyp

184

General Software Discussion / LZIP - When you THINK you've seen it all...

« on: October 14, 2013, 07:46 AM »

There's always yet another compression scheme out there, and I just tripped across a TAR.LZ file. Never seen one before. LZH and others, but not this.

http://www.nongnu.org/lzip/lzip.html

Seems to serve a purpose, though not really sure if it's not already been covered before somewhere.

But it does seem somewhat odd to distribute files like that as it adds another step when you need to download then ./configure make just to extract an archive. Oh well. I guess another compression format can't hurt.

185

Living Room / Core Internet Institutions Abandon US Government

« on: October 12, 2013, 09:12 PM »

Good? Bad?

http://www.internetg...n-the-us-government/

In Montevideo, Uruguay this week, the Directors of all the major Internet organizations – ICANN, the Internet Engineering Task Force, the Internet Architecture Board, the World Wide Web Consortium, the Internet Society, all five of the regional Internet address registries – turned their back on the US government. With striking unanimity, the organizations that actually develop and administer Internet standards and resources initiated a break with 3 decades of U.S. dominance of Internet governance.

A statement released by this group called for “accelerating the globalization of ICANN and IANA functions, towards an environment in which all stakeholders, including all governments, participate on an equal footing.” That part of the statement constituted an explicit rejection of the US Commerce Department’s unilateral oversight of ICANN through the IANA contract. It also indirectly attacks the US unilateral approach to the Affirmation of Commitments, the pact between the US and ICANN which provides for periodic reviews of its activities by the GAC and other members of the ICANN community. (The Affirmation was conceived as an agreement between ICANN and the US exclusively – it would not have been difficult to allow other states to sign on as well.)

I can't see any government involvement being a good thing. We're talking about technical standards and the like, and governments are nothing but politics and bickering. How is politicizing the Internet a good thing?

From the frying pan into the fire...

(And that's ignoring other ICANN problems, etc.)

186

Living Room / Google to Sell User Profiles, Photos in Ads

« on: October 12, 2013, 07:47 AM »

Google has joined Facebook and Instagram.

http://blogs.wsj.com...tos-in-ads/?mod=e2fb

Google updated its terms of service Friday to say that beginning Nov. 11 it has the right to sell adult users’  profile names, photos and comments in reviews and advertising.

Here’s how its “shared endorsements” would work: If you rate a product on Google Play or give a product a +1 (the Google equivalent to Facebook’s “like”), those actions can be shown to your friends and connections. So if you gave a +1 to your favorite fashion retailer, your mom might see an advertisement from that retailer that says you like it. Google is drawing that information from your Google+ account (and you might have one, even if you don’t use it).

Enjoy!

187

Living Room / Switching to StartPage from DuckDuckGo

« on: October 12, 2013, 04:47 AM »

I've been finding that far too often I end up searching with "!g" with DuckDuckGo. I really like DDG, but, a bit tired of always doing 2 searches. DDG is great for a lot of general searches, but I just search for too much stuff that's off the beaten path or highly specific.

Anyways, I'm switching over to Start Page:

https://startpage.com

How have people found it?

(Anything else out there that's worth looking at?)

188

Living Room / TrueCrypt Audit

« on: October 10, 2013, 06:22 AM »

(In case you aren't familiar with security audits, they are to determine the security of a piece of software and are quite intense.)

A fund has been set up to pay for a security audit if TrueCrypt:

http://www.fundfill....JdDQk211KJDAUfcOw==#

A site is also set up:

http://istruecryptauditedyet.com/

Anyways... Interesting. Publicly and openly audited.

Stay tuned. This could be important...

189

Developer's Corner / Somebody actually wrote something in GO!

« on: October 05, 2013, 09:41 PM »

No. Really. Someone wrote some software in GO.

https://blog.conform...moms-bitcoin-daemon/

We are pleased to announce that btcd, our full-node bitcoind alternative written in Go, is finally ready for public testing!

Go figger!

190

Living Room / CoinPost Open Sourced

« on: October 05, 2013, 10:30 AM »

This is interesting. A site, "Coinpost.com", wasn't doing all that well, so they open sourced it. It just didn't get any traction.

The RoR source is here:

https://github.com/brighton36/CoinPost

I saw the announcement here:

http://www.reddit.co...bitcoin_marketplace/

Interesting place to announce it though.

191

Living Room / INTERVIEW: Ladar Levison of LAVABIT Talks to Luke Rudowski

« on: October 04, 2013, 09:22 AM »

Here is an interview with Ladar Levinson of Lavabit. Luke Rudkowski of We Are Change talks to him about what he's been through.

The interview is in 3 parts.

1) The Rosa Parks of Internet Freedom, Lavabit Founder Ladar Levinson

http://wearechange.o...nder-ladar-levinson/

2) The man who stood up to the NSA, Ladar Levison Lavabit founder

http://wearechange.o...son-lavabit-founder/

3) The NSA is destroying U.S online business

http://wearechange.o...u-s-online-business/

They are willing to go to some very disturbing lengths...

Think about what this information is being used for abroad. In particular. You know, you don't get a knock on your door. You get something else coming through your door.

That's what we're seeing. Domestic enemies to our own freedom.

At about 11:30 he mentions nuclear launch codes. Umm, "80" anyone?

Metadata is data.

I need support both financially and politically.

At the end, Ladar plugs for his site and donations.

Soap Box

I donated. Please consider donating whatever you feel you can. He has a huge legal battle ahead of him. Even if you can only donate a couple dollars, it will help.

This is a crucially important thing for us. He has tried to do the right thing for himself, for his customers, and for the public at large. He deserves our support.

I have a huge amount of respect for both Ladar and Luke.


I can sympathize with Ladar in minor ways as I had a perfectly legal and ethical business that was destroyed by government. I was blind-sided. I never saw it coming.

It completely destroyed my life.

What Ladar has been through is far, far worse than what I went through.

In the abstract, what I did and Ladar did were similar. I never tried to fight though as I knew that I was already destroyed and had no hope of winning. He's got a lot of courage there that I deeply admire.


Luke is a fantastic journalist. I have a huge amount of respect for him. He asks questions that very few others will, and questions that you will NEVER hear asked in the MSM. He's been thrown out of a few press conferences.


Ladar is nothing short of heroic.

192

Living Room / Silk Road Seized - Dread Pirate Roberts Arrested

« on: October 03, 2013, 12:05 AM »

Damn!



http://www.forbes.co...te-roberts-arrested/

Feds Say They've Arrested 'Dread Pirate Roberts,' Shut Down His Black Market 'The Silk Road'

Very disappointed...

Why can't they just mind their own business and leave people alone. Sheesh...

Maybe Atlantis will fire up again. I hope this isn't the end. More black markets is a good thing.

What I just don't get is why he would stay in the USA. That just seems crazy to me. It's not like he couldn't have moved to somewhere safer.

UPDATES:

Popehat: The Silk Road To Federal Prosecution: The Charges Against Ross Ulbricht
http://www.popehat.c...gainst-ross-ulbricht
https://www.donation....msg339243#msg339243
- Discussion about law surrounding the issue

The Dollar Vigilante: THE SHUTDOWN THAT REALLY MATTERS: THE END OF THE SILK ROAD
http://dollarvigilan...f-the-silk-road.html
https://www.donation....msg339253#msg339253
- A voluntarist perspective on the issue.

Blockchain Info: Seized BTC - 27,000+
https://blockchain.i...CNLbtMDqcw6o5GNn4xqX
https://www.donation....msg339298#msg339298
- Screenshot below.

Komo News: Federal drug charges for Bellevue man involved in 'Silk Road'
http://www.komonews....&clmob=y&c=n
https://www.donation....msg339320#msg339320
- Silk Road seller found by feds.

Lawyer for DPR on Twitter
https://twitter.com/...s/386178542926434304
https://www.donation....msg339407#msg339407
- Not talking.

Techdirt: Not Content With Gutting The Fourth Amendment, The Government Continues Its Attack On The Fifth And Sixth
http://www.techdirt....ck-fifth-sixth.shtml
https://www.donation....msg339414#msg339414
- Background information on system rights violations. 4th, 5th, 6th being gutted.

A Public Defender: Asking for a lawyer is not evidence of guilt
http://apublicdefend...t-evidence-of-guilt/
https://www.donation....msg339414#msg339414
- More background on systemic rights violations.

YouTube: Back To The Future "we don't need roads"
http://www.youtube.c.../watch?v=flge_rw6RG0
https://www.donation....msg339415#msg339415
- Humour - lolbertardian dreamworld. /r/whowillbuildtheroads

193

Non-Windows Software / WinDirStat for OS X?

« on: October 02, 2013, 08:27 AM »

Does anyone know of a utility similar to WinDirStat that runs on OS X? I'd like to clean up my Mac a bit.

194

Community Giveaways / Free CSS Scrollbar Color Designer

« on: October 02, 2013, 02:51 AM »

If anyone wants a free CSS colour bar designer, skip on over here:

http://renegademinds...abid/72/Default.aspx

It does exactly what the name says - lets you easily create scrollbar colour schemes and generates the CSS for you.



Download, install, and use this license key:

469B-244C-21D1-D3D3-AF02-BE30-78A0-5E6E-91D8-124E-F9CA-5A78-D99F-38F5-1FFA-F09C

I'm dumping the entire Renegade Minds site and all the software except for Guitar & Drum Trainer. I'll be getting a new site up in the near future, after which none of the software (other than GDT) will be available anymore.

I wrote up a short blurb about that here:

http://renegademinds...yID/218/Default.aspx

195

Living Room / John McAfee reveals details on gadget to thwart NSA (Decentral)

« on: October 01, 2013, 01:22 AM »

I like John McAfee more and more all the time. He is constantly ascending to tech demi-godhood.

http://www.mercuryne...ls-gadget-thwart-nsa

John McAfee reveals details on gadget to thwart NSA

John McAfee lived up to his reputation Saturday as tech's most popular wild child, electrifying an audience with new details of his plan to thwart the NSA's surveillance of ordinary Americans with an inexpensive, pocket-size gadget.

Dubbed "Decentral," the as-yet-unbuilt device will cost less than $100, McAfee promised the enthusiastic crowd of about 300 engineers, musicians and artists at the San Jose McEnery Convention Center.

"There will be no way (for the government) to tell who you are or where you are," he said in an onstage interview with moderator Dan Holden at the inaugural C2SV Technology Conference + Music Festival.

And if the U.S. government bans its sale, "I'll sell it in England, Japan, the Third World. This is coming and cannot be stopped."

...

McAfee said the idea for the device came to him well before computer analyst and whistleblower Edward Snowden leaked National Security Agency documents that exposed widespread monitoring of U.S. citizens' phone calls and Internet communications.

But with Snowden's actions, "it became the right time" to make it real, he said.

...

There seemed to be intense interest Saturday in McAfee's current plans. One man asked whether Decentral essentially creates a "dark Web," or part of the Internet that can no longer be accessed by conventional means.

Yes, he said.

Will the privacy it affords allow criminals and others to evade the authorities, another wanted to know.

"It will of course be used for nefarious purposes," he said, "just like the telephone is."

I love that last line.

196

Living Room / The LED lights in your home could be spying on you!

« on: September 30, 2013, 06:19 PM »

Grab your tinfoil hats and rejoice! You were right all along! They ARE out to get you!

An LED light can be used to spy on someone and hear everything that they are saying in their home. Don't believe? Here's your proof!

But who are "they"? Pfft! Silly question! The ILLUMINATI of course~!

197

Living Room / Dead Drops - Release your inner P2P spy! :D

« on: September 29, 2013, 01:09 PM »

Found this:

http://deaddrops.com/

‘Dead Drops’ is an anonymous, offline, peer to peer file-sharing network in public space. USB flash drives are embedded into walls, buildings and curbs accessible to anybody in public space. Everyone is invited to drop or find files on a dead drop. Plug your laptop to a wall, house or pole to share your favorite files and data. Each dead drop is installed empty except a readme.txt file explaining the project. ‘Dead Drops’ is open to participation. If you want to install a dead drop in your city/neighborhood follow the ‘how to’ instructions and submit the location and pictures.

Seems pretty cool. Worth having a look.

198

Screenshot Captor / Where are comments stored?

« on: September 27, 2013, 11:48 PM »

Hey Mouser,

Where are comments stored in the image files? Which EXIF metadata fields are you using?

I want to search through screenshots, but I don't want to actually browse and look at them. I just want to type in a URL of a site or a program title name and run a text search.

Depending on available time, I figure it might be a fun little NANY project for me to do a mini-search program. I need it anyways, so might as well. It's also a nice kind of project as I can GPL it or WTFPL it as I won't need to use any proprietary components like I've had to do for some other stuff.

Anyways, just need to know the fields there.

Thanks!

199

DC Gamer Club / The Federator

« on: September 25, 2013, 10:13 AM »

I stumbled across a game from The Wall Street Journal. It's good for a laugh:

http://projects.wsj....erator/?mg=inert-wsj

Simple Flash game done in 80's style arcade graphics. 

200

Living Room / Faces Averaged with Software

« on: September 24, 2013, 11:59 AM »

This is very funky:

http://memolition.co...ountries-2-pictures/





http://faceresearch.org/

Lesson Learned: Mongolian chicks are HOT!