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Topics - Renegade [ switch to compact view ]

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51
The end is nigh!

http://www.express.c...LEL-UNIVERSE-in-days

Scientists at Large Hadron Collider hope to make contact with PARALLEL UNIVERSE in days

SCIENTISTS conducting a mindbending experiment at the Large Hadron Collider next week hope to connect with a PARALLEL UNIVERSE outside of our own.

Collision course: Large Hadron Collider could discover parallel universe
The staggeringly complex LHC ‘atom smasher’ at the CERN centre in Geneva, Switzerland, will be fired up to its highest energy levels ever in a bid to detect - or even create - miniature black holes.

If successful a completely new universe will be revealed – rewriting not only the physics books but the philosophy books too.

It is even possible that gravity from our own universe may ‘leak’ into this parallel universe, scientists at the LHC say.

Yeah... leak into their universe and suck in unspeakable horrors!

Abominations will pour through the gate into our universe! Madness will ensue!

Iä! Iä! Cthulhu Fhtagn!










52
Living Room / 25x~100x faster 3D printing?
« on: March 18, 2015, 01:14 AM »
This is a wildly different way to do 3D printing, and it's damn cool.

http://www.popularme...3d-3d-printer-resin/

Carbon3D's technology does this by harnessing oxygen and light to grow the parts continuously as the object rises like the T-1000 from Terminator out of the resin. One experiment captured in a study published Monday in Science shows a mini-Eiffel Tower emerging from a vat of blue liquid in just six minutes.

http://carbon3d.com

Demo:


53
DC Gamer Club / Any play VoidSpace?
« on: March 13, 2015, 04:49 AM »
Has anyone tried VoidSpace?

http://www.playvoids...ce.com/new/index.jsp


54
In a word... WANT!

http://motherboard.v...utm_source=mbtwitter

The challenge with 3D printing isn't the machine, it's the materials.

If you've used one of the current generation of desktop 3D printers, you'll have noticed there's a limit to what you can make: If you’ve always wanted a small, personalised model in cheap plastic, you're in luck, but that’s about it.

That's set to change as 3D printer makers look to expand the available materials. At CES, Makerbot announce​d that by the end of this year it would offer composite materials of bronze, maple wood, and iron, while a host of projects are printing in new materials such as fake wo​od and carbon​ fiber.

One company at the forefront of this push is Vo​xel8, with its product based on the material science work of Harvard University res​earcher Jennifer Lewis. The Voxel8’s Direct Write 3D printing technology pushes out “viscous paste” at room temperature using pneumatic or volumetric systems.

“It's effectively pushing paste out of syringes,” co-founder Daniel Oliver told me. “The interesting thing with Direct Write is it expands the materials pallet, so it allows you to print out a large number of different materials on a similar hardware platform and has a wider band of materials it's able to print than frankly any other 3D printing technology I'm aware of.”​

Its first printer, which costs $8,999, uses thermoplastic as well as conductive silver ink, letting you print electronics—Voxel8 likes to show off a fully-functioning quadcopter that was almost entirely printed in one go (the blades need to be attached separately).

More at the link.

But printing electronics? Cripes! That is wicked cool. 8)

55
Living Room / Is anyone else worried about Google "Truth"?
« on: March 09, 2015, 09:25 AM »
Is anyone other than myself concerned about Google now determining what is 'true'?

Disclaimer
Yeah... I know... this could quickly degenerate into a pissing match, and get sent to the basement, but I'm pretty much counting on people's ability to be adults and discuss the meta issue of Google determining what is "true" vs. what truth is. So... for the love of Pete... Please... let's stick to the big issue and not get caught up in details. Examples are great, but let's not dwell on our agreement over examples.


One article:

http://www.abc.net.a...le-to-get-it/6285054

Google seeks a higher truth, but will struggle to get it

Google has outlined a method to rank search results by factual accuracy, but if the hope is to dispel mistruths in political and social debates it's unlikely to work. In fact, it could contribute more to the problem, writes Jeff Sparrow.

Researchers at Google have outlined a new method of ranking search results on the basis of the factual accuracy of content.

A new paper by the search giant's scientists suggests that the number of incorrect facts on a particular page could be tallied, using that as a proxy for trustworthiness. In theory, popular but unreliable sites would then drop down the listings so that your results would be dominated by sources you could trust.

Not surprisingly, the concept has not been universally acclaimed. As one writer put it: "The idea raises concerns as to how exactly the fact checking would take place, and whether it would impact controversial or alternative stances on various issues, which could be a blow to freedom of speech and diversity of opinions online."

More at the link.

This is pretty disturbing. If they do implement it, I will most certainly look elsewhere and avoid Google.

Again from the article:

To put it another way, the willingness of people to give vaxers and birthers a hearing is a political problem, not a technical one, and so it can't be solved by rejigging a search algorithm.

I think that highlights an important problem -- "a political problem, not a technical one".

Politics? So, now searching for information has become political?

Hello!?! Thought police anyone?!?

When someone wants to find out about "hollow earth" or "flat earth", then what happens?

How about "economics in the 20th century"? What then? Keynes? Rothbard? Hayek? Marx?

UFOs and aliens?

Einstein's field equations and torque? (Yes - this is a real thing.)

Just for the sake of living up to my user name here, and for a hat tip to those educated in the classics, I would like to leave this post with a little tidbit...


"What is truth?" retorted Pilate. With this he went out again to the Jews gathered there and said, "I find no basis for a charge against him."
-John 18:38

About Pilate
Pilate was a well educated man, and understood the writings of the "greats". This was basically all Greek skepticism, which is the foundation of the modern world. i.e. Skepticism was and is the dominant philosophical school of thought, although there are some serious bastardisations and perversions. But that's best left to another discussion. :)

So, Pilate's response with "What is truth" is a direct reflection of his education and understanding of philosophy. (That's a circular argument, but it's enough for anyone to do their own checking on it, and it needed to be made explicit for there to be an actual purpose to this footnote that could have been skipped if I'd simply avoided the Pilate quote... but since it's such a cool quote, I simply couldn't avoid including it!)









56
Another security issue.

http://www.zdnet.com...e-to-freak-ssl-flaw/

The FREAK security bug that allows attackers to conduct man-in-the-middle attacks on Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) and Transport Layer Security (TLS) connections encrypted using an outmoded cipher has claimed another victim. This time, it is Microsoft's Secure Channel stack.

"Microsoft is aware of a security feature bypass vulnerability in Secure Channel (Schannel) that affects all supported releases of Microsoft Windows," the company said in a security advisory. "The vulnerability facilitates exploitation of the publicly disclosed FREAK technique, which is an industry-wide issue that is not specific to Windows operating systems."

Although Microsoft Research was part of the team to uncover FREAK alongside European cryptographers, Redmond chose not to reveal Windows as vulnerable until today.

More at the link.


57
Living Room / $15,000 bounty for a Mark One 3D printer
« on: March 03, 2015, 06:52 PM »
Cody Wilson has issued a $15,000 bounty for a Mark One 3D printer.



Here's the email I received:

Companies like to pile on Defense Distributed, like we don't all know how this story ends. The most recent is a company called Mark Forged in Cambridge that sells a carbon fiber 3D printer called the Mark One.

I bought this printer a year ago and waited that long for them to decide they didn't want to sell it to me after all. Before the weekend they returned the money and told me due to business risks they wouldn't sell it to me. Now Wired has the story and the company has invented some new terms of use to preclude DD from using the device at all.

Yet another of our bad faith dealings with White Liberals for NATO.

But in all seriousness, I'm going to get this printer. And, as I told them, I'm going to print a gun with it. These hurried attempts by almost everyone in polite society to impede my company in its purpose are efforts of last resort. Last hope attempts at diverting this world from its final conditions.

I will pay $15,000 to the first person who can get me the Mark One printer.

email me at crw at defdist.org if you can help.

crw

Cody is just non-stop laughs.

Here's the printer:

https://markforged.com/mark-one/

It is a very impressive piece of tech.


58
For those that love the experience of reading books in print vs. digital, this may be of some comfort:

http://www.huffingto...4.html?utm_hp_ref=tw

Don't lament the lost days of cutting your fingers on pristine new novels or catching a whiff of that magical, transportive old book smell just yet! A slew of recent studies shows that print books are still popular, even among millennials. What's more: further research suggests that this trend may save demonstrably successful learning habits from certain death. Take comfort in these 9 studies that show that print books have a promising future:

More at the link.

I read in both formats, but, when it comes to more serious reading, I do like jotting notes down on the page or highlighting.

59
Developer's Corner / Why Do We Pay Pure Mathematicians?
« on: February 27, 2015, 09:02 AM »
An interesting post on math that I think a lot of people here will really enjoy.

http://mathwithbaddr...-pay-mathematicians/

One of the joys of being married to a pure mathematician—other than finding coffee-stained notebooks full of integrals lying around the flat—is hearing her try to explain her job to other people.

“Are there…uh… a lot of computers involved?”

“Do you write equations? I mean, you know, long ones?”

“Do you work with really big numbers?”

No, sometimes, and no. She rarely uses a computer, traffics more with inequalities than equations, and—like most researchers in her subfield—considers any number larger than 5 to be monstrously big.

Much more at the link.

Have fun! :)


60
Living Room / Apple gold watch to take up 30% of world gold production
« on: February 26, 2015, 07:02 PM »
This is just hilarious:

http://www.cultofmac...e-third-worlds-gold/

Demand for Apple Watch could use up third of world’s gold


We’re still waiting for the final pricing details on the Apple Watch, but if recent reports that Apple plans to sell one million gold Edition units a month are true, Apple Watch could wreak havoc on gold prices and do who knows what to the global economy.
Josh Center at TidBits has done some math on Apple Watch and estimates that if production rumors are correct, Apple will be bidding for a third of the world’s annual gold supply to make enough gold watches to meet demand.

To put those numbers in perspective, Apple needs so much gold it could turn the all 7,000 metric tons of gold stored at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York — you know, the one from the plot of Die Hard 3 — into gold watches in less than a decade.

Assuming the Apple Watch Edition contains 2 troy ounces of gold (2 troy ounces equals 62.2 grams), Centers estimates Apple would need 24 million troy ounces of gold per year for its watches. Or roughly 746 metric tons. About 2,500 metric tons of gold are mined per year, so if Apple uses 746 metric tons they’ll need about 30% of the world’s annual gold production.

Of course there’s a big ‘if’ here, and that’s whether the WSJ got production numbers right in its report claiming Apple aims to sell nearly one million Apple Watch Edition models per month. Those numbers sound suspect considering Rolex only sells 600,000 watches a year for an estimated $4.7 billion in revenue.

The price of gold is currently $1,200 per ounce, which would make Apple’s annual gold needs somewhere around $28.8 billion. Apple would need to store more gold per year than Rolex makes in sales. The annual sales of high-end Swiss watches was about 27 million in 2013. Apple would have to takeover 45% of the entire luxury watch industry to hit its mark. If history is any indication though, there’s one company that can completely dominate an old tired market despite pricing, and it’s Apple.

Even if you cut the projections in half the numbers are still mind-boggling. Hopefully Apple’s already working on a Scrooge McDuck sized vault to store all its gold.

http://www.news.com....frfrnr-1227239444734

APPLE is set to buy up one third of the world’s gold in order to meet the demands of the new up-market Apple Watch, according to reports.

Following the prediction in The Wall Street Journal that Apple plans to sell one million top-of-the-range 18-karat gold Apple Watch Edition units a month, a new report reveals the massive impact that would have on the gold market and world economy.

The report in TidBits crunches the numbers working on the reasonable figure that each gold watch will contain 2 troy ounces (62.2 grams) of gold.

Uh, no. Not gonna happen. Apple will not use 2 ozt of gold for 1 million watches a month.

My bet is that we'll see some article in the near future retracting these ones as some kind of gross misunderstanding.

The WSJ article:

http://blogs.wsj.com...hes-for-initial-run/

Apple has asked its suppliers in Asia to make a combined five to six million units of its three Apple Watch models during the first quarter ahead of the product’s release in April, according to people familiar with the matter.

Half of the first-quarter production order is earmarked for the entry-level Apple Watch Sport model, while the mid-tier Apple Watch is expected to account for one-third of output, one of these people said.

Orders for Apple Watch Edition – the high-end model featuring 18-karat gold casing – are relatively small in the first quarter but Apple plans to start producing more than one million units per month in the second quarter, the person said. Analysts expect demand for the high-end watches to be strong in China where Apple’s sales are booming.

Apple Watch Sport will start at $349. Apple hasn’t announced pricing for the other models, but Apple Watch Edition is expected to be among the most expensive products the company has ever sold, likely surpassing the $4,000 Mac Pro computer.

Apple sets production plans based on its forecast of demand for the new product. But Apple quickly adjusts these plans if sales are different than what it estimated. Suppliers say that Apple adjusts its so-called “plan of record” more often and more quickly than any other consumer-electronics company.

Nope. Not gonna happen. Somebody got their signals crossed. 30% of world gold production ain't going into Apple watches.

Gold is trading at about USD $1,210/ozt right now, and if there were any truth to these articles the price would have spiked massively despite the paper shorts (unless Apple is already manipulating the gold market along with GS & co.)

http://charts.kitco....utm_campaign=iCharts


61
Living Room / Many smart devices are spying on you
« on: February 24, 2015, 05:45 PM »
Smart devices?

http://fusion.net/st...s-are-spying-on-you/


It’s not just Samsung TVs — lots of other gadgets are spying on you

Earlier this month, Samsung was the target of a privacy dust-up due to a disturbing sentence in the privacy policy for its smart TVs: “Please be aware that if your spoken words include personal or other sensitive information, that information will be among the data captured and transmitted to a third party.”

And a long list of more devices that are spying on you at the link.

Theme song to accompany article:



You think you've private lives
Think nothing of the kind
There is no true escape
I'm watching all the time

And art becomes reality...

62
Living Room / Net Neutrality? Title II?
« on: February 23, 2015, 10:35 PM »
This is really going to work out totally super awesome! I'm like totally for sure realz it iz!  :-\

http://www.wsj.com/a...-obamanet-1424644324

Paywalled. So, search for "From Internet to Obamanet" in Google then click there to get through.

Full article
From Internet to Obamanet

BlackBerry and AT&T are already making moves that could exploit new ‘utility’ regulations.
 
By L. GORDON CROVITZ
Feb. 22, 2015 5:32 p.m. ET

Critics of President Obama’s “net neutrality” plan call it ObamaCare for the Internet.

That’s unfair to ObamaCare.

Both ObamaCare and “Obamanet” submit huge industries to complex regulations. Their supporters say the new rules had to be passed before anyone could read them. But at least ObamaCare claimed it would solve long-standing problems. Obamanet promises to fix an Internet that isn’t broken.

The permissionless Internet, which allows anyone to introduce a website, app or device without government review, ends this week. On Thursday the three Democrats among the five commissioners on the Federal Communications Commission will vote to regulate the Internet under rules written for monopoly utilities.

No one, including the bullied FCC chairman, Tom Wheeler, thought the agency would go this far. The big politicization came when President Obama in November demanded that the supposedly independent FCC apply the agency’s most extreme regulation to the Internet. A recent page-one Wall Street Journal story headlined “Net Neutrality: How White House Thwarted FCC Chief” documented “an unusual, secretive effort inside the White House . . . acting as a parallel version of the FCC itself.”

Congress is demanding details of this interference. In the early 1980s, a congressional investigation blasted President Reagan for telling his FCC chairman his view of regulations about television reruns. “I believe it is imperative for the integrity of all regulatory processes that the president unequivocally declare that he will express no view in the matter and that he will do nothing to intervene in the work of the FCC,” said Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, a New York Democrat.

Mr. Obama’s role raises legal as well as political questions. Those harmed by the new rules could argue in court that political pressure made the agency’s actions “arbitrary and capricious.”

The more than 300 pages of new regulations are secret, but Mr. Wheeler says they will subject the Internet to the key provisions of Title II of the Communications Act of 1934, under which the FCC oversaw Ma Bell.

Title II authorizes the commission to decide what “charges” and “practices” are “just and reasonable”—an enormous amount of discretion. Former FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell has found 290 federal appeals court opinions on this section and more than 1,700 FCC administrative interpretations.


Defenders of the Obama plan claim that there will be regulatory “forbearance,” though not from the just-and-reasonable test. They also promise not to regulate prices, a pledge that Republican FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai has called “flat-out false.” He added: “The only limit on the FCC’s discretion to regulate rates is its own determination of whether rates are ‘just and reasonable,’ which isn’t much of a restriction at all.”

The Supreme Court has ruled that if the FCC applies Title II to the Internet, all uses of telecommunications will have to pass the “just and reasonable” test. Bureaucrats can review the fairness of Google ’s search results, Facebook ’s news feeds and news sites’ links to one another and to advertisers. BlackBerry is already lobbying the FCC to force Apple and Netflix to offer apps for BlackBerry’s unpopular phones. Bureaucrats will oversee peering, content-delivery networks and other parts of the interconnected network that enables everything from Netflix and YouTube to security drones and online surgery.

Supporters of Obamanet describe it as a counter to the broadband duopoly of cable and telecom companies. In reality, it gives duopolists another tool to block competition. Utility regulations let dominant companies complain that innovations from upstarts fail the “just and reasonable” test—as truly disruptive innovations often do.

AT&T has decades of experience leveraging FCC regulations to stop competition. Last week AT&T announced a high-speed broadband plan that charges an extra $29 a month to people who don’t want to be tracked for online advertising. New competitor Google Fiber can offer low-cost broadband only because it also earns revenues from online advertising. In other words, AT&T has already built a case against Google Fiber that Google’s cross-subsidization from advertising is not “just and reasonable.”

Utility regulation was designed to maintain the status quo, and it succeeds. This is why the railroads, Ma Bell and the local water monopoly were never known for innovation. The Internet was different because its technologies, business models and creativity were permissionless.

This week Mr. Obama’s bureaucrats will give him the regulated Internet he demands. Unless Congress or the courts block Obamanet, it will be the end of the Internet as we know it.










63
Living Room / A funky use of HTML in writing
« on: February 22, 2015, 06:39 AM »
I've been mulling over different uses of HTML in crafting "documents", and I tripped over this quite by accident:

http://techno-anthro...e-venn-diagrams.html

Scroll down a bit. You'll see a SELECT element used.

Screenshot - 2015_02_22 , 11_35_56 PM.png

It's one thing that I'd never considered before, even though I commonly use the "A/B/C/D" structure. This simply does that in a different way with an HTML element.

64
Meshnets are "off the grid" Internets that can connect to the Internet.

Pittsburgh - http://www.metamesh.org
Buffalo - http://www.buffalomesh.net

Found via: http://www.reddit.co...reless_mesh_network/

I'm sure others are also in the works as well.

This should be a nice breath of fresh air for anyone keeping up with the news about the Internet in general.



65
Living Room / Oh, how I love Techdirt! :)
« on: February 21, 2015, 02:32 AM »
Probably one of the most amusing sites ever (once you get over the blood curdling rage) yet again reminds me why I love it so much:

https://www.techdirt...ams-trademarks.shtml

So many issues here, one struggles to know where to begin. Let's start with the fact that Evolution Finance is as much in the baseball business as it is in the puppy-murdering business, which is to say not at freaking all. "I came here to buy baseball tickets and I ended up transitioning my 401k into a personal Roth IRA on the basis of better returns in the bonds market" is a phrase that is nearly impossible to even have imagined, thus showing the extreme and dangerous power of dumb ass trademark claims. Add to it that half the problem appears to be that a trademark was granted on what barely amounts to more than a letter and we've already got issues with MLB's claims.

Puppy-murdering business!  8)  :Thmbsup:


66
Happy New Year! 恭禧發財! 새해 복 많이 받으세요!

;)

67
Living Room / A study in game mechanics - Huntercoin (HUC)
« on: February 18, 2015, 07:39 AM »
This could be posted in the "Gamer" or "Developer" forums, but, I'm posting here for broader visibility and because this raises a lot of interesting problems/questions.

Some of you may remember me talking about "Huntercoin". Here's one thread:

https://www.donation...ex.php?topic=37140.0

The mechanics of the game are changing. Here's an example: The cost of a general has gone from 1 to 10 to 200 HUC. But many other aspects are changing as well in significant ways.

This is a perfect case study for anyone that does research in gaming. In fact, it's far more "real" than most games as everything is "currency" or directly affects it.

If you want to do research, and you're a regular here at DC, or you can provide some decent credentials, or proof of a legitimate reason, I can put you in contact with the main developer. He's chosen to remain anonymous, so I'd have to ask him first.

But there is a major update now (I just got word of it from the developer), and this is really a very big deal if you understand the implications. It's all experimental, but a really wild experiment in gaming and cryptocurrency.

I really can't overstate just how big this is. It's the only fork of Namecoin. That's a big deal.

To check it out, see here:

http://huntercoin.org/downloads/

http://forum.hunterc...index.php?topic=37.0

DISCLOSURE: I have a small amount of HUC, but not enough to influence my opinion on it. It's damn cool either way! :)


68
This looks like some pretty nasty, nasty stuff.



http://www.pcworld.c...hit-iran-russia.html

A cyberespionage group with a toolset similar to ones used by U.S. intelligence agencies has infiltrated key institutions in countries including Iran and Russia, utilizing a startlingly advanced form of malware that is impossible to remove once it's infected your PC.

Kaspersky Lab released a report Monday that said the tools were created by the “Equation” group, which it stopped short of linking to the U.S. National Security Agency.

The tools, exploits and malware used by the group—named after its penchant for encryption—have strong similarities with NSA techniques described in top-secret documents leaked in 2013.

Countries hit the most by Equation include Iran, Russia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, India and China. Targets in those countries included the military, telecommunications, embassies, government, research institutions and Islamic scholars, Kaspersky said.


Kaspersky’s most striking finding is Equation’s ability to infect the firmware of a hard drive, or the low-level code that acts as an interface between hardware and software.

The malware reprograms the hard drive’s firmware, creating hidden sectors on the drive that can only be accessed through a secret API (application programming interface). Once installed, the malware is impossible to remove: disk formatting and reinstalling the OS doesn’t affect it, and the hidden storage sector remains.

“Theoretically, we were aware of this possibility, but as far as I know this is the only case ever that we have seen of an attacker having such an incredibly advanced capability,” said Costin Raiu, director of Kaspersky Lab’s global research and analysis team, in a phone interview Monday.

There was a security researcher a year or so ago that released details on this (but on mobile platforms) or something similar, but I forget who or where I saw it. Does anyone else remember?

It's pretty simple at a high level -- secret sectors are created, then hidden as bad sectors or something.

I'm not sure if this is basically the same thing or if it's different. It seems different, but my memory is a tad fuzzy. I think the other one was for Flash Nand memory only.


69
Face recognition is improving a lot, and has some pretty important implications.

http://www.technolog...ionize-image-search/

...

The result is a single algorithm that can spot faces from a wide range of angles, even when partially occluded. And it can spot many faces in the same image with remarkable accuracy.

More at the link.

Throw in CCTVs every 10 metres or so (Hello UK!), and bigger budgets for "safety" and you will never have another moment of privacy, ever.

70
Check this:

http://www.alexa.com...iteinfo/techworm.net

Techworm.net ranks around 25k. That's a big site.

Now, check this:

http://www.techworm....-numbers-public.html

BY DWULF ON FEBRUARY 12, 2015 HACKING NEWS, SECURITY NEWS, VULNERABILITY

New credit cards with embedded RFID chips can pose a problem with security and identity theft

A team of cyber security researchers have revealed that hackers can mobile technology to use to steal credit and debit numbers from you while you’re in public. The cards at risk are enabled with radio technology that allows you to “wave and pay.”

Its as though while you are ‘waving and paying’ a hacker lurking in vicinity is secretly reading your payment card numbers and storing them. While you are unaware of such a risk, you may receive a 440 volts shock to see unknown payments at the end of the payment cycle in your billing statement.

Radio frequencies are all over the place but the frequency most smart cards (i.e. newer debit and credit cards) are in the range of 13.56 MHz (HF) the range can be detected between 10 centimeters – 1 meter (around 2 feet max).

Just. WOW!

I'm pretty stunned.

First, 1 metre is closer to 3 feet than 2 feet, but... also, this:



That was 2010. Ranges DEMONSTRATED were ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE LARGER.

See here:

http://www.tombom.co.uk/extreme_rfid.pdf

If you want to see some seriously scary stuff, do this:

1) Visit this URL: http://www.tombom.co.uk
2) View the source.
3) Crap your pants.

Lesson Learned: BE VERY AFRAID!!! :P



71
Living Room / Funky Character Art
« on: February 11, 2015, 08:17 AM »
Just for fun. I'm sure everyone has seen them, but has no idea how to type them.

ᕕ(ᐛ)ᕗ

Maybe a mini-collection would be fun?

72
Connected car? IoT? Oh, sure! This is totally gonna work out just peachy! ;D

http://jalopnik.com/...evrolet-i-1684593523

In a broad-reaching report by 60 Minutes about DARPA and the Internet of Things, the Department of Defense has shown that it can hack General Motors' OnStar system to remote control a last-gen Chevrolet Impala.9

DARPA has a budget of around half a billion dollars a year and its Information Innovation Office is headed by Dan Kaufman, who employs a team of researchers that focus on increasing national security through revolutionary projects. One of those projects involves hacking the connected car, and this is what they found:

[VIDEO]

According to the report, which is scant on technical details, DARPA engineers dialed in through the Impala's OnStar system, transmitted a data packet that confused the internal computers, and then planted a malicious bit of code that allowed it to reprogram control systems on the ECU.10

That allowed them to do everything from turn on the windshield wipers to honk the horn, and even controll the throttle and brakes, putting a hapless Lesley Stahl through a line of cones.11

The piece from 60 Minutes, which doesn't exactly have the greatest track record when it comes to automotive reporting (and more), is bolstered by a report from the office of Massachusetts Senator Ed Markey. The report, due out tomorrow, supposedly states that all new cars can be hacked and that, according to 60 Minutes, "only two out of 16 car makers can diagnose or respond to an infiltration in real-time."12131415

We're waiting to get our hands on the report from Senator Markey's office and have reached out to DARPA for more details on how the OnStar vulnerability was exploited. GM has yet to respond to a request for comment.

You can watch the full story from 60 Minutes here.

More at the link with video.

This is why I want to buy 1 extra old beater car for $500 or so -- just to have something that isn't connected.

If you feel like going down the rabbit hole, just say "Michael Hastings" 3x in front of the bathroom mirror in the dark... ;)


73
Tom Woods interviews Richard Bennett.

From the show notes:

Richard Bennett, a visiting fellow of the American Enterprise Institute, is an expert on Internet technology and public policy. He co-invented Ethernet over Twisted Pair, the Wi-Fi MAC protocol, and miscellaneous network enhancements such as the MPDU Aggregation system for 802.11n, the Distributed Reservation Protocol for UWB, and various tweaks and hacks to the Internet and OSI protocols.

His experience with legislative bodies spans two decades, beginning with expert witness testimony before multiple committees of the California legislature in the 1990s and continuing to recent testimony before the U.S. Congress on Internet privacy.

SHOW TOPIC: Richard goes over the history of networking and then gets into net neutrality.

FAIR WARNING: Tom is a historian (Harvard/Columbia) and an anarchist (ancap), so he's not the kind of fellow that everyone will like. However, the show is mainly about the history and economics of networking with very little about anarchism.



Show Notes: http://tomwoods.com/...t-without-the-state/


74
Living Room / Digg still exists, and they're hiring :P
« on: February 04, 2015, 10:01 PM »
Really.

http://digg.com/jobs

For realz. ;D

And "bankruptcy lawyer/accountant" isn't on the job list! :P

75
Living Room / Internet of Things thread (IoT)
« on: February 03, 2015, 05:19 AM »
I suppose that it's about time to start this thread. We can all see it coming anyways.

http://www.huffingto...adget_b_6567044.html

The Useless Home Gadgets That Tell Us Not to Think For Ourselves

X-ray specs, Sea Monkeys, Crypto-rings, Whoopee Cushions, Black Eye Telescopes. I loved the comic ads that were used to entice children to part with their pocket money back in the day. They were fun, they were gimmicks, and most importantly, they were cheap and throw away. These days we have the equivalent in a much more adult form in the shape of consumer goods that are billed as wearables or the Internet of Things (or 'Everything' as some people like to say to evoke epic visions of the world seamlessly interconnected).

Well, it seems like the Internet of Things is really gaining momentum thanks to the simple things for the home like Nest Thermostats and Smoke Detectors and the suchlike. It's not just going to be a fad, it will be HUGE. Intel estimates over 200 billion connected devices by 2020 and this will usher in some real uses that aid us in healthcare, business, retail security and transportation.

That's all worth waiting for but right now we have many manufacturers creating gimmicky, nonsensical and seemingly useless gadgets, that are connected to our smartphones and tablets, and portrayed as helping our lives.

More at the link.

It's mostly a rant about crappy gadgets, but the author seems to miss what IoT is about, or perhaps he's just romanticising it as some sort of techno-wonder to solve all our problems. I think he'll be surprised when it happens (and not pleasantly so), and realises what it really is.

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