Just a couple of days after the New Year started, researchers from the United States and Norway set out across Antarctica to move the South Pole - literally, because the red-and-white barber pole that marks the geographic southern pole of the planet had shifted because the ice sheet it's planted in constantly drifts toward the ocean. To their surprise and amazement, the team was greeted by something entirely unexpected: A large bust of Lenin left by Soviet researchers in 1958. Way back when, they built a small research station there and when they decamped the Russian scientists left the statue of …
First off, someone's created a trojan horse program that affects unlocked Apple iPhones. By definition, you can't install anything on an iPhone unless you crack it, so the impact of this is potentially smaller than it could be. At any rate, it pretends to be a patch for v1.1.3 of the iPhone firmware. It doesn't do anything until you try to uninstall it (because it doesn't look like it does anything), at which time it will take any copies of OpenSSH and Erica's Utilities with it when it goes. While the original website that offered this utility is …
(obligatory disclaimer: Many links reference my Amazon Associates account.)
On Friday evening, our good friend Derek Pegritz drove down from Pennsylvania to visit Lyssa and I and stay with us for the weekend because we had another wacky and amazing adventure all lined up: A trip to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to see a concert at the Trocadero Center thrown by Dancing Ferret Productions. A veritable trifecta of awesome music would be played at this venerable Philly venue, Cesium-137, ThouShaltNot, and Information Society. This was to be a most unusual show in that it would be recorded for a future DVD release …
Lyssa, Pegritz, and I are off to see Information Society in Philly. I've packed my CD of Hack in the hope that I'll be able to get it autographed, there's some cash in my pocket for swag, and I've even put my contact lenses in so I can wear mirrorshades to this show.
DRM: Digital Rights Management. A technology which uses strong crypto to control whether or not a particular computer is permitted to decrypt and play back a particular media file. The idea is that unless a given box has been outfitted with a particular certificate, it doesn't matter if the files are shared or not, only the system for which the certificates were issued could play them back, assuming that the company that provided the certificates didn't decide to revoke them or something.
The 'or something' is the operative part of what screwed one Davis Freeberg not too long ago: An …
Ransomware, malware that forces the user of an infected machine to pay a sum of money to Someone Out There in exchange for regaining access to their data isn't exactly the most common thing going around but it seems to be catching on, and I can't think of a reason why it would slow down. Earlier strains found in the wild did things like finding and encrypting all Excel spreadsheets on a machine and demanding that the user wire money someplace in exchange for the utility that would decrypt them, but now the stakes are a bit higher on both …
Second try: I tried to post from Laurelinde's place but her wireless access point bounced me halfway through the process, so it never made it through.
Happy New Year and welcome to the year 2008 of the common era!
Laurelinde and Lyssa, both off yesterday, spent much of the day getting ready for the shindig at Laurelinde's place last night while I was at work. Unfortunately, I didn't get back to the apartment until nearly 1900 EST5EDT due to a last minute project that I had to see through to the end. I actually left the office around 1800 EST5EDT …
