Hacking Wiretapping Systems

Nice research by Matt Blaze on evading telephone wiretapping systems. Here's his paper and a companion article. The page is worth visting just to listen in and find out what Alice and Bob have been up to.

War Sucks

I don't care what side you are on... The kids factor has to make you think-- there must be a better way.

This presents about 4,000 photographs showing the Iraq War killing and maiming, most from the Associated Press's archive and others from sources listed.

Firefox 1.5 is Out Today

Firefox 1.5 came out earlier today. I've been using the beta for a week or two now, and no complaints. If you're still using Microsoft's IE now is a great time to switch -- better ad-blocking, better usability, better security, better standards-compliance and it's free!

Download Link

Smarter Surveillance Cameras

Surveillance cameras often capture only a blurred mug shot of a suspect, either because they are moving or because the camera is not focused correctly.

But IBM has developed a solution. Instead of using a single camera to monitor a scene, IBM has patented a system that uses several cameras at once.

The idea is that a fixed camera takes a series of shots of a person, enabling a computer to then calculate their direction and speed of motion. This information will then be used to make movable cameras follow the target's path, enabling them to focus accurately. The result should be crystal clear pictures, no matter how fast the subject is moving and should also be able to follow more than one target.

The system may be good for more than security surveillance too. IBM reckons it could also be used at airports to rapidly identify passengers standing in line, if combined with face recognition software.

Read about the smarter surveillance patent here.

ET Might be a Malicious Hacker

As if spotty teenagers releasing computer viruses on to the internet from darkened rooms were not enough of a headache. According to a scientific report, planet Earth's computers are wide open to a virus attack from Little Green Men.

The concern is raised in the next issue of the journal Acta Astronautica by Richard Carrigan, a particle physicist at the US Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Illinois. He believes scientists searching the heavens for signals from extra-terrestrial civilisations are putting Earth's security at risk, by distributing the jumble of signals they receive to computers all over the world.

Consumer Privacy Top 10

Chris Hoofnagle is the West Coast Director for EPIC, here's his "top 10" things you can do with very little money or effort to protect your privacy.

Interview: Nessus' Ron Gula

Here is an interview with Ron Gula, to get a glimpse of Tenable's free Nessus 3 vulnerability scanner. The interview discusses license changes, community involvement, daemon security, GPL open-source versus free, and more.

Secure Your Christmas - Start Your List Now!

The VisionStation - Standard flat-screen applications can display a field of view (FOV) of no more than 60°. The Elumens VisionStation allows for a fully immersive display of 160°. The VisionStation’s ultra-wide FOV creates an amazing sense of space and depth, without need for goggles or glasses. The large size of the VisionStation screen (1.5 meters) also helps promote an excellent sense of immersive 3D.

Cracking Safes with Thermal Imaging

This "research" paper presents an interesting physical world attack that may be easily deployed by a determined attacker to compromise many high-security access control systems in use today. Although this paper's findings are hardly groundbreaking (and in some ways, are downright obvious), it includes some cool pictures of what should be most certainly taken into account in risk management, secure zone planning, and when drafting operating procedures for high-risk areas.

Author Michal Zalewski is respected in the hacking and security communities for his intelligence, curiosity and creativity...

A Secure and Happy Thanksgiving

Maybe this event is too dangerous and should be cancelled. Even only if to save one person! The humanity...

The 79th Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade stepped off as scheduled Thursday after concern windy weather would ground the famous balloons.

A straying M&M balloon, possibly whipped by the wind, hit a lamp post at Times Square, sending shattered glass to the ground and two people to the hospital, WABC, New York, said. Their condition was not known.

Another M&M balloon struck WABC's Good Morning America studio, also in Times Square...

A special thanks to all our troops around the world keeping us safe. Be safe and come home soon.

Aw Nuts - U.S. Seen Vulnerable to Space 'pulse' Attack

Are you kidding me? The "single most serious national-security challenge."

The United States is highly vulnerable to attack from electronic pulses caused by a nuclear blast in space, according to a new book on threats to U.S. security.

A single nuclear weapon carried by a ballistic missile and detonated a few hundred miles over the United States would cause "catastrophe for the nation" by damaging electricity-based networks and infrastructure, including computers and telecommunications, according to "War Footing: 10 Steps America Must Take to Prevail in the War for the Free World."

"This is the single most serious national-security challenge and certainly the least known," said Frank J. Gaffney Jr. of the Center for Security Policy, a former Pentagon official and lead author of the book, which includes contributions by 34 security and intelligence specialists.

People have been thinking about the EMP threat for, what, forty (fifty?) years now. "Least known?"- my fanny. I am getting a box of tin foil and heading for the basement right now!

Personal Security - 911 Audio Hears Texas Granny Shoots Intruder

Clutching her .38-caliber revolver, Susan Gaylord Buxton swung open each closet door of her northwest Arlington, TX home early Wednesday, convinced that an intruder had broken a window and hidden inside.

Finally, as she yanked open the door to the closet near the front door, her light revealed a man's face peering from underneath a coat.

"Shh," he begged.

"Then he popped out of the door like a jack-in-the-box," Buxton recalled.

Buxton, 66, warned the man to lie on the floor or she'd shoot him.

When he didn't, she did.

Listen to the Audio

Full Story - Here

Some Folks Should be in Jail for Just Being Stupid!

Bad idea: taking kiddie porn pictures with your digital camera and going to Best Buy for help when you can't figure out how to delete them by yourself. BTW - sounds like a nice nighborhood...

"The customer, police say, turned to Best Buy for help in deleting the alleged child pornography from his digital camera. The employees distracted the suspect while police making a drug bust in the parking lot were alerted."

Soviet Topographic Maps

For the 50 years prior to the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, the Soviet military sought to map every corner of the globe. The result was an extensive collection of standardized maps at various scales. John Davies been researching the history of the Soviet global mapping project and, in particular, the large scale plans of British and Irish towns and cities produced from 1950s to 1990.

His findings so far, have been documented in two articles. Part 1 was published in Sheetlines 72 dated April 2005, part 2 in Sheetlines 73 of August 2005. Sheetlines is the journal of The Charles Close Society.

Mutant Worms Find A New Home Inside Your Instant Messaging Client

An article posted on SC Magazine talks about new mutant worms and Trojans that are making their rounds on the Internet. Their mode of transportation? A local IM client near you.

20 Years Of Windows

Today marks the twentieth anniversary of Microsoft's release of Windows 1.0 - WALSTIB...

November 20, 2005, marks the twentieth anniversary of Microsoft's release of Windows 1.0, one of the most important events in PC history. Even the staunchest Mac or OS/2 devotees must acknowledge that Windows has had a profound impact on the world of computing (although their blood pressure may rise dangerously at the thought).

Eradicating the evils of iPorn

Yikes, what's next... Kids downloading copies of National Geographic?

It's been a tough week for the iPod's image. First, security experts said it could be used for major breaches in networks and servers. Now, the popular device is being blamed for spreading porn among minors and in the workplace.

The New Hackers On The Block

More evidence that hackers are migrating into crime:

Forget the outdated hacker image of a spotty anarchic teenager holed up in his bedroom defacing the Web sites of global organisations, today's hackers are not only older but more determined than ever to claim your cash and identity.

Many early depictions of hackers on the silver screen portrayed relatively benign individuals, such as Matthew Broderick's teenage boy in the 1984 film 'War Games', or Val Kilmer's young prodigy in 'Real Genius'.

Since then, organised crime units have continued to provide a fruitful income for a group of hackers that are effectively on their payroll. Their willingness to pay for hacking expertise has also given rise to a new subset of hackers. These are not hardcore criminals in pursuit of defrauding a bank or duping thousands of consumers. In one sense, they are the next generation of hackers that carry out their activities in pursuit of credibility from their peers and the 'buzz' of hacking systems considered to be unbreakable.

Where they come into contact with serious criminals is through underworld forums and chatrooms, where their findings are published and they are paid effectively for their intellectual property. This form of hacking - essentially 'hacking for hire' - is becoming more common with hackers trading zero-day exploit information, malcode, bandwidth, identities and toolkits underground for cash. So a hacker might package together a Trojan that defeats the latest version of an anti-virus client and sell that to a hacking community sponsored by criminals.

Friday's Are For Fun - Surveillance Cameras for Dummies

The folks at WiLife have developed a consumer PC-based digital video surveillance system that is very simple to set-up and use.

Simply 1) Install the LukWerks software on your PC 2) Plug the included receiver to a USB port on your Web-connected PC and 3) Begin suction-cupping these sleek cameras anywhere-you-damn-please (within 250 feet or so of the receiver). The cameras offer no sound (apparently audio snooping is against the law in most states), but delivers excellent wireless video streams, which can be accessed from any PC in the world and even via smartphones. The cameras also record all the action, so you can review video at a later date or, if you wish, have motion alerts forwarded to your e-mail. The basic setup kit‹which includes a receiver, camera and software‹will run you $299, with additional cameras costing $229 each.

Securing Records - Sparrow Knocks Over 23,000 Dominoes - and is Shot

Animal rights activists in the Netherlands want charges laid in the shooting of a rare sparrow that knocked over 23,000 dominoes as a TV company was setting up for a world-record attempt.

The sparrow, which is on the national endangered list, had flown [through an open window] into an exposition centre on Monday in the northern city of Leeuwarden. After knocking over the dominoes, it was chased into a corner and shot by an exterminator with an air rifle.

but wait there is more...

'Domino sparrow' becomes a porn star

Hackers placed very explicit porn on a Dutch website created to commemorate the "Domino D-Day sparrow", it was reported on Thursday.

The Dutch-language site (www.dodemus.nl) had recorded 53,982 hits by noon on Thursday. The porn was removed some time earlier.

The site was set up earlier this week following the news that a common sparrow — a protected species in the Netherlands — was shot dead with an air gun on Monday.