Tag Archives: TechoGeek Stuff

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DakotaCon: Who’s Watching you?

The Chief had the opportunity to attend the DakotaCon 1 computer security conference at Dakota State University, over in Madison.  The day-long event featured presentations by a number of different speakers from the world of deep geekdom, with handles (noms de guerre) like DCFlux, Moxie Marlinspike, Kingpin (a.k.a. Joe Grand), and even normally tagged presenters Jared DeMott, and NSA’s Dave Garland.

The talks were very interesting…and covered topics ranging from “hardware hacking” situations and workshop skills, as well as various social and economic consequences of the rapidly evolving state of the digital world in its various forms.  Well worth the investment of time…especially since the price was right…no charge!

While not on the scale of major hacking/security conferences like DEFCON, Black Hat, and Schmoocon to name a few, it brought some serious stuff that bears close attention as we apparently move ever more fully into involvement with and membership in a rapidly evolving digital world.

Moxie’s presentation specifically covered aspects of the privacy (or lack thereof) issues associated with the oncoming (and future) generations of cell phones, so when I saw the following it definitely rang a bell:

Snooping: It’s not a crime, it’s a feature
New apps hijack the microphone in your cell phone to listen in on your life

Cellphone users say they want more privacy, and app makers are listening. No, they’re not listening to user requests. They’re literally listening to the sounds in your office, kitchen, living room and bedroom.

A new class of smartphone app has emerged that uses the microphone built into your phone as a covert listening device — a “bug,” in common parlance. But according to app makers, it’s not a bug. It’s a feature!

The apps use ambient sounds to figure out what you’re paying attention to. It’s the next best thing to reading your mind.
Your phone is listening

The issue was brought to the world’s attention recently on a podcast called This Week in Tech. Host Leo Laporte and his panel shocked listeners by unmasking three popular apps that activate your phone’s microphone to collect sound patterns from inside your home, meeting, office or wherever you are.

The apps are Color, Shopkick and IntoNow, all of which activate the microphones in users’ iPhone or Android devices in order to gather contextual information that provides some benefit to the user.

YIKES! The Chief thought it would be sort of neat to have a Droid phone. (Except for the slight detail that there is nearly no reliability of signal at his rural outpost, and the other detail of the cost of the airtime that he would like to use. Oh well. maybe it’s just as well.)

So what can they REALLY find out? 

You should know that any data that can be gathered, will be gathered. Since the new microphone-hijacking apps are still around, we now know that listening in on users is OK. So, what’s possible with current technology?
By listening in on your phone, capturing “patterns,” then sending that data back to servers, marketers can determine the following:

  • Your gender, and the gender of people you talk to.
  • Your approximate age, and the ages of the people you talk to.
  • What time you go to bed, and what time you wake up.
  • What you watch on TV and listen to on the radio.
  • How much of your time you spend alone, and how much with others.
  • Whether you live in a big city or a small town.
  • What form of transportation you use to get to work.

In the early 70’s the Chief had the acquaintance of a highly unconventional electronics and media mavin who at the time was running an alternative FM station (KDNA) in St. Louis.  His often repeated admonition was “assume that anything you say can have someone else listenting” as the only sure-fire way to maintain privacy.  I’m not sure his warning was ENTIRELY true at the time…but if not, the way things have developed now have made him into a prophet…now that I think of it, he literally had the name of a prophet too!  Believe it or not, your choice.

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More Cell Phone Hazards?

No, this does NOT have to do with texting behind the wheel!

Warning: Your Cell Phone May Be Hazardous to Your Health

Ever worry that that gadget you spend hours holding next to your head might be damaging your brain? Well, the evidence is starting to pour in, and it’s not pretty. So why isn’t anyone in America doing anything about it?

Gue$$ why not?

This is a somewhat lengthy article, and unfortunately the science looks to be pretty reasonable, and gives something to think about.

This IS worth some thought – read the article for yourself.

Personally, I DO use a cell phone, and will continue to do so…but it is not heavy use by any standard, and at this point that may be all to the good, so I can preserve a few more surviving veteran brain cells that made it through the 60’s and early 70’s.

Defense Matters!, National Insecurity

Brit Commander: Time for Reality Check!

Our forces can’t carry on like this, says General

With the Clintonista administration, indeed, under BOTH Bush administrations there has been a marked tendency to try tu run our military “on the cheap”. This, to any rational mind, must inevitably result in ony one outcome: deterioration of the ability of military forces to successfully perform its mission. This reality is coming home with a vengeance to the Brits after the Blair-Brown EngSoc regime has had its way for years of skimping and shortchanging what remains of the once proud Royal Army.

The head of the Army has warned that years of Government under-funding and overstretch have left troops feeling “devalued, angry and suffering from Iraq fatigue”, The Sunday Telegraph can reveal.

General Sir Richard Dannatt, the Chief of the General Staff, reveals in a top-level report that the present level of operations is “unsustainable”, the Army is “under-manned” and increasing numbers of troops are “disillusioned” with service life.

Gen Dannatt states that the “military covenant is clearly out of kilter”, and the chain of command needs to improve standards of pay, accommodation and medical care. “We must strive to give individuals and units ample recuperation time between operations, but I do not underestimate how difficult this will be to achieve whilst under-manned and with less robust establishments than I would like.”

This is NOT the way that a nation’s military forces deserve to be treated…whether they are the Brits, or us.

The report, a copy of which has been seen by this newspaper, reveals for the first time the general’s concerns on virtually every aspect of the Army, from levels of pay to the quality of food in canteens.

Space Patrol

Moon Race Re-established…by Google

Google Backs $25 Million ‘Lunar X Prize’

Every so often the Chief sees something that is really heartening…a light in the forest of the current plethora of news noire. This is one of those items.

Although the Chief doesn’t like everything that Google has been up to…like helping the ChiComs “sanitize” net access…but this is a good thing.

The group whose $10 million prize spurred privately funded rocketeers to send a small piloted craft to the cusp of space in 2004 has issued a new challenge: an unmanned moon shot.With the audacious new contest comes a much bigger prize — as much as $25 million, paid for by Google, the ubiquitous Internet company.

The “Google Lunar X Prize” was announced today in Los Angeles at Wired Magazine’s NextFest conference. The contest calls for entrants to land a rover on the moon that will be able to travel at least 500 meters and send high-resolution video, still images and other data back home. The X Prize Foundation saw the new contest as one of “the grand challenges of our time that we can use to move people forward,” said Dr. Peter H. Diamandis, chairman and C.E.O. of the foundation.

The prize for reaching the moon and completing the basic tasks of roving and sending video and data will bring the winner $20 million, according to the contest rules; an additional $5 million would be awarded for additional tasks that include roving more than 5,000 meters or sending back images of man-made artifacts like lunar landers from the Apollo program.

Let the race begin. There are a number of groups that are possible contenders…gentlemen, start your engines!

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Can you get with the program?

The Chief posts these items for you possible mental exercise..as the saying goes, the views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of the management.

First this one from the NYT no less:
Our Lives, Controlled From Some Guy’s Couch

Until I talked to Nick Bostrom, a philosopher at Oxford University, it never occurred to me that our universe might be somebody else’s hobby. I hadn’t imagined that the omniscient, omnipotent creator of the heavens and earth could be an advanced version of a guy who spends his weekends building model railroads or overseeing video-game worlds like the Sims. But now it seems quite possible. In fact, if you accept a pretty reasonable assumption of Dr. Bostrom’s, it is almost a mathematical certainty that we are living in someone else’s computer simulation.

You too can be a set of bytes…IF you accept the assumption,,,

Even if Life Is a Computer Simulation…

…we still have some real questions to consider. Nick Bostrom’s argument that we could be living in a simulation, the topic of my Findings column, is a clever new twist on the old life-is-but-a-dream notions of Western philosophers (like the idealist George Berkeley), Eastern religions and science-fiction writers everywhere (cf. “The Matrix,” “The Truman Show,” and the “holodeck” in “Star Trek: The Next Generation”). A few of the questions:
1) How likely is it that we’re living in a computer simulation run by intelligent posthuman beings?
2) Would you consider it ethical for any intelligent beings to run such a simulation?
3) What’s the best way to live and survive in a computer simulation?

Finally, the blogosphere logs in on this one, and comments to the point, that often make more sense than the original proposition.

If We’re All Living In the Sims…

H/T to Instapundit.

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Forward into the Past

Back in the groove: young music fans ditch downloads and spark vinyl revival

The format was supposed to have been badly wounded by the introduction of CDs and killed off completely by the ipod-generation that bought music online.

But in a rare case of cheerful news for the record labels, the latest phenomenon in a notoriously fickle industry is one nobody dared predict: a vinyl revival. Latest figures show a big jump in vinyl sales in the first half of this year, confirming the anecdotal evidence from specialist shops throughout the UK.

Who’d of thunk it! Reality is not only stranger than we imagine, it’s stranger than we CAN imagine.

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Cheap, Clean Power & 90 Days to Mars!

Rapid-fire pulse brings Sandia Z method near goal of high-yield fusion reactor

THIS is the sort of progress that rejuvenates the Chief’s sometimes frazzled spirit of optimism!

This achievement has been described as “amazing” and “the biggest breakthrough in energy generation in decades”. It seems to indicate that no scientific hurdle stands in the way of nuclear fusion. Just 5-7 years of engineering and configuring about 60 next generation linear transformer drivers. Then refining the system for commercial use starting in 20 years or less. All the pieces are now ready and proven, we just need to put them together for commercial nuclear fusion. The Z-pinch system is also the basis of the minimag Orion space propulsion concept which enables speeds 50 times or more faster than current chemical rockets.

OPEC should read it and weep! YOU can read it and smile!

H/T to The Devil’s Kitchen from England.

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Euros: “Free Speech? We don’t need no free speech!”

Bloggers say EU law will end free speech

British bloggers said yesterday that free speech on the internet is under threat from draconian new laws, which could see them jailed for up to three years….The measures are contained in the European Union’s Racism and Xenophobia Directive and could hit controversial European bloggers, even if their websites are hosted in America.

Chris Mounsey, the 29 year old behind The Devil’s Kitchen blog, said: “There is potential for this to have worldwide application. Free speech is at the centre of blogging. Part of the reason bloggers can tell the truth is because it is difficult to pin them down. This law tries to do it.”

The legislation goes beyond German or Austrian-style bans on denial of the Holocaust to cover those people who question the official history of recent conflicts in Africa and the Balkans.

One might be tempted to think that the Euros can go to hell in their own handcart if that’s what they want to do…but with US Supreme Court justices actually citing foriegn precedents for consideration in their cases…it could well concern all of us, especially if a LibDonk President gets to appoint more of that ilk to the court.

“therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee…” – John Donne

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? ? ? ?

Bruce Sterling gives blogs 10 years to live

Science fiction writer and professional pundit Bruce Sterling has cracked bloggers with the extinction stick, saying the plebs will crawl back into their ooze by 2017.

“There are 55 million blogs and some of them have got to be good,” Sterling said, during a speech here at the SXSW conference in reference to the slogan on blog search site technorati.com. “Well, no, actually. They don’t….I don’t think there will be that many of them around in 10 years. I think they are a passing thing.”

The Chief has enjoyed some of Sterling’s books…and some of his reported comments make sense…but others…? Yeah, right. Whatever.

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Islamofascists Target Cyberworld

Cyberspace as a Combat Zone: The Phenomenon of Electronic Jihad

Alongside military jihad, which has been gaining momentum and extracting an ever growing price from many countries around the globe, Islamists have been developing a new form of warfare, termed “electronic jihad,” which is waged on the Internet. This new form of jihad was launched in recent years and is still in its early stages of development. However, as this paper will show, Islamists are fully aware of its destructive potential, and persistently strive to realize this potential.

MEMRI does a great job of raking the muck generated by the Islamofascists, and has put together a piece on the efforts of the crescent moon-god worshipers to go after cyberspace. Fortunately, they haven’t quite hit prime time with these efforts, but the situation bears watching.

This is a pretty good intro level piece…check it out.

China Watch

ChiCom Acts of (Cyber) War

Chinese Hack Attacks on DoD Networks Coordinated

The Naval Network Warfare Command says that Chinese hackers are relentlessly targeting Defense Department networks with cyber attacks. The ‘volume, proficiency and sophistication’ of the attacks supports the theory that the attacks are government supported. The motives of the attacks emanating from China include technology theft, intelligence gathering, exfiltration, research on DOD operations and the creation of dormant presences in DOD network for future action. Onlookers warn that current US defenses against these attacks are ‘dysfunctional’, and that more aggressive measures should be taken to ensure government network safety.

If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck…you know the rest.