Neuromancer
June 18, 2008
Physicists, mathematicians, futurists and sci-fi writers are the ne0-prophets of our time. Einstein, Max Plank, William Gibson, Georg Cantor are the new world prophets determining the probable future transfinite realities among absolute infinity.
Neuromancer is an example of probable futures. It is THE work of fiction by William Gibson that popularized the cyberpunk genre. In the book, Gibson actually coined the phrase cyberspace and the matrix, a multi-diminsional virtual reality that allows users to jack their brain directly into the cyberspace.
Case is a hacker is hired to do the biggest hack ever. The book is brilliant. Some of my favorite characters are Molly, the assassin, who looks like this:
and Wintermute, the corporation/Artificial intelligence and Maelcum A member of Zion, a Rastafarian space station community.
A year here and he still dreamed of cyberspace, hope fading nightly.
All the speed he took, all the turns he’d taken and the corners
he’d cut in Night City, and still he’d see the matrix in his
sleep, bright lattices of logic unfolding across that colorless void. . .
Its such a brilliant piece of work that I am surprised it hasn’t been made into a movie yet.
Popularity: 1% [?]
Vista or XP
June 17, 2008
I like Windows XP, but I don’t much like Vista. I tried it for a few months and found it gorgeous to look at and fairly easy to navigate. I didn’t much care for the search feature. I actually use search for just about everything on Windows XP, but Vista would find everything. For example, if applications weren’t made for Vista, it would find them or show them in the Add/Remove Programs. Which brings me to that subject. Its so new that it still lacks the drivers to support even my fairly recently purchased printer. I also had trouble running VMWare and other applications. VMWare 6.0 must be purchased to work fully with Vista. I got VMWare 5.x to work partially, but it would do strange things like shut down the computer for seemingly no reason or not run certain operating systems (Ubuntu) from a disc. Ubuntu did work as an ISO image on my local computer, though.
Vista has potential to be a great Desktop OS in about a year when more vender’s support it and it becomes the new standard, but until then I will stick with XP and use Vista for practice. I really enjoyed the Media Center (which is also in some version of XP). I would NOT use it as any kind of operational system running critical resources. I’ve heard Windows 2003 Server is good stuff and I wouldn’t doubt it.
When XP first came out I was all about 2000 and not fully convinced about the new kid on the block. I now feel the same about Vista. One thing I am definitely sick of is that Microsoft releases Vista and then promises to completely stop supporting Windows XP some time in the summer of 2008. This forces everyone to move to Vista. That is pretty aggressive and I am personally not going to take it any more. I’m going to start moving to Ubuntu slowly but surely. I’d like to stay on top my MS OS skills but I don’t want to be completely at their mercy anymore.
Popularity: 1% [?]
ECHELON of human underachievement
June 16, 2008
Knowledge is power. In the information age this is more and more true every minute of every day. I believe it is inevitable that we would have the super secret parts of government would begin to collude to monitor all telephone, data and fax communications. It seems equally inevitable that very powerful individuals will challenge that same system.
Human nature being what it is, such a system is guaranteed to be abused for the power and positioning a dominate minority. My panic and indignation on such things is slowly supplemented by an acceptance and humor of human behavior that is self centered, greedy and in constant state of fear, loathing and self gratification. The funny part is that the behavior continues even though it proves to implode over time. Again and again Rome rises only to crash on the shores of reality. Caesar conquers, assimilates and raises taxes then fades out.
It frustrated me because I know that humanity has the capacity to do better. Better for the planet, better for itself and better for every species. We are capable of doing great, great things but we choose to live in a state of fear, self gratification an loathing.
http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/RANCHO/POLITICS/ECHELON/echelon.html
ECHELON
Main article: ECHELON
NSA/CSS, in combination with the equivalent agencies in the United Kingdom (Government Communications Headquarters), Canada (Communications Security Establishment), Australia (Defence Signals Directorate), and New Zealand (Government Communications Security Bureau), otherwise known as the UKUSA group[16], is widely reported to be in command of the operation of the so-called ECHELON system. Its capabilities are suspected to include the ability to monitor a large proportion of the world’s transmitted civilian telephone, fax and data traffic, according to a December 16, 2005 article in the New York Times.[17]
Technically, almost all modern telephone, internet, fax and satellite communications are exploitable due to recent advances in technology and the ‘open air’ nature of much of the radio communications around the world. The NSA’s presumed collection operations have generated much criticism, possibly stemming from the assumption that the NSA/CSS represents an infringement of Americans’ privacy. However, the NSA’s United States Signals Intelligence Directive 18 (USSID 18) strictly prohibits the interception or collection of information about “…US persons, entities, corporations or organizations…” without explicit written legal permission from the Attorney General of the United States [18] The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that intelligence agencies cannot conduct surveillance against American citizens. There are a few extreme circumstances where collecting on a U.S. entity is allowed without a USSID 18 waiver, such as with civilian distress signals, or sudden emergencies such as the September 11, 2001 attacks; however, the USA PATRIOT Act has significantly changed privacy legality.
There have been alleged violations of USSID 18 that occurred in violation of the NSA’s strict charter prohibiting such acts.[citation needed] In addition, ECHELON is considered with indignation by citizens of countries outside the UKUSA alliance, with numerous allegations that the United States government uses it for motives other than its national security, including political and industrial espionage.[19][20] Examples include the gear-less wind turbine technology designed by the German firm Enercon[21][22] and the speech technology developed by the Belgian firm Lernout & Hauspie. An article in the Baltimore Sun reported in 1995 that aerospace company Airbus lost a $6 billion contract with Saudi Arabia in 1994 after the NSA reported that Airbus officials had been bribing Saudi officials to secure the contract.[23][24] The chartered purpose of the NSA/CSS is solely to acquire significant foreign intelligence information pertaining to National Security or ongoing military intelligence operations.
In his book Firewall, Andy McNab speculates that the UKUSA agreement is designed to enable the NSA, GCHQ, and other equivalent organizations to gather intelligence on each other’s citizens. For example, the NSA cannot legally conduct surveillance on American citizens, but GCHQ might do it for them.
– http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Security_Agency
Document 13: NAVSECGRU Instruction C5450.48A, Subj: Mission, Functions and Tasks of Naval Security Group Activity (NAVSECGRUACT) Sugar Grove, West Virginia, September 3, 1991
While NSA directs and manages U.S. SIGINT activities, almost all collection activity is actually carried out by the military service SIGINT units—including the Naval Security Group Command. The role of the unit at Sugar Grove in intercepting the international leased carrier (ILC) communications passing through INTELSAT satellites was first revealed in James Bamford’s The Puzzle Palace. (Note 12)
The regulation reveals that Sugar Grove is associated with what has become a highly controversial program in Europe, North America, Australia, and New Zealand. The program, codenamed ECHELON, has been described as a global surveillance network that intercepts and processes the world’s communications and distributes it among the primary partners in the decades-old UKUSA alliance—the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand. (Note 13)
In reality, ECHELON is a more limited program, allowing the UKUSA allies to specify intelligence requirements and automatically receive relevant intercepts obtained by the UKUSA facilities which intercept satellite communications (but not the U.S. facilities that receive data from SIGINT satellites). It is also limited by both technological barriers (the inability to develop word-spotting software so as to allow for the automatic processing of intercepted conversations) and the limitations imposed on collection activities by the UKUSA allies—at least as regards the citizens of those countries. (Note 14) Thus, the NAVSECGRU instruction also specifies that one of the responsibilities of the commander of the Sugar Grove site is to “ensure the privacy of U.S. citizens are properly safeguarded pursuant to the provisions of USSID 18.”
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB24/nsa13.pdf
Popularity: 1% [?]
WIMAX/3G Geek out
June 12, 2008
I must admit, I’m geeking out over WIMAX. WiMAX stands for the Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access. It will allow 70Mb/second upload and download which will allow for some pretty decent prawn video. So you’ll be able to go to youpawn and watch all kinds of prawn. There is an even better technology called 3GPP LTE (Long Term Evolution) on the way with is another improvement on the 3G stuff that is already out and marketed.
What is frustrating is that WiMAX will likely have the same level of control that 3G has. It will be tamed and completely corporate run. I plan on getting the new iPhone on 11 July 2008. After seeing the iPhone upclose I started to feel funny in my underpants. Iphone + 3G should shock my WiMAX arousal into erectile dysfunction.
It’s all about the killer app. If the big dogs pushing WiMAX (Nortel/Alvarion & Sprint/peon) can come up with a device that allows you to bypass XXX ass Comcast, AT&T and other broadband monopolies they will seriously shake up the market. WiMAX, 3G and others should be in the business of creating devices, drivers and software that allow you to network all of your systems from anywhere in the contiguous United States. That would be very cool. But they seems to have serious limitations (at least in the US).
Jun 11, 2008 (Hugin via COMTEX) —-Joint End-to-End WiMAX Solution Will Offer Operators Broader Coverage and More Capacity
TORONTO, ONTARIO and TEL AVIV, ISRAEL–(Marketwire - June 11, 2008) - Nortel(1) (TSX: NT: 9.13, +1.02, +12.57%)(NYSE: NT: 9.13, +1.02, +12.57%) and Alvarion(2)(R: 66.46, -1.77, -2.59%) Ltd. (NASDAQ: ALVR: 7.97, +0.46, +6.12%) entered into a joint strategic WiMAX agreement to create an end-to-end WiMAX solution to meet the needs of the evolving wireless broadband market. The Nortel and Alvarion mobile WiMAX solution is expected to combine industry-leading technologies from both companies to allow operators around the globe - including well-established service providers and new entrants to the wireless market - to simply and efficiently deliver high-speed wireless broadband for a variety of applications, mobile or nomadic, including VoIP, streaming music, and HD video.
The joint solution features the integration of Alvarion’s advanced radio access network technology, which has been proven in over 200 commercial WiMAX deployments, with Nortel’s core network solutions, backhaul solutions, applications such as Nortel’s number one carrier VoIP solution, and Nortel Global Services for WiMAX.. The Nortel and Alvarion WiMAX solution will allow operators to offer high speed wireless Internet access across large areas, including those currently underserved by broadband capabilities. The joint WiMAX solution will also provide the speed and capacity to help operators meet the exploding demand for true mobile broadband.
http://www.foxbusiness.com/story/markets/industries/telecom/nortel-alvarion-combine-strengths-strategic-wimaxtm-agreement/-883292264
Popularity: 2% [?]
Computers Hacking People ver 2.0
May 10, 2008
I honestly think you ought to calm down; take a stress pill and think things over. – Hal, 2001 Space Odyssey
Information Systems will eventually have the infrastructure and ability to “socially engineer” its creators. This is far fetched science fiction blooming before our very eyes being created by our own hands.
It will happen when three criteria are in place: 1) The creation of laws that can completely disregard the privacy and sovereignty of human beings. 2) The advancement of Information Awareness System and 3) Smart Artificial Intelligence
LAWS
Lets discuss the situations that will give governments the pretext to implement laws to track their citizens. This is happening now. Laws and systems are being created for unchecked monitoring of individuals under the guise of security, safety and prosperity. Systems such as national ID cards.
They were implemented after the Sept 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and in the U.K. after the 7 July attacks in London.
It was 19th Century philosopher Samuel T. Coleridge who said, “In politics, what begins in fear usually ends in folly.”
Imagine it: The PATRIOT ACT IV is passed as a result of recent Critical Infrastructure cyber-terrorism attacks. International terrorists implement a globally synchronized Distributed Denial of Service Attack against the worlds Root nameservers and successfully cripple the Internet for three days. The impact is devastating as corporations lose billions.
Domestic Cyber Terrorists infiltrate hospitals by becoming apart of the staff only to socially engineer and infecting HIPPA protected networks with virus’ that wipe out databases and actually scramble prescriptions causing an array of death by misdiagnoses.
Local police and security personnel repeatedly thwart numerous attempts by religious fundamentalists to detonate suit case sized tactical nuclear weapons inside major United State cities but security professionals predict that it is only a matter of time before at least one slips through the cracks. All the enemy needs is one.
Patriot Act IV is the patron saint of lawmakers who have been screamed at by constituents to “DO SOMETHING NOW!” The new Patriot Act is eventually internationally accepted and allows for unrestricted Data Mine into commercial and state owned databases worldwide (US-EU). It of course has deferent names and variations world wide but its application is the same. In the United Kingdom it is called the Civil Contingencies Bill. The data mining would tap into the “transaction space” by accessing hospital, financial transaction and legal databases world wide to be shared by all law enforcement agencies (county, federal, city local and international). The system works like a global Amber Alert system that can track criminals anywhere in the world and notify the respective local agency immediately. The system works very, very well.
I honestly think you ought to calm down; take a stress pill and think things over. – Hal, 2001 Space Odyssey
Information Systems will eventually have the infrastructure and ability to “socially engineer” its creators. This is far fetched science fiction blooming before our very eyes being created by our own hands.
It will happen when three criteria are in place: 1) The creation of laws that can completely disregard the privacy and sovereignty of human beings. 2) The advancement of Information Awareness System and 3) Smart Artificial Intelligence
LAWS
Lets discuss the situations that will give governments the pretext to implement laws to track their citizens. This is happening now. Laws and systems are being created for unchecked monitoring of individuals under the guise of security, safety and prosperity. Systems such as national ID cards.
They were implemented after the Sept 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and in the U.K. after the 7 July attacks in London.
It was 19th Century philosopher Samuel T. Coleridge who said, “In politics, what begins in fear usually ends in folly.”
Imagine it: The PATRIOT ACT IV is passed as a result of recent Critical Infrastructure cyber-terrorism attacks. International terrorists implement a globally synchronized Distributed Denial of Service Attack against the worlds Root nameservers and successfully cripple the Internet for three days. The impact is devastating as corporations lose billions.
Domestic Cyber Terrorists infiltrate hospitals by becoming apart of the staff only to socially engineer and infecting HIPPA protected networks with virus’ that wipe out databases and actually scramble prescriptions causing an array of death by mis diagnosis.
Local police and security personnel repeatedly thwart numerous attempts by religious fundamentalists to detonate suit case sized tactical nuclear weapons inside major United State cities but security professionals predict that it is only a matter of time before at least one slips through the cracks. All the enemy needs is one.
Patriot Act IV is the patron saint of lawmakers who have been screamed at by constituents to “DO SOMETHING NOW!” The new Patriot Act is eventually internationally accepted and allows for unrestricted Data Mine into commercial and state owned databases worldwide (US-EU). It of course has deferent names and variations world wide but its application is the same. In the United Kingdom it is called the Civil Contingencies Bill. The data mining would tap into the “transaction space” by accessing hospital, financial transaction and legal databases world wide to be shared by all law enforcement agencies (county, federal, city local and international). The system works like a global Amber Alert system that can track criminals anywhere in the world and notify the respective local agency immediately. The system works very, very well.
Information Awareness Systems
The system, developed under the direction of John Poindexter, then-director of DARPA’s Information Awareness Office, was envisioned to give law enforcement access to private data without suspicion of wrongdoing or a warrant. — Electronic Privacy Information Center.
Government funded unrestricted Data Mining and Information Awareness programs develop and run revolutionary Information Awareness Systems. Despite public opinion, these National Security systems continue to work to protect the nation against enemies foreign and domestic. The system extracts data from its transactional databases and recognizes patterns of behavior that would fit that of a terrorist. The system is so exhaustive that is works with 70% accuracy and seamlessly in conjunction with systems such as Next Generation Facial Recognition systems and Activity, Recognition Monitoring for enhanced surveillance.
Artificial Intelligence
Within thirty years, we will have the technological means to create superhuman intelligence. Shortly after, the human era will be ended. – Vernon Vinge, 1993, What is the Singularity?
Artificial Intelligence has been in use for many years. It is greatly relied upon for businesses, hospitals, military units and even in forms of entertainment such as video games. However Strong Artificial Intelligence, the development of cognitive systems simulating the human brain, have been developing quietly in research labs around the world under programs dedicated to the “scientific understanding of the mechanisms underlying thought and intelligent behavior and their embodiment in machines. (AAAI)”
Smart Information Awareness is Strong Artificial Intelligence merged with Information Awareness Systems. Smart Information Awareness seems to go beyond merely recognizing patterns of behavior as it predicts the future actions of a given psychological profile with over 75% accuracy allowing Law Enforcement to be like an all seeing eye with incredible new methods of forensics and counterterrorism. Crime as a whole will be greatly reduced. System that recognize criminal patterns have been around for some time, Smart Information Awareness systems are a new trend.
The Smart Information Awareness system is so accurate in determining human behavior trends that it is used to track and manipulate consumer buying habits for corporations. With its accuracy, the system will be able to determine what marketing tools can be used to influence the behavior of buyers.
With unfettered access to consumer’s personal transactions, buying habits, methods of payment, and credit history a system would be able to pin point buyers who demonstrate interests in certain products and offer “special deals” a specific group of highly interested buyers.
Inevitably the very system (laws, practices and technologies) that successfully protects humanity from itself is used to manipulate and exploit humanity.
Perhaps you believe that there is nothing wring with this level of target marketing. If so, I submit to you these questions: What will separate humanity from cattle if every man, woman and child is seen as nothing but a number and a consumer to the system that we rely on to survive? Since we are already regarded as merely numbers and consumers by the corporate beast, how much control and information will we allow them to have?
Perhaps this is a bit much. Perhaps I exaggerate the technology and extent of fear that will breed it.
http://www.p2pnet.net/issue03/page1.html
http://www.jbholston.com/weblog_discussion.php?post_id=74
Statewatch.com - Secret EU-US agreement being negotiated. http://www.statewatch.org/news/2002/jul/11Auseu.htm
http://www.eff.org/Privacy/TIA/20030523_tia_report_review.php
nin - TheSlip (thanks Trent)
Ray Kurzweil @ Google Zeitgeist
Eschelon TIA - Total Information Awareness
Popularity: 4% [?]
6v Battery Hack - WE’RE CUTTING PRICES IN HALFF!!
May 5, 2008
Gag Films has a great idea to get cheaper batteries. Get a 6v Lantern Battery (about $6), Take the label off, Pop the top, disconnect the wires. And you’ll find 32 AA batteries.
Popularity: 3% [?]
Bruce Schneier’s Defcon Badge Goes for $200+
August 18, 2007
Get off of Bruce’s dick..
I was hoping to snatch it up for $3. To my surprise, it is over 200 duckets! The hell with that.
Popularity: 3% [?]
How I got into Security
June 13, 2007
Martin McKeay over at the Network Security Blog asks “How did you get into Security?” That is a good question. Its something that I’ve been asked and what I like to ask others in the business.
Up until recently, I’ve done security my entire adult life very reluctantly. I started off in the military as Security Policemen (now called security forces). I was a security specialist and was groomed into law enforcement. The description sounded like special forces. And even though security forces do some pretty cool stuff its NOT usually doing anything even close to what combat controllers, pararescue, Force Recon, Navy Seals and Delta Force do. Instead its like the Air Force version of infantry (when I was in we even trained with the Army infantry at Ft Dix).
I had about five years learning every aspect of physical security. I later “cross trained” into communications expecting to do some hardcore technical stuff. And I did, but while I wanted Routers I got the help desk and later pure security (firewalls, IDS, C&A packages, COMSEC, EMSEC) a little of everything. My experience in the military made it easier for me to pass the CISSP which covers a little of everything.
These days I teach certification classes and do auditing, policies, consulting as well as certification and accreditations.
Popularity: 5% [?]
Digg will take over the world
June 27, 2006
When I was in high school, I read this book called Ender's Game, by a man named Orson Scott Card. The book is about a strategic prodigy named Ender who is the only hope for saving humanity from an alien invasion. It was a great book.
In the bookd Ender's brother and sister, Peter and Valentine, are just as bright
as he. Peter convinces Valentine to collaborate in his grand scheme
of controlling the planet Earth. They start by creating a huge following on the Internet.
I think that the comment system created by Kevin Rose and the Revision 3 team is going to be copied enough to make it an unofficial standard. The one thing that is very powerful about digg is that it harnesses the power of the collective masses participating. Some topics that are supercharged with emotion moving hundreds of commenters on digg into action. The site becomes like a loaded gun.
Perhaps it won't be digg that starts catapults the current online revolution but it will almost definitely be something very similar.
Popularity: 5% [?]
The Road to Defcon 14 Paved in Blood
June 19, 2006
I hope Defcon does not suck. When I go, I will definitely take pictures and report the cool stuff I see.
I went to Defcon 11 in 2003 and it was great even though the lines were ridiculous and some of the better events could only allow a certain number of people. The ideas and talent I was exposed to put me into a whole different way of thinking. I met up with a guy who claimed to work for the maphia! He wasn't happy about it and he said that his employer's didn't come out and say they were maphia, but he had very strong feelings that they were.
Being the only brotha at the defcon willing to drink a (highly, highly overpriced) beer with him, he'd singled me out. What is funny is this guy look A LOT like DMX. We hung out and met some GS (civilian government) employees that claimed to be too old to party. I could have crashed at his hotel (which was right in the center of it all) but I knew my wife would lose her flippin' mind if I didn't go back home (in laws house) and sleep with her.
I was there strictly for the briefings so I really didn't party too much. I do recall that some kid ODed, there was a very cool Hacker Jeapordy that was completely Hedonistic (i.e. naked women and Kevin Mitnick). It was out of control.
Before Defcon I saw all hacking as borderline or full blown criminal. But now I know that all “hacking” is not criminal (although most people believe different).
My love for technology and security were what drove me to check it out. I went on my own. Three years later with a degree and a high level of respect from my employers, I still can't get them to pay my way to Defcon. (what is funny is that it would probably be easier to get them to send me to Black Hat, which is like $2000 as opposed to $100 for the Defcon. Maybe I'll work that angle next year when they have more money).
I'm excited about going but I sincerely hope that it doesn't suck. It would be much more fun if I could participate in an event. But my skills are not even close to good enough.
Popularity: 1% [?]
