Hacking an Airplane Entertainment System
Here's another case of fielding a new product without fully evaluating it first. A computer programmer played with a "in-flight game system" finding out that due to common programming mistakes, he was able to crash the system. Every seat has a small screen that can be used to play games or watch movies and .... [Click here to read the rest of this post]
Tags: Bad DesignTop 10 Worst Consumer Privacy Infringers
This is a damn funny article explaining who is the worst of the worst and why:
America Online
America Online's privacy intrusion efforts are so aggressive and offensive, that the only explanation seems to be that AOL thought its clientele was so naïve they would never catch on to the .... [Click here to read the rest of this post]EFF Defends Video Posters
Have you been targetted by a "takedown" letter threatening you if you didn't take down your posted video? The EFF is looking for you.
Were you or someone you know unfairly caught in Viacom's dragnet? If your video was hit with a bogus takedown, contact information@eff.org -- we may be able to help you directly .... [Click here to read the rest of this post]Life Imitates Art – Dr Fusion Becomes Reality
Remember that neat gizmo in Back to the Future II? The one where Doc put some garbage into "Mr. Fusion" to power his time machine? If not, shame on you. Go rent the movie.
Anyway, they've now figured out how to make a machine that turns garbage of almost ANY variety into fuel and electricity. Not only does the .... [Click here to read the rest of this post]
Tags: Garbage EnergyHow to Open Any Normal Lock in Seconds – (Bump Lock)
Come home to a robbed house, but they didn't break in? Your insurance company may give you grief if you don't know about this trick for opening any door with no traces.
Here's a video that explains how to "bump" locks, or to make a simple modification to your front door key to .... [Click here to read the rest of this post]
Tags: Bump Keys, LocksVerichip, Accident or Fraud?
CASPIAN warns that Verichip, the ones who have brought the human-implant RFID to the market had to publish a report of risks associated with the technology to satisfy the Securities and Exchanges Commission before they could IPO. In almost 20 pages of risks (holly clap!) they still neglected to mention that their RFID chips can be cloned… .... [Click here to read the rest of this post]
Tags: Big Brother, RFID, VerichipPeer to Peer Filesharing Doesn’t Affect Music Sales
Though the RIAA would like you to believe it, it seems that P2P doesn't actually affect music sales at all. That's kind of embarassing for the RIAA who no longer has any justification for their music property crusade.
Of course, I always said that most people who use P2P to get music wouldn't have bought the .... [Click here to read the rest of this post]
Tags: P2P, Pirating, RIAASchneier on Vista
Today on Schneier's blog, he describes in farily decent detail why the DRM in Windows Vista is bad. Some choice bits:
And Vista continuously spends CPU time monitoring itself, trying to figure out if you're doing something that it thinks you shouldn't. If it does, it limits functionality and in extreme cases restarts just the video subsystem. .... [Click here to read the rest of this post]Search Engines Go to the Next Generation – Natural Language Search
Apparently, there's a company named Powerset that's trying to implement natural language search for Internet searches. Granted, this has been tried before (Ask Jeeves), but never really worked. Ars Technica is listing Powerset as a possible competitor to Google, but cautions that Google will probably also include this technology soon (especially if Powerset shows any measure of success).
Describing natural .... [Click here to read the rest of this post]
Tags: SearchFake Blogging Made Illegal in UK
Found on Slashdot, this article explains how writing fake reviews about your own book or hotel to boost its rating will become illegal in the UK and perhaps all of Europe.
This practice is very similar to the fake blogs that marketers made in the United States recently.
I don't really know why they had to specifically illegalize this… .... [Click here to read the rest of this post]
Tags: Advertising, Scams - Ripoffs - Dirty Tricks, UK