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Where leaping to conclusions is my primary form of forward motion.
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Feds demand more security for online banking
I-Worm/Mytob Clogging the E-mail System
EULA-based Deep Root Spying On Blizzard Entertainment Customers
Byzantine Generals - How Many Liars Can You Tolerate
Wednesday, October 19, 2005
Holy Shit! Transparent Aluminium Really Exists
I remember transparent aluminum from the 1986 movie Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home where Scotty talked to a Mac mouse and transparent aluminum helped them save the whales, and thereby the world. Most science fiction has some basis in reality, I guess I just figured it would take a little longer. Time flies [via BoingBoing]
Transparent armor
David Pescovitz: The US Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base is testing a new kind of transparent armor, clear aluminum aluminum oxynitride, that can stop hardcore .30 and .50 caliber armor-piercing bullets. From a press release:ALONtm is a ceramic compound with a high compressive strength and durability. When polished, it is the premier transparent armor for use in armored vehicles, said. 1st Lt. Joseph La Monica, transparent armor sub-direction lead
"The substance itself is light years ahead of glass," he said, adding that it offers "higher performance and lighter weight."
Traditional transparent armor is thick layers of bonded glass. The new armor combines the transparent ALONtm piece as a strike plate, a middle section of glass and a polymer backing. Each layer is visibly thinner than the traditional layers.
ALONtm is virtually scratch resistant, offers substantial impact resistance, and provides better durability and protection against armor piercing threats, at roughly half the weight and half the thickness of traditional glass transparent armor, said the lieutenant.
Tuesday, October 18, 2005
Feds demand more security for online banking
It's become apparent that US banks are simply not going to act on their own to increase security in online banking. Despite the absurdity of using nothing more than a 7-character pasword to protect a person's entire asset base, that's all BankofAmerica has in place. Even though I've written several letters to them complaining about the dangerous lack of security I've never gotten so much as a "how do you do" in response. It's about time regulators actually did something for us instead of to us. [via Freedom News Daily]HoustonChronicle.com - Feds demand more security for online banking
Associated Press BOSTON Federal regulators will require banks to strengthen security for Internet customers through authentication that goes beyond mere user names and passwords, which have become too easy for criminals to exploit.
Bank Web sites are expected to adopt some form of "two-factor" authentication by the end of 2006, regulators with the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council said in a letter to banks last week.
Terry Frazier at 7:05 PM
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I-Worm/Mytob Clogging the E-mail System
I-Worm/Mytob is running rampant today. I've gotten about 100 infected e-mails from customers, even my travel agent. Thankfully I keep my AVG Anti-virus package and firewalls updated. This is such a hassle, and windoze is so crappy. When am I going to get a Mac? Terry Frazier at 10:08 AM
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Friday, October 14, 2005
EULA-based Deep Root Spying On Blizzard Entertainment Customers
If you play Warcraft, World of Warcraft, or any other Blizzard Entertainment game you need to read this. You probably have no idea how much personal info the cretins at Blizzard are collecting from you. [via Copyfight]I Spy With My Little EULA (Donna Wentworth)
You may recall that Blizzard is the videogame company that sued three software programmers for creating BnetD, a free, open source program that allowed gamers to play games they purchased with others on the platform of their choice. Blizzard claimed that the programmers violated several parts of the company's End User Licensing Agreement (EULA), including a provision on reverse-engineering. But it turns out that's not all that Blizzard's lawyers have inserted in the fine print. As Bruce Schneier reports, the company is also using its Terms of Use agreements to justify spying on gamers' computers.
Writes Greg Hoglund, co-author of Exploiting Software, How to Break Code:
I watched the [software] warden sniff down the email addresses of people I was communicating with on MSN, the URL of several websites that I had open at the time, and the names of all my running programs, including those that were minimized or in the toolbar. These strings can easily contain social security numbers or credit card numbers, for example, if I have Microsoft Excel or Quickbooks open w/ my personal finances at the time. ...[The scanning] certainly will result in warden reporting you as a cheater. I really believe that reading these window titles violates privacy, considering window titles contain alot of personal data. But, we already know Blizzard Entertainment is fierce from a legal perspective. Look at what they have done to people who tried to make BNetD, freecraft, or third party WoW servers.
As Schneier says, this is truly scary stuff. Yet even a few of the security-savvy readers at Schneier's weblog are downplaying its significance. Why? Annalee Newitz has a theory that rings true to me: people think of routine spying as normal. […]
Terry Frazier at 11:11 PM
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Byzantine Generals - How Many Liars Can You Tolerate
I came across this paper at the National Institute of Standards and Technology while following links looking for something else. I wonder if anyone is working on a way to apply this to politics?Byzantine generals
(classic problem)
Definition:The problem of reaching a consensus among distributed units if some of them give misleading answers. To be memorable, the problem is couched in terms of generals deciding on a common plan of attack. Some traitorous generals may lie about whether they will support a particular plan and what other generals told them. Exchanging only messages, what decision making algorithm should the generals use to reach a consensus? What percentage of liars can the algorithm tolerate and still correctly determine a consensus?
Terry Frazier at 10:38 AM
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