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December 27 2011
Hacktivists: Doin’ It For the Lulz Since 1903
Marconi and assistants erecting a radio antenna.
They call themselves hacktivists. Or they say they’re doing it just for the lulz: Some hackers take over sites, swipe users’ information, and then post their exploits online just to make the point that hey, you losers aren’t as safe as you thought you were. Better fix that gaping hole in your electronic chain link fence.
It may seem like the kind of public embarrassment only possible in the networked age (at least, Sony probably remembers the era of the Walkman a lot more fondly than this last mortifying year of being hacked again and again), but as Paul Marks writes in New Scientist, it ain’t necessarily so. Just ask Guglielmo Marconi, the inventor of the wireless telegraph.
In 1903, Marconi’s assistants in London were prepping for a big demo of their wireless telegraph (aka long-range radio), just like any tech businessmen in the history of technology—setting up the brass lantern projector, getting the telegraph up and running, letting the crowd get nice and excited, you know, the whole shebang. Then, while they’re waiting for their test message to come in from the boss, who’s camped out ...
August 11 2011
April 08 2011
Vatican Says Computer Hackers Are More Saint Than Sinner
I like the habit because it makes me
look like the Linux penguin.
From elite hackers, to white-hat hackers, to hacktivists, hackers don’t generally have sterling reputations as upstanding citizens—at least as far as the general public is concerned. That’s why it may come as a surprise that the Vatican has published an essay that redeems computer hackers and even compares hacker philosophy with Catholic theology.
In his article published in the Vatican-vetted Civilta Cattolica, technology expert, literary critic, and Jesuit priest Antonio Spadaro draws similarities between hackers and Catholics (via TechWorld):
Hacker mentality implies a joyful application of intelligence to problem solving, rejecting the concept of work as repetitive, burdensome and stupid, Spadaro wrote. Hacker ethics rejected a capitalistic, profit-oriented approach to work, eschewing idleness but favoring a flexible, creative approach that was respectful of the human dimension and natural rhythms, he said.
In addition, hacker philosophy fosters creativity and sharing, and is both committed yet playful. “Under fire are control, competition, property. It’s a vision that is … of a clear theological origin,” writes Spadaro. He argues (rather vaguely) that many of these characteristics are also, as odd as it ...
December 27 2010
Husband Caught Spying on Wife’s Email Charged With Hacking
Checking your wife’s email to see if she’s cheating on you: It definitely makes you a snoop, and possibly a bad husband. But a hacker?
That’s the label prosecutors are trying to lay on Leon Walker, charging the 33-year-old man with breaking a statute that’s more normally applied to people who want to steal your credit card numbers or your identity rather than prove your infidelity. From the Detroit Free Press:
Oakland County Prosecutor Jessica Cooper defended her decision to charge Leon Walker. “The guy is a hacker,” Cooper said in a voice mail response to the Free Press last week. “It was password protected, he had wonderful skills, and was highly trained. Then he downloaded them and used them in a very contentious way.”
Mr. Walker is indeed a computer technician, but his defense rests on arguing that his wife had no expectation of privacy because he used the computer in question for work—it wasn’t hers alone. Furthermore, he says, she kept her passwords in a notebook next to the computer (Public service announcement: Don’t ever do this).
Those details will probably end up as a he said-she said disagreement. But back to the more peculiar matter at hand: Really? Reading your significant other’s correspondence isn’t just bad form and invasion of privacy, but hacking?
From the Free Press:
Walker’s defense attorney, Leon Weiss, said Cooper is “dead wrong” on the law. “I’ve been a defense attorney for 34 years and I’ve never seen anything like this,” he said. “This is a hacking statute, the kind of statute they use if you try to break into a government system or private business for some nefarious purpose. It’s to protect against identity fraud, to keep somebody from taking somebody’s intellectual property or trade secrets. “I have to ask: ‘Don’t the prosecutors have more important things to do with their time?’ “
Attorney Deborah McKelvy, who’s not working the case, made a good point, too: “What’s the difference between that and parents who get on their kids’ Facebook accounts? You’re going to have to start prosecuting a whole bunch of parents.”
Related Content:
Discoblog: Can Greasy Fingerprints on Smart Phones Give Away Passcodes?
Discoblog: What’s Easier to Rig—the U.S. Presidential Elections or a Slot Machine?
Discoblog: Gone Legit: First iPhone Hacker Hired to Create iPhone Apps
Image: iStockphoto
December 02 2010
Kinect Hacks: Turn Invisible, Make an Instant Light Saber, & More
The next generation of video game control is upon us with the release of Microsoft’s Kinect–which allows users to control special XBOX 360 games with their entire body.
Hackers have been eagerly digging into the device, especially since Microsoft’s Shannon Loftis told Science Friday’s Ira Flatow that no hackers would get in trouble for finding alternate uses for the Kinect:
“I’m very excited to see that people are so inspired that it was less than a week after the Kinect came out before they had started creating and thinking about what they could do.”
Here’s a list of some of our favorite, jaw-dropping hacks: Invisibility without the cloak, 3D video, Minority Report-style computing, real-life Star Wars, and the best shadow puppets you’ve ever seen.
5. Makes the best shadow puppets EVER:
Built in a day by Theo Watson and Emily Gobeille, this little hack replaces your hand and arm with a movable bird puppet. You can control the bird, and even make it squawk.
Video: Vimeo/Theo Watson
4. Real-time light-saber action:
YouTube user yankayan hacked his Kinect to transform a normal wooden stick into a light-saber in real-time, with real light-saber whooshing sounds!
Video: YouTube/yahkeyan
3. Cloak-less invisibility:
Kinect hacker Takayuki Fukatsu hasn’t revealed details on how he became invisible, but it seems like he probably just overlaid his body with a picture of the room behind him. The effect is still pretty darn cool.
Video: YouTube/TakayukiFukatsu
2. Real-time 3D Video:
This one might be cheating, since it uses TWO Kinect cameras, but the outcome is simply amazing. Placing the two cameras at a 90 degree angle to each other, he captured video simultaneously and made a manipulable three-dimensional video!
Video: YouTube/okreylos
1. Minority Report-style computing:
An MIT-based team at the Media Lab Fluid Interfaces Group hacked the Kinect to turn an everyday computer into a gesture-controlled Minority Report style-future machine, without even needing the glowey-fingertip gloves! The video below is from another group, the multi-touch company Evoluce, which is working on the same project. Their system seems close to fully developed–the user can click and navigate, and even use an on-screen keyboard.
Video: YouTube/evoluce1
Related Content:
Discoblog: Psychology’s New Phobia-Fighting Tool: An Augmented Reality Cockroach
80beats: 4D Invisibility Cloak Bends Time as Well as Space
80beats: The 3D Invisibility Cloak: It’s Real, But It’s Really Tiny
80beats: Holographic Video Device Could Bring Star Wars Tech to Your Living Room
Science Not Fiction: The Fundamental Problems of Minority Report-style Biometrics
Not Exactly Rocket Science: Virtual reality illusions produce out-of-body experiences in the lab
DISCOVER: Virtual Reality Fires up Research Efforts (video)
Image: Flickr/bm.iphone
August 16 2010
Can Greasy Fingerprints on Smart Phones Give Away Passcodes?
That grease trail you’ve smeared on your smart phone’s touchscreen could give away more than your lightsaber skills or virtual girlfriend’s whims: Would-be smudge attackers, a recent paper argues, could follow your finger oils as a clue to your passcode.
In the paper “Smudge Attacks on Smartphone Touchscreens,” which we first saw on Gizmodo, a team in the computer science department at the University of Pennsylvania tried to pick out grease patterns from Android phones by photographing the phones and enhancing the patterns with photo-editing software. From the paper’s introduction:
“We believe smudge attacks are a threat for three reasons. First, smudges are surprisingly persistent in time. Second, it is surprisingly difficult to incidentally obscure smudges through wiping or pocketing the device. Third and finally, collecting and analyzing oil residue smudges can be done with readily-available equipment such as a camera and a computer.”
Though the smudge alone can’t confirm the exact passcode, the study’s authors hint that it may help an attacker rule out possibilities. In the paper, the authors describe the three by three number grid of “contact points” that some earlier Android phones employed for entering passcodes. The team assumed three limitations on smudge patterns using this grid: it must have four or more contact points; it cannot use any contact point more than once; and if there is any contact point between two others on a smudge trail, then it must also be a contact point. They calculate that using just the last of these restrictions, an attacker could reduce the number of possible patterns from 1 million to 389,112 patterns–a way to reduce a phone lockout during hacking.
The study also investigated the best conditions for identifying a smudge pattern. A particularly easy partial pattern to find, the researchers say, appeared when the phone was “dirty prior to password entry,” i.e. after the user had just finished chatting, allowing the phone’s screen to soak up some extra face dirt for finger smudge contrast.
Related content:
Discoblog: Bizarre Makeup Patterns Can Fool Face Recognition Software
Discoblog: Augmented Reality Phone App Can Identify Strangers on the Street
Discoblog: Augmented Reality Tattoos Are Visible Only to a Special Camera
Discoblog: One Small Step Closer to Superhuman Cyborg Vision
Discoblog: Will the Laptops of the Future Be a Pair of Eye Glasses?
Image: flickr / p_kim
June 14 2010
How Do You Like Your iPad: Chocolate-Covered, or in Typewriter Disguise?
What pairs well with chocolate? A pricey tablet computer, of course.
Stefan Magdalinski debated what to get for his sweetheart for her June birthday. Eventually, he decided on a candy Apple: He ordered his wife a chocolate-covered iPad.
As told on Magdalinski’s blog and reported by Mashable, what makes this feat more impressive is that he orchestrated the gift’s shipment from the U.K. to South Africa, calling two friends at a British chocolatier with an unusual question:
“Could you freeze an iPad in chocolate carbonite, and have it survive?”
The proof is in the chocolate. A gift that involved both an interesting customs discussion and a very confused wife ended in sweet success. Magdalinski: “no iPads were harmed in this production.”
Counting your calories? Other iPad combinations might better fit your tastes. As described on the blog CrunchGear, nostalgic Apple-users have gutted older computers to give them a new, touchable face.
And for those that want to hearken back a bit further, the blog Gizmodo recently described another iPad vision almost as romantic as chocolates, an iPad typewriter.
Luckily, none of these combinations required blending.
Related content:
Discoblog: Will The iPad Blend? Watch and Find Out.
Discoblog: iPad Arrives—Some Worship It, Some Critique It, HP Tries to Kill It
Discoblog: Hey Baby, Wanna Come Over and Try My New iPad?
Images: Ahead Robot / Stefan Magdalinski
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