defcon_presentation.pdf

http://www.hackaday.com/…

[Zack Anderson], [RJ Ryan], and [Alessandro Chiesa] were sued by the Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority for an alleged violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act after copies of their presentation slides were circulated at Defcon 16. The slides give an eye widening glimpse into the massive security holes present in the Boston subway system. There are at least 4 major security flaws in the subway, which allowed them to get free subway rides by finding unlocked, back door routes into the subway, spoofing magnetic and RFID cards, and attacking the MTBA’s network. Judge Douglas P. Woodlock has issued a gag order, stopping the trio from giving the presentation at Defcon or disclosing sensitive information for ten days. However, the MIT school newspaper, The Tech, has published a PDF of the slides online. The research culminated in the trio warcarting the MTBA’s headquarters and being driven off by police.

A quick skim reveals that the magnetic strip part of the card is pretty simple to crack.

http://www.twincities.com/

Troy Molde awoke at 3 a.m. Thursday to police flashlights shining in his face. Two uniformed Lakeville officers were in his bedroom, knocking on the wall to wake him up.They were there, they said, to warn him to keep his doors closed and locked.

Their surprise visit was part of a public service campaign. Officers had fanned out across the city, leaving notices on doors to remind residents how to prevent thefts by keeping garage doors closed, not leaving valuables in cars and locking windows or doors.

But at Molde’s house, they went further. His two sons, ages 5 and 7, and 5-year-old twin nephews were having a sleepover in the living room. They awoke to find the officers in the house.
“I was violated, but … I wasn’t physically damaged,” Molde said of what he considers an invasion of privacy.

The officers told Molde his garage door was open, the TV was on, keys to his truck were left in the ignition and the door to his house was ajar.

Police said the intrusion was justified because the officers’ initial door knocks went unanswered. Police went inside to check if anything was wrong, Sgt. Jim Puncochar said.
He said the kids were afraid to wake their dad, so the officers went upstairs.

“It really was suspicious,” Puncochar said. But Molde, 34, said he went upstairs to bed at midnight. Molde didn’t shut the garage door, and he remembers leaving the doors to his house closed — but unlocked.

The kids fell asleep watching TV. Three hours later, he had police in his bedroom. He immediately thought something was wrong. “I was just dazed,” said the 34-year-old dad.
“It’s not a safe way of (police) protection.”

An invasion of privacy? I’d say so. I’m curious as to if the door was left ajar in the first place, especially since the owner said he left the door to his house closed. I’m also interested if the police even knocked at all. My suggestion is that the town of Lakeview rethink this “program” before someone gets injured. Neighborhood inspections like this one have the capacity to escalate quickly and violently if a homeowner hears an intruder, feels threatened and grabs a weapon for protection–a baseball bat, a lead pipe, or a gun. I also fear that if this program continues, more doors may be left “ajar” as a means of excusing a warrantless search.

http://www.sciencedebate2008.com/…

An open letter to the candidates
The following email was sent to the campaigns on April 18, 2008

Dear (campaign manager),

We understand Senator (Clinton, McCain or Obama) has been invited to attend a nationally televised conversation in Oregon about science and technology policy issues.

We are writing to strongly urge you to accept this invitation for the good of our nation and the planet, as well as your campaign.

This is not a science quiz; nobody cares if the candidates know scientific details or have memorized specifics, and such a forum should not take undue preparation. This is a serious policy discussion about the candidates’ vision for solving many of America’s most serious challenges, the majority of which revolve around issues of science and technology, and an opportunity for candidates to focus on big ideas and express their vision for how our country will remain innovative and competitive in the future. We understand the questions will be provided to you in advance.

The dates proposed for this event are either of May 2, May 9, or May 16, to be held at Portland State University in the midst of the Oregon mail-in primary. The format is entirely flexible. It could be a forum similar to the “Compassion Forum” the candidates recently held on faith issues, or a debate as originally proposed. But it is important that you attend. Science and technology present issues the American people care deeply about because they recognize their direct link to our country’s economic wellbeing, health, and the environment. Unfortunately, they have not gotten much attention so far in this campaign.

This proposal has the backing of PBS and three of the nation’s premier public television stations: WGBH in Boston, WNET in New York, and Oregon Public Broadcasting, and would be jointly sponsored by NOVA, NOW, the AAAS, the National Academies, the Council on Competitiveness, and Science Debate 2008. We believe PBS through its 350 member stations is an ideal platform since the network has tens of millions of viewers that are extremely interested in science, technology and their link to our nation’s future.

Sincerely,

Craig Barrett, Chairman, Intel; Chairman, National Academy of Engineering
David Baltimore, Chairman, American Association for the Advancement of Science; Past President, Caltech; Nobel Prize in Medicine, 1975
Peter Agre, Director, Johns Hopkins Malaria Research Institute, Bloomberg School of Public Health; Nobel Prize in Chemistry, 2003
Harold Varmus, President, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center; past director of the National Institutes of Health; Nobel Prize in Medicine, 1989
Richard Schrock, Frederick G. Keyes Professor Of Chemistry, M.I.T.; Nobel Prize in Chemistry, 2005
David Gross, Director of the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics, U.C. Santa Barbara; Nobel Prize in Physics, 2004
John Mather, Project Scientist, James Webb Space Telescope; Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential People, 2007; Nobel Prize in Physics, 2006
David Politzer, The Tolman Professor of Theoretical Physics, CalTech; Nobel Prize in Physics, 2004
Leon Lederman, Past Director, FermiLab; Pritzker Professor of Science, Illinois Institute of Technology; Nobel Prize in Physics, 1988
Carter Roberts, President & CEO, World Wildlife Fund (WWF)

and the blackout continues…

http://www.freelists.org/…

I have the pleasure to announce I have ported OSSv4.1test to BeOS. It’s not finished yet, but it runs and plays some sound.

The goal is to use its drivers to get wider audio support for Haiku, the FreeSoftware rewrite (under BSD/MIT) of BeOS.

Good to see. Haiku is really coming along. Audio support is pretty important for a multimedia OS recreation. :-)