News and other tidbits that Chad Cloman finds interesting enough to share
A teenage burgler broke in to a furniture store office in Kennewick, Washington, but instead of doing a quick smash-and-grab, he decided to use the office computer for some personal web surfing. This left enough evidence for police to identify him.
Link: http://www.tri-cityherald.com/…
(via The Consumerist)
I really don’t think you can get URLs much smaller than with the TO./ URL Shortener. I had to do some research to understand how it was even possible. Note that the period after the “to” is vital.
Link: http://to./
(via Lifehacker)
Security researcher Christopher Tarnovsky has managed to hack Infineon’s SLE66 CL PE chip, which the company had claimed was unhackable. Despite this, we shouldn’t be overly concerned. Tarnovsky used acid to reveal the chip’s circuitry, and he also required an electron microscope—not something that your average person has sitting around the house. Once he reverse-engineered the chip’s logic, he modified the circuitry to bypass its (formidable) defenses. Tarnovsky then used tiny probes to view the chip’s internal data signals, allowing him to read its stored memory. This just goes to show that unlimited physical access can break almost any security scheme.
Link #1: http://www.darkreading.com/…
Link #2: http://localtechwire.com/…
From the article: “In retrospect, going on the “Dr. Phil” television show to talk about their shoplifting exploits did not … work very well for Matthew and Nora Eaton.”
Link: http://www.signonsandiego.com/…
(via Neatorama)
Here at the Chad’s News Network Command Center, we haven’t yet taken plunge and purchased an SSD, even though we know it’s a simple-but-expensive way to speed up a computer. SSDs are becoming more popular, and as the prices decrease, more system administrators are thinking about using them at the enterprise level. Unfortunately, all is not well, and enterprise SSDs may not be such a good idea—or at least should cause one to take a good, hard look at their specifications.
The linked article warns about the case where an SSD’s internal transfer rate isn’t fast enough to support both its external transfers and its wear leveling activities. In such a case, the effective transfer rate will drop below the advertised rate, sometimes by a significant amount. The author also warns about using SSDs in a RAID system. The SSDs are simply too fast for the current crop of high-end RAID controllers, thus lowering the effective transfer rate of the drives due to bottlenecks in the RAID hardware.
Please note that these issues only apply to high-performance, high-traffic systems. They won’t affect the normal person with a single-user desktop or laptop computer.
Link: http://www.enterprisestorageforum.com/…
(via Slashdot)
Social Networking Rule #1: don’t post photos of yourself doing stupid things. In this case, a woman named Ashley Sullivan received a stiffer criminal sentence because of pictures she posted to her Facebook page.
Link: http://arstechnica.com/…
Health reform is now law in the United States, but it’s a far cry from the government-run healthcare that exists in the United Kingdom and Canada. It boils down to this:
Link #1: http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/…
Link #2: http://www.salon.com/…
Barbie has certainly come a long way since her inception in 1959.
Link #1: http://www.engadget.com/…
Link #2: http://shop.mattel.com/…
When falling great distances, the primary survival mechanism is luck. But don’t forget to clench your butt.
Link: http://www.origin.popularmechanics.com/…
(via Digg)
In Internet-speak, a proxy is a server that takes your request, sends it to a destination server as if it were coming from the proxy itself, and then sends the response back to you. It acts as a proxy in much the same way that you can use a lawyer as an intermediary or designate someone else to cast your vote at a stockholder meeting. Internet proxies can be used for a variety of purposes, one of which is anonymous browsing.
An anonymous proxy keeps no permanent record of which users have connected to which websites. And since the page request comes from the proxy itself, there is no easy way to track who is actually making the request. (In reality the use of multiple, chained proxies is recommended.) This anonymity is quite beneficial for whistle blowers and victims of political oppression, as well as the privacy- and security-conscious. But it also works for organized crime, terrorists, and other criminals.
Another popular use of proxies (not necessarily anonymous ones) is to circumvent corporate/government filters. The destination website may be blocked, but the proxy server is not—thus allowing the user to view prohibited websites.
Here are additional resources:
Thanks to Josh for this topic and the links.
At last January’s Consumer Electronics Show, consumer 3D television technology was a major presence. Expect to see actual products for sale later this year.
The good news is that the various industry players appear to be standardizing on active shutter glasses. The secret of 3D technology is that a slightly different picture is presented to each eye. Carefully crafted images can thus fool the brain into perceiving depth. With the old red and blue glasses, pictures for one eye were in red and the other in blue. The red lens would only be able to see the blue picture, and the blue lens would only be able to see the red picture. Thus each eye saw different images. The newer 3D systems in theaters use polarization. Two slightly different “movies” are displayed at the same time. The movie for one eye is polarized a certain way, and the movie for the other eye is polarized at (I assume) 90 degrees to the first. The glasses contain polarized lens that only allow the appropriate movie to be seen by the correct eye, thus showing a different movie to each eye. With active shutter glasses, rather than projecting both movies at the same time, the television quickly alternates between the movie for each eye, first showing the frame for the left eye, then the frame for the right, and so on. The glasses alternate at the same frequency, first leaving the left eye transparent and the right eye opaque, then vice-versa. This happens quickly enough that we don’t consciously notice the change. But the brain does, and it perceives the movie as being in 3D.
To actually watch a 3D movie at home, you’ll need a compatible television. Expect satellite and cable TV companies to start broadcasting some channels in 3D, but I believe the primary use will be with Blu-ray. For this, you’ll need a player that supports both HDMI 1.4 High Speed HDMI and the new Blu-ray 3D spec. The Sony PS3, of course, will upgrade with no problem. But for those of you encumbered with an “old” Blu-ray player, time to junk it and buy a newer model (or at least check and see if it’s possible to update the firmware).
I personally dislike 3D movies because putting the glasses over my prescription frames is awkward and annoying. But if active shutter technology becomes ubiquitous, then perhaps opticians will start offering prescription versions, like they currently do with sunglasses, ski goggles, and dive masks.
June 12th is the US government’s official cutoff date for wireless microphones that transmit in the 700MHz band. Turns out that these microphones, employed by quite a few churches, schools, and sporting venues, have been “squatting” in the upper regions of the UHF television spectrum (specifically channels 52 through 69). As part of the whole DTV transition, those channels are no longer being used for broadcast television, and rights to that part of the spectrum have been sold to various telecom companies. Starting June 12th it will be illegal to use the old microphones, forcing many organizations to purchase new equipment.
Link: http://arstechnica.com/…
