Why don’t people get it? Centralised databases are dreadfull things! The CIOT (Centraal Informatiepunt Onderzoek Telecommunicatie) database, which contains IP addresses, email addresses and name and address data, is accessed around 3m times a year. Apparently only 1% of these accesses is legal. Not only that, but users freely trade logins to the database, meaning [...]

Wikileaks has released logs from the Afghanistan war covering 2004 – 2010. The amount of data is massive and Wikileaks is down Wikleaks The Guardian has a good rundown going on about the data and has some analysis. Afghanistan war logs: live blog | World news | guardian.co.uk.

So anyone with a friend in the Greek police force (and by friend I mean name and bank account number) can find out allll kinds of stuff about anyone in the database – which will soon be everyone. Sounds secure. Not. Vingerafdruk Nederlanders in 2011 Europees gedeeld | Webwereld.

Apple claims that allthough it the new privacy policy enables them to gather and share this information, the information is anonymised and is currently not being shared with anyone. The information is sent in batches every 12 hours and the collection can be turned off by changing the setting on locational services to off. So… [...]

This cracks the encryption or forces a mobile to drop the encryption much much faster than traditional methods. New ‘Kraken’ GSM-cracking software is released – Telecommunication, security, mobile, GSM Association, black hat, A5/1 Security Project – PC World.

Basically it’s a web based virtualbox interface that allows you start or stop virtual machines as well as change their settings. phpvirtualbox – Project Hosting on Google Code.

India unveils prototype of $35 tablet computer – Yahoo! News.

This is what it looks like to be lasered down Raytheon airs video at Farnborough Airshow of CIWS laser shooting down drone | News.com.au.

This thing basically uses a line scanner which rotates quickly enough to give the illusion of a 360o viewable 3d image Sony 360-Degree Autostereoscopic Display Prototype « THE FIRE WIRE.

In a growning and disconcerting trend among hardware manufacturers, TI has released a new version of it’s OS for the TI-Nspire series, that blocks off a whole load of its’ user base from using the machine the way they want to. I guess Apple, Android, TI, et al are afraid that the community will program [...]

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency JAXA would like to announce that we have confirmed the successful acceleration of the Small Solar Power Sail Demonstrator “IKAROS” by photon 1 in the course of determining its precise orbit after its sail deployment. The IKAROS was launched by JAXA on May 21 2010 Japan Standard time and all [...]

An upper layer of Earth s atmosphere recently collapsed in an unexpectedly large contraction the sheer size of which has scientists scratching their heads NASA announced Thursday. The layer of gas – called the thermosphere – is now rebounding again. This type of collapse is not rare but its magnitude shocked scientists. “This is the [...]

Android users all seem to throw about that it’s an open architecture, but it quite simply isn’t. In order to do everything on an Android phone you have to root it, which is the same as jailbreaking it. Motorola has taken the extreme measure of making sure that if it gets rooted, it’ll completely fuck [...]

Unexpected deviations in gravity are indicative of differences in density. If you point your detector (a gravity gradiometer) in that direction, you can tell what kind of structure is underground. Lockheed Martin is calling this the GATE (Gravity Anomaly for Tunnel Exposure) programme. Using Gravity to Detect Underground Threats | Lockheed Martin.

New Zealand has had a look at how the US software patents work and the mess they’ve made of things, so they’ve written up a bill stating that software is unpatentable. NZCS News – – NZ Computer Society.

This shows how from every $1000,- of revenue, the average music artist makes around $23,- out of which the record company then recoups ‘expenses’. ” In a traditional loan, you invest the money and pay back out of your proceeds. But a record label deal is nothing like that at all. They make you a [...]

Terahertz Detectors Could See Through Your Clothes From a Mile Away.

So, Lucas is still making money off Star Wars and defending his copyright left right and centre (see also the lightsabre article), but the actor who played the body of Darth Vader is cut out completely. Because DMCA protects the artists, right? Darth Vader Actor Banned From STAR WARS Convention.

Scientists find antibodies that prevent most HIV strains from infecting human cells — Science Blog.

Not only that, but presenting people with facts can entrench them further in their beliefs. People willfully ignore facts that don’t correspond to their opinions. “This bodes ill for a democracy, because most voters — the people making decisions about how the country runs — aren’t blank slates. They already have beliefs, and a set [...]

Finally the Mac gets to see all the contents of the iphone as a usb disk device Phone Disk Mounts iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad as USB Disks in Finder.

Star Wars creator George Lucas is trying to stop a company from making a high-powered laser that bloggers around the world have dubbed “a real-life lightsaber”. The laser is cool, but isn’t called a lightsaber by the producer. It’s bloggers that made teh comparison. This goes to show how outdated copyright law is: the original [...]

iH8sn0w.com | Jailbreak your iPod touches and iPhones. Also an instruction on how to jailbreak your 3gs with new bootrom

Looks very easy to build too a little brown egg in Maine: terra cotta smoker.

This list includes distros for specific tasks: Damn Vulnerable Linux Tinfoil Hat Linux CAINE (digital forensics) CAELinux (engineering) a gaming linux Parated Magic (for manipulating your hard disk) Musix GNU + Linux (for making music) ZeroShell (for embedded systems) Mythbuntu and some very very small distro’s. 12 of the most interesting, unusual and useful Linux [...]