Let's say you just bought a Mercedes S550, a state-of-the-art, high-tech vehicle with an antitheft keyless ignition system. After pulling into a Starbucks to celebrate with a grande latte and a scone while checking your messages on a BlackBerry, a man in a T-shirt and jeans with a laptop sits next to you and starts up a friendly conversation: "Is that the S550? How do you like it so far?" Eager to share, you converse for a few minutes, then the man thanks you and is gone. A moment later you look up to discover your new Mercedes is gone as well. Now, decrypting one 40-bit code sequence can not only disengage the security system and unlock the doors, it can also start the car--making the hack tempting for thieves. The owner of the code is now the true owner of the car. And while high-end, high-tech auto thefts like this are more common in Europe today, they will soon start happening in America. The sad thing is that manufacturers of keyless devices don't seem to care.

As the F-Secure blog put it -- you wouldn't dream of securing 100$K of information with a 40-bit encryption system, right?

And my first thought -- as in general with electronic locks -- is that as Matt Blaze has shown, analog keys are far worse. Look at your car key, or your house key -- how many real bits of information are encoded?

But the electronic start and everything else... it feels too clean. The advantageous property of analog cracking is that in public, it requires the criminal to act in some way that is different from a legitimate user. The scenerio presented was that I sit near the car or key holder for a couple of minutes -- no sign of entry -- and then to steal the car I just walk up to it, laptop in bag, like I had pressed the remote in my pocket, car starts and off we go.

Also, traditional lock-picking also requires the criminal to possess a skill that requires practice. With these electronic systems, people will download the right script... Script-kiddie car thieves?

Security Watch: Gone in 60 seconds--the high-tech version - CNET reviews

"With Italian models, all you need are scissors," he says.

But as technology increasingly countered traditional methods of car theft, the thieves themselves have had to adapt. "Now you need a lot more technology," Souček says.

Souček says he used a laptop that he modified to be able to disarm car security systems.

Fascinating about car theft rates in the Czech Republic.

Fascinating about how confident this well-known and outspoken car thief is that he'll get off. Because the Czech government requires the release of anyone held for more than a year without charge, and because they caught him with his laptop. His laptop with a comprehensive list of the cars he stole (connected to 150 cars in a six-month period)... and therefore the scope of bringing charges is so large.

The Prague Post Online

Pre-Op Panic

There appears to be a process that people go through with a major surgery and learning about it can help ease the nerves. Here goes my non-scientific take on the subject.

Once the emotional commitment is made to have the surgery there's usually a period of several months before the procedure can be scheduled. Preperation, a little anxiety, and a lot of 'what-if' thinking is common during this phase. It's very common to need feedback from your family and friends to confirm that your decision is sound, so go ahead, ask for it.

Then, about 1 or 2 weeks before the surgery will come the "Oh My G....!" feeling. This restarts the whole decision-making process, investigation, and questioning if this is really the best thing to do. Some people even decide to bail out and contact the Doctor's office to postpone or reschedule. Rationality usually triumphs as Doctors and family members apply reassurance. You're normal, celebrate.

Then, about 1 or 2 days before the surgery will come another period of panic, doubt and fear. This one is usually easier because you've been down the path before, but it's still very scary and can result in disrupted sleep, mild depression, and a loss of appetite. Exercise and staying busy helps a lot if you're able.

The last burst will come while you're in pre-op. For a while you'll be distracted by insurance paperwork, funny gowns, and endless questioning about what countries you've visted. After that, there's a calm time and the brain and emotions move in for the kill. "What have I done?", "Is this the right thing?", "Ok, I've changed my mind!". Don't worry, this is totatly normal. If you've decided to change your mind, you'll have several nurses and family members there by your side to convince you otherwise. I promise, you're not the first.

The uncomfortable waiting will be over when the anesthesiologist shows up and inserts the Cool-Aid. "Who cares", "do anything you want", and "whatever" will be your new mottos.

After surgery you'll give a sigh of relief. No more worrying about whether you should go through with it - it's over, done with, what was all the fuss about.
Oh......I feel terrible.....

The last phase happens in about 2-3 months. You'll be sitting there and realize that it's all behind you. All that pre-op worry was for nought. Glimpses of anxiety in your memory will seem silly.

You may or may not go through each of these phases, and you may have your own special phase or two, but for the most part we all go through this emotional act of self-defense.
Isn't it nice to know it's all perfectly normal?

Roger's MMA BiMax Surgery for Sleep Apnea Blog with Dr. Powell at Stanford

LONDON (Reuters) - Apple Computer has won its trademark dispute with the Beatles, part of a long and winding road of legal battles which may lead the band's famous songs to the door of Apple's market-leading iTunes Music Store.

Someone had too much fun writing a lede.

Apple Computer wins trademark dispute vs Beatles - Yahoo! News

Arial is everywhere. If you don't know what it is, you don't use a modern personal computer. Arial is a font that is familiar to anyone who uses Microsoft products, whether on a PC or a Mac. It has spread like a virus through the typographic landscape and illustrates the pervasiveness of Microsoft's influence in the world.

Arial's ubiquity is not due to its beauty. It's actually rather homely. Not that homeliness is necessarily a bad thing for a typeface. With typefaces, character and history are just as important. Arial, however, has a rather dubious history and not much character. In fact, Arial is little more than a shameless impostor.

The Scourge of Arial

Web design and development involves three levels:

* Web management
* interaction design (navigation support, homepage layout, templates, search, etc.)
* content design (the actual writing on the pages, as well as the design of any other media types used to communicate content as opposed to site interaction)

Just as in a hamburger, the middle layer is the most tasty and attracts the most attention, including much of my own work on Web usability. I have come to realize that the outer two layers are more important in many ways: users only care about content (in other words, no, the medium is not the message; the message is the message) and the usability of a website is more a function of how it is managed than of how good its designers are.

From 1997, but still surprisingly relevant.

Top Ten Mistakes of Web Management (Alertbox June 1997)

Registries are close-mouthed about the number of domains that are refunded, but informed estimates from Bret Fausett, citing VeriSign’s Stratton Scavlos, and from Godaddy’s Bob Parsons say that it’s grown in recent months to be about 99% of them. That’s bad.

In Bad Taste

A modern maxim says: People tend to overestimate what can be done in one year and to underestimate what can be done in five or ten years

Amara's law - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

These documents were drafted to offer a "template" set of public domain model legal documents that are "fair [and] avoid bias toward the VC or the company/entrepreneur" and reflect "current practices and customs". By providing these documents, the NVCA has made my job much easier. I routinely use the NVCA docs as the baseline for First Round Capital's term sheets. Doing so allows me to (1) clearly communicate to entrepreneurs that I am not looking for any non-standard terms, (2) reduce the legal fees of both parties, and (3) get a deal closed much faster than I would if I had to start from scratch. The documents also note where the East coast and West coast differ in their standard terms - a feature which has been useful as I invest bi-coastally.

Redeye VC: Open Source Venture Financing Documents

DARPA announces Urban Challenge. Teams will compete to build an autonomous vehicle able to complete a 60-mile urban course safely in less than 6 hours.

Grand Challenge Home