Decius wrote:

CMP Media, a marketing solutions company serving the technology, healthcare and entertainment markets, announced today that it has acquired Black Hat Inc., a producer of information security conferences and training that includes Black Hat Briefings and Conferences.

One fears the impact of this will be trouble... What is the association between CMP and Defcon?!

If this is the same CMP Media that bought the Game Developers Conference (and it looks like it), you can expect that (1) whoever "owned" Black Hat made a lot of money; (2) that the price of the conference is going to go up; and (3) that there's going to be a different set of standards in terms of how speakers are chosen, since this responsibility is going to transfer over to CMP instead of the original organizers (we've had a lot of complaints about that at the GDC).

My own question, now, about the transition, is whether or not Black Hat is an established enough "brand" that it will continue to draw quality speakers and attendees, regardless of who owns/runs the conference, or whether some other conference that remains privately-owned is going to become the venue of choice.

RE: BlackHat sells out.

Sony.

Sony has a rootkit.

The rootkit phones home.

Phoning home requires a DNS query.

DNS queries are cached.

Caches are externally testable (great paper, Luis!), provided you have a list of all the name servers out there.

It just so happens I have such a list, from the audits I've been running from http://deluvian.doxpara.com .

So what did I find?

Much, much more than I expected.

It now appears that at least 568,200 nameservers have witnessed DNS queries related to the rootkit. How many hosts does this correspond to? Only Sony (and First4Internet) knows...unsurprisingly, they are not particularly communicative. But at that scale, it doesn't take much to make this a multi-million host, worm-scale Incident. The process of discovering this has led to some significant advances in the art of cache snooping. Here are some of the factors I've dealt with . . .

Interesting data, courtesy of Dan Kaminsky.

Kaminsky Analysis of Sony Rootkit traffic

We investigate the efficacy of three aluminum helmet designs on a sample group of four individuals. Using a $250,000 network analyser, we find that although on average all helmets attenuate invasive radio frequencies in either directions (either emanating from an outside source, or emanating from the cranium of the subject), certain frequencies are in fact greatly amplified. These amplified frequencies coincide with radio bands reserved for government use according to the Federal Communication Commission (FCC). Statistical evidence suggests the use of helmets may in fact enhance the government's invasive abilities. We speculate that the government may in fact have started the helmet craze for this reason.

LOL

Tin Foil Hats a government conspiracy!

At a breakfast with reporters sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor, Carter, 81, diverged from a time-honored practice in which ex-presidents refrain from criticizing those currently holding the office. He acknowledged making mistakes when he was president from 1977-81, and at one point declared: "I can't deny that I am a better ex-president than I was a president."

But he said Bush has made such significant changes to U.S. foreign policy and human rights doctrine, resulting in precipitous declines in the country's standing abroad, that he felt compelled to write "Our Endangered Values." It is Carter's 20th book since he was defeated for re-election by Ronald Reagan in 1980.
 . . .
Carter, who supported the invasion of Afghanistan, said public opinion in the Arab world has turned strongly against the United States since the invasion of Iraq, creating a deep impression among Muslims that the U.S. is on a "crusade" against Islam.

Carter said Arab leaders he regularly consults with believe the United States intends to maintain permanent military bases in Iraq irrespective of how that country's transformation to self-rule plays out. Removing U.S. forces from Muslim nations could reduce "95 percent" of the terrorist threat from Islamic fundamentalism, Carter said.

Carter also aims heavy criticism at fellow Democrats. He said John Kerry's 2004 presidential campaign ignored the concerns of the "very religious" and that his party has overemphasized abortion rights.

"I have never been convinced ... that Jesus Christ would approve abortion," Carter said, adding that as president, "I did everything I could under Roe vs. Wade ... to minimize the need for abortion." But many Democratic leaders today "are overemphasizing the abortion issue," Carter said.

Layin' into *both* sides, that's what I like. Go Jimmy. :)

USATODAY.com - Breaking tradition, Carter rips Bush's policies

This site will provide you with a DNS report for your domain. A very large percentage of domains have DNS problems; this site will help you find those problems and fix them. Also, the "Mail Test" tool will help find mail delivery problems for your domain. This site is a sister site to www.DNSstuff.com, which has many other DNS and networking tools.

Handy.

DNS Report

Original ragdoll animation by Pekka, http://pekkasandborg.com; subsequent modification into Bush Freefall by an unknown Flash animation guru
Drag the little ragdoll if he gets stuck.
And speed up or slow down gravity with your left/right arrow keys.

Political statement aside, this is a very cute use of mathematics and Flash.

Bush in Freefall

A ballerina gracefully dances on a small stage. She is followed not by a male partner, but by a robotic arm manipulator that seems to sense her every move. For NASA Goddard technologist Vladimir Lumelsky, the performance shows the future of robotics.

Okay, sorry, but when I looked at this video, it sure didn't look like an *arm*. In fact, I'd be willing to brand this as "not safe for work." ;)

http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/mpeg/115084main_ballerina.mpeg

http://www.nasa.gov/mpeg/115088main_vlad_skin.mpeg

NASA - High-Tech Robot Skin

One of the mathematicians that I met at the NSA crypto conference has a hobby of manipulating palindromic numbers, like squaring them or looking for cases where adding palindromic numbers results in a palindromic sum. This webpage lists some of the things that have been observed.

Palindromic Sums

10.28.05 - As we near completion of our speaker selection process, we are excited to clue you in on the second round of selected speakers for ShmooCon 2006, which includes: Richard Bejtlich, Damin, Deviant Ollam, Elonka Dunin, HellNbak, Jason Scott, Hendrik Scholz, Eric Smith, Joel Wilbanks, and superstar of "The Matrix: Reloaded"... Fyodor!

Shaping up to be quite a con! Who else is planning on going? January 13-15, 2006, Washington DC.

Elonka :)

ShmooCon 2006 - Speaker List Updated

McDonald's Corp. announced Tuesday that it will display nutrition information on the packaging for most of its menu items next year.

This is a good step, but I'd also like to see them do something like color-code items by sodium content, and percentage of calories from fat.

For me to believe that McDonald's was genuinely interested in promoting public health (as opposed to encouraging obesity as a way of increasing sales), I'd have to see them change the way they do promotions. For example, in the recent popular Monopoly "collect the stickers" promotion, it was a very limited subset of items that had the stickers - fried chicken strips, large french fries, hash browns, and drinks. They could have easily put the promotional stickers on small or medium-size food items, and on their salads, but they didn't. Instead, it appears that they are actively trying to encourage people to buy large portion high-fat foods. A large fries has about 500 calories in it. That's more calories than an entire bacon ranch salad with chicken!

RE: McDonald's Plans to Put Nutrition Information on Packages