] Nokia will make an internal version of the Perl scripting
] language for Series 60 smartphones available to its
] developer community, Lee Epting, Nokia's VP of Developer
] Relations, tells us. Nokia acknowledges a demand for more
] developer options as Nokia's Symbian-based Series 60
] platform reaches mass market volumes.

This qualifies as "rad".

The Register | Nokia to release Perl for smartphones

] In a rare wireless hacking prosecution, federal officials
] this week accused two Michigan men of repeatedly cracking
] the Lowe's chain of home improvement stores' nationwide
] network from a 1995 Pontiac Grand Prix parked outside a
] suburban Detroit store.

This was covered earlier. However, this article by Kevin Poulsen (who is quite familiar with computer crime) has much more detail about the timeline of events. This is a hacker positive article, but it also fully acknowledges that these guys went way over the line. This wasn't some case of wardriving, or even just network probes, and it went way beyond anything that could be even be considered "harmless machine intrusions". No vague grey ethical line to stand on here.. These guys got caught installing a sniffer to monitor credit card transactions across Lowes' entire company network. There is not that much detail about how Lowes caught them, but it sounds like they broke so much stuff on the network screwing around that Lowes was alerted to their presence.

] Timmins and Botbyl, known online as "noweb4u" and "itszer0"
] respectively, are also part of the Michigan 2600 scene -- an
] informal collection of technology geeks that meet, blog, eat
] pizza and attend hacker conventions together, but generally
] balk at penetrating systems or otherwise committing felonies.

I was actively involved in "the 2600 scene" in the southeast several years ago. This would not have been condoned behavior. I'm sure for the bulk of the people in the mi scene it isn't there either. But this also doesn't really surprise me..

This is of interest.. The following was snagged from a 2600 mailing list in the southeast, which will remain unattributed in order to maintain a certain level of pointlessly transparent hacker mystique:

] hmmmmmm.....michigan....
] Article mentions immaturity....
] doing some rough math here.....
] idiots at phreaknic that were cutting the lan wires a couple
] of yrs ago were from michigan...
] One wonders what's in the water up there !??
]
] On a positive note, the article was fair....

Hmm.. My curious side wonders if there is a connection between the wire cutting that year and the mentality that picks the nym 'noweb4u'.. Anyone familiar with the scene up there care to shed some light on this? :)

So anyway.. We seem to have a good track record with rehabilitating criminal hackers by turning them into journalists and other such things. [smirk] Their bail was only set at $10k, which isn't actually that bad.. They can still use computers for work and school. So in a way, this is a step forward from the draconian handling of these things in the past. At least on face, the handling of this seems reasonable thus far. The initial vibes of mass hysteria and stupidity that I'd normally expect doesn't seem to be present.. Due Process even..

SecurityFocus HOME News: Wireless hacking bust in Michigan

] John Perry Barlow: Dump the Doodads, and Retrofit
] the Brain
]
] Scott Adams: Puss Can Run, but He Can't Hide
]
] Michael K. Powell: Zap! The Form's Filled Out
]
] Donald J. Trump: Your Wish Is My Command
]
] William Gibson: Lies Exposed in Telltale Colors
]
] Moby: A High That Wouldn't Hurt
]
] Bill Joy: Memo to My Borsalino: Quiet!

Ideas Unlimited, Built to Order

] The Wartsila-Sulzer RTA96-C turbocharged two-stroke
] diesel engine is the most powerful and most efficient
] prime-mover in the world today.

wow... 5,608,312 foot pounds of torque!!! Someone needs to build a muscle car with this engine...

The Most Powerful Diesel Engine in the World

] The reason that I have over 700 BBS programs listed on
] the documentary site is not just because there were so
] many platforms to program them, but because the balance
] of the software and the hardware against the very root of
] humanity's nature is a problem, a difficulty, far deeper
] and greater than any specific issues of the moment.

Latest post from Jason Scott on the BoingBoing sidebar waxes about his big picture conclusions about the BBS scene.

Why Jason Scott doesn't run a BBS.

] As such, the Internet has a non-zero momentary data
] storage capacity. It is possible to push out a piece of
] information and effectively have it stored until echoed
] back. By establishing a mechanism for cyclic transmission
] and reception of chunks of data to and from a number of
] remote hosts, it is possible to maintain an arbitrary
] amount of data constantly `on the wire', thus
] establishing a high-capacity volatile medium.

Juggling with packets

] If all nuclear weapons vanished tomorrow, the world's
] current military situation would not be affected one
] whit. The U.S.A. would still be military top boss.
] Yet we'd be much less likely to wake up one morning
] to find Paris or Washington missing.

This is just plain ignorance. Without nukes for instance, whats to stop a billion Chinese from storming the far east of Russia, which is resource rich and EMPTY? The United States has enough formidable conventional power that nukes aren't really neccesary. For a nation to openly attack the US is paramount to suicide. Other nuclear nations cannot boast such conventional power, and nuclear weapons still act as a deterrant for aggression against these states.

Ten Technologies That Deserve to Die

] 2.13 x 0.94 x 0.08 in
] (54 x 24 x 2.1 mm)

The picture of this thing that appears on my monitor is larger then the device itself. 802.11 is now small enough for use in bugs.

Socket Communications: SDIO Wireless LAN CF Card

] A GROUP from the open source / free software community
] has put together a response to SCO CEO Darl McBride's
] "Open Letter to the Open Source Community". The INQUIRER
] is glad to print Groklaw's "Dear Darl" letter, along with
] their research.

Neat.

Groklaw sends a Dear Darl letter

] An international group of cryptographers, the Kryptos
] Group, announced this week that the decade-old Cyrillic
] Projector Code has been cracked, and that it deciphers to
] some classified KGB instructions and correspondence.
]
] The Cyrillic Projector is an encrypted sculpture at the
] University of North Carolina in Charlotte, that was
] created by Washington DC artist James Sanborn in the
] early 1990s. It was inspired by the encrypted Kryptos
] sculpture that Sanborn created two years earlier for CIA
] Headquarters.
]
] The message on the Cyrillic Projector has turned out to
] be in two parts. The decrypted first part is a Russian
] text encouraging secret agents to psychologically control
] potential sources of information. The second part appears
] to be a partial quote from classified KGB correspondence
] about the Soviet dissident Sakharov, with concerns that
] his report to the Pugwash conference was being used by
] the Americans for an anti-Soviet agenda.

Press Release: The Cyrillic Projector Code Has Been Solved