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| compos mentis. Concision. Media. Clarity. Memes. Context. Melange. Confluence. Mishmash. Conflation. Mellifluous. Conviviality. Miscellany. Confelicity. Milieu. Cogent. Minty. Concoction. |
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| Topic: Current Events |
1:03 am EST, Feb 25, 2003 |
Read daily reports from the National Infrastructure Protection Center, which will become part of the Department of Homeland Security effective 1 March 2003. Each report begins with a daily overview, followed by summarized news items (with supporting URLs to the full text) in each of fifteen industry-specific categories. NIPC Daily Report |
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Pony Adds to Its Maverick Image |
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| Topic: Business |
11:50 pm EST, Feb 23, 2003 |
What's next in advertising? "We were talking to the folks at Pony for a long time to see if we could create something interesting ... and this one was perfect for us. We target some of the same people, and Pony is known for sort of hip campaigns, so it made sense." Here's a preview of the next leaflets to be dropped in Iraq ... The caption: "Surrender now and win free Pony sneakers and DVDs. Hurry! Offer ends soon." Pony Adds to Its Maverick Image |
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Firing Memes, US Wages Information War |
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| Topic: Military Technology |
11:34 pm EST, Feb 23, 2003 |
... a wave of official spam offering "get out of Iraq free" cards ... ... cell-phone calls from far-away strangers that block caller ID ... ... urgent advisories telling you to "protect your reputation!" ... ... local coffee houses offer audio propaganda on free CDs ... Ready, aim, fire memes! Firing Memes, US Wages Information War |
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Twilight of the CD? Not if It Can Be Reinvented |
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| Topic: Intellectual Property |
11:12 am EST, Feb 23, 2003 |
... growing anxiety about the future of the CD ... sales decline of nine percent last year ... the economic underpinnings of the CD continue to deteriorate ... ... kids aren't interested in music anymore; "it's about gaming and PlayStation." Twilight of the CD? Not if It Can Be Reinvented |
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Revolutionary T-ray Camera Sees through Clothing and into Deep Space |
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| Topic: Technology |
2:08 pm EST, Feb 22, 2003 |
A project to develop a promising new astronomy imaging technique that can also denude a fully clothed human or see through thick fog has generated its first picture. The technology is poised to revolutionize imaging in astronomy, medicine and airport security, proponents say. Revolutionary T-ray Camera Sees through Clothing and into Deep Space |
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Decimalisation Table Attacks for PIN Cracking [PDF] |
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| Topic: Cryptography |
1:26 pm EST, Feb 22, 2003 |
We present an attack on hardware security modules used by retail banks for the secure storage and verification of customer PINs in ATM (cash machine) infrastructures. By using adaptive decimalisation tables and guesses, the maximum amount of information is learnt about the true PIN upon each guess. It takes an average of 15 guesses to determine a four digit PIN using this technique, instead of the 5000 guesses intended. In a single 30 minute lunch-break, an attacker can thus discover approximately 7000 PINs rather than 24 with the brute force method. With a $300 withdrawal limit per card, the potential bounty is raised from $7200 to $2.1 million and a single motivated attacker could withdraw $30-50 thousand of this each day. This attack thus presents a serious threat to bank security. Ross Anderson's students are getting into the act. (You can also find a mirror copy of this paper, with slightly different formatting, at http://cryptome.org/dtapc.pdf ) Decimalisation Table Attacks for PIN Cracking [PDF] |
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Followup to 'Comments on RAND Building Program' [WAV] |
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| Topic: Miscellaneous |
10:18 pm EST, Feb 17, 2003 |
Since I can neither reply to my own post nor link two URLs with a log entry, I'm posting this separately. Listen to it after you've read the RAND memo. Followup to 'Comments on RAND Building Program' [WAV] |
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Comments on RAND Building Program | December, 1950 |
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| Topic: Miscellaneous |
9:54 pm EST, Feb 17, 2003 |
After a few years in rented quarters, RAND began to plan for its own building to house its staff, including about 250 researchers. John Williams, head of the Mathematics Division, surfaced the idea for creating a building that would increase the probability of chance personal meetings. Such meetings, he argued, would promote the interdisciplinary aspect of RAND -- the use of mixed teams of analysts in addressing a problem. Williams memo to RAND staff, "Comment on RAND Building Program," December 26, 1950, built the case for a system of closed courts or patios -- which led him to the theory of regular lattices, with average distances between points shown in a two-element matrix. The resulting set of patios, he felt, would ensure the maximum number of chance meetings and at the same time enhance, for the RAND staff, the qualities of privacy, quiet, natural light and air, and spaciousness. During the dot-com boom, did any startups put this kind of thought into the architecture of the extravagant buildings they constructed with VC funding? (RAND headquarters is just a few miles down the road from me ...) Comments on RAND Building Program | December, 1950 |
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Geeks Without Borders, by Steven Johnson |
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| Topic: Games |
4:17 pm EST, Feb 17, 2003 |
L3 takes place in virtual space, while the Go Game unfolds on actual city streets. But they share a common denominator: the widening of the game environment. Most forms of entertainment are defined by their edges: the outline of the Monopoly board or the dimensions of a movie screen. To enter the world of the game or the story, you enter a confined space, set off from the real world. Play-space doesn't overlap with ordinary space. But Go and L3 don't play by those rules. Go colonizes an entire city for its playing field; L3 colonizes the entire Web. These are games without frontiers. ... The next time you see a strange street sign in your neighborhood, it might just be a prop in someone else's entertainment, and the next Google search results page you pull down might contain a link to a node in the L3 universe. That's the thing about games without frontiers. You never really know when you're playing. Geeks Without Borders, by Steven Johnson |
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Peking Duct Tape, and Web Logs as Weapons |
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| Topic: International Relations |
12:25 pm EST, Feb 17, 2003 |
There has always been a World of Disorder, but what makes it more dangerous today is that in a networked universe, with widely diffused technologies, open borders and a highly integrated global financial and Internet system, very small groups of people can amass huge amounts of power to disrupt the World of Order. Individuals can become super-empowered. Maybe Google was thinking, "Let's buy now -- we may soon find web logs added to the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) list!" Peking Duct Tape, and Web Logs as Weapons |
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