This matter is open for public comment until April 4th.

] In a misguided attempt to make US passports more secure,
] the US Department of State plans to put radio frequency
] identification (RFID) chips in all new passports. This
] RFID chip will contain the same information currently on
] our passports, including the passport holder's name, date
] and place of birth, passport number and photograph.
]
] In a dangerous world where Americans are targeted by
] thieves, kidnappers and terrorists, the RFID-chipped US
] passport will turn tourists into targets, and American
] business travelers will transmit their identities to
] kidnappers wherever they go, thanks to the US State
] Department.
]
] Close up, the information broadcast from the RFID chip
] can be read by anyone with an inexpensive electronic
] reader. Farther away, the RFID chip can be activated
] enough to identify the passport holder as an American.
]
] From identity theft to identity death, an RFID-chipped US
] passport means good news for the bad guys.

RFIDKills.com

] The Mac BitTorrent client with a live 3D view of your swarm

Neat!

Bits on Wheels

] LGL is a compendium of applications for making the
] visualization of large networks and trees tractable. LGL
] was specifically motivated by the need to make the
] visualization and exploration of large biological
] networks more accessible. Essentially the network is a
] graph, which is the data that you define, and LGL is
] responsible for showing it to you.

Soon to be played with...

Large Graph Layout (LGL) - Beyond Graphviz

] SHA-1 has been broken. Not a reduced-round version. Not a
] simplified version. The real thing.

All your digital signatures are belong to us.

You have no chance to survive make new keys.

(well, not really new keys, but you get the drift)

Schneier on Security: SHA-1 Broken

Chopper, sic balls!!

Pet's Mobility - Moble phones for dogs

] According to the DREAD Advantages Sheet, "unlike
] conventional weapons that deliver a bullet to the target
] in intervals of about 180 feet, the DREAD's rounds will
] arrive only 30 thousandths of an inch apart (1/32nd of an
] inch apart), thereby presenting substantially more mass
] to the target in much less time than previously
] possible." This mass can be delivered to the target in
] 10-round bursts, or the DREAD can be programmed to
] deliver as many rounds as you want, per trigger-pull. Of
] course, the operator can just as easily set the DREAD to
] fire on full-auto, with no burst limiter. On that
] setting, the number of projectiles sent down range per
] trigger-pull will rely on the operator's trigger
] control. Even then, every round is still going right into
] the target. You see, the DREAD's not just accurate, it's
] also recoilless. No recoil. None. So, every "fired" round
] is going right where you aim it.

According to this, it can basically fire a column of steel, at a operator defined length.

Defense Review - World Exclusive Video! DREAD Weapon System: Devastating, Jam-Proof, and Silent.

] If there were a Luther for the internet, he might post
] (presumably on his blog, rather than on a church door)
] some set of theses that seemed to him self-evident but
] that few involved in the church of the day were
] previously prepared to utter. With apologies to the real
] Luther, they might look something like the following:
]
] In the Name of Jon Postel.

The comments in this essay are good, although I do not feel they qualify as justification for services that are far from then edge in nature like Sitefinder. Aside from only several points that could be used very effectively out of a context, I don't think it supported a pro-Sitefinder argument well at all.

Well written fodder. Makes good points, but does so in a real loaded way. As a defense for say new TLDs with different ways of handling things, fine. Justification for significant changes to the way .com/.net work, its well written troll bait.

(I still think that function should be handled by the client, and that it is harmful if done as a DNS wildcard. I also believe that even if ICANN was not there, it still would have been fought off successfully by the Internet community.)

Susan Crawford blog :: Time for Reformation of the Internet

] The ability to have a presence should of course be
] available to anyone; but the ability to act in cyberspace
] - for example, to collect someone's personal
] information or their money - should be accompanied
] by some accountability.

Esther Dyson's take on how to solve the phishing problems. Be sure to read the comments. Tom makes an appearance pointing out that what begins with the DNS system and the location bar, might end with SSL certificates, and better handling of the elements (UI and otherwise) surrounding their usage and certification.

The Accountable Net: Who Should Be Accountable?

] Google Scholar enables you to search specifically for
] scholarly literature, including peer-reviewed papers,
] theses, books, preprints, abstracts and technical reports
] from all broad areas of research. Use Google Scholar to
] find articles from a wide variety of academic publishers,
] professional societies, preprint repositories and
] universities, as well as scholarly articles available
] across the web.

Another good way to slice into Google is born. I just tossed a few queries at it with various combinations of terms like "intellectual property", "spontaneous sociability", "social capital", "social network", reputation, scarcity, meme, etc. A number of interesting looking papers were turning up that would never have made it into a standard Google search. Much more inclusive and with a better UI then diving into individual repositories like citeseer.

Google Scholar

] Acidus writes "While researching for an embedded systems
] project (a magstripe enabled Coke machine), I was shocked
] by the lack of magstripe information: Programs/code that
] would run on a modern OS were all but nonexistant,
] articles that were 6-10 years old, etc.

Acidus is on Slashdot today. That's the hardcore geek year 2k+ version of being on TV.

He's done an extremely good job with the StripeSnoop site. All the information you'd need to get up to speed on working with magstripe stuff is there in the form of FAQ's, diagrams, and even video.

Also, I just sync'd the SiteSnoop CVS tree, and it is building on OSX now as well.

Acidus is the authoritative source on magstrip interfacing