PhreakNIC 0x0b presentation from CypherGhost on the funny rules surrounding what you can and can't ship via the USPS, as well as why some things take longer than others.

I've also been meaning to watch this. I hear he mailed a sphere. :) I think I can take 45 minutes this morning....

PhreakNIC 0x0b Day 1 - 04 - CypherGhost - Postal Experiments

] Diplomats from 191 countries meet this week in Geneva for
] the three-day United Nations World Summit on the
] Information Society. It's the occasion for The Helloworld
] Project to project thousands of 500-foot-high laser-light
] SMS messages onto the Geneva fountain.
]
] Internet users everywhere can post billboard thoughts
] almost instantly onto the fountain -- or onto the
] northern façade of New York's U.N. building, the face of
] a mountain in Rio de Janeiro or the front of a Bombay
] skyscraper.

It's like a sanctioned 2600 hack!

Go Tell It on the Mountain

]The Wacky Patent of the Month is devoted to recognizing selected
]inventors and their remarkable and unconventional patented
]inventions.

As of 4/24/03 this site if profileing a dimple making machieen, yes the dimples people have on their cheeks.

The Wacky Patent of the Month Site

"Built for a game of Cthulhu Lives! that has yet to be played, this piece was inspired by the retro-futuristic machines in the movie Brazil by Terry Gilliam. It was one of the most difficult and time-consuming pieces I've ever attempted.

"Despite the ridiculous amount of abuse I subjected it to, and despite the fact that all its components are now exposed to the air, the 1988 Macintosh SE which forms the heart of this piece still works just fine. "

The ElectriClerk

Nothing here is new, but a generaly good read.

Exerpt

{The ARPA Computer Network is susceptible to security violations for at least the three following reasons:

(1) Individual sites, used to physical limitations on machine access, have not yet taken sufficient precautions toward securing their systems against unauthorized remote use. For example, many people still use passwords which are easy to guess: their fist names, their initials, their host name spelled backwards, a string of characters which are easy to type in sequence (e.g. ZXCVBNM).

(2) The TIP allows access to the ARPANET to a much wider audience than is thought or intended. TIP phone numbers are posted, like those scribbled hastily on the walls of phone booths and men's rooms. The TIP required no user identification before giving service. Thus, many people, including those who used to spend their time ripping off Ma Bell, get access to our stockings in a most anonymous way.

(3) There is lingering affection for the challenge of breaking someone's system. This affection lingers despite the fact that everyone knows that it's easy to break systems, even easier to crash them.

All of this would be quite humorous and cause for raucous eye winking and elbow nudging, if it weren't for the fact that in recent weeks at least two major serving hosts were crashed under suspicious circumstances by people who knew what they were risking; on yet a third system, the system wheel password was compromised -- by two high school students in Los Angeles no less.

We suspect that the number of dangerous security violations is larger than any of us know is growing. You are advised not to sit "in hope that Saint Nicholas would soon be there".}

Basics of Spoofing, a good read for those interested in networking.

] According to the replacement page, the madonna.com
] defacement was supposedly "brought to you by the editors
] of Phrack," an online hacker magazine whose web site
] notes that it does not "advocate, condone nor participate
] in any sort of illicit behavior. But we will sit back and
] watch." In an e-mail exchange, a Phrack representative
] told TSG, "We have no link with this guy in any way, and
] we don't even know his identity."

Ha!

Madonna done got herself hacked.

] Aircraft designer Burt Rutan unveiled Friday a
] fully-built launch system that, if flights outside the
] atmosphere prove successful, would be the first private
] manned space program. Both the spacecraft, called
] SpaceShipOne, and its launch platform, a futuristic jet
] known as the White Knight, were developed and built in
] secret and have already begun tests at lower altitudes.

Oh my gosh! I want to fly into space!!

Private manned space plane unveiled

From Read_Me.txt in dir:
] These files mirror, brought to you courtesy of V1ru5,
] TheVoidAKABoB, and SystemFailure, seem to go well
] with the presentation that Acidus was to give at
] Interz0ne.

Lots of information on the Blackboard CampusWide system.

CampusWide Information Mirror (Socialfreedom)