Adam: The man with the redbull hacks. The man without the redbull follows. When the man with the laptop passes out, the man without the redbull picks up the laptop and hacks.
The evidence is now overwhelming that Mark Dowd was, in fact, sent back through time to kill the mother of the person who will grow up to challenge SkyNet. Please direct your attention to Dowd’s 25-page bombshell on a Flash bytecode attack.
Some context. Reliable Flash vulnerabilities are catastrophes. In 2008, we have lots of different browsers. We have different versions of the OS, and we have Mac users. But we’ve only got one Flash vendor, and everyone has Flash installed. Why do you care about Flash exploits? Because in the field, any one of them wins a commanding majority of browser installs for an attacker. It is the Cyberdyne Systems Model 101 of clientsides.
So that’s pretty bad-ass. But that’s not why the fate of humanity demands that we hunt down Dowd and dissolve him in molten steel.
Look at the details of this attack. It’s a weaponized NULL pointer attack that desynchronizes a bytecode verifier to slip malicious ActionScript bytecode into the Flash runtime. If you’re not an exploit writer, think of it this way: you know that crazy version of Super Mario Brothers that Japan refused to ship to the US markets because they thought the difficulty would upset and provoke us? This is the exploit equivalent of that guy who played the perfect game of it on YouTube.
The Office TV Show Series on NBC Is Back 04.10.2008 9PM EST
Topic: Miscellaneous
4:48 pm EDT, Apr 10, 2008
DINNER PARTY 9/8c TV-PG 04.10.2008
GUESS WHO'S COMING TO DINNER - Pam (Jenna Fischer) and Jim (John Krasinski) find they have run out of excuses and are forced to go to Jan (Melora Hardin) and Michael's (Golden Globe winner Steve Carell) house for dinner. When Andy (Ed Helms) and Angela (Angela Kinsey) are also invited to dinner, Dwight's (Rainn Wilson) jealousy gets the best of him. Leslie David Baker, Brian Baumgartner, Kate Flannery, Oscar Nunez, Phyllis Smith, Paul Lieberstein, Mindy Kaling and Creed Bratton also star.
Until recently, most Comcast systems passed all HD as is from the content provider, without any added compression or quality reduction. In response to competitive pressures from DirecTV and Verizon FiOS, Comcast recently decided to sacrifice some quality to improve quantity. By early April, most Comcast systems will recompress and degrade their HD, much like DirecTV and Dish Network do on their MPEG-2 channels. This creates room for new HD channels without the need to eliminate a significant number of analog channels.
Previously, Comcast allocated a maximum of two HD channels per 38.8Mbps QAM, so each channel had the full 19.4Mbps available if needed. Now, with the addition of new channels, Comcast is squeezing three HD channels into each 38.8Mbps QAM. Furthermore, some existing QAMs with two HD channels are being recompressed in preparation for new channel additions.
But what does that mean? How much difference is there, really?
To find out, I decided to compare the quality of the same programs on Comcast and Verizon FiOS. I recorded the same program from the same channel, at the same time, on both Comcast and Verizon FiOS in N. VA. I compared the size and bitrate of each MPEG-2 recording, as well as the subjective quality with video.
When I was in Pittsburgh visiting my parents last weekend I got to see Verzion FiOS in action. All I can say is WOW!
I'm working on a presentation for work. The first slide has Bruce Lee on it and a quote from Enter The Dragon. I have a feeling this powerpoint is going to rule!
Disclaimer: This is what happens when you work on a presentation while drinking several pitchers of Stella in a Mellow Mushroom.
