In 1934, Otlet sketched out plans for a global network of computers (or “electric telescopes,” as he called them) that would allow people to search and browse through millions of interlinked documents, images, audio and video files. He described how people would use the devices to send messages to one another, share files and even congregate in online social networks. He called the whole thing a “réseau,” which might be translated as “network” — or arguably, “web.”

I'd never heard of this guy. Anyone got a link to the original source writings? Anyone read them before? Noteworthy?

The Mundaneum Museum Honors the First Concept of the World Wide Web - NYTimes.com

This really is a $499 ethernet cable. Yes, the stupid little cord you plug into the back of your computer to get online. These, however, are for audiophiles, a demanding client vector requiring the suspension of all faculties of reason. It contains "high purity copper."

This is why we have a housing bubble.

Ak-dl1: The $499 Ethernet Cable

For just $40 a year, believers can arrange for up to 62 people to get a final message exactly six days after the Rapture...

The e-mails will be triggered when three of the site's five Christian staffers "scattered around the U.S." fail to log in for six days in a row -- a system that incorporates a nice margin of safety, should two of the proprietors turn out to be unrepentant sinners or atheists.

Exploitive? Yeah, but its still nicely executed.

Website Lets You Send a Post-Rapture E-Mail to Friends 'Left Behind' | Threat Level from Wired.com

Acidus wrote:

On Thursday, the U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California announced that Lori Drew, now 49 years old, was indicted on conspiracy and hacking charges. The indictment charges Drew, a resident of O'Fallon, Missouri, with three counts of unauthorized access by violation of MySpace's terms of service and one count of conspiracy.

There is a good write up over at The Volokh Conspiracy by Orin Kerr and I highly suggest you read it.

I have a bit of a different perspective on this. I agree with Kerr that this has nothing to do with the TOS, but I still think its fraud.

If you call an operator up on the phone, tell her you're a phone company employee, and ask for some internal bit of telco information, this is telephone fraud, and its illegal.

Replace the telephone with the Internet, the operator with this girl, phone company employee with a cute boy, and the internal bit of telco information with dirt on the perps daughter, and what, exactly, is the difference? You've used a false pretense to con someone out of information. Its a crime, and I think they'll get a conviction on it. I also think people will blow it out of proportion. I don't think it means what everyone else seems to think it means.

RE: MySpace Suicide Indictment: or TOS violation = crime

This is very cool. From way back in 1971 a professor Leon Chua at the University of California (Berkeley) wrote a paper describing four basic passive electrical components: resistors, capacitors, inductors, and memristors. Until this year, the last one of these was only theoretical in nature, but some bright folks have finally cracked it.

Basically, its a substrate that exhibits a permanent(?) resistance change due to past current history. You could use them to make extremely fast, dense solid state storage devices.

Memristors, they exist!

Where do computer files go when you die?

The Walrus - Technology - The Big Log Off

To demonstrate why using fingerprints to secure passports is a bad idea, the German hacker group Chaos Computer Club has published what it says is the fingerprint of Wolfgang Schauble, Germany's interior minister.

According to CCC, the print of Schauble's index finger was lifted from a water glass that he used during a panel discussion that he participated in last year at a German university. CCC published the print on a piece of plastic inside 4,000 copies of its magazine Die Datenschleuder that readers can use to impersonate the minister to biometric readers.

Good Job!

Hackers Publish German Minister's Fingerprint | Threat Level from Wired.com

Within minutes of riding on the first trains in Japan, I notice a significant change in advertising, from train to television. The trend? No more printed URL's. The replacement?

Search boxes!1 With recommended search terms!

It makes sense, right? All the good domain names are gone. Getting people to a specific page in a big site is difficult (who's going to write down anything after the first slash?). And, most tellingly, I see increasingly more users already inadvertently put complete domain names like "gmail" and "netflix" into the Search box of their browsers out of habit — and it doesn't even register that Google pops up and they have to click to get to their destination.

cabel.name: Japan: URL's Are Totally Out

Akira/motorcycle fans --> This link is from February; but take a look at this bike! From what I read, Leo DiCaprio is going to star in the live action movie of Akira - which sounds cool; but look at this bike....
See also...

Winding Road » Archive » Japanese Fans Recreate Motorcycle from Anime Classic Akira

Adam Shostack has a new book.

Why is information security so dysfunctional? Are you wasting the money you spend on security? This book shows how to spend it more effectively. How can you make more effective security decisions? This book explains why professionals have taken to studying economics, not cryptography--and why you should, too. And why security breach notices are the best thing to ever happen to information security. It’s about time someone asked the biggest, toughest questions about information security. Security experts Adam Shostack and Andrew Stewart don’t just answer those questions--they offer honest, deeply troubling answers. They explain why these critical problems exist and how to solve them. Drawing on powerful lessons from economics and other disciplines, Shostack and Stewart offer a new way forward. In clear and engaging prose, they shed new light on the critical challenges that are faced by the security field. Whether you’re a CIO, IT manager, or security specialist, this book will open your eyes to new ways of thinking about--and overcoming--your most pressing security challenges. The New School enables you to take control, while others struggle with non-stop crises.

This is interesting but the editorial review (quoted above) makes a lot of bold claims without explaining how those claims are met. I eagerly await further reviews and shorter articles written by the authors to promote their book...

The New School of Information Security