Junk Hacked... FPGA-based SHA-1 and MD5 bruteforce cracker...
Topic: Technology
2:14 am EDT, Sep 18, 2007
NSA@home is a fast FPGA-based SHA-1 and MD5 bruteforce cracker. It is capable of searching the full 8-character keyspace (from a 64-character set) in about a day in the current configuration for 800 hashes concurrently, using about 240W of power. This performance is equivalent to over 1500 Athlon FX-60 CPUs, which would take about 250kW.
This is a really cool project, and this website has an excellent graphical replacement for the "hit counter." Definately check this out. I will be speaking at Phreaknic about an idea Dan Moniz had for building a distributed computer on the internet with FPGAs. I think this is a concept which has a lot of potential, and projects like this hash cracker are just the tip of the iceberg.
Russian artists from Moscow presented in London a totally useless but somehow cool device: goggles that you can put on and feel like somebody from "cyberspace."
“Many times the problems you see that you try to correct are not the root causes of the problem,” he said.
We could be talking about a lot of things, but in this case, this is the CIO for the US Customs Agency, and he is talking about a faulty NIC at LAX.
I'm really growing tired of the use of the word "hacker" in this context. I talk about computer security issues with industry and the press on nearly a daily basis and I never, ever use the word hacker. It is deeply misleading to use the word hacker when you mean to say "computer intruder" or "computer criminal."
I recently saw an FBI agent present on computer security issues and it was "hacker" this and "hacker" that for 20 odd minutes. I came very close to saying something to him about it. Its like saying "hippie" when you mean to say "drug trafficers." Eastern European payment card fraud rings and Southeast Asian industrial spies have as much to do with "hackers" as Columbian narcoterrorists have to do with "hippies." By using the word "hacker" instead of using the word "computer criminal" the FBI makes it sounds as if they aren't really focused on computer crime so much as they are focused on people whose politics they don't like.
I think there is a need here for a website, perhaps organized as a non-profit, with form letters that people can send news media organizations that use the word "hacker" in a context that has nothing to do with the computer subculture that word refers to, and which has the ultimately goal of getting the AP style guide modified to prohibit the use of the word hacker where "computer intruder" or "computer criminal" is more appropriate, and includes a lot of text explaining where Eric Raymond went wrong in attempting to resolve this previously.
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Hacker Marks 25th Anniversary of First Computer Virus
Topic: Technology
5:02 pm EDT, Sep 5, 2007
"Elk Cloner" — self-replicating like all other viruses — bears little resemblance to the malicious programs of today. Yet in retrospect, it was a harbinger of all the security headaches that would only grow as more people got computers — and connected them with one another over the Internet.
Someone sent me a link to woot.com this morning. I exclaimed that there is a special place in hell for the person who decided to use that domain for a commerical purpose. That hell involves having nothing to do but sit on efnet for millenia. Then I noticed the linked Thinkgeek page.
w00t belongs to gamers the world over. It seems to have been derived from the obselete 'whoot' which essentially is another way to say 'hoot' which itself is a shout or derisive laugh. But others maintain that w00t is the sound several players make while jumping like bunnies in Quake III. Still others want you to believe that it comes from the phrase 'wow loot' used in multiplayer RPGs many moons ago. And if you can believe it some folks even think it was derived from the gaming phrase, 'We Own the Other Team!' Fiction or fact? I suppose you'll just have to decide what 'w00t!' means to you...
Fiction you fucks. There is another special place in hell for people who think words like pwn and w00t are the recent inventions of multiplayer gamers. This word had become popular and then gone out of fashion long before Quake III was released. The first time I heard it was on efnet in a hacking related channel in 1992 or 1993. Its a combination of Woohoo and Root; as in "Woohoo, I got Root!"
Words like pwn and w00t are so obviously hacking related that its hard to understand why gamers would rationalize that they have something to do with quake. However, it is really interesting that these words have been appropriated by that scene and become extremely mainstream. When I saw Cartman say pwn on national television a few months ago I almost jumped out of my seat. I don't really know who invented the term, but that person is likely only one degree of separation from the folks who hang out at summercon.
A new technique shows resizing of images while keeping the important features of the image undistorted, also allows you to protect or remove part of the image with anything removed being automagically and seamlessly filled in.
This is making the rounds in technical circles today. The technique simple and very effective! Apparently Adobe has hired this guy so hopefully we'll see commercial availability soon.
There is a contradiction in the very phrase "software company." The two words are pulling in opposite directions. Any good programmer in a large organization is going to be at odds with it, because organizations are designed to prevent what programmers strive for.
Very true, particularly the last part of the essay.
El Paso Times - Transcript: Debate on the foreign intelligence surveillance act
Topic: Technology
9:21 pm EDT, Aug 22, 2007
The following is the transcript of a question and answer session with National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell.
This is one of the most significant public discussions of the actual surveillance program that has yet occurred, likely done in the context of the debate over the recent FISA authorization. See also this. Some good discussion here.
...that article tends to belie the underlying nature of a real problem -- the lack of accountability for most of what's written or edited in Wikipedia. The "Corporate Fingerprints" bit is cute -- but what about all of the other fingerprints smeared through virtually every byte of the Wikipedia database?
The single best thing that Wikipedia could do to lend itself genuine credibility would be to require that contributers identify themselves -- by name, not by handles or childish aliases.
Weinstein shoots off an anti-anonymity screed in response to Virgil's tool. I don't find this perspective reasonable, but then Weinstein has set me off in the past with his authoritarian insistence that everyone walk around the Internet with their driver's license taped to their forehead. I think it's notable, however, that Virgil's tool has now spawned a meta-controversy.
