Amsterdam to vandals: Try to wreck new prototype subway car

By Cory Doctorow at 11:38 pm Saturday, Jan 28 • Comments • Share

The council in Amsterdam has issued a call for vandals to attempt to trash a prototype of the city's new subway car, which is intended to be proof against even the most determined wrecker. Amsterdam's public transit vandals are the source of perverse pride among the municipal government there, which regards them as the toughest and most extreme vandals in the world.

Mark van der Horst, the Amsterdam councillor responsible for traffic, told the newspaper that it is not easy to find subway trains that can withstand the Amsterdam brand of hooligans...

"Our new Amsterdam subway must be absolutely Amsterdam-idiot-proof," he explained.

Link (Thanks, Steel!)

Danny O'Brien's Open Source con presentation on Evil

By Cory Doctorow at 10:59 pm Saturday, Jan 28 • Comments • Share

Danny O'Brien gave an amazingly funny talk called "To Evil" at the O'Reilly Open Source conference in August and now you can download the audio and the slides. Danny is a full-time civil liberties activist at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, but he's also done time as a stand up comic, and he co-founded and co-edits the hilarious tech newsletter NTK. "To Evil" is based on his column of the same name, in which Danny picks examples of evil behavior in the tech world and writes about it.

In Danny's presentation, he recaps some of the evils of the year in technological liberty, and then switches to reporting on how good gets done (see the Gandhi State Diagram, left) and reports on some of the triumphs of the year.

It's a terrific and funny presentation, one that provokes both thought and laughter, and it's full of geeky in-jokes. Link to audio, Link to Danny's slides (via Trubble)

Numbers begin with 1 more often than other numerals

By Cory Doctorow at 10:52 pm Saturday, Jan 28 • Comments • Share

A mathematical theory called "Benford's Law" predicts that in a set of numbers, numbers whose first digit is "1" will turn up more frequently than numbers that start with other digits. Benford, a GE physicist in 1938, formulated his law after discovering that GE's book of logarithm tables was substantially more worn on pages of logarithms corresponding to numbers starting with 1.

Because numbers beginning with 1 turn up so often, it's possible to catch cheaters (tax cheats, homework cheats, etc) by checking to see if the numbers they make up skew to ones that begin with the numeral 1 more frequently than other numbers.

It's not perfect, of course (the 1998 NYT article notes that people on $25 dinner allowances often submit receipts for $24.90), but it is fascinating.

"If we think of the Dow Jones stock average as 1,000, our first digit would be 1.

"To get to a Dow Jones average with a first digit of 2, the average must increase to 2,000, and getting from 1,000 to 2,000 is a 100 percent increase.

"Let's say that the Dow goes up at a rate of about 20 percent a year. That means that it would take five years to get from 1 to 2 as a first digit.

"But suppose we start with a first digit 5. It only requires a 20 percent increase to get from 5,000 to 6,000, and that is achieved in one year.

"When the Dow reaches 9,000, it takes only an 11 percent increase and just seven months to reach the 10,000 mark, which starts with the number 1. At that point you start over with the first digit a 1, once again. Once again, you must double the number -- 10,000 -- to 20,000 before reaching 2 as the first digit.

"As you can see, the number 1 predominates at every step of the progression, as it does in logarithmic sequences."

Link (via Digg)

Update: Christian sez,

The Benford's Law story has some bad math in it. I'm not arguing with the validity of Benford's Law. I just hate to see bad math put up as truth.

Quote from article:
"Let's say that the Dow goes up at a rate of about 20 percent a year. That means that it would take five years to get from 1 to 2 as a first digit."

Actually, it only takes four years. At a rate of 20 percent a year, by year four the Dow would be 2073.6

Quote from article:
"When the Dow reaches 9,000, it takes only an 11 percent increase and just seven months to reach the 10,000 mark, which starts with the number 1."

An 11 percent increase doesn't get the Dow to 10,000. An 11 percent increase of 9000 is 9990, not 10000 or more as the quote states.

Update 2: Ben sez,

The math in the article isn't as bad as one reader suggests.

True, it would take 4 as opposed to 5 years for the Dow Jones to reach 2000 at 20 percent. I assume that the author was saying that the first number starting with 2 would be the fith in the sequence

1000, 1200, 1440, 1728, 2074...

And it is the sequence we are interested in.

The second perceived fault is due to routine rounding off. 10000 is an 11.111111...% increase over 9000, which rounds down to 11% very nicely. At that rate it would take 6.934595174188633 (let's call it 7) months to reach 10000.

Update 3: Alvy points us to an excellent piece on Benford's Law at Steven Wolfram's Mathworld.

ROJO's limited edition artist monographs

By David Pescovitz at 4:16 pm Saturday, Jan 28 • Comments • Share

Based in Barcelona, ROJO is an edgy hub for emerging artists. Their Web site is electrified with photos, graffiti, illustrations, and designs by artists that I've never heard of but won't soon forget. ROJO director David Quiles Guilló just sent me their new series of monographic mini-books and they're stunning. No boring essays, no hoity-toity critical introductions, just pages of raw, gritty photos, illustrations, collages, and street art in a compact 5"x6" hardbound volume with a padded cover. The artists in this limited series include Boris Hoppek, Tofer, Nuno Valerio, Neasden Control Centre, and Albert Bertolin (illustration seen here). My favorites are Hoppek's book, titled "Tranquilo," and Bertolin's "Kultur Toilette," which my wife has decided will be placed in our future child's library. Link

A British Stormtrooper in Tokyo

By David Pescovitz at 3:27 pm Saturday, Jan 28 • Comments • Share

Sean Ness, my colleague at the Institute for the Future writes, "There's a British guy in Tokyo named Danny Choo, who likes to take a Stormtrooper outfit and walk around the city: on the train, in Akihabara, etc... I'm sure if he had done this in the US, he'd be arrested for having the toy blaster." Or shot and killed!
Link

Radio-controlled steam-powered toy vehicles

By Cory Doctorow at 2:07 pm Saturday, Jan 28 • Comments • Share

I-Wei Huang builds gorgeous, live-steam powered radio-controlled vehicles -- steampunk walkers, crabs, centipedes (pictured here), rowboats, tanks and hotrods. His site is full of photos and videos of the toys in action -- these are stupendous. Link (Thanks, Karl!)

Beautiful $220,000 watch -- pray for a cheap version!

By Cory Doctorow at 1:19 pm Saturday, Jan 28 • Comments • Share

This $220,000 watch comes with a lot of copy explaining to you why it's worth $220,000. I don't think it's worth $220,000, but what do I know about $220,000 watches? I hope someone releases a cheapie lookalike; something that slobs like me might buy for $50-200, even if it's not so slick that it will cannibalize the $220,000 crowd.

This really spectacular architecture seems to be absolutely original. The mechanical design of the Cabestan, including its tourbillon, is totally transversal. The indications (hour, minute, seconds, and power reserve) appear on the cylinders located at the four "corners" of the watch.

Starting from the lower left, we find the barrel, which transmits its driving power to the movement by the intermediary of a chain. This chain is connected to a second cylinder, at the upper left, made up of one part of a fusee (placed horizontally as opposed to the traditional fusees that are always vertical), and the other of the cylindrical power reserve indicator (a total of 72 hours).

Link (via Ohgizmo)

Russian govt to shut down human rights group

By Cory Doctorow at 10:18 am Saturday, Jan 28 • Comments • Share

The Russian justice ministry has asked a court to shut down the Russian Human Rights Research Center, one of the country's oldest human rights group:

The government's request comes just weeks after Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law giving the authorities wide-ranging powers to monitor the activities and finances of non-governmental organisations.

The new powers, which include the right to suspend NGOs should they "threaten Russia's sovereignty or independence", have been severely criticised by both domestic and international rights groups.

Link

Berserk motorist beating up bike courier captured by amateur photog

By Cory Doctorow at 9:46 am Saturday, Jan 28 • Comments • Share

A citizen journalist snapped a jaw-dropping set of photos of a berserk motorist attacking a young bike-messenger in Toronto's Kensington Market. The incident reportedly began when the motorist tossed litter out his window, and the courier threw it back in; the motorist reportedly threw a cup of coffee on the courier and the courier reportedly keyed his car. The intrepid photographer calmly stood and fired off shot after shot of the motorist completely losing it, attacking the courier, screaming, and generally going nuts, and braved the man's charge with a baseball bat when he was noticed with his camera:

i followed the motorist back to his car to photograph his license plate number. he proceeded to open his trunk, take out a baseball bat, and charge me. i walked away, and was one of only two witnesses to stay at the scene and give a statement to police.

Many people who apparently know the courier ("Leah") have found the forum and then, Leah herself turned up. She denies keying his car, and reports that the police talked her out of charging him by telling her that she'd be charged too. Link (Thanks, Pigasus!)

Can DRM be future-proof?

By Cory Doctorow at 6:19 am Saturday, Jan 28 • Comments • Share

When you infect a music CD with malicious anti-copying software, how long can you expect it to work for? Unlike most software, music CDs are liable to be loaded into computers decades after they're pressed; can an anti-copying program anticipate the state of computers in twenty years and ensure that their programs won't destabilize computers in the future?

Princeton's Ed Felten and Alex Halderman continue to pre-publish sections from a major paper on the lessons to be learned from the Sony DRM debacle, in which it was discovered that the music label had deliberately infected its customers' computers with malicious software that spied on them, destabilized their computers, and exposed them to attack from other malicious entities. The software had no easy means of de-installing it, requiring many music fans to reinstall their operating systems.

Today's installment is "CD DRM: Compatibility and Software Updates" and it addresses the question of the longevity of media with anti-copying/use-control software embedded in it -- how can the companies that force these technologies on their customers minimize the harm to future systems, and ensure that users run updates when they have no incentive to increase the efficacy of technologies that treat them as attackers?

Compared to other media on which software is distributed, compact discs have a very long life. Many compact discs will still be inserted into computers and other players twenty years or more after they are first bought. If a particular version of (say) active protection software is burned onto a new CD, that software version may well try to install and run itself decades after it was first developed.

The same is not true of conventional software, even when it ships on a CD-ROM. Very few if any of today’s Windows XP CDs will be inserted into computers in 2026; but CDs containing today’s CD DRM software will be. Accordingly, CD DRM software faces a much more serious issue of compatibility with future systems.

The future compatibility problem has two distinct aspects: safety, or how to avoid incompatibilities that cause crashes or malfunction of other software, and efficacy, or how to ensure that the desired anti-copying features remain effective.

Link

Previous installments of the Sony DRM Debacle Roundup: Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV, Part V

(Sony taproot graphic courtesy of Sevensheaven)

Anachronistic images photoshopping contest

By Cory Doctorow at 1:21 am Saturday, Jan 28 • Comments • Share

Today on the Worth1000 photoshopping contest: anachronistic images, like Sofia Loren as a Desperate Housewift, Gandhi with an iPod, or, pictured here, the Beatles crossing Abbey Road on Segways. Link

NSA's licensable patent portfolio

By Cory Doctorow at 12:37 am Saturday, Jan 28 • Comments • Share

The National Security Agency has a "technology transfer" program through which it licenses out the patents it receives on its s00per s33kr1t spy technology. I like the Shredder Residue Dispersion System:

The SRDS is a security paper shredder, where the residue of individual shredded documents pages are collected in multiple collections bins for disposal ensuring that no single collection bin contains the residue of any entire page. It utilizes a top deflector plate and four bins lined with bags to disperse and collect the shredded paper. The material is gravity fed from the bottom of the cutting head to the deflector plate. The plate ensures that the material does not back up into the cutting head and an entire document does not deposit into one collection bag. To further ensure that no adversary could obtain a complete document at one time, the dispersion system is coupled with a procedure of disposing the collection bags on a rotating basis. SRDS does not require the operator to do any additional work and has no moving parts.

But I was genuinely impressed with the ingenuity of the motorized, wildly overbuilt Tape Dispenser that can prevent tamper-evident security tape from sticking to itself while it is being applied:

The AISTD is a security tape dispenser where the tape is on a liner and is dispensed adhesive side up without the liner. This alleviates the tape from unintentionally sticking to an unwanted surface area. AISTD allows a user to pick a mode, enters the information, and receives the desired length tape. It gives the user several options for dispensing the tape: MODES Run - The user picks pre-programmed lengths from the keypad (6" to 36" in ½" increments).

Length - The user can input a length from 3.0" to 999.0". After the length is entered, the user presses the ANY button on the keypad, which causes the machine to dispense the programmed amount.

Box - A lookup table assigns a number to the boxes listed. The box number is entered and the tape comes out to the correct lengths to wrap the box.

Box Flaps - A lookup table assigns a number to the boxes listed. The box number is listed and the tape comes out to the correct lengths to wrap the box. The first tape is for the center seam, the second seals the edge/flap on the same surface, the third seals the edge/flap on the other side the fourth seals the center seam on the open side of the box, the fifth and sixth seal the remaining edge/flap.

Custom - Any recipes of lengths can be programmed and burned into the e-prom.

Link (via Schneier)

Firefox plugin turns open tabs into floating thumbnails

By Cory Doctorow at 12:33 am Saturday, Jan 28 • Comments • Share

Reveal is a new Firefox plugin that turns all of your open tabs into floating thumbnails that hover over your current tab (I wrote about Foxpose, a similar plugin, in December). It has a number of advanced features for cycling between tabs and moving the correct one to the fore. Link (Thanks, Can!)

Senators figure out the Broadcast Flag, curse it as an abomination!

By Cory Doctorow at 12:21 am Saturday, Jan 28 • Comments • Share

The Senate Commerce Committee's hearings on the "Broadcast Flag" and "Audio Flag" proposals have been derailed because senators on the committee now use technologies that would be threatened by the flags.

The Broadcast Flag and Audio Flag proposals would require anyone who build a digital TV or radio device to use technology to control what sort of other devices -- like portable players, recorders and PCs -- could be connected to them. That means that your ability to watch a TV show on your laptop or listen to a recorded digital radio program on your iPod would hinge on whether the manufacturers of these devices can proved to a regulator that they weren't disrupting Hollywood's entrenched business-models.

Until now, lawmakers have been reluctant to speak out against this. A combination of expert lobbying and technological ignorance has made Congress suicidally willing to consider proposals to break America's televisions.

But in yesterday's Commerce hearings, two Senators altered the course of events. First MIT grad John Sununu of New Hampshire said that government mandates "always restrict innovation" and then 82-year-old Ted Stevens of Alaska talked about the iPod he'd gotten for Christmas and put the RIAA's Mitch Bainwol on the spot about whether his proposal would break Stevens' ability to move digital radio programs to his iPod and listen to them in the most convenient way (it would).

This is a momentous occassion: two powerful senators have woken up to the impact that these proposals will have on their voters. As more and more lawmakers get wise to how these things will harm their constituents' interests, it will get harder and harder for entertainment mouthpieces to go crying to government to enshrine their cushy business-models in law.

[Sununu] pointed out that "we have a whole history of similar technological innovation that has shown us that the market can respond with its own protection to the needs of the artists." And he concluded with one of the most damning depictions of the ahistorical nature of the flag (clip from Congressional RealVideo) you'll hear on the Hill:

"The suggestion is that if we don't do this, it will stifle creativity. Well...we have now an unprecedented wave of creativity and product and content development...new business models, and new methodologies for distributing this content. The history of government mandates is that it always restricts innovation...why would we think that this one special time, we're going to impose a statutory government mandate on technology, and it will actually encourage innovation?"

The second revelation, dropped into the later discussion of the RIAA's audio flag, was that Senator Stevens' daughter bought him an iPod.

This is unhappy news for the RIAA. Once again, their representative was forced to burst into praises of MP3 players (a technology his organization attempted to sue out of existence in 1998).

And when Stevens asked whether with the audio flag in place he would be able to record from the radio and put the shows onto his iPod: that's when the RIAA's Mitch Bainwol really began to sweat.

With that simple question, the octogenarian Senator encapsulated arguments about place-shifting, interoperability, and fair use that would have taken whole federal dockets to explain a few years ago.

Even more damning was Senator Sununu's follow-up question, in which he asked if, post-flag, the Senator might record three songs from the radio today, and listen to only one of them again tomorrow. Of course, under the RIAA's proposed controls, you may not: this is "disaggregation" in their language. This flag, which was sold to Congress to impede piracy, appeared to be designed primarily to control and inconvenience law-abiding, ripping, mixing, modern-day Senators.

Link (Thanks, Phineas!)

Can you keep your surgically removed/amputated bits?

By Cory Doctorow at 12:08 am Saturday, Jan 28 • Comments • Share

When you have some bit of you surgically removed, are you allowed to keep it? William Shatner recently won a fight to reclaim his kidney stones, which he donated to a charity auction. Slate's Explainer column investigates the current law and practice of reclaiming our surgical waste. My grandfather used to keep a disgusting jar of 100 gallstones he'd had removed -- it was endlessly fascinating to me.

Just because there aren't many laws against taking home body parts doesn't mean it's an easy thing to do. Most hospitals make patients sign a waiver that cedes ownership of their surgical leavings to the pathology lab. And many teaching hospitals are unwilling to give up potential research samples. To have a good shot at keeping the stuff that's removed, let your doctor know before the procedure. You also usually have to sign a liability release form on the way out.

Advances in laparoscopic and microscopic procedures mean that many body parts that were once removed whole are now taken out in small pieces. Doctors now use shock waves to break up many stones that might have been surgically removed in the past. Even if the desired piece comes out whole, a pathologist sometimes destroys it while taking samples. He can also decide that it represents a biohazard, though most communicable diseases can be killed with formaldehyde. (Some notable exceptions include hepatitis and prion diseases.)

Link (Thanks, David!)

Text-based art, ads and sigs from the golden age of BBSes

By Cory Doctorow at 12:05 am Saturday, Jan 28 • Comments • Share

This site collects 1,500+ ASCII signatures and ads from the heyday of BBSes. Link (Thanks, Mat!)