By Cory Doctorow at 8:04 pm Monday, Sep 18
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This model-steam-engine enthusiast has devised a means of powering his GameBoy Color off of a 1930s-era pufferbelly:
A 1936-38 Jensen steam engine (flywheels from a later models are used in this video) runs a small generator that puts out the 3VDC needed to run a Gameboy color.
Link
(
via Digg)
By Cory Doctorow at 6:51 pm Monday, Sep 18
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A new trojan that records screen-movies has been discovered in the wild; the malware specifically captures your mouse as you laboriously enter your password into banking sites that use on-screen keyboards to defeat keyloggers.
I've written about on-screen keyboards before -- I think that these things are bad news. They make banking sites un-accessible to people who are blind or have some physical disabilities, and while they defend against keyloggers, they also force you to have short, weak passwords. What's more, it's apparent that keyloggers can handily adapt to these screen-boards.
Today we will analyze a new banking trojan that is a qualitative step forward in the dangerousness of these specimens and a new turn of the screw in the techniques used to defeat virtual keyboards. The novelty of this trojan lies in its capacity to generate a video clip that stores all the activity onscreen while the user is authenticating to access his electronic bank.
The video clip covers only a small portion of the screen, using as reference the cursor, but it is large enough so that the attacker can watch the legitimate user's movements and typing when using the virtual keyboard, so that he gets the username and password without going into further trouble.
Link
(
Thanks, Peter!)
Update: George sez, "Just read the piece about virtual keyboard loggers (with the Citibank screenshot) on BB. As I am a Citibank customer (well more like thorn in the side - their service is variable to say the least) I immediately went to log in to my account to send them a message asking them if they had seen this story. When I got there I had a new message:"
...Rather than entering your password using the screen keyboard, you will now simply use your computer's real keyboard. You will also be asked to answer an additional question that only you know the answer to when you log in, to further increase security....
By David Pescovitz at 6:23 pm Monday, Sep 18
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The specimens in Theodore Seuss Geisel's "Dr. Seuss School of Unorthodox Taxidermy" are absolutely marvelous. Limited reproductions of four of the pieces, including the Adoluvian Grackler, Two Horned Drouberhannis, Sawfish, and Mulberry Street Unicorn (seen here), are available in a matched number set for $8,380. Single pieces range from $1,695 to $3,495. From The Art of Dr. Seuss gallery:
Seuss embarked on an ingenious project in the early 1930s as he evolved from two-dimensional artworks to three-dimensional sculptures. What was most unusual for these mixed-media sculptures was the use of real animal parts including beaks, antlers and horns from deceased Forest Park Zoo animals where Seuss’s father was superintendent. Unorthodox Collection of Taxidermy was born in a cramped New York apartment and included a menagerie of inventive creatures with names like the “Two Horned Drouberhannis,” “Andulovian Grackler,” and “Semi-Normal Green-Lidded Fawn.” Shortly after Seuss created this unique collection of artworks, Look Magazine dubbed Seuss “The World’s Most Eminent Authority on Unheard-Of Animals.” To this day, Seuss’s Unorthodox Collection of Taxidermy remains as some of the finest examples of his inventive and multi-dimensional creativity.
Link (via
Neatorama)
By Mark Frauenfelder at 5:10 pm Monday, Sep 18
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A few weeks ago I
wrote about how much I was liking the Sonos digital music system, which plays digital music stored on your computer on different stereo systems throughout your house (you can play different sings in different rooms at the same time). It's an absolutely brilliant system that hasn't given me one minute of the usual frustration I experience whenever I set up some new technology in the house.
Last Thursday Sonos announced a partnership with Rhapsody, the music subscription service from RealNetworks. Now I can play two million songs on any stereo system in my house, using Sonos' portable iPod-like controller. It's an incredible experience being able to call up almost any song you can think of and start playing it. I showed it to my wife, and she immediately began playing all of David Bowie's '70s songs. She's hooked. I've been teaching my 8-year-old about punk by playing Black Flag, Dead Kennedys, Ramones, Clash, and Buzzcocks. You get a free 30-day Rhapsody trial with Sonos. After that, you pay $10 a month. It's a bargain.
You don't even need a PC to run Sonos with Rhapsody, because the Sonos hardware plays the Rhapsody streams. Maybe that's why there are so few hiccups or glitches.
My family is now listening to a lot more music than we ever were (my 3-year-old likes the kid's "radio station," which has everything from Burl Ives to Ralph Covert) because we have easy and instant access to music like never before.
Link
By David Pescovitz at 5:05 pm Monday, Sep 18
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Willie Nelson and four of his bandmates were busted for possession of marijuana and "narcotic" mushrooms this morning. The five were issued misdemeanor citations after Louisiana cops found 1.5 pounds of marijuana and .2 pounds of shrooms on their bus.
From the Associated Press:
The citations were issued after a commercial vehicle inspection of the country music star's tour bus, state police said in a news release.
"When the door was opened and the trooper began to speak to the driver, he smelled the strong odor of marijuana," the news release said.
Link (Thanks, Mike Love!)
By David Pescovitz at 4:55 pm Monday, Sep 18
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This far out 1950s child's lamp is for sale on eBay right now. BuyItNow price is $333 or submit your best offer by September 27. From the listing:
Striking 18" tall lamp features a very hard & heavy painted plaster base, lead spaceman with dome helmet and litho paper shade. I have never seen one of these in over 20 years. Working properly with original cord intact. No cracks, breaks, tears or repairs. Paint on base has a few smalls chips. The shade has a few very light and thin scuff marks but is otherwise like new. Does look like a scene from (Rocketship) X-M as I recall. Rare lamp in excellent condition.
Link (Thanks, Michael-Anne Rauback!)
By David Pescovitz at 1:07 pm Monday, Sep 18
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XLR8R, the highly-influential electronic music and culture magazine is celebrating its 100th issue this month. The realm of electronica can be intimidating to outsiders (like me) because of all the sub-genres, micro-niches, artist aliases, and vast amounts of material to filter. Since 1993, XLR8R, in print and online, has been my tour guide of choice when I dip into this musical subculture. Reading it is like having a trusted friend take you on a tour through the best boutique record store in the world. Congratulations to publisher Andrew Smith and his talented co-conspirators!
Link to Issue 100 Preview,
Link to XLR8R
By David Pescovitz at 12:56 pm Monday, Sep 18
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A Chinese man who had lost his penis in an accident earlier this year received a transplanted member from a brain-dead man. The operation. performed at Guangzhou General Hospital, was reportedly a success, but the man suffered emotional trauma and after just two weeks insisted that the penis be removed. The story of the procedure will be told in next month's issue of the scientific journal European Urology. From The Guardian:
After 10 days, tests revealed the organ had a rich blood supply and the man was able to urinate normally.
Doctors have previously succeeded in reuniting men with their sexual organs after traumatic accidents or attacks, but the Guangzhou operation is the first in which a donor penis has successfully been attached to another man.
"Because of a severe psychological problem of the recipient and his wife, the transplanted penis regretfully had to be cut off," Dr Hu said. An examination of the organ showed no signs of it being rejected by the body.
Link
By Mark Frauenfelder at 11:54 am Monday, Sep 18
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The four of us at Boing Boing love music, comics, videos, and books. We especially love them in digital format so we can store them on capacious hard drives, instead of cramming more things into our already overstuffed bookcases. And we super-extra especially love them to be DRM-free so we can read, watch, and listen to them on our MP3 players, on our handheld devices, on our computers, and in our cars.
That's why we created the Boing Boing Digital Emporium, launching today. We'll be selling our favorite DRM-free digital goods and giving the the majority of the proceeds (minus the transaction charges imposed by Paypal and Payloadz) to the creators of those goods.
In the coming days and weeks, look for songs, albums, comics, novels, videos, and anything else that can be delivered digitally.
To kick things off, we're proud to offer Mister Jalopy's Pocket Guide to Life & Death with Modest Automobiles. Mister Jalopy of Hooptyrides knows a great deal about older cars, and he knows how to explain the way they work to people like me, who consider the stuff that goes on under a car's hood to be scary and utterly mysterious.
Mister Jalopy has condensed a lifetime of experience working with used cars into a single page PDF document called Mister Jalopy's Pocket Guide to Life & Death with Modest Automobiles. It's truly the best thing I've ever read about cars, and if you are considering buying a used car, then the $1 you'll pay for this downloadable document will pay for itself a thousand-fold. Even if you aren't interested in buying a car, you will undoubtedly enjoy reading this super-dense document, loaded with hard-won wisdom.
Buy for $1 | More Boing Boing Digital Emporium Goods here
By Mark Frauenfelder at 11:08 am Monday, Sep 18
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My friend (who doesn't want me to name him here) is in a frustrating predicament because of an error in an online "background check" company's database. (I've downloaded First Advantage SafeRent's "
Consumer Disclosure Request Form" because I want to see if the information about me that they are storing is accurate. I recommend you do the same).
Since I am spending a lot of time working far from my usual
home, I attempted to rent an apartment last week. The
apartment complex conducted a criminal background check, and
told me I was ineligible as a tenant, because the background
check turned something up.
What, precisely, did it turn up? Ah, the woman could not tell
me that, because she herself did not know. She merely entered
my name, birthdate, and SS# into her computer terminal, and a
service provided by First Advantage SafeRent Inc. told her
"no." So, the apartment complex kept my $75 application fee,
showed me the door, and left me to deal with the nice people
at SafeRent on my own. This entailed downloading a PDF form
from their web site, printing it, signing it, and mailing it
to them with a copy of my driver's license, to prove my own
identity. Presumably this is purely for financial reasons,
since SafeRent must prefer to sell its information, and will
only give it away if I can convince them that I am the
"person of interest."
Since I didn't feel like waiting for a response that may take
several weeks, I decided to satisfy my curiosity with one of
the many online services that now offer background checks. I
paid a total of $78 for a nationwide search on myself. And,
what do you know, there I am, listed as being guilty of a
misdemeanor.
Only one problem: I was indeed charged, many years ago, but
the charge was dismissed with prejudice, and I have a copy of
the court document to prove it.
That document is not going to do me a lot of good. Let us
assume that I can correct any error in the records maintained
by the state criminal justice system. Actually this itself
is a major ordeal, entailing an application which must
include a set of my fingerprints; and then of course I will
also have to go through the same thing with the FBI, since
the state cheerfully admits that it tells the FBI everything.
I will still have to go after more than 100 online
background-checking services, one by one, because,
inevitably, they are creating their own databases derived
from second-hand or third-hand sources. (A local database is
so much cheaper for them to search, obviously.) One of the
services I looked at states that it will not correct any
error until compelled to do so by a court order. And of
course new services are popping up all the time.
Already there have been some reported instances of rejected
job applicants filing suit against background-checking
services, alleging negligence.
What interests me is that this whole phenomenon is only just
beginning to get rolling. Criminal background checks are
still a little too expensive right now for most apartment
landlords, home-owner associations, and employers. That
obviously will not last, since apparently those millions of
paper documents in county court houses have been largely
digitized. Now that the data entry has been completed
(competently or otherwise), information just wants to be
free, right? Certainly it wants to be cheaper than $78. In a
few years (or maybe months) from now, when you can check any
job applicant or prospective tenant for $5, or maybe for free
if the service is supported by context-sensitive popup ads,
everyone will be checking everyone. Already it costs me
nothing to view a map of the alleged child molesters living
in my neighborhood. (I wonder how many errors are in _that_
database.) Can other felons be far behind?
Maybe one of your readers has some ideas on how this can be
fixed. I don't see any way. It makes the fuss over Wikipedia
look pretty trivial; John Seigenthaler certainly didn't have
to submit a set of fingerprints to get _his_ error
corrected, and it didn't deprive him of a place to live,
either.
Reader comments:
David says:
I suggest that your friend get a lawyer that handles defamation lawsuits and sue everyone of those background check companies that is reporting false information.
Defamation -- communication to third parties of false statements about a person that injure the reputation of or deter others from associating with that person.
Gabrielle says:
Perhaps your friend can't do anything about the errors in these numerous databases without suing many pants off, but he could take preventative measures so that this doesn't happen again. If I were him, I would pay the not-too-terribly expensive fee that the FBI charges to have a federal criminal background check run on yourself. And, for good measure, he could have a state check done as well. I had both of these done before beginning my immigration process to Canada. In New York City, the state criminal background check was around $50 and they e-mailed me the results the very next day. It was very painless. The FBI check is less so, and entails having fingerprints done and mailing a bulky package to Virginia, but the end result of having a definitive document telling future landlords you're not a dangerous felon would be worth it. I imagine if you had an FBI clearance in hand when you applied for the apartment, the landlord would forego the entire "background check" process just to save themselves the trouble.
Tor says:
I for one would be extremely suspicious of someone who offered their FBI background check along with their rental application. As with any other document, if you haven't recieved it from the Bureau yourself, it could be easily altered using a photocopy machine and microsoft word (and tape) or photoshop. Boingboing posted a while ago on electronic bording passes being altered to show a different name. This kind of document would be even easier to alter. The best way, in my opinion, to do this would be to check your background yourself, apply normally, and only if they discovered a criminal record in error, to provide a letter explaining the truth, and volunteering to provide back-up documents. You don't need to raise any red flags if you don't have to do so. Many landlords, unless they are desperate, will simply take a pass on a tenant who seems to have issues, after all, there are other prospective tenants out there.
Sanford says:
No one brought this up so I thought I would. Aren't their laws about denying for misdemeanors things like employment, credit and housing? It's my understanding that most or all of these things can only be denied for felonies or in some cases for misdemeanors that are what they call crimes of moral turpitude -- prostitution, theft. Drug crimes, assaults, DUI/DWI, other serious traffic violations are not crimes of moral turpitude, and these make up the bulk of misdemeanors. My wife does a fair amount of hiring in her job and they are prohibited from even asking about misdemeanors. Seems that when you can be denied housing for a past drunk driving charge or a cup throwing incident at a sporting event things are getting out of hand.
Tor says:
A number of states (including NY and Wisconsin) as well as some cities and localities prohibit some forms of employment discrimination against people with a criminal history.
Federal housing law prohibits generally discrimination based upon race, religion, ethnic background or national origin, sex, familial status (including having children or being pregnant), or a mental or physical disability. In addition, some state and local laws prohibit discrimination based on a person's marital status, age, or sexual orientation. However, I am not aware of any place in the US where a person is protected from housing discrimination based upon their criminal history - the cases I found, in fact, explicitly say that it is legal to ask if a prospective tenant has a crimnal history, and to base a decision on those grounds.
Also, while your friend should be able to get the online services to correct their records (a threat of a defamation lawsuit should work, once he/she has informed them that the record is incorrect) - he or she will never be able to totally expunge the federal records - NCIC (from what I understand) will not destroy fingerprint records even if the person is found innocent. That being said, their records will (should) indicate the true resolution of the charge - whether it was dismissed with prejudice, guilty or innocent.
By David Pescovitz at 9:49 am Monday, Sep 18
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Researchers from Conservation International discovered dozens of new species in the water off Indonesia's Papua province. This epaulette shark (
Hemiscyillum freycineti) walks around the bottom of the sea on its fins. From the Associated Press:
The team from U.S.-based Conservation International also warned that the area--known as Bird's Head Seascape--is under danger from fishermen who use dynamite and cyanide to net their catches and called on Indonesia's government to do more to protect it...
"Above and below water, it's simply mind blowing," (said Mark Erdmann of Conservation International.)
Erdmann and his team claim to have discovered 52 new species, including 24 new species of fish, 20 new species of coral and eight new species of shrimp. Among the highlights were an epaulette shark that walks on its fins, a praying mantis-like shrimp and scores of reef-building corals, he said.
Link
UPDATE: Fark's headline about this story and the shark that walks on its fins had me in stitches: "Knock. Knock. 'Who is
it?'"
UPDATE: Over at Cryptomundo, Loren Coleman reminds us that the Mark Erdmann was also co-discoverer of the Indonesian coelacanth in 1998.
Link
By David Pescovitz at 9:20 am Monday, Sep 18
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Surveillance cameras in Middlesbrough, England have been outfitted with speakers so that operators can yell at citizens who they see misbehaving. Other similar "talking" systems have been installed elsewhere. From the BBC News:
"For example, if an operative now sees someone dropping litter, they can tell them to pick it up, or if they see an incident starting to get out of hand, they can give advice that will hopefully nip it in the bud," (said Barry Coppinger, Middlesbrough Council's executive member for community safety.)
"I think that it will give people extra confidence as they go about their business and re-enforce the message that Middlesbrough is a place that is constantly thinking about community safety."
Link
By David Pescovitz at 9:12 am Monday, Sep 18
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Check out 4-year-old drumming prodigy Igor Falecki rocking the skins.
Link
By David Pescovitz at 8:57 am Monday, Sep 18
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A man in the Nigerian village of Isseluku was arrested for killing his brother last week. The man's alibi is that he had actually attacked a goat with an axe and then it magically shape-shifted into his sibling's dead body. From the Associated Press:
Murder suspects in Nigeria, where many people believe in black magic, sometimes claim spirits tricked them into killing. In 2001, eight people were burned to death after one person in their group was accused of making a bystander's penis magically disappear.
Link
By Cory Doctorow at 8:08 am Monday, Sep 18
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These £4 wearable utensils turn you into Edward Fingerforks. They're made of stainless steel and "Sharp enough to pierce your food but not enough to skewer your other fingers!"
Link
(
via OhGizmo)
By Cory Doctorow at 8:04 am Monday, Sep 18
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For the past 30 days, Michael Geist has been listing reasons why Canadians should be alarmed at Canada's proposed new copyright law, which will bring the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act to Canada's lawbooks. The DMCA has been roundly criticized as terribly upsetting the copyright balance, resulting in researchers being jailed and threatened with lawsuits, an unchecked expansion of the copyright monopoly into areas unenvisioned by law (region-coding, limiting compatibility), and a chilling effect on free speech.
Canada's DMCA, Bill C-60, is slated to be one of the first orders of business for the new Parliament. Today, Geist has posted a list of thirty things you can do to fight Bill C-60 in Canada. This is the make-or-break moment, when Canada decides whether it is going to follow the US down the same tiger-pit it fell into in 1998, giving American media and technology companies the legal tools to clobber Canadian culture and industry, or whether Canada is going to learn from America's mistakes and produce a copyright law for the digital century that promotes new forms of expression and creativity.
- Write to your local Member of Parliament. Letters (which are better than email) from just a handful of constituents is enough to get the attention of your local MP. Contact information for all MPs is available here. Online Rights Canada also provides an easy way to write to your local MP.
- Write to the Prime Minister of Canada. Contact information here.
- Write to Bev Oda, the Minister of Canadian Heritage. Minister Oda is one of the two ministers responsible for copyright policy in Canada. Prior Canadian Heritage Ministers have been perceived to be close to U.S. copyright lobby groups and copyright collectives. Ministry contact information here. Minister Oda's contact information here.
- Write to Maxime Bernier, the Minister of Industry. Minister Bernier is responsible for the Copyright Act in Canada. Despite the fact that Minister Bernier is viewed as a strong advocate of reduced government intervention, the rumour mill suggests that he supports DMCA-style reforms. Minister Bernier's contact information here.
- Ask each political party where it stands on copyright. Copyright policy could prove to be a divisive issue in the months ahead - ask each political party for their views on the issue.
- Write to Canadian Heritage's Copyright Policy Branch. The Copyright Policy Branch is home to a large contingent of bureaucrats focused on copyright matters. Contact information here.
- Write to Industry Canada's Intellectual Property Policy Directorate. The IPPD is Industry Canada's counterpart on copyright policy, though it addresses a broader range of IP issues. Contact information here (scroll to the bottom).
Link
By Cory Doctorow at 6:26 am Monday, Sep 18
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Check out this
stupendous Super-Mario-themed wedding cake, with three storeys of NES-inspired 8-bit-color graphic elements!
Link
(
via Wonderland)
By Cory Doctorow at 6:22 am Monday, Sep 18
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This small gallery of vintage stock images of people working and shopping at grocery stores is remarkable for many reasons, not least because the retail space is to undesigned, as compared to the hyper-evolved
money-removing mazes in contemporary groceteria.
Link
(
via Neatorama)
By Cory Doctorow at 6:18 am Monday, Sep 18
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The key that controls access to a standard Diebold voting machine is a common key that can be ordered from the Internet, also used to open hotel minibars.
The access panel door on a Diebold AccuVote-TS voting machine – the door that protects the memory card that stores the votes, and is the main barrier to the injection of a virus – can be opened with a standard key that is widely available on the Internet...
Using such a standard key doesn’t provide much security, but it does allow Diebold to assert that their design uses a lock and key. Experts will recognize the same problem in Diebold’s use of encryption – they can say they use encryption, but they use it in a way that neutralizes its security benefits.
The bad guys don’t care whether you use encryption; they care whether they can read and modify your data. They don’t care whether your door has a lock on it; they care whether they can get it open. The checkbox approach to security works in press releases, but it doesn’t work in the field.
Link
