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The 5 Coolest Hacks of '07

Posted by samzenpus on from the still-no-pencil-hack dept.

ancientribe writes "Nothing was sacred to hackers in '07 — not cars, not truckers, and not even the stock exchange. Dark Reading reviews five hacks that went after everyday things we take for granted even more than our PC's — our car navigation system, a trucker's freight, WiFi connections, iPhone, and (gulp) the electronic financial trading systems that record our stock purchases and other online transactions."

8 of 145 comments (clear)

  1. GPS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Car navigation systems have canged our lives for the better.

    Driving has gone from a scary oddysey where I pray I don't miss some tiny sign to an easy journey that is boring at worst.

    It's amazing how a little windshield mounted device can so change your life.

    1. Re:GPS by peektwice · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Not to mention the fact <citation needed> that most people drive their GPS enabled cars near their homes, and already know their way around. When they do venture out, it's usually to some place they've already been, and know well enough to navigate. GPSs foster insecurity and the inability to think analytically.
      Go ahead, mod me down, Troll -1.

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    2. Re:GPS by dave562 · · Score: 2, Insightful
      it pales in comparison to actually being able to read a real map, or know your way around someplace.

      I agree. Being able to find your way around a place and actually find a place on your own seem to engage a completely different part of the brain than simply following directions on a GPS. The only way I can describe it would be it's like the difference between "solving" a math problem by knowing the answer and working the steps to get it, versus actually having confidence in your knowledge of the steps and being able to apply them to solve the problem.

      I think that GPS devices and automated directions tend to seriously supress one of our survival instincts. When you can always refer back to a cheat sheet, you never really develop true skill.

      Now before I get a whole of responses from people saying, "I love my GPS but I can still find my way around." Keep in mind that you've only had a GPS for a few years and you spent probably decades doing things the old way. The new generations are the one who are danger of having their innate abilities dumbed down.

  2. Re:Number one is FUD by mangu · · Score: 2, Insightful

    shut the electronics down completely in which case you'll know, something is wrong long before the last Starbucks is out of sight

    Better have a diesel engine in this case. Nothing electric to be hacked.
  3. The iPhone hack was a little funny IMO... by DigitAl56K · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I personally have to smirk at the Apple brigade who on one hand spent the year touting everything Apple as more secure, and on the other hand rushed to jailbreak their iPhones by simply viewing a web page embedding a malformed image.

  4. Re:3. Eighteen-wheelers by The+One+and+Only · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Sure, but think about risk management. It may not be the smartest option to have a 1 million dollar truck driving around when you could have 2 500,000 dollar trucks taking different routes in case one gets ambushed by the mafia.

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  5. Seems a bit cheap... by Chris+Pimlott · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Really, those schulbs working the floor trading all those stocks were trading for other people. They weren't all millionaire stock holders. There's no irony behind a $8K/yr floor trader who lives in a fifth floor walk-up studio apartment grabbing at dollar bills in 1967. Five bucks in 1967 was a month of lunches at the hot dog cart outside. Do you have some sources for that? 8K/year? I get that as about $48K/year adjusted for inflation. Of course they're not the millionaire tycoons themselves, but surely the stockholders wouldn't want to trust deals worth hundreds of thousands of dollars and more to people who weren't highly skilled and thus paid commensurately.
  6. Re:Number one is FUD by ColdSam · · Score: 2, Insightful

    fool your GPS into believing, there is some sort of interference (accident, jam) ahead, which will simply cause the device to pick an alternate (and sub-optimal) route. You will not be lost, you'll just arrive later. Why is it infeasible to insert a bogus traffic delay designed to divert drivers off a main highway in a remote area so the cars could easily be jacked? If there are 4 guys with guns waiting at a stop sign because you got off the interstate, I'd say that new route is pretty darn sub-optimal.