I'm surprised no one has mentioned Dropcam yet. Cloud based HD video security monitoring using Wi-Fi enabled cameras, which include audio and motion alerts that send directly to email or Android/iPhone devices.
The video quality is just fine if you include a motion activated light, and it's cheap enough to add three or four of them to cover all entrances (including windows.)
For a basic subscription, it will keep 7 days of video monitoring online, as well as sending you alerts.
As a bonus, it lets you talk back to the camera....
People yearning for immortality often tell themselves fictions about how they will survive death. I have started a project to record such fictions in the form of a documentary.
H. Warner Munn's "Merlin's Ring", "Merlin's Godson" and especially "The Ship from Atlantis."
Rare, but a worthwhile read, especially the relationship between Gwalchmai and the orichalcum ship of living metal, imbued with the spirit of an ancient Atlantean sorceress.
Real world experience? I found this tool was excellent as a collaboration tool for software development and project management. It's great for tracking changes, and documenting implementation details.
I for one, and many of my colleagues will be sad to see Google Wave pass on.
Live traffic updates are also one-way. Your GPS system has additional functions which depend either on GSM (as used by GPS-based tracking systems) or simple radio receivers tuned to RBDS services or a Traffic Message Channel (TMC) on FM or DAB.
Functionally, the GPS technology never transmits -- but a device including GPS functionality might also include other technologies to transmit information.
I can't moderate this as Funny, as I suspect you're not joking. GPS is indeed receive only. Triangulation is based on timing differences with clock signals, and not an outgoing signal.
Just a small note to all those clever people who are calculating the time taken to perform an exhaustive keyspace search on the potential passwords.
We should distinguish between the MAXIMUM time taken to exhaust the symbol space, versus the AVERAGE time.
Assuming uniform distribution of passwords through the space, and a sufficiently large sample of challenges, we would naturally expect the time taken to find the correct password to converge on n/2 -- i.e., half of the maximum time.
Thus, if a symbol space can be exhaustively searched in one year, on average, finding passwords with a similar difficulty level will take an average of 6 months, with a typical normal distribution.
This certainly isn't the first Cyber War attack. I've written about some of these attacks in my blog, http://security-risk.blogspot.com/. Here's an extract:
* In 2004, Thomas C. Reed, an Air Force secretary in the Reagan administration, wrote that the United States had successfully inserted a software Trojan horse into computing equipment that the Soviet Union had bought from Canadian suppliers. Used to control a Trans-Siberian gas pipeline, the doctored software failed, leading to a spectacular explosion in 1982.
* Crypto AG, a Swiss maker of cryptographic equipment, was the subject of intense international speculation during the 1980s when, after the Reagan administration took diplomatic actions in Iran and Libya, it was widely reported in the European press that the National Security Agency had access to a hardware back door in the company’s encryption machines that made it possible to read electronic messages transmitted by many governments.
* According to a former federal prosecutor, who declined to be identified because of his involvement in the operation, during the early ’80s the Justice Department, with the assistance of an American intelligence agency, also modified the hardware of a Digital Equipment Corporation computer to ensure that the machine — being shipped through Canada to Russia — would work erratically and could be disabled remotely.
I just installed Safari 4 beta under Leopard, and now cannot access Gmail. I have rebooted, cleared history, cleared the cache, etc., but to no avail. Navigating to Gmail brings the URL for a successful login (I can still reach google.com/ig and login and logout just fine), but the screen stays white.
This was working fine with Safari 3 -- however, Firefox seems to exhibit identical behavior. Oddly, I can access the "corporate" version of Gmail (based on sites), but not the "primary" Gmail. Note that I have been using Google Gears with offline storage option, which might have contributed to this.
I concur with your Feynmann recommendation, but would in addition propose his delightful proof of Kepler's hypothesis on planetary orbits, done entirely with geometry -- no calculus needed!
You had a lookup table for instructions? We had to try each value in turn until it did the right operation and then record the results by tying knots in bits of coax cable.
OK, first my geek credentials -- I have assembled and worked in 1977-79 with Motorola D2 kit (M6800 processor), assembled and got working the Heathkit H8 (which used an OCTAL keypad!), and designed my own 6809-based system, the Aamber [sic] Pegasus.
Since as a programmer I am guessing your emphasis will be digital electronics, I would recommend the following:
A+ Certification For Dummies by Ron Gilster
The benefit of this is that there is a nice certification at the end, and you will be able to repair your own computer gear (at least, if it's made before 2005!)
Once the singularity arrives, you can set up a Computer Antiques and Repairs shop, and regale your visitors of stories, whilst wearing an onion on your belt (as was the style at the time.)
I use Gmail for one of my email accounts, and have used this address (without obfuscation) on the Internet for eight years or so. Therefore, I get a lot of spam. Recently, I've noticed more and more getting through Google's spam filters lately.... but what really amazes me is the volume.
Here's a simple example: most Gmail users know they have a Spam folder, into which Gmail transfers any messages which appear "spammy." This works pretty well, and I keep around 30 days worth in there, as I used to occasionally look through for false positives (which happened sometimes.)
The problem now is just that there is too much spam to do this. Let's compare: here is the count of spam in ONE Gmail account, for the past 30 days -- can anyone match it?
Spam (84194)
I figure that's a rate of 2,800 per day, or 116 per hour. Nearly two spam messages, every minute, 24x7.... and most of it consists of duplicates. Why are the spammers doing this? Unless they are paid per message they send, I don't see it improving their chances of getting a message past filters.
Yes, I did quote "independent", because of the conditions under which the inspection was made.
However, before everyone rushes to judgment -- the guy who did the evaluation appears to have impressive credentials for assessing the effectiveness of implementation of encryption algorithms.
In my opinion, as a crypto dilettante, this guy Tom Berson is the real deal.
Of course, Skype showed him selected parts of the code, which may or may not be in the final product. I think the more rational among us who are interested in secure communications will generally sacrifice convenience (which Skype clearly offers) for security, and use another product which may be peer reviewed. It's also interesting to follow the money -- perhaps we could look into why eBay paid US$2.6 billion for Skype, then two years later wrote off US$1.43 billion -- one wonders if there is some US government interest served by a large USA corporation having control over the closed-source Skype code.
Having said that, I am still a heavy Skype user, and will continue to use it, as it is sufficient for my needs.
Slashdot Mirror
My guess: he's off to Vietnam, where he will join the entourage of the Ecuadorian foreign minister for the return to Quito this week.
I'm surprised no one has mentioned Dropcam yet. Cloud based HD video security monitoring using Wi-Fi enabled cameras, which include audio and motion alerts that send directly to email or Android/iPhone devices.
The video quality is just fine if you include a motion activated light, and it's cheap enough to add three or four of them to cover all entrances (including windows.)
For a basic subscription, it will keep 7 days of video monitoring online, as well as sending you alerts.
As a bonus, it lets you talk back to the camera....
People yearning for immortality often tell themselves fictions about how they will survive death. I have started a project to record such fictions in the form of a documentary.
I'm still working on it, but here's the trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-nbJcDiLLxU&feature=plcp
H. Warner Munn's "Merlin's Ring", "Merlin's Godson" and especially "The Ship from Atlantis."
Rare, but a worthwhile read, especially the relationship between Gwalchmai and the orichalcum ship of living metal, imbued with the spirit of an ancient Atlantean sorceress.
And you didn't bother to call him out on his misuse of the word "illicit" when he meant "elicit?" :-)
Real world experience? I found this tool was excellent as a collaboration tool for software development and project management. It's great for tracking changes, and documenting implementation details.
I for one, and many of my colleagues will be sad to see Google Wave pass on.
Perhaps this is a type of Slashdot effect? People who want to support them have overwhelmed their sales capability...
I was all ready to buy, but their online store claims to be out of stock.
Live traffic updates are also one-way. Your GPS system has additional functions which depend either on GSM (as used by GPS-based tracking systems) or simple radio receivers tuned to RBDS services or a Traffic Message Channel (TMC) on FM or DAB.
Functionally, the GPS technology never transmits -- but a device including GPS functionality might also include other technologies to transmit information.
I can't moderate this as Funny, as I suspect you're not joking. GPS is indeed receive only. Triangulation is based on timing differences with clock signals, and not an outgoing signal.
I want to add myself to the list of fans of this admirable place....
Here's a set of photos of the St. Louis Museum I took earlier this year.
The experience of climbing the spiral staircase, while listening to live music from the massive pipe organ was almost surreal...
Coffee? Clearly you want the Pomegranate.
This phone already exists. At least, the following web page suggests very strongly that it exists, but YMMV...
http://www.pomegranatephone.com/
Just a small note to all those clever people who are calculating the time taken to perform an exhaustive keyspace search on the potential passwords.
We should distinguish between the MAXIMUM time taken to exhaust the symbol space, versus the AVERAGE time.
Assuming uniform distribution of passwords through the space, and a sufficiently large sample of challenges, we would naturally expect the time taken to find the correct password to converge on n/2 -- i.e., half of the maximum time.
Thus, if a symbol space can be exhaustively searched in one year, on average, finding passwords with a similar difficulty level will take an average of 6 months, with a typical normal distribution.
This certainly isn't the first Cyber War attack. I've written about some of these attacks in my blog, http://security-risk.blogspot.com/. Here's an extract:
* In 2004, Thomas C. Reed, an Air Force secretary in the Reagan administration, wrote that the United States had successfully inserted a software Trojan horse into computing equipment that the Soviet Union had bought from Canadian suppliers. Used to control a Trans-Siberian gas pipeline, the doctored software failed, leading to a spectacular explosion in 1982.
* Crypto AG, a Swiss maker of cryptographic equipment, was the subject of intense international speculation during the 1980s when, after the Reagan administration took diplomatic actions in Iran and Libya, it was widely reported in the European press that the National Security Agency had access to a hardware back door in the company’s encryption machines that made it possible to read electronic messages transmitted by many governments.
* According to a former federal prosecutor, who declined to be identified because of his involvement in the operation, during the early ’80s the Justice Department, with the assistance of an American intelligence agency, also modified the hardware of a Digital Equipment Corporation computer to ensure that the machine — being shipped through Canada to Russia — would work erratically and could be disabled remotely.
OK, you mean like Wikitude which has been on my G1 for several months?
I don't see the point of this when we already have WikiTap for the G1 and the iPhone.
Belgium's area (assuming no mountains or hills) is 30,528 km^2. [Wikipedia]
Jamaica's area is 11,100 km^2.
Dividing, we see that there are 2.75 Jamaicas for every Belgium.
On that basis, the Ice shelf is just over a third (0.364) the size of Belgium. Damn Flanders.
I just installed Safari 4 beta under Leopard, and now cannot access Gmail. I have rebooted, cleared history, cleared the cache, etc., but to no avail. Navigating to Gmail brings the URL for a successful login (I can still reach google.com/ig and login and logout just fine), but the screen stays white.
This was working fine with Safari 3 -- however, Firefox seems to exhibit identical behavior. Oddly, I can access the "corporate" version of Gmail (based on sites), but not the "primary" Gmail. Note that I have been using Google Gears with offline storage option, which might have contributed to this.
Anyone else seen this?
I concur with your Feynmann recommendation, but would in addition propose his delightful proof of Kepler's hypothesis on planetary orbits, done entirely with geometry -- no calculus needed!
http://www.amazon.com/Feynmans-Lost-Lecture-Motion-Planets/dp/0393039188
You had a lookup table for instructions? We had to try each value in turn until it did the right operation and then record the results by tying knots in bits of coax cable.
Surely u quip? Or is that quipu....
I write about the pre-paid mobile Internet here on my blog.
Basically, it's 1 Gb for 20 Euros, without a contract. And it works with the eeePC without problems.
OK, first my geek credentials -- I have assembled and worked in 1977-79 with Motorola D2 kit (M6800 processor), assembled and got working the Heathkit H8 (which used an OCTAL keypad!), and designed my own 6809-based system, the Aamber [sic] Pegasus.
Since as a programmer I am guessing your emphasis will be digital electronics, I would recommend the following:
A+ Certification For Dummies
by Ron Gilster
The benefit of this is that there is a nice certification at the end, and you will be able to repair your own computer gear (at least, if it's made before 2005!)
Once the singularity arrives, you can set up a Computer Antiques and Repairs shop, and regale your visitors of stories, whilst wearing an onion on your belt (as was the style at the time.)
I use Gmail for one of my email accounts, and have used this address (without obfuscation) on the Internet for eight years or so. Therefore, I get a lot of spam. Recently, I've noticed more and more getting through Google's spam filters lately.... but what really amazes me is the volume.
Here's a simple example: most Gmail users know they have a Spam folder, into which Gmail transfers any messages which appear "spammy." This works pretty well, and I keep around 30 days worth in there, as I used to occasionally look through for false positives (which happened sometimes.)
The problem now is just that there is too much spam to do this. Let's compare: here is the count of spam in ONE Gmail account, for the past 30 days -- can anyone match it?
Spam (84194)
I figure that's a rate of 2,800 per day, or 116 per hour. Nearly two spam messages, every minute, 24x7.... and most of it consists of duplicates. Why are the spammers doing this? Unless they are paid per message they send, I don't see it improving their chances of getting a message past filters.
Yes, I did quote "independent", because of the conditions under which the inspection was made.
However, before everyone rushes to judgment -- the guy who did the evaluation appears to have impressive credentials for assessing the effectiveness of implementation of encryption algorithms.
Check out his page: http://www.anagram.com/berson/
In my opinion, as a crypto dilettante, this guy Tom Berson is the real deal.
Of course, Skype showed him selected parts of the code, which may or may not be in the final product. I think the more rational among us who are interested in secure communications will generally sacrifice convenience (which Skype clearly offers) for security, and use another product which may be peer reviewed. It's also interesting to follow the money -- perhaps we could look into why eBay paid US$2.6 billion for Skype, then two years later wrote off US$1.43 billion -- one wonders if there is some US government interest served by a large USA corporation having control over the closed-source Skype code.
Having said that, I am still a heavy Skype user, and will continue to use it, as it is sufficient for my needs.