Random Ramblings About This or That
Cooper Lighting has a new motion sensing floodlight that uses both traditional PIR and Radar to detect motion. Since it does not rely solely on heat to detect motion it claims to be much more effective at detecting movement. We can’t help but wonder if these will set off radar detectors – which might also be seen as a win if it causes drivers in your neighborhood who use radar detectors to slow down as they near your house.
A while back we had a post showing how to add a strong passcode to your iPhone. Thanks to the recent release of iPhone OS 4 this feature is now built in!
To enable this feature go to Settings -> General -> Passcode Lock, toggle Simple Passcode to off, and enter your preferred alphanumeric passcode.
Nate Silver uses statistics to breakdown the threat of an airborne terrorist attack. For example:
“There were a total of 674 passengers, not counting crew or the terrorists themselves, on the flights on which these incidents occurred. By contrast, there have been 7,015,630,000 passenger enplanements over the past decade. Therefore, the odds of being on given departure which is the subject of a terrorist incident have been 1 in 10,408,947 over the past decade. By contrast, the odds of being struck by lightning in a given year are about 1 in 500,000. This means that you could board 20 flights per year and still be less likely to be the subject of an attempted terrorist attack than to be struck by lightning.”
Gizmodo has posted a leaked copy of the TSA’s new rules for airplane travel dated December 25, 2009. It reads, in part:
During flight, the aircraft operator must ensure that the following procedures are followed:
1. Passengers must remain in seats beginning 1 hour prior to arrival at destination.
2. Passenger access to carry-on baggage is prohibited beginning 1 hour prior to arrival at destination.
3. Disable aircraft-integrated passenger communications systems and services (phone, internet access services, live television programming, global positioning systems) prior to boarding and during all phases of flight.
4. While over U.S. airspace, flight crew may not make any announcement to passengers concerning flight path or position over cities or landmarks.
5. Passengers may not have any blankets, pillows, or personal belongings on the lap beginning 1 hour prior to arrival at destination.
Wikihow has an article describing a method for reducing the total number of combinations for a Master Lock® combination lock from 64,000 to 80.
“…there are 64,000 possible combinations on a standard 40 digit Master Lock. With this method, however, you can quickly narrow that down to 80 combinations, a workable number to try if you’ve got the time and the inclination to give it a shot…”
Designer Mark Campos has turned the instructions into an easier-to-follow visual guide.
Missed a presentation from Defcon or just want to see some exploits in action? SecurityTube may be just what you’re looking for. It’s a collection of computer security videos ranging from presentations and theory to how-to.
[Link]
Jaroslaw Lupinski has built a device that will generate magnetic signals to spoof a magnetic stripe reader – you know, the things that open doors and allow you to pay for your groceries. Instructables has a write-up on a similar device using an iPod but Jaroslaw’s device will allow you to change the data on the fly. Combine this with Stripe Snoop and you’ve got quite a powerful combination…
[Link]
If you’re using Firefox’s built-in password management, you should also be using its master password feature to protect your saved passwords from prying eyes. But what happens if you lose your master password?
Since the master password prevents anyone from accessing your saved passwords, you won’t be able to access any of your stored credentials.
That’s where the Nagareshwar Talekar’s free, open source tool FireMaster comes in. FireMaster is a command line tool designed specifically to recover your master password from Firefox.
[Link]
I-Hacked has an article describing the process for cracking Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA and WPA2) encryption using the additional processing power of video cards with CUDA support.
[Link]
Powered by WordPress