Group items tagged

Sometimes disobedience is necessary and good when rules fail us, and it's at the core of why we hack. Hacking is a means of expressing dissatisfaction, confounding the mechanism, and ultimately doing better. Here's why it's so important.

the Pwn Plug is pretty much the last thing you ever want to find on your network - unless you've hired somebody to put it there. It's a tiny computer that comes preloaded with an arsenal of hacking tools. It can be quickly plugged into any computer network and then used to access it remotely from afar.

"You're in intensive care at a hospital when the lights go out and the heating turns up. Meanwhile, doctors trying to get you to an operating theatre have been trapped in elevators for almost an hour as hackers take control. Experts are warning that this fictitious scenario is all too plausible after two researchers discovered in Australia 653 computer-based building management systems attached to the public internet."

"Kitted out with a miniature Raspberry Pi computer for a heads-up display (HUD) integrated in an external helmet, two Mikrotik routers, wireless sniffing and attack tools, GPS and a netbook, the motorcycle is able to detect wireless access points and plot them on Google Maps."

"The popularity of TinyURL provides fraudsters with a golden opportunity to exploit the service. Attackers can take advantage of the system to make phishing URLs less suspicious to anti-phishing detection, since the shortened form of the phishing URLs will be totally unrelated to the targeted brands/websites. In a phishing scenario, this service is problematic to the recipients of phishing emails because this makes it difficult to mouse over a link and see exactly where it's going."

"When hackers do cyber-battle, there isn't much to see. Maybe you'll wind up on a crashed website, but the real carnage is happening behind the scenes, perpetrated by a diffuse army of computers a world away. This is what it looks like."

"A team of university students in Sydney have cracked the secret algorithm used on Sydney's public transport tickets for buses, trains and ferries, which they say could allow them to print their own tickets. "

It is late but am I excited, you bet I am! I have managed to get the Windows powered assessment and reporting software Accelerus that our school uses running on my OSX laptop. Check out the screenshot below. Was a bit tricky but Google was my friend as I tried out a couple of different ideas. The best guide I found was perhaps this one. It does require a knowledge of partitions and terminal commands but it worked a treat fo me. Along the way, I learned heaps and enjoyed the tinkering. I might have some fun and try to get Ubuntu Linux running again on this computer.

"Facebook users are showing off some serious creativity by taking advantage of the new profile page photo layout."

"Traitorware is not some science-fiction vision of the future. It is the present. .. We believe that your software and devices should not be a tool for gathering your personal data without your explicit consent. "

Interesting IT issue related to the gathering and use of personal data.

Following the launch of the iPad last spring, many schools made headlines by announcing their plans to distribute the devices to teachers and students and to incorporate the iPad into coursework. Now that the fall term is over, several of those schools are reporting on what was, for many, the first full semester using iPads in the classroom. So does the iPad make the grade? If so, will it usher in a new wave of educational tablets as some analysts are predicting?