Internet Censorship…

Internet Blackholes

…What does it mean, and more importantly how can and does it affect you?

This last year has seen the defeat of  PIPA and SOPA in the US, but what seem like huge victories are actually only minor wins.

Across the world censorship on the Internet is rapidly turning the information super highway into a desolate place. People tend to think of China when they think of Internet Censorship, but it’s not the only place. It’s happening here and now in almost every place on the globe, even the United States.

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Find All The Things!

StickNFind Radar on iPhone

Ever lost your keys or the remote?

Know how much of a pain it can be to find them? Well, we ran across an awesome device that will be available soon. The product StickNFind, which we found on the crowdsourcing site Indiegogo, uses bluetooth tags and your iOS or Android based phone to locate them.

The tags can be pinged to make noise and light up, in addition to showing up on the application’s “radar” screen. The application lets you see approximate distances from your phone or tablet but unfortunately not direction.

The company promises that the applications are more far reaching than simply finding lost keys or remotes (though in all fairness that’s what we are sure most people will use them for).

They posit that their stickers can be attached to your luggage when traveling to assist in  finding  it at the baggage pickup; attached to children’s backpacks (your kids only please) to help keep track of their stuff; or even possibly your wife’s car so you can have some advanced warning when she pulls in.

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Linux as an Active Directory Domain Controller

As some of you might know domains with active directory are a great way to make sure that your users are able to have a consistent experience across any machine they login to, while also providing adequate security. If you didn’t know that, well now you do.

You might also know that a copy of the Microsoft products to do the job aren’t cheap, and aren’t cost effective if you have a small business or want to set up a domain at your home.

Well the open source community has your solution, it is possible with just about any flavor of Linux, to create a fully functional domain complete with roaming profiles and active directory. I am not going to detail exactly how to go about doing that in this post, but I will be posting a decent how to in the near future.

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Information Security

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

By now, everyone’s heard of “those hacker conventions”, DEFCON, Black Hat, and others.

Some folks have wildly wrong ideas about what goes on at hacker conventions, but in general, they are an opportunity for security researchers (hackers) to share what they have learned, with other security researchers (hackers).

The researchers (hackers)? They do it because they enjoy teasing apart how things work, understanding the implications, interactions and potential hazards they embody.

An example of this is the security exploit that was briefed at BlackHat this year by Cody Brocious.   After you’ve read the synopsis at the link above, here’s a good explanation of the exploit. Now, consider the following media reports:

• Forbes – Security Flaw In Common Keycard Locks Exploited In String Of Hotel Room Break-Ins
• BBC – Hotel burglars suspected of exploiting lock security bug
• SiliconANGLE – Hotel Burglars Exploit Key Card Locks, But Who’s Gonna Pay To Fix Them?

This leads to the obvious questions:

1. Were these break-ins attributable to the briefing at BlackHat?
2. Were these break-ins attributable to other, independently discovered implementations of the same exploit?
3. Were there break-ins using this exploit before the BlackHat briefing?
4. Were earlier break-ins not recognized, before this exploit was exposed, and perhaps blamed on hotel staff?

So, what do you think?  Answer our poll question, and feel free to comment.

Related articles

• Meet Cody Brocious, The Hacker Who Cracked Four Million Hotel Room Locks (Video Q&A) (forbes.com)
• Solving Hotel Lock Hack (foxnews.com)
• Hackers’ New Target: Hotel Room Locks (newser.com)
• [News] Hotel room break-ins blamed on hacked locks (pcworld.in)
• List of Ethical Hacker Conferences & computer security conferences (ehackingnews.com)
• Five Ways To Keep Your Stuff (And Self) Safe From Hotel Lock Hackers (forbes.com)
• Hack attack: Now your pacemaker is vulnerable (wnd.com)

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