more cat pictures

I’m applying for a new tech-support supervisor position. Wish me luck.

Ah, the joys of a new edition of D&D. I now have to convert all my work on my campaign world into yet another new system. The crew voted to try 4e for the game since we’d all gotten early copies of the rules.

I’m trying for a ‘lower-drama’ version of my usual style. I usually wind up with world-shattering drama, this time, I’m trying for less of angst and more humor. Wish me luck, humor and the light touch are things that I need work on.

Aargh! Once again the internet puzzle game the Stone is eating my brain. My first infatuation began years ago, when the Stone was a puzzle game you purchased access to by buying a necklace at the Museum Company. I remember getting it not expecting much and being thrilled at the intellectual challenges the Stone puzzles were.

I lost my logon then, and for a while drifted away, coming back a few years ago for a while, before losing touch again.

This time when I went back, the Stone was no longer in the hands of its creators. Abject Modernity, the company behind the Stone, had shut down the site for good, but another had taken up the reins. It meant though, that all my progress was gone. Most of these puzzles I’d solved almost a decade ago. I had to refind the answers. THis is not as much of a hardship as you might think - they’re joys to solve and it was fun revisiting.

I still haven’t caught up to where I was in the Stone’s 216 puzzles, I’m only at 45, and I’d topped 100, I think. Still, it’s a welcome return to mental challenge. I’ve never found anything like the Stone, before or since. 

Now that the Stone’s no longer with Abject Modernity, there is no money required to play. Simply head to The Stone Unturned and sign up for an account and leap in. Once you’ve solved your first puzzle, you will receive a VIP code to allow you access to the member forums. The Stone’s devoted following has somewhat followed to the new site, and there are always people about ready to give a desperate Stoner a nudge in the right direction for the puzzles.

Nine Inch Nails are offering their new album on the web for free before it is released, as a thank you to their loyal fans.

Go to NIN.com and follow the prompts for your opportunity to download it in your preferred music format.

Get 91% Off Microsoft Office Ultimate

A Microsoft student promotion that slashes 91% off a copy of Office Ultimate applies to anyone with a .edu email address—and most universities offer .edu addresses to their alumni for free. Microsoft Office Ultimate, which retails for $680, is available to students for only $60 until May 16th. But if you can snag a .edu address, you too can cash in on the deal—all you have to do is get yourself an alumni email address at your alma mater. The promotion’s web site says you have to prove you’re enrolled in coursework, but the New York Times reports that a senior VP at Microsoft confirmed all you need is an .edu email address. Let us know if you snag the deal and how it goes in the comments.

The Ultimate Steal

(via Lifehacker.com)

…think again.

China mounts cyber attacks on Indian sites

NEW DELHI: China’s cyber warfare army is marching on, and India is suffering silently. Over the past one and a half years, officials said, China has mounted almost daily attacks on Indian computer networks, both government and private, showing its intent and capability.

The sustained assault almost coincides with the history of the present political disquiet between the two countries.

According to senior government officials, these attacks are not isolated incidents of something so generic or basic as “hacking” — they are far more sophisticated and complete — and there is a method behind the madness.
Publicly, senior government officials, when questioned, take refuge under the argument that “hacking” is a routine activity and happens from many areas around the world. But privately, they acknowledge that the cyber warfare threat from China is more real than from other countries.

The core of the assault is that the Chinese are constantly scanning and mapping India’s official networks. This gives them a very good idea of not only the content but also of how to disable the networks or distract them during a conflict.

This, officials say, is China’s way of gaining “an asymmetrical advantage” over a potential adversary. The big attacks that were sourced to China over the last few months included an attack on NIC (National Infomatics Centre), which was aimed at the National Security Council, and on the MEA.

Other government networks, said sources, are routinely targeted though they haven’t been disabled. A quiet effort is under way to set up defence mechanisms, but cyber warfare is yet to become a big component of India’s security doctrine. Dedicated teams of officials — all underpaid, of course — are involved in a daily deflection of attacks. But the real gap is that a retaliatory offensive system is yet to be created.

And it’s not difficult, said sources. Chinese networks are very porous — and India is an acknowledged IT giant!

There are three main weapons in use against Indian networks — BOTS, key loggers and mapping of networks. According to sources in the government, Chinese hackers are acknowledged experts in setting up BOTS. A BOT is a parasite program embedded in a network, which hijacks the network and makes other computers act according to its wishes, which, in turn, are controlled by “external” forces.

The controlled computers are known as “zombies” in the colourful language of cyber security, and are a key aspect in cyber warfare. According to official sources, there are close to 50,000 BOTS in India at present — and these are “operational” figures.

What is the danger? Simply put, the danger is that at the appointed time, these “external” controllers of BOTNETS will command the networks, through the zombies, to move them at will.

Exactly a year ago, Indian computer security experts got a glimpse of what could happen when a targeted attack against Estonia shut that country down — it was done by one million computers from different parts of the world — and many of them were from India! That, officials said, was executed by cyber terrorists from Russia, who are deemed to be more deadlier.

The point that officials are making is that there are internal networks in India that are controlled from outside — a sort of cyberspace fifth column. Hence, the need for a more aggressive strategy.

Key loggers is software that scans computers and their processes and data the moment you hit a key on the keyboard.

This information is immediately carried over to an external controller — so they know even when you change your password. Mapping or scanning networks is done as a prerequisite to modern cyber warfare tactics. MEA has a three-layered system of computer and network usage — only the most open communication is sent on something called “e-grams”.

The more classified stuff uses old-economy methods — ironically, probably the most secure though a lot more time-consuming. The same is true of other critical areas of the government. But the real gap inside the national security establishment is one of understanding the true nature of the threat.

National security adviser M K Narayanan set up the National Technology Research Organization, which is also involved in assessing cyber security threats. But the cyber security forum of the National Security Council has become defunct after the US spy incident. This has scarred the Indian establishment so badly that it’s now frozen in its indecision. This has seriously hampered India’s decision-making process in cyber warfare.(Via Times of India)
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I can see much value in this for planning a game around, after all, who doesn’t want their character to be the centerpiece of a potential nuclear incident?

This is one of the coolest USB drive hacks I’ve seen

	Holy crap– somebody just went and TORE MY FREAKING USB CABLE IN HALF while it was still attached to my laptop!!! No– wait– sorry. That’s just my USB drive. My bad. Never mind. (And after the jump, how to make your own.)

It’s no secret that there are a lot of strange USB devices out there, particularly flash drives. Not a comprehensive list, but we’ve sure seen Lego, twigs, action figures, bowling balls, sushi, anatomical parts, transparent drives, erasers, cassette tapes and on and on and on. Despite all that, the picture above is a little surprising– because yes, it’s a working USB flash drive. Here, we give the step by step walk through of how to make your own.
This is a KingMax 1 GB USB flash drive, one of the smaller varieties out there. I got it on eBay for about $10 and there seem to be plenty more available. Above, you can see it in between my fingers and in my computer for scale. The gold pads are just printed pads on a tiny circuit board.
The plastic cover is attached only weakly, by a bit of silicone adhesive, and peels off fairly easily to expose the bare printed circuit board of the flash drive. Not too much to it, really.
Next we need a victim USB cable. I started with this new $1.50 USB “A-B” cable. Looking at the end that we’ll be cutting up, you might notice a neat injection molding seam that runs around the edge. Using a sharp hobby knife, cut neatly along that seam. Cutting there actually provides some camouflage for you: Since we expect there to be a seam there, it’s very hard to notice an additional cut as well. If you really want your seams to be invisible, you might want to use a black USB cable. Cut deeply enough that you actually cut through to the metal shell underneath the rubber, at which point you can start to peel back the rubber parts.
The metal shell underneath the rubber overmolding consists of two of pieces of thin steel that are stamped and folded into place. They are held together by some tabs and slots– use a small screwdriver to defeat the tabs and you can pull the flap the “lid” piece, so that you can now get at the inside of the metal shell.
With the one piece of the metal shell removed, you have access to the middle parts of the shell where the original USB wires and plastic and metal connections are located. Cut them away with your choice of tools. I found that the hobby knife worked well enough to sever the wires, at which point the remaining plastic parts could be removed pretty easily. What’s left is just the metal shell– ready for us to put our own circuit board in.
Now we can start to test-fit the bare-board USB drive into the metal shell. Seems to fit okay. Still need to fix it in place, though.
One other final detail to take care of: The back side, where the circuit board will be resting, has some metal parts that the back side of the circuit board will be touching– so we need an insulator there. I had an old piece of clear blue heat-shrink tubing that happened to fit well, but a piece of electrical tape would have done the job too. Once that was added, it all looked safe and still fit together.
To bond everything together and fill all the extra space inside the USB cable end, I use gel-style 5 minute epoxy. Fortunately, five minutes gives you enough time to apply the glue, place the flash drive in place, and put the rubber molded housing back on. Hold the connector firmly– paying attention to the seams for alignment– until the epoxy cures, about five more minutes. Last step: Cut the cable as desired. A jagged cut looks different than a clean cut– take your pick. So that’s it– how to make your own cut-off usb cable flash drive. A few more pictures are available in this flickr photo set. As usual, if you have interesting pictures of our projects to show off, please post them in the Evil Mad Science Auxiliary, http://www.flickr.com/groups/evilmadscience/pool/.

This is possibly the coolest toy ever.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2205158,00.asp

Throughout the year 2000, NPR presented the stories behind 100 of the
most important American musical works of the 20th century. These
special features cover music from a wide variety of genres –
classical, jazz, rock’n'roll, country, R&B, musical theatre and
film scores. NPR 100 stories aired on All Things Considered, Morning Edition, and NPR’s weekend news magazine programs.

http://www.npr.org/programs/specials/vote/list100.html

This link takes you to the page on the NPR website that lists the coverage NPR did for this, and intimate looks into the background of each song that was chosen. There’s also a list of their 300-song starting point, and a discussion of how the songs were winnowed to 100.

While this in itself may not seem much like gaming, listening to the coverage of individual songs sparks ideas and creativity. For instance, the last work on the list is the soundtrack to the Wizard of Oz. The discussion covers how the songs were chosen and developed, and how they caused their impact. The discussion of recurring themes for characters, a new concept in this picture, illuminates how music shapes our perception of a story. And isn’t that key for GMs - the perception of a story? Given the reason to think about it, don’t we know that some songs are defining for the characters? Who thinks of Vader without hearing the Imperial March? I don’t, anyway.