"The ice beneath his feat"

This is an NPR Sound Diary that I heard when it originally aired a couple of weeks ago. It's very short. Basically this guy is at the North Pole, which I hope all of you know is just frozen ice with water beneath (and there are no penguins there unless they're on vacation). Anyway, the sounds that this guy recorded are pretty darn cool.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=10057774

Terry Gross interviews Alice Cooper on Fresh Air

I'm still in the first part of it, quite interesting!

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=10231271

AACS update has been cracked before it ships

Two weeks ago, the AACS encryption scheme was cracked. Some of you may have been wondering at the strange post that I made a couple of weeks ago which is the phonetic representation of the hexadecimal code key. This is the key that encrypts HD-DVD discs. So if you know the encryption key, you can decrypt the disc and make a copy of a hi-def movie on your hard drive.

Changing this code is a non-trivial process -- the disc manufacturers have to change things, the HD-DVD player makers have to change things, not easy. Plus player owners must have their players upgraded with the new key. The old/compromised key is no longer encoded on the players (as I understand it), I have no idea if the discs coded with the old key become unplayable at that point, but I would assume so.

But since their code was broken, they "had to" change it. And the new code has now been broken. Except the new code hasn't shipped yet. :-)

http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2007/05/aacs_update_cra.html
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Your Windows Update system can be compromised

Not pleasant news.

"At least one program is in circulation that can hijack a key component of Windows Update to introduce malicious software that could be used to hijack a computer.

The method bypasses users' firewall, allowing files to download undetected.

Microsoft said it was aware of reports of the attack."

Now, for this to work, you must first have fallen for a social engineering attack and downloaded a program that has infected your computer and thus compromised the Windows BITS subsystem that is used by the Windows Update process. As one expert pointed out, at that point, the fact that your Update system has been compromised is irrelevent because you've already allowed your computer to be compromised.

My suggestion, regardless of this hack, is to have your update settings configured to download the updates but to not install them until you tell it to.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6657677.stm

(yes, I said I'd try not to dupe posts to my other blog, but I think this is important enough to merit duping.)

As car safety features improve, so do the number of car crashes?!

My Matrix has to be the most safety-feature equipped car that I've ever owned. I don't drive any faster in it than before, I'm driving at the same speeds that I've driven at for probably 20 years (I don't like paying speeding tickets, they cost lots of money. then again, if you don't pay speeding tickets....). But I can definitely see the point of the study. Unfortunately they don't cite real-world data, if they expanded their study to pull up accident records from major cities and states and analyzed model years (i.e. car age vs year being studied) I think that would be more significant.

Maybe I'll do that as a study if I ever have to do a statistics paper.

http://blog.wired.com/cars/2007/05/as_car_safety_i.html