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Jul. 9th, 2009
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2009/07/the_atm_vulnera.html
The talk has been pulled from the BlackHat conference:
Barnaby Jack, a researcher with Juniper Networks, was to present a demonstration showing how he could jackpot a popular ATM brand by exploiting a vulnerability in its software.
Jack was scheduled to present his talk at the upcoming Black Hat security conference being held in Las Vegas at the end of July.
But on Monday evening, his employer released a statement saying it was canceling the talk due to the vendor's intervention.
More:
"The vulnerability Barnaby was to discuss has far reaching consequences, not only to the affected ATM vendor, but to other ATM vendors and--ultimately--the public," wrote Brendan Lewis, director of corporate social media relations for Juniper in a statement posted to the company's official blog last week. "To publicly disclose the research findings before the affected vendor could properly mitigate the exposure would have potentially placed their customers at risk. That is something we don't want to see happen."
More news articles: 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5.
For ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif)
sidhefire, and for anyone else who wants it. (And also so that I have it saved in my LJ memories.)
Here's the recipe I created for my very favorite birthday cake. It started out as an "I'm broke" experiment which turned out to be a lemon angel torte over 20 years ago, and has evolved several times since then.
Damiana's Citrus Angel Torte
Angel food cake, either 1 tube or 2 loaf pans
Citrus filling (below)
3-4 cups whipped cream or whipped topping
Fresh raspberries, mango, kiwi, etc. sliced or mashed as appropriate
Dark chocolate, to shave over finished cake
Filling
1 ½ cups sugar
4 tbsp corn starch
dash of salt
1 ½ cups cold water
4 beaten egg yolks
2 tsp citrus zest (orange, lemon, lime)
2 tbsp lemon juice
2 tbsp orange juice concentrate
1 tbsp key lime juice
1 tbsp mango juice
2 tsp margarine or butter
Combine all ingredients except for margarine/butter in a small saucepan. Cook, stirring constantly, over medium heat until bubbly, then cook 1 minute more. Stir in margarine or butter. Cover surface with waxed paper; cool.
Mix ½ of cooled filling with whipped topping. Slice angel food cake horizontally into 4 layers. Spread ½ of remaining filling on first layer, spoon on mashed fresh raspberries or other fruit, cover with second layer of cake. Spread whipped topping mixture on second layer, add sliced kiwi or other fruit, cover with third layer. Spread remaining filling and more raspberries on third layer and cover with fourth layer. Frost entire cake with remaining whipped topping mixture, then shave dark chocolate over cake. Chill until ready to serve.
Note: if you use fat-free whipped topping, the entire cake has about 12 grams of fat. Whipped topping seems to work better with this cake than whipped cream, as the cream tends to feel too heavy in conjunction with the rest of the cake.
The summer is rolling along. I’m getting into the swing of things work wise, and scheduling almost every free moment I can with social activity.
(Seriously next tuesday we’re celebrating Bastille day with a French dinner and a watching of the Scarlet Pimpernel, then I’m going to a midnight showing of Harry Potter, working Wednesday, then going to a Yelp Elite event to see Othello. )
And it’s good. I’m enjoying the time to see friends. Coffee, lunches dinners. I’m planing a potluck picnic party for late August, and have the Portland Pirate Festival on my calendar as well. I’ve been able to schedule a couple of dates with my sweeties, join a book discussion group at church and take down time as needed.
It’s not all just fun and games of course. We’ve got some household maintainence to do, I’ve got summer reading to finish and some analysis of the last quarter/year of school so that I’m prepared for next year. It’s also about helping people move, as I’m able to. My schedule doesn’t always work out for that, as much as I would like.
Anyway, life here just keeps rolling along. How are you?
Originally published at Originally posted at Seattlejo.com. You can comment here or there.
Reposted from burnunit and thanks to lexinatrix for the title.
Please consider joining our conversation about the next possibilities for our diverse community. This touches the participants in CONvergence, Anime Detour, MISFITS, Marscon, Minicon, Gaylaxicon, Mn-Stf, Omegacon, and more and more. . .
http://leagueofwonders.wordpress.com
We began talking about big inter-community projects this year. There have been conversations at MN Society for Interest in Science Fiction and Fantasy open meetings. There have been conversations at closed meetings too. There was a wonderfully interesting panel at CONvergence last week on the subject of a "geek community center." That panel will likely make an appearance at other conventions.
Well we also want to have a public conversation with the members of the communities in which we are active. About joint efforts, about structure, about autonomy and interdependence, and about where we go from here. About what we could do if we start dreaming out loud.
That conversation lives here for now: http://leagueofwonders.wordpress.com and we invite you to take part. Share this info with others and get in on the action. Today!
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excited
Chocolate forgives/covers/obfuscates/overrides/enhances (delete according to personal taste) many sins.
Simple, delicious, healthy (moreso than most anything else I eat) salmon steak recipie: get a salmon steak (we use the Kirkland brand pre-packaged slabs from Costco). Defrost it (if necessary). Put it in a shallow dish. 1/2 cover with a combination of water, lemon juice, and spices to taste (I use a healthy splash of Liquid Garlic from Pasta & Co, because MMMM GARLIC). Cover dish lightly, with a bit of plastic wrap, a lid, whatever. Stick in the microwave at 60% power level and cook for 3.45 minutes (adjust power level and cooking time for desired cookedness). Remove; allow to cool slightly (this may be the most difficult step); OMNOMNOMNOM. I realize this may be anywhere from mind-numbingly simplistic to painfully slapdash for people who regularly cook their own food. I am a kitchen n00b; for me, this is just right - manageable, and produces something tastier than Bachelor Chow.
Which reminds me: I need to make a Bachelor Chow userpic for posts like this. Bachelor Chow - now with flavor!
Girls Guild - Atlantis Secret Society of Girl Scholars
Long ago there was a princess named Sophia who lived on the island of Atlantis. Atlantis was said to be the most beautiful place in the world, but there was one problem: It was forbidden there to teach girls how to read or write. Unhappy with this, Sophia often sneaked into the Library of Atlantis, the greatest library ever built, and secretly learned how to read. Armed with her new knowledge, she soon made a terrible discovery: Atlantis was sinking. But when she told her father, King Canute, that the sea was rising, neither he nor any of his advisers believed her as she was just a girl. To find out what happened to Atlantis and Sophia and how Girls Guild came to be formed, download and print the free e-book...
There's a secret code, secret handshake, symbols, and all under Creative Commons. Delightful!
Okay, so...like anybody, I want feedback on the work that I do, right? So I set up a new Gmail account for Kanira Baxter and put the link on my main page.
But in exploring Gmail options, I find that I can tie the new Kanira Baxter account to my main Gmail address so I can send and receive mail from both addresses using a single interface/login!
I was afraid I'd have to, like, log into the new account every few days, check if there'z any email, you know...pain in the butt, right? But tying these two accounts together negates all that! And I can have the email from the other account redirected into a different folder so it doesn't get all jumbled up with my personal emails. Heck, Gmail notifier will even let me know when new Kanira Baxter mail comes in...this is awesome!
I mean, okay, maybe I'm a bit more excited about this than is completely warranted, but...well, seeing things get more convenient instead of less is so RARE sometimes, yanno? Heh.
Current Mood: ![[mood icon]](http://img38.exs.cx/img38/3014/amused2.gif)
pleased
Ok I told you to save August 29th, in the evening. Did you?
Did you?
Ok good, I knew you would . Anyway, here is the deal. I'm having a potluck /movie/picnic party. On August 29th they are showing Mamma Mia at Seattle Center, outside on a wall. The show starts at dusk, which will be around 9 I'm guessing.
We're going to get there early. Probably around 6:00 or 7:00 to get a good spot. We'll bring a couple of blankets, (you will too, right?) maybe some pillows, some games (apples to apples, fluxx?, scrabble) and food. It's a potluck, greek in theme to go with the movie. As we wait for the movie there will be eating and chatting and game playing. It's at Seattle Center so bring the kids if you have them. There will be plenty of other distractions for them as we wait for the movie. (Miss Bit will be with us)
Oh and when the movie begins? There will be singing and possibly even dancing. If Abba scares you... well maybe you can come for the potluck and leave before the movie starts? Anyway ...
By the Details
Saturday August 29th 7pm-on
Mamma Mia at Seattle Center
Potluck: Sign up here **
Questions about the venue, what you can or can't bring look here
Other questions? Send them to me!
**Sorry its a google doc, I can't do polls anymore as a free member.
...I've still got a buffer of thirty comics now that page #05 is up. Which proves to me my point about giving myself ample lead time on this comic.
I left for Vermont and made maybe a page, page-and-a-half while I was gone. Imagine if I have a whole week ahead of me, neh? As opposed to being on a trip? That buffer should expand itself past 30, assuming I don't slack.
I find this development pleasing and reassuring. :)
I'm still wondering if it ever stops being exciting, if I'll ever find myself simply blase about being a for-real webcomic artist, at finally telling this story that's been in my head. I d'know...
Current Mood: pleased
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2009/07/homomorphic_enc.html
Last month, IBM made some pretty brash claims about homomorphic encryption and the future of security. I hate to be the one to throw cold water on the whole thing -- as cool as the new discovery is -- but it's important to separate the theoretical from the practical.
Homomorphic cryptosystems are ones where mathematical operations on the ciphertext have regular effects on the plaintext. A normal symmetric cipher -- DES, AES, or whatever -- is not homomorphic. Assume you have a plaintext P, and you encrypt it with AES to get a corresponding ciphertext C. If you multiply that ciphertext by 2, and then decrypt 2C, you get random gibberish instead of P. If you got something else, like 2P, that would imply some pretty strong nonrandomness properties of AES and no one would trust its security.
The RSA algorithm is different. Encrypt P to get C, multiply C by 2, and then decrypt 2C -- and you get 2P. That's a homomorphism: perform some mathematical operation to the ciphertext, and that operation is reflected in the plaintext. The RSA algorithm is homomorphic with respect to multiplication, something that has to be taken into account when evaluating the security of a security system that uses RSA.
This isn't anything new. RSA's homomorphism was known in the 1970s, and other algorithms that are homomorphic with respect to addition have been known since the 1980s. But what has eluded cryptographers is a fully homomorphic cryptosystem: one that is homomorphic under both addition and multiplication and yet still secure. And that's what IBM researcher Craig Gentry has discovered.
This is a bigger deal than might appear at first glance. Any computation can be expressed as a Boolean circuit: a series of additions and multiplications. Your computer consists of a zillion Boolean circuits, and you can run programs to do anything on your computer. This algorithm means you can perform arbitrary computations on homomorphically encrypted data. More concretely: if you encrypt data in a fully homomorphic cryptosystem, you can ship that encrypted data to an untrusted person and that person can perform arbitrary computations on that data without being able to decrypt the data itself. Imagine what that would mean for cloud computing, or any outsourcing infrastructure: you no longer have to trust the outsourcer with the data.
Unfortunately -- you knew that was coming, right? -- Gentry’s scheme is completely impractical. It uses something called an ideal lattice as the basis for the encryption scheme, and both the size of the ciphertext and the complexity of the encryption and decryption operations grow enormously with the number of operations you need to perform on the ciphertext -- and that number needs to be fixed in advance. And converting a computer program, even a simple one, into a Boolean circuit requires an enormous number of operations. These aren't impracticalities that can be solved with some clever optimization techniques and a few turns of Moore's Law; this is an inherent limitation in the algorithm. In one article, Gentry estimates that performing a Google search with encrypted keywords -- a perfectly reasonable simple application of this algorithm -- would increase the amount of computing time by about a trillion. Moore’s law calculates that it would be 40 years before that homomorphic search would be as efficient as a search today, and I think he’s being optimistic with even this most simple of examples.
Despite this, IBM’s PR machine has been in overdrive about the discovery. Its press release makes it sound like this new homomorphic scheme is going to rewrite the business of computing: not just cloud computing, but "enabling filters to identify spam, even in encrypted email, or protection information contained in electronic medical records." Maybe someday, but not in my lifetime.
This is not to take anything away anything from Gentry or his discovery. Visions of a fully homomorphic cryptosystem have been dancing in cryptographers' heads for thirty years. I never expected to see one. It will be years before a sufficient number of cryptographers examine the algorithm that we can have any confidence that the scheme is secure, but -- practicality be damned -- this is an amazing piece of work.
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20090708223757362
There is a monster SCO filing in the bankruptcy, 531 pages, I'm told, a
Notice of Cure Amounts in Connection with the Assumption and Assignment of Unexpired Leases and Executory Contracts [PDF] and then a 7-part exhibit. SCO proposes to transfer everything on this list to unXis "free and clear of all liens, claims, encumbrances and interests upon satisfaction of the cure amounts... except for Assumed Liabilities and Permitted Encumbrances".
It is to me one of the most fascinating document SCO has ever filed. It presents a picture of SCO's business that is very different from what they have presented to the courts. One fascinating thing is that it seems it was possible to get UNIX System V after 1995, despite SCO testimony at trial in SCO v. Novell that after that time period you could only get UNIX by licensing UnixWare.
Forget that you don't think this sales plan will ever happen. It's an opportunity to look at the innards of SCO's business. I went through every page, looking for what new customers, or any updating customers, licensed after 1995. I was curious to see whether UnixWare took off and UNIX drifted down or suddenly stopped after 1995. I had a theory that perhaps SCO didn't want to sell UNIX after that, so as to avoid paying Novell royalties. But what I found instead surprised me greatly.
What I see from these exhibits is that SCO's business slowed noticeably after 1994. I don't know why, but for sure it wasn't Linux. And I think this filing strongly indicates that IBM in no way killed SCO's business beginning in 2000 as SCO alleged in its complaint. It was already declining, judging from this list. Why would anyone want to buy this business, I asked myself? People seem to have lost interest in UNIX and UnixWare around that time period. There are some new customers after that, but it's nothing like the 80s and 90s up until 1995. Of course, by that I mean they lost interest in SCO's UNIX versions. We know UNIX continues to sell well, but I guess new customers mostly chose other vendors.
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap090709.html
Fermi's Gamma-ray Pulsars
NASA, DOE, Fermi LAT Collaboration
Explanation: Born in supernovae, pulsars are spinning neutron stars, collapsed stellar cores left from the death explosions of massive stars. Traditionally identified and studied by observing their regular radio pulsations, two dozen pulsars have now been detected at extreme gamma-ray energies by the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope. The detections include 16 pulsars identified by their pulsed gamma-ray emission alone. This gamma-ray all-sky map, aligned with the plane of our Milky Way Galaxy, shows the pulsar positions, with the 16 new Fermi pulsars circled in yellow (8 previously known radio pulsars are in magenta). Bizarre stellar corpses, the Vela, Crab, and Geminga pulsars on the right are the brightest ones in the gamma-ray sky. Pulsars Taz, Eel, and Rabbit are named for the nebulae they are now known to power. The Gamma Cygni and CTA 1 pulsars at the left also reside within expanding supernova remnants of the same name.
Jul. 8th, 2009
Gang sign
Originally uploaded by wiredknitter
Nerdy gang sign from Beth and Joe's photo-safari pre-wedding party.
Columbia Gorge
Originally uploaded by wiredknitter
This is why I love the east side of Washington. It is so beautiful. Click through here for more scenery pictures.
What he says in response to a study that finds married people don't suffer as poorly from Alzheimer's, or the fact that one of the co-hosts tried to stop him and had a pained "omg" look on her face as he was doing it?
Way to keep it classy, FOX News.
I take it that host is still going to be there a month from today?
After 10 years of phobic-worthy avoidance, excuses, justifications, and general bitching, I have emerged victorious!
That is, with the calm and steady help and loanage of a reliable vehicle VIA my lovely and awesome friend Bob, I have passed the Drivers test. I now have a valid drivers liscence, should I ever need to use it.
Booya.
I went over my caloric intake again. It's those damn circus cookies. Lol. I went over my calories by 600 and guess what. My intake for those damn cookies were 600 calories.
I need to break this habit again and I just don't wanna. I'm tired of being sick so I'm seeking solitude in comfort food. Well I thought I would try and battle that issue with a sweet soup.
I made a veggie rich soup (with kale even) to help counter the suger cravings. I hope tomorrow is a little easier. I'm going to eat some protien with breakfast and every time I get a hankering for sweets drink tea or water.
I have enough of the soup that I'm sending some home with My sweetie and eating the rest. It's got kale and squash and garlic and other yummy things. Mmmm
My hopes are it will help kick this nightmare out of my body. It hurts. I can't breathe. Blah.
Ok I'm done whining like a baby.
Posted via LiveJournal.app.
I miss hanging out with freaks, artists, musicians, bums, hippies, flower children, and misfits.
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thoughtful
Current Music: "June 9th" by Boards of Canada
Me: WWSMD
Me: What Would Stirling Mortlock Do?
Me: Answer: Head butt the bar exam
Me: iners
electronink: Oh. I was thinking of Spider-man
Current Music: mortlock mortlock mortlock
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okay
