2011 Oct 20, 6:52
Wow, FTA: "Given all of this, reporter Charlie Savage of the NY Times filed a Freedom of Information Act request to find out the federal government's interpretation of its own law... and had it
refused. According to the federal government, its own interpretation of the law is classified."
technical 2010 Apr 29, 11:45"...Well guess what? The demand for hotel WiFi has not gone away, quite the opposite, a growing number of hotel guests not only demand the hotel they book have proper wireless access but most will
consider *not* staying at a hotel that can't meet their basic access needs."
hotel wifi technical statistics travel network internet wireless via:boingboing 2010 Mar 5, 6:06iPhone vs Android adoption per state and per gender. Apparently I'm out of my demographic with my G1.
android apple iphone g1 statistics cellphone google 2010 Jan 30, 2:26Similar to the "This is the title of a typical incendiary blog post" (http://faultline.org/index.php/site/item/incendiary/) except this is a typical news report. "...and this is a lighthouse keeper
being beheaded by a lighthouse beam."
bbc humor video via:waxy satire journalism tv news 2010 Jan 29, 10:28"Is your browser configuration rare or unique? If so, web sites may be able to track you, even if you limit or disable cookies." Examines HTTP headers and browser features and reports if your
configuration is unique (mine is). Good info for anyone looking at creating an anonymous browsing plugin or service
web security privacy eff education identity surveillance cookies cookie anonymity anonymous technical 2010 Jan 20, 2:03The only doctor in Antarctica has to remove his own appendix. "When Rogozov had made the incision and was manipulating his own innards as he removed the appendix, his intestine gurgled, which was
highly unpleasant for us..." Oh wow, Rogozov should for sure appologize for making you uncomfortable. Jerk. There's photos in the report too. Gross.
history science medicine antarctic appendix russia via:kottke 2010 Jan 14, 2:54Wow: "If the report's findings are correct, it suggests that the government of China has been engaged for months in a massive campaign of industrial espionage against US companies."
internet google china security politics privacy 2009 Dec 1, 9:40Wow: 'The fact that federal, state, and local law enforcement can obtain communications "metadata"—URLs of sites visited, e-mail message headers, numbers dialed, GPS locations, etc.—without any real
oversight or reporting requirements should be shocking, but it isn't. The courts ruled in 2005 that law enforcement doesn't need to show probable cause to obtain your physical location via the cell
phone grid. All of the aforementioned metadata can be accessed with an easy-to-obtain pen register/trap & trace order. But given the volume of requests, it's hard to imagine that the courts are
involved in all of these.'
privacy security gps phone cellphone government politics 2009 Nov 28, 3:50The downside of the placebo the nocebo: "This is the amazing world of the nocebo effect, where negative expectations can induce unpleasant symptoms, in the absence of a physical cause.", "In two of
them, the consent form contained a statement outling various gastrointestinal side effects, and in these centres there was a sixfold increase in the number of people reporting such symptoms and
dropping out of the trial, compared with the one centre that did not list such side effects in the form."
nocebo placebo science medicine ben-goldacre 2009 Nov 23, 1:24"This week Bell Labs plans to roll out the Telephone, the first viable Telegraph alternative, but reports indicate they may not be ready."
via:waxy humor telephone telegraph internet 2009 Aug 11, 6:22Good luck with that. "Forget WAV, MP3 and M4A – major labels have something new in mind, and it's called CMX. Sony, Warner, Universal and EMI are reportedly preparing a new digital album format that
will include songs, lyrics, videos, liner notes and artwork."
music cmx mp3 audio apple itunes 2009 Jul 31, 5:57"Is it worth the sensationalism and scaremongering? The endlessly inaccurate and dangerous science reporting? The pointless and news-free lifestyle articles? Do newspapers that prioritise stories
based on celebrities and spectacle rather than importance to the world deserve to exist?"
via:sambrook internet news journalism media 2009 Jul 1, 2:24Stats on HTTP servers and HTTP server response headers. "Current statistics are based on a sample of 84604 probed servers, gathered in the last 386 days."
http statistics server internet http-header via:mnot technical 2009 Jun 29, 4:19
I've looked at my web server logs previously to see if anyone had used my Web Frotz Interpreter and until recently didn't realize that awstats (the web server log report generator) was truncating the query from my URL, so I couldn't tell that anyone was actually using
it. But after grepping the logs manually I've pulled out the URLs of visitor's text adventure sessions. If you'll recall, my Web Frotz Interpreter stores the game state in the
URL so its easy to see user's game states in the web server logs.
I've put some of the links up on the Web Frotz Interpreter page. Some of the interesting ones:
server-logs technical zork frotz pants interactive-fiction uri if 2009 Jun 12, 12:20"We have discovered remotely-exploitable vulnerabilities in Green Dam, the censorship software reportedly mandated by the Chinese government. Any web site a Green Dam user visits can take control of
the PC. According to press reports, China will soon require all PCs sold in the country to include Green Dam. This software monitors web sites visited and other activity on the computer and blocks
adult content as well as politically sensitive material."
censorship china hack security internet greendam 2009 May 3, 10:36
Looking at the HTTP traffic of Netflix under Fiddler I could see the HTTP request that added a movie to my queue and didn't see anything obvious that would
prevent a CSRF. Sure enough its pretty easy to create a page that, if the user has set Netflix to auto-login, will add movies to the user's queue without their knowledge. I thought this was pretty
neat, because I could finally get people to watch Primer. However, when I searched for Netflix CSRF I found that this issue has been known and reported to Netflix since 2006. Again my thoughts stolen from me and the
theif doesn't even have the common decency to let me have the thought first!
With this issue known for nearly three years its hard to continue calling it an issue. Really they should just document it in their API docs and be
done with it. Who knows what Netflix based web sites and services they'll break if they try to change this behavior? For instance, follow this link to add my Netflix recommended movies to your queue.
technical stolen-thoughts csrf netflix security 2009 Apr 29, 12:34"In this presentation, recorded at QCon San Francisco 2008, HTTPbis WG chair Mark Nottingham gives an update on the current status of the HTTP protocol in the wild, and the ongoing work to clarify
the HTTP specification."
http httpbis protocol ietf reference video authentication cookie uri url tcp sctp mark-nottingham via:ericlaw 2009 Apr 20, 3:14This site does user generated reports on (mostly) spam phone numbers. They have a RESTful API to get at that data too! I'm looking for more like this.
api phone spam search reference telemarketing telephone lookup 2009 Apr 15, 7:38The Improv Everywhere's "Best Funeral Ever" April fools prank is reported as news and then runs into copyright issues: "The biggest fools of all were the CW 11 news team who reported on the funeral
as if it actually happened... I of course uploaded their story to my personal YouTube channel to show the world their lack of journalism skills. Tonight I got a copyright notice from YouTube
informing me that Tribune ... had filed a copyright claim against the video and that it had been removed."
copyright humor video prank improv-everywhere funeral via:boingboing
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