research page 3 - Dave's Blog

Search
My timeline on Mastodon

Security Research & Defense : Released build of Internet Explorer 8 blocks Dowd/Sotirov ASLR+DEP .NET bypass

2009 Mar 23, 12:58Details on a particular browser exploit and how its been resolved in IE8. "One approach they presented allowed attackers to use .NET framework DLL's to allocate executable pages of memory at predictable locations within the iexplore.exe process. They were then able to demonstrate how .NET behavior could be combined with a separate exploitable memory corruption vulnerability to run arbitrary code."PermalinkCommentssecurity ie8 ie browser hack via:ericlaw

Language Log - Send a private message to

2009 Mar 16, 4:23The underwhelming answer to the question of "What are the commonest five-word sequences on the Web?"PermalinkCommentslanguagelog culture internet web research language english

The Faces of Mechanical Turk - Waxy.org

2009 Jan 23, 1:47"When you experiment with Amazon's Mechanical Turk, it feels like magic. ... Last week, I started a new Turk experiment to answer two questions: what do these people look like, and how much does it cost for someone to reveal their face?"PermalinkCommentsprivacy research amazon mechanicalturk internet photo experiment social

Paper: "moral panic" behind attempts to link games, violence

2009 Jan 22, 9:43'Behind the press reports, the academic community has been engaged in a hot debate over whether the evidence supports a connection between the violent content of games and any behavioral effects. One of the researchers who has argued forcefully that it's not is Christopher Ferguson, who has just published a paper that argues that the continued societal focus on games as a causal factor in violence is an example of what's termed a "moral panic."'PermalinkCommentsgame violence society videogames

Hairy robot sports dancing eyes - Short Sharp Science - New Scientist

2009 Jan 19, 3:14Researchers make another dancing robot. Its sort of owl like.PermalinkCommentskeepon robot dancing music humor video

Swarmbots team up to transport child

2009 Jan 13, 12:30A swarm of robots drag a child across the floor. The future is now! "In the meantime, the video below shows that an army of swarmbots belonging to researchers at the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne in Switzerland can work together to pull off quite a feat - transporting a small girl across the floor."PermalinkCommentsvideo humor robot robots drag

A Reporter at Large: Atomic John: Reporting and Essays: The New Yorker

2008 Dec 29, 2:20"But the most accurate account of the bomb's inner workings-an unnervingly detailed reconstruction, based on old photographs and documents-has been written by a sixty-one-year-old truck driver from Waukesha, Wisconsin, named John Coster-Mullen, who was once a commercial photographer, and has never received a college degree."PermalinkCommentsvia:swannman bomb atom-bomb atomic-bomb history goverment nuclear physics security research science

"Single?" Lawn Signs Conquer the American Landscape - The Metric System

2008 Nov 6, 6:27Examination of the who and why behind those 'Single?' lawn signs: 'At this point, I came to the realization that every question I answered seemed to introduce two more. In this case, they were "did someone hire these firms or are they acting on their own?" and, more confusingly, "how did a web design firm in Panama or India get a lawn sign physically planted in the front lawn of my high school in South Jersey?"'PermalinkCommentssign blog marketing dns advertising business web internet research

The igraph library for complex network research

2008 Nov 5, 3:55A graphing library which includes variaous graph visualization algorithms. GNU licensed. "igraph is a free software package for creating and manipulating undirected and directed graphs. It includes implementations for classic graph theory problems like minimum spanning trees and network flow, and also implements algorithms for some recent network analysis methods, like community structure search."PermalinkCommentsreference free development programming visualization graph math library opensource c++ igraph graphviz via:mattb

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Locksmiths

2008 Nov 3, 2:01Software that can produce the design for a key from a photo of a key. "Scenes from one of the proof-of-concept telephoto experiments using a new software program from UC San Diego that can perform key duplication without having the key. Instead, the computer scientists only need a photograph of the key."PermalinkCommentssecurity photo software research paranoia key

Microsoft takes touchscreens to the next dimension - Short Sharp Science - New Scientist

2008 Oct 29, 3:09Video showing some more interesting touch screen ideas from Microsoft Research. A touch sensitive sphere that can accomodate multiple users and a table which projects one image onto itself and another image onto objects beyond itself: "But hold another piece of a translucent glass in the air above the table, and it catches a second ghostly image. This trick is in the tabletop glass, which electronically flickers between translucent and transparent 60 times per second, faster than the eye can notice."PermalinkCommentsresearch microsoft video touchscreen table

Investigation of a Few Application Protocols (Updated)

2008 Oct 25, 6:51

Windows allows for application protocols in which, through the registry, you specify a URL scheme and a command line to have that URL passed to your application. Its an easy way to hook a webbrowser up to your application. Anyone can read the doc above and then walk through the registry and pick out the application protocols but just from that info you can't tell what the application expects these URLs to look like. I did a bit of research on some of the application protocols I've seen which is listed below. Good places to look for information on URI schemes: Wikipedia URI scheme, and ESW Wiki UriSchemes.

Some Application Protocols and associated documentation.
Scheme Name Notes
search-ms Windows Search Protocol The search-ms application protocol is a convention for querying the Windows Search index. The protocol enables applications, like Microsoft Windows Explorer, to query the index with parameter-value arguments, including property arguments, previously saved searches, Advanced Query Syntax, Natural Query Syntax, and language code identifiers (LCIDs) for both the Indexer and the query itself. See the MSDN docs for search-ms for more info.
Example: search-ms:query=food
Explorer.AssocProtocol.search-ms
OneNote OneNote Protocol From the OneNote help: /hyperlink "pagetarget" - Starts OneNote and opens the page specified by the pagetarget parameter. To obtain the hyperlink for any page in a OneNote notebook, right-click its page tab and then click Copy Hyperlink to this Page.
Example: onenote:///\\GUMMO\Users\davris\Documents\OneNote%20Notebooks\OneNote%202007%20Guide\Getting%20Started%20with%20OneNote.one#section-id={692F45F5-A42A-415B-8C0D-39A10E88A30F}&end
callto Callto Protocol ESW Wiki Info on callto
Skype callto info
NetMeeting callto info
Example: callto://+12125551234
itpc iTunes Podcast Tells iTunes to subscribe to an indicated podcast. iTunes documentation.
C:\Program Files\iTunes\iTunes.exe /url "%1"
Example: itpc:http://www.npr.org/rss/podcast.php?id=35
iTunes.AssocProtocol.itpc
pcast
iTunes.AssocProtocol.pcast
Magnet Magnet URI Magnet URL scheme described by Wikipedia. Magnet URLs identify a resource by a hash of that resource so that when used in P2P scenarios no central authority is necessary to create URIs for a resource.
mailto Mail Protocol RFC 2368 - Mailto URL Scheme.
Mailto Syntax
Opens mail programs with new message with some parameters filled in, such as the to, from, subject, and body.
Example: mailto:?to=david.risney@gmail.com&subject=test&body=Test of mailto syntax
WindowsMail.Url.Mailto
MMS mms Protocol MSDN describes associated protocols.
Wikipedia describes MMS.
"C:\Program Files\Windows Media Player\wmplayer.exe" "%L"
Also appears to be related to MMS cellphone messages: MMS IETF Draft.
WMP11.AssocProtocol.MMS
secondlife [SecondLife] Opens SecondLife to the specified location, user, etc.
SecondLife Wiki description of the URL scheme.
"C:\Program Files\SecondLife\SecondLife.exe" -set SystemLanguage en-us -url "%1"
Example: secondlife://ahern/128/128/128
skype Skype Protocol Open Skype to call a user or phone number.
Skype's documentation
Wikipedia summary of skype URL scheme
"C:\Program Files\Skype\Phone\Skype.exe" "/uri:%l"
Example: skype:+14035551111?call
skype-plugin Skype Plugin Protocol Handler Something to do with adding plugins to skype? Maybe.
"C:\Program Files\Skype\Plugin Manager\skypePM.exe" "/uri:%1"
svn SVN Protocol Opens TortoiseSVN to browse the repository URL specified in the URL.
C:\Program Files\TortoiseSVN\bin\TortoiseProc.exe /command:repobrowser /path:"%1"
svn+ssh
tsvn
webcal Webcal Protocol Wikipedia describes webcal URL scheme.
Webcal URL scheme description.
A URL that starts with webcal:// points to an Internet location that contains a calendar in iCalendar format.
"C:\Program Files\Windows Calendar\wincal.exe" /webcal "%1"
Example: webcal://www.lightstalkers.org/LS.ics
WindowsCalendar.UrlWebcal.1
zune Zune Protocol Provides access to some Zune operations such as podcast subscription (via Zune Insider).
"c:\Program Files\Zune\Zune.exe" -link:"%1"
Example: zune://subscribe/?name=http://feeds.feedburner.com/wallstrip.
feed Outlook Add RSS Feed Identify a resource that is a feed such as Atom or RSS. Implemented by Outlook to add the indicated feed to Outlook.
Feed URI scheme pre-draft document
"C:\PROGRA~2\MICROS~1\Office12\OUTLOOK.EXE" /share "%1"
im IM Protocol RFC 3860 IM URI scheme description
Like mailto but for instant messaging clients.
Registered by Office Communicator but I was unable to get it to work as described in RFC 3860.
"C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office Communicator\Communicator.exe" "%1"
tel Tel Protocol RFC 5341 - tel URI scheme IANA assignment
RFC 3966 - tel URI scheme description
Call phone numbers via the tel URI scheme. Implemented by Office Communicator.
"C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office Communicator\Communicator.exe" "%1"
(Updated 2008-10-27: Added feed, im, and tel from Office Communicator)PermalinkCommentstechnical application protocol shell url windows

Computer-table knows when it's time for a refill - Short Sharp Science - New Scientist

2008 Oct 23, 1:58"The table can sense the level of liquid inside a glass, making it possible to tip off a waiter that it's time for a refill."PermalinkCommentsmicrosoft surface research restaurant refill

Microsoft Research Image Composite Editor (ICE)

2008 Sep 24, 1:44"Microsoft Image Composite Editor is an advanced panoramic image stitcher. You shoot a set of overlapping photographs of a scene from a single location, and Image Composite Editor creates a high-resolution panorama incorporating all your images at full resolution."PermalinkCommentsmicrosoft research image photo panorama tool free ice stitching

Neatorama - Blog Archive - Pet Your Chicken Through the Internet!

2008 Sep 3, 6:15"National University of Singapore's Mixed Reality Lab is fast becoming my favorite in cutting edge (and a little wacky - okay, a lot) research. Take, for instance, this project titled Poultry Internet, where a chicken is outfitted with a special dress that lets its owner pet it over the Internet." Johnny Cat writes: "Kudos to Gonzo for inventing this." I can't get to the actual site with the info on the project but it is available on the Wayback Machine.PermalinkCommentschicken humor internet virtual-reality mixed-reality

Revealed: The Internet's Biggest Security Hole | Threat Level from Wired.com

2008 Aug 29, 8:37"Two security researchers have demonstrated a new technique to stealthily intercept internet traffic on a scale previously presumed to be unavailable to anyone outside of intelligence agencies like the National Security Agency." Described fixes all require significant changes to the software and probably hardware doing the routing. UghPermalinkCommentswired article security internet bgp hack networking defcon

Photosynth of my Office

2008 Aug 26, 11:08PermalinkCommentsmicrosoft photosynth photo office nontechnical

Network notary system thwarts man-in-the-middle attacks

2008 Aug 26, 10:03"A new system devised by Carnegie Mellon University researchers aims to thwart man-in-the-middle (MitM) attacks by providing a way to verify the authenticity of self-signed certificates. The system, which is called Perspectives, uses a distributed network of "notary" servers to evaluate the public key of a target destination so that its validity can be ascertained."PermalinkCommentssecurity ssl pki certificate man-in-the-middle

DoxPara Research

2008 Jul 14, 10:32Dan Kaminsky's blog.PermalinkCommentsdan-kaminsky blog security dns ip networking browser windows unix microsoft hack

Tracking the Trackers

2008 Jun 10, 4:52"...we were able to generate hundreds of real DMCA takedown notices for ... nonsense devices including several printers and a (non-NAT) wireless access point."PermalinkCommentssecurity bittorrent copyright dmca legal mpaa piracy printer research riaa washington
Older EntriesNewer Entries Creative Commons License Some rights reserved.