Nitrozac and Snaggy: No More Pencils, No More Books?

via the genius of Nitrozac and Snaggy at The Joy of Tech™

DHS Confirms: "Attack Did Not In Fact Target A Transportation Entity"

News, of rather strong disputation, of a recently reported on memo, detailing the recent electronic attack (characterized as a cyber-attack) allegedly targeting our nation’s train system (actually a system near and dear to my heart up here in the Pacific Northwest).

“…”Following more in-depth analysis, it appears that the potential cyber incident did not in fact target a transportation entity,” a senior DHS official told CNET today. “DHS worked with the affected entity, the FBI, and the Transportation Information Sharing and Analysis Center (ISAC) to resolve the issue and send alerts to notify the community of the anomalous activity as it was occurring.” “The official, who asked to remain unidentified, declined to provide additional details…”

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Recordist: Negovan Edison Wax Cylinder

The first recording to an Edison Wax Cylinder since 1924, by Thomas Negovan.

Superb.

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XKCD: Sloppier

via the genius of Randall Munroe at XKCD.com

Rings of Sound

Absolutely phenomenal - a turntable that plays tree rings… Primeval derivative sounds? Must be heard to be believed.

“…A tree’s year rings are analysed for their strength, thickness and rate of growth. This data serves as basis for a generative process that outputs piano music. It is mapped to a scale which is again defined by the overall appearance of the wood (ranging from dark to light and from strong texture to light texture). The foundation for the music is certainly found in the defined ruleset of programming and hardware setup, but the data acquired from every tree interprets this ruleset very differently…” via Traubeck

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Nada Nuevo Bajo El Sol: Twitter Hace 20 Años

via Cooking Ideas

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Weep for Mankind: Artificial Intelligence Plagiarization

Evidence of plagiarization has rooked, if you will, the artificial intelligence driven chess world. All puns (bad and good) aside, BoingBoing’s Rob Beschizza reports on the issues therein, and around the accused, and now proven culpable Rybka, a the chess application, under scrutiny.

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The Gatesian Reflection Conundrum

Fascinating…

Sergey and Larry's Big, Not-So Private, Adventure

Welcome to the ‘new’ world of Google Inc. (NasdaqGS: GOOG) cross-site user tracking [throughout the Google Inc. empire, that is]. The reality, of course, is the company’s tracking of users, and the sharing of that tracking information has gone on for years.

Is this turn of the so-called Google Privacy and Prnicples, perhaps a lead up to consolidate the company’s position prior to a concerted FTC anti-trust action against the little-search-engine-that-could, and provide leverage for same, admidst those legal proceedings? What will br the extent of user backlash? Will anyone outside of the technical industry (so to speak) actually read the new Privacy Policy? Will anyone actually believe Brin and Page, now so expertley coached by Eric “Beelzebub” Schmidt?

These are the questions bandied about at Infosecurity.US, whilst I am sure there are more of same, in your neck of the woods…

Homage and apologies to H.P. Lovecraft and Cthulhus everywhere…

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The Brads: 2012 Cynicism Projections

GAO Report: Information Security Breaches

Short (mercifully), yet informative C-SPAN video, this time with Greg Wilshusen, Director, Information Security Issues, within the United States Government Accountability Office’s (GAO). In which, Director Wilshusen details Federal government accountability related to the information security realm.  Enjoy.

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O2 Oops: Exploitable Privacy Flaw

via ThinkBroadband’s Sebastien Lahtinen, comes this well-crafted litany of research by Lewis Peckover providing evidence of data leakage on Europe’s O2 Wireless Network (LSE: OOM). Whereby device numbers are transmitted to sites visited by same. (Update: Apparently the issue has been mediated by the carriers in question).

“…Fixed! Good job social media :) All seems to be fixed: O2’s statement. Some questions still remain about which “trusted partners” do get to see your phone number, but I’m not holding my breath for a response on that one. I’ll leave the below page in place, but everything below this line can be considered out of date. You should no longer be able to see your number listed here…” - via Lewis Peckover at lew.io

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