Interesting excerpt from this NYT article: Delete: Bathwater. Undelete: Baby. (free registration might be required… if you don’t want to sign up, try bugmenot for a username and password).

Three billion messages a day arrive at the computers that run Hotmail, a Microsoft service with 170 million subscribers. The service blocks 2.7 billion of those messages, said George Webb, business manager for Microsoft’s anti-spam technology and strategy group.

Stunning, huh? Who responds to spam, anyway? Why is it still profitable?

ZDNet AnchorDesk: Gang warfare keeps MyDoom alive

This is a fun article on virii and DOS attacks. Hmm, I guess ‘fun’ isn’t a good word, and I don’t want to condone the writing of virii, but still, the whole ‘cyperpunk’ angle of this stuff entertains me. Don’t know what that says about me. Nothing good, I’m sure.

Could be worse, I guess. I could enjoy snuff films or kiddie porn.

When biotech comes home

[Freeman] Dyson called biotech the “new art form of the 21st century.” He predicted that the domestication of biotechnology will open up creativity to millions of people, with do-it-yourself kits for gardeners and snake breeders, for example. “Kids will buy seeds or eggs and compete with friends on who can grow the prickliest cactus or cutest dinosaur,” Dyson said. He envisions low cost DNA synthesizers that teenagers will buy like iPods and GarageBand to exercise their creative genes.

Um, yeah, ok….I certainly see that happening!

The scary thing is…I think he may be serious! I checked the calendar and it isn’t April 1st…

Building a Minesweeper-type game in JavaScript

This is kind of a neat and fun little project for you geeks out there.

New York Times hacker Adrian Lamo gets home detention

I remember seeing this guy on TechTV’s The Screensavers. Then, after the warrant was issued, they did a phone interview with him while he was on the lam, so to speak.

Back then the story we heard was different. That Lamo had hacked into the Times, made a few minor changes to prove he was there, and then notified The Times that he’d hacked into their network so they could fix the security flaws. There was no mention of LexisNexis back then.

The story was he’d done the same thing to other companies (such as Yahoo) who had thanked him for his help. He was definitely portrayed as a “White Hat” hacker.

So what’s the true story, I wonder? Let’s do some digging.

In fact, in Sept. 2003 IDG News Service posted:

His surrender followed reports last week that the FBI was investigating Lamo’s alleged unauthorized intrusion into the internal networks of The New York Times Co. in February 2002 (see story). The Times learned of the break-in after Lamo contacted the company through SecurityFocus reporter Kevin Poulsen, according to Christine Mohan, a spokeswoman for the newspaper.

Lamo frequently trespassed on the networks of prominent companies, uncovering security holes and accessing sensitive information. He then informed the companies of his exploits and often worked with them, as a consultant, to close the holes.

‘Homeless Hacker’ Lamo surrenders to feds

and in Feb 2002, Computerworld posted:

Toby Usnik, a Times spokesman, confirmed that the company had been notified of the security breach and has since fixed the holes that allowed Lamo to enter the intranet.

Security holes closed in New York Times intranet after hacker intrusion

But in the recent IDG News Service story, we read:

Lamo confessed to the Times break-in during an interview with Securityfocus.com, a computer security news Web site, in February 2002. That confession prompted an internal investigation by the Times that uncovered evidence of Lamo’s activities, and resulted in a case being opened by the FBI.

But no mention of the fact that Lamo had initiated the contact via SecurityFocus.

History is indeed written by the victors, eh?

Oh man, am I ever in heaven! I just installed my Airport Express wireless station. Now, I’ve been using a wireless network at home for years…couldn’t live without one.

But this..this is special! The unit is about the size of the ‘power block’ for Mac laptops. It has 3 ports on it. One for an ethernet cable (from your wired network, cable modem or whatever), a USB port to support wireless connectivity to a USB printer, and an audio out.

Audio? Oh yeah! With software they’re calling AirTunes, I hooked the Airport Express up to my home theater unit (using a mini-jack < -> toslink cable…you can use basic RCA jacks too). Now I’m sitting on the couch across the room, playing iTunes on my iBook, but directing the output through my home theater system.

It ROCKS! No more digging out the CD I want to hear, putting away whatever is in the player, and all that mucking about. Instead just fire up iTunes, find the song(s) I want to play and off we go!!

Setup was easy to the point of triviality. Everything worked like a dream. I’m stoked!