There’s no need to tell you that I am Mr Twitter. You only need to look through the GAS archives to know that. But the one thing that irritated me about Twitter was going through each email that told me that someone was now following me and then going to that person’s Twitter profile, following them, going to the next email, following them… it got a bit tedious after a while. I mean, I get enough email in my day without getting even more. There had to be a way to automate all of this… right?
It turns out there is a way. There’s a website called TweetLater which is marketed as a site where you can schedule Twitter messages to be posted in the future. But you can also tell it to auto-accept people who are following you and follow them right back on your behalf. It will even send an automated thank you message to their Twitter account! So how do you set it up?
The NSA just finished a series of cyber-warfare gaming with itself as the attackers. The defenders? The military academies, including the Naval Academy in Annapolis, the Air Force Academy in Colorado, and the US Military Academy in West Point. For the second year in a row, the Army came in first place in the exercise.
But what is more interesting than the winner is the information this article from Wired here reveals about the NSA, including the facts that they have the legal authority to disable any US network, and can classify attack codes based on skill level of an adversary.
For four days in late April, the National Security Agency — the nation’s most secretive repository of spooks, snoops and electronic eavesdroppers — directed coordinated assaults on custom-built networks at seven of the nation’s military academies, including West Point, the Army university 50 miles north of New York City.
It was all part of the seventh annual Cyber Defense Exercise, a training event for future military IT specialists. The exercise offered a rare window into the NSA’s toolkit for infiltrating, corrupting or destroying computer networks.
For the second year in a row, the Army placed first over the Navy, Air Force, Coast Guard and others, winning geek bragging rights and the privilege of holding onto a gaudy, 60-pound brass trophy festooned with bald eagles and American flags. Adams credits the team’s thorough preparation and their excellent teamwork despite the round-the-clock schedule.
Even with a solid network design and passable software choices, there was an element of intuitiveness required to defend against the NSA, especially once it became clear the agency was using minor, and perhaps somewhat obvious, attacks to screen for sneakier, more serious ones.
Legal limitations were a surprising obstacle to a realistic exercise. Ideally, the teams would be allowed to attack other schools’ networks while also defending their own. But only the NSA, with its arsenal of waivers, loopholes, special authorizations (and heaven knows what else) is allowed to take down a U.S. network.
And despite the relative sophistication of the NSA’s assaults, the agency told Wired.com that it had tailored its attacks to be just “a little too hard for the strongest undergraduate team to deal with, so that we could distinguish the strongest teams from the weaker ones.”
In other words, grasshopper, nice work — but the NSA is capable of much craftier network take-downs.
When it comes to Cyber-Warfare, I’m happy to have the NSA on our side.
Watch out, Power Glove: There’s a new sensor-based item on the market, and this one has the potential to change lives.
A team of computer engineering students at Carnegie Mellon University have developed a glove that can convert hand movements into spoken words. The idea is to give deaf people an easy way to use American Sign Language to communicate over the phone. Make a fist, the phone says “good morning.” Hold out two fingers and a thumb, it says “thank you for your time.”
The guys are getting a lot of attention for this little class project. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette did an entire feature about them, and their web site detailing their work is seeing plenty of visitors these days.
It’s no surprise, either. They’ve already figured out a way to automatically send the gestures directly into a user’s cell phone, making communication almost instant. The phone uses software to translate the electronic message first into text, then into spoken voice. The team’s planning to put the glove into testing with actual hearing-impaired users in the next few months.
This class seems to have a record of success. The Post-Gazette says the product created by one of last year’s teams is now on the market. It’s a bar code reader that blind people can use to scan an item in any store, then hear details about what it is and how much it costs.
Not bad for a bunch of college kids. I think my biggest accomplishment back then was freezing a textbook into a solid block of ice and dropping it off a 15 story building. Though, come to think of it, that was pretty cool. Advantage JR.
For those who have been waiting patiently for the upcoming X-Files movie trailer to come out, wait no more – it’s finally out.
It doesn’t show that much but you do get to see some revealing scenes – including a gorgeous Gillian Anderson. Plus my girlfriend found David Duchovny quite delicious too apparently. Scottish comedian and actor Billy Connolly also looks good. I’m sure he and David had a great time on the set as the two of them probably share the same sense of humour, especially with the last line of the trailer when Connolly remarks “so you believe in these kind of things then?”
But how well is the movie going to do after a break of six years? That’s the big question. Does the X-Files still have its mojo? Do YOU still believe?
If you think you’ve seen the best of what multi-touch technologies can offer, wait till you see these guys playing a giant version of missile command on a multi-touch wall.
As a professional writer (and one who is also working on a novel), I found the following project quite amusing and also quite cringing in its own way. Penguin Books and De Montfort University wanted to see if a novel could be written by a collective group of people using wiki software (the same software that Wikipedia uses) and thereby blow away the image of the solitary writer sitting toiling away at his craft year after year.
So someone can help to write chapter one, then someone else can come along and rewrite that part if they didn’t like what the previous person had written and so on… sounds like a recipe for total anarchy if you ask me.
1,500 people ended up taking part in the project which came to be known as A Million Penguins and it is now finished for you to read. If you can make it as far as Chapter Two without losing the will to live that is.
The critics’ verdict? Bloody awful. That’s not just my opinion but everyone’s. As one blog pointed out, being a wiki, the project was plagued by vandals from day one. Gawker too didn’t really have nice things to say about it either. I mean, just look at the opening paragraph :
The deep waters, black as ink, began to swell and recede into an uncertain distance. A gray ominous mist obscured the horizon. The ocean expanse seemed to darken in disapproval. Crashing tides sounded groans of agonized discontent. The ocean pulsed with a frightening, vital force. Although hard to imagine, life existed beneath. It’s infinite underbelly was teeming with life, a monstrous collection of finned, tentacled, toxic, and slimy parts. Below its surface lay the wreckage of countless souls. But we had dared to journey across it. Some had even been brave enough to explore its sable velveteen depths, and have yet to come up for precious air….”
Jesus… it’s enough to make my English teacher have a multiple coronary! As a social experiment, I’m sure it was interesting but it sure isn’t Shakespeare!
Our friend Niko and Vlad from GTA IV appeareared in last weekend’s edition of SNL. They’re not really happy about how media talk about the game, saying that the coverage paints a bad picture of how people live their lives in Liberty city. Check it out.
It’s no secret cell service isn’t cheap. What you may not know, though, is how many cool tools are out there just waiting to make your life easier. Most of them are free, and all of them will help you get more bang for your buck. So grab your stylus and start taking notes — this is stuff you don’t want to miss.
For years, you’ve probably played computer games and helped save beautiful princesses, defeated the evil warlocks, blasted away your enemies and racked up countless points. But how about playing a different game this time? One in which the better you get, the more chance you have to help make real medical discoveries such as a cure for HIV or advances for Alzheimer’s and vaccines? Wouldn’t that shut up all your critics (like your parents) who accuse you of wasting time in front of a Playstation?
Researchers at the University of Washington have developed a new free online game called Foldit which is designed to turn protein folding into a competitive sport. These same researchers want to use the competitive spirits of gamers in the hope that there are people out there who will play the game over and over in a quest to become faster and faster and in doing so, help medical science for the better.
I know what you’re thinking. Protein folding? Yawn! Give me a gun and a bad guy to kill! But apparently the game is very addictive. The game has been described as a “21st-century version of Tetris” and already countless volunteers have signed up. I’m one of them. Want to join me? Come on, think of the medical research! Your inner geek is talking to you! Just look at that protein structure! Isn’t it a BEAUTY?!
**PLEASE NOTE THAT DUE TO EXCESSIVE DEMAND THE FOLDIT SITE IS RUNNING VERY SLOWLY. IF YOU CAN’T GET THROUGH, TRY AGAIN LATER**
There’s no need to tell you that I am Mr Twitter. You only need to look through the GAS archives to know that. But the one thing that irritated me about Twitter was going through each email that told me that someone was now following me and then going to that person’s Twitter profile, following them, going to the next email, following them… it got a bit tedious after a while. I mean, I get enough email in my day without getting even more. There had to be a way to automate all of this… right?
The NSA just finished a series of cyber-warfare gaming with itself as the attackers. The defenders? The military academies, including the 
