Hasta La Gadget!

So you’re cruising along, in your GPS-equipped SUV, taking your dear wife back home to Reno. The trusty onscreen guide instructs you to “turn right” and you follow its typically reliable instructions. At what point in the next three days of plowing deeper and deeper into snow-covered Oregon do you start suspecting that maybe something is amiss? Alright, so this isn’t quite on par with others driving buses into low-clearance tunnels, dipping their cars into rivers, or jamming heavy load trucks into unsuitably tight farm lanes. But we don’t discriminate here, all instances of idiotic GPS dependency deserve their moment in the sun, so here’s to Mr. John Rhoads and his tastefully named wife, Mrs. Starry Bush-Rhoads, who are now safe and sound after their phone pinged out its coordinates to emergency services when it began losing signal.

GPS leads couple into Oregon wilderness, lack of common sense keeps them there 3 days originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 29 Dec 2009 05:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Did you know that the vast majority of calls carried out on the 3.5 billion GSM connections in the world today are protected by a 21-year old 64-bit encryption algorithm? You should now, given that the A5/1 privacy algorithm, devised in 1988, has been deciphered by German computer engineer Karsten Nohl and published as a torrent for fellow code cracking enthusiasts and less benevolent forces to exploit. Worryingly, Karsten and his crew of merry men obtained the binary codes by simple brute force — they fed enough random strings of numbers in to effectively guess the password. The GSM Association — which has had a 128-bit A5/3 key available since 2007, but found little takeup from operators — has responded by having a whinge about Mr. Nohl’s intentions and stating that operators could just modify the existing code to re-secure their networks. Right, only a modified 64-bit code is just as vulnerable to cracking as the one that just got cracked. It’s important to note that simply having the code is not in itself enough to eavesdrop on a call, as the cracker would be faced with just a vast stream of digital communications — but Karsten comes back to reassure us that intercepting software is already available in customizable open source varieties. So don’t be like Tiger, keep your truly private conversations off the airwaves, at least for a while.

GSM call encryption code cracked, published for the whole world to see originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 29 Dec 2009 04:18:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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PosiMotion announces Helix gaming grip for iPhone / iPod touch originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 29 Dec 2009 03:11:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Remember how, in Catch Me If You Can, fugitive Leonardo DiCaprio kept calling Detective Tom Hanks to taunt him? Here is a convicted burglar doing the same thing, in real time on Facebook. Should we celebrate or fear him?

Craig ‘Lazie’ Lynch has been rising to folk hero status after absconding, in early September, from a prison in Suffolk Bay. (England! Which frees us up to celebrate him, because NIMBY.) He’s been daring the cops to come find him with defiant photographs, and detailing the corporeal pleasures associated with freedom, ever since:

mmm i just had a 12lb venison steak. Roasted veg and chips, bangin meal.

I feel stuffed but still got room for the j.d’s . Hope you enjoyed the meal babe’s. We’ll have to eat here again. Now to drive home in this shit weather. Hope we make it cos i’m ready to get in bed and un wrap somethin for afters x x.

Craig ‘Lazie’ Lynch Is thinkin, which lucky girl will be my first of 2010!!

Here’s how he celebrated Christmas. The middle finger is blurred because I was forced to rely photographic middlemen, since Lazie hasn’t accepted my friend request. (If my friendship is rejected by an escaped convict so indiscriminate as to send Facebook messages to the police, it will truly be a low point in my social networking career.)

YES YES i fuckin made it to Xmas i beat their fuckn system and i love it. I love you all my family my friends my lovers and all my supporters and fans i love the whole lot of you x x your the best merry xmas merry xmas merry xmas ho ho ho.

If any of you was doubtin my freedom. Here’s proof. How the fuck could i get my hands on a bird like this in jail. ha ha.

But will Lazie last until 2010? His yuletide updates invited press coverage and a ramped up manhunt, with Facebook disabling various accounts and delivering data to law enforcement. To get around this—and to avoid the “haters and racists” populating his comment sections—Lazie has constructed a Byzantine web of personal profiles and fan pages, each with varying degrees of privacy.* At last count, he had 7300 fans and 1300 friends. He’s skittish, too. A recent update read, “Oh No sirens!! Its happening,” only to turn into a sigh of relief when the sirens weren’t for him. A recent, baleful update reads:

well what can i say fellow friends. The run is nearly over. Sorry some of you had to find out like this. I know some of you might take offence that i never told you personally. But you know me. I Trust No One. Its the only way to be.

If we have learned anything from Hollywood fugitives, it’s that the desire for human connection is always what does the lone wolf in—and Facebook udpates count. Lazie, woefully aware of this premise, announces in his bittersweet About Me: “You’ll have a laugh with me but it will end in tears. It always does.” Just don’t pull a gun or anything when they come to get you, because then we’ll feel like total jerks for cheering you on.

Click below for screengrabs. [DailyMail] [LondonTimes] [Facebook] [Facebook]

* Hiding from law enforcement with privacy settings is theoretically pointless, but the fact that this strategy has worked for three months suggests Suffolk cops are actually that out of touch. Also, after successfully evading the authorities for this long, if he is thinking anything at all, it is probably, “Gawd, am I so baller, I think I’ll take another topless picture and brag about my sex life some more.” Successfully evading The Man is a known ego boost and aphrodisiac.

If you thought the automakers would be leaving CES to the TV and PMP makers, Ford would like to have a word with you. A few words, actually. Aside from announcing that in-car WiFi will be available next year, the iconic blue oval is today calling itself the first car manufacturer to offer factory-installed HD Radio with iTunes tagging capabilities. Slated to become available on select 2011 Ford models sometime next year, the implementation will enable listeners of HD Radio to “tag” songs they like via a single button press; from there, the song information will be logged within the radio’s memory, and up to 100 tags on Sync can be stored until an iPod is connected to suck them down. Once that data hits the iPod, users can then preview or purchase them conveniently through iTunes. There’s no word yet on pricing (we’re being forced to wait until CES), but we’re guessing it’ll demand quite the premium.

Continue reading Ford becomes first automaker to offer HD Radio with iTunes tagging

Ford becomes first automaker to offer HD Radio with iTunes tagging originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 29 Dec 2009 00:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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