Hasta La Gadget!

One small checkbox for your mouse pointer, one giant leap for your Twitter account’s security. The microblogging site that every techie knows, loves, and occasionally loathes, has added a new option to allow users to go HTTPS full-time. For the unenlightened among you, that means all your communications with Twitter can now be done over an SSL-encrypted channel, which massively boosts their resilience to external attacks. That won’t protect you if you’re careless with your password or leave your account logged in on computers other than your own, but at least you can sleep a little more restfully knowing that nobody other than yourself will be embarrassing you on the Twittersphere.

Twitter adds ‘Always use HTTPS’ option, makes cyberterrorists FOF originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 16 Mar 2011 09:09:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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This article was written on December 05, 2007 by CyberNet.

We all know about hackers stealing data from wireless networks by breaking their encryption, but has the security of your wireless keyboard ever concerned you? If you think about it your keyboard sends anything you type (websites, passwords, instant messenger conversations, etc…) to your computer. What’s stopping hackers from tapping into your keyboard’s wireless stream and gathering data that could potentially compromise your security?

As expected wireless keyboard vendors like Microsoft and Logitech provide encryption techniques to prevent this kind of stuff from happening. One group of researchers, however, were able to crack Microsoft’s wireless security scheme (PDF report) and intercept any of the text that was being sent. According them even very slow computers would be able to brute force the encryption key because of how insecure it is:

To our surprise, only the actual keystroke data seems to be encrypted. The Metaflags and identifier bits aren’t encrypted or obfuscated. The one byte USB Hid code is encrypted using a simple XOR mechanism with a single byte of random data generated during the association procedure.

This means that there are only 256 different key values possible per keyboard and receiver pair. We did not notice any automated key change interval and therefore assume that the encryption key stays the same until the user reassociates the keyboard. 256 key combination can be brute forced even with very slow computers today.
…
Using simple wordlist checking in combination with a weightening algorythm, every data in range can be decrypted within only a few keystrokes.

They tested this technique on the Microsoft Wireless Optical Desktop 1000 and 2000 keyboards, but they assume that other Microsoft wireless keyboards would produce the same results. As for Logitech they say that they have “additional software that seems to add another layer of encrpytion on top of the communication channel.”

For the sake of security the researches are withholding how to do this yourself, but they have submitted the information to Microsoft in hopes of seeing a patch soon. Good thing I’m still using an old fashioned wired keyboard.

[via The Register & CrunchGear]

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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Speck’s PixelSkin HD Wrap case is like the Apple Smart Cover, but without the smarts

Speck’s brand-new iPad 2 case shows the kind of direction third-party case makers can go in now that Apple has pretty much sewn up the covers market with its Smart Cover. Speck’s PixelSkin HD Wrap case takes some design cues from Apple’s cover, but adds a lot more protection for the paranoid and clumsy.

The PixelSkin HD uses no magnets. Instead you get a waffly, “pixelated” rubber skin which covers the back and edges. The front flap is jointed, though, just like the Apple one, and rolls into a supportive triangle.

With its bumper/skin design, the PixelSkin obviously doesn’t need the hinge magnets to hold it in place, but it could really do with a screen locking and unlocking magnet at the front. I have a feeling that once we’re used to the iPad automatically waking and sleeping as we open and close a cover, swiping to unlock is going to get old pretty fast.

Fortunately, if you can spare one of the fridge magnets that is holding the frankly terrible “painting” from your three-year-old onto your refrigerator, then you could simply tape that onto the case for the same functionality.

The PixelSkin comes in pink, blue and black, and will ship “soon” for $50.

PixelSkin HD [Speck. Thanks, Edith!]

See Also:

• IFixit Smart Cover Teardown: Contains Magnets. Lots of Magnets …
• iPad 2 Cover Is Smart, All Right — If You're Steve Jobs

As you’ve seen in the foreign press, all of Japan is starving and the condition is really terrible on the ground. See this gallery of horrible Tokyo panic photos to see what I mean. Tokyo Dandy has an even crazier view from street level.

Today the reality of our dire situation hit me the hardest. Viron was out of the pâté de campagne, so I was FORCED to settle for the poulet rôti for lunch.

It’s a nightmare out there people. Get out of Tokyo NOW before you find yourselves eating at Subway. Look at this bakery! Do you see a single baguette? No! I had to wait TEN MINUTES for them to finish baking them fresh in the back.

As you can see below, there’s a serious shortage of thon crudités and mozzarella.

Until France steps it up, moves out of their wimp-cave in Osaka, and starts supplying more sandwich aid, the real human toll of the disaster in Tokyo is only going to grow larger. We might even be drinking tap water once it all goes down.

SERIOUSLY
Right now, Tokyo is doing fine. Lots of people were out and about today, and the “shortages” of food and supplies are laughable to any older person here who experienced bombing of civilians by the United States during the war. Hang in there, and remember that there are a whole lot of people worse off than you just 150 miles north. Help them out through the charity of your choice. Better yet, go there yourself, bring money and supplies, and help them rebuild. That’s our plan.

In the meantime, check out this post on the growing food shortage in Tokyo. No beer? For a couple of days?? I’ll go nuts!! Also, TokyoCooney is keeping track of the dessert front.

If you can’t fix it, buy someone who can. That must be Google’s rationale behind this latest acquisition, as the proprietor of YouTube has just bought Green Parrot Pictures, a company concerned solely with enhancing and improving the quality of video content. Through the use of some fancy motion prediction algorithms, the Irish startup has been able to build a name for itself over the past few years, and now it’s been snapped up by the biggest fish in the online video ocean. The removal of flicker, noise and blotches from poorly executed recordings sounds nice, but we’re most excited by Green Parrot’s video stabilization feature. With all the cameraphone video being uploaded nowadays, there’s plenty of camera shake populating YouTube’s archives, and the addition of such a potent post-production technique seems like a veritable boon to us. Check out video demos of the stabilization algorithm and Green Parrot’s other technologies below.

Continue reading Google buys Green Parrot Pictures, looking to make YouTube vids easier on the eye

Google buys Green Parrot Pictures, looking to make YouTube vids easier on the eye originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 16 Mar 2011 07:19:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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