Hasta La Gadget!

Bullets like these could be loaded up with the ashes of your loved ones. Photo Wetsun/Flickr

Possibly the very best thing about this company is its name: Holy Smoke. That might sound quite so great until you find out that its business is taking the ashes of your loved ones and packing them into rifle cartridges and shotgun shells.

Holy Smoke, predictably based in Alabama, will divide the ashes between 250 shot-shells, 250 pistol cartridges or 100 rifle cartridges. All can be had in standard calibers, and all can be had in handcrafted “mantle-worthy” wooden boxes should you decide you don’t want to pump slugs full of Grampa into the local fauna all at once.

I love that Holy Smoke is positioning its service as environmentally friendly, and I guess it is compared to burial. I also love this tale of the company’s beginnings when it was founded by two state law enforcement officers “several years ago.”

I was talking with my friend and co-worker at work one evening. I told my […] that I thought I wanted to be cremated and in some fashion, have my ashes tossed into a river or spread through the woods.

My friend smiled and said “You know I’ve thought about this for some time and I want to be cremated. Then I want my ashes put into some turkey load shotgun shells and have someone that knows how to turkey hunt use the shotgun shells with my ashes to shoot a turkey. That way I will rest in peace knowing that the last thing that one turkey will see is me, screaming at him at about 900 feet per second.”

I don’t know why that guy hates turkeys so much, but as corporate origin stories go, it’s up there with the best.

Should you decide to send your cremated friends or relatives off at “900 feet per second,” a box of shells (in the above-mentioned amounts) will cost you $850, plus an extra $100 for the wooden case. Available now, or whenever you might need them.

Holy Smoke product page [Holy Smoke via Werd]

See Also:

• Shot-Counter Brings Video-Game Guns to Real Life
• Mystery Anti-Recoil Device for Guns
• BedBunker: Sleep Sound On Top of Your Weapon Stash
• The Back-Up: Bed Mounted Shotgun Rack

Continue reading ITT unveils GhostRider encryption device capable of securing US Army smartphones

ITT unveils GhostRider encryption device capable of securing US Army smartphones originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 11 Oct 2011 15:22:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The man on your left is Dr. Peng Ning — a computer science professor at NC State whose team, along with researchers from IBM, has developed an experimental new method for safely securing cloud-stored data. Their approach, known as a “Strongly Isolated Computing Environment” (SICE), would essentially allow engineers to isolate, store and process sensitive information away from a computing system’s hypervisors — programs that allow networked operating systems to operate independently of one another, but are also vulnerable to hackers. With the Trusted Computing Base (TCB) as its software foundation, Ping’s technique also allows programmers to devote specific CPU cores to handling sensitive data, thereby freeing up the other cores to execute normal functions. And, because TCB consists of just 300 lines of code, it leaves a smaller “surface” for cybercriminals to attack. When put to the test, the SICE architecture used only three percent of overhead performance for workloads that didn’t require direct network access — an amount that Ping describes as a “fairly modest price to pay for the enhanced security.” He acknowledges, however, that he and his team still need to find a way to speed up processes for workloads that do depend on network access, and it remains to be seen whether or not their technique will make it to the mainstream anytime soon. For now, though, you can float past the break for more details in the full PR.

Continue reading NC State researchers team with IBM to keep cloud-stored data away from prying eyes

NC State researchers team with IBM to keep cloud-stored data away from prying eyes originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 07 Oct 2011 09:24:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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HTC's Sense-skinned phones will blab to just about anyone who asks. Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com

HTC’s skinned version of Android contains a serious security flaw which allows any application access to a huge trove of your personal information, according to mobile blog Android Police.

HTC’s proprietary Sense software — which runs on the company’s EVO 4G and Thunderbolt smartphones, amongst others — contains almost everything that happens on your phone in a data file, including GPS location information, phone numbers, SMS data (plain numbers and encoded text), and more. Any app can get access to this data simply through a permissions request.

The problem is due to logging tools that HTC recently added, which gather a huge amount of personal info and usage data. HTC hasn’t provided a reason for adding the tools.

Here’s the process, as described by Android Police:

any app on affected devices that requests a single android.permission.INTERNET (which is normal for any app that connects to the web or shows ads) can get its hands on [the data.]

Worryingly, there is an off-by-default VNC server included in the OS. This could possibly allow remote access, according to Artem Russakovski at Android Police.

Out of all the currently available mobile operating systems, security issues and exploits plague Android the most by far. Because applications submitted to the Android Market are not vetted by Google in advance, malware and insecure applications have a far greater chance of slipping in undetected. In August, McAfee released a report citing Android as the “most attacked operating system,” with Android mobile malware attacks jumping 76 percent in a three month period. In May, the popular Skype app for Android was also discovered to contain a security vulnerability, which could allow malicious apps access to personal data.

But as Android Police says, the Skype loophole pales in comparison to HTC’s security issues. Whereas Apple could deploy a quick fix just a week after its GPS-gate affair (which was little more than location data being cached in the iPhone and not being encrypted during backups), Android OS updates are notoriously slow to roll out. Because the carrier takes care of the updates, it can be months before they are pushed to customers, if at all.

Tech savvy users can root their phones and remove the HTCloggers apk file. The majority of Android users will have to wait for this update.

Massive Security Vulnerability In HTC Android Devices Exposes Phone Numbers, GPS, SMS, Email Addresses [Android Police]

See Also:

• Skype's Android App Could Expose Your Personal Details
• Amazon App Store Requires Security Compromise
• Android App's Data Collection Raises Mobile-Security Questions …
• Google Flips Remote Kill-Switch on Android Apps
• Android Malware Found in Angry Birds Add-On Apps
• Android Malware Explodes, iOS Remains Safe

HTC is already looking into the issue, stating, “HTC takes our customers’ security very seriously, and we are working to investigate this claim as quickly as possible. We will provide an update as soon as we’re able to determine the accuracy of the claim and what steps, if any, need to be taken.” If you’re too antsy to wait for HTC’s update, head on over to the source link below — Eckheart says the issue can be resolved by removing HTCloggers from a rooted device.

HTC security vulnerability said to leak phone numbers, GPS data, and more, HTC responds (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 02 Oct 2011 19:17:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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