Show Notes – March 9th, 2015

We were joined by guest –
Jonathan Stribling-Uss an Attorney, technologist and co-director of the cybersecurity legal organization “constitutional communications”. I’m doing a Continuing Legal Education class on cybersecurity for lawyers at CUNY law on March 17th at 6pm.
Prying Eyes: Inside the NSA’s War on Internet Security
Vote for the final four of Ars’ March hacker movie madness
Convicted Silk Road mastermind Ross Ulbricht demands trial do-over
98
Listen To a Microsoft Support Scam As It Happened itwbennett writes You know full well that Microsoft will never call you and ask to “access your computer” to help fix a problem. Yet this is a ruse that many unsuspecting computer users fall for and wind up with their machine hacked. CSO writer Steve Ragan, turns the tables during a phone call with a scammer — and he records it all for us to hear. Do yourself a favor and play it for your
5h
8
Tor Doesn’t Want to Depend on US Government Money Anymore Tor is transforming. The anonymity service is making a concerted effort to find funding sources other than the United States government, the problematic sugar daddy that’s bankrolled Tor for years.The Daily Dot reports that Tor is making a concerted effort to diversity funding from sources from around the world and depend less on Uncle Sam. At Tor’s biannual meeting in Spain, developers have been
5h
82
Oh Good God It’s a Gold MacBook If you’re shiny gold iPhone or your shiny gold iPad weren’t enough, you can now have an equally absurd, pretty goddamn beautiful gold MacBook to round out your collection. Because we may all be monsters, but look how shiny.The fancy new paintjob is a nice complement to the new MacBook’s sleek, super skinny profile. And as insane and extravagant as it sounds—it doesn’t actually look half bad. You
5h
300+
Apple Pay adoption triples to 700,000 locations in six weeks Apple’s Pay started well and has grown at a steady clip. But at Apple’s Watch event, Tim Cook has announced just how much it’s taken off in the last month or so: It’s now accepted at over 700,000 locations. That now includes Coca-Cola machines, up to…
5h
29
The “Harvard Sentences” Secretly Shaped the Development of Audio Tech During World War II, the boiler room under Harvard’s Memorial Hall was turned into a secretive wartime research lab. Here, volunteers were subjected to hours of noise as scientists tested military communications systems. Out of this came the Harvard sentences, a set of standardized phrases still widely used to test everything from cellphones to VoIP. Few know about the sentences themselves other
4h
16
How Does Encryption Work, and Is It Really Safe? For many, the word “encryption” probably stirs up James Bond-esque images of a villain with a briefcase handcuffed to his wrist with nuclear launch codes or some other action movie staple. In reality, we all use encryption technology on a daily basis, and while most of us probably don’t understand the “how” or the “why,” we are sure that data security is important, and if encryption helps us to ac
5d
46
You Can 3D-Print This Kid-Friendly Rubik’s Bear Puzzle For Free If there’s one surefire way to make a Rubik’s Cube less frustrating for kids—or less-gifted adults—it’s to make it in the shape of a loveable bear that no one could possibly get angry with. Just look at Emmanuel Carrillo’s adorable Ozobear, even when it’s all mixed up it’s impossible to want it to smash it against a wall because you can’t figure out how to get it realigned.There are a couple of ca
5d
200+
FREAK Attack: A Dangerous Security Flaw Caused by US Government Policy A group of computer scientists have revealed a dangerous security flaw that could open up many phones and other machines to attack. The worst part is that the problem has its roots in a misguided U.S. government effort to prevent consumers from having access to strong encryption.The flaw itself comes from poor implementation of the encrypted link created between browsers and the websites that they
6d
200+
Lyft rewards its drivers for picking you up more often A ridesharing service only helps you out if drivers want to pick you up in the first place, and Lyft clearly knows it — the company just countered Uber’s new perk system with one of its own. Accelerate, as it’s called, puts drivers in one of three s…
9d
87
Google Taking Over New TLDs bobo the hobo writes: In the corner of the internet where people care about DNS, there is a bit of an uproar at Google’s application for over a hundred new top-level domains, including .dev, .lol, .app, .blog, .cloud and .search. Their application includes statements such as: “By contrast, our application for the .blog TLD describes a new way of automatically linking new second level domains
10d
48
Why Superfish could be the best thing to happen to the PC industry in years The Superfish debacle has been an embarrassment and legal concern to Lenovo, a headache to affected customers and yet another concern for the security community. Now that the dust has had time to settle, we’re beginning to see the good emerge as a result of the ordeal. …
10d
43
Robotic Cat for Dementia Patients Breathes, Purrs and Meows JustoCat is a robotic therapy cat developed for people with dementia and mental disabilities. It was created thanks to a collaboration between robotics researchers and healthcare researchers at Mälardalen University in Sweden. JustoCat was designed with the assumption that many individuals have memories of spending time with cats, so they linked this to the ‘reminiscence method’, using memories fr
10d
200+
KFC Gives Us Edible Coffee Cups To celebrate its 50th anniversary, KFC has unveiled its Scoff-ee cups- coffee cups made out of cookies, sugar paper, and heat resistant white chocolate. Set to debut in the U.K. this summer, the cups are meant to give consumers a waste-free product and a new coffee drinking experience. The concept of edible cups is not new. In fact, Ansel Bakery in New York City and Alfred Coffee and Kitchen in L
10d
2K
Lonnie Johnson, the rocket scientist and Super Soaker inventor To celebrate Black History Month, Engadget is running a

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *