How To Hack Wireless
Safe for work
Warning for WEP users. Don’t do your banking, or anything important, on that connection.
Don’t you just love command line stuff? How long until it is packaged for the script kiddies?
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TECHNOLOGY: WEP is worthless!
Saturday, January 30, 2010
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Posted by reinkefj
TECHNOLOGY: Getting your data
Tuesday, January 26, 2010http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/01/14/medical.records/
Patients demand: ‘Give us our damned data’
By Elizabeth Cohen, CNN Senior Medical Correspondent
January 14, 2010 9:13 a.m. EST
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The federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, which governs access to medical records, gives hospitals and doctors 30 days to respond to a request for medical records, although some state laws provide for a shorter time frame, and in urgent situations, such as a transfer to another hospital, it’s customary for hospitals to move more quickly.
Be prepared to make your request in writing, McCabe says. You can bring it in person, or fax the request in, but make sure you confirm that the hospital’s received it.
One way to get your medical records more quickly is to seek out providers who use electronic medical records so the records can be e-mailed to you, she says. Some providers have an electronic portal so you can read your records anytime you want on a secure site on the Internet.
*** end quote ***
Here’s a great advice. With all of Frau’s medical problems, I wish I kept better records. I have a lot, but not everything. And not organized in the most useable fashion.
Argh!
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Posted by reinkefj
TECHNOLOGY: Can make you look dumb — TOTUS!
Tuesday, January 26, 2010http://news.yahoo.com/nphotos/slideshow/photo//100119/480/9131bc77c7534185bdbf267bb4ab8497/
Tue Jan 19, 10:54 AM ET
(AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
*** begin quote ***
President Barack Obama, accompanied by Education Secretary Arne Duncan, speaks to the media after a discussion with 6th grade students at Graham Road Elementary School in Falls Church, Va., Tuesday, Jan. 19, 2010.
*** end quote ***
What was the derisive term TELEPROMPTER instead of PRESIDENT. TOTUS?
Can he ever be unscripted?
If the media had shown this before the election, maybe we’d be screaming about McCain and stuff?
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Posted by reinkefj
TECHNOLOGY: ENUM won’t be implemented by the vested ISPs
Saturday, January 23, 2010ENUM: Dragging telephone numbers into the Internet Age
E-mail, IM, Facebook, phones—what if all of these ways to reach you over a network could be condensed into a single, unique number? The ENUM proposal aims to do just that, by giving everyone a single phone number that maps to all of their identifiers. Here’s how it works, and why it isn’t already widely used.
By Rudolf van der Berg | Last updated January 13, 2010 11:30 PM
*** begin quote ***
The main issue is that the ENUM standard (RFC 3761) demands that ENUM is a public service and that the control of the telephone number lies in the hands of the end-user. For this reason, it’s known as “Public-” or “User ENUM.” This is all in line with the Internet’s user- and endpoint-centric creed. This becomes quite clear if you read, for instance, the documentation of Nominet, which controls the UK’s ENUM registry (the +44 registry). It explicitly states that users can bypass their communications provider when they register in the ENUM registry. A significant amount of money is made by today’s telephony providers (be they traditional providers or ISPs providing VoIP bundled with Internet access). Telephony providers see User ENUM as a threat to their bottom line and are therefore not keen on introducing the technology nationally.
*** end quote ***
The inet was driven by motivated individuals, not gooferments, not ISPs, not companies.
We need to get back to the fast innovation cycle of the old inet!
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Posted by reinkefj
TECHNOLOGY: Paywalls
Wednesday, January 20, 2010*** begin quote ***
it’s been our experience that, quite often, papers initially made available for free online will eventually disappear behind the pay wall at some point. So if we post something you think you might want to reread or use in the future, grab a copy of the full text as soon as you see it. No telling how long it will remain freely available.
*** end quote ***
It’s a shame that has to happen. If it’s not “pay” to start with, then why “pay” after a time.
Unfortunately, the inet isn’t a library. And, as I find out more and more, Google ain’t that good!
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Posted by reinkefj
TECHNOLOGY: Lost camera
Sunday, January 3, 2010Recently I lost my camera. Argh!
Fell out of my pocket in cab.
My fault.
But it had no way to identify itself to a finder who might be interested in returning it.
The product design should have a place for a name or phone number. Maybe it should have a sensor to alert me that it was “leaving”. Or the ability to “phone home”?
Argh!
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John Edward OConnor
or maybe just use one of those address labels every charity ion the world sends you trying to guilt you into a donation?
Do you really need a technical solution where glue and paper will work? :)
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No good place on the old or new camera to put one. And, they wipe off over time. (I’ve tried it on other things. Like cars and toys.) Same the maker doesn’t do serial number registration and retrieval services. Give a token to the finder; modest recovery fee to the owner? Like an extended warranty against loss?
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Posted by reinkefj
TECHNOLOGY: Crapy User Interface “design”
Saturday, January 2, 2010http://www.macworld.com/article/145309/2009/12/10_technologies.html?lsrc=rss_main
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10. Redundant registration
Many Web sites offer some form of registration, which typically ask you to add your personal contact information and specify a username and password.
Why do some sites require me to enter my e-mail address or my password twice? They’re going to verify all this anyway. Why do I have to enter city, state and ZIP code, when the ZIP code already knows the city and state, and vice versa.
Bad, redundant and obsolete technologies make life needlessly complex, expensive, irritating and ugly. Let’s get rid of them.
*** end quote ***
Agreed!
State and zip are my particular “favorite”!
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Posted by reinkefj
TECHNOLOGY: Potential microRNAs breast cancer blood test
Wednesday, December 30, 2009Irish breast cancer breakthrough could end mammograms
Major cancer discovery from team at Galway University
By ANTOINETTE KELLY, IrishCentral.com
Published Tuesday, December 22, 2009, 1:50 PM
Updated Tuesday, December 22, 2009, 4:24 PM
*** begin quote ***
Irish scientists may have found an alternative to the dreaded mammogram in a bid to reduce the incidence of breast cancer.
Researchers from the National University of Ireland Galway have identified a new blood test that can act as an “early warning” system.
The test, which is being discussed as a potential replacement for mammograms, can alert doctors if the disease is recurring.
*** and ***
The study found a link between breast cancer and substances called microRNAs which are found in the blood of patients with breast cancer.
Professor Michael Kerin, who led the team, said there was good reason for optimism.
“This early work suggests a combination of mir195 and Let7a (two specific types of microRNA) are sensitive markers for the presence of breast cancers in over 90 percent of cases,” he said. “This raises the possibility of their use in screening for breast cancer.”
*** end quote ***
Recent gooferment “pronouncements” about cancer screening was suspect. Suspect that they were looking at the cost as opposed to the benefits. Here may be an opportunity to satisfy both conflicting priorities.
The value of human life can’t be reduced into dollars and sense.
Sorry. Apologies to all the accountants and gooferment bureaucrats, but your wrong. Heartlessly wrong.
When people buy their own health care, they make a very tough “value” judgement.
I’ve seen “old people” and “terminally ill” people make the tough decisions easily. When we insert an insurance company or Medicare welfare into the process, people don’t see the costs as impacting their legacy and their families.
So substituting a potentially cheaper and more accurate chemistry test is a real winner.
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Posted by reinkefj
TECHNOLOGY: Digital dirt
Wednesday, December 23, 2009http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/09/us/09text.html?_r=1&ref=technology
Text Messages: Digital Lipstick on the Collar
By LAURA M. HOLSON
Published: December 8, 2009
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Robert Stephan Cohen, the lawyer who represented Christie Brinkley in her divorce from Peter Cook, said a spouse’s finding out about a cheating partner by reading their personal text messages would have a profound effect on how such cases were played out, both in court and among friends and family. Mr. Cohen predicted that the battles in even the most routine divorces would become uglier with more text messages as evidence.
*** end quote ***
People really don’t understand the technology they are using. Nor, do they understand the implications of an “eternal love letter”.
And, in a corporate setting, it’s even worse. Why aren’t they REQUIRED to preserve email forever.
The “digital dirt”, created voluntarily, CAN come back to haunt you.
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Posted by reinkefj
TECHNOLOGY: Driverless cars
Saturday, November 21, 2009http://www.impactlab.com/2009/11/19/audi-autonomous-tts-driverless-sports-car/
November 19th, 2009 at 7:19 am
Audi Autonomous TTS – Driverless Sports Car
*** begin quote ***
It could also help with the more mundane aspects of driving. With the Autonomous TTS, you could let your car go find its own parking space in the garage. “The technology could return time to the cars’ owners by taking care of routine driving chores, such as winding through a parking garage to an assigned spot each morning,” Audi says.
*** end quote ***
Neat!
Perfect for Iowa driving.
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