13337

Hacking Democracy on Google Video.

Apparently, our corporate overlords are able to determine elections now, in addition to their other nifty powers (wire tapping us without legal repercussions, amassing our financial data and then letting it be stolen, etc). Now, I don't vote, but if I did, I would be outraged!

A teenage boy who hacked into a Polish tram system used it like "a giant train set", causing chaos and derailing four vehicles. The 14-year-old, described by his teachers as a model pupil and an electronics "genius", adapted a television remote control so it could change track points in the city of Lodz. Twelve people were injured in one derailment, and the boy is suspected of having been involved in several similar incidents.

Read the rest here.

I probably shouldn't laugh at this, but it amazes me that to this day, no one seems to really understand how security works. Security works by fucking around with things until they break, then fixing them, and starting the process over again. The war on terror could be won by a bunch of school children like this one - for either side.

There is a sad truth to the world today. I am part of a dying breed of people known as "shell users." We are an old-fashioned bunch, preferring the warm glow of a green screen full of text over the cold blockiness of a graphical interface. We use ssh, scp, and even occassionally ftp. Back in the days before high-speed connections ("broadband"), we would dial up during off-hours to avoid being slammed with huge phone bills. The whole "Microsoft Windows" fad will fade away sooner or later, but in the interim, our kind is facing extinction.

Read the rest here.

I just thought this was brilliant. Basically, the guy wants to find a wife who will bear him a child to whom he can teach the ways of the terminal. Personally, I think we need more parents willing to teach their children the ways.

In unrelated news, I still don't have anything to write about, so my only content will probably continue to come from StumbleUpon. Sorry

Here's a quick function I wrote to generate IP address ranges using recursion.

function iprange($oct, $prefix=""){
	for($i=1;$i<256;$i++){
		if($oct == 1) print("$prefix.$i\\n");
		else iprange($oct - 1, "$prefix.$i");
	}
}

Just call it with the number of octets you want to generate and the beginning of the IP range.

Example:

iprange(2, "127.0");

Output:

127.0.1.1
127.0.1.2
127.0.1.3
127.0.1.4
127.0.1.5
…
127.0.255.254
127.0.255.255

Enjoy

Whatever your religious affiliation, may you have a merry Christmas, Kwanzaa, Hanukkah, whatever from everyone (me, myself and I) at 13337.org.