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b0b
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Re: Geek News
Reply #60 - Feb 24th, 2008 at 12:51am
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Well, it can't be any gayer than the "re-release" they did a few years back.

-b0b
(...would rather see a Battle Royale remake.)
  

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Re: Geek News
Reply #61 - Feb 24th, 2008 at 10:37pm
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My apologies, I did not make it on time, and was pretty lame.

I am sorry.

doing it in a few minutes
  

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Re: Geek News
Reply #62 - Feb 25th, 2008 at 12:29am
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Episode 3 Is Up!

You can check out our podcast here - http://www.talkshoe.com/tc/14391

You can email us at film.geeks@yahoo.com with any questions you want answered and if they're good we might even put them in the show. We would also love fan and/or hate mail which we'd also be willing to air.

We've also started a MySpace page here - http://www.myspace.com/filmgeeksshow

And our blog here - http://filmgeeksshow.blogspot.com/

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Re: Geek News
Reply #63 - Feb 25th, 2008 at 8:31am
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Wouldn't you guys rather have a FilmGeeks@GeekCrew.Net e-mail address?  Or FilmGeeks@WesDownersMom.com?

-b0b
(...grins.)
  

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Re: Geek News
Reply #64 - Feb 25th, 2008 at 12:45pm
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Quote:
Researchers Find Way to Steal Encrypted Data
By JOHN MARKOFF
Published: February 22, 2008

SAN FRANCISCO — A group led by a Princeton University computer security researcher has developed a simple method to steal encrypted information stored on computer hard disks.

The technique, which could undermine security software protecting critical data on computers, is as easy as chilling a computer memory chip with a blast of frigid air from a can of dust remover. Encryption software is widely used by companies and government agencies, notably in portable computers that are especially susceptible to theft.

The development, which was described on the group’s Web site Thursday, could also have implications for the protection of encrypted personal data from prosecutors.

The move, which cannot be carried out remotely, exploits a little-known vulnerability of the dynamic random access, or DRAM, chip. Those chips temporarily hold data, including the keys to modern data-scrambling algorithms. When the computer’s electrical power is shut off, the data, including the keys, is supposed to disappear.

In a technical paper that was published Thursday on the Web site of Princeton’s Center for Information Technology Policy, the group demonstrated that standard memory chips actually retain their data for seconds or even minutes after power is cut off.

When the chips were chilled using an inexpensive can of air, the data was frozen in place, permitting the researchers to easily read the keys — long strings of ones and zeros — out of the chip’s memory.

“Cool the chips in liquid nitrogen (-196 °C) and they hold their state for hours at least, without any power,” Edward W. Felten, a Princeton computer scientist, wrote in a Web posting. “Just put the chips back into a machine and you can read out their contents.”

The researchers used special pattern-recognition software of their own to identify security keys among the millions or even billions of pieces of data on the memory chip.

“We think this is pretty serious to the extent people are relying on file protection,” Mr. Felten said.

The team, which included five graduate students led by Mr. Felten and three independent technical experts, said they did not know if such an attack capability would compromise government computer information because details of how classified computer data is protected are not publicly available.

Officials at the Department of Homeland Security, which paid for a portion of the research, did not return repeated calls for comment.

The researchers also said they had not explored disk encryption protection systems as now built into some commercial disk drives.

But they said they had proved that so-called Trusted Computing hardware, an industry standard approach that has been heralded as significantly increasing the security of modern personal computers, does not appear to stop the potential attacks.

A number of computer security experts said the research results were an indication that assertions of robust computer security should be regarded with caution.

“This is just another example of how things aren’t quite what they seem when people tell you things are secure,” said Peter Neumann, a security researcher at SRI International in Menlo Park, Calif.

The Princeton researchers wrote that they were able to compromise encrypted information stored using special utilities in the Windows, Macintosh and Linux operating systems.

Apple has had a FileVault disk encryption feature as an option in its OS X operating system since 2003. Microsoft added file encryption last year with BitLocker features in its Windows Vista operating system. The programs both use the federal government’s certified Advanced Encryption System algorithm to scramble data as it is read from and written to a computer hard disk. But both programs leave the keys in computer memory in an unencrypted form.

“The software world tends not to think about these issues,” said Matt Blaze, an associate professor of computer and information science at the University of Pennsylvania. “We tend to make assumptions about the hardware. When we find out that those assumptions are wrong, we’re in trouble.”

Both of the software publishers said they ship their operating systems with the file encryption turned off. It is then up to the customer to turn on the feature.

Executives of Microsoft said BitLocker has a range of protection options that they referred to as “good, better and best.”

Austin Wilson, director of Windows product management security at Microsoft, said the company recommended that BitLocker be used in some cases with additional hardware security. That might include either a special USB hardware key, or a secure identification card that generates an additional key string.

The Princeton researchers acknowledged that in these advanced modes, BitLocker encrypted data could not be accessed using the vulnerability they discovered.

An Apple spokeswoman said that the security of the FileVault system could also be enhanced by using a secure card to add to the strength of the key.

The researchers said they began exploring the utilities for vulnerabilities last fall after seeing a reference to the persistence of data in memory in a technical paper written by computer scientists at Stanford in 2005.

The Princeton group included Seth D. Schoen of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, William Paul of Wind River Systems and Jacob Appelbaum, an independent computer security researcher.

The issue of protecting information with disk encryption technology became prominent recently in a criminal case involving a Canadian citizen who late in 2006 was stopped by United States customs agents who said they had found child pornography on his computer.

When the agents tried to examine the machine later, they discovered that the data was protected by encryption. The suspect has refused to divulge his password. A federal agent testified in court that the only way to determine the password otherwise would be with a password guessing program, which could take years.

A federal magistrate ruled recently that forcing the suspect to disclose the password would be unconstitutional.


Am I the only one that is reminded of AfroTech Mods?  These guys are seriously crazy hax0rs.  If they are ever in the area, I'm going to buy them a Bawls...

-b0b
(...or Jolt.  Whatever.)
  

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Re: Geek News
Reply #65 - Feb 27th, 2008 at 12:00pm
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Starship Troopers 3



I wish I was kidding.  You can check out the trailer here: 

http://www.filmschoolrejects.com/news/starship-troopers-3-marauder-movie-trailer...

-b0b
(...didn't even know there was a Starship Troopers 2!)
  

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Re: Geek News
Reply #66 - Feb 27th, 2008 at 12:23pm
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Holy awesome movie batman!

...I still need to see the second movie!
  
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Re: Geek News
Reply #67 - Feb 27th, 2008 at 1:20pm
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If you were to listen to our show on Sunday you would have heard this news 3 days ago. Mawha ha ha ha!

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Re: Geek News
Reply #68 - Feb 27th, 2008 at 1:49pm
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I am not going to lie.  It is very hard for me to remember to catch your show.

So far I am 0 for 3.  Sad
  
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Re: Geek News
Reply #69 - Feb 27th, 2008 at 2:51pm
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Apparently Briney missed it too.  HA!

Am I the only one who thinks a combination of Super Troopers and Starship Troopers would be awesome?  Starship Super Troopers?

-b0b
(...needs to rent the second Starship Troopers flop movie.)
  

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Re: Geek News
Reply #70 - Feb 27th, 2008 at 3:52pm
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Starship Troopers 2 is horrible.  I wanted to gouge my eyes out with a rusty spoon when watching that movie.  The only thing it has in common with the first is the title of the movie...not even a co-ed shower scene!

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Re: Geek News
Reply #71 - Feb 27th, 2008 at 4:21pm
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I heard it has bewbies.

-b0b
(...shrugs.)
  

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Re: Geek News
Reply #72 - Feb 28th, 2008 at 12:32pm
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Automated killer robots 'threat to humanity': expert
Feb 27 06:18 AM US/Eastern

Increasingly autonomous, gun-totting robots developed for warfare could easily fall into the hands of terrorists and may one day unleash a robot arms race, a top expert on artificial intelligence told AFP.
"They pose a threat to humanity," said University of Sheffield professor Noel Sharkey ahead of a keynote address Wednesday before Britain's Royal United Services Institute.

Intelligent machines deployed on battlefields around the world -- from mobile grenade launchers to rocket-firing drones -- can already identify and lock onto targets without human help.

There are more than 4,000 US military robots on the ground in Iraq, as well as unmanned aircraft that have clocked hundreds of thousands of flight hours.

The first three armed combat robots fitted with large-caliber machine guns deployed to Iraq last summer, manufactured by US arms maker Foster-Miller, proved so successful that 80 more are on order, said Sharkey.

But up to now, a human hand has always been required to push the button or pull the trigger.

It we are not careful, he said, that could change.

Military leaders "are quite clear that they want autonomous robots as soon as possible, because they are more cost-effective and give a risk-free war," he said.


Several countries, led by the United States, have already invested heavily in robot warriors developed for use on the battlefield.

South Korea and Israel both deploy armed robot border guards, while China, India, Russia and Britain have all increased the use of military robots.

Washington plans to spend four billion dollars by 2010 on unmanned technology systems, with total spending expected rise to 24 billion, according to the Department of Defense's Unmanned Systems Roadmap 2007-2032, released in December.

James Canton, an expert on technology innovation and CEO of the Institute for Global Futures, predicts that deployment within a decade of detachments that will include 150 soldiers and 2,000 robots.

The use of such devices by terrorists should be a serious concern, said Sharkey.

Captured robots would not be difficult to reverse engineer, and could easily replace suicide bombers as the weapon-of-choice. "I don't know why that has not happened already," he said.

But even more worrisome, he continued, is the subtle progression from the semi-autonomous military robots deployed today to fully independent killing machines.

"I have worked in artificial intelligence for decades, and the idea of a robot making decisions about human termination terrifies me," Sharkey said.

Ronald Arkin of Georgia Institute of Technology, who has worked closely with the US military on robotics, agrees that the shift towards autonomy will be gradual.

But he is not convinced that robots don't have a place on the front line.

"Robotics systems may have the potential to out-perform humans from a perspective of the laws of war and the rules of engagement," he told a conference on technology in warfare at Stanford University last month.

The sensors of intelligent machines, he argued, may ultimately be better equipped to understand an environment and to process information. "And there are no emotions that can cloud judgement, such as anger," he added.

Nor is there any inherent right to self-defence.

For now, however, there remain several barriers to the creation and deployment of Terminator-like killing machines.

Some are technical. Teaching a computer-driven machine -- even an intelligent one -- how to distinguish between civilians and combatants, or how to gauge a proportional response as mandated by the Geneva Conventions, is simply beyond the reach of artificial intelligence today.

But even if technical barriers are overcome, the prospect of armies increasingly dependent on remotely-controlled or autonomous robots raises a host of ethical issues that have barely been addressed.

Arkin points out that the US Department of Defense's 230 billion dollar Future Combat Systems programme -- the largest military contract in US history -- provides for three classes of aerial and three land-based robotics systems.

"But nowhere is there any consideration of the ethical implications of the weaponisation of these systems," he said.

For Sharkey, the best solution may be an outright ban on autonomous weapons systems. "We have to say where we want to draw the line and what we want to do -- and then get an international agreement," he said.


Oh noes!  SkyNet will soon be a reality!

-b0b
(...heads for the bunker.)
  

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Re: Geek News
Reply #73 - Feb 28th, 2008 at 2:07pm
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Heh, I'm workin on that stuff. S'all I can say.
  

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Re: Geek News
Reply #74 - Feb 28th, 2008 at 2:23pm
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So briney is the one responsible for skynet?

That's it, I am going to go back in time and bang terminate his mom!
  
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