Saw this at Userfriendly… Now doing this to someone is just plain evil…
– Suramya
April 1, 2006
March 30, 2006
Painting directional signs outside subway stop in NYC
Anyone who has been to NYC knows thats its easy to get confused which direction is which when travelling via the Subway system, its ok during the day (When you can look at the sun and figure out which way is east… unless its noon… then you are SOL)
Someone decided to actually do something about this and painted directional signs outside some of the subway entrances… Really good work. Unfortunately the person didn’t sign the sign so we don’t know who to thank…
Here’s an example:
Subway entry Directional signs
Thanks to Adam Fields for the link
– Suramya
March 29, 2006
The Spider of Doom
Ok, this is just plain hillarious.. Though I do feel sorry for the poor sysadmin who had to trace this issue and I am impressed that he actually managed to solve it. Basically:
“Josh [Breckman] was called in to investigate and noticed that one particularly troublesome external IP had gone in and deleted all of the content on the system. The IP didn’t belong to some overseas hacker bent on destroying helpful government information. It resolved to googlebot.com, Google’s very own web crawling spider. Whoops.â€
So when googlebot crawled the pages it deleted them as it went through them. This is really poor application design, the authentication mechanism depended on the client to have javascript enabled and if they didn’t it assumed that allowed the visitor full access to the site.. Not smart…
Complete Writeup: The Spider of Doom – The Daily WTF (Has some good suggestions on how to avoid this)
Thanks to Daily Blogoscoped for the link.
– Suramya
March 28, 2006
March 27, 2006
Firefox Bug Causes Relationship to Break Up
This is one of the more interesting bugreports I have seen. Basically:
A couple engaged to be married shared a computer. He used Firefox to visit a bunch of dating sites, being smart enough not to have the browser save his password. But Firefox did save the names of the sites it was told never to save the password for. She happened to stumble on this list had a big fight (According to her: sh*t hit the fan) and then they broke up. This is after 5 years of dating… Stupid guy… lucky girl (That she found out about this before tying the knot)
I guess FireFox should start promoting itself as: “The browser you can use to find out if your significant other is cheating on you”
Bugzilla Report: Bug 330884 (Read it, its interesting)
Thanks to Schneier on Security for the link.
Cya,
Suramya
March 20, 2006
Scrolling LED bra sends mixed messages
Found this while browsing through Cnet (Honest!)… And I think this is really funny:
“After years of reminding blokes that ‘our eyes are up here,’ someone’s gone and invented a bra that seems to say “but my breasts are down here,'” wrote the blog’s Star C. Foster.
Only downside in getting this is that its about $500 a piece… I think getting a new iPod would be cheaper and more useful.
Original Post: Scrolling LED bra sends mixed messages
Purchase them: Here
– Suramya
March 11, 2006
Tools to check folder ACL’s in Windows
Tools to use that show “ALL” of the the ACL’s permissions that are on these network folders:
I haven’t tried any of these tools yet so I can’t vouch for them. However these were recomended by smart people that post to the Security Basics @SecurityFocus Mailing list so I am sure that they work ;).
Thanks,
Suramya
March 10, 2006
March 9, 2006
New Biometrics scanner released
This is an interesting new biometrics scanner that uses the layout of the veins in the user’s palm to authenticate them. Apparently its more reliable than fingerprints and safer. Couldn’t find any pricing information but I bet they are expensive right now. Hopefully the price will go down a lot so that I can afford to get one to play with.
Synopsis:
Fujitsu Computer Products of America, Inc. on Wednesday announced the global launch of its PalmSecure biometric authentication system. The contactless system identifies users by examining the layout of the veins in the palms of their hands.
The PalmSecure device uses a near-infrared beam, similar to that used by television remote controls, to map the layout of veins carrying oxygen-depleted blood back to the heart. According to Joel Hagberg, vice president of marketing and business development for Fujitsu, those vein patterns are unique in every person — even more so than fingerprints or DNA.
Complete Story: For security, Fujitsu talks to the hand – Computerworld
Thanks,
Suramya