• Category Archives Computers

  • Imagine a life with no computers……ahhhh……bliss…..

  • Turn off the tv – all of them – and the radio

    Posted on by beno Comment

    This is nuts…. It is not getting out of control, it IS out of control.

    Ok, a few days back I blogged about how you can embed computer code in a photo, that code is hard to find, and it could well be malicious code.
    That’s photo right…. Well, now you can add sound…..

    http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/11/beware-of-ads-that-use-inaudible-sound-to-link-your-phone-tv-tablet-and-pc/

    Privacy advocates are warning federal authorities of a new threat that uses inaudible, high-frequency sounds to surreptitiously track a person’s online behavior across a range of devices, including phones, TVs, tablets, and computers.

    The ultrasonic pitches are embedded into TV commercials or are played when a user encounters an ad displayed in a computer browser. While the sound can’t be heard by the human ear, nearby tablets and smartphones can detect it. When they do, browser cookies can now pair a single user to multiple devices and keep track of what TV commercials the person sees, how long the person watches the ads, and whether the person acts on the ads by doing a Web search or buying a product.

    The user is unaware of the audio beacon, but if a smart device has an app on it that uses the SilverPush software development kit, the software on the app will be listening for the audio beacon and once the beacon is detected, devices are immediately recognized as being used by the same individual……. SilverPush’s company policy is to not “divulge the names of the apps the technology is embedded,” meaning that users have no knowledge of which apps are using this technology and no way to opt-out of this practice. As of April of 2015, SilverPush’s software is used by 67 apps and the company monitors 18 million smartphones.

    This annoys me more than the code-in-a-photo exploit… mostly because that is just a possibility, it’s an interesting thought experiment (with some practical tests to prove it’s possible). As far as we know, it is not happening, this on the other hand…. 18 million smartphones are using this now… whether they know it or not.
    Is tracking that big of a deal. No. I guess not. Ok, so some company knows what ad you watched and where you were when you watched it. No harm done, it is just information? Nah, she be right mate, what could go wrong?
    I’m being a little silly, but this is a pretty big deal.
    Mostly because TV’s are everywhere and ad’s are everywhere.

    I’m not screaming. I’m depressed.


    Computers

  • Virtual you for eternity

    Posted on by beno 1 Comment

    Every time I blog I wonder how much I should give my thoughts on the thing I am blogging about… My mate Matt (BA) tells me that I should speak my mind because it’s my blog and people read it to find out what I think about said blog… Others (nameless to protect them) have said, no, just tell me what’s new and tell me about stuff I would never find on my own….. Don’t add any commentary… So I duno.

    None of that really has anything to do with this blog, other than this topic really made me sit back and think hard about what I thought of this.

    Today in my RSS feed popped up a post about companies are springing up that are, or plan to, using AI to learn about you now, so that when you die, your AI can live on.

    http://www.liveson.org/connect.php

    Liveson focuses on Twitter. They look at what you have tweeted in the past, and track each tweet and like now while you are alive and builds a profile of you. When you stop tweeting, it takes over for you.
    Their motto? “When your heart stops beating, you’ll keep tweeting”.
    Slightly AIish.

    http://www.deadsoci.al/

    These guys are less about AI and just storing messages for later release on Twitter and Facebook. A kind of time vault. There are many of these services around since they are nothing more than a reminder (usually via email) every week or so, if you don’t reply, it unlocks your vault of social stuff and that is that.

    http://eterni.me/

    This is the big one.
    These guys are the one that want to keep an AI version of you around for a long time. They want to read your past Tweets, Facebook, Instagram, Emails and everything you let them have. On top of that, you interact with the AI (your AI?) for around 10 minutes a day (not at once, spread out) and it learns you. All it can, about you.
    When you’re gone. You’re not really offline for very long before your AI kicks in and keeps the ball rolling. Your ball.

    Just try and let that sink in. An AI that Tweets and posts on Facebook and Instagram just like you would……. WHOA.


    Computers 📎and tagged

  • Now web photos can be a virus

    Posted on by beno Comment

    This is super interesting and somewhat technical.
    Due to its technical nature, I have sat on this blog for a while trying to decide if I was going to jump in and explain it, or just post it…it is just so interesting to me that I really want to talk about it. But. Since I have a bit of a backlog, it’s going to be a dump and run.

    http://stegosploit.info/

    Bottom line is this. They have figured out a way to encode/embed web browser code in an image.
    When your browser views that image, it executes the code.
    This is bad because no one expects code to be in an image.
    This is bad because it is going to take anti virus software a long time to catch up.
    This is bad because even when the virus software comes up with a test for it, it will slow down loading web pages, because each and every image will need to be checked as it comes in and before your browser displays it.

    So yeah, your pc can be pwned (owned) by a cat picture. Welcome to the Internet.


    Computers

  • USB powered computer killer

    Posted on by beno Comment

    This is a very very very very very very very bad idea……
    And if you are a regular to this blog, you know how much I love crowd funded projects…..

    https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/usb-killer–2#/story

    This idea has been around for a few years, it is a USB memory stick sized object that contains not memory, but a power supply that is powered from the USB slot, in other words, USB slots get their power from the computer motherboard.
    What does this USB stick do with that power? It charges up capacitors that are built inside of it….
    Here is where the really nasty stuff comes in… Once the caps are charged to around -110vDC, the USB stick then dumps that back into the USB slot…..
    Yeah, exactly. Said voltage effectively kills the motherboard. Kills it dead.

    The notion that you can now pledge 100 bucks and get one of these things is just nuts.
    At least while you had to build it, the deployment of said USB stick would be limited.
    Now, any kid can get one and go for a walk to the nearest computer store and look pretty average just plugging in a USB stick to each computer, which seems to turn off just as he pulls the stick out….

    Anyway, its a sick idea from the start, and to put it out there, to make money from it, is just lame.
    (I mean, lets be honest, you are not buying it to deliberately destroy your computer are you….)


    Computers

  • VR / AR is going to be big

    Posted on by beno Comment

    These guys are onto something here.

    https://vimeo.com/144034085

    I have not yet got my VR goggles, the ones I am looking to buy should be out ‘in time for Xmas’. Not that I am in a rush, but, that’s the current timing for me to try it for the first time. (And that’s only if this new version works with my current phone).

    One of these days I will try and pull together some of what I am reading about the topic, there is a HUGE amount being said about it. Almost as much as IoT….


    Computers