Collusion tracks the trackers

There’s a cool experimental Mozilla plugin called Collusion which lets you see what other sites are being told about your web browsing habits as you surf around.  Even with ad-blocking and do-not-track and a host of other privacy enhancing features turned on, the list of notified trackers grows pretty darned quickly!

All your (drone) base are belong to us!

The virtual cockpits from which the US drone fleet are operated have been infected by a virus, anonymous Air Force sources tell Wired.  Not only that, but officials at Creech AFB in Nevada where the deathly video games are played, apparently didn’t notify the Air Force’s network security organization of the breech.  When you put this together with the extrajudicially authorized overseas executions of US citizens, well, it’s just a little bit too SkyNet for me to feel good about.

Chaos Computer Club analyzes government malware

A scathing review of an official German government trojan by the Chaos Computer Club.  They decompiled the binaries and reverse-engineered the software, and found that not only did it fail to comply with the German constitutional court’s mandate to limit its capabilities, but was so poorly designed and secured as to enable “even attackers of mediocre skill” to completely compromise any machine on which it had been installed.  Clearly not the best of German engineering!

Open source phone/laptop anti-theft software

The Prey Project is an open source package that lets you turn your laptop or phone into a location aware spying machine, tracking its own motions, and reporting on the usage of the person in possession — screenshots, webcam photos, network captures, etc. — in the event that it is stolen or lost.  Sounds great!  Of course, it also lets you turn somebody else’s computer into a spying machine, so you can watch them, if you can manage to get it installed without their knowing.  Kind of creepy… given that they’ve got a “pro” version that lets you track hundreds of machines simultaneously.

Discounted cashflow analysis of scientific programming

Software Carpentry does a little math describing the value of teaching scientists how to build good software.  Even with very pessimistic assumptions, it’s clearly worthwhile.  With realistic assumptions, it’s a frigging research bonanza.  WTF?  Why don’t advisers and administrators make sure everyone is on board?

Links for the week of October 15th, 2009

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Links for the week of September 4th, 2009

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Links for the week of Aug 5th

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