Cave News

Arrogant hacker deletes hard drive - his

A chat room channel spat ended when a wannabe hacker was duped into deleting his own hard drive.

The 26 year-old German claimed he was the baddest hacker in town and threatened to attack a chat room moderator because he thought he'd been thrown out.

The arrogant wannabe hacker demanded the moderator give out his IP address and prepare to be hacked.

The moderator responded by sending back a bunch of numbers. The naive 26 year-old assumed his hack tools were being unleashed at the IP address.

Finally the hacker declared success." I can see your E: drive disappearing, he gloated, "D: is down 45 percent!" he cried, before disappearing into the ether.

He had just hacked his own IP address and deleted his hard drive. Served him right. Story here.

They hunted together and died together

Two elderly men in the state of Washington went turkey hunting together. They also died of apparent heart attacks together.

Elmer Sapp, 78, and Alfred Hurd, 70, were hunting south of East Wenatchee on Monday when Hurd got out of a pickup truck and chased a bird down an embankment.

Sapp followed and found his hunting partner lying on the ground, according to Chelan County Sheriff Mike Harum. Sapp then went back to the pickup, flagged down a motorist, told the motorist what happened and then collapsed

Link to story here.

URL deception if you mistype Google

If you mistype the search giant’s web address you could be in trouble. Especially if you type in Googkle instead of Google.

Security researchers have discovered an attack aimed at would-be visitors to Google.com, one that attempts to download malicious programs onto the computers of people who simply mistype the search giant's Web address.

According to security specialist F-Secure, unsuspecting Web surfers may be bombarded with various types of Trojan horse threats, spyware and backdoors when they go to "Googkle.com." The scheme is meant to take advantage of sloppy or hurried typists, given that on most keyboards the letter "k" key sits next to the "l" needed to type "Google."

In the past, the company appears to have made moves to protect its users against mistyping errors. If a person puts an extra "o" in Google's URL, they are simply redirected to the company's homepage. On the other hand, if someone mistakenly adds a fourth "o" to Google, they are directed to USseek.com, a Web portal that offers pop-up advertising for an online casino.

Anti Virus maker F-Secure strongly advises people not to go to Googkle.com (Google misspelled by adding a ‘k’). People who go to Googkle.com will see two pop-ups linked to Web sites that installs Trojan programs. One of the programs is a phishing-style Trojan that will attempt to get your online banking information. Another will drop phony antivirus alerts on the your desktop that will attempt to lure you to other infected Web sites

While relatively low-tech in terms of its social engineering, the URL mistype attack is an approach that has long been incorporated by many different kinds of Internet opportunists, from legitimate companies trying to steal traffic from their rivals or simply piggyback on the success of larger companies, to criminals looking to misrepresent themselves and trick consumers into handing over personal data.

One high level case of URL deception is the site at Whitehouse.com. For years that address would take you to advertisement for pornography instead of the office of the president who is located at Whitehose.gov. Link here.

The Oreo cookie to go on diet

The Oreo cookie is changing! It hasn’t changed for 93 years -- until now. Horrors! Isn’t anything sacred anymore?

Men and boys around the country won’t know how to accept a changed Oreo cookie. It has always been every father’s duty to teach his son how to twist off the top, lick out the middle and then dunk what’s left in a glass of milk. That was a right of passage.

Now they are going to change what has been sacred for 93 years! But wait a minute. Maker Kraft says it will still dunk and taste the same. The change will be to remove the trans fat.

Kraft decided on the makeover because its cookie sales began plunging in recent years due to low-carb diet crazes.

It has taken Kraft's food scientists two years and tens of millions of dollars to find an Oreo, America's best-selling cookie, that it claims tastes and feels like the original.

That’s OK if it will be healthier after removing the trans fat and if it will tast the same.

Well, I guess that's fat's the way the cookie crumbles. Story here.

Fire at Southern Adventist University claims a life

Kelly Weimer of Woodridge, Illinois, a junior at Southern Adventist University in Collegedale, Tennessee died Tuesday in a fire in her dormitory.

Smoke detectors sounded about 4 a.m. in Thatcher Hall on the campus, which was in the midst of final exams. A fire had started in a kitchenette and laundry room on the third floor, university President Gordon Bietz said in a written statement.

Kelly Weimer was only fatality
Chicago Tribune photo

More than 500 residents of the dorm were evacuated by firefighters, who used a ladder truck to rescue two students from a third-floor window, according to a release from the Tri-Community Volunteer Fire Department. Bietz said the body of Weimer, 20, was found on the third floor.

"This has been the most difficult day of my presidency here at Southern Adventist University," he said. He greeted Weimer's parents, grandparents and an aunt, who flew in Tuesday and visited with the medical examiner.

More details at the Southern University web site here. Story from TV9 News in Chattanooga, Tennessee here and from the Chicago Tribune here.

Boeing 787 Dreamliner

At abut the same time the much publicized first test flight of the Airbus A350, Boeing was racking up airliner sales. There were two big sales for Boeing airliners in the last few days.

Air India approved the purchase of up to 50 long-range Boeing aircraft -- including 27 of the new 787 long-range jets -- at a cost of about 300 billion rupees ($6.9 billion) on Tuesday in a deal that is subject to Indian government approval.

The Air India order followed a $6 billion order for 32 wide-bodied Boeing jets from Air Canada.

Boeing 787 (formerly called the 7E7)

The future of Airbus could be bright. However, it could fall flat on it’s face if few orders come in and if there is an early crash while carrying up to 800 passengers aboard.

French President Jacques Chirac said in Paris after the maiden flight of the new jumbo Airbus: "It is a magnificent result of European industrial cooperation." Will he still be singing the praises of the Airbus a few years from now if most of the Paris airline traffic is handled using the Boeing 787?

The 787 Dreamliner could put Boeing back on top of the airliner manufacturing business. The 787 is more versatile and much more affordable and there will always be a demand for mid-range airliners.

The fuel-efficient 787 will be built of composite materials and should revolutionize how future airplanes are built.

Current Boeing Dreamliner story here. A previous post here about the Dreamliner 787 then called the 7E7.

Airbus maiden flight: crew wears parachutes

The world's largest passenger plane, the Airbus A380, completed a maiden flight Wednesday that took it over the Pyrenees mountains. This was a milestone for aviation and for the European aircraft-maker's battle with American rival Boeing Co.

A parachute-wearing crew took the new giant double-decker plane on it’s maiden flight. The giant long-haul, four-engine superjumbo can carry between 550 and 840 passengers and fly 8,000 miles non-stop.

Airbus A380
The A380 cost $13 B to get this far and buyers will pay about $285M per plane. Now the answer is -- Will the Airbus A380 pay off?

Meanwhile, Boeing has staked it’s future on the smaller “plastic” no rivet Dreamliner. which will be covered in a subsequent posting on this blog.

Airbus maiden flight story here and here

E-mail destroys the mind faster than pot

Are you an email addict? E-mail has been a boon to business and society in general. It has also been somewhat of a curse as well.

Many of us get more unwanted e-mail (spam) than e-mail messages that are welcome. There is an interesting story here that says we have forgotten how to think and that e-mails have lowered our IQ.

Modern technology depletes human cognitive abilities more rapidly than drugs, according to a psychiatric study conducted at King's College, London. And the curse of 'messaging' is to blame.

Email users suffered a 10 per cent drop in IQ scores, more than twice the fall recorded by marijuana users, in a clinical trial of over a thousand participants. Doziness, lethargy and an inability to focus are classic characteristics of a spliffhead, but email users exhibited these particular symptoms to a "startling" degree, according to Dr Glenn Wilson.

The deterioration in mental capacity was the direct result of the trialists' addiction to technology, researchers discovered.

Email addicts were bombarded by context switches and developed an inability to distinguish between trivial and significant messages. Incredibly, 20 per cent of trialists jeopardized their immediate social relations by rushing off to "check their messages" in the middle of a conversation.

Well, I don’t know of anyone interrupting a conversation to check email. Come to think of it, that would be a great excuse to duck out of a boring conversation.

A study of 100,000 school children in over 30 countries around the world testified that non-computer using kids performed better in literacy and numeracy schools than PC-using children. Education experts have dubbed it the "problem solving deficit disorder".

If we believe that e-mail is bad, is that a reason to take kids away from their computers? Wouldn’t that be like throwing the baby out with the bath water?

So there you have it. If you believe the experts in this story, it’s time to stop e-mailing and also time to get the kids away from their puter’s. But is it really that bad? Aren’t kids better off in front of a computer, with good parental controls, than in front of a TV screen?

Did operators think 911 call was a prank?

The Elgin, Illinois Police Department is investigating whether its 911 operators and possibly police officers believed a call from a 19-year-old man who had been kidnapped and locked in the trunk of a car was a prank, Elgin police said Saturday

Steeves made a frantic cell phone call to 911 shortly after 9 p.m., in which he told the operator he was locked in the trunk of a car and believed he was somewhere in Elgin.

A recording of the call released by police Friday indicates Steeves called twice, the first time telling the operator he was in his mother's 1997 Toyota Corolla, and pleading for police to come to South Street, before he was cut off.

When the operator called back, Steeves, sounding panicked, gave his name and said he was in the car's trunk, before the call was again disconnected.

When the 911 call taker gave Police the dispatch their comment was, “Call taker thinks it could be a prank but isn't definite on it," according to the recording.

Elgin Community College student David Steeves was found shot to death in the trunk of his mother's car in Rockford a week later.

Two men, Armin V. Henderson, 25, and Robert Guyton, 23, have been charged with 27 counts of first-degree murder, aggravated kidnapping and armed robbery in his death.

Would the student still be alive if the 911 operator would have taken the call seriously? Story here.

Scary School security robot video

A Japanese company called Secom has released the "SECOM School Security," a system which monitors kids using RFID tags while they are commuting to and from school but also uses robots (the good old smoking robots) that move around and monitor school properties. The robots can also "scare" suspicious people by fast movements, light and smoke.

Secom includes surveillance cameras and metal detectors installed at school gates. RFID tags are attached to the Secom Terminals (carried by kids) which will be read at school gates and elesewhere. Parents receive status of kid's commute on their cell phones. KoKo Secom terminals also has a GPS functionality that track kids' whereabouts outside school properties.

Click on the “video” link to see one of the robots in action. Pretty scary watching students being intimidated. Hope we never see anything like this in our country. The civil liberties folks would be all over this one!

More can be found here and here.