This was actually a preimage attack -- that is, I intentionally created a collision for 0x70096AD1.

No birthday paradox required. I looped through the entire key space. It takes, as written in the article, less than a few hours on a regular netbook.

The website in question should enable SSL so that sysadmins in the middle can't monkey around with blocking sites based on their content.

For sale:
Space suit,
never worn.

(Hat-tip to Ernest H.)

Just so you know, five years ago, a Dutch judge ruled that Creative Commons licenses are enforceable. See here: http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/5823 . This is the Adam Curry case from 2006, for those who follow the history of such things. There was also a later scenario in 2009 that he also won.

Summary from the Wikipedia article:

In late February 2006, Adam sued the Dutch tabloid Weekend for reprinting photos from his Flickr page and publishing details about his daughter. The photos were released under a version of the Creative Commons license that forbids commercial use and requires acknowledgement, but the tabloid printed a few of them without contacting Curry.

The verdict of the lawsuit did not award Curry any damages, but did forbid the tabloid from reprinting the photos in the future, and set a fine of 1,000€ for each subsequent violation by the tabloid. It was one of the first times the license was tested in a court.

In May 2009, Curry posted on his blog information about a different Dutch tabloid publishing another Creative Commons licenced photo from Curry's Flickr account and Curry's attempt to apply Creative Commons license requirements. The publisher settled without a trial on Curry's terms.

Mozilla might want to add more tracking of its users.

And some people wonder why Debian wants permission to distribute modified versions of Firefox.

I run Iceweasel.

At the time of his arrest, Dmitry Sklyarov was a 27-year-old Russian citizen, Ph.D. student, cryptographer and father of two small children (a 2-1/2 year old son, and a 3-month-old daughter).

Dmitry helped create the Advanced eBook Processor (AEBPR) software for his Russian employer Elcomsoft. According to the company's website, the software permits eBook owners to translate from Adobe's secure eBook format into the more common Portable Document Format (PDF). The software only works on legitimately purchased eBooks. It has been used by blind people to read otherwise-inaccessible PDF user's manuals, and by people who want to move an eBook from one computer to another (just like anyone can move a music CD from the home player to a portable or car).

Dmitry was arrested July 17, 2001 in Las Vegas, NV, at the behest of Adobe Systems, according to the DOJ complaint, and charged with distributing a product designed to circumvent copyright protection measures (the AEBPR). He was eventually released on $50,000 bail and restricted to California. In December 2001, was permitted to return home to Russia with his family. Charges have not been dropped, and he remains subject to prosecution in the US.

Although Dmitry is home now, the case against Elcomsoft is continuing (to the detriment of the company), Dmitry's actions in Russia are controlled by a US court, and DMCA is still the law (to the detriment of everyone). This site will carry updates as they come...

Source: http://www.freesklyarov.org/ (for those who don't remember 2001's Defcon incident)

It's actually baked into the curriculum -- it's not missing. If you read the announcement website, you can see that it's really about teaching how to contribute, not just be a passive user.

We had 51 applicants for 20 slots. We expanded it to the 30 most enthusiastic people.

:D

You followed me all the way from California, back to Slashdot.... I will put it on the list soon! (Or you can, probably, given this Slashdot post.)

In my late-night Slashdot writing, I forgot to mention this the summary: Yuvi Masory and Felice Ford played a huge role in organizing the workshop. Yuvi and Felice handled all the logistics, getting all the details down to a T -- that included asking Github for sponsorship, staying up late the night before to organize the students into groups, reserving rooms, and earning the support of Penn computer science.

The workshop was just a pipe dream until Yuri and Felice nailed down all the pieces. My hat's off to them!

Further thanks go out to John Stumpo, Jonathan Simpson, and Zach Goldberg, who all came in from out-of-down to help these students get their feet wet in open source.

Hey all! I'm going to be working on organizing more, similar events going forward.

If you want to stay on top of that, or try to organize an event near you, join the mailing list for OpenHatch events: http://lists.openhatch.org/mailman/listinfo/events

This is part of the OpenHatch project, an ongoing effort to help new contributors get involved in open source. If you want to stay in touch with OpenHatch, join us on #openhatch on irc.freenode.net or follow the links on our "About" page, http://openhatch.org/about/.