Dimentox - Slashdot User

Submission + - iPhone root password cracked in three days

Submitted by Dimentox on Tuesday July 03, 2007 @11:25AM

Dimentox writes: Builder.au reports that "The iPhone root password has been cracked, The information came from an an official Apple iPhone restore image (rename as a zip file and extract). The archive contains two .dmg disk images: a password encrypted system image and an unencrypted user image. By delving into the unencrypted image inquisitive hackers were able to discover that all iPhones ship with predefined passwords to the accounts 'mobile' and 'root', the last of which being the name of the privileged administration account on UNIX based systems..."
"The information came from an an official Apple iPhone restore image (rename as a zip file and extract). The archive contains two .dmg disk images: a password encrypted system image and an unencrypted user image. By delving into the unencrypted image inquisitive hackers were able to discover that all iPhones ship with predefined passwords to the accounts 'mobile' and 'root', the last of which being the name of the privileged administration account on UNIX based systems."

Submission + - Wizards of the Coast has moved away from DRM!

Submitted by

sckeener

on Wednesday February 28, 2007 @09:50AM

sckeener writes: "Wizards of the Coast (D&D) has decided that the PDF market is viable and has switched from DRM to watermarking!

Per Monte Cook

This has been a long time coming, and is, pretty much hands down, the best thing that's happened to the pdf side of the market in a very, very long time. Particularly if one reads between the lines of the announcement and figures that WotC finally has some faith in the medium. Price, number of titles, etc... these are all just more steps that need to be taken, but I think it's pretty clear that this was the big step.
In addition to the 3.0 and 3.5 materials, WotC's ESD Materials (older versions of D&D, modules, etc) are still available."

OSS Music Composer Gaining Attention 116

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Monday February 19, 2007 @10:17AM from the sounds-like-fun dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Following in the footsteps of Psycle, VioLet Composer is a completely GPLed music composer for Windows that has slowly but surely been gaining attention. In an interview at Laptoprockers the author covers not only the program itself but the his reasoning behind choosing to open the source using the GPL."

Submission + - Fermi Paradox Could Predict Humankind's Future

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 19, 2007 @10:11AM

An anonymous reader writes: The Fermi paradox says that if extraterrestrial civilizations exist, at least one of them should have colonized the entire galaxy by now. But since there is no evidence of this, humankind must be the only intelligent life in the galaxy. The Space Review has an article on how the Fermi paradox can be applied to human civilization. It says that, like the extraterrestrials, humans have three choices: colonize the galaxy, remain on Earth, or become extinct.

Submission + - Regrowing lost body parts coming in the future

Submitted by

[TheBORG]

on Monday February 19, 2007 @09:54AM

[TheBORG] writes: "There are two stories on Yahoo! News about regrowing lost body parts. One is about regrowing lost fingers & limbs and the other one is about regrowing teeth. The story about regrowing lost fingers and limbs talks about the experimental use of powdered pig bladder to regrow fingers and eventually lost limbs for soldiers and others in need from information that Pentagon-funded scientists hopefully learn from studying the salamander. The story about regrowing teeth talks about how Japanese scientists used primitive cells (not quite as early as stem cells) and injected them into a framework of collagen (the material that holds the body together). Once grown to a certain point, scientists implanted the growths into mice where the teeth developed normally."

Lakes Found Under Antarctic Ice Using Space Lasers 77

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Monday February 19, 2007 @09:35AM from the space-sharks-still-in-development dept.

Reverse Gear writes "There is a new study circling the media about new lakes found underneath the antarctic ice sheets that apparently empty and fill back up quite fast. 'The scientists allay fears that global warming has created these pockets of water. They say these lakes lie some 2,300 feet below compressed snow and ice, too deep for environmental temperature to reach. However, it is necessary to understand what causes the phenomenon as it can facilitate an understanding of the impact of climate change on the ice sheet in Antarctica.' NASA also has some information on the technique used to detect these lakes."

Submission + - Towards more aesthetic forms of cryptography

Submitted by

ChristW

on Monday February 19, 2007 @08:34AM

ChristW writes: "A security expert currently working at the Philips Research lab in Eindhoven has set himself a new challenge, making encryption and decryption more aesthetically pleasing. From the introduction to his paper: "When a scientific or engineering discipline reaches a high level of sophistication, it ceases to be a purely function-oriented endeavour and acquires certain aesthetic qualities. Consider for instance robotics. The elegant and efficient motions of sleek robotic arms are delightful to watch. Another example is fractal art. The difference between a sophisticated and an immature discipline is like hearing a song instead of mere speech, reading poetry instead of mere words, seeing a sculpture instead of mere stone. Cryptography has clearly not yet reached this state of maturity. Not by a long way. Instead of being delightful, it a is messy, painstaking, boring, arduous business for all involved parties, especially for the cryptanalist. I hypothesize that when cryptography reaches a sufficient state of maturity, reading and analyzing ciphertext will be akin to submerging oneself in a profoundly poetic work of art. Cryptanalysis, even if unsuccessful, will fill the practitioner with joy, while the encrypting and decrypting parties will delight in the beautiful relationships between the plaintext and the ciphertext." See the paper on his home page for an example and his conclusion."

RIAA Hires Artists, Then Sends In the SWAT team 420

Posted by Zonk on Monday February 19, 2007 @07:03AM from the dirty-pool-riaa-dirty-pool dept.

cancan writes "The NY times is carrying an article about how the RIAA is hiring hip hop artists to make mix tapes, and then helping the police raid their studios. In the case of DJ Drama and DJ Don Cannon, they were raided by SWAT teams with their guns drawn. The local police chief said later that they were 'prepared for the worst.' Men in RIAA jackets helped cart away 'evidence'. Just the same, 'Record labels regularly hire mixtape D.J.'s to produce CDs featuring a specific artist. In many cases, these arrangements are conducted with a wink and a nod rather than with a contract; the label doesn't officially grant the D.J. the right to distribute the artist's songs or formally allow the artist to record work outside of his contract.' " This is more of the shenanigans that we've previously discussed on the site.

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