atari8 - Slashdot User

Comment Give pieces of a secret key to trusted friends (Score 1) 335

by atari8 on Tuesday November 25, 2008 @02:17PM (#25889795) Attached to: Arranging Electronic Access For Your Survivors?

Encrypt your passwords with a GPG secret key. Keep a copy of that key on your hard drive with a complex password that you can remember.

Make a copy of that secret key with a simpler password that all your friends will remember. Split it up into pieces. Put each piece on some fairly durable media and give that piece to a trusted friend, along with the password.

After that, whenever all of your trusted friends decide it's time to unlock your secrets, they can put their pieces together and recover your key. Since you're dead or incapacitated, they can then get to your computer and decrypt your password file.

I suppose that using a parity tool (e.g., "par2create"), you could even create some redundancy in those pieces and establish a quorum number. Your key could then be recovered if say, 5 of your 6 friends agree.

A wrapper could be written to handle the details of this.

Feed Techdirt: Major League Baseball Deletes Popular MySpace Page For Using Cubs Logo (techdirt.com)

From feed by techdirtfeed on Friday August 24, 2007 @02:53PM

By now, it certainly shouldn't come as any surprise that Major League Baseball mis-interprets various intellectual property laws to pretend is has total control over certain content. After all, this is the organization that has insisted repeatedly that it owns facts, despite court after court explaining that facts aren't copyrightable. MLB also seems confused about copyright law when it comes to the legality of placeshifting. In the past, MLB also freaked out about fan websites potentially violating trademarks -- but that was a long time ago. Or so we thought. Apparently the fun lawyers at MLB shut down an immensely popular MySpace page for Chicago Cubs fans that was linked to a fan website called Cubbies Baseball. That fan website actually has a license to use the official Chicago Cubs logo, but MLB claims that the license didn't extend to MySpace as well -- just the Cubbies Baseball site. King Kaufman, the sports writer at Salon, blames MLB for not asking the owner of the site to remove the logo -- but puts more blame on MySpace for simply shutting down the site the second MLB complained, without giving any warning. He seems to think MLB isn't totally in the wrong in demanding the logo be removed, but again that's not necessarily true. If the site was clear that it was a fan site and had no official endorsement or association with the Cubs, it should be fair use to use the logo. MLB trots out the tired explanation that it has to defend its trademarks or risk losing them, but that's not so in a case where there's an obvious fair use exception. Either way, from a common sense standpoint, it's ridiculous for MySpace and MLB to shut down a vibrant fan community -- and it's made worse when you realize that the use of the logo probably isn't even a real violation of trademark law.

Feed Engadget: Researchers add fear of electric shock to "Pac-Man-like" game (engadget.com)

From feed by engfeed on Friday August 24, 2007 @02:52PM

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets, Gaming

Researchers at University College London look to have taken a slightly unconventional approach in their studies on fear, with the BBC reporting that they've crafted a "Pac-Man-like" game that boasts the added risk of electric shock. Apparently, volunteers play the game while an MRI scanner monitors them, moving a blue triangle through a 2D maze while trying to avoid a red dot "predator." If that dot catches them, they receive an electric shock. As that danger neared , the researchers found that players stopped using their their prefrontal cortex in their forebrain and instead relied on their midbrain area, which controls "gut-level reflexes." At least that's what they're saying. We have a sneaking suspicion it may all just be an elaborate trick the researchers play on freshman students.

[Via The Inquirer]

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Feed Wired: Teen Pleads Guilty for Capturing 20 Seconds of Movie (wired.com)

From feed by wiredfeed on Tuesday August 21, 2007 @05:52PM

Jhannet Sejas, 19, will pay a $71 fine for recording a clip from Transformers for her little brother.

Submission + - AppleWorks/ClarisWorks quietly dies (macworld.co.uk)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 16, 2007 @09:19AM

An anonymous reader writes: AppleWorks' last breath was masked by last week's iMac, iLife and iWork announcements — Apple has discontinued the product. Apple told resellers of the demise of AppleWorks last week, announcing that the software had reached "End of Life" status. It will no longer be sold. The AppleWorks website now directs users to the iWork section of Apple's website.

Feed Science Daily: Study Says COPD Testing Is Not Measuring Up (sciencedaily.com)

From feed by sdfeed on Monday August 13, 2007 @05:12PM

Spirometry testing is a widely accepted and encouraged diagnostic method for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, but new research shows that it is not used nearly enough.

Submission + - BitTorrent Closes Source Code (slyck.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 08, 2007 @12:51PM

An anonymous reader writes: "There are two issues people need to come to grips with," BitTorrent CEO Ashwin Narvin told Slyck.com. "Developers who produce open source products will often have their product repackaged and redistributed by businesses with malicious intent. They repackage the software with spyware or charge for the product. We often receive phone calls from people who complain they have paid for the BitTorrent client." As for the protocol itself, that too is closed, but is available by obtaining an SDK license.

Feed Wired: Armed Robots Head to Iraq for First-Ever Wartime Deployment (wired.com)

From feed by wiredfeed on Thursday August 02, 2007 @03:13PM

After ironing out some bugs, the U.S. Army deploys three robots to Iraq armed with M249 machine guns. What can possibly go wrong?

A Year In Prison For a 20-Second Film Clip? 1169

Posted by kdawson on Thursday August 02, 2007 @11:01AM from the zero-tolerance dept.

PizzaFace writes "It's Jhannet's 19th birthday, so her boyfriend borrows a camcorder to memorialize the occasion, and they head to the mall. They goof around, recording each other in the food court, then decide to catch the Transformers matinee, which started a few minutes earlier. During a big action scene, Jhannet takes the camcorder and records a 20-second clip to show her little brother. A few minutes later, cops who were called by the manager come in with flashlights, arrest Jhannet, confiscate the camcorder, and, at the behest of Regal Cinemas, charge her with film piracy. 'I was terrified,' said Jhannet. 'I was crying. I've never been in trouble before.' If convicted, she could be sentenced to a year in prison and a $2,500 fine. The police say they lack discretion because Regal Cinemas chose to prosecute: 'They were the victim in this case, and they felt strongly enough about it.' The National Association of Theater Owners supports Regal's 'zero-tolerance' prosecution standard: 'We cannot educate theater managers to be judges and juries in what is acceptable. Theater managers cannot distinguish between good and bad stealing.'"

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