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Submission + - Internet Archive Building a Digital Library of Amateur Radio (archive.org)

savetz writes: Internet Archive has begun gathering content for the Digital Library of Amateur Radio and Communications (DLARC), which will be a massive online library of materials and collections related to amateur radio and early digital communications. The DLARC is funded by a significant grant from the Amateur Radio Digital Communications Foundation (ARDC) to create a digital library that documents, preserves, and provides open access to the history of this community.

The DLARC project is looking for partners and contributors with troves of ham radio, amateur radio, and early digital communications related books, magazines, documents, catalogs, manuals, videos, software, personal archives, and other historical records collections, no matter how big or small. In addition to physical material to digitize, we are looking for podcasts, newsletters, video channels, and other digital content that can enrich the DLARC collections.

Internet Archive will work directly with groups, publishers, clubs, individuals, and others to ensure the archiving and perpetual access of contributed collections, their physical preservation, their digitization, and their online availability and promotion for use in research, education, and historical documentation. All collections in this digital library will be universally accessible to any user and there will be a customized access and discovery portal with special features for research and educational uses.

Comment Re:How exactly does this work? (Score 1) 77

L(should have)GT: https://research.checkpoint.com/sending-fax-back-to-the-dark-ages/

I attended this talk yesterday, and it was by far the best talk I attended at defcon26. The researchers did some amazing work to get this exploit. You can get the full tail of hackery at the link above, but here's my (probably/mostly correct) summary:
 

  • At some point, the fax standard was amended to include support for JPGs, in order to allow full-color faxes
  • As the researchers wrote in the above-linked blog article, "For some unknown reason, firmware developers tend to re-implement modules that are already implemented in major popular open sources. This means that instead of using libjpeg [ref.13], the developers implemented their own JPEG parser."
  • When the All-in-One device receives a JPG fax, it stores the whole JPG file in local storage (on disk, essentially). This differs from how it processes TIFF files, where the headers and image data are separated. Because the whole JPG file is stored as a normal file, it gives the attacker a platform from which to operate.
  • The firmware-developer-implemented JPG parser has a number of bugs, including buffer overflow vulnerabilities in the COM (CVE-2018-5925) and DHT (CVE-2018-5924) markers. It turned out the bug in the DHT marker parser was the easier one to exploit.
  • Exploiting the DHT marker parser buffer overflow gets them arbitrary code execution. The code they want to execute is stored in the remainder of the JPG file. Because the OS on these All-in-One devices has no security controls and everything runs with highest privileges, they were able to use this ability to overwrite the LCD screen (to visually prove pwnage) and then to use the Eternal Blue and Double Pulsar (which they managed to squeeze into the ~4000 byte payload they had available in the JPG file) exploits to start attacking other hosts on the network. Since these All-in-One devices tend to be connected to the office network (else, it's hard to print on them), this presents an excellent jumping off point for attacks.

All in all (all-in-one?) this was some amazing research and the full article is well worth a read.

Comment Commercially available for some time... (Score 4, Informative) 100

All of the major WiFi equipment vendors (Cisco, Aruba, etc.) have offered this for some time -- though they don't claim anywhere near the MIT Lab's level of accuracy. For instance, Aruba calls their offering "ALE" or Aruba Location Engine. It sits as a separate virtual appliance and communicates to the central WiFi controller (AirWave in their parlance) or to the individual APs if they are operating in autonomous mode. It gets signal strength indications for each WiFi and bluetooth antenna in range of the APs (note: *not* just those devices that are Associated with the WiFi networks served by said APs) and feeds that into ALE. From there, you can map out the devices. Both Cisco and Aruba's products have very extensive APIs to access this info. Maybe they can enhance their offerings with MIT's new technology and get the location resolution improved a bit. For now, in the wild, it's often difficult to get a station (i.e. device) location down to better than a range of 3-10 meters.

Comment Re:Every Android vs iPad review... (Score 1) 524

If we look at the closest existing Android phone to the iPhone 3G, it lost Cyanogen support around the same time Apple dropped the iPhone 3G. The G1 lost "official" support far earlier, at Android 1.6. Look at my link in the post you replied to about what versions people are actually running in their Android phones. The number that are stuck on 2.1 is a little lame. The glut held back to 2.2 is a flat-out embarrassment. I'd one to see a counter-argument supported with facts, but as far as I can see, Android users can rely on being abandoned by the OEM within two years of release in most (all?) cases. Apple, on the other hand, has supported a given phone for at least three years from release.

Comment Re:Every Android vs iPad review... (Score 1) 524

Some people need to have their hand held when using gadgets. Those people need Apple to hold them close and assure them that as long as the money flows all will be okay and Apple will protect them from the big bad world out there.

Could you be a more condescending twat? I can hear the arrogance over here.

What I find funniest about your statement is the idea "as long as the money flows...Apple will protect" you, implying that Android is the key to having software support for a much longer period of time. In reality, many Android device manufacturers have seen fit to stop releasing software updates as soon as the stop selling the hardware. It's a huge factor in the crazy-wide distribution of version numbers in use. And Cyanogen doesn't really count; if you're going to run the Android equivalent of jailbreak apps you need to be intellectually honest.

Comment Re:Anticipated Hardware Specs (Score 1) 229

if I am in an FPS, I want an axis for forward/back motion, an axis for side-to-side motion, an axis for left/right turning, and an axis for up/down look control. Four axes = two sticks, easily controlled with two thumbs and leaving the fingers free for triggers.

I haven't really dug into any of the Wii FPSes, so this is based on what "could be," not necessarily "what is." But couldn't the two axes on the nunchuk thumbstick combined with the two axes of pointing control on the wiimote provide exactly what you're asking for?

Comment Re:Far better features (Score 1) 365

You clearly don't understand what you're commenting on. There's no shame in that, but you have to know that people that have direct experience with the feature may have a bit better insight. For example, AirDrop. It allows a person to quickly set up an ad-hoc drop box with anyone else within WiFi range. There is no configuration required; in fact, you don't even need to be on the same network. The file manager (Finder) sets up a session directly with the WiFi (AirPort) hardware and broadcasts availability. Sans-"network."

You go on to state that this is stuff you could do on "free platforms" "10 years ago." I don't know how short your memory is, but to attribute the word "automatic" to ANY Free Software feature and/or product from fifteen years ago is delusional. We're only recently getting decent automatic X11 configuration. If there is some Free project that can accomplish anything close to AirDrop it's new to me. Note that I'm not saying it doesn't exist or that it's a lie.

Because I realize that stating things as fact when I don't in fact know their factual status is a total dick move.

Comment Re:Launchpad (Score 1) 365

What's fun about that is that it was a very bad idea in earlier versions od Mac OS X, but as of late is (usually) a non-issue. The Apple-provided packages and Installer are smart enough to relocate most things based on the bundle identifier, meaning that things will get updated without issue. This was definitely a problem in earlier versions of OS X but since about 10.4 or so it's worked as you might expect. It's still a bad idea to move applications around, as other users may not be able to access them, but it should not prevent updates from running properly.

Comment Re:Been running a dev build for a few weeks now (Score 1) 212

Or it could mean that you don't know how the "multitasking" API works. In short, most applications are suspended when in the background. Only certain pre-determined classes of applications are allowed to continue operating in the background, and when their background functionality is not in use (e.g. Pandora stops playing music) the app is suspended like any other. As such, most apps that may technically still be running are only using RAM but no other system resources.

Comment Re:Just because (Score 1) 361

The sync of meta-info allows all sorts of extra functionality. First of all, people that say "I'll just put it into folders" are rather silly. You're totally disregarding all sorts of really useful metadata.

Playlists generated on the computer - or generated on the portable device - that sync both ways. Play counts and ratings, which feed into dynamic, rule-based playlists. The ability to quickly establish "sets" that synchronize, that include multiple artists, albums, etc, while still maintaining easy access to an alphabetical list of artists. Or albums. Or genres.

It's like somebody trying to manually manage all of their photographs. Works great for 100. Works somewhat alright for 1,000. Totally unworkable with 10,000. It becomes more and more work, which is what computers are supposed to do, right? What Picasa/iPhoto are to photos, iTunes/(insert media player here) are to music. They allow you not just to use your music but to manage it. Let the computer do the work.

Comment Re:TINSTAAFL (wrong!) (Score 1) 283

Except you're wrong. Memtest86 is largely assembly, based on the (2.2?) Linux kernel. It requires no OS and handles all hardware access on its own. Memtest OS X is a userspace app that one runs from the command line. As it is a "fat binary" that runs on PPC as well as x86, and was around before there even were Intel Macs, I rather doubt it was based on Memtest86 at all. They just happen to share similar names.

Before you drag someon'e name through the mud, please know what you're talking about.

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