Brumcon VI is go!
7th October 2006, entry from 11am, talks start 12 noon.

Thistle Birmingham Edgbaston
225 Hagley Road,
Edgbaston,
Birmingham.
B16 9RY

Call For Speakers
If you’re interested in speaking at BrumCon 06 then please contact MinusQ
at brumcon6 at brum2600.net with details of your proposed talk. The length
of the talk will depend on the number of speakers, but generally should
be between 30-60 minutes. If you feel that you need more than an hour,
talk to MinusQ and he’ll arrange something for you :)

Topics of particular interest: Hacking/Security related talks
Phreaking/Telephony related talks Wireless (Bluetooth, GSM, 802.11,
Radio, Satellite) communications.

Full details are here: http://www.brum2600.net/brumcon6/

The most powerful supercomputer available for general scientific research in the United States has undergone an upgrade that’s doubled its peak performance. The Cray XT3 supercomputer at Tennessee’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory can now perform up to 54 trillion calculations per second, up from its previous peak of 25 trillion calculations. ‘It is probably the fifth-fastest machine’ in the world, said Thomas Zacharia, associate laboratory director. ‘It is clearly the fastest open-science machine in the U.S. today.

Source: Slashdot
Source: North Florida Daily News

Ever get annoyed when looking at photos and you just can’t remember where it was taken? Well soon that will be a thing of the past. It’s almost September, the second month of the year when Sony changes its product range. This September sees the release of the GPS-CS1, a 9cm GPS receiver. The idea behind the CS1 is to allow photographers to overlay their images onto the Google maps framework. It does this by synchronising the GPS log file with the timestamp found in your photo’s EXIF metadata.

Updating every 15 seconds, the CS1 records your position via GPS to a plain text log file. Using this data, the photograph’s timestamp and the bundled Picture Motion Browser web software, you can view the exact location where you took the picture, along with a thumbnail of the image itself. Example here: http://www.sony.jp/products/Consumer/Peripheral/GPS/GPS-CS1K/TryMapView/try.html (Internet Explorer Only)

Sony has guaranteed that the unit will work with all Sony cameras released after August, perhaps as the software will start to come in the box. However, providing your camera supports the EXIF 2.1 metadata standard, there is no reason that the software wouldn’t work with your camera.

Sony GPS-CS1 Specification

Of course there are certain privacy issues that come into play when dealing with GPS, and the CS1 is no exception. Get hold of one and you have a full history of where the owners been. Drop one in a bag and you have a relatively cheap surveillance device - perfect for stalking that desired girl or unfaithful partner. The software works with Google maps, meaning the data is being sent over the Internet and available for snoopers to get a hold of and if Google logs, then its trivial for the government to find out where you’ve been and at what time.

The BBC are reporting on the latest advancement in technology - A 110Ghz silicon transistor. By adding flourine to the silicon transisitors, researchers at the University of Southampton managed to greatly improve the speed at which the common transistor is capable of running, making the result a new world record. From the article:

“It just takes a standard technology and adds one extra step……This is a really cheap method.”

The new process is said to be very cheap and easy to impliment, meaning that we should see the new technology in the not too distant future. Ideal implications are in the mobile computing world, with mobile phones and PDA’s at the forefront.

“Complete circuits usually operate at about a tenth of the speed of the component transistors meaning the new devices could allow engineers to build chips that operate at a speed of about 11GHz.”

More Information: BBC News - Speedy silicon sets world record

Men are from Mars, women from Venus, and Firefox from outer space, or so it would seem. A creative group of Linux enthusiasts, from the Oregon State University in the States, took to the countryside recently in a bid to carve a giant Firefox logo into the surrounding rural area.

Surpassing Mozilla’s PR stunt of building a public access Firefox lover’s database, the group has upped a number of photos at the groups University web site here.

Irish telecoms regulator, ComReg, recently came under fire from one of the countries biggest cinema groups after it decided that cinemas wishing to implement mobile phone blocking technology would have to acquire the consent of the network operators. Talking on the issue, director of the Irish Cellular Industry Association (ICIA), Tommy McCabe said:

“The use of interceptors would generate significantly greater concerns for users, venues and operators - particularly where public safety is concerned.”

Adding that the issue of mobile phone use in cinemas is one of behavioural rather than regulatory, and should be addressed through education. Further pointing out that nearly all phones have a built in silent mode option that would enable patrons to stay in contact without ruining the experience for others.

A new piece of software is set to launch in the UK, which will allow public mobile phone users the ability to encrypt all or some of their mobile comms. In partnership with German company: Safe-com, and the military, One Day Mobile is offering its encryption application, Babylon nG, to users in the public domain. Unfortunately, the software will send the encrypted traffic over the data channel via GPRS, rather than the voice channel. This could lead to breaks, lag and interruptions, as the GPRS system has no rigorous controls over transmission as GSM does.

Update: I have just been contacted by Danielle Newman of marketing & PR company Pazang Ltd, who has informed me that the mobile encryption software will only be available to businesses, the government and the military.

It would appear that this years DNS-CON gathering may have been given a miss. The event which see’s computer enthusiasts from all over the world gather in Blackpool every August failed to have much of a mention this year. However, after speaking to the conferences organiser - Khaldor, I can confirm that DNS-CON is set to go ahead this year, but at the later than usual time of December with the venue being based in Manchester. Plans are still a little sketchy, but I’ll put up new announcements as the details become more finalised.

With reference to our recent report on the RIAA attempts at suing a dead man. It would appear that the huge, and largely negative, response across the worlds media may have quelled the monoliths copyright thirst. RIAA spokesperson, Jonathan Lamy, said that, “out of an abundance of sensitivity, we have elected to drop this particular case.” Or not as the case maybe, given that this renewed view on its victims comes just days after the media tore the RIAA a new asshole.

Earlier this week we reported on the re-application of the RIPA act with all of its glorious additions. Yet once again, as before, the proposal is coming under fire left right and center. For example, it is likely that people will start to disregard the security implications that encryption has to offer, after all, why encrypt data when you have to decrypt it for any moron who asks, and who wants to go to prison because they forgot their key to 2006_financial_report.pdf.enc

More Information: BBC - Police decryption powers ‘flawed’