registry cleaner?

I installed some Mac OS X updates today, and after they finished I was asked to restart my computer... so being the faithful computer user I am, I did. When I brought FireFox back up after rebooting, an advertisement for Registry Cleaner popped up warning me that my registry needs to be cleaned. Now, I have FireFox set up to remember the sites I was visiting when it is closed, but I don't recall seeing this before rebooting... also, the two pages I was viewing did not come back.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think there's a registry in Mac OS to clean... where did this ad come from?

fellowships, anyone?

I think it's impossible to get a graduate studies fellowship as a 4th year, White, Male, Computer Science PhD student.

top 2006 web hacks

Note to self: Look at all the web hacks Grossman posted in the full list contained in his Top Ten post.

Lots of dirty tricks there.

dynamic pharming

I just learned what DNS pinning is and how it can be defeated when a domain is associated with multiple DNS A records.

The basic idea of DNS pinning is that when your browser loads something from x.com, it caches the DNS A record for x.com (the IP) and then keeps using that local copy instead of sending a DNS request each time.

This means that all requests to x.com for a browser session will be sent to the same IP address.  Unfortunately, there's an attack: if the IP that was "pinned" stops responding, the browser throws away the pinning and issues another DNS request.

If the two IPs are different, the browser will still see pages from both IPs as being in the same domain, and thus in the same origin -- scripts from one will have full access to content from the other.

This means that an attacker who controls the DNS records for x.com can put his IP first and the real x.com's IP second in the list of A records.  Then, at will, he can instruct his server to quit responding to requests.  This allows him to force clients to go from using his version of x.com to the real one.  The result: scripts served by his version of x.com can access content on the real x.com.  Browsers' Same Origin policies do nothing to fix this (in my opinion, they aren't supposed to).

What is this if not motivation to make DNS much more secure, since it is considered an authority!

Link to more info

public domain DRM

Most current DRM revolves around the idea that each person should be required to pay for their right to view/use some protected media.  The rights may be temporary or permanant, and may or may not be transferrable.  Ideally, a DRM system should be able to restrict who, what, when, and how.

Kelsey and Schneier propose "The Street Performer Protocol" that adds a twist onto DRM.  Instead of protecting content from the public, it pays the distributor if the content is released to the public domain.  

Essentially, people put donations in an escrow, and then when the content is released to public domain, the distributor (or artist) is paid.

I haven't read the paper yet, but this looks like a promising way to help free software developers pay for overhead costs.

newcomb's paradox

a clairvoyant being presents you with two boxes: one is open, and has $1000 in it.  The other one is closed, and you're told it contains either nothing or $1,000,000.  

The being asks you to choose to take either both boxes, or just the closed one.  He claims (due to his clairvoyance) that if he predicted you would choose the closed one, then he put the $1,000,000 in it.  If he predicted you would choose both, he left it empty.

The paradox is: which do you choose?  Both, or just the closed box?  Why?

(Link to essay by Franz Kiekeben)

progenetorivox

This is one of the funniest videos I've seen in a long time:
Drugs I need

Cheers to the folks at jibjab.com who keep coming out with hilarious animations!

this is our country

There's a new Chevy ad that I find interesting.  The song in the background keeps repeating "This is Our Country," meanwhile the camera pans for what seems like ever showing people erecting a long barbed wire fence.  

Take away message: to show you this is OUR country, we're going to put up a barbed wire fence to keep everyone else out... oh, and buy a Chevy to support the fence.