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I just finished reading a posting on Engadget about an armed robot that military may start deploying that “gets Kill commands via WiFi”.  Now unfortunately, I haven’t found much more about this robot other than what’s in the small Engadget posting and I’m guessing that given the limited range of what we know as WiFi (802.11a/b/g/n), that this isn’t truly WiFi, unless the army has plans to deploy access points throughout a warzone.  But if this IS WiFi, EGADS!!!  While WiFi has made some signficant strides in recent years with WPA2, what would happen if the opposing armies were able to hack this?!?!  No only would they be able to prevent their demise, but they would be able to use the weapon against OUR troops!  IF WiFi is truly used here, let’s hope that the engineers added some additional cryptography on top of native WiFi security measures and that the algorithms used have undergone public cryptanalysis.

Technorati Tags: A.R.E.S, WiFi, Cryptography

In the tenth anniversary edition of his Cryptogram (congrats by the way, Bruce), Bruce Schneier references an article that originally appeared in The Guardian talking about how the Transport Safety Administration (TSA) is now searching laptops in some cases when departing the country.   This means that when traveling, your data is not safe.  Moreover, they have the right to confiscate your hardware.  How can you ensure that your data is safe?  Schneier naturally recommends the use of encryption.  While there’s many ways to do this, what I personally have been doing lately is using TrueCrypt to create and encrypted file that I store on an external USB drive.  This way, not only is your data encrypted, but it’s not even physically on the laptop.  The nice thing about TrueCrypt is that it’s free (open source) and it’s cross platform.  So if you need access this data from various platforms, you have the ability to do so.  Go download this and start using it if you’ll be traveling out of the country any time soon.

Technorati Tags: TrueCrypt, TSA

These just made my night! First off, screw the swan when you can make your own oragami Yoda! 60 (yes not as simple as a paper airplane, my friends) easy steps to create your own Jedi master. Of course if you manage to get through all 60 steps, chances are that you’ll be the master… of Oragami, that is. Also, I found a calculator that allows your to pick a metro area in the US and find out what the effect of a nuclear weapon would be if Kim Jong Il’s missles come sailing into your neighborhood. Needless to say, by the time you knew a bomb was heading your way, there most likely wouldn’t even be time to get away, let alone calculate the blast radius.

Technorati Tags: Oragami Yoda, Nuclear Weapons Effects Calculator

Let it be known that I am NOT a reader by any means. However, one of the few things that I read in elementary school were the “Choose Your Own Adventure Books.” The books presented you with a few pages of story and then let you pick what you wanted to happen next. Sometimes, you would strike it rich, and others you might find yourself plummeting to you doom over a giant cliff. But regardless of the the outcome, the fact that YOU could create the story as you go kept me and several other kids around the world amused. Well they’re back! This summer, they will be reprinting several of these classic books. Wired has the whole story in a very creative “Choose Your Own Adventure” type of format.

Technorati Tags: game books, choose your own adventure

Just when you thought that MIT students had done everything possible, a story comes out of the MIT News Office that two freshman MIT students have fully automated their dorm room.  I must admit, this beats the hell out of my old dorm room!  Despite the automation, MIT students face one major problem…  finding women.

Technorati Tags: MIT, Automation

In my random internet surfing tonight, I stumbled across reviews from ArsTechnica about the recently released MacBook’s and MacBook Pro’s. The MacBook review has benchmarks included that show the performance of the MacBook, MacBook running Windows XP (using Bootcamp), and a MacBook Pro. Interestingly, in many of the cases, the MacBook out performs the MacBook Pro, even while running Windows XP! Now with that said, the video on the MacBook Pro is MUCH better than that of the MacBook since it uses a PCI-E video card and not the Intel integrated video. Oh how much I want a Mac….

Technorati Tags: MacBook, MacBook Pro, Apple