This is a comprehensive look at how to hack into Open EEG, Force Trainer, Mind Flex and Mind Set, in order to get some more output from them than the designers intended.

How to Hack Toy EEGs | Frontier Nerds.

Hardly surprisingly, it turns out that the Electronische Patienten Database is unsafe and offers unfettered access to your private details to almost anyone and their dog.

Onderzoek: beveiliging EPD fundamenteel zwak | Webwereld.

Fortunately you can opt out here (PDF)

This pdf has a couple of fun bash shell tricks, such as using find, replacements for the up arrow, cut, sed, awk and a few more in a very readable format.

Unix_Command-Line_Kung_Fu_ SANS .pdf application/pdf Object.

The way the tool works is that you first take some aluminum foil and make a ‘U shaped’ form using the special tool to do so and make small incisions on pre-determined positions. Next thing you do is put the foil over a special blank that already has the profile of your target lock. The clever thing about this tool is that the ‘U shaped foil tube’ is wrapped around some sort of needle, and the foil can not be pushed in when entering the lock! Once the key is inserted, the needle is taken out from the back of the tool, and the pins are now resting on the foil. Because of the cuts in the foil, each pin will stand on it’s own ‘island’ of foil, and when it is pushed in will not disturb the neighboring pin!

This technique will open most locks and you can buy a kit for around $58,- or a simpler model for $21,-

via Advanced foil impressioning « Blackbag, Barry’s weblog.

Showing there is little unity and policy when it comes to cyber warfare in the US, the military took down a website used to gather intelligence on extremists. In the process of doing so they took down around 300 servers around the world and pissed off all the other intelligence gathering agencies that were covertly monitoring the site to gain information on the identities and plans of terrorist extremists.

Dismantling of Saudi-CIA Web site illustrates need for clearer cyberwar policies.

This wiki has guides showing you how to get OSX Snow Leopard installed on a PC using Intel or AMD chips.

Main Page – OSx86.

Cambridge University security researchers have demonstrated how it might be possible to trick the card into thinking it’s doing a chip-and-signature transaction while the terminal thinks it’s authorised by chip-and-PIN. The flaw creates a means to make transactions that are “Verified by PIN” using a stolen uncancelled card without knowing the PIN number. Fraudsters would insert a “wedge” between the stolen card and terminal tricking the terminal into believing that the PIN was correctly verified

via Chip and PIN security busted • The Register.

GSM encryption is falling apart at the seams! Using an unoptimised implementation of a proof of concept on a PC, Israeli researchers managed to break the KASUMI system in under 2 hours.

3G GSM encryption cracked in less than two hours — Engadget.

The Fraunhofer institute has found a way to crack Bitlocker, which is the Windows Vista drive encryption mechanism.

Booting from a USB stick allows you to replace the bootscreen with a fake bitlocker bootscreenafter which the PIN is stored on the harddisk for later retreival by booting with a Linux USB stick afterwards.

Fraunhofer SIT – Security Test Lab – Bitlocker_Video.

The Fraunhofer institute has found a way to crack Bitlocker, which is the Windows Vista drive encryption mechanism.

Booting from a USB stick allows you to replace the bootscreen with a fake bitlocker bootscreenafter which the PIN is stored on the harddisk for later retreival by booting with a Linux USB stick afterwards.

Fraunhofer SIT – Security Test Lab – Bitlocker_Video.

Fantastic – this guy port scans the T-Mobile range and finds the jailbroken iphones on the network, then SSH’s in using the default password and blips a message to the iphone telling the user the iphone has been hacked. Users can find out how to close the hole by visiting a website and paying EUR. 5,- using Paypal. He states that users don’t have to pay and he won’t do anything bad to them, so it isn’t exactly ransom.

What’s the hole? Most idiots who jailbreak fail to change the default root password. Duh!

Dutch Hacker Holds Jailbroken iPhones Hostage For €5 Ransom While Exposing Security Vulnerability – Iphone jailbreak hack – Gizmodo.

”

Although this functionality was designed with OEMs in mind, it is pretty easy to turn on and off using regedit and some images lying around your hard drive.

First, a check is made to determine if the customization functionality is enabled or not. More precisely, a DWORD value named OEMBackground in the HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Authentication\LogonUI\Background key is checked. Its data, of Boolean type, defines whether or not this behavior is turned on, i.e. 1 for enabled, 0 for disabled. This value may not exist by default, depending on your system.

Afterwards, if customization is enabled, the primary monitor’s screen height and width are retrieved via calls to GetSystemMetrics. These values are used in the computation of the screen width (w)/height (h) ratio. For example, my desktop resolution is 1920×1200. The ratio, computed by the division of w/h, is 1.6:1.

The result of this computation is looked up in an internal table that drives what image to load on disk. Although I don’t have a large enough monitor to test, it appears resolutions higher than 1920×1200 will force the loading and zooming of an image of closest compatibility (i.e. same ratio, smaller image).

As this is an OEM feature images are derived from %windir%\system32\oobe\info\backgrounds. Like the registry value, this folder may not exist by default. The following files (sorted by width-to-height ratio) are supported in this folder:

• backgroundDefault.jpg
• background768x1280.jpg  (0.6)
• background900x1440.jpg  (0.625)
• background960x1280.jpg  (0.75)
• background1024x1280.jpg (0.8)
• background1280x1024.jpg (1.25)
• background1024x768.jpg  (1.33-)
• background1280x960.jpg  (1.33-)
• background1600x1200.jpg (1.33-)
• background1440x900.jpg  (1.6)
• background1920x1200.jpg (1.6)
• background1280x768.jpg  (1.66-)
• background1360x768.jpg  (1.770833-)

NOTE: Images must be less than 256kb in size. Thanks for pushing me to investigate, Jay C.

The backgroundDefault.jpg image is loaded and stretched-to-fit when a resolution/ratio-specific background cannot be found. The other resolution/ratio-specific files are self-explanatory. If the background cannot be loaded (e.g. image physically too large, incorrect ratio, etc.), the default SKU-based image is loaded from imagesres.dll. You’ll see a Windows Server-themed grayish background in there, too, suggesting this functionality is not specific to client SKUs.”

Windows 7 to officially support logon UI background customization – Within Windows.

It took this network of 200,000 IP adresses 2 weeks to amass $3M. Who knows how long it has been operating or how much it scammed in total?

$3 Million In Click Fraud Over Two Weeks? Just The Beginning – Chinese click fraud ring – Gizmodo.

Researchers from Georgia Tech have devised methods to take real-time, real-world information and layer it onto Google Earth

They use live video feeds (sometimes from many angles) to find the position and motion of various objects, which they then combine with behavioral simulations to produce real-time animations for Google Earth or Microsoft Virtual Earth.

They use motion capture data to help their animated humans move realistically, and were able to extrapolate cars’ motion throughout an entire stretch of road from just a few spotty camera angles

Now where would you happen to have loads of CCTVs you could use to spy on everybody realtime? I wonder…

via Augmented Google Earth Gets Real-Time People, Cars, Clouds | Popular Science.