The Ultimate Hack

I was watching a movie in my human anatomy class today, and I saw an amazing invention. This machine, built by a Japanese telephone corporation allows for the ultimate hack. I'm not talking about hacking into uber-encrypted, top security government servers and systems. And I'm not talking about hacking your automobile to get more miles for your gas money. Oh no. I'm talking about something much more exciting. I'm talking about this:



Yes, thats right. A Japanese company has discovered a way to hack the human mind and turn a normal person into a remote control car!

This technology, called galvanic vestibular stimulation (GVS) uses low level electric pulses from electrodes to stimulate the inner ear. Because the ear controls your balance using liquid filled tubes, scientists have been playing around with electricity to effect human balance. And now they have succeeded.

With this new technology, it is possible to have a person move either left or right while walking by stimulating their ear's balance mechanism. While you can not be forced to move left or right specifically (at least not by this device), because of the way your brain reacts to the electrical stimuli, it will feel as if you are falling unless you move in the direction the remote control tells you to move in.

While I can see this technology being very, very useful in those "non-lethal" military situations, NTT has a different idea for the technology. Video games. With the ability to physically effect how someone feels currently, such as making them dizzy or feel like they are moving in a certain direction, the video game possibilities are endless. The GVS also has the capability of being used to help people with balance disorders, or even as human GPS!

What do you think? Is this much control over the human mind good or bad? If you had the chance to use this technology to be controlled by a stranger as a tourist attraction, would you?

CERN Powers up LHC

As most of you probably know, CERN has recently completed its Large Hadron Collider, to the horror of many people. And why should we not be terrified? After all, when the LHC collides protons, we may very well be sucked into a black hole!

...or not. While the possibility does exist that CERN may be able to create micro black holes with the LHC, these black holes will not be able to survive long enough to start an Armageddon.

The reason that no one has anything to fear from CERN's LHC is that any black hole they may manage to create will not be powerful enough to suck anything in. Similar micro black holes are created every second from cosmic rays, so what CERN is doing is to simply recreate what nature itself does all the time. Where's the danger in that?

Well, some scientists say, what if the black hole moves slower than the cosmic rays and gets stuck in Earths gravitational pull? It may then grow and within 4 years may create a black hole large enough to destroy the earth. Now that seems reasonable, doesn't it? Those damn Mayans were right again!! They must have been psychic or something.

To all those worried about the CERN project, just remember this - the CERN project is being worked on by THOUSANDS of scientists from many different countries. And they are obviously not worried about the repercussions of the experiment. There has to be a reason that the physicists in our world aren't sweating over this new Armageddon. And if they aren't worried, why should we be? Besides, wasn't it just 8 years ago that we had the Y2K Armageddon threat? And how are we all going to die next year, eh?

Facebook - Are you being exploited?

Raise your hand if you have an account on Facebook, Myspace, or any other social networking service? That's what I thought. Just about everyone. And, if you're anything like me and my group of friends then you have tons of nifty little applications on your profile. But are you really safe?

A group of computer researchers have developed an application for Facebook that will allow them to exploit any user who installs the application, without the users knowledge. The idea behind the exploit is to show a security flaw in social networks that could allow hackers to control the users of the social networks and utilize their computers for their own ends.

The researchers' application was the photo of the day application supposedly from National Geographic. Basically, once a use installed the application, they would be able to a daily picture from National Geographic - and they downloaded 3 pictures from another website without knowing about it.

The idea behind this particular attack (targeted at the researchers own servers) was to get as many people into the application as possible, and then flood the website that was being downloaded from. This is a very basic attack used for demonstration purposes, but if utilized by a malicious hacker, it could be much worse. And whats more, once the application was installed, the user was forced into the attack again every time they logged on - without their knowledge of course.

So the next time you find a nice little third party Facebook application, just remember that you could be getting recruited into a h4x07z cyber army... dun dun dunnnnn...


view the original Wired article.

Apple iPhone - A hack waiting to happen

As many of you probably know, Apple has a new phone out - the omnipotent iPhone. They've certainly spent enough money on their advertising to show everyone their newest brain child. It's supposed to be "twice as fast, half the price". Which of course is false, as this pamphlet leaked by Verizon shows, they're are quite a few things that it seems Apple may have been trying to cover up.

Now, I could care less about most aspects of the phone on that list (not that I'm going to buy one soon anyway - if I had that much money lying around, I'd be buying something much better than a cell phone all dressed up in pretty clothes), but there is one very interesting thing about the phone I found out today thanks to the Register. Apparently, the iPhones security isn't quite up to date either.

What does THAT mean you may ask. Well, that means that it is quite easy to hack the iPhone 3G. And, being the Hack Hut, we'll let you know just how to do it. Apparently, it is possible to gain access to a password protected and locked iPhone's 'favorites' section without the passcode. By simply tapping the "emergency call" button from the passcode screen, and then double-tapping the "home" button, it is possible to bypass the passcode portion of the iPhone. From the favorites, you can gain access to many other portions of the iPhone, such as the browser screen, the e-mail client screen, or the address book.

If you have an iPhone, I wouldn't be too worried yet. Before you sue the pants off of Apple for selling you a phone with faulty security features, you should know that this hack DOES NOT work on all iPhone 3G's. The iPhone must have a certain software version (which I will not be disclosing). Also, if you do happen to have the faulty software, I would bet my life on the fact that Apple will come up with a firmware update to protect the vulnerable phones from hackers, especially since they are trying to promote the iPhone as a business-friendly phone. Not when it's that vulnerable!

As with all other "hacking" tutorials you may find on this blog, if used improperly the information in this post can be illegal. You should only try this on your OWN iPhone, or get the permission of the owner of an iPhone. But if you give it a shot legally, please let us know how it went! Did it work for you?

First post

Ok, so here is the first post in my blog. I'm just curious to see what's what in the world of blogging. After this post, I hope to be able to put up interesting, funny, and useful posts about lots of things, but concentrating on technology.