Tuesday, July 22, 2003

Cracking Windows passwords in seconds. Researchers outline a way to speed the cracking of alphanumeric Windows passwords, reducing the time to break such codes to an average of 13.6 seconds from 1 minute 41 seconds. [CNET News.com] 10:47:19 PM    comment []

Joe Conason's Journal. Iraq's impact on national politics can be measured in polls -- or by the panicky reaction of Rush Limbaugh. [Salon Headlines] 7:51:00 PM    comment []

Respect Copyright, Says a Pious Hollywood. Sony, Disney, AOL and the other big movie studios have set up a cleverly named site, Respect Copyrights.org, as part... [Dan Gillmor's eJournal] 6:40:36 PM    comment []

http://www.esztersblog.com/blogathon03 It's not too late to contribute! 6:35:28 PM    comment []

Good Experience: Top Sites' User Experience Teams and Their Challenge. Across all of those companies, the issues were strikingly similar. Despite the different business models - e-commerce, content, software development, search, etc. - team after team recited the same few issues that they are now trying to address. [Tomalak's Realm] 5:22:19 PM    comment []

Schools stay mum on file traders' names. Boston College and MIT are the first to contest subpoenas from the recording industry demanding information on alleged file swappers, but others may follow. [CNET News.com] 5:21:11 PM    comment []

FCC'S POWELL HAS NO PLANS TO LEAVE -- SPOKESMAN (Forbes/Reuters) 3:35:01 PM    comment []

South Pole computer break in, extortion, arrests 1:34:41 PM    comment []

FBI investigates University of Phoenix in trade secret case (AP). 12:34:33 PM    comment []

Careful: The FB-eye may be watching: Reading the wrong thing in public can get you in trouble. B Marc Schultz, Creative Loafing Atlanta. That was my mom, I tell them. The FBI's coming for me. They laugh; it's a good joke, especially when the FBI actually shows up. They are not the bogeymen I had been expecting. They're dressed casually, they speak familiarly, but they are big. The one in front stands close to 7 feet, and you can tell his partner is built like a bulldog under his baggy shirt and shorts. You Marc Schultz? asks the tall one. He shows me his badge, introduces himself as Special Agent Clay Trippi. After assuring me that I'm not in trouble, he asks if there is someplace we can sit down and talk. We head back to Reference, where a table and chairs are set up. We sit down, and I'm again informed that I am not in trouble. Then, Agent Trippi asks, Do you drive a black Nissan Altima? And I realize this meeting is not about a friend. Despite their reassurances, and despite the fact that I haven't committed any federal offenses (that I know of), I'm starting to feel a bit like I'm in trouble. The column that got Schultz in hot water. 11:33:53 AM    comment []

R.I.P., Jude Milhon, St. Jude. Michelle Delio, writing for Wired News. 6:43:20 AM    comment []

"Charlie Wilson's War". In George Crile's thrilling tale of good intentions gone wrong, one boozing congressman convinces the U.S. to support the Afghan mujahedin -- many of whom 20 years later want to see us dead. [Salon.com] 6:38:31 AM    comment []

Reliving Comics' Days of Infamy. Cartoonists gather to remember the bad old days when critics linked crime to comic books, and self-imposed restrictions turned into kryptonite for the industry. Randy Dotinga reports from San Diego, California. [Wired News] 6:32:35 AM    comment []

Kathy, from the Tehran/Virginia Teen Girl Blog ever so kindly points out I count poorly on some occasions. And she's right. 3:31:37 AM    comment []