Tag: Technology

Queue Pants Crapping Hysteria

Uh oh the anti-gunners are going to get their panties all in a bunch over this:

This is a near fully printable 5.56mm X 45mm or .233 REM AR-15 magazine. It is current only a 5 round magazine. I left my printed spring design out on purpose for saftey reasons. However, with a little printing experimention and some range time it can be made easily.

What is included is the magazine body, anti-tilt follower, and floorplate.

I have used this magazine, no jams or feed problems….. YET. It works, but be reminded it is only a printed ABS magazine. If you end up using a printed ABS mag spring be prepared for stress relaxation of the polymer over time, especailly if it is kept loaded over a long period of time.

That’s right blueprints are now available that allow you to print your own AR-15 magazines. I’ve mentioned 3D printers before and believe the technology is the next logical leap to take for the post-industrial revolution world. Currently most 3D printers are only able to work with plastics but eventually ones capable of working with other materials, such as powdered metal, could become cheap enough that most households could afford one. Imagine being able to print out almost any part that you need. Theoretically you could manufacture and entire AR-15 with a 3D print (although I believe the barrel could be problematic but certainly not impossible).

This will likely be another technology the anti-gunners will have to attack. Although current laws allow you to manufacture your own firearms for personal use the anti-gunners will claim printing off firearm components violates various “common sense” gun control laws. This will likely lead them to present impossible to conform with legislation that would require 3D printer manufacturers to prevent their prints from printing firearm components.

But as logical human beings we can sit back and enjoy the ingenuity that went into this project and also benefit from it. When I finally get a MakerBot this will likely be one of the first things I print.

Overblown Security Statements

There have been several stories floating around the web about a recent security flaw in OS X 10.7 that allows a user to change the password of another user without knowing that user’s current password. Although there is a security flaw related to passwords on OS X 10.7 it’s not nearly as severe as many websites are making it out to be.

An overview of the flaw can be found here. In summary the flaw is related to the Director Services command for reading and changing passwords. By entering the following command you can get the shadow hash of any user’s password:

dscl localhost -read /Search/Users/[user]

The value [user] should be replaced with the short name of a user who’s shadow hash you want to obtain. This is a rather serious flaw as there are scripts that can crack shadow has password (in fact one is available on the linked site for OS X 10.7). The other part of this flaw involves changing users’ passwords using the following command:

$ dscl localhost -passwd /Search/Users/[user]

Once again you replace the value of [user] with the system short name of the user whose password you want to change. What most articles I’ve seen regarding this flaw have claimed is that this command allows you to change another user’s password without knowing their current one. This is incorrect as the command requires you to enter the user’s current password before changing it. What this command does allow you to do is change the currently logged in user’s password without knowing their current one. Once again this is a rather serious security flaw but not nearly as severe as many are making it out to be.

I’m not trying to defend Apple here as they royally fucked up by allowing users to grab other users’ shadow hashes. They also fucked up be allowing somebody besides a directory administrator to change a currently logged in user’s password without entering their current one. But this flaw requires one major thing, access to a currently logged in user account. In most cases this means you must have physical access to the machine in which case all bets are off as far as security is concerned (it’s generally accepted that once an attacker has physical access to a target machine it’s game over).

The important question you should be asking right now is how can you defend against this? It’s simple, don’t leave you machine logged in when you’re not around. You should have a password set on your account (if you don’t you have no means of preventing unauthorized access anyways) and the account should be set to require a password immediately after locking the screen. When you walk away from you machine lock the screen (the keyboard shortcut on OS X is control + shift + eject). Remote access shouldn’t be a concern as it requires a remote user to know the user name and password of somebody on the system already (in which point this flaw matters not as they could change the password for the account they known the credential for).

Finally this flaw allows an unauthorized user to change the password of a currently logged in user without knowing that user’s current password but it does not allow that unauthorized user to change the currently logged in user’s keychain password. This means the password, certificates, and notes stored in the keychain will remain encrypted and out of reach unless the unauthorized user is able to crack the user’s shadow hash (in which case they have the password to unlock the user’s keychain).

If you need to give other users access to use your machine it would be smart to create a separate account for them and use the parental controls to prevent access to all applications they do not need (especially Terminal in this case). This isn’t bulletproof by any means but it’s an extra layer of security that should be done anyways.

Kudos to Apple’s Support

I just want to throw out a kudos to Apple’s support. The other day the power on my iPhone gave up the ghost and I was able to get it replaced in under fifteen minutes. All I had to do was talk into the Apple store, setup an appointment (which I could have done before I came but I didn’t know it at the time, either way the first open appointment was 10 minutes from when I entered), and then show my problem to a tech.

The last time I had to deal with the replacement of an electronic device it was through Best Buy. Best Buy’s “support” was a nightmare and a half. I came in with a computer that obviously had a hardware problem as determined by the loud clicking sound made by the second harddrive. By the time the tech was done hemming and hawing around they finally stopped trying to blame me for installing something malicious and fixed the problem. I believe my overall time was something around an hour and a half. Meanwhile when I showed my power button failure to the Apple tech he went in back, tried to clean out any potential debris that may have gotten behind the power button, and failing that came back with a replacement phone. No hemming, no hawing, and no stupid questions asking whether or not I had tried reseting my phone to factor defaults.

I greatly appreciate a company that will stand behind their product. So kudos to Apple for having good support and not wasting my time when the problem I experienced was obviously a manufacturing fault.

Windows 8 Metro Browser Won’t Support Plugins

A lot of Windows 8 news has been circulating as Microsoft finally unveiled the next version of their operating system. I will note that Windows 8 is looking pretty impressive and I need to set aside some time to play with the freely available developer preview. One piece of news that I found rather interesting through was the fact that the Metro browser won’t support plugins:

One of the first things a lot of folks will try after installing the developer preview of Windows 8 will be the IE10 browser—the most used tool in Windows. IE 10 in the preview is Platform Preview 3 of IE 10. You can read on the IE blog about the HTML 5 engine work we’re doing. This post is about a big change in Metro style IE, which is the plug-in free experience. In Windows 8, IE 10 is available as a Metro style app and as a desktop app. The desktop app continues to fully support all plug-ins and extensions.

Although this isn’t the end of plugins like Flash it is a death knell. Users who wish to use Flash will still be able to open a legacy Internet Explorer window but if you wish to use the new Metro interface you’ll be living the plugin-free lifestyle (it’s like the pants-free lifestyle but with browsers).

Honestly I want to congratulate Microsoft on this move because I can’t describe my hatred of Flash in words. As it sits right now I’ve been running Chrome as my primary browser for the last month (Firefox’s OS X 10.7 support is lacking to say the least) and Flash has been disabled for the last two of weeks. There are a few instances where I find myself opening Firefox to load something requiring Flash but overall you can get by on the web very easily without needing the Flash plugin. We can probably thank Apple for that as there was a strong move by many sites to eliminate their dependency on Flash when it was announced iOS wouldn’t be supporting it.

The less support browser developers give to Flash the faster web developers will completely dump it. I can’t wait until the entire web is completely Flash-free.

It’s a Day of Resignations

Apparently today is the day for resignations; first Steve Jobs resigns as Apple CEO and now CmdrTaco resigning from Slashdot:

After 14 years and over 15,000 stories posted, it’s finally time for me to say Good-Bye to Slashdot. I created this place with my best friends in a run down house while still in college. Since then it has grown to be read by more than a million people, and has served Billions and Billions of Pages (yes, in my head I hear the voice). During my tenure I have done my best to keep Slashdot firmly grounded in its origins, but now it’s time for someone else to come aboard and find the *future*.

I’ve been reading Slashdot almost daily for just under a decade. That’s quite a long span of time now that I think about it. Although I have some complaints about Slashdot I still enjoy going there to see the daily (or last week’s) tech news and the comments can still be rather entertaining.

So long CmdrTaco and thanks for all of your hard work.

Steve Jobs Resigns as Apple CEO

Although I knew this was going to happen eventually I wasn’t expecting it so soon, Steve Jobs has officially resigned as the CEO of Apple. In typical Steve fashion his resignation letter was short and to the point:

I have always said if there ever came a day when I could no longer meet my duties and expectations as Apple’s CEO, I would be the first to let you know. Unfortunately, that day has come.

I hereby resign as CEO of Apple. I would like to serve, if the Board sees fit, as Chairman of the Board, director and Apple employee.

As far as my successor goes, I strongly recommend that we execute our succession plan and name Tim Cook as CEO of Apple.
I believe Apple’s brightest and most innovative days are ahead of it. And I look forward to watching and contributing to its success in a new role.

I have made some of the best friends of my life at Apple, and I thank you all for the many years of being able to work alongside you.

Steve

Steve will retain his role as chairman of the board and Tim Cook has already been announced as the new CEO.

Although I’ve often referred to Steve as a prick and an asshole I still had a great deal of respect for his business ability. He basically came back to Apple when it was nearing bankruptcy and turned it into one of the highest valued companies on the planet. This turn around wasn’t due to a government bailout or legislation to “even the field” for Apple, it was done by offering products people wanted.

Sadly my money is on Steve’s resignation being due to his continually deteriorating health. Although I personally believe Steve Wozniak was the true genius behind the starting of Apple I can’t deny the value of Job’s business ability in jumpstarting the personal computer revolution. It’ll be a sad day when we begin to lose some of the iconic individuals who helped change computers from something only the most wealthy companies could afford into devices so many people now have multiple of. Here’s hoping that Steve stays with us for many years to come.

Many people have been stating concern over the future of the company as Apple nearly went bankrupt the last time Steve departed. This time is a bit different though as last time Steve was forced out by the Board of Directors due to his rivalry with John Sculley who had been hired for his success at marketing for Pepsi. Sculley didn’t have an engineering background or any idea how to manage Apple’s product line which is what lead to their near bankruptcy. Tim Cook on the other hand was the COO and has been personally groomed by Steve to be his successor. It would surprise me if Steve’s recommended man wouldn’t follow well in the steps of his predecessor.

The Personal Electronics Market Moves Fast

It was almost five years ago that the former CEO of Palm said is horribly inaccurate remark about Apple potentially entering the smartphone market:

Responding to questions from New York Times correspondent John Markoff at a Churchill Club breakfast gathering Thursday morning, Colligan laughed off the idea that any company — including the wildly popular Apple Computer — could easily win customers in the finicky smart-phone sector.

“We’ve learned and struggled for a few years here figuring out how to make a decent phone,” he said. “PC guys are not going to just figure this out. They’re not going to just walk in.'”

On January 9, 2007 Apple unveiled the iPhone. Between then and now, just under four years, the iPhone jumped to dominate the smartphone market while Palm was purchased by Hewlett-Packard who ultimately killed Palm’s legacy. That’s quite the roller coaster ride considering the short span of time that’s transpired.

HP Announced the End of WebOS Device Operations

When I said things weren’t looking good for WebOS I didn’t think they were quite this bad. Hewlett-Packard (HP) announced that they will be discontinuing WebOS device operations:

In addition, HP reported that it plans to announce that it will discontinue operations for webOS devices, specifically the TouchPad and webOS phones. HP will continue to explore options to optimize the value of webOS software going forward.

And just like that Palm’s legacy is effectively dead. I guess there is always the possibility that HP will find somebody to license and utilize their fledgeling operating system but I’m doubtful. As it sits right now any manufacturer can use Android which is already incredibly popular, is being rapidly developed, and has a good application ecosystem. There seems little reason, in my opinion, for a manufacturer to license WebOS.

Although WebOS is an operating system with great potential the execution by those who’ve had it has been lackluster at best. When HP acquired Palm they continued executing the ill-fated plan Palm had started, which was to offer phones (and a tablets) nobody wanted. The Palm Pre and Palm Pre Plus performed poorly and the Palm Pre 2 fared even worse. Most companies would have decided to release a radically different device but HP instead decided to manufacture two new devices that were effectively Palm Pres; one in a smaller form factor and another in a larger form factor. The TouchPad was nothing more than an expensive iPad wannabe with buggy software and no available applications.

So long WebOS, you contained innumerable interesting ideas but interesting ideas alone are seldom enough to save a product from extinction.

Things Not Looking Good for the HP TouchPad

Things keep looking more and more glum for Hewlett-Packard’s (HP) TouchPad. Best Buy has had such a hard time selling the poor devices that they’re apparently requesting that HP take them back:

According to one source who has seen internal HP reports, Best Buy has taken delivery of 270,000 TouchPads and has so far managed to sell only 25,000, or less than 10 percent of the units in its inventory.

[…]

Best Buy, sources tell us, is so unhappy that it has told HP it is unwilling to pay for all the TouchPads taking up expensive space in its stores and warehouses, and wants HP to take them back. HP, for its part, is pleading with Best Buy to be patient. We’re also told that a senior HP executive, possibly executive VP Todd Bradley, is slated to travel to Minneapolis soon to discuss the matter with Best Buy executives.

Sadly, I’m not surprised. WebOS seems destined to be the operating system that has many great features but is doomed to failure by poor hardware and lack of polish. I managed to handle a TouchPad some time back at Best Buy and I wasn’t impressed. HP is coming into the tablet game late meaning they need to find some way of persuading customers into buying their new tablet instead of the already established devices released by their competitors.

The TouchPad was originally released with the same price tag as the iPad, a move which I said was rather stupid. Apple is able to sell their iPad at that price because they already have market recognition (people want them) and their devices generally are very well built and polished to an almost mirror shine. Companies releasing Android tablets are able to sell their devices because many people dislike iOS and/or Apple causing them to look elsewhere. On top of that Android has a lot of great features that separate it from iOS (it’s open source nature being a big boon for those who like to tinker and hack). As Android is free manufacturers can also create some very reasonably priced devices.

The TouchPad on the other hand lacks polish in many regards. First the device feels cheaply built with everything being made of plastic. Second WebOS 3.0 is buggy and includes some rather glaring problems that any quality assurance team should have caught before release. Battery life on the TouchPad isn’t great, coming in at roughly half the battery life of the iPad. Another problem is WebOS isn’t open which doesn’t help attract attention to the hacker crowd who are always looking for an OS they can add functionality to and improve (although there is a strong hacker community around WebOS, it’s not nearly as strong as Android’s). Thus the only other factor HP could hope to compete on is price, which they failed miserably at by setting the price at the same level as the iPad.

HP flubbed the TouchPad in every way, shape, and form so it’s not surprising to see that it’s not selling well. I would go so far as to say the TouchPad is a great lesson for other manufacturers to learn from, how not to release a new device.

Google Acquires Motorola Mobility

When I woke up this morning I wasn’t expecting to see a story about Google acquiring Motorola Mobility but that’s exactly what they’ve done:

Since its launch in November 2007, Android has not only dramatically increased consumer choice but also improved the entire mobile experience for users. Today, more than 150 million Android devices have been activated worldwide—with over 550,000 devices now lit up every day—through a network of about 39 manufacturers and 231 carriers in 123 countries. Given Android’s phenomenal success, we are always looking for new ways to supercharge the Android ecosystem. That is why I am so excited today to announce that we have agreed to acquire Motorola.

I think this was a very smart move on behalf of Google. Motorola has been producing some great phones as of late and Google really needs to start manufacturing their own line of mobile handsets. The biggest problem with Android in my opinion is carrier and handset manufacturer customizations to the operating system. These customizations make the user experience different from handset to handset but more importantly they require additional work when a new version of Android is released. In order to update their phones manufacturers have to waste time customizing the new version of Android to their likings. I would be more willing to purchase a handset made by Google as it would likely come installed with vanilla Android and updates would be released frequently.