The Latest from Boing Boing

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• Pornoscanners trivially defeated by pancake-shaped explosives
• Cthulhu sex-toys!
• Kids' book/science fiction mashups
• Julian Assange Album Cover
• It's a blizzard. Grab your bike.
• Obituary for John Dawkins, father of Richard Dawkins
• Vladimir Putin sings Blueberry Hill
• Faith and Politics in America
• Look Up!
• Minnesotans: Improve your snow day with tauntaun sounds
• Wheel + Shovel = Wovel
• Anonymous isn't: LOIC leaks internet address of user
• The CIA honeypot Wikileaks mirror that wasn't

Pornoscanners trivially defeated by pancake-shaped explosives Posted: 11 Dec 2010 11:43 PM PST In case you were wondering whether pornoscanners are harder on the vast majority of innocent, non-terrorist fliers, or the minuscule minority of terrorists, wonder no more. From Leon Kaufman and Joseph W. Carlson's "An evaluation of airport x-ray backscatter units based on image characteristics," published in the Journal of Transportation Security: The penetration not only distributes exposure throughout the body (this affecting the calculation of effective dose, which comprises a sum over all organs), but tends to diffuse the effects caused by contraband materials. Images can be made at low entrance exposures, but of very poor spatial resolution and S/N. The calculated signal excursions at high kilovoltage are so small as to make it doubtful that at any reasonable exposure levels density differences will be noticeable unless the contraband is packed thickly and with hard edges. Although the excursions are larger at low kilovoltage, they are still small and in the noise of the device's operational limits. The eye is a good signal averager at certain spatial frequencies, but it is doubtful that an operator can be trained to detect these differences unless the material is hard-edged, not too large and regular- shaped. Anatomic features and benign objects add structured noise that interferes with signal averaging. Figure 18 shows a widely-distributed backscatter image. On the left is a complete view of her torso, on the right, a section has been blacked out. While the breasts are easily recognized at right, without some prior knowledge of the subject, it would be hard to distinguish the increase of intensity in the superior part of her breasts from the natural gradients of the image. It is very likely that a large (15-20 cm in diameter), irregularly-shaped, cm-thick pancake with beveled edges, taped to the abdomen, would be invisible to this technology, ironically, because of its large volume, since it is easily confused with normal anatomy. Thus, a third of a kilo of PETN, easily picked up in a competent pat down, would be missed by backscatter "high technology". Forty grams of PETN, a purportedly dangerous amount, would fit in a 1.25 mm-thick pancake of the dimensions simulated here and be virtually invisible. Packed in a compact mode, say, a 1 cm×4 cm×5 cm brick, it would be detected. The images are very sensitive to the presence of large pieces of high Z material, e. g., iron, but unless the spatial resolution is good, thin wires will be missed because of partial volume effects. It is also easy to see that an object such as a wire or a box- cutter blade, taped to the side of the body, or even a small gun in the same location, will be invisible. While there are technical means to mildly increase the conspicuity of a thick object in air, they are ineffective for thin objects such as blades when they are aligned close to the beam direction. An evaluation of airport x-ray backscatter units based on image characteristics (PDF) (via /.)   Pornoscanner advisory flier - Boing Boing Molecular biologist on the dangers of pornoscanners - Boing Boing Naked scanner reveals airport screener's tiny penis, sparks steel ... Naked airport scanner catches cellphone, misses bomb components ... Build your own "Naked" scanner like the TSA - Boing Boing Pilots unions: Don't submit to naked-scanners - Boing Boing

Cthulhu sex-toys! Posted: 11 Dec 2010 11:36 PM PST Necronomicox sells dildos shaped like Cthulhu and other elder horrors from the other dimension: "We saw a niche that needed to be filled, so to speak." Necronomicox (via JWZ)   Cthulhu playing cards - Boing Boing HOWTO Make a sock Cthulhu - Boing Boing OVERTIME, a new Charlie Stross James Bond/Cthulhu thriller - Boing ... Cthulhu cake! - Boing Boing Anti-Cthulhu PSA for young netizens - Boing Boing Felted Cthulhu - Boing Boing Elder Spice - Boing Boing Cthulhu fonts - Boing Boing

Kids' book/science fiction mashups Posted: 11 Dec 2010 11:34 PM PST From College Humor, a small but well-made collection of science fiction kids' classic mashup covers. Five Sci-Fi Children's Books (Thanks, Hughelectronic, via Submitterator)   Pop-up book photoshopping contest - Boing Boing Twisted kids' book Photoshopping. The - Boing Boing Demented kids' book photoshopping contest - Boing Boing

Julian Assange Album Cover Posted: 11 Dec 2010 08:32 PM PST The long-awaited Collateral Murder (2010) was released soon after and benefited from authentic, muscular riffs and a tortured atonality which highlighted its more aggressive sound. And yet the production's energy, while benefiting from Sugarcubes-esque rhythm work, offers a starkness often at odds with haunting melodies that remain fastidiously progressive in their length and (some contend) lack of clarity. The most exciting moments are, indeed, easy to miss, though the dark melancholy of the album as a whole is unavoidable. A tour de force, it vanquished memories of earnest but anemic efforts such as 2009's Trafigura and 2008's The Secret Bibles, which recalls Sting at his most superfluous. Nevertheless, few predicted Assange's stunning follow-up later in 2010, which would unite him with legendary proto-punk axeman Ellsberg and return him to the heights of 2006's seminal Julius Baer's Cayman Islands Banking Adventure. His status as this generation's Astley would be secured; but at what cost? Astley-Assange illo by @exiledsurfer via Artificial Eyes. Original Bonus Track by Ding.net.

It's a blizzard. Grab your bike. Posted: 11 Dec 2010 03:31 PM PST It's now mostly stopped snowing, at least in my corner of Minneapolis. Depending on where you measure, somewhere between 14 and 20 inches of snow fell here today. And it's still blowing around. So, naturally, this was a perfect day to travel by bicycle. After all, our estimated 4,000 winter bike commuters are the reason Bicycle magazine named Minneapolis the #1 bike city in America. Cheers to you, winter cyclists. That said, I hope most of you weren't out in this mess today. Photo taken by Christopher Baker.

Obituary for John Dawkins, father of Richard Dawkins Posted: 11 Dec 2010 03:35 PM PST We were saddened to learn this week that Richard Dawkins' father passed away. All of us at Boing Boing extend our condolences to the Dawkins family. From a remembrance by Richard Dawkins: My father, (Clinton) John Dawkins, who has died peacefully of old age, packed an enormous amount into his 95 years. He was born in Mandalay in 1915, the eldest of three talented brothers. John's boyhood hobby of pressing flowers, reinforced by a famous biology teacher (AG Lowndes of Marlborough) led him to read Botany at Oxford, and thence to study tropical agriculture at Cambridge and ICTA (Trinidad) in preparation for posting to Nyasaland as a junior agricultural officer. He and my mother, Jean Ladner, began their idyllic married life at various remote agricultural stations in Nyasaland before he was called up for wartime service in the King's African Rifles (KAR). He wangled permission to travel to Kenya in his own rattletrap car rather than with the regimental convoy, which enabled Jean to accompany him - illegally. John's postwar work as an agricultural officer back in Nyasaland was interrupted when he received an unexpected legacy from a distant cousin. Over Norton Park had been owned by the Dawkins family since the 1720s. Cousin Hereward Dawkins, casting around the family tree for a male heir, could find none closer than my father, whom he had never met and who had never heard of him. Obituary for John Dawkins (richarddawkins.net) Full article at The Independent. Photograph courtesy Richard Dawkins: Young Richard, at left, helps his dad carry a fragile load. Richard Dawkins, welcome to the guestblog! Catholic Mischief in Glasgow

Vladimir Putin sings Blueberry Hill Posted: 11 Dec 2010 03:23 PM PST The universe demands a gala performance of Trolololo by President Obama. [via Mefi]

Faith and Politics in America Posted: 11 Dec 2010 01:47 PM PST If politics in America means nasty, lurid analysis of a cancer victim's "evasion" of mentioning God in her public farewell, politics in America deserves a thousand Julian Assanges.

Look Up! Posted: 11 Dec 2010 11:52 AM PST Did anybody catch Mercury for the first time last night? I had just enough hazy cloud on my western horizon last night that Mercury was lost in the much. If you missed it, keep trying. And if you still can't find it, don't fret: your assignment for tonight is much, much easier. The planets all travel around the sun in flat disk. Since we sit inside this disk too, when we go outside and look for planets they will all lie along one giant circle around us. Planets move slowly, so waiting for one of them to trace out the giant circle can take a while, but the Moon takes only a month to circle around us, so we can use it to trace the paths of the planets in the sky. If you've been watching the moon the last few days, you have seen it climbing in the evening sky still growing towards its first quarter (which comes up on Monday - so quickly! Wasn't it a tiny sliver just days ago?). The earthshine is fading away, as the view of the Earth from the Moon is also moving from full to third quarter. As the moon has moved eastward, it might have been hard for you not to notice the incredibly bright star that the moon has been getting closer and closer to. It will be at its very closest on Monday night. That star is a great marker for helping you really visualize how fast the moon is moving across the sky. On Monday night, if you look right and sunset and then again a few hours later, you will even be able to notice the different positions in a single night. That super bright star, though, is more than just a convenient sign post. And it's not a star. It's Jupiter. Jupiter! I think so many of us have gotten used to the fact that NASA and others provide us so many beautiful pictures of planets from spacecraft and telescope that we have forgotten that these things are really there, up in the sky, night after night after night. Now that you know where Jupiter is (and, again, don't worry if you don't see it tonight; it is going to be the brightest thing gracing our evening skies for the rest of the year) you have a chance to see one of the most spectacular sights in the sky. Go back in and grab some binoculars. If you don't have binocular go back in and call your favorite present-giver and remind him or her that binoculars really would make the perfect present for you. Go back outside with your binocular and find a place where you can hold them good and steady. I like to lean against a wall, but you can try lying on the ground or setting them on a fence or anything that works for you. Now find Jupiter. If you can get your binoculars steady enough, the disk of Jupiter will come into view. And it will clearly be a disk. Strung out in a line beside the disk will be four little orbs. Stars? Nope. Moons. These are the four moons of Jupiter that were first discovered by Galileo. On the left, close together are the oddly magnetic Ganymede and the icy ocean filled Europa, close on the right is Io, the most volcanically active place in the solar system, and furthest of all on the right is Callisto, which is, well, just Callisto. Come back tomorrow and everything is different. There are only three moons. Io and Europa have swapped places, Callisto hasn't moved much, and Ganymede is now so close to Jupiter that you probably won't be able to see it. The next night? All different again. If you have been paying extra close attention you might even notice that the line that the four moons make basically points in the same direction as the line that our moon is tracing across our sky. Those moons of Jupiter are in the same disk as the planets of the solar system. This amazing sight - Jupiter and its moons dancing across the sky - is, to my mind, one of the most wonderful things you can see in the solar system, on par with the Grand Canyon or Iguazu Falls or eruptions on Kilauea. Chances are you've never seen it, but it's just outside your door. It's free. Go outside. Look up! Mike Brown, astronomer and "pluto killer," welcome to the guest blog! It's Only a Sliver Moon (Daily Astronomy Log with Mike Brown) I think there's another planet past Pluto The Seven Planets

Minnesotans: Improve your snow day with tauntaun sounds Posted: 11 Dec 2010 10:26 AM PST tauntaun.mov If it looks like Hoth outside, shouldn't it sound like Hoth inside? Ideal use: Hook up speakers and play this wav file out a (briefly) open door. Confuse and delight your neighbors. Enjoy! Visit Wheelon for more Star Wars sound effects. Image: Some rights reserved by popculturegeek.com

Wheel + Shovel = Wovel Posted: 11 Dec 2010 09:51 AM PST It's snowing in Minnesota, today. A lot. About an hour ago, I took the trash out, and came back to the house with a snow line around my knees. And it's still coming down. That's all fine, though. What I'm really dreading is tomorrow, when I have to shovel it all up. Increasingly, I find my fancy turned toward the wovel—a ridiculous-looking piece of hand-powered machinery, that's supposed to help you clear a sidewalk easily, without the lower back pain*. I'm intrigued, and may have to end up buying and reviewing one of these things later this winter. In the meantime, do any of you own one? Is it as fabulous as they say? It came out in 2005 and has since inspired a ton of YouTube fan videos. I chose this one because the guy is woveling in shorts, for some reason. *I've already decided that a gas-powered snow blower isn't an option. A) I just don't feel like owning yet another fossil-fuel burning contraption. B) I live on a hill in the middle of a block and am equally uninterested in hauling a snow blower up and down the slope.

Anonymous isn't: LOIC leaks internet address of user Posted: 11 Dec 2010 07:40 AM PST Researchers at the University of Twente in the Netherlands report that the LOIC (Low Orbit Ion Cannon) software used in pro-Wikileaks Anonymous attacks discloses the identity of the user. If hacktivists use this tool directly from their own machines, instead of via anonymization networks such as Tor, the Internet address of the attacker is included in every Internet message being transmitted. In the tools no sophisticated techniques are used, such as IP-spoofing, in which the source address of others is used, or reflected attacks, in which attacks go via third party systems. The current attack technique can therefore be compared to overwhelming someone with letters, but putting your address at the back of the envelop. In addition, hacktivists may not be aware that international data retention laws require that commercial Internet providers store data regarding Internet usage for at least 6 months. This means that hacktivists can still be traced easily after the attacks are over. Here's a PDF with details on the report. Attacks by "Anonymous" WikiLeaks proponents not anonymous utwente.nl (via Slashdot)

The CIA honeypot Wikileaks mirror that wasn't Posted: 11 Dec 2010 07:47 AM PST Yesterday, I posted an item referencing a reddit thread and a widely-retweeted Google search string referencing a purported "CIA wikileaks mirror honeypot" that revealed itself as likely having been set up by the CIA. It wasn't. It was some guy's joke or something. I'm traveling with wonky mobile internet, and in the process of attempting to update the post with a clarification late last night in a sleep-depped state, I screwed up. The post was deleted. There is no conspiracy here, and no reason to believe the CIA is setting up fake Wikileaks mirrors (though, not a bad idea, amirite?). However, I can tell you this, no joke: I'm traveling in Texas, in an area with a high Muslim population. Last night, I saw ads on the hotel TV for the CIA. Clandestine services recruitment ads. I googled around, and apparently these are part of a broad campaign that began in 2009, to recruit more Arab-Americans. I can't find the actual ad I saw last night, but here are earlier examples from the same campaign. You may also want to fire up Tor, disable cookies, and take their personality quiz. No, neither of those have anything to do with a misleading Reddit thread, or me screwing up a blog post. But! The TV ads were so bad (even the aspect ratio was messed up), I thought, yeah, I could believe.

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