The Latest from Boing Boing

Murdoch-detector browser add-ons warn you when you’re reading Murdoch-tainted news
Singer Amy Winehouse, 27, reported dead of overdose
Hiding malware in smart batteries
Kids on the sex-offender registry: fuelling terror and ruining lives
Whitecross Street Party: street art in East London
Oslo terror suspect: Anders Behring Breivik, 32, links to right-wing extremism
Solution claimed to Zodiac’s last code
Oslo bombing, shooting (big photo gallery, news updates)
Arduino interface for iPhone and iPad on sale in Maker Shed
Demand Media sics its lawyers on DemandStudiosSucks.com

Murdoch-detector browser add-ons warn you when you’re reading Murdoch-tainted news

Posted: 22 Jul 2011 09:35 PM PDT

Two new browser plugins are here to help you with your Murdoch-detecting needs: Murdoch Block is a Chrome extension that warns you when you’re about to visit a news site controlled by the Murdoch empire and gives you the chance to turn away before the phone-hacking, ethics-lacking propaganda meets your eyes; and Murdoch Alert puts a helpful warning bar at the bottom of your browser whenever you land on a Murdoch-controlled news page.

New Firefox Add-on Warns You About The Dangers Of The Murdoch Propaganda Machine

(via Reddit)

Singer Amy Winehouse, 27, reported dead of overdose

Posted: 22 Jul 2011 09:06 PM PDT

British singer Amy Winehouse was found dead today at age 27, of an apparent drug overdose. Reuters:

Police said they had found the body of a 27-year-old woman at a flat in Camden Square, north London, after being called by ambulance services around 1500 GMT (11 a.m. EDT).

She was a talented artist with a disease, and a long line of enablers who depended on her. As an aside, Jimi Hendrix, Kurt Cobain, Jim Morrison, Brian Jones, and Janis Joplin died at the same age and in a similar manner.

Will add links to obituaries as they come in. Early reports: Washington Post, LA Times, Telegraph, Associated Press. Some links: AmyWinehouse.com, which leads with a notice that she recently cancelled all scheduled performances “to help her return to her best and she will be given as long as it takes for this to happen;” Wikipedia, her music at Amazon.

Photos: Above, Winehouse arrives at Westminster Magistrates Court in central London July 23, 2009 to face a charge of assaulting a woman after a 2008 charity ball. (REUTERS/Toby Melville). Below, Winehouse performing at the “Rock in Rio” music festival in Lisbon May 30, 2008. (REUTERS/Nacho Doce)

Hiding malware in smart batteries

Posted: 22 Jul 2011 10:28 AM PDT

Charlie Miller, a respected security researcher, has discovered vulnerabilities in the smart batteries for Apple laptops and mobile devices; he can manipulate their firmware to render them unusable or to cause them to misreport their remaining charge to the OS. The new firmware can survive an OS replacement, leading Miller to speculate that it could be used to store persistent malware that restored itself after the disk was erased and the OS was rewritten.

What he found is that the batteries are shipped from the factory in a state called “sealed mode” and that there’s a four-byte password that’s required to change that. By analyzing a couple of updates that Apple had sent to fix problems in the batteries in the past, Miller found that password and was able to put the battery into “unsealed mode.”

From there, he could make a few small changes to the firmware, but not what he really wanted. So he poked around a bit more and found that a second password was required to move the battery into full access mode, which gave him the ability to make any changes he wished. That password is a default set at the factory and it’s not changed on laptops before they’re shipped. Once he had that, Miller found he could do a lot of interesting things with the battery.

“That lets you access it at the same level as the factory can,” he said. “You can read all the firmware, make changes to the code, do whatever you want. And those code changes will survive a reinstall of the OS, so you could imagine writing malware that could hide on the chip on the battery. You’d need a vulnerability in the OS or something that the battery could then attack, though.”

Apple Laptop Batteries Can Be Bricked, Firmware Hacked
(via /.)

(Image: Old Ray-O-Vac Batteries, a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from deanj’s photostream)

Kids on the sex-offender registry: fuelling terror and ruining lives

Posted: 22 Jul 2011 10:23 AM PDT

Lenore “Free Range Kids” Skenazy talks about the insanity of sex-offender registries, citing the case of two fourteen year olds who sat on some other kids’ heads and are now on the registry. For the rest of their lives, they’ll have to register with the police four times a year, turn off their lights during Hallowe’en, live a set distance from bus-stops, schools and libraries and every potential employer will know that these people are on a list of “sexual predators” but will not know why. What’s more, these kids’ neighbors will be forever terrified to know that “predators” are in their neighborhoods. Kids as young as 13 have been added to these permanent blacklists, as have people whose “sex offense” was urinating in public or other minor offenses.

“These lists were originally conceived by most of the voters who cheered them on as lists of people who had some sort of psychological compulsion to sexual predation,” explains Walter Olson, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute. People assume anyone on it is “a permanent menace.”

These guys are more like Dennis the Menace, which is why we have to change the criteria that land folks on the registry. These young men were never “predators.” And as the years go by, the idea that they pose a danger to children will become even more ridiculous. When you’re 20, 30, 40 — 80! — you don’t do the things you did as a 14-year-old trying to impress your buddies. Why is Megan’s Law blind to human nature?

If it were making kids safer, maybe we could overlook how obtuse it is. But a 2008 study found that, in New Jersey at least — where little Megan Kanka, for whom the law is named, was murdered — the law showed no effect in reducing the number of sexual re-offenses or reducing the number of victims.

New Outrage: Sex Offender or Teenage Jerk?

(Image: To Offend, a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from vek’s photostream)

Whitecross Street Party: street art in East London

Posted: 22 Jul 2011 10:15 AM PDT

Dan Hillier writes, “The Whitecross Street Party: Rise of the non-conformists is a two-day street party and four week exhibition featuring some of the world’s most creative pranksters and musical mischief makers.

For two days on the 23rd and 24th July the Street will become a celebration of the arts involving some of the most exciting local and international creatives who will transform the city landscape into a giant outdoor art gallery.”

Hoo-yah! This is right around the corner from my flat, and what’s more, it’s ALSO around the corner from my favorite London coffee spot, the tiny Giddy-Up coffee stall in Fortune Park. Great coffee and street art? Count me the hell in!

::Whitecross Street Party:::

(Thanks, Dan!)

Oslo terror suspect: Anders Behring Breivik, 32, links to right-wing extremism

Posted: 22 Jul 2011 03:24 AM PDT

The suspect arrested in today’s bombing and shooting attacks in Oslo is 32-year-old Anders Behring Breivik, who is believed to have links to right-wing extremist and anti-immigrant (read: anti-Muslim) organizations. (source: Sky News). And now, he has a Wikipedia page. The Daily Mail has photos.

Here’s what Norwegian media are reporting as his Facebook page, and Twitter account. Looks like they were both just activated within the past week, which is all very suspicious.

Aftenposten notes that he is said to be a conservative Christian and a Mason, and into hunting and bodybuilding. He owned a farming company that had access to chemicals believed to have been used for bomb-making.

According to comments attributed to him on various Norwegian right-wing/anti-immigrant forums, he was a fan of an array of white supremacist and anti-Muslim pundits—including some from the US. Assuming it’s legit, all of this makes early reports that Muslims were responsible for the attacks all the more regrettable.

Solution claimed to Zodiac’s last code

Posted: 22 Jul 2011 02:14 AM PDT

A hobbyist codebreaker believes he’s cracked the Zodiac killer’s last encoded message (above). It is, he claims, a Caesar cipher with some substitution stuff, though it’s not really clear from the article. His solution identifies Arthur Leigh Allen as the killer:

KILLSLFDRHELPMEKI
 LLMYSELFGASCHAMBE
 RAEIOURDAYSQUESTI
 ONSABLEEVERYYWAKI
 NGMOMENTIMALIVEMY
 PRIDELOSTICASTGOO
 NLIVINGINTHISWAYK
 ILLINGPEOPLEIHAVK
 ILLDSOMANYPEOPLEC
 ANTHELPMYSELFIMSO
 ANGRYICOULDDOMYTH
 INKIMALONEINTHISW
 ORLDMYWHOLELIFEFU
 LOLIESIMUNABLETOS
 TOPBYTHETIMEYOUSO
 LVETHISIWILLHAVKI
 LLDELEVENPEOPLEPL
 EASEHELPMESTOPKIL
 LINGPEOPLEPLEASEM
 YNAMEISLEIGHALLEN

With spaces, that reads “KILL SLF DR HELP ME KILL MYSELF GAS CHAMBER AEIOUR DAYS QUESTIONSABLE EVERYY WAKING MOMENT IM ALIVE MY PR IDE LOST I CAST GO ON LIVING IN THIS WAY KILLING PEOPLE I HAV KILLD SO MANY PEOPLE CANT HELP MYSELF IM SO AN GRY I COULD DO MY THINK IM ALONE IN THIS WORLD MY W HOLE LIFE FUL O LIES IM UNABLE TO STOP BY THE TIME YOU SOLVE THISI WILL HAV KILLD ELEVEN PEOPLE PLEASE HELP ME STOP KILLING PEOPLE PLEASE MY NAME IS LEIGH ALLEN”.

I always assume “multiple keys used for different parts of the ciphertext”, “Bible Codesque frequency shenanigans”, etc., with these things. And it contains no new information, just the prime suspect and generic pathos. Cynical, I know! Be sure to drink your ovaltine.

Oslo bombing, shooting (big photo gallery, news updates)

Posted: 22 Jul 2011 12:40 AM PDT

(Photos: scenes from a powerful explosion that rocked central Oslo July 22, 2011. A huge explosion damaged government buildings in central Oslo on Friday including Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg’s office. The blast blew out most windows on the 17-story building, as well as nearby ministries including the oil ministry, which was on fire. REUTERS/Berit Roald/Scanpix)

Above and following, photos from the bombing that took place in Oslo earlier today. Two apparent terrorist attacks struck the Norwegian capital: a car bombing at government offices in the city’s center, and a shooting at an island youth camp of Norway’s labor party. At least 16 are confirmed dead at the time of this blog post.

Immediate theories of who was responsible varied, and ranged from domestic right-wing extremists to possible external groups retaliating for Dagbladet‘s publication in 2010 of a comic that portrayed the Muslim Prophet Muhammad as a pig writing the Qur’an. But the BBC reports:

Police said the suspected gunman had been arrested, and later that he was also linked with the bomb attack. Reports described him as tall and blond.

The man arrested for the shootings is Norwegian, and Norwegian authorities have since stated that they do not currently consider this an act of foreign terrorism.

More: Washington Post, ABC News, New York Times, and a Telegraph report on a related Wikileaks cable: a US State Department memo portrays the country as “over its head,” and “unable to keep up” with terror risks.

Here’s an excellent Twitter list of journalists covering the attacks, assembled by the Washington Post.

(all images in this post: REUTERS/Scanpix)

Arduino interface for iPhone and iPad on sale in Maker Shed

Posted: 22 Jul 2011 12:33 AM PDT

Maker Shed has a deal on its new Arduino development kit for iOS. It’s $79.99.

Exclusively in the Maker Shed, the Redpark Breakout Pack for Arduino and iOS makes interfacing your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch with the real world easy! This bundle is known to work with Arduino and includes the Redpark Serial Cable for iOS, P4 Serial Breakout, and our Mintronics: Survival Pack. This is the development kit for the iPhone and iPad we have been waiting for!

The Redpark Serial Cable for iOS is the first and only cable approved by Apple for connecting your iOS device to almost anything using serial communication! With this cable, you can open up your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch and let your imagination run wild! Use external sensors in your iOS apps! Talk to an Arduino with your iPhone! The possibilities are unlimited!

(P4 Serial Breakout Board requires some soldering.)

Features:

• Enables development of iOS apps for private use in homes, schools and offices

• Connects iOS devices to RS-232 serial devices.

• Designed for use with iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, iPod touch (fourth generation), iPad 2 and iPad.

• Used in conjunction with the Redpark Serial Cable SDK and sample code. Together these tools enable you to write iOS apps that communicate with serial devices.

• One meter long cable.

• Male DB-9 connector.

• Supports communication at speeds up to 57.6 Kbps.

• Requires iOS 4.3.x or later.

• Mintronics Survival Pack.

• P4 RS232 to TTL board.

Redpark Breakout Pack for Arduino and iOS

Demand Media sics its lawyers on DemandStudiosSucks.com

Posted: 21 Jul 2011 10:23 PM PDT

Demand Media, the content farm that pays people a pittance to write and edit crappy articles and then uses SEO tricks to push its content (which appears on sites like eHow, Cracked, and Livestrong) to the top of Google searches, has seen a huge drop in market capitalization, in part because Google initiated countermeasures to reduce the googlejuice of content farms.

Now Demand is going after Demand Studios Sucks, “a blog maintained by refugees, malcontents and other critics” for posting “content that was confidential, proprietary and trademarked,” according to a Demand spokesperson. Here’s the letter from Demand Media to Demand Studios Sucks.

Jeff Bercovici of Forbes’ Mixed Media has the story.

After hearing from Demand, DSS’s ISP briefly shut down the site’s forum, a discussion board where current and former Demand Studios contributors swap gossip, gripes and tips.

Before long, however, the forums and the presentation were again live. “Our ISP admitted they screwed up and we’re back now,” says Patrick O’Doare, DSS’s founder. That doesn’t mean this is over, however: In its letter, Demand threatens “any and all remedies available to it, including but not limited to, filing a civil lawsuit in federal court seeking statutory damages against you for copyright infringement, trademark infringement or any other cause of action that Demand Media deems is appropriate to protect its rights and its business” if its, um, demands aren’t met.