X-Geek

Extreme geekiness

There are 699 posts filed in X-Geek (this is page 16 of 70).

Google in talks on phone network in US: executive, Technology – THE BUSINESS TIMES

Interesting report that Google intends to become an MVNO (reselling wireless service).

[BARCELONA] US Internet giant Google says it is in talks with telecom companies about operating its own mobile phone services in the United States.

"We are actually working with carrier partners. You will see us announce it in the coming months," Sundar Pichai, Google’s senior vice-president for products, said on Monday.

"We don’t intend to be a network operator at scale," however, he added, speaking at the Mobile World Congress, a major telecom trade fair in Barcelona.

The California-based company would become a kind of virtual mobile operator by buying access to existing firms’ networks and selling it on to clients.

via Google in talks on phone network in US: executive, Technology – THE BUSINESS TIMES.

This Is How Verizon Bullshits You | Maximum PC

Verizon hates regulation, but when it hurts their greedy business model.

The fact that Verizon is releasing this kind of PR stunt designed to tell you, the public, that the FCC is using an outdated regulation not suitable for the modern technology era, is complete horse shit. The PR machine at Verizon is essentially spitting in your face, thinking you won’t even notice because it knows the majority of the public is too ignorant of what actually goes on behind the scenes and that most people don’t really have the time to dig through reports and papers.

Up until today, Verizon was freely using Title II on and off wherever it felt it could cut costs and fund infrastructure using public funds. It’s now only making a play that the FCC’s rules are unfit for modern society because the new rules will hurt its revenue stream from content providers.

via This Is How Verizon Bullshits You | Maximum PC.

Wilson’s official statement on today’s FCC ruling

Here is Wilson’s official statement on today’s FCC ruling.

CITY OF WILSON APPLAUDS FCC CHAIRMAN WHEELER AND THE COMMISSION FOR ITS LEADERSHIP IN DECIDING IN FAVOR OF LOCAL BROADBAND CHOICE

Wilson, N.C. — The City of Wilson applauds FCC Chairman Wheeler and the Commission for their leadership today in approving the City’s petition to preempt a North Carolina state law that restricts municipal Gigabit broadband deployment. Today’s historic decision now enables Wilson and other North Carolina municipalities to provide the Gigabit broadband infrastructure and services that North Carolina and America need in order to remain competitive in our emerging knowledge-based global economy.
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Why that boom you heard isn’t a “transformer blowing.”

Cutout fuse

Cutout fuse

During bad weather, many folks will hear electrical booms in their area and blame it on a “transformer blowing.”

The truth is that transformers are expensive, so the power companies protect them with equipment called “cut-out fuses.” In a lot of cases where a branch has brushed a power line, these fuses will blow and cut power to a street. If the branch falls away and the line isn’t damaged, a lineman can quickly restore power just by resetting the fuse using a long pole.

So now you know.

In electrical distribution, a fuse cutout or cut-out fuse is a combination of a fuse and a switch, used in primary overhead feeder lines and taps to protect distribution transformers from current surges and overloads. An overcurrent caused by a fault in the transformer or customer circuit will cause the fuse to melt, disconnecting the transformer from the line. It can also be opened manually by utility linemen standing on the ground and using a long insulating stick called a "hot stick".

via Fuse cutout – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

The FCC rules against state limits on city-run Internet – The Washington Post

Wilson’s petition to the FCC was just granted and I couldn’t be happier. North Carolina’s “Level Playing Field” law, written by Time Warner Cable, is now null and void. Now communities across the state can build themselves their own digital future with a community broadband service.

I would be dancing in the street if the street wasn’t a slushy mess right now!

For years, cities around the country have been trying to build their own, local competitors to Verizon, Charter and other major Internet providers. Such government-run Internet service would be faster and cheaper than private alternatives, they argued. But in roughly 20 states, those efforts have been stymied by state laws.

Now, the nation’s top telecom regulators want to change that. On Thursday, the Federal Communications Commissions voted 3-2 to override laws preventing Chattanooga, Tenn., and Wilson, N.C. from expanding the high-speed Internet service the cities already offer to some residents.

via The FCC rules against state limits on city-run Internet – The Washington Post.

AP reporter soft-pedals phone key theft

Ken Dilanian

Ken Dilanian

Associated Press Intelligence reporter Ken Dilanian reports on the NSA/GCHQ’s theft of mobile phone keys, as reported by The Intercept.

WASHINGTON AP — Britain’s electronic spying agency, in cooperation with the U.S. National Security Agency, hacked into the networks of a Dutch company to steal codes that allow both governments to seamlessly eavesdrop on mobile phones worldwide, according to the documents given to journalists by Edward Snowden.

via AP News | The Times-Tribune | thetimes-tribune.com.

Dilanian’s soft-pedaling arrives in the second paragraph:
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The Great SIM Heist: How Spies Stole the Keys to the Encryption Castle

NSA hacked SIM card manufacturer Gemalto and stole millions of encryption keys without the company’s knowledge. While I don’t particularly mind NSA targeting bad guys (that’s why we have NSA), I consider hacking the good guys to get the bad guys to be very poor form.

I am not surprised that this took place on Obama’s watch, either. His record is just as bad as George W. Bush’s. Perhaps worse.

The monitoring of the lawful communications of employees of major international corporations shows that such statements by Obama, other U.S. officials and British leaders — that they only intercept and monitor the communications of known or suspected criminals or terrorists — were untrue. “The NSA and GCHQ view the private communications of people who work for these companies as fair game,” says the ACLU’s Soghoian. “These people were specifically hunted and targeted by intelligence agencies, not because they did anything wrong, but because they could be used as a means to an end.”

via The Great SIM Heist: How Spies Stole the Keys to the Encryption Castle.

Lenovo shipping laptops with pre-installed adware that kills HTTPS | CSO Online

Whoops. Lenovo shipped computers with adware that breaks ALL SSL on its laptops. Not only that, but the private key is also widely available, meaning anyone can spoof any website on an unsuspecting Lenovo owner’s computer. Major security fail!

Lenovo is in hot water after it was revealed on Wednesday that the company is shipping consumer laptops with Superfish Adware pre-installed. Security experts are alarmed, as the software performs Man-in-the-Middle attacks that compromises all SSL connections.

It’s a fact of life; PC manufacturers are paid to install software at the factory, and in many cases this is where their profit margin comes from. However, pre-installed software is mostly an annoyance for consumers. Yet, when this pre-installed software places their security at risk, it becomes a serious problem.

via Lenovo shipping laptops with pre-installed adware that kills HTTPS | CSO Online.

Update: More technical info here and here.

MicLoc – DIY acoustic triangulation

On the the East CAC Facebook page, some neighbors recently asked if the police department was using acoustic triangulation systems for tracking gunfire. I responded that systems like ShotSpotter were interesting but that the police department couldn’t afford the $300k cost.

Ah, the joys of open source! It turns out one enterprising hacker has built his own Arduino-based triangulation system using easy-to-obtain parts. This has me thinking that if a few neighbors here and there were willing to station these near their homes, the fixes that could be plotted would be extremely accurate. Even a small network of these would do wonders. In this way, neighbors could be helping to fight crime in their area without actually having to do anything. It sounds like a great solution!

MicLoc is an effort to develop a device capable of passively identifying a sound based event position on a given map, therefor pinpointing its location. The whole idea is to achieve this goal with everyday electronics and reduced development costs.With the event of small, affordable, powerful microprocessors and electronics in general, this technology now seems accessible to potential commercial applications and general public use.The main goals of this project are:

  • Develop a low cost, compact device capable of identifying a source source location on a map with sub-meter precision.
  • Develop, detail and open-source the hardware and plans used so anyone can build this device.
  • Develop, detail and open-source the software needed to interface the device with a computer.

via rural hacker: MicLoc.

Google Cloud and latency

Since I’ve been having so much fun with Amazon Web Services, I thought I would check out Google’s offering, called Google Cloud. I’ve only had a trial running with it for about 24 hours but so far it seems solid. The server I am using is fast and has good connectivity to Google’s servers, which is a good thing.

What is a bad thing, however, is that my hosted server has very poor connectivity to me. The round-trip ping time is about 55ms, whereas AWS with it’s Ashburn, VA datacenter gets me 25ms. Huge difference! Also, my AWS instance has 14 routers to navigate before it gets to me but my Google Cloud instance travels through a whopping 24 routers. Those packets bounce around like ping pong balls! I was hoping that with Google’s company-owned fiber network and datacenters located here in North Carolina I would get faster response times. No such luck … yet.

Why “yet?” Well, Google Fiber is coming to the Triangle, in case you’ve been under a rock. I’m hopeful once I’m on the Google Fiber network, my latency to Google Cloud will drop considerably, perhaps <1ms. This invites all sorts of innovations. Give clever developers fat resources located close (on the network, anyway) to their audience and some interesting things start to happen.

Google Fiber could be the fire that lights off Google Cloud. I figure it’s worth checking out the new landscape now so that I can get in on the game.