Hack-A-Day is looking to expand its coverage. We’re hiring fulltime bloggers and freelance how-to contributors. We have an idea of where we should go with the site, but we’d like to know what you, the readers, want to see more of on Hack-A-Day.
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The World’s Spookiest Weapons
As purveyors of a fine hacks, we often get pitched on what are generally considered very bad ideas. Luckily, most of these ideas die on the drawing board due to a lack of time and energy or maybe having a shred of moral accountability. There’s nothing that government funding can’t fix though. Popular Science has put together a gallery of The World’s Spookiest Weapons. It’s a who’s who of real and speculative engineering that could lead to our eventual destruction. Opening with the atomic bomb, it moves quickly into more bizarre territory, everything from heat rays, to rail guns, to gassing people with elephant tranquilizers. Our personal favorite is The Rods from God. Imagine getting smote by a precisely targeted metal power pole dropped from space that has accelerated to 36,000 feet per second thanks solely to gravity. What a wondrous world we live in.
[via Acidus]
Bruce Schneier’s Opinion On Everything
Honestly, we were originally sent this Q&A with famed cryptographer [Bruce Schneier] as a restaurant recommendation (112 Eatery, Minneapolis). Posted last fall on NYTimes’ Freakonomics blog it covers [Bruce]’s opinion on nearly everything. Here are a few items in particular that really stuck out to us:
The most immediate threat to the average person is crime – in particular, fraud. And as I said before, even if you don’t store that data on your computer, someone else has it on theirs. But the long-term threat of loss of privacy is much greater, because it has the potential to change society for the worse.
What you’re really asking me is about the security. No one steals credit card numbers one-by-one, by eavesdropping on the Internet connection. They’re all stolen in blocks of a million by hacking the back-end database. It doesn’t matter if you bought something over the Internet, by phone, by mail, or in person – you’re equally vulnerable.
We already knew he doesn’t secure his WiFi (neither do we) and you’ll find many other interesting discussions in the article. If you want Bruce Schneier facts though, you’ll have to look elsewhere.
Hackers Needed, Los Angeles
Hack-A-Day is looking for fulltime contributors in the the Los Angeles area. The details are in this Craigslist ad.
Our friends at Mahalo are also looking for a Systems Engineer, Los Angeles.
Weekend Links
Friend of Hack-A-Day, [Dan Kaminsky], started off last weekend right by putting Rick Astley everywhere on the internet. ISPs routinely hijack mistyped URLs and [Dan] showed that an attacker could inject code into any unresolved subdomain, essentially taking over every site the ISP’s customer tried to reach. I doubt many companies would be happy to know their websites were being misrepresented.
The week wasn’t going so well for another friend of ours as he found himself back in court for allegedly inventing the entire satellite piracy industry.
BoingBoing TV featured the Graffiti Research Lab this week as they prepare for the New York premier of GRL: The Complete First Season. GRL encourages you to pick up your copy today… before they’ve even started selling it.
While you’re over at The Pirate Bay you might as well ask them where to get the leaked copy of Grand Theft Auto IV… or you could just wait a few days and buy it like a normal person. We do recommend you bide your time by checking out the GTA 4 leaked gameplay videos, GTA 4 walkthrough, and GTA 4 cheats.
Hack-A-Day Is Hiring!
It’s true, as much as [Will] and I like being a scrappy two person shop with a ‘never say die’ attitude, and penchant for fist pounding after successful compiles, we need more people (MOAR even). We’re looking for a few more contributors to help out with the daily posting, digging up the extra obscure, and especially the how-tos we’ve started to get back into.
This is a paid, freelancing position that requires professionalism, consistency, and reliability. We want to hear from people that are passionate about software/hardware hacking and growing Hack-A-Day. To apply, send the following to jobs@hackaday.com
- A short bio about yourself
- 3 example daily posts written in the style of Hack-A-Day
- 3 how-to ideas you could personally execute. For examples of work we’ve done in the past, look here, here, here, and here.
- A couple sentences on how you would improve the site either through features or content
- Any additional reasons why you would make a good fit for Hack-A-Day
Please do not send any attachments, especially not pictures of your sweet ride. An aversion to capital letters is not required, but definitely encouraged.
[picture courtesy of fbz]
FIRST Robotics Regional – KC – 2008
When you’re issued safety glasses at the door, you know it’s going to be interesting. As promised, I’m checking out the FIRST robotics regional in Kansas City today. The competition is pretty fierce – not quite flame throwing battle bot action, but the kids have put together some pretty serious robots.
Read on for more pics from the competition.
