Yeah that's me 'Geek Speak'...with no listeners.

Setup is easy.  Two software packages and two configuration files are all that is required for a basic broadcast server.  I took a older laptop with one megabyte of ram and the Ubuntu operating system and had the server broadcasting in a couple of hours.

Caveat:  Understand that your internet provider may have a limit on your bandwidth and or, that your IP provider may start billing you for usage over and above your contacted limit.

Administration of the server is provided with web based GUI tools.

If you trash a computer, better wipe that hard drive!

The attempt to derive password or web history was not successful however.  That is a setback as OWADE promises to provide the users internet cloud ‘history.’  I may not have configured that portion of OWADE correctly and OWADE is still in the alpha testing stage.

Meanwhile, over on my Bill Gates enabled computer, attempts to retrieve files using the DEFT forensic toolkit were not successful on any  level.

You can run but you can't hide from OWADE

Reportedly, Skype chat history, and the ability to access historical wi-fi locations are available options.  The source code is available in Alpha version and can be built on a Linux operating system presently.

I have this running on a laptop running Linux Ubuntu 11.03 using a postgresql database and will be updating this post with results.

The operating system can be put on a four gigabyte USB stick, made bootable and allow the user to go on the internet without changing the host computer workstation, or laptop.

Computer operating systems on a USB stick.

On the bad side: A cyber-hacker could borrow a laptop, boot from the USB stick then visit web sites or use other social chat rooms to meet their partners.

On the good side: a person may want to do some on-line banking and booting from a Linux based OS may prevent malware made for Windows based systems to bounce off, allowing the user to remain cyber-attack protected.  Care must be taken however, the software build should come from a reputable source.

Geeks rooting Nooks...not a pretty picture.

The end result of doing this that the owner of the former e-reader-only-device, now had a tablet computer at a decent price with fine screen resolution.

We downloaded the needed ROM manager, the 7-Zip extractor program and Cyanogenmod 7 plus the Google apps add-on program.  Also the Win32 disk manager to write the image file to the SD card.

Keep in mind that fooling around with your Nook in this fashion will void any warranty on the thing.

The governing body of internet names voted recently to allow the creation of new web domain names.  These would be in addition to the 22 domain names available such as  .com or net.  (There are also 255 country domain names such as .de for Germany and .uk for the United Kingdom.)

What's in a name?

Lets say you get .NY, you could then sell the sub-domain parts, such as nightclubs.ny, music.ny, taxi.ny, or apartments.ny.  Just run down the listed Yellow Pages categories, you could have a sub-domain for everyone of those.  What could you sell them for?  The sky would seem to be the limit, sex.com went for over ten million dollars.

The time and money to obtain a domain name is long and as I alluded to in the first sentence, costly.  The application fee is reported to be $185,000.  Annual fee to to Icann, the governing body is $25,000.  Lawyers fees and annual cost of maintaining reported to be another $125k or so.

Data used to catch crooks!

A recent news article about a Silicon valley company, Color, notes that their application uses information gleaned from GPS components, gyroscopes, noises coming from the microphone  and the like to determine where, how fast and with whom the person is moving.

Perhaps data miners who have been aiding and abetting marketing folks may be able to aid law enforcement.

Write your own or just wait for the app to do this.

The news  story on this noted the file name to be consolidated.db and a file path of: /Users/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backups/.  The article further said that the file is stored on the mobile device and the computer it is  synced with.  You ‘nix folks out there are no doubt, on it.

Update:  Be wary of web links found in web searches on this subject.  I clicked on one and my firewall popped up noting the site to be a possible malware site.

Another update:  News reports saying file just monitors wi-fi spots.  Stay tuned.

The U.S. and Israeli governments are suggested as sources but there is an elephant in the suspect room that folks here seem to be ignoring, the government of China.

Kids don't try this at home.

In the April 2011 issue, author Michael Joseph Gross notes that the Stuxnet worm had four zero day vulnerabilities.  (A ‘zero day’ vulnerability is one that the computer programs creator didn’t know existed.).  To have just one zero day vulnerability is considered significant.   In the article, we learn that Eugene Kaspersky, CEO of  Moscow based security company Kaspersky Lab, feels that a government was therefore involved.

Richard Clarke, cyber security czar under Presidents Clinton and George H.W. Bush, has said during interviews that Microsoft had given the Windows operating system code to the government of China in return for not being tossed out of the Chinese market.

In addition, the worm carried a digital signature, stolen, not just faked. (Consider a digital signature to be like a seal of approval for a computer program.  If you have one, you’re in.)  The digital signature in the first iteration of this worm was stolen from Realtek, a Taiwan company.

It would seem that the information needed for this computer worm that is considered a ‘technical blockbuster’ is centered in Asia.

The ownership of IT resources and other important entities is apparently with the approval of the Kremlin.  Either the Kremlin owns them outright or ownership is deigned upon those deemed trustworthy by the folks in Red Square.

The Red Star has reached beyond it’s border and grabbed some IT companies in the US as well.  DST Global has a 6% stake in Facebook, Mail.ru, 2%.  The Russian IT bund has also purchased ICQ, a web based chat service.

Silicon valley has felt the icy reach as well.  Yuri Milner, head of DST, and member of Russian President Medvedev’s commission for Modernisation Technological Development is seen by Silicon Valley as a ’long-term investor.’  A person who invest money but does not ask for the obligatory board seat on the U.S. companies he throws rubles at.

"Forget the Facebooking, where is the wodka?"

MEET YURI MILNER: A fellow who as a youngster studied physics and then became the first Russian to attend the US prestigious Wharton Business School.  He held positions at the World Bank and the Menatep bank.
He and fellow investors took control of Mail.ru.  In 2005 the company DST was formed and Mail.ru was as they say, ‘spun off’ from DST.