Hey soldiers, it's time to play Quake next
It seems that the US ARMY are using electronic games to give them training for the real thing. At Camp Pendleton, CA, the soliers made the New York Times because they play realistic video games. They apparently think it gives them an edge in the field. I wonder if we should put our top gamers in the woods and fire rounds from a M16 at them to make them play better Quake? Read this story here, New York Times username necessary.

RIAA suing four college students for allegedly offering popular music
Filed yesterday, a lawsuit from the RIAA asked that the sites be shut down and that it be paid maximum damages of $150,000 per song. The RIAA said the file-sharing systems were being run by students at Princeton University, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and Michigan Technological University. The schools were not named as defendants. So the students are going to pay $150,000 a song. Now thats funny. I hope someone hacks the RIAA page and puts their songs up there. CNN story here.

they say- Lets make some art!
we say - Lets hack some art!
Landmark Theaters, a large independent cinema chain, is adopting Microsoft's technology for storing and showing digital movies. Instead of using Divx or even just digital tape indie art is showing it's not so indie after all. Instead of giving money so indie software developers, they feel the need to pay Microsoft? Instead of the costly high-end digital projection systems, Microsoft has partnered with technology company Digital Cinema Solutions (DCS) to create a system based on networked PCs, which costs in total only about $70,000 to install. I wish I had $70,000, then we could finish our movie. Read the story here, or call tommEE for financing his movie.

Well just come out with it Apache
So yesterday, I read bugtraq, as I always do. Not much in there to get me excited. I read news.com today and they have a headline "Apache patch to thwart DoS attack". I look at todays bugtraq, nothing. I wonder what's up. I search bugtraq. There was a release announcement yesterday and no other announcements since February 18th. I opened the Release announcement and it in the middle of the software release announcement. It stated in the third and fourth paragraphs about the general vulnerablities:
Prior Apache 2.0 versions through 2.0.44 had a significant Denial of Service vulnerability that was identified and reported by David Endler , and fixed with this release. The specific details of this issue will be published by David Endler one week from this release, on April 7th. No more specific information is disclosed at this time, but all Apache 2.0 users are encouraged to upgrade now. [http://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CAN-2003-0132]

Way to go Lars Eilebrecht.
Cnet story here, bugtaq announcement here.

Ok click this highly crafted url, c'mon, please...
Well I won't really give you the URL that I am using for this but I will tell you that it does work. There has been a hole discovered in Real Player and Quicktime media players. The only one that I have been truely to make anything comprimised was with Quicktime on Windows. The idea is that a 400 character URL will cuase a buffer overflow in Quicktime and on the same URL you can have code that will arbitrary run on the comprimised system. In the Cnet article they stated that iDefense said that QuickTime Player versions 5.x and 6.0 for Windows are vulnerable. The workaround suggested by iDefense is to remove the QuickTime handler from the Web browser or remove the registry key (HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT/quicktime). Another option is to download Apple's QuickTime 6.1, which addresses this vulnerability, according to iDefense. The vulnerability affected the following popular versions of its digital media players: RealOne Player, RealOne Player v2 for Windows, RealPlayer 8 for Windows, RealPlayer 8 for Mac OS 9, RealOne Player for Mac OS X, RealOne Enterprise Desktop Manager and RealOne Enterprise Desktop. The Helix DNA Client is safe from this bug, Real Networks commented. Read the CNET story here.

How did this get past the BUGTRAQ moderators?
To: BugTraq
Subject: serious vulnerability present. all doomed. over.
Date: Apr 1 2003 10:11PM
Author: Security Experts, Liability Limited throwaway@dione.ids.pl
Synopsis and impact:
--------------------
A distributed denial of service condition is present in the election system in many polypartisan democratic countries. A group of determined but unskilled and not equipped low-income individuals, usually between 0.05% and 2% of overall population of the country, can cause serious disruptions or even a complete downfall of the democratic system and its institutions, and wreak havoc and destruction without using any force. This is considerably less than the majority of voters required in more conventional attacks, at least in this social group. The attack is generally difficult to prevent once occurs, since it is not possible to make immediate changes to election ordinances, especially once the process have started. Changes are often required to be passed at least one year before taking any effect. As such, patching the bug might take a considerable amount of time, perhaps also sufficient for the country to fall into chaos and oblivion, and for things of unspeakable horror to happen to all people like you and me.
SNIP

Read the email here and lets hope that we stick to computer vulnerabilties on the BUGTRAQ list.

Does anyone doubt, Terrorists love Brooklyn?
Several explosive devices later determined to be inactive were found Monday inside an SUV parked in Brooklyn Heights that investigators say belongs to a female police officer. According to police, the explosive devices were constructed using five PVC pipes filled with gasoline and sheetrock nails. And people wonder why I moved out of New York. More here.

Buy 4 tires, store your hooker phone numbers for free.
Michelin Man is giving away a free Palm Zire for purchase of 4 tires. Mr. Wirt said the cross-promotion might not be as random a match as it might appear. He said, for example, that the Palm Zire's calendar software could be used to set reminders of when to check tire pressure or to rotate the Michelins. "You'll have a safer car," he said.

Do you remember that Xbox Challenge?
Well if you remember that Xbox challenge that wanted to prove that Microsoft was trying to block other OSes from install, someone has done it. An anonymous hacker has succeeded in running Linux on an unmodified Xbox, for the challenge funded by Lindows founder Michael Robertson. On Saturday he posted a Saturday in a message on the Xbox Hacker Web site. Organizers of the Xbox-Linux Project confirmed the method works. Michael Robertson, founder of Linux company Lindows, has encouraged such work with a two-part contest, each part carrying a $100,000 prize. Part A, for the first team to run Linux on an Xbox, has already been met, and a prize committee is selecting the winners. Part B sets aside $100,000 for the first to run Linux on an unmodified Xbox. Read how he beat the challenge here.