Category: Geek stuff

If it involves physics, math, computer science, electronics or has general geek cachet, this is the place for it.

Concept for a portable computer device: the Triple Pi

I have been curious about picking up a Raspberry Pi one board computer.

They are the standard hardware for nodes on the Toronto Mesh network, so with a suitable USB radio transceiver I could use it in small areas as a bridge to their network via the IPv6 Hyperboria network.

I could also use it to run Linux-based software-defined radio (SDR) software in combination with my USB radio receiver dongle. I could set up software to locate digital signals and then decode those which are not encrypted, or use it as a portable radio scanning rig.

At the same time, there seems to be awesome game emulation software which can be run on a Pi. With two USB-interface SNES-style controllers, I am told it has enough processing power to make a great SNES emulator.

I don’t have a screen with an HDMI input, so it might be worth getting a small portable display to use with the system. One neat idea would be to make the whole thing capable of running on its own batteries.

To start with, I will try to get a working setup that runs with the Pi and the display plugged into the wall. If it seems useful enough to be made portable, I’ll start thinking of battery hardware and case and transportation options for the whole system.

The hardware to get started will be about $100 plus the cost of the display. ToMesh has an installation party later this week where they will install the operating system and software stack necessary to use your Pi as a node.

Crystal Structure of a Y-family DNA Polymerase in a Ternary Complex with DNA Substrates and an Incoming Nucleotide

Sulfolobus solfataricus P2 DNA polymerase IV (Dpo4) is a DinB homolog that belongs to the recently described Y-family of DNA polymerases, which are best characterized by their low-fidelity synthesis on undamaged DNA templates and propensity to traverse normally replication-blocking lesions.

By Bathsheba

genre experiments

For two years I have been working on an art project.

I’m not sure whether the concept predated when I first heard James Allard’s lecture on Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, but the lecture is a great demonstration of how labeling does interpretive work when it comes to art.

Presented with a digital file, we may struggle to decide what it is in both a technical and artistic sense.

Perhaps it’s an HTML file with embedded image files being displayed in a web browser, or the raw data from the sensor of a digital camera. In either case, it’s also an object within a software and operating system-defined architecture and also bits physically written to some data storage medium.

From an artistic perspective, it may be a line from a play quoted in a piece of art which has been photographed and posted online (or a screenshot of a cell phone app displaying a tweet of a digital photo posted online of a print of a photograph taken illicitly in an art gallery, on display in that art gallery).

The multiple presentations of the same data are the idea of interest: like all the exposure and white balance modifications that can be applied to a raw file from a digital camera, meaning that every photograph arising from that process is an interpretation.

These experiments are also intriguing insofar as they concern cybernetic relationships between individuals, organizations that archive data (like search engines), algorithms nobody fully understands, and governments. The location of a data file on the internet does everything to establish its visibility and significance.

The idea of the project is that every distinct work within it is presented to the viewer with multiple possible modes of interpretation, whether they are based on data architecture, metadata, or the cultural and political content of the human-readable image.

WPA2 vulnerable

It seems the WPA2 encryption system used by most WiFi networks is badly broken:

This follows recent breaks in core security technologies like SSLStrip and Heartbleed.

People with good security practices like defence in depth and compartmentalization of sensitive information might not be too threatened by this. Those relying exclusively on the integrity of WPA2 may be in big trouble.

What are you sharing on your wireless network? Any file servers, cameras, or other sensitive systems?

Do you run your internet traffic through a second layer of encryption like a VPN and stick to HTTPS/TLS for sensitive websites?

Responding to violence intelligently

The often-excellent NPR Planet Money podcast (which ran an earlier episode about “Freeway” Rick) had two notably engaging recent segments.

One included an interesting account of the data-analysis-decision-action cycle in intelligence work, specifically when deciding if an assailant is an enemy counterintelligence agent or drug-addled mugger.

The other discussed policy and incentive problems in the area of kidnapping and ransom, including Canada’s supposed policy of not paying ransoms and prohibiting families from doing so.

Each is well worth a listen.

Fourth rule of the internet

A somewhat obvious rule of internet security to add to the first three:

  1. Against a sophisticated attacker, nothing connected to the internet is secure.
  2. Everything is internet now.
  3. You should probably worry more about being attacked online by your own government than by any other organization.
  4. Sensitive data about you is largely on the computers of other people who care little about your security.

Equifax is getting lots of attention right now, but consider also Deloitte, Adobe, Stratfor, Blizzard, LinkedIn, DropBox, Ashley Madison, last.fm, Snapchat, Adult Friend Finder, Patreon, Forbes, Yahoo, and countless others.

As Bruce Schneier points out, the only plausible path to reduce such breaches is for governments to make them far more painful and costly for corporations.

Major Apple purchases

It’s crazy how demanding web browsers have become.

Both my main computers are somewhat old, but they can run modern 3D games at low graphics settings and perform computationally-intensive tasks like converting RAW files to JPG. Nonetheless, I find both my iMac and my MacBook Pro routinely struggling to run GMail in Safari, Firefox, or Chrome.

If I wasn’t a PhD student, I would probably have replaced both computers years ago.

Tracking back through my archives, I have some records of major Apple purchases:

  • My 20 GB 4th gen iPod was $389 in 2004;
  • my 14″ 1.33 GHz G4 iBook was $1990 in 2005 (that was the computer I brought to England and used exclusively in Oxford) (iBook SN: 4H50911AS88);
  • my top-of-the-line 24″ iMac was $2,249 in 2008 (a gift to self for being gainfully employed, and the computer I am typing on now);
  • In May 2010 I paid $35 for Mac OS X 10.6.3 Snow Leopard!
  • I got one of many 160 GB iPod Classics for $279 in 2010 (still the best MP3 player ever; I need to replace the hard drive in my current one); and
  • I got my 13″ MacBook Pro for $1649 in 2011

I am pretty tied into the OS X universe. That’s how all my projects (academic, photographic, activist) are organized, including encrypted archives and backups.

I would love to get a Mac Pro (though apparently those available now are outdated and expensive) or an iMac Pro (not out yet, first-of-a-kind Apple products tend to have big problems, and crazy expensive at $5000+).

All told, I would prefer to avoid the all-in-one design. My current iMac has a great screen, but inadequate processing power for current applications. It cannot be used as a display for a faster computer.