SCAMWATCH : How to spot a rigged ATM

Autoamated teller machines (ATM's) are frequently being targeted by data thieves using card skimming devices in combination with video capture and surveillance and mobile technologies. The card skimming devices are often moulded around the ATM card slot to collect account information stored on the bank card's magnetic strip, while victims are monitored via video capture systems or remote surveillance on or in close proximity to the ATM documenting your passwords and Personal Identification Number (PIN). So how do you identify an ATM with a card skimming and pin capturing device attached?

photo : An ATM skimming device discovered at Thirroul.
via : illawarramercury.com.au

Card "skimming" (is) one of the fastest-growing scams, estimated to be costing Australian consumers, businesses, credit card companies and banks more than $100 million a year. via: theage.com.au

The information surrounding organised card skimming operations was quite sensitive up until recently. Due to the frequency of card skimming operations targeting Australian Banks and ATMs, It was deemed that the slide show released by the Commonwealth Bank (CBA) depicting various card skimming and surveillance techniques employed by organised crime syndicates was of more value in the hands of the consumer.

Commonwealth Bank on ATM skimming

SCAMWATCH : How to protect yourself

Australian Criminal Code on Card Skimming

Detecting ATM Card Skimming Systems

Commonwealth Bank - PDF Download - ATM Card Skimming and PIN capturing Awareness Guide

How ATM card skimming and PIN capturing scams work

View more documents from worldstuff.

avoid youtube age verification

Ever wanted to avoid Youtube's annoying age verification page, Skip the sign-in page or bypass sign-up to Youtube altogether? You only want to watch an age restricted video after all. No harm in that right?

I came across a useful workaround tonight and thought i'd share. If you've ever wondered how to avoid those annoying age verification pages directing you to sign-in or signup to an account to view adult content on the YouTubes and other streaming video sites, this post may help.

EDIT: It seems embedded videos on some 3rd party websites may also circumvent certain workplace internet filters into the bargain.

I'll provide some context behind this discovery I suppose... The internet has been buzzing this week over the controversial Iranian Election results. Today came the (inevitable?) posting of an extremely graphic video capturing the aftermath of a fatal shooting of a female Iranian Protester. The video is most definitely NSFW. Consider yourself warned >> http://www.youtube.com/verify_age?&next_url=/watch%3Fv%3Dfmi-LePl894

This workaround consists of switching the regular video link with the embedded version.

A regular video url
>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHg5SJYRHA0

The embedded video url
>> http://www.youtube.com/v/oHg5SJYRHA0

You can make a bookmarklet to automate this url edit by dumping the javascript below into the location field of the bookmark properties:

javascript:var%20v=window.location.href.match(/%25%33%44([A-Za-z0-9_\-]+)$/)[1];if(v)window.location.href=%22http://www.youtube.com/v/%22+v

EDIT: A firefox add-on You Old Enough? in conjunction with bug me not >> https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/9128

Warp20 1989-2009

warp20.net

Create The Definitive Warp Album. Vote for your favourite ever Warp tracks here. Your top 10 (by different artists) will combine with our top 10 to make a historic album for release this Autumn. Leave personal messages and memories and the best will be printed in the album art.
We Are Reasonable People. Read more about Warp20.

I'll throw my top 10 up when i get a chance to digest all this music....

Filmmaker Implants Bionic Eye Camera

Canadian Rob Spence is undertaking possibly the ultimate step in observational documentary filmmaking history. Coined the Eyeborg Project, Rob plans to insert a camera inside a prosthetic eye with assistance from Engineer Kosta Grammatis. He had his damaged eye (a result of a childhood shooting accident)removed three years ago.

From mass shifts in unconsciousness

With the camera tucked inside a prosthetic eye, he hopes to be able to record the same things he sees with his working eye, his muscles moving the camera eye just like his real one.

Spence said he planned to become a "human surveillance machine" to explore privacy issues and whether people were "sleepwalking into an Orwellian society".

He said his subjects would not know he was filming until afterward but he would have to receive permission from them before including them in his film.

His special equipment will consist of a camera, originally designed for colonoscopies, a battery and a wireless transmitter.

I'll be keeping a close eye on the development of this project.... (yeah i went there)

via: www.smh.com.au/articles/2009/03/12/1236447354395.html

YouTomb

YouTomb is a research project by MIT Free Culture that tracks videos taken down from YouTube for alleged copyright violation. youtomb.mit.edu

via: negrophonic.com

pirates of the internet

firefox + greasemonkey + scripts = pirate booty


via: torrentfreak.com/firefox-pirates-take-over-amazon-081203/

Get Yr Riot On

I'm raging after the latest p2p news to hit the webs, if you're as understandably pissed off as i am here is some inspiration in typically french style!

http://www.brainz.org/riots/

Legal Action Taken Against Soulseek In France

It seems after 7 years the greatest music file sharing community has landed on the radar of the piracy police....

The industry bodies argue that Soulseek, an application created by former Napster programmer Nir Arbel, is designed to permit unauthorized access to copyrighted works. According to a French law adopted in 2006, distributing such software is an offense that can lead to a 3 year jail sentence, as well as a fine up to 300,000 euros.

via: torrentfreak.com/music-industry-takes-soulseek-to-court-081120/



Here is the official word from slsk on the forum:

our court date on the 13th of nov. was with the SCPP, and we still have yet to hear about the results of that! keep your fingers crossed

and

well the best case scenario is that they drop the case in france, which would force them to properly pursue us in the US. we have no employees or subsidiaries in france, so it seems rather ridiculous for them to sue us there. however, with this new ruling (mentioned above) it is possible that the case will not be thrown out due to non-jurisdiction, as it may have been a week ago.

if it IS thrown out, since french copyright law is different from US copyright law, it would take quite a bit on their part to comply with the DMCA in the same way that we do (the DMCA requires that all parties involved comply in a certain manner before a legal pursuit). the theory is that the SCPP, SACEM, and SPPF will not actively pursue american companies on US soil because let's face it...it's a pain in the ass.

the worst case scenario is that we lose, they win, and are able to pursue us more easily in the US. the reason why we sought representation in france is because if the SCPP were to win a default judgment due to us not representing ourselves, they could easily get a judgment against us in the US. at least if we put up a fight, it shows the US courts that we are actively defending ourselves on foreign soil...which shows that we have nothing to hide. also if they win, they will most likely be awarded a monetary sum by the french court, which they would not be able to collect unless we show up in france for some reason...so that would mean that it would be very dangerous for either of us to go to france, which is a shame.

in addition, they will cut off all french users from soulseek...they have done it with other p2p networks.

our case is supposedly a landmark case in france, and we have what is considered to be the best representation in the p2p world there, Hugoavocats. unfortunately, they are not very forthcoming with information after each hearing, so i still do not know the outcome of the trial. apparently judgment is handed down 2 to 3 weeks after arguments are heard, so let's see what happens. as i said before, keep your fingers crossed...this will mean a lot for french p2p users and p2p networks that have users in france!

link: forums.slsknet.org

interior crocodile alligator

burnz

Controversy?







3LW - Playas Gon Play

The hit maker
The playas gon' play
Them haters gonna hate
Them callers gonna call
Them ballers gonna ball
(Let 'em know)

I, I don't mind (ha)
What people say or do (nah, nah)
But I, I do mind
What you believe is true
You are the only one
Getting all my love
Cuz what they do (what they do)
Ain't nothin' new

1 - Playas, they gonna play
And haters, they gonna hate
Ballers, they gonna ball
Shot callers, they gonna call
There ain't got nothin' to do
With me and you
That's the way it is
That's the way it is

So-called friends
Don't wanna see me with you
Behind your back
Callin' my cell and pager too
No matter what they do
I will stay true
Only to you
Only to you

Repeat 1

I want you to know (I want you to know)
I'll never let you go (I'll never let you go)
We gotta talk about everything you hear
Cuz I know that it ain't true
You can trust my love
And I can trust yours too
Our love will be forever, yeah
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

Little Women
They gon' ball shorty
They gon' play shorty
That's how they do shorty
We comin' through shorty
The hit maker shorty

Playas gon' play

Repeat3


Playas gonna play (uh)
Haters gonna hate (right)
That's the way it is (yeah)
That's just how it's been (let 'em know, let 'em know)

Playas (Little Women y'all)
And haters (9 lives y'all)
Playas (the hit maker y'all, woo)
And haters

Playas gonna play (oh, oh)
Haters gonna hate (yeah,yeah)
Ballers gonna ball (oh, oh)
Callers gonna call
Yeah




The Original




u luv it

Collective Intelligence

Found a few nice resources relating to the collective wisdom of the crowd.

MIT's Collective Intelligence Wiki

and

Harvard's Group Brain

Movers and Shakers - Duke Magazine's 3rd Annual Dance-Off

via: news.com.au

CHECK out some cool moves at Duke's 3rd annual dance-off.

Direct Download Video

Let's Get Krump!

Someone is wrong on the internet!

moments before posting on fieryemails...

Demonoid... the resurrection?

The frontend of Demonoid is still hosted in the US, together with the popular Subdemon forums. Interestingly, the tracker - which has been offline for months - is now hosted in Malaysia, and has started to respond again, approximately 30 hours ago.

It is of course not clear what this all means, but without an official message from the Demonoid team, speculation has started. Could it be that the site has found a new host, and preparing a return? Many former Demonoid members are secretly hoping that this is indeed the case.

It's back! Well anytime now. As i predicted in an email to the head of PBI.

Now where did i back up that cache of torrents...

Wikileaks

wiki wiki werd

http://wikileaks.be/wiki/Wikileaks
updated link: http://88.80.13.160/wiki/Wikileaks

update: http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Wikileaks_fights_on_after_courts_shutdown

w3rd

Squatfest 2008

my submission

Reverse Memory Loss

More brain stuffs.

Scientists performing experimental brain surgery on a man aged 50 have stumbled across a mechanism that could unlock how memory works.

The accidental breakthrough came during an experiment originally intended to suppress the obese man's appetite, using the increasingly successful technique of deep-brain stimulation. Electrodes were pushed into the man's brain and stimulated with an electric current. Instead of losing appetite, the patient instead had an intense experience of déjà vu. He recalled, in intricate detail, a scene from 30 years earlier. More tests showed his ability to learn was dramatically improved when the current was switched on and his brain stimulated.

via: independent.co.uk

wiki: Deep_brain_stimulation

Autism in a pill

Apparently the ability to unleash and banish the Daniel Tammet in us all is only just around the corner...

Over the past year, researchers have demonstrated several times that they can turn mice autistic by messing with brain chemistry -- and then "cure" them using the same techniques. The discoveries could lead to a scenario similar to the one in Vernor Vinge's novel A Deepness in the Sky, where people are given a brain treatment called "focusing" that essentially turns them autistic and makes them obsessive, detail-oriented workers.

It might also lead to recreational autism, where people who want to take a break from having messy emotions about other people decide to unplug and enter a state where human relationships are no more important than inanimate objects.

Read about how scientists can induce autism [PNAS] and how they can cure it [BBC News].

via: io9.com

Daniel's blog: optimnem.co.uk/blog

Australian girl switches bloodtype after liver transplant

An Australian girl spontaneously changed blood groups and adopted her donor's immune system after a liver transplant, in what doctors treating her said Thursday was the first known case of its type...

"It is extremely unusual -- in fact we don't know of any other instance in which this happened," Stormon told AFP from the Children's Hospital at Westmead.

"In effect she had had a bone marrow transplant. The majority of her immune system had also switched over to that of the donor."

An article on the case was published in Thursday's edition of the leading US medical journal The New England Journal of Medicine.

via: physorg.com

Weed via ATM only in LA

Sweet!