Patrick Talmadge

So you want to add an HD-DVD to your PC or Mac but can’t find one. Well  Uneasy Silence has a great little hack for adding a XBox 360 HD-DVD player to your PC or Mac. You will need a mini ATA adaperter to mount the drive internally. I believe you only need to install the drivers and you can use it as a USB drive if you don’t want to mount it internally.
Check out his hack it is very interesting: http://uneasysilence.com/archive/2006/11/8303/

Hacking HD DVD

The other day hacker Kevin Mitnick published some help security tips. Although basic tips I think everyone needs a reminder. With Spyware infestations on the rise black hat hacker are looking for low security machines to compromise. For those that do not know of Kevin Mitnick in the 1990s, Kevin penetrated of some of the biggest companies in the world. These hacks ultimately landed him five years in prison. After his release Kevin Mitnick started Mitnick Security a security consulting company.
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Protecting yourself is very challenging in the hostile environment of the internet. Imagine a global environment where an unscrupulous person from the other side of the planet can probe your computer for weaknesses, and exploit them to gain access to your most sensitive secrets.

They can even use your computer to store data like stolen credit-card numbers or child pornography, or to attack another innocent home user or business from your system.

Here’s my Top 10 list of steps you should take to protect your information and your computing resources from the bad boys and girls of cyberspace.

• Back up everything! You are not invulnerable. Catastrophic data loss can happen to you — one worm or Trojan is all it takes.
• Choose passwords that are reasonably hard to guess — don’t just append a few numbers to a no-brainer. Always change default passwords.
• Use an antivirus product like AVG or Norton, and set it to update daily.
• Update your OS religiously and be vigilant in applying all security patches released by the software manufacturer.
• Avoid hacker-bait apps like Internet Explorer and disable automatic scripting on your e-mail client.
• Use encryption software like PGP (pretty good privacy) when sending sensitive e-mail. You can also use it to protect your entire hard drive.
• Install a spyware detection app — or even several. Programs that can be set to run frequently, like SpyCop, are ideal.
• Use a personal firewall. Configure it to prevent other computers, networks and sites from connecting to you, and specify which programs are allowed to connect to the net automatically.
• Disable any system services you’re not using, especially apps that could give others remote access to your computer (like Remote Desktop, RealVNC and NetBIOS).
• Secure your wireless networks. At home, enable WPA (Wi-Fi protected access) with a password of at least 20 characters. Configure your laptop to connect in Infrastructure mode only, and don’t add networks unless they use WPA.

Hackers are becoming more sophisticated in conjuring up new ways to hijack your system by exploiting technical vulnerabilities or human nature. Don’t become the next victim of unscrupulous cyberspace intruders.

Security

The job hunt is on. I need to find a good job that pays well quickly. I was taken from a full time employee to an on-call employee. Over the last year my employer has made one bad business decision after another.

Luckily I started my job search a month ago. The day they told me I was no longer a salaried employee I had an interview with a dental supply company. Today I applied to several companies. I am hoping to have a new job before Christmas.

The good thing is I will have free time to work on a few project of my own. I would like to come up with a cool design for this blog and add some articles for www.phpwebtorial.com.

General

It turns out the security problem at John Wayne Airport was all because someone saw another person put something that looked like a weapon in their bag. Of course this was not really the case. The witness was mistaken no weapons in any bags.

I am glad that TSA acted fast and tried to find the person before it became a problem. People need to use their judgment before they get the airport locked down.

General

Salli, a few friends, and I went to Knott’s Berry Farm for the day yesterday (Friday November 10th 2006). Besides the terrible food service and the long lines our trip was great. That it until we got to John Wayne Airport for our return flight to Seattle.

Once we got to the airport we quickly learned that the airport was on lock down for a security breach. The airport staff never told us the details of the breach. I am sure details will come out in the news in the next day. I will post an update.
After waiting in security lines for 30 or 40 minutes the entire airport was completely evacuated. Well waiting in a crowd of people just out side airport doors we debated leaving the airport to get a hotel and catch a return flight in the morning. Luckily we decided to stick it out and see what happened because after another 20 minutes of waiting people were let back into the airport and short while later security gates opened. People who were at the gates had to be re-screened by security and luckily we got up towards the beginning of the security line after we got let back into the airport.
All in all our trip was great and the airport security breach debacle only delayed the our flight 1 hour.

General

So you want to show off your hacking skills to your friends? Maybe you don’t know any hacks or maybe you do know some hacks but want to know more. Well here is a fun little hack for the built in Windows XP pinball game 3D Pinball Space Cadet.

Open Pinball by going to Start –> All Programs –> Games –> Pinball. After the game loads press F2 to start a new game. Once the new game loads type “hidden test”. So what does this hack do? This hack or cheat code enters you into a test mode that the developers of the pinball game used to test the game. With this hack you can do several things the most fun is move the pinball with your mouse. Here are some other things you can do:

m - Displays message box with amount of system memory.
r - Increases your rank in the game.
y - Shows and Removes the frame rate of the game in window title. (does not work right way all the time)
h - Enters 1,000,000,000 into spot two of high-score. Real scores will push this out of the table.
There is no known way to exit this hidden test mode. This mode is a little buggy I had to close the game several times because the game became a nearly solid pink block.

Other Cheat Codes

The following codes do not work in hidden test mode discussed above.

Unlimited Balls - Type bmax in the full screen game mode. Extra balls will come out of wormhole above right flipper. Note: The only way to exit this mode is to Tilt the game and high score is disabled in this mode.

Extra Ball - Type 1max during your game.

Promotion - Type rmax during your game. Note seems to work best before you launch the ball.

Gravity Well - Type gmax at start of the game.

Happy Hacking…

Hacking

Socket 775
Process 65nm
Clock Speed 2.66Ghz
Front Side Bus 1066Mhz
L1 Cache 64KB + 64KB
L2 Cache 2 X 4MB

I don’t know about you but I can’t wait. I will not drop the $1,100 on the chip but when it gets down around the $600 range. I will really start thinking about it. I just can’t believe the times we are in. I remember my old 486 thinking that was the greatest thing. Now we have 4 very fast processors on one chip. Just Amazing…

Computers

It started raining last night and I don’t think it has let up yet. Places are already flooding. I heard that it is going to keep raining till Thursday. But who knows the weather people around here are not always right.

What I do know is that I need to get up on the roof and clean some stuff out of the gutters. Not going to be fun if the rain does not let up. I also need to get the neighbors tree trimed. The pine needles are cloging the gutter drain.

The building at work is flooding the neighboring apartment building because all the water is flowing off our roof in one spot. That spot is then running over to the basement of the apartment building. I am glad I don’t live there.

General

Last night we went and saw Super Diamond with Matt and a few other people. I am not a huge Neal Diamond fan but this was a lot of fun. Lots of older people at the Show Box but still fun having a few drinks with friends and enjoying a concert.

Tonight we are going to a Thunderbirds game with Salli’s work group. It should be fun we get to be in the Suite and we are all going to dinner before hand. I have not been to a Thunderbirds game in a long time so this should be a lot of fun. I hope we win.

General

I had a meeting with Brian yesterday. It was a good meeting he told me about how to get into the IT security industry. I have been interested in hacking since I was in High School. This seems like a great career path for me. I get to learn about hacking and challenge myself.

After meeting with him I decided that I need to get some certifications. I think I am going to take a few classes and I am also going to get the CISSP (Certified Information Systems Security Professionals) certification. This should help me learn alot and help me get into the industy.

General