When I found out Fight for the Future needed help with their campaign against a new bill called PROTECT-IP, I had to take a little time away from Everything is a Remix Part 4 and produce the video above. PROTECT-IP is the latest piece of legislation aiming to chip away at your online rights in the name of protecting the entertainment industry’s business model. It’s legislation that won’t work, will give us yet more lawsuits, and will make the net worse.

Whether you lean right and hate business regulation, lean left and hate censorship, or lean neither way but hate useless legislation, PROTECT-IP is a bill everyone should oppose. I encourage you to head over to Fight For the Future and contact congress.

http://fightforthefuture.org/pipa

Below you will find a very well made and interesting video giving some background on the Stuxnet virus that infected some of Iran’s nuclear facilities.

Direction and Motion Graphics: Patrick Clair www.patrickclair.com
Written by: Scott Mitchell

Production Company: Zapruder’s Other Films.

At the risk of totally ruining it for everyone, I’ve decided to type up some hints as to how to bypass the annoying MLB.TV blackout restrictions. I know it angers many people that pay upwards of $200 per year for a premium subscription and are then unable to watch games in their local market. This article is not going to be a step-by-step howto as I feel that if you want it bad enough, you can figure it out on your own. I aim to provide some guidance and assure that it is possible to watch your home team’s games.

I feel that this workaround is much better than using some paid proxy or shady proxy service. For the PC and Mac this workaround requires the following software:

• Firefox
• Foxyproxy plugin for Firefox
• Tor – Vadalia

Install Firefox.  Then install Vadalia.  Run and connect to the TOR network with Vadalia. Install Foxyproxy in Firefox (not the Firefox that comes with Vadalia) and configure for use with TOR.  I would recommend that in the Foxyproxy settings you define to only use Tor for *mlb* addresses.

It’s as simple as that. There will be a little more work, but it really is that easy.  Good luck with all that.

For the iPhone you will need a jailbroken iPhone.  In Cydia install the location spoofing app called LocSpoof or Location Spoofer.  Set to use with the MLB Live app on the iPhone.  Place your location somewhere in Africa, Asia or Antarctica.  Enjoy the game.

One final comment or statement.  I realize that using TOR in this manner is not the most judicious use of the network.  Please consider contributing to the TOR network by operating a relay or exit node.

Where I work we had a bunch of old hardware laying around waiting to be recycled, so we set it up to knock it down. In the video is an old Apple Macbook, several Apple Mac Minis, a Netgear Firewall/Route and a bunch of various sized hard drives.

This weekend at The Next HOPE conference Michael “theprez98” Schearer, a security researcher, gave a very interesting talk about SHODAN. SHODAN is a search engine which searches “banners” of systems. This means it’s basically a search engine of services on the internet. For example, with SHODAN you can find all servers running a specific version of Apache in a specific country. You also have the ability to export results in XML for a nominal fee. Check out the video of theprez98′s talk below. You can also find the slide-deck for theprez’s talk here. Please check your ethics before misusing SHODAN.

SHODAN for Penetration Testers (The Next Hope) from theprez98 on Vimeo.

I was searching all over for a decent dial-up modem ringtone for my iPhone for the longest time, but just couldn’t find one that I liked. So I decided to make my own. It was a major pain in the ass. Seeing as how I haven’t used a dialup modem since around the year 2000, and I only had one system that still has a dial-up modem. Then I had to find a dialup service to test with. Then record. Then edit. Then convert. But after much doing and a little geeking out, the result is 10 seconds of retro goodness that will make your friends jealous. I settled on this 10 second slice as my favorite in the modem handshake sequence. I think it makes the best ringtone and is the perfect length too.

So go ahead and download my freshly made 56k Dialup Modem Handshake Ringtone for your iPhone. Once you’ve downloaded the ringtone simply double click and it will be imported into iTunes as a ringtone. Enjoy!

UPDATE: as requested in the comments below, here is a 56k Modem Ringtone in .mp3 format for Android users as well. Go nuts.

“The Next H.O.P.E.” is the next installment in the biennial H.O.P.E. (Hackers on Planet Earth) series of conferences. H.O.P.E. takes place every 2 years at the Hotel Pennsylvania in the heart of New York City. HOPE is sponsored by the magazine 2600: The Hacker Quarterly. There have been seven conferences to date: HOPE, Beyond HOPE, H2K, H2K2, The Fifth HOPE, HOPE Number Six, and The Last HOPE. This year’s event takes place from July 16th – 18th, 2010.

I tried to find a Google Calendar format of the schedule for this year’s talks. However I was unable to find such a format. I’ve painstakingly created the following calendar based on my interests and talks that I would like to attend. This is not a complete schedule of the conference. I’m too lazy to turn the whole schedule in to a Google Calendar, however I may do so before the actual conference… we shall see. Use as you will if you wish.

You can view the full schedule by visiting: The Next Hope schedule