Yep, it’s all out there on the internet, but if you use it to grab private data from someone else’s computer, chances are you’re in for a world of legal hurt. It’s one of the few pieces of software I can think of where the subsequent use is more illegal than the act of downloading it.

But I know it’s not the only one. What else can you guys come up with? [CrunchGear, Pirate Merch]

The new sticker, found under the faceplate (just like the old one), looks a bit bigger and features both a code and a mysterious black bar.

Maxconsole forum members already came up with some interesting/believable theories: Could this code be tracked to your serial number, in case you open the machine and want to seal it back up with a fraudulent sticker? Could this black bar be heat-sensitive tape that would change colour should you try the classic hot box trick to repair an RRoD? Could this sticker contain a tiny capsule of cyanide meant to crack under duress, eradicating the modding community one lonely guy at a time?

We don’t know. But what seems obvious is that Microsoft is taking their warranty stickers a bit more seriously.

For reference, here’s what the old sticker looked like:
Go nuts with accusations in the comments while we wait for Microsoft to give us an official answer. [Logic-Sunrise via Maxconsole]

The tutorial gets a little technical in parts, so if you have an unnatural fear of the command line you should probably stay away. But if you’re prepared to take a risk, then it’s definitely worth checking out. I had a play with the Hero the other week, and I have to say that it was the nicest Android device I’ve played with yet, purely because of the UI enhancements.

[Gadget Monkeys]

This completely fake ATM, equipped to skim debit cards, was discovered in the Riviera Hotel Casino right outside the hotel’s security office. Conveniently, it also happened to be right out of the line of sight of surveillance cameras.

Whether the kiosk was merely a DefCon prank or a serious and malicious attempt to steal bank account information is unknown. But not having been suckered myself, I’ll admit that the ATM prop is at least a little funny. And if there were a little man inside just nabbing people’s debit cards, it would have been even funnier. [Wired via CrunchGear]

You have to hand it to the guy behind this DefCon 17’s winning badge hack. He really wanted one of those black über badges and figured out how to get it, one way or the other. While it may look like one of those tacky Mickey’s Christmas Parade hats sold at Disney, the pulsing series of LEDs embedded in the bill of the cap confuses facial recognition systems. We’ll never know whether his design would’ve truly allowed the guy to sneak into the room where the badges are stored or not, but it’s quite an achievement to make a cat burglar’s dream toy out of these badges:

While this kills that old 100% accuracy claim regarding facial recognition, there aren’t any details about how the hack is meant to thwart facial recognition systems. Does it have to do with how 3D images are analysed? Does anyone have any insight? Specs? Cookies of your choice to whoever satisfies my curiosity on this topic. [Wired]

The two figured out how to do this by intercepting the types of signals that get transmitted on a working card, then programming a fake card to reproduce those same signals.

They found that the card has a stored maximum value and only writes how many times the value has been decremented.

In essence, they found a way to give themselves free parking for as long as this system is in place. They declined to detail how exactly you can reproduce this, because they don’t want people ripping off the city of SF, so their sole purpose is to get SF to fix their meters to that this can’t happen. [Hackaday]

Beginning Friday, an AT&T customer was impacted by a denial-of-service attack stemming from IP addresses connected to img.4chan.org. To prevent this attack from disrupting service for the impacted AT&T customer, and to prevent the attack from spreading to impact to our other customers, AT&T temporarily blocked access to the IP addresses in question for our customers. This action was in no way related to the content at img.4chan.org; our focus was on protecting our customers from malicious traffic.

Overnight Sunday, after we determined the denial-of-service threat no longer existed, AT&T removed the block on the IP addresses in question. We will continue to monitor for denial-of-service activity and any malicious traffic to protect our customers.

I’m sure that won’t stop the 4chan retaliation. [AT&T]

Whatever the reason, the fact that AT&T won’t officially comment on the matter, which virtually confirms that they were taking some action against 4chan earlier today. If there wasn’t a valid security reason for blocking access to the site, then AT&T’s actions are deeply troubling.

Access has since been restored, but expect the reprisal from 4chan—like planting the story that AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson died outside his house—to continue. 4chan’s Moot says AT&T has yet to contact them. [4chan, TechCrunch]

The iPhone certainly isn’t as ubiquitous for corporate use as BlackBerry or even Windows Mobile, but that’s starting to change, and Zdziarski is very concerned that the iPhone 3GS’s security puts sensitive data at unnecessary risk. He claims that with easily-available software, anybody can break into an iPhone 3GS and start extracting data within two minutes, and access everything on the phone within 45. After reading this, we could see why companies might just be reluctant to trade their BlackBerrys in for a shiny new iPhone 3GS. [Wired]

They were inspired by this Esquire article from 1971 called Secrets of the Little Blue Box, by legendary writer and typewriter fetishist Ron Rosenbaum.

Woz’s boxes were simply, by standards of circuitry, but the original creator of the Blue Box, built his with failsafes in mind in case the law got too suspicious.

He sighs. “We had this order for a thousand beeper boxes from a syndicate front man in Las Vegas. They use them to place bets coast to coast, keep lines open for hours, all of which can get expensive if you have to pay. The deal was a thousand blue boxes for $US300 apiece. Before then we retailed them for $US1,500 apiece, but $US300,000 in one lump was hard to turn down. We had a manufacturing deal worked out in the Philippines. Everything ready to go. Anyway, the model I had ready for limited mass production was small enough to fit inside a flip-top Marlboro box. It had flush touch panels for a keyboard, rather than these unsightly buttons sticking out. Looked just like a tiny portable radio. In fact, I had designed it with a tiny transistor receiver to get one AM channel, so in case the law became suspicious the owner could switch on the radio part, start snapping his fingers, and no one could tell anything illegal was going on. I thought of everything for this model – I had it lined with a band of thermite which could be ignited by radio signal from a tiny button transmitter on your belt, so it could be burned to ashes instantly in case of a bust. It was beautiful. A beautiful little machine. You should have seen the faces on these syndicate guys when they came back after trying it out. They’d hold it in their palm like they never wanted to let it go, and they’d say, ‘I can’t believe it. I can’t believe it.’ You probably won’t believe it until you try it.”

[Esquire, Photo of the Blue Box taken at the Computer History Museum]