hacking

A scrappy rebel alliance launches jury-rigged space weapons in the hope of defeating a monolithic empire that's put the choke hold on freedom.

Sound like a space opera you might've seen a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away?

Actually, it's the latest imagined scenario to arise from one of Europe's major hacking conferences, which just wrapped up its 2011 edition in Berlin.

As the BBC's David Meyer reports, SOPA-hating hackers at the 28th Chaos Communication Congress (or 28C3) are hatching a plan to develop a DIY satellite-communications network that could keep the Internet alive and unfettered in the face of any government effort to pull the plug.

"The first goal is an uncensorable Internet in space," Meyer quotes hacktivist Nick Farr as saying. "Let's take the Internet out of the control of terrestrial entities."

Farr and others dream of a Hackerspace Global Grid made up of homemade satellites, along with ground stations for tracking and communicating with the self-made Sputniks.… Read more

Here at Geek Gestalt, every day is different. The world of geek culture is broad--sometimes bewilderingly so. A typical year's coverage can easily include stories on everything from Burning Man to Lego, aviation to 3D printing, NASA to tech startups, MythBusters to Pixar movies, and so on.

That makes coming up with predictions for next year in culture a difficult task--but we're here to serve, so that's just we're offering. Of course, trying to settle on just five ideas for 2012 means leaving a lot of things out.

Still, prognosticating culture's next steps meant talking … Read more

The New York Times is now saying that a believed-to-be bogus e-mail that told millions of subscribers that their subscriptions had been canceled actually did come from the newspaper company. But the e-mail, which was meant for only 300 recipients, was instead sent to more than 8 million subscribers, a tweet from Amy Chozick, a media reporter for the Times states.

This morning millions of New York Times subscribers received an e-mail informing them that their subscription had been canceled and then went on to … Read more

Now that the Yuletide fog has cleared, details are emerging about the extent of an Anonymous hack on security think tank Strategic Forecasting that was first reported Christmas Day and appears to have affected some 50,000 individuals.

Austin, Texas-based Strategic Forecasting, or Stratfor, disclosed over the weekend that its Web site, which remains down, was hacked and information about its corporate subscribers--who include the likes of the U.S. Army, U.S. Air Force, and Miami Police Department--was disclosed. AntiSec, an Anonymous-affiliated hacktivist group, quickly claimed responsibility and promised "mayhem" with plans to release even more documents.… Read more

Well-known iPhone hacker "chpwn" has developed a new way for users to run Siri on their Apple handsets.

Dubbed Spire, the solution is a simple download to a jailbroken iPhone. Once it boots up, the software downloads Siri from Apple's own servers. After that's done, you're not quite ready to start talking to Apple's virtual personal assistant. According to "chpwn," users must access an iPhone 4S' data and proxy to make Siri think it's running on an iPhone 4S.

Just how will you gain access to that information? "Chpwn" … Read more

Anonymous is claiming to have stolen 200GB worth of data, including e-mails and clients' credit card information, from a U.S.-based security think tank, the Associated Press reported today.

The hacking group also used Twitter to post a link to a list of clients apparently belonging to think tank Stratfor Global Intelligence.

"Not so private and secret anymore?" read one of numerous tweets from AnonymousIRC, a Twitter account linked to Anonymous.

This morning Stratfor's site was down. A notice reads: "Site is currently undergoing maintenance."

Anonymous also tweeted that it has "enough targets … Read more

This was an exciting/anxious year in the Internet security community, with big tech firms like Sony and RSA getting hacked, putting consumer data and corporate networks at risk, and with reports of attacks on utilities.

Scary things that go bump in the night are actually happening to computer systems that matter and it's only going to get worse. Here's what I think will happen in 2012.

Malicious Android apps will increase As a target for malicious software, Android is the Microsoft of the mobile platform. Android has more than 50 percent of the smartphone market, eclipsing all … Read more

The United States Chamber of Commerce, the country's largest business-lobbying organization, was hacked by Chinese hackers, the Wall Street Journal is reporting, citing sources.

Although details are scant, it appears that the hackers had access to the Chamber's network for over a year before they were cleared out in May 2010, the Journal's sources say. The hackers stole six weeks of e-mail from four Chamber employees who were focusing their time on Asia, and could have gained access to all the information the Chamber has on its 3 million members. Although officials are unsure exactly what was … Read more

Remember the days of Betamax, turntables, and Zenith TVs with rabbit ears and big honking dials?

Siri has just taken a little trip back to those simpler times of yore with a quaint little hack that turns the voice assistant into an operator reachable via rotary phone (cue the Jim Croce, those of you who remember hearing a voice say "operator" on the other end of the line).

Computer programmer Davis Remmel ripped apart a $2 Bluetooth headset purchased on eBay, fitting its earpiece into the earpiece section of the old phone and the microphone into the mouthpiece. The headset is enabled by dialing "1" on the rotary encoder.

In the video below, Remmel picks up the 20th century handset, dials "1," and delivers the command "Call John Doe." Siri then says, "Calling John Doe's mobile," and proceeds to call the number on Remmel's iPhone 4S, which is connected to the rotary phone. (For more on Remmel's rewiring job, see this detailed account on his blog.) … Read more