Wired has published a particularly enjoyable series of interviews in celebration of Wargames' anniversary, which includes those who wrote and directed the film as well as those inventing all the hacks back in 1983. But our favorite moment that can't be missed from the article was a too-weird-to-be-made-up story from co-screenwriter Lawrence Lasker about visiting Norad and meeting its quirky commander:

As we're walking back to the bus that's going to take us to the hotel, James Hartinger [then commander in chief of Norad] walks up between me and Walter and plants a hand on the back of our necks: "I understand you boys are writing a movie about me!" he says. "Let's go to the bar." Walter says: "Well, we have to get on the bus to go back to our hotel." And Hartinger replies: "Are you insane? I've got 50,000 men under my command. You think I can't get you back to your hotel? Plus, I can't drink off the base. So c'mon." He was all for the message in our script. We kind of simplified it to "machines are taking over." He said, "God damn, you're right! I sleep well at night knowing I'm in charge."

Hit the link for the rest of Wired's oral history of Wargames. It's worth the read. [Wired]

Indeed, the mystery surrounding locksmithing has largely disintegrated thanks to the dissemination of information across the internet. Precision tools are also available to the public, but many hobbyists are capable of Macgyver-like picking feats with everyday objects. As one hobbyist noted, "One guy I know even used a banana." Furthermore, many skilled amateurs are able to defeat 'uncrackable' locks in seconds.

Some may argue that this kind of activity breeds thieves while others argue that it is a harmless hobby that can actually force lock makers to improve their product. Either way, it probably doesn't matter all that much. A gun or a hammer is usually all of the lockpicking equipment a criminal needs. [globeandmail]

Julius' web page says one of the reasons he built the gizmo (currently being patented) was to challenge the high confidence that people have that their photos are accurate captures of reality. And though, as Ghost in the Shell fans will admit, it's no sophisticated Laughing Man hack, I love it for the fact that it's a physical trick as opposed to a digital one. [Juliusvonbismarck.com via MAKEzine]

On Tuesday, Defiant and EBK (19 and 18 years old, respectively) say they exploited a flaw to hack into Network Solutions, a domain registrar, to take control of Comcast's domain management console and 200 of its domain names. (Network Solutions denies the flaw.) To start, they relocated Comcast.net's technical contact to the Dildo Room at 69 Dick Tard Lane, and then got a hold of the actual dude to let him know what they'd done. He hung up on them, which is when the shit hit the fan.

EBK then decided to reroute all of Comcast.net's traffic to their own servers, so users got the delightful message, "KRYOGENICS Defiant and EBK RoXed Comcast. sHouTz to VIRUS Warlock elul21 coll1er seven." They spent the rest of the night frantically opening webhosting accounts—50 in all—to handle all the traffic. After around 6 hours under their control, Comcast got the domain back, but some users still didn't have email for hours after that.

They're still waiting for the (probably inevitable) legal repercussions. Check out the whole thing over at Wired, it's a good read. [Wired]

The loophole involved the tiny payments that online payment services and brokerages send to new user accounts to verify that they're real. While getting four cents from PayPal might not seem like a big deal to you, Michael Largent decided to create a script to automatically open 58,000 of these accounts. Unfortunately for him, the companies caught on to his scheme and he's currently out on bail on charges of wire, bank and mail fraud.

The funny thing is, he's not in trouble for taking the money. It was being given out freely, after all. He's in trouble for using fake names and social security numbers to open the accounts.

If only Milton would go burn down the Googleplex in retaliation for Sergey Brin taking his stapler, destroying the evidence of your crime, you could escape these charges! [PC Pro via Slashdot]

Bringing the good ol' Cold War days to the future, the system would be linked to the Air Force's high-speed instruction detection systems, letting them immediately strike back at the source. I'm internally debating whether this is a good idea or not, all Skynet jokes aside. Your thoughts? [Threat Level]

• 8gb solid state drive
• 32gb Patriot XT drive
• 2gb RAM
• Intel Wi-Fi A/B/G/N upgraded card
• 7" LCD with touchscreen
• Air Play installed so you can transmit all of your sound to an FM radio
• Custom copper heatsink installed because it's overclocked
• Bluetooth adapter
• 2 USB hubs so all the USB devices can hook up to the Eee PC
• web cam
• speakers
• microphone
• 3 USB ports
• one external VGA port so you can hook up an external monitor
• Windows XP Professional SP3 with all the drivers installed and tested
• Screen resolution is set a 1024x768 with the hacked Video Driver

All good, even if the motherboard now looks like the Millennium Falcon's guts. [eBay—Thanks Moe]

The three men were specialized in cloning credit cards at ATMs, always with the same method. As you can see in the video, the first opens one of the machines, then another one comes to help him with the installation of a black Eee PC. Then they always proceeded to disable the rest of the machines, so clients were forced to use the rigged ATM. All this while they were being recorded by bank security cameras, of course.

The bank manager noticed that the door was forced and all the ATMs were disabled except for one, so he checked the security video and discovered what happened the night before. He immediately alerted the police, who started to search among the usual suspects. It didn't last long: Idiotic Crook Number One went to a police station to denounce a car accident and the three of them—who had a previous criminal history for bank assault in other parts of the country—were aprehended shortly thereafter. [Globo TV—thanks Rafael]

This laptop is a good case study for any forensics group/company/individual that wants to prove how cool they are, and a live example, not canned of what a typical incident responce sitchiation [sic] would look like.

The CCC got its hands on Schauble's prints thanks to a sympathiser, who scarpered with a glass used by the minister during a panel discussion and handed it over to the hackers. Dirk Engling, a spokesman for CCC, defended the group's actions, claiming it was a warning shot, and that fingerprints "certainly [did] not [belong] in the e-Pass."

Along with Minister Schauble's fingerprint, the group also published a wish-list of other politicians whose biometric data they'd like to get their mitts on—including German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and the Prime Minister of Bavaria, Guenther Beckstein—as well as a guide on how to capture someone's fingerprints from a glass successfully.

The lawyer hired by the CCC sees it like this: "If journalists and citizens were to do what the government is doing—that is, the collection and use of biometric data—then the prosecutor would be knocking at their doors." Meanwhile, a po-faced spokeswoman for the Interior Ministry, refused to rule out legal action against the fingerprint-stealing hackers. [Heise online via Slashdot]

Properly called "implantable cardiac defibrillators," the devices are used to keep people's dicky tickers beating regularly, acting to speed them up if too slow or shock a heart that is beating too fast. Modern ones have wireless functions so that doctors can reprogram them to suit a patient's condition, and that's the problem, since these signals are unencrypted.

That means you could potentially intercept them, and use the data to transmit signals that would turn off the device or even deliver shocks that could trigger a heart attack.

Pacemaker wearers need not panic, though, freaky as this sounds: you'd have to be very close to someone to perform an attack, and the kit the science team used cost a chunky $30,000. Phew. [The Register]

For one, it shows that using Intel processors or ones with similar architecture as benchmarks "just is not good enough anymore." Cracking cryptographer will probably get faster all around as well, which should ultimately drive stronger cryptography with better implementation. Though they haven't tried it yet, by using a technique similar to Folding@home with distributed loads, the cracking power could obviously be increased exponentially.

All of that said, I just think it's funny how it's emphasized over and over again how "simple" Cell's architecture is, after Sony's spent all this time telling us how complex and awesome it is. [PC World]

Don't expect to see an inconvenient bulge in Al's pants (metaphorically speaking) however, as the hacking is only visible in the website's sort code, rather than in plain sight on the ex-VP's blog. It's a technique used by cyber scammers in the hope of increasing their search engine ratings.

Given his success in recent years, the last thing he needs is medication to combat impotence, depression and herpes. Seven years ago, following the debacle of the 2000 Presidential Election, perhaps, but certainly not now. [PC World]

Update: Thanks to Felix again, we've got more pics added of Google Maps, adding events in the calendar (using the iPhone's version), and Email. Here's an earlyJailbreak Guide

And here's a list of iPod Touch Compatible Apps

Thanks post_break!

First off, if you apply this patch you won't be able to sync any data to iTunes in its cracked state. To sync again, you're going to have to "delete the symlink Media [directory] and rename OldMedia to Media." Or restore to the previous state, which of course means you will lose the jailbreak.

Also, just to apply the patch, you're going to have to be familiar with IPHUC, a command line utility that that lets you browse your phone's file structure. It also involves directory manipulation when you're inside the phone, also not a basic task. This alone requires you to have basic linux command line knowledge, and rules out most of the regular folks who just want Super Mario on their phone.

In addition to this, if you have an iPhone, this tool won't activate it. The iPod touch doesn't require activation.

So our recommendation is to wait. This is a good start, a step in the right direction, but wait until a much friendlier jailbreak is out. (Additional reporting by Jesús Díaz) [toc2rta]

By soldering two additional light sensors inside the CD player, and then using software, the researchers were able to control how the device "played" a disk. The substance to be analyzed (in this case, the team was trying to detect traces of three different pesticides in various samples) was then placed on a normal compact disc, and inserted into the machine.

While the first light sensor identified where the sample was on the disc, using black marks on the edge of the disc, the second analyzed the sample itself, measuring the amount of laser light that was able to pass through the disk. Normally, discs reflect around 30 percent of the laser beam onto the reading head, while the rest passes through.

The sample, half a millimeter in size, was treated to produce dye or silver that was inversely proportional to the amount of pesticide in the sample. Using the modded CD player, they could detect pesticide levels as low as 0.02 micrograms per liter just by seeing how much laser light passed through the disc to the second sensor.

While it may not be as accurate as genuine lab sensors, which can cost between $42,000 and $85,000, the hacked CD player is accurate enough for many laboratory tasks &mdash some experts think the cheap and cheerful device would work wonders in developing countries, helping the fight against malaria, for instance. And the shorter wavelength lasers of Blu-ray and HD DVD technology will make the process even easier. [New Scientist]

But first, the bricking. Was this done on purpose? Lam doesn't think so. Jacqui at Ars believes that the firmware was completed weeks ago, and the bricking is unintentional. It doesn't matter what the intent was: They didn't go out of their way to stop it, which is almost as uncool. Principles aside, this situation won't affect lots of us, since the majority of us don't have a reason to unlock. But bricking it entirely is something they should work really really hard to avoid, even if it costs them some revenue share from AT&T. My main concern is for the safe development of Apps that so far have done nothing but made the iPhone better.

"Users who make unauthorized modifications to the software on their iPhone violate their iPhone software license agreement and void their warranty." That photo above is what Lam's iPhone looks like now. Does this mean Lam's warranty is in the shitter? Because he didn't unlock my iPhone and nothing he did can't be fixed with a system restore. Going after the hacks, which have changed the iPhone from a good product to a great phone? That's idiotic.

There is a good side to all this, provided we can get Apple to make firmware that doesn't brick iPhones. The press release also mentions the feature updates via the firmware, like the Wi-Fi Music store. This is historically how the PSP firmware updates were made as "must haves" for owners. Unlocking an iPhone isn't nearly as appealing if it means you don't get the benefit of new features. So, if anything, the unlocking cat and mouse game should push Apple to make a lot more innovation, and quicker. A good thing, when you consider that the best iPhone innovations in the last few months are not the web apps or official Apple updates, but the third party hacks.

Apple has discovered that many of the unauthorized iPhone unlocking programs available on the Internet cause irreparable damage to the iPhone's software, which will likely result in the modified iPhone becoming permanently inoperable when a future Apple-supplied iPhone software update is installed. Apple plans to release the next iPhone software update, containing many new features including the iTunes Wi-Fi Music Store (www.itunes.com), later this week. Apple strongly discourages users from installing unauthorized unlocking programs on their iPhones. Users who make unauthorized modifications to the software on their iPhone violate their iPhone software license agreement and void their warranty. The permanent inability to use an iPhone due to installing unlocking software is not covered under the iPhone's warranty.

The user says:

"We were so happy, all the software part was done, so we started opening the iPhone. The antenna cover was a bit tricky but eventually it came off. Then we started to open the metal cover (after taking out the 3 screws) and PUFF, up it went in smoke, I think my collegue must have touched something. It literally went up in black smoke. It was so hot that when I tried to pick it up I burned my fingers. So, this is for sure the most difficult part of the whole process. I don't know what he did, as I had just stepped out of the room to fetch something when I heard a scream...they got such a fright."

Just wait until the software unlock becomes available, and THEN unlock it. Or use the SIM method like we detailed here before. Or ask a buddy that you know has experience with these things. Just for Jesus's (Diaz) sake, don't open it up if you don't know what you're doing.

[Hackintosh via iPhone Atlas]

Once you do manage to load a chat screen with a buddy that happens to there (thanks, Adam Frucci), there are some amateur features/early bugs like having to hit a button to bring up the keyboard, and being able edit the chat history. This version is a fantastic proof of concept, but definitely a lousy chat client.

Oh, and the first IRC client has been released as well. But unless this is 1999 again, most of you will have no use for this. But you can make IRC commands and chat, so there's that.

You can install both with Installer.app, which you can see how to use here.

[Google Code via TUAW]

Don't click if you don't want potential spoilers.

– Jason Chen

Harry Potter 0day [Seclists via The Inquirer]

However, since most GPS devices don't yet have traffic integration (the one that came with our car doesn't), this won't be a huge deal yet. But when these prankers find out how to inject messages that tell you there's a gigantic traffic jam on one freeway in order to move everyone to another—and thus clearing up traffic on the first—people will start to worry. – Jason Chen

Satellite navigation users at risk for false messages [ComputerWorld]

While the keyboard will set you back $4,240, just consider the serious AIM pimping you can do.

"Sup."
"Who are you??"
"You don't need to know baby, because I'm typing on a gold dusted keyboard."
"Oh...sounds expensive."
"And it doesn't even have any letters. I've got to know the keys. No looking."
– Mark Wilson

Japanes Lacquerware Keyboard [via core77]

Out of the box the foneros wireless router has Telnet and SSH turned off. By accessing the buit in serial console you can turn SSH on and access various settings and reflash the firmware.

Oh, and Comcast users: if you ordered your free Fon router, using it actually violates your EULA so you should mod the hell out of it anyway, or at least give it to a non-Comcast user to further expand the Fon network. –Travis Hudson

Accessing serial console on the Fon [DD-WRT]

Happy Hacking Lite 2 keyboard [Ubergizmo]

That is until all your friends in the scene realize that they will still need to mod their Wii to play burned games, so you just wasted 50 hours ripping your games to create hot new coasters. –Adam Frucci

Wii Disc Dumper [via CrunchGear]

The point? If there is even the slightest chance that you may have a very geeky stalker, you may want to avoid running at night because these Nike + iPod kits are easily hackable, as it seems. – Travis Hudson

Nike+iPod raises RFID privacy concerns [News.com]

The steps involve removing the iTunes 100-song limit, installing a microSD card for more storage, adding a new browser, an Apple-ish skin, and swapping off the faceplate. Sure, this is pretty ghetto and will only fool the most luddite of friends, but it's definitely better than a stock SLVR. – Jason Chen

The PC Magazine iPhone [PC Mag via Gearlog]

His suggestions for Zune hacking, leading to its world domination, after the jump.

Let people transform the Zune into an Xbox game controller, a TV remote control, a portable presentation device, a wireless PC hard drive or a Vista gadget emulator. Give me a wireless keyboard and a Zune version of Pocket Outlook, and I'll never buy another iPod. Build ClearType into Zune and make it the ultimate eBook reader (and sell eBooks on Zune Marketplace).

Zune: So you want to be an iPod killer [ComputerWorld]

How it works: Go to Jajah, enter in the number you want to "hack" as both the recipient and the caller. Then, call that person with Jajah. As long as the person doesn't pick up and the call goes to voicemail, you have access to whatever messages are there. Oh, and we think they need to have turned off the PIN authentication too.

This also works with VoIP software/services like Asterisk where you can program in your own caller ID.– Jason Chen

Product Page [Jajah via Digg]