Here is a taste of some of the sort of things we chatted about this month.. This is not a substitute for coming along to the meetings in person: - remember that everyone is welcome, no matter your age or experience or skills (or lack of them), from both sides of the legal fence.
- WikiLeakS.org anonymous whistleblower website domain name censorship - see WikiLeak.org blog for more details of the affair. Did Bank Julius Baer nearly legally censor their own internet access with this overbroad Court order ?
- The latest Police anti-terrorism posters target Camera users and people with multiple mobile phones and SIM cards - i.e. almost everyone who comes to a London 2600 meeting ! See Suspiciously timed Climate of Fear propaganda campaign by the Police in the run up to the Counter-Terrorism Bill debates
- Phorm evil - targeted advertising using full web page keyword analysis and a cookie, via man-in-the-middle attack hardware at your ISP (BT retail, Carphone warehouse Talk alk and Virgin media)without any proper, informed prior consent. See Bad Phorm. and Surely the Phorm web page interception scam is illegal ?
- More Terrorism Act Section 44 Stop and Search stupidity - this time by PCSOs who do not have that legal power, unless supervised directly by a Police Constable in Uniform
- Oyster Card 6 month data retention of your travel pattern history. Also see the breaking of the 48bit proprietry MiFare smart card encryption first mentioned at the Chaos Computer Congress in Berlin in December.
- Hacker "gayness" and other personality tests. Using a script to answer such an online quiz. "How many illuminated LEDs can you see from where you are sitting right now ?"
- Another WiFi homebrew extended range antenna, which was used to find a WEP secured access point, randomly through a wall, presumably in a neighbouring buuilding, and then to crack the WEP encryption in "20 seconds" .
- Why are roadside CAB boxes being painted white ?
- An open web camera feed from inside Los Alamos nuclear research labs in the USA found via Google.
- Disabled Toilet key:
- Recommended book: - The Essentials of Computer Organization And Architecture ISBN-10: 0763737690 ISBN-13: 978-0763737696
- Big Brother State - An animated short Flash video about public surveillance by David Scharf
- Anonymous anti- Church of Scientology events in London. More action promised on March 15th see the March Press release (.pdf)
- Using Firewire Direct Memory Access as a backdoor to circumvent Windows or other systems security - Hit by a Bus: Physical attacks with Firewire (.pdf) by Adam Boileau.
- Brum 2600 stylee Quote of the Evening:
" She's female and attractive !! What's she doing here ??"
- <!-- email us some rumours/reports to insert here -->
- Thanks to the people who spot mistakes in this report - how about contributing your own observations, either by email or in the Comments below ?