Between residual eggnog rounds and gift-gloat with family this evening, I plan to tune in to the debut of "Tiger Team," a new series on Court TV which is, more or less, about hacking:

This vérité action series follows Tiger Team – a group of elite professionals hired to infiltrate major business and corporate interests with the objective of exposing weaknesses in the world’s most sophisticated security systems, defeating criminals at their own game. Tiger Team is comprised of Security Audit Specialists Chris Nickerson, Luke McOmie and Ryan Jones who employ a variety of covert techniques – electronic, psychological and tactical - as they take on a new assignment in each episode.

I understand that the project is the brainchild of Ori Neidich, and I'm expecting it to be solid and entertaining stuff. Some related chatter: Slashdot, Digg, Wikipedia. Ori says, "For those of you without TV/Cable the show will be available online immediately after airing." That would be tonight, then, sometime after 11 and 11:30pm E/P. Incidentally, Court TV changes its name to TruTV starting in January.

Image: (L-R): Ryan Jones, Chris Nickerson, Luke McOmie.

Lawmakers in Egypt are expected to sign into law a requirement that royalties be paid whenever a copy is made of Egyptian antiquities such as the pyramids.

Zahi Hawass, who chairs Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, told the BBC the law would apply in all countries. The money was needed to maintain thousands of pharaonic sites, he said.

Correspondents say the law will deal a blow to themed resorts across the world where large-scale copies of Egyptian artefacts are a crowd-puller. Mr Hawass said the law would apply to full-scale replicas of any object in any museum in Egypt.

Link (thanks, Robbo, and everyone else who suggested this!)

Ape Lad haz dun it agin. Link to printable set with instructions. The hobos shall inherit the earth, you know. (thanks Foundling45 and others)

See also: BBtv -- Laugh Out Loud Cats, the true history.

Daniel LeBlanc writes "Just in time for the Christmas Season, I drew an NES 8-Bit styled mural on the side of my high school. The mural consists of Yoshi pulling a sled with a Santa Mario and an Elf Toad." Here are both the video of the mural coming together a full photo gallery of the mural.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Sweetney blogger Tracey Gaughran-Perez and her husband were surprised to see a photo of their dog, Truman, appear in Fox's "Happy Holiday" ticker during a football game. According to Gaughran-Perez, someone from Fox yanked a photo of Truman in a Santa suit from her blog (far left), digitally added a hat, and inserted the image (left) into their holiday promotion graphic rotation. Gaughgran-Perez is quite peeved. Truman couldn't be reached for comment. From Gaughran-Perez's post on the matter:

What really, REALLY sticks in my craw is that following all this I was forced not only to sit through several more hours of football just to make certain they didn't show the image again (yes, please shower me with your pity), but I also had to endure the endless tape-loop of FOX's NFL copyright warnings, which seemed to repeat every five minutes or so. Hilariously enough, FOX Broadcasting and the NFL are apparently very, very concerned about legal rights to their telecasts and rebroadcasts of their telecasts. They're concerned about -- ho ho, it's rich -- PEOPLE STEALING THEIR SHIT. But as far as them stealing other people's shit goes? Errm, not so much.

Link

empaler writes "We all know the usual pro-copyright arguments. Most of them hinge on the fact that the individual or company that has a copyright needs an incentive to make something that is copyrightable, and therefore ensure a revenue stream in a period after the copyright has been granted. In a never-surpassed move, Egypt is working on legislation to extend copyright well above 3000 years — they are going to start claiming royalties for using likenesses of the Sphynx and the Pyramids. It is still unclear whether the original intent of the Pyramids included 'making sure them bastards pay for a plastic copy in 3000 years' alongside 'securing a pathway to the heavens for the God King.' Speaking as a Greenlandic national, I want dibs on ice cubes." It sounds straight out of The Onion, but instead you can read another story on the BBC.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Roland Piquepaille writes "In 2015, and if everything goes well, oil drilling platforms located offshore Norway will be controlled by robots. Even today, these platforms don't use many people. But the idea behind the new platform concept is to install large modular process sections in unmanned areas to allow access by one or more robotic manipulators. In a few years, operators should be able to remain on land and to remotely control the oil drilling platforms. Obviously, this should reduce risks and costs. Tests have already started in a new laboratory in Trondheim. According to the plans, the researchers have 8 years in front of them to deliver the robotic tools able to control these very expensive platforms. But read more for additional references and pictures."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Ev!LOnE was one of several readers to point out an interesting LCD stress test: "ASUS recently came out with Asus LS201 — a TFT monitor with a protective panel made of crystal-sapphire. What I didn't imagine was the amount of punishment that thing can take. Apparently some Ukrainians shared the same concern and went for a test." Translation not necessary, but some clues about the narration would be appreciated in comments.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Christmas time is a great time to obtain large numbers of LEDs very cheaply. This instructable uses 80 LEDs from an LED christmas tree light string to make the venerable 3D LED cube. In this case a 5x4x4 cube.

3D LED Charlieplex Cube from Chrismas Tree Lights - Link

Related:

• This weekend's project - Pocket LED Cube - Link
• Chris Lomont's LED cube - Link

[Read this article] [Comment on this article]

Australians got a wonderful xmas surprise this month -- the new Labour government has scrapped the plan for a universal surveillance identity card.

Opponents of Australia's controversial Access Card received an early Christmas present earlier this month when the incoming Rudd Labor Government finally axed the controversial ID program. Had it been implemented, the Access Card program would have required Australians to present the smart card anytime they dealt with certain federal departments, including Medicare, Centrelink, the Child Support Agency, or Veterans' Affairs...

Encrypted information contained within the card's RFID chip would have included a person's legal name, date of birth, gender, address, signature, card number, card expiration date, and Medicare number. Provisions were also included that would allow additional information deemed to be necessary for either "the administration or purposes of the Act."

Australians were unhappy about being forced to carry a unique ID card merely for the purpose of interacting with basic human and health services, and the proposal faced opposition from its very inception. The defeat of John Howard in the Australian polls was the last gasp of the Access Card program, which was killed off as one of the very first acts of the new Labor government, lead by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd.

Link

Update: Patrick Gray sez, "You posted an Ars Technica piece about the new Australian Government ditching the proposed Access Card. While that's technically true, Labor's being a tad loose with regard to its plans for a similar scheme. They have so far refused to rule out introducing their own 'access card'. I've covered this all year on my security podcast.

Flickr user Egypturnash helped make these delicious-looking fudge Daleks -- exterminate! Don't miss the video! Link

theodp writes "After USPTO Examiner Mark A. Fadok rejected Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos' 1-Click Patent claims as 'old and obvious,' Amazon canceled and refiled its 1-Click claims in a continuation application as it requested an Oral Appeal, a move that smacked of a good old-fashioned stalling tactic. But the move may have backfired, as Fadok has just completed his review of the continuation app and concluded that all of the refiled 1-Click claims should be rejected, providing explanations of why the Board of Patent Appeals was wrong to reverse his earlier decision after listening to Amazon's lawyers in September. In October, USPTO Examiner Matthew C. Graham rejected most of the 1-Click claims as part of the reexam requested by LOTR actor Peter Calveley, a decision that attorneys for Amazon are currently trying to work around with some creative wordsmithing. Can't see how all of this means 'less work for the overworked Patent and Trademark Office.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

DeviceGuru writes "Heathkit, which produced and sold mobile robots aimed at hobbyists and students back in the 1980s, is about to reenter the educational robot business. Heathkit's new HE-RObot incorporates an onboard computer running Windows XP Professional on a Core 2 Duo Processor. It stands 21 inches tall, weighs 55 pounds, and has a built-in 80 GB hard drive, IR sensors, bright LED headlights, and lots of space for custom project circuitry." As robots go, it also looks very much like certain models of SGI workstation. Now I'll need to update my 1980 Christmas wishlist -- it's probably lost between pages of Popular Mechanics.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader writes "This year's democrat-controlled Congress largely ignored technological issues in favor of social problems, CNet notes in another 2007 retrospective. Issues important to the tech industry (such as net neutrality) received short shrift, while the political body spent a considerable amount of time decrying the evils of the Internet. 'Hot topics this time around included foreign cybersecurity threats to U.S. government systems, terrorist cells flourishing on the Web, inadvertent file sharing through peer-to-peer networks, and sexual predators ensnaring unsuspecting youth through online social sites. And for a third time, the House passed not just one, but two, different bills aimed at deterring spyware.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

With the growing popularity of titanium, some disreputable merchandisers are passing off other materials as the more expensive metal. Popular Science looks at a surefire way to prove what that credit card/crowbar/ring is really made of. "Hold any genuine titanium metal object to a grinding wheel (even a little grindstone on a Dremel tool will do), and it gives off a shower of brilliant white sparks unlike any softer common metal. The sparks are tiny pieces of cut titanium--the friction of the grinder heats them till they burn white-hot. Hold a grindstone to the shackle of a "titanium" padlock from Master Lock, however, and you'll instead see the telltale fine, long, yellow sparks of high-carbon steel."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

SJ2000 writes "Windows Explorer was quarantined last week by Kaspersky Lab's antivirus software after being falsely identified as malicious code. The security company's systems had decided that a virus called Huhk-C was present in the explorer.exe file, leading to its confinement or, in some cases, deletion. The bug was only live in the wild for two hours, and ended up affecting just one corporate customer and a handful of home users."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

In looking back at 2007, CNet views the smash entrance of Google and Apple onto the telecom scene as a major formative factor for 2008's tech scene. Google in particular is going to be a huge factor in the much-anticipated wireless auction. "Google was instrumental in getting the FCC to adopt auction rules that would ultimately give consumers more choice in the devices they use on these new networks. And in November, Google CEO Eric Schmidt committed the company to bidding in the auction, promising to spend at least $4.6 billion on licenses. Exactly what Google plans to do with the spectrum if it wins licenses is still unknown. But its participation raises the stakes, especially for traditional telephony players."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

runamock writes "The Los Angeles Times is running a story on the growing use of 'mind drugs': 'Forget sports doping. The next frontier is brain doping.. Despite the potential side effects, academics, classical musicians, corporate executives, students and even professional poker players have embraced the drugs to clarify their minds, improve their concentration or control their emotions. Unlike the anabolic steroids, human growth hormone and blood-oxygen boosters that plague athletic competitions, the brain drugs haven't provoked similar outrage. People who take them say the drugs aren't giving them an unfair advantage but merely allow them to make the most of their hard-earned skills.'" There's an interesting comment on this topic in Fresh Air's top cultural trends of 2007 broadcast.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

BlueMerle notes that the much-vaunted arrival of internet access in the friendly skies may come at the cost of heavy content filtering by the Airlines. Ars Technica's commentary is prompted by an Associated Press article which does its best to make checking your email seem sinister. "Seat 17D is yapping endlessly on an Internet phone call. Seat 16F is flaming Seat 16D with expletive-laden chats. Seat 16E is too busy surfing porn sites to care. Seat 17C just wants to sleep. Welcome to the promise of the Internet at 33,000 feet -- and the questions of etiquette, openness and free speech that airlines and service providers will have to grapple with as they bring Internet access to the skies in the coming months."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.