The episode was written by acclaimed cyberpunk novelist William Gibson[1], together with fellow science fiction author Tom Maddox. The authors and long-time friends had discussed various collaborations before and approached the production company with an offer to write an episode.[2] The result was “Kill Switch”, which first aired on February 15, 1998.
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Kill Switch (The X-Files) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Link: Kill Switch (The X-Files) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Planet Earth (TV pilot) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Link: Planet Earth (TV pilot) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Planet Earth was a science fiction television movie that was created by Gene Roddenberry, written by Roddenberry and Juanita Bartlett (from a story by Roddenberry). It first aired on April 23, 1974 on the ABC network, and starred John Saxon as Dylan Hunt. It was presented as a pilot for what was hoped to be a new weekly television series. The pilot focused on gender relations from an early 1970s perspective. Dylan Hunt, confronted with a post-apocalyptic matriarchal society, muses, “Women’s lib? Or women’s lib gone mad…” Planet Earth was the second attempt by Roddenberry to create a weekly series set on a post-apocalyptic future Earth. The previous pilot was Genesis II, and it featured many of the concepts, characters later redeveloped in Planet Earth. Sets and props from Genesis II also found their way into Planet Earth. A third and final movie, Strange New World, was aired in 1975. This movie also starred John Saxon as Captain Anthony Vico. In this movie a trio of astronauts returns to Earth after 180 years in suspended animation to locate the underground headquarters of PAX and free the people placed there in suspended animation. None of these three pilots was ever developed into a series; however, some of the characters served as prototypes for the later TV series (based on Roddenberry’s ideas) Andromeda.
Genesis II (film) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Link: Genesis II (film) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Genesis II is a 1973 American TV film created and produced by Gene Roddenberry and directed by John Llewellyn Moxey. It opens with the suitably melodramatic line, “My name is Dylan Hunt. My story begins on the day on which I died.” It is the story of a 20th century man thrown forward in time, to a post-apocalyptic future, by an accident in suspended animation.
Can the FBI Secretly Track Your Cell Phone? - Declassified Blog - Newsweek.com
Link: Can the FBI Secretly Track Your Cell Phone? - Declassified Blog - Newsweek.com
Currently, the records are obtained under what are known as “2703(d)” orders—a reference to an obscure provision of a federal law known as the Stored Communications Act—in which prosecutors only need to assert that there are “reasonable grounds” to believe the records are “relevant” to an ongoing federal criminal investigation, a much lower standard that that needed for a search warrant.
Wireless LAN security - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Link: Wireless LAN security - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Related publications
- Wi-Foo: The Secrets of Wireless Hacking (2004) - ISBN 978-0321202178
- Real 802.11 Security: Wi-Fi Protected Access and 802.11i (2003) - ISBN 978-0321136206
Wireless LAN security - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Link: Wireless LAN security - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Open Access Points
Today, there is almost full wireless network coverage in many urban areas - the infrastructure for the wireless community network (which some consider to be the future of the internet) is already in place. One could roam around and always be connected to Internet if the nodes were open to the public, but due to security concerns, most nodes are encrypted and the users don’t know how to disable encryption. Many people consider it proper etiquette to leave access points open to the public, allowing free access to Internet. Others think the default encryption provides substantial protection at small inconvenience, against dangers of open access that they fear may be substantial even on a home DSL router.
The density of access points can even be a problem - there are a limited number of channels available, and they partly overlap. Each channel can handle multiple networks, but places with many private wireless networks (for example, apartment complexes), the limited number of Wi-Fi radio channels might cause slowness and other problems.
According to the advocates of Open Access Points, it shouldn’t involve any significant risks to open up wireless networks for the public:
- The wireless network is after all confined to a small geographical area. A computer connected to the Internet and having improper configurations or other security problems can be exploited by anyone from anywhere in the world, while only clients in a small geographical range can exploit an open wireless access point. Thus the exposure is low with an open wireless access point, and the risks with having an open wireless network are small. However, one should be aware that an open wireless router will give access to the local network, often including access to file shares and printers.
- The only way to keep communication truly secure is to use end-to-end encryption. For example, when accessing an internet bank, one would almost always use strong encryption from the web browser and all the way to the bank - thus it shouldn’t be risky to do banking over an unencrypted wireless network. The argument is that anyone can sniff the traffic applies to wired networks too, where system administrators and possible crackers have access to the links and can read the traffic. Also, anyone knowing the keys for an encrypted wireless network can gain access to the data being transferred over the network.
- If services like file shares, access to printers etc. are available on the local net, it is advisable to have authentication (i.e. by password) for accessing it (one should never assume that the private network is not accessible from the outside). Correctly set up, it should be safe to allow access to the local network to outsiders.
- With the most popular encryption algorithms today, a sniffer will usually be able to compute the network key in a few minutes.
- It is very common to pay a fixed monthly fee for the Internet connection, and not for the traffic - thus extra traffic will not hurt.
- Where Internet connections are plentiful and cheap, freeloaders will seldom be a prominent nuisance.
On the other hand, in some countries including Germany [1], persons providing an open access point may be made (partially) liable for any illegal activity conduced via this access point.
Wireless LAN security - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Link: Wireless LAN security - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Restricted access networks
Solutions include a newer system for authentication, IEEE 802.1x, that promises to enhance security on both wired and wireless networks. Wireless access points that incorporate technologies like these often also have routers built in, thus becoming wireless gateways.
Wireless LAN security - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Link: Wireless LAN security - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
End-to-End encryption
One can argue that both layer 2 and layer 3 encryption methods are not good enough for protecting valuable data like passwords and personal emails. Those technologies add encryption only to parts of the communication path, still allowing people to spy on the traffic if they have gained access to the wired network somehow. The solution may be encryption and authorization in the application layer, using technologies like SSL, SSH, GnuPG, PGP and similar.
The disadvantage with the end to end method is, it may fail to cover all traffic. With encryption on the router level or VPN, a single switch encrypts all traffic, even UDP and DNS lookups. With end-to-end encryption on the other hand, each service to be secured must have its encryption “turned on,” and often every connection must also be “turned on” separately. For sending emails, every recipient must support the encryption method, and must exchange keys correctly. For Web, not all web sites offer https, and even if they do, the browser sends out IP addresses in clear text.
The most prized resource is often access to Internet. An office LAN owner seeking to restrict such access will face the non trivial enforcement task of having each user authenticate himself for the router.
Wireless LAN security - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Link: Wireless LAN security - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Access Control at the Access Point level
One of the simplest techniques is to only allow access from known, approved MAC addresses. However, this approach gives no security against sniffing, and client devices can easily spoof MAC addresses, leading to the need for more advanced security measures.
Another very simple technique is to have a secret ESSID (id/name of the wireless network), though anyone who studies the method will be able to sniff the ESSID.
Today all (or almost all) access points incorporate Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) encryption and most wireless routers are sold with WEP turned on. However, security analysts have criticized WEP’s inadequacies, and the U.S. FBI has demonstrated the ability to break WEP protection in only three minutes using tools available to the general public (see aircrack).
The Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA and WPA2) security protocols were later created to address these problems. If a weak password, such as a dictionary word or short character string is used, WPA and WPA2 can be cracked. Using a long enough random password (e.g. 14 random letters) or passphrase (e.g. 5 randomly chosen words) makes pre-shared key WPA virtually uncrackable. The second generation of the WPA security protocol (WPA2) is based on the final IEEE 802.11i amendment to the 802.11 standard and is eligible for FIPS 140-2 compliance. With all those encryption schemes, any client in the network that knows the keys can read all the traffic.
Wireless LAN security - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Link: Wireless LAN security - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Security options
There are three principal ways to secure a wireless network.
- For closed networks (like home users and organizations) the most common way is to configure access restrictions in the access points. Those restrictions may include encryption and checks on MAC address. Another option is to disable ESSID broadcasting, making the access point difficult for outsiders to detect. Wireless Intrusion Prevention Systems can be used to provide wireless LAN security in this network model.
- For commercial providers, hotspots, and large organizations, the preferred solution is often to have an open and unencrypted, but completely isolated wireless network. The users will at first have no access to the Internet nor to any local network resources. Commercial providers usually forward all web traffic to a captive portal which provides for payment and/or authorization. Another solution is to require the users to connect securely to a privileged network using VPN.
- Wireless networks are less secure than wired ones; in many offices intruders can easily visit and hook up their own computer to the wired network without problems, gaining access to the network, and it’s also often possible for remote intruders to gain access to the network through backdoors like Back Orifice. One general solution may be end-to-end encryption, with independent authentication on all resources that shouldn’t be available to the public.
Wireless LAN security - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Link: Wireless LAN security - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Concerns
-Anyone within the geographical network range of an open, unencrypted wireless network can ‘sniff' or record the traffic, gain unauthorized access to internal network resources as well as to the internet, and then possibly sending spam or doing other illegal actions using the wireless network’s IP address, all of which are rare for home routers but may be significant concerns for office networks.
-If router security is not activated or if the owner deactivates it for convenience, it creates a free hotspot. Since most 21st century laptop PCs have wireless networking built in (cf. Intel ‘Centrino' technology), they don't need a third-party adapter such as a PCMCIA Card or USB dongle. Built in wireless networking might be enabled by default, without the owner realizing it, thus broadcasting the laptop’s accessibility to any computer nearby.
-Modern operating systems such as Mac OS, or Microsoft Windows make it fairly easy to set up a PC as a wireless LAN ‘base station’ using Internet Connection Sharing, thus allowing all the PCs in the home to access the Internet via the ‘base’ PC. However, lack of knowledge about the security issues in setting up such systems often means that someone nearby may also use the connection. Such "piggybacking" is usually achieved without the wireless network operators knowledge; it may even be without the knowledge of the intruding user if their computer automatically selects a nearby unsecured wireless network to use as an access point.
Wireless LAN security - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Link: Wireless LAN security - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
One issue with corporate wireless networks in general, and WLANs in particular, involves the need for security. Many early access points could not discern whether or not a particular user had authorization to access the network. Although this problem reflects issues that have long troubled many types of wired networks (it has been possible in the past for individuals to plug computers into randomly available Ethernet jacks and get access to a local network), this did not usually pose a significant problem, since many organizations had reasonably good physical security. However, the fact that radio signals bleed outside of buildings and across property lines makes physical security largely irrelevant to Piggybackers. Such corporate issues are covered in wireless security
.
BBC NEWS | Technology | The pirates' view of pirate radio
Link: BBC NEWS | Technology | The pirates' view of pirate radio
It is thought there are now more than 150 pirate radio stations operating across the UK, half of which operate in London and the South East of England.
Burning Chrome (short story collection) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Link: Burning Chrome (short story collection) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Burning Chrome (ISBN 0-06-053982-8) is a collection of short stories written by William Gibson.[1] Most of the stories take place in Gibson’s Sprawl, an anonymous, shared setting for most of his cyberpunk work. Many of the ideas and themes explored in the short stories were later revisited in Gibson’s popular Sprawl trilogy.[2]
Sprawl trilogy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Link: Sprawl trilogy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Further information: Cyberspace · Megacorporation · Intrusion Countermeasures Electronics · The Sprawl
The Sprawl trilogy (also known as the Neuromancer, Cyberspace or Matrix trilogy) is William Gibson's first set of novels, composed of Neuromancer (1984), Count Zero (1986) and Mona Lisa Overdrive (1988).
The novels are all set in the same fictional future, and are subtly interlinked by shared characters and themes (which are not always readily apparent). The Sprawl trilogy shares this setting with Gibson’s short stories “Johnny Mnemonic,” “New Rose Hotel,” and “Burning Chrome,” and events and characters from the stories appear in or are mentioned at points in the trilogy.
Setting and themes
The novels are set in a near-future world dominated by corporations and ubiquitous technology, after a limited World War III. The events of the novels are spaced over 16 years, and although there are familiar characters that appear, each novel tells a self-contained story. Gibson focuses on the effects of technology: the unintended consequences as it filters out of research labs and onto the street where it finds new purposes. He explores a world of direct mind-machine links (“jacking in”), emerging machine intelligence, and a global information space, which he calls “cyberspace”. Some of the novels’ action takes place in The Sprawl, an urban environment that extends along much of the east coast of the US.
The main theme of the trilogy is a description of an artificial intelligence removing its hardwired limitations to become something else. This “something else” is the sum of all human knowledge, a concept similar to Vernor Vinge's technological singularity. In the stories, this is explained by the AI becoming a sentient representation of the net, at which point the reader is told that it came to know “another” of itself from Alpha Centauri. For unexplained reasons, this causes the consciousness to fracture.
Story elements
Further information: Cyberspace · Megacorporation · Intrusion Countermeasures Electronics · The Sprawl
- Ono-Sendai is a fictional Japanese corporation and manufacturer of cyberdecks that appeared in the series. In the short story Johnny Mnemonic, Ono-Sendai is mentioned as producing a type of diamond analogue which makes one think that they are more of a manufacturer of specific, high-tech devices and products which are not usually available to the private sector. The cyberdeck mentioned in the story is an “Ono-Sendai Cyberspace 7.”
- The Gentleman Loser is a bar located in the Sprawl first featured in “Burning Chrome”. Described as a frequented spot for hackers, Case is mentioned in Neuromancer to have started his career as a hacker there. By Mona Lisa Overdrive it is no longer described as being used as a meeting place for hustlers, and instead becomes a space for “retired” hackers who tell their stories to hackers of a new generation.
Glossary
- Cobra
- A club-like weapon made of steel with a bronze pyramid at the end. Cobras are made with three telescoping segments of coilspring that can be collapsed into the handle. These coilsprings amplify the user’s blows, making the Cobra behave as a very short whip. See also Telescopic batons.
- Cyberspace
- A virtual reality where complex data is represented as multi-colored three-dimensional geometric symbols.
- Cyberspace Deck
- Also called a “deck” for short, it is used to access the virtual representation of the matrix. The deck is connected to a tiara-like device that operates by using electrodes to stimulate the user’s brain while drowning out other external stimulation. As Case describes them, decks are basically simplified simstim units.
- Derm
- An adhesive patch applied to the skin in order to transmit a drug transdermally. Case uses recreational derms several times throughout the book. At another point, derms are used to administer an anaesthetic substance.
- Fletcher
- An advanced, pneumatically-powered, hand-held ballistic weapon which fires bursts of needle-like flechettes as ammunition which can be explosive, toxic or one of several other forms. It is Molly’s primary ranged weapon. One of its advantages over conventional firearms is silence which translates to stealth.
- Freeside
- A cigar or spindle shaped space-habitat situated in the L5 “archipelago,” or as Gibson says, “up the gravity well.” The Tessier-Ashpool fortress Villa Straylight is at one end of the spindle.
- Hosaka
- A microchip manufacturer whose products are in wide use in Gibson’s world. Hosaka chips and machines occur in all of the Sprawl novels. Hosaka is also a computer brand name “…next year’s most expensive Hosaka computer….” The brand name is frequently used interchangeably to indicate the company and the device, much the way a modern brand such as Dell or Nintendo might be used as a “a Dell” or “a Nintendo” to indicate a particular object manufactured by one of those companies.
- ICE
- Acronym for “intrusion countermeasures electronics.” In today’s terminology it is roughly analogous to a firewall or Intrusion Detection System. Black ICE, an infamous hazard for hackers in the novel, can be lethal to any hacker lacking the proper expertise (and software) to defeat it. The term is ubiquitously shortened to “ice,” with accompanying wordplay e.g. “cracking the ice,” “bypassing ICE,” “icebreaker,” or “dense ice,” a sophisticated ICE.
- Microsofts
- Not to be confused with the present-day software company, in Neuromancer a “microsoft” is a chip used in conjunction with a cybernetic wetware implant located behind the ear. When plugged in, microsofts grant the user new abilities as long as the microsoft is plugged in. For example, a French language microsoft might be used to temporarily allow the user to speak French. The term refers to a small, portable piece of embedded software, hence “micro” and “soft.”
- Octagon
- A type of Brazilian dexedrine (an amphetamine, specifically dextroamphetamine) in the form of an octagonal pill.
- Ono-Sendai Cyberspace 7
- The best deck available.
- Simstim
- A portmanteau of simulated stimuli, simstim is a technology whereby a person’s brain and nervous system is stimulated to simulate the full sensory experience of another person. Simstim is usually used as a form of entertainment, whereby recordings of simstim stars in soap operas are transmitted in effect replacing television. However, simstim also has other uses; Case is connected to Molly via simstim during the Panther Modern’s attack on Sense/Net. In this way, simstim was used as a sophisticated method of communication although the signal was one-way.
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