Laptop-DRV » Security

Carbon Filament iWallet Is a Biometric Pouch Unharmed

admin — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 03:38:39 +0000

When Steve Cabouli had his wallet stolen in an airport a few years back, he didn’t just get mad. He fire d up Google and searched the internet high and low for a “hi-tech wallet”. After failing to find one, he decided to make one. So was born the iWallet.

The iWallet is a kevlar and carbon fiber box with a fingerprint-reading lock, so, like Judge Dredd’s Lawgiver gun, it can on ly be us ed by its owner (unlike the Lawgiver, the iWall et doesn’t blow off the hands of a would-be-thief). It also has Bluetooth inside, and if the “wallet” wanders too far from your compatible cellphone (BlackBerry) then an alarm will sound.

But what if the battery runs out? Sadly, there is no mention. What if a thief manages to make off with your valuables, perhaps because you have the wrong kind of cellphone? You are, of course, out of luck: The iWallet might be “tamper resistant”, but once the thief has your iWallet in his home or thieve’s den, a scre wdriver should make swift work of prizing it open.

Better is the f inal feature, a feature that means that you won’t need to wait for a pickpocket in order to lose your money. That “feature” is the price, a wallet-emptying $600 (or a mere $300 for the fiberglass version).

We shall leave you with the promo video, so fantastically cheesy and full of hammy acting that it could easily pass as a croque monsieur. Available December 11th.

iWallet Product page [iWallet]

Sony’s FVA-U1 reads veins, coming to Japan this month

admin — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 20:40:57 +0000

Sony has finally delivered on its Mofiria promise with what it claims is the world’s smallest and lightest finger vein reader. That assertion may be challenged by Hitachi, whose 3mm-thick scanner promises to be even smaller, but the critical difference here is that the FVA-U1 is about to go on sale in Japan come December 18, where as Hi tachi’s hardware is nowhere to be found. The Sony scanner weighs a measly 33 grams, hooks up via USB, and adds an extra layer of biometric protection for your most precious d ata. Whether carrying around an extra dongle just to protect some Excel spreadsheets and your Outlook account is worth it, we leave up to you.

Windows 7 Jet Partition of Demise? (It’s not as poorable as it sounds)

admin — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 13:22:48 +0000

Well, maybe it’s not as bad as it sounds, but it’s still not so good. As you’re probably aware, over the last week or so Windows users of all stripes (n ot just Windows 7 users, as it turns out) have b een complaining of a plain black screen that appears upon login — at which point the systems lock up, and… that’s it. Aside from some users getting an additional My Computer window (lucky devils) the system grinds to a halt. According to a Microsoft email that’s making the rounds, the company is “investigating reports that its latest release of security updates is resulting in system issues for some customers.” Until that time, what’s a poor PC use r to do? Prevx, a UK developer of anti-malware software, has surmised t hat a recent Windows security patch changed Access Control List (ACL) entries in the registry, preventing some software from running properly and prompting Engadget to whip up a Bergman-inspired graphic. If your machine should find itself afflicte d, Prevx has put together a fix that it claims will do the trick. Keep in mind that we don’t know these guys, so don’t blame us if it blows up your computer — or gives you the Bubonic plague. W e’ll let you kn ow when we hear back from Microsoft on this one. Good luck!
Update: Microsoft says this isn’t its fault, and that it’s likely some nasty malware to blame.

Inexpensive Synthetic Case Detects Cameras and ‘Spy Wi-Fi’

admin — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 06:13:14 +0000

The “Spy Wi-Fi Signal and Camera Lens Detector” is a cheap version of Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich’s yacht, which can detect and shield against the paparazzi’s peeping lenses. A very che ap version, in fact, coming in at just $40 instead of a rather more expensive $1.2 billion.

In fact, the more we read, the better a bargain this seems. Unlike the Abramovich’s boat, the toy from Chinavasi on also detects Wi-Fi signals. And not just any Wi-Fi signals, but spy Wi-Fi, which the description defines as anything between 1 – 6500MHz. This should ensure t hat the alarm will sound continually, detecting all kinds of wireless background chatter as it bounces around the airwaves.

And the camera lens detector? How does that work? It must take so me pretty sophisticated tech to distinguish between a camera lens and any other glass, right? It turns out that this merely detects infra-red lasers, which means any c amera lens not so equ ipped will remain invisible. That should count for pretty much all hidden spy cameras.

The “Everything Signal and IR Laser Detector” (as it should really be named) is available now. Buy five or more and you get a couple of bucks off. A bargain.

Product page [Chinavasion]

Flask Padlock Doubles As Something Else In Jail

admin — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 12:44:57 +0000

Tired of those pesky vultures you call roommates drinking all your wine? The B ottle Lock is a Padlock-style four digit code device that effectively keeps prying hands and mouths away from your sacred liquids.

Easy to use and aesthetically unobtrusive, the Bottle Lock is a great gift idea for the paranoid drunk in y our family or a friend doing time at the county penitentiary. On sale now for $22.

Read

Video: Bomb-Proof Kevlar Wallpaper Stronger Than Screen Itself

admin — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 02:50:31 +0000

You have a few rolls of supposedly bomb-proof wallpaper, so how do you test it out without getting a visit from Homeland Security? You paste it up and break out a wrecking-ball, of course. That’s what the folks at Popular Science did to test out X-FLEX, a reinforced wall-covering made from a Kevlar-like material.

X-FLEX is a a Kevlar-like composite sandwiched between polymer sheets. You peel off the back, stick it to the wall and, if you are extra sensible, you let it run over to the floor and ceiling where it should be further secured by nailing it down. When a bomb-blast (or giant metal ball) smashes into the brickwork, the wallpaper holds it in place, keeping the wall intact and preventing it from becoming shrapnel. It’s kind of like taping your windows to stop them from shattering, only a whole lot beefier.

Oddly enough, the video on the X-FLEX site of the wallpaper absorbing an actual bomb-blast is not nearly as spectacular or as entertaining as the Pop-Sci video (it is also non-embeddable, which is why you don’t see it here). The material is clearly made with military uses in mind, but we’re thinking of putting some of this up outside the Wired.com video-gaming room — things can get pretty nasty in there, especially when we (inevitably) thrash the guys from Wired mag.

Product page [X-FLEX via Oh Gizmo!]

X-Flex Blast Protection System [Pop-Sci]

Cyclehoop Turns Every Street-Sign Into a Bike Framework

admin — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 04:43:50 +0000

Here’s a genuinely good idea for bike parking, which is currently, and surprisingly, being trialled in London.

The Cyclehoop is a steel hoop which clamps onto lampposts, street signs and other urban poles and turns them into proper bike racks. The advantages to the host city are great: it’s a lot cheaper and quicker than the digging and re-concreting required for normal racks, and the Cyclehoop takes up almost no space in comparison.

And its good for cyclists, too. The ‘hoop is put purposely low on the post to discourage top-tube-only locking, which is apparently a major encouragement to thieves. It also allows more than one bike to lock to a single post much more easily and stops them being lifted over the top. The units are secured using shear-bolts, which are bolts which lose their wrench-shaped heads at a specific torque, leaving behind a smooth, conical head that cannot be turned.

But there is one more advantage to the Cyclehoop — it legitimizes locking bikes up to street furniture, something most cyclists do anyway. Here in Barcelona, the law somewhat fuzzily says that you can’t lock bikes to lampposts or trees. This is so widely ignored that the cops let it go, usually, but of course that doesn’t stop the occasional old lady ticking you off.

The CylceHoop is being trialled in the Islington and Southwark boroughs of London. Any Londoners who have seen or used these brightly colored froot-loops locks, let us know what you think of them.

Product page [Cyclehoop via Corpus Fixie and Bike Radar]

Plexidor Darling Door-Maybe Fair A Small Too Afar

admin — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 10:49:08 +0000

Maybe, just maybe, we spoil our pets a bit too much.

Oh, sure, we don’t think twice about the occasional chew bone or some such, but some dogs today eat better than some people do. Plus there’s the add-ons–clothing lines for pets, Xbox Live subscriptions (when do they PLAY??), dog houses made of crystal, even health insurance for pets! It’s crazy! And it only gets weirder when I start talking about the electronic dog door.

Dubbed the Plexidor Pet Door, it’s an electronic dog door with a vertical sliding door that slides up when your pet, who’s wearing an RFID chip in his or her collar, gets sufficiently close to it.

It’s a great measure for folks concerned about burglars using the pet door as a means of entry (a la Home Alone), but still wanting your pet to have the maximum amount of freedom. They cost a whopping eight hundred bucks a pop, and that’s before you add on the cost of professional installment. This thing has to be HARDWIRED into your house’s electrical system.

Still, it’s terribly awesome, and if you like even having the latest gadgets for your dog, then this one should be on your list.

Hacker Holds Dutch iPhones for Insignificant Redemption

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 05:11:19 +0000

A hacker on Monday annoyed several Dutch iPhone owners by sending an unremovable warning message stating their phones had been hacked. He offered instructions to remove the hack in exchange for a meager ransom of ?5 ($7).

Displayed in the screenshot to the right, the hacker’s security message contained a URL directing iPhone owners to send money to a PayPal account. The directions have since been removed, as the site appears to have been reported to the internet service provider.

The exploit only worked against jailbroken iPhones. Many iPhone owners who jailbreak their handsets perform a common procedure called enabling SSH in order to execute UNIX commands on the device. iPhones have a default root password that many forget to change, and the hacker was able to scan for iPhones on the T-Mobile Netherlands network running SSH and then gain access by entering the default password, Ars Technica’s Chris Foresman explained.

Clever trick, and it appears the hacker pulled this stunt mostly to show off. He’s since apologized for asking for money and posted instructions for undoing the hack.

Consumer Degree Facial Identification: FaceID

admin — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 09:44:00 +0000

Flashback to a time when facial recognition seemed so far off from reality. Now open your eyes. This FaceID system can recognize up to 500 different faces using a pair of digital cameras to create a 3-D image of your face. After that it runs a face detection algorithm to determine if the image matches the one in the database.

Thanks to the 3-D imagery it prevents you from holding up a picture and scamming the system but that’s not to say that a blow up doll wouldn’t work. Claiming less than a 0.0001% margin of error and can adjust to various light conditions on the fly.

Capable of integrating with a Wiegand Interface for controlling security systems, you can purchase this FaceID Recognition Device for $447 at the ChinaVision website.

[via Technabob]