N Y B B L E M O N T H L Y N E W S L E T T E R
A Free Ezine about Anything Tech and Everything Else
2009.03.31 Issue No. 209

Just how hard is it to hack into a secured wireless access point? I've heard
stories about people war-driving around the block and cracking WEP keys in a
matter of seconds or minutes. Intrigued, I thought I might do some research and
try it myself. If you believe the YouTube videos, it's as easy as downloading
the Aircrack-NG suite. Using airodump, you listen in to a particular channel and
capture a bunch of WEP IVs. Then using aircrack, it reads the capture file and
attempts to crack the key.

Not as easy as I thought. Apparently, not all WiFi cards can snoop. With
airodump, it seems to support only HermesI/Realtek and Aironet/Atheros-based
cards. I had Wireshark set to capture in promiscuous mode, but all I see are
traffic to/from my laptop. Maybe the Intel Wireless WiFi Link 4965AGN doesn't
support promiscuous mode. Maybe it's a driver issue. Maybe the OS doesn't allow
snooping. Lots of maybe. As an alternative, I downloaded a BackTrack3 live CD.
Didn't detect the built-in WiFi on my Lenovo T61. Didn't detect the Siemens
SpeedStream WiFi card on the Thinkpad 600E. I give up. Might be easier to just
knock on the neighbor's door and ask for the WEP/WPA key.

Have an answer, comment, suggestion, or violent reaction? Send them my way by
clicking on Reply or join nybbletalk@yahoogroups.com to discuss a topic. If you
think Nybble is good enough, do tell the WiFi pirates about it. Thanks.


_________TABLE OF CONTENTS_________
* Largest Prehistoric Snake on Record
* Terabit Ethernet
* Micro-USB Chargers for All
* 250 DVDs in a Quarter-Sized Device
* Sony Introduces Blu-Spec CD
* Oldest Human Hair Found
* Likeable Links
* Questionable Question
* Quotable Quote
* Trivial Trivia
* Laughable Laugh


_________LARGEST PREHISTORIC SNAKE ON RECORD_________
http://www.physorg.com/news152969011.html

Scientists have recovered fossils of a 60-million-year-old South American snake
whose length and weight might make today's anacondas and reticulated pythons
seem a bit cuter and more cuddly. Named Titanoboa cerrejonensis by its
discoverers, the size of the snake's vertebrae suggest it weighed 1140 kg (2,500
pounds) and measured 13 metres (42.7 feet) nose to tail tip. According to the
Guinness Book of World Records, the longest snake ever measured was 10 meters
(33 feet) in length. The heaviest snake, a python, weighed 183 kilograms (403
pounds).

Crews led by the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute and the University of
Florida's Florida Museum of Natural History discovered the fossils in the
Cerrejon Coal Mine in northern Colombia, and together with lead-author Jason
Head, now of the University of Toronto-Mississauga, used its size to make an
estimate of Earth's temperature 58 to 60 million years ago in tropical South
America. Paleontologists have long known of a rough correlation between an age's
temperature and the size of its poikilotherms (cold-blooded creatures). Over
geological time, as ages get warmer, so does the upper size limit on
poikilotherms. Assuming the Earth today is not particularly unusual, Head and
Dr. Jonathan Bloch, Assistant Curator of Vertebrate Paleontology at the Florida
Museum of Natural History, estimated a snake of Titanoboa's size would have
required an average annual temperature of 30 to 34°C (86 to 93 F) to survive. By
comparison, the average yearly temperature of today's Cartagena, a Colombian
coastal city, is about 28°C.


_________TERABIT ETHERNET_________
http://bit.ly/mp7pn

Researchers from Australia, Denmark, and China have combined efforts to show the
feasibility of terabit-per-second Ethernet over fiber-optic cables. The solution
involves a photonic chip that uses laser light for switching signals, and a form
of the exotic material type, chalcogenide.

Individual lasers, operated by conventional electronics, can inject dozens of 10
Gbps streams, but in terms of retrieving that multiplexed data at these very
very high bit rates, beyond 40 Gbps, electronics is not fast enough. In
conjunction with a Danish research organization at the Technical University of
Denmark, which has been working on high-speed optical networking, CUDOS (Centre
for Ultrahigh bandwidth Devices for Optical Systems) developed a photonic
integrated circuit that uses lasers and light in the same way a conventional
electronic integrated circuit uses electrons and transistors.

One of the key breakthroughs researchers made wasn't so much in speed but in
practicality. By using relatively traditional methods to etch a circuit out of a
glassy form of a chalcogenide, arsenic trisulfide (As2S3), researchers were able
to reduce the waveguide that demultiplexed an incoming signal from tens of
meters down to 5 cm.

Silicon-based chips could also be used in principle to achieve similar, but
slower results, but the researchers' ultimate goal was to create fully photonic
chips in the same foundries that now make CMOS (complementary metal oxide
semiconductor) integrated circuits.


_________MICRO-USB CHARGERS FOR ALL________
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/02/17/standard_charger/

An alliance of operators and handset manufacturers has blown a substantial hole
in the mobile accessories market by agreeing on a standard power charger for
mobile phones. Orange, Telefonica, Vodafone, 3, AT&T, mobilkom Austria,
T-Mobile, Telenor Telstra, Nokia, Samsung, Motorola, LG and Sony Ericsson have
agreed a micro USB standard for all mobile phones.

It's not the first time micro USB has been proposed as a universal mobile
charger. The GSMA announcement piggybacks an OMTP recommendation. OMTP is a
talking-shop for operators who want to undermine the differentiation of handsets
and so tilt the loyalty of consumers away from handsets. GSMA didn't say when
the certified compatible charger will appear but it has set a target for 50 per
cent of phones shipped in 2012 to use this charger. This might prove tough.
Higher data speeds, for instance the ability to capture hi-def video on a
mobile, will need a better connector than micro USB. This can be solved with two
connectors.


_________250 DVDs IN A QUARTER-SIZED DEVICE_________
http://bit.ly/rLGjo

A new technique developed by scientists at UC Berkeley and University of
Massachusetts Amherst may drastically increase the ability of devices to store
things. The method lets microscopic nanoscale elements precisely assemble
themselves over large surfaces.

Molecules in the thin film of block copolymers - two or more chemically
dissimilar polymer chains linked together - self-assemble into an extremely
precise, equidistant pattern when spread out on a surface, much like a regiment
of disciplined soldiers lining up in formation. For more than a decade,
researchers have been trying to exploit this characteristic for use in
semiconductor manufacturing, but they have been constrained because the order
starts to break down as the size of the area increases. Once the formation
breaks down, the individual domains cannot be read or written to, rendering them
useless as a form of data storage. To overcome this size constraint, the
researchers conceived of the elegantly simple solution of layering the film of
block copolymers onto the surface of a commercially available sapphire crystal.
When the crystal is cut at an angle - a common procedure known as a miscut - and
heated to 1,300 to 1,500 degrees Centigrade (2,372 to 2,732 degrees Fahrenheit)
for 24 hours, its surface reorganizes into a highly ordered pattern of sawtooth
ridges that can then be used to guide the self-assembly of the block polymers.
With this technique, the researchers were able to achieve defect-free arrays of
nanoscopic elements with feature sizes as small as 3 nanometers, translating
into densities of 10 terabits per square inch. One terabit is equal to 1
trillion bits, or 125 gigabytes.

Other research teams across the country are engaged in similar efforts to break
the size barrier of self-assembled block copolymers, but this new project by the
UMass Amherst-UC Berkeley scientists differs in that it does not rely upon
advances in lithography to achieve its goals. An added benefit is that this
technique is more environmentally friendly than photolithography, which requires
the use of harsh chemicals and acids.


_________SONY INTRODUCES BLU-SPEC CD_________
http://crave.cnet.co.uk/digitalmusic/0,39029432,49301249,00.htm

Sony's new Blu-spec CD format promises better-quality CD experience without
having to upgrade your CD player, employing the same technology used to author
Blu-ray discs to master standard CDs.

Blu-spec CDs are written using the shorter-wavelength blue laser diodes used in
Blu-ray disc production. These blue lasers are far more accurate when it comes
to burning pits in the readable surface of CDs, theoretically improving final
sound reproduction, due to the reduction of reading errors when the disc is
spinning in typical CD players.

Not everyone is convined though. CNET points out that unlike Super Audio CD or
DVD-Audio discs, Blu-Spec CDs use the standard 16-bit, 44KHz audio encoding, so
you're not gaining additional sonic data. You do get "improved error
correction", but the CD format already incorporates Cross-Interleaved
Reed-Solomon Coding error correction. Still, s initially releasing 60
back-catalogue titles on the format, including work from The Clash, Miles Davis
and ELO, some of which are available on Amazon.com now.


_________OLDEST HUMAN HAIR FOUND_________
http://bit.ly/QBpiS

The oldest known human hairs could be the strands discovered in fossil hyena
poop found in a South African cave. Researchers discovered the rock-hard hyena
dung near the Sterkfontein caves, where many early human ancestor fossils have
been found.

Each white, round fossil turd, or coprolite, is roughly 0.8 inch (2 centimeters)
across. They were found embedded in sediments 195,000 to 257,000 years old.
Until now, the oldest known human hair was from a 9,000-year-old Chilean mummy.
The sizes and shapes of the coprolites and their location suggest they came from
brown hyenas, which still live in the region's caves today.

Backwell and her colleagues used tweezers to extract 40 fossilized hairs
resembling glass needles from one of the hyena coprolites.
Scanning-electron-microscope images revealed wavy bands of scales on the hairs—a
pattern typical of modern primates, with human hair being the closest match.


_________LIKEABLE LINKS_________
IYHY.com - Make It Mobile
http://www.iyhy.com/
Converts website to text-only

Zamzar
http://www.zamzar.com/
Free online file conversion

Font Generator
http://www.yourfonts.com/
Make your own handwriting fonts for free

OwnerIQ
http://owneriq.net/
Search for user manuals online


_________QUESTIONABLE QUESTION_________
How long is three shakes of a lamb's tail? Where can I get a lamb that's been
calibrated against the international atomic clock?


_________QUOTABLE QUOTE_________
Love is like pi - natural, irrational, and very important.
~ Lisa Hoffman


_________TRIVIAL TRIVIA_________
Should you slurp when you eat your noodles?

Dining etiquette in Japan is tricky. It is considered extremely impolite to pour
one's own drink when eating with others you pour your companion's drink and your
companion pours yours. On the other hand, it is considered normal and
nonoffensive to make loud slurping sounds when eating noodles in Japan.

Source: Arcamax Trivia


_________LAUGHABLE LAUGH_________
At the end of a particularly severe winter, we removed the protective covers
from our cabin cruiser and found that the weight of the snow had broken the
windshield. I drove to the local glass shop, where I paid $110 for a
replacement.

The owner asked if I'd like them to install it, but I said I could handle it
myself.

I managed to climb up the ladder to the deck before dropping the glass.
Sheepishly I returned to the shop. The owner showed no emotion as he cut the
second glass.

When I saw another $110 charge, I said, "I thought I might get a break on the
second piece of glass."

"I did give you a break," he replied.

"How so?" I asked.

"I didn't laugh, did I?" he answered.


That's all for this week. Nybble is and will always be a work in progress.
Please do send me your comments and suggestions on how to improve Nybble. Just
hit the reply button to you know, reply.