DigitMemo.com

Two labs of America’s top scientists have fallen for the oldest trick in the hackers’ book

A report featured on ABC News concluded that two nuclear labs had been “hacked.”  The true story is a bit more entertaining and the reveals that there is no threat to the country’s nuclear safety.  Real threats such as concerted “hacks” conducted by the Chinese against the U.S. government are certainly a concern, but the only thing dangerous about the compromise at these labs is the stupidity of a few scientists and workers at the plants.

The Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) in Tennessee and Los Alamos National Lab in New Mexico have made a habit of collecting the social security numbers, names, and birth dates of scientists who visit the plants.  The information is put into a database, which reads like a who’s who of America’s top scientists.

Click for more on The True Story: Two U.S. Nuclear Labs "Hacked" »

Seagate Maxtor Basics Personal Storage 3200 external HDDs get hit with the Virus.Win32.AutoRun.ah virus

The hard disk drive (HDD) market is a relatively boring one. Sure, there are capacity increases in the mobile and desktops sectors every once in a while, but spindle speeds have stayed relatively the same — HDDs don’t exactly have the same sex appeal as quad-core processors or high-end graphics cards.

Seagate, however, is making news these days not for how fast or capacious their new drives are; but for what’s included on them from the factory. Seagate is warning customers that a small batch of its 500GB Maxtor Basics Personal Storage 3200 external drives shipped with the Virus.Win32.AutoRun.ah virus. The company blames a Chinese sub-contract manufacturer for the problem.

Click for more on Seagate Serves External HDDs with a Side of Virus »

A 75-year-old lady, who apparently fed up with the lousy service she received from Comcast, took her claw hammer back to the customer service center and bludgeoned the office equipment into tiny plastic pieces.

This was after the company had scheduled installation of its much ballyhooed “Triple Play” service, which combines phone, cable and Internet services, in Shaw’s brick home in nearby Bristow. But Shaw said they failed to show up on the appointed day, Monday, Aug. 13. They came two days later but left with the job half done. On Friday morning, they cut off all service.

Click for more on Little Old Lady Hammers Comcast »

A Washington woman has pleaded guilty to placing a Craigslist ad that caused her aunt’s vacant house to be ransacked. 

Nichole Marie Blackwell placed the ad on March 24th which stated that anyone could come and take “whatever you want”.  Even though the ad was only up for less than two hours, people came and stole everything from the home – they even took the kitchen sink and windows.

Click for more on Woman pleads guilty to fake Craigslist ad »

“They used a shotgun to kill a flea”

In what one California official characterized as a case of overkill, U.S. officials disrupted access to all state government Web sites this week after a county Web page was hacked.

The federal government stepped in after learning that a Marin County, California, Web page redirected users to a pornographic Web site. Federal authorities, who have ultimate authority over most local and state Web sites, attempted to block all domains ending in ca.gov on Tuesday, Hanacek said.

Click for more on U.S. blocked California state Web sites to stop porn »

Another geeky prank from MIT.

Back in 1999, Massachusetts Institute of Technology students decorated the campus’ Great Dome to look like Star Wars robot R2D2 in celebration of the legendary film series’ first prequel in 1999. But Star Wars prequels are so last decade. These days, it’s all about the much-hyped Xbox 360 title Halo 3. And why prank your own campus when you can pull a fast one on those snotty Crimsons next door?

Click for more on MIT students turn famed Harvard statue into “Halo” chief »

Try to multiply 850 by 77.1, guess what you’ll get?

Any calculator will show 65535, instead of Excel2007, which is 100000. The bug, seems newly introduced and only Exel 2007 is affected, older versions are free from it.

Click for more on Hilarious bug in Excel 2007 »

Thinking you’re getting away with something on the sly while the world laughs at you, anticipating your inevitable demise.

Dane Brown says

Last week a number of computers were stolen from our office in Vancouver, BC. One of those computers was a shared iMac with Flickrbooth, an app that automatically uploads photo booth shots to our flickr account, installed on it. Just this morning a friend called to tell us that there are photos of whoever has the computer now in our flickr stream! Obviously the guy didn’t know he was uploading images of himself and his awesome tattoos.

Click for more on Presumed idiot criminal uploads pix of self from stolen iMac »

“Another milestone of online communications has been reached. The smiley turns 25, which is a serious contribution to the electronic lexicon.

:-)

Click for more on The Smiley Face Turns 25 :-) »