Original article.

According to Trend Micro, an internet security firm, more than 40% of teens are "social hackers".

Sigh. I remember a day when being a hacker meant that you had to actually know how to do something.

The "social hackers" are still split by gender though. Boys are twice as likely to go for the profile assassination, while girls are three times more likely to go straight for the PayPal.

What can I say - boys want power, girls love the bling. It's the nature of things.

The "new" idea of "social hacking" is that many social details are on view via social networking sites such as Facebook. A competent social hacker can find information which tends to give away security question answers.

And an incompetent target will use public information in their own security questions and password. And deserve everything they've got coming.

Rik Ferguson of Trend Micro said, "It's the online version of kids breaking into school to change their reports, it's just so much easier now."

Breaking into school to change your report card took planning, skill and cojones.

Anything that can be done from behind the safety of a computer screen requires nothing more than an Internet connection, a decent mix of self-loathing and lack of self confidence, and maybe some Red Bull. Sure, maybe a "social hacker" (*cough* *hack* *cough*) can find out where you live and hang out by hacking into your Facebook profile, but then what? Years of sitting on a couch with his laptop drinking latte mochaccinos will have left his body too weak and atrophied to pose any real threat.

I, on the under hand, can find out where you live, chase you down because I can run faster than you, and then dead-lift you off a bridge.

See kids? It's about branching out.

Oh, and it's called social engineering, and it's not new at all.

Find the least contacted community in the most underdeveloped corner of the world, and you will probably find kids with sticks playing with ants (assuming the area isn't dominated by siafu). The insect's charm is understandable. In ants, we find tiny but industrious creatures that work together to build cities and surmount obstacles far too great for the individual. We enjoy observing and meddling with these miniature societies, because in them we see our own.

A God Among Insects

via The Escapist:

The Obama campaign has taken out ads in nine EA games for the Xbox 360 that will feature on virtual billboards and other in-game signage. "It reaches an audience that is typically very hard to reach - young males, roughly 18 to 34," said EA rep Holly Rockwood, who declined to say how much was paid for the advertisements. "That's very appealing to our advertisers."

Facebook access at Concordia available on wireless network only

Starting September 2008, access to the social networking service Facebook will be available only on Concordia’s wireless network.

The service will no longer be accessible from desktop computers with only a wired connection to the Concordia University network.

[...]

Concordia’s network administrators are not trying to block access to Facebook, but to manage the manner in which the Concordia community accesses the service.

The university has decided to implement the restriction because of concerns that the continuing reliability of the Concordia wired network could be compromised because of spam, viruses and leaks of confidential information related to use of the social networking site.

I'll admit that the given reasons behind the restrictions are obviously bullshit / filler text (spam and viruses aren't any more likely to come from Facebook than from other web service that users are allowed to access). The real reasons behind this change are somewhat more political and pragmatic: control the amount of time that students, staff and faculty spend wasting their working hours on Facebook. If they've made this change there probably was already a problem with users using Facebook in excessive or inappropriate ways (which, of course, Facebook is designed to encourage).

Indeed, pretty much everyone I know who uses Facebook in any useful way has become less productive than they were before joining Facebook. Either way, Concordia is to be commended for stepping in and making what may well be a very unpopular decision for reasons that those without all the facts may not fully understand yet - this is, in essence, one of the principle roles of any government.

I try to steer clear of statements like "the ends justify the means", but I think it might very well apply here.

(via Christine)

As the last living person to not have played GTA IV yet (I'm holding out until I have, errr, time to play), I found this Apple Parody in GTA's "internet" hilarious:

THINK Simple.
THINK Minimalism.
THINK Overpriced.

THINK Fruit. THINK.

You are not thinking hard enough. Maybe you are a To$$er.

WITH FRUIT

You are finally living.
Design has evolved to make your life worth living.
You are in a cocoon.
A fruit cocoon.

THE NEW IFRUIT PHONE

No buttons
No reception
No storage capacity
All ego

...

I think it's time I start playing GTA IV. Apple fruits are fun to pick on.

via digg.

• African Americans rioted against racial injustice.
• Immigrant workers in New York City rioted against the military draft.
• Working-class North Africans in Paris rioted to protest the death of two youngsters at the hands of the police.
• Tiananmen square intellectuals and students rioted for democratic reform.

Here, though, we riot when our local sports team beats a rival team, not in the finals, or the semifinals, but in the quarterfinals.

Whether it's actual hockey fans or anarchists using the crowd as a cover is anyone's guess, although the image gallery over at Fagstein's blog has an image of a hockey-flag waving fan next to a marijuana-tshirt-wearing delinquent, so maybe they're in cahoots!

Sigh...

In case you needed yet another reason why Bell Canada is the absolute worst company in the Canadian telecom space, they've quietly begun throttling traffic on independent, small ISPs who lease their lines.

This means that if you're anything like me - and by Gosh, you oughta be! - your ISP is small, progressive, and independent... and soon to get much, much slower. I use Radioactif / Aei, though there are many other good ones to choose from. However, since the lines are all owned by Big Brother Bell, they all end up leasing their lines from them. So far, this agreement had maintained a precarious balance, allowing small, innovative ISPs to crop up here and there and offer innovative service coupled with low prices, and Bell had managed to maintain control of its own lines.

This is just a reblog from the Media McGill page that Gilberto Gil will be presenting today at 6pm, at the Omni Hotel.

There will also be a follow-up presentation tomorrow morning at the SAT on St-Laurent, which I expect to be more intimate (hopefully) than today's talk.

If any of my readers have any questions about community networking, technologies and culture, Internet governance, cultural development or anything else that they would like me to ask Mr. Gil tomorrow, leave it in a comment here and I will do my darndest.

More info on the Media@Mcgill page...