SHA-1 Broken. SHA-1 has been broken. Not a reduced-round version. Not a simplified version. The real thing. The research team of Xiaoyun Wang, Yiqun Lisa Yin, and Hongbo Yu (mostly from Shandong University in China) have been quietly circulating a paper announcing their results: collisions in the the full SHA-1 in 2**69 hash operations, much… Continue reading SHA-1 Broken

Colleges' Land Lines Nearing Silent End. The Washington Post reports that across the country, wired phones are becoming obsolete in colleges. Although not many colleges have eliminated them, “almost every major school is evaluating it,” said Jeri Semer, executive director of the Association for Communications Technology Professionals in Higher Education. This transformation of campus culture… Continue reading Colleges' Land Lines Nearing Silent End

IT's moment of truth. One of my recent InfoWorld columns (“IT's moment of truth“) is probably the most important one I've written, because it attempts to address a serious spiritual challenge in IT operations. Here's a snippet: The battle for the soul of IT takes place at the same intersection where different approaches to solving… Continue reading IT's moment of truth

Enhanced OS for WRT-54G. Community wireless networking projects just got easier (and cheaper) with a new upgrade to Ewrt, the free Enhanced WRT Linux distribution, created by Irving Popovetsky and Brandon Psmythe of Portless Networks. It modifies the popular Linksys WRT54G and Linksys WRT54GS access points, creating an inexpensive, easy to use hotspot-in-a-box solution with… Continue reading Enhanced OS for WRT-54G

MindManager Wish List. This evening, I met with Marc Orchant via Skype to talk about geek stuff. (Blogs, Podcasting, RSS, etc.) I first met Marc through his office and tablet blogs. Our common interest in using technology to get things done has brought us together for extended virtual geek meetings more than once. (I know,… Continue reading MindManager Wish List

'I understand why people are angry – a lot of it is about me'. TONY Blair yesterday admitted he is personally responsible for the anger people feel with the Labour government, but pleaded with the public to allow him a third term in office where willingness to listen would be his hallmark. [The Scotsman]

Prophylactic rebooting. Microsoft shill Robert Scoble shuts down and reboots his tablet PC every day, because he's “been using computers for 20 years and [has] learned that’s the best way to work.” Bwahahahahahahahahaha(h)! Poor sap. My Linux machines go months between reboots. Sometimes they only come down when I need to move them, or when… Continue reading Prophylactic rebooting

The Curse of the Secret Question. It's happened to all of us: We sign up for some online account, choose a difficult-to-remember and hard-to-guess password, and are then presented with a “secret question” to answer. Twenty years ago, there was just one secret question: “What's your mother's maiden name?” Today, there are more: “What street… Continue reading The Curse of the Secret Question

Behind the scenes. I've had a number of requests to share more details of how I develop my software, so I thought I'd write about the tools I use. This is probably only of interest to fellow developers, so feel free to skip this if you have a job with normal hours 🙂 As some… Continue reading Behind the scenes