Midomi Names That Tune, But Not For Me

 I had better luck. It recognized me singing “Danny Boy.” But failed on the other two James Taylor songs. I will try this some more though. I have been searching for a few songs that I can’t remember the artist’s name and that makes it hard to find on iTunes.

New startup Midomi, a voice-based music search engine with a social network bolted on, launched earlier today. If you have a microphone connected to your computer, just sing or hum a few seconds of any song. In theory, Midomi will return a link to the original song for partial playback or purchase, and will also return results from other users who’ve recorded themselves singing that song.

I’ve been testing this all morning. And I cannot come up with a single match. Not one. I think that my voice is to blame, though, as others testing it seem to have good results. In my last attempt I tried to sing part of Amazing Grace since it’s fairly slow and they use it in the demo video to explain how the site works. My top match came back as a user clip rapping part of a Notorious B.I.G. song. I swear I am not making this up.

The social network aspect to this is what will make it popular, and the search engine will help people group songs that they all sing and compare. Users have a profile page and can add friends, fans, etc. Others rate their recordings. kSolo (acquired by Fox) and SingShot have dabbled in this space successfully.

Source: Midomi Names That Tune, But Not For Me

videoWrapplet won’t work

I sent a message with code samples to tech support and wordpress.com. Their response was “We don’t allow these tags.” Ok. Now I know why my videoWrapplet code doesn’t work.

I am moving to a new wordpress site that is privately hosted. I will be able to post my code there. Probably in a week or so.

VideoWraplet attempt 3

VideoWrapplet Attempt 2

MediaForge Wrapup

My good friend Scott Lemon has been working with a startup called mediaForge. MediaForge just released two new products: VideoWrapplet and CinemaForgeLite. In addition, mediaForge opened a social network website called Nume.

mediaForge

MediaForge looks like a company that is biting off a lot. For a company specializing in marketing and marketing products, it sends a lot of mixed messages. I would recommend it narrow its focus and clean up the product and property naming mishmash.

VideoWrapplet

Once you figure out how it works, VideoWrapplet looks like a pretty cool little app. As soon as I figure out how to include it in WordPress, I will post it below the calendar. Maybe I can even make it work in Manila. Very few people use Manila anymore, and none of the Manila forums have been updated for a long time. The only place I was able to make it work was on blogger. Here is my blogger post.

You have to post your video on the web somewhere and then point to it with VideoWrapplet.

CinemaForgeLite

CinemaForgeLite is an interesting program. But it seems like redundant to a lot of really good conversion tools that are already out there. Zamzar is my favorite conversion site. No need to download anything, it’s fast and free.

Nume.com

This site is the most confusing thing from mediaForge. It’s a poorly thought out social networking site. You are supposed to be able to host your videos on Nume and then point to them from VideoWrapplet. Currently there is no way to upload a video to Nume.

Conclusion

Lots of stuff, rolled out willy nilly. No beta that I know about. VideoForge has a lot of work to do to make these products and services usable. It will be interesting to see if VideoForge can right itself and communicate clearly its core competence and business model.

Source: Onfolio Newspaper – Craig Burton Blog

UK RFID Passports Cracked Already

 Ok, I know this is old, but US is moving to RFID passports Jan1, I don’t even own a hammer.

cb

from the feeling-safer? dept

There’s been an odd rush by governments to move to RFID passports, even though there are serious concerns about how secure they really are. Over in the UK, where many RFID passports are already in use, a security researcher and a reporter were able to crack some aspects of the passport. It is, admittedly, a limited crack, but it could potentially be used to make a clone RFID chip for a counterfeit passport. While the UK government claims this crack is no big deal, you’d have to think that it shouldn’t take long for other problems to show up as well. What seems pretty clear from the description is that the implementation was done without all that much thought given to the security side of the equation. We’re not as down on RFIDs as some people are — but with all the questions about security and privacy issues, you would think that officials would have been extra careful before sticking them in something such as a passport. Apparently not.

Source: Techdirt: UK RFID Passports Cracked Already

How To: Disable Your Passport’s RFID Chip

It’s a privacy issue. I would never recommend anyone do this. My passport just expired. What to do…oops, I dropped it. 

cb

All passports issued by the US State Department after January 1 will have always-on radio frequency identification chips, making it easy for officials – and hackers – to grab your personal stats. Getting paranoid about strangers slurping up your identity? Here’s what you can do about it. But be careful – tampering with a passport is punishable by 25 years in prison. Not to mention the “special” customs search, with rubber gloves. Bon voyage!

1) RFID-tagged passports have a distinctive logo on the front cover; the chip is embedded in the back.

2) Sorry, “accidentally” leaving your passport in the jeans you just put in the washer won’t work. You’re more likely to ruin the passport itself than the chip.

3) Forget about nuking it in the microwave – the chip could burst into flames, leaving telltale scorch marks. Besides, have you ever smelled burnt passport?

4) The best approach? Hammer time. Hitting the chip with a blunt, hard object should disable it. A nonworking RFID doesn’t invalidate the passport, so you can still use it.

Source: Wired 15.01: START

How to sniff plain-text passwords in 13 steps

 Yikes. I haven’t played with this yet. But I’m telling you, the name a password paradigm we know is just plain dead.

I would really appreciate feedback about this article. Please register to the forum and comment on it! Thanks and use with caution.
The following is an instructional tutorial. I hope to show how easy it is to sniff people’s passwords in plain-text form on virtually any wired network. Common applications for this would be on a university, school or otherwise large network. This has only been tested on a Windows machine, but can be used to sniff passwords from any operating system.

Step 1: Download, install and run Cain & Abel at http://www.oxid.it/cain.html
Step 2: Click “Configure” in the top bar.
Step 3: In the “Sniffer” tab, click the adapter which is connected to the network to be sniffed, then click “Apply”, then “OK”.
Step 4: Click the “Sniffer” tab in the main window.
Step 5: Click the network card in the top bar (2nd icon from the left).
Step 6: Click the “+” button in the top bar.
Step 7: Select “All hosts in my subnet”, click “OK”. Entries should appear in the main window under the “IP address”, “MAC address” and “OUI fingerprint” headings.
Step 8: From the “Sniffer” tab, click “APR” in the bottom tab.
Step 9: Click the top right pane in the main window. Click the “+” button in the top bar.
Step 10: Click on the router in the left pane. The router is generally the entry which has the lowest final IP value (xxx.xxx.xxx.*). Highlight the IP addresses to sniff in the right pane. Click “OK”.
Step 11: Click the ARP icon in the top bar (3rd icon from the left). Wait until other users have logged into websites on other computers. Depending on the size of the network and the traffic which this network receives, this can range from minutes to hours.
Step 12: After some time has passed, click “Passwords” in the bottom tab.
Step 13: In the left pane, select the bolded entries. The right pane should show the time, server, username, password (in plaintext) and site accessed.
Please use this tutorial with caution as most private institutions, as well as countries, have strict rules and laws against network sniffing and could lead to expulsion from an institution, as well as critical litigation! This tutorial is for educational purposes only and should only be used to demonstrate the security weaknesses of common networking infrastructures.[/b]

Source: The Antiriddle Forum :: The Hardest Riddle on the Net :: View topic – How to sniff plain-text passwords in 13 steps

KRCL, Real Radio Lives

I agree with Doc, KRCL is a great radio station. Every Sat and Sun from 10 2, Sagebrush Serenade. Live Blues and so on. Thanks for reminding me Doc.

cb 

Real Radio Lives

I listened to a lot of KRCL on the way down here yesterday. Dunno why, but I’d never heard them, or heard of them, before. But man, what a great mess of music they put out. Yesterday morning most or all of the the music was by Native Americans, or had a native theme of some kind. I missed the details. What I didn’t miss was that it was hard to tune away, or to turn the sound off when the phone rang (which it did, a lot). Anyway, I just wanted to salute a rare real radio station. (With something even more rare for a real station: a big signal.)

Source: The Doc Searls Weblog : Saturday, January 6, 2007