Echo Binary

My interest in science was rekindled by Absolute Zero, a documentary from BBC. Back in high school days, I really love Chemistry experiments. Physics is not my favorite Science but Physics experiments are very interactive so I liked it a lot, too. Physics deals a lot with the principle of matter and energy when you are dealing with elements and atoms so it influences Chemistry experiments, too.

The most interesting part of this two-part documentary is the race to reach absolute zero. In The Conquest of Cold (first part), the invention of refrigerator shows how the use of ice influenced the industry and world economy at large. In The Race for Absolute Zero (second part), the documentary reviewed the details on how great scientists raced in reaching the illusive zero Kelvin, and how they competed to create the first Bose-Einstein Condensate.

Scientists have not reached zero Kelvin yet but they are very darn close to achieving it and they are still experimenting on how to get there. The lowest so far is at 100 pK achieved at Helsinki University of Technology, Finland. That might be outdated because there must be on-going experiments now that have achieved even lower temperature.

I am not a scientist but I always keep an inquiring mind about the mysteries of nature and the universe.

Absolute Zero BBC documentary is based on Absolute Zero and the Conquest of Cold book written by Tom Shachtman.

Link: BBC Four Documentaries: Absolute Zero

I’m excited to have my hands-on training on SAP ABAP 4 for the next two weeks starting tomorrow. I can read and understand ABAP codes but I don’t have any formal training. I’m not an ABAP developer so I have no formal background at all. I do equal amount of functional support and technical consultation in my job right now so knowing ABAP will be a great addition in my arsenal of skills.

In Sam’s Teach Yourself ABAP 4 in 21 days, you just need 2 lines in order to create your first “hello world” program in SAP.

Here’s how:

report ztx0201.
write 'Hello SAP World'.

Easy? Don’t be fooled. I know a lot of hello world programs in a number of programming languages but it does not count in my resume.

Gizmodo compares Amazon Kindle vs. Sony Reader. They have many differences and I don’t think none of them is the perfect e-book reader, for now.

If I pattern this to my trend in buying gadgets, I won’t purchase any of these until a 2nd-generation model comes up or it has become terribly cheap. I like books on paper and reading e-books on LCD monitor isn’t that bad either. I just think that this kind of e-book reader will be popular when marketed to gadget-frenzy people who likes reading books as well. However, I don’t see these gadgets appealing to bookworms. I’ve asked many friends before — they all prefer novels in paper. My girlfriend for instance, won’t read e-books unless it is the last resort. On the other hand, my colleagues like e-books for reference materials and IT publications. The convenience of search and multiple bookmarks is very useful for such of type books.

Now, I don’t want to spoil your reading so you might as well head to the source of the article.

Link: Amazon Kindle vs. Sony Reader

Nissan Around View Monitor (AVM) makes parking easy by using set of cameras and sensors mounted at all four sides of the vehicle. These cameras form a synthesized view of the surrounding using a processing technique that offers a bird’s eye view of the vehicle. Nissan’s AVM is unique from other camera-assisted car technologies because it’s the first one to offer comprehensive real-time view of the vehicle from all angles, not just a view in front or rear.

Sounds clever, isn’t it? Now even a newbie driver can park effortlessly in tight parkings. According to the studies of Nissan there are four common blind spots. The first two — left corner and back of the car can be addressed already by the beeping sensors in front and rear end. The last two can be resolved by AVM. The first two scratches I made in my car is on the left fender and on the rear bumper so I can’t disagree with their study.

Nissan Motor Co., Ltd will introduce the AVM in the new Elgrand, scheduled in Japan by the end of this month. The technology will also be featured on Infiniti EX35 in the U.S. market. While I can’t find a schedule for the Philippines yet, I’m sure this technology will eventually find its way in the Philippine market as we have narrow roads, too, similar with Japan and other neighboring Asian countries. It’s only a matter of time before Japanese car manufacturers add similar features in the the Asian market.

You can already find Toyota sedans with front and back sensors. At first, I thought that having front sensors is insane but I learned that their Lexus big brothers even have automatic parking! Mercedes-Benz have this technology that drives the car for you, much like an auto-pilot, but it does not steer the car. It detects the car in front of you and accelerates as needed. Maybe in the future we won’t even have to drive and park, we just command the cars.

I joined the Security Interest Group in our workplace and one of my quest is to make it as my secondary job since I’m interested in security-related programs, vulnerability assessment and protection.

One of my concern right now is how to find relevant information to prove that the improper use of a typical USB flash disk (thumb drive) is a security threat to our workplace. Then I stumbled upon the Hak .5 video podcast episode 2×03 regarding USB Hacksaw:

The USB Hacksaw is an evolution of the popular USB Switchblade that uses a modified version of USBDumper, Blat, Stunnel, and Gmail to automatically infect Windows PCs with a payload that will retrieve documents from USB drives plugged into the target machine and securely transmit them to an email account.

Sounds cool and dangerous.

I tried the proof of concept and I wasn’t able to get the expected result because one of the program was detected as trojan. I am using a corporate anti-virus during my test. If you are not using an updated anti-virus, good luck.

The USB switchblade is supposed to silently steal information from a victim PC with Windows 2000, XP or 2003 OS while a USB hacksaw is supposed to copy files of the unsuspecting user of your PC. The switchblade can be defeated by disabling the autorun option in Windows and using an updated anti-virus. However it is not guaranteed that this precautionary measure will really help the victim. At this moment, the password recovery tool is yet to be encrypted. Using anti-virus disabler can also enable the switchblade do its job unsuspectedly. The thing is, with USB Hacksaw, the hacker (host PC) may have overriden his or her anti-virus program so that the stealthy program does its job copying the whole content of the victim’s USB.

When you read things like this, you will now have second thoughts on plugging in someone’s else thumb drive in your PC or laptop or using your thumb drive in someone’s else PC or laptop. There are some flash disks with password protection and encryption but I doubt that it will be useful at all. So the next time you use flash disk, handle it with care because it is regarded as a security threat.

Links:
Hak .5 Wiki - USB Hacksaw