return void;

I was reading on the net the other day that someone spent about a week and managed to crack the AACS encryption scheme used by HD DVD and Bluray discs.

After reading through the entire forum, I think the only person that can claim this works is the person who wrote the code. It seems that Doom9 has a bunch of lawyers as members because everyone came out of the woodwork to offer legal advice concerning the author’s identity. After sifting through the code (in java no less), I have come to the conclusion that this is not a crack, not a hack, circumvents nothing, and the industry needs to only worry about correcting the hardware.

Basically, the download the poster provided uses a config file that needs the decrypted title keys in order to work; they are nulled out by default. To obtain said keys, you will need to do a memory dump on the HD DVD player (in this case, the XBox360 add-on). The rest of the code just performs vanilla decryption of a AACS stream, in this case the movie content.

Not all that impressive as I’m sure the hardware players will be fixed to prevent this from happening, but the key thing is this starts the cat-and-mouse game between the millions of home users and the retarded industry experts. This battle was never won on technical merits by the industry so they will likely try to win via legal means, again.

The guy said there will be some sort of announcement or release on 01/02/07, so keep your eyes peeled.

Well, I had worked out a sweet post about my Christmas loot, but epiphany crashed when I tried to look up a link on timex.com. So instead, I’ll make it much shorter as I don’t have the patience to retype the whole thing now.

The in-laws gave me a Timex Bodylink watch. This thing makes training more enjoyable. Now I can run anywhere and let my watch do the coaching automatically for me. In fact, when I took it out for a test spin today, I just started running and didn’t really concern myself with where I was going or how far I’d gone. I didn’t even make a point to remember street names because I figured at the 2 mile mark, after my AIs, I’d just run in the opposite direction for a while and it’d all work out. This is without a doubt one of the coolest gifts I’ve ever been given. It is a little strange reading the time from the top of my wrist now; I’ve been using an OVA watch for about a year and I became accustomed to reading it from the side of my wrist.

I also made away with seasons 2 and 3 of Monk and volume 1 of Futurama. I was also given some Nike running pants which turned out to basically be tights. I’ll be taking those back for something with a little more room. I was given both CastleVania games on the PS2 and FF3 on the DS. I got some Eddie Bauer clothes and a Life In Hell book from sunshine as well.

All in all, I made out pretty well. I think I also gave sunshine one of the better gifts I’ve given as well: a Brighton wallet. It was a total surprise. In fact, she said that she would not have suggested it and was very happy because of the quality and the taste was an exact match for her personality. Score!

So you may have noticed that the theme changed for the first time in the last year. It wasn’t a major overhaul, just a theme change. I grew a little tired of the tried and true Dusk, and hunted for a decent replacement.

Since I use the widget plugin, I found it hard to find a compliant theme. I did find one theme though that caught my eye: Grey Gets Green. The problem was the theme was it lacked widget support.

So poof! I added Widget support (notice the side). I even allowed for the preservation of the original search widget (titled: Original Search Widget). I also fixed the annoying page link hover color (was nearly black, now matches the green). The whole process took a meager 1.5 hours! I just followed this guide and I was done in no time.

According to the stylesheet, this theme was released under the GPL, which gives me the right to distribute my changes. Without further ado, you can download the original theme here and my patch for this theme here.

To all of you out there in radio land, let me know what you think of this new theme.

Update: So there has been a request for the full sources. Since the original theme was released under the GPL license, I will release the full sources with my modifications and a credit to the original author, Fred Banuelos. Without further ado, I give you Widget Gets Green.

Today was the last day of work for me for this year. My employer closes business for the week of Christmas (which starts on Monday) and I have 32 hours of Personal Time Off to burn for this year. Since I bought 40 hours for next year (total of 160), I figured I’d take the rest of the year off.

So my goals for the remainder of this year is to tie-up the last of the TODO list for 2006:

• finish unpacking a few boxes (mostly closet items)
• clean the house
• stop by the recycling center
• sift through the pile of old harddrives and find the ones that still work
• build my Ubuntu MythTV machine and hook it up to an OTA HDTV antennae
• resort and organize the bills/paperwork for 2006
• get my Samba share updated to a CIFS share so I can move all portage systems to the network
• continue training for a half-marathon
• finish putting up the Christmas decorations (ASAP)
• replace the brakes on the ‘02 Accord
• organize a data backup system
• organize a location for all school work for sunshine and I
• play through all Ratchet & Clank games, MGS3, GoW, CastleVania PoR, and GT4

I know the list seems large, but I’ll probably have most of that finished by the end of this work week. If anyone has any experience with good backup solutions and MythTV, please drop me a line. Specifically, I want a fully automated backup system so I can be sent an email when my ISO image is available on the network to be burned (at my leisure).

I also need to find a few cheap SCSI CDROM drives and finish ripping my CDs. I could use a CD storage solution that does not involve a half-dozen binders.

One last thing, it’s nice to be named Person of the Year! I finally am ranked up there with Lindbergh, Einstein, and Stalin. Now I just need the coveted Pulitzer Prize and I can retire.

Is it just me or do universities have down-right appalling security considering they have ALL of my financial information? I just received this letter in the mail:

Further analysis of networked computing resources at the University of Texas at Dallas indicates that all individuals employed between 1999 and 2005 potentially have had sensitive information exposed by a computer network intrusion.

The information that may have been exposed includes names and Social Security numbers, and in some cases addresses, e-mail addresses and telephone numbers.

There continues to be no indication that the information has been disclosed, disseminated or used to anyone’s detriment at this time. The approximate overall number of affected individuals has increased to 6,000.

To recap, the individuals whose information is known to be involved at this time include:

* In the Erik Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science, students and faculty as well as applicants for admission dating back as far back as 1993.
* All staff and faculty of the University who were employed from January 1999 through August 2005.

To recap, the university employs morons in the IT department and there is no legal precedent that I know of to guard myself in the event that these types of break-ins result in the ruining of my credit/good name.

What the hell is wrong with the system that I can attend college, have my identity stolen (credit ruined, name sullied) and the company responsible for my information is incapable to securing it. Why should I have to give them any financial information at all?

So between Sunshine and I, we have had our personal information compromised 4 times by 3 different universities in the last 3 years. The most frustrating thing is, if my credit is ruined because of this, it will take me years to fix it and the university, who is truly responsible, has no legal obligation!

At times like this, the only action appropriate is to slam my hands on my desk and shout obsenities.

I sit here waiting until approximately 0900 when the library opens and I can begin the last leg of the marathon that has been my studying for the Qualification Exam for CS 6378 (Advanced Operating Systems). I don’t really want to spend the next 9 hours in the library studying and trying to fill in the gaps in my understanding of said material. I just logged into the school’s WebCT system to find my final exam score, a paltry 56%, and then I logged in the Student Information Service to find my overall grade posted: an extremely disappointing B. At the midterm, I was the highest B in the class off of an A by only a very small measure.

So there it sat, staring me in the face like an F. As my wife put it, “at least I know what it takes, and hopefully that was one of the more difficult courses.” One damn letter off in the alphabet and the next 3 years of my grades will carry that flaw; I will be unable to graduate with a 4.0, at best a 3.91. I’ve never worked harder for a single course (I’ve even worked less for a full undergrad load and scored better) and yet I felt as if I could never surpass mediocrity.

The most frustrating thing about it is the tests were not so much about how well you knew the material, but rather if you could take that knowledge (assuming you have a mastery of said material) and apply it to some random hypothetical situation. If you were unable to deduce a clever solution to such a problem in the time allotted, it somehow meant to the instructor that you lacked the knowledge gained in the course. I believe that I knew the material fairly well and yet I was unable to demonstrate that knowledge because I am not clever? Even more frustrating is that he said his exams were more difficult than the QE. After looking at the sample QE questions, I don’t doubt that.

Speaking of the QE, there’s even material that the instructor did not cover yet is on the QE. The converse is also true. Thirty-some-odd hours later and the material is all starting to blur in my head. The QE sample questions seem to test my knowledge of the material and not some knee-jerk clever use of the material. Oh yeah, and the QE is open book for this section, which I still think will make the exam that much more difficult.

I can’t wait until this exam is over and I can play some video games and watch The Shield.