One on one with a hacker – ShopTalk podcast host interviews hacker who took his identity

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No embed code, so follow the headline link to listen. The hacker talks through the exact process he used to take over Chris Coyier’s web sites.

His fake name is “Earl Drudge”, an anagram of “Drug Dealer”. In early March 2014, he used some social engineering techniques and fake US federal documents to be granted full access to Chris’ servers. After missing the opportunity and a failed retaliation attempt, he posted sensitive personal information of Chris’ onto a site where not only can it never be removed, if it’s attempted to be removed becomes promoted.

Surreal.

Basecamp was under network attack this morning: A summary of two hellish hours

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From a Basecamp blog post, in a lull from the denial-of-service attack earlier today:

Criminals attacked the Basecamp network with a distributed denial-of-service attack (DDoS) attack this morning. The attackers tried to extort us for money to make it stop. We refused to give in and worked with our network providers to mitigate the attack the best we could. Then, about two hours after the attack started, it suddenly stopped.

This really sucks.

The emails that led to accusations of an Apple and Google wage-fixing cartel

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From Mark Ames at PandoDaily:

Back in January, I wrote about “The Techtopus” — an illegal agreement between seven tech giants, including Apple, Google, and Intel, to suppress wages for tens of thousands of tech employees. The agreement prompted a Department of Justice investigation, resulting in a settlement in which the companies agreed to curb their restricting hiring deals. The same companies were then hit with a civil suit by employees affected by the agreements.

This week, as the final summary judgement for the resulting class action suit looms, and several of the companies mentioned (Intuit, Pixar and Lucasfilm) scramble to settle out of court, Pando has obtained court documents (embedded below) which show shocking evidence of a much larger conspiracy, reaching far beyond Silicon Valley.

Confidential internal Google and Apple memos, buried within piles of court dockets and reviewed by PandoDaily, clearly show that what began as a secret cartel agreement between Apple’s Steve Jobs and Google’s Eric Schmidt to illegally fix the labor market for hi-tech workers, expanded within a few years to include companies ranging from Dell, IBM, eBay and Microsoft, to Comcast, Clear Channel, Dreamworks, and London-based public relations behemoth WPP. All told, the combined workforces of the companies involved totals well over a million employees.

More info in the post.

BaseCamp in middle of denial of service attack

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Are you a user of 37Signals’ Basecamp project management app? If so, things might be a little slow to respond this morning. From their Twitter account this morning at about 10a ET, US:

We are experiencing a DDoS attack. All apps may be slow to respond while we investigate. Stay tuned for updates.

Just FYI.

UK proposes close of tax loophole, iTunes VAT to move from 3% to 20%

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From the Guardian:

George Osborne’s latest budget could spell an end to 99p song downloads by closing a tax loophole that meant consumers were paying VAT at very low foreign rates on online purchases of books, music and apps.

The chancellor will bring in new laws making sure that internet downloads are taxed in the country where they are purchased, meaning web firms such as Amazon and Apple will have to charge the UK’s 20% rate of VAT. At the moment they are allowed to sell digital downloads through countries such as Luxembourg, where the tax rate is as low as 3%.

In a little-noticed announcement, Osborne said he would used this year’s finance bill to impose the new law from 1 January 2015.

Read the post for more and a clarifying post from Kirk McElhearn.

A drone that can hack into your phone?

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This is really no different than the danger you face when you go out in any crowded public space. But that doesn’t mean the danger is not real. Pretty interesting.

How your tweets reveal your home location

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Geotagged tweets and images can breach privacy walls and even cost lives:

But it also raises privacy issues, particularly when users are unaware, or forget that, their tweets are geotagged. Various celebrities are thought to have given away their home locations in this way. And in 2007, four Apache helicopters belonging to the US Army were destroyed by mortars in Iraq when insurgents worked out their location using geotagged images published by American soldiers.

An unknown iOS 7 feature that is a real game changer

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Ever hear of the Multipeer Connectivity framework? No reason you should, unless you are an iOS developer and keep up with the latest and greatest evolutions in networking. But this is a game changer. Read the post for details.

Netflix CEO Reed Hastings’ blog post on Net Neutrality

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If discussions of net neutrality make your eyes glaze over, this is a good read. Clear and thoughtful, without being too parochial. I recognize that Netflix has a vested interest in how this plays out, but you can’t ignore the fact that Reed Hastings has a unique vantage point. He’s at the center of this storm.

All that said, here’s another read to balance things out, get a more objective point of view. Good to keep in mind that Netflix is a business, not a consumer service.

Imogen Heap, her incredible music controlling gloves, and SNL

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[VIDEO] I remember the moment I discovered Imogen Heap. I was watching Saturday Night Live and one of Andy Samburg’s Digital Shorts came on, called Dear Sister. It was crazy weird, funny as hell, and the music grabbed me immediately. If you are interested in this part of the story, watch the second of the embedded videos. The song is called Hide and Seek.

The real point of this post is Imogen Heap’s new Kickstarter project. If you play an electronic keyboard or any sort of MIDI controlled device, watch the first of the embedded videos.

The Mi.Mu gloves are MIDI and Open Control-savvy and allow you complete control over your sound. To me, this is a phenomenal development and just the tip of the iceberg of what’s coming down the pike for musicians.

Soccer broke my brain

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A riveting, first person essay about concussions.

The grass and goals are spinning when I stand up. My vision is laced with black spots. It is alarming, but I make an athlete’s calculus, measuring these symptoms against the need to show some grit to this skeptical audience. After a brief break, I rejoin practice. Passes and players ricochet past me and I can’t get anywhere quick enough. I can’t read plays as they unfold. The black spots linger. I’ve slammed my brain hard against my skull.

See an airplane flying overhead? Siri can tell you all about it

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Follow the headline link for all the details, but here’s the short and sweet version. Fire up Siri and say:

Flights overhead

If you are in a relatively urban area, you might be amazed at how many planes are overhead at any given moment.

We did a small Twitter experiment this morning, and it seem like the Wolfram Alpha database that makes this work only has data for North America. If you see an exception to this, please let me know (@davemark).

The daily routines of geniuses

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A fascinating read. Here’s just a taste:

Jane Austen asked that a certain squeaky hinge never be oiled, so that she always had a warning when someone was approaching the room where she wrote. William Faulkner, lacking a lock on his study door, just detached the doorknob and brought it into the room with him.

Apple adds Indie Game Showcase to iTunes

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To get to the page, launch iTunes, click the App Store link at the top of the page to get to the App Store, then click the Indie Games Showcase banner at the top of the page (you might need to wait for it to rotate into view).

Team makes incredible fake Tesla ad, Elon Musk becomes a fan

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[VIDEO] Now that’s one way to get someone’s attention! Everdream, a startup ad agency in LA, put together their vision of what a Tesla commercial could be.

Watch the embedded video. I think it perfectly captures the spirit of both Tesla and its founder. Bravo.