Fed2 Star - the newsletter for the space trading game Federation 2

The weekly newsletter for Fed2
by ibgames

EARTHDATE: December 13, 2015

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WINDING DOWN

An idiosyncratic look at, and comment on, the week's net, technology and science news
by Alan Lenton

“Christmas is coming, the goose is getting fat...” Yep it’s that time of the year again, so I’ve located a couple of good places to find gift suggestions. I’ve also collected a couple of warnings about toys that are hackable, which you might like to check out before buying kids toys with online connections... That makes up the bulk of this week’s Winding Down, but for the techno/politico junkies, there’s some URLs to keep you going for a while.

Next week’s Winding Down (on 20 December) will be last of 2015. I hope you’ll be able to cope with it, because the next issue after that will be on Sunday 10 January 2016. That gives me two weekends in a row off. Goodness me, what am I going to do with all that free time? Who knows, I might even design a new game...

Christmas gifts: The good stuff

InfoWorld came up with half a dozen gifts for your other nerd. Some of them were a bit predictable – high power flashlights and a toolkit, but I thought the Star Trek PJs and the Millennium Falcon drone were rather cool!
http://www.infoworld.com/video/59803/six-great-gifts-for-the-nerdiest-nerds-you-know

One thing you won’t be able to buy for Christmas, because it’s already sold – for US$1.76 million – is singer Janis Joplin’s psychedelic Porsche. I always thought it was a bit strange that she owned a Porsche, but the only song she did about cars was Mercedes Benz!
http://money.cnn.com/2015/12/10/luxury/janis-joplin-porsche-auction/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-GFqhCq2HA&list=RDC-GFqhCq2HA&index=1

Probably the best, and most unusual gift guide on the net, though is the one from Atlas Obscura. This one had me brooding for ages over its suggestions for the different types of personalities that you might be buying for. Some of the highlights for me were a gallon tin of immortality (incidentally, what happens when you’ve used it all up?), framed spider webs, and maybe a packet of Roswell UFO crash site soil, since I can’t get out there to dig my own. On the other hand, some skull ice moulds would make a nice change from the tasteless Titanic and iceberg ice moulds I already have.

I have to confess that a rather fine looking Aztec Death Whistle has its attractions , as does the idea of taking classes in glass blowing to make neon signs – I could blow away those people who merely use Christmas lights to decorate their houses at Yuletide... For those of you with, how shall I put it, a more romantic outlook on life, I’d suggest taking a look at the mistletoe drone, which has the added cachet of being from New York’s Hammacher Schlemmer – one of my favourite shops!

Finally in the Atlas Obscura is suggestions for how to build yourself a cabinet of curiosities entirely from unusual objects purchased from Amazon. I was particularly taken by the shrunken heads, but what I really want is a pith helmet...

I decided to pass on the Icelandic cod with a light bulb inside.
http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-2015-atlas-obscura-gift-guide

Of course, if you have US$4 billion to spare, you could be the first one on your block to own one of the US navy’s latest class of destroyers. It looks a bit weird, but I’m sure you could get used to the shape in time. Here’s a picture of the first (and so far only one) of the class leaving Maine for its sea trials.
http://www.gizmag.com/navy-zumwalt-destroyer-sea-trials/40818/

Christmas Gifts: Danger Will Robinson

Unfortunately, all is not sweetness and light on the Christmas present front, especially the bit where the Internet of Things (IoT) merges with the Internet of Presents...

Let’s start with Barbie – specifically ‘Hello Barbie’. This is the US$75 internet connected Barbie doll. Why anyone would want to connect their Barbie doll to the Internet eludes me. Maybe they get lonely and want to talk to other Barbie dolls... Regardless, the doll has security problems which, among other things, could allow hackers to pinpoint the home address of the doll – and, of course, its owner. Not good.
http://www.cnet.com/news/hello-headaches-barbie-of-the-internet-age-has-even-more-security-flaws/

Then there’s is the matter of VTech. Its Android tablet for kids, Innotab, turns out to be relatively easy to extract data from lost, sold, or stolen tablets. There are several bugs involved, including one that’s been known about for several years without VTech fixing it. That’s completely unacceptable.

Unfortunately, it’s only the tip of the problem with VTech. It recently had 6.4 million children’s profiles stolen by hackers. Yes that’s 6,400,000 children’s profiles. But it wasn’t just profiles – the hackers also managed to get hold of a full year’s worth of logs of children chatting with their parents. VTech make a lot of computer-like toys, and encourages people to sign them up to its services. My advice would be to consider the possible problems carefully before you do so.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/12/04/vtech_android_tablet_insecure/
http://arstechnica.com/security/2015/11/when-children-are-breached-inside-the-massive-vtech-hack/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/12/02/vtech_breach_breakdown/

Scanner: The rest of tech v. politics

Terrorists mock bids to end use of social media
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/08/technology/terrorists-mock-bids-to-end-use-of-social-media.html?_r=0

FBI tweaks stance on encryption back doors, admits to using zero-day exploits
http://www.darkreading.com/endpoint/fbi-tweaks-stance-on-encryption-backdoors-admits-to-using-0-day-exploits/d/d-id/1323526

Insurer now offering “troll insurance” for victims of online harassment
http://arstechnica.com/business/2015/12/chubb-offers-uks-first-troll-insurance-policy/

Sneaky Microsoft renamed its data slurper before sticking it back in Windows 10
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/11/26/microsoft_renamed_data_slurper_reinserted_windows_10/

77,000 Steam users are hacked every month. Here’s how Valve is fixing it
http://thenextweb.com/insider/2015/12/10/77000-steam-users-are-hacked-every-month-heres-how-valve-is-fixing-it/

Still running IE10? Not for long, says Microsoft
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/12/11/ie10_eol_12_january/

Sling CEO: Comcast data caps so low they hurt competing video providers
http://arstechnica.com/business/2015/12/sling-ceo-comcast-data-caps-so-low-they-hurt-competing-video-providers/

Acknowledgements

Thanks to readers Barb and Fi for drawing my attention to material for Winding Down.

Please send suggestions for stories to alan@ibgames.com and include the words Winding Down in the subject line, unless you want your deathless prose gobbled up by my voracious Thunderbird spam filter...

Alan Lenton
alan@ibgames.com
13 December 2015

Alan Lenton is an on-line games designer, programmer and sociologist, the order of which depends on what he is currently working on! His web site is at http://www.ibgames.net/alan/index.html.

Past issues of Winding Down can be found at http://www.ibgames.net/alan/winding/index.html.

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