“Researchers conclude that Zoom uses non-industry-standard cryptographic techniques with identifiable weaknesses and is not suitable for sensitive communications.”

https://boingboing.net/2020/04/03/zoom-transmits-your-info-throu.html

Here's a new ad, from the GOP anti-Trump group Republicans for Law, showing GOP voters who no longer support Trump because of his incompetent response to the coronavirus.

Summed up: “Even though I’ve been a Republican all my life, I can’t support Trump and his response to the coronavirus is exactly why...He says he puts America first, but it’s clear he only knows how to put Trump first...This is a crisis, and we need real leadership. Donald Trump is incapable of it.”

The ad will air during Fox & Friends on Tuesday in the D.C. area, according to HuffPost.

Republicans for Law is the group who also put this ad out less than three weeks ago:

Via HuffPost Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/04/03/watch-new-republicans-for-l.html

The suddenly popular videoconferencing app Zoom has issued a patch for a vulnerability in its Windows client that allowed attackers to steal the user's Windows login credentials from malicious chat links.

Hi @zoom_us & @NCSC - here is an example of exploiting the Zoom Windows client using UNC path injection to expose credentials for use in SMBRelay attacks. The screen shot below shows an example UNC path link and the credentials being exposed (redacted). pic.twitter.com/gjWXas7TMO

 Hacker Fantastic (@hackerfantastic) March 31, 2020

I made a simple demo of the latest Zoom UNC Path Injection Vulnerability, Take care and don't click on ANY UNC Path hyperlinks!

P.S. I used putty as a payload.exe which could be ANY_THING_ELSE.exe

PoC: https://t.co/fatA6R7Kuq

 Mohamed A. Baset (@SymbianSyMoh) April 1, 2020

“Zoom issued a fix for this and other bugs, promising better transparency going forward,” reports Mark Hachman at PCWorld:

An unpatched vulnerability within Zoom allows an attacker to drop a malicious link into a chat window and use it to steal a Windows password, according to reports.

A hacker could use an attack called a UNC path injection to expose credentials, according to an attack posted on Twitter and subsequently followed up with an additional video. According to The Hacker News, that's because Windows exposes a user's login name and password to a remote server when attempting to connect to it and download a file.

----

Update: After this story and others went live April 1, Zoom CEO Eric Yuan addressed Zoom security and other issues in a blog post.

Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/04/03/zoom-windows-login.html

Everyone is using Zoom for everything from pandemic family gatherings to A.A. meetings to therapy sessions to teaching college classes, but the app has newly revealed and very concerning security vulnerabilities.

The contents of thousands of video calls made on the app Zoom were exposed on the open web, and easily available via common web search tools.

The Washington Post reports that many of the videos, which callers assumed were private, include personally identifiable information and deeply intimate conversations, recorded in people’s homes.

Drew Harwell for the Washington Post:

Many of the videos appear to have been recorded through Zoom’s software and saved onto separate online storage space without a password. But because Zoom names every video recording in an identical way, a simple online search can reveal a long stream of videos that anyone can download and watch.

Zoom videos are not recorded by default, though call hosts can choose to save them to Zoom servers or their own computers. There’s no indication that live-streamed videos or videos saved onto Zoom’s servers are publicly visible.

But many participants in Zoom calls may be surprised to find their faces, voices and personal information exposed because a call host can record a large group call without participants’ consent. (Call participants are given a notification when a host starts to record.) The Washington Post is not revealing the naming convention that Zoom uses, and Zoom was alerted to the issue before this story was published.

Read more:

Thousands of Zoom video calls left exposed on open Web

And here was another previously-revealed and purportedly-now-fixed security vulnerability with Zoom:

Zoom shares your information with Facebook, lawsuit says Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/04/03/zoom-thousands-of-calls-found.html

Nature webcam network Explore.org curates a fantastic collection of countless live cams from around the world organized into categories like Africa, bears, oceans, dogs, animal sanctuaries, and "zen cams." They also provide short descriptions of what you're seeing when you teleport around the world. Above, one viewer's screenshot of the Northern Lights Cam (live view below) streaming from the Churchill Northern Studies Center in Manitoba, Canada.

Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/04/03/watch-the-aurora-borealis-and.html

Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker is technically a Republican, in as much as calling himself a "Republican" helped him to garner votes in the western part of the state, which is less Deep Blue than the Metro Boston Area. But as far as I've ever been able to tell, Baker has never demonstrated any capacity for principles or beliefs beyond "being governor." I often like to say that he makes Mitt Romney look like he has a spine. In perhaps the most painfully Boston sentence of my life, I once met him at a Dropkick Murphys fundraiser while he shared a bucket of Coronitas with Mike Napoli from the Red Sox, and trust me — he's terrible.

So imagine my surprise when I learned that Baker had recruited Patriots' President Robert Kraft — a frequent Trump ally who was recently connected to a sex trafficking scandal in Florida —  and essentially commandeered the football team's private jet to fly to China in order to obtain the vitally necessary PPE (including N95 masks) that was otherwise being denied to the state by the spiteful federal government.

From The Boston Globe:

The journey began, in the governor’s telling, roughly two weeks ago, when the federal government confiscated a shipment of more than 3 million N95 masks at the Port of New York and New Jersey that Massachusetts had arranged to buy.

"I just started reaching out to anybody and everybody I knew, trying to find some other path,” Baker recounted in an interview.

Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/04/03/state-governors-are-taking-to.html

Fans have pined away for the Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker Collin Trevorrow was set to direct. This animated version show just how much better it would have been... Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/04/03/animated-version-of-the-star-w.html

The great soul singer-songwriter Bill Withers has died of heart complications. The three-time Grammy winner was 81. Withers is best known for his hits “Lean on Me,” "Lovely Day," “Ain’t No Sunshine,” and “Just the Two of Us" but he has penned and sung dozens of masterpieces. In 1985, after a miserable album recording and release experience, Withers walked away from the music industry. From Rolling Stone:

As the decades ticked by, many fans forgot that Withers was even alive, which he found hysterical. “One Sunday morning I was at Roscoe’s Chicken and Waffles,” he told Rolling Stone. “These church ladies were sitting in the booth next to mine. They were talking about this Bill Withers song they sang in church that morning. I got up on my elbow, leaned into their booth and said, ‘Ladies, it’s odd you should mention that because I’m Bill Withers.’ This lady said, ‘You ain’t no Bill Withers. You’re too light-skinned to be Bill Withers!’”

In 2015, he made a rare public appearance when he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. “I still have to process this,” he said shortly after learning the news. “You know that Billy Joel line, ‘Hot funk, cool punk, even if it’s old junk, it’s still rock & roll to me?’ I’m happy to represent the old junk category.”

Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/04/03/soul-legend-bill-withers-sing.html

Boredom sparked creativity for Florida-based Tech Strategist and new mom Lucy Smalls. While at home sheltered in place, inspiration struck and now she is feeding squirrels from little hanging picnic tables she built. She's not selling the tiny tables, or patterns to make your own, but has pointed the internet to Squirrelly Treasure Co. on Etsy which is selling both ($25 for a finished table).

2 weeks of isolation and we're out here making picnic tables for squirrels because we're insane pic.twitter.com/8WfHwyJQA4

 Lucy Small (@lucyleid) March 31, 2020

(Neatorama)

screengrab via Lucy Smalls, photo by Squirrelly Treasure Co. Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/04/02/tiny-picnic-tables-for-feeding.html

When the much-panned "musical fantasy" movie Cats came out last year, there was a rumor that somewhere a cut of the film existed that showed CGI cat "buttholes." Well, that cut has been made public, sort of. On Tuesday, Chicago-based YouTubers XVP Comedy released a hilarious video that imagines what this rumored butthole cut would look like. It's terrific. Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/04/02/cats-the-butthole-cut-that-ev.html

The Syfy Network is making all fours seasons of Battlestar Galactica available for streaming online. No registration is required.

The network has also made the two BG films, Battlestar Galactica: Razor and Battlestar Galactica: The Plan, available for streaming. But wait! There's more! The Battlestar Galactica mini-series (which I've never seen) is also now available for free streaming.

This is welcome news for all of us who are fans of the critically-acclaimed 2004 reboot of the original 1979 Glen A. Larson series.

Image: Publicity photo Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/04/02/syfy-makes-all-four-seasons-of.html

Whether you're looking to create perfect portraits or amazing artwork, if your medium is digital, you know you absolutely must have Photoshop to do your best making. So if you've been putting off really mastering the various techniques, tools, and styles it offers for your craft, now is a great time to make it happen. Taking the time to learn these skills will not only help you fill the hours in your stuck-at-home days but also give you something to focus on other than your news feed.

Once you've worked through the 218 lessons in this 8-course Adobe Photoshop Retouching Certification online training, you'll be able to create stunning portraits and beauty shots like a pro. The 19 hours of instruction are provided by Marcin Mikus, a professional retoucher specializing in fashion, beauty, and commercial work who's been teaching these techniques for years with a 4.3-star rating from 250K+ students.

You'll learn how to retouch quickly, the right way, the first time. Some of the topics covered include retouching skin, lips, makeup, stretch marks, underarms, clothes, and hair; dodge and burn—one of the most common beauty magazine techniques; and high-end beauty retouching using high-quality images from fashion photographer Dominika Jarczy'nska.

In addition, there are specialized courses that focus on niches like making dramatic, breathtaking black-and-white photos; the highly detailed work of hair retouching; outdoor photography; and professional lifestyle photo retouching for commercial use—a great way to turn your passion into a career or side hustle. There's even an advanced studio portrait course for taking your skills to the next level to make your images stand out from the crowd. Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/04/02/become-a-master-of-adobe-photo.html

I have, several times, heard the reasonable-sounding theory that America's at work pooping minimized the need for THAT MUCH retail toilet paper. Purportedly there are tons and tons of business-grade TP piling up unused.

What Everyone’s Getting Wrong About the Toilet Paper Shortage

There’s another, entirely logical explanation for why stores have run out of toilet paper — one that has gone oddly overlooked in the vast majority of media coverage. It has nothing to do with psychology and everything to do with supply chains. It helps to explain why stores are still having trouble keeping it in stock, weeks after they started limiting how many a customer could purchase.

In short, the toilet paper industry is split into two, largely separate markets: commercial and consumer. The pandemic has shifted the lion’s share of demand to the latter. People actually do need to buy significantly more toilet paper during the pandemic — not because they’re making more trips to the bathroom, but because they’re making more of them at home. With some 75% of the U.S. population under stay-at-home orders, Americans are no longer using the restrooms at their workplace, in schools, at restaurants, at hotels, or in airports.

Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/04/02/the-retail-tp-shortage-may-be.html

Posted on askreddit: "What's a really awkward situation that everyone can relate with?"

A small sampling:

Sex scene when watching a movie with your parents Sitting there when everyone’s singing happy birthday to you Saying hi to someone you know and they don’t notice you, or thinking someone was waving at you but it was for someone behind you. That awkward moment when you and a stranger are walking opposite directions and you both go the same side multiple times to pass each other lol. Going in the wrong direction so you take out your phone and pretend something changed so you can turn around and walk in the right direction. saying goodbye to someone only to keep walking in the same direction. When you need to talk to someone and they’re in the middle of conversation already. Even worse if they’re with laughing or deeply engaged with the other person Sending a text to the wrong person talking bad about the person you sent it to Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/04/02/whats-a-really-awkward-situa.html

I'll be showing and telling one of my projects in today's SHOW and TELL, hosted by John Edgar Park. The fun starts at 5:30pm ET / 2:30pm PT today.

We (Adafruit) are mixing things up and running a show and tell after John Park’s Workshop on Thursdays! All are welcome, show your 3D printing project, Arduino project, CircuitPython project, Raspberry Pi project, work bench, your work from home desk set up, your cat, your dog, the things your kids made over the last week while home from school.

To show and share a project, view the chat or in discord and look for the JOIN link to join. Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/04/02/john-parks-online-show-and-t.html

For 50 years, Billy Barr has been the only resident of Gothic, Colorado, an abandoned silver mining town. He's not a hermit though. According to NPR, Barr says he "occasionally interacts with skiers who pass through, he talks to his sister on the phone, and he works for the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory nearby, which gets flooded with scientists in the summer." Below are a few of Bill Barr's tips on social distancing. You should read the rest though because Barr is very funny. From NPR:

1. Keep track of something.

Each day, Barr tracks the weather for a number of groups including the Colorado Avalanche Information Center. He started measuring snow levels in the 1970s, mostly because he was bored [...]

2. Keep a routine.

Barr starts early. He wakes up around 3:30 a.m. or 4 a.m., and stays in bed until about 5 a.m.

"Up until a week or two ago, I would listen to the news every morning so that I could start every day either totally depressed or furious. That's always a good way to start the day," he said [...]

4. Embrace the grumpiness.

Sometimes, Barr said, it's kind of satisfying to be grumpy about something.

"Tips From Someone With Nearly 50 Years Of Social Distancing Experience" by Rae Ellen Bichell (NPR)

image: courtesy of Billy Barr Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/04/02/tips-from-a-fellow-who-has-be.html

CNN reports that the oil supply glut is "so epic" the world is running out of places to store it. If it costs more to store oil than its worth (currently $20 a barrel), then it will have a negative value.

This oil glut is creating a scenario where some obscure grades of oil already have actually dropped below zero. For instance, a Wyoming crude grade was recently bid at negative 19 cents a barrel, Bloomberg News reported last week.

Shrinking storage capacity means that oil producers in some cases have to pay someone just to take the barrels off their hands.

"The price is trying to go to a level to force companies to keep the oil in the ground. If it has to go negative to incentivize that behavior, then it will," said Neuberger's Wyll.

Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/04/02/the-oil-glut-is-so-bad-that-th.html

Autodesk's former CEO Carl Bass is a deeply talented artist and maker with his own fab lab in Berkeley. Now, Carl along with his pal Chris Taggart and their families have been cranking out a unique kind of plastic face shield to help protect nurses and doctors on the front lines of COVID-19. In some cases, they've had to be discreet in their donations due to health regulations.

“There are a huge number of people around the country who make stuff and are trying to figure out how to help out,” says Bass who is also a member of BLK SHP, a conspiracy of radically creative folks working to make the world a better place.

The shields which cost around $1.50/each to manufacture are free for healthcare providers and financial donations are welcome. You can contact them at peoplesprotectiveequipment@gmail.com. Go Carl and Chris!

From Berkeleyside:

Over the weekend, working on a design put together by Taggart, the men manufactured 500 pieces of personal protective gear. The design involves snapping a long piece of plastic into a baseball cap....

By Sunday, the 500 shields were gone, handed out for free in plastic-covered packs of 25 to people who had heard through word of mouth about the project. Now the men are gearing up to make tens of thousands more...

The Alameda Health System issued an internal memo on Monday expanding where staff can wear masks and pledging to provide respiratory masks to workers in the ER, labor and delivery, urgent care and psychiatry emergency services.

Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/04/02/autodesks-former-ceo-and-his.html

A group of skydivers jump at the same time, when one is accidentally kicked in the head by his buddy. He goes unconscious, but is miraculously saved when one of his partners is able to catch him and activate his chute.

From Digg:

The terrifying footage was shared recently by Ben Pigeon, the unfortunate diver who took a fellow diver's "femur [to the] head at 200 plus mph." Pigeon writes that he lost 3 days of memory due to the concussion, but it could have been a lot worse — luckily, another diver was able to reach Pigeon and activate his chute and he was not further injured upon landing.

From another camera: Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/04/02/watch-incredible-video-of-sky.html

There's a lot of back-and-forth about the effectiveness of facemasks to prevent the spread of Covid-19, and I can't vouch for this one, called the ragmask. But the design is tastefully understated and elegant, as are the PDF instructions for making your own.

Image: ragmask Read the rest

https://boingboing.net/2020/04/02/this-diy-facemask-wins-points.html