Working on K8055Mac has got me thinking. A few years ago I worked on Total Control which was an educational product for Acorn RISC OS computers. It came with dedicated (and relatively expensive) hardware and was designed to be used in the teaching of control theory in UK schools. Changes in UK educational policy and our tardiness getting the software out meant that it never really found a market - although the few people who trialled it loved it.

I’m just wondering if there’s any interest in an updated version running on Mac OS… Mainly of interest to educationalists I imagine.

A couple more screenshots…

I picked up a Velleman K8055 USB I/O card the other day and was a bit disappointed that the only software that came with it was a closed source Win32 DLL and a simple control panel for the board. So I don’t have to boot into Windows to play with it I’ve produced a Mac OS X application that talks to the board. Here’s what the board looks like:

And here’s what the app looks like:

Thrilling stuff eh? Anyway you can download the source here: K8055-src-0.1.tar.gz or if you prefer you can get the application built on OS 10.4 (but believed compatible with Panther and maybe Jaguar) here: K8055.dmg. I’m going to move it to Sourceforge once the project registration is approved.

It doesn’t actually do very much at the moment - you can turn the outputs on and off and see the inputs change state. Next I’ll add Applescript support so you’ll be able to write simple scripts to control it and respond to events. I’m also thinking of producing a GPL (or LGPL) library that exposes the same API as the Velleman DLL but works on Windows, Mac OS and Linux. In the mean time if you want to write a Mac application that talks to a K8055 just rip the necessary code out source archive.

Update: The project has now moved to SourceForge. You can find it here: http://sourceforge.net/projects/k8055mac/. The initial release that’s there is the same as the release here.

I’d love to think that whoever wrote the caption looked at it, realised what it said, contemplated changing it and then decided better of it.

Hot on the heels of my phishing lession from Barclaycard I had a phone call yesterday from my bank. Well I’m pretty sure it was my bank. The guy on the phone said “Hello, this is whoever from Lloyds bank. To confirm your identity could you please give me your date of birth and your online banking password?”. The point is that he called me; he could have been anyone. The only credential he offered was that he knew who I banked with; not hard to find out. In fact I’ve just told you all that it’s Lloyds…

I explained to him that I had no way of knowing that he was who he claimed to be and - after a pause - he came back with some details from my bank account that presumably would only be known to me and the bank. At this stage I should have teased him: “Thanks for that; when Andy gets back I’ll let him know you’ve just divulged confidential details about his account to me”. I didn’t but if they call again I think I will - I feel obliged to find out what kind of reaction that produces.

You’d think the people who design these procedures for the banks would have enough security savvy not to actively encourage people to fall for such simple social engineering tricks though, wouldn’t you? I have to admit that I only just managed to stop myself from giving him my details without authenticating him - and I actually know a bit about this stuff.

I suppose the full exploit works like this: phone someone up posing as a marketeer and say “May I ask who you currently bank with?”. Make a note of their reply and then pretend to get cut off or follow up with some fake marketing guff. Then some time later phone up again and say “Hello, it’s Conman here from <insert name of bank recovered at stage one>. Before I continue please verify your identity by giving me your password”. That’s it - you now have all the information you need to take control of their account.

It’s not like the world really needs another URL shortening site but I had a short domain name handy so…

Introducing lyxus.net - for all your URL shortening needs. As an early adopter you’ll get a really short URL.

Unless you live under a rock (or outside the UK which I suppose is entirely possible) you’ll have heard there’s a plan afoot to introduce national identity cards. It’s a monstrously boneheaded scheme the numerous failings of which I won’t go into here - Google is your friend if you need to learn more.

If you’re opposed to the plans and haven’t done so already please take the time to make a pledge here. You may also like to lobby your local MP which you can do here.