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Category: Technical

AI assisted security findings are coming in

AI assisted security findings are coming in

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XINT.io, with the help of AI, just demonstrated a 732 byte exploit that gets root on every major Linux distribution shipped since 2017. This is a flaw that went unnoticed for almost a decade now. You can only imagine how many more AI is going to help people find.

Copy Fail (CVE-2026-31431) is a logic bug in the Linux kernel’s authencesn cryptographic template. It lets an unprivileged local user trigger a deterministic, controlled 4-byte write into the page cache of any readable file on the system. A single 732-byte Python script can edit a setuid binary and obtain root on essentially all Linux distributions shipped since 2017.

OOP’s impact on data arrangement was a 35 year mistake

OOP’s impact on data arrangement was a 35 year mistake

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Casey Muratori at the Better Software Conference walks us through how data in game development (and other systems) started with simple coherent structures that were best for cpu and cache coherency layout and then morphed into hierarchies of objects that following the in-vogue trend of late 90’s programming.

This lead to changing the compile-time data arrangement from what’s best for the computer to compiling data into arbitrarily arranged memory locations that matched the real-world things you’re trying to model.

He does a great job of breaking down the history and effects of what has happened in the 20 years since. I remember going to a GDC talk in which a game developer building a racing game struggled and struggled to get performance from his OOP arranged data. In the end, he realized that he should simply lay out the data in memory linearly and got multiple times more speed.

Today, developers from racing games to AI are re-discovering that laying things out linearly and adhering to cache consistent access (ex: GPUs) is where the highest end performance is unleashed.

Use your smartphone to load old programs on an Apple II

Use your smartphone to load old programs on an Apple II

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ASCII Express lets you load programs into your old Apple II (or any computer with an analog cassette port). You simply use your smart phone (or any computer’s out audio jack) plugged into the audio jack to load it into the system.
They even include a program that will take image files and via a simple basic program, accept the incoming data and then write it to one of the floppy disks – similar to ADTPro. No need for expensive drive emulation hardware.

Bopit Robot

Bopit Robot

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I didn’t even realize the old Bop-It toy had an ending. The original edition ended after a maximum score of 100. The second edition went up to 200 points.

Making a core memory USB drive

Making a core memory USB drive

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Despite the drawbacks and impractical nature of this device, space science researcher @dyd_Nao created a USB drive made of magnetic core memory – a technology that was used a lot in space technology of the 1950’s and 60’s.

It’s really awesome – despite the fact it only holds 128 bytes of data and is the size of a small dinner plate.

VGA programming

VGA programming

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Ah, the good old days of using INT 10h, AH=0x00 graphics modes to write directly to video memory at 0xA0000/0xB0000/0xB8000 (depending on the mode).

Nir Lichtman walks us through some of the things I was teaching myself in middle school – writing VGA graphics in assembly (often using the great book Programmer’s Guide to the EGA and VGA Cards by Ferraro, Richard F.

I even wrote my own (terrible) little paint program that would then save the buffer into a file and reload it. What good times!

Forget your wifi password?

Forget your wifi password?

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Did a friend come over and you need the wifi password – but forgot it? If you have a windows system that has ever connected to the wifi, you can extract it from your history. Simply open an admin-privledged command prompt and use this line to display the passwords in cleartext:

netsh wlan show profile * key=clear
Airpod/iPod cleaning that actually works

Airpod/iPod cleaning that actually works

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I bet like a lot of folks, you have a set or two of airpods. I have an older set I use for running since the sound in them after a year or so was starting to get quieter and duller. Then, it got to the point I could barely even hear out of the right one.

Before I tossed them, I decided to see if cleaning them out would help. There wasn’t any obvious ear wax in them. So I looked online and sure enough Apple itself now has a video and procedure on how to do this.

I tried the method out. The first go seemed to improve things, but I wasn’t sure. The next day I tried it again, and the right airpod suddenly had a lot more volume. I tried it a 3rd time on the 3rd day, and low and behold – they were practically like new (well – except the battery life was still only good enough for a 60 minute run – but that’s another story).

I had tried this method before, but using isopropanol alcohol. It largely gave poor results. It seems the key is to use micellar water – usually for removing makeup and dirt on sensitive skin. I use Bioderma – Sensibio – H2O Micellar Water and it seems to be what they use in the video (it has a distinctive translucent red cap).

Social media swami

Social media swami

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This video about a fake psychic using social media against his targets was made over a decade ago as an ad for safe internet banking.

They were using very primitive social media of the time with no AI – today it’s much easier. It’s a good reminder your data can be weaponized against you (and probably why I got off all social media years ago).