sqlrob

NSURLConnection behaves differently on Tiger vs. Leopard, even if you compile against the 10.4 SDK.

On 10.5, redirects will happen automatically even if you don't implement connection:willSendRequest:redirectResponse: on the delegate, but they don't happen on 10.4.

So I was doing a search on the Wii VC for paper mario.

M..A..(damn typing on this thing sucks)...R....I

And the suggested completion at that point? "Marijuana"

jenbooks got addicted to Professor Layton and the Curious Village, a game that I had preordered and had been waiting for for a while. She wanted help with one of the puzzles, and after trying for a few minutes, I solved it a different way

Well, there was another puzzle late in the game neither one of us had much luck with, so I did the same thing with that puzzle as well.

( Final program version, no spoilers )

Code made pretty by C++2HTML

I filed this with Apple about a week ago, and since they qualify it as "enhancement", I guess they wouldn't mind me publicizing it. It exists in both Tiger and Leopard, and is probably in every version of OS X.

If you run as a non-administrator (you are running as a non-administrator, right?), you aren't as secure as you should be. When you drag a new app to /Applications, Finder asks you for administrator logon credentials. This is all well and good, and is exactly what it should do. However, what happens next is not, and opens you up for other attacks. This dialog is used only for authorization. The credentials are not used again, and the owner of the application is the current, non-administrative user.

To put this in terms of what may happen. You run Firefox, and install it by copying to /Applications. Since it requires authentication to do this, you've increased your safety, or so you think. Now something takes advantage of an exploit, and tries to overwrite the firefox application to do it's nefarious work. Whoops, it succeeds, and your system is now compromised when it should have been protected. Even Windows gets installing as an alternate user correct, why doesn't Mac?

There is fortunately, a simple workaround. Unfortunately, there is not a "Mac" work around, as I just tested that and that has a security flaw as well. Open up Terminal.App, and use su, sudo and chown to set the proper permissions. I'm sorry for the instructions being a little vague, but I will write out a detailed, automated way so that it's regularly scheduled and no intervention necessary.

The "Mac" way would be to right click on the application, and set the owner in the info inspector. This unfortunately, has a net effect of exactly nothing. The ownership of the directory is changed, but the ownership of the contents is not. The ability of malicious software to change the binary is not in any way impacted.

Which is worse, video games or torture?

Looks like I need to buy me an iron maiden and pincers for entertainment, it's more wholesome.

I have a hard line stance against purchasing software that requires activation. Looks like people are beginning to learn why.

From Boing Boing

DRM bites again: the Microsoft Windows Genuine Advantage servers (which every XP and Vista install phones home to) all failed sometime earlier today.

The result? Every single Windows XP and Vista installation -- except possibly those with volume license keys -- is being marked as counterfeit when it tries to check in. Installations which are flagged as counterfeit switch to a "reduced functionality mode" which results in features like Aero and DirectX being disabled.

And the official word from MS?

I’m sorry to inform you that the Windows Genuine server might be down for few days. I have escalate the issue to our Genuine team, kindly try to validate again on Tuesday 28 Aug 2007.

Thank you for contacting Microsoft Technical Support.

From here, via macbastard

09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0

The movie industry is trying to claim copyright on that number. Post far and wide.

One of the communities I'm on suggested a competition combining games and Motivational posters

( My quick hack below the cut )