Monday, August 26, 2013

Minecraft Prepaid PC & Mac cards in USA & AUS

Problems buying Minecraft with Credit Card in USA or Australia?

Or wanting to gift the game in those countries?

Your far from the only person.

Girlfriend and I have been wanting to do Minecraft LAN, but only had copy on my machine, when I went to buy a copy for her, found out can't buy Minecraft (from USA) with credit card, and I refuse to use PayPal for several reasons (have more than one friend that has been really screwed by them & I don't mean over something little like a game or two).

I was looking for a solution for close to 2 weeks before I stumbled on this little tidbit on their site, accidentally via a Google search (full list of stores that carry them at link) http://minecraft.net/prepaid

You can buy Minecraft Prepaid Card at local chain stores, lets you pay cash so no need for credit card or PayPal account.

I had (foolishly?) been looking in store http://minecraft.net/store and thought the card was something like card game tie in (like Pokeman cards or something).

Think part of the issue might be it isn't written by native US English speaker?

If it was labeled as "Minecraft Prepaid Card" on the Store page, like it is when you click on the link from the store, it would have been clear from the beginning.


Important Note:  You MUST include the spaces in the CODE from the Prepaid card for it to work, returns error otherwise.

Additional Minecraft resources

I plan a post in the very near future setting up Mac to PC Minecraft LAN, which we are using, I have it working smoothly, but still doing some tests to make sure I don't include any redundant steps, or miss any common bugs.

I came close to giving up for a while, and using old Win 7 laptop instead of Mac, and my Google searches showed me I am not only person having problem.

Updated oclHashcat-plus v0.15

Main link:  http://hashcat.net/oclhashcat-plus/

oclHashcat-plus v0.15 "Added support for cracking passwords longer than 15 characters," lot of other improvements see https://hashcat.net/forum/thread-2543.html for full details.

I am still digging through the changes, and I have been sick, so it will probably take me a while, but it looks like some big improvements have been made.

They have also added support for several algorithms, including TrueCrypt 5.0+, Lastpass, & MacOSX v10.8 that are of particular interest to me.



Tuesday, August 13, 2013

Very interesting NYT article about Snowden, Laura Poitras, & Glenn Greenwald

Longer, more in depth article http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/18/magazine/laura-poitras-snowden.html?pagewanted=all and a shorter one that is also used in longer article http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/18/magazine/snowden-maass-transcript.html

Lot of people know who Snowden and Greenwald are now, I think fewer know who Laura Poitras is, sad to say I didn't before seeing this article.

For quick reference about these people see their Wikipedia links:
Lot of things of interest in above links.

Close reading of the NYT's article can provide some useful insights and tidbits to serious security.

I also want to note one comment by Snowden
"I was surprised to realize that there were people in news organizations who didn’t recognize any unencrypted message sent over the Internet is being delivered to every intelligence service in the world. In the wake of this year’s disclosures, it should be clear that unencrypted journalist-source communication is unforgivably reckless. "

Root Catz on Korean Ladder





Gratz Catz

You can find more Catz VOD's at http://www.youtube.com/user/WeAreCatZ?feature=watch

Thursday, August 8, 2013

VPN Guide by Steve Gibson

https://www.grc.com/vpn/overview.htm is link to Steve Gibson's guide to VPN, if your learning how to set up your own VPN like me, or if your just curious about VPN and want to learn, it is a great resource.

It also ties in with setting up your own server, I am looking at this neat ARM based machine, called Utilite, for low power server http://utilite-computer.com/web/home

Blurb about it on Ars http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/07/99-arm-based-pc-runs-either-ubuntu-or-android/

Security & Hacking News: NYT "Two Providers of Encrypted E-Mail Shut Down"

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/08/08/two-providers-of-encrypted-e-mail-shut-down/

Sounds like some secure email companies are shutting down to avoid being forced to betray their customers.

I have a lot of respect for them, if that is what is going on, just hope some other companies might follow suit, or at least be inspired to do something more than they have so far.

Lavabit was supposedly used by Snowden.

Though I am personally frustrated, since I had just recently started researching Silent Circle as possible secure option, and that certainly isn't possible now, based on this snipped from NYT link above:

"Mike Janke, Silent Circle’s chief executive, said in a telephone interview late Thursday that his company had destroyed its server. “Gone. Can’t get it back. Nobody can,” he said. “We thought it was better to take flak from customers than be forced to turn it over.” "

Additional links:

Lavabit (has statement from owner about situation):  http://lavabit.com/
Silent Circlehttps://silentcircle.com/
Silent Circle Twitter: https://twitter.com/Silent_Circle

Hardware Hacking with KeyMe iOS app



An app by https://www.keyme.net/ that will scan a key (picture) that you can then take to Kiosk https://www.keyme.net/kiosk or locksmith that will make a real key based on image on your smartphone.

Interesting, but I see a lot of security and/or hacking issues with this, though it has been possible to make keys from high res pictures for some time now.

Technology like this defeats key access control easily, pretty much forces non physical key (ie a key card) for any real security.

Though most common key cards have many security issues as well.

Wednesday, August 7, 2013

Root House Video (not full tour)




This is from Root's Youtube Channel http://www.youtube.com/user/sc2root?feature=watch

Still waiting for the full house tour, I know I am not the only one either ^_^

Monday, August 5, 2013

Slick Nexus 4 Battery Case with removable battery

If you haven't heard of ZeroLemon before, they make extended batteries and such for phones.

They now have a battery case for Nexus 4 with a 2250 mAh battery that ~doubles runtime.

Additionally, the battery in the case can be swapped out, giving even more run time if you have another battery or two in a charger.

Full details at http://www.zerolemon.com/details.php/zerolemon-nexus-4-juicer-battery-case-2250mah-removable-battery-pack

Thanks to Android Police for heads up on this http://www.androidpolice.com/2013/08/05/zerolemon-takes-on-the-nexus-4-with-the-gigantic-juicer-case-40-for-a-swappable-2250mah-battery/

There is an Anandtech review of a 7500 mAh ZeroLemon extended battery for Samsung Galaxy S 4 http://www.anandtech.com/show/7163/zerolemon-7500-mah-samsung-galaxy-s-4-extended-battery-review

For the HTC One, there is a Mophie Juice pack with a 2500 mAh battery http://www.mophie.com/product-p/2370_jp-htc-one-blk.htm



Sunday, August 4, 2013

HwangSin Streaming SC2

Streamhttp://www.twitch.tv/hwangsin

TwitchTV is having some issues today, at least for some people, wasn't sure if followers were all getting notifications.

Chat and stream are very slow loading for some people , like minutes.

One workaround that worked for me, was watching stream on TL http://www.teamliquid.net/video/streams/QuanticHwangSin

Thursday, August 1, 2013

PSA: Blizzard says "WoW, SC2, & D3 on NA servers will be down for maintenance"

Sounds like Bnet is going down in NA today Thursday August 1, 2013 at 7:00 pm EST, see Tweets below:

"Maintenance is scheduled for tonight so & will be unavailable during this time. Start time for the maintenance is 7pm AEST."
~https://twitter.com/Blizzard_ANZ/status/362800725161545728

"Yes KR or any other server outside of NA will be fine."
~ https://twitter.com/Blizzard_ANZ/status/362809784774299648

Edited to add:  "NA servers, and it looks like a 6 hour maintenance window"
~https://twitter.com/Blizzard_ANZ/status/362803226396999682

Updates are welcome in comments section, I will probably not be able to update Blog if anything changes till late Thursday night (US time).

GL HF