Four short links: 11 August 2017
Cracking Wi-Fi, Hacking with DNA, Animation Playthings, and Physics Simulation
- Wi-Fi Cracking — This is a brief walk-through tutorial that illustrates how to crack Wi-Fi networks that are secured using weak passwords. It is not exhaustive, but it should be enough information for you to test your own network’s security or break into one nearby. The attack outlined below is entirely passive (listening only, nothing is broadcast from your computer) and it is impossible to detect, provided you don’t actually use the password that you crack.
- Computer Security and Privacy in DNA Sequencing — Here we highlight two key examples of our research below: (1) the failure of DNA sequencers to follow best practices in computer security and (2) the possibility to encode malware in DNA sequences. Buffer overflow in binary -> DNA -> crappy sequencer code -> binary -> “I’m in!”.
- Wick — a free browser-based toolkit for creating small interactive things for the Internet. … Wick is a hybrid of an animation tool and a coding IDE, heavily inspired by similar tools such as Flash, HyperCard, and Scratch. Open Source.
- Predictive Simulation in Game Physics — Predictive simulation is traditionally used as part of planning and game AI algorithms; we argue that it presents untapped potential for game mechanics and interfaces. We explore this notion through 1) deriving a four-quadrant design space model based on game design and human motor control literature, and 2) developing and evaluating six novel prototypes that demonstrate the potential and challenges of each quadrant. Our work highlights opportunities in enabling direct control of complex simulated characters, and in transforming real-time action into turn-based puzzles. Based on our results, adding predictive simulation to existing game mechanics is less promising, as it may feel alienating or make a game too easy. Preprint paper and open source code.
