Frog Fractions

Frog Fraction's is one of the best games I have played this year. Admittedly we are only 6 days in and nothing has actually been released but if we can have The Walking Dead to be GOTY why not a flash game? Ok, that might be taking it a little too far but truly this game is amazing. Before we start here is the link.

WARNING: MASSIVE SPOILERS INBOUND - (Like really just go and play the game yourself, it is not that long ffs and much more entertaining than my ramblings)

The game is pretty simple. You are frog who has to protect your fruit from the bugs that are trying to eat them. It all seems pretty simple, each bug you eat shows a fraction for a few seconds. A couple of things should strike you as odd about now. The first thing is that frogs don't eat fruit. In fact they don't really need an excuse to eat bugs, it's kind of in their job description. It was about this time I started to justify to myself that the frog, hence forth known to me as Smaug, did not actually NEED the fruit he just did not want these bug bastards to get any of it. So he sits there in the centre of his domain ready to defend his horde of fruit.

Your first shop screen seems like pretty standard fare. Upgrade your gold fruit so it is harder to eat. Ride around on a turtle friend aww that is pretty cure. Give your frog a cybernetic brain. Wait, what?! Warp Drive? A Dragon you can ride about on. It is about this time you start to feel all superior thinking "gah struggling to be original so they just stupid". 

So you continue on, gaining these increasingly random upgrades for little Smaug here and things on screen start to get a little more hectic. (You should start getting hints the game might be more than it seems when quite randomly "Frog Fractions teaches typing" happens and you start shooting lasers out of your eyes tbh). There is a definite high point when you get your dragon and things start getting a little bit out of control. 

And that's it. It is impossible to get the warp drive, those pesky internet people! You have been tricked into playing a pretty random game for ten minutes I am just going to give up now... WAIT wtf underwater fruit horde! YOU ARE SMAUG FLYING A DRAGON TO YOUR SUPER HORDE OF FRUIT-Y GOODNESS!. And you can now afford the Warp Drive? (I am not sure if the warp drive fits into your dragon or you as a frog or is just some object that you press. All three deserve detailed fan fiction. Perhaps slash.)

This is when things get a little... interesting. 

So once you have gotten your vertical scroller on it is time to go to bug mars and take a citizenship test. 

This review ends now. Because no one is reading to this point and not already playing the game. I can promise you that it only gets weirder from this point forwards. From a leisurely swim to the backing of a weird story about gentleman's boxing to a Zork style text adventure that will make you wish for simpler times when games were just that awesome. Go play it.

2012, In Review

I could go on about my life that I am sure you would all be interested in (year right) but it is at this time of year I like to remember just how awesome the world we live in can be.

NASA started work on a WARP DRIVE THAT COULD ACTUALLY WORK

The first commercial cargo delivery was an incredible success

Robot arms that you can control with your mind became a thing.

Self-Driving cars became legal in multiple states in America.

The most advanced robot ever built powered by a NUCLEAR ENGINE landed like a bad ass on Mars using what was essentially a jetpack like something out of Mission Impossible.

Google announced work on brining AR to the masses.

XNA was found to replicate like DNA and RNA making the possibility of synthesizing new life possible.
The Higgs bosson was detected and observations are very consistent that it is the actual thing.

ENCODE published a whole bunch of papers detailing pretty much every thing we know about DNA.
Autism was reversed in Mice. Not a cure but a huge step in understand it.

Speaking of Mice for the first time a mammal was created entirely from stem cells.

A FUCKING TRACTOR BEAM WAS MADE AND IT WORKED.

100 Year Starship was announced to make interstellar travel a real possibility within 100 years.

A bit of data was stored on 12 atoms rather than the million atoms it takes now.

3D printers became commercially available for under $1000 for the first time.

Quantum Cryptography was sent through normal fibre making piratically unbreakable encryption a possibility.

The genome of a pig was sequences opening the possibility that when we eventually get replicators we can have some fresh bacon... I mean helps us to study human diseases easier.

TITAN was created capable of 17.59 petaFLOPS, your average computer is capable of 3-4 gigaFLOPS.

That's it for now. These are just the flashy stuff that caught my attention this year and I am sure there are some amazing developments that I missed. If this is what happened in 2012 I can't wait to see what happens in 2013.

To quote Monty Python:  "Makes you feel so, sort of, insignificant, doesn't it?"

Checkmate

Checkmate

The metronome heartbeats of a pirate knave,
the ticking soft, as his life fades.

He passes from the world as his life is sacrificed,
a victim of the intrigues of this wooden court.

His body unceremoniously dumped over the side,
the crunching of gears the only salute to his passing.

A knife to the throat and the battle is rejoined,
puppet pawns fighting a war for reasons unknown.

A swig of Mothers’ Ruin is all it takes,
to turn man into animal and make an enemy from a friend.

For Queen and country we all strive,
a civil war on the open seas.

Leaving naught but steam in the air and not a body alive.

Blue Songs - Poem & Sleeper - Short Story

Blue Songs

Blue songs are easy,

they roll off the tongue,

feelings bubbling to the top

mixing with the slop.

Warm songs are tough,

they fade in the rough,

But when they shift

and are sung

real music is done.

Sleeper

I hate this kind of act.

Honestly when does a suit that could be confused as drag and stage fireworks make an act impressive. Despite my own resistance at the rather lack lustre opening of 'Marvellous Mike's Hypnotism show' the rest of the audience already sat entranced as if he was already weaving his magic over them. Which I was sure was giving him far too much credit.

When you are single two things happen to you, firstly you become hypercritical of everything around you, is she giving me a 'you repulse me' look or a 'come a buy me a drink' look. It must be some evolutionary overhang that is still making it's self useful all these years later. The other thing being single makes you, and the reason I am watching a man with electric yellow hair be showered in a rain of glitter sequins, is you become incredibly accommodating. If chance against chance you convince some poor girl to go out with you, it is a down economy after all, then you do absolutely anything that they want to do.
Mary, my date for this evening, sat just as entranced as the rest of the audience to my right around a cheap circular table. Her hands ran along the neck of a large Martini glass, the kind that would look classy if the measures did not go up to the rim and the locals looked in wonder at the olive on the end. This was Las Vegas on a budget. She has heard from a friend that this act was amazing and had insisted we go along. Not quite what I would plan for a first date if I am being quite honest.

The show started up in earnest just as my own beer had made it's way through my body and started urging me to use the toilet. Needing the toilet at some thing with audience participation is like fast kid on sports day. You are essentially guaranteed to be dragged up on stage. I timed his act waiting until he was just about to start a new section. I managed to make my way out with out incident just as he was asking 'Sheila on holiday from Australia' if she was a natural blonde to much banal laughter of the other audience members.

I took the long way back to my seat, trying to work of the calculation of how long I could feasibly stay in the bar and still be on the date. I worked it out to be a depressingly short time and returned to my seat only five minutes later. Sheila was strutting about like a chicken trying to lay an egg onto a chair. At least one positive thing had come out of this night, I had discovered a local micro-brew during my sojourn at the bar. A thick head and a with much more palatable yellow than Marvellous Mike's hair. Apart from sitting with the lovely Mary it was a highlight in an other wise disappointing night.

I returned to the table with a new Martini for Mary, slightly enjoying the alliteration as it rolled around in my mind a tad too much. The lights dimmed just as I took my seat, Mary was startled as I sat as she had not even realised that I had left. She shared with me one of the smiles that had coaxed me into asking her out in the first place. A light started roaming around the room like a hunter looking for prey. Mike's voice came over a speaker system, it was heavily synthesised but his unmistakeable lisp was still there.

“Chinese mystics once told a story of a man. This man would have commune with the world beyond and have the power to entrance any one they met. That man stand before you tonight.”

The light stops on Mike, his head facing down in as a dramatic pose you can muster if a glitter covered suit. His outstretches his arm and points a finger into the crowd. The light follows his finger and it lands on someone. It takes me several moments to realise the rainbow display on my table is from the new light shining through our drinks. I look behind me. It is dark. It slowly dawns on me, the ultimate thing that someone who does not like audience participation dreads. Being noticed.

In a flash of inspiration I turned to Mary and putting on a winning smile that I hoped would work a magic similar to Mike's and convince her to go one stage. My luck was not in, she was clapping already for me to be the one for ritual humiliation. It seemed that while she wanted to come to this festival of cheesiness she did not want to participate herself. The whole audience was clapping now. There is a little known fact that people will always be compelled towards the sound of peoples hands clapping. If lions learned how to bang their paws together we would be screwed.

As I climbed the short distance up the steps to the stage I decided that I might as well play along. I might get a second date out of it at the very least.

A small hard backed chair was brought out and placed in the middle of the stage. I tentatively sat down in it. My stomach twisted as I realised that the audience looked a larger on this side of the looking glass. He makes several pirouettes around me, I simply stare at him. Not in the mesmerised way the others indulged him with but in more of a general 'get on with it before I walk of the stage' kind of look.

To my surprise I found my eyes growing tired. I convinced my self that I was only going to shut them for the briefest moments to try and block out the annoyance I was sharing a stage with.

Suddenly everything is coming to me as if through ten feet of concrete. My body is moving, I can feel the wetness on my fingers as they are plunged into something but I have absolutely no control over it. I am hit with a strong smell of home, it is not a smell I can describe, it is simply a tickling sensation rioting around my nostrils that drags one word from my psyche, home.

Everything stops. There is no more muffled sounds or sensations. There is simply a nothingness.

My mind floats, perfectly relaxed.

How long I am like this I do not know. Time stretches luxuriously around me. It is only broken by a voice coming from far off.

Three.

I do not want to leave this place it is safe and warm.

Two

Nothing can happen to me here.

One.

There is something out there that I do not want to return to.

You are back in the room.

My nostrils are immediately assaulted by the bitter iron smell of blood. A man looks me in the eyes. Shining a torch into each one blinding me. I hear the cackle of a radio beside me. The man happy with what he has seen nods to another man. The room is swarming with men and women dressed as police officers. It takes me an eternity to realise what else fills the room.

Thirty people lie in various states of dismemberment, scattered about the room. The wooden floor is soaked a burgundy red.

My hands are covered in a sticky concoction of blood, hair and other bodily fluids I don't even want to think about. One the police officers, dressed in a forensic suit, gently takes a knife from my limp hand and places it into a plastic evidence bag. I can't even bring myself to talk.

“Sir” One of the police officers try to get my attention.

“What... What happened?” I ask him through dry blood stained lips

“We found you like this sir, talking in Russian. Can you tell us what happened to these people?” He responds patiently

I can't answer him. I can remember sitting down and waking up. It is just like when I was a kid and was on holiday. I had lost a month in that hospital but it was there I had returned to in my head. That was home and I must protect it.

The Little Tree - Poem

I have a load of my old work gathering goblins on my hard drive that I thought I would share with everyone. Some of you will most likely have read some of this stuff before but for those of you who have not I can only appologise :D Today is a poem about a slightly carnivorous tree.

The Little Tree

I am the little tree

that sits in your garden

I am the little tree

that watches your life pass

Pardon me for interjecting

but I feel I must help you

Remember when the gerbil died

and you gave him unto me

my roots sucked at his body

and made use of his flesh

vanishing him from the world

Why not let me do this again,

while your wife is still fresh.

I will suck and drink until she is dry

and let my worm friends take the rest.

Sony's FUBAR

There seems to be a lot of misinformation flying about what has actually happened with people jumping on the ITS HACKERS bandwagon pretty quickly but the actual reasons are pretty well known, they are just not being reported that much. I should pre-face this by saying I studied Computer Forensics for four years so know a little about information security and the law.

First thing to address is why do hackers hack.

When the PS3 was first released it was a pretty open platform, Ever since the PS2 if you wanted to install Linux or whatever your flavour be on it then Sonys stance was it is your console do what you may with it. Not only that they actively encouraged it, using it in their marketing campaigns and giving the option to run it through live CD's, even putting an install option on the XMB.

But in 2009, after nine years of having the option to do this sony removed the feature due to 'security concenrs'. Linux is for Pirates you say? Well partly that was the case, and most likely the reason whoever made the decision at Sony used but this form of piracy was very finiky and required generally a hardware hack to get running. But having Linux installed had led to a lot of good things as well, the PS3 is a powerful system and could be used as a cheap alternative to a server farm. Folding@Home (A distributed computing project that creates models of protein folding to be used in scientific research) used Linuxed by many to provide valuable resources to the project, something Sony later brought back to the console but in a severely gimped way. Even the US Air force had been using PS3's for number crunching and as far as we know they still do to this day.

And thus the great debate began, the 'hackers' felt that it was their console to do what they may with it and Sony was quite rightly concerned about possible piracy from the result of having an open system. But rather than try to tighten the security on their own end they drew the curtains and told everyone to go home

So How can they still hack

An entire sub-culture sprang up, the previously partly pirated PS3 became the focus of choice for hobbyist hackers and just people with a lot of know how want to send a big FU to Sony. When Sony Firmware 3.21 the hackers responded in kind and made their own Firmware.

Firmware is the software and datastructures on a device that basically make it tick. You IPod has firmware, you TV has firmware, even your washing machine. 

What the hackers did next was creat their own Custom Firmware (CFW) and entered into a game of cat and mouse with Sony. Because of the great strides made by the hackers to gain access to the systems the PS3 became increasingly compromised. Before I continue it is worth noting that both the Xbox 360 and the Wii also have CFW available with varying degrees of complexity to install it. What made Sony different is that they took legal action against those responsible, this pissed of the hackers and made them redouble their efforts when Sony eventually made their previous hack null and void.

Piracy became the main source of all this knowledge now, a lot of people were disenfranchised with Sony and because it had become so easily to install the firmware due to the in-depth knowledge the hackers now had about the PS3's architecture.

And then geohot came along. Geohot is a 21 year old hacker from America who had previously been better known for his jailbreaking of the IPod. Now it is worth mentioning when he first started the PS3 was thought to be pretty unhackable, heck Sony even used to boast about it. So as enquiring minds that are pissed off go it was inevitable that someone was going to test their mettle against the system. What made Geohot famous was he discovered the proverbial keys to the castle in a key string that the PS3 used to authenticate all applications on their network. So using this it was possible to install linux right there on the XBM, you could trick the playstation into thinking any application was put there by Sony itself. This of course led to the natural leap that signing a pirated game with key would obviously also seem that it had been bought straight off the shelves. There was no need for a CFW.

But Sony got angry. Super angry. Law suits ensued, he was made into the proverbial lamb for the slaughter. The protest group Anonymous did not particularly like Sonys methods in their search for those responsible. They particularly were angry that sony was given a list of IP address of everyone who had visited Geohot's blog. Thus Operation Sony was launched. It was a declaration of open season to attack Sony's websites mainly through Denial of Service attacks DDoS. They met varying success, some outages but nothing major.

Those Darn Anonymous, they stole my data!

Actually no. This is where we get into unconfirmed but is known pretty widely this is what actually happened territory. 

A new variant of the CFW was released named 'Rebug'. This particular variant was special in that it gave people access to the developer networks. The playstation network is accessed by the general public, but for testing purposes and almost mirror of PSN is kept by Sony so that developers can test their games.

When the word got around that you could do this people then realised that the dev's had full access to the PSN store and every single item on the PSN was available to download entirely for free. You see the network still asked for credit card information but it was never actually checked against any database of trusted accounts or banks. So Sony quickly pulled the plug on the network and set about trying to patch the holes that were in their network and remain a bit mysterious about just why the network was down.

What little media coverage there was at this point followed suit and immediately started asking if this was another anonymous attack. A perfectly reasonable question to which Sony would only reply with that an 'External Intrusion' caused the problem.

Phew, that does not sound so bad.

You would think so, Sony lost a little potential revenue and have some egg on their face. But no. It seems that Sony let the devs have access to your data as well. This data includes:

• Your name
• Your address (city, post code etc)
• Country
• E-mail address
• Birthday
• PSN password and login name
• Any security questions
• Credit card Details

 This is severely FU. It is also not just one unidentifiable hacker but potentially several hundred or even thousands of people have had access to this data.

It is ok, they might have access but they will never be able to read it. That is what encryption is for.

Wrong. Those who have had the firmware installed have reported that Sony stored all this personal information as Plain Text Yes. That is right. If your password was "BobbyMcBob" then your password as sat on their system was "BobbyMcBob".

It is industry standard that some form of encryption should be used when storing any kind of information like this.

So BobbyMcBob should sit on the PSN like 4e6e375e2980c02b37a8183e66cfd5a4 which would be much more difficult for a hacker to do anything with. (That is a MD5 hash which is not entirely secure in itself)

Not only this but it seems that not only do they have your current password stored in this way but also all your previous passwords as well. You know when you try to reset your password and it says "It is too close to your previous passwords" this is how they know.

 To make matters worth is seems the Sony has been using GET requests when processing your personal information. Which look a little like this:

creditCard.paymentMethodId=VISA&creditCard.holderName=Max&creditCard.cardNumber=45581234567812345678&creditCard.expireYear=2012&creditCard.expireMonth=2&creditCard.securityCode=214&creditCard.address.address1=example street%2024%20&creditCard.address.city=city1%20&creditCard.address.province=abc%20&creditCard.address.postalCode=12345%20

Anyone sniffing on your network, or their network or anything in-between could have just plucked this out of the ether and used it. We know that Sony has shoddy data security practices, who is to say that this kind of data has been deleted from their logs even?

Is that even legal?

Pinch of Salt time, a lot of sources are saying this plain text thing is true but there is the tiniest chance that Sony were not that stupid, because legally they are screwed. Also I am not a lawyer so only use this as a general base on which to make any claims.

I am not going to get into the finer points of the Computer Misue Act here and argue if the hackers are legally covered or not.

There are two laws in the UK that should have prevented any company operating like Sony from storing your information in this way.

The Data Protection Act 1998 and the Data Protective Directive (Aka 95/46/EC)

First are SOE covered?, they are a company based in American after all. The DPA defines a party who has to comply as:

Part I section 5

(a)the data controller is established in the United Kingdom and the data are processed in the context of that establishment, or

(b)the data controller is established neither in the United Kingdom nor in any other EEA State but uses equipment in the United Kingdom for processing the data otherwise than for the purposes of transit through the United Kingdom.

As the data controller, in this Sony, is established in the UK and the EU store is separate from the US store then they are required to comply to the act. (Under the Act personal information is not allowed to leave the EU)

So what have they done wrong: Part II section 10 (It's a bit long-winded and legalise so in summary) 

Appropriate technical and organisational measures shall be taken against unauthorised or unlawful processing of personal data and against accidental loss or destruction of, or damage to, personal data.

This means that they should have had your information locked up all nice and tight in a lovely layer of encryption. Granted with a dataset of 70 million compromised accounts a brute force attack would render any encryption void eventually but it would not have been SOE's fault. They would have taken the correct measures to protect your data. But the Dev network should not have even had access to this information to begin with. When you sign the TOS with Sony you are entering into a two way agreement to not unlawfully access their systems and in return that your data will be safely held by them

The Data Protection Act also makes a provision for you if you have any problems due to any breach. Part II section 13: 

(a) An individual who suffers damage by reason of any contravention by a data controller of any of the requirements of this Act is entitled to compensation from the data controller for that damage.

We are not just talking your credit card number here but also any identity fraud that occurs due to the people who have access to the data using it.

Unfortunately the DPA process is quite a drawn out one so any potential legal action will take a while to start up. 

The Data Protection Directive offers much the same protection as the DPA does but on a europe wide level. Linky: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Protection_Directive 

 

GAH, What can I do?

Luckily the Financial Fraud Authority has already stepped in and is compelling Sony to hand over the details of anyone in the UK's accounts that have potentially been compromised and this will be reported to the banks who will in turn will issue everyone with a new card automatically as is standard practice, you will incur no charge for this. Their current advice is to keep an extra watchful eye on your accounts at the moment and the second you see any kind of transaction that you did not authorise to contact your bank. 

If somehow you fall through the net and you do not receive your new card within the next couple of weeks or simply don't trust a government body to get something right Money Saving Expert has a nifty little tool to work out what number you need to contact (It is for lost and stolen cards but I am sure they would be somewhat similar)

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/cardsgone/

What is Sony doing?

This far? A whole not of nothing we can tell. It took them all this time because they had supposedly been working with a consultancy firm to find out what the scale of the breach had been but frankly with the kind of information even potentially compromised it should have been 1. never available in the first place 2. Told to us on the very first of the breach.

They have also gave us this FAQ going over some of the salient points along with a collection of phone numbers for you to make your anger known.

http://faq.en.playstation.com/cgi-bin/scee_gb.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?locale=en_GB&p_faqid=5593

Review: Rivers of London by Ben Aaronovitch

This is a spoiler free review
I wont lie. One of the main reasons behind me giving this book a chance was that the author Ben Aaronovitch was the writer of one of my favourite Dr. Who serials - Remembrance of the Daleks. Ben Aaronovitch has worked on several things you may have heard of, Doctor Who, a bunch of episodes of Jupiter Moon when it was still airing and even an episode of casualty thrown in there for good measure.

Rivers of London represents Aaronovitch's first novel based in a world that he has created. His prior prose work is also very who-orientated with several Virgin New Adventures and a Benny Summerfield novel under his belt. But as I try to stay away from the non-canon who stuff this is my first taste of what he can do with prose.

The premise is simple, A ordinary work a day police constable while working the shift that absolutely no one else wants has a conversation with a ghost. This one conversation catapults Peter Grant into the hidden side of the metropolitian police department, where magic is not secret it is just hidden behind paper work.

Imagine the x-files if Mulder had the, begrudging, ackowledgement of the FBI and you start getting the idea. Peter Grant's development from Probationary constable to apprentice magician is nothing we have not seen before but the genius of this book really sets it apart.

This is a real world. Ben Aaronovitch shows the Met as it is and just because you can make magic lights with your mind the protagonist has to do filing along with his friends on the murder squad just the same. The laws governing the use of magic are as immutable as the laws governing the law of the land.

The plot is very strong with a nice sub-plot tied in well. The main plot deals with a series of murders and bouts of violence that are progressively increasing in brutality and severity. The secondary plot concerns the titular rivers of london and has Peter Grant juggling the old ways of Father Thames and buisness lady attitude of Mother Thames. Ultimately the plots meet in a rather spectacular finale that has me waiting for the next book in the series. 'Moon over Soho' which is interestingly slated for release this year along with the third in the series 'Whispers Under Ground'