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We recently featured a microwave that was hacked to play YouTube videos while it cooked food, but for those who want their kitchen hacks to play a direct role in their food preparation, here are ten ideas to get your food-related geek-juices flowing.
While “sous vide” has been one of the biggest buzzwords in the cooking world for the last few years, those of you who don’t work in kitchens or read cooking websites would be excused for not knowing the term. Sous vide literally means “under vacuum” in French and that’s essentially how this food is prepared –vacuum sealed food is placed in a low heat water bath and cooked very slowly. The cooking method generally allows for foods to cook more evenly, retaining a better texture and its original appearance.
Unfortunately, a quick search on Amazon will show you that a sous vide cooker will run you a minimum of $200. Then you’ll need to buy a vacuum sealer, which will add on at least $30, and non-reusable plastic bags for the sealer that can quickly add up too. All of this is a pretty big investment –especially if you just want to check out the process before you commit.
To hack yourself a cheaper option, Serious Eats suggests using a beer cooler, a thermometer and a few Ziplock bags, which will cost less than $25 total. Just add hot water to your cooler until the temperature is a few degrees above your target cooking temperature, then add in your bagged food, close the lid and let the insulation do the work for you. As for how well the beer cooler holds up to the real deal: in tests, the beer cooler worked every bit as well as a quality $450 cooker.
Most electric yogurt makers only incubate the product, leaving out the critical heating and sterilization process. That’s why Chris Reilly of Make Magazine opted to hack his own yogurt maker out of a Crock Pot that automates the entire process. He call it the “Yobot.”
While the process is pretty involved, for those with the tech skills to pull it off, it seems like a great way to go through the yogurt making process. As a bonus, since you’re already programming a temperature gauge into the Crock Pot, you could easily tweak it just a bit more and make a combination Sous Vide cooker, yogurt maker and Crock Pot in one…now that’s a useful appliance.
If you’re sick of leaving your hotel without a home-cooked breakfast, Natalie Tran has a solution. In this video, she shows you how to make oatmeal or soft boiled eggs with a coffee maker, and bacon and fried eggs with aluminum foil and an iron. It might not be the most delicious food in the world, but it’s better than nothing –which is what most hotels offer.
With the Lulzsec recent post of email addresses and passwords, along with all the regular hacking that occurs on a regular basis, it can be really hard to know if your email password has been compromised. Fortunately, Should I Change My Password can help automatically scan a variety of these info leaks to check if your password has been hacked. This way, you only have to change your password if it actually needs to be updated.
Update: Just to be clear, you don’t have to enter your password on the site, just your email.
Remember the Chinese hackers who hacked into gmail last year? Turns out they were able to do that because Google created a backdoor access system into Gmail accounts for the US Government.
Security expert Bruce Schneier says it’s not just Gmail that’s affected:
China’s hackers subverted the access system Google put in place to comply with U.S. intercept orders. Why does anyone think criminals won’t be able to use the same system to steal bank account and credit card information, use it to launch other attacks or turn it into a massive spam-sending network? Why does anyone think that only authorized law enforcement can mine collected Internet data or eavesdrop on phone and IM conversations? [...]
In Greece, between June 2004 and March 2005, someone wiretapped more than 100 cell phones belonging to members of the Greek government: the prime minister and the ministers of defense, foreign affairs and justice.
Ericsson built this wiretapping capability into Vodafone’s products and enabled it only for governments that requested it. Greece wasn’t one of those governments, but someone still unknown — A rival political party? Organized crime? Foreign intelligence? — figured out how to surreptitiously turn the feature on.
Flip open and fire up your laptop, find an unsecured wi-fi signal and check your email … have you just stolen wi-fi? It may be illegal in some places, but is it immoral? Can wi-fi be stolen?
Here’s an interesting article by Finlo Rohrer of the BBC News Magazine about whether "stealing" wi-fi is wrong:
So here’s the thing.
You’re walking down the street in Hypotheticalville and in front of you is a gentleman who, when he walks, spills seemingly endless torrents of golden coins on to the pavement behind him.
He seems unconcerned by this and you notice that if not picked up, these magic coins quickly evaporate. Is it moral for you to pick a few up?
It’s the kind of tree-falls-in-the-forest whimsy that an undergraduate philosopher might mull over for a moment, but back in the real world a not entirely dissimilar debate is being played out.
The man arrested in a street in west London is at least the third person to be accused of breaching the law by taking internet service without permission. [...]
There are also suggestions using somebody else’s wireless could come under the Computer Misuse Act, usually used to combat hacking and electronic fraud.
But if it can be interpreted as illegal, can it be truly said to be immoral?
Heavy downloading might affect the unsecured person’s speed of access or download limit, but a use like checking an e-mail is hardly likely to be noticed. Most "victims" will suffer no loss.
What do you think? Is it wrong to use someone else’s unsecured wi-fi connection without permission?
Computer security expert Tadayoshi Kohno says that biotechnology that has a neural interface, such as advanced prosthetic limbs, may make the brain accessible to hackers in the future:
In some cases, patients might even want to hack into their own neural device. Unlike devices to control prosthetic limbs, which still use wires, many deep brain stimulators already rely on wireless signals. Hacking into these devices could enable patients to “self-prescribe” elevated moods or pain relief by increasing the activity of the brain’s reward centers.
Despite the risks, Kohno said, most new devices aren’t created with security in mind. Neural engineers carefully consider the safety and reliability of new equipment, and neuroethicists focus on whether a new device fits ethical guidelines. But until now, few groups have considered how neural devices might be hijacked to perform unintended actions. This is the first time an academic paper has addressed the topic of “neurosecurity,” a term the group coined to describe their field.
… by someone driving by in a car, if those documents have RFID chips installed in them.
A fellow in San Francisco installed an RFID reader in his car, with an antenna, and connected it to his laptop on the front seat. He then drove around the city and was able to pick up the signals from passports and driver’s licenses and have the information downloaded to his computer. He could then upload the data to clone the passport.
The person doing this is one of the "good guys." He’s demonstrating for the world how insanely easy it is to steal information from an RFID chip, and he’s hoping to convince the public (or, more precisely, lawmakers) that RFID should not be used for personal identity tracking as the Department of Homeland Security wants to do.
There is a video at the Engadget link.
From the Upcoming 
ueue, submitted by Minnesotastan.
Ever wonder how to make the construction light signs change their text? Now you can with these handy instructions:
“It will ask you for a password. Try “DOTS”, the default password.
In all likelihood, the crew will not have changed it. However if they did, never fear. Hold “Control” and “Shift” and while holding, enter “DIPY”. This will reset the sign and reset the password to “DOTS” in the process. You’re in”
Am I the only one that thinks maybe, just maybe, these things should be a little harder to change? They usually are protected with a tiny lock, and sometimes that’s not even on there. What if the sign above was trying to warn the whole road was blocked and people laughed and kept driving 65?
Link Via BB Gadgets
