Brendan OConnor
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F-BOMB $50 surveillance computer hides in your CO detector, cracks your WiFi
What happens when you take a PogoPlug, add 8GB of flash storage, some radios (WiFi, GPS) and perhaps a few sensors, then stuff everything in a 3D-printed box? You get the F-BOMB (Falling or Ballistically-launched Object that Makes Backdoors), a battery-powered surveillance computer that costs less than $50 to put together using off-the-shelf parts. The 4 x 3.5 x 1-inch device, created by security researcher Brendan O'Connor and funded by DARPA's Cyber Fast Track program, is cheap enough for single-use scenarios where costly traditional hardware is impractical. It can be dropped from an AR Drone, tossed over a fence, plugged into a wall socket or even hidden inside a CO detector. Once in place, the homebrew Linux-based system can be used to gather data and hop onto wireless networks using WiFi-cracking software. Sneaky. Paranoid yet? Click on the source link below for more info.
We Dare Aussie rating under review
Australia may reclassify Ubisoft's titillating We Dare following a review request. Federal Minister for Home Affairs Brendan O'Connor admitted he was spurred to file the application following media reports that the game's PG rating may be inappropriate. "I believe that this game is unsuitable for children and I look forward to the outcome of the Classification Board's review of its PG rating," O'Connor wrote in a statement to Gamespot. "I share the concern of many parents that children may be inadvertently playing games that are more suited to adult gamers." We Dare was never released in the US or UK. Even European rating board PEGI wasn't totally relaxed and groovy about the game, asking Ubisoft to pull the game's ads from the internet. The Australian review of We Dare is expected to be completed June 17. Update: The title retains a PG rating as of June 22.
Australian federal govt presses for consensus on R18 game rating creation
"We're becoming the laughing stock of the developed world," declared Australia's Home Affairs Minister Brendan O'Connor to ABC News, "where we're the only country that doesn't have R18 classification level for video games." Following the Australian Classification Board's final refusal to grant Mortal Kombat a rating in an appeal decision on Monday (finding the game unsuited for MA15+, the country's most mature rating for games), O'Connor all but demanded that the states and territories reach a consensus to introduce an R18+ rating into the system when the attorneys-general meet in July. "I foreshadow that if there is not a consensus around this issue, the Commonwealth will certainly be considering other options," O'Connor vowed, "because we cannot continue to have an outdated classification system that's actually, in my view, causing harm to young people." When pressed for what the federal government's "other options" might be, O'Connor refused to clarify, saying only that he's "seeking advice" and would not "outline all of those things" at this time. "But can I say my preference," he reiterated in the full transcript obtained by Kotaku Australia, "my very strong preference, is to have consent around the table in July." "We're coming up to ten years of inaction," O'Connor observed, noting that the issue has been on the attorneys-general agenda since 2002. "I'm going into the [July] meeting with an optimistic air." To those opposed to an R18+ rating, O'Connor offers: "Just because sometimes people speed on the roads, doesn't mean we shouldn't have the right speed for each particular road." He acknowledges that laws can be broken -- that children could access R18+ games -- but argues that a revised classification system is necessary to provide better guidance to parents (who should be the ones supervising their children's media usage -- sound familiar?); and to solve Australia's current issue of adult games being shoehorned into the MA15+ category. [Thanks, Shane]
Australian R18+ rating revision still undecided
Sure, the Australian federal cabinet approves of an R18+ rating for adult-themed video games, but official adoption of the new rating has been stalled at the latest Standing Committee of Attorneys-General meeting in Canberra. GameSpot AU reports that no decision will be made by Federal Home Affairs Minister Brendan O'Connor "before he meets with his Cabinet." O'Connor explained as much during a press conference, during which he noted the importance of an amended ratings system and that "gamers have grown, and we have to deal with the convergence of film and games." Unfortunately, despite the Minister's hopeful words, a cabinet vote during the meeting reflected that not all Attorneys-General supported the measure (no word on who voted for what). Additionally, O'Connor promises to broach the subject once more in early 2011 at the next SCAG meeting. For now, the reevaluation of the Australian game rating system is still in the works -- when it will actually occur, however, remains a mystery. [Thanks, Foetoid]
