4chan

The 404 1,093: Where we're monitoring that scan you just interfaced (podcast)

Leaked from today's 404 show:

- Guy gets butt kicked for wearing digital eye glasses inside McDonald's.

- Burger King employee stands on lettuce, gets busted by Internet.

- This is how you paint a 150-foot Batman.

- Does this photo of yesterday's storm in New York deserve an Instagram filter?… Read more

Web exposes Burger King employee standing on lettuce

When it comes to humor, you can't always have it your own way.

Well, you can, as long as you don't post it online.

My evidence for this thesis comes from a Burger King employee who thought it would be amusing to stand in two large plastic tubs of lettuce and have a photo taken.

Was he or she wearing shoes? But of course. Was this funny? But of course the lettuce-stomper must have thought it was. That is, until Anonymous members of 4Chan thought it would be just -- and, perhaps, funny too -- to find this … Read more

The 404 976: Where we're making ghosts turn red (podcast)

Megaupload users (the legal kind) are upset with the FBI's decision to shut the site down yesterday before anyone had a chance to back up their files.

In response to the lawsuit, Anonymous hit back with several denial-of-service (DOS) attacks that brought down several government-run Web sites including those for the Department of Justice and the FBI, as well as Universal Music and the Motion Picture Association of America.

Today we're chatting about yesterday's Apple iBookstore announcement and what it'll mean for schools and the future of education. We'll also spend some time looking at the Megaupload arrests, and run through the top 10 questions kids ask that puzzle parents, like "Why is the sky blue?" and "How do airplanes stay in the air?"… Read more

4chan outage could be digital version of a food fight

4chan, a site known for launching memes and harboring trolls, was down early today following an outage earlier this week that could be attributed to a digital version of a lunchroom food fight with users of Tumblr, according to a knowledgeable source.

The evidence is in what appear to be tit-for-tat online fliers circulating among users of the sites. One flier titled "Operation Overlord: Final Phase Tumblr" vowed to take down the popular microblogging site. It urged people to download the LOIC (Low Orbit Ion Cannon) software so their computers could be used to overwhelm Tumblr with traffic … Read more

The 404 821: Where the water's polluted with germs (podcast)

After a 26-day service outage, Sony finally kickstarted its PlayStation Network, allowing users to resume online gameplay. It turns out the original server hack was hosted on Amazon's EC2 Cloud Computing network, but the outages aren't over yet--the servers crashed again after being flooded for password resets.

In other news, the Internet organized a mean prank victimizing online daters in New York on Friday, so to make all you single dudes out there fell better, we go around the room telling our favorite pranking stories. Let us know if you have a good one!

The 404 Digest for Episode 821

Hiccups dog PlayStation Network restoration. Internet organizes cruel, but kind of funny, online dating prank.

Episode 821 Subscribe in iTunes (audio) | Subscribe in iTunes (video) | Subscribe in RSS Audio | Subscribe in RSS Video… Read more

The 404 789: Where we're desperately clinging to our last peanut (podcast)

Natali Morris is letting go of her peanuts and leaving CNET, but she'll be here until April 29, which means there are only four more Natali Thursdays left! In this edition of The 404, Google is making news with its latest social networking effort, +1; the government is developing a panic button smartphone app; and Reddit users are defending the integrity of the board against link fraud!

The 404 Digest for Episode 789

Single tires are available for sale on Amazon.com. Today is World Data Backup Day--thanks, Reddit! 4chan sends us the Anonymous Bad Guy 404 Augmented Reality app. Uncle Henry shows us The 404 playing on a white iPad 2. Hard Wok Cafe logo mock-ups by Hai Ho and Robin--thanks!

Episode 789 Subscribe in iTunes (audio) | Subscribe in iTunes (video) | Subscribe in RSS Audio | Subscribe in RSS Video… Read more

Report: FBI seizes server in probe of WikiLeaks attacks

The FBI has seized a server in Texas as part of its hunt for the groups behind the pro-WikiLeaks denial-of-service attacks launched in December against PayPal, Visa, MasterCard, and others, according to a report.

During a December 16 raid, agents seized a server at Tailor Made Services, a Dallas-based co-location, or server-hosting, facility, and copied two of its hard drives, according to The Smoking Gun Web site, which said it has obtained the FBI affidavit in support of a search warrant for the seizure.

It's not clear what was found on the drives, The Smoking Gun reported, saying that … Read more

Hackers targeting human rights, indie media groups

Hackers are increasingly hitting the Web sites of human rights and independent media groups in an attempt to silence them, says a new study released this week by Harvard University's Berkman Center for Internet & Society.

Based on a survey of 45 groups, the report "Distributed Denial of Service Attacks Against Independent Media and Human Rights Sites" found that a large percentage said they've been targeted by distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks from those who disagree with their viewpoints. The Web sites typically have been knocked offline for short periods of time but in some cases have … Read more

The 404 729: Where Stupid Andy is The 404's Nerd of the Year (podcast)

Kenley is back on The 404 today to announce the winner of our Nerd of the Year contest, and Stupid Andy is the victor!

Stupid Andy is a closet geek, so even though you might mistake him for a regular guy, he's well versed in audio/visual languages which I think puts him in the category of nerd, according to this article comparing the two.

Time has announced its Person of the Year for 2010, and although Justin Bieber, the Chilean miners, and the Tea Party all came close, Mark Zuckerberg clinched the title of the person who Time describes as "for better or for worse...has done the most to influence the events of the year."

With Zuckerberg in the cockpit, Facebook has changed the way we communicate and consume news, but we have to question whether the release of "The Social Network" had anything to do with the nomination.

Plenty of Gawker accounts were compromised as a result of last weekend's Gnosis breach, and we learn on today's show that even some of our fellow CNET colleagues were affected by the hack! 

We also take a look at a graph of the top 50 Gawker Media passwords that are now posted online for public consumption. Clearly people just don't care about their commenting passwords on the site, because the first 10 are all lazy keyboard strokes  like "123456," "abc123," and "qwerty." On the stranger side, "monkey," "consumer," "superman," and just the number "0" were all identified as popular passwords.

In the face of disaster, the smart thing to do is adapt and move on, so check out this Lifehacker guide to reassessing your online security measures. The page suggests using a free password manager called LastPass that generates complex passwords for you, stores them on a network, and even audits them to make sure they're not easy to guess.

Narcs around the world have been waiting for a Big Brother app for the iPhone, and now it's here. It's called the PatriotApp, and it deputizes any iPhone user (pending a 99-cent fee) with the ability to report a number of crimes directly to the appropriate governmental agency. It links your iPhone to organizations like the FBI, the EPA, and the CDC so you can report things like government waste, environmental crimes, white-collar crimes, and public health concerns on the fly, but it just seems like a professional tool to snitch on your neighbor. Finally, you can also use the app to post your claims to Twitter and Facebook, so all your friends can be aware of your citizen's arrests.

Remember Daniel, our friend who visited The 404 studio last March? He left us this video voice mail telling us about the current fashion trends blanketing his middle school. Congratulations on your graduation, buddy--be sure to tell all your new high school friends about The 404!

Episode 729 Subscribe in iTunes audio | Suscribe to iTunes (video) | Subscribe in RSS Audio | Subscribe in RSS Video… Read more