spying thru ur keyboard sounds..

computer security is getting ridiculous, imho.

"Three students at UC-Berkley used a 10 minute recording of a keyboard to recover 96% of the characters typed during the session. The research paper notes that '90% of 5-character random passwords using only letters can be generated in fewer than 20 attempts by an adversary; 80% of 10-character passwords can be generated in fewer than 75 attempts."

Link to paper here:
Keyboard Acoustic Emanations Revisited
Li Zhuang, Feng Zhou, J. D. Tygar
University of California, Berkeley
(http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~tygar/papers/
Keyboard_Acoustic_Emanations_Revisited/preprint.pdf)

tired

annoyed, asleep, beat, beat up, bored, broken-down, burned out, collapsing, consumed. leaving this country (yet again) in 79 hours time. distressed, dog-tired, done for, done in, drained, drooping, droopy, drowsy, empty. i dunno if im looking forward to leaving, or if ill rather stay. enervated, exasperated, fagged, faint, fatigued, fed up, finished, flagging, haggard. i just feel damn ****-**ed. mind is not focused. body is weak, and unwilling. empty. irked, irritated, jaded, narcoleptic, overtaxed, overworked, petered out, played out. i do hope ill settle in fast when i get there, but chances of that is slim with all the unresolved issues, from housing to coursework to lab attachment. pooped, pooped out, prostrated, run-down, sick of, sleepy, spent, stale, tuckered out. i need a break. from everything. from everyone. to have all the time and money in the world to do the things i really really want to do. wasted, weary, whacked, worn, worn out. but, i know. the closest i can get to that is: sweet dreams.

crossroads...

fatigue.

the tiredness and lack of motivation to do what is needed, even when there is sufficient time to do so. to prepare for my upcoming return to sch, to research abt italy trip information, to fix up all the computers up to 2 degrees from me, to organise friends into coherent groups for meeting up before a 2 year break, to stop and smell the small flowers in life, to decide on what lab to join for the next 2 years, to have my last shot of fun before sch starts, to get a nice 60 litre backpack for backpacking, and yet have sufficient sleep before its too late.

many things done recently feels wrong. illogical-yet-wanna-do. or logical-yet-feels-so-wrong. house of cards falling inwards onto me. logical knowledge that no damage will be done, but that doesnt mean ull feel like the top of the world.

first quarter crisis?

thats 3 years too early then. too many decisions to be made with too little info. no one knows where anyone is heading. just bumming along in life. chasing fads and enjoying the short spark while it lasts, hoping to catch the head of the next shooting star, without accidentally falling into the flame of the tail.

what do i want frm me? what do u want from me? what do THEY want frm us? i have no idea. what can i do? what can u do?

sue me.


p/s: did i tell u i finally got a apartment, albeit only for 3 months? thank god. but ill be 厅长 for the 3 months. hopefully ill save myself a bit for holidaying...