John Graham-Cumming

Today, I received the following email:

This communication was sent to safeguard your account against any
unauthorized activity.

Max Federal Credit Union is aware of new phishing e-mails
that are circulating. These e-mails request consumers to click
a link due to a compromise of a credit card account.

You should not respond to this message.

For your security we have deactivate your card.

How to activate your card

Call +1 (800)-xxx-9629

Our automated system allows you to quickly activate your card

Card activation will take approximately one minute to complete.


Of course, I don't have an account with Max Federal Credit Union and this is obviously a phish. Notice that the English is quite right:

"For your security we have deactivate your card." and "You should not respond to this message." doesn't make sense in context.

What's more interesting is that the message itself warns you about phishing emails and asks you to call an 800 number.

If you call the 800 number an ele…

I bought an OLPC XO-1 laptop through the G1G1 program and was intrigued to discover the Measure activity.

The measure activity uses the internal audio system to measure a value input on the microphone socket. With nothing connected this application reads the value of the internal microphone and displays a waveform. You can have fun just by whistling, speaking or singing with Measure running.

But since you can measure a voltage input into the microphone socket, it's possible to build sensors and connect them to th OLPC XO-1. On the Measure web site they mention building a simple temperature sensor using an LM35 temperature sensor that looks like this:

The LM35 can measure a temperature between 0 and 155 Celsius just by hooking it up to a 5v supply. It outputs 10mv per degree so a temperature of 20 Celsius corresponds to 0.200v.

Since the OLPC XO-1 has a USB port it's possible to get 5v from the laptop by hacking a USB connector, and connect 5v to the LM35 and then take the si…