I'm a big fan of the show Security Now with Steve Gibson.  A few months back he did a show explaining in-depth the so-called WPA hack.  Since then I've seen several people Blog on it and give very misleading information.  For example this Blog Entry "WPA Wi-Fi encryption is cracked" by Sherman Hand.

The problem with the information people such as Sherman are giving, is they don't tell you the EASY work around to fix the hack.  Yes, TKIP encryption is cracked,  wouldn't it be nice then if we had another encryption choice with WPA, ohhh... we do.  It's called AES.  Simple go into your router and change your encryption method to AES.

Sherman's blog also says that WPA2 is not cracked, well it is if you are using the TKIP algorithm with it.  I tried a month or so ago to post a comment to his blog addressing this, but I guess he never approved the comment as it never showed up. 

I'm on Christmas vacation this week and while channel surfing I stopped on The Price is Right.  The game was simple, they gave three items: a couch, a life size Santa Claus and Sleigh, and a Samsung 56 inch DLP TV and the contestant had to pick the one that was the most expensive. 

What would you have picked? 

Knowing the extravagant mark up of furniture, I would have gone for the couch.  But, no -- they claim she was right and it was the TV at a whopping $3299!!  I had to snap a picture with my IPhone as I thought no one who knows technology would believe this one:

This TV has a list price on Amazon of $1499 but sells for $1059.  How in the world did they come up with that price?  The only thing I can possible figure is this was from last Christmas??  Was the TV that much last year?  If DLP TV's have dropped 50% in a year that's amazing (not that I'd recommend a DLP TV to anyone).

A co-worker and I typically take a walk around 2PM each day threw the Skywalk of downtown Cincinnati.  This past Wednesday there was a lady that collapsed in the Skywalk as we walked.  She was with two other co-workers who caught her and she seemed to go in and out of consciousness.  I asked one of her co-workers if I should call an ambulance and they concurred and mentioned that non-of them had a cell phone with them.

I quickly pulled out my handy IPhone 3G and dialed 911.  I got the typical screen that said "911 Calling..." and that is where things started going horrible wrong!! 

The phone just stayed on that screen and there was no ringing, or connection made, it just sat there on "911 Calling...". 

I hit "End Call" and tried again. 
Same Result. 
I tried a third time noting that I had full bars. 
Same Result. 

At this point I realized the call was NOT going to work. So I ran down the Skywalk to the nearest place that had a Phone which was a Greek restaurant called Mythos and quickly asked for a phone to call 911.

The call was quickly answered and medical help was dispatched quickly.  By this time a former fire fighter had passed by and started CPR on her.  After the medical team arrived it was clear they were going to need some privacy as they worked on her and me and my co-worker left the scene knowing we had done all we could, which I wish was more.

The next day while we walked, I stopped in the same spot and tried making a call back to my house and then my desk to see if maybe it was just a bad cell phone spot (even though it shows full bars).  Both calls worked perfectly with no problems. 

Later that day another co-worker ate at Mythos and over heard some of the restaurant staff talking about it and enquired.  He learned that the lady I had called 911 for passed away and that it was a heart attack she had suffered.

I can't help but wonder if the 30 seconds or so that was wasted trying to call 911 from my IPhone could have made a difference and where the problem lies in not getting a connection.  Has anyone else called 911 successfully from an IPhone?  It's not like I can make a test call and say, oh I just wanted to make sure this worked from my cell phone.