📨Revisiting Yahoo Answers, QR Doorbells and Air Filter Hacking
AI beware
Today’s edition of The Land of Random is sponsored by Hedgehog, a cryptocurrency portfolio manager.*
Hey fellow internet adventurers - how are you this fine Monday?
I had a cold last week with my family - lots of coughing, sneezing, and listening for kid coughs in the middle of the night.
Oh? That cough from my son wasn’t too bad. I’m going back to sleep.
I finally finished my megadesk over the weekend - I just needed a charging cord for my last monitor.
Here’s a pic of the setup.
I’ve been collecting bits and pieces of this setup over the past 5 years, and it’s all in place now. Woohoo!
Yes - I am working on organizing all those cables - believe it or not - it was worse.
Last week we watched the latest episodes of Reservation Dogs - it’s such a good show! It’s funny, dark, and deals with grief much better than ye olde 13 Reasons Why.
I’m looking forward to seeing how the new Game of Thrones show turns out - and whether it can redeem the GOT show universe.
Thanks to those of you who reached out for a Pinterest Shuffles code! It was awesome getting to chat a bit.
Let’s dive in, shall we?
❓Revisiting Yahoo Answers
Once upon a time - the internet had a place called Yahoo Answers.
You could ask questions - and get answers. The memeability of the platform was endless as you could find bizarre answers to just about anything.
It was (and is) a fascinating look into the ideas/problems that people faced - from issues as mundane as changing a tire - to old game boy color games.
Launched in 2005, it lived a long and storied life until May of 2021 - when it was shut down forever.
Yahoo - rather than recognizing the vast cultural legacy of their platform - yeeted it off into dead cyberspace.
Why archive a vast treasure trove of interesting knowledge when you can turn off the server and never think about it again?
Think about it - there’s likely specialized knowledge about topics (how to get past a boss in an obscure PS1 game) that’s no longer easily accessible - thanks to Yahoo.
Everyone says forums are archaic until they’re trying to solve something with an old car or piece of tech.
Some of those posts from March 2011 are your best friend.
Fortunately - different people sprang into action to save the archives - and there’s several places to experience them in a fleeting sense.
The OG archive is at archive.org - with millions of files. Millions. It’s not searchable in a easy manner.
Y Answers is a SEO backlink marketing lead magnet - but very interesting nonetheless.
QuantCDN created a backup - but it’s not searchable.
While there are millions of pages stored in our archive, it's hard to surface without search. Provided there is interest, we could add searchability and filtering to the offering using our Quant Search solution. (source)
I can’t find anything indicating that they’ve done this yet.
I searched far and wide, but sadly - I can’t find a searchable archive of Yahoo Answers. Your best bet is to just explore from one question to the next in the Internet Archive Wayback Machine.
At least the data has been saved for the most part - and it’s likely someone will get around to organizing all the data in a searchable manner.
Just like how we enjoy going through old Geocities archives - searching Yahoo Answers will be very interesting in the years to come.
Until that day - our options are to wander the plains of the data available to us - or - wonder about being Prefernat.
AM I GREGNANT????
🔔QR Code Doorbell
Video doorbells are pretty ubiquitous these days - and a compelling case could be made that like smartphones - there’s not a lot of innovation going on anymore other than AI tech.
It recognizes you and unlocks the door - for example.
I discovered a new company called Qbell that has innovated a new low tech solution for digital doorbells, and it’s ridiculously simple.
It’s a QR code with a chat component.
If someone scans the QR code - it alerts you that someone is at the door, and you can chat with them in a little instant messenger right on the Qbell app.
According to Qbell, all they have to do to message you is to scan the code - no app downloads necessary for them.
It’s a great way to add smart tech to your home without having to pay “big bucks” for a camera.
You don’t have same privacy concerns as you might with Ring or Nest - like all that “emergency access” that Amazon has been handing out to various law enforcement.
Despite Ring’s usefulness, they contribute in part to a dystopian mass surveillance vibe - especially when Amazon hands out warrants.
For example
Earlier this year, Consumer Reports revealed that Ring’s audio capabilities are more powerful than anyone anticipated, collecting conversation-level audio from up to 25-feet away. This has disturbing implications for people who walk, bike, or even drive by dozens of these devices every day, not knowing that their conversations may have been captured and recorded. (source)
Qbell handles those scenarios you’d want a Ring for - like a package delivery or a question from a neighbor who doesn’t have your phone number.
It’s also very cheap too - only $13 for one.
Not a bad deal!
Check it out at the link.
🍃 Air Filter Hacking
NFC stickers are an incredible piece of tech - they enable anything to be smartified.
Want to offer refillable coffee cups that you can use to make purchases? A coffee shop in Dublin did that.
Clothing that you can use to gain access to a sporting event - like these scarves that a German football club is selling.
However - there’s some annoying downsides to this, like the Xiaomi air purifiers.
{The} Xiaomi air purifier has a neat safety feature: it will refuse to run if a filter needs replacement. Of course, by “neat” we mean “annoying”. Especially when the purifier sure seems to judge a filter to be useless much earlier than it should . . . Every Xiaomi filter contains an NTAG213 NFC tag with a unique ID and uses a unique password for communications, but how this password was generated (and therefore how to generate new ones) was not known. This meant that compatible tags recognized by the purifier could not be created. (source)
A hacker by the name of Flamingo-Tech discovered how to hack these NFC stickers to trick the air purifier into thinking that the filter had been replaced.
Another hacker sent Flamingo the code used to generate the filter password - and Flamingo used this to start creating NFC stickers that work.
You can even create your own NFC sticker, as per Flamingo’s how-to
Clone an original NFC filter sticker. (dump the contents) then place the copy in the air purifier let it run for a couple of days. Check what numbers changed.. Change those numbers back to the original value. Hey Presto you have a full filter again. (source)
Isn’t that wild?
All it takes is a bit of coding, and you can avoid paying for new air filters unless you really need them.
There’s a github full of info about reverse engineering the air purifier - it’s all quite technical, but fascinating.
Check out the blog posts on Flamingo’s github for a deeper dive. Just scroll down to the README at the bottom of the page!
🎙️Note From Our Sponsor*
One of the great struggles of trading cryptocurrency is trying to figure out how to balance your portfolio - especially during “crypto winter.” After all, “degenning” into Catgirlcoin with 50 percent of your portfolio probably isn’t the best idea. Check out this article on rebalancing your portfolio for some useful tips and tricks!
🐙The Land of Random
Into the strange world of the internet we venture
Tuxdex
This looks to be another anonymous search engine like DuckDuckGo.
This is a Thing
This interactive site has an intriguing little message. Click on the floating circles and they all make fun little noises.
Korean Detroit-style Pizza
BRB I’m on my way
Send Someone a Birthday wish
Send someone a link that lets them play Happy Birthday on a little keyboard?? Yeah. It’s cute.
Beer Shoes
These shoes drip, but will that injected beer get moldy?
Miss the old Apple Aestheticc?
Build a retro Apple inspired site or app with this design system
Security Booth: Director’s Cut
When playing a security guard conflicts with some unsettling horror vibes. I’m intrigued to play this.
TikToks You Can’t Miss
PETE AND BAS in the house
You know what we need - a ninja to check our architecture
But . . . But I’d watch that movie.
idk about you but the Koi Pond sounds awesome.
Dang it. I have drop ceilings and I guess I know what I’m doing tonight.
The Land of Web3
Esion Club is an interesting NFT project with ambitious goals - with hopes for a cartoon, music, goods, art experiences, and a game. The music is pretty fun - and was a big part of why I invested. The art is also really well done - each NFT has a daytime and Nightmare mode - with different traits for each!
Van der Laan - Bitcoin’s Lead Maintainer - is retiring. It’s another door closed to the OG days of BTC.
Lock your home with a smart contract - so only you and your NFT’s can enter.
A great dive into the jeporday of Ethereum’s “free internet” status with the sanctioning of Tornado Cash.
That’s all for this week. See you next time!
*indicates that this is a sponsored section