DefCon Kids camp co-founder Chris Hoff, with Conner Gilliam (from left), Conner Fine and Ethan Lai, work on a machine that draws designs on ping-pong balls. The camp is held in Las Vegas.
Some kids go to band camp; others go to swim camp. But for the children of the world's digital rabble-rousers, there is hacking camp. It's called DefCon Kids.
This camp, held in Las Vegas, encourages kids to take a hard, skeptical look at the machines that surround them, and teaches them to hack apart everything they can lay their hands on.
One of the most popular activities is lock-picking.
"I had fun with some of the harder locks," says 16-year-old Alaetheia Garrison Stuber.
Afghan soldiers (right) patrol with U.S. troops in the Panjwai district of southern Afghanistan in May. The two armies have been working together for years, but Afghan attacks against U.S. and NATO forces have been rising recently.
Originally published on Fri August 17, 2012 4:03 pm
In the past two weeks, seven Afghans in uniform have opened fire on Western forces. The most recent incidents occurred Friday. First, a newly recruited policeman in western Afghanistan turned his gun on U.S. military trainers, killing two and wounding a third. A short time later in southern Kandahar province, an Afghan soldier shot and wounded two foreign troops.
A barista processes a customer's payment using Square, a device that turns a mobile device into a card swiper. More businesses are using the devices to simplify credit card payments. Others are embracing technology that allows consumers to pay with their cellphones.
Most Americans pay with plastic or cash when they visit the grocery store, buy their daily coffee, or fill up the gas tank. But a growing number of large companies are trying to change that.
Google, Starbucks and Wal-Mart are among the many firms that are eager to replace consumers' wallets and stores' cash registers, with smartphones and other mobile devices.
The "know your farmer" concept may soon apply to the folks growing your coffee, too.
Increasingly, specialty roasters are working directly with coffee growers around the world to produce coffees as varied in taste as wines. And how are roasters teaching their clientele to appreciate the subtle characteristics of brews? By bringing an age-old tasting ritual once limited to coffee insiders to the coffee-sipping masses.
Gumar Ganiyev opens the gates of the compound where members of the Islamic sect he belongs to have lived in seclusion since the early 2000s outside Kazan, capital of the Russian province of Tatarstan, earlier this month.
Credit Nikolay Alexandrov / AP
Self-proclaimed "messenger of God" Faizrakhman Satarov approaches the Kazan house earlier this month. The sect's founder says he had a revelation from God that true Muslims must separate themselves from society.
Credit Corey Flintoff / NPR
For nearly two decades, sect members quietly built houses and dug living quarters inside their compound in Kazan. Authorities say that 20 children of sect members have not been allowed to leave the premises, attend school or be examined by doctors.
The recent headlines in the Russian press were sensational: Members of a reclusive Islamic sect were said to be living in an isolated compound with underground burrows, some as deep as eight stories underground, without electricity or heat.
Reporters have descended on the compound, on the outskirts of the city of Kazan, but have had only limited access and have not been able to confirm all the allegations by Russian officials.
Seattle Mariners pitcher Felix Hernandez threw a perfect game Wednesday in a 1 to 0 victory against the Tampa Bay Rays. That makes it the third perfect game this season. Melissa Block has more.
Little Darrin Wolsko spent a chunk of his childhood playing his father's copy of The Beatles self-titled album, best known as The White Album, over and over.
All this summer, All Things Considered is digging into the record collections of listeners' parents to hear about one song introduced by a parent that has stayed with you.
Among the many records Darrin Wolsko spun while donning a red cape around 1985, The Beatles' self-titled release best known as The White Album got the most plays — "to the point where I destroyed the album. I shredded this album to pieces," Wolsko says.
Here's the latest flashpoint in the between the state of Arizona and the federal government over immigration policy. Yesterday, the U.S. government began accepting applications for Deferred Action, a temporary reprieve from deportation for young, undocumented immigrants who came to the U.S. as children. Just hours later, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer signed an executive order denying state benefits to those who qualify. That includes obtaining a driver's license.
An oil sheen appears along the shore of the Kalamazoo. More than 800,000 gallons of oil entered Talmadge Creek and flowed into the Kalamazoo River, a Lake Michigan tributary. Heavy rains caused the river to overtop existing dams and carried oil 30 miles downstream.
Credit John W. Poole / NPR
Bolenbaugh holds up a hand coated with oil sludge he has found in the Kalamazoo River two years after the spill, and two weeks after the state and EPA reopened the river to recreational use.
Credit John W. Poole / NPR
A culvert carries Talmadge Creek under a road in Marshall, Mich. After the spill, this small creek was flooded with oil, carrying it to the Kalamazoo River in the distance. Enbridge cleaned this area of oil twice. The second cleaning occurred after Bolenbaugh appeared on a local news channel falling through winter ice into a pool of oil in an area the company had declared free of oil.
Credit John W. Poole / NPR
Children fish at a newly opened recreational area built by Enbridge on the Kalamazoo River. Posted signs warn that most of the fish is not safe to eat. These children were not aware of the oil spill and were not area residents.
Credit John W. Poole / NPR
One of dozens of houses along the Kalamazoo River sits empty since the spill. Enbridge offered to buy up most of the property along the river immediately after the spill, and most residents sold at deflated prices to escape the area.
Credit John W. Poole / NPR
Whistle-blower John Bolenbaugh wades through thick mud in the Kalamazoo River looking for leftover traces of oil from the July 2010 Enbridge tar sands pipeline spill.
Credit John W. Poole / NPR
John Bolenbaugh stands in a forested stretch of the Kalamazoo River that borders a mobile home community in Battle Creek, Mich.
Credit John W. Poole / NPR
Oil rings on trees only 50 feet from the nearest home show the height of the oil and water, and its proximity to the Baker Estates Mobile Home Park in Battle Creek.
Credit John W. Poole / NPR
Michelle BarlondSmith and her husband lived in a riverfront trailer park. BarlondSmith says the sickening fumes from the oil lasted for months.
Credit John W. Poole / NPR
Whistle-blower John Bolenbaugh wades through thick mud in the Kalamazoo River looking for leftover traces of oil from the July 2010 Enbridge oil sands pipeline spill.
Credit Katie Hayes Luke for NPR
David Daniel stands on his property in Winnsboro, Texas, where the Keystone XL pipeline is slated to be installed. Daniel is opposed to the pipeline, which will carry oil from Canada's tar sands.
Credit John W. Poole / NPR
Professor Steve Hamilton of Michigan State University has studied the cleanup along the Kalamazoo River.
Sometime in the next few months, David Daniel probably will have to stand by and watch as bulldozers knock down his thick forest and dig up the streams he loves.
His East Texas property is one of more than 1,000 in the path of a new pipeline, the southern stretch of what is known as the Keystone XL system.
For years, Daniel has tried to avoid this fate — or at least figure out what risks will come with it. But it has been difficult for him to get straight answers about the tar sands oil the pipeline will carry, and what happens when it spills.
