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--AZ-Sen: Jon Kyl --AZ-01: Rick Renzi --AZ-05: J.D. Hayworth --CA-04: John Doolittle --CA-11: Richard Pombo --CA-50: Brian Bilbray --CO-04: Marilyn Musgrave --CO-05: Doug Lamborn --CO-07: Rick O'Donnell --CT-04: Christopher Shays --FL-13: Vernon Buchanan --FL-16: Joe Negron --FL-22: Clay Shaw --ID-01: Bill Sali --IL-06: Peter Roskam --IL-10: Mark Kirk --IL-14: Dennis Hastert --IN-02: Chris Chocola --IN-08: John Hostettler --IA-01: Mike Whalen --KS-02: Jim Ryun --KY-03: Anne Northup --KY-04: Geoff Davis --MD-Sen: Michael Steele --MN-01: Gil Gutknecht --MN-06: Michele Bachmann --MO-Sen: Jim Talent --MT-Sen: Conrad Burns --NV-03: Jon Porter --NH-02: Charlie Bass --NJ-07: Mike Ferguson --NM-01: Heather Wilson --NY-03: Peter King --NY-20: John Sweeney --NY-26: Tom Reynolds --NY-29: Randy Kuhl --NC-08: Robin Hayes --NC-11: Charles Taylor --OH-01:

> Besides, our current president is (seemingly) not quite sharp enough
> to get most of what science discovers using the HST.

"Seemingly" is quite appropriate here since Bush's grades were higher than Gore's.

Phishing sites with SSL certs

In-depth look at one SSL phishing attack

"Technology?" Give me a break. They're looking at what authority signed the cert, and if the web browser has been told to dogmatically trust that authority more than others, then it turns something green.

Actually, it's not a bad idea. There are degrees of trust, and showing it to the user is fine. But you bet your ass this is mostly just a cashgrab from Verisign.

A Firefox implementation of extended validation can only be a matter of time, since the Mozilla Foundation knows in order to compete it cannot afford for its browser to be just as good as IE7; it has to be better.

Good news. There's a way to do this, that will absolutely embarrass MSIE, making its version of https look completely insecure by comparison, and screw Verisign over, in the process.

Support an OpenPGP-based cert model (perhaps using GNU TLS library, perhaps not). Suddenly, you can have certs that are signed by multiple authorities, including users themselves, and display a whole spectrum of trust metrics. Equifax can make mistakes and issue an incorrect cert to a bank, but can three CAs all make the same mistake, without a conspiracy? And what if you get the bank's fingerprint on your snailmail statements, or there's a sign showing the fingerprint when you walk into it, and thus you can cert it yourself? What if you haven't ever been to the bank (ok, I can't imagine that) but you have 3 friends who have, and you have certified them, and told your computer they are each marginally trusted, and they all certify the bank? Three friends are sure as hell a lot more trustworthy than some faceless corporation named Verisign, whose identification policies you don't even know, whose private key storage policy you don't even know, and in fact doesn't have a single employee you have even met, assuming they have any employees at all and aren't a robot in the basement of a building at the NSA.

Has anyone found an effective way of cracking regular SSL?

No.

Is not the whole point of SSL to just slow down the decryption to a point where even if decrypted the data is old enough to be useless?

No.

I mean hell if SSL is weak encryption and we need stronger encryption should I not SUE verisign right now for providing a false sense of saftey?

No.

SSL (and TLS) aren't encryption algorithms, they're protocol standards. These protocols make use of existing encryption algorithms to secure data. Many of these algorithms have a variable level of complexity, depending on things like key size. Since security (including encyrption) is always a tradeoff of resources versus security, the goal is to tweak the configuration parameters (again, such as key length) to find a level of security such that an attack against the cipher is less profitable an option than the next best choice, such as kidnapping the document's author. Those who require greater security can use turn up the complexity at the expense of using more resources.

As computation capability increases, the complexity of encryption system is increased to compensate, usually by increasing key length. If a flaw is discovered in a given encryption algorithm making it too easy to break, or if the algorithm isn't capable of being expanded to account for better decryption technology (such as DES) then that algorithm is discarded in favor of some stronger replacement. SSL remains the same.

Verisign's "Extended Validation" program has nothing to do with cipher strength, key length, or encryption. Instead, it's indicative of the vetting process that the company had to undergo to get the certificate. To get a certificate for citibank.net, I have to verify that I own that domain. I don't, necessarily, have to verify that I represent Citibank [1]. Under this High Assurance program, Verisign will vouch, not only for the validity of the domain, but also for the validity of the organization owning that domain.

This is a Good Thing, since there currently is only one tier of validation. An SSL certificate is designed to prevent man-in-the-middle attacks, which it does well. What it doesn't protect against (though we act as if it does) is forged identity attacks. Certificates used for financial transactions, for example, should go through a stronger vetting process than certificates used for securing a blog.

[1] In reality, almost all CAs do extended verification when the other party sounds like a high-profile company or financial institution. Nonetheless, Mistakes do happen.

You have to turst people somewhat, but you can encrypt your stuff.

"In a CNBC interview with Maria Bartiromo, Bush was asked a question on many of our minds: 'I'm curious, have you ever Googled anybody? Do you use Google?'

"According to CNBC's unofficial transcript, he replied: 'Occasionally... 'I tend not to email or -- not only tend not to email, I don't email, because of the different record requests that can happen to a president. I don't want to receive emails because, you know, there's no telling what somebody's email may -- it would show up as, you know, a part of some kind of a story, and I wouldn't be able to say, `Well, I didn't read the email.' `But I sent it to your address, how can you say you didn't?' So, in other words, I'm very cautious about emailing.'"

Real player has worked with the iPod for a while now http://www.real.com/beta/harmony.html http://service.real.com/realplayer/support.html?se ction=iPodRPinstall/ It made a lot of news when it was released, but it looks like everyone's more or less forgotten about it. Of course, I've never used it and I'm not aware of anyone who has, so maybe the geek cred of DVD Jon will make this effort more successful.

IF by "certain hoops" you mean "anyone ever arrested, regardless if they were ever charged", then yes.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic le/2005/09/23/AR2005092301665.html

Other RFID stories right here. And let's not forget RFID Passports in the USA a Reality Now:
"Following this previous story, we learn from the Washington Post RFID chips in US passports are now confirmed. From the article: "Passports will come with a shielded cover, making it much harder to read the chip when the passport is closed. And there are now access-control and encryption mechanisms, making it much harder for an unauthorized reader to collect, understand and alter the data. [...] The Colorado passport office is already issuing RFID passports, and the State Department expects all U.S. passport offices to be doing so by the end of the year.""

I really only have one complaint about Gonzales, and that is his statements in support of removing court oversight from the "war on terror", and his attempts at trying to expand police powers through the "war on drugs", although this isn't unique to him."

What I have against Gonzalez is this 50 page memo, written by Gonzalez as Counsel to the President. It is filled with legal perversions to justify torture and use of any means short of causing 'organ failure or death' as interrogation methods.

Hmmm. Lets see, attempting to remove court oversight from the 'war on terror', attempting to expand police powers, and justifying torture. This is why the thought of this man as a Supreme Court Justice is so scary. Read the memo. Its a real eye-opener.

Some articles to think about in the upcoming election:

Jon Kyl Rick Renzi J.D. Hayworth John Doolittle Richard Pombo Brian Bilbray Marilyn Musgrave Doug Lamborn Rick O'Donnell Christopher Shays Vernon Buchanan Joe Negron Clay Shaw Bill Sali Peter Roskam Mark Kirk Dennis Hastert Chris Chocola John Hostettler Mike Whalen Jim Ryun Anne Northup Geoff Davis Michael Steele Gil Gutknecht Michele Bachmann Jim Talent Conrad Burns Jon Porter Charlie Bass Mike Ferguson Heather Wilson Peter King John Sweeney Tom Reynolds Randy Kuhl Robin Hayes Charles Taylor Steve Chabot Jean Schmidt Deborah Pryce

Ummmm..... the NYT publishing how we were tracking Osama bin Laden via his satellite phone comes to mind.

Never happened. The publication you're thinking of is the Washington Times, and even then it's not fair to blame them - Osama' big hint that we were tapping his calls was when the US launched a CRUISE MISSILE after one of his calls. Several years before the Washington Times published the info.

Nothing else you say is any more accurate.

Seems like Adams also suffers from focal dystonia, "Adams was diagnosed with the condition -- a neurological movement disorder, marked by involuntary muscle spasms--back in 1992...The problem affects his right hand -- the one he uses to draw."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic le/2005/05/09/AR2005050901066.html

Real player has worked with the iPod for a while now http://www.real.com/beta/harmony.html http://service.real.com/realplayer/support.html?se ction=iPodRPinstall It made a lot of news when it was released, but it looks like everyone's more or less forgotten about it. Of course, I've never used it and I'm not aware of anyone who has, so maybe the geek cred of DVD Jon will make this effort more successful.

Real player has worked with the iPod for a while now http://www.real.com/beta/harmony.html http://service.real.com/realplayer/support.html?se ction=iPodRPinstall It made a lot of news when it was released, but it looks like everyone's more or less forgotten about it. Of course, I've never used it and I'm not aware of anyone who has, so maybe the geek cred of DVD Jon will make this effort more successful.

I think Linus is a good coder and project manager, but we shouldn't expect him to "show the way" in issues of principle/vision. He's an engineer, not a "freedom fighter".

People are being extradited to secret camps. Others are being shot for reporting on corrupt regimes. Some live in house arrest for years on end. Others are tortured for crimes that they have nothing to do with. It is VERY GENEROUS to call someone who fights against the right of software developers to control the distribution of their works a "freedom fighter." Considering the state of the world today, I find it amazing that people really see their ability to tweak their software as a humans rights violation. It is a minor licensing issue. MINOR. LICENSING. ISSUE.

Link

The sad thing is, this could ultimately mean the cancellation of BSG.

-Eric

Ansari: I think where he really crossed the line where the domestic audience is concerned is when he said a green aura was coming out of his head during his speech to the United Nations. This conversation got filmed, and people can watch it on DVD. Ahmadinejad came home from his speech and told an ayatollah that everyone at the General Assembly -- all these world leaders -- didn't even blink for thirty minutes (out of awe). Lots of people have seen this in Iran, and it makes him seem a bit too superstitious.

So, after Powerpoint kills, we now get "Flash kills".

Washington Post

but look who was in power 1000 years ago. You think their descendents are still in power?

There are some valid concerns about the embedded impacts of solar (energy to produce the panels, impacts from mining raw materials, etc.) But the energy balance is positive after several years, and depending on which policy environment you are under (tax incentives, etc.) the monetary payback can be as little as 7-10 years (especially in California, where the peak load the solar power is displacing regularly costs over 12 cents per kilowatt hour). And the main raw material is the same highly purified silicon used to make the chips in your computer. This is not simply the idealistic extravagence of nerds with cash. This is a replicable project that makes business sense, and has positive environmental impacts. The Washington Post has a pretty good article, as well as a link to an updated 3D rendering of the GooglePlex (with its significant roof space) in Google Earth: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic le/2006/10/16/AR2006101601474.html I wouldn't be surprised in the months to come if you here more re: the data centers. 1.21Gw?... Great Scott!

You make several claims that I believe are not supported by the empirical evidence. I'll pick a couple:

You suggest that new immigrants do not want to assimilate (or wish to do so less than immigrants in the past.

FACT: "the vast majority of immigrants speak English well. In 1990, only 1/4 of immigrants reported speaking English poorly or not at all" National Bureau of Economic Research

It is true that adults that arrive with poor English skills often continue to have poor English skills. This has always been the case to varying degrees, and is more related to critical periods in language acquisition (e.g., its easier for children to learn a new language than adults) than a general lack of effort or interest.

FACT: "Only 7 percent of the children of Latino immigrants speak Spanish as a primary language, and virtually none of their children do." Washington Post citing data from the Census Bueau, 2000

Overwhelming statistical evidence is that by children of immigrants, regardless of country of origin, are highly assimilated, much less tied to their parents country of origin than the United States.

OK, As long as i'm getting all empirical on your ass, I'll also add the following regarding the economic costs of illegal immigration:

FACT: "we find that the average immigrant family received $1,404 in welfare services in years 1-5 in the United States, $1,941 in years 6-10, $2,247 in years 11-15, and $2,279 in years 16-25. Natives averaged $2,279..."

and

FACT: "the average native family paid $3,008 in taxes in 1975. In comparison, immigrant families here 10 years paid $3,369, those here 11-15 years paid $3,564, and those here 16-25 years paid $3,592--in all those cases, substantially surpassing natives' payments."

Finally, this suggests "the consolidated data on services used and taxes paid show substantial differences to the benefit of natives: an average of $1,354 yearly for the first 5 years the immigrant families are in the United States, and $1,329, $1,525, and $1,383 for years 6-10, 11-15, and 16-25, respectively. These are the amounts that natives are enriched each year through the public coffers by each additional immigrant family on average. "

Julian L. Simon, Cato Institute and the National Immigrant Forum

ME: Alot of claims are often thrown around, about immigration and how it is somehow different from the past. I can't speak to your motives, but alot of what seems different these days is that our newest immigrants are brown people that the Europeans immigrants of the early 1900s just don't feel comfortable with. Statistically speaking, there seems to be little different about these new immigrants. Evidence suggests that they will become American as thuroughly as yesterday's immigrants and that America benefits enormously by their presence.

I say, welcome to America, and thank you for supporting me in my old age!

I'm confused. A Washington Post story says that the 300 millionth American may have just walked across the Mexico border. Umm, doesn't American mean a citizen? Sure, illegal immigrants have children in the U.S. who are citizens, but last time I looked, newborns aren't walking across the border.

News flash: When you make money, you owe income tax on it. Doesn't matter if the money comes from real-world work, virtual-world work, services, corporate gifts, or even illegal activity. The second you get U.S. dollars for your work, the IRS gets to claim a chunk of them.

Howard Stern? Is it still 1995? Honestly, I can't think of anyone saying anything about that guy since he jumped to some subscriber radio service and nearly killed it.

I think you're thinking of Opie and Anthony.

Or until they can be on the front page of every newssite when Oprah and Bono go out shopping for one together.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic le/2006/10/13/AR2006101300161.html

Nothing will be an iPod killer unless they grab the mindshare. Kids aren't asking their parents for MP3 Players for XMas. They're asking for iPods - specifically and by name. An iPod killer can't just be as good as an iPod. It has to be way better and have people know what it is for it to be a success.

"Where on the mainstream left are they speaking out against Chavez?"

• Washington Post
• New York Times
• NYT
• Charles Rangel
• Democrats
• The Daily Show

And how do you propose that I go about doing that? Without a trial to back me up, anything I told you would be "biased hearsay".

I suspect the problem here is that we have warring ideologies. In my mind, giving a legislator money should be bribery whether a corporation forms a PAC, donates money from the corporate coffers to the PAC who then donates money to whoever the corporation's leaders wanted to in the first place, or whether it's just the CEO paying $100,000 out of pocket and getting a dinner with DeLay in return ("Corporate checks are acceptable" too). And hey, if the anti-pirate ideologues can call copyright infringement theft despite the fact that both copyright infringement and theft have specific legal definitions, why can't I call this bribery?

The prewar mortality rate was established by door-to-door survey just after the war, asking people about when they had had members of the household die, specifically because they didn't trust the regimes written records. There is a new study just out that seems to have a smaller margin of error and puts the total "extra" loss of life over Saddam's numbers at 540k, minimum. Linky

What exactly would you saction?

Two articles with mostly opposing viewpoints on the sanctions-by-any-other-name that have been in place for about a year now:

Price of a broken deal
The Squeeze on North Korea

It's hard for most people to realize that these are people -- all with their own individual beliefs, opinions, principles, and moral convictions.

In related news, the Washington Post reported a few days ago that only 33 out 12,000 FBI agents had "some" proficiency in Arabic, i.e. not even fluency but just some ability. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic le/2006/10/10/AR2006101001388.html So much for the Administration's foreign language initiative, which I knew would go nowhere. I think this points to a basic weakness in the conservative mindset (not just conservative American, but conservative Western or perhaps conservative in any culture) - distaste for or inability to learn from other languages or cultures. When I hear the loud voices here in the States saying, "If you can't speak English, go back to where you came from," I wonder what they would think of the reply "If our soldiers can't speak Arabic, they should go back to where they came from ..."

After all, if one is near the bottom of freedom and the other is near the top, it's easier for both to move towards the middle

If it makes you comfortable to believe that there is really that much difference, you're certainly entitled to believe that the US is much freer than China, and admittedly in many ways it still is, but not as much as you might think. However, as my original post was about a "feeling" of freedom, here are a few things to consider:

In the US, if you even speak in a raised voice to your child in public, self-appointed citizen watchdogs may come up and tell you that you are "verbally abusing" your child and that they are going to call the social workers. I have personally seen this happen at a Wal-Mart when a whiny child was insisting she get some candy and her tired mother had had enough of her whining. Heaven forbid if she had decided to spank her child in public. An American-Pakistani friend of mine told me that the every time his family traveled to Pakistan, the first thing the father did was slap him in face for all of the disrespect he had shown him in the past year in the US and he knew he had to behave for the next month until he returned to the US where he could take advantage of the situation, knowing that his father wouldn't risk physically punishing him. There are many well-documented cases of people's children being taken away by state social workers on circumstantial evidence presented by "well-intentioned" neighbors. Children in foster care have a high incidence of abuse and even death. (Google search for "foster care death" gave 16,300,000 results.) The US is the only country I know of that has gone to this extreme and the citizens are the ones who turn their neighbors in, often on flimsy circumstantial evidence.

1,700 Bush protesters and dozens of bystanders in New York City were corralled with orange netting, arrested and held for over 40 hours in an old bus cleaning station with hazardous chemical signs displayed and no access to lawyers.

Mandated vaccines have led to brain damage, autism and death to hundreds of thousands of victims, and yet each year more and more vaccines are introduced, bringing billions of dollars to the pharmaceutical companies that manufacture them and to the medical industry that deals with the adverse affects. Gulf War syndrome is now widely believed to be mainly caused by the many tons of depleted uranium shells used during the campaigns, but the number of experimental vaccines our troops are forced to accept, with or without their complicity, has factored in some cases as well. Patriot Acts 1 & 2 contain clauses which allow for forced vaccine campaigns that call for anyone who refuses to be placed in "quarantine" indefinitely. I'm thankful to those who have fought for our rights to choose NOT to give the shots to our kids (varies by state) but I'm afraid those days are numbered.

There has already been plenty of discussion on Slashdot about the Patriot Acts 1 and 2 and all of the accompanying loss of rights to citizens they entail. As long as you don't question anything, you should be fine. However, if you don't believe there are any political prisoners in the US, I urge you to investigate. It's not hard to find many cases. I for one smell fascism in the air.

Of course, we haven't touched on how US foreign policy has walked all over the freedoms of sovereign nations that have stood in the way of the juggernaut.

Finally, my message is certainly NOT anti-US, but rather against the oligarchy which usurped the US government and the people who are complicit in maintaining those rulers.

In other news: Rich Fatcat Republicans claim:
We're too dependent on Oil![5 hours ago]

And people say the Republicans have become the Liars Party - pfft! Not my Republicans!

'"What is most important, however, is that this matter is kept discreet," Abramoff wrote to a colleague at the Preston, Gates & Ellis law firm. "We do not want the opponents to think that we are trying to buy the taxpayer movement."'

Preston Gates & Ellis: 'The "Gates" in the firm's name is William H. Gates, Sr., father of Microsoft founder Bill Gates.'

Abramoff's gang of Republicans took control of the entire elected government in 2001.

"The DOJ, now under the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush, announced on September 6, 2001 that it was no longer seeking to break up Microsoft and would instead seek a lesser antitrust penalty."

Of the 18 largest recipients of tribe contributions directed by Abramoff's group, six, or one-third, were Democrats.

This is a repost of a comment I have made previously, but I think the connection is important. Jack Abramoff took money to lobby on behalf of a company, eLottery, whose business model basically depends on software and business method patents in order to raise the cash they need to spend on lobbyists. Without the patents, there would at best be a trade association for such companies in a competitive market, probably more open in its dealings with government as well.

An article several months ago in the Washington Post described more about how Jack Abramoff took money to influence congressional proceedings. In this case, it was to scuttle a bill that would have prohibited state lotteries from going online. As with his work with Indian casinos, Abramoff pulled strings to get otherwise anti-gambling members of Congress to vote against a law prohibiting companies like eLottery from conducting lotteries over the Internet.

Oh, did I say "companies like"? Oops, no, just eLottery. They seem to have some patents "broadly covering Internet retailing of state lottery tickets". In other words, software patents, or actually business model patents (legalized monopolies) disguised as them. Of course, those patents let them raise capital from investors eager to profit from that legalized monopoly. Where did that capital go? Right into lobbyists' pockets.

This article has (here on /.) already raised the question "Why can't we stamp out the viral code from archives?" Well, let's take a lesson here from biology.

The human race took two different solutions to polio and malaria. (I'm not a doctor, so forgive any minor inaccuracies.)

With malaria, we took the "stamp out the viral archive" approach. We tried to kill the carriers - the mosquitos. If we can eliminate all the mosquitos that carry the infection (like eliminating old internet caches), nobody will have to worry about getting infected. Well, guess what - it didn't work. Malaria is a HUGE problem in many third-world countries, routinely killing a million Africans a year and costing $12 BILLION annually in Africa alone (see last week's WashPost Magazine article for details; registration required: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic le/2006/10/04/AR2006100400127.html). The problem? You simply can't squash all the bugs. Only recently has attention turned to developing an artificial method of immunity from the disease, so that the bugs won't matter (at least, from that perspective).

With polio, we took the approach that preventing infection was the key. We innoculated EVERYONE, so that even if the virus surfaced, it wouldn't cause infections. It's proven to be a largely effective solution, with only a few periodic pockets of infection occurring in remote parts of Africa where the youngest are not innoculated afresh. And that problem is fairly easy to control.

Same thing here. Forget the archives. That's naive. Instead, focus on better immunity.

"Many of you are geeks .. For all of you folk, browsers like FF are great"

Fud injection: only dyed in the wool geeks can use Firefox.

- What exactly can the non-geek not do using Firefox to browse the Web. Give us some specifics.

"Now consider everyone else in the world .. You have IE7 .. offers tabs and good security, and works without a hitch."

"six of today's updates apply to fully patched Windows XP systems, and two of the flaws are actually present in Windows Vista."

"It is integrated into the OS so it opens faster and does not introduce any problems"

It is precicely because it is integrated into the OS that it is so insecure. It start faster because all its bits are loaded at boot time. The same effect can be achieved by using the Firefox Preloader.

"I have used IE6 for years and never once got a virus or spyware because of it"

"Secunia is reporting on three vulnerabilities in IE6 running on XP SP2.", Nov 2005

"remote code execution vulnerability exists in Windows Shell .. This vulnerability could potentially allow remote code execution if a user visited a specially crafted Web site", Oct 10 2006

was Still using IE and don't intend to change

Oh really? Then how about them doing something about all this spam I get for stuff I have no need for, being female?

The Court of Appeals of Virginia upheld yesterday what is believed to be the first conviction in the nation under a state anti-spamming law that makes it a felony to send unsolicited mass e-mails.

Virginia Attorney General Robert F. McDonnell said in a statement that his office will ask the court to revoke bond and order Jaynes to begin serving his sentence. The attorney general applauded the appeals court decision, saying the three-year-old anti-spam law helps keep Internet users "safe and secure."

"Today's ruling reinforces Virginia's anti-spam act and further protects the people of the commonwealth from identity thieves and cyber criminals," McDonnell said.

In some states, part of the punishment for committing a felony offense is the revocation of civic right to vote. That's part of the punishment. Perhaps your co-worker is rehabilitated, but their punishment continues.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A978 5-2004Aug17.html

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0226-05.htm

Probably because it's easier than predicting how technological innovation and the ebb and flow of the global economy will totally change the entire equation long before these simplistic predictions ever come due.

Missing in the article was any assessment of the exploration potential of 100,000+ miles of continental shelf around the world. The Chevron find in the gulf of Mexico is an example of what awaits.

"Of course wanting to slaughter your enemies because they have been beating the ever living shit out of you for decades now has nothing to do with it. Nothing at all."

Can you back up your emphatic claim with support from an unbiased source?

As to your last part, I'm tired of that damned argument. These kids willingly joined the army, yes to pay for college, but they were told repeatedly and voluntarily swore an oath (no fucking fine print) that when the U.S. goes to war, they will probably have to ship off and if that is the case, there is nothing they can do about it.

Why didn't you go for the National Guard, hmm? Your chances of being deployed over seas to hostile combat zone are dramatically reduced in that organization.

Oh, yeah, Bush throwing away the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty like he did the Geneva Conventions "can only be a good thing in the modern day world".

On a day when everyone's freaking out because Bush let the N Koreans go nuclear, you think more nukes, in space, "can only be a good thing"?

Run by Donald Rumsfeld's Pentagon? The Rumsfeld who's lobbying to throw away the "antiquated" US government structure that makes the president less than an emperor.

Can you say "Global Thermonuclear War"? Can you say anything other than "oooh, nuclear space drive", or look away from your monitor at the real world?

"There is no source cited etc", zitintheass

I don't know if we've read the same text. The article clearly quotes at least two named sources in the Commerce department. It never mentions Windows or Linux. Yet we have the above and other commments coming out with: It's a fake news item, it must be Linux that got hacked, it wasn't Windows etc. We also have such posts getting modded up as 'interesting', more mod trolling.

"An August e-mail from acting Undersecretary of Commerce Mark Foulon quoted by the Washington Post said .."

Has Foulon ever denied sending the e-mails. Do you have a citation.

"Through established security procedures, BIS discovered a targeted effort to gain access to BIS user accounts," said Commerce Department spokesman Richard Mills. "We have no evidence that BIS data has been lost or compromised."

Has Mills ever denied saying this. Do you have a citation.

was Re:Another fake news?

We still have "investigative reporting" (e.g. Bob Woodward et al). My point is most average joes would not normally have the kind of clout with the press that a Woodward-type has, but scandals like the guard memos and such have elevated bloggers to the point where the major cable outlets regularly devote segments to "the blogosphere." My favorite crossover is when the beat reporters get into the blog game - even getting their blogs promoted by the major media outlets (as is the case with my local paper's website, philly.com). Some of the reporter blogs are extremely readable, providing better coverage where the regular constraints of daily publication are not applied.

See e.g. Dick Polman or Howard Kurtz - great reporters with great blogs. When traditional media embraces this kind of outlet, I think you can make an argument that "new media" has arrived, yes.

Or is there any integrity left in the government at this point.

Well, there was that one rogue judge in Michigan...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic le/2006/08/17/AR2006081700650.html

U.S. District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor ordered a halt to the wiretap program, secretly authorized by President Bush in 2001, but both sides in the lawsuit agreed to delay that action until a Sept. 7 hearing.

Integrity's there, it's just few, far between and often gets tucked away in janitor's closets.