Slashdot Mirror

I recently tried to find software tools to record my own VOIP calls. I found Cain & Abel: http://www.oxid.it./ It is a freeware product that provides a lot of network monitoring function. The site claims that "there are no illegal applications here!". I'm not a lawyer, so that might be correct. I nievely installed the software thinking it would allow me to monitor my own traffic. It did so... and much more. I was shocked at all the login passwords and network traffic that it easily proccessed and available for me to investigate. Like VOIP packets were sticked together and available to listen to with a single click. I use a cable provider for Internet access and I saw hundreds of machines that it started to monitor for me. Not only did I find many of my own passwords pop up in plain text, but I believe I saw many others. I don't advise you to install this software, unless you really know what the implications are. I don't... I removed it! But I was definately shocked and awed.

Note the NSA apparently uses it: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/photo/postpho tos/orb/asection/2006-01-27/4.htm. However, I can not verify the authenticity of this photo.

My advice: don't install Cain & Abel. It probably does way more then your looking for and doesn't cost anything.

Looks like the spammers are continuing their attacks against Blue Security, even after it threw in the towel. This from The Post's Security Fix blog:

"Hours after anti-spam company Blue Security pulled the plug on its spam-fighting Blue Frog software and service, the spammers whose attack caused the company to wave the white flag have escalated their assault, knocking Blue Security's farewell message and thousands more Web sites offline.

Just before midnight ET, Blue Security posted a notice on its home page that it was bowing out of the anti-spam business due to concerted attacks against its Web site that took millions of other sites and blogs with it. Within minutes of that online posting, bluesecurity.com went down and remains inaccessible at the time of this writing.

According to information obtained by Security Fix, the reason is that the attackers were hellbent on taking down Blue Security's site again, but had trouble because the company had signed up with Prolexic, which specializes in protecting Web sites from "distributed denial-of-service" (DDoS) attacks."

More here.

I wonder why...

"Finally, we hope that this video will put to rest the conspiracy theories involving American Airlines Flight 77," president Tom Fitton said.

"It is odd that this image hits our senses as the debate over our freedoms hits the headlines."

First of all, he said the tapes were confiscated. If I have video of Cheney shooting someone in the face, and the FBI takes it from me, how am I supposed to release it? Secondly, the authority to shoot down aircraft was taken away from generals earlier in the summer of 2001. See the Washington Post story below about the confusion of who was authorized to shoot down planes, and notice that Cheney thought a couple had already been shot down. (Flight 93 and 77? Who knows.)

If you want to kill the conspiracy theories, you have to explain WTC7. It was over-engineered because it was the bunker for emergencies for NYC. Then you have the owner of the building, Larry Silverstein, saying that he was sorry they had to "pull" the building. (Link to video below.) Later, everyone denies that the building was pulled, and the government officially "doesn't know" why a 70 story building collapsed.

Why would they disavow pulling the building due to safety concerns? Because it takes weeks to plan the demolition of a building, and you can't really plant explosives to pull a building if the building is on fire. Especially the kind of fire that is melting steel, which occurs at 3000 degrees Fahrenheit.

So, do us all a favor, and tell us why WT7 collapsed. Explain why every single video shows the core of the building coming down first. Explain why a high rise in Spain can burn for over 24 hours, partially collapse, and still not fall. Explain why the only three steel and concrete buildings in history to collapse from fire do it on a single day in the same square mile.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A507 45-2004Jun17.html

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-775053234 0306101329&q=silverstein+building

Really, what more possible features could you need in a media player other than the usual play, pause, rewind, etc. buttons, and some useful codecs (which, of course, Microsoft would never even dream of distributing, as they promote "piracy", or help alternative formats like Real).

Let's see, besides the usual codecs, you might have some useful features such as:

• A choice of database backends. It's hard to imagine a music collection too large for postgress, I wonder what will choke WiMP.
• Use of the Internet for something other than purchasing DRM crippled music. You know like lyric and artist look up, or cover find. The "Paste Art Here" for cover art is just pathetic after you've used Amarok's excellent cover art manager and track editor. Right click "look this up on Amazon" will never see the light of day ... because using a publically published image would be like high seas piracy, right. Barf.
• Playlist features? I wonder if their "Create Playlist" calls anything but some kind of manual drudgery. I've gotten used to Amarok's many dynamic playlist generators, from "music never played" to suggestions and plain random. Some of those features might be available from the "Library" section, but that would be confusing and as much par for the course as not having them.
• How about expandability? I'm spoiled rotten by the many fine scripts for Amarok, like USB music device scripts that copy music and playlists sans DRM to normal and inexpensive portable music players.
• Better GUI integration of the play buttons and graphic equalizer. Look at the way that dog hog up half of a clearly huge monitor. KDE and just about every other window manager have equalizers that live as small buttons on the menu bar and expand on use. Every KDE media player lives in the task bar and many have play/pause stop buttons there too. Of course, every window manager and free desktop program also has a simple and unobtrusive speaker with volume slider on the menu bar and they all work with each other. Even Nullsoft's Winamp has figured out how to make an equalizer unobtrusive. How hard could it have been for M$ to have integrated similar features into their own GUI without eating your whole screen?

Other players manage to put these features in without complicating the user's life. Microsoft seems to have made the user's life complicated without any of the goodies. It might not really work, but that's a another story.

All of the above, however is topped by the one or two features you won't find in a free media player, the shrill warning in the "about" screen, emphasis mine:

[incomprehesible version numbers and Product ID:god-awful-oem-bs.]

Warning: This computer program is protected by copyright law and international treaties.

Unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this program, or any portion of it, may result in severe civil and criminal penalties, and will be prosecuted to the maximum extent possible under the law.

They ask you to press "OK" as if any sane person would say such a thing to their customer and that the customer should agree to such an insult.

The other feature you won't find in a free player is a desire to monopolize playback. If all of the above features are not for you, the free world has a wealth of light media players. You mentioned a couple. Xine's GUI, Noatun, Juk, xmms all have nice and light interfaces. All of the popular browsers have "open with" right click items, so you can override your default choices and none would obnoxiously slip in a new version against your will. Hell, when it comes down to it, you can just use sox and "play" from a command line, or make shell scripts to do it all for you. Simple is paths and a shell that works out of the box.

What planet do you live on? There's lot's excitement for people who discover GNU/Linux. Expectations are typically low, thanks to massive FUD campaigns. A by product of that FUD is an air of the dangerous and new that's irresistible to many. Those that bother to try and stick with it long enough to overcome the bad habits of commercial software are amply rewarded. In the end, they find the joy of free software, which continues to grow. Browsing software repositories is like walking through a candy store where everything is free and the candy only gets better as time goes on. New programs make it feel like Christmas all year long. What does the five year and counting M$ train wreck release cycle have to match that? Zip, zero, zilch, hype, FUD and other hot air.

Most of the people I know have barely heard of free software and are heavily FUDed about it. They have this strange notion that it's hard to use and won't work with their hardware. Some even confuse it with copyright violation and think it's somehow tainted and immoral. Big players, like IBM, Lowes, Chrysler, etc, have helped to alleviate the "rebel" image but the FUD still stick because the big dumb vendors like Dell still don't offer a GNU/Linux desktop machines for end users.

Anyone who's used a GNU/Linux system for any length of time knows the FUD for the BS but the discovery never ends. Media players are a prime example. I've been using free software since Red Hat 5.x in 1998 and I've watched a steady and constant improvement. Back then, things were so nasty I did not even bother with sound. Then came vorbis, sox, autoconfiguration, ALSA, xine and suddenly audio is easy. Today, you can get live CDs that run Amarok, which has to be one of the finest media players available. Amarok excels as a media player as Konqueror and Firefox excel as browsers. Everywhere you look at a GNU/Linux system you see more excellence. The product is greater than the sum of the parts and M$ can't keep up to save their life. Hell, they are finally getting a browser with tabs and a multiple desktop GUI, but it's so bloated and top heavy with, virus checking and DRM it won't even work.

The final, unmatchable and exciting discovery is how free software really works. Far from being evil, free software is morally superior. No free software project has ever sued a public school for copying a text editor and none ever will misuse the government and laws in such a hideous way. What Microsoft dissmisses as "Communism" is actually co-operative capitalism and free market innovation at it's finest. Getting something for nothing and finding out that's the way it should have been all along feels great. The lies and harm M$ heaps on free software all backfire and the user is left with an unshakable commitment to their own software freedom.

1) This article is about the call records (number, duration) - not the contents of the calls

Your hopes are not in vain. Just read any review of M$ AdCenter or Vista (train wreck ... not compelling to human beings). The slow down is not gradual, it's instant, and the damn thing might not work at all.

Your hopes are not in vain. Just read any review of M$ AdCenter or Vista (train wreck ... not compelling to human beings). The slow down is not gradual, it's instant, and the damn thing might not work at all.

The fact is that when Gonzales told us that the NSA only listens to international calls he didn't take an oath, and that he later rescinded or re-qualified much of his testimony, in particular making the point that although one particlar intelligence program involved listening to international calls, a certain gigantic multi-billion dollar signals-intelligence agency might actually be running more than one signals-gathering program. (Like, whoa, seriously?)

To attach the name "fact" to information obtained under such circumstances is, I think, very, very optimistic, in a sense.

The fact is that Bush has told us bald-faced lies about domestic spying activities, and at this point it would require a hearty steaming ladle-full of naivete to imagine that the general public now knows the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

The fact is that the Bush administration has aptly demonstrated that it simply cannot be trusted, and the sorry fact is that we can be certain of precious little beyond that.

The fact is, recognizing these facts does not constitute "fanaticism." I believe there's a saying down in Texas: "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me -- you can't get fooled again."

Nice argument, except for the fact that Reporters phone records have been found to be confidential by US District Court. This goes back to the case of Judith Miller and the NY Times, which was about someone at the White House allegedly leaking CIA Secret Agent Valerie Plame's name.

At first glance, the Feds may not have the right to perform the search. Then again, IANAL, so I don't know if there is a difference from the case I cited above in comparison to the ABC News Blog.

Just keep the likes of Hillary out of office so I don't lose the freedom I have to choose which doctor I can take my family to. If she gets into office I will probably also loose the freedom I have to spend my own money for what I want since she seems to know better how to spend it than I do. For that matter most of the left would like to me to loose the freedom I have to spend my money and grow the economy. After all they vote against Tax cuts every time they can. They also vote against cutting Government programs that should have never been setup in the first place. If you want to stop "eroding civil rights" First you need to remove all government programs that are not part of the proper role of Government. I am afraid that the only way we will ever do that is by electing Independents into office, and I don't think that is going to happen any time soon.

Ooh, missed this. Hillary as president is indeed scary. As regards tax cuts, yes you can blame democrats for opposing them but you can't blame them for not cutting government programs and the cost of them, republicans share just as much blame for this. Two republican congressmen, House Transportation Committee Chairman Don Young and Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Ted Stevens, both from Alaska and republican, pushed to spend $223 million for a bridge to nowhere in Alaska. Even Rush Limbaugh lamblasted it. Now this part I really liked, "First you need to remove all government programs that are not part of the proper role of Government." That's one reason I voted for Michael Badnarik for president. We need to abolish every agency, bureau, department, and office in the federal government that is not constitutionally mandated. This, a government that stays within constitutional contraints, is why when I can I vote for Libertarian Party candidates.

Your senario is not far fetched. Reading the paper today and happend upon this intersting story.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic le/2006/05/12/AR2006051202025_pf.html


It all seemed darkly funny at first.

Eric Haskett was merely taking a nap in a car when he roused suspicion in a rural Frederick County neighborhood. A neighbor traced Haskett's license plate to an address once used by a registered sex offender.

Then his girlfriend's parents told him to scram; law enforcement officials, including three FBI agents, began investigating; and Haskett began fearing that the suspicions could cost him his job at a gag shop that sells such kid-friendly items as whoopie cushions.

"It blew me away that a federal agent was sticking a badge in my face. Three agents, dog -- like I'm the ringleader!" said Haskett, 28, of Mount Airy.

After allaying the concerns of several law enforcement officials over the past few weeks, Haskett also asked them what he could do to clear his name.

"They said the best bet is to leave the area," Haskett said.


What bothers me the most if you RTFA you find that no one is apologetic about the harassment he has received. Law enforcement, the girl friend's family and the neighbors all have the attitude of "well he should have been acting so damn weird, serves him right".

Our democracy is threatened not by over-active imaginations of slashdot participants, but by the under-active frontal lobes of the solid 30% of this country that refuses to recognize that the current administration practices a wanton disregard for the law.

The people kicking in your door probably won't club your kids with a baton, but they will spirit you off under cover of night to a place where nobody knows you've been taken. You will be denied access to an attorney, and in some cases your very existence as a "detainee" will be denied.

There have already been credible accounts of innocent people arrested and detained secretly, and even relocated to foreign countries to be tortured. I'm referring here to well documented cases (including those starting out as simple mistaken identity), not to the various claims of people whose stories don't add up and who were likely "terrorist wannabes" who didn't get connected in time.

Not so Extraordinary

Wrongful Imprisonment: Anatomy of a CIA Mistake (German Citizen Released After Months in 'Rendition')

Torture the Innocent, Release the Most Wanted

Documents Tell of Brutal Improvisation by GIs

We are stepping out onto the slippery slope to fascism, and 30% of the country continues to support it, perhaps because admitting that we are doing wrong things would force them to re-assess their entire FOX News spun, Rush Limbaugh polished, Ann Coulter ass-fucking-the-undereducated-and-poor-and-getting -them-to-like-it world view.

Our democracy is threatened not by over-active imaginations of slashdot participants, but by the under-active frontal lobes of the solid 30% of this country that refuses to recognize that the current administration practices a wanton disregard for the law.

The people kicking in your door probably won't club your kids with a baton, but they will spirit you off under cover of night to a place where nobody knows you've been taken. You will be denied access to an attorney, and in some cases your very existence as a "detainee" will be denied.

There have already been credible accounts of innocent people arrested and detained secretly, and even relocated to foreign countries to be tortured. I'm referring here to well documented cases (including those starting out as simple mistaken identity), not to the various claims of people whose stories don't add up and who were likely "terrorist wannabes" who didn't get connected in time.

Not so Extraordinary

Wrongful Imprisonment: Anatomy of a CIA Mistake (German Citizen Released After Months in 'Rendition')

Torture the Innocent, Release the Most Wanted

Documents Tell of Brutal Improvisation by GIs

We are stepping out onto the slippery slope to fascism, and 30% of the country continues to support it, perhaps because admitting that we are doing wrong things would force them to re-assess their entire FOX News spun, Rush Limbaugh polished, Ann Coulter ass-fucking-the-undereducated-and-poor-and-getting -them-to-like-it world view.

What about your rights? According to a recent poll at the Washington Post 63% of people approve of keeping phone records if it's for security.

I dunno, this all seems to remind me of some moment in history...where a small group of people were fed up with being manhandled by the government and staged a rebellion against them. Heck if I can remember what that was though... Curse me for not remebering past mistakes.

"Microsoft isnt making huge amounts of money like you seem to think."

They didn't say that Microsoft had high revenues. They said that Microsoft had high cash reserves. Most companies don't maintain $33 billion cash reserves, both because that would make them takeover targets (the buyer can borrow against the cash reserves when making the purchase) and because share holders generally insist on getting the money in the form of dividends.

Btw, Microsoft has similar profits to Wal-Mart. Some quick googling found

Wal-Mart: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8969481/

Microsoft: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A531 43-2004Oct21.html

Revenue is irrelevant to this discussion which is about companies ability to fund money losing operations. Despite having six times the revenue, Wal-Mart is only about as profitable as Microsoft because their costs are so much higher. Microsoft is considerably more profitable than Target, even with lower revenue. Of course, if the claim is "Microsoft has $33 billion in cash reserves, which it can use to fund years worth of money losing operations in search," then even profits don't enter into it. Although the truth is that it can fund search indefinitely even if the search space is not internally profitable for them.

It's also worth noting that Microsoft is not competing with Wal-Mart here. They're competing with Yahoo (and Google), which is a much smaller company (both combined are smaller than Microsoft; heck throw in Amazon and the three are smaller). See http://www.investopedia.com/articles/basics/03/031 703.asp for some relative comparisons. Incidentally, Wal-Mart's market capitalization has dropped since then. They would no longer qualify as a mega cap.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/poll s/121905_demotrend.pdf

I am going to assume that it was a similar random distribution. (which the follow up to your initial post notes)

What do you think is more important right now - (for the federal government to investigate possible terrorist threats, even if that intrudes on personal privacy); or (for the federal government not to intrude on personal privacy, even if that limits its ability to investigate possible terrorist threats)?

It's been reported that the National Security Agency has been collecting the phone call records of tens of millions of Americans. It then analyzes calling patterns in an effort to identify possible terrorism suspects, without listening to or recording the conversations. Would you consider this an acceptable or unacceptable way for the federal government to investigate terrorism?

I remember in the early 1990's people thought Bill Clinton was crazy for suggesting that some day every middle-class family will own a computer, and every child in the US will be taught how to use one... Well, here we are here, and, truthfully, thanks, in part, to Bill Gates.

I know Microsoft is evil, anticompetitive, and all, but, honestly, they did bring innovation (and pushed Apple to innovate), they established a de-facto standard for personal computing, and they made owning computers easy and accessible, which stimulated the demand, driving the prices down.

Remember that before MS's rise, Apple was just as bad, given how they got all happy and cosy with their market share, kept the prices up, $5000+ /computer, and slowed innovation, until Microsoft lit a fire under their ass and caused them to evolve (and I am saying this as someone who owns and uses Macs almost exclusively).

Isn't it sad that any company that is becoming succesfull is automatically punished with breakup threats, union re-negotiation (and unionizing), and even direct legislation, as in the case of Walmart:
(Maryland lawmakers bucked the will of the state's Republican governor and the nation's largest retailer yesterday, voting to become the first state to effectively require that Wal-Mart spend more on employee health care. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic le/2006/01/12/AR2006011201251.html )

I know that unchecked monopoly is anti-free-market and is thus bad, but there just has to be a middle ground between estabishing monopolies on the one side, and punishing success of the other side.

P.S. Whatever happened to the dream of everyone having perfect access to all information; "information wants to be free" they exclaimed, and yet, when that information is of value to themselves, they want to preserve it. They desire a monopoly upon it (a copyright which never expires), and in the process, have they not murdered the very dream of an open source society?

Personally, I think even a completely open society (which I don't desire) would be better than one where the most important information is concentrated into the hands of just a few people.

At least with elections, the governments ability to impact our freedom is limited (so long as we recognize the need and vote the bums out) but with private corporations working behind the scenes, there is no such accountability and every day private influence over the public sphere grows.

Google for 'PETA FBI terrorist' and the first hit is Washington Post article FBI Papers Show Terror Inquiries Into PETA; Other Groups Tracked from last December. While Bin Laden remains at large, the FBI is hot on the trail of animal rights activists. Personally, I'm guessing they just wanted an excuse to legally stalk Pam Anderson, who is well known vegitarian and animal right activist. She is also famous for exersizing her right to bare arms. Not eating meat and worrying about small animals is clearly un-American; if God didn't want us to eat pigs, he wouldn't have invented Iowa (which has more pigs than people).

This Washington Post-ABC News poll was conducted by telephone May 11, 2006 among 502 randomly selected adults.

The Republicans have already spyed on the Democrats once and NOTHING HAPPENED! Information from domestic spying is clearly being used by Republicans to defeat Democrats. Gathered information is being reviewed for use by the Rebublican party and then it's sanitized and passed on to the RNC.

This also happened during Whitewater and when Clinton was impeached. Ken Starr's office leaked like a sieve! A lot of deliberate lies were planted through Starr just to smear Clinton in the press. (Remember when it was reported the Clinton was involved in drug running and murder?) Contrast this with the Fiztgerald investigation of Rove. Not one leak. Fitzgerald is honest, not a politcal hit man. Also, During Whitewater, the public prosecutors conspired with the right wing funded civil suits, in clear violation of the law.

Now, is there the slightest doubt that the current, even more extreme adminstration is using terroism as an excuse to undermine their political opponents? You bet that they are wiretapping elected Democratic offficals to help win the next election. I wonder when they'll start planing fake evidence to make fron running Democrats look bad. The next step is poison, like the Russians used in the Ukrain. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic le/2006/04/11/AR2006041101114.html Don't think it can't happen here.

After all, it's hardly a new idea.

The number of terrorist attacks worldwide increased nearly fourfold in 2005 to 11,111, with strikes in Iraq accounting for 30 percent of the total, according to statistics released by U.S. counterterrorism officials yesterday.

Of the mainstream electable national candidates that are even allowed in the debates at the national or even state level BOTH parties support the following:

* Global trade that screws both American workers and third world workers

* An increasingly aggressive imperialistic foreign policy, can you say Hilary Clinton threatening Iran I knew you could...

* Passive acceptance of policies dreamed up by elite think tanks that only serve the top 5% of the population. So called centrist Dems are vowing NOT to investigate Bush for his crimes even if they retake the house:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic le/2006/05/09/AR2006050901485.html

* Increasing intrusion into our private lives supported by both parties

* Increasing censorship of video games, music, and DRM supported by both parties

What real choice do I have other than at the local level where a few Greens or Libertarians squeak in? Does voting for Repigs and Dems at the state and national level solve ANYTHING? I think not. The ONLY issues Dems and Repigs disagree on are minor issues like abortion, the ten commandments on public buildings, flag buring, etc. And yes I will step on some toes here these issues are MINOR compared to global war, the abrogation of the constitution, our long term sustainable survival on the planet, and decent living wages for our working people. Get over your lifestyle issues and thinking voting for mainstream politicians solves anything. As Colbert so nicely put it's like rearranging deck chairs on the Hindenberg

"They can't run on the war. They can't run on the economy, where the positive numbers on growth are offset by the largely stagnant numbers on median incomes and the public's growing dread of outsourcing. Immigration may play in various congressional districts, but it's too dicey an issue to nationalize. Even social conservatives may be growing weary of outlawing gay marriage every other November. Nobody's buying the ownership society. Competence? Ethics? You kidding?"

But wiretapping could be a solid issue to run on. If the Democrats harp on it, they will drive away moderate Republicans who think the administration is just doing what it needs to do to win the "war on terror." So the administration should be trying to feed the fire and focus attention on the issue - for example, by resisting investigation to drag out discussion, and by slowly allowing controversial new details about the program to surface.

Except for that Microsoft likes Nintendo... ... surprisingly enough ever Peter Moore is in love with the Wii

"People will always gravitate toward a competitively priced product -- like what I believe Wii will be -- with innovative new designs and great intellectual property like Mario, Zelda and Metroid," Moore told Reuters

Microsoft vice president, said in an interview. "People are going to buy two (machines.) They're going to buy an Xbox and they're going to buy a Wii ... for the price of one PS3."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic le/2006/05/11/AR2006051100612.html

Well, maybe not in love but he envisions them doing well ...
When your competition says "innovative new designs and great intellectual property" about you, you're doing pretty well.

>>"By the same standards the USA is clearly a repressive regime."

>So apparently 'insightful' on /. means 'completely lacking perspective regarding history, politics, and social theory'. Good to know for future reference.

Here are some other references:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11 488.htm
Barbed wire for demonstrators
Notice especially the one about churches

History? The US has an exemplary past when it comes to human rights, even counting the crimes against Native Americans and blacks. History also shows that human rights standards can evaporate when a government scares its people enough.

hadn't you heard? NASA dropped about 500 contractors last year, and plans a 15.3% workforce cut by summer (though they're trying to buy out jobs and keep layoffs to a minimum). Now they're outsourcing work to India...

Welcome to my world, boys and girls - enjoy those 5 and 6 AM meetings - I certainly do. My eyes are naturally red now.

"It is time to admit what many security professional already know: We as security professional are drastically failing ourselves, our community and the people we are meant to protect. Too many of our security layers of defense are broken. Security professionals are enjoying a surge in business and growing salaries and that is why we tolerate the dismal situation we are facing. Yet it is our mandate, first and foremost, to protect."

Credit Card Breach Exposes 40 Million Accounts
Bank Of America Loses A Million Customer Records
Pentagon Hacker Compromises Personal Data
Online Attack Puts 1.4 Million Records At Risk
Hacker Faces Extradition Over 'Biggest Military Computer Hack Of All Time'
Laptop Theft Puts Data Of 98,000 At Risk
Medical Group: Data On 185,000 People Stolen
Hackers Grab LexisNexis Info on 32000 People
ChoicePoint Data Theft Widens To 145,000 People
PIN Scandal 'Worst Hack Ever'; Citibank Only The Start
ID Theft Hit 3.6 Million In U.S.
Georgia Technology Authority Hack Exposes Confidential Information of 570,000 Members
Scammers Access Data On 35,000 Californians
Payroll Firm Pulls Web Services Citing Data Leak
Hacker Steals Air Force Officers' Personal Information
Undisclosed Number of Verizon Employees at Risk of Identity Theft

I write this as a suck down the sweet sweet taste of Diet Dr. Pepper. Did you know it tastes more like regular Dr. Pepper? I'm sure you have heard that, and from the sounds of it, you don't agree. I tried diet sodas on and off but, like you, I found them repulsive. Then with nothing else in the house (other than water, YUK!) I committed to finishing the case of diet that I bought. By the time I finished consuming it I honestly couldn't tell it was diet. It was as if a switch in my head went off. Ever since then regular sodas syrupy and too sweet. So, while I cannot recommend an alternative, I do encourage you to give it another try. And if you're like me, you'll stop consuming 1/2 your daily caloric intake from soft drinks. (8 sodas X 110 calories each = poking new notches in belt)

Bonus, it does/n't cause cancer! FDA Reviewing Italian Aspartame Study

Yeah, that's happened to Comcast in the last 12 or so months.

They used to be reasonably good about making appointments, keeping them, and double checking that everything was okay. And then out of the blue, they basically decided to give up on customer service.

I had a comcast cable internet service out of commission for a month. They kept insisting they had already been there and it already worked, but I had a feeling it was just so the trouble ticket never looked like it was open more than a day or two. Oh, and getting them to pay me back for the month of service was an exercise in corporate double-speak. After 2 weeks of this, even the supervisor told me that I'd been treated badly, but there was nothing she could do. Everybody *cared*, but comcast has set up their systems so that even their employees. Or so every one of their employees claimed.

I guess it shows that customer service is expensive, and in the name of profits, any company will screw you to the wall when there's big money involved http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic le/2006/04/27/AR2006042701906.html

Coicidentally around the same time, Verizion started offering FIOS in our area. Wasn't much of a choice.

Afterwards when I dropped, comcast called me back. I said "Well, you had the service down for a month". The offered me 3 months free. What good is "free" if they don't care if your service works? I asked if he would commit comcast to getting problems fixed in a timely manner. He declined and hung up.

Of course, what you link to is the preliminary news, before testing was carried out. The follow-up headline in the Washington Post was "Chemicals Not Found in Iraq Warheads"

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A244 03-2004Jul2.html

And to quote the article...
"Sixteen rocket warheads found last week in south-central Iraq by Polish troops did not contain deadly chemicals, a coalition spokesman said yesterday" ...
"Yesterday's coalition release also said that two other 122-milimeter rounds, found by the Poles on June 16 with help from an Iraqi informer, tested positive for small quantities of sarin but were "so deteriorated" that they would have had "limited to no impact if used by insurgents against coalition forces.""

will ecofanatics ever stand up and say, as they should, "Er... yes, sorry, we were wrong all the time"? the leader of green peace is now in support of nuclear power, he has changed his views on it after 30 years of fighting it. hopefully others follow his example. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic le/2006/04/14/AR2006041401209.html

Supposedly the handwriting recognition of Windows Mobile is very good.

Nope, the note taking application lets you scribble onto a page. It looks neat, but it does not do OCR very well. This is what I've come to expect from M$ character recognition, which never works when I try it.

I expect the free software world to My handspring spoiled me but Xstroke, a full screen graffiti system, works about as well. A combination of Xstroke and graphics program to put writting and drawings where you put the pen down would be killer.

The WP article described note taking with M$ this way:

In Microsoft's Windows Journal note-taking program, you can write anywhere on the screen -- but your handwriting isn't converted to text automatically, making these files impractical to share with other people. You're also liable to scramble your input every time you brush the screen with the knuckles of your stylus-wielding hand.

In other words, it sucks.

The feeding pipe was thick, thicker than my nostril, and would not go in. Blood came gushing out of my nose and tears down my cheeks, but they kept pushing until the cartilages cracked. I guess I would have screamed if I could, but I could not with the pipe in my throat.

...I was beaten again and left in a small, dirty, cold concrete cell. I was extremely thirsty, but there was only a bottle of putrid water in the cell. I was refused fresh water.... They told me that I was now in a country with no laws, and did I understand what that meant?... In desperation, I began a hunger strike.... After 37 days without food, I was dragged to the interrogation room, where a feeding tube was forced through my nose into my stomach. I became extremely ill, suffering the worst pain of my life.

Isn't it enough that MySpace helped avert a school shooting recently? How many school shootings has the MA Attorney General helped avert?

Well, this article is about a court case challenging the use of Section 215, specifically searching without a court order. Because of the accompanying gag orders with the requests, we don't know how many other times it's been used, even after the investigation is done.

For the record, I agree with you about your views on legislation; my previous post was more along the lines to show how someone can have the other point of view. I am leery about some of the more controversial sections of the Patriot act, but other parts of it make good sense. If a police officer abuses the powers of arrest, we have the judicial branch of government to provide a check on this power. The single most important part of the government is the system of checks and balances; it prevents any given branch of government from acting with impunity.

>The plaintiffs also refuse to name themselves

_Crafts by Veronica_ is the lead plaintiff in the complaint. It's normal for a class action suit to say "All others similarly situated": that's what makes it a class action suit.

>who would prefer to interfere with your search results rather than with some parked and forgotten domain

Which is what they paid for. Clicks from search result pages are more valuable than clicks from spyware. Yahoo is accused of charging for one and intentionally delivering the other.

...and now a word from the sponsors who made this all possible,.... and necessary. Personal service and group plans are available. Coming soon to your neighborhood?

"I guess it would focus the evil in one place."

Yeah, Yahoo certainly has the right stuff!

Oh shut up. I'm tired of this FUD over the big oil companies already. Exxon had sales of $100.72 billion in the third quarter last year. They made $9.92 billion in profit on that. 9.8% ROI isn't out of line (gouging). Almost anything else you buy every day has more than a 10% markup on it.

Even one of their founders has turned his back on them.

Yes, as I'm sure Google would tell you, there is absolutely no money to be made with online advertising. That's why no sites bother with it.

No, sir. It is not. The national debt is 8.3 trillion. The national deficit for 2006 is est. $400 billion.

So it was a liberal who changed from 'We invaded Iraq because they had WMD that was a threat to the U.S.' and 'Iraq has ties with Al Qaeda' to 'We invaded Iraq to bring them the blessings of Democracy' and 'Human Rights', and then to 'It was an intellegence failure'? It was a liberal who moved the goal post from 'Mission Accomplished 5/2/03' to "it will require decades of patient effort"?

Geesh, who hired THAT liberal?

To the people paying attention, it was known that there was WMD inside the borders in Iarq. We knew because they were under seal and being monitored by organizations like the IAEA and UNMOVIC. Stuff like "tons of enriched uranium" (gee, I think I saw those words come up real recently on Slashdot!, where? where?) http://www.iaea.org/NewsCenter/MediaAdvisory/2003/ ma_iraq_0606.shtml http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A354 04-2004Jul7.html

Stuff like that shouldn't be counted as 'found' (as in validating WMD casus belli claims) because it wasn't lost until the monitor agencies were forced out of Iraq by the opening of hostilities. But that doesn't seem to stop Richard Miniter from doing it.