Please be aware that testing positive to exposure to Anthrax (Bacillus anthracis) does not mean that you have Anthrax. Testing positive means that your body tests positive for the presence of antibodies that are used to fight this particular bacteria. It does not mean you have the spores on your skin (cutaneous), in your lungs (pulmonary), or in your gastrointestinal tract (GI).
There is one case of an Anthrax infection that has been reported so far. One case, and that person has died. That particular case involved a non-GMO (Generically Modificed Organism) version of the Anthrax bacterium. The other cases are a completely different variety of the same bacterium (cutaneous). The one in Florida may very well be a completely natural infection which occured. Yes, there has not been a single case reported in the U.S. of an Anthrax infection in 25 years, and within one week, there are over 7 cases on the books, so you can guarantee that it's intentional, but do not continue to spread the FUD without some knowledge behind you.
The others may not be, but nobody else has been infected with Anthrax to date except this Florida case. The other people you are hearing about have only tested positive for the antibodies which the body produces naturally to fight off the presence of Anthrax.
There's too much FUD in the news right now.
Lastly... there's an interesting quote from al-Queda spokesman Suleiman Abu-Gheith today saying:
"...Muslims in the United States and Great Britain should not fly or live in high buildings..."
This is far from over. Please feel free to print and post this mail warning in high-traffic mail areas within your business if you believe you may be in one of the "Icons Of America" that these letters seem to be hitting.
MS said that if they (Corporate America) didn't support MS, they'd have their licenses audited!
Let's also not forget to thank Microsoft for helping these companies move to Linux.
I know of at least 10 large companies who have begun looking into linux for several reasons:
Microsoft forces people to audit their licensing policies.
What Microsoft wants:
Scare people into thinking that continuing down the path of "piracy" will get them into trouble, so they should license legally, now!
Heavy fines for infractions
More units sold for "legitimate" copies
What Microsoft doesn't quite calculate into this is that most of their desktop volume and "market share" came from pirated copies of Windows of one version or another. Do you really think everyone (or even a majority of people) actually would be running Windows, if they had to pay $249.00 per copy? If they did, Microsoft would have many more billions in it's coffers. Let's let them crack down on the piraters, and watch their dollars, market share, and volume decrease dramatically. Let's step up our development efforts in the open source space to compensate. They're helping us gain back users, let's encourage that.
What really happened:
Companies began auditing their own internal (legitimate) Microsoft licensing policies, and noticed the millions of dollars they spend to maintain these licensed, per-unit costs, and support contracts
Linux was considered due to stability, security, and cost to outweigh these heavy budget items
With the downturn of the economy in recent times, Linux is going to be more and more attractive, since many of these companies are not going to be moving to XP. Many of them are just moving to Windows 2000 from NT4, if at all. Using Linux saves them money where their key budgets can be better spent on keeping the company alive, not maintaining existing expensive licensing contracts.
Thank you Microsoft, for supporting the Open Source community so strongly on all fronts.
Oh! And then there are Macro viruses, Outlook-propogated viruses, and so on. A whole bunch of daft security decisions that have very much hurt consumers. Why would people stick with such virus-prone software? Monopoly perhaps?
..how about the fact that a little "security" problem here and there will increase calls to the Microsoft Support Center, and encourage "upgrade-itis". Once consumers get used to "going online" to get their patches, the whole.NET thing almost seems natural to them. People get used to going online to get their patches, a fix patches a hole in one thing, opens another in another thing. By the time you're done installing the 30+ patches and fixes, your system is basically XP or Win9x with XP underpinnings.
Additionally, haven't you noticed that you can no longer simply download the updates, service packs, and fixes? You have to have them "streamed" to you through IE to apply them. Yes, I know you can find them on the corporate site if you dig, but it's not tied to the "Windows Update" option in everyone's Start Menu.... just like file extensions.. you can find them, but it's not intuitive.
Several months ago, my truck was broken into in a locked, secured, patrolled parking area in broad daylight, 200' from the front door of my place of work. They smashed two of my four windows, and stole my JVC "Kaboom" box (a VERY large "tube" box) which was covered in my passenger footwell, and a cache of my irreplacable cdroms that I had with me that day.
I have since had the truck repaired, but have not replaced my box. It was my only piece of audio equipment which was not computer-related.
Members of the RIAA: I will always continue to burn every single cdrom I purchase into electronic format (a full ISO image), stored on several of my systems here as a backup (ISO image and ogg of each song), as well a burn a duplicate copy on CD-R for myself, in a format which allows me to listen to it on all of my computers and hardware. I do this, because I was raped by carrying the "real" media in my car.
My rights as a consumer allow this, and you will not ever, ever stop this. I do not "share" my purchased music with anyone by sending out ogg files of the songs, other than letting them listen to them over my icecast stream, or by borrowing the disk (sure they can burn it, but that's not a law I have broken).
RIAA, thank you for your opinion on what music I should listen to, and on what device, and at what cost I should be bent over for this "right", but you can take that opinion, and call someone who cares, at 1-800-POUND-SAND.
Once again, laws like this that creep their way through the books, only serve to hurt people who are innocent of their accusations of the guilty. It's happening with music, it's happening with encryption, it happened with guns, one notch at a time, and pretty soon we'll all be turning our backs on the "ViewScreen" [1984] that will be installed in all of our rooms.
Having worked at $LASTJOB{PHARMA} where the FDA was looking over our potential implementatation of biometrics in wireless handheld webpads in 1998, I can tell you how this is done:
CFR 21:11, the Code of Federal Regulations, goes through this fully. In order to be "validated" as the real person, you must hold at least two of three key pieces of information:
Something you have: A keycard, a physcal key, an iButton
Something you know: A password, passphrase, memorized key
Something you are: Iris scan, fingerprint, voice, some other biometric.
.
If you have two of those things, any two in combination, you are said to be one of two things:
Truly that person to which the biometric belongs, or
A conspirator, working with that person, since you cannot have obtained the second piece of information without consent from the holder
This is how our Federal Government looks at it anyway.
Biometrics have come a long way, and contrary to popular belief, this fingerprint-style technology does not compare a "picture" of your finger. It measures datapoints (the FingerChip for example, measures many more datapoints than most biometric scanners, and is a fraction of the size).
The "retraining" you have to do is so that your "personality" is measured as one of the datapoints. If this was a signature capture biometric, it would measure whether or not you dot your "i" before your words are finished, or after. That "personality" is set in the equation as part of the measurement. This is why even if you have someone's signature on paper, and can replicate it perfectly freehand, a good biometric will rule it out, since the "personality" (speed to write, dot i's first/last, etc.) will certainly not match.
...but i just cannot fathom WHY the RIAA would think that restrictive practices like this would actually INCREASE their profits.
I'm not entirely worried. Microsoft tried this by trying to scare everyone into licensing their "pirated" copies of Windows ("..turn in your neighbor...", sound familiar.. Nazi Germany), by forcing people, companies, corporations to audit their licensing practices (what Microsoft forgets, is that piracy is what gave it market share on the desktop. If it was hard to obtain illegally, their numbers would probably be 40-50% less than what they are).
Thank you Microsoft, because now you're forcing companies and corporations, your bread and butter, to realize how much countless millions they spend on your licensing, support, and software, all when there's a completely free, open, viable alternative "over here". The largest bank is Brazil is beginning to switch whole-hog to the better free alternative. Hundreds of other companies are also. This isn't about linux,this is about freedom, about being open with information, offering a hand, an alternative. Not the typical "Embrace, Extend, Extinguish" that Microsoft embodies.
The same will happen to the music industry as well. Let's not forget how the music industry got it's initial funding. It wasn't from corporations, it was from the early days of "The Family" (you know who I'm talking about).
Support open, legacy-free formats now, such as Ogg Vorbis and others. Let them gain a strong foothold, and we'll just make our own cds. What's stopping a record company from supporting open standards on their own format? Nothing. The "Big 5" music companies don't stop anyone else from getting a cdrom into Wal-Mart.
When I hear the argument that "...encryption can be used to hide terrorist communications..." and that we can't protect our citizens properly if we let these bad guys continue using unbreakable encryption, I have one thing to say...
...the United States military uses encryption every single day to save thousands of lives. How do you think these soldiers in the field talk to each other, relay coordinates, maintain anonymity in foreign lands to stay alive? That's right class, strong encryption!
It's ok to implement backdoors in the publically available encryption, but oh, this little stuff we use over here in our military is classified, you can't see it, and we can't even tell you we use it.. But here's a 200 page document, all conveniently highlighted in black marker, that explains everything you need to know about it.
All of these politicians and gubbermint officials supporting this type of intrusive "anal exploration" of our freedoms needs a brain exam.
The author wrote a page with an add, and a filter app modifies the page and removes the add picture, without a permission from
the author.
But modification is one of the exclusive rights of the copyright owner.
That might be true, if it weren't sitting on my local machine. Remember, I am not modifying the REMOTE content, I am modifying my own, peronally owned, LOCAL copy. Just as I can go to a book store, buy a book, and write in the pages, I am entitled to do whatever I want with a webpage that was given to me, on my machine, at my request.
Please read up on copyright law. It does not prohibit me from doing whatever I want to my own local copy, as long as it does not violate copyright.
transcoding on the other hand, is a different story, but since I'm not "redistrubuting modified content", that's not a problem.
You go to a Web site by choice... most of the time, anyway.
..except when you hit a website, close your browser, and a new browser window appears, which loads some pop-up ads, which you close, which open new browsers, which you close, which open full-screen, toolbar-less browser windows, which you close, which... reboot!
How is this enticing me to purchase a product? I hit one website, and am presented with 20 others when I'm simply trying to use the Back button.
They also cannot make sure (at least not by tracking requests) the ad is actually
displayed, they can only make sure it's downloaded.
Unless of course, the ad itself is written in Javascript, and does a POST back to the server, incidicating "Success", and the rest of the page is drawn properly. Not hard to track at all if the ad was download vs. displayed.
...Because if people keep blocking then we will be forced to start physically paying to view pages, via micropayments perhaps, but we will pay because
they have to pay their bills.
You sound as if their product IS the banner ads. Funny, I thought that they paid their bills by selling their product. If their product doesn't sell, then there's a fundamental problem with their marketing approach, and throwing a handful of annoying pop-up, pop-under, and fullscreen-no-toolbar banner ads in my face is simply going to cause me to block them.
I don't block the ads on Slashdot, or Freshmeat, or many other sites I visit. Why? Because they're not annoying. Every once in awhile, I'll see something that catches my eye, and I'll click it.
With popups, popunders, etc. I will NOT click them, simply on principle. They do not receive my visit, or my click, or any revenue from me.
This is not a user problem, it's a marketing problem, and the users are being burdoned with the faults of a bad marketing team. I for one, hope the ads get more and more annoying, because then it will simply lead to a court case, whereby there will be ad regulation. They make it more annoying, we block, the find a way around it, we block. I don't mind playing cat and mouse, because the cat always wins in the end.
Interestingly enough though, where we're heading is probably an internet rife with Shockwave-only pages, where you have to sit and watch a 2-minute "commercial" before you're allowed to see the website, and we'll go full circle again, with no graphics and gopher, or a private "vpn" internet, where there are no banner ads at all, and then "Channel 9" internet, where it's all banner ads, commercials, and dreck.
How is any of this ensuring my freedom as an American citizen?
How is the validation of an individual's identity ensuring his sanity on a flight? If I carry this card, and prove that I am indeed the
holder of the thumb and body which the card indicates, what is stopping me from running into the cabin of the plane with a fork, and declaring the plane in the name of Homer Simpson? Nothing.
Stop
trying to fill your pockets, Larry, at the expense of the very same freedoms which made you rich.
We have Microsoft trying to pull everyone's personal credit
information into Passport and.NET, so they can control where you go, when, and how you get there, and we have Oracle, trying to capture and store and "manage" your
very identity. I don't think so.
What
people in our government fail to see is that the collection of these events, coupled with those who are trying to restrict stem cell research, our encryption, our liberties, and now, in a very delicate potential time of
war, issuing lethal foreign policies. People are leaving this country, and taking off for other places where the opportunities may not be as vast, but the freedoms certainly are.
I'm very close
to taking off as well, before the borders are closed, and I have to show my passport, fingerprint, and biometric validation, along with government approval to leave this country, and I'm taking all of my
loved ones with me.
You actually have many more weapons than you realize with you on most planes, however, please be aware that not all the terrorists may have stood up and made themselves known. With 5 terrorists on one plane, perhaps two stand up, leaving three
others "in the back" to grab you or kill you if you stand up to hit one of the "lead two" in the back of the head or something. They may not have ever made themselves known at all to the passengers.
That being said, back to weapons:
As
a business traveler, I carry quite an array of gadgets with me, and since I have some pretty detailed training, I know how to use these for more than their conventional use. Let's itemize them:
A laptop. Closed and hurled like a frisbee at
a hijacker in the row, they have two basic options (among some others) when seeing an 8lb Thinkpad coming at their head. 1.) Duck into a row. This provides you with a huge advantage as a passenger, since you can now run up to that row and block his
exit. Others can then come over the seats and subdue him. 2.) Take the hit, and that's gonna hurt like a bastard. 3.) You could dodge the laptop, but you still have been toppled by the surprise. Similarly, your "corded" mouse can work very well as a
"whip" if hurled at the attacker mouse-first. Remember to wrap the connector end around your hand once first, lest you just let it whip off at them without a controlling end for yourself.
Magazines. If anyone has ever thrown a magazine spine
first "hatchet style", you know that it will travel quite fast and far before spreading out and fluttering open like a bird. Enough of these hurled at the hijackers will certainly distract them enough to miss the fact that you were running right up
behind the magazines to kick them in the side of the hip, breaking their hip and spine. Any sane person not on some sort of chemical additive (PCP, lsd) will instinctively throw up their arms to block the "thing" coming at them. A fluttering thing
has an ever-changing shape and size, making it hard to target and effectively block.
A seat cushion, someone already mentioned this.
Soda and soda cans (thrown or a mouthful of soda appropriately spit can easily distract the attacker with
both noise and soda itself), pagers, cell phones, Palm: projectiles, easily weilded and very effective. Go for the thigs and shins on this one. You don't want to take a lightweight item like this and aim for the head (easy to dodge) and not for the
torso (no pain, no impact)
A belt. You'd be surprised how effective a belt can be against a knife-weilding attacker. 1.) it keeps you beyond arms length of the knife holding person, and if you snap out buckle first, you have quite a lethal bolo
on your hands. 2.) you can use it as a noose, tripping them in the aisle, or as a strangling agent, jumping into them from behind (always with one knee up for the middle of the back hit) and take them down by the throat.
Blankets and pillow
cases: very very effective distractive weapons. You can use these to misdirect the attacker, blind him, smother him, or like in the locker rooms in gym class back in high school, twirl into a rope and snap out at them, aim for the eyes and throat
with this one. It's amazingly effective to collapse a trachea with one careful blow of a "corded" blanket twirled in such a fashion.
Overhead baggage compartments: Open those suckers up and fill the aisle with baggage between you and the
attacker. They will have to hop over them or move them out of the way, you gain a few prescious seconds of time that other passengers can then use to help you subdue the attacker.
These hijackers had one weapon, not the knives, not the
razors, but fear. Once people muster the confidence to believe they will survive, the fear is erased. Picture this:
[hijacker] "I take this plane in the name of..."
[passenger] "Shut the hell up, you don't scare anyone. If
you don't sit the hell down, I'm going to ram that freaking Koran down your throat!"
This does a few key things, 1.) offbalances the attacker's advantage of fear, control, and 2.) makes them look like a complete idiot, and 3.) since
you cut them off mid-sentence, shows you have no respect for them, and don't fear them. This is very important when dealing with people like this. You want to get them angry, because it is next to impossible to make clear, well-thought-out
decisions when you're angry, enraged. Here's another alternative:
[hijacker] "I take this plane in the name of..."
[passenger] (stands up and charges the attacker)
Again, don't let them finish their sentence. Let
them feel the fear themselves.
Now that these things are public, people are talking, and in talking, comes out good ideas. People, the American people, will not stand for this any longer. We are wired, we are angry, and we are strong. And some
of us are highly trained, and you don't want to be on the other end of my anger should I be on a plane when someone decides they want to crash it into a building without my approval.
They're going to have to resort to using new techniques
now, possibly with uglier results.
This was a difficult, professional attack that took elite personnel; something entirely different from the regular street crime our police face every day. They successfully hijacked four commercial passenger
aircraft in one day, without a single failed attempt. They bypassed some of the toughest security civilians are subject to. The calibre of terrorist that must have done this will be unfettered by attempts to control gun ownership, internet usage,
cryptography or many other laws. Let's hope this doesn't "accidentally" force us into a police state.
Has anyone begun to think that perhaps Microsoft themselves has planted CodeRed and variants out on the internet? Before you mod me down, read on:
CodeRed, the first version was fairly lame, and didn't infect beyond a separate IP block. Microsoft gets scared and realizes that their "iminent" release of WinXP might be blocked, or worse yet, shunned by the consumers. "Oh no, now we can't track all those stolen copies of Windows".
Then CodeRedII comes out, a bit nastier, going after more machines. Then Microsoft is denied their appeal.
CodeRedIII comes out, infection is much worse, and now opens the machine up to more attacks than before. It gets so deep into your Windows system that you must reinstall anyway. Not only that, but allows anyone who reads their logs to go in and cause damage ("polluting blame" as we say). Now compromised machines are being hacked in many more ways than just being opened up.
What does Microsoft recommend? You download this "patch" (audit tool) which you run and then it "cleans" (audits) your system, then as their own CERT document recommends, you reinstall your OS (i.e. find your original, licensed install media, and hit our website for the latest (intentionally trojaned) copies of drivers and IE/ActiveSetup installation tools).
What's a bit odd about this process though, is that Microsoft requires that you run their "cleanup" tool to purge the infection, THEN reinstall. If I'm going to fdisk and reinstall anyway, why do I have to run this "cleanup" tool? (audit?)
Curious that nobody has thought of this angle. Why do we not hear about hundreds of FBI agents tracking down the author of the virus in the Faroese Islands or whatever. Usually these people are caught within days of the outbreak. There hasn't been a single peep about any investigation in two full weeks. It's not like we don't have a HUGE audit trail, we all have dozens of logs. Plot it out, find the dates/times, narrow the search,and find them.
Oh wait, perhaps they're the same entity which supplied you with the infectable OS in the first place.
What was that they were saying about Linux being "potentially viral" a few weeks ago?
Well, I don't know where you are all going with this, but on my Palm III, I have 9.7 megs of space (with the TRG 8 meg board, plus the built-in PalmOS ROM space I can burn to, I get much more than just 8 megs), I have room for whatever apps and keys for PGP I need. I have the following on my palm, to assist in my PGP efforts:
I actually have SSLeay and OpenPGP running on my PalmIII right now. it supports IDEA, 3DES, CAST, BF, with a hash of MD5, SHA, RMD, and MD2. I think that should satisfy even the most secure user. As a side note, I also have pilOTP, pSNK, and a few other toys... (can't forget the ultra-cool Linux splash screen at power on =)
Email me if you want details. I didn't write it, but I was personally given it by the author while trolling around on IRC.
Slashdot Mirror
There is one case of an Anthrax infection that has been reported so far. One case, and that person has died. That particular case involved a non-GMO (Generically Modificed Organism) version of the Anthrax bacterium. The other cases are a completely different variety of the same bacterium (cutaneous). The one in Florida may very well be a completely natural infection which occured. Yes, there has not been a single case reported in the U.S. of an Anthrax infection in 25 years, and within one week, there are over 7 cases on the books, so you can guarantee that it's intentional, but do not continue to spread the FUD without some knowledge behind you.
The others may not be, but nobody else has been infected with Anthrax to date except this Florida case. The other people you are hearing about have only tested positive for the antibodies which the body produces naturally to fight off the presence of Anthrax.
There's too much FUD in the news right now.
Lastly... there's an interesting quote from al-Queda spokesman Suleiman Abu-Gheith today saying:
This is far from over. Please feel free to print and post this mail warning in high-traffic mail areas within your business if you believe you may be in one of the "Icons Of America" that these letters seem to be hitting.I have since had the truck repaired, but have not replaced my box. It was my only piece of audio equipment which was not computer-related.
Members of the RIAA: I will always continue to burn every single cdrom I purchase into electronic format (a full ISO image), stored on several of my systems here as a backup (ISO image and ogg of each song), as well a burn a duplicate copy on CD-R for myself, in a format which allows me to listen to it on all of my computers and hardware. I do this, because I was raped by carrying the "real" media in my car.
My rights as a consumer allow this, and you will not ever, ever stop this. I do not "share" my purchased music with anyone by sending out ogg files of the songs, other than letting them listen to them over my icecast stream, or by borrowing the disk (sure they can burn it, but that's not a law I have broken).
RIAA, thank you for your opinion on what music I should listen to, and on what device, and at what cost I should be bent over for this "right", but you can take that opinion, and call someone who cares, at 1-800-POUND-SAND.
Once again, laws like this that creep their way through the books, only serve to hurt people who are innocent of their accusations of the guilty. It's happening with music, it's happening with encryption, it happened with guns, one notch at a time, and pretty soon we'll all be turning our backs on the "ViewScreen" [1984] that will be installed in all of our rooms.
CFR 21:11 , the Code of Federal Regulations, goes through this fully. In order to be "validated" as the real person, you must hold at least two of three key pieces of information:
- Something you have: A keycard, a physcal key, an iButton
- Something you know: A password, passphrase, memorized key
- Something you are: Iris scan, fingerprint, voice, some other biometric.
. If you have two of those things, any two in combination, you are said to be one of two things:This is how our Federal Government looks at it anyway.
Biometrics have come a long way, and contrary to popular belief, this fingerprint-style technology does not compare a "picture" of your finger. It measures datapoints (the FingerChip for example, measures many more datapoints than most biometric scanners, and is a fraction of the size).
The "retraining" you have to do is so that your "personality" is measured as one of the datapoints. If this was a signature capture biometric, it would measure whether or not you dot your "i" before your words are finished, or after. That "personality" is set in the equation as part of the measurement. This is why even if you have someone's signature on paper, and can replicate it perfectly freehand, a good biometric will rule it out, since the "personality" (speed to write, dot i's first/last, etc.) will certainly not match.
I'm not entirely worried. Microsoft tried this by trying to scare everyone into licensing their "pirated" copies of Windows ("..turn in your neighbor...", sound familiar.. Nazi Germany), by forcing people, companies, corporations to audit their licensing practices (what Microsoft forgets, is that piracy is what gave it market share on the desktop. If it was hard to obtain illegally, their numbers would probably be 40-50% less than what they are).
Thank you Microsoft, because now you're forcing companies and corporations, your bread and butter, to realize how much countless millions they spend on your licensing, support, and software, all when there's a completely free, open, viable alternative "over here". The largest bank is Brazil is beginning to switch whole-hog to the better free alternative. Hundreds of other companies are also. This isn't about linux,this is about freedom, about being open with information, offering a hand, an alternative. Not the typical "Embrace, Extend, Extinguish" that Microsoft embodies.
The same will happen to the music industry as well. Let's not forget how the music industry got it's initial funding. It wasn't from corporations, it was from the early days of "The Family" (you know who I'm talking about).
Support open, legacy-free formats now, such as Ogg Vorbis and others. Let them gain a strong foothold, and we'll just make our own cds. What's stopping a record company from supporting open standards on their own format? Nothing. The "Big 5" music companies don't stop anyone else from getting a cdrom into Wal-Mart.
Support that activity now.
...the United States military uses encryption every single day to save thousands of lives. How do you think these soldiers in the field talk to each other, relay coordinates, maintain anonymity in foreign lands to stay alive? That's right class, strong encryption!
It's ok to implement backdoors in the publically available encryption, but oh, this little stuff we use over here in our military is classified, you can't see it, and we can't even tell you we use it.. But here's a 200 page document, all conveniently highlighted in black marker, that explains everything you need to know about it.
All of these politicians and gubbermint officials supporting this type of intrusive "anal exploration" of our freedoms needs a brain exam.
Please read up on copyright law. It does not prohibit me from doing whatever I want to my own local copy, as long as it does not violate copyright.
transcoding on the other hand, is a different story, but since I'm not "redistrubuting modified content", that's not a problem.
How is this enticing me to purchase a product? I hit one website, and am presented with 20 others when I'm simply trying to use the Back button.
Unless of course, the ad itself is written in Javascript, and does a POST back to the server, incidicating "Success", and the rest of the page is drawn properly. Not hard to track at all if the ad was download vs. displayed.
You sound as if their product IS the banner ads. Funny, I thought that they paid their bills by selling their product. If their product doesn't sell, then there's a fundamental problem with their marketing approach, and throwing a handful of annoying pop-up, pop-under, and fullscreen-no-toolbar banner ads in my face is simply going to cause me to block them.
I don't block the ads on Slashdot, or Freshmeat, or many other sites I visit. Why? Because they're not annoying. Every once in awhile, I'll see something that catches my eye, and I'll click it.
With popups, popunders, etc. I will NOT click them, simply on principle. They do not receive my visit, or my click, or any revenue from me.
This is not a user problem, it's a marketing problem, and the users are being burdoned with the faults of a bad marketing team. I for one, hope the ads get more and more annoying, because then it will simply lead to a court case, whereby there will be ad regulation. They make it more annoying, we block, the find a way around it, we block. I don't mind playing cat and mouse, because the cat always wins in the end.
Interestingly enough though, where we're heading is probably an internet rife with Shockwave-only pages, where you have to sit and watch a 2-minute "commercial" before you're allowed to see the website, and we'll go full circle again, with no graphics and gopher, or a private "vpn" internet, where there are no banner ads at all, and then "Channel 9" internet, where it's all banner ads, commercials, and dreck.
How is the validation of an individual's identity ensuring his sanity on a flight? If I carry this card, and prove that I am indeed the holder of the thumb and body which the card indicates, what is stopping me from running into the cabin of the plane with a fork, and declaring the plane in the name of Homer Simpson? Nothing.
Stop trying to fill your pockets, Larry, at the expense of the very same freedoms which made you rich.
We have Microsoft trying to pull everyone's personal credit information into Passport and .NET, so they can control where you go, when, and how you get there, and we have Oracle, trying to capture and store and "manage" your
very identity. I don't think so.
We also have the DMCA, the SSSCA, backdoored "encryption" (anything with more than one keyholder is not encryption), the RIAA, MPAA, gps tracking devices in rental cars, cameras at every intersection, Dmitry Sklyarov vs. US/Adobe, and traffic tickets being sent in the mail for infractions you were never stopped for.
How is this giving me liberty again?
What people in our government fail to see is that the collection of these events, coupled with those who are trying to restrict stem cell research, our encryption, our liberties, and now, in a very delicate potential time of war, issuing lethal foreign policies. People are leaving this country, and taking off for other places where the opportunities may not be as vast, but the freedoms certainly are.
I'm very close to taking off as well, before the borders are closed, and I have to show my passport, fingerprint, and biometric validation, along with government approval to leave this country, and I'm taking all of my loved ones with me.
Use the proper search syntax and you may get better results.
That being said, back to weapons:
As a business traveler, I carry quite an array of gadgets with me, and since I have some pretty detailed training, I know how to use these for more than their conventional use. Let's itemize them:
These hijackers had one weapon, not the knives, not the razors, but fear. Once people muster the confidence to believe they will survive, the fear is erased. Picture this:
This does a few key things, 1.) offbalances the attacker's advantage of fear, control, and 2.) makes them look like a complete idiot, and 3.) since you cut them off mid-sentence, shows you have no respect for them, and don't fear them. This is very important when dealing with people like this. You want to get them angry, because it is next to impossible to make clear, well-thought-out decisions when you're angry, enraged. Here's another alternative:
Again, don't let them finish their sentence. Let them feel the fear themselves.
Now that these things are public, people are talking, and in talking, comes out good ideas. People, the American people, will not stand for this any longer. We are wired, we are angry, and we are strong. And some of us are highly trained, and you don't want to be on the other end of my anger should I be on a plane when someone decides they want to crash it into a building without my approval.
They're going to have to resort to using new techniques now, possibly with uglier results.
This was a difficult, professional attack that took elite personnel; something entirely different from the regular street crime our police face every day. They successfully hijacked four commercial passenger aircraft in one day, without a single failed attempt. They bypassed some of the toughest security civilians are subject to. The calibre of terrorist that must have done this will be unfettered by attempts to control gun ownership, internet usage, cryptography or many other laws. Let's hope this doesn't "accidentally" force us into a police state.
Has anyone begun to think that perhaps Microsoft themselves has planted CodeRed and variants out on the internet? Before you mod me down, read on:
CodeRed, the first version was fairly lame, and didn't infect beyond a separate IP block. Microsoft gets scared and realizes that their "iminent" release of WinXP might be blocked, or worse yet, shunned by the consumers. "Oh no, now we can't track all those stolen copies of Windows".
Then CodeRedII comes out, a bit nastier, going after more machines. Then Microsoft is denied their appeal.
CodeRedIII comes out, infection is much worse, and now opens the machine up to more attacks than before. It gets so deep into your Windows system that you must reinstall anyway. Not only that, but allows anyone who reads their logs to go in and cause damage ("polluting blame" as we say). Now compromised machines are being hacked in many more ways than just being opened up.
What does Microsoft recommend? You download this "patch" (audit tool) which you run and then it "cleans" (audits) your system, then as their own CERT document recommends, you reinstall your OS (i.e. find your original, licensed install media, and hit our website for the latest (intentionally trojaned) copies of drivers and IE/ActiveSetup installation tools).
What's a bit odd about this process though, is that Microsoft requires that you run their "cleanup" tool to purge the infection, THEN reinstall. If I'm going to fdisk and reinstall anyway, why do I have to run this "cleanup" tool? (audit?)
Curious that nobody has thought of this angle. Why do we not hear about hundreds of FBI agents tracking down the author of the virus in the Faroese Islands or whatever. Usually these people are caught within days of the outbreak. There hasn't been a single peep about any investigation in two full weeks. It's not like we don't have a HUGE audit trail, we all have dozens of logs. Plot it out, find the dates/times, narrow the search,and find them.
Oh wait, perhaps they're the same entity which supplied you with the infectable OS in the first place.
What was that they were saying about Linux being "potentially viral" a few weeks ago?
Well, I don't know where you are all going with this, but on my Palm III, I have 9.7 megs of space (with the TRG 8 meg board, plus the built-in PalmOS ROM space I can burn to, I get much more than just 8 megs), I have room for whatever apps and keys for PGP I need. I have the following on my palm, to assist in my PGP efforts:
Opgp\ Library.prc
CAST\ Library.prc
DES\ Library.prc
DSA\ Library.prc
IDEA\ Library.prc
MD\ Library.prc
MathLib.prc
OpenPGP.prc
Passwords.pdb
RAND\ Library.prc
RSA\ Library.prc
Top\ Gun\ SSH.prc
Top\ Gun\ Login\ Lib.prc
pSNK.prc
pilOTP.prc
They all work fine on my palm unit now. PGP encryption and decryption works perfectly.
See you all on the other side...
I actually have SSLeay and OpenPGP running on my PalmIII right now. it supports IDEA, 3DES, CAST, BF, with a hash of MD5, SHA, RMD, and MD2. I think that should satisfy even the most secure user. As a side note, I also have pilOTP, pSNK, and a few other toys... (can't forget the ultra-cool Linux splash screen at power on =)
Email me if you want details. I didn't write it, but I was personally given it by the author while trolling around on IRC.