In order for anything to reliably receive GPS signals, you've got to have a sensitive antenna and essentially be outdoors. The idea that an implant in any fashion could do so is ludicrous with current technology.
More likely, the implants send out a very weak signal which can be picked up by ground stations (perhaps mobile), which would be able to triangulate the position and compare it against GPS coordinates of the tracking station.
And with respects congress eliminating funding for GPS, you may have misread that article or something. GPS as it is will be untouched. Only funding for the "modernization" of it (making it much more accurate, and potentially incompatible with existing receivers) was cancelled. GPS isn't going anywhere.
A collection of facts in itself isn't protectable in the US. There has to be a degree of creativity or origality in the collection. Alphabetized or numerically sorted isn't "original", it's just a sorted list of public information. I believe there were one or more cases a while back regarding a publishing company, the telephone company and telephone books. The telephone books were not deemed copyrightable because they were just a simple, if alphabetized, collection of unoriginal data. Not copyrightable.
So long as your RPM files are up to date, you're fine. I believe Red Hat released updated RPM's quite a long time ago that addressed this vulnerability.
The idea of a non-executing stack has been tossed around for ages. The problem with this is that it would break programs that use dynamic executable code. I believe Perl, for example, would be unusable on such a system.
I think I've also read someplace that i386 architecture does not distinguish between executable pages and text pages in memory. You can mark a page read-only, but you can't mark it unexecutable.
My memory may be mangling my recollection of these issues, so feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.
In the US, your RSA implementation *must* be licensed from RSADSI. This means either using a product from a commercial vendor that has licensed RSADSI's commercial-grade RSA implementation, or, if you're a non-commercial entity (or a commercial entity not using this in a commercial capacity [such as a secure Intranet site, I believe]), using the "public" (crappy) RSAREF library.
As the RSA algorithms are patented only in the US, it's illegal to use any other RSA implementation not specifically licensed from RSADSI. Outside of the US, the patent does not apply and you're free to use better, open RSA implementations.
Why is it a "problem" that he uses packages? So it turns out the bug was fixed on his system BEFORE HE EVEN KNEW ABOUT IT. I'd say that was one major point to the "I use binary packages" team, not the other way around.
No offense, but not all of us have time to wade through security issues at the end of every day, download source code patches and recompile our affected apps. (Though don't get me wrong, I do spend a very insignificant portion of my work day browsing Bugtraq e-mails.) Bug reports like this tend to be very well researched and include information such as affected packages and affected stock distributions.
Major package distributions have people on staff that do this for us, update packages, and ship out updates in very short order. In this case, the patch was made available very shortly after the bug was announced to Bugtraq, and new RPM's were made available shortly after that. If you don't trust your vendor to be on the ball with things like this, it's time you found another vendor.
For those administering high-profile systems, systems in a high-security environment, or packet kiddies that just KNOW they're going to be hit by their IRC "enemies" as soon as any exploit is released, definitely either stick with source releases and apply patches immediately, or pay attention to ways to work around problems until an official/binary patch is made available.
For The Rest Of Us, RPM's and packages are much less of a headache (mine are downloaded and installed automatically), and I can spend my free time USING the tools on my system instead of being "elitest" and re-building them all the time.
I think the major deal is that cookies should only be held within a specific user agent's environment. The fact that the e-mail client in question *shares* the same environment with the web browser is perhaps what should be corrected.
As far as I'm concerned, access to HTTP services from within an e-mail message should be a settable option. If you need access to images in an e-mail, attach them like normal file attachments and reference them with <a href="file://attachment1.gif">. If HTTP must be used, put each e-mail message in its own "sand box" so that state information (such as a cookie) is never shared between e-mail messages or between e-mail messages and web sites as browsed through a typical browser.
The system doesn't prevent headlights from blinding you. You can still look right at the oncoming car without obstruction. The advantage this provides is that instead of looking up into the glare, you can look down at the infrared image and still be able to see the edges of the road. Headlights don't obscure your vision when you view the area in front of you with this infrared system.
I sincerely doubt the resolution on this thing would allow you any remote abilities to see "through" materials. The person would have to be standing extremely close to the camera lens for a large enough image to appear on the screen, and if that were the case, you'd probably have just a fraction of a second to watch before you run them over.
Finally I can ignore those annoying people who drive with their high-beams on or use colored headlights.
This system doesn't replace your windshield at all. Those people will still be able to blind you with their headlights. This thing only shows up in a small box below your normal eye level on your windshield.
I wasn't trying to justify an invasion of privacy. I was just pointing out the line that must be drawn, and what sits on either side of it.
more restrictions on free speech (stemming from doctors recommending the medical use of marijuana)
I wasn't aware that doctors were breaking the law by making such a recommendation. Do you have more information to back this up? To my knowledge, marijuana is not classified as a drug unfit for medicinal value. I believe there is an official classification system for these types of things (based on how dangerous it is and setting conditions on how it can be used or prescribed), and marijuana is towards the bottom of that list.
the right to vote ("one in three black men in the both Alabama and Florida is permanently barred from voting" because they were incarcerated)
What does this have to do with the war on drugs?
If you're convicted of a felony, you lose the right to vote. That's something that's been on the books forever. Just because people are getting convicted of felonies and losing the right to vote doesn't mean we should stop fighting the crimes. Or would you rather see convicted felons have the right to vote again?
unreasonable search and seizure (allowing "agents to smash down doors without warning and without evidence of crime.")
Again, I wouldn't mind seeing information to back these claims up. If agents are breaking into homes without a search warrant, that's something more people need to be aware of, and those agents need to be tried and convicted of the crime. Though, if they have a valid search warrant, I don't really see what the problem is. If you don't like the way search warrants are issued, take that up with your legislature.
property rights (property can now be considered guilty of a crime
Properly restated: Property used to commit a crime can be confiscated by the authorities as evidence (and essentially becomes forfeit), where you are not necessarily entitled to get it back.
That's just part of the law itself. If you feel that is unconstitutional, it's your DUTY to bring this to the attention of your lawmakers or file a lawsuit with the intention of having the law declared unconstitutional and invalid.
and facing your accusers (in order to protect 'professional' informants)
I didn't realize this was a right. Where in the Bill of Rights is this "right" protected?
These issues are each little flame wars in their own rights. I'm not going to try and argue about how they're good or bad. If you don't like the laws that make these things happen, let your lawmakers know. Get something done, don't just post articles in Slashdot about it.
If it's found that they are indeed breaking the law in some aspect of their operation, that can be brought to light.
And if this committee came out and said, "The NSA is acting within the bounds of their charter and in the spirit of protecting the interests of the United States," would people really be satisfied?
Especially with the number of conspiracy theorists among Slashdot posters, would this really be enough? Who's to say the committee isn't being influenced somehow? What if they were corrupt and in on the conspiracy from the start? What if they were brainwashed? What if they were replaced with duplicates developed in a secret NSA laboratory?
The most vocal of us would never be satisfied until they saw, first-hand, that the NSA wasn't doing anything wrong (which is obviously quite impossible), and even if they did, they would continue to be suspicious ("Why didn't they let me into *that* room.. I bet that's where they do it all..")
So long as the NSA has its veil of secrecy (a much needed thing), there will always be people in the US that believe the worst.
But yes, for those of us that are more "normal", such a trusted committee inquiry seems to be the logical way to handle any probe into the NSA's actions.
They lose their funding (at least the amount used to fund whatever it is that is deemed illegal), and/or whatever upper-level management involved gets slapped with fines or indictments.
Essentially, Congress ultimately decides things like this, but really any of the 3 branches of government could step up and kill the NSA, if suitable conditions and information arise.
I agree.. it all boils down to how much privacy you're willing to sacrifice for security. So long as my private details are kept separate from my identity as much as possible, so long as these details are dealt with by computer as much as possible, and so long as those people chosen to deal with such data do so discretely and without disclosure, I'd be willing to sacrifice a lot if it meant some terrorist threat would be neutralized and lives would be saved. The idea is that if such an "invasion" never affects me, my life or *others' perception of me*, then it doesn't really affect me at all, and I'd be willing to take some sacrifices here.
There are others that don't agree with me, (many very vocally so), which is fine. I'm not going to force my privacy limits onto anybody else (as many do). It's just that there will *always* be a trade-off here, and no matter where you draw the line, there will *always* be people that want that line elsewhere, so the best you can do (from the government's standpoint) is to draw the line in the best place you can and to do your best to appease those who want it elsewhere (which may include keeping the location of that line quiet).
Again, I'm not trying to say this is right or wrong, but there is logic in the government's (NSA's) behavior. Whether that's a violation of our constitution or laws is another matter, and one that will probably be met and settled, but just remember: For every personal, domestic privacy gain, we lose ground in the national security game. In this day and age, if this loss is acceptable to you, then by all means proceed to tear the NSA a new asshole if it suits you.
Assuming they are acting domestically, they're probably monitoring those that have ties with people they're monitoring overseas. If I were the NSA I'd be rather interested in the conversations going on between US citizens and people close to Saddam Hussein.
As others have suggested, they could also be monitoring transmissions, e-mails and phone calls for certain key phrases or conversations, analyzing those that contain suspicious material.
Of course, we don't really have much proof of such domestic activity (hence the request for documents), but it's not hard to come up with a few explanations for domestic surveillance that aren't so far-fetched. Use your imagination.
Of course, I'm not saying they're right in doing so at all.
Our congress is made up of our own people. You don't just join up with congress and sign a document saying you will ignore the bit about being a representative of the people and do whatever it takes to further the evil causes of the hidden government.
Remember: this whole thing started with a House subcommittee inquiry.
I know it may seem like congress is just another government agency that does things behind closed doors, but to those of us that actually know a bit about our government know better. Try visiting to www.congress.gov. You can find a detailed accounting of everything that was done in the house and senate on a particular day (as recent as the previous day).
For this reason, any government *agencies* that might be acting contrary to the wishes of a group of people (or the law for that matter), would have to take extraordinary steps to *avoid* such government branches as the legislative and judicial. So, basically, our "government" *is* largely innocent and knew nothing about the activities of the agency. Agencies like this are largely their own entities. They don't have to share every detail about their operation with other government branches/entities.
Our system of government works, IF we start taking a part in it again. The percentage of our population that has the faintest inkling of what our congress is doing, what laws are being passed, or even who their senators and representatives are is an insignificant fraction (I'd bet under 1%), despite the fact that this information is (by law, I believe) posted and made available very conspicuously.
In fact, it's this same government that passed the Freedom of Information act which is allowing people to even request these documents in the first place. Hardly the act of a government that wants to hide details about its operation.
As far as the "fix" of firing someone set up to take the heat, remember again that congress is made up of people that represent you. Chances are, if you're not satisfied with the NSA's "fix", there will be those in congress that aren't satisfied with it either. I really doubt it'll die that easily.
Have some faith in the people you elected. If you can't trust them, why did you elect them?
I'm sorry but any developer that uses a cookie to store a full credit card number needs to be fired (out of a cannon).
No competant developer in his right mind would implement something as stupid as this. You're absolutely right, cookies should only be used for state information.
There is really no legitimate reason to have cookies in the first place
Are you just totally ignoring what everyone's been saying? Cookies are quite necessary to preserve state information between web site requests and visits.
I personally love the fact that I can re-visit outpost.com and not have to enter my address in every time I want to order something. I like being able to pick out a book or two from Amazon, set them aside, and come back in a week to complete the order. It's all about convenience, and I'm sorry, but outpost.com doesn't spam me, so I don't really see where you get off labelling all cookie users as evil conspirators that want to spam you.
There are quite legitimate uses, and the only real way I can see them being abused has been discussed on Slashdot ad nauseum in that they could possibly be exploited to track your movements between cooperating sites. The only marketing-related way they're being used today is to try and "target" those banner ads that you see to your tastes. The banner ads are still there, mind you, but now they're advertising stuff you're interested in.
even browser type (although Konqueror allows you to change that).
Umm.. heh. Can someone please explain to me what you gain out of changing this information? I can't see any possible gain, but there are tons of drawbacks. Specifically, web pages that dynamically generate content based on the browser string will be generating content that either doesn't work in your browser, or is meant for sub-standard browsers (hence you'll be missing out on features or content that might necessarily be limited to more capable browsers).
You'll notice a trend in that the letters that got a good response were those that didn't include the rather tasteless genital references. The cleaner ones I thought were rather amusing, but some of those other ones were bordering on stupid/annoying, and I imagine that's why none of those got much of a response.
Slashdot Mirror
In order for anything to reliably receive GPS signals, you've got to have a sensitive antenna and essentially be outdoors. The idea that an implant in any fashion could do so is ludicrous with current technology.
More likely, the implants send out a very weak signal which can be picked up by ground stations (perhaps mobile), which would be able to triangulate the position and compare it against GPS coordinates of the tracking station.
And with respects congress eliminating funding for GPS, you may have misread that article or something. GPS as it is will be untouched. Only funding for the "modernization" of it (making it much more accurate, and potentially incompatible with existing receivers) was cancelled. GPS isn't going anywhere.
A collection of facts in itself isn't protectable in the US. There has to be a degree of creativity or origality in the collection. Alphabetized or numerically sorted isn't "original", it's just a sorted list of public information. I believe there were one or more cases a while back regarding a publishing company, the telephone company and telephone books. The telephone books were not deemed copyrightable because they were just a simple, if alphabetized, collection of unoriginal data. Not copyrightable.
So long as your RPM files are up to date, you're fine. I believe Red Hat released updated RPM's quite a long time ago that addressed this vulnerability.
The idea of a non-executing stack has been tossed around for ages. The problem with this is that it would break programs that use dynamic executable code. I believe Perl, for example, would be unusable on such a system.
I think I've also read someplace that i386 architecture does not distinguish between executable pages and text pages in memory. You can mark a page read-only, but you can't mark it unexecutable.
My memory may be mangling my recollection of these issues, so feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.
Because it's illegal in the US. RSA implementions used in the US must be licensed from RSADSI.
Once September rolls around, the patent will end and the US can finally move to better RSA implementations.
In the US, your RSA implementation *must* be licensed from RSADSI. This means either using a product from a commercial vendor that has licensed RSADSI's commercial-grade RSA implementation, or, if you're a non-commercial entity (or a commercial entity not using this in a commercial capacity [such as a secure Intranet site, I believe]), using the "public" (crappy) RSAREF library.
As the RSA algorithms are patented only in the US, it's illegal to use any other RSA implementation not specifically licensed from RSADSI. Outside of the US, the patent does not apply and you're free to use better, open RSA implementations.
Why is it a "problem" that he uses packages? So it turns out the bug was fixed on his system BEFORE HE EVEN KNEW ABOUT IT. I'd say that was one major point to the "I use binary packages" team, not the other way around.
No offense, but not all of us have time to wade through security issues at the end of every day, download source code patches and recompile our affected apps. (Though don't get me wrong, I do spend a very insignificant portion of my work day browsing Bugtraq e-mails.) Bug reports like this tend to be very well researched and include information such as affected packages and affected stock distributions.
Major package distributions have people on staff that do this for us, update packages, and ship out updates in very short order. In this case, the patch was made available very shortly after the bug was announced to Bugtraq, and new RPM's were made available shortly after that. If you don't trust your vendor to be on the ball with things like this, it's time you found another vendor.
For those administering high-profile systems, systems in a high-security environment, or packet kiddies that just KNOW they're going to be hit by their IRC "enemies" as soon as any exploit is released, definitely either stick with source releases and apply patches immediately, or pay attention to ways to work around problems until an official/binary patch is made available.
For The Rest Of Us, RPM's and packages are much less of a headache (mine are downloaded and installed automatically), and I can spend my free time USING the tools on my system instead of being "elitest" and re-building them all the time.
I think the major deal is that cookies should only be held within a specific user agent's environment. The fact that the e-mail client in question *shares* the same environment with the web browser is perhaps what should be corrected.
As far as I'm concerned, access to HTTP services from within an e-mail message should be a settable option. If you need access to images in an e-mail, attach them like normal file attachments and reference them with <a href="file://attachment1.gif">. If HTTP must be used, put each e-mail message in its own "sand box" so that state information (such as a cookie) is never shared between e-mail messages or between e-mail messages and web sites as browsed through a typical browser.
The system doesn't prevent headlights from blinding you. You can still look right at the oncoming car without obstruction. The advantage this provides is that instead of looking up into the glare, you can look down at the infrared image and still be able to see the edges of the road. Headlights don't obscure your vision when you view the area in front of you with this infrared system.
I sincerely doubt the resolution on this thing would allow you any remote abilities to see "through" materials. The person would have to be standing extremely close to the camera lens for a large enough image to appear on the screen, and if that were the case, you'd probably have just a fraction of a second to watch before you run them over.
Finally I can ignore those annoying people who drive with their high-beams on or use colored headlights.
This system doesn't replace your windshield at all. Those people will still be able to blind you with their headlights. This thing only shows up in a small box below your normal eye level on your windshield.
The same justification was given for the KGB.
I wasn't trying to justify an invasion of privacy. I was just pointing out the line that must be drawn, and what sits on either side of it.
more restrictions on free speech (stemming from doctors recommending the medical use of marijuana)
I wasn't aware that doctors were breaking the law by making such a recommendation. Do you have more information to back this up? To my knowledge, marijuana is not classified as a drug unfit for medicinal value. I believe there is an official classification system for these types of things (based on how dangerous it is and setting conditions on how it can be used or prescribed), and marijuana is towards the bottom of that list.
the right to vote ("one in three black men in the both Alabama and Florida is permanently barred from voting" because they were incarcerated)
What does this have to do with the war on drugs?
If you're convicted of a felony, you lose the right to vote. That's something that's been on the books forever. Just because people are getting convicted of felonies and losing the right to vote doesn't mean we should stop fighting the crimes. Or would you rather see convicted felons have the right to vote again?
unreasonable search and seizure (allowing "agents to smash down doors without warning and without evidence of crime.")
Again, I wouldn't mind seeing information to back these claims up. If agents are breaking into homes without a search warrant, that's something more people need to be aware of, and those agents need to be tried and convicted of the crime. Though, if they have a valid search warrant, I don't really see what the problem is. If you don't like the way search warrants are issued, take that up with your legislature.
property rights (property can now be considered guilty of a crime
Properly restated: Property used to commit a crime can be confiscated by the authorities as evidence (and essentially becomes forfeit), where you are not necessarily entitled to get it back.
That's just part of the law itself. If you feel that is unconstitutional, it's your DUTY to bring this to the attention of your lawmakers or file a lawsuit with the intention of having the law declared unconstitutional and invalid.
and facing your accusers (in order to protect 'professional' informants)
I didn't realize this was a right. Where in the Bill of Rights is this "right" protected?
These issues are each little flame wars in their own rights. I'm not going to try and argue about how they're good or bad. If you don't like the laws that make these things happen, let your lawmakers know. Get something done, don't just post articles in Slashdot about it.
If it's found that they are indeed breaking the law in some aspect of their operation, that can be brought to light.
And if this committee came out and said, "The NSA is acting within the bounds of their charter and in the spirit of protecting the interests of the United States," would people really be satisfied?
Especially with the number of conspiracy theorists among Slashdot posters, would this really be enough? Who's to say the committee isn't being influenced somehow? What if they were corrupt and in on the conspiracy from the start? What if they were brainwashed? What if they were replaced with duplicates developed in a secret NSA laboratory?
The most vocal of us would never be satisfied until they saw, first-hand, that the NSA wasn't doing anything wrong (which is obviously quite impossible), and even if they did, they would continue to be suspicious ("Why didn't they let me into *that* room.. I bet that's where they do it all..")
So long as the NSA has its veil of secrecy (a much needed thing), there will always be people in the US that believe the worst.
But yes, for those of us that are more "normal", such a trusted committee inquiry seems to be the logical way to handle any probe into the NSA's actions.
but what happens if/when they break that charter?
They lose their funding (at least the amount used to fund whatever it is that is deemed illegal), and/or whatever upper-level management involved gets slapped with fines or indictments.
Essentially, Congress ultimately decides things like this, but really any of the 3 branches of government could step up and kill the NSA, if suitable conditions and information arise.
I agree.. it all boils down to how much privacy you're willing to sacrifice for security. So long as my private details are kept separate from my identity as much as possible, so long as these details are dealt with by computer as much as possible, and so long as those people chosen to deal with such data do so discretely and without disclosure, I'd be willing to sacrifice a lot if it meant some terrorist threat would be neutralized and lives would be saved. The idea is that if such an "invasion" never affects me, my life or *others' perception of me*, then it doesn't really affect me at all, and I'd be willing to take some sacrifices here.
There are others that don't agree with me, (many very vocally so), which is fine. I'm not going to force my privacy limits onto anybody else (as many do). It's just that there will *always* be a trade-off here, and no matter where you draw the line, there will *always* be people that want that line elsewhere, so the best you can do (from the government's standpoint) is to draw the line in the best place you can and to do your best to appease those who want it elsewhere (which may include keeping the location of that line quiet).
Again, I'm not trying to say this is right or wrong, but there is logic in the government's (NSA's) behavior. Whether that's a violation of our constitution or laws is another matter, and one that will probably be met and settled, but just remember: For every personal, domestic privacy gain, we lose ground in the national security game. In this day and age, if this loss is acceptable to you, then by all means proceed to tear the NSA a new asshole if it suits you.
Assuming they are acting domestically, they're probably monitoring those that have ties with people they're monitoring overseas. If I were the NSA I'd be rather interested in the conversations going on between US citizens and people close to Saddam Hussein.
As others have suggested, they could also be monitoring transmissions, e-mails and phone calls for certain key phrases or conversations, analyzing those that contain suspicious material.
Of course, we don't really have much proof of such domestic activity (hence the request for documents), but it's not hard to come up with a few explanations for domestic surveillance that aren't so far-fetched. Use your imagination.
Of course, I'm not saying they're right in doing so at all.
Our congress is made up of our own people. You don't just join up with congress and sign a document saying you will ignore the bit about being a representative of the people and do whatever it takes to further the evil causes of the hidden government.
Remember: this whole thing started with a House subcommittee inquiry.
I know it may seem like congress is just another government agency that does things behind closed doors, but to those of us that actually know a bit about our government know better. Try visiting to www.congress.gov. You can find a detailed accounting of everything that was done in the house and senate on a particular day (as recent as the previous day).
For this reason, any government *agencies* that might be acting contrary to the wishes of a group of people (or the law for that matter), would have to take extraordinary steps to *avoid* such government branches as the legislative and judicial. So, basically, our "government" *is* largely innocent and knew nothing about the activities of the agency. Agencies like this are largely their own entities. They don't have to share every detail about their operation with other government branches/entities.
Our system of government works, IF we start taking a part in it again. The percentage of our population that has the faintest inkling of what our congress is doing, what laws are being passed, or even who their senators and representatives are is an insignificant fraction (I'd bet under 1%), despite the fact that this information is (by law, I believe) posted and made available very conspicuously.
In fact, it's this same government that passed the Freedom of Information act which is allowing people to even request these documents in the first place. Hardly the act of a government that wants to hide details about its operation.
As far as the "fix" of firing someone set up to take the heat, remember again that congress is made up of people that represent you. Chances are, if you're not satisfied with the NSA's "fix", there will be those in congress that aren't satisfied with it either. I really doubt it'll die that easily.
Have some faith in the people you elected. If you can't trust them, why did you elect them?
Where I work, you can only get out through the proxy if you're using the right web browser.
Why do they do this? Just to discourage the use of non-company-standard browsers?
A pretty brain-dead way to run a web site if you ask me, but I see your point.
They're perfect for stuff like a session ID
I'm sorry but any developer that uses a cookie to store a full credit card number needs to be fired (out of a cannon).
No competant developer in his right mind would implement something as stupid as this. You're absolutely right, cookies should only be used for state information.
There is really no legitimate reason to have cookies in the first place
Are you just totally ignoring what everyone's been saying? Cookies are quite necessary to preserve state information between web site requests and visits.
I personally love the fact that I can re-visit outpost.com and not have to enter my address in every time I want to order something. I like being able to pick out a book or two from Amazon, set them aside, and come back in a week to complete the order. It's all about convenience, and I'm sorry, but outpost.com doesn't spam me, so I don't really see where you get off labelling all cookie users as evil conspirators that want to spam you.
There are quite legitimate uses, and the only real way I can see them being abused has been discussed on Slashdot ad nauseum in that they could possibly be exploited to track your movements between cooperating sites. The only marketing-related way they're being used today is to try and "target" those banner ads that you see to your tastes. The banner ads are still there, mind you, but now they're advertising stuff you're interested in.
even browser type (although Konqueror allows you to change that).
Umm.. heh. Can someone please explain to me what you gain out of changing this information? I can't see any possible gain, but there are tons of drawbacks. Specifically, web pages that dynamically generate content based on the browser string will be generating content that either doesn't work in your browser, or is meant for sub-standard browsers (hence you'll be missing out on features or content that might necessarily be limited to more capable browsers).
So what's the rush to change this text?
You'll notice a trend in that the letters that got a good response were those that didn't include the rather tasteless genital references. The cleaner ones I thought were rather amusing, but some of those other ones were bordering on stupid/annoying, and I imagine that's why none of those got much of a response.
[Preview] is your friend.