Another possible explanation could be that reading ingredients and buying the healthiest food costs more than just buying whatever happens to be on sale. A person who is more intelligent is likely to have a better paying job and can afford be more selective. I try to avoid transfats by avoiding anything that has the word hydrogenated in it. I also look at the amout of saturated fat and calories. Frequently, I shop at a local health food store and sometimes eat lunch there too, which also costs more. The people with the lowest paying jobs are frequently less intelligent and might not be able to afford to eat that way.
Another possibility is that many overweight people have bodies that over react to fast absorbing carbohydrates by by producing too much insulin too quickly. They (and people like me) then soon become hungry for food again an hour or two later as a result and start snacking. My medical knowledge is pretty limited but, as for myself, eating such foods can result in needing to snack throughout the day and evening. That might also possibly have other effects on a person's body that might possibly effect IQ among other things. If that is the cause, then does being overweight cause the problem, or does the fast absorbing carbohydrate's effect on blood sugar cause the problem? If so, then being overweight would not be the cause, it would be a symptom of the underlying problem.
The possible explanations that the author provides are also equally plausible. In my non-expert opinion they are just one of several possible explanations.
They could send electric shocks to selected passengers as punishment. There was an old Star Treck episode where everyone on a spaceship had to wear unremovable punishment collars. A computer controlled everyone and could send punishment shocks to anyone. Any vistor to the spaceship also had to wear a collar and would immediately be punished as a demonstration so that they would properly fear the computer.
One of the articles said the typical attachment is "a Microsoft Office file that exploits a yet-to-be-patched vulnerability." A Linux user who receives a Microsoft Word file would open it with something like Open Office Writer, AbiWord, KOffice or TextMaker. In rare cases he or she might use some version of Microsoft Word that is running under the Codeweaver's Crossover Office version of Wine. I wonder how the use of an alternative office application running under the alternative operating system would affect the chances of sucess? My guess is that the chances of a sucessful exploit would be much lower.
In a targeted attack there is always the possibility that the user could be convinced to do something stupid that would work. But even so, it would be significantly more difficult than with Windows, not that most businesses are going to switch to Linux or Mac OS X on the desktop anytime soon anyway.
In Linux, email attachments aren't nearly as much of a problem. My understanding is that, with most Linux email programs, clicking an email attachment does not result in something running without asking the user first. Furthermore, the.exe attachments and active-X stuff won't run even if the user does give permission. I recently received a message with a.exe attachment and had no idea how make Windows-only stuff like that run or open. If something did somehow run the program most likely would not be running with full root (administrative) privileges.
Ordinary free downloaded software usually comes from projects at reputable well known organizations such as Source Forge or the Free Software Foundation. The programs can be downloaded in source code form and compiled and the source code is available for public inspection. I am no expert on any of this, but the source code later gets compiled and packages for particular versions of Linux such as Ubuntu (or whatever) are created and placed on repositories waiting to by downloaded by ordinary users. A Ubuntu user would then run Symantic and select which of the thousands of free programs he wants to have installed. Most Linux users do not just download and install software from just anywhere. The Ubuntu user can choose which types of repositories use. I am not sure about signature signatures and other details. I have occasionally wondered if perhaps a trojan from somewhere like that might still be possible but I haven't heard of it happening.
Even if email attachments in Linux aren't much of a problem, targeted trojans with kestroke-loggers or screen-scraping software and such might still be something to think about. Obviously, no operating system has perfect security.
If you do decide to setup Linux for a media center you could use MythTV to create your own personal video recorder (PVR). I haven't tried it yet, but I am a Linux user who has been thinking about trying MythTV. I plan to get a copy of the book "Hacking MythTV" and try it out. The easiest option would probably be for me to use KnoppMyth which is a Linux distribution specially designed to make installation of MythTV as easy as possible. I also ran across some info about KnoppMyth at KnoppMythWiki. I am not really sure what effect a DRM restricted future might eventually have on a Linux media center. Perhaps Hollywood, Microsoft and Congress will somehow eventually block access to most content for open non-proprietary solutions.
If someone isn't already a Linux user Ubuntu or Kubuntu might be a good choice for general use. I have not looked into how they would be for multi-media or PVR use though. With Ubunutu or Kubuntu you can use the Synaptic package manager to download free software from the list of thousands of free progams that are avaiable and have it installed with the dependancies taken care of automatically. For various legal reasons most versions of Linux don't come preconfigured to play DVD movies or MP3 files. That is somewhat of a nuisance, but instructions on how to do that are available on the Internet and in some books.
With Linux I can rebuild my computer with a new motherboard and other hardware without worring about licensing issues. With Linux, no need to scan for viruses or worms either! My understaning is that viruses and worms are pretty much a Microsoft only problem. It's not a significant issue for Linux, Mac OS X, or Unix. As much as I like Linux, a barely computer literate computer user would probably be best off hoping that the day eventually comes when local stores start selling boxes with pre-installed with Linux just like Windows. Go ahead and make Windows licensing as annoying as possible to help that day eventually come.
Ooops, I ment to say LCD monitors not LED monitors. Keep in mind that I am not a tech or an expert on the different types of monitors.
I recently read a review of a computer that uses the EE (energy efficient) versions of the AMD Athlon 64 X2 processor which only used 54 Watts. Another alternative for someone doesn't need to run Windows XP or Windows Vista might be the NorhTec MicroClient Jr.which is a tiny PC that draws 8 Watts and is capable of running Puppy Linux. Puppy Linux is an extra-light weight stripped down version of Linux which has less impressive graphics than most other Linux distros. You could browse the Internet, send email and do word processing with it. I have never actually tried one of their computers. Perhaps it could be hooked to a small efficient LCD monitor (or whatever is most efficient). Just using a laptop would probably be an even simpler solution. A person could charge the laptop's battery for a few minutes ahead of using it.
The Watt-meter that I used on my computer was the $39.99 Kill-A-Watt meter.
In the article I just noticed that the photo shows a woman dressed up in nice clothes leisurely peddling in front of an inefficient CRT monitor. She isn't even sweating but then, apparently she isn't really powering the computer.
I don't believe that the device in the article is actually powering the computer by itself. But, assuming for the moment that is was, then what kind of computer could an overweight middle aged guy like me peddle power for an hour or more? Laptop computers usually tend to be more energy efficient than most desktop computers. I should not plan on trying to peddle power a Pentium 4 with a top-of-the-line power hungry video card and an inefficent power supply hooked to a multiple 19 inch CRT monitors. Yes, can't you just see me trying to do that for hours at a time?
My AMD Athlon 64 desktop computer uses a quiet fanless cheap video card. The power supply is 85%
efficient which is unusually good. It is plugged into a watt meter which shows that most of
the time it uses about 95 Watts (not including the monitor) but it briefly uses much more under heavy load. That does not
include the monitor. Some LED monitors only use about 50 Watts or so but the CRT monitors use about twice as much power. The energy efficient Athlon 64 EE Processor uses much less power than the processor which that I have. If I am not mistaken, I belive Intel's new "Core 2 Duo" processer is fairly efficient, but I don't know the exact number.
Perhaps an overweight middle age person like me could handle something like the NorhTec Panda PC which only draws about 21 Watts. That plus the LCD montor which would probably draw an additional 50 Watts or so. Maybe I could use a KVM switch to easily switch my monitor, keyboard and mouse back and forth between something like that being run by peddle power and my other computer being run from the local power compay. That is of course assuming that the peddling device was actually hooked to an alternator or generator plus an inverter and was actually powering the computer.
I don't entirely disagree with enharmonix's point about Windows being a more widely used target, but a large percentage of all webpage servers already do run Linux and already exist in large enough numbers. I do not work in the computer field, so I don't know how Apache webpage servers running on Linux compare to Windows IIS webpage servers, but why aren't there any Linux viruses or worms designed for them. I use Linux on my computer at home and it is still almost unheard of for a Linux computer to get infected with viruses or worms. Furthermore, I have never heard of a Linux user that got spyware from visting a website or from clicking on an email attachment. With all those Linux webpage servers out there why hasn't anyone yet been able to develop a Linux virus that is actually capable of circulating in the wild? Most Linux programs, users and background services run with limited permissions. There is also a lack of support for webpages and email attachments that use Microsoft's ActiveX technology. The various Linux browsers and email programs also don't automatically run executable code like Windows sometimes does.
There is also greater genetic diversity in Linux. As enharmonix also mentioned "an exploit will probably only work on a fraction of the boxes exposed." Linux users use a variety of browsers, email programs, package management systems and different versions of the kernel compiled with differently with different options. By comparison Windows is an inbred monoculture.
This is not to say that Linux is perfect, security patches are usually downloaded regularly, unnecessary services generally are not run and of course a firewall on a router or the computer is nearly always configured to block as many unneeded TCP/IP ports as possible. Various other things should be done too, but not being a computer professional I won't try to suggest what. I wonder how Vista will compare? With almost unlimited money, time and a large number of the worlds best programmers I am surprised that Microsoft hasn't already solved most of their security problems by now.
Another possibility might be to install a KVM switch on each computer so that the government employee could switch back and forth between a computer that is connected to the Internet and one that isn't. At one time I had a KVM switch between my new computer and my old computer. The KVM switch allowed me to switch back and forth between the two computers in about two seconds. A KVM (keyboad-video-mouse) switch allows the use of one keyboard, video and mouse to control more than one computer. One of the computers would only be connected to the Internet and the other would be on the internal network (not to the Internet).
If space for the second computer is a problem, there are now computers as small as a book that could be used to connect to the Internet. For browsing the web they could use something small possibly similar to the WinBook Jiv Mini, The Panda PC, MicroServer HP, AOpen MiniPC Duo MPO945-V, or the Apple Mac Mini Core Duo. To keep costs down, perhaps they would not need to upgrade the mini-PC that is connected to the Internet as often as their other computer. Conceivably they could use Ubuntu Linux or Mac OSX on the mini-PC that is connected to the Internet which would be an advantage because virus, worms and spyware are almost unheard of on Linux or Mac computers. They could still use Windows on their main internal network where their computers would live a more sheltered existance. The extra PC wouldn't need to use much extra electricity because some of the mini-PCs only use about 21 Watts.
I am not a computer professional (or expert), but it seems to me that isolating the internal nework from the outside world with a KVM swith might possibly be an alternative to consider. That would be especially true if they are using malware infected Windows computers, are understaffed with properly trained and motivated IT people, and have failed to secure their network by other methods. I have actually thought about doing something like that at home with one or both computers running Linux.
The Super Force TV show back in the early 1990's had a crime fighter running around in a prototype advanced bullet-proof combat suit that gave him super-human strength. Not only was it bullet proof but it probably also protected him against poisenous gases, bombs, fire and bilogical warfare agents as well. When will the engineers in Japan come out with a model like that? I do recall one episode where two females aliens from another planet mistook him for creature with an exoskeleton. If I remember correctly, the two females later complained to an alien judge that the creature with an exoskeleton was a superior being who had prevented them from capturing the human specimens that they had contracted to capture.
The crime fighter not only had the Hungerford Industries prototype suit but he was also helped by the Esper Division police officer Zander Tyler who was an excellent psychic. Just what a good crime fighter needs!
The BBS era lasted several years longer where I live because dial-up Internet connections did not become available here until several years after most other parts of the U.S. had Internet access available. I am not sure what year that was, but in general, people who either had a major city in their local calling area or a largerr local calling area got Internet access first. I live in a smaller city in the mountains of Northern Arizona. We also did not have local access numbers for AOL, Compuserve or Prodigy either because our local calling area was too small to having a local access number. I wonder if there is still some backward island or other place in the world that still uses BBS technology? Probably not, although if I am not mistaken, parts of Russia may have been among the last places to use BBSs and write BBS related software.
We also did not get cell phone service until several years after most of the rest of the country. I have had dial-up Internet access for a number of years now but I am still waiting for high-speed Internet access to become available. I am also still waiting for 28.8 , 33.2 and 56.4K dial-up access to become available. In my neighborhood 56K modems only connect at 26.4K because that is all the local telephone lines can handle. Cable isn't available yet where I live, although most other people in town it. The local telephone company says that DSL will be available where I live within the next few weeks.
When using the local BBSs in the early 1990's, I had a 2400 bps modem instead of the 1200 bps modems that many other people had. Old timers would tell me about major corporations using 100 bps a number of years earlier. Several years later I bought a 9600 bps modem, then later a 14.4K modem, then a 28.8 K modem next and finally the several 56K modems that I am now using to connect at 26.4K. I mostly just downloaded various shareware programs from the BBSs and then scanned them for viruses and tried them out. I never did get around to trying to send email by Fidonet. Wasn't Fidonet some kind of slow email where continuous connections between various places did not exist?
Ham radio operators also had a special type of BBS for packet radio, but I never got around to trying that out either even though I am a licensed ham radio operator.
My computer actually had a hard drive (not just two floppy drives) and it was a huge 40 Mb drive not one of the 20 Mb drives that most people had. Programs were much smaller back then, so I had room for several word processors, spread sheets, a CAD program, dozens of games and other programs on my 40 Mb hard drive Most of those programs were full-featured programs that did everything important that modern programs do. I recently told a younger person that my old computer had a 40 Mb hard drive and he then said "so your computer could only be able to hold about one program."
Another Source of info about E-voting Problems
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Brave New Ballot
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Another source of info about e-voting problems is BlackBoxVoting.org. They have a free pdf book on their webpage. A couple of years ago I skimmed through a few chapters of it. Starting on chapter 9 they talk about accidentally finding an unsecured FTP server and downloading 40,000 files, including the sofware for the Diebold voting machines such as BallotStation.exe, GEMS.exe, and VCProgrammer.exe. They discovered that Diebold's secret proprietary software had various unacceptable security problems. It is surprising to see that a company, like Diebold, that makes ATM machines has created such insecure software and hardware. As voters we had just been expected to take the word of Diebold and other voting machine manufacturers that their proprietary software and hardware was secure. In the case of Diebold it came from and ATM manufacturer after all.
I also plan to buy Avi Rubin's new book "Brave New Ballot: The Battle to Safeguard Democracy in the Age of Electronic Voting" to see what what other new security problems they have found. The change to electronic voting machines has been pushed as a solution to the "hanging chads" problem that Florida had in the 2000 presidential election between G.W. Bush and Al Gore. Unfortunately, electronic voting machines are creating more security problems than they are solving. If we do use voting machines, then we should at least requre that they all generate a paper stub which which the voter gets to briefly view before it is deposited into a box. Only some of the voting machines currently in use do that. That way, election officials could still do a "real" recount.
The U.S. economy probably is less healthy than it appears to be on the surface. We have a huge federal budget deficit as well as a huge trade deficit. A large percentage of our tax dollars goes towards paying the interest on what we have already borrowed. The majority of the federal budget deficit is being financed by money borrowed from Asian companies such as China. My knowledge about economics is somewhat limited, but my non-expert understanding is that in a strange sort of way the federal budget deficit helps make the trade deficit possible. Money needs to circulate between the two counties for trade to occur so China needs to send the dollars they they accumlate back here, somehow, to keep the price of the dollar from totally collapsing. So they buy T-bills from the U.S. Treasury to help us finance our deficit and the war in Iraq. That keeps the value of the dollar high enough for us to be able to buy goods from China at Wallmart and elsewhere. Correct me if my understanding of the economics is wrong, but doesn't the huge federal budget deficit help to make the huge trade deficit and loss of American jobs possible.
There are other problems as well such as a possible housing bubble in which many people have purchased homes with zero-interest loans or no down payments. If there is a bubble and it collapses then many of them could be in serious trouble. There is also high consumer debt levels and GM and Ford also seem to be in trouble.
So apparently, the overpriced health care that most of us can barely afford is now one of the main engines of the U.S. economy. There is that and housing (at least for the moment). The U.S. still dominates in making music and movies which Hollywood has been trying to protect with all the DRM and RIAA stuff they have been trying to push on all of us and the rest of the world. So the $500 per month that I pay for medical insurance is apparently going to support one of the few growing industries that the U.S. has heft.
Oh and lets not forget that all the baby boomers will soon be retiring and demanding Social Security and Medicare payments. Baby boomers have had smaller families which means that each retired baby boomer will eventually be supported by only two tax-payers. Younger people can plan on doing that while paying off the federal deficit at the same time while working in a job market in which in which many of the best jobs have gone overseas. Am I wrong in thinking that all this is not a sustainable plan for a long term healthy economy? Would someone please explain to me why politicians, the press and voters have not been more concerned about decades of large scale deficit spending. The combination of the war in Iraq and the tax cuts have made the deficit spending worse than ever. It is almost like we are trying to burn ourselves out econonomically. Would someone who has more knowledge about macro-economics please explain why I should not be worried about any of this! It everything really OK?
On the BlackBoxVoting.org website, chapter 9 of their free book describes most of what I was talking about including the GEMs software. They downloaded the peviously secret proprietary GEMs software, manuals and also a file called rob-georgia.zip from an unsecure FTP server. They wondered if perhaps the rob-georgia.zip file might have had something to do with robbing Georgia of the correct election results in an election. Chapter 9 of their book is in PDF format. Here is the link:
A few years ago, everyone was so angry about the "hanging chads" problem in Florida during the ultra-close election between Al Gore and George W. Bush. The race was so close that decisions related to the hanging chads may have conceivably have decided if George W. Bush got to be president or not. Many Democrats were outraged. The change to voting machines was supposed to solve that problem, but they are realy only trading one imperfect technology for another.
At least one of the voting machine companies does also make voting machines. That is Diebold, but am not sure whose voting machines were used in this instance. A few years ago the software for either the Diebold voting machines or for tabulating the results (I forget which) was left on an unsecure server somewhere. People around the country got to look at the software and discovered that it allegedly had a back door. The software was briefly posted on websites around the world along with instructions of how to see for yourself how easy it is to modify vote totals in an undetectible way. The websites with that information were quickly going down as lawyers were busy stopping them from allowing people to illegally download their proprietary software. If I remember correctly BlackBoxVoting.org was very interested in those and other security flaws back then. They also criticized the fact that their voting machines did not print out a stub which could go into the ballet box as a backup for possible recounts. There was no way to do a meaningful recount.
When I last voted here in Northern Arizona, we used voting machines which did print out a stub which I breifly got to see before it was automatially dropped into a container in the machine. At least they could do a "real" recount then and it would be much harder to "steal" an election by secretly altering the totals.
By the way, at the polling place where I vote there is usually only one or two people in line ahead of me. I usually also recognize one or more of my neighbors, or local business owners working in the polling place.
I am not vision impared, but I have also run across several other sites with thousands of free online classic stories. They were most likely not set up specifically for vision impared people. These are the websites that I have run across:
I am using Linux and at the moment I am viewing the Target.com website in both the text-only Elinks browser and also in the Mozilla browser with graphics and everything enabled. When comparing the two webpages side-by-side I can see what is missing from the text-only version of their webpage. Many of the important headings and sub-headings are missing. Most of the individual items are there however and those links can be selected. As a test I did select some jeans for purchase and when I looked in the shopping cart I couldn't find my item in the confusing webpage but I decided to proceed to check-out anyway. At that point I could see that the jeans were there so I canceled my test and did not actually purchase the item.
I don't have much experience using text-only browsers such as Elinks, but it seemed to me that important headings were missing. For instance, important headings such as the word "men's" or "women's" were missing. I hope that wasn't just a result of my lack of experience at using text-only browsers such as Links or Elinks. Try comparing them side-by-side if possible or printing out each version and then comparing them. I don't have a Mac or Camino but I think your quick superficial test may have missed most of the problems.
However, that is not to say that I like the idea of various large and small companies having to worry about yet another reason for possibly being sued.
I am not familiar with screen readers for the blind, but I did notice a few things when I went to the Target.com webpage. I am using my Linux computer just now and I tried using two different browsers to viewing their website just now. First, I used the Mozilla browzer and everything seemed fine other than the fact on my slow dial-up Internet connection it took about 5 minutes for the webpage to load. Next, I switched to using the text-only Elinks browser. The text-only webpage finished loading in only about 20 seconds this time. I then started to compare how the two webpages looked in each browser.
As I am comparing the two webpages right now I see that the text-only version is missing many of the headings and sub-headings, but in most cases the individual menu items are still there. For instance, the word "woman" is missing from the heading of one section and in a sub-section the word "clothing" is missing and the word [USEMAP] just appears in place of each missing word. But, the list of individual items such as "sweater", "tunics", "jeans", and "leggings" still appear and can be selected.
The individual items can be slected in the text-only based browser, but just out of curiosity I also tried slected where it says [USEMAP] for one of the missing headings. In that case a list on long complicated meaningless looking URL's appeared and I was expected to choose one. I randomly chose one of the URL's and the next page appeared about 25 seconds later.
My conclusion is that the Target.com website does not work very well on text-only browsers such as Links or Elinks. Well, so who uses text-only browsers anyway? Not many of us, I suppose, although I would assume that screen readers are also text-only. When I viewed their webpage with Mozilla the webpage was so slow that it was barely useable anyway. Either way, on my slow dial-up connection their webpage is almost useless. The heck with the blind, they are discriminating against people who use dial-up Internet connections! In many rural parts of the U.S. and in some neighborhoods with older infrastructure, such as where I live, it is not even possible to get high-speed Internet access yet.
I don't like the idea of possibly forcing webpage designers or struggling small businesses to pay experts to have their webpages audited for ADA compliance. I wonder if it might be sufficient if they just made their webpages compatible with text-only browsers such as Links or Elinks. Presumably, that would also result in a webpage which is not be overly dependant on Macromedia Flash or other fancy bandwidth wasting graphics technology.
I had a Mattel Vac-U-Form when I was in grade school back in the 1960's. I think I still remember how it worked. I would select a metal mold and place it on one side of the unit. On the other side I would insert a thin rectangular piece of plastic which I would would heat over the heating plate until the plasic was soft and warm enough to start to sag slightly. Then I would flip the plastic sheet over onto the mold and press the vacuum lever to suck the plastic tight against the metal mold. After it cooled enough to touch, I would cut out the molded plastic parts from the excess plastic. It was lot's of fun, I had my own little plasic factory.
My friends and I could buy the packages of plastic sheets at a nearby drug store. The metalized plastic sheets cost slightly more but looked best. Sometime later they came out with the "Creepy Crawlers" add-on for my Vac-U-Form which used the same heating plate. I got the add-on "Ceepy Crawler" set instead of the completely seperate "Creepy Crawler" set that several of my fiends had. With the "Creepy Crawler" add-on, I would select a different kind of mold and place it on the heating plate and squeeze some kind of liquid rubber or plastic into the mold. After cooking the rubber I would have several flexible rubber bugs to be removed from the mold. My friends and I would show each other the best bugs we had made in various colors.
I wonder what ever happend to my old Vac-U-Form and "Creepy Crawler" set? It was one of my favorite toys back when I was in grade school. They were the first plasic and rubber parts I had ever manufactured as a kid.
A couple of weeks ago I caught a 6 1/2-inch long by 1-inch wide centipede between my computer and my bed. I see them now and then here in Northern Arizona where I live. Well anyway, after freezing it in the freezer I found myself thinking that if I still had my old "Creepy Crawler" set, perhaps I could have somehow made realistic rubber replicas of the thing. It is really disgusting looking and not the kind of thing I would want to have in bed with me. Everyone that I showed it to gasped in horror and took a step or two backwards. Before freezing it, I placed it on a flat-bed scanner next to a ruler and coins and a paper clip for scale to record how big it was. It was not totally dead yeat and nearly got away. Stepping on them a time to two does not stop them because they just continue moving quickly with their remaining uninjured legs.
Our business does not depend on the use of the Internet, computers or fax machines. We mostly rely on pen, pencils, paper and stickers on a board. Even our book keeping is hand posted, the old fashined way, in pencil in a ledger, journal and worksheets.
High speed Internet connections are not yet available either where I work or where I live, in my neighborhood, here in Northern Arizona. The telephone lines are only good for 26.4K (However DSL will soon be available here). We do have a dial-up connection for the computer and Fax machine at work but mostly just recieve spam on both.
During the summer thunder storms we manage to get by during the occasional power outages with only minor inconvienence. Our old cash register was electric but had a hand crank for backup use when the power was out. Unfortunately, it finally wore out and we had to replace it with a more modern cash register which is totally depenant on electrictity. So now during occasional power outages we temporarily switch to using flashlights and hand written paper receipts.
We have sucessfully been in business for decades without having much use for the Internet, computers or Fax machines. By the way, my hobbies at home are using Linux and also ham radio, so I am not totally against modern technology.
I am not the only one who has problems properly remembering information about my old records. As you have probably heard, NASA has recently lost the 698 of the original 700 boxes of TV broadcasts from the Apollo 11 landing on the moon. These were of a much higher resolution that what me and millions of other people saw on our TVs back in 1969. The conversion process for the live TV resulted in the much lower quality image that was seen by hudreds of millions of televison viewers. They recently lost 698 of the higher resolution original tapes of the original moon landing before the public ever got to see them.
It's OK if NASA can't remember where they put 698 reels of tape of the original moon landing but is not OK of I can't remember a password to an encrypted file of my blood pressure readings.
What provision is there for people who genuinely have lost or forgotten their passwords. I live in the U.S. so the U.K. laws would not affect me, but I have a stack of old hard drives from several computers which I have owned over the years. I also have stacks of old back-up tapes, CDs, DVDs and floppy disks. I used the Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) encryption program from the late 1990s until about 2002 or so, but no longer know the passphrases.
In addition to running PGP under Windows, I dual boot into Linux and have tried out several different Linux encryption programs over the years. I know some but not all of the pass-phases. Over the years, I have used several different versions of Linux on different partitions on each hard drive so there is gigabytes of abandoned stuff on various ext2, ext3, Reiser, Fat16, Fat32, and NTFS partitions on the various hard drives. I have been planning to try out both the free Windows and Linux versions of GnuPG and hope to remember my pass-phrases this time.
My occasional encrypted files typically contain personal information such as daily blood pressure readings, weight records, medical records, old love letters, investment allocation plans, checkbook balances, and my college transcripts. I also encrpyted some folders and other files just as practice. If I lived in the U.K. I could get in serious trouble for "refusing" to decrypt those files. I could tell them that my lost pass-phrases might be on a piece of paper in my metal storage shed but that rats made a nest in there and chewed up most of the paper.
They should require all passengers to strip naked before boarding. Afterwards, they could provide them with a throwaway paper robe or dess, but not their own clothes. A no clothing rule would effectively protect against shoe bombs and hidden weapons. Throwaway paper dresses were a brief fad during the 1960's, so the technology already exists for disposable paper clothing. At their destination they could retrieve their clothes from the baggage claim area.
To protect against rectal explosives all passengers should receive a digitial rectal exam while lined up just before boarding. Other body cavites could also be searched at that time. As a final protective measure they should all be scanned with ultrasound, low-dosage X-rays, metal detectors or other devices. Finally an explosive sniffing dog could sniff each person for explosives.
Luggage could be flown seperately in a small cargo jet so that passengers would not be endangered by explosives in their luggage. Instead of allowing passengers to carry on laptops, cellphones and other similar devices the airline should build a laptop into the back of each seat. The built in laptops should run either Linux or Mac OS X instead of Windows because of better resistance to spyware, viruses and worms. A reasonbly secure OS would help protect against identity theft and privacy problems for passengers.
Oh, I almost forgot, perhaps they could even add partial protection against surface to air missles by adding a laser defense system and the ability to release flares, chaff, stealth paint, radar jamming and whatever. Unfortunately, missle defense for each aircraft might be too expensive for us at the moment with our huge federal deficit, huge trade deficit, the war, rising consumer debt, the housing bubble and other expenses.
Obviously this would add significantly to the cost of buying an airline ticket but, hey, lets get serious about security.
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Another possible explanation could be that reading ingredients and buying the healthiest food costs more than just buying whatever happens to be on sale. A person who is more intelligent is likely to have a better paying job and can afford be more selective. I try to avoid transfats by avoiding anything that has the word hydrogenated in it. I also look at the amout of saturated fat and calories. Frequently, I shop at a local health food store and sometimes eat lunch there too, which also costs more. The people with the lowest paying jobs are frequently less intelligent and might not be able to afford to eat that way.
Another possibility is that many overweight people have bodies that over react to fast absorbing carbohydrates by by producing too much insulin too quickly. They (and people like me) then soon become hungry for food again an hour or two later as a result and start snacking. My medical knowledge is pretty limited but, as for myself, eating such foods can result in needing to snack throughout the day and evening. That might also possibly have other effects on a person's body that might possibly effect IQ among other things. If that is the cause, then does being overweight cause the problem, or does the fast absorbing carbohydrate's effect on blood sugar cause the problem? If so, then being overweight would not be the cause, it would be a symptom of the underlying problem.
The possible explanations that the author provides are also equally plausible. In my non-expert opinion they are just one of several possible explanations.
They could send electric shocks to selected passengers as punishment. There was an old Star Treck episode where everyone on a spaceship had to wear unremovable punishment collars. A computer controlled everyone and could send punishment shocks to anyone. Any vistor to the spaceship also had to wear a collar and would immediately be punished as a demonstration so that they would properly fear the computer.
One of the articles said the typical attachment is "a Microsoft Office file that exploits a yet-to-be-patched vulnerability." A Linux user who receives a Microsoft Word file would open it with something like Open Office Writer, AbiWord, KOffice or TextMaker. In rare cases he or she might use some version of Microsoft Word that is running under the Codeweaver's Crossover Office version of Wine. I wonder how the use of an alternative office application running under the alternative operating system would affect the chances of sucess? My guess is that the chances of a sucessful exploit would be much lower.
In a targeted attack there is always the possibility that the user could be convinced to do something stupid that would work. But even so, it would be significantly more difficult than with Windows, not that most businesses are going to switch to Linux or Mac OS X on the desktop anytime soon anyway.
In Linux, email attachments aren't nearly as much of a problem. My understanding is that, with most Linux email programs, clicking an email attachment does not result in something running without asking the user first. Furthermore, the .exe attachments and active-X stuff won't run even if the user does give permission. I recently received a message with a .exe attachment and had no idea how make Windows-only stuff like that run or open. If something did somehow run the program most likely would not be running with full root (administrative) privileges.
Ordinary free downloaded software usually comes from projects at reputable well known organizations such as Source Forge or the Free Software Foundation. The programs can be downloaded in source code form and compiled and the source code is available for public inspection. I am no expert on any of this, but the source code later gets compiled and packages for particular versions of Linux such as Ubuntu (or whatever) are created and placed on repositories waiting to by downloaded by ordinary users. A Ubuntu user would then run Symantic and select which of the thousands of free programs he wants to have installed. Most Linux users do not just download and install software from just anywhere. The Ubuntu user can choose which types of repositories use. I am not sure about signature signatures and other details. I have occasionally wondered if perhaps a trojan from somewhere like that might still be possible but I haven't heard of it happening.
Even if email attachments in Linux aren't much of a problem, targeted trojans with kestroke-loggers or screen-scraping software and such might still be something to think about. Obviously, no operating system has perfect security.
If you do decide to setup Linux for a media center you could use MythTV to create your own personal video recorder (PVR). I haven't tried it yet, but I am a Linux user who has been thinking about trying MythTV. I plan to get a copy of the book "Hacking MythTV" and try it out. The easiest option would probably be for me to use KnoppMyth which is a Linux distribution specially designed to make installation of MythTV as easy as possible. I also ran across some info about KnoppMyth at KnoppMythWiki. I am not really sure what effect a DRM restricted future might eventually have on a Linux media center. Perhaps Hollywood, Microsoft and Congress will somehow eventually block access to most content for open non-proprietary solutions.
If someone isn't already a Linux user Ubuntu or Kubuntu might be a good choice for general use. I have not looked into how they would be for multi-media or PVR use though. With Ubunutu or Kubuntu you can use the Synaptic package manager to download free software from the list of thousands of free progams that are avaiable and have it installed with the dependancies taken care of automatically. For various legal reasons most versions of Linux don't come preconfigured to play DVD movies or MP3 files. That is somewhat of a nuisance, but instructions on how to do that are available on the Internet and in some books.
With Linux I can rebuild my computer with a new motherboard and other hardware without worring about licensing issues. With Linux, no need to scan for viruses or worms either! My understaning is that viruses and worms are pretty much a Microsoft only problem. It's not a significant issue for Linux, Mac OS X, or Unix. As much as I like Linux, a barely computer literate computer user would probably be best off hoping that the day eventually comes when local stores start selling boxes with pre-installed with Linux just like Windows. Go ahead and make Windows licensing as annoying as possible to help that day eventually come.
Ooops, I ment to say LCD monitors not LED monitors. Keep in mind that I am not a tech or an expert on the different types of monitors.
I recently read a review of a computer that uses the EE (energy efficient) versions of the AMD Athlon 64 X2 processor which only used 54 Watts. Another alternative for someone doesn't need to run Windows XP or Windows Vista might be the NorhTec MicroClient Jr.which is a tiny PC that draws 8 Watts and is capable of running Puppy Linux. Puppy Linux is an extra-light weight stripped down version of Linux which has less impressive graphics than most other Linux distros. You could browse the Internet, send email and do word processing with it. I have never actually tried one of their computers. Perhaps it could be hooked to a small efficient LCD monitor (or whatever is most efficient). Just using a laptop would probably be an even simpler solution. A person could charge the laptop's battery for a few minutes ahead of using it.
The Watt-meter that I used on my computer was the $39.99 Kill-A-Watt meter.
In the article I just noticed that the photo shows a woman dressed up in nice clothes leisurely peddling in front of an inefficient CRT monitor. She isn't even sweating but then, apparently she isn't really powering the computer.
I don't believe that the device in the article is actually powering the computer by itself. But, assuming for the moment that is was, then what kind of computer could an overweight middle aged guy like me peddle power for an hour or more? Laptop computers usually tend to be more energy efficient than most desktop computers. I should not plan on trying to peddle power a Pentium 4 with a top-of-the-line power hungry video card and an inefficent power supply hooked to a multiple 19 inch CRT monitors. Yes, can't you just see me trying to do that for hours at a time?
My AMD Athlon 64 desktop computer uses a quiet fanless cheap video card. The power supply is 85% efficient which is unusually good. It is plugged into a watt meter which shows that most of the time it uses about 95 Watts (not including the monitor) but it briefly uses much more under heavy load. That does not include the monitor. Some LED monitors only use about 50 Watts or so but the CRT monitors use about twice as much power. The energy efficient Athlon 64 EE Processor uses much less power than the processor which that I have. If I am not mistaken, I belive Intel's new "Core 2 Duo" processer is fairly efficient, but I don't know the exact number.
Perhaps an overweight middle age person like me could handle something like the NorhTec Panda PC which only draws about 21 Watts. That plus the LCD montor which would probably draw an additional 50 Watts or so. Maybe I could use a KVM switch to easily switch my monitor, keyboard and mouse back and forth between something like that being run by peddle power and my other computer being run from the local power compay. That is of course assuming that the peddling device was actually hooked to an alternator or generator plus an inverter and was actually powering the computer.
I don't entirely disagree with enharmonix's point about Windows being a more widely used target, but a large percentage of all webpage servers already do run Linux and already exist in large enough numbers. I do not work in the computer field, so I don't know how Apache webpage servers running on Linux compare to Windows IIS webpage servers, but why aren't there any Linux viruses or worms designed for them. I use Linux on my computer at home and it is still almost unheard of for a Linux computer to get infected with viruses or worms. Furthermore, I have never heard of a Linux user that got spyware from visting a website or from clicking on an email attachment. With all those Linux webpage servers out there why hasn't anyone yet been able to develop a Linux virus that is actually capable of circulating in the wild? Most Linux programs, users and background services run with limited permissions. There is also a lack of support for webpages and email attachments that use Microsoft's ActiveX technology. The various Linux browsers and email programs also don't automatically run executable code like Windows sometimes does.
There is also greater genetic diversity in Linux. As enharmonix also mentioned "an exploit will probably only work on a fraction of the boxes exposed." Linux users use a variety of browsers, email programs, package management systems and different versions of the kernel compiled with differently with different options. By comparison Windows is an inbred monoculture.
This is not to say that Linux is perfect, security patches are usually downloaded regularly, unnecessary services generally are not run and of course a firewall on a router or the computer is nearly always configured to block as many unneeded TCP/IP ports as possible. Various other things should be done too, but not being a computer professional I won't try to suggest what. I wonder how Vista will compare? With almost unlimited money, time and a large number of the worlds best programmers I am surprised that Microsoft hasn't already solved most of their security problems by now.
Another possibility might be to install a KVM switch on each computer so that the government employee could switch back and forth between a computer that is connected to the Internet and one that isn't. At one time I had a KVM switch between my new computer and my old computer. The KVM switch allowed me to switch back and forth between the two computers in about two seconds. A KVM (keyboad-video-mouse) switch allows the use of one keyboard, video and mouse to control more than one computer. One of the computers would only be connected to the Internet and the other would be on the internal network (not to the Internet).
If space for the second computer is a problem, there are now computers as small as a book that could be used to connect to the Internet. For browsing the web they could use something small possibly similar to the WinBook Jiv Mini, The Panda PC, MicroServer HP, AOpen MiniPC Duo MPO945-V, or the Apple Mac Mini Core Duo. To keep costs down, perhaps they would not need to upgrade the mini-PC that is connected to the Internet as often as their other computer. Conceivably they could use Ubuntu Linux or Mac OSX on the mini-PC that is connected to the Internet which would be an advantage because virus, worms and spyware are almost unheard of on Linux or Mac computers. They could still use Windows on their main internal network where their computers would live a more sheltered existance. The extra PC wouldn't need to use much extra electricity because some of the mini-PCs only use about 21 Watts.
I am not a computer professional (or expert), but it seems to me that isolating the internal nework from the outside world with a KVM swith might possibly be an alternative to consider. That would be especially true if they are using malware infected Windows computers, are understaffed with properly trained and motivated IT people, and have failed to secure their network by other methods. I have actually thought about doing something like that at home with one or both computers running Linux.
The Super Force TV show back in the early 1990's had a crime fighter running around in a prototype advanced bullet-proof combat suit that gave him super-human strength. Not only was it bullet proof but it probably also protected him against poisenous gases, bombs, fire and bilogical warfare agents as well. When will the engineers in Japan come out with a model like that? I do recall one episode where two females aliens from another planet mistook him for creature with an exoskeleton. If I remember correctly, the two females later complained to an alien judge that the creature with an exoskeleton was a superior being who had prevented them from capturing the human specimens that they had contracted to capture.
The crime fighter not only had the Hungerford Industries prototype suit but he was also helped by the Esper Division police officer Zander Tyler who was an excellent psychic. Just what a good crime fighter needs!
The BBS era lasted several years longer where I live because dial-up Internet connections did not become available here until several years after most other parts of the U.S. had Internet access available. I am not sure what year that was, but in general, people who either had a major city in their local calling area or a largerr local calling area got Internet access first. I live in a smaller city in the mountains of Northern Arizona. We also did not have local access numbers for AOL, Compuserve or Prodigy either because our local calling area was too small to having a local access number. I wonder if there is still some backward island or other place in the world that still uses BBS technology? Probably not, although if I am not mistaken, parts of Russia may have been among the last places to use BBSs and write BBS related software.
We also did not get cell phone service until several years after most of the rest of the country. I have had dial-up Internet access for a number of years now but I am still waiting for high-speed Internet access to become available. I am also still waiting for 28.8 , 33.2 and 56.4K dial-up access to become available. In my neighborhood 56K modems only connect at 26.4K because that is all the local telephone lines can handle. Cable isn't available yet where I live, although most other people in town it. The local telephone company says that DSL will be available where I live within the next few weeks.
When using the local BBSs in the early 1990's, I had a 2400 bps modem instead of the 1200 bps modems that many other people had. Old timers would tell me about major corporations using 100 bps a number of years earlier. Several years later I bought a 9600 bps modem, then later a 14.4K modem, then a 28.8 K modem next and finally the several 56K modems that I am now using to connect at 26.4K. I mostly just downloaded various shareware programs from the BBSs and then scanned them for viruses and tried them out. I never did get around to trying to send email by Fidonet. Wasn't Fidonet some kind of slow email where continuous connections between various places did not exist?
Ham radio operators also had a special type of BBS for packet radio, but I never got around to trying that out either even though I am a licensed ham radio operator.
My computer actually had a hard drive (not just two floppy drives) and it was a huge 40 Mb drive not one of the 20 Mb drives that most people had. Programs were much smaller back then, so I had room for several word processors, spread sheets, a CAD program, dozens of games and other programs on my 40 Mb hard drive Most of those programs were full-featured programs that did everything important that modern programs do. I recently told a younger person that my old computer had a 40 Mb hard drive and he then said "so your computer could only be able to hold about one program."
Another source of info about e-voting problems is BlackBoxVoting.org. They have a free pdf book on their webpage. A couple of years ago I skimmed through a few chapters of it. Starting on chapter 9 they talk about accidentally finding an unsecured FTP server and downloading 40,000 files, including the sofware for the Diebold voting machines such as BallotStation.exe, GEMS.exe, and VCProgrammer.exe. They discovered that Diebold's secret proprietary software had various unacceptable security problems. It is surprising to see that a company, like Diebold, that makes ATM machines has created such insecure software and hardware. As voters we had just been expected to take the word of Diebold and other voting machine manufacturers that their proprietary software and hardware was secure. In the case of Diebold it came from and ATM manufacturer after all.
I also plan to buy Avi Rubin's new book "Brave New Ballot: The Battle to Safeguard Democracy in the Age of Electronic Voting" to see what what other new security problems they have found. The change to electronic voting machines has been pushed as a solution to the "hanging chads" problem that Florida had in the 2000 presidential election between G.W. Bush and Al Gore. Unfortunately, electronic voting machines are creating more security problems than they are solving. If we do use voting machines, then we should at least requre that they all generate a paper stub which which the voter gets to briefly view before it is deposited into a box. Only some of the voting machines currently in use do that. That way, election officials could still do a "real" recount.
Ooops, I ment to say that the Chinese Treasury was buying T-bills from the U.S. treasury, not Asian companies.
The U.S. economy probably is less healthy than it appears to be on the surface. We have a huge federal budget deficit as well as a huge trade deficit. A large percentage of our tax dollars goes towards paying the interest on what we have already borrowed. The majority of the federal budget deficit is being financed by money borrowed from Asian companies such as China. My knowledge about economics is somewhat limited, but my non-expert understanding is that in a strange sort of way the federal budget deficit helps make the trade deficit possible. Money needs to circulate between the two counties for trade to occur so China needs to send the dollars they they accumlate back here, somehow, to keep the price of the dollar from totally collapsing. So they buy T-bills from the U.S. Treasury to help us finance our deficit and the war in Iraq. That keeps the value of the dollar high enough for us to be able to buy goods from China at Wallmart and elsewhere. Correct me if my understanding of the economics is wrong, but doesn't the huge federal budget deficit help to make the huge trade deficit and loss of American jobs possible.
There are other problems as well such as a possible housing bubble in which many people have purchased homes with zero-interest loans or no down payments. If there is a bubble and it collapses then many of them could be in serious trouble. There is also high consumer debt levels and GM and Ford also seem to be in trouble.
So apparently, the overpriced health care that most of us can barely afford is now one of the main engines of the U.S. economy. There is that and housing (at least for the moment). The U.S. still dominates in making music and movies which Hollywood has been trying to protect with all the DRM and RIAA stuff they have been trying to push on all of us and the rest of the world. So the $500 per month that I pay for medical insurance is apparently going to support one of the few growing industries that the U.S. has heft.
Oh and lets not forget that all the baby boomers will soon be retiring and demanding Social Security and Medicare payments. Baby boomers have had smaller families which means that each retired baby boomer will eventually be supported by only two tax-payers. Younger people can plan on doing that while paying off the federal deficit at the same time while working in a job market in which in which many of the best jobs have gone overseas. Am I wrong in thinking that all this is not a sustainable plan for a long term healthy economy? Would someone please explain to me why politicians, the press and voters have not been more concerned about decades of large scale deficit spending. The combination of the war in Iraq and the tax cuts have made the deficit spending worse than ever. It is almost like we are trying to burn ourselves out econonomically. Would someone who has more knowledge about macro-economics please explain why I should not be worried about any of this! It everything really OK?
I see that some of what I mentioned is in other chapters such as chapter 12. A few other details that I mentioned may or may not be in her book.
On the BlackBoxVoting.org website, chapter 9 of their free book describes most of what I was talking about including the GEMs software. They downloaded the peviously secret proprietary GEMs software, manuals and also a file called rob-georgia.zip from an unsecure FTP server. They wondered if perhaps the rob-georgia.zip file might have had something to do with robbing Georgia of the correct election results in an election. Chapter 9 of their book is in PDF format. Here is the link:
Chapter 9A few years ago, everyone was so angry about the "hanging chads" problem in Florida during the ultra-close election between Al Gore and George W. Bush. The race was so close that decisions related to the hanging chads may have conceivably have decided if George W. Bush got to be president or not. Many Democrats were outraged. The change to voting machines was supposed to solve that problem, but they are realy only trading one imperfect technology for another.
At least one of the voting machine companies does also make voting machines. That is Diebold, but am not sure whose voting machines were used in this instance. A few years ago the software for either the Diebold voting machines or for tabulating the results (I forget which) was left on an unsecure server somewhere. People around the country got to look at the software and discovered that it allegedly had a back door. The software was briefly posted on websites around the world along with instructions of how to see for yourself how easy it is to modify vote totals in an undetectible way. The websites with that information were quickly going down as lawyers were busy stopping them from allowing people to illegally download their proprietary software. If I remember correctly BlackBoxVoting.org was very interested in those and other security flaws back then. They also criticized the fact that their voting machines did not print out a stub which could go into the ballet box as a backup for possible recounts. There was no way to do a meaningful recount.
When I last voted here in Northern Arizona, we used voting machines which did print out a stub which I breifly got to see before it was automatially dropped into a container in the machine. At least they could do a "real" recount then and it would be much harder to "steal" an election by secretly altering the totals.
By the way, at the polling place where I vote there is usually only one or two people in line ahead of me. I usually also recognize one or more of my neighbors, or local business owners working in the polling place.
I am not vision impared, but I have also run across several other sites with thousands of free online classic stories. They were most likely not set up specifically for vision impared people. These are the websites that I have run across:
I am using Linux and at the moment I am viewing the Target.com website in both the text-only Elinks browser and also in the Mozilla browser with graphics and everything enabled. When comparing the two webpages side-by-side I can see what is missing from the text-only version of their webpage. Many of the important headings and sub-headings are missing. Most of the individual items are there however and those links can be selected. As a test I did select some jeans for purchase and when I looked in the shopping cart I couldn't find my item in the confusing webpage but I decided to proceed to check-out anyway. At that point I could see that the jeans were there so I canceled my test and did not actually purchase the item.
I don't have much experience using text-only browsers such as Elinks, but it seemed to me that important headings were missing. For instance, important headings such as the word "men's" or "women's" were missing. I hope that wasn't just a result of my lack of experience at using text-only browsers such as Links or Elinks. Try comparing them side-by-side if possible or printing out each version and then comparing them. I don't have a Mac or Camino but I think your quick superficial test may have missed most of the problems.
However, that is not to say that I like the idea of various large and small companies having to worry about yet another reason for possibly being sued.
I am not familiar with screen readers for the blind, but I did notice a few things when I went to the Target.com webpage. I am using my Linux computer just now and I tried using two different browsers to viewing their website just now. First, I used the Mozilla browzer and everything seemed fine other than the fact on my slow dial-up Internet connection it took about 5 minutes for the webpage to load. Next, I switched to using the text-only Elinks browser. The text-only webpage finished loading in only about 20 seconds this time. I then started to compare how the two webpages looked in each browser.
As I am comparing the two webpages right now I see that the text-only version is missing many of the headings and sub-headings, but in most cases the individual menu items are still there. For instance, the word "woman" is missing from the heading of one section and in a sub-section the word "clothing" is missing and the word [USEMAP] just appears in place of each missing word. But, the list of individual items such as "sweater", "tunics", "jeans", and "leggings" still appear and can be selected.
The individual items can be slected in the text-only based browser, but just out of curiosity I also tried slected where it says [USEMAP] for one of the missing headings. In that case a list on long complicated meaningless looking URL's appeared and I was expected to choose one. I randomly chose one of the URL's and the next page appeared about 25 seconds later.
My conclusion is that the Target.com website does not work very well on text-only browsers such as Links or Elinks. Well, so who uses text-only browsers anyway? Not many of us, I suppose, although I would assume that screen readers are also text-only. When I viewed their webpage with Mozilla the webpage was so slow that it was barely useable anyway. Either way, on my slow dial-up connection their webpage is almost useless. The heck with the blind, they are discriminating against people who use dial-up Internet connections! In many rural parts of the U.S. and in some neighborhoods with older infrastructure, such as where I live, it is not even possible to get high-speed Internet access yet.
I don't like the idea of possibly forcing webpage designers or struggling small businesses to pay experts to have their webpages audited for ADA compliance. I wonder if it might be sufficient if they just made their webpages compatible with text-only browsers such as Links or Elinks. Presumably, that would also result in a webpage which is not be overly dependant on Macromedia Flash or other fancy bandwidth wasting graphics technology.
I had a Mattel Vac-U-Form when I was in grade school back in the 1960's. I think I still remember how it worked. I would select a metal mold and place it on one side of the unit. On the other side I would insert a thin rectangular piece of plastic which I would would heat over the heating plate until the plasic was soft and warm enough to start to sag slightly. Then I would flip the plastic sheet over onto the mold and press the vacuum lever to suck the plastic tight against the metal mold. After it cooled enough to touch, I would cut out the molded plastic parts from the excess plastic. It was lot's of fun, I had my own little plasic factory.
My friends and I could buy the packages of plastic sheets at a nearby drug store. The metalized plastic sheets cost slightly more but looked best. Sometime later they came out with the "Creepy Crawlers" add-on for my Vac-U-Form which used the same heating plate. I got the add-on "Ceepy Crawler" set instead of the completely seperate "Creepy Crawler" set that several of my fiends had. With the "Creepy Crawler" add-on, I would select a different kind of mold and place it on the heating plate and squeeze some kind of liquid rubber or plastic into the mold. After cooking the rubber I would have several flexible rubber bugs to be removed from the mold. My friends and I would show each other the best bugs we had made in various colors.
I wonder what ever happend to my old Vac-U-Form and "Creepy Crawler" set? It was one of my favorite toys back when I was in grade school. They were the first plasic and rubber parts I had ever manufactured as a kid.
A couple of weeks ago I caught a 6 1/2-inch long by 1-inch wide centipede between my computer and my bed. I see them now and then here in Northern Arizona where I live. Well anyway, after freezing it in the freezer I found myself thinking that if I still had my old "Creepy Crawler" set, perhaps I could have somehow made realistic rubber replicas of the thing. It is really disgusting looking and not the kind of thing I would want to have in bed with me. Everyone that I showed it to gasped in horror and took a step or two backwards. Before freezing it, I placed it on a flat-bed scanner next to a ruler and coins and a paper clip for scale to record how big it was. It was not totally dead yeat and nearly got away. Stepping on them a time to two does not stop them because they just continue moving quickly with their remaining uninjured legs.
Our business does not depend on the use of the Internet, computers or fax machines. We mostly rely on pen, pencils, paper and stickers on a board. Even our book keeping is hand posted, the old fashined way, in pencil in a ledger, journal and worksheets.
High speed Internet connections are not yet available either where I work or where I live, in my neighborhood, here in Northern Arizona. The telephone lines are only good for 26.4K (However DSL will soon be available here). We do have a dial-up connection for the computer and Fax machine at work but mostly just recieve spam on both.
During the summer thunder storms we manage to get by during the occasional power outages with only minor inconvienence. Our old cash register was electric but had a hand crank for backup use when the power was out. Unfortunately, it finally wore out and we had to replace it with a more modern cash register which is totally depenant on electrictity. So now during occasional power outages we temporarily switch to using flashlights and hand written paper receipts.
We have sucessfully been in business for decades without having much use for the Internet, computers or Fax machines. By the way, my hobbies at home are using Linux and also ham radio, so I am not totally against modern technology.
I am not the only one who has problems properly remembering information about my old records. As you have probably heard, NASA has recently lost the 698 of the original 700 boxes of TV broadcasts from the Apollo 11 landing on the moon. These were of a much higher resolution that what me and millions of other people saw on our TVs back in 1969. The conversion process for the live TV resulted in the much lower quality image that was seen by hudreds of millions of televison viewers. They recently lost 698 of the higher resolution original tapes of the original moon landing before the public ever got to see them.
It's OK if NASA can't remember where they put 698 reels of tape of the original moon landing but is not OK of I can't remember a password to an encrypted file of my blood pressure readings.
What provision is there for people who genuinely have lost or forgotten their passwords. I live in the U.S. so the U.K. laws would not affect me, but I have a stack of old hard drives from several computers which I have owned over the years. I also have stacks of old back-up tapes, CDs, DVDs and floppy disks. I used the Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) encryption program from the late 1990s until about 2002 or so, but no longer know the passphrases.
In addition to running PGP under Windows, I dual boot into Linux and have tried out several different Linux encryption programs over the years. I know some but not all of the pass-phases. Over the years, I have used several different versions of Linux on different partitions on each hard drive so there is gigabytes of abandoned stuff on various ext2, ext3, Reiser, Fat16, Fat32, and NTFS partitions on the various hard drives. I have been planning to try out both the free Windows and Linux versions of GnuPG and hope to remember my pass-phrases this time.
My occasional encrypted files typically contain personal information such as daily blood pressure readings, weight records, medical records, old love letters, investment allocation plans, checkbook balances, and my college transcripts. I also encrpyted some folders and other files just as practice. If I lived in the U.K. I could get in serious trouble for "refusing" to decrypt those files. I could tell them that my lost pass-phrases might be on a piece of paper in my metal storage shed but that rats made a nest in there and chewed up most of the paper.
They should require all passengers to strip naked before boarding. Afterwards, they could provide them with a throwaway paper robe or dess, but not their own clothes. A no clothing rule would effectively protect against shoe bombs and hidden weapons. Throwaway paper dresses were a brief fad during the 1960's, so the technology already exists for disposable paper clothing. At their destination they could retrieve their clothes from the baggage claim area.
To protect against rectal explosives all passengers should receive a digitial rectal exam while lined up just before boarding. Other body cavites could also be searched at that time. As a final protective measure they should all be scanned with ultrasound, low-dosage X-rays, metal detectors or other devices. Finally an explosive sniffing dog could sniff each person for explosives.
Luggage could be flown seperately in a small cargo jet so that passengers would not be endangered by explosives in their luggage. Instead of allowing passengers to carry on laptops, cellphones and other similar devices the airline should build a laptop into the back of each seat. The built in laptops should run either Linux or Mac OS X instead of Windows because of better resistance to spyware, viruses and worms. A reasonbly secure OS would help protect against identity theft and privacy problems for passengers.
Oh, I almost forgot, perhaps they could even add partial protection against surface to air missles by adding a laser defense system and the ability to release flares, chaff, stealth paint, radar jamming and whatever. Unfortunately, missle defense for each aircraft might be too expensive for us at the moment with our huge federal deficit, huge trade deficit, the war, rising consumer debt, the housing bubble and other expenses.
Obviously this would add significantly to the cost of buying an airline ticket but, hey, lets get serious about security.