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DISCLAIMER: The user reads this site at his/her own risk and responsibility. The user takes full responsibility for the consequences of any action taken as a result of any information found on this site. I do not warrant the accuracy, usability, or safety of any of the techniques described on this site or linked to from this site. I most certainly do NOT guarantee the content of the information linked to at sites I do not personally control. If you have a problem with that or are not of "adult" age in your jurisdiction, click here.
If there's interest in the Internet-connected appliance security information, I'll find somewhere else to repost it.
The following services are no longer offered:
For information on my Internet-connected appliance security design review services, go to my ReptileLabs consultant services Web page. You can also find discussion of potential health, safety, and property damage issues connected with these new "smart" "Web" or "Internet-aware" appliances on that page as well. On a date not too far from now, your refrigerator may be a hacker target.
I recommend that a first time user skim through this page rapidly, or save it and read it offline. This page alone is 99 text pages, and there's a lot that isn't in the table of contents. Basically, this site is a whole lot of links with reviews, most of which are there because it's easier for me to find them here, with the occasional paragraph or page(s) of personal opinion with when available, links to what I'm basing them on when convenient for me to put them there. It'll also be changing as I learn more about the various topics I present here. If you're offended, remember that I've tried to put something on this site that'll offend just about everyone. My sense of humor works that way. Keep reading. Not that it'll necessarily get any better, but I think there will be something of use on this site to just about everyone who can read and can think. Not a promise, just a prediction. Enjoy.
My comments about the Littleton massacre of kids by kids is HERE.
My personal recommendations are NO on 73,74,75,76,77. They are essentially a package of extra powers for a governor who wants to be king. When Schwartzenegger attacks "the politicians", he means any elected official who objects to any of his bad ideas. That's what we're paying them for. No on 78, that proposition won't save any money for consumers on drugs at all, that's why drug companies support it. Yes on 79, it uses the state's volume purchasing power to get better deals on drugs, which is why the drug companies oppose it. Yes on 80, it requires California electric power to be purchased from the cleanest available sources.
My current published articles(offsite link to 8wire, a computer network information site. (no longer exists, go down to Linux Information to find out where my Linux tutorials are)
Warning for Windows Users!
New Virus Warnings-read!
Music Industry Suits v. the rest of the world
A threat to your
privacy and your ability to do business on the Internet and what you can
do about it here.(offsite link)
For Fundamentalist Christians
New
The rest of the page
What time is it?(PST/PDST)
People Finding
Cooking
Cockroaches, the Final Solution
Disaster Prep and Y2K Computer Fixes
Computer Security/Virus
Privacy in Cyberspace
My PGP public key
A warning about PGP
WARNING FOR NEW FIBER OPTICS USERS!!!
Vouchers in Education
Hacking/Anarchy
Virus Hoaxes
General Computer Links
Linux Information
High Tech News & Information
If you're doing dot.com for a living, or thinking about becoming part of the scene. . .
Electronics Tech - Hardware
The Web
Big Brother is Watching
News and Politics
The Need for Gun Control
Unconventional News
How to Write the President via E-mail and
how not to waste your time doing it.
Contacting Your Congresscritter
DRUGWARS
Recommended Reading
Censorware
Bypassing Censorware
SEX
Medical Sites [NEW!]
Carpal Tunnel - a new treatment
Broadband (cablemodem and DSL)
Site Page Index
Professional Web Search Services(link to my commercial site)
For pretty, I decided to try a new color scheme. It shouldn't have the headache potential of black background / white text. Let me know if you have problems with it.
The CBDTPA is the most dangerous law ever considered by Congress with respect to high techology. It requires every computing device or software package to have a digital control module which determines whether you have the right to access any file that you, or your calculator, or your router, or your word processing program requests. Basically, it's computer control legislation written by the owners of the record industry and the mass media. They simply don't care what impact it will have on your ability to use your computer or to high-tech in general as long as your PC or PDA or telephone or computer program you wrote for a high school computer programming class has a program or hardware module grafted onto it which will prevent its being used to pirate music or video.
The easiest way to protest is to go to this protest site and use it to fax your Senator free of charge, you need only add your real name, address, and zip code and hit the send button. However, a phone call is better, see below. Call your local Congressperson and Senator and tell them: "I oppose the Senate bill S2048. Vote for it and I will not only vote against you, but will actively support your opponent and encourage everybody I know to do so."
Be polite, friendly, and firm. This is all you need to say.
While you should read the "for more information" below in case the staffer will ask or at least have it in front of you, unless you've made substantial campaign contributions to the politician, it's unlikely that anyone will care. Spend your time instead encouraging others to contact their elected representatives instead.
For more information, read this Politech mailing list article by Declan McCullagh, Wired News Political Correspondent:
Date Mon, 25 Mar 2002 230002 -0500
To politech@politechbot.com
From Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com>
Subject FC CBDTPA bans everything from two-line BASIC programs to PCs
Mime-Version 1.0
Content-Type text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed
Sender owner-politech@politechbot.com
Just in case folks haven't figured out how sweeping the Hollings-Feinstein bill, aka CBDTPA is, well, keep reading.
The CBDTPA says that if I were to write and sell this BASIC program...
10 INPUT A$
20 PRINT A$
...after the regulations take effect, I would be guilty of a federal felony. That's up to five years in prison and up to a $500,000 fine. Distributing my two-line application without charging for it, either via handing out floppies or by posting it on a website would be at least a civil offense and, depending on the circumstances, a crime as well.
It's no joke. CBDTPA regulates "any hardware or software that reproduces copyrighted works in digital form." My program above does that, especially if my BASIC interpreter permits arbitrarily long strings.
The business end of the CBDTPA says that "a manufacturer, importer, or seller" of such software cannot "sell, or offer for sale, in interstate commerce, or cause to be transported in, or in a manner affecting, interstate commerce" their code unless it "includes and utilizes standard security technologies that adhere to the security system standards adopted under section 3."
The FCC gets to invent those. But I can't see how my two-line program is going to incorporate such standards. If I'm using C, must I "#include
By design, programming languages are terribly flexible. The only way to prevent software from removing do-not-copy bits from digital content would be for Congress to ban the programmable PC. And replace it, perhaps, with WebTV television-top boxes.
In case you're curious, the felony penalties kick in when you try to sell your post-ban BASIC program -- not to mention any commercial software -- and perhaps even if you're a free software developer hoping to gain reputation capital from your code.
They say that violators "shall be fined not more than $500,000 or imprisoned for not more than 5 years, or both, for the first offense; and shall be fined not more than $1,000,000 or imprisoned for not more than 10 years, or both, for any subsequent offense." http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/1204.html
Yes, this is silly. No, it is probably (I hope) not what senators Hollings and Feinstein and their colleagues intended.Yet it is what the text of the bill says. And this is after the good senators had seven months of correspodnence from computer scientists and industry representatives worried about the scope of the legislation after it was widely circulated in August 2001.
Don't believe me? Read it for yourself
Text of CBDTPA
Politech archive on the CBDTPA
-Declan
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
If you'd like to know why say, Senator Feinstein of California would co-author such a piece of trash, I can tell you.
From OpenSecrets.org campaign contributions for Dianne Feinstein:
That's the whole story. A look at the other co-author, Fritz Hollings, check this OpenSecrets link.
You'll probably hear a call to stop buying CDs and videos very, very soon to punish the companies responsible for this legislation. When you do, decide for yourself if having a healthy high-tech sector means you can put off buying that new record or tape for a few months.
Would you buy an operating system for your PC which could not be reinstalled on any replacement hard drive you decided to get for it later? Hard drives break. People run out of space and have to get bigger ones. You will have to reinstall your OS sooner or later.
You can not buy computers with Windows 2000 installed that come with a copy of the Windows installation disk anymore. All an OEM can legally package with a W2000 machine is a "software image" of the original install. If you change anything, software, hardware, etc., that image will not install properly. You may lose everything on that machine if you try "restoring" it. I've never seen an image install work properly.
For more information, go to the Infoworld article and the Slashdot article
A quote from the Infoworld article:
I'm running Windows 95OSR2.5 right now. I may upgrade to Windows 98 2nd Edition. Unless and until MS changes its policy on that, that is the very last Windows Operating System I or any business under my control will ever purchase.
As for buying the W2000 OS full install from software vendors, with those, you get 2 installs. For the next install, one has to call MS corporation and go through multiple levels of voicemenus for the privilege of begging and pleading for a one-time software key from the employee at the other end. The same is true for MS Office 2000. If your productivity and business suffers due to this, MS is not legally liable and you know as well as I do that they do not care.
In other words, if things go extremely wrong with your computer, your ability to get it running again is intentionally held hostage by MS. This is on top of whatever problems it had that caused it to dump the OS or your applications.
Here's a quote from the latest Microsoft press release for the next version of Office. "If customers do not renew or install an upgrade product, they can still open, view and print their existing documents." In other words, your options with the "subscription" version of Office will be ... pay every year, or you won't be able to create new documents in any of your Office applications. Don't expect the subscription version to be all that much cheaper than the current one. DO expect the non-subscription version to be a hell of a lot more expensive than any Office product you've ever seen. And don't be surprised to see Office 11 come out as "subscription only".
Got a MS site license for Windoze? You may get to pay for Windoze twice.
If you're a typical user, if W98 has run out of steam for you, you're best off waiting until a user-friendly distribution of Linux comes out late this year or in early 2001, or buying a Mac. If you have lots of computers to worry about, you need a new operating system that can't be fixed if it breaks by your Help Desk like you need a case of Ebola. If you don't know Linux, either learn it yourself or hire somebody who does, this new MS software policy should cause lots of developers to jump ship, Linux appears to be the only ship to jump to for the Wintel workstation environment. Or consider replacing your platforms with MacIntosh OS platforms if that's where the software you need runs.
Are you buying a new computer?
While a backup tape drive will help, there are things that a backup tape won't help you with, for instance if you need to install drivers not part of your last backup that are on W2000 installation disks but not on your backup tape or "recovery disk".
I plan to have more to say about this later.
As for the .NET and "Hailstorm" technologies, Microsoft does not have an exactly outstanding reputation for keeping its own proprietary data secure. Hailstorm means that they'll be the primary online repository for your own personal information. Eventually, their intent is to become the repository for all your personal information. Do you think they will take any greater care of your credit card number? Your medical history?
The other little problem with this is that their flagship products seem to keep turning up the MAJOR SECURITY VULNERABILITY OF THE WEEK. Outlook and Outlook Express are the two biggest security risks on the Internet, even more so than the various Microsoft Web servers and the underlying 9.x/ME/NT/2000/XP operating systems they run on. This is because it's the platform of choice for virus / worm / trojan writers, along with the Microsoft Office and/or Visual Basic modules.
Though the inclusion of true, spoofable TCP/IP sockets in the XP-consumer versions of the new Microsoft OS may make it the new "biggest security risk on the Net". The soon to be available user-friendly graphic user interface-based DOS (Denial of Service) tools which will rapidly follow mass adoption of XP running on cablemodem and DSL boxes without firewalls may put an practically untraceable attack in the hands of anybody who can point and click. Note that a DOS with spoofed IP addresses is still traceable, but takes a lot more time, a much higher level of expertise, and most important, upstream sysadmin cooperation.. A few years ago, the cooperation could be taken for granted. Now, Earthlink doesn't cooperate with people trying to track down problems originating from Earthlink users. I'll link to the right place on the Steve Gibson website. Suffice it to say that I think that he has probably understated the problem.
Those applications may be what makes IDS (Intrusion Detection Systems) popular as firewall backup for power home users.
Do you need a firewall?
I changed "probably" want a firewall to definitely, after seeing page after page after page of unusual incidents in my intrusion log files. Note at the time at which I write this, I'm running via dialup. Every technically knowledgable (power user or above) user I know who connects to the Net via dialup is running a firewall.
If anyone tells you that you don't need a firewall for a broadband (DSL, cablemodem, etc.) hookup, you can probably ignore anything else that he has to say on the grounds that this person is a tard. If he tells you that you don't need one for a dialup, that level of ignorance is fairly common, the word hasn't gotten around to most people on this yet.
Is a firewall enough?
If you're running a business server and providing mail / Web access to company employees, you are also going to have to train your users in at least the simplest level of security practice, i.e. DON'T OPEN UNEXPECTED FILE ATTACHMENTS, how to stop "social engineering" based hacks before they start, etc.
The bad news: in a Windows environment, Microsoft patches may break things already installed or create new vulnerabilities. Unfortunately, I don't see where you have much of a choice short of running a backup test system to test every single MS patch and finding some friendly hackers to try to crack the box.
One of the best solutions I've seen for Windows users (9.x, NT, maybe 2000) is oddly enough, currently free. ZoneAlarm can be downloaded from ZoneLabs. The current version has logging; it automatically stops intrusion attempts and sends the addresses from where the intrusions came along with information on what it was trying to access to a text file you can read from any text editor or word processor. It also rarely crashes, and generally when it does, it can simply be restarted. If you get "failure to connect" problems when trying to download mail and news, add your ISP's mail (usually mail.yourisp.com) and news (usually news.yourisp.com) to the Local Zone in Security - hit the Advanced button.
I recommend using logging mode and check the log every once in a while to find out who and what's been trying to get information out of my machine.
Find out about the commercial version by clicking the button. Disclaimer: I got into their affiliate version, if you buy, I get a sales commission... which suits me, it's a good product that I don't mind endorsing.
Note that most intrusions intercepted via firewall are benign, but many are for simply unknown reasons. One day, my computer running Windows running Windows tried to contact Microsoft.com. I hadn't been to the Microsoft Web site, exchanged e-mail with MS personnel, etc. for months. Why did this happen? I have no idea, but assume that whoever told my software to contact Microsoft didn't have my best interests at heart. If Microsoft wants information out of me, it can send me e-mail and if it strikes me as funny, or the request is accompanied with a large consulting fee, I might give it to them. MS is NOT getting information out of my computer without my permission. The biggest threat to your computer privacy may no longer be individual hackers, well be software companies who would like to extract personal information out of your computer for compiling into databases for sale to the highest bidder. Of course, the immediately dangerous intrusions, i.e. attempts to access your software or personal/business files will also be stopped via firewall, and that's the idea.
Of course, that doesn't mean individuals won't get into the act, the Sircam virus mailed random copies of documents found in the My Documents folder of a Windows C: drive to user addresses found in a MS Address book, cache files, etc. using its own internal SMTP engine. I discovered it when ZoneAlarm requested permission to connect to the Net. It isn't hard to imagine a virus looking for more specific documents and making them available to specific users, say, by encrypting them and posting to a binary newsgroup or IRC conference where only the intended recipient has the key.
One example of this is the Aureate software that sends information to Aureate.com whenever you're online, allegedly including personal information, in a way that bypasses firewalls. Unfortunately, these are generally attached to a variety of useful Web utilities. To unplug the Aureate and a number of other snoop packages from your hard drive, click here for information on the Lavasoft AdAware freeware product. Steve Gibson no longer supports OptOut and recommends this package. If the download page link hasn't been fixed yet, click here. While this doesn't work outside Windows, neither do the utilities. (exception: the Netscape Live Update feature, and I have no clue what to do with that in a Mac/ix environment.) If you can tell me about this, catch me in e-mail.
A firewall plus a cookie-zapper will make sure that the only information a site will get from you (other than your IP address, which is required if you want to read webpages, i.e., the Web site needs to know where to send the page file you asked for, plus a few non-personal items like the kind of Web browser and OS you use) is what you fill out forms to put on a site.
More information on Windows firewalls, a test that will work on Mac, Windows, Unix, and any other platform to show you what your computer will reveal to the outside world on request can be found at Steve Gibson's site. He just put a utility there called "Leaktest" which attempts to contact the Internet through the firewall to simulate the action of malware that contacts its maker without the user's permission, generally for purposes anything but benign. He also comments about how the great majority of personal firewall products fail the test. He also has a general rating table for personal firewalls. Hint: the majority of personal firewall users will be getting some bad news. If you've got one of the loser programs, I recommend strongly that you ditch it (return it to the store if possible for refund) and get one that works. A bad firewall is worse than none. Find this information at here.
Here's where Steve Gibson rates firewalls.
If you access the Net via dialup, you probably should have a firewall, though given that you probably get a "dynamic IP address" that changes every logon from your ISP, you have less to worry about. If you access the Internet via cable modem or xDSL link, you have a static IP that is the same all the time, numerous hackers have scanner software that can check thousands of IPs at a time to see who has an open port through which a cracker can reach out and touch . . . your programs, your personal files, particularly your confidential ones, add programs to your machine you didn't ask for like Back Orifice (remote control) or DDNS attack software like the programs which were used in an attempt to shut down Yahoo and other big commercial sites. This means you MUST have a firewall. This is important enough that you probably should stop reading the page and either download ZoneAlarm for Windows RIGHT NOW or go to a Fast Search and find one. Grab it, install it, and come back here when you're done. This page will be around when you've done this. Don't wait to read the rest of this page, your computer may not last that long.
Tiny Personal Firewall is another well-recommended Windoze firewall utility which allows users to control specific IP addresses and ports instead of giving permission for specific applications. I won't comment from personal experience because I just found out about it and am downloading it shortly. When you get to the page, if you decide to use it, download ALL THE DOCS... it's free for home use, $39.95 for business use. I'd recommend starting with ZoneAlarm, unless you already understand how intrusion attempts work. There were a lot of negative comments on the Cnet site, nearly all from people who expected it to be plug and play and don't even know what an IP address is... apparently installing it and configuring it where you don't know what you are doing can lead to very serious problems.
Certain DSL providers will tell you that you don't need a firewall. I recommend looking for a new provider as soon as you find yourself dissatisfied with your price and service if you hear that from yours, unless you like getting 'good' news from your vendors instead of the truth.
If you've got information on personal MacIntosh firewall products, especially free ones, and especially free ones with technically knowledgable third party product reviews available, please let me know.
Here's a how-to on converting your old 486 machine into a Linux router/firewall. There is also a non-ZDnet tutorial on this somewhere on the Web, try the keywords +Linux +cablemodem +router at any major search engine. Here is information on general Linux security. Slashdot also has a lot on this and other Linux topics.
This might be suitable for a home or small office LAN with cablemodem/xDSL feed. It's a small box with a router / firewall in it, all you'll need to add is cables, one Ethernet card per PC or Mac, and an Ethernet hub. Haven't tried this myself, this is a typical product in this category.
Firewalls on a network / LAN server are another kind of issue, they're your system administrator's problem, your concern, especially if you are a manager, is to make sure there is a correctly configured firewall on the company's Internet connection. If it's runing on a -ix box, you may have firewall software included with whichever -ix (e.g. Linux) distribution you've got. If not, there's plenty on the Net available as freeware, shareware, or shrinkwrap. Do a Websearch. I don't know NT/W2000 well enough to know if either product comes with a firewall, I recommend a Websearch.
I'm not sure if I'm interested in hearing about NT/2000 firewalls. I regard these systems as being accompanied with security risks so profound that even a good firewall may produce dangerous delusions of safety. If you're a NT/2000 sysadmin, I suggest looking into Linux / ix certification programs. In the meantime, go to MS and install all the security patches and read all the security warnings that relate your OS. Then subscribe to a few mailing lists that'll give you the daily new ugly truth about security problems with MS products, including trouble with MS-provided patches.
The following are the best general computer security-oriented mailing lists I've found. The addresses will get you to subscriptions in digest format, that way you get one long message a day instead of 30-50 e-mails. These mailing lists will also point you at the OS / server / application specific mailing lists you'll also need to be reading.
Subscription address for ISN Security News. Read this one cover-to-cover.
Subscription address for the famous Bugtraq mailing list. Advice on this one: scan the table of contents at the beginning of each digest post so you'll only be looking at the posts that relate directly to operating systems and software you're personally responsible for and anything that looks really interesing, Bugtraq runs 60-90K/day... that's 20-30 pages, you are unlikely to have time to read every issue in full.
MS Outlook Express has gotten to the point where you'll probably see a new exploit exploiting YET ANOTHER deficiency in the OE security model every day. (mostly, either executable scripts or buffer overflows) I wrote the previous part of this paragraph last year. The situation has NOT improved, anybody who's running this software despite the warnings deserved to have his system hacked out of existence. Any CIO who mandates its use should be terminated and blacklisted before he can do any more damage to the company.
My reaction to seeing resumes with MCSE unaccompanied by years network experience or certs like Cisco and Novell is "why didn't this idiot learn something useful?".
The next stage beyond firewalls is Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS). These monitor traffic, analyze its behavior via pre-set and user definable rules, and can frequently stop an attack before it can do damage.
"Snort is a lightweight network intrusion
detection system, capable of performing real-time traffic analysis and packet logging on IP networks. It can perform protocol
analysis, content searching/matching and can be used to detect a
variety of attacks and probes, such as buffer overflows, stealth port
scans, CGI attacks, SMB probes, OS fingerprinting attempts, and much more.
Snort uses a flexible rules language to describe traffic that it should
collect or pass, as well as a detection engine that utilizes a
modularplugin architecture. Snort has a real-time alerting
capability as well, incorporating alerting mechanisms for syslog, a user
specified file, a UNIX socket, or WinPopup messages to Windows clients using Samba's
smbclient."
You can find a freeware / open source IDS for Windows / most unix - BSD - Linux distributions / MacIntosh at the Snort.org site. If you are running your own server and you don't have an IDS, I'd look real hard into the possibility of downloading this one. If you're running a personal computer 24/7 via broadband, you probably should at least think about this, the time is coming when a simple firewall probably will be inadequate even for home users.
This isn't going to be updated regularly, but there are things Windows users need to know about.
If you get a message like this: "Hi [your "real name"]
I received your email and I shall send you a reply ASAP.
Till then, take a look at the attached zipped docs." or a file
attachment called zipped_files.exe, you are probably a proud owner of worm.explore.zip.
Don't open the file. It's a Trojan Horse / worm that will eat important
chunks of your hard drive after it mails itself to people in your e-mail
address book. Your anti-viral software provider probably already has an
update to cover it. In general, do a virus scan on any file /
application you get regardless of source with current antiviral
software. Regardless of source means scan it no matter where you got
it, even if you bought it at your computer store or your best friend
apparently sent it to you. if it's an Excel / word processor document, check it with an
up-to-date macro scanner. This is probably part of your antiviral, check to be
sure. If not, your anti-virus vendor probably has one, look around their
site. More information on the virus at the link above.
PrettyPark
won't eat your hard drive, it'll just open up an IRC connection up to
the worm writer's private IRC channel and. . . "Once there, victims'
personal data -- ranging from e-mail address book lists, operating
system preferences and registration numbers, passwords, and form data
(including stored credit card information) -- can be potentially
retrieved from the victim's PC without their knowledge by the virus
writer. " This
will give you more specific information. The main point is DON'T open a
file attachment from somebody you don't know without scaning it first,
and if you know that person, scan it anyway.
If you use Microsoft Outlook for E-mail and MS Word 97 or Word 2000
for word processing, beware of the Melissa macro virus. This is activated by
your opening a Word document attachment to e-mail. Don't open Word
document attachments from e-mail from anyone you don't know. Once your
computer is affected, it sends 50 copies of itself to the contents of
your e-mail address list. Get your anti-virus software updated to handle
Melissa at once and use it to scan all of your incoming file attachments
from now on. For more information, go here.
This is not a joke, Intel and Microsoft have already been hit with it
and had to temporarily shut down company e-mail for that reason.
If you use Windows
9x, keep an eye out for the CIH virus. It can eat both the contents of
your flash BIOS (if it isn't write protected, and it should be, check
your motherboard manual) and large chunks of your hard drive. For more
information, check CIH.The
latest version of AVP, Dr Solomon's
AV, F-Prot can
remove it. And if you get an e-mail warning of an e-mail virus and an
attached executable file, DO NOT OPEN THE FILE, even if it's from a
friend. Scan it first. Somebody figured out how to get a virus to access
the Internet. For more information, click here
for an e-mail infector using Eudora and here for
something that can post randomly chosen MS Word docs on your hard drive
to the Internet using Forte Free Agent. For a virus database, click here.
Finally, if you don't want to be zapped by viruses, scan
everything regardless of source. Your e-mail attachments, any
files you download via the Web or ftp, Word / Excel / etc. documents,
and anything you buy at your computer store. Make sure that you get
virus scanner database updates every few weeks, new viruses are coming
out every day.
From RISKS Digest:
The Religious Right and the GOP in general are in serious
trouble. For more information, click here.
The RIAA v. the rest of the world
"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power." - Benito Mussolini. (from Encyclopedia Italiana, Giovanni Gentile, editor).
"There has grown up in the minds of certain groups in this country the notion that because a man or corporation has made a profit out of the public for a number of years, the government and the courts are charged with the duty of guaranteeing such profit in the future, even in the face of changing circumstances and contrary public interest. This strange doctrine is not supported by statute nor common law."
No longer true. In order to get this "strange doctrine" turned into law, the RIAA, MPAA, AOL/Time-Warner and other major media companies etc. bought themselves some legislators and got the DMCA (Digital Millenium Copyright Act) passed. Guaranteeing the continued profit of the major intellectual content special interest group regardless of circumstances and against the public interest are the only purposes of the law.
For some perspective about the MP3 / Napster controversy and the record industry claims that it will put musicians out of business, click here. Note that despite record industry claims, CD sales are higher than ever; as the article correctly points out, it's a lot less work to buy a music CD than download the content and burn your own. The real fight is the role of the music industry as we know it in the future of digital music; do they add any value over that which a user can get by going to a musician's site and downloading? What answer there is to this... see above. While I make my own living from intellectual property, a band whose songs are getting traded by Napster free may well be getting sufficient advertising from doing this to make it worthwhile; a person who uses Napster is probably much more likely to go to that band's concerts and buy promotional material. For a mind-numbingly stupid response to this, Metallica as already harassed 326K people for allegedly downloading their songs via Napster... that is probably 326,000 people who will NEVER spend their money on Metallica anything again. Given the demographics (Most Napster users are college age)... this may be their entire younger following. I rather hope so.
The real freedom of speech here issue is . . . do you want to use an Internet where your site content is only what corporations are content to let you have?
An explanation of the current business model of the record industry and how it screws musicians and end users can be found in Music Industry 101 for the musician. It's by Courtney Love, who I never suspected of being bright enough to understand the contracts she signed.
A clueless judge rolled over in favor of the record industry in RIAA v Napster. If you want to comment on this, the RIAA boycott petition is here... or tell your favorite musicians that until the RIAA backs down, you will NOT buy their records. The way things are going, by the time the record industry gets around to a workable music distribution model, people may have gotten used to the idea of not buying CDs from record stores. If this takes the industry down, as I suspect it's going to, it deserves to die. I'm beginning to think this is possible. While the group of people angered over Napster is a very small percentage of the music audience as a whole, it's the demographic that buys the most records. Most people who accumulated the giant record collections did this when they were kids who didn't have to pay rent and had relatively high disposable income. If these people stop buying, while this may not be more than 25% of sales, I suspect that this is the fraction that composes their entire profit margin.
One of the judges who ruled in favor of the record industry was apparently on the payroll of one of the record companies as a legal consultant.
A micropayment per-listen or subscription based model is where I think the industry is going to be going... i.e. $15/month for "all you can eat"... though this may have to wait until broadband access is fairly universal. An intelligent way to set a model like this up is to simply not bother to enforce copyright protection on MP3 and do some real copy-protection work on distribution of full-fidelity CD tracks. It's been possible to make photocopies of fine art images for quite a few years. Nobody bothers busting people who do this, on the basis that anybody can tell a photocopy from the real thing. MP3s are also distinguishable from the real thing, anybody serious about a piece of music will want the real thing. A better analogy: stereo FM radio. Many tracks are played on FM radio. Very few people bother to make their own records with this despite the readily available music source. People predicted that radio would end the music industry. People predicted that cassette tapes would end the music industry. Distribution models changed and the industry came back, but generally with different players every time. While music stores are convenient, neither Sony Music nor Tower are necessary to continuing the ability of musicians to profit from music or for the ability of consumers to buy music. I think that this shakeout has already started and that the RIAA tactics are suicidal not only for them, but for their musicians and for every major music retail chain. If Tower Records had a clue, they would have pushed the RIAA and major record labels to settle with Napster immediately, while there was still a centralized MP3 distribution model that they could deal with. Alternatives were evolving, and the sudden absence of Napster will force them to flourish.
For a discussion of fair usage issues with the DMCA (Digital Millenium Copyright Act), click here. "Unless some exceptions are created, they argue, the entertainment industry will have more control than the Constitution allows. One concern is that this could lead to a pay-per-use world where consumers don't truly own the books, movies and music they purchase.". Or a world where libraries are useless because the new books are coming out in e-book format only and there's no legal way for a library to lend them to patrons. This is the world organizations like the RIAA and MPAA have in mind for you, and what they and their members bought when they bought your Congresspersons and Senators. The whole idea behind copyright is that in exchange for legal protection of a copyright holder's intellectual property, the copyright holder has to allow certain uses of the material. For instance, that quotes of reasonable length for published materials be allowed, etc. Public library use wasn't covered under "fair use" because when the original copyright legislation was written, it simply wasn't possible to make a book or a recording that required a password to unlock or that could be used only by a specific personal computer. With the DMCA changes in intellectual property protection enforced as the authors intended, suddenly, the ability to make "fair usage" of intellectual property gets taken away via technological means any time the publisher pleases. In other words, we are expected to allow corporations to use the government to enforce the legal protection copyright grants them and give nothing in return.
People engaged in reverse engineering are a check on the ability of companies to invade our privacy without our knowledge. By going public with the information they uncover they are able to force companies to change what they are doing lest they face a consumer backlash.
What are they hiding in there?
For current Napster users, Napigator lets users find Napster servers that aren't run by Napster Inc. and therefore are unaffected by Napster's shutdown. Freenet and Gnutella provide a central serverless model, leaving the music industry nobody to sue but end users. <"http://opennap.sourceforge.net/">Opennap You may have noticed the Amazon Books logo. I figured it would be
easier to find books I recommend if there were a way to buy them with a
few browser clicks... the site also contains pretty good book reviews in
more detail than makes sense for this site. I also get a commission on
any books sold this way. It's the least intrusive way to get a
little return out of the time and effort I put into this site. Buy if
you feel like it, ignore the links otherwise. Or try your public
library. Note that books I recommend based on my reading will be named
in bold type. Books I recommend based on reports or good
experiences with the author's books, etc. will be in regular type,
figure you're looking at books I personally intend to read when time and
cash allows.
What time is it? Here's the answer. You can also find at that link a downloadable utility which will automatically sync your computer clock to the NIST atomic clock server.
If you've ever wondered how "subliminal programming" works, download
BRANWASH.ZIP or read (about 20
pages) The Battle For Your Mind online.
If you need my PGP key, go here.
Are you a Tri-Delta (East Contra Costa County public transit)
customer? If you've got complaints, send them to Deborah Bass, Marketing Coordinator of
Tri-Delta Transit. While your complaints won't do any good, as from my
contacts with her, she seems to be a typical arrogant bureaucrat who
envisions her role as spin control of the agency's past and current
screwups, telling her what you think of her precious organization might
do your blood pressure good at her expense. Feel free to be abusive, she deserves it at a personal level and on behalf of her organization. For local Tri-Delta users, did you know that they are the only Bay Area transit agency that doesn't post an elementary thing like what routes are served by each bus stop? Yes, if you go anywhere else in Contra Costa, Alameda, Marin, SF, or San Mateo counties, each bus stop will have a label pasted on the sign telling you which routes stop there. The excuse I got from her as to why we don't was unbelievably lame. Most agencies also put individual stop schedules at all stops in some cases and stops in high-traffic areas in others. The excuse I got from her was equally lame. Rude bus drivers? Let her know. It won't do any good, but you'll have fun working off your anger at her expense. For real change, when the district Board of Trustees shows up on the ballot, vote against anybody whose name comes up "Incumbent".
Georgia Overturns Anti-Sodomy Law.
Do you like having an invisible censor looking over your shoulder whenever you're in a chatroom? Yahoo chat is the place to be.
Want to see the pollution
in your local community? The Environmental
Defense Fund has a new site
called Scorecard... point out on their map(s) where you want and it'll give
you a map of what's out there once you get to the city selection that
follows the county selector menu. I'm not fond of the user interface,
but the information is of interest, especially if one lives in an area
among major polluters. (I'm within a few miles of DuPont.)
New users should also check out the Computer
Security section of this page. It has information on how to protect
your privacy as a computer user. Careful reading of this section may keep
yourself from being embarassed or worse, going to jail. Hint: The e-mail
you send is private unless you make it private. This
section will tell you how.
To underline the point about e-mail not being private, go to Seven Deadly Email Thoughts. You should read this regardless of your experience in cyberspace, part of what you think you know about e-mail privacy probably isn't true.
If you've seen disclaimers like: If you're a Web site developer, go to the Web developer section of my Websearch
page. There are things here you probably need to know.
It appears like the defunding of the GOP due to Religious Right
excesses is in progress. For more information, click here.
And, it looks like the Southern Baptists have declared spiritual war
on the Mormons. They've decided to convert
them to Christianity. Don't expect the Mormons to react with
gratitude.
Here is the
best analysis of the Religious Right I've seen in years. The discerning
reader should be able to figure out from this just why the big business
interests are having acute second thoughts about continuing to support
the GOP.
Unfortunately, the big business groups decided to shut up and stay in line in order to get what they think is a "business-friendly" President, though it's difficult to imagine how they could possibly have gotten themselves one more friendly to corporate interests than former President Clinton.
Here is another very good analysis of the Religious Right.
Here's another CAQ link on right-wing think tanks. Hitler had Goebbels, the American political right has tax-free propaganda machines masquerading as sources of legitimate academic inquiry into public policy issues. Unfortunately, there are fundamental problems with science recast as infotainment.
The latest local Religious Right wacky adventure: Poseidon adventure in Sacramento pits Christian group against residents in dispute over statue of Greek god standing in the buff.
The latest wacky adventure of the Religious Right in education, the teaching of "creation science" instead of evolution in science classes in Kansas is is about to end.
Are you a member of the Religious Right? Are you opposed to abortion?
Your opposition is based on a gross misinterpretation of the Bible. Click here to find the
correct interpretation. At least the only one
consistent with the text as written. Enjoy, and feel free to check my
analysis against several different Bible translations.
Here's more bad news for Religious Right fanatics. Remember how you've been told that the Founding Fathers were good Christians who were trying to build America into a Christian nation? Click here to find out what the truth is. Hint: you have been lied to. More quotes from the Founding Fathers. Would anybody who said things like that in your church be allowed to continue their membership? I recommend you learn how to think for yourself. What else have they lied to you about?
If you support Internet censorship, you are invited
to this page.
And if you conclude from my site content that I'm a friend of Bill
Clinton, click here to cure your delusion.
If you're a Limbot and would like to find out what neither Rush nor
the mass media is telling you, click the unconventional news link.
IMPORTANT!
The most important and repeated advice you'll see is to back up your
tapes. This means make a complete copy of everything on your hard
drive(s) so if something goes wrong, you can copy it back onto your hard
drive (after fixing the problem) or a replacement hard drive (if it can
be fixed). Most home / small office users don't think they can afford
to. Then, when their hard drive packs it in (figure every 2-3 years...
meaning yours may go out as you're reading this, or it may last until
you replace the computer) they spend a hell of a lot more buying disk
recovery software, paying disk recovery services, or re-entering what
they can find of the real important stuff.
"Research has shown that more than 80% of
the businesses suffering from catastrophic data loss have gone out of business within 12
months. This is not hard to believe considering the extent computers are relied upon in
businesses of all sizes." The name of the research company or URL for the full test of the study isn't sourced at a tape backup storage software company, but I find it very easy to believe. I had my own HD go out on me a few months ago. My tape backup system (A Sony Superstation. Don't buy it, it's obsolete anyway at 6.4 G) went haywire at exactly the same time. The very first time it ever gave me trouble. It refused to recognize the disk volume on the backup tape. Factory support gave me a utility that worked to recover most of the files, but it started catastrophically crashing my HD. They told me that the software app had known problems and they no longer supported it. They told me of a $129 package from the original software vendor that works fine.
Even with all that, I still figure I got 99% of my files back except for a missing 10 days when I hadn't gotten around to an incremental backup. If I'd lost that info, I'd unquestionably be out of business as a writer and an inventor.
Since drives smaller than 20G are no longer of practical use, to read about the Sony Superstation and videocassete backups click here.
For current tape backup problems, go to Onstream and check into their "ADR" tape drives. Their price range is currently $299 (internal 30GB IDE) to $699
(50GB internal SCSI-2). Capacities claimed are double uncompressed
native format. 30GB cartridges. are about $30. Yes, they're back in business. I'm figuring their 30G drives at about 22G real-world capacity, making it about right for an average sized workstation. Remember to buy the cleaning cartridge.
Another and very possibly a superior alternative is the Ecrix tape drive systems based on their VXA technology. They use a packet switching and error correction technology comparable to the one used to get files through the Internet intact. One of their public demos involves putting a recorded tape into a cup of hot coffee, rinsing it in distilled water, and recovering all the files. The 33/66G (real world - 40G or a little more) tape drives are about $900 each, they've got an autoloader / tape library system available for about $4500 good for 10 of these tapes.
Or read my 8wire article on backup storage which covers the most interesting of the current alternatives up to multi-terabyte DVD-RAM systems
Yes, that certainly is a commercial banner ad. I'll just say that I actually think it's worth the trouble to put a free banner up on my site to improve the odds of my winning a monthly drawing in which the prize is . . . an Ecrix VXA tape drive and software.
It's probably the most interesting of the new generation tape technologies, including the LTO technology from various vendors.
For small to medium sized network systems (up to 14,000G) I'll have an article linked here soon with what you should be looking for. Yes, I wrote it. The best large scale solution appears to be a DVD-RAM based tape library. You can find out why from the article.
Find out how to run Q-Edit out of a Windows window. Q-Edit is a programmers' text editor which I find useful to tweak html files, it supports functions like move column you won't find in a word processor, and its search and replace is rather more flexible than you'll find in just about anything else.
The most interesting news I've heard in a VERY long time
can be found here.
While it's a long way from test tube to FDA approval, I think the
researchers are indeed on the right track. This will be the first
of a long line of advances, I think. To carry speculation past
where Wired was willing to go... this by itself might be enough
to take a human lifespan out 50 years or more, there's no reason
to believe that the technique as described is limited to a 40%
extension of cellular life.
You can find out about the FBI's most current attempt to spy on
the whole US population on
this page. You can find out about the FDIC attempt to turn your bank
into your watchdog, reporting to the Feds anything that looks
"suspicious" to them here.
Here's a text-in-file search utility for DOS. It supports Boolean
searches and will search the files in an entire directory tree
(including root) if you ask it to. LOOKFOR.COM Note: It won't work if you
used doublespace on your HD... It can be made to work straight out of
Win3.1 with the creation of a modified DOS prompt .PIF file, I don't
know if the PIF will work in Win95.
Need a reason to be glad you don't live in Concord, California? Try this. A local union of police officers doing
outside fundraising for their local PAC (Political Action Committee)
leads me to wonder just what business contributors get for their money.
Remember, you can't have a police state without the police. For an
online listing of contributors to Concord city council elections, click
Concord political
money. As a non-resident of Concord, I find this of interest as an
example of cyberspace-based local political organization.
Found some old anti-Barney stuff on the hard drive, what's available
at this time are stories about the killing of the Purple Fiend, Deathzone Barney, Day of the Barney, and some proposed Barney products you won't find on the
market yet. The first stories are bloody and gruesome, and fun. The
products list you'll probably find amusing.
The Clinton clowns have done it again. They INSIST on
being able to read our e-mail and whatever else we send through the Net.
For more information, click the Big Brother Inside logo.
In the DOS version, I think the command is:
In the Windows/Mac version, check the menu items related to
generation of key pairs.
While the 1K keys may be compromised, the 2K keys will probably be
secure for the next several years. Sorry about the blink tag but this is
really important. As for RSA algorithm crypto uses in Netscape
(https 'secure' and document transmission) I believe the 128 bit US
version is only proof against the typical hacker, but that's
probably adequate to protect credit card transactions and other
things https sites are used for, make sure your browser supports
it if you plan to buy over the Net. If you're outside the US, a version
of Netscape that supports 128 bit encryption that was modified outside
the US is available. My anticyberstalking page may help keep this from happening to you.
If you are a Webmaster who hates spam, check out a unique anti-spam approach here. I think you'll want to link to this yourself.
If you just want to hang
out with Fascists in search of the Final Solution, look up Hate Sites.
If you came in here via link or previous bookmark, Cooking and Fun Foods is now on a separate page.
Since it's a mechanical insecticide (either kills by forming an indigestible ball in the stomach or abrading through the exoskeleton... i.e. death by a million paper cuts) insects don't get immune to it. The powder works until it picks up enough moisture that is no longer a fine, clinging dust, that's when you put down another application. (that's a few months or so, unless one is in a really humid area)
I recommend the brand-name product, the generic formulations of boric acid don't seem to work particularly well.
Computer
Security For up to date news on computer security problems, interesting and
dangerous computer failures, etc., bookmark the Usenet newsgroup
comp.risks.
You can find an excellent short primer on computer security and common problems at the CERT Coordination Center Tech Tips from the military version of CERT.
The U.S. government has created a searchable index of computer
vulnerabilities called ICAT that is publicly available athere. Think of it as a vulnerability metasearch engine with access to security problems, patches, workarounds.
This is for sysadmins and
people running their own personal / company Net servers ONLY. However,
your convincing your ISP to run it if available would be a good thing
for everyone. Virtual private network
software is now available to run on Linux which will secure your
transmissions while they are in transit between any two Linux servers
running it no matter how many nodes are on the relay chain or who is
trying to snoop. E-mail, telnet, ftp file transfers. It's free and it
sounds workable, and is the best way to insure user privacy. The more
nodes that run it, the more useful it is, it has to be installed at both
ends. For a general article on it, go to the Wired
News article, or direct to the Free Swan Project site.
Note: to do personal / small business peer-to-peer VPNs, the current releases of PGP also contain VPN software.
article on it
People who have never used PGP should first download and print the PGP Quick Start page. So far, everybody I know who's downloaded and installed PGP at my personal recommendation has had major trouble using it for its intended purpose. This is despite the fact that once one understands the concepts behind the program, this software is extremely easy to use. This Quick Start Guide is a step by step description I wrote of what one has to do to get PGP to make keys, send out keys, encrypt and decrypt mail and file attachments.
I don't have any loss of confidence in PGP due to this and neither should you. One major bug in 9 years is an excellent record. Their prompt admission that there was indeed a problem and that they were working on it, and their 2 day turnaround on the new version with the bugfix is as good as it gets in the field of software.
PGP International, PGP freeware. This takes you directly to the download page, there's more here than there is on the US commercial PGP site. You can also get a voice-chat
security program will make your voice conversations over the Net private.
Get the commercial version at the PGP Inc. site. If you're planning to use
it for business applications, this is the one you should get. It will
work with the freeware versions.
You can get my current PGP key (12/06/2002) here. For people still using version 2.6.2, get my v2.6.2 key at the same link. If and only if you have my oldest PGP key, get the key revocation certificate for that key here. Let me know if you have problems with either.
Here's a choice quote by the head of the SANS Institute: "hardly black and white, says Alan Paller, who heads the SANS Institute, which hosts classes for network administrators. Companies that have leaked data need to fulfill their contractual obligations with credit card companies, Paller said, but hes not convinced the victims need to know. In fact, it may accomplish little other than making people worry, he said..
More at the URL.
Do you want your sysadmins trained by someone apparently never heard of identity theft?
Did you know that your ISP can keep a log of your Websurfing? To find out for yourself if this is going on, click here and follow the instructions.
The FBI's latest bad idea is called "Carnivore". It's a black box installed by an ISP and its connection to the Internet backbone whose alleged purpose is to make it possible to collect information on an individual user's e-mail. It does this by scanning every single data packet exchanged by that ISP to/from the Internet. Note that any legitimate law enforcement purpose can be fulfilled by going to an ISP with a warrant and ordering that all e-mail, etc. to and from the person who the warrant is about be stored and forwarded from the ISP to the FBI. This kind of authority actually is required for law enforcement to work in an environment where criminals are trying to do business on the Net just like everybody else. There is no legal or technological rationalization possible for scanning all an ISP's traffic to intercept communication to/from a single user out of hundreds or at the high end, tens of millions of users. One person stupid enough to try to justify this is David Coursey in a ZDnews column. Anybody who doesn't know that any sysadmin at an ISP can set up the monitoring required for legitimate law enforcement against a user with a few commands at the command line or a few mouse clicks has no business writing for a technology Website. The scary thing about this is that if I remember correctly, he's been described as an industry analyst. Perhaps this explains what kind of person would advise investors who bought into the companies that actually deserved to take a hammering during the NASDAQ high-tech crash. For news coverage of Carnivore written by functioning human beings, click "a href="http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-204-2257522.html">here.
The basic lesson of Carnivore is a simple one. Government can not be trusted to protect or even respect your privacy. PGP (see above) and secure Web site (https/shttp) based crypto is the way to go, even with Carnivore, it's conceded that all an entity monitoring a SSL transaction can determine who the user is and which site was connected to.
Jeffrey Rosen has made a cogent argument made that unintended side-effects of sexual harassment legislation and administrative regulation combined with new software technologies are resulting in the destruction of the very concept of personal privacy. As a woman, do you feel any safer because of this? Was Monica Lewinsky's privacy respected? Was the President's? What are your chances of keeping your sex life or the content of your e-mail, however intimate or personal, private if government or the news media want to splash it all over the news? What happened to the idea that your private life was your business and nobody else's? Read Part One and Part Two of the article.
Unrestricted Warfare in future
conlicts!) by Qiao Liang and Wang Xiangsui of the Chinese People's Liberation Army on the nature of future warfare. I suggest taking it seriously, the front of any kind of low-intensity warfare may be as close as your firewall. Even script kiddies can do an awesome amount of damage to an unprepared system. Military script kiddies, trained in military facilities. Real foriegn hackers. Requires Adobe Acrobat Reader, but that comes with any current generation browser. This doesn't merely cover cyberwar, they make the interesting point that no one form of warfare is likely to dominate in the future, cyberwar is just another option among a group of options ranging from script viruses to bombs, guns, missiles, nukes, biowar, etc. There are certain interesting resemblances between this and similar articles I've seen on military sites, particularly the US military service futurist sites. See also the USAF Final Report 2025 Home Page. The main differences are in point of view. "Hacking into websites, targeting financial institutions, terrorism, using the media, and
conducting urban warfare are among the methods proposed. In the Zhongguo Qingnian Bao
interview, Qiao was quoted as stating that "the first rule of unrestricted warfare is that there are
no rules, with nothing forbidden." Elaborating on this idea, he asserted that strong countries
would not use the same approach against weak countries because "strong countries make the
rules while rising ones break them and exploit loopholes . . .The United States breaks [UN rules]
and makes new ones when these rules don't suit [its purposes], but it has to observe its own rules
or the whole world will not trust it." (review by FBIS editor)
Asymmetric Warfare, the Evolution and Devolution of Terrorism; The Coming Challenge For Emergency and National Security Forces discusses counter-strategies.
Chinese Information War Theory and Practice
Here's THE MESH AND THE NET - Speculations on Armed Conflict In a Time of Free Silicon from National Defense University. Just started reading it.
The following can be considered an early draft, this and the above paragraphs will probably be split into a separate section. This doesn't mean I recommend that anti-terrorist efforts by law enforcement or other agencies be given a blank check to attack either our bank accounts or our civil liberties. We will soon come to a choice. If we choose to "let government do it all" we will get to pay much higher taxes for larger police forces, more and bigger swat teams, and we'll have to let government have access to our computers, our communications, our bank accounts whenever there's a legitimate need, or more likely, whenever some law enforcement clerk has a whim, doesn't like you, or got bribed by a competitor or a terrorist to get information on you. Or a politician wants to suppress your kind of dissent and suggests that a law enforcement agency or IRS should take a special interest in you. (Hint: Nixon. Second hint: Clinton.) The problems here are that it gives terrorists two of the main things they want. If we give our government everything they ask for to deal with the "terrorist threat" we simply will no longer have a free country, and it'll mean that unarmed citizens will only have the option of calling the police about a terrorist strike in progress, after which we will get to stand by and be helpless witnesses or participants in mass slaughter. All social "lockdown" measures can accomplish is to increase the efficiency of law enforcement. Anyone who thinks that the government is asking us to do this because they really want to protect individual citizens like you and me has no business in an adult public policy discussion on the basis of total ignorance of even recent history.
No law enforcement organization or set of organizations can protect us all short of deputizing practically everybody. While this actually might be a practical solution, i.e. making the "different" rules for law enforcement apply to almost everyone, it sort of nullifies the point of social control measures.
The other choice is to whenever possible, take responsiblity for our own protection. This means government issuing concealed weapons permits to everyone who doesn't have a police / mental health record. This means that the government needs to start encouraging businesses and private individuals to start using "best practices" computer security, even if it interferes with what law enforcement wants. This probably eventually means firearms and unarmed combat training in the public schools, teaching on personal computer security (firewalls, anti-virals, good practices) as well as integrating training on self-defense against biological warfare into health classes. Doing the last should be extremely easy, and might even result in health classes full of awake students for a change. This means junking the "gun-free" zone laws at/around public schools and a new policy where teachers and adminstrators are encouraged to carry guns on campus. When will we be hit with a terrorist nuke or a biowar attack? Good question. I expect to see one or more within my lifetime. These paragraphs are to allow people who believe in freedom to have a constructive response to our leaders who are going to demand that our society be locked down in order to prevent future terrorist attacks. If my recommendations are implemented, people will still die, but in fewer numbers.
Most important, terrorists will be looking for safer countries to terrorize where they don't have to figure on many angry citizens shooting back within seconds of their opening fire no matter where they try it. If this ever happens, a terrorist in the unfortunate position of needing a safe place to operate should probably try Australia or the UK.
While it is quite true that using these files, you can do a
"cookbook" approach to cracking and other usually anti-social
activities, the problem with the "cookbook" approach is that you can
produce disasters for yourself even bigger than you had intended for
your targets. Unless you know the principles on which "cracking"
programs are based and the environment in which they are supposed to be
used, use them and you're in for a heap o' trouble. The word hackers use for people who can run software to crack sites but don't understand the basic principles is "script kiddies". Don't be one.
Examples: if you try running a unix "crack" program on your ISP and
it's running WinNT. . . if you ask your sysadmin for help, you'll be
lucky if you ONLY lose your account. As for cookbook chemistry. . . even
the most reliable stuff whose origin is military/CIA about
"field-expedient" explosives (try your Federal bookstore) presuppose
that a certain percentage of the INTENDED users, i.e. ones with military
training will blow themselves to bits. This is called "acceptable risk"
"fortunes of war" and the results often come home in body
bags.Your odds aren't quite as good. Many of the "hacker" tools have completely legitimate uses by system
administrators. In general, a hacker tool is for the purpose of doing
things in a software environment that the manufacturer specs say aren't
supposed to be done. Sometimes, doing these things is necessary or
convenient for network troubleshooting / debugging for people who
know exactly what they are using and why. SATAN is a very good way to find out how vulnerable one's own
network is, and in fact, was developed for that specific reason.
Even Back Orifice could be an extremely useful tool for sysadmins to
allow remote operation of a network user workstation. The fact that a
sysadmin or technician has a collection of software of this type probably
means that the user is competent and concientious, not that he's an EVIL
SYSTEM "HACKER" TYPE.
Here is a discussion of perimeter alarm sensors. It's detailed and
complete. This is a manufacturer document on geophones.
_
It used to be that the only way anything you get through e-mail can hurt you is if you opened
file attachments, e.g. computer programs, formatted text documents, etc.
THOSE you should check via virus scanner, for more info on virus
scanners, go to my new users page.
The combination of Windows 98 and MS
Outlook Express will support automatically executable e-mail files. While this can be turned off in the program and scripting can be disabled in the OS, buffer overflow exploits and other methods have been found to make ugly surprises possible without opening e-mail. The problem is a very bad Outlook Express security model. Nearly all the e-mail virus and other major alerts you've heard about lately pertain exclusively to Outlook Express, or take their most malignant form (mailing themselves to OE address books) in OE. While I'll
probably upgrade to Win98-2E, I'm not using Outlook Express for
e-mail. While separate e-mail programs such as Eudora which I'm using support automatically executable e-mail, this option can be turned OFF and that's what you should do as well. If you haven't gotten the point, I recommend that you dump MS Outlook Express NOW for a safer program. It appears that at this point, this means any non-Microsoft mail product. Address book conversion utilities from MS Outlook Express to whatever you decide to use are generally available. I'm not so sure about mail filters, but you're probably better off printing out the filter files and reentering into the new software manually if you can't find a conversion utility.
I'm going to stop reporting MS Outlook / Outlook Express problems on this page. It's gotten to the "MAJOR SECURITY PROBLEM OF THE WEEK" point. Last week's was ANOTHER buffer overflow exploit where it no longer takes opening a infected file to hose your machine, all it takes now is opening an infected piece of mail. A patch is available on the MS site. If you run MS mail products, you deserve to get hammered. If this choice is dictated from above, find a smarter employer. This one is worth reporting: Join MSN, become a spammer. It uses YOUR Outlook/Outlook Express address book to mail "invitations to join MSN" with your personal endorsement attached to everybody in your address book. First company I know of that puts a spamTrojan into its software. "it's not a bug, it's a feature".
On the MS antitrust case, Jim Warren's column does an analysis of Judge Jackson's decision.
While Y2K didn't turn out to be a disaster, the fact that it generally didn't does not mean disaster has been permanently abolished. To learn how to prepare for earthquakes, etc. click here. Read it
carefully. The job or business you save may be your own. Or, it may
simply save your ass. This text was left here to support anyone who came
here via the old Y2K link which leads here.
For interesting ways to really optimize Windows 98, go to 98Lite and try either their freeware or shareware Internet Explorer removal package. Yes, it works. Yes, it helps. No, I won't accept liability for its failure, particularly if it turns your computer into a miniature black hole and your neighborhood goes into the void. But it's worth looking into.
If you are planning to upgrade to Win98, read this
first. It'll probably be OK in a few months. (written
7/18/1998)(6/1/1999) It still has stability problems.)(written 1/2/2001 - It STILL has stability problems, I've been running it for 14 months. As does its successors. I'm planning to move to Linux full time in a few months. (7/08/2002) Make that 3Q-4Q 2002... waiting a bit longer for better Office compatibility and some more graphics apps to come out. But I can't think of a single good reason to switch to XP... even with my machine upgraded to be fast enough for it.)
Actually, I wound up not making the switch until September 2004. The good news is that while the problems with 98SE were never actually fixed, running in Linux emulation, they don't matter any more.
If you'd like a free full scale C++ compiler (DOS, so you can learn how to program, download BC++ 5.5 from Borland - there's a free download edition, command line tools only, i.e. it runs from DOS. Given that if you want to learn C on Unix, you'll be doing this from a unix command line instead, this is no big deal; if you can't function at a command line, you are not ready to learn programming. Remember to get the TurboDebugger as well. (same URL)You'll have to register onsite to get it.
Since the following before the horizontal line a few paragraphs below was written, I've become a full-time Linux user, using Win4Lin to run a Windows emulation for the legacy Windows software (Office 97, PaintShopPro, Corel Draw I still use, generally because there are no Linux replacements yet that do everything I need to do in order to make a living. Oddly enough, at this point, I'm making a living writing how-to pieces on . . . Linux.
I use the Fedora Core (the community version of Red Hat) Linux distribution, by and large, everything I don't do with legacy Windows apps I do in Linux. What I get from Linux is stability and general immunity to Windows malware. I'll just say I can watch any multimedia a Windows or Mac user can, my Web browser is Opera for Linux, and I do most of my word processing in the Linux version of Textmaker, I back up both to a mirror drive and to compressed DVD-R archives, and I'm actually rather happy with my setup. To find out how I did these things, go to my Linux tutorials at Techbuilder.
Regarding Win4Lin, the Win4Lin 9.x product is something of a headache to set up, but works extremely well. The Win4Lin Pro version as of this writing (10/2005) has serious problems, e.g. no shared Linux-Windows clipboard (i.e. what's the difference between this and dual boot?) and I can't recommend it. Win4Lin 9.x requires a kernel patch to allow upgrading main Linux system that it runs over, and Win4Lin Inc. promises but as of now, doesn't provide it, expecting the user to do her own kernel patching. If either Pro or 9.x aren't fixed, my next emulator upgrade will probably by to VMware.
Note: I'm aware of Open Office and Lycoris Linux, I just haven't had time to update this section yet. I'm also aware of the CodeWeavers utilities for running MS Office 97/2000 and Netscape Windows plugins on Linux... and I recommend that the prospective Linux user check into them carefully. (revised 10/2005 - VERY carefully, don't buy it until you know the Windows apps you need run with it.
Though this isn't for the average consumer or many businesses quite yet (I expect a user-friendly distribution out in the next few months)
consider linux. It still has user
interface and installation issues, it has a DOS-like command line that
even a novice user will have to use occasionally. It is stable,
powerful, it's the most common OS used in network and ISP servers along
with the Apache Web server. It is
also free of charge, though if it is purchased as a CDROM distribution,
the disk with installation package, the applications distributed as part
of the OS, and is often distributed with an office suite (word
processor, spreadsheet, terminal, database, presentation manager, and
maybe a browser) for prices in the $30-90 range. The available suites
are StarDivision and Applixware.
I've seen them compared to MS Works and to MS Office. Both are nominally
compatible with MS Office applications, though not necessarily with the
latest file formats. Some formatting informaton may be lost, and macros
are not transportable. Given that file compatibility is a sometime thing
even with different MS Office applications and between platforms, this
isn't always a problem. If you insist on paying for a PC style unix, BSDI.
You will get better hand-holding for what you will pay them.
Here are MS Office file conversion utilities for Linux formats.
If you need
other reasons for considering linux, see what Microsoft
employees on NT and here
and unix vs. NT white
paper or the US Navy ship that was run on NT and had to be towed home. These mostly apply to servers. "Due to the potential for system failure, many IS organizations shied away from using Windows NT in mission-critical application environments."
Netscape is available for Linux
and reputedly runs faster even on older machines than it or Microsoft
Internet Explorer runs on newer Pentium computers. Download it from
Netscape. The Opera Web browser
(the one I use) is being
ported to the Linux environment. The beta is available now.Oracle is being ported or may be
available, by the time you see this, support for Linux by Sybase has been announced. Most of
Microsoft's major competitors have announced some level of support for
Linux, including IBM, which has even ported Linux to thelr S/390 mainframes.
For a description of
current uses for linux for the general and corporate environment at the
workstation level, try this San Francisco Chronicle article Wrestling for Desktop Dominance. For discussion
of installation of Linux, try Installing Linux
is Tricky from the same paper. Quotes: "Burlington Coat Factory . .
. is installing 1250 Linux systems" "The office of the Kern County
Superintendent of Schools. . ." For an organization to convert to Linux,
in general, the users must be primarily communicating via formatted
documents with each other and via e-mail and text files in most other
cases so that MS Office applications compatibility are irrelevant most
of the time, though VMWare may make running a normal (unlike WINE
emulator) Windows in a virtual machine environment workable. If you're thinking of using an emulator on your primary machine, make certain that your important applications will run properly on it (do more than make sure the program loads) and there are alternatives for less important programs in the native OS you're trying to migrate to.
At the free level, one can request support from other Linux users and
developers at comp.software.os.linux Usenet
newsgroup. There are also options for paid support by the hour or by
service contract. Red Hat offers it,
as to several other organizations. (I'll get them here later)
zdnet Linux resource pointers.
Slashdot regularly has lots of
coverage on linux OS, applications, books, vendors, programming, etc.
For those who need
Windows emulators, there's
or the more hardware dependent VMware. It appears to be faster and
stabler than WINE. If I remember correctly, linux
versions are downloadable there.
You can download the Corel Word Perfect beta there for free
personal use, and they are planning to have a complete applications
suite
PC Guide is a reference
describing the internal workings of a PC (Wintel platform) in sufficient
detail to allow knowledgeable users to make changes. Wish I'd known
about this years ago. They also sell a CDROM.
There's also some good info here
on upgrading motherboards. The format at this site is unusual, it's
actual chapters from various books from that publisher relating to
various aspects of repair / maintenance of PCs. Judging from what I saw
on that link, some of these books might be worth buying. Personally,
I'd rather have a book next to me than a printout from a Web site if I'm
working on PC hardware for the first time.
For interesting reviews of PC hardware and tweaks and tricks (e.g.
how to run a processor faster than its rating), try Tom's Hardware. There's some
especially good info on K6 motherboards which support AGP, etc.
Need help in deciphering file extensions used in the Wintel environment? Go to the File Extensions page. I personally have set all of my directory display utilities, Windows Explorer, My PowerDesk, and X-Files (I almost never use Windows Explorer) to display file extensions. If one is deleting files, it is a hell of a lot safer to know just what one is deleting. That's what file extensions are supposed to tell you, and Microsoft's attempt to conceal them from the user by setting the Explorer, etc. defaults to not display them is a disservice to the user.
Here's more specific information on overclocking, e.g. how to run an
Intel Celeron 366 MHz chip at 500 MHz. Note that due to peculiarities of
the Celeron, the experimenters are claiming better performance than a
500 MHz conventionally used Pentium II.
If you missed the other links, for a start on learning y2k (year
2000) problems, click here.
An interesting alternative to this is Cisco Director at the
For the ugly truth about Windows NT in a high-volume environment,
click Microsoft
internal NT user problems and
here
and especially MS
Terraserver foulup, in a Computerworld story where Microsoft fired
up a Web site with a terabyte's worth of satellite photos, bragging
about how it would show "the tremendous scalability" of Windows NT and
its SQL Server database companion. The overwhelmed TerraServer site
crashed and burned right after opening. unix vs. NT white paper.
If you want to find out what the old days of computing were like, click here. Also recommended is the book "Hackers".
A glossary for telco acronyms can be found here.
Patent related information: US Patent
Office, the site now includes full-text search capability. You can also do patent searches of patents issued from 1971
to present, at IBM's searchable
patent database. Since the search engines are slightly different, you might be well advised to search on both. If you're into making technology, you'll probably want this.
Historical information on Colossus, the first (predating ENIAC) more or less general purpose / more or less programmable computer. Check the links.
After you fill out the site registration, it will automatically let you know when this page changes. Since Web sites
tend to change at random intervals, URL-Minder is a good way to
let you know about new content to save you the trouble of
clicking on a site and finding nothing new. This page is updated infrequently enough to make this worthwhile. Or go to the general Netmind site.
For incoming faxes, the best deal is at <"http://www.callwave.com">Callwave, they still offer free dedicated phone numbers like efax used to. Need a map? This may not be the best map site on the Web... but Mapblast does work, I just used it to
print out a map to tell me how to get to a friend's house... You might like Mapquest better.
The above sites, the Ziff-Davis (ZDnet), TechWeb (CMP), and the other
major publisher, IDG now publish about 95% of the
computer magazines you'll see on newsracks. Music-related schematics & kits. Got this from a reader, I remember this company from the 1970s... hadn't occurred to me that they were still around.
For lots of information on repair of consumer electronic equipment and other things, including FAQs, part sources, etc., go to the sci.electronics.repair FAQs site. If you do electronics for fun as well as for a living, check the place out throughly, the non-repair section has some very interesting things in it, and there are some unusual items in the repair section. You can also check out the sci.electronics.repair newsgroup. More consumer electronics repair links
Nuts & Volts magazine is electronic surplus classified ads and a few articles. You can find the dead tree version at your local electronic pro shop or ham radio place, or subscribe via the Website. Obscure components, gadgets you've never heard of, fun stuff. Highly recommended.
Electronic / computer / engineering magazines (mostly trade):
I'll also add that most databooks are now available on CDROM and
available for the asking as long as you supply a business name /
address, can be ordered on the manufacturer's Web site. Locating the
manufacturer's Web site is usually simply a matter of entering the right
search terms at FastSearch, e.g. for Texas
Instruments, simply enter "Texas Instruments" (including double quotes)
into the search window and hit the button. In many cases, individual
chip specs can be searched and downloaded immediately, usually in Adobe
Acrobat format. This is sufficiently true that I no longer recommend bothering to get chip manufacturer CDROMS anymore unless you're getting a databook you're using chip specs out of on a daily basis, it's gotten to the point where it's usually less hassle than filling out the CDROM request form to simply log on to the manufacturer site, use the search engine, and save the .PDF to disk on demand. For most electronics types, the only CDROMS that make sense are maybe current generation TTL, 4000 CMOS series. However, the IC Master gives info on most current/recently discontinued chips on the market from most manufacturers on a searchable CDROM is worth buying if you are a very serious hobbyist doing your own designs, or you design electronic hardware for a living. (in which case, you probably have one) Check this out,
hundreds of files on microprocessors, microcontrollers, etc. No opinion
about his "sex" files, I'm unlikely to have time to download them. His
Y2K opinions, should he put any on his site probably should be ignored,
his Usenet post on Y2K indicates he hasn't bothered to do any research
on the issue.
Looking for a free ECAD package? Check out McCAD, their McCAD Windows95/98/NT EDS Lite is available for downloading and review. It's limited to about 200 pin equivalents, for more, pay for the full shrinkwrap version. I just hope it's as good as their Mac package was when I was using it about 12 years ago (I'm downloading as I type this.) The Windows version is only a 4 meg download. The bad news, no autorouter, but what do you want for free? For more free ECAD evaluation links, go to the ComTech site. They also have some parts finding tool links.
A mechanical CAD package downloadable evaluation version can be found at: CAD Australia. The name, RealCAD LT suggests it's supposed to resemble AutoCAD LT in functionality. I just downloaded it to my Web page. It says nothing about time or functionality limitations. If it's time-limited, this paragraph will probably go into the bit bucket.
Primary research site on the earliest recordings of television. This shows actual content from the experiments in disk recording (as in disks very similar to the 78 RPM disks you've seen in antique stores) done in the late 1920s and early 1930s. Would you believe that the BBC was experimentally broadcasting live TV to an audience of thousands in the early 30s? A few of these recordings have been found, cleaned up digitally, and can be seen as RealAudio files on the site. Animated .GIFs and still pictures are also shows. The technology and history are discussed. Check it out.
A short primer on PCBs / fabrication.
Report Charges U.S. Leads Worldwide Snooping DriveSample quote: " one result of U.S. policy had been to make it easier for repressive countries to maintain control over their citizens...And it also increases the amount of illegal wiretapping going on by making it technically easier"
The above is no longer news. Clinton and his company of retarded
thugs have been trying to make Internet privacy illegal for the last
several years now. For more
information, go to www.crypto.com.
Even if you don't care about privacy, this is BAD for the
economy, it gives foriegners incentive to buy computers without Big
Brother Inside. If you don't work in high-tech, chances are, your job
depends on the health of the high-tech companies that buy from your
employer. Like to see your job shipped overseas? Clinton is also
trying to export this crap to the rest of the world, with limited
success Of course, you have no e-privacy in the workplace that employers are bound to respect. This may have something to do with the fact that they can afford to buy politicians and very few others can. To find how what it means to have your politicians to have sold your ass in this context, click here.
The biggest danger to our economic future is the fact that our elected officials are completely clueless with respect to science, technology, computers, and cyberspace. The latest example is the Clinton Administration sinking a House bill which would have made digital signatures legally binding documents. The ability to make binding contracts via the Internet is vital to the growth of our increasingly digitally based economy. When business events are going on at the accelerated rate that transacting business online calls for, it's no longer reasonable to wait for contracts to show up via snailmail or even Federal Express. Crypto, attempts to implement Internet censorship and to force the Internet Engineering Task Force to enable Internet protocols for wiretapping at the push of a button are just a few of the attempts by well meaning assholes in office to kill the golden eggs the high-tech economy is laying for us. The way government is dealing with Y2K is yet another example. The laws that affect what we are allowed to do with our computers for business or pleasure are made by people who have never seen a C: prompt.
An e-signature bill has gone through Congress and was signed by Clinton a few days ago. (7/17/2000) Unbelievably, we might be better off without one than the bill that got passed. Seems that the industry asked for a bill with no real defintion or safety (as in cryptographic strength) requirements about what constitutes an electronic signature. They got what they asked for. It appears that if I sign your name to a non-secure web form, I've completed an enforceable contract in YOUR name that YOU are legally obligated to fulfill and if you don't like it, the burden of proof that you didn't sign is on YOU. I'm expecting a legal nightmare to follow. If it's your website, I advise you to line up expert witnesses in cryptography and Website development NOW to prove that your secure Web site signatures mean what you say they do. Making sure your Verisign and/or Thawte certificates are up to date is a good start, but only a good start.
Clinton has also given up on suppressing crypto export, for the moment. However, his proposals governing e-mail privacy seem to have serious problems.
The above changes don't mean that either Congress or the President have caught a clue, it means they are being dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century.
Did you know that digital access requires being able to get a perfectly ordinary analog TV signal, and that farmers that can't get conventional TV are part of the "digital divide"? Must be true, Clinton says so. Note that I actually do think there is indeed a "digital divide" and that something needs to be done, possibly by government. But if a program like this is loaded down with every pork barrel addon Clinton's cronies can come up with, it's doomed to failure.
Here's a good guide on spin
control as practiced by government, media, and business. If you
suspect that any of the above are lying to you about, evaluate what you saw
against that template. Chances are, they are indeed lying. By the way,
the parent site, trufax is
interesting.
A new law proposed by Senator Jon Kyl, R-AZ and Senator Charles Schumer, doing the work of their butt-buddies in law enforcement. D-NY Cyber-Sleuths Want to Hack Bill of Rights Frightening quote: "law enforcers would no longer need to obtain a search warrant in every jurisdiction through which a cyber-attack traveled." Like to have the Feds show up without a warrant and seize your computer because they think you might be somehow involved in a hack attack or kiddie porn? Would you feel any better about it if they were mistaken? A warrant means that at least somebody has to explain to a judge why invading your home or business is a good idea. Apparently, our friends in government think that this is just too much bother.
Investigate Kiddie Porn, Go to Jail. "Some observers view Larry Matthews's story as a cautionary tale for other journalists -- and one that makes it far less likely we'll be reading many stories in the press about law enforcement and child porn." I suspect strongly that this was the intention. I'm a bit surprised that nobody's drawn the logical conclusion, that discouraging journalists from discovering what's really going on with child porn is considered a proper objective of public policy by both Federal prosecutors and courts. Could prosecutors and courts have an interest in protecting certain child pornographers? Kiddie porn is a very good entrapment tool. Put some on someone's hard drive and it doesn't matter if there's no proof that they put it there. I've said for some time that our Federal authorities really don't care about child exploitation for the purpose of making porn (why else would even computer-generated images be illegal?) ... that their only interest in the matter is to provide them with more excuses to invade people's privacy with public approval and that they can hope anybody whose door they break down will have some. Even if it's pornography that their victims had no idea they had before the Feds decided to add some.
Forthcoming paper: Why I'm not a Libertarian.
Haven't had time to write it yet. Try this for some entertaining and painfully accurate comments on Libertarianism and a good look at Harry Browne, perennial Libertarian Presidential candidate. Also enjoy this in the meantime. Note: this is not an endorsement of its content, which in many places, endorses too many of the traditional liberal myths to suit me. However, much of the factual content should piss off Libertarians, reason enough to point to it. It is unfortunate that the page author doesn't seem to be able to distinguish fact from fiction, but that's always the reader's problem. Let's see if you can tell which is which. Here is a comment on Libertarian philosophy as applied to food. It is a classic example of what happens when Libertarian-style freedom to do business in any manner one pleases actually gets tried. This was also tried in the USA. The FDA (Food and Drug Administration) resulted after enough people dropped dead from eating the Libertarian variant of wholesome food. If you would like to try a Libertarian style diet, please do and write to me with the results and permission to post your e-mail to Usenet.
I will say that I endorse the Libertarian position on gun control and victimless crime (drugs, prostitution), and use of cryptography and freedom of speech, i.e. these are areas the government should have no business regulating. I'll go further than the Libertarians do on drug control, I believe that the government should have no power to regulate drugs other than to make certain that the content of drugs are as advertised, that "prescription" drugs should be available over the counter to anybody who wants them. A number of foriegn countries regulate that way (Mexico, for instance) and seem to have survived it nicely.
However, Libertarianism is no substitute for a workable philosophy of government. Since we don't live in a ideal world with ideal people, there are certain areas other than stopping violence and keeping civil order where if the government doesn't enforce the law by pointing guns at people, no organized society where people can live with a reasonable degree of freedom from violence and enough of a social structure to allow people to do business can. Another area is pollution control, Libertarian style freedom to do business means that the chemical plant or farm upstream from you has an unlimited moral right to dump shit into your water and air and the consequences are your problem to solve as a free individual. Even if it kills you. If you don't like it, move. What most Libertarians don't get is that most government regulations are created in response to serious trouble. Is the response often overdone? Yes. Do these regulations get augmented in the interest of providing long-term employment to bureaucrats who have no more understanding of the businesses they regulate or if they make businesses disappear, no more taxes and no more work for them? Certainly. Are some regulations unnecessary and stupid? Yes. However, the fix is reform, not total deregulation.
I didn't work as hard to put this section together as I did the next
Unconventional News section because due to
concentration of ownership in the mass media into a very small group of
people with the same priorities, the stories covered by the mass media
are pretty much the same no matter where you get them. The differences
are mainly in localization and in level of expected education in the
selected audience demographics in each publication.
Note that if one watches the evening news, you'll generally see the same 3 lead stories on any major network channel you watch, the #1 story will generally be the same, the #2 and #3 stories may be in a different order. No, this isn't evidence of a conspiracy, people who have a common mindset generally make the same or similar choices.
The following is extracted from a Usenet post where I discuss this further:
[QUOTED POST]
>Thus, the "media" is generally in favour of "Big
How many media editorials have you seen telling us that the Feds
should back off Microsoft and that Microsoft's right to
"innovate" needs to be protected? How many editorials have you
seen saying the opposite?
Given the concentration of ownership that's occuring in mass
media, the mass media has a personal interest in trying to stop
the enforcement of anti-trust legislation.
>We of the right understand
in general, whatever Rush Limbaugh tells you to think.
[deleted]
I can't make it any simpler than that. Though there is a [often a] tradeoff
between the two on many specific issues.
[snip]
0
>And what is your point?
Since "corporatist" apparently is too big a word for you, "big
money" IS a political viewpoint and ideology of its own,
combining elements of traditional left and right wing ideologies
of the past. The mix is whatever will give the people practicing
it the most money and social control over the herd. The tradeoff
depends on the individual who espouses that ideology.[and the faction that individual belongs to]
[That's why we still have Democratic and Republican Parties. Different factions of the same party. This became fairly explicit a few years ago within the Democratic Party. "Big Labor" used to be the biggest player at the Democratic Party table with organized minority groups somewhat less important. The same type of corporate interests that run the GOP are the contributors that run the Democratic Party now. Big labor now turns out the troops (aka political volunteers), coughs up money, and hopes for the best. The GOP has always been primarily the party of "big business" but they always used at least to try to represent the small business "Main Street" Republican. The dominant GOP interests are now major corporations and the far less important Religious Right. The Religious Right now turns out the troops, coughs up money, and hopes for the best. One reason why the acrimony level between Democratic and Republican elected officials has gotten so high over the last few years is that they are fighting over scraps of the influence and power they used to have. The reason why their common corporate masters tolerate this despite the fact that this plainly reduces governmental efficiency is that it gives the appearance of substantive political debate to anybody who doesn't look too closely. (it's a bit more complex than this, involving more power groups and influence increasing/declining over time... but this is a Web page section, not a book.]
The mass media filters its news in the way that the top
executives see as best advancing the "big money" agenda. The
individual news outlet agendas is sufficiently similar that if
you check the major news media evening news programs, you'll see
the same lead stories with slightly different spins, perhaps in a
slightly different order.
Sometimes money and what will advance social control have to be
explicitly traded off, Internet censorship is a good example for
this, as outside of investors in censorware companies, nobody
really profits from it. In fact, most investors in censorware
companies appear to be losing money. I saw a local censorware
company tank, Mattel is trying to unload The Learning Company
(Cyber Patrol). [8/2000 . . . they succeeded.] However, the Internet competes with the media in
the distribution of news, and the interests advanced by
uncontrolled, uncensored news aren't necessarily the ones that
the filtering / gatekeeping functions of the traditional media
advance.
That's as simply as I can put it. Perhaps someone with more
patience than I've got can put it in short words and simple
sentences.
When you describing a media owner celebrity type (e.g. Ted
Turner) as a "liberal" or "conservative" means that you're part
of the deluded majority. In this context, using an individual
owner to symbolize his publications and calling that person
"liberal" and "conservative" is a market strategy designed to
appeal to the specific market demographics they are targeting.
[END QUOTED POST] [Ted Turner is just as patriotic as any other billionaire. It's just that he's a nation-state consisting of one person. As is Bill Gates or Larry Ellison.]
The most dangerous thing about the "corporatist" ideology is that it specifically excludes the ability to apply considerations based on personal conscience or any considerations other than the very short term from anyone below the very highest decision-making levels. (This is NOT the same thing as maximising long-term return to shareholders.) While this is of variable utility within the context of any specific business, political decisions as implemented via government are supposed to be based on other considerations as well. The corporatist ideology says that what major business interests want RIGHT NOW are the only things worthy of consideration by government, that no other interests deserve serious consideration, and that mention of other interests is a symbolic exercise intended to fool the ignorant.
The problem here is that "what's good for the biggest businesses in the very short term is good for America" is not necessarily and always the case. In fact, what's good for these businesses in the short term isn't even necessarily good for the stockholders of those businesses in the long run, since the short term agenda generally boils down to whatever is most likely to maximize the personal income of high-level executives in salary, performance bonuses, and stock options. The most important point in "Capitalist Fools" by Nicholas van Hoffman (in the Recommended Books section of this page is that corporate enterprises have mutated into engines intended to maximize the return of top corporate executives at the expense of everybody else. This starts with employees, includes the stockholders (your CEO has museum quality artwork in his office. The purchase came out of your dividends. Are you better off?) and finally, the customer who finds that the goodie is still in beta and should have been left there as he frantically navigates through layers of voicemenus to get a real live competent Customer Support person. (who was "downsized" out of the company last week)
"While companies savagely root out low and mid-level workers in order to stay lean and mean, executive salaries have shot through the roof. Ciulla cites research showing that U.S. managerial staffs have grown without interruption despite the loss of employment for millions of workers." from The Working Life: The Promise and Betrayal of Modern Work by Joanne B. Ciulla. Note that this isn't necessarily a bad thing. Some jobs are better automated out of existence because they suck so badly that no human should have to do them, and if automated properly, customer service will drastically improve. (fast food is an example) Downsizing is rarely done on this basis.
That's probably the most important reasons why one doesn't see many corporations doing things in the interest of long-term profits. Day-to-day stock prices directly impact the net worth of high-level corporate executives. Stock market industry analysts also have a myopically short focus, the other factor being the number of day-traders hitting the stock market who have absolutely no interest in a stock's underlying value, just what kind of daily fluctuations they think will enable them to make the most money. Note that most day-traders either lose money or barely break even.
These comments of this page are a work in progress, as my understanding of how political and mass media decisions progresses.
I'm finding that the case of that Cuban refugee boy that was taken to America that Castro wants back has been very useful to me in getting a clear picture of what is going on around us, just how mass media news presentation is shaped and slanted, and how mass media news presentation shapes the perceptions of Americans, despite the fact that mass media news credibility has been dropping as measured in polls for years.
I generally support the resumption of normalization of relations with Cuba. I think that in the long run, it will destabilize the Cuban government (let's face it, a government that has to keep its citizens at home using armed force is NOT working no matter WHAT the US mass media says about it) and that normal relations with the US government means we can both tap into the biotechnological gold mine that the Cubans have been forced to develop given that they couldn't buy medical supplies, etc. from the First World and sell cheap consumer products (toothpastes, etc.) TO the Cuban market.
Here's an explicit example of what happens when the truth and the corporate agenda of Fox News collide.
The lead section of this column about a journalist protecting his sources even to being willing to quit his job shows the old journalism at it's best, and it also shows the worst of the new journalism at Forbes his former employer. Sample quote: "Forbes hasn't decided 'just how far it is willing to go to fight any government subpoena.'" after the management, in effect, ordered the reporter to testify. If you ever are tempted to tell anything confidential to a Forbes reporter, think long and hard about the personal consequences. Then find a journalist with an honest employer if you can. I hope it's possible for Penenburg to stay in journalism. He's the kind of reporter I'd want to talk to if I ever had to blow the whistle on something the public really needs to know.
An interesting comment from Steve Wozniak on why a major newspaper is soft on Microsoft. Skip down to the comments on MS if you're in a hurry.
It appears that Americans are finally figuring out that something unpleasant is going on. Check out Too Much Corporate Power?" from Business Week Sample quote: "Part of the problem is that no one's reining in business anymore. Most of the institutions that historically served as a counterweight to corporate power--Big Government and strong unions--have lost clout since Ronald Reagan came to town crusading for deregulation and local control. The conservative ascendancy that followed discredited much of the New Deal social structure, leaving corporations to fill the vacuum. . ."
Check out Jim Romenesko's MediaNews Letters for interesting discussions between real journalists and actual people. Note: while I am a member of the Internet Press Guild, I don't know which side of this divide I fall into, for me, writing for a living is intended as a temporary thing while I figure out how to raise money for a new technology venture. I write about technology now, but speaking from experience at both writing about tech and doing it, doing tech is a lot more fun.
US Code. No point
in arguing about the contents of a Federal law if you can look it up
online. There are some very good law sites on the Web with links to
state-level legal information. I'll try to get
some up here sometime.
Findlaw appears to be a one-stop
shopping place for any information regarding the law a non-lawyer might want, at
the Federal and state levels. State and Federal codes, legal opinions,
military law, case law (Federal down to circuit court level) and a
specialized Web search engine when all else fails. I expect to be using
this site a lot myself. (While I suspect this site will also be useful
to lawyers and law clerks, I figure Lexis is the place to go for
lawyers who can bill the time charges to their clients.
Ever wonder what gets left out of the news? This section will give
you a start on finding your own answers. Which may not be mine,
but getting this kind of information is a step towards thinking for
yourself. I assure you, that if you don't know at least some
of the information presented in some of the sites below, you can
not consider yourself an informed citizen. Also note that not all
the information on these sites is true. The same is true of every other
information source you've got. Deal.
Read this propaganda analysis site. Think about what you read. Forewarned is forearmed. You live in a sea of propaganda. You are safer if you understand which of your buttons they (your choice of "they") are trying to push, you may be able to go from there to figure out what "their" real intentions towards you are. This can be a very disillusioning experience.
Subliminal.Org Check out their "Subliminal News" and their archives. This is a prime example of a site specifically intended to tell you things the mass media never intended for you to know. In fact, there's even a link to a listing of who owns all the major mass media outlets, something you'll never see on CNN or NBC.
What really happened during the World Trade Organization riots? Interesting question. The mainstream media has presented the corporate side very well. The bad news is that they've presented it as the complete truth, which it isn't. It is also apparent that they are deliberately focusing on a minority of violent and also the most radical political fringe elements in order to get the maximum spin out of what they are choosing to report. To find out what the issues are, i.e. why people are willing to face rubber bullets, pepper spray, and clubs to protest the activities of a "harmless" bunch of suits and to get an opposite slant on what was going on:
Read both sides and figure out for yourself who's telling the most truth. You can reach the World Trade Organization site here. Don't be surprised if what you see has a very strong resemblance to the mass media party line. Also don't take this as necessarily any indication that either the WTO or the mass media are telling you anything with any resemblance to reality as people experience it.
Imagine living in a free country where employees of the head of state regularly get script approval of entertainment programming. SURPRISE: That country is the good old USA. They discovered that while new laws and government regulations would get them in immediate trouble, bribes openly paid to the networks coming out of a taxpayer-supplied slush fund work fine. Feel free to wonder how long it'll take before the White House starts editing the mass media news. Presumably to make sure there are no 'pro-drug' messages in it. How long before they progress to 'subversive' content? Ask yourself, or ask the White House.
It's fashionable to believe that global warming is a myth created by them Commie-sympathizing-socialist environmentalists. The people propagating this meme have yet to explain why the North Pole was found to be underwater for the first time in 50 million years. Some better information can be found here. It points out that while the North Pole being in open water might be a random expectable event, it also shows more evidence about the general thinning of the ice pack that shows that something is going on. Also note that some environmentalists are gloating over this, figuring that when the changes get obvious, that people will be forced to mend their ways. (I've got the newsletter, but don't know if there's a URL for it I can reference here) That newsletter notes correctly that there has been a 35% increase in power consumption during the 1990s. I recently saw an article that ascribes this increase to the increase in the use of personal computers in both home and business.
A sample quote from the newsletter:
The following should give the average enviromentalist indigestion. It's hardly a complete solution to environmental problems, but I see it as the first rough cut towards something that can be turned into a workable program.
There are alternative solutions to reducing the energy consumption largely instrumental in global warming. Increasing polar albedos (reflectivity), mandating a phase-out of all incandescent light bulbs in favor of compact fluorescents or more efficient light sources. (last time I looked, about 1/3 of electrical energy goes into lighting, incandescent light bulbs are about 5% efficient at best, most energy gets turned into heat.) Mandating a phaseout of CRTs in favor of flat panel CRTs based on LCD, LED, and (Note 1) printable polymer LEDs for both computer monitors and televisions, inplementing fairly draconian measures to persuade businesses to implement telecommuting in every possible job that can be done at home using a PC and modem / broadband connection. This might even make driving in urban areas fun again. I've had occasion to sit in the traffic jams on the roads to Silicon Valley more than once. The really aggravating thing about it is knowing that at least 3/4 of the traffic is totally unnecessary, that the cars surrounding me are driven by people with PCs as powerful or more so than the ones they'll be going to use at the office. Encouraging the use of laptops would help a lot, but that brings its own problems. One possibility that might reduce requirements for climate control might be requiring new fixed-installation air conditioners to be implemented as heat pumps with the heat source/sink buried in good old Mother Earth, which would drastically increase efficiency in most cases. Conduction is a more effective heat-transfer mechanism than convection or radiation. I've wondered if absorption cycle systems might reduce this energy requirement still further, but won't comment until I've had a chance to experiment with this myself.
Admittedly some jobs have to be done in person, plumbing and medical diagnosis, for instance. Automating service industries might also result in reducing the need for commuting. The long term solution is space industrialization, getting heavy industry off this planet. Do you see anything in that list that requires a change in lifestyles in any direction but better? A serious effort in the area of space industrialization could suck up all the personpower loose on earth, and require bringing the Third World population into our consumer society just to fill the empty job slots.
Note 1 - I'll have to find a URL later, but there's a new screen-printable plastic polymer LED technology (5/30/2003 - OLED, Organic LED, but this is already being supplanted by quantum-dot variations on the approach) which could be used to create flat panel displays drastically cheaper than anything currently available. The only problem is limited lifespan (a few thousand hours, if I remember correctly) but while efforts are in progress to increase this, simply packaging these printed elements in user-replacable frames that clamp into monitor shells would handle this nicely. Would it be worth $25 every few months to have a 25" high-res flat panel monitor costing under $100 weighing a few pounds on your desk? Or a 45" non-projection TV? This is expected first to wind up in low-cost toys, cell phones, PDAs, etc. When this stuff hits the market, I plan to contact the appropriate technologists and see if they've figured this out for themselves, if not, I'll suggest it. Why? Because I want this stuff to play with.
The media has been telling you that genetically modified foods are as safe as any other kind. This may indeed be true. It's really too bad that "the FDA disregarded warnings of many of its own scientists about the unique risks posed by genetically engineered foods; that it covered up these opinions; and took a public stance that was entirely the opposite in tone and message than the private, internal memos". Interesting sentence. The message I've gotten from the mass media on this is that this kind of concern is held only by superstitious, ignorant, right-wing religious fanatics.
The Buying of the President 2000. Who got the big money and more important, what kind of service the big contributors got from Bush, Gore, and especially John Mc Cain, alleged hero of political campaign funding reform.
Is Australia still a free country? Depends on how you define "free". If a country whose government has the legal authority (the laws were passed a few years ago) to invade people's computers without a warrant is a "free country" yes, it is.
26/11/99 05:41
ASIO report under fire
A university student in Tasmania has stumbled across a pivotal government report on cryptography which was mysteriously withdrawn from public view two years ago.
Review of Policy Relating to Encryption Technologies, written by former deputy director-general of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) Gerard Walsh in 1996, was intended to open the cryptography debate in Australia.
The latest is an analysis of the law from Wired News. "Under the new law, Australia's attorney general can authorize legal hacking into private computer systems, as well as copying or altering data, as long as he has reasonable cause to believe it's relevant to a "security matter."
English-speaking countries have certain common traditions. "A man's home is his castle". An expectation that a person's personal papers and effects are secure against intrusion unless someone has shown "probable cause" to a court of law. What happened to the Aussies? This kind of law has infinite abuse potential. Any politician law enforcement doesn't like who has any private e-mail correspondence, campaign plans, etc. on his computer is likely to find this information in the hands of the opposition. Any businessman with a competitor who knows what obscure low-level ASIO clerk is for sale is in trouble. Are you sleeping with the wife of a law enforcement officer? Be warned, he probably has a friend of a friend at ASIO who's up for a little unofficial snooping inside your computer.
The Australian government has laid the legal groundwork to become the biggest hacking organization on Earth. If you are a hacker with no personal ethics, they probably have a job waiting for you. Note that there will be plenty of opportunities to make a little money on the side as well, nobody is going to be in any position to complain about your exploits even if you leave a trail back to your employer's IP addresses.
All I can say is that if you're an Australian in high-tech industry who is uncomfortable about the above, and this isn't reversed quickly, consider moving to a free country. Any country stupid enough to make this into law has abandoned any responsibility it has to protect its citizens and its citizens no longer have any moral reponsibility to keep Australia going. Get out while you can. This paragraph was written a few months ago. I now recommend that you go now. It appears that your government has decided that your people do not NEED access to the Internet. The best deals cut by high-tech refugees are by the first people out. Be one.
Apparently, what the US National Rifle Association said would happen to a country whose citizens voluntarily give up their guns was completely true, when guns disappear, civil liberties follow. What's going to be next? Do you want to stay around and find out?
Australian Web site ordered to close by government.
Australia defines organizations providing streaming audio and video as broadcasters. You're an Aussie and you want to do your own Internet radio show? In all civilized jurisdictions, all you have to do is set up a streaming media server and announce your URL. In Australia, you have to get a license (yes, this means that the Aussie Feds can censor your content)... and they are promising that licenses will be available by 2006. Sample quote: "'Last week's datacasting law had "defined (the medium's commercial promise) out of existence' and had brought a 'slow and chilling realisation that their investments may become worthless'. he said."
If you live in Australia, you can get PGP at International PGP Site. How much it'll help is problematic, anyone running PGP is likely to become an object of suspicion for your government. The other technological solution is to get firewall software for your computers. (if you have a network, a firewall to keep intruders out is a necessity.) Note that if you have a computer that's on 24/7 to the Internet, you need this in any case, there are lots of crackers who check IPs at random to see if there's anything crackable at the other end. I'm using ZoneAlarm, find a link to it at the firewall software URL above.
The evidence that apparently, freedom of speech and gun control can't exist together in English language countries is piling up. Internet service providers will be required to track all data and route it to the MI5 security agency. The Regulation of Investigatory Powers (RIP) bill requires Internet service providers in was passed despite the warning that major ISPs like PSInet would be forced by this law to move its operations out of the UK. Among other things, a company employee who receives an order to turn over e-mail encryption or encrypted credit card records to whichever anonymous UK government clerk demands them would not be allowed to discuss this with a superior or company legal counsel. If you're a UK IT professional, time to look for a new place to do business, the first high-skills refugees get the best jobs.
The move out of the UK has already started.
Canada seems to be the only exception to this. So far. How long will this stay true? Interesting question, but I'm much more interested in keeping the US a free country, if this is possible. The subjects of the Queen do indeed seem to be getting exactly the local government they deserve.
This is not to say that wiretapping doesn't happen in the US. The Los Angeles County Public Defender's Office is suing the LA County District Attorney over numerous violations of civil rights and public law. Note the difference between the US and Australia. In Australia, this kind of lawsuit wouldn't be possible.
The right to privacy means nothing without the ability to keep one's journals, diaries, business records, communications private absent a court order for a legitimate purpose. The right to freedom of speech means nothing without the ability to communicate one's opinions. These days, that means the Internet. The right to do business means nothing without access to the channels in which business is conducted. These days, that also means the Internet. The ability to communicate privately (e.g. your credit card number) is a requirement for the ability to do business. That means encryption.
How long before Australia decides that the right to travel or emigrate is something else Australians no longer need? I suggest that if you're an Aussie with Internet skills, that you be somewhere else before you find out the answer to this question for yourself.
The above is topical news. The following can be considered a news reference section:
You can find more information at Wired
News article and follow the links. Another use that has been found
for the program is industrial espionage, click the Daily Telegraph (UK) story for more
details. One of them was an admission in a British court by a NSA official that
this is going on. If the link goes missing, let me know, I saved a copy
and can put it on this site. This is another important reason why the Clinton
Administration does not want people using decent quality crypto
to protect their privacy. Here's general stuff on government
surveillance from Wired
News mentioning Echelon, the Russian surveillance system, (dedicated
phone line from ISPs to law enforcement) and other obscenities in the
name of "security".
List of US Army Field Manuals, the list includes links to pages where you can get html and .PDF versions of these manuals. Note that many of the most interesting manuals are available only via secured download, the security certificate machine means they know who you are as well as vice versa.
This link gets you to the NASA Advanced Propulsion Project page. Warp Drive When? The Advanced Propulsion Concepts page gets you to more specific information on practical technologies.
Unamerican Activities ... radical bumper stickers with slogans of the sort you put on OTHER PEOPLE'S CARS even if you agree with them should you happen to value your personal safety. Check it out, some of the messages are entertaining. Also, click on the stickers... interesting JavaScript alert messages pop up.
Do you agree with me that
the phony "War on Drugs" is the most dangerously stupid thing that the
"Establishment" in its collective wisdom has even done, you can find out
more at Drug Policy
Foundation site which has links to their other sites. If you don't
agree with me, spend a few hours on their DRCNet Library site. It'll help
you become an informed citizen. Hint: If you think we need a war on
drugs, your other opinions on public policy should be ignored by
rational adults. Here's another site, Make drug use safe and legal.
My position on drugs is legalize everything for private possession and use, including prescription medication, and the government's sole role in this area should be to make certain that the content matches the label, with draconian penalties for those vendors who sell dishonestly labeled products.
Finally, check "Methamphetamine Anti-Proliferation Act of 1999". The problem with this is that it would "criminalize many discussions of drug policy.
I believe that you can't have a meaningful discussion on, for instance, the sentancing guidelines for possession of crack vs. powder cocaine without an understanding of how crack is made. Thus, my drug policy site has such information."
In my opinion, this is the intent of the legislation, to make any discussion of drugs above the kind of discussion approved by those who consider themselves our political masters illegal. This law, like other drugs, doesn't have a damned thing to do with protecting the public. This is DrugWars in action... a police drug raid of the sort you'll
never see on the COPS TV show (aka informercial)..."Vancouver -- Police have promised to investigate how a carefully staked-out
drug raid turned into a nightmarish, traumatizing assault on a children's
birthday party near here". DrugWars is allegedly about "protecting"
children. Who is going to protect the kids from the police? To be
serious for a moment, informed people know that the "War on Drugs" isn't
about protecting children, it's about expansion of government power at
the expense of your civil liberties.
You've heard a lot of DARE, if you're a student, you may have seen it for yourself, if you're a parent, your kids have probably participated in the program when they might have been learning something. Does it work? "The bottom line is that DARE is an expensive program that seems to be making the situation worse" Or try this Detroit News article.
For more bad news, click here. This should find you 1,150 articles discussing the well-known problems with that program.
The bottom line is that DARE is an expensive scam. There's no significant difference between DARE students and DARE non-students in terms of recreational drug use. Why does it still exist? It's a way for politicians to say, "We ARE doing something about kids and drugs". . . in other words, it's a public relations program that's designed to keep politicians in office, including school board members at our expense.
This is from Wired News-Worldwatch, 7/14/1998:
Personally, I think the Dutch are being polite to a US government
bureaucrat who doesn't deserve it. I think the US drug czar is either a
liar, a fool, or both.
Since I wrote the above, I had occasion to spend a couple of weeks in
Holland. I'd say that the US drug czar is both liar and fool. I didn't see a single sign of drug disaster. Just a lot of people going about their daily business.
Marijuana legal over the counter. A considerably lower drug usage rate
(rate of use of drugs among young people: 15% - NL vs 40% US) than we have. Safe streets.
Here is an article on a festival in Holland celebrating 30 years of success with decriminalized marijuana.
Ever heard of "drug asset forfeiture"? This means local / state /
Federal governments can show up at your place or bank with a warrant and
seize all your money or other assets you can find. No due process. No court. Just uniformed thugs with guns to take your property away from you. If you're innocent, feel free to sue the government to get it back and maybe you'll get it back in a few years after you've spent a few tens of thousands of dollars. It's often used as a way to supplement police budgets, so don't look to the police to complain about it. You think this only
happens to "bad" people? If you even bother to keep up with your local
newspaper, you should already know better. For more information, click
F.E.A.R. "FEAR's website has just
won the Enter Stage Right "Conservative Website of the Day" award. . ."
given that this is the sort of problem only left-wing 'pot-smoking
crazies' are supposed to worry about, I think this award says something.
Ever wondered how people manage the legendary 80-100+ hour workweeks of the new dot.com economy without stimulants?
Note that Hubert Humphrey was one of the inventors of modern American liberalism. Also note that back in those days, a nice gun was something a head of state could give as a gift, e.g. the excellent high-powered rifle JFK gave to the President of Mexico.
Both oligarch and tyrant mistrust the people, and therefore deprive them of their arms."
Here's another analysis of the meaning of 2nd Amendment. Nearly all of it is either quotes from law journals or case law. A sample quote, "It is difficult to interpret Miller as rendering the Second
Amendment meaningless as a control on Congress. Ironically, one can read Miller
as supporting some of the most extreme anti-gun control arguments; for example, that the individual citizen has a right to keep and bear bazookas, rocket launchers, and other armaments that are clearly used for modern warfare, including, of course, assault weapons. Under Miller, arguments about the constitutional legitimacy of a prohibition by Congress of private ownership of handguns or, what is much more likely, assault rifles, thus might turn on the usefulness of such guns in military settings. Sanford Levinson, The Embarrassing Second Amendment, 99 YALE L.J. 637, 654-55 (1989)." [Miller is the last 2nd Amendment case to go to the Supreme Court.]"However, the only modern Second Amendment case from the Supreme Court is United States v. Miller, 307 U.S. 174 (1939). Jack Miller was charged with moving a sawed-off shotgun in interstate commerce in violation of the National Firearms Act of 1934. Among other things, Miller had not registered the firearm, as required by the Act. The court below dismissed the charge, accepting Millers argument that the Act violated the Second Amendment." [The site contains the original hypertext citation links I left out of this page.]
I'm only going to concentrate on this part of your post as the rest goes into what are very well factual things but have absolutely no bearing on the intention of the 2nd ammendment.
"A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."
You are correct on the beginning, but the ending is what really gives it a punch. This is a -SINGLE- sentence. The beginning nearly states why the following occurs. The 2nd half of the sentence states what actually is being guaranteed.
" the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.". This is the -ONLY- "action" of the sentence.
Granted, I didn't write it, and it's meaning is still up for debate apparently but there are a few people out there that agree with my interpretation of it
Thomas Jefferson
George Washington
Thomas Jefferson
John Adams
James Madison
Thomas Paine
Thomas Jefferson
Richard Henry Lee
Samuel Adams
Alexander Hamilton
Here's an article on the Swiss approach to guns. "Although Switzerland has local shooting contests for boys and girls ages 12 to 16, there have been no school massacres in the
country."
A quote from the second page: "After the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1878, most States turned to 'facially neutral' business or transaction taxes on handgun purchases. However, the intention of these laws was not neutral. An article in Virginia's official university law review called for a 'prohibitive tax...on the privilege' of selling handguns as a way of disarming 'the son of Ham,' whose 'cowardly practice of 'toting' guns has been one of the most fruitful sources of crime.... Let a negro board a railroad train with a quart of mean whiskey and a pistol in his grip and the chances are that there will be a murder, or at least a row, before he alights.'" Of course, it may be that your favorite black politician agrees with the philosophy embodied in the previous quote.
Finally, some inspiring quotes about the right to bear arms from the good old days:
"Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect every one who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are inevitably ruined."
Such are a well regulated militia, composed of the freeholders, citizen and husbandman, who take up arms to preserve their property, as individuals, and their rights as freemen.
That the said Constitution shall never be construed to authorize Congress to infringe the just liberty of the press or the rights of conscience; or to prevent the people of the United states who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms...
[The disarming of citizens] has a double effect, it palsies the hand and brutalizes the mind: a habitual disuse of physical forces totally destroys the moral [force]; and men lose at once the power of protecting themselves, and of discerning the cause of their
oppression.
A man who has nothing which he is willing to fight for, nothing which he cares about more than he does about his personal safety, is a miserable creature who has no chance of being free, unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.
"Every Communist must grasp the truth, 'Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun."
For more of my comments about guns, click here. There's some duplication between these sections, which I'll probably do something about one of these days.
Finally, if you need help in choosing a self-defense firearm, click here
Alchemy. If you
don't know why this link is here, try it yourself, or read the
references to alchemy in the (print book) Morning of the
Magicians.
Terrence Mc Kenna
personal home page. One of the more influential new age thinkers.
The Deoxyribonucleic
Hyperdimension. I'll simply quote Wired Magazine's review of the
place: "A conceptual offering of philosophic technoshamanism, the site
known as The Deoxyribonucleic Hyperdimension is the last word on
evolutionary ideas and knowledge."
Paradigm Shift. This is
more a futurist e-zine than anything else. Articles on the occult,
interesting fringe tech, and the issue I saw had an interview with
Robert Anton Wilson.
Here's another futurist e-zine, 21st from VXM Amazing and difficult to categorize. It's columns cover commentary on new technology, technological impact, the connection between human consciousness and new tech, leading edge computer / cyberstuff, and finally, ultra-high end audio product reviews. Weird combination, but they make it work.
Here's a site where you'll find more traditional bleeding-edge thinkers. Edge. People like Freeman Dyson are Bruce Sterling examples of the kind of writing and thinking you'll find there. If you want to see some genuinely new ideas, you'll find some there.
This personal site is difficult to categorize. I found it via a posting
on the political persecution of Jim Goad (Answer Me), if you know what
I'm talking about, you know why I suggest that At My Desk is worth
a click. Some of it works for me, some of it doesn't. I think parts of
this site will be of interest to you, too. Check out the link
section.
Here's a copy of the famous paper, A Skeptical
Inquiry into the Skeptical Inquirer. It's a hard look at the source
of "establishment" viewpoints on parapsychology. Hint: Honest
scientific inquiry has nothing to do with this, it's publicity and media
manipulation and a small but profitable "debunking" industry.
This is a how-to guide to "Satanic Ritual Abuse". FICTION for those with a truly sick sense of humor and a really strong stomach. However, it does accurately reflect the strange tales composing the Satanic Ritual Abuse urban legend.
For the truth about the Satanic Ritual Abuse myth,
US: The Lanning Report on an FBI investigation into it. Cited by Fox Mulder in his investigation into occult activity in a small town. Unlike Mr. Mulder, the report is for real.
UK: Nottinghamshire County Council Revised Joint Enquiry Report
T-shirts guaranteed to offend anybody stupid enough to believe in Satanic Ritual Abuse, check out Burning Church Enterprises T-shirts.
This is a page for Republicans.
Finally, here are some books anyone who wants the context necessary
to understand what the hell is really going on ought to read:
Some of these books may be out of print at this time. More books will
appear here as I remember their names.
While I do plan to link any book listings you see here individually to Amazon Books
to allow you to see book reviews and related information and to allow
you to order the books conveniently, you can use the search form below
in the meantime:
This form will, of course, find anything that's at Amazon Books, not
just my recommended reading list. Note that they are adding music and
video to their products. For authors, the format is last name,first name.
For books, simply type in the title.
I used to work at a censorware company as a site reviewer. (no names, this admission is embarrasing enough... the company is deservedly dead anyway.) Speaking from experience, guidelines we used for the sites we were instructed to rate in such a way as to keep kids and younger teens out were oriented towards saving parents the trouble of answering embarrassing questions from kids. Protecting kids? It didn't have a whole lot to do with my job.
I don't recommend things like CyberPatrol, NetNanny, etc. because this class of product is no substitute for parental monitoring of what their kids are doing and open communication with kids. Of course, if you like having to give specific permission for your kids to get into your local newspaper's online site or to access any site dealing with controversial issues for school assignments, please feel free to ignore my advice.
The best kept secret of the censorware software is the list of sites blocked. Why? From the various experiments with checking sites of known content and in some cases, from decrypting the "block" lists, it appears that the secrets are being kept in order to keep parents from finding out what sites are being blocked. Newspaper sites? Political sites which the software company management disagrees with (whether parents agree or not)? Sites on censorship? Websites which no longer exist? (the majority of sites, from all accounts, apparently, there's a minimum of new content and nobody bothers to clean out the lists)
However, the level of competence shown by the programmers appears to be similar to the low level of competence shown in the selection of sites, the "secret" site lists frequently get cracked by children and posted.
The latest example of this is Mattel, their CyberPatrol4 censorware package "block" list was decrypted. I read the account of how it was done. The effort was fairly trivial, but the account of how it was done was a pretty good analytical piece on reverse engineering. Instead of improving their encryption, they're using attorneys to try to silence the kids who took the code apart. They're also subpoenaing the logs of the Internet Service Provider to attempt to find everyone who viewed the site. In other words, Mattel thinks it can tell us as adults what sites we can view and which we can't. DON'T BUY MATTEL.
None of the blocked sites contain depictions of nudity or even models in swimwear.
The original site is down due to this. Here are mirrors of the site:
This is as of 3/16/2000, there will probably be quite a few more by the time you read this.
For more discussion about the Mattel lawsuit, go to:
Another note on Mattel's The Learning Company censorware product. The same people do the censorware filter for AOL. Check this article out. Quote:
Children can call up the conservative Constitution Party and Libertarian Party, both of which are promoting their own U.S. presidential candidates. But if they attempt to view Ralph Nader's Green Party or Ross Perot's Reform Party, they see only a "not appropriate for children" error.
AOL's "Young Teens" filter, designed for older children, allows a few more Web sites to be viewed. The apparent political bias, however, remains the same.
Sites promoting gun use are available, including Colt, Browning and the National Rifle Association. But prominent gun safety organizations are blocked, including the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, Safer Guns Now and the Million Mom March.
While I oppose gun control and consider Colt and Browning websites wonderful places for kids to check out, the only polite word to use for this is ridiculous. One of the main reasons why parents buy kids Net access is so they can do school reports. What happens when a school assignment sends kids to a "banned" site? Furthermore, I think the banned anti-gun control sites are also reasonable places for kids to look at. Why should kids take my word that the people who oppose gun control are liars and fools given that their own words are far more convincing for this purpose than mine can possibly be?
All I can say about this is that it's perfectly reasonable for Mattel to want to keep their "allowed" and "banned" lists out of public view and to use the law they and their friends bribed Congress to get the Digital Millenium Copyright Act to block this. A reasonable person seeing this might be forced to conclude that the Mattel product is garbage and that the people allowing it to go out the door in its current form are also themselves human garbage. They and their legal representation can best serve humanity as fertilizer. Here is more discussion of the Mattel/AOL kiddie filtering.
For general information on censorware products, go to Peacefire.
For information on sex, particularly including sexual transmitted diseases and how not to get them, click here
(there's a copy of this on my home page, if you've seen it, skip ahead) You've been seeing things about the horrors of teenage sexuality in the US mass media all your life. Note that US kids seem to be making better sexual choices than their parent's generation did at the same age, as witnessed by the declining teen pregnancy rate. What would you say if I told you there's a society a great deal like the US, that watches our mass media, in which it is perfectly legal for teens to have sex with each other and with adults that hasn't slid into the ocean over this. The name of the place is Canada. The age of consent in Canada is 14. The exceptions involve anal / homosexual sex, the adult can't be in a position of trust with respect to the minor, and there's no payment involved. This seems reasonable enough to me, with the possible exception of anal/homosexual sex. The Netherlands start teaching human sexuality in elementary school. Their level of teenage pregnancy is considerably lower than ours. It appears that freedom actually works. When are we going to have the common sense to try it in the good old USA? BTW, for a guide to teen sex law covering the world, go to ageofconsent.com. Check this before you have to know, and don't depend on anything I've said here, this kind of information is not the main purpose of this site and that site is kept up to date. This link is presented as a public service for both young people and adults, given that of all tribal customs, offending cultural taboos about sex will get you into trouble fastest, and a kid generally has less legal protection from "justice" than an adult.
Here's another interesting article relating to young person's sexuality, Attack of the Devil Dolls. Sample quote: "In the wake of Littleton, a new panic is being sown in the fertile soil of fears about the young. Just as "juvenile delinquents" were a national obsession in the '50s, the specter of killer kids is now haunting America. And just as perverts were once thought to stalk the nation's schoolyards preying on the young, the culture is now imagined as a stalker of our children's souls. Meet Austin Powers, the new enemy within." . . . "Such is life in the land of promiscuous puritans, where wild shifts between freedom and repression are the norm. Children will always be caught on the horns of that dilemma -- and they will always find ways to escape."
This is hardly an endorsement of teen sex. It's a bad idea for a lot of kids. However, while I support the idea of government funding for sex education and birth control / safe sex practices and a medical safety net INCLUDING abortion services, I do NOT approve of spending a single taxpayer dollar for "protecting" any but the youngest kids from "porn" or keeping kids out of bed with each other. If parents want to persuade their kids to "wait until marriage" or whatever, fine. I'm just not interested in spending money to "help". The idea that taxpayer funds should be expended to preserve the "innocence" i.e. ignorance of young people is ridiculous at best. Teen sex is a fact of life now, just as it is when we were kids, when our parents were kids, and when our remotest ancestors were kids. If this makes you unhappy, click here, perhaps taking the advice will make you feel better.
For accurate answers to your 'personal' questions about sex, try here.
And new literary
sex-oriented magazine, Nerve top
flight literary intellectuals (Mailer, etc.) and unusual content. Heard
about Nerve on Wired News, I'll check it out later. If you're looking
for adult links, try Persian
Kitty. The bad news is that if you're a kid, your chances of
getting past the home page of most adult sites is not good, almost all require either a credit card or an "adult ID" to for full access. For everything you could possibly want to know about herpes, visit
this site
or call the National Herpes Hotline at (919) 361-8488.
This site may be even funnier. Check out The Misanthropic Bitch.
Remember the song by Alice Cooper, "I Love The Dead"? Alice Cooper was kidding. These people are serious.
Since I'm not really a cosmetics consumer, I ordinarily wouldn't
bother with a cosmetics site. Check out Urban Decay anyway. It's an
example of good design, some of what's there is funny, and they have
some very interesting links. Note... this isn't a blanket recommendation
of their links... particulary PETA and other "animal rights" sites,
which should be visited for entertainment purposes only.
Looking for a Giger art site? Try the H.R.Giger official site.
An Urban Legends site with a searchable database. Try The San Fernando Valley Folklore
Society's Urban Legends Reference Pages.
Weather: Here is
an article which gives you links to several on-line weather (as in rain)
reports.
Here is the Merriam-Webster Dictionary
online.
Most of what is here are links to searchable medical professional
oriented databases. If you want the unvarnished truth about the side
effects of a prescription drug, treatments for medical problems, etc.
for instance, go to one of the links and look it up. There are also some
alternative medicine oriented sites.
For preventive measures (if you don't have the problem, check into this while it can still be prevented, if you spend long hours on a keyboard, you're automatically a candidate):
From K-1ine #39
You may not feel the pain/strain as your mind is inundated by other,
more important datum. Here is a url with simple pictures and descriptions
of some integral stretches to prevent RSI and prolong comfort;
http://web.mit.edu/atic/www/rsi/RSIMIT/exercise.html.
People who do not have carpal tunnel can get an incredible amount of
help out of work with a physical therapist with experience dealing with RSI/CTS supervised by a doctor. Get a medical diagnosis first, preferably involving an electromyogram which can determine definitively whether or not the median nerve is really compressed or not.
And if you're in real trouble and the doctor is recommending carpal tunnel release surgery, be warned, I've met more than one person who's tried carpal tunnel release... and is not happy with the results, anyone contemplating that procedure should probably check into the balloon release described below first.
"Sunday February 25, 1996 Balloon catheter relieves pressure on median nerve in carpal tunnel"
"A new procedure to alleviate carpal tunnel syndrome uses a balloon
catheter to stretch and expand the ligament and relieve pressure on the
median nerve in the carpal tunnel of the wrist. This avoids cutting the
ligament when conventional therapy is not effective."
"According to a study of 120 patients treated with the new procedure during the past four years, 85 percent had marked clinical improvement in relief of wrist pain and numbness, and 95 percent reported
overall satisfaction with the outcome."
American
Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons web site carpal balloon release info.
If you're doing dot.com for a living, check out To remind you not to take "dot.com" "reality" too seriously,
Here's a review of Sizing up a Startup. I don't think the pitfalls with respect to a startup are as well known as the reviewer thinks.
If you need a real salary number, look at Salary Center - Monster and click in the job / city.
Looking for a way to find out or to prove how much you really know? Check out the Brainbench certification tests. They don't just cover technology, health care, English and foriegn languages, etc. are also covered. You get a very nice certification seal for your resume or Web site and a review of the strengths and weaknesses disclosed by the test in your public transcript on the site. Tests free to potential employees. Useful either to employee / job hunter or to potential employer.
You should also check out NetSlaves for large chunks of the unvarnished truth about dot.com employment, especially for those not "important" enough for stock options. I suspect that NetSlaves may be even more important reading for dot.com employers; especially if your working conditions suck, you may be more likely to find out what your employees really think of you there than at the office. Better find out now than after finding out the hard way that you actually needed some of those grunts you persuaded to take a hike the day your investors show up for a demo and nothing's running. Or finding out your company is in real trouble at the same time your investors do in Red Herring or The Standard because your people at the bottom will talk to their reporters before they will talk to you.
Here's another useful feature from them. This article series will tell you how to get the same kind of information on a company professional investors use, but the explanations are presented in a non financial-weenie context. The 10Q examples he presents are from real, "name" Internet companies like Yahoo and Salon. He's the first journalist I've seen who's saying the same things in public that a lot of us have been saying privately to each other.
By the way, while getting a net-startup off the ground probably is not possible without the occasional 18 hour day or even 70 hour work weeks, if your staff is doing this all the time, it doesn't mean a dedicated staff, it means that one or more of the suits have been doing some very bad planning. If you're the suit that's responsible, start thinking about realistic deadlines and about hiring a few more people. (Yes, I've been there, done that at several high tech startups, the last of which was an Internet startup, working as a technical grunt, mostly. I'm in the process of hunting for money for my own new tech Internet startup and hoping when I find it, I'll manage to avoid most of the mistakes described above.
Aristotle, Dilbert, and The Working Life. The comments are as interesting as the article on this Slashdot thread. (Note regarding Dilbert: the author of the comic strip was a former technical professional at PacBell Corp. until the suits finally got around to reading the comic strip. For some reason, they fired him. Of course, he's a lot better paid now.)
The other problem is that basically, one broadband link is provided to any given neighborhood and shared between all the users. If you are the only customer for cablemodem in a neighborhood, you're in good shape. If everybody is using it, you've got a problem. Of course, some phone companies have figured out how to do the same thing with DSL... the discussion is on slashdot, I don't have time to run it down right now. Try DSL, Ethernet, PPP and cablemodem as keywords.
There are several customer rating sites for DSL, I'll dig them out when I have time.
Here are some user reports from a slashdot discussion.
How to find non-telco DSL in your area.
And, if you get DSL, get a GET A FIREWALL. Unless you want your computer owned and operated by the script kiddie down the block.
Some (possibly most) of the best feature articles on the Web can be found at Salon. I suddenly noticed how many links on this site go to Salon articles, a large number of the best articles I find pointers to all over the Web and Usenet are Salon. Realized this when I heard that Salon is in financial trouble. Let's hope it survives. Good articles, and probably a good place to advertise if one is looking for an intelligent / literate demographic. There must be some advertiser SOMEWHERE fitting this description.
You can find an unpublished article of mine on space industrialization here.
Thinking of getting a "free" PC or some other new gadget that only requires you sign a X year service contract with an ISP? Click here for an explanation of why not.
Need a clock setting utility? Find one here. Unlike Atomtime, this one is freeware. Set it up, move it to your System Tray, it automatically finds one of the atomic clock servers and syncs your PC. (Windoze only, Mac version allegedly in progress, if you want a Linux version, bug the vendor. Or if you know of one, let me know and I'll add it to this section.)
And to end this with an appropriate touch of insanity, check out Reptoids. Isn't the idea of vaguely
humanoid intelligent reptiles here among us the silliest thing you've
ever heard? Why don't you polish up your scales, er, I mean have a beer and think about it?
I hope you enjoyed my site, or at least found it useful...
A.Lizard
p.s. Anyone who needs public information about SF Bay Area should go
to Bay Area Transit Information
Project. The information is current, including information on the
current status of BART and other public transit shutdowns. It's
often more current than local news media websites are.
p.s.2: To see the ultimate geekgirl, check Eve Astrid Andersson's home page. Beautiful, extremely intelligent, computer science professor at a Latin American university, and ex-dot.com-suit. The site comes complete with one or more of the usual geek obsessions. Enjoy.
You're invited to sign my guestbook.[this will be fixed if I ever had time, the provider of several services used here tanked and I haven't found a replacement that's remotely close in terms of functionality.]
You can view my guestbook [lost toolzone before I could get the old guestbook listings off the site].
http://www.politechbot.com/cgi-bin/politech.cgi?name=cbdtpa
POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list
You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice.
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end quoted text
campaign contributions - industry totals
4 TV/Movies/Music..................$214,638
8 Computer Equipment & Services ...$103,016
URGENT WARNING FOR PGP USERS
If you are using a version of PGP past 2.6.2, you need to upgrade RIGHT NOW, a serious bug has been found. The CERT Advisory is here. In short, a stealth key can be implanted in a portion of the older PGP public key that could result in your messages being encrypted to both the user you intended and one you didn't. The new bug-fixed version is version 6.5.8 . You can get the freeware at PGPI.com. If you have the commercial product, go to Network Associates for upgrade information.
WARNING FOR NEW FIBER OPTICS USERS!!!
URGENT WARNING TO WINDOWS USERS!!!
"I asked my OEM about what's going to happen if for some reason the pre-installed system files are removed or deleted," wrote one reader. "How is having a 'recovery CD' going to help me when I'm asked to insert my Windows 2000 CD to copy those files? After conferring with Microsoft again, my OEM could only tell me that my concerns were very real ones, but Microsoft just says they know we're not going to like this but this is how it's going to be."
If your business or your education depend on your computer, DON'T BUY Windows 2000 or Office 2000, do NOT upgrade past W98-2E or Office97.
If you have to stay in Windows, get it with Windows 98 Second Edition, if that vendor can't or won't deliver it that way, find another vendor. Or get it without an operating system (they should charge less for that) and buy / install the operating system yourself. Also note that if you have any DOS programs you rely on, they will NOT run in W2K despite reports that W2K-ME is still DOS-based and their followon product is as well. Personally, I'd miss my DOS LOOKFOR program, it's the only freeware utility I've seen that will do Boolean operator multiple keyword searches supporting AND, OR, and NEAR. I'm also moderately fond of the Q-Edit text editor.
You have been warned.
Firewalls and Beyond
If you're viewing this through your personal or home office computer, you do. If you don't want hackers to have free access to your machine when you're online, you want a firewall, i.e. a software package which will check information packets going to and from the Internet to see if they match the set of rules you put in, if they don't, they disappear into the void. If you feel as I do that your computer should only communicate with the outside world when you want it to and that it should only say to the outside world what you want it to say, having a firewall is a good idea.
For a dialup user or a user connecting via cablemodem who is not running a home or business Webserver, probably. (written 5/18/2001) For a Webserver, probably not. You'll find information on the first intrusion detection system (IDS) I've seen in open source (as in free download) at the end of this section. In the case of a Webserver, you also need to subscribe to the mailing lists that pertain to your OS / server / application software no matter what your choices are and get serious about making sure the patches get installed.
New Virus Warnings / virus info
Date: Sun, 25 Apr 1999 13:13:34 +0100
From: T Bruce Tober <octobersdad@reporters.net>
Subject: You'd think they'd know better...
...or maybe not. I mean, it is Microcrap we're talking about here, viz this
article from Woody's (Woody's Office Watch), and if there's anyone more
pro-Microsoft it's only Bill G himself,:
(Read the complete story http://www.wopr.com/ )
TRUST NO ONE [...]
Microsoft has in the past released virus infected documents on their web
site and by other means. WOW has had to publish warnings several times.
Sadly it's happened again. Anyone visiting
http://www.microsoft.com/uk/business_technology/dns/ecommerce/financial/case.htm
to find out more about MS Exchange and E-commerce got more than they
bargained for when they downloaded any of the case study documents. All
were infected with W97M/Marker.C virus! Apparently no-one at Microsoft
checked the documents before making them publicly available [...]
Bruce Tober, <octobersdad@reporters.net>,
Introduction
- Robert A. Heinlein
Companies are hiding a lot of things: their mistakes, security vulnerabilities, privacy violations and trade secrets. . . People engaged in reverse engineering are a check on the ability of companies to invade our privacy without our knowledge. By going public with the information they uncover they are able to force companies to change what they are doing lest they face a consumer backlash."
> If you are not the named recipient, any review, dissemination,
> distribution or copying of this communication is prohibited.
> If you received this transmission in error, please contact me
> immediately for instructions."
in e-mail signature files, or worse, have one, read this.
Cheap tape backup.
pgp -kg 2048
or something like that.
URGENT WARNING FOR PGP USERS
If you are using a version of PGP past 2.6.2, you need to upgrade RIGHT NOW, a serious bug has been found. The CERT Advisory is here. In short, a stealth key can be implanted in a portion of the older PGP public key that could result in your messages being encrypted to both the user you intended and one you didn't. The new bug-fixed version is version 6.5.8 . You can get the freeware at PGPI.com. If you have the commercial product, go to Network Associates for upgrade information.
It appears he decided as he did because he did understand MS anti-competitive tactics with a clarity matched by almost nobody in either the mass media or worse, in the computer press. Note that he was appointed by Reagan because he was and is known as a conservative and pro-businsee judge. Why didn't this case get fast-tracked to the Supreme Court as Judge Jackson requested? Apparently, Justice Rehnquist's son is a legal counsel for Microsoft. If he gets away with it, we've got a new way to bribe anybody on the Supreme Court. Just hire one of their kids and pay them far more than the market rate. I may have to apologize for my previous remarks about MS lack of innovation. This is pretty original. I would have made an under the counter deal to hire justices after their retirement as trustees of one of the Gates or MS foundations, i.e. a highly paid position at which nobody expects the employee to show up. Of course, so is building a spam generator into e-mail software that runs without the owner's informed consent.
_
Random Choices
The portions that have the > on the left are those I am replying to.
The portions that have the >>> on the left are quoted from an earlier post of mine.
[bracketed] commnents are ones I am making subsequent to the post I cannibalized for this page.
>Government" as compared to free enterprise.
>>This includes suppressing
>> interesting news, though the Internet now limit Do you REALLY
>>think Disney Corporation is run by a bunch of bleeding-heart
>> "liberal" socialists? Or Time/Warner/AOL? Or General Electric?
>
>I don't understand wher Disney is now coming from.
[Disney is trying to maximise their:]
1. Money
2. Political Power over the herd.
>> while it's a very definite political agenda, it isn't one the
>> press is going to help you understand.
>
"If and when we get serious about global warming, nearly all Americans will have to change
their lifestyles. We'll have to build decent intercity train lines and ride those trains. We'll have to use public transportation in our cities, and cities will be required to provide that transportation."
Parliament passes ASIO bill
The Australian Parliament has passed laws that allow the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) to tap into and alter data on private computer systems.
Privacy advocates have criticised a parliamentary report that endorses legislation allowing the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) to tap into private computers.
December 12, 2000
Peacefire's new report:
Amnesty Intercepted:
Global human rights groups blocked by Web censoring software, lists 30 human rights advocacy Web sites, including Amnesty International and its affiliates, currently blocked by Cyber Patrol, Bess, CYBERsitter, and SurfWatch.
"Drug Dispute - The Dutch want it known that the US drug czar's brain is loaded
with misinformation. Barry McCaffrey preceded his European fact-finding
trip with an attack on the Netherlands' soft-drug policy, saying it
causes a murder rate nearly double the United States'. Not so, say the
Dutch, who note that his claim of 17.58 murders per 100,000 is
overinflated with attempted murder figures, and that the actual rate is
1.8, compared with 8.22 in the United States. McCaffrey will visit the
Netherlands on Thursday to see first-hand the "disaster" he paints."(end
quote)
Gun Control
--Humphrey, Hubert, Know Your Lawmakers, Guns, February 1960, p.4.
Aristotle, Politics Ch 10 para 4. Many more quotes relevant to firearms in a free society from a law firm largely specializing in 2nd Amendment civil rights cases.
LONDON... AP... (CBS)
"Despite its reputation as a genteel and pleasant land, a new government report depicts Britain as one of the most violent urban societies in the Western world, a place where a person's chances of being assaulted, burgled or robbed are substantially
greater than in the United States." The gun control fanatic will be pleased to know that many UK subjects have managed to commit assaults and other violent crimes without using guns to commit them.
by pi_rules (123171) <jbuist@j[ ]inbuist.org ['ust' in gap]> on Friday July 18, @1144PM (#6476437) [quoted with permission]
The problem with most 2nd Amendment folks is that they forget that it starts "A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state..." and think that the Amendment implies that gov't cannot regulate anything about gun ownership.
"Every citizen should be a soldier. This was the case with the Greeks and Romans, and must be that of every free state."
"A free people ought to be armed." Speech Jan 7, 1790.
"And what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance. Let them take arms... The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure." Letter to William S. Smith, January 30, 1787, in Jefferson, On Democracy , pg. 20 (S. Padover ed., 1939)
"Arms in the hands of individual citizens may be used at individual discretion...in private self defense." A Defense of the U.S. Constitutions of Government of the United States of America (1787-88)
The Constitution preserves "the advantage of being armed which Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation...(where) the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms." The Federalist #46.
"...arms discourage and keep the invader and plunderer in awe, and preserve order in the world as well as property...Horrid mischief would ensue were the law-abiding deprived of the use of them," Thoughts on Defensive War, (1775)
"Laws that forbid the carrying of arms...disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes...Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man." Quoting 18th Century criminologist Cesare Beccaria in On Crimes and Punishment (1764)
' A militia when properly formed is in fact the people themselves...and include all men capable of bearing arms...To preserve liberty it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms..." Additional Letters From the Federal Farmer 53 (1788)
"The Constitution shall never be construed to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms." During Massachusetts U.S. Constitution Ratification Convention (1788)
"Little more can reasonably be aimed at, with respect to the people at large, than to have them properly armed and equipped; and in order to see that this be not neglected, it will be necessary to assemble them once or twice in the course of a year." Federalist Papers, Article 29 January 10, 1788
-- Patrick Henry, speech of June 5 1788
-- "M.T. Cicero" in a newspaper letter of 1788 touching the "militia" referred to in the Second Amendment to the Constitution.
-- Samuel Adams, in "Phila. Independent Gazetteer" August 20, 1789
-- Joel Barlow, "Advice to the Privileged Orders" 1792-93
-- John Stuart Mill, writing on the U.S. Civil War in 1862
-- Mao Tse-tung, 1938, inadvertently endorsing the Second Amendment.
Sound advice regardless of your political viewpoint.
An attempt was made to suppress this report when politicians discovered that the report debunked a myth they wanted to profit from: Wired News Report.
CENSORWARE
Slashdot.org thread and general background.
Your children can easily view the site of the Republican National Committee, but the Democratic National Committee is blocked.
END QUOTE
One important lesson I've learned about search engines. If you find a really, really useful search interface, grab a copy to your hard drive and see if it'll run from there. In most cases, it will. Bookmark and use it. The other advantage is that one can strip out the extraneous (e.g. ads) content if one knows html. There are two reasons for doing this. One is that sooner or later, some well-meaning idiot will decide to "simplify" the interface for the "benefit" of new users and make the old page unavailable. Dejanews is a classic example of this. The transition from Dejanews to "My Deja" turned a useful resource to shit. The other reason is that in the case of sites which are frequently used, storing the search engine content on your own hard drive means at least one and probably several fewer html accesses. While one generally winds up on the regular site page after the first search, if one only uses the site once, it's quite a bit faster, one can download the search interface in milliseconds and spend the time one usually spends waiting for the page to come up waiting for the first batch of search results instead.
Wonder why your customer service experiences seem to have been getting worse and worse over the years? Read this article from Business Week for an explanation. "It threatens to become an intensely personal form of ''redlining''--the controversial practice of identifying and avoiding unprofitable neighborhoods or types of people. Unlike traditional loyalty programs, the new tiers are not only highly individualized but they are often invisible. You don't know when you're being directed to a different telephone queue or sales promotion. You don't hear about the benefits you're missing. You don't realize your power to negotiate with everyone from gate agents to bank employees is predetermined by the code that pops up next to your name on a computer screen.". . . " The problem, of course, is that what someone spends today is not always a good predictor of what they'll spend tomorrow. Life situations and spending habits can change. In some cases, low activity may be a direct result of the consumer's dissatisfaction with current offerings." The people that are being personally targeted for bad service aren't going to be exactly eager to spend more money with those companies when they can afford or have to start doing more business.
. Suck and The Onion feel dated by comparison.
DSL: I'm planning to upgrade to DSL for broadband myself, so I've been looking into it. As for reasons not to go with cablemodem, A good reason not to go with @Home. I was considering going with @Work for a future project I'll be working on that'll require T-3 or wider Net links right up until I read that article. A company whose customer service information is too embarassing to be made public is not a company I or you should do business with.
If you're in need of expert professional Web search service, click
here.(link to my commercial site)