That’s the consensus opinion of today’s Newsday letters section. It’s full of cogent discourse like:

<q>If we fail to respond, make no mistake it will be perceived as empathy. The next time − and there will be a next time − will 20,000 American lives be lost? … I would like to ask the family and friends of those murdered by the hijackings if they want to “turn the other cheek.” … I’d feel terrible if I did less for my children than the previous generations have done for us.</q>
Does our... [More]

They’re the ones who made the planes which were turned into weapons of mass destruction. Sure, that sounds stupid. It’s because it is. That’s the same argument that has lulled most of the government and 94% (or whatever the current poll shows) of the people of America. This article on CNET discusses the holes in the argument against cryptography. There’s so many, it’s hard to know where to begin. I think most of the people for the anti-crypto measures know their argument doesn’t hold water, but... [More]

Work proceeds in the forums. Many new posts added. Existing posts separated into Current Events, Humor and Technology.

Believe it or not, ZDNet (albeit the British version) has weighed in with a scathing critique of Microsoft(There’s a great little analogy comparing Microsoft to a blue whale and its users to krill.), its licensing policies and its treatment of customers.

<q>…XP Home Edition says that your computing experience will be made less pleasant because the operating system will turn itself off if you change your computer too much, at which point you’ll have to go begging to Microsoft to be allowed to... [More]

There’s a good article on Wired about the largest telecom company in Japan. It covers a lot of how the Japanese are using cell phones and the approach a successful (as so many in Europe and the States are not) telecom company should take.

In a recent New York Newsday, an editor, Howard Gardner, stated in an article:

“If we can carve away that arrogance, replacing it with a tad of humility, we will gain the respect of the civilized world. And, in the process, we will so isolate the fanatics and terrorists that the rest of the world will shrink away from them.”

Andrew Targovnik of Syosset responds:

“…This is typical liberal utopian garbage. So let’s be humble and this will reduce terrorist attacks? Please. There’s only one way... [More]”

Slashdot writes that the Gartner Group has come out with a statement recommending that businesses not use Microsoft’s web server.

Slashdot misreports the severity, though:

<q>Gartner remains concerned that viruses and worms will continue to attack IIS until Microsoft has released a completely rewritten, thoroughly and publicly tested, new release of IIS,‘ which they say has an 80% chance of happening by the end of next year.</q>

Note that the Slashdot quotes extend into the portion that is... [More]

Apparently, we aren’t going to take the careful approach to not angering any more of the rest of the world. (Newsday: Buck Stops Here):

<q>The executive order is extremely broad in scope, allowing the government to freeze the assets not only of those who have committed terrorist acts but also of those who, in the government’s view, <q>pose a significant risk of committing</q> such acts. It further allows the government to move against those who aid terrorists, serve as fronts for them or are <q>... [More]

This is all happening quite quickly as well. A lot of measures are being pushed through. Attorney General John Ashcroft is imparting a sense of urgency to his own agenda for increased domestic surveillance powers (Newsday: Act Fast on Terrorism):

<q>[He] urged Congress to act expeditiously to broaden laws aimed at curbing terrorist activity in the United States, including allowing more detentions of legal immigrants, allowing expanded wiretaps on suspected terrorists and gaining greater access... [More]

One response I’ve seen to these examinations of U.S. foreign policy is this letter in the Newsday:

<q>…Sheryl McCarthy and Jerry Falwell both agree that the United States brought disaster on itself. While Falwell says this is a punishment from God for our having become so secular, thus making the murderers agaents of God’s will, McCarthy sees this as the inevitable retribution for our national hubris and for having a foreign policy that is in our own best interests. This type of fuzzy... [More]

There’s been a bit of a back and forth on the privacy issue in the last few days. JonKatz of Slashdot published an article that’s a complete turnaround from any of his past positions. It’s an interesting read in that it advocates avoiding ‘kneejerk’ reactions to protect privacy. I think that’s good. Kneejerk reactions are never good, it does everyone good to think about their positions and come up with cogent arguments.

However, I still think that this immediate jump to abrogating privacy in... [More]

Looks like things are unfolding pretty much as they can be expected to. Troops are massing, reserves are called up. Osama Bin Laden goes from someone with a history of terrorism, to a possible suspect to the prime suspect to wanted dead or alive, all in a matter of days.

The President has pledged to rid the world of evil-doers and rout out terrorists and countries that harbor terrorists. The U.S. and its foreign policy is arguably the biggest evil-doer around and also happens to harbor the... [More]

Earthli Forums code updated. Users can now create accounts. More invective than you can handle.

Those are the questions we have to ask. It’s not seditious to wonder whether the U.S. courted danger. Sedition is a word hopefully left buried in the past for this country. In order to prevent such things from happening again, we must try to understand why they happened.

The New York Newsday has a good overview of Afghanistan’s history and current situation.

For those at all curious on what could incite the attack on the WTC, go here for an interview with Osama Bin Laden.

Israelis and... [More]

The justice department just kind of let them walk. They definitely abused their monopoly (see this thread). It seems the prosecution lost their witnesses. All of the companies pushing the U.S. Government to release Microsoft’s yoke suddenly have much more important things to worry about…like bankruptcy.

It’s times like these that make ‘cynic’ seem to be synonymous with ‘realist’. No sooner can you start to worry about civil rights infringement than you find more cases of it being proposed than you can count.

How is it that the notion of preventing honest citizens from using encryption somehow increases our freedom from attack? Does Congress truly believe that terrorists who will stop at nothing will make sure to use only legal, government-sanctioned software with backdoors neatly in place? I... [More]

I thought it was a shame that the guy was laughing at what sad bastards we are that we can’t even clean up his mess (for 3 months).

For future reference, here’s how you do it (only works in Windows NT/2000, for Windows 95, 98, use a DOS utility like ‘elim’):

dir /x

The /x switch shows short and long file names. All of the illegal folders had legible short file names. The first one was ~0200, where 20 is actually hexadecimal for 32, which is ‘space’ in ASCII.

Once you know the folder name,... [More]

Why did the tower collapse? How did it manage to collapse so neatly? Was it a lucky hit?

Read More

The New Scientist also weighs in.

In the wake of the WTC attack, it is unfortunate to see the stirrings of government agencies that see this as an opportunity to legalize infringements of basic rights on Americans too shellshocked and/or frightened to resist.

Already, on Tuesday afternoon, the FBI was shopping their home-grown packet-sniffer, dubbed ‘Carnivore’, around to all the major ISPs again. This is a blatant, crude move that will likely work for many ISPs who don’t want to be seen as uncooperative or harboring terrorist... [More]

Domestic Spying and other wonderful stuff.

Read more

Marco’s Tuesday commute.

The FBI has already started to push its Carnivore strategy again. Now that the nation is properly ‘terrified’, they figure we’re a much easier target for intruding on our rights of privacy. For most ISPs, the FBI was right.

Read more

Added customization options. Change color scheme, font and size and use it throughout the site. (See Settings on the right.)

The FBI has been granted protection under the Classified Information Procedures Act. They don’t have to explain how a key-logging program was placed onto a private machine.

Check the Register for more information.

“I once preached peaceful coexistence with Windows. You may laugh at my expense — I deserve it.”

Jean Louis Gassèe

See also an article on Byte on boot loaders.

Think you’re taking advantage of frequent flyer miles? Check this guy out.

http://www.snopes2.com/business/deals/pudding.htm

The well-known Dutch cryptographer claims to have broken Intel’s DVI (Digital Video Interface) encryption, but won’t publish for fear of being prosecuted under the DMCA as soon as he sets foot on American soil.

http://www.securityfocus.com/templates/article.html?id=236

There is a bug in scope resolution in IIS 5.0. When resolving a variable within a member function, precedence is given to a global constant instead of to a member variable of the same name. The problem does not occur with global variables. Paste the following code into a page:

<%
const name = 1
 
class A
 
  public name
 
  public function get_name
    get_name = name
  end function
 
end class
 
dim a1
set a1 = new A
 
a1.name = "test"
 
%>
<%=name%><br>
<%=a1.name%><br>
<%=a1.get_name%><br>

http://latimes.com/technology/la-000064605aug09.story

New (old) quake battle. malloc and dur in Urban Terror.