Tuesday, March 07, 2006

Popular Mechanics Debunks the Media's Katrina Myths


Hurricane RadarThe linked article is really quite entertaining. Popular Mechanics has carefully dissected the anti-administration Katrina meme popularized by mainstream media. That they do so using a careful, fact-based methodology -- reminiscent of, dare I say it, real news-reporting -- as opposed to the hysterical meanderings of rocket scientists like Keith "Zero Nielsens" Olbermann and Chrissie "Network X" Matthews is simultaneously shocking and funny.

MYTH: "The aftermath of Katrina will go down as one of the worst abandonments of Americans on American soil ever in U.S. history."--Aaron Broussard, president, Jefferson Parish, La., Meet the Press, NBC, Sept. 4, 2005

REALITY: Bumbling by top disaster-management officials fueled a perception of general inaction, one that was compounded by impassioned news anchors. In fact, the response to Hurricane Katrina was by far the largest--and fastest-rescue effort in U.S. history, with nearly 100,000 emergency personnel arriving on the scene within three days of the storm's landfall...


Drink deeply from the chalice of wisdom - and read the whole thing.

Popular Mechanics: Debunking the Katrina Myths

Blackstar


The reportedly shelved Blackstar is described by Aviation Week as a military analog to the space shuttle:

For 16 years, Aviation Week & Space Technology has investigated myriad sightings of a two-stage-to-orbit system that could place a small military spaceplane in orbit. Considerable evidence supports the existence of such a highly classified system... U.S. intelligence agencies may have quietly mothballed a highly classified two-stage-to-orbit spaceplane system designed in the 1980s for reconnaissance, satellite-insertion and, possibly, weapons delivery. It could be a victim of shrinking federal budgets strained by war costs, or it may not have met performance or operational goals... This two-vehicle "Blackstar" carrier/orbiter system may have been declared operational during the 1990s...

THE SPACEPLANE'S SMALL CARGO or "Q-bay" also could be configured to deliver specialized microsatellites to low Earth orbit or, perhaps, be fitted with no-warhead hypervelocity weapons--what military visionaries have called "rods from god." Launched from the fringes of space, these high-Mach weapons could destroy deeply buried bunkers and weapons facilities...


Aviation Week: Two-Stage-to-Orbit 'Blackstar' System Shelved at Groom Lake?

Rushdie, Ali Unite Against the New Totalitarianism


From the Agora blog, a powerful letter signed by Salman Rushdie, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, and others:

Together facing the new totalitarianism

After having overcome fascism, Nazism, and Stalinism, the world now faces a new totalitarian global threat: Islamism.

We, writers, journalists, intellectuals, call for resistance to religious totalitarianism and for the promotion of freedom, equal opportunity and secular values for all.

The recent events, which occurred after the publication of drawings of Muhammed in European newspapers, have revealed the necessity of the struggle for these universal values. This struggle will not be won by arms, but in the ideological field. It is not a clash of civilisations nor an antagonism of West and East that we are witnessing, but a global struggle that confronts democrats and theocrats.

Like all totalitarianisms, Islamism is nurtured by fears and frustrations. The hate preachers bet on these feelings in order to form battalions destined to impose a liberticidal and unegalitarian world. But we clearly and firmly state: nothing, not even despair, justifies the choice of obscurantism, totalitarianism and hatred. Islamism is a reactionary ideology which kills equality, freedom and secularism wherever it is present. Its success can only lead to a world of domination: man’s domination of woman, the Islamists’ domination of all the others. To counter this, we must assure universal rights to oppressed or discriminated people.

We reject « cultural relativism », which consists in accepting that men and women of Muslim culture should be deprived of the right to equality, freedom and secular values in the name of respect for cultures and traditions. We refuse to renounce our critical spirit out of fear of being accused of “Islamophobia”, an unfortunate concept which confuses criticism of Islam as a religion with stigmatisation of its believers.

We plead for the universality of freedom of expression, so that a critical spirit may be exercised on all continents, against all abuses and all dogmas.

We appeal to democrats and free spirits of all countries that our century should be one of Enlightenment, not of obscurantism.

12 signatures

Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Chahla Chafiq
Caroline Fourest
Bernard-Henri Lévy
Irshad Manji
Mehdi Mozaffari
Maryam Namazie
Taslima Nasreen
Salman Rushdie
Antoine Sfeir
Philippe Val
Ibn Warraq

Monday, March 06, 2006

Hollywood's Bold Strategy: Punt


Everything related to Hollywood is worthy of a Jon Stewart joke... except its recent box-office numbers. Their catastrophic slide -- along with declining newspaper circulation rates and mainstream TV Nielsen ratings -- points to a serious disconnect between middle America and the Coastal Elite. And maybe it's not so much a disconnect as it is a yawning, gaping chasm. Perhaps it's related to Hollywood's activist stance on social issues long since settled while studiously ignoring everything that's occurred in the world since, oh, 1978.

...George Clooney’s triple Oscar nominations are said to be a significant moment in the life of the nation, and not just by George Clooney, though his effusions on his own “bravery” certainly set a high mark. “We jumped in on our own,” he said, discussing Good Night And Good Luck with Entertainment Weekly. “And there was no reason to think it was going to get any easier. But people in Hollywood do seem to be getting more comfortable with making these sorts of movies now. People are becoming braver.”

Wow. He was brave enough to make a movie about Islam’s treatment of women? Oh, no, wait. That was the Dutch director Theo van Gogh: he had his throat cut and half-a-dozen bullets pumped into him by an enraged Muslim who left an explanatory note pinned to the dagger he stuck in his chest. At last year’s Oscars, the Hollywood crowd were too busy championing the “right to dissent” in the Bushitler tyranny to find room even to namecheck Mr van Gogh in the montage of the deceased. Bad karma. Good night and good luck...


Go ye therefore hence and read it all, for it is good.

Mark Steyn: Clooney Tunes

Chris Matthews: Bush "Sneaks" Into Pakistan "Like a Drug Dealer"


The invaluable Newsbusters gang captured the loathsome Chris Matthews wearing his full Democratic Party regalia:

Matthews asked ex-Clinton aide David Gergen and security expert Roger Cressey about the heavy security surrounding Bush’s visit [to Pakistan]. Matthews asked Cressey: “This is extraordinary, isn’t it?”

Cressey replied that “it’s typical for what happens when you bring the President into a very high risk country, very similar to what we did when President Clinton went into Pakistan in 2000.”

Matthews cut him off: “But he’s coming in like a drug dealer. I mean, having to sneak in like that, with the lights off, with the windows slammed shut on the plane. Is this a security question, really, or is it a problem of that government? Is it a problem that within the security service in Pakistan there are people out to hurt the President?”


If Matthews' political preferences were any more obvious, he'd bray rather than talk. Perhaps Matthews would prefer that the President arrive in Karachi by landing a glider in front of the Lyari Mosque during morning prayers.

The costs of appeasement


If there's one thing history makes clear, it is the costs associated with inaction and appeasement. The most notorious example, of course, is Hitler's ascent, left unchecked by the ostensible leaders of Europe. Consider another painful event, brought to you by Mark "The Genius" Steyn:

...the first attack on American sovereignty was not... on American soil, was not 9/11. It was the Iranian Embassy, and we should have dealt with that problem then. When history comes a-calling, you never have a choice between good or bad options. They're only between bad and much, much worse options. And the reality of today is that we're dealing with problems that could have been, would have been easier to settle twenty years ago. If we don't settle them now, they'll be much more difficult, if not impossible to settle in ten years time.


Got that, Jimmy Carter?

RadioBlogger: Mark Steyn Interview

Sunday, March 05, 2006

BlackBerry 8700G Review - Executive Summary: Wow


I've just replaced my BlackBerry 7290 with an 8700G and had a couple of days to play with it. One word: wow. The difference between the new screen and the old is the difference between HDTV and conventional television: brightness, clarity, and contrast are all so much better that it's just hard to put the differences into words. Suffice it to say that when I showed several folks Google's local mapping application (google.com/glm) running in satellite view, they were stunned at the detail.

Along with the screen, the web browser is equally improved. Pages that refused to render in the 7290 now work fine (e.g., baseball-reference.com) and, of course, the close-to-broadband-speed EDGE network significantly improves the browsing experience. No more surfing to a page and then holstering the device while you wait for it to load. A page that would load in 20-30 seconds before might load now in 2.

The green and red phone buttons provide quick access to phone features, just the way a conventional mobile phone user would expect. For an experienced 7290 user, this is a bit disconcerting, but most will get used to it quickly.

A couple of nits: the dial-by-name feature doesn't work the way it did in the 7290. If you've gone to phone mode and start typing, nothing happens unless you hit numeric keys. And I've not figured out if this is a settable option - needless to say, it's highly annoying. You have to select a menu in order to dial by name.

Battery strength seems a tad weaker than that of the 7290, probably due to screen brightness, which is automatically adjusted and most often set to "son of a... that's bright!"

In short, I had a really good BlackBerry week: I was among the first to get an 8700G in North America and the next day the patent dispute was settled. It doesn't get much better than that for fans of convergence-devices.

DHS and FBI rely on LAMP


I'd missed this article the first time around, but it's worth calling out. The Department of Homeland Security and the FBI depend heavily upon LAMP to drive a highly scalable multi-agency alerting system called ERN:

[The] ERN (Emergency Response Network) Systems maintains a low profile. When you ask the CEO, Jo Balderas, for references she politely says, "the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Department of Public Safety and the Department of Homeland Security". That's quite an impressive list, and it represents only a few of the company's clients...

When you ask for a technology snapshot Jo says, "currently we use an enterprise open-source software stack known as LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP). We also use an appliance to support rapid deployment and to minimize total cost of ownership. Our roadmap has us integrating the OASIS Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) version 1.0 and Justice XML standards within six months..."


LinuxJournal: DHS and FBI rely on LAMP

Getting technical advice from USA Today


The estimable Kim Komando has some advice for readers who want to ensure hidden data is removed from Microsoft Word documents before sharing them. She mentions a couple of approaches that aren't simple. In fact, they vary based upon the version of Word you have.

Here's an elementary -- and universal -- way she forgot to mention. Use Edit, Select All to select the entire document. Use Edit, Copy to copy it to the clipboard. Use File, New and open a blank document. Then -- yes, you guessed it -- use Edit, Paste to create the document, sans hidden data.

That'll serve you no matter version of Word you have.

USAToday: Remove hidden data in Microsoft Word documents

Saturday, March 04, 2006

The Implosion of the Drive-by Media


EIB featured a great summary of what they call the "drive-by" media:

Treat the news [...as a] packaged product. People that put it together every day have a reason for choosing what's in the package and what isn't. They want it packaged a certain way, and they're trying to tell you that this is all you need to know that happened today, and we're not embellishing anything, but clearly their news judgment's gone to hell, too. You still have people at CBS saying that the forged documents are real. And you know why? Because nobody's proved they're not! Under that standard, you could make any assertion you want, and unless somebody can [disprove] it, then it's true. So you can put up forged documents about Bush's National Guard service, and despite the fact that people proved that the documents are forgeries, if somebody can't come along and prove the story is wrong, then that's the standard. Mary Mapes has even said this. You have to understand the context in which these people are operating and understand that they are losing.


The product is fatally damaged and that's precisely why mainstream media's ratings are in the toilet and circling the flush-hole.

The latest of many examples is this piece of packaged dung from the AP, which Powerline's John Hinderaker shreds in marvelous fashion:

In a sweet victory for the administration, the Senate voted 89-10 to renew the Patriot Act. Only Democrats opposed the measure. Harry Reid, who once boasted proudly of having "killed" the Patriot Act, now voted meekly for it.

Note, though, how the Associated Press does whatever it can to insert pro-Democrat themes into a story about a Bush triumph:

The 89-10 vote marked a bright spot in President Bush's troubled second term as his approval ratings dipped over the war in Iraq and his administration's response to Hurricane Katrina.


What does any of that have to do with today's vote? Nothing at all; the AP just threw it in. Then there is this:

For months, their tough-on-terror image has been tarnished by the revelation that the president authorized a secret domestic wiretapping program. The report in December gave Democrats ammunition for their charge that the Bush administration had run amok in its zeal to root out terrorists.


Huh? How did the secret wiretapping program "tarnish" the administration's "tough-on-terror image"? It didn't. It enhanced it, and the public has solidly backed the administration's position. And what's this about Democrats charging that the administration has "run amok"? I don't recall any Democrats saying that; I think the AP reporter, Laurie Kellman, is speaking for herself.


Given two articles without bylines, you'd be hard-pressed to tell the difference between an AP "news" article and a Democratic Party press release.

Iran's Murderous Course


Frontpage features a compelling read by Robert Spencer with multiple hair-raising conclusions. The most chilling statement:

...[For Iran] there is no downside to a nuclear attack on Israel or even on American troops in Iraq, even if it draws a crushing retaliation... The Iranian regime is, in short, operating without any moral compass whatsoever that would prevent it from making decisions that could result in catastrophic destruction...


Read the whole thing™.

Frontpage: Iran's Murderous Course

Friday, March 03, 2006

Letters from a Financial Institution


The following is based on a real email from a financial institution with whom I do business.

RE: Access to Allied Liberty network

To our valued clients,

On a regular basis, Allied Liberty continually monitors suspicious activity attempting access to our network. Over the last few months, we have noticed a significant increase in suspicious network activity sourced from the Asia-Pacific portion of the world.

In order to enhance the security of our systems, Allied Liberty will be terminating access to its network and online products from this area of the world, effective March 1, 2006.

If you have any questions regarding these steps, please contact the Vice President of Customer Relations at (800) 555-5555.


Hmmmm.

Thursday, March 02, 2006

Search 2.0


The Wink search engine is what can only be described as "web 2.0 search" or perhaps even "search 2.0". Yes, I loathe the term "web 2.0". It connotes a certain -- uhm, naivete? -- associated with Javascript-XML-DHTML-enabled websites that most developers call AJAX. The paragon of web 2.0 applications is, of course, the tech news site Digg, which took off faster than Neil Armstrong strapped to a Jupiter booster rocket.

WebProNews describes the spate of AJAX-enabled search engines as "Search 2.0". In addition to Wink, Rollyo lets users create vertical search engines around a specific topic or site. Have a particular expertise? You can use Rollyo to create a search engine that's highly relevant for that area. Eurekster is on a similar tangent, incorporating a Wiki-like results page called a "Swiki".

But leading the pack, in my opinion, is Wink. Wink lets users tag and rank Google's search results, which results in a "human-filtered" search experience. The ephereal goal, of course, is to deliver markedly superior search results. Given the proliferation of search- and blog-spam aimed at deceiving Google's spiders, such a goal is both timely and worthy.

Check out Wink when you have a moment.

As an aside, Wink appears to be developed in -- what else? -- LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP). In fact, of ArticleDashboard's Top Ten Web 2.0 applications of 2005 list, seven were LAMP-based (PHP), one utilized Perl (I think), and two used .NET. It's clear where most innovators are leaning and it doesn't appear to be proprietary, closed-source code.

Wednesday, March 01, 2006

Run your own online bank


The new Prosper.com website is an online marketplace specializing in loans. Want to lend some money and capture the best interest rate possible? Can do. Want to request money in the form of a loan and take bids for the best terms and rate? Yup, it'll do that. You can set the interest rate, assess the risk, and run your own bank.

This idea has eBay-style potential written all over it...

read more 

Dijjer... a better BitTorrent?

From Digg - an introduction to a new open source, GPL peer-to-peer framework called Dijjer. Built by some of the folks who run reverr.com, Dijjer attempts to address some of the shortcomings of BitTorrent:

Dijjer claims that it can defeat most NAT issues, probably through use of the STUN protocol. And it encapsulates a lightweight HTTP server, so access to a client can be performed directly in a web browser. And when you parcel out a URL, you can do so using a Gnutella-like URL such as http://dijjer.org/get/http://someisp.com/youraccount/mymovie.mov.


read more 

Black hole flight simulator

If you're ever read science fiction, you've probably come across some crazy situation in which a black hole is used to transport men or material through space and/or time. Now physics, supercomputers, and computer gaming graphics have been combined to render a simulation of a wild ride through a black hole...

read more 

Tuesday, February 28, 2006

Doug's Anti-Keylogger Software Requirements


I've had this idea for a while of an anti-keylogging technology. Keyloggers are malicious software packages that burrow into your machine, monitor your keystrokes, and can even perform screen-captures while you type. They are installed any number of ways -- usually through nefarious means like browser exploits -- and are used mostly by cyber-thieves to capture users' banking credentials.

They're so prevalent that even the New York Times devoted a major article to the topic yesterday.

I did some due diligence and have found a number of anti-keylogging software packages out there. Sure enough, every one I looked at tried to detect the presence of keylogger and then counteract it. For instance:

...[Product] doesn't depend on signature bases - just because it doesn't use them. The newly developed solutions and algorithms allow it to spot behavior of a spy program - and disable it instantly...


In other words, the majority of packages out there attempt to detect and then disable keyloggers. Given the onslaught of new keylogging technologies -- a recent article mentioned that there are over seventy different "species" of keylogger -- I contend that's difficult to do. And new keyloggers emerge all the time.

I have a different idea. Let the keyloggers go ahead and log. In fact, if you're on another party's machine (say, at a friend's house and need to logon to your bank's website), you may not want to risk doing surgery on their computer by running an intrusive anti-keylogger.

Instead, my hypothetical product says, "go ahead and log away... fat lot of good that'll do yaz!" (with a Boston accent). The idea being that you can't assume detection of every keylogging package in the world... there are way too many. Instead, defeat the very concept of keylogging.

So -- without giving away too much of the design that exists only in my head -- here are my basic requirements for an anti-keylogging software package:

[ ] Preferrably browser-based
[ ] If not browser-based, should allow execution without installation
[ ] Does not require any keystrokes or mouse-clicks to perform data-entry
[ ] Not susceptible to screen-captures, no matter how frequently they occur


Are there requirements that are definitely out of scope for this go-round? Yes. This type of anti-keylogger is not intended to defend "cheating spouses." That is, it's not designed to suppress logging of instant messaging, email, and other conventional programs. Put simply, it's designed to protect your passwords - specifically those used for online financial transactions.

More later.

Sunday, February 26, 2006

Visual Passwords

From the Digg front-page: Passclicks is a new way to logon to websites without users having to remember a password or passphrase. You can set (or reset) your password by clicking on five distinct areas of the image. Then logon by clicking those same five points with a 7-pixel margin of error.

It is quite clever - but I don't see it replacing the password anytime soon. I'd forgotten one of my locations immediately after setting my passclick... and thereby failed the test.

My quick take: user retraining and the passclick reset process will be daunting issues that will hamper adoption...


read more 

New Linux Professional Institute (LPI) exam prep

From Digg: a series of well-written Linux tutorials -- from IBM, no less -- to help you learn OS fundamentals and prepare for system administrator certification. The LPI prep tutorials help you prepare for the topics in LPI exam 201 and the topics in LPI exam 202...

read more 

Franks on the UAE and the Taliban


Tim Graham at NewsBusters noted an interesting snippet of an interview with General Tommy Franks. Franks argued that permitting UAE management of the ports is no security risk:

I personally believe that we have had no greater ally in seeking a resolution of problems in the Middle East, the Palestinian issue, the Israeli issue, than we have found in the United Arab Emirates.

With regard to maintaining contact with the Taliban, even before Sept. 11 — and I'll exercise caution how I say this — but I'll say that I believe we had every reason to be thankful for the relationship and the dialogue that existed between the United Arab Emirates and the Taliban, as it assisted us in our efforts to understand what was going on in Afghanistan.


Hmmm.