The stark idiocy of the New York Times

If I wanted to drive a newspaper into the ground, I would follow the New York Times' game-plan. They seem to be executing on a vision to drive shareholder value right into the tarmac. This morning's online edition clarifies their wanton self-destructiveness. Given the arrests of terrorists plotting to destroy the PATH tunnels in and around Manhattan, I expected at least one of the lead stories to mention this little nugget of info.

After all, if I lived in the NYC area, I'd definitely want to see what my fellow commuters and city-goers could have experienced had the nimnulls been able to pull off the attack.

So I visited the Times site. And I couldn't find the story on the front-page. I scanned the entire page several times. The lead stories, in order, were:

General Faults Marine Response to Iraq Killings - Lt. Gen. Peter W. Chiarelli has concluded that some senior Marine officers were negligent in failing to investigate the deaths of 24 Iraqi civilians in Haditha last November, officials said. * Joint Raid Captures 2 Linked to Rebel Shiite Leader * Officer Ready to Plead Guilty in Bribery Case New Jersey Governor Ends Weeklong Shutdown - Gov. Jon S. Corzine issued an executive order early Saturday after lawmakers approved a $30.9 billion budget that increases the state sales tax. * Drastic Action, Modest Result in New Jersey That's What Friends in High Places Are For - Senator Orrin G. Hatch intervened to obtain the release of music producer Dallas Austin from a Dubai jail. * Graphic: The Tale of the Producer's Pardon An Internet Lifeline for Troops in Iraq - For this generation of soldiers, the Internet has softened the blow of separations that can make strangers out of husbands and wives. Israel Pulls Forces Back From North Gaza - Israeli forces withdrew from most of the northern Gaza Strip after three days of fierce fighting, but clashes erupted on the outskirts of Gaza City. * A Day of Funerals Across the Northern Gaza Strip Here's Proof That New Yorkers Like to Complain - Thousands of complaints to the mayor have been unearthed in New York City going back to the 1700's. * Slide Show: Letters from New Yorkers Past A Drive to Root Out the Resurgent Taliban - American troops are engaged in their biggest operation against Taliban forces in Afghanistan since 2001. * Audio & Photos: Search for Taliban * Afghan Legislator Accuses U.S.-Led Forces of Firing on His Family Ukraine's Coalition Unravels in a New Setback - President Viktor A. Yushchenko's coalition collapsed in acrimony just two weeks after it was formed.

After scanning all of these articles and links, I finally found a reference to the PATH plot on the front page:

3 Held Overseas in Plan to Bomb New York Target - Law enforcement authorities said the plan presented a genuine threat even though it was in its earliest stages and no attack was imminent (Ed: emphasis mine ).

Consider, for a moment, the treatment of this story by the rest of the media establishment -- who must possess at least a scintilla of self-preservation:

#1 at CNN (US News): N.Y. tunnel plot uncovered
#1 at Fox News (Headlines): FBI Busts Terror Plot Aimed At NYC-N.J. Transit Network
#1 at MSNBC (In the News): U.S. says NYC bomb plot foiled

The story is of high interest around the country... and of alarm-claxons-going-off-level-interest for New Yorkers.

But here's the deal: the Times is... embarrassed. This story utterly humiliates the Times once again. The very sort of international tracking programs they decry and expose has likely been employed to save the lives of hundreds or thousands of New Yorkers.

And the New York Times. Couldn't. Care. Less.

They're happy to casually bury and downplay the story at the expense of their readership and subscription base. And even the story's lede ("Law enforcement authorities said the plan presented a genuine threat even though it was in its earliest stages and no attack was imminent  ") has all the bias and spin they can muster.

Here's a Times stock chart. Expect it to continue plummeting. After all the disclosures and leaks of classified US national security programs, it's the least they deserve.

And I'm still waiting patiently for the Times to leak or expose an enemy plot.

Related:
Captain's Quarters: More dishonesty at the Gray Lady
Expose the Left: FBI foils terror plot
Hugh Hewitt: Interview with Mark Steyn & James Lileks and The New York Times' Duties of Disclosure
Michelle Malkin: 7/7 Remembrance and Newspaper of Wreckage

Bust  by Ken Bruen and Jason Starr

Book Review:

The CEO of NetWorld, Max Fisher, wants his wife dead. He's decided that he's ready to marry his girlfriend Angela -- a fiery Greek-Irish executive assistant with amazing new components -- and start over. Divorce is not an option, what with half of his formidable assets on the line.

So Max agrees to meet Angela's cousin's buddy, a hit-man named Popeye. What Max doesn't know is that Popeye is actually Angela's real boyfriend. He's a psychopathic Irish "proveen" -- a small-time enforcer for the "Ra" (IRA), who are smart enough to keep him at arm's length. Predictably, given this cast of characters, the hit goes down, plenty of things go awry, and things start to spin out of control.

Compounding matters is a hood named Bobby Rosa, now confined to a wheelchair, who makes his living blackmailing couples engaged in compromising relationships. Through sheer coincidence, Rosa happens to snap some shots of Max and Angela "celebrating" his wife's departure. Once Rosa confronts Fisher -- who is already under heavy police scrutiny -- with the photos, the plot swings in a rush of completely unpredictable turns.

You'll be hard-pressed to tell where Bruen's work ends and Starr's begins. The story is seamless and pulse-pounding. The characterizations are deep; you'll feel you've gotten under the skin of Max, Angela, and even the nutcase hit-man. My guess is you won't be able to stop reading until you flip the last page.

Paging Mr. Lichtblau... Mr. Lichtblau...

The incomparable Mark Steyn asks a fascinating question related to the New York Times during an interview on the Hugh Hewitt show. The Times has disclosed a series of classified U.S. programs that protect the national security interest, most recently Eric Lichtblau's article on the perfectly legal SWIFT program that tracks terrorists' international movement of funds.

[The Times'] defense now of their big scoop is that it wasn't a scoop, that in fact, everybody knew all this anyway, so they weren't telling anybody anything they didn't know. And I think that's nonsense. You know, Ann Coulter had a very good...she just said it as a throwaway line, really just en passant, and I'm not sure she realized actually quite what a good question it is. She said at some point in a column the other day, how many big al Qaeda secret plans  has the New York Times revealed? And I think that's actually an interesting question. You know, when you go into a New York Times planning meeting, how much of their editorial resources are being devoted to getting inside the enemy? The British press is pretty anti-American, they're pretty anti-Israeli, they're anti-all kinds of things. But they still have journalistic instincts. Every week, I read a fascinating story in the London Times or some other paper, in which some guy has gone undercover... among the radical [extremists] in Yorkshire towns in England, where the July 7th bombers came from. And he's got all this fascinating material. A guy went undercover... [in] Brighton, in England, and came out with all kinds of material. How come nobody at the New York Times seems to be interesting in devoting any editorial energy to exposing what the enemy's up to?

A fascinating question. Methinks the Times won't be volunteering an answer anytime soon.

Net Neutrality: Dvorak on Ted Stevens

In the latest PC Magazine, John Dvorak eviscerates Ted Stevens -- erstwhile front-man for the carriers -- using everything but a Bertram knife and a cheese-grater:

The Net neutrality bill took kind of a weird turn despite its defeat, when the public got to hear the mouthpiece for the telecom industry, Senator Ted Stevens. Wow. Stevens, an Alaska Republican, made a 10-minute speech before Congress that was something of a cross between a comedy act by Professor Irwin Corey and testimony by Casey Stengel, both famous for flubs, non sequiturs, and double-talk. Stevens is most famous for diverting federal money to Alaska and especially famous for his grabbing $453 million needed for post-Katrina rebuilding to construct two bridges in Alaska, including the infamous "bridge to nowhere." He may be inarticulate and weird, but he does manage to benefit his state at a cost to the nation as a whole. Stevens now appears to be the front man for the telecom companies (they must be so proud!) regarding Net neutrality, and you can listen to his 10-minute diatribe here. Let me warn you in advance. It's incredibly painful. It's too obvious that this man has no idea what the Internet is exactly and no idea about the issues behind Net neutrality. It seems like a miracle that he can even find the crapper...

Read the whole thing™.

Phalanx Close-in Ship Defense Guns getting Upgrades

The Mark 15 Phalanx ship defense weapon is capable of firing 3000 to 4000 20mm rounds-per-minute as a close-in anti-ship missile weapon. Defense Industry Daily reports that the upgraded version (1B) can also be used against gunboats, artillery, and helicopters.

Some of the customers for the Phalanx include:

• US Navy
• US Coast Guard
• Australia
• Israel
• New Zealand
• Japan
• United Kingdom
• Canada
• Taiwan
• Poland
• Bahrain
• Saudi Arabia

I don't think they're firing any of these at the Knob Creek Machine-Gun Shoot in Kentucky, though the crowds would be even bigger if they did.

The obstructionists were wrong (again)

I wonder if the obstructionists on Capitol Hill ever get sick of being wrong? W.C. Varones, writing at PoliPundit, remarks:

Are you thinking what I’m thinking? … that today’s missile tests by North Korea are an excellent illustration of the necessity of missile defense? And that all those Democrats who limited funding for and tried to block development of Ronald Reagan’s “Star Wars” program were dangerously, irresponsibly wrong? he argument was that missile defense would somehow upset the Mutual Assured Destruction balance and escalate the arms race with the Soviet Union. Well, now the Soviet Union is long gone. We now have rogue states with missiles, and a missile defense seems like a pretty good idea...

Yep™.

Photo Tour of North Korea

These photos of North Korea were taken by a Russian tourist. Many of the photos are "illicit", in that they depict the real conditions in the totalitarian state and not the utopian ideal (hat tip: Powerline).

MilitaryPhotos.net: Photo Tour of North Korea

Think your SSL traffic is secure?

If you use SSL at work in ways designed to elude acceptable-use filters (e.g., WebSense) or to secure applications like telephony and file-sharing, you may want to re-think that proposition.

A series of products, among them Blue Coat's SSL Proxy, provide SSL-cracking capabilities to organizations interested in shutting down SSL violations of policy.

In effect, Blue Coat's SSL Proxy breaks any SSL traffic its been configured to intercept. How can that be so? Isn't SSL/TLS secure from man-in-the-middle (MITM) attacks?

How Blue Coat cracks SSL/TLS

I've based the first part of this analysis on BlueCoat's SSL Proxy White Paper (PDF). Later details are based upon its Deployment Guide, which spells out some of the nuances of configuration.

When a connection request is made by the browser, it passes through the Blue Coat proxy on its way to the real SSL server. The response from the destination SSL server includes a certificate. This certificate is designed to (a) irrefutably identify the server; and (b) secure the communications between client and server. To do so, the cert wraps the server's public-key, which is tied to the domain name (or, less likely, IP address) of the server.

The real server's cert, though, is intercepted by the proxy on its way back to the browser.

Before the proxy passes the certificate through, it unwraps the public key and then re-wraps it in an "emulated certificate" (I'll go ahead and call it a spoofed cert, which I think is more accurate). This spoofed cert is then returned to the client browser. The client thinks everything is on the up-and-up and -- after it verifies the spoofed cert -- it establishes the encrypted tunnel.

The tunnel, though, is now terminated at the proxy server. The proxy itself has established a second tunnel to the real destination SSL server.

The proxy can now inspect the cleartext traffic, block the traffic, or pass it on to other devices for their use (more about this later), and otherwise fiddle with it prior to sending it down the second encrypted tunnel to the real SSL server.

Modifications are required on the client

This approach, though, does require a slight modification on the client side. Namely, the server has to be "trusted" within the client's certificate chain. If a corporation runs its own CA (certificate authority), odds are that the browsers in the organization will already be configured to use an extended CA chain.

Even if the organization doesn't have its own CA, a new signing-key -- in the form of a new cert in the client-side chain -- can be added to the browser's list as "trusted." Once added, all proxying of the SSL traffic can take place without popped-up warnings or errors: the browser's SSL configuration is ostensibly "correct". The server brokering the SSL session is correct and "trusted."

The Blue Coat Systems Deployment Guide explains how this client-side operation works (PDF):

When the SSL Proxy intercepts an SSL connection, it presents an emulated server certificate to the client browser. The client browser issues a security pop-up to the end-user because the browser does not trust the issuer used by the ProxySG. This pop-up does not occur if the issuer certificate used by SSL Proxy is imported as a trusted root in the client browser's certificate store. The ProxySG makes all configured certificates available for download via its management console. You can ask end users to download the issuer certificate through Internet Explorer or Firefox and install it as a trusted CA in their browser of choice. This eliminates the certificate popup for emulated certificates...

Concerns with Cracking SSL

To be sure, one wonders about the privacy issues raised by this class of device. A commenter on the SANS list expressed just this concern a few weeks back:

...I understand the reasoning behind doing SSL interception just for content filtering, but even in a corporate, .gov, or .mil situation where the user may have explicitly or implicitly signed away all of their privacy rights, there is some expectation that SSL traffic is not going to be visible to a third party, much less cached...

In fact, the Blue Coat Deployment Guide spells out a recommended best practice that alludes to this facet of operation:

[You should] Implement HTML notification for intercepted sites... to inform end-users that their HTTPS traffic will be monitored and that they can opt-out if they do not want their traffic to be intercepted. HTML notification is also helpful if a site is accidentally intercepted.(Ed: emphasis mine )

Interestingly, of all the operations described in the manual, the Windows Update process is arguably the most secure! Presumably, this is because Microsoft doesn't allow alteration of the certificate authority chain. The FAQ in the Deployment Guide notes:

Problem: Windows Update Description: The Windows update does not work when the SSL Proxy intercepts windows updates connections. This is because the Windows update client does not trust the emulated certificate presented by the SSL Proxy. Solution: SSL connections for Windows updates should always be tunneled.

Exposure of SSL cleartext to third-parties

As far as privacy concerns, another aspect of SSL Proxy operation is interesting to contemplate. Namely, certain companies have established partnerships with SSL Proxy vendors in order to add to the suite of capabilities offered by the base proxy products. For instance, BlueCoat struck a deal with PortAuthority, presumably to permit sharing of cracked SSL/TLS traffic between the companies' devices.

I haven't investigated all the permutations of these arrangements, but one wonders the following:

• How secure is the communication channel between the products?


• How secure are the products themselves (i.e., how many vulnerabilities do the various proxies have -- and their partner products)?


• How do organizations validate the configurations to ensure that banking and other sensitive traffic remains protected on an ongoing basis?

It's not that these issues can't be addressed. But they should be food for thought for anyone implementing or operating under the constraints of these types of devices.

In any event, be aware that these products exist... and they can do what they claim if properly configured. Webmail, peer-to-peer file sharing, telephoney, etc. can all be monitored and blocked, even if tunneled through SSL/TLS.

The New York Times' Eric Lichtblau: Bonfire of his Vanity

Excerpt, courtesy Powerline:

Eric Lichtblau’s story in the New York Times, June 22: Bank Data Secretly Reviewed by U.S. to Fight Terror By ERIC LICHTBLAU and JAMES RISEN Eric Lichtblau today, on CNN’s Reliable Sources: “USA Today”, the biggest circulation in the country, the lead story on their front page four days before our story ran was the terrorists know their money is being traced, and they are moving it into—outside of the banking system into unconventional means. It is by no means a secret.

The Times' Disclosures: Lileks' Beatdown

Executing a snark tour de force  is no easy task. But James Lileks makes it look routine, with a brutal smackdown of the New York Times. The Times' proclivity for leaking national security secrets like candy from a Pez dispenser is an egregious, well-nigh-treasonous practice. One would, then, not be surprised to read the following stories someday soon:

September 10, 2006: The New York Times runs a story about a CIA agent named Mohammed Al-Ghouri, 1034 Summit Park, Evanston Illinois, who is attempting to penetrate a radical sleeper cell suspected of having 19 liters of homemade mustard gas. The series concludes with the agent’s obituary, and a moving quote from a CIA historian who notes that the “al-Ghouri was one of rare, brave breed whose names and deeds are rarely known. Except in this case, of course.” ... Feb. 14, 2007: Times Editor Keller approves the publication of the Pentagon’s plans for a Feb 15th strike on Iran, asserting that “there has been far too little debate about whether the sustained assault by cruise missiles and stealth bombers will provide a cover for the infiltration of several SpecOps teams from the Iraqi and Afghan bases, or whether these groups, code named ‘Red Six’ and ‘Blue Fourteen’ respectively, might suffer friendly fire. One error in timing, such as the barrage scheduled for the 3 AM on night of the 24th, could expose our troops to great harm. If this leads to a debate about whether the Tomahawk missile can be sent slightly off course by a concentrated microwave burst, as classified documents seem to suggest, it’s a debate we need to have.”

Picking up the beat(down) is David Reinhard of the Portland Oregonian ("Who died and left you president of the United States?" - hat tip: Powerline):

The founders didn't give the media or unnamed sources a license to expose secret national security operations in wartime. They set up a Congress to pass laws against disclosing state secrets and an executive branch to conduct secret operations so the new nation could actually defend itself from enemies, foreign and domestic... Not to worry, you tell us, terrorists already know we track their funding, and disclosure won't undercut the program. (Contradictory claims, but what the heck.) You at the Times know better. You know better than government officials who said disclosing the program's methods and means would jeopardize a successful enterprise. You know better than the 9/11 Commission chairmen who urged you not to run the story. Better than Republican and Democratic lawmakers who were briefed on the program. Better than the Supreme Court, which has held since 1976 that bank records are not constitutionally protected. Better than Congress, which established the administrative subpoenas used in this program. Maybe you do. But whether you do or not, there's no accountability. If you're wrong and we fail to stop a terror plot and people die because of your story, who's going to know, much less hold you accountable? No, the government will be blamed -- oh, happy day, maybe Bush's White House! -- for not connecting dots or crippling terror networks.

Stand with John Kerry on Net Neutrality

As a strong GOP backer who raised funds, wrote op-eds and appeared on talk radio in support of George W. Bush in 2004, I stand with John Kerry on the issue of net neutrality:

On Wednesday in the Senate Commerce Committee I warned that those of us who believe in net neutrality will block legislation that doesn’t get the job done. It looks like that’s the fight we’re going to have. The Commerce Committee voted on net neutrality and it failed on an 11-11 tie. This vote was a gift to cable and telephone companies, and a slap in the face of every Internet user and consumer. It will not stand.

If you've never made a call to your Senator before, this is your day. If you've never emailed him or her, the time is now. Muster the energy and do it.

The future of the incredible value-creation machine we know as the Internet is at stake. Put simply, the carriers wish to pick and choose the winners and losers among content providers: they, not you, will decide the next Google. They, not you, will decide which telephony service, which file-sharing software, which instant-messenger you will use.

How do we know this? Because the carriers have repeatedly told us of their intentions:

...William L. Smith, chief technology officer for Atlanta-based BellSouth Corp., told reporters and analysts that an Internet service provider such as his firm should be able, for example, to charge Yahoo Inc. for the opportunity to have its search site load faster than that of Google Inc. Or, Smith said, his company should be allowed to charge a rival voice-over-Internet firm so that its service can operate with the same quality as BellSouth's offering...

I can find no simpler way to put it: the carriers seek to turn the Internet into cable television. In doing so, they put America's technological leadership position at risk, they endanger the immense and fragile Internet ecosphere, and -- by extension -- they threaten the Internet itself.

Take action today. And tomorrow. And the next day... until the Senate gets the message -- loud and clear -- over the ringing of the lobbyists' cash registers.

Related: John Kerry on the Factor

Net neutrality fight goes to the Senate floor

Let the folks over at USA Today summarize Ted Stevens' proposed telecom legislation. The Senate bill does not provide strong protections for net neutrality. In addition, the bill would:

• Pre-empt state consumer protection laws on wireless services. [Ed: presumably written in by telco lobbyists, who probably want to centralize the lobbying spend at the Federal level] • Make permanent a ban on taxes on Internet access. • Allow TV and radio broadcasters to place copyright protection technology in their programs. • Reform the system of universal service fees, which subsidize phone service in rural areas. Broadband and Internet-based phone services would have to pay into the fund. [Ed: presumably written in by telco lobbyists, who seek to suppress any innovative, IP-based voice services such as Skype, Vonage, etc.] • Let cities provide their own high-speed Internet service.

Ben Scott, Policy Director of the Free Press writes:

The issue of Net Neutrality will continue to gain speed as the full Senate takes up a bill that will determine the fate of Internet freedom. The voices of millions of average citizens are just starting to break through the misinformation and lies being peddled by the big phone and cable companies who want to erect tollbooths on the Internet. Across the country, people are catching on to these companies’ plans, and they won’t forget which leaders stood up for the public interest...

How could such a thing happen? Well, consider Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) -- recipient of major telco funding ($71,250 in this year's cycle, according to MoveOn.org) and -- coincidentally (wink, wink, nudge, nudge) -- major backer of this legislation. Let's listen in on Stevens as he elaborates on his rationale for backing the telcos in this fight:

...We're using the Internet for personal communication. We're not using it for commercial purposes... ...We don't know enough to turn the Net into a two-tier system, which is exactly what Net neutrality would do... ...An internet was sent by my staff...

This clown idiot dunce esteemed politician knows as much about the Internet as one of the crustaceans swimming around at Red Lobster. Only he has a little less charismatic of a personality.

Letting rockets scientists like Stevens guide the future of the Internet is like having Britney Spears and K-Fed babysit your newborn child. There'll be lots of smoke and crying following all of the bad decisions.

I sent an Internet to him to complain. You can go to Save The Internet and make a series of calls to the Senators in question. Make your voice heard over the ringing of the lobbyists' cash registers in the Senate.

The Bush-Rumsfeld Plan for WWIII

Thus sayeth Kevin Murphy:

The Bush-Rumsfeld Plan for WWIII Step 1: The US does everything possible to create a multilateral alliance to stop Iran from getting nukes. Step 2: At the last minute, France vetoes the whole thing in exchange for oil drilling rights. Step 3: All the other countries back out of the alliance, since it is no longer multilateral without France. Step 4: Bowing to unrelenting international pressure, the US declines to go it alone. Step 5: Israel warns that an attack on them would be met with an unimaginable response. Step 6: Iran nukes Tel Aviv... Step 6.001: Israel nukes Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Pakistan, Libya, the UAE and Iran some more, using about 100 hydrogen bombs. A hundred million die. Step 7: Everyone blames Bush and Rumsfeld.

Shhhhh... no one tell the New York Times.

Behold The New York Times: Then and Now

Three days after 9/11, a New York Times op-ed piece demanded that the Bush administration use every available means to track the terrorists' financial networks. The words 'duplicitous' and 'hypocritical' come to mind; and they aren't nearly strong enough. I think the word 'prosecution' should also be involved (hat tip: Sweetness & Light via LGF):

Organizing the hijacking of the planes that crashed into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon took significant sums of money. The cost of these plots suggests that putting Osama bin Laden and other international terrorists out of business will require more than diplomatic coalitions and military action. Washington and its allies must also disable the financial networks used by terrorists. The Bush administration is preparing new laws to help track terrorists through their money-laundering activity and is readying an executive order freezing the assets of known terrorists. Much more is needed, including stricter regulations, the recruitment of specialized investigators and greater cooperation with foreign banking authorities. There must also must be closer coordination among America’s law enforcement, national security and financial regulatory agencies.

And yesterday, the Times ran another op-ed the stammeringly attempts to explain its exposure of the perfectly legal, yet classified, SWIFT terrorist-tracking program. No, the paper explains, it's not at war with the Bush administration:

It is certainly unlikely that anyone who wanted to hurt the Bush administration politically would try to do so by writing about the government’s extensive efforts to make it difficult for terrorists to wire large sums of money. From our side of the news-opinion wall, the Swift story looks like part of an alarming pattern. Ever since Sept. 11, the Bush administration has taken the necessity of heightened vigilance against terrorism and turned it into a rationale for an extraordinarily powerful executive branch, exempt from the normal checks and balances of our system of government. It has created powerful new tools of surveillance and refused, almost as a matter of principle, to use normal procedures that would acknowledge that either Congress or the courts have an oversight role.

Patterico uses everything but tasers and cattle-prods in disciplining the partisan hacks of the Times. He translates this silly suite of sentences:

Nobody could possibly think we’re trying to get the Bush Administration by revealing the Swift program. After all, the Swift program shows Bush is fighting terrorists, so it’s not as though the Swift program reflects badly on the Bush Administration. But Good Lord, the Swift program sure does reflect badly on the Bush Administration!

Just when you think the Times has hit rock bottom, they break out the pick-axes and start digging a new sub-basement.

Issue #1 of PC Week (1984)

I've got a lot of old computer magazines that I've been given or saved over the years. Some original Dr. Dobbs Journal from the Seventies (cover story: "6502 or 8080: which should you choose?"). Some old IEEE Spectrums, PC Tech Journals, computer catalogs, and Byte Magazines.

And this gem: issue #1 of PC Week (currently called eWeek). I don't have a scanner big enough to handle these oversized pages, so I took a few snapshots. I know: the quality is poor. But I thought these were fun nonetheless.

Cover of PC Week #1: don't be fooled by the Volume 1, Issue 9 caption; note the story at left. This has been confirmed by Ziff-Davis as the first issue.

Software Pirates Take Notice; More Companies Officially Prohibit Copying; Spencer Katt #1. One of the biggest problems facing the software industry in '84 was illicit copying of floppy disks (sound familiar?). The solution -- at least for a time -- was anti-copying technology that hackers quickly found ways to circumvent.

Portable Trends - check out the laptop. Yes, this was state-of-the-art mobile computing technology.

Sweet mouse: Microsoft Mouse double-page ad (left-side)... yes, Microsoft was in the hardware business before the Xbox.

Microsoft Mouse double-page ad (right-side).

There are some additional -- and very interesting -- op-ed pieces including one columnist who argues that "Windowing systems" (remember Windows was probably in pre-1.0 infancy state then) were fads. And Jim Seymour visited the IBM labs and proclaimed them the upcoming kings of PC software. Hmmmm.

Interestingly, one of the few companies (besides Microsoft) that is still around today is good old Alpha Software. They had a full-page ad and some additional news coverage in the first issue.

I'll try and post more of this if I can improve the quality and make it a bit more readable.

Doctorow on Net Neutrality: Don't let the telcos commit neutricide

The articulate Cory Doctorow speaks truth to power on the topic of net neutrality. Read it all.

It’s a dumb idea to put the plumbers who laid a pipe in charge of who gets to use it. It’s a way to ensure that incumbents with the deepest pockets will always be able to deliver a better service to the public, simply by degrading the quality of everyone else’s offerings. If you want to ensure that no one ever gets to creatively destroy an industry the way that Amazon, eBay, Google, Yahoo, and others have done, just make paying rent to a phone company a prerequisite for doing business. Practically everyone agrees on this. Only the carriers oppose it, and their opposition is so lame it’d be funny if it wasn’t so scary. The core argument from the carriers is that Google and other Internet companies get a ‘free ride’ on their pipes. AT&T and others take the position that if you look up a search result or stream a video from Google using your DSL connection, Google profits, but the carriers don’t get a share of the proceeds... There are few industries that owe their existence to regulation as much as the carriers. These companies are gigantic corporate welfare bums, having received the invaluable boon of a set of rights-of-way leading into every basement in America. Phone companies have a legal right to force you to provide access to your home for their pipes. Try calculating what it would cost to get into every U.S. home without a regulator clearing your path, and you quickly realize that the carriers should be the last people complaining about the distorting effect of regulation on their business. The Bells and cable companies owe their existence to governmental largesse, and, while they’re profit-making private firms, they are, in effect, quasigovernmental organizations. A Bell that wants to get rid of regulation is about as practical as a cotton-candy cone that wants to get rid of sugar. Bells are nothing but a thin veneer of arrogance wrapped around a regulatory monopoly.

Uhm, one word. Wow. Go to Save the Internet and take action.

STI: Protecting the Web from Corporate Welfare Bums

Oh, that mainstream media!

From the Media Research Center:

The federal deficit is shrinking, unemployment has fallen, and America has seen more than two straight years of job growth. But broadcasters have been describing the economy as “dicey,” “volatile” and “slow.” A Free Market Project analysis of economic stories on network evening news shows since President George W. Bush’s second inauguration showed negative news prevailing 62 percent of the time (71 out of 115 stories). That number was deceiving, however, because even good news often was portrayed as bad. In 40 stories classified as good economic news, journalists undermined the good news with bad 45 percent of the time. Good news was relegated to short reports, or briefs, 68 percent of the time, while bad news was treated with full stories. When briefs on both sides were excluded, the comparison of full-length news stories showed an overwhelming ratio: negative stories outnumbered positive ones almost 4-to-1.

And from a research paper, entitled, "Is Newspaper Coverage of Economic Events Politically Biased?":

When GDP growth is reported, Republicans received between 16 and 24 percentage point fewer positive stories for the same economic numbers than Democrats. For durable goods for all newspapers, Republicans received between 15 and 25 percentage points fewer positive news stories than Democrats. For unemployment, the difference was between zero and 21 percentage points. Retail sales showed no difference. Among the Associated Press and the top 10 papers, the Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, Associated Press, and New York Times tend to be the least likely to report positive news during Republican administrations, while the Houston Chronicle slightly favors Republicans. Only one newspaper treated one Republican administration significantly more positively than the Clinton administration: the Los Angeles Times' headlines were most favorable to the Reagan administration, but it still favored Clinton over either Bush administration.

Hmmmm.

Bonfire of the ATMs

I experienced my first major Bank ATM failure last Saturday. I was preparing to leave on vacation and drove through a branch office near my house. Flicked my card in and requested $300 out of a savings account.

The ATM started counting money -- I could hear it -- and then froze. The screen instructed me to remove the money. One problem: the black metal door that controlled access to the funds had never opened. And the ATM user interface itself was completely frozen. I sat there, stunned, for a minute or so.

I pressed "Cancel" and every other button on the screen. Nothing. I even tried some creative [Ctrl]+[Alt]+[Del] key combinations in the hope of striking a magic reset sequence. Nada. The screen sat there mocking me, telling me to remove the bills from the machine. Real amusing.

I got out the trusty BlackBerry 8700G and Googled the bank's customer support number. While sitting at the ATM, I called customer service on my cell phone. After navigating the ever-irritating IVR system, I got a live person on a line. The rep went to investigate and put me on hold while she called ATM support.

The timer on the BlackBerry indicated I was on hold nearly ten minutes. Coincidentally, about the time she returned to the line, the ATM coughed up my card along with the inscrutable message, "Transaction timed out." No money, no receipt, just the card.

The rep was back on the phone. She indicated that the $300 had been withdrawn from the account - in other words, I'd been docked the money but received absolutely nothing in return. Not a good thing. She asked whether I wanted to contest the withdrawal. Uhm, that would be "Yes!". She indicated that a "provisional credit"would be provided to the account, pending some sort of adjudication process.

Apparently, a secret ATM panel regularly meets to discuss and review disputed ATM transactions every so often. She felt confident that, by Tuesday, some sort of provisional credit would be issued.

On Thursday, from the beach, I checked online. Of course, no credit of any kind had been issued. Just two withdrawals of $300 (I'd driven to another bank branch and withdrawn the money I'd needed). So I was still out the first $300 withdrawal with nothing to show for it.

Online, I wrote an email to customer service... once again explaining the situation. The following email arrived in response:

Thank you for the opportunity to be of service through [Bank name]'s online service. Upon review of your account, I show that a dispute was filed on 6/17/06 to research the $300.00 withdrawal at the [Branch Office location] ATM. Per Federal guidelines, the bank does have 45 calendar days to fully resolve the claim. However, if we have not completed it in 10 business days, you will receive a provisional credit from the bank. You will receive written notification of the results of the investigation. Please complete any paperwork you receive from us and return promptly as instructed so we can complete the investigation for you. If we do not receive the paperwork back from you, the investigation will be closed and the provisional credit will be removed from your account. I apologize for any confusion or inconvenience this may have caused you. Thank you for choosing [Bank name] and we look forward to assisting you with your banking needs. Sincerely, [Name removed]

Well, since I'm on vacation, receiving and filling out paperwork will be a problem.

Furthermore, I find it difficult to believe that an ATM audit trail doesn't exist. Such an audit trail would track any of the following: (a) a sensor that notes whether the currency door actually opened or not; (b) a picture from the ATM's camera showing the cash getting dispensed or not; (c) an extra $300 showing up in the cash wipe drawer inside the ATM.

This isn't exactly rocket science. You, my dear and valued reader, will be the first to know whether the the bank does the right thing here.

Look Out, Pyongyang? Rail Gun in the Works

The folks over at DefenseTech cover the Navy's new destroyer and its electromagnetic railgun platform. The claim? Two DDG1000 destroyers should have the firepower of an entire, 640-person artillery battalion:

...[it relies] on electromagnetic fields to shoot projectiles [at] almost six kilometers/second... With an electromagnetic rail gun pushing the rounds out so quickly, the number of rounds fired per ship would jump from 232 to 5000, Navy planners believe... Because they travel so fast -- nearly Mach 7 -- the destructive force those rounds deliver would more than double, from 6.6 megajoules to 17. And they would fly almost five times farther -- up to 300 nautical miles. That's enough to put 100% of targets in North Korea "at Risk" from a single battleship, a Navy briefing notes...

Will 'Dear Leader' receive a long-distance love letter sometime soon?

DefenseTech: Look Out, Pyongyang? Rail Gun in the Works

WinFS is dead?

The word has come down from on high: WinFS -- the long-anticipated "relational filesystem" from Microsoft -- won't be delivered as a stand-alone product. A Digg submitter writes:

The official word from the dev team is that WinFS will no longer be developed as a relational filesystem, and all future betas are cancelled.

I've always wondered about the rationale for this type of next-generation "file system". As I saw it, a file system is nothing but a high-speed way -- but conceptually kid-simple -- to create, read, update and delete blocks of bytes within the constraints of foldering, files and basic permissions.

As originally described, WinFS would revolutionize the file system, providing SQL-like query capabilities and other search-focused characteristics that would make retrieval of data a snap.

Guess what? There are plenty of applications that already do this. Apps like Google, that layer incredibly sophisticated applications on top of a brute-simple file system. And apps like, yes, SQL Server... that does much the same.

So I've always wondered why the file system had to be so sophisticated that it could perform some of the application's work for it.

I guess I have my answer now.