Blackmoor Vituperative

Keith Martin has an interesting take on Star Wars (the first, original, and only true Star Wars.

Me [going into post-9/11, TSA-style super-dumbfounded mode]: So what you’re saying is you can’t ship any sort of containers, even if they’re empty? You know that we originally ordered these empty cans and jars from a company, and *they* shipped them to *us*.

FedEx guy: They must have used a different vendor [“vendor”? I can’t remember, some word like that, like a “service”].

Which I imagine he said because he couldn’t bring himself to say, “It’s the *words* that are *on* the containers that are dangerous” […]

(from putative.com, FedEx refuses shipment of made-up stuff, empty cans)

The thing that bugs me is the thought-war being waged on the sensible by the senseless, and it looks like the senseless have won. Even the guy who wrote the passage above uses the phrase “post-9/11, TSA-style”, as if today’s world is somehow intrinsically different from that of 2001-09-10. News flash — it isn’t. The only thing that has changed is that the people who want to oppress you have found something more emotionally stimulating than “it’s for the children” in order to justify dismantling your basic human rights. Frankly, I am surprised that the cynical bastards haven’t figured out a way to use Hurricane Katrina as an excuse to restrict, control, and oppress us.

A fourth yet-to-be-patched security vulnerability in Microsoft Word is actively being exploited in cyberattacks.

In other news, water is wet, teen-agers are horny, and politicians lie and steal. Switch to OpenOffice, you blockheads.

While the operating system market is still dominated by Microsoft and shows little sign of changing that doesn’t mean that all other options have failed hopelessly because there were some significant gains made over the past 12 months. Below are some good examples:

1. IBM will not use Windows Vista — but will move to Linux desktops
   IBM cancelled their contract with Microsoft last October which means that they will no longer use Windows for their desktops. Beginning July, IBM employees will begin using a Red Hat-based platform.
2. The City of Chicago goes Linux, saves over 85 percent in the process
   Big elements such as the vehicle registrations
   system, online job applications, restaurant inspections and more were migrated to a Red-Hat system in order to reduce costs and improve support, performance and scalability.
3. Munich opts to use Debian version of Linux
   The city of Munich has opted to use the Debian
   version of Linux for a high-profile, 14,000-computer installation, passing over Novell’s Suse Linux despite its regional popularity. Another massive win.
4. Ubuntu is noted as being #27 in PCWorld’s 100 Best Products of the Year
   Clearly a great result being placed above the iPod, iTunes, Google Desktop, Flickr and other good products.
5. Linux cuts Kent Police system costs by 90 percent by using SuSE
   Kent Police has cut the cost of running its major criminal investigations system by 90 percent using Novell Open Enterprise Server, the company’s version of SuSE Linux.
6. Kerala (an Indian state) goes Linux
   Children in 12500 high schools in the state will not be taught Windows. Instead instructors are lining up Linux for them. Another good win for Linux.
7. Venezuela’s Government Shifts to Open Source Software
   According to government sources in Venezuela, the South American nation has announced an official policy that exclusively calls for the use of open source software in that government.
8. Korea migrates 120K civil servants to Linux desktop
   The Korean government is to buy 120,000 copies of Hancom Linux Deluxe this year, enough to switch 23 percent of its installed base Microsoft user to open source equivalents. So another 120,000 users.
9. Dell refunds Linux users who ditch XP
   Dell, a massive player in the computer market have obviously accepted the need for this as an option for those users who do not wish to have Windows. A reasonably good gain as far as the consumer is concerned.

(from TechRepublic.com, Nine reasons why 2006 wasn’t a lost year for Linux)

2006 wasn’t a great year for me — I spent most of it alone in Richmond, away from Susan, doing one short-term contracting gig after another — but at least something good happened.

As the number of Web applications grows so does the number of vulnerabilities introduced. Failure to follow proper coding guidelines can expose an organization, its employees, and its customers to malicious attacks.

This is the first in a series of articles in which I explore the Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP) Top Ten and how the OWASP recommendations for dealing with the identified vulnerabilities can be integrated into your Software Development Lifecycle.

(from TechRepublic.com, Lock it down: Use the OWASP Top Ten to secure your Web applications — Part 1)

This is good stuff. Check it out.

My nephew Kai is a real-life Jack-Jack.

After pleading guilty to breaking into the paper’s internal computer network in January 2004, the terms of Lamo’s probation had confined him to the eastern district of California, which includes his parents’ home near Sacramento where he is living. That probation, which included mandatory “computer-monitoring software and filtering equipment,” expired Monday.

What isn’t over is Lamo’s refusal to give federal authorities a sample of his blood, which he says violates his religious convictions. He has offered to give a cheek swab as an alternative, a practice used by a number of states including California — but not the federal system.

[…]

A 2000 federal law called the DNA Analysis Backlog Elimination Act required that DNA samples be taken from anyone convicted of or on probation for certain serious crimes. This was challenged in court on Fourth and Fifth Amendment grounds, but a federal appeals court upheld (click for PDF) the DNA collection requirement as constitutional.

(ZDNet, Feds out for hacker’s blood)

Requiring DNA samples for nonviolent crimes is simply horrific. While I am perfectly happy to have the authorities lock up hackers and throw away the key, that does not justify an appalling personal invasion.

I think it shows how far we have fallen in this country that testing and analysis one’s bodily fluids is not just accepted, but has become commonplace, even for people who have never committed a crime, much less a violent one. It’s a violation of the most personal sort. It’s rape. It’s an outrageous injustice, and the rest of you are just sitting there and accepting it. You ought to be ashamed.

Troy Hurtubise, the Hamilton-born inventor who became famous for his bulky bear-protection suit by standing in front of a moving vehicle to prove it worked, has now created a much slimmer suit that he hopes will soon be protecting Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan and U.S. soldiers in Iraq.

He has spent two years and $15,000 in the lab out back of his house in North Bay, designing and building a practical, lightweight and affordable shell to stave off bullets, explosives, knives and clubs. He calls it the Trojan and describes it as the “first ballistic, full exoskeleton body suit of armour.”

(from Hamilton Spectator, From bears to bullets)

Who Wants To Be A Superhero?

The Sun is dying, and mankind is dying with it. Our last hope: a spaceship and a crew of eight men and women. They carry a device which will breathe new life into the star. But deep into their voyage, out of radio contact with Earth, their mission is starting to unravel. Soon the crew are fighting not only for their lives, but their sanity.

The film once again pairs director Danny Boyle with writer Alex Garland and producer Andrew Macdonald, who previously teamed up for the thinking person’s zombie film, 28 Days Later.

The cast is led by Rose Byrne (Troy), Cliff Curtis (Whale Rider), Chris Evans (Fantastic Four), Troy Garity (After The Sunset), Cillian Murphy (28 Days Later), Hiroyuki Sanada (The Last Samurai), Benedict Wong (Dirty Pretty Things) and Michelle Yeoh (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon).

(from sunshinedna.com)

Red Planet, Mission To Mars, and Solaris all bored me senseless, and this looks like much the same thing. On the other hand, I loved 28 Days Later. So who knows, maybe it will be good. The trailer makes it look like everybody dies, though.

Two former directors and founding shareholders of Neteller, a British online money transfer company, have been charged in the United States with laundering billions of dollars in illegal gambling proceeds.

[…]

Shares in the Neteller, which has grown fast with the rapid rise of online gambling, closed at 176 pence ($3.43) on Monday, valuing it at about $415.4 million.

The company’s shares have fallen 60 percent since early September, hit by the arrests in the United States of executives from British companies involved in online sports betting and the passage in October of a U.S. law barring banks from transactions involving Internet gambling.

(from ZDNet, Neteller founders face money-laundering charges)

You think this is fair and just? Just wait until you are found guilty of a crime in some other country for doing something perfectly legal here in the USA.