Skip to content

Author: Justin

Justin Mason, the author of this weblog.

Guantanamo Bay detainees including children

Published April 26, 2003

Wierd. For the last two days, the PM news programme on BBC Radio 4 has been discussing the recent admission by (iirc) the US military commander in control of the Guantanamo Bay detention center, that there are several Afghani children who have been detained there, since the war in Afghanistan.

This has elicited the reactions you'd expect from UNICEF, etc., seeing as it's in contravention of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

However, there's nothing on any English-language news pages I can find; just this Der Spiegel story, not even on the BBC news site itself.

Update: Didn't look hard enough! Here it is. Also, the Irish Times reports:

(General Richard Myers) responded sharply to questions about critical world reaction to the detention of three children, ages 13 to 15, at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba where the US military holds suspected al-Qaeda and Taliban members.

'Despite their age these are very dangerous people,' he said. 'Some have killed. some have said they will kill again.'

Defence Secretary Mr Donald Rumsfeld said the US was 'keeping them down there to keep them off the streets'.

Hmm. On the BBC, the commander of the joint task force at Guantanamo, Major General Geoffrey Miller was interviewed; he said that the children had been press-ganged into fighting for the Taliban, and had been victims of abuse during that time. 'very dangerous people'?

‘at teatime’?

Published April 26, 2003

wtf? From the Red Hat 9 at(1) manual page:

At allows fairly complex time specifications, extending the POSIX.2 standard. ... You may also specify midnight, noon, or teatime (4pm).

US sugar industry threathens to kill off WHO

Published April 25, 2003

This is quite simply insane:

The sugar industry in the US is threatening to bring the World Health Organisation to its knees by demanding that Congress end its funding unless the WHO scraps guidelines on healthy eating, due to be published on Wednesday.

The threat is being described by WHO insiders as tantamount to blackmail and worse than any pressure exerted by the tobacco lobby.

In a letter to Gro Harlem Brundtland, the WHO's director general, the Sugar Association says it will 'exercise every avenue available to expose the dubious nature' of the WHO's report on diet and nutrition, including challenging its $406m (£260m) funding from the US.

The industry is furious at the guidelines, which say that sugar should account for no more than 10% of a healthy diet. It claims that the review by international experts which decided on the 10% limit is scientifically flawed, insisting that other evidence indicates that a quarter of our food and drink intake can safely consist of sugar.

Does anyone in their right mind think that a food intake consisting of 25% sugar makes any sense whatsoever?

Food over here, BTW, has been really good compared to Ireland. We have a branch of Trader Joe's just down the road, which has supplied us with stacks of fantastic organic and/or healthy eats, for far cheaper than what the local supermarket charges for the usual pasteurised, added-sugar, added-salt crap.

This is just as well, because that supermarket has some really nasty stuff; even the bread is sweet due to added sugar! yuck. (In passing, pet food peeve: pasteurised orange juice. Pasteurisation of fruit juice kills the flavour and texture, and is thoroughly pointless; with that much acid and sugar, there's no way any nasty bacteria can survive, assuming the juice is citrus and is fresh enough. But maybe that's the point; saleable while less fresh == longer shelflife == profit.)

Goodbye to Baghdad

Published April 25, 2003

Goodbye to Baghdad (Guardian). Some good snippets:

The information ministry and TV headquarters were obvious targets (for looters), but the wanton destruction of St George's church was unexpected. ... A man living next door to the church said Christians were seen as part of the regime.

Tariq Aziz, after all, is a Christian. Also, this -- I knew it! --

The US tanks that shot their way into the city have lost their menace. Children now go right up to the US soldiers, smile, and swear at them in Arabic, finding it hilarious that the troops think they are being friendly.

And the politics of the Shia/Sunni divide:

'The whole administration has been robbed and destroyed, except for those institutions which have been guarded by them (provisional Shia local government),' said the hospital director. He was transparently unhappy at having to take orders from the Shia clergy, but said America had left him no choice.

'Without them, this hospital would have vanished. We have no civilian administration now. Until now America hasn't done anything for the civilian administration. They are just occupying us and doing nothing.'

The doctor's dilemma raises a larger question. Did Bush go to war on Saddam Hussein's secular dictatorship to pave the way for an Islamist Shia regime bordering Iran? Because that is what is beginning to take root in Saddam City, and in other neighbourhoods of Baghdad. ....

The new Shia assertiveness - whether through ambitions of religious government or the exuberance with which millions this week participated in a religious pilgrimage banned under Saddam - has horrified the Iraqi middle and upper classes, and the minority Sunni elite, which has been the traditional ruler of Iraq from the days of the Ottoman empire.

Like the Americans, they have been slow to react these past two weeks, stunned by the speed with which the regime collapsed and mortified by the knowledge that millions have watched on TV as Iraqis laid waste to their own country, and history.

BBC chief attacks U.S. war coverage (fwd)

Published April 25, 2003

BBC Director General Greg Dyke singled out for criticism the fast growing News Corp's Fox News Channel, owned by media baron Rupert Murdoch, and Clear Channel Communications, the largest operator of radio stations in the United States, with over 1,200 stations, for special criticism.

'Personally, I was shocked while in the United States by how unquestioning the broadcast news media was during this war,' Dyke said in a speech at a University of London conference on Thursday.

'If Iraq proved anything, it was that the BBC cannot afford to mix patriotism and journalism. This is happening in the United States and if it continues, will undermine the credibility of the U.S. electronic news media.'

Dyke singled out Fox News, the most popular U.S. cable news network during the conflict, for its 'gung-ho patriotism,' saying: 'We are still surprised when we see Fox News with such a committed political position.'

Good bits, via the IP list.

SARS and Singapore

Published April 23, 2003

(or humour?) Rod Liddle: How I was seized for my smoker's cough:

Despite the almost total absence of SARS around here, the various governments are very worried, apart from the Singaporean government, which, I suspect, likes nothing more than imposing rigorous screening and quarantine programmes upon its somewhat cowed citizens and scrubbing everything down with disinfectant every five minutes. Stand on a street corner for too long in Singapore and you're likely to be sprayed with Dettol. But that was true long before SARS presented itself. ...

We are still in the blame stage of this 'epidemic' and the blame shifts according to where you are and what the local government believes. A similar pattern of xenophobic mythology established itself during the early stages of Asian flu, Aids and the Ebola virus. Nasty, incurable diseases are almost always the fault of foreigners doing despicable, uncivilised things, usually with animals. Betcha there's a gruesome SARS film from Hollywood by the end of next year, with a heroic American doctor played by Ben Affleck, who saves Chicago, or something.

Rod Liddle is very clearly on holiday.

Spammers in the NYT again

Published April 22, 2003

NYT: Internet Is Losing Ground in Battle Against Spam.

'We have allowed these spam cops to rise out of nowhere to be self-appointed police and block whole swaths of the industry,' said Bob Dallas, an executive of Empire Towers, an e-mail firm in Toledo, Ohio, widely cited on antispam lists used by many Internet companies.

'This is against everything that America stands for,' Mr. Dallas added.

'The consumer should be the one in control of this.'

Wow, way to shoot yourself down in flames. Without a spam filter to detect unsolicited bulk mail and differentiate from the solicited stuff from their friends and legit subscriptions, the consumer has control how, exactly?

BTW, Empire Towers have a very impressive ROKSO listing. It says: 'Empire Towers (ET) is a hard-line stealth spamming operation whose spams are illegal in most US states. ET goes to elaborate lengths to hide spam origins and obfuscate URLs. They operate by obtaining multiple class C netblocks on multiple ISPs known for lax handling of spam complaints, the class Cs serving to make their account more valuable to the ISP so in theory harder to terminate.'

‘Internet advances not always pure tech’ shocker

Published April 22, 2003

Jason Kottke: Portal Wars II: When Search Engines Attack. He makes a great point (from Robert Morris at Etech 2002): while advances on the internet are typically heralded as tech-driven, in fact they're more often usability-driven. Examples:

Mosaic was not an advancement in technology over TBL's original browser. Blogger is a highly-specialized FTP client. IM is IRC++ (or IRC for Dummies, depending on your POV).

Dead right. Good tech, without the rough edges sanded down, and a degree of comprehensibility, is useless.

Aside: I wonder if Robert Morris, IBM is any relation to Robert T Morris, the 1988 internet worm guy?

Evil Alarm Clocks

Published April 22, 2003

It seems alarm clocks may be responsible for more than just waking you up at unfriendly hours of the day -- they may also make you hallucinate and imagine visitations from supernatural beings, according to Michael Persinger, a psychologist who's been investigating the effects of complex electromagnetic fields on the brain's perception. He says:

As a human being, I am concerned about the illusionary explanations for human consciousness and the future of human existence. Consequently after writing the Neuropsychological Base of God Beliefs (1987), I began the systematic application of complex electromagnetic fields to discern the patterns that will induce experiences (sensed presence) that are attributed to the myriad of ego-alien intrusions which range from gods to aliens. The research is not to demean anyone's religious/mystical experience but instead to determine which portions of the brain or its electromagnetic patterns generate the experience.

So it turns out that Horizon, the BBC science programme, has just shown an episode about Dr. Persinger's work. The transcript isn't up yet, unfortunately, but some mails on the forteana list make it sound like it'll be well worth a read when it is. (It'll be here, apparently.)

One great find is this paper:

'A left-handed Roman Catholic female adolescent with a history of early brain trauma reported nightly visitations by a sentient being. During one episode she experienced vibrations of the bed, an external presence along the left side that moved into her body, inner vaginal (not clitoral) and uterine sensations, and the sense of being impregnated by a force she attributed to the Holy Spirit. After the latter experience she felt an invisible baby superimposed upon her left shoulder. Analyses of the measurements for magnetic anomalies within her bedroom indicated an electric clock about 20 cm from her head while she slept. The complex form of the 4 microT magnetic pulses generated by the clock was similar to shapes that evoke electrical seizures in epileptic rats and sensitive humans.'

Also worth noting that Richard Dawkins has little aptitude for religious feelings, even magnetically-induced ones!

The Open Proxy Problem

Published April 22, 2003

The Open Proxy Problem, a PowerPoint/PDF presentation shown at the Internet2 Members Meeting of April 9th 2003, by Joe St Sauver, Ph.D (Director, User Services and Network Applications University of Oregon Computing Center).

Well worth a read if you're interested in network security or spam. Joe's done an astonishing job of researching every angle of the issue, from historical comparisons to 'blue boxes' circa 1971, the status of proxy servers to the Chinese government, and even a statistical analysis of proxy DNSBL overlap. (BTW, did you know that the New York Times was broken into via an open proxy?)

Using VNC For Your Main Desktop

Published April 21, 2003

I've just fixed my desktop machine (had to buy a new CPU, unfortunately, after the old one died during shipping).

I then upgraded to Red Hat 9 (woo, very nice), switched to KDE for my desktop, and took a look at software suspend (because the machine is too noisy to leave on permanently in the corner of the living room).

However, the latter won't work with my video card; instead, the machine reboots continually when resuming from suspend. Problem.

A bit of thinking about the problem came up with a nifty solution... I'd heard of folks using a VNC server for their main desktop, in order to connect to it from any machine they found themselves near, and not be 'tethered' to one particular desktop machine. The same system also means I can run my desktop with a virtual display, and just 'connect' to this from the real one. Then, when I want to suspend, I can just kill off the X server, suspend, and start up a new one after resume.

If you're curious about how to do this, read on...

From: Justin Mason
Subject: setting up a VNC desktop

Software suspend won't work with my video card; instead, the machine reboots continually when resuming from suspend. Problem.

A bit of thinking about the problem came up with a nifty solution... I'd heard of folks using a VNC server for their main desktop, in order to connect to it from any machine they found themselves near, and not be 'tethered' to one particular desktop machine. The same system also means I can run my desktop with a virtual display, and just 'connect' to this from the real one. Then, when I want to suspend, I can just kill off the 'hardware' X server, suspend, and start up a new one after resume.

First, install xf4vnc. This gives you a VNC server that can use the 'Render' extension, and therefore display anti-aliased text efficiently. Installation of this is a bit of a manual job, unfortunately, since the author hasn't actually packaged it in any way. Not too hard though; just 3 copy commands; I don't think you actually need any files apart from the two in the xf4vnc-linux-i386 group.

Create a file called ~/.xserverrc containing:

:: /usr/local/bin/Xvnc-xf4vnc -depth 16 -geometry 1152x864 -deferupdate 10 :0

Best to make the depth and geometry match your current display.

Next, create a script called ~/bin/x containing:

:: #!/bin/sh
:: X :1 &
:: sleep 4
:: vncviewer -compresslevel 0 -quality 9 -fullscreen -display :1 localhost:0

(ie. start an X display on :1, then display vncviewer to that display.) Don't forget to make it executable with chmod.

Now, close your current X desktop, return to the console, and run startx to start a new one. This won't display; instead, it'll run GNOME/KDE/whatever using a virtual framebuffer. CTRL-Z and bg that process.

Run the x script. It'll connect to your virtual desktop. That's it!

You can now hit CTRL-ALT-Backspace to your heart's content. When your display is killed, the applications and desktop remain untouched. When you rerun the x script, it'll reconnect and nothing will have changed apart from the mouse pointer position. In fact, I just restarted my X server halfway through that sentence ;)

Have fun!

(Untitled)

Published April 18, 2003

Guardian: Ministers may be questioned over cover-up.

The cover-up into security force collusion with loyalist murder gangs in Northern Ireland may have reached the highest echelons of the army and even government ministers, Britain's most senior police officer revealed yesterday. ...

He said loyalist paramilitaries had been helped by RUC officers and members of a covert army squad, the FRU (force research unit), and that the cooperation between them included 'wilful failure to keep records, the absence of accountability, the withholding of intelligence and evidence, and the extreme of agents being involved in murder'.

More RHL9 comments

Published April 18, 2003

More comments on that RHL9 review... interesting to see that RH ran into the same Unicode problem we did with SpamAssassin -- namely that using Unicode charsets is horrifically slow compared to plain old ASCII. (This is the main reason we use ASCII internally in SpamAssassin.)

Bootup Scripts and Unicode: All the text processing utilities, grep, awk, sort, etc all work significantly slower when using the Unicode UTF locale. To speed the bootup, in the /etc/rc.sysinit and other SysV scripts, because the configuration is using 7bit ASCII these utilities are now invoked with LC_ALL=C utility to force the C locale.

(Also interesting to note who reported the bug, too ;)

Other nice additions:

  • Keith Packard's xrandr, to resize and rotate an X screen on the fly.
  • redhat-config-(tab) to list all system config stuff from the commandline. At last, sensible naming for this stuff!
  • Debuginfo RPMs, to install debug symbols for your system libraries on-the-fly.
  • Subversion. (Although I'm a bit disappointed to read that svn doesn't improve on CVS' ability to do merges at all, which has drastically reduced my keenness to upgrade.)

Red Hat 9, and POSIX ACLs

Published April 18, 2003

Good techie review of RH9, thanks Padraig. I find this horrifically kludgy, though:

Just a quick observation. The way text editors save files normally, is to create a new file with a temporary random name, and then move/rename the new file to name of the original. Using this technique, if the file being edited has ACLs, the ACLs will be lost. The Vim editor uses libacl to obtain the original ACLs, and then add them back after the save. It is important that other applications that save files in the same fashion are updated to use libacl.

Bad bad bad. Shouldn't require application code updates like this. I think this is POSIX' fault. Mind you, according to acl(5), it looks like umask(2) and a concept of parent-directory-affecting-child-nodes'-ACLs seems to apply; so that improves matters a little.

Still, I don't like the idea of changing something as fundamental as the system calls used to copy and update files in a filesystem, which hasn't changed in ~15 years on the UNIX platform. I am sure there'll be nasty side-effects. Maybe that's why the POSIX 1003.1e ACL standardization effort foundered ;)

Afghanistan’s First Irish Pub Opens

Published April 18, 2003

You just can't get away from 'em. Irish bars, I mean.

'The first public house in Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban has opened - and it's Irish. The Irish Club opened on a secluded side street in the centre of Kabul last month - on St Patrick's Day.' ...

'There are Afghan staff, of course, but they have all been given Irish names - Kevin, Jimmy, Michael, George - 'to protect them from possible retaliation' ...

Fazel Ahmed Manawi, the deputy supreme court justice, said any Muslims found drinking at the Irish Club will be punished. 'We have got a lot of foreigners living in our country and unfortunately, this is a necessary thing for them,' he said.' (Full story)

Date: Fri, 18 Apr 2003 09:36:01 +0100
From: Joe McNally (spam-protected)
To: Yahoogroups Forteana (spam-protected)
Subject: Afghanistan - no end to the horror in sight

http://www.irishnews.com/access/daily/current.asp?SID=431306

Out with the Taliban, in with the craic

THE first public house in Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban has opened - and it's Irish.

In Taliban times, a fully stocked Irish pub serving whiskey and cold beer in the heart of the ultra-Islamic country's capital would have been unimaginable.

It still is for many Afghans, but the Kabul night-spot has been a life-saver for many expatriates working in the city.

The Irish Club opened on a secluded side street in the centre of Kabul last month - on St Patrick's Day.

There is no sign, and not even a number on the door, but in a country where terrorists are still a real threat, that is exactly the way the Irish owner Sean Martin McQuade wants it.

"We wanted to keep a low profile, so we didn't advertise whatsoever," he said.

"But people know where to find us. News travels fast by word of mouth."

In a mock Tudor-style house behind the blank outer wall, immaculate Afghan waiters in black trousers, white shirts and black bow ties serve up beer for £1.25 and cocktails for £1.90.

Customers - mostly aid workers, diplomats and journalists - crowd around a wooden bar topped off with green marble imported from Ireland.

Afghan carpets are strewn about the floor. Posters for Guinness are tacked all over the walls. Small lanterns - handy during the sporadic power cuts - are placed on every table.

"We are the first people to stick our necks out and say this can be a cosmopolitan city," Mr McQuade, who has worked as an engineer in Afghanistan for the last 11 years, said.

He insisted that he had gone out of his way not to offend anyone and had sought the approval of a neighbourhood mullah to open the bar. In return, he promised to help rebuild the pot-holed road in front of the club and to help relocate an adjacent school to a bigger, better site.

The bar is officially licensed by the state to sell alcohol - but only to foreigners. An Afghan bouncer keeps locals out, checking IDs and making sure patrons sign in.

There are Afghan staff, of course, but they have all been given Irish names - Kevin, Jimmy, Michael, George - "to protect them from possible retaliation".

The Taliban may no longer be in power, but Muslim conservatives continue to hold sway in Afghanistan.

Fazel Ahmed Manawi, the deputy supreme court justice, said any Muslims found drinking at the Irish Club will be punished.

"We have got a lot of foreigners living in our country and unfortunately, this is a necessary thing for them," he said.

« Back -- Joe McNally :: Flaneur at Large :: http://www.flaneur.org.uk

Venezuelan General: ‘Proof Washington was behind coup’

Published April 18, 2003

CBC.ca: Venezuela has Proof Washington was Behind Failed Coup, says General .

The embassy also rejected allegations by governing party legislators that two U.S. military officials who visited the Fuerte Tiuna military base in Caracas the day before Chavez's ouster were helping coup leaders.

The two officers spent two hours at the base April 11 to investigate information about troop movements, the embassy said. They left hours before Chavez was deposed. Two officers returned to the base April 13 for another evaluation of the situation.

According to the Council on Hemispheric Affairs:

Venezuelan and U.S. officials are investigating allegations that two high-level military officials from the U.S. embassy, including Army Lt. Col. James Rogers, were at Fuerte Tiuna military base the first night of the coup while Chávez was being held there.

The U.S. embassy initially called the allegations 'pure rubbish.' A month after the overthrow, it issued a statement saying the two officials were at the base for two hours late Thursday afternoon, April 11, just before the coup unfolded that evening. They were checking reports of troop movements, the embassy said, and returned Saturday, April 13, during the coup to check the general situation.

Ri-ight.

The details of how the coup occurred are deepening suspicions of U.S. involvement among critics, such as Birns, who draw parallels to the 1973 coup in Chile. They contend that Chávez's overthrow was not the result of a 'spontaneous popular uprising' as the coup leaders, the U.S. government and Chávez opponents contend. Rather, they say, it was a highly orchestrated, carefully thought-out plan by a corrupt class of business, labor, media and military elites who are backed by the United States and who see Chávez's 'peaceful revolution' on behalf of Venezuela's impoverished majority as a threat to their privileges.

'This is as classic as they come,' said William Blum, author of Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II. In an April 27 interview with NCR, Blum said the CIA was 'not even embarrassed' to use its 'same methods all over again,' namely, helping to create a situation of chaos and violence that invites the military to step in.

reStructuredText v. EtText

Published April 18, 2003

reStructuredText is apparently the new wave of text-based markup -- in the Python community at least. ;)

It's basically a reworking of Zope's StructuredText, which -- like my own EtText, which is what this blog is written in -- is itself a reworking of Setext. Setext is an old Amiga smart-text format which I first encountered in the Plexus web server back in 1993. Plexus, BTW, was what HTTP server number 70-something ran.

It's interesting. I'd been considering modifying EtText to use some StructuredText ideas, such as indentation indicating tag-nesting levels. But it looks like reStructuredText has got rid of that idea, and instead does what EtText does: ie. indentation indicates quoting. So it must have driven someone up the wall in that case.

There's a reStructuredText primer here. Compare with EtText's quick intro. (gack, what is that font I'm using there? ;)

Still, a few other nice ideas to steal ;) -- I like the idea of ending the paragraph with colon-colon to indicate that the next quoted block is a code sample in monospace format. hmm...

Ask Don Rumsfeld!

Published April 17, 2003

the 'Ask Don Rumsfeld' simulator...

Your question was:

Any sign of those WMDs yet, Don?

Answer:

It might just be in the words one uses, and someone would then say, oh, my goodness, he thinks this and someone else thinks that. I am impatient. I probably will remain impatient. And if everything were being done absolutely perfectly, I probably would still be impatient. Our relationship with them is multi-faceted, it's political, it's economic, and clearly there are security implications.

I guess anything's possible. I can't validate it. Oh, I think I'll leave that for the coming days and weeks. Now that I think of it, I shouldn't have mentioned it. So when we do the best we can and we pull all this information together, and we then say well that's basically what we see as the situation, that is really only the known knowns and the known unknowns.

Maybe that is kind of idiosyncratic behaviour on my part but it seems quite rational to me and I think I will stick with it. And it's constantly a moving target. Well, you know, the United States has a wonderful record of humanitarian assistance, and caring about people, and participation in funding of medical activities, and food programs for people, and we're not against any religion. As a country, we're not against any race.

It's just not knowable. We are looking for code words to describe a relationship that is in transition, I think, is a challenge. I don't have any good current information that would validate that story.

Ways to pass the time on boring train journeys, pt.XVII

Published April 17, 2003

A group of Russian train conductors needed hospital treatment after smashing their heads repeatedly against a train window to find out who had the strongest forehead.

The conductors came up with the contest as a way of passing time on the 3,000 mile journey from Novosibirsk in Siberia to Vladivostock. The men were treated in hospital after stopping the train midway through the journey at the town of Vyazemskaya and demanding medical help, Pravda reports.

Story filed: 08:48 Thursday 17th April 2003 (Ananova)

Record for most blocked host on the ‘net

Published April 17, 2003

Wow. I think this is the most blocklist hits I've ever seen in a mail... the open relay 61.159.235.36 is listed in a whole 19 DNS blocklists.

  • T_RCVD_IN_DEADBEEF (0.0 points) RBL: T_RCVD_IN_DEADBEEF RBL A check: found 36.235.159.61.bl.deadbeef.com., type: 127.0.0.2
  • RCVD_IN_NJABL (1.2 points) RBL: Received via a relay in dnsbl.njabl.org RBL A check: found 36.235.159.61.dnsbl.njabl.org., type: 127.0.0.9
  • RCVD_IN_OSIRUSOFT_COM (0.5 points) RBL: Received via a relay in relays.osirusoft.com RBL A check: found 36.235.159.61.relays.osirusoft.com., type: 127.0.0.9
  • RCVD_IN_UNCONFIRMED_DSBL (0.0 points) RBL: Received via a relay in unconfirmed.dsbl.org RBL TXT check: found 36.235.159.61.unconfirmed.dsbl.org., type: http://dsbl.org/listing?ip=61.159.235.36
  • T_RCVD_IN_WIREHUB_PROXIES (0.0 points) RBL: T_RCVD_IN_WIREHUB_PROXIES RBL A check: found 36.235.159.61.proxies.blackholes.wirehub.net., type: 127.0.0.2
  • T_RCVD_IN_GIPPER (0.0 points) RBL: T_RCVD_IN_GIPPER RBL A check: found 36.235.159.61.proxy.bl.gweep.ca., type: 127.0.0.1
  • T_RCVD_IN_WIREHUB_BH (0.0 points) RBL: T_RCVD_IN_WIREHUB_BH RBL A check: found 36.235.159.61.blackholes.wirehub.net., type: 127.0.0.2
  • RCVD_IN_DSBL (4.3 points) RBL: Received via a relay in list.dsbl.org RBL TXT check: found 36.235.159.61.list.dsbl.org., type: http://dsbl.org/listing?ip=61.159.235.36
  • RCVD_IN_BL_SPAMCOP_NET (0.0 points) RBL: Received via a relay in bl.spamcop.net RBL TXT check: found 36.235.159.61.bl.spamcop.net., type: Blocked - see http://spamcop.net/bl.shtml?61.159.235.36
  • T_RCVD_IN_SORBS (0.0 points) RBL: T_RCVD_IN_SORBS RBL A check: found 36.235.159.61.dnsbl.sorbs.net., type: 127.0.0.2
  • RCVD_IN_SBL (1.1 points) RBL: Received via SBLed relay, see http://www.spamhaus.org/sbl/ RBL TXT check: found 36.235.159.61.sbl.spamhaus.org., type: Listed on SBL - see http://spamhaus.org/SBL/sbl.lasso?query=SBL5950
  • RCVD_IN_OPM (4.3 points) RBL: Received via a relay in opm.blitzed.org RBL TXT check: found 36.235.159.61.opm.blitzed.org., type: open proxy - see http://blitzed.org/proxy/?ip=61.159.235.36
  • T_RCVD_IN_OSSOCKS (0.0 points) RBL: T_RCVD_IN_OSSOCKS RBL A check: found 36.235.159.61.socks.relays.osirusoft.com., type: 127.0.0.9
  • T_RCVD_IN_MONKEYS_UPL (0.0 points) RBL: Received via a relay in proxies.relays.monkeys.com. RBL TXT check: found 36.235.159.61.proxies.relays.monkeys.com., type: BLOCKED: See http://www.monkeys.com/upl/listed-ip-0.cgi?ip=61.159.235.36
  • T_RCVD_IN_OPM_HTTP_CONNECT (0.0 points) RBL: T_RCVD_IN_OPM_HTTP_CONNECT
  • T_RCVD_IN_SORBS_HTTP (0.0 points) RBL: T_RCVD_IN_SORBS_HTTP
  • T_RCVD_IN_FIVETEN_SPAM (0.0 points) RBL: T_RCVD_IN_FIVETEN_SPAM

  • T_RCVD_IN_OPM_HTTP_POST (0.0 points) RBL: T_RCVD_IN_OPM_HTTP_POST

Aha. looking it up, it's in China. That explains it... Full message here.

Date: Thu, 17 Apr 2003 07:51:51 +0000
From: "HGH Free Sample" (spam-protected)
To: (spam-protected)
Subject: SPAM(40.60) Shed Weight While You Sleep with HGH hyvsjpilripyoiebf

This is a multi-part message in MIME format.

------------=_3E9E19A5.69236551

Content-Disposition: inline

This mail is probably spam. The original message has been attached along with this report, so you can recognize or block similar unwanted mail in future. See http://spamassassin.org/tag/ for more details.

Content preview: As seen on NBC, CBS, CNN, and even Oprah! The health

discovery that actually reverses aging while burning fat.

Content analysis details: (40.60 points, 5 required) T_DATE_SPAMWARE_Y2K (0.0 points) Date header uses unusual Y2K formatting ADDR_FREE (0.8 points) From Address contains FREE RATWARE_EGROUPS (4.3 points) Bulk email software fingerprint (eGroups) foun d in headers FROM_ENDS_IN_NUMS (0.7 points) From: ends in numbers BANG_OPRAH (4.3 points) BODY: Talks about Oprah with an exclamation! SOME_BREAKTHROUGH (0.9 points) BODY: Describes some sort of breakthrough WHILE_YOU_SLEEP (2.6 points) BODY: While you Sleep REVERSE_AGING (2.9 points) BODY: Reverses Aging BANG_EXERCISE (2.7 points) BODY: Talks about exercise with an exclamation ! DIET (0.0 points) BODY: Lose Weight Spam AS_SEEN_ON (3.3 points) BODY: As seen on national TV! T_AS_SEEN_ON (0.0 points) BODY: /seenn\b\s*(?:TV|ABC|NBC|CBS|CNN|Op rah|USA Today|48 Hours|(The )?New York Times|\w+\s+TV|:)/i T_BLANK_LINE_RATIO_01_08_10 (0.0 points) BODY: T_BLANK_LINE_RATIO_01_08_10 HTML_50_60 (0.1 points) BODY: Message is 50% to 60% HTML BAYES_90 (2.9 points) BODY: Bayesian classifier says spam probabilit y is 90 to 99%

[score: 0.9050] HTML_MESSAGE (0.0 points) BODY: HTML included in message T_BLANK_LINE_RATIO_20_08_10 (0.0 points) BODY: T_BLANK_LINE_RATIO_20_08_10 T_BLANK_LINE_RATIO_04_08_10 (0.0 points) BODY: T_BLANK_LINE_RATIO_04_08_10 T_BLANK_LINE_RATIO_08_08_10 (0.0 points) BODY: T_BLANK_LINE_RATIO_08_08_10 HTML_TAG_BALANCE_HTML (0.0 points) BODY: HTML has unbalanced "html" tags T_MIME_QP (0.0 points) RAW: T_MIME_QP MIME_HTML_NO_CHARSET (0.0 points) RAW: Message text in HTML without specified charset FORGED_RCVD_HELO (1.0 points) Received: contains a forged HELO DATE_IN_FUTURE_03_06 (1.5 points) Date: is 3 to 6 hours after Received: date T_RCVD_IN_DEADBEEF (0.0 points) RBL: T_RCVD_IN_DEADBEEF

[RBL A check: found 36.235.159.61.bl.deadbeef.com., type: 12 7.0.0.2] RCVD_IN_NJABL (1.2 points) RBL: Received via a relay in dnsbl.njabl.org

[RBL A check: found 36.235.159.61.dnsbl.njabl.org., type: 12 7.0.0.9] RCVD_IN_OSIRUSOFT_COM (0.5 points) RBL: Received via a relay in relays.osiruso ft.com

[RBL A check: found 36.235.159.61.relays.osirusoft.com., typ e: 127.0.0.9]
RCVD_IN_UNCONFIRMED_DSBL (0.0 points) RBL: Received via a relay in unconfirmed .dsbl.org

[RBL TXT check: found 36.235.159.61.unconfirmed.dsbl.org., t ype: http://dsbl.org/listing?ip=61.159.235.36]
T_RCVD_IN_WIREHUB_PROXIES (0.0 points) RBL: T_RCVD_IN_WIREHUB_PROXIES

[RBL A check: found 36.235.159.61.proxies.blackholes.wirehub .net., type: 127.0.0.2] T_RCVD_IN_GIPPER (0.0 points) RBL: T_RCVD_IN_GIPPER

[RBL A check: found 36.235.159.61.proxy.bl.gweep.ca., type: 127.0.0.1] T_RCVD_IN_WIREHUB_BH (0.0 points) RBL: T_RCVD_IN_WIREHUB_BH

[RBL A check: found 36.235.159.61.blackholes.wirehub.net., t ype: 127.0.0.2]
RCVD_IN_DSBL (4.3 points) RBL: Received via a relay in list.dsbl.org

[RBL TXT check: found 36.235.159.61.list.dsbl.org., type: ht tp://dsbl.org/listing?ip=61.159.235.36] RCVD_IN_BL_SPAMCOP_NET (0.0 points) RBL: Received via a relay in bl.spamcop.ne t

[RBL TXT check: found 36.235.159.61.bl.spamcop.net., type: B locked - see http://spamcop.net/bl.shtml?61.159.235.36] T_RCVD_IN_SORBS (0.0 points) RBL: T_RCVD_IN_SORBS

[RBL A check: found 36.235.159.61.dnsbl.sorbs.net., type: 12 7.0.0.2] RCVD_IN_SBL (1.1 points) RBL: Received via SBLed relay, see http://www. spamhaus.org/sbl/

[RBL TXT check: found 36.235.159.61.sbl.spamhaus.org., type: 

Listed on SBL - see http://spamhaus.org/SBL/sbl.lasso?query=SBL5950]

RCVD_IN_OPM (4.3 points) RBL: Received via a relay in opm.blitzed.org 

[RBL TXT check: found 36.235.159.61.opm.blitzed.org., type:

open proxy - see http://blitzed.org/proxy/?ip=61.159.235.36] T_RCVD_IN_OSSOCKS (0.0 points) RBL: T_RCVD_IN_OSSOCKS 

[RBL A check: found 36.235.159.61.socks.relays.osirusoft.com

., type: 127.0.0.9] T_RCVD_IN_MONKEYS_UPL (0.0 points) RBL: Received via a relay in proxies.relays .monkeys.com. 

[RBL TXT check: found 36.235.159.61.proxies.relays.monkeys.c

om., type: BLOCKED: See http://www.monkeys.com/upl/listed-ip-0.cgi?ip=61.159.23 5.36] T_RCVD_IN_OPM_HTTP_CONNECT (0.0 points) RBL: T_RCVD_IN_OPM_HTTP_CONNECT T_RCVD_IN_SORBS_HTTP (0.0 points) RBL: T_RCVD_IN_SORBS_HTTP T_RCVD_IN_FIVETEN_SPAM (0.0 points) RBL: T_RCVD_IN_FIVETEN_SPAM T_RCVD_IN_OPM_HTTP_POST (0.0 points) RBL: T_RCVD_IN_OPM_HTTP_POST MISSING_MIMEOLE (0.1 points) Message has X-MSMail-Priority, but no X-MimeOL E MIME_HTML_ONLY (0.1 points) Message only has text/html MIME parts HG_HORMONE (1.0 points) Talks about hormones for human growth T_MIME_HTML_NO_DOCTYPE (0.0 points) T_MIME_HTML_NO_DOCTYPE MISSING_OUTLOOK_NAME (0.0 points) Message looks like Outlook, but isn't

The original message did not contain plain text, and may be unsafe to open with some email clients; in particular, it may contain a virus, or confirm that your address can receive spam. If you wish to view it, it may be safer to save it to a file and open it with an editor.

------------=_3E9E19A5.69236551

Content-Description: original message before SpamAssassin
Content-Disposition: attachment

by localhost.jmason.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 714158B318 for (spam-protected) Wed, 16 Apr 2003 23:03:54 -0400 (EDT)

by localhost with IMAP (fetchmail-5.9.0) for (spam-protected) (single-drop); Wed, 16 Apr 2003 20:03:54 -0700 (PDT)

From: "HGH Free Sample" (spam-protected)
To: (spam-protected)
Subject: Shed Weight While You Sleep with HGH hyvsjpilripyoiebf
Date: Thu, 17 Apr 03 07:51:51 GMT

This is a multi-part message in MIME format.

--8_0AED7_CBCE_D_E.1F.

<

p>

> As seen on

NBC, CBS, CNN, and even Oprah!

> The health

discovery that actually reverses aging while burning fat.

> Without dieting

or exercise!

<

p>

> Forget aging

and dieting forever!

> l, Helvetica, sans-serif">Get

<

p> Your Free Bottle Now! Visit Us Here

<

p align='3D"center"'>  

<

p align='3D"center"'>  

<

p align='3D"center"'>  

<

p align='3D"center"'>  

<

p align='3D"center"'>  

<

p align='3D"center"'>  

 

 

Why was this email sent to you? At some point you registered or made a purchase on a Web site with privacy policies explaining that they may share your information with partners who will send you valuable offers from time to time.

If you no longer wish to be notified of th= e latest

scientific breakthroughs or valuable offers, you may simply choo= se to

take yourself out of the database permanently by choosing this link.

aumyfi flmpycuoji wv siskt u g jhuqxgtzvhftswxogtid xpypp

--8_0AED7_CBCE_D_E.1F.--

------------=_3E9E19A5.69236551--

Priorities

Published April 16, 2003

Good to see the US troops in Baghdad were kept busy keeping an eye on the important stuff -- like surrounding the Oil Ministry building with 50 tanks and snipers, while the largest collection of antiquities in the Middle East got trashed. That's keeping your priorities straight!

The imposing building in the Al-Mustarisiya quarter is guarded by around 50 US tanks which block every entrance, while sharpshooters are positioned on the roof and in the windows.

The curious onlooker is clearly unwelcome. Any motorist who drifts within a few metres of the main entrance is told to leave immediately.

Residents noted that the irrigation ministry, just next door, was torched.

(Sydney Morning Herald) (more in attached mail).

Date: Wed, 16 Apr 2003 08:07:44 -0000
From: "uncle_slacky" (spam-protected)
To: (spam-protected)
Subject: Re: Baghdad looting

--- In (spam-protected) Roy Stilling (spam-protected) wrote:


> On "Yesterday in Parliament" yesterday, one of the awkward squad MPs
> made the claim that while the mob was looting Iraq's museums and
> public buildings, US forces guarded one ministry only - the Oil
> Ministry. Anyone seen any corroboration of that claim anywhere?

A quick News Google indicates, for example:

Oil ministry an untouched building in ravaged Baghdad http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/04/16/1050172643895.html

Since US forces rolled into central Baghdad a week ago, one of the sole public buildings untouched by looters has been Iraq's massive oil ministry, which is under round-the-clock surveillance by troops.

The imposing building in the Al-Mustarisiya quarter is guarded by around 50 US tanks which block every entrance, while sharpshooters are positioned on the roof and in the windows.

The curious onlooker is clearly unwelcome. Any motorist who drifts within a few metres of the main entrance is told to leave immediately.

Baghdad residents have complained that US troops should do more to protect against the looters, most of them Shi'ite Muslims repressed by Saddam Hussein's Sunni-dominated regime who live in the vast slum known as Saddam City on the northern outskirts.

But while museums, banks, hotels and libraries have been ransacked, the oil ministry remains secure.

The symbolism is loaded, considering how vehemently the United States and Britain denied war opponents' accusations that the campaign to oust Saddam was driven by oil lust.

"They came from the other side of the world. Do you believe they're going to do much for me? They've just come for the oil," fumed Salam Mohammad Hassan, a doctor who lives near the ministry.

Residents noted that the irrigation ministry, just next door, was torched.

US forces, who say they cannot prevent looting across the capital of five million, respond that they are not trying to seize Iraq's oil resources but preserve them.

"Anyone who says we're protecting this ministry to steal Iraqi oil doesn't know what's really going on in this country," US Captain Scott McDonald told AFP at the ministry gates.

The United States, he said, is only safeguarding Iraq's potential which would otherwise be considered game for looters.

"Oil belongs to the Iraqi people; it's their property. It must be protected because it'll go, indirectly, to build schools and hospitals," he said.

McDonald said a few looters had managed to sneak into the ministry- cum-fortress after US troops entered Baghdad. A few offices were robbed but nearly all files and archives remain intact, he said.

Coalition forces also say they control all of Iraq's oilfields.

Amnesty International has criticised the attention on controlling oilfields, which it said must have taken "much planning and resources."

"However, there is scarce evidence of similar levels of planning and allocation of resources for securing public and other institutions essential for the survival and well-being of the population," the London-based rights group said.

Iraq has the world's largest oil resources after Saudi Arabia, with 112 billion barrels of proven reserves.

Before the start of the war, Iraq was producing about 2.5 million barrels a day, of which just under two million were exported under UN supervision through the "oil-for-food" program.

In front of the oil ministry, a young Iraqi sat down in hopes of selling cigarettes.

"Before, lots of people would stop here to buy from me, that's why I've kept coming. But there hasn't been anyone for a few days."

Upon saying that, he was kicked out unceremoniously by a soldier.

*

and going back to last week, from

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-2547131,00.html

"U.S. troops occupied the Oil Ministry. But the nine-story Ministry of Transport building was gutted by fire, as was the Iraqi Olympic headquarters, while the Ministry of Education was partially burned. Near the Interior Ministry, the office building of Saddam Hussein's son Odai stood damaged, its upper floors blackened."

and from

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-2556458,00.html

"The Oil Ministry also seemed intact with a heavy U.S. military presence inside."

BTW these reports are duplicated on many other news sites, they're not just the product of the Grauniad's fevered imagination...

Rob

Iraqwar.ru Redux

Published April 16, 2003

Did Russians Use Blog To Aid Iraq? Some slightly paranoid theories, IMO. Interesting to note, though, that Stratfor reckons it was written by GRU (or ex-GRU) staff.

The bottom line of the article, more or less, is that it was written by some ex-GRU people who possibly wanted to help the Iraqis, who indirectly received the intelligence from folks still employed by the agency.

Interesting snippet:

Denisov said 'a high-level source' told him that sensitive information being promulgated in the Russian media, Iraqwar.ru included, was one ... item on the agenda during Bush national security advisor Condoleezza Rice's meeting the day before at the Kremlin with Russian President Vladimir V. Putin.

For reference: email usability

Published April 15, 2003

I was clearing out my mail last night, and came across a message that referenced a mail I sent a few years back; it's a selection of feature requests I made at the start of development of Evolution, the GNOME mail reader/contact manager/Outlook clone. (Not sure if any got implemented BTW ;)

Since I still think some of these are killer ideas that would really improve email readers, and since the only copy is sitting in a mailing list archive, I'll take a local copy here by posting it.

Worth noting that the reason it came up was a quick mail exchange with Kaitlin 'Duck' Sherwood, who's the queen of email usability, and will be working on the OSAF's Chandler PIM (and mail) application. Not only had she read the CHI'96 paper in question, she noted it as a 'profound influence'! Cool -- and bodes well for Chandler!

Kaitlin also replied with some excellent plans for folder-overview presentation; I can't wait to see the results in Chandler, personally. If you want an idea of this stuff, her page on the Perfect Email Client lives here.

Quick top tip: filtering or colorizing messages based how you're addressed in the headers is immediately beneficial. Quoting Ducky:

My pet view also color-codes messages based on how you were addressed.
  • to me and only me
  • to me and other people
  • cc me and only me
  • cc me and other people
  • bcc me
    • Most people who have implemented the above techniques (you can do it
    with either Outlook or Eudora, though it's somewhat painful to set up) tell me they've saved between 25% and 50% of their prior email time.

She's right, too!

From: Justin Mason (spam-protected)
Date: Fri, 02 Jun 2000 12:11:56 +0100
Subject: CHI'96 paper on mail usability and some thoughts

Hi guys,

Dunno if you've seen this, it's a good paper on email usability and some recommendations to improve same...

http://www.acm.org/sigchi/chi96/proceedings/papers/Whittaker/sw_txt.htm

Basically it says:

  1. heavy mail users use incoming mail as a to-do list and appointment tracker

(I personally would add "as a reference bookshelf" as well in my case);

  1. filing into folders doesn't work in a lot of cases; once it's out of the

inbox it's off the radar and soon forgotten about; and folder names are hard to pick and remember;

  1. users quite often do not delete mails in case they become valuable context

for an ongoing discussion, resulting in inbox bloat and an interleaved stack of messages from threads filling up the inbox;

  1. inbox bloat means important mails from a day or two ago soon scroll out

of the "main" window and are lost in the noise.

to fix these:

  • it recommends threading (makes sense, and we know that). This reduces

the visual impact of inbox bloat and sorts 3. and 4.

  • close links to PIM functions such as todo and datebook would be good to help

with 1. (that's the plan isn't it!)

  • vfolders should deal with 2.

A few ideas I came up with myself during reading it:

  • I previously added some code to ExMH to colorise messages, and used

the colours as a way of differentiating "todo low-priority", "todo high-pri", "support mails", "pals chatting", etc. This worked very well as a way to scan a lot of mails and immediately work out the rough categorisation without having to read and parse the from and subject. (unfortunately the code stopped working in the next ver of ExMH and my Tk knowledge wasn't good enough to fix it!) Helps with problem 4 and aids scanning.

  • up to now there's been essentially 3 states for mail messages -- "unread",

"read" and "deleted" (ie. not there anymore). I would like to see another state, "saved_as_context", which would be similar to deleted; ie. the mail would not be visible to the user at all. However, if another mail came in that referenced the "saved_as_context" mail, it would be possible (probably through hitting a "view context thread" button) to see all of that new msg's context mails. This sorts out problem 3 in a nice way IMHO. BTW it may even be better to use "saved_as_context" instead of "deleted", ie. keep deleted msgs around for possible context use, and purge them periodically.

  • Retitling mails (ie. changing their subjects after they've been received)

would help deal with problem 1 as well -- e.g. changing a mail from "Re: help" to "How to fix the latest Outlook worm" is obviously handy for future visual message retrieval ;)

  • It would be handy if an incoming mail can be converted into a To-Do list item

in the PIM interface; ie. right-click on mail, select "add to to-do list", and that mail (and/or thread!) would be visible in the To-Do PIM interface in some way (even just as a "see this mail" link a la the "note" attached to Palm To-Do list items). It'd also be cool if this went both ways so the To-Do list position/priority of a mail was visible in the inbox view.

Anyway, these are some ideas I thought I'd throw in. I'm pretty excited by the possibilities of Evolution, and I'm looking forward to trying it out; after reading that paper, I just had to share ;)

BTW I haven't used MS Outlook, so forgive me if Outlook sorts out these problems and I just didn't notice -- ditto for Evolution too, I haven't had the time to get it compiling yet! ;)

--j.

‘And if she back with new coalition of da willing you better know fi run fast’

Published April 14, 2003

SomethingAwful: Livin' In A Dictator's Paradise. Possibly the funniest thing I've read in weeks:

Those of you who follow the minor news related to the recent war in Iraq might have noticed a story about the CIA broadcasting an insulting rap song about Saddam Hussein on their radio airplane. While this may seem like a fairly good idea if you're say drunk or waging a war against a rival gangsta rapper when you're fighting a real war it seems a little silly. Oh how wrong I was! Set to the tune of 'Gangsta's Paradise' this rap is roughly two minutes of distilled pathos, no doubt swaying the thoughts of many Iraqis against their brutal dictator and earning the United States a reputation for intelligence. Think about it, one day you're strapped to a mattress spring with a car battery hooked up to your testicles being shocked for mispronouncing 'Tikrit'. The next day you're listening to the radio and on comes this 'awesome' rap song about Saddam with lines like 'My days are finished and I will die - all I need is chili fries' and 'Everybody in the house say we hate you'.

That's about when you say goodbye to your family, strap some dynamite to your chest, and sprint to the nearest Marine Corps checkpoint. What a fucking travesty. There is so much wrong with this whole concept, let alone the cringe inducing execution, that it's hard to know where to start a rant about it. The whole thing reeks of the clumsy hipster appeal of something like 'Poochy' from the 'The Simpsons' only ten times worse because instead of a stodgy corporate think-tank it was done by the government. Asking them to create anything that's in touch with the youth market is sort of like going to a retirement home and asking a bunch of septuagenarians with Alzheimer's disease to pen a film script about teens coming of age in the ghetto.

Helpfully, Zack provides some suggested new tunes to cover for the next conflict with Syria... read on...

Amazing photo of London by night

Published April 12, 2003

Wow. An incredible shot up at Astronomy Pic of the Day, taken by an unnamed astronaut on-board the ISS with a digital camera. Hyde Park, Regent's Park, and the M25 are all very clearly visible.

So I guess that means the Great Wall is no longer the only man-made structure visible from space then ;)

Reasons Not To Buy Dell Laptops, pt. XVII

Published April 11, 2003

While trying to figure out why my loaner laptop is SO SLOW, I found this on the Linux Dell laptop temperature-control i8k driver website:

No credits to DELL Computer who has always refused to give support on Linux or provide any useful information on the I8K buttons and their buggy BIOS.

Makes you wonder if there are any laptop manufacturers with a concept of open hardware support.

(BTW, current theories on the woeful speed are (a) 128megs of RAM just isn't enough to use GNOME or KDE on linux these days, and (b) a 4200rpm disk with feck-all cache can't handle any hard work.)

Other bad news: my heavy-lifting desktop PC's arrived and won't power on. yikes.

But -- on a brighter note: the sun's come out; I saw an eagle yesterday; and it rained last night, and all the birds are twittering in the trees, catching worms etc. In the meantime, the lazy cat sits on the balcony and watches idly, even when one lands on the railing less than 3 feet away. I suppose catfood is a lot easier to get hold of. ;)

‘Crows shall feed on Gordon Brown’s pancreas’

Published April 11, 2003

Ben Hammersley links to these two works of comedic genius: Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf's new column in the Grauniad:

Earlier in the week I watched as joyous Iraqis celebrated our triumph by pulling down - with the help of defecting American soldiers - Baghdad's only statue of actor Robert Donat as Mr Chips. I understand it was quite a good film, but we have no need of your imperialist icons now. Saddam has freed us from your oppressive rule, so we are saying goodbye to your Mr Chips. Ha! I have made myself laugh! I will not gloat further over this thrilling but predictable defeat which vindicates me so completely.

Also, a blog here. Brilliant.

Tim Bray on Drugs

Published April 11, 2003

Tim Bray's weblog is a great read; I've added it to my daily list. Today, he's provided a fantastic article about the drugs problem in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside.

Dublin has historically had a serious of up-and-down swings with a heroin problem; at one stage, it was one of the worst in Europe. It improved quite a lot during the 90's, but it's going downhill again, apparently; maybe the legislators need to read this article.

(The big problem as far as I can see is that treatment centres are horrifically underfunded, it being a lot easier, and -- while not cheaper -- at least already budgeted for, to ship the junkies off to prison. Business as usual. Of course, while they're there, they're (a) off the streets (out of sight, out of mind), and (b) learning all the latest criminal techniques, and getting well hooked on all the cheap heroin in there.)

(BTW did you know that one reason heroin is massively popular in prisons, is due to drug-testing? Apparently, marijuana can be detected a month after use, whereas heroin is undetectable 48 hours afterwards. So prison drug-testing regimes indirectly encourage heroin use. Oops!)

Linux: Linux Journal: report from LinuxWorld Ireland. Sounds like a great talk from maddog and Michael Meeks. And if you look carefully at the photo on that article page, you can see Proinnsias in the background!

Mind you, I would probably have just done my 'incomprehensible question about software patents' schtick with the IBM guy again...

What with this and GUADEC coming to Dublin, I'm missing all the good piss-ups^Wevents it seems ;)

Z/Yen and RSA UK: purveyors of clueless FUD, as expected

Published April 10, 2003

BoingBoing and /. get to work on that Z/Yen/RSA press release:

But the amazing thing is what Z/Yen and its client, RSA conclude: that the 25% of the people who deliberately associated with the network were 'malicious,' and that the 71% who sent email were sending spam. This is such a transparently, deliberately (heh) stupid conclusion, it boggles the mind: how can 'deliberate' equate to 'malicious?' How can 'sending email' equate to 'sending spam?'

So in other words, there were 2 honeypot access points, left open for 2 weeks in the City of London.

25% of the people who connected to the APs, did so deliberately (whatever that means -- see below).

Then, 71% of those people sent mail. Not spam: no 'make money fast', no 'URGENT ASSISTANCE' etc.; they just hit the 'Send / Receive' button in Outlook.

But obviously Z/Yen and RSA felt the need to spice things up a bit, so:

  • s/accessed WLAN deliberately/accessed WLAN maliciously/

  • s/sent mail/sent SPAM/

  • s/read slashdot/ate babies/

OK, I made that last one up. But I would not be surprised.

Some more digging reveals that the report in question is now up on the RSA UK website (it wasn't yesterday), and can be downloaded here (PDF) . It's 5 slim pages written by Phil Cracknell, of CISSP (Cracknell Information Systems Security Partnership), who has a history of spreading WiFUD, it seems. The report leads with

The many wireless security surveys ... do not actually show how real the threat of wireless hacking is. Less dramatically, they do not show the threat of someone using your network for non-malicious use (theft of service).

Sheesh. He forgot to mention the bit about operating a wireless network without switching on any security features.

Also, there's no explanation of what the difference is between a 'deliberate' and 'accidental' connection. As far as I can tell, an 'accidental' connection is one where the user disconnected reasonably quickly; there's no indication that any of the connections were caused by anything other than Windows XP's ability to associate with any network it can find within range.

It then goes on to scare-monger about the use of 'exterior chalk markings', noting that 'you will be found and your networks will be used/attacked'.

So, in other words, the paper says:

  • if you run an open WiFi AP, people will use it to send/receive mail, and possibly surf the web.

  • this is Bad

  • people may draw nerdy things with chalk on the pavement outside, which will Make It Worse

And there's two things to pick up from it:

  • this Phil Cracknell guy is really short of clients

  • It's amazing how scare-mongering a 200-word report can become, when it's bad to start with, and then filtered through 3 layers of PR gibbons and crappy journos who don't have a clue what it's on about

One good thing to come out of it: the term WiFUD, perfect for the next Phil Cracknell escapade.

Aeronautics.RU

Published April 9, 2003

Joe Haslam (hi Joe!) mailed about Aeronautics.RU, wondering if it's a fake. I'm pretty sure not, and John Sutherland at The Guardian concurs, noting that it was big in the City of London:

You don't factor news into your model, but intelligence. There is a surfeit of war news, but reliable intelligence is hard to come by. The canny (stock market) trader in these parlous days has a first port of call - GRU (Glavnoye Razvedyvatelnoye Upravleniye), the espionage arm of the Russian military.

GRU is the most sophisticated agency of its kind in the world. And, since Glasnost, the most transparent. GRU has thousands of agents worldwide (especially in countries such as Iraq, where Russia has traditional trade links). Intelligence has always been a top priority for Ivan. The number of agents operated by the GRU during the Soviet era was six times the number of agents operated by the KGB.

Russia, superpower that it was, still has spy satellites, state-of-the-art interception technology and (unlike the CIA) men on the ground. The beauty of GRU is that it does not (like the CIA) report directly to the leadership but to the Russian ministry of defence. In its wisdom, it makes its analyses publicly available. These are digested as daily bulletins on www.iraqwar.ru.

... and syndicated onto Aeronautics.RU as well. Sadly, since the Russians closed up their Baghdad embassy and got out of Iraq, just in time it seems, all the reports have dried up. Ah well.

The reporting was incredibly detailed, and modulo a big chip on their shoulder about US imperialism, pretty informative.

Joe also points to another Aeronautics.RU article, 'how military communications are intercepted'. Venik, the author, notes that the US is using SINCGARS 'frequency-hopping' radios, which use a daily-broadcast shared secret as an initial vector for the algorithm which determines what frequencies to 'hop' through, throughout the day.

However, security afforded by frequency-hopping methods is very dependant on the strict adherence to protocols for operating such radios. The US troops and other operators of frequency-hopping radio sets frequently disregard these protocols. An example would be an artillery unit passing digital traffic in the frequency-hopping mode, which would enable an unauthorized listener to determine the frequency-hopping algorithm and eavesdrop on the transmission. (jm: sounds like a known-plaintext attack; similar attacks were used by the Allies on German use of Enigma during WWII.)

Even when proper protocols for using frequency-hopping radios are being adhered to interception and decryption of these signals is still possible. The frequency-hopping interceptors are special advanced reconnaissance wideband receivers capable of simultaneously tracking a large number of frequency-hopping encrypted transmissions even in high background noise environments.

It then details some seriously specialized equipment for breaking frequency-hopping radio transmissions, which can 'process the complete 30 to 80 MHz ground-to-ground VHF band within a 2.5 ms time slot'.

So judging by all of that, the chances of finding one of those 'FH-1 frequency-hopping interceptors', 'manufactured by VIDEOTON-MECHLABOR Manufacturing and Development Ltd of Hungary', sitting in the Russian embassy in Iraq about 2 weeks ago, would have been pretty high I'd bet. ;)

He doesn't detail why encryption the system uses, or how that is supposedly being broken. But I don't doubt it was, personally. Given the 'artillery unit' hole noted above, there were probably quite a few ways to get hold of the day's key, given enough time and thought; and from what I've read, it can only be very tricky to use good crypto, and keep it secure, in a battlefield environment. And those Russians have had plenty of time to think about US military systems after all. ;)

RSA, Z/Yen report open WiFi hot-spots used to send spam

Published April 9, 2003

Well, this is bad news. It seems one of the biggest bugbears for open Wifi hot-spots, 'what if it's used to spam', may now be happening on a wide scale...

Unauthorized WLAN Connections Used to Send Spam (2 April 2003)

Data gathered from a wireless LAN (WLAN) honeypot showed that nearly 75% of intentional unauthorized connections made were used to send spam. (newsfactor.com)

The honeypots were set up in the City of London for 2 weeks, as default, open WLANs. This is the nearest I can come to a source. Both RSA Security UK and Z/Yen don't list it on their press releases pages.

My thoughts: it could be the Jeem or Rewt spam-relaying trojans searching for open nets automatically, from infected machines. Strikes me that there wouldn't be too many spammers war-driving around London, in person.

Thanks to Tony Earnshaw for forwarding it on from SANS NewsBytes...

Date: 09 Apr 2003 19:57:32 +0200
From: Tony Earnshaw (spam-protected)
To: (spam-protected)
Subject: SANS Newsbytes for today

SANS stuff is always interesting; those who care about their network and computer security should really subscribe - not to mention the SANS GIAC stuff.

The undermentioned is interesting to SA Talk.

-- Unauthorized WLAN Connections Used to Send Spam (2 April 2003) Data gathered from a wireless LAN (WLAN) honeypot showed that nearly 75% of intentional unauthorized connections made were used to send spam.

http://www.newsfactor.com/perl/story/21168.html

Tony

--

Tony Earnshaw

e-post
tonniatbillydotdemondotnl
www

http://www.billy.demon.nl

This SF.net email is sponsored by: Etnus, makers of TotalView, The debugger for complex code. Debugging C/C++ programs can leave you feeling lost and disoriented. TotalView can help you find your way. Available on major UNIX and Linux platforms. Try it free. www.etnus.com

Spamassassin-talk mailing list (spam-protected) https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/spamassassin-talk

Military dialect and ‘clearing’ (fwd)

Published April 9, 2003

"There's even dialects of 'english' military jargon. An ex-general giving analysis on Sky (TV) commented that during the last Gulf War, confusion was caused because when a US commander said they'd 'cleared' a town they meant they'd gone past it, but when a british commanders said he'd 'cleared' a town he meant he'd dealt with most pockets of enemey and there was no signifigant resitence left in it and it was now 'safe' for occupation.

The two confusions caused american comanders to wonder what a british comander was still doing in a town he'd said he'd 'cleared', and british troops wondering who the hell was shooting at them out of towns the americans had said they'd 'cleared'." (via Barbara Barrett on the forteana list)

Artprice/artlist: winners of the address-scraping spammer speed record

Published April 8, 2003

Wow. A spammer has already scraped my blog and caught that one-use cdt_comment_go address I posted a week or so ago. That has to be a record. Ah well, Bayes and the SBL are catching it nicely...

The spammer in question is artprice.com, aka. artlist.com, aka a bunch of unrepentant spammers who've been out-and-out spamming for years, from France. Nothing worse than a full-time spamhaus. My consolation is that if they do this after August, I can prosecute them for it, since France is in the EU ;)

Just for reference, if anyone finds this on a Google search: the address was a one-use disposable job, for comments on a survey, posted once, and never used for sign-ups or even to send a single mail message. This is 100% spam, through and through.

US Air Force Bombs John Simpson

Published April 7, 2003

<

p>Nice one! 'Friendly fire' reaches the nadir! The USAF have just dropped a bomb on John Simpson and a convoy of US special forces

(RealAudio report):

Simpson: 'So there are Americans dead. It was an American plane that dropped the bomb right beside us - I saw it land about 10 feet, 12 feet away I think. This is just a scene from hell here. All the vehicles on fire. There are bodies burning around me, there are bodies lying around, there are bits of bodies on the ground. This is a really bad own goal by the Americans. We don't really know how many Americans are dead.'

Presenter: 'John, just to recap for the viewers, an American plane dropped a bomb on your convoy of American special forces - many dead, many injured?'

Simpson: 'I am sorry to be so excitable. I am bleeding through the ear and everything but that is absolutely the case. I saw this American convoy, and they bombed it. They hit their own people - they may have hit this Kurdish figure, very senior, and they've killed a lot of ordinary characters, and I am just looking at the bodies now and it is not a very pretty sight.'


(context: John Simpson is one of the BBC's top reporters in the field. Apparently, Ted Koppel would be roughly equivalent in stature in the US.)

Sarah Carey notes some interesting aspects of the NYTimes coverage of the incident:

  1. This article is placed 27th on their full listing of international headlines. The top headlines are all concerned with the victories in Baghdad and Basra and the likely format of post-Saddam government. The only reason I found the article was because I deliberately went looking for it.

  2. Note how many quotes are from wounded Kurds insisting that they do not blame the Americans.

  3. They say that one American was wounded when the live BBC reports conclusively stated that American soldiers were killed.

  4. They neglect to mention that the BBC translator was one of those killed.

  5. Finally, and most insultingly, they give one short quote from John Simpson, the BBC World Affairs Editor, pointing out how US soldiers treated the wounded. It neglects to mention the ... quotes he also provided in his report (see above).

Unsurprisingly, the rumour mill reports that the British 'Desert Rats' are now painting the stars and stripes on their vehicles, to avoid yet more 'friendly fire' incidents...

Propaganda: FARK's Photoshop Phriday this week is on the theme of how Fox News would have covered events in history. Some hand-picked works of genius:

Brilliant. (via boingboing)

Spamming my HTTP referrer logs, pt. 2

Published April 4, 2003

I've been getting a very wierd attack on my sites recently, including this blog, the SpamAssassin websites, and http://jmason.org/ , whereby some luser is sending lots of requests, using made-up URLs in the referral field. Initially, I thought it was some kind of underpowered retaliation for SpamAssassin, but if that's the case, they need to bone up a bit more on how these things work ;)

Alternatively, it could be an attempt to gain Googlejuice, by getting links from public referrer logs (my ones are).

Up 'til about a month ago, it was all porn sites. Recently, though, it's been a selection of real domains that sound like they were put together by combining dictionary words or something.

All the attempts have come from IP address 216.127.68.58, owned by Everyone's Internet, Inc. in Houston, TX:

216.127.68.58 - - [31/Mar/2003:00:01:53 +0100] "GET / HTTP/1.1" 200 72143 "http://www.aircheckfactory.com" "User-Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.0)''

Here's the domains in question:

  • AIRCHECKFACTORY.COM
  • ALTOTECHNOLOGY.COM
  • BAIDYANATHINDIA.COM
  • NXTCENTURY.COM
  • TIMEART.NET
  • WOTEVA.COM

Perhaps they're recent lapsed domains which the spammer has picked up. Otherwise, what's the connection between Baidyanath (a manufacturer of Ayurvedic products in India, thx Suresh) and 'woteva' (which sounds like 'whatever' in a UK english accent)?

I've whois'd them all, and they all seem to share two things: the name 'Robert Woodley' (or its initials), and the number (772) 594-2421. Area code 772 is -- guess where -- Florida. They should just cut to the chase and put 'The Spammer State' on their numberplates.

The pages on those sites are automatically-generated using what looks like USENET postings and google image search results, with a link to Commission Junction.

None of the names are in ROKSO, it seems. Do they ring a bell with anyone reading?

Date: Thu, 03 Apr 2003 13:20:06 -0800
From: (spam-protected) (Justin Mason)
Subject: whois details on referrer spam

Registrant:
Michael Lewisham
RW Internet
PO Box 4723
Grand Cayman,  8621
Cayman Islands
Registered through: ozwebsites 
Domain Name: AIRCHECKFACTORY.COM
Created on: 03-Jan-03
Expires on: 03-Jan-04
Last Updated on: 03-Jan-03
Administrative Contact:
Lewisham, Michael  (spam-protected)
RW Internet
PO Box 4562
Grand Cayman,  7238
Cayman Islands
(772) 594-2421      Fax -- 
Technical Contact:
Lewisham, Michael  (spam-protected)
RW Internet
PO Box 4562
Grand Cayman,  7238
Cayman Islands
(772) 594-2421      Fax -- 
Domain servers in listed order:
NS1.MYDOMAIN.COM
NS2.MYDOMAIN.COM
NS3.MYDOMAIN.COM
NS4.MYDOMAIN.COM
Registrant:
Michael Lewisham
RW Internet
PO Box 4723
Grand Cayman,  8621
Cayman Islands
Registered through: ozwebsites 
Domain Name: ALTOTECHNOLOGY.COM
Created on: 29-Dec-02
Expires on: 29-Dec-03
Last Updated on: 29-Dec-02
Administrative Contact:
Lewisham, Michael  (spam-protected)
RW Internet
PO Box 4562
Grand Cayman,  7238
Cayman Islands
(772) 594-2421      Fax -- 
Technical Contact:
Lewisham, Michael  (spam-protected)
RW Internet
PO Box 4562
Grand Cayman,  7238
Cayman Islands
(772) 594-2421      Fax -- 
Domain servers in listed order:
NS1.MYDOMAIN.COM
NS2.MYDOMAIN.COM
NS3.MYDOMAIN.COM
NS4.MYDOMAIN.COM
Registrant:
Robert Woodley
Robert Woodley Internet
PO Box 401
Grand Cayman,  7651
Cayman Islands
Registered through: Go Daddy Software (http://www.godaddy.com)
Domain Name: BAIDYANATHINDIA.COM
Created on: 09-Jan-03
Expires on: 09-Jan-04
Last Updated on: 09-Jan-03
Administrative Contact:
Woodley, Robert  (spam-protected)
Robert Woodley Internet
PO Box 4634
Suite 205
Port Vila,  8621
Vanuatu
(772) 594-2421      Fax -- (772) 594-2421
Technical Contact:
Woodley, Robert  (spam-protected)
Robert Woodley Internet
PO Box 4634
Port Vila,  8621
Vanuatu
(772) 594-2421      Fax -- (772) 594-2421
Domain servers in listed order:
NS1.MYDOMAIN.COM
NS2.MYDOMAIN.COM
NS3.MYDOMAIN.COM
NS4.MYDOMAIN.COM
Registrant:
Wanker Engineering
PO Box 9816
Auckland,  3522
New Zealand
Registered through: Go Daddy Software (http://www.godaddy.com)
Domain Name: NXTCENTURY.COM
Created on: 21-Mar-01
Expires on: 21-Mar-04
Last Updated on: 21-Mar-03
Administrative Contact:
Engineering, Wanker  (spam-protected)
Wanker Engineering
PO Box 9816
Auckland,  3522
New Zealand
3530912167      Fax -- 
Technical Contact:
Engineering, Wanker  (spam-protected)
Wanker Engineering
PO Box 9816
Auckland,  3522
New Zealand
3530912167      Fax -- 
Domain servers in listed order:
NS1.LYNXWEBHOSTING.COM
NS2.LYNXWEBHOSTING.COM
Registrant:
Robert Woodley
Robert Woodley Internet
PO Box 4634
Port Vila,  8621
Vanuatu
Registered through: Go Daddy Software (http://www.godaddy.com)
Domain Name: TIMEART.NET
Created on: 16-Mar-01
Expires on: 16-Mar-04
Last Updated on: 16-Mar-03
Administrative Contact:
Woodley, Robert  (spam-protected)
Robert Woodley Internet
PO Box 4634
Suite 205
Port Vila,  8621
Vanuatu
(772) 594-2421      Fax -- (772) 594-2421
Technical Contact:
Woodley, Robert  (spam-protected)
Robert Woodley Internet
PO Box 4634
Port Vila,  8621
Vanuatu
(772) 594-2421      Fax -- (772) 594-2421
Domain servers in listed order:
NS1.MYDOMAIN.COM
NS2.MYDOMAIN.COM
NS3.MYDOMAIN.COM
NS4.MYDOMAIN.COM
Registrant:
Robert Woodley
PO Box 4573
Grand Cayman,  871251
Cayman Islands
Registered through: Go Daddy Software (http://www.godaddy.com)
Domain Name: WOTEVA.COM
Created on: 16-Mar-00
Expires on: 16-Mar-04
Last Updated on: 16-Mar-03
Administrative Contact:
Woodley, Robert  (spam-protected)
Robert Woodley Internet
PO Box 4573
Grand Cayman,  87125
Cayman Islands
(772) 594-2421      Fax -- (772) 594-2421
Technical Contact:
Woodley, Robert  (spam-protected)
Robert Woodley Internet
PO Box 4753
Suite 205
Grand Cayman,  87125
Cayman Islands
(772) 594-2421      Fax -- (772) 594-2421
Domain servers in listed order:
NS1.MYDOMAIN.COM
NS2.MYDOMAIN.COM
NS3.MYDOMAIN.COM
NS4.MYDOMAIN.COM

Habeas Suing (Alleged) Spammers

Published April 4, 2003

Habeas: Avalend, Intermark Media, BigDogSecrets.com, Clickbank, and Keynetics Sued for Using Counterfeit Habeas Trademark to get Unwanted Email Through, Trademark Infringement, and Breach of Contract.

The first suit, against Avalend and Intermark Media, alleges infringement of the Habeas trademark, including infringing use of the Habeas trademark in email in order to help ensure its delivery. The second lawsuit, against Heller, Stuchinski, Clickbank and Keynetics, includes a breach of contract claim against Heller, based on the signing of a Habeas license and then using the Habeas trademark in email which did not comply with the Habeas license. The companies advertised in Heller's email are named as co-defendants.

Sweet. Sounds like the first two are alleged to have out-and-out forged the mark without a license, and the latter three are alleged to have gained a license and breached it. Habeas' business model relies on successful enforcement, and actively being a threat against spammers who attempt to abuse their mark. I hope this goes well for them.

BTW, for folks who cannot countenance the idea of paying for a mark to send bulk mail: Habeas' model is just like that of Underwriters Laboratories, which performs (physical) product safety testing, and provides a mark to certify that a product has passed those tests -- and can therefore be judged 'safer' than products that do not have the mark. In Habeas' case, instead of a product's safety, they vouch for a mail's non-spamminess.

It's not a 'mail protection racket' -- it's a way for you to send a mail saying 'this trustworthy agency has vouched that this is not spam'. And if I trust Habeas, it allows me to extend that trust to you, even if I've never heard of you before.

‘Calibrate Me, Dick’

Published April 4, 2003

The Guardian notes the latest bizarre phraseology to emerge from the White House -- Calibrate me, Dick:

From Donald Rumsfeld - the man who brought you known unknowns and unknown unknowns - comes a phrase so disorienting in its weirdness that even seasoned Rumsfeldologists have been taken aback by its increasingly frequent use at Pentagon briefings. Uttered one way, it sounds combative like Dirty Harry; uttered another, camp like Austin Powers.

In fact, it appears to be just a hi-tech, precision-guided version of 'correct me if I'm wrong', the Dick in question being General Richard Myers, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff. Worryingly, 'Calibrate me' is also the name of a song by the scary indie rock group Atombombpocketknife: could Rumsfeld be a fan?

Typical recent usage: 'The Republican Guard has - calibrate me, Dick - they pulled south in the north and they went north in the southern portion of the country.'

Context in which it almost certainly did not occur, circa 2002: 'Calibrate me, Dick, but I really don't think we're going to need all that much heavy infantry to take Baghdad, are we?'

Portuguese TV Journalists Beaten Up By US Military Police

Published April 4, 2003

Reporters From Portuguese Television Tortured By US Military Police (Indymedia):

Two Western journalists have arrived safely back in Kuwait City after being arrested, beaten up and deprived of food and water in Iraq -- by members of the US Army's military police. ....

Despite possessing the proper 'Unilateral Journalist' accreditation issued by the Coalition Forces Central Command, both journalists were detained. ...

Castro and Silva entered Iraq 10 days ago. They had been to Umm Qasr and Basra and were traveling to Najaf when they were stopped by the military police. According to Castro, their accredited identification was checked and they were given the all clear to proceed. 'Suddenly, for no reason, the situation changed,' Castro told Arab News. 'We were ordered down on the ground by the soldiers. They stepped on our hands and backs and handcuffed us.

'We were put in our own car. The soldiers used our satellite phones to call their families at home. I begged them to allow me to use my own phone to call my family, but they refused. When I protested, they pushed me to the ground and kicked me in the ribs and legs.' ....

After being held for four days, they were transported to the 101st Airborne Division to be escorted out of Iraq.

linky goodness from th’ oul’ sod

Published April 2, 2003

So it looks like Sarah Carey, a good friend of me mate Lean, has a blog, and it's a great one too! Excellent. Added to the Irish blogroll on the right.

In other news, Simon Boyle got in touch to mention that the Saddam's top tips for tourists interview in the Fermanagh-based Impartial Reporter was actually written by an contemporary of ours at TCD by the name of Maria Rolston. Apparently she's good mates with my mate Wooder, too. Simon notes:

She's the intrepid impartial reporter who wrote the story (and who's had it reprinted minus attribution all over the world now). Oh the joys of being a first year reporter on a small local paper...

While we're talking about small local papers, might as well note - tangentially - that Ireland's local press has a long history of bizarre stories. One favourite, in particular, has gone down in journo legend (and Ulysses): the 19th-century editorial from The Skibbereen Eagle, which solemnly told Lord Palmerston that it had 'got (its) eye both upon him and on the Emperor of Russia.' Classic.

IP company hoist by own petard

Published April 2, 2003

Forbes: A Patent On Porn. It seems Acacia Research, an intellectual-property 'shell' company, has a bunch of crappy software patents on streaming media (to go with their patent on the 'V-Chip', remember that?).

Things haven't been going too good recently. Apparently, they decided to 'monetize' these streaming-media patents -- in other words get all Sopranos on a bunch of small players, namely 700 porn site operators, sending some legal threats to 'pay up -- 1-2% of gross -- or get sued' their way.

What happened? Did the pr0nsters roll over and cough up? Not a hope.

Eight firms (of 700) agreed to Acacia's terms. But 40 didn't, and Acacia promptly slapped them with lawsuits. Rather than buckling, though, several of the porno sites joined together and stood their ground. Now Acacia is in the fight of its life and may even face a shareholder revolt as a result.

Read on for the rest...

Comment links back again

Published April 1, 2003

the (discuss) links are back, and about time too, things were getting quiet. Anyway, it's a unified comments forum now. All posts go into one forum, instead of creating a new forum for each weblog posting. Having comments pages for each story just didn't work for a small-scale blog -- and it was impossible to see if there was any new posts for all those individual forums.

1.4 gigabits per second

Published April 1, 2003

Take a look at the BitTorrent bandwidth graphs if you get a chance. The BitTorrent release of Red Hat 9 resulted in a nice smooth ramp up to 1.4 gigabits per second of download traffic, which has been trailing off slowly over the following 20 hours... wow.

Interconnect speed cheat-sheet

Published March 31, 2003

posting this so the googlebrain will pick it up next time I need to find it -- Padraig Brady's interconnect speed cheat sheet. It lists a whole stack of interconnect protocols, from 802.11b, 10Mb/s LAN, to SPP parallel port, to 8mm DAT tape, along with their effective transfer rates in megabytes per second. (I never realised Bluetooth was only as fast as SPP parallel ports -- 0.1MB/s. That sucks.)

Saddam Hussein’s top tips for tourists

Published March 31, 2003

Newsflash! Irish local newspapers come through with bizarre-ness yet again:

Fermanagh man Tom Daly (72) is a former schoolteacher and lecturer who spent 15 years working in the Middle East. In an interview with the paper Mr Daly told how in 1988 he arrived in Baghdad and was on his way to the city of Basra ...

'All these taxi drivers were coming down to me offering to take my bags and drive me down to Basra for 60 quid and I wasn't sure what to do. Then a man in a long dark coat came over to me, put his hand up and said: 'Don't listen to them. Take a taxi (sic), it will cost you £10'. I thought this was a much better idea and was glad of the help. All the taxi drivers had also backed away so I asked some of them afterwards: 'Who was that man?'

They said: 'That was Mr Saddam Hussein'.'

Tune in next week, when Saddam helps out with some tricky carpet-buying negotiations...

Date: Mon, 31 Mar 2003 09:21:19 +0100
From: Joe McNally (spam-protected)
To: Yahoogroups Forteana (spam-protected)
Subject: And on the lighter side...

http://www.irishnews.com/access/daily/current.asp?SID=429949

Irish farmer is 'a cut above the rest'

Paper Clips: A round-up of the weekly press

By Tony Bailie

MOST of the north's regional papers again carried stories last week giving a local perspective on the war in Iraq, but the most remarkable was in the Impartial Reporter.

Fermanagh man Tom Daly (72) is a former schoolteacher and lecturer who spent 15 years working in the Middle East.

In an interview with the paper Mr Daly told how in 1988 he arrived in Baghdad and was on his way to the city of Basra to take up a lecturing post.

He told the paper: "I had just flown into the country and landed at Baghdad airport in the dead of night. I took a taxi to the bus station to make my way down to Basra which was about 60 kilometres away.

"All these taxi drivers were coming down to me offering to take my bags and drive me down to Basra for 60 quid and I wasn't sure what to do.

"Then a man in a long dark coat came over to me, put his hand up and said: 'Don't listen to them. Take a taxi (sic), it will cost you £10'.

"I thought this was a much better idea and was glad of the help. All the taxi drivers had also backed away so I asked some of them afterwards: 'Who was that man?'

and they said: 'That was Mr Saddam Hussein'."

According to the Larne Times the borough council found itself in an awkward position because of the war.

The town, which is due to host Iraqi athletes during the Special Olympics in June, had put up a sign declaring: "Larne Host Town to Iraq".

However, according to the paper the wife of a serving British soldier, currently in southern Iraq, objected and called for the sign to be taken down.

The paper reported: "She said she felt the wording of the sign and the timing of its erection was 'inappropriate'."

"Others took more direct action, however, spray painting the head of the town sign 'No Way'." A few days later the words "Ulster Says No" where added.

According to the Larne Times the sign was subsequently removed, a decision described by Larne Borough Council chief executive Colm McGarry as "common sense".

The soldier's wife who lodged the objection stressed that she had no objections to the Special Olympics.

"It was the wording of the sign that annoyed me - I nearly crashed my car when I saw it," she told the paper.

However, Larne's mayor, Councillor Bobby McKee, told the paper that while he sympathised with the objectors he believed the sign should have stayed up.

"The war is against Saddam Hussein and his regime, not against disabled people. I find great difficulty in getting my head around any opposition to people with a disability,'' he told the paper.

-- Joe McNally :: Flaneur at Large :: http://www.flaneur.org.uk

SpamAssassin Needs Your Help!

Published March 28, 2003

while thinking about the CDT's report on spammer address-scraping techniques again, it occurred to me that one finding is very significant; high-traffic websites probably get much more spam than low-traffic ones.

Now, I've got spamtraps up on pretty much all my sites, using a variety of methods:

<

ul>

  • plain mailto links, with instructions to human users not to use them (don't mail that one either, obviously ;)
  • hidden mailto links in the page's <head> block (browsers will not display text elements outside the <body> block)
  • hidden mailto links in a <!-- HTML comment -->
  • empty mailto links in the text (ie. <a href="mailto:foo></a></code">)
  • mod_rewrite pages, which are displayed to spam-scraping bots instead of the real thing

    • But all my sites are small-time, really. ;) So -- anyone out there in the blogosphere care to help out the SpamAssassin project, by feeding us trapped spam? It'd be simply a matter of adding a mailto: link, hidden in a comment on a prominent page of your high-traffic website. Gimme a mail to this address if you do.

    (warning: that address will expire in 6 months. if you're reading this after Aug 2003, use the addr on this page instead.)

    The spam trapped in such a way is fed into a number of spamtrap-fed network systems, like Razor, DCC, Pyzor, and the Blitzed OPM blacklist. It's also used during the SpamAssassin score-regeneration process.

    Regular expressions win again

    Published March 28, 2003

    Rael: secrets of the XML gods:

    In response to Tim Bray's dirty little habit of parsing XML with regular expressions, Jon Udell writes: 'If the XML gods are resorting to Perl and Python hackery to shred documents, are we just spinning our wheels? I don't think so. But this is, perhaps, an unusual case. ... I can, however, make excellent use of the text stream underlying XML abstractions. So, which way to regard a document becomes a kind of Necker cube puzzle. The bad news: it's confusing. The good news: it's useful.'

    .... I just co-authored a book, 1/4 of which relied heavily on the availability of not only an XML parser, but a SOAP stack. Faced with the reality that more than a handful of readers wouldn't have either at their disposal, I wrote a hack sure to turn the stomach of any XML purist while turning many a hacker frown upside-down... 'NoXML, Another SOAP::Lite Alternative' for the Google Web API. '... NoXML is a drop-in alternative to SOAP::Lite. As its name suggests, this home-brewed module doesn't make use of an XML parser of any kind, relying instead on some dead-simple regular expressions and other bits of programmatic magic. ' Elegant? Depends on your definition. Pure? As the driven beach sand. Work? You betcha!

    And I thought it was just me. ;)

    Kim Jong Il’s IM logs

    Published March 28, 2003

    Craig links to the livejournal of Kim Jong Il, featuring IM logs with GWB -- very funny.

    Forteana: on a totally unrelated note -- The Lab @ ABC.net.au notes:

    An Australian neuroscientist claims he can conjure up the mysterious Australian outback phenomenon of the Min Min lights, now that he has worked out what causes them.

    Fantastic description of how, exactly, he did this, by using a temperature inversion, and landscape features, to simulate it. Very interesting, and it makes a lot of sense. Another wierd 'floating lights' phenomenon explained... (link via the forteana list, of course).

    The article also discusses the fata morgana__ phenomenon, in which landforms that are beyond the horizon appear to float above it in an inverted form. This is interesting, as it explains the Chinese legend of the Blessed Isles, which says that there's a group of islands that appears infrequently floating above the sea, shaped like mushrooms (if I recall correctly, can't find much about it online).

    BBC: ‘more truth out of Baghdad than the Pentagon at the moment’

    Published March 28, 2003

    BBC news chiefs have met to discuss the increasing problem of misinformation coming out of Iraq as staff concern grows at the series of premature claims and counter claims by military sources. 'By last Sunday the southern Iraqi seaport of Umm Qasr had been reported 'taken' nine times' ... 'We're getting more truth out of Baghdad than the Pentagon at the moment'.

    Date: Fri, 28 Mar 2003 09:05:27 +0000
    From: "Tim Chapman" (spam-protected)
    To: forteana (spam-protected)
    Subject: Fun with disinformation

    http://media.guardian.co.uk/broadcast/story/0,7493,924169,00.html

    BBC chiefs stress need to attribute war sources

    Claims and counter-claims in the media

    Ciar Byrne Friday March 28, 2003

    BBC news chiefs have met to discuss the increasing problem of misinformation coming out of Iraq as staff concern grows at the series of premature claims and counter claims by military sources.

    As a result the corporation has reinforced the message to correspondents that they must clearly attribute information to the military when it has not been backed up by another source.

    "There's been a discussion about attribution and it's been reinforced with people that we do have to attribute military information," said a BBC spokeswoman.

    "We have to be very careful in the midst of a conflict like this one to be very sure when we're reporting something we've not seen with our own eyes that we attribute it," she added.

    On nearly every day of the war so far there have been reports that could be seen as favourable to coalition forces, which have later turned out to be inaccurate.

    Earlier this week there was confusion over whether there had been an uprising in the key southern city of Basra. A British forces spokesman, Group Captain Al Lockwood, said on Thursday there had been a "popular uprising", but this was denied by Iraqi authorities.

    By last Sunday the southern Iraqi seaport of Umm Qasr had been reported "taken" nine times, while reports of the discovery of a chemical weapons factory in An Najaf have not been confirmed - just two more examples of the confusion over what is coming out of military sources.

    "We're absolutely sick and tired of putting things out and finding they're not true. The misinformation in this war is far and away worse than any conflict I've covered, including the first Gulf war and Kosovo," said a senior BBC news source.

    "On Saturday we were told they'd taken Basra and Nassiriya and then subsequently found out neither were true. We're getting more truth out of Baghdad than the Pentagon at the moment. Not because Baghdad is putting out pure and morally correct information but because they're less savvy about it, I think.

    "I don't know whether they (the Pentagon) are putting out flyers in the hope that we'll run them first and ask questions later or whether they genuinely don't know what's going on - I rather suspect the latter."

    Earlier this week the BBC's director of news, Richard Sambrook, admitted it was proving difficult for journalists in Iraq to distinguish truth from false reports, and that the pressures facing reporters on 24-hour news channels had led to premature or inaccurate stories.

    Veteran war correspondent Martin Bell has called for 24-hour news channels to "curb their excitability'' and warned against unsubstantiated reports which may help the allied cause, but later turn out to be false.

    The Times journalist Janine di Giovanni has also said that the demands of real-time television, combined with the restrictions placed on reporters in Baghdad by the Iraqis and the difficulties of getting to the front line are making it virtually impossible for journalists to cover the war properly.

    Network Solutions the weakest link, again

    Published March 28, 2003

    Yahoo: al-Jazeera website redirected: 

    The hacker was able to gain control of the domain name by asking domain
seller Network Solutions for the account password on official al-Jazeera
stationery, said an industry source speaking on condition of anonymity.

    A spokesman for Network Solutions' parent company declined to comment on
how the hacker was able to hijack the domain name, but said the company
had fixed the problem and was trying to track the impostor down.

    'We followed our procedures, in this particular instance someone was able
to get around those procedures,' said Brian O'Shaughnessy, a spokesman
for Internet security firm VeriSign.

    They fixed the problem? Surely this is exactly what happened with the sex.com domain several years ago?

    rottenflesh: freshmeat gets parodied

    Published March 26, 2003

    Rottenflesh.net, a piss-take of Freshmeat.net (found via Sweetcode).

    About: openJ-GNU is a web secure server that quickly generates backgrounds. It uses mv for menubars. openJ-GNU generates user-interfaces.

    Changes: openJ-GNU 3.24.7 enhances robustness for sites that also use newGeekNr. It also was rewritten in Tcl and patches a remote root bug in configuration. One of the developers was sacked. It also compiles.

    The Problem with Anti-spam Challenge-Response Systems

    Published March 25, 2003

    A great summary of the issues surrounding challenge-response anti-spam systems, from Kee Hinckley on the ASRG list. Summary: they'll work fine for one-person-to-one-person email, but anything beyond that -- and there is lots beyond that, in current email use -- gets hairier and hairier. Read on for the message.

    Date: Tue, 25 Mar 2003 09:13:46 -0500
    From: Kee Hinckley (spam-protected)
    To: Brad Templeton (spam-protected)
    cc: Steve Schear (spam-protected) (spam-protected)

    (spam-protected) Subject: Re: FC: Will new "spam reduction" service result in... more spam?

    At 5:32 PM -0800 3/24/03, Brad Templeton wrote:
    > I wrote a challenge/response system six years ago that simply asks for any
    > reply at all -- it doesn't put any burden on the other party, and would be
    > easy to defeat with something as simple as an autoresponder. Yet it works,
    > the spammers have not attempted to use this simple defeat. Once they start,

    If a challenge response system puts messages in the "look at me later" queue if you don't respond, then I don't think spammers will care. (And it's not clear that you'll be that much happier as a user of the system. You will have to scan the queue.)

    Why is not clear to me is a) how anyone expects your typical user to whitelist commercial addresses and mailing lists in advance and b) how a challenge response system (which had *better* respond to envelope from) avoids getting them removed from said list, or not receiving notification about their purchase or what not.

    Just consider the following.

    (jm note: I've replaced at signs with (AT) in the text below, as otherwise this blog software's anti-spam features will hide the addresses.)

    1 User sends email to asrg-request (AT) ietf.org?subject=subscribe

    2 Think quick. What address should you whitelist? asrg (AT) ietf.org? asrg-request (AT) ietf.org? Nope. asrg-admin (AT) ietf.org. And you knew that because...?

    3 asrg sends back a confirmation request. Now as it happens, it does this from asrg-admin (AT) ietf.org (envelope) and asrg-request (from). But some mailers use a custom address for this. But let's assume we're dealing with the average user here. They either didn't do anything at all (forgot they had to) or their software whitelisted based on the To: address (asrg-request).

    4.1 A challenge gets sent back to the asrg list. The result depends on a combination of how the list software works and how the challenge software constructed its reply.

    4.1.1 It's treated as a bounce and the user is not added

    4.1.2 It's treated as a confirmation and the user is added

    4.1.3 It goes to the admin, who says something I can't repeat and throws it in the trash.

    4.2 It makes it through because we whitelisted the right thing.

    5 The first list message comes through. If you had whitelisted asrg-admin, you're fine. If you whitelisted asrg-request, we challenge it. If the list software uses a different envelope from each time, you got problems.

    Now, let's take amazon.com.

    I've received automated email from payments-messages (AT) amazon.com, orders (AT) amazon.com, auto-confirm (AT) amazon.com, eyes (AT) amazon.com, amazon-news-sender (AT) amazon.com, editer-sender (AT) amazon.com, science-fiction-editor (AT) amazon.com... and they actually send mail from their domain--never mind what happens if they higher m0.net or someone to deliver it.

    And if you start sending challenges to those--Amazon's going to see them as bounces and dump me.

    Of course we could just whitelist all of amazon.com. But I rather suspect the spammers might figure that one out.

    If you want challenge/response to work, the first thing you should do has nothing to do with challenge/response. The first thing is to come up with an RFC for a standard format for challenges so that automated mail systems can recognize that they aren't the same as bounces. And come up with a protocol whereby they can reply and say "Yo! I'm an automated system you idiot." Where you go from there I don't know.

    However, see my next message on "Protocols".

    -- Kee Hinckley http://www.puremessaging.com/ Junk-Free Email Filtering http://commons.somewhere.com/buzz/ Writings on Technology and Society

    I'm not sure which upsets me more: that people are so unwilling to accept responsibility for their own actions, or that they are so eager to regulate everyone else's.

    Asrg mailing list (spam-protected) https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/asrg

    Robin Cook’s viewpoint

    Published March 24, 2003

    Robin Cook, who resigned from the UK cabinet last week:

    ... If you take a response to 9/11 as being a driving force of the American approach to international affairs, I would strongly argue that one of the greatest assets that came out of that was the extraordinarily rich and powerfully diverse coalition against international terrorism.'

    That coalition, according to Cook, has now been shattered on the altar of pre-emptive diplomacy. America has long planned to attack Iraq and splits in the UN, Nato and in the European Union were a price worth paying.

    'Now, I'm not an American politician but if I was I would be inveighing against the extent to which the Bush administration had allowed that terrific asset to disintegrate,' Cook said.

    'Instead the US is left embarking on military action from a position of diplomatic weakness, unable to get any major international organisation to agree with it. We are heading for a very serious risk of a big gulf between the Western and Islamic world. That seems to me to have thrown away a powerful asset for the US which relates to its number one security concern.'

    Also, some history (thanks to Dan Brickley for forwarding this): Ireland as the pivot of a league of nations, written by Michael Collins in 1921, shortly after Ireland's declaration of independence from the UK:

    Into such a League might not America be willing to enter? By doing so America would be on the way to secure the world ideal of free, equal, and friendly nations on which her aspirations are so firmly fixed. Ireland's inclusion as a free member of this League would have a powerful influence in consolidating the whole body, for Ireland is herself a mother country with world-wide influences, and it is scarcely to be doubted that were she a free partner in the League as sketched the Irish in America would surely wish America to be associated in such a combination. In that League the Irish in Ireland would be joined with the Irish in America, and they would both share in a common internationality with the people of America, England, and the other free nations of the League. Through the link of Ireland a co-operation and understanding would arise between England and America, and would render unnecessary those safeguards which England wishes to impose upon Ireland and which by preserving an element of restraint might render less satisfactory the new relations between the two countries.

    It's incredible to consider how much has changed in world politics since those words were written 82 years ago.

    And finally, some humour: Power Phillips Home Page:

    Powers Phillips, P.C., is a small law firm located in downtown Denver, Colorado within convenient walking distance of over fifty bars and a couple of doughnut shops. Powers Phillips also maintains a small satellite office-in-exile on the cow-covered hillsides near Carbondale, Colorado, where it puts out to pasture some of its aging attorneys.

    The firm is composed of lawyers from the two major strains of the legal profession, those who litigate and those who wouldn't be caught dead in a courtroom.

    Litigation lawyers are the type who will lie, cheat and steal to win a case and who can't complete a sentence without the words 'I object' or 'I demand another extension on that filing deadline.' Many people believe that litigation lawyers are the reason all lawyers are held in such low esteem by the public. Powers Phillips, P.C. is pleased to report that only three of its lawyers, Trish Bangert, Tom McMahon, and Tamara Vincelette are litigation lawyers, and only one of them is a man.

    And it gets worse from there on.

    The Perils of ‘Raw’ News

    Published March 24, 2003

    Mark Lawson in today's Guardian:

    This time, digital satellite viewers can even use their red interactive buttons to call the shots of the shots: zapping between battle zones and international capitals like a James Bond baddie watching the world come down on 30 TV screens in his underground bunker... We belong to a generation which has largely ceased to be surprised by television, but think about this: those who wanted to were able to watch an enemy operation live from the banks of the Tigris. This weekend's pictures have widened the eyes like nothing since the moon landings, though with rather greater moral complications. The essential problem is that in seeming to know everything, we know nothing. There are wise old journalists who will tell you that the word 'raw' is usually a warning. It is unwise to eat raw meat or smell raw sewage and it may be equally foolish to consume raw news coverage.

    Forwarded by Tim Chapman on the forteana list.

    Kind of irrelevant to me, seeing as I'm now based in the US, and the concept of unbiased, unfiltered TV news doesn't really seem to exist over here.

    Instead, the war coverage consists of an endless array of human interest stories with the troops and whizz-bang explosion footage. There's absolutely no interpretation, apart from what it might imply for relatives of the US servicemen involved -- that's it. As far as I can see, there is no real liberal news, or a balancing viewpoint, on TV over here.

    In about 3 hours of news on TV, I think I saw one opposing viewpoint, 5 minutes with ex-senator George McGovern. That was it.

    I'm finding this to be a serious culture shock. Thankfully, I've got the web to read and listen to the European stuff instead, so I'm doing that instead. The old Barlow line about the internet and censorship springs to mind...

    zkjl IMPORTANT information on NOT DYING!!! kfdjsd aowopqq (fwd)

    Published March 21, 2003

    Ben notes this passage from this SFGate story:

    '(Saddam's) generals have been getting personal messages, including e-mail and cell phone calls, urging them not to fight.'

    Then speculates exactly what such a message might look like...

    Date: Thu, 20 Mar 2003 12:30:18 -0800
    From: ben (spam-protected)
    Subject: speculation

    Dear friend,
This is for real!!!!!!!!!!!!1
================================================
================================================
This is a ''ONE-TIME MESSAGE'' you were randomly
selected to receive this.  There is no need to reply
to remove, you will receive no further mailings from
us.  If you have interest in this GREAT INFORMATION,
please do not click reply, use the contact information
in this message. Thank You! :-)
================================================
================================================
* Print This Now For Future Reference *
The following opportunity is one you may be interested
in taking a look at.  It can be started with VERY
LITTLE risk and the return is TREMENDOUS!!!
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
You are about to not get killed by the most powerful
military force in the world.
Please read the enclosed program...THEN READ IT
AGAIN!!!
<>  <>  <>  <>  <>  <>  <>  <>  <>  <>  <>  <>  <>  
The enclosed information is something I almost let
slip through my fingers.Fortunately, sometime later I
re-read everything and gave some thought and study to
it.
My name is Major Hassan al-Ramidi. Twelve years ago,
the unit I commanded at for the past twelve years was
eliminated. After unproductively wandering around in
the desert in terror for a while, I incurred many
unforeseen problems. Enormous numbers of men and
high-tech weapons surrounded me and were trying to
kill me. I truly believe it was wrong for me to be in
trouble like this.  AT THAT MOMENT something
significant happened in my life and I am writing to
share my experience in hopes that this will change
your life FOREVER!!!
In mid-December, I received this program via email.  I
had been sending away for information on various
opportunities for not dying.  All of the programs I
received, in my opinion, were not practical.  They
were either too difficult for me to comprehend or they
involved me getting killed by the US military or dying
of thirst in the desert. 
But like I was saying, in December I received this
program.  I didn't send for it, or ask for it, they
just got my name off a mailing list. THANK GOODNESS
FOR THAT!!!  After reading it several times, to
make sure I was reading it correctly, I couldn't
believe my eyes.  Here was a NOT GETTING KILLED
PHENOMENON.
After I got a pencil and paper and figured it out, I
at least had a chance of not dying horribly and
painfully.  After determining that the program is
LEGAL and NOT A CHAIN LETTER, I decided ''WHY NOT''.
I AM LIVING PROOF THAT IT WORKS !!!

    precision mincemeat manufacture

    Published March 21, 2003

    IraqBodyCount.net on the JDAM bomb:

    The B-2 bomber carries sixteen 2'000 lb. JDAM bombs. If all goes 100% as planned (the bomb does not fall outside of its specified margin of error of 13 meters, and the GPS guidance system is not foiled by a $50 radio jammer kit, easily purchased), then here is what one such bomb does :
    • everyone within a 120 meter radius is killed;
    • to be safe from serious shrapnel damage, a person must be at least 365
      • meters away;

    • to be really safe from all effects of fragmentation, a person must be 1000 meters away, according to Admiral Stufflebeem.

      The B-2s will be used upon targets within Baghdad.

      -Prof Marc W. Herold, IBC Project Consultant

    Sounds like the perfect weapon for use in tight city streets. :(

    blogging Dengue fever

    Published March 21, 2003

    Thank ghod this is one experience of SE Asia I missed. I came across this blog through some random blog-hopping last night; it's two farang tourists blogging their backpacking trip through the region. All great fun until they both catch Dengue fever:

    Dengue is commonly called 'break bone fever', and I found out why at about 2 AM on the train. I woke up with a 102 fever, in the most intense pain I can recall having in years. Everything hurt, but especially my back and legs. Harper later described the sensation as one of having someone scrape your bones with a knife, and that sounds about right.

    Jesus. I am so thankful I missed out on that particular aspect (a mild bout of food poisoning with a fever of 104 was all I had to put up with!)

    Dengue fever is endemic to many parts of the region, even Bangkok , the capital city of Thailand. It gets a lot less attention than malaria, since it's not fatal in the vast majority of cases (unless you get the rarer haemorrhagic version), but it is excruciating by all accounts, and I've met quite a few travellers who've met someone who caught it. Unfortunately there's not much you can do to avoid it but slather on the DEET, cover up, and hope for the best.

    On a lighter note…

    Published March 20, 2003

    Well, despite the covert bugging of the European Council offices of 3 major EU delegations, the apparatus of some states, at least, is bringing a smile to my face. The German federal secret service, the Bundesnachrichendienstes (BND), has just published Topf Secret, their official cookbook. Really. The Guardian notes:

    The book consists of recipes sent in from around the world by German spies in the field. Thus, there are two recipes from Iraq, several from central Africa, the Philippines and Scotland.

    Again, more questions than answers. The Germans have spies in Scotland? Do they really eat haggis? ('Attention: fill only 2/3 of the stomach since the oat flour will expand. If the stomach is too full it can explode while cooking!') Do the two recipes from Iraq - for fattousch and tabouleh - have to be so boring (use only crunchy lettuce leaves for the fattousch)? Why are there German agents in Iraq? What are they doing in the US as well, and do they like that nation's recipe for pumpkin pie?

    The Beeb via the ‘net

    Published March 18, 2003

    wow, the Beeb fed 29,200 simultaneous RealMedia streams at one point today; that breaks down to 18,400 listeners in the UK, 12,800 elsewhere in the world.

    Since getting back to bandwidth, I've been listening to a lot of Radio 4, waking up to the Today programme in particular. Definitely recommended; nothing like a few clipped RP tones to fill you in on all the details.

    Also recommended: the Beeb's live streams collection, featuring all the FM and digital-radio stations streamed with excellent quality. Who needs Napster when you've got internet radio ;)

    Maximum turd length standardized by NASA

    Published March 18, 2003

    for your delectation, I present the NASA standard for acceptable turds in space: 'c) The fecal collector shall accommodate a maximum BOLUS length of 330 mm (13 in).'

    My favourite bit: 'd) Quantities in excess of these amounts shall not result in an unrecoverable condition.' I should hope not!

    Thanks to James Rogers on the FoRK list for this fine source of bits...

    St. Patrick’s day

    Published March 17, 2003

    My parents, sister, and her husband Luke, just rang to wish lá féile Padraig shona againn. Thanks guys!

    But, as part of the deal, I had to promise to impart some google-juice to my Dad's website; he's an architectural photographer in Dublin, Ireland, who also does a nice sideline in stock photography, especially where his holiday snaps are involved. So he's now on the sidebar ;)

    The second coming — as a fish

    Published March 16, 2003

    The Guardian reports that 'an obscure Jewish sect in New York has been gripped in awe by what it believes to be a mystical visitation by a 20lb carp that was heard shouting in Hebrew, i n what many Jews worldwide are hailing as a modern miracle.' ... 'According to two fish-cutters at the New Square Fish Market, the carp was about to be slaughtered and made into gefilte fish for Sabbath dinner when it sudden ly began shouting apocalyptic warnings in Hebrew.'

    Date: Sun, 16 Mar 2003 10:14:20 +0000
    From: "Dohrn List" (spam-protected)
    To: (spam-protected)
    Subject: God reveals himself as a fish

    Word is made flesh as God reveals himself... as a fish

    Edward Helmore New York Sunday March 16, 2003 The Observer

    An obscure Jewish sect in New York has been gripped in awe by what it believes to be a mystical visitation by a 20lb carp that was heard shouting in Hebrew, i n what many Jews worldwide are hailing as a modern miracle.

    Many of the 7,000-member Skver sect of Hasidim in New Square, 30 miles north of 

    Manhattan, believe God has revealed himself in fish form.

    According to two fish-cutters at the New Square Fish Market, the carp was about 

    to be slaughtered and made into gefilte fish for Sabbath dinner when it sudden

    ly began shouting apocalyptic warnings in Hebrew.

    Many believe the carp was channelling the troubled soul of a revered community elder who recently died; others say it was God. The only witnesses to the mysti cal show were Zalmen Rosen, a 57-year-old Hasid with 11 children, and his co-wo rker, Luis Nivelo. They say that on 28 January at 4pm they were about to club t he carp on the head when it began yelling.

    Nivelo, a Gentile who does not understand Hebrew, was so shocked at the sight o f a fish talking in any language that he fell over. He ran into the front of th e store screaming: 'It's the Devil! The Devil is here!' Then the shop owner hea rd it shouting warnings and commands too.

    'It said "Tzaruch shemirah" and "Hasof bah",' he told the New York Times, 'whic h essentially means that everyone needs to account for themselves because the e nd is near.'

    The animated carp commanded Rosen to pray and study the Torah. Rosen tried to k ill the fish but injured himself. It was finally butchered by Nivelo and sold.

    However, word spread far and wide and Nivelo complains he has been plagued by p hone calls from as far away as London and Israel. The story has since been ampl ified by repetition and some now believe the fish's outburst was a warning abou t the dangers of the impending war in Iraq.

    Some say they fear the born-again President Bush believes he is preparing the w orld for the Second Coming of Christ, and war in Iraq is just the opening salvo 

    in the battle of Armageddon.

    Local resident Abraham Spitz said: 'Two men do not dream the same dream. It is very rare that God reminds people he exists in this modern world. But when he d oes, you cannot ignore it.'

    Others in New Square discount the apocalyptic reading altogether and suggest th e notion of a talking fish is as fictional as Tony Soprano's talking-fish dream 

    in an episode of The Sopranos .

    Stand-up comedians have already incorporated the carp into their comedy routine s at weddings. One gefilte company has considered changing it's slogan to: 'Our 

    fish speaks for itself.'

    Still, the shouting carp corresponds with the belief of some Hasidic sects that 

    righteous people can be reincarnated as fish. They say that Nivelo may have be

    en selected because he is not Jewish, but a weary Nivelo told the New York Time s : 'I wish I never said anything about it. I'm getting so many calls every day , I've stopped answering. Israel, London, Miami, Brooklyn. They all want to hea r about the talking fish.'

    A devout Christian, he still thinks the carp was the Devil. 'I don't believe an y of this Jewish stuff. But I heard that fish talk.'

    He's grown tired of the whole thing. 'It's just a big headache for me,' he adde

    1. 'I pull my phone out of the wall at night. I don't sleep and I've lost weigh

    t.'

    Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003

    Peter Kay’s Observations of Life

    Published March 15, 2003

    About time I posted this -- everyone who's read 'em agrees vehemently with at least 5 of these; and a quick Google (tm) reveals that this list hasn't ever had a page to itself out there on the interweb. So here it is.

    My personal favourites: 6, 8, 15, 20, 33, and best of all, 28...

    • 1) Triangular sandwiches taste better than square ones.
    • 2) At the end of every party there is always a girl crying.
    • 3) One of the most awkward things that can happen in a pub is when your pint-to-toilet cycle gets synchronised with a complete stranger.
    • 4) You've never quite sure whether it's ok to eat green crisps.
    • 5) Everyone who grew up in the 80's has entered the digits 55378008 into a calculator.
    • 6) Reading when you're drunk is horrible.
    • 7) Sharpening a pencil with a knife makes you feel really manly.
    • 8) You're never quite sure whether it's against the law or not to have a fire in your back garden.
    • 9) Nobody ever dares make cup-a-soup in a bowl.
    • 10) You never know where to look when eating a banana.
    • 11) Its impossible to describe the smell of a wet cat.
    • 12) Prodding a fire with a stick makes you feel manly.
    • 13) Rummaging in an overgrown garden will always turn up a bouncy ball.
    • 14) You always feel a bit scared when stroking horses.
    • 15) Everyone always remembers the day a dog ran into your school.
    • 16) The most embarrassing thing you can do as schoolchild is to call your teacher mum or dad.
    • 17) The smaller the monkey the more it looks like it would kill you at the first given opportunity.
    • 18) Some days you see lots of people on crutches.
    • 19) Every bloke has at some stage while taking a pee flushed half way through and then raced against the flush.
    • 20) Old women with mobile phones look wrong!
    • 21) Its impossible to look cool whilst picking up a Frisbee.
    • 22) Driving through a tunnel makes you feel excited.
    • 23) You never ever run out of salt.
    • 24) Old ladies can eat more than you think.
    • 25) You can't respect a man who carries a dog.
    • 26) There's no panic like the panic you momentarily feel when you've got your hand or head stuck in something.
    • 27) No one knows the origins of their metal coat hangers.
    • 28) Despite constant warning, you have never met anybody who has had their arm broken by a swan.
    • 29) The most painful household incident is wearing socks and stepping on an upturned plug.
    • 30) People who don't drive slam car doors too hard
    • 31) You've turned into your dad the day you put aside a thin piece of wood specifically to stir paint with.
    • 32) Everyone had an uncle who tried to steal their nose.
    • 33) Bricks are horrible to carry.
    • 34) In every plate of chips there is a bad chip.

    laugh and you’re dead

    Published March 14, 2003

    Humour:Guardian: The joke's on Saddam: In northern Iraq, they're laughing at Saddam Hussein. Luke Harding meets two comedians who have dared to cock a snook at the ruthless dictator - and annoyed him so much that he ordered their assassination.

    The film was screened on Kurdish television; and after decades of official repression, it was a huge hit. Saddam's vigilant agents dispatched a CD copy to Baghdad. The Iraqi president was not amused. His response, when it came, was predictable: he sent several assassins to northern Iraq to kill the entire cast. 'Fortunately the guys were all arrested (by the Kurdish authorities),' Hassan recalls. 'They were found carrying a list. All our names were on it.'

    With your fetlocks flowing in the… wind

    Published March 14, 2003

    Life imitates Father Ted. It seems the Irish Eurovision entry sounds very similar to the Danish entry from 2000, which, if true, is almost exactly the subject of a classic episode of cult comedy TV show Father Ted, My Lovely Horse.

    Dougal: 'So we wouldn't be stealing the song then?' Ted: 'No, it'd be more like we were keeping their memory alive.' Dougal: 'So if we won we could give the prize money to their relatives?' Ted: 'Yeah, we'll play that by ear.'

    The full low-down on the episode is here. Classic...

    Anyway, I'm now in sunny SoCal, set up with more bandwidth than I've had in over a year. In fact, I'm swimming in bandwidth. Plus a decent pair of speakers for the ol' MP3 collection, at last (my last set are in storage and have been for 3 months)... happy happy joy joy.

    Myself and my cat had a 16-hour flight, and somehow or other, he seems satisfied. Well, I suppose as long as the catfood and lots of petting is forthcoming, life is grass for this fella. Easily satisfied!

    Date: Tue, 11 Mar 2003 17:09:01 +0000
    From: Joe McNally (spam-protected)
    To: Yahoogroups Forteana (spam-protected)
    Subject: My Lovely Horse

    http://www.irishnews.com/access/daily/current.asp?SID=428546

    Real life repeat of Father Ted feared

    By Staff reporter

    IRELAND'S Eurovision hope Mickey Joe Harte has rubbished claims that his song bears a close resemblance to Denmark's winning entry of 2000.

    Eurovision fans were complaining of deja vu yesterday when listening to We've Got the World, which will be sung by the Lifford father-of-two. The song - written by Mark Brannigan and Keith Molloy

    • is said to sound eerily like Fly on the Wings of Love, sung by the

    Danish Olsen Brothers three years ago.

    Mickey Joe last night said he 'honestly couldn't see the similarity', but added that the first line of the chorus could be said to resemble the Danish entry.

    Phil Coulter, one of the judges who watched thousands of young hopefuls perform in RTE's You're a Star talent show - which Mickey Joe won on Sunday night - also insisted any similarity between the two songs was purely coincidental.

    But RTE's Joe Duffy radio programme was inundated with calls from listeners who were terrified that Ireland was setting itself up for a Father Ted-like fiasco.

    Listener Frank O'Reilly told Duffy that his daughter Claire, a Eurovision fanatic, spotted the similarity immediately and revealed that the words of one song could be sung over the melody of the second.

    A second listener, called Margaret, also said she and her children had started singing the Danish song in their sitting room on the first night they heard We've Got the World.

    Ironically, an episode of the hit Channel 4 comedy Father Ted featured the title character, played by Dermot Morgan, and his sidekick Fr Dougal, bidding for Eurovision glory with a 'borrowed' song from another Scandinavian country in a previous year.

    Phil Coulter admitted that the Irish song was reminiscent of the Olsen ditty, but insisted there 'was nothing intrinsically original' about the Danish song.

    'There is no question that there is going to be any kind of objection and there is no question that any objection would be upheld,' he added. -- Joe McNally :: Flaneur at Large :: http://www.flaneur.org.uk

    More on SCO v IBM

    Published March 8, 2003

    LWN on the case. An excellent commentary, and features this lovely user-posted comment as well:

    'Without access to such equipment, facilities, sophisticated methods, concepts and coordinated know-how, it would be difficult or impossible for the Linux development community to create a grade of Linux adequate for enterprise use.'

    Alan Cox wrote the first SMP version of Linux. Do you know who bought Alan the hardware? It was Caldera :-)

    Not IBM, after all, but Caldera -- who are now part of the SCO group. This usenet posting from 1995 backs that up, as does the Caldera-badged Linux SMP page.

    ‘Prestigious Non-Accredited Degree’ sites shut down

    Published March 7, 2003

    The BBC reports that trading standards officials from the UK and US have successfully shut down an Israeli/Romanian/US-based fake-degree spam operation. Or maybe they've just shut down 3 websites, which is all I can see in that report -- that's not going to make a whole lot of difference, so let's hope not.

    Date: Fri, 07 Mar 2003 14:09:32 +0000
    From: "Tim Chapman" (spam-protected)
    To: forteana (spam-protected)
    Subject: Bogus degree sites shut down

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/2829237.stm

    Last Updated:  Friday, 7 March, 2003, 12:19 GMT Bogus degree sites shut down

    Several websites offering fake British degrees for up to £1,000 each have been closed down following a joint operation in the UK and US.

    The certificates, from 14 made-up institutions, were used by hundreds of unqualified people, mainly in North America, to gain jobs in areas such as teaching, computing and childcare.

    The operation, which employed 30 staff in Romania, targeted millions of people every day with circular e-mails.

    Trading standards officers in Enfield, north London, worked with their US counterparts for four years before the US District Court ordered the closure of the sites.

    Investigator Tony Allen said: "It was a difficult operation to crack. The problem was that the people sending out the e-mails weren't conning anyone.

    'Worrying'

    "Those people who bought the degrees knew exactly what they were doing. The complaints we received were actually from colleagues of those who got jobs by lying.

    "It's worrying that they got into such important and responsible positions using the fake degrees."

    Among the institutions created for the websites were the University of Palmers Green, the University of Wexford and Harrington University. The operation, run by a man and a woman, both Israeli, was based at offices in Israel, Romania and the US. It is thought to have made millions of pounds.

    The bogus institutions used a drop box in Green Lanes, London, as a postal address.

    Under the Education Reform Act of 1988 it is an offence to supply a degree unless approved to do so by the Education Secretary.

    Higher education minister Margaret Hodge said: "Many overseas organisations use the UK's name and higher education reputation to offer their own 'degrees' over the internet, so I welcome this action to clamp down on such operations.

    "This demonstrates that action can be taken with the use of international co-operation. I take this matter very seriously.''

    SCO sues IBM over Linux

    Published March 7, 2003

    SCO sues IBM (via Slashdot) . Talk about self-immolation: sue IBM, of all companies, with an intellectual property case. One SCO claim:

    'It is not possible for Linux to rapidly reach Unix performance standards for complete enterprise functionality without the misappropriation of Unix code.'

    Apart from the fact that SMP is just not a state-of-the-art thing any more; things move on! Perhaps if SCO/Novell/USL hadn't sat on their hands for 10 years, swapping IP and suing BSDI, they'd still be in the game. Anyway, here's what the analysts think:

    'It's a fairly end-of-life move for the stockholders and managers of that company,' said Jonathan Eunice, an Illuminata analyst. 'Really what beat SCO is not any problem with what IBM did; it's what the market decided. This is a way of salvaging value out of the SCO franchise they can't get by winning in the marketplace.'

    He said it.

    Cough Cheat Millionaire transcript

    Published March 6, 2003

    The transcript of the "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire" episode at the centre of a current UK court case; the producers claim that the contestant cheated, with the aid of a coughing accomplice. Going by this transcript, it's an open-and-shut case IMO.

    Date: Thu, 06 Mar 2003 09:56:42 +0000
    From: Tom Farrell (spam-protected)
    To: (spam-protected)
    Subject: cough cheat millionaire transcript

    The major answered the first three questions, but got into difficulty on question six, using the "ask the audience" lifeline when confronted with a question about Coronation Street. He struggled on the next question about the location of the river Foyle and phoned a friend.

    As the questions became harder, Major Ingram often appeared unsure and wrestled out loud with several options, often going for a different answer from the one he initially appeared to choose.

    Mr Hilliard said there was "a bit of an attempt to make it look like a sweat, some furrowing of the brow ... complete changes of mind coincide with the coughs; if you look at the whole picture, that's what's going on."

    Major Ingram struggled on question eight, when he was asked who Jacqueline Kennedy's second husband had been. On two occasions, when he said the correct answer - Aristotle Onassis - out loud, a cough was heard, which the prosecution claims came from Mr Whittock.

    For £125,000, Major Ingram was asked about the Holbein painting the Ambassadors.

    Major Ingram: "I think I'm going to go for Holbein."

    A cough is heard. Major Ingram says this is his final answer, and is told he is right.

    During the next question there was a series of coughs as Major Ingram struggled with the question.

    Tarrant asked: "What kind of garment is an Anthony Eden? An overcoat, hat, shoe, tie?"

    Major Ingram: "I think it is a hat."

    Cough.

    Major Ingram: "Again I'm not sure. I think it is..."

    Coughing.

    Major Ingram: "I am sure it is a hat. Am I sure?"

    Cough.

    Major Ingram: "Yes, hat, it's a hat."

    To cheers, Tarrant told him it was the right answer. Then for the £500,000 question, he was asked: "Baron Haussmann is best known for his planning of which city? Rome, Paris, Berlin, Athens."

    Major Ingram: "I think it is Berlin. I think Haussmann is a more German name than Italian or Parisian or Athens. I am really not sure. I'm never sure. If I was at home, I would be saying Berlin if I was watching this on TV."

    A loud cough was then heard, and the prosecution claim that Mr Whittock resorted to the "desperate measure" of saying the word "no" under cover of a cough.

    Major Ingram: "I do not think it's Paris."

    Cough.

    Major Ingram: "I do not think it's Athens, I am sure it is not Rome. I would have thought it's Berlin but there's a chance it is Paris but I am not sure. Think, think, think! I know I have read this, I think it is Berlin, it could be Paris. I think it is Paris."

    Cough.

    Major Ingram: "Yes, I am going to play."

    Tarrant: "Hang on, where are we?"

    Major Ingram: "I am just talking to myself. It is either Berlin or Paris. I think it is Paris."

    Cough.

    Major Ingram: "I am going to play Paris."

    Tarrant: "You were convinced it was Berlin."

    Major Ingram: "I know. I think it's Paris."

    Tarrant: "He thought it was Berlin, Berlin, Berlin. You changed your answer
    to Paris. That brought you £500,000. What a man! What a man. Quite an amazing man."

    Then came the £1m pound question: "A number one followed by 100 zeros is known by what name? A googol, a megatron, a gigabit or a nanomole?"

    Major Ingram: "I am not sure."

    Tarrant: "Charles, you've not been sure since question number two."

    Major Ingram: "The doubt is multiplied. I think it is nanomole but it could be a gigabit, but I am not sure. I do not think I can do this one. I do not think it is a megatron. I do not think I have heard of a googol."

    Cough.

    Major Ingram: "Googol, googol, googol. By a process of elimination I have to think it's a googol but I do not know what a googol is. I do not think it's a gigabit, nanomole, and I do not think it's a megatron. I really do think it's a googol."

    Tarrant: "But you think it's a nanomole. You have never heard of a googol."

    Major Ingram: "It has to be a googol."

    Tarrant: "It's also the only chance you will have to lose £468,000. You are
    going for the one you have never heard of."

    Major Ingram: "I do not mind taking the odd risk now and again. My strategy has been direct so far - take it by the bit and go for it. I've been very positive, I think. I do not think it's a gigabit, I do not think it's a nanomole or megatron. I am sure it's a googol."

    Cough.

    Major Ingram: "Surely, surely."

    Tarrant: "You lose £468,000 if you are wrong."

    Major Ingram: "No, it's a googol. God, is it a googol? Yes, it's a googol. Yes, yes, it's a googol."

    Cough.

    Major Ingram: "I am going to play googol."

    After a break, Tarrant said: "He initially went for nanomole, he then went through the various options again. He then went for googol because he had never heard of it and he had heard of the other three. You've just won £1m."

    Who the fuck is Amanda Perez?

    Published March 6, 2003

    and why is she spamming me?

    From: "Amanda Perez" amandaperez@virginrecords.com To: 20021202123631.31AB416F1F@jmason.org

    Let's send Amanda Perez and her new video 'Angel' to the top of MTV's Total Request Live!

    I don't think so. How's about reporting her to SpamCop instead?

    Wow, Virgin Records, you are in so much trouble; spamming me with this crap, using a scraped address -- in fact, not even a valid address; it's a Message-Id! That address has never existed to receive mail. Out and out spamming. Unbelievable.

    Update: actually, it's probably nothing to do with Virgin, on reflection; nothing in the headers indicates anything apart from a dialup PacBell customer. So, Virgin Records, sorry for all the shouting ;) 

    Return-path: (spam-protected)
Delivered-to: (spam-protected)
Received: from localhost (jalapeno [127.0.0.1])
by jmason.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4FC7816F17
for (spam-protected) Thu,  6 Mar 2003 11:10:38 +0000 (GMT)
Received: from jalapeno [127.0.0.1]
by localhost with IMAP (fetchmail-5.9.0)
for (spam-protected) (single-drop); Thu, 06 Mar 2003 11:10:38 +0000 (GMT)
Received: from pavillion (adsl-63-202-108-251.dsl.lsan03.pacbell.net
[63.202.108.251]) by dogma.slashnull.org (8.11.6/8.11.6) with ESMTP id
h268Nin26527 for (spam-protected) Thu,
6 Mar 2003 08:23:44 GMT
Message-id: (spam-protected)
Mime-version: 1.0
Content-type: text/plain; charset=''iso-8859-1''
Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit
X-spam-status: No, hits=-5.7 required=5.0
tests=AWL,BAYES_01,CLICK_BELOW,MSG_ID_ADDED_BY_MTA_3,
RCVD_IN_BL_SPAMCOP_NET,T_BLANK_LINE_RATIO_01_40_50,
T_BLANK_LINE_RATIO_04_40_50,T_BLANK_LINE_RATIO_08_40_50,
T_BLANK_LINE_RATIO_20_00_02
version=2.60-cvs
X-spam-level: 
X-spam-checker-version: SpamAssassin 2.60-cvs (1.178-2003-03-03-exp)
Subject: They put me on MTV!
From: ''Amanda Perez'' (spam-protected)
Date: Thu, 06 Mar 2003 00:32:25 -0800 (08:32 GMT)
To: (spam-protected)
Let's send Amanda Perez and her new video ''Angel'' to the top of MTV's Total Request 
Live!
Thanks for helping Amanda get to the top, please try to vote before the week 
is out, and you can see the results on MTV's TRL.
Just click on the link below or paste it into your browser's Address window and 
hit enter to vote for Amanda's video at MTV.com.
http://www.mtv.com/onair/trl/votevideo.jhtml

    very nasty new sendmail vulnerability

    Published March 3, 2003

    Remote Sendmail Header Processing Vulnerability.

    Attackers may remotely exploit this vulnerability to gain 'root' or superuser control of any vulnerable Sendmail server. Sendmail and all other email servers are typically exposed to the Internet in order to send and receive Internet email. Vulnerable Sendmail servers will not be protected by legacy security devices such as firewalls and/or packet filters. This vulnerability is especially dangerous because the exploit can be delivered within an email message and the attacker doesn't need any specific knowledge of the target to launch a successful attack.

    Sendmail versions from 5.79 to 8.12.7 are vulnerable.

    Protection mechanisms such as implementation of a non-executable stack do not offer any protection from exploitation of this vulnerability. Successful exploitation of this vulnerability does not generate any log entries.

    Great...

    Recent history of the written word, with William Gibson

    Published March 3, 2003

    William Gibson, talking about why he uses all-caps book titles, gives a short history lesson regarding the rendering of book titles, back in the age of the mimeograph:

    Much of my earliest typewriting experience had to do with mimeography, a pre-thermocopy form of reproduction once fairly universal in the world's offices. You typed, once, on a waxed paper 'stencil', clipped this over a silkscreen device with a moving pad or drum of ink behind it, and your mimeograph ran off (or silkscreened, really) as many copies of your document as you required. Owing to the physical peculiarities of the medium, though, it was unwise to underline too frequently on a mimeograph stencil: the single unbroken line was particularly prone to tear, producing leaks and smudging.

    People who liked books, and frequently wrote letters, on typewriters, to other people who liked books, tended, free from the constraints of an academic stylesheet, to render titles in all-caps. People who wrote about books for publication in amateur journals (mimeo was an authentic medium of the American samisdat) rendered titles in all-caps in order to avoid stencil-tears. At various times, I was both.

    It's such a pleasure having this kind of stuff to read every day!

    Returnadores

    Published March 1, 2003

    Returnadores: a New Life in the Old World. 'Imported from Argentina to help save the village from a decades-long decline in population which threatened its very future, the Paez family has travelled backwards along the path of the first conquistadores and the generations of Spanish emigrants who followed them.'

    Random Word of BIG LETTERS

    Published March 1, 2003

    Leonard notes the 'Random word of mixed symbols with length 1 to 27' type spammer obfuscation, suggesting it's 'open source spam'; I reckon it's more 'literate programming spam', in that it's self-documenting. But it certainly is very wierd. Maybe some spamtool developer has a COBOL fetish.

    Anyway, just got back from a very enjoyable work trip to find my visa documents have arrived -- so things are probably going to heat up 'round about Thursday, when I have my interview at the US Embassy. Once that happens, it's full speed ahead on flights, shipping, figuring out how to transport the cat, handing over house to new tenants, etc. etc...

    Bitstream come through with Vera

    Published February 23, 2003

    Bitstream Vera released as a beta. The full release, sometime next month, will use an extremely open license. To quote the FAQ:

    Are derivative works allowed?

    Yes!

    I want to sell a software package that uses these fonts: Can I do so?

    Sure. Bundle the fonts with your software and sell your software with the fonts. That is the intent of the copyright.

    Hey presto -- open source fonts! Good work by Jim Gettys, Bitstream and GNOME in making these available.

    World’s first 419 revenge killing? (fwd)

    Published February 21, 2003

    BlogStart:

    Spam: The Register: World's first 419 revenge killing?

    Michael Lekara Wayid, 50, Nigeria's consul in the Czech Republic, was shot dead at the embassy yesterday morning. The embassy's 37-year-old receptionist was shot in the hand during the melee which began after a suspect opened fire after visiting the embassy to discuss an unspecified business matter yesterday morning. A 72-year-old Czech man was arrested at the scene on suspicion of murder, the BBC reports. Unconfirmed, and thus far sketchy reports, suggest the unnamed suspect was a victim of a 419 (AKA advanced fee) fraud.

    Now that's taking it a bit too far IMO ;)

    A new world for radio regulators

    Published February 21, 2003

    GNU Radio, which (as noted on Boing Boing) has just released screenshots of a successfully-decoded HDTV signal, is a totally new way to receive (and possibly, in the future, send) radio-frequency signals. The FCC ponder the implications:

    The emergence of the low-cost, generally available SDR which can be configured with ... open software will present a new issue for regulators. What will be placed in the hands of the public entrepreneurs, amateurs, and even those with malicious intent will be machines which in principal can emulate, send, and receive any radio signal on any band. ...

    Then, with the world-wide availability of software that can even be modified if needed, any radio transmitter or receiver can be emulated. Bans on receiver types will be circumventable with ease. Mandates such as the proposed ATSC broadcast flag will be hard to enforce (and may even fail in the presence of a single web-connected noncompliant receiver). And, although not generally an issue for the Commission, it will be possible to implement proprietary systems without the benefit of any license from the patent holder. Because the software is open, as a practical matter virtually all mandated restrictions will be at risk (except for total power output which remains a classical hardware issue). ...

    In the GNU SDR environment, we have the makings of a powerful new technology that has the potential of solving the spectrum management problem, but we may also have other people in the world writing and distributing software with their own agenda.

    Wow. That's a brave new world. I wish I knew enough about radio tech to really get a handle on this stuff...

    AOL reports on its spam-blocking efforts

    Published February 21, 2003

    Lycos: AOL reports to Members on Its Efforts to Fight Spam. 'Members Now Reporting 4.1 Million Junk E-Mails Daily To AOL' .... 'AOL announced that its proprietary anti-spam filtering technology is blocking up to 780 million pieces of junk mail every day from reaching member e-mail inboxes, which amounts to an average of 22 blocked spam e-mails per account daily.'

    Of course, they don't say how much mail overall arrives at AOL, but I'd hazard a guess it's not much over 1,300 million messages per day based on those figures.

    Hotmail getting tough on spammers

    Published February 19, 2003

    Reg: Hotmail files anti-spam lawsuit. 'Microsoft has targeted spammers with a lawsuit aimed at bulk mailers who harvest email addresses of Hotmail subscribers in order to bombard them with junk. ... In the suit, Microsoft alleges that unnamed bulk mailers used tools to randomly generate email addresses prior to testing this list out to see which accounts were active. Essentially this is a form of dictionary attack, which Microsoft argues violates federal laws including the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. Trespass is also involved in the attacks, the software giant argues.' Go Hotmail!

    Also noteworthy: Out-Law.com: The Spammers Are Watching You: 'Eight out of ten spam e-mails contain covert tracking codes which allow the senders to record and log recipients' e-mail addresses as soon as they open the message.' well, duh, that's why SpamAssassin has a WEB_BUGS rule. Unfortunately, eight out of ten legit HTML newsletter mails also contain web bugs, too. :(

    Incredible Documentary on the Venezuelan Coup

    Published February 19, 2003

    last night RTE showed Chavez - Inside The Coup, a documentary about the 2-day coup d'etat in Venezuela in April 2002 which overthrew Hugo Chavez, and was then in turn overthrown in a popular uprising.

    It was incredible. The team had amazing access to Chavez and the presidential palace while the 2-day coup and mass protests went on. The cameras are right there while Chavez is taken into custody by the generals, carries on rolling through the censorship of the media, through the street protests and shotgun-blasting riot police, and then catches the loyal-to-Chavez presidential guard retaking the palace from the inside.

    Finally, it follows the negotiations to get Chavez returned from custody etc.; his cabinet are right there, on screen, talking to the generals on the phone while you watch and listen. Incredible footage, right from the thick of it.

    As far as I could tell, it's called Chavez - Inside The Coup, and is by Power Pictures, Irish lads from Galway, no less.

    I've never seen anything like it. If you get a chance, don't miss it.

    Sony’s Civil War

    Published February 18, 2003

    Wired: The Civil War Inside Sony.

    By rights, Sony should own the portable player business. The company's first hit product, back in the '50s, was the transistor radio, the tinny-sounding invention that took rock and roll out of the house and away from the parents and allowed the whole Elvis thing to happen. A quarter-century later, the Walkman enabled the kids of the '70s to take their tapes and tune out the world. But the 21st-century Walkman doesn't bother with tapes or CDs or minidiscs; it stores hundreds of hours of music on its own hard drive. And it sports an Apple logo. ....

    Where the iPod simply lets you sync its contents with the music collection on your personal computer, Walkman users are hamstrung by laborious 'check-in/check-out' procedures designed to block illicit file-sharing. And a Walkman with a hard drive? Not likely, since Sony's copy-protection mechanisms don't allow music to be transferred from one hard drive to another - not an issue with the iPod. 'We do not have any plans for such a product,' says Kimura, the smile fading. 'But we are studying it.' ....

    What's changed since the original Walkman debuted is that Sony became the only conglomerate to be in both consumer electronics and entertainment. As a result, it's conflicted: Sony's electronics side needs to let customers move files around effortlessly, but its entertainment side wants to build in restraints, because it sees every customer as a potential thief.

    Ashutosh Varshney on ethnic conflicts

    Published February 18, 2003

    Great interview with Ashutosh Varshney, an Indian political scientist investigating ethnic violence. From New Scientist, via Damien Morton on FoRK.

    So what is the key to predicting which communities will turn violent and which will remain peaceful in times of ethnic unrest?

    It comes down to how the cities or villages are structured, and the networks that people form across religious or ethnic divides. In India I have identified two types of civic network, which I call the associational and the everyday. The everyday type covers things such as Hindu and Muslim children playing together and their families and friends visiting each other or eating with each other, or taking part in festivals together. The associational type involves the two groups being members of the same trade unions, sports clubs, student unions, reading clubs, political parties or business organisations. Associational structures go beyond neighbourhood warmth, and in times of unrest they are much more robust. They can be a serious constraint on the polarising strategies of political elites. Places with strong networks of this kind are very likely to remain peaceful.

    Reverse-engineering: now even easier with added XML

    Published February 17, 2003

    Slashdot posts a story about 'Hacking the Streamium' -- the Streamium is an 'internet micro hi-fi' made by Philips. The poster writes 'the main gripes (are) that Philips controls which Internet radio stations you can listen to and that the PC-link software ... only runs on Windows. I managed to fix both of these problems by reverse engineering the PC-link protocol and writing my own pc-link server in perl, which can be run on practically any OS, *and* can trick the Streamium into playing any Internet MP3 stream that you want'.

    A quick look at his page notes 'the protocol consists of fairly simple xml tags'. It sure does; I'd imagine it took all of 5 minutes with a tcpdump reversing that! In fact, it looks so easy to reverse-engineer, you'd have to wonder if the engineers at Philips weren't hoping something like this might happen ;)

    Marching on Traffic-cam

    Published February 16, 2003

    traffic-camera pictures of the London anti-war march! What would J. G. Ballard make of this? ;)

    and here's Hyde Park:

    Unfortunately none similar of Dublin.

    In passing -- an interesting factoid found on Adam Back's PGP Timeline page: 'While Iraq was still a secret US ally against Iran, Iraqi exchange students (in the US) using the same literature as (Phil Zimmermann, inventor of PGP) later did, wrote a working (Public Key) cryptosystem for (the Iraqi) military - which was using poison gas against the Kurds at the time.' Hmm, ironic!

    Everest Base Camp to get internet cafe

    Published February 16, 2003

    BBC: High hopes for Everest cybercafe. 'Tsering Gyalzen hopes the internet facility at Mount Everest base camp will open by March. Proceeds from the venture will support pollution control at the camp, which is used by climbers hoping to scale the world's highest peak. Mr Gyalzen, a member of the Sherpa community, says launch plans for the ambitious project are in the final stage. He told the BBC he was awaiting permission from the authorities to install VSAT digital satellite and other equipment at the base camp, which is over 5,000 metres above sea level.' How cool is that?

    Mark Fletcher and Trustic

    Published February 16, 2003

    Mark Fletcher is the guy behind Trustic, a new system which combines aspects of DNSBLs with (what Raph reckons is) a 'PageRank-ish trust metric'.

    My take on Trustic is that it needs a way to accumulate trusted, non-spam-relaying addresses; I'm not sure how they intend to get that, apart from people setting up accounts to say 'this is my server'.

    Anyway, he also has a blog, with this very interesting (and scary) snippet:

    Elance, Spammers, and the Global Economy

    eLance is a web site that connects contractors with companies looking to outsource projects. Companies post projects, including detailed descriptions of the work to be done, and contractors or contract houses bid on them. ... So what were many of the projects on eLance about? A quick scan revealed project titles such as: Email Address Extraction From Web Site, Ebay Email Extractor, Linux highspeed directmailer, and Bulk E-Mail and E-Mail Extraction Project. Elance is providing a way for spammers to develop new spam technologies, utilizing a cheap, skilled global work force!

    Yikes. Sure enough, a search of eLance for 'bulk mail' reveals a seller called bulkemail01 (1-5 employees, headquartered in the USA): Bulk Mailing and Offshore Hosting Solutions: ' We provide bulk email soultions and offshore hosting for the advanced bulk mailer.'

    And these projects -- as Mark notes, the project descriptions require a login, but the prospective-seller comments do not, so I've reproduced some snippets here. A search for bulk mail reveals 11 open projects, including: Bulk Mail Server and Bulk Mail Service Needed Immediately, Bulk E-Mail and Targeted E-Mail Extraction Project, Distributed Bulk Emailer, and bulletproof hosting and mailing needed.

    A bunch called DbInnovation, 10-13 employees, based in Hungary and Russia, comments on one project that 'we are developing a high performance linux e-mailer. Sends through all kinds of proxies, uses several antifitering techniologies, uses random subjects and 'from' addresses, etc, etc, etc (LOTS of other features). Web-based control centre for it. The mailer can be run on 30-50 servers simmultaniously and controlled from one place. Every server sends LIGHT FAST - 5-7 millions daily. It is VERY complicated and POWERFULL clustered software. It was written on C and it tunes Linux kernel to make the speed as fast as possible. The sw is under redevelopment and will be ready to March.'

    Hostrus, aka 'Hosting R Us', 6-19 employees, Toronta, Canada: comments 'We offer reliable spam tolerant bullet proof hosting that will NEVER get shut down!! we provide reliable bullet proof hosting We can provide you with references,test IPs and provide you with a solution'.

    dsln (profile 'no longer available'): We have servers in Jakarta, Indonesia, India, Japan , Brazil, Arentina, Russia. And all of them are BULK EMAIL FRIENDLY. You server will never e SHUT DOWN due to complains. The ISP's will take up all the heat,what soever. The line would be 2MBPS one.You will also get 16 IPs per server, which can be changed every 15 days as you want. New Pool of IPs can be given to you every 15 days. These servers can be utilised very well for the mailing, you ae looking at. ... We can do these kind of mailing for you. We mail arround 8-10 Million email IDs , using several servers and can do this kind of mailing for you as well. The cost for sending 10 Million emails would be $1050.

    MobileSoft (Karachi, Pakistan): 'We can provide you the SPAM Friendly Dedicated servers with control panel , we can handle more than 50 K Complaints daily, we will provide you the ips as your requirement'.

    prompt (Anmol Solutions, Argentina): 'I can host you at 4 bullet proof places, 2 in Arg and brazil each, i can give you 2 *256 ips if you want and you will have 10 MPBS line. For each server you will be charged $250 per month and $400 setup charges, you may easyly go upto 25 servers with the same amt of bw yes u may mail u may host u may do what ever you want :)'

    A couple of other sites show the same situation: here's a project at ContractedWork.com to build a 'Bulk Mailer using open Proxies'.

    In other words, these sites provide what seems to be a good look into the heart of spamware development. Scary stuff.

    BTW an open invitation: if any 'white hats' out there get their hands on specific spamware, I'd appreciate them dropping me a line (email addr here). The idea is to analyze the tools and get good signatures for their spam, then add those signatures to SpamAssassin.

    In other news, Slashdot reports that SpamAssassin apparently blocks Crypto-Gram. Not quite the case: as Dan points out, it gets 3.2 on version 2.44, and 1.9 on the nearly-released 2.50. That's well inside the 'this is ham' range. However, this comment reports that the mail has been listed in Razor, which pushes it up to 5.9...

    So more correctly -- Razor thinks it's spam, not SpamAssassin ;)

    Richard Dawkins on GM foods

    Published February 14, 2003

    Richard Dawkins: why Prince Charles is so wrong (via BB).

    An interesting read, if only because Richard Dawkins misses several massive chunks of the anti-GMO argument, as several folks point out on the BB discussion board. Firstly, the profit drive is the only thing driving deployed GM products, and that's already been shown to produce unsafe results, in the UK with BSE. Secondly, as one of the posters says, 'Oh, yeah -- Dawkins is absolutely right (in comparing GM to modifying running software): Nothing to gripe about when people tinker with your mission critical apps'.

    **GTA: Vice City**

    Published February 11, 2003

    Grand Theft Auto: Vice City has been nominated for the Designer of the Year award in London:

    'We will be highlighting the reason why it is worthy for this prize,' (the curator) added, noting the game's attention to detail in costuming, music and atmosphere.

    'I've never been so excited to just watch a video game, never mind playing it,' said Sellers. 'It is really great to see all the details and feel the nuances. Playing it is even better.'

    I must say, I have to agree. It's easily one of the best games I've ever played; insanely playable and full of amazing attention to detail. The content's a bit strong in places, but the same can be said of Mean Streets or Scarface, and I'm sure they may have picked up an award or two themselves, along the way. It's just (interactive) fiction.

    Proposed Irish data retention laws

    Published February 10, 2003

    Karlin notes this about 'the extraordinary letter the Department of Justice sent out this week to various parties'.

    According to the letter, the Department will hold a preliminary forum to 'initiate' a consultation process on its proposed three-year data retention bill ... The forum begins at 3pm -- clearly making sure no long and unruly discussions will develop! -- and starts with a 20-minute address by the Minister, followed by a 20-minute address by the Dept of Communications on the 1997 EU Data Privacy Directive (which, BTW, Ireland STILL has not implemented despite being under legal threat by the EU -- and note that there's no mention of the far more crucial 2002 amended Directive, voted in last May by a spineless and ill-informed EU Parliament, which allows for up to SEVEN YEARS data retention.

    Then -- and this is the amazing bit -- attendees get a 20 minute pep talk by An Garda Siochana (the Irish police force) 'on the contribution of data retention in the fight against crime.'

    When you pick yourself up off the floor, remind yourself that this is the Irish government's formal initiation of a purported public discussion on data retention -- brought to you by the Irish police. Amazing. You'd have thought they'd at least *pretend* to be balanced and disinterested, and perhaps ask Joe Meade, the Irish Data Protection Commissioner, to contribute as well. ...

    The Department of Justice itself should have nothing whatsoever to do with ANY consultation process on this proposed bill. Instead, as in the UK, an independent Dail group should hold hearings and get public input into this.

    SpamAssassin makes the New York Times!

    Published February 10, 2003

    James Gleick: A Plague on E-Mail, in yesterday's New York Times magazine. We've broken out of the 'technology' section!

    One of the best tools for network administrators is an ever-evolving program called SpamAssassin, which uses a range of tests and a point system to identify spam...

    It's so cool that James Gleick likes our 'delightful SpamAssassin irony', too ;)

    They seek him here, they seek him there…

    Published February 10, 2003

    Looking for an old mate, Alan Toner, and it's turning out to be tricky; the last mail address I had for him now bounces.

    It seems all three. He gets around!