Borepatch

Friday, January 15, 2010

Security Smorgasbord, vol 2 no 2

State Department to Officially complain to China about hacking

There has recently been a rash of hacking incidents, where companies have been penetrated by hackers from China. The Fed.Gov is formally bitching to the Red Chinese*:

The United States will issue a formal diplomatic note to China expressing concern about cyber attacks that hit Google and dozens of other companies, and that researchers say originated in that country.

"We will be issuing a formal demarche to the Chinese government in Beijing on this issue in the coming days, probably early next week," US State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley told reporters Friday. "It will express our concern for this incident and request information from China as to an explanation of how it happened and what they plan to do about it."

This seems like big news, although it's being kept (sort of) quiet. There is quite a vibrant black hat scene in the PRC, and a strong feeling that it is tolerated so long as non-Chinese targets are victimized. Nearly three dozen US tech companies were hit, including Google and Adobe, and software technology/trade secrets stolen.

* I only call them "Red Chinese" to annoy the bien pensants.

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Day Zero attack against Internet Explorer circulating in the wild

Sitemeter tells me that most of you have moved off IE6, but if you haven't now's the time. It seems that the Google hack came via this exploit:

The recent hack attack on Google, Adobe and other companies occurred through exploitation of a zero-day vulnerability that affects many versions of Internet Explorer, according to Microsoft and a security researcher with a leading anti-virus firm.

While people are only talking about IE6 right now, there's a chance (maybe a good chance) that other versions are vulnerable. Microsoft has some recommendations on how IE users can protect themselves:

Protected Mode in IE 7 on Windows Vista and later significantly reduces the ability of an attacker to impact data on a user’s machine. Customers should also enable Data Execution Prevention (DEP) which helps mitigate online attacks. DEP is enabled by default in IE 8 but must be manually enabled in prior versions.

Customers can also set Internet and Local intranet security zone settings to "High" to prompt before running ActiveX Controls and Active Scripting in these zones or configure Internet Explorer to prompt before running Active Scripting or to disable Active Scripting in the Internet and Local intranet security zone. You can find details on implementing these settings in the advisory.

Note that they are not just talking about IE6, which suggests that other versions are vulnerable. IE users should also consider moving to Firefox. I'm cautiously optimistic about IE8's security, but Firefox has a much quicker response time to getting security updates distributed.

UPDATE 16 January 2010 10:34: IE versions 6, 7, and 8 are vulnerable. The code is now public, so if you use Internet Explorer this is really bad juju. Get over to Microsoft's blog for workaround instructions. Seriously.

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Chinese search engine hacked by Iran?

China's top search engine Baidu was hacked on Tuesday in what state media said was an attack by a pro-Iranian government group that replaced the usual home page with an Iranian flag.
Internet users trying to access the site found a message saying "This site has been hacked by Iranian Cyber Army", the People's Daily reported on its website.
Below a sentence in Farsi read, "In reaction to the US authorities' intervention in Iran's internal affairs. This is a warning," the report said, posting an image of the hacked page.

When the music stops, we'll see who didn't pwn anyone ....

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Adobe releases fix for Vulnerability-From-Hell

Yes, I know I should have told y'all a couple days ago. This has been exploited for a month:

However, security experts said a patch for a zero-day vulnerability in Adobe Reader and Acrobat that Adobe Systems released on Tuesday was even more important than the Microsoft bulletin. The hole was discovered in mid-December and is being exploited by attacks in the wild to deliver Trojan horse programs that install backdoor access on computers.
"Unlike most months, what the bulletin administrators should look at first is the Adobe patch when it is released later today," said Jason Miller, data and security team leader at Shavlik Technologies. "This bulletin will patch vulnerabilities that are currently in the wild affecting users."

Likely all y'all are vulnerable, so get a move on. Security goodness downloadable from Adobe.

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Google Android phone app is actually Banking malware

Yeah, I know - who uses Android. But if you do, be careful of those apps:

Hidden among the barcode readers, music players and games in the marketplace for Android software may be apps that could steal your online banking credentials or infect your phone.

Google removed about 1 percent of the apps posted to the Android Market last year, according to a 2009 filing Google made to the FTC (.pdf). While most of those apps were removed because of user complaints about adult content or copyright violations, two apps attempted to gain access to users’ financial information, according to InformationWeek.

Let me just say once again that banking from your cell phone is a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad idea.

How close is the Massachusetts Senate Race?

Too close to spell check!

Via Don Surber.

Climate Data: entirely untrustworthy

Pictures at 11 ...

This is part 4 out of a 5 part series, but IMHO the most important one to understand the Global Warming debate. Long time readers will recogn ize E. M. Smith from Chiefio, which I've linked several times.

In short, the climate data set has been manipulated to suppress cold temperatures and emphasize warm ones in recent years.

This is a very well done investigation. You can get all five parts here.

UPDATE 15 January 2010 12:55: Gah, their embed code doesn't seem to point to their server. Go take a look via this link.

UPDATE 15 January 2010 15:58: Here are the different segments:

Carbon Dioxide doesn't drive temperature.

Al Gore and the UN.

ZOMG we're all gonna die!!!! (or not).

ClimateGate comes to the US.

Summing up.

The dirt on Scott Brown

It finally comes out.

From Boston's Michael Graham, via Hot Air.

UPDATE 20 January 2010 16:46: Welcome all you visitors from Google, looking for dirt on Scott Brown. I see you!

Thursday, January 14, 2010

Vote for Scott Brown

Because America doesn't need another kaiser-coddling, Japanese-American-interning, lying war-mongering, Panama Canal-giving-away Democrat in power.

Made me laugh out loud, that did.

Gore Credits

The Carbon Credit market is based on a very shaky foundation - the theory that mankind is putting increasing amounts of Carbon Dioxide into the atmosphere (true) and that this causes the global temperature to rise (not at all proven). However, TJIC has the very interesting idea of applying this to the "Gore Effect" (the frequently noted correspondence of a visit by Al Gore and a sudden drop in temperature):

I wonder if there’s a business model in setting up an exchange market where people can buy and sell options on the proposition “Al Gore visits my location and causes an unprecedented deep freeze” ?
It’d be a great hedging / risk balancing tool: ski slopes could buy them, so that if Gore visits, they make money on the skiing, and lose a bit on the market transaction, and farmers could sell them, so that if Gore visits, they lose money on their crops, but make a bit on the options.

You have to admit that the Gore Effect has as much evidence going for it as Anthropogenic Global Warming.

Boring

Via The Gormogons, we learn that the "Doomsday Clock" is being reset by a minute:

The minute hand of the famous Doomsday Clock has been moved to six minutes to midnight - one minute further away from human annihilation than before.
The timepiece in New York conveys how close humanity is to catastrophic destruction, which is represented by midnight.

Well that sure is a relief! Why, oh why is the clock being set back, giving us all another precious minute to spend with our loved ones?

Today, the board said they moved it back one minute because there was a 'hopeful state of world affairs' in relation to nuclear weapons and climate change. President Obama was particularly noted for influencing their decision.

Ah.

Never mind the arbitrary nature of the decision making process - I mean, are we really at 11:54 PM? Not 11:52? Never mind the breathless ZOMG we're all gonna die!!!!1!!one! After a half century of waiting for the balloon to go up, maybe the calculation is a little off?

But that's all beside the point, which is: could you be any more predictably boring in your lefty fear mongering? I mean, resetting the clock because Obama was elected? Srlsy?

This is my disappointed face. If you're going to bring out the crazy, please try to be a little more interesting about it.

Is Victor Davis Hanson the smartest man in America?

And I mean "smart", not "Smart", as he describes what's gone off at the core of leftist dogma. Some tidbits, to whet your appetite:

[Affirmative Action] requires the logic of the Old Confederacy to determine racial purity among the intermarried citizenry. Jet-black Punjabis get no preferences. Light-skinned Mexican-Americans of the fourth-generation claim privilege. Poor whites from Tulare don’t rank. The children of black dentists do. I see very little logic here.

...

But wait! If, in contrast, networks, influence-accumulation, and contacts are the objectives to ensure a child remains, or enters into, the elite class, then the [Ivy League University] investment in such undergraduate schools is very much worth it—but should be considered analogous to a debutante ball, the social register, or the Grand Tour.

...

Sorry—take away three things, and the Mideast “crisis” is relegated to Cypriote status. If there were no oil in the Arab Middle East; if there were no Islamic terrorists; and if there was no endemic global anti-Semitism, we would be as likely to have a “Mideast czar” as we would an “Ossetian Czar.”

As with all Hanson's articles, it's long. But you'll feel your IQ increasing as you read it.

Observe the Power of this fully operational Death Kitty

I need one of these for the next blogshoot ...

Don't recycle that Christmas Tree!

Save it for Science, instead!

With enough thrust, you can make an Aircraft Carrier fly.

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

I'll never play H-O-R-S-E with these guys

Via the New York Times, of all places, although it was on Country Fried Home Videos a couple years back.

Why do we dream of a White Christmas?

A lot of us don't come from places where you'd expect them. There's a very interesting history lesson over at The Air Vent that traces the climate history of London winters during the childhood of Charles Dickens. It turns out that this period was astonishingly cold, and set the tone for much of his best known fiction - which in turn set our expectations of a "proper Victorian Christmas":

Charles Dickens. Victorian winters. A Christmas Carol. Ice fairs on the Frozen Thames. Cold Cold Cold Cold Cold. Dickens has irrevocably moulded the climate views of generations of Anglo Saxon peoples as TV, Films and plays all promote his image of icy winters in that era. Is this view of Dickens winters correct? We take a look at his life through the prism of climate.

You'll learn a lot from this. While I knew about the "Ice Fairs" that used to be held on the frozen river Thames, I didn't know that they displayed an elephant there in 1814.

The BBC absolutely grills the head of the UK Meteorological Office

"Grill" is actually too soft a term for the unrelenting hostility to the Met Office's forecasts. The BBC's Andrew Nell repeatedly demands that the Met Office head John Hirst justify his performance bonus. This is the first I've seen in the ~~Mastodon~~ Main Stream Media where the tone is so accusatory.

(Note: The BBC doesn't have an embed option; this will take you to their site, but it's worth the journey.)

I would say that Mr. Hirst is absolutely shameless. He comes as close as you can to outright lying, which may have increased the hostility from Nell. Now if we could just get the American media to interview Michael Mann and company like this.

Well done to the BBC for a well prepared and pointed interview where they did their best to get accountability from a government employee. Filed under "biased media" because credit where it's due, and all that.

Hat tip: The Air Vent.

Fundraising: compare and contrast

Scott Brown raised over a million dollars over the Internet. This was mostly small donations.

Martha Coakley leaves Massachusettes (sic) to go to a lobbyist fund raiser in Washington, D.C.

Anyone who believes that the Democratic Party is the "party of the little guy" today is stuck in 1972.

Let's see:

She can't spell the name of her state correctly.
She's qualified to discuss international relations because her sister lives overseas.
She's a hack politician who is in the pocket of the lobbyists.
She doesn't "encourage self help" from the peasants.
She's going to jail the local Ladies' Gardening Club. (Added in update, via TOTWTYTR)

Yup. Dumb as a rock.

UPDATE 13 January 2010 08:13: Even the unions hate her. This is unbelievable, and is a must-read.

UPDATE 13 January 2010 08:23: Doh! I just had a Coakley Moment™! To Old To Work Too Young To Retire points out that she's loosing the Dogs of ~~war~~ the State on the local gardening club.

UPDATE 13 January 2010 10:23: Welcome visitors from View From The Porch. Thanks for the link, Tam. A strongly related post is here.

So the Airport scanners can store and transmit images

Of course they can: they're run by computers. The computers aren't special designs, they're off the shelf hardware and OS, with some custom apps. Maybe Linux, but probably Windows (doesn't that make you feel safer?).

So they come with persistent storage (disk drives) and network communications (otherwise how on earth do they patch them come Patch Tuesday?).

So the TSA wasn't exactly being honest with us when they said that the machines couldn't store and transmit images. What TSA meant was that the machines wouldn't store and transmit images.

And thus to my area of expertise - understanding the security configuration of your computers. My questions to the TSA:

1. What audit do you intend to perform to check to see that saving or transmitting images is actually disabled?

2. Is this a periodic (say, weekly or monthly) audit, or is this real-time? In other words, could an operator change the settings and not be detected for an extended period?

3. What sort of logging is performed when these settings are changed? Who gathers and analyzes the logs?

4. Is it a firing offense for a TSA employee to change these settings or copy images without authorization?

Ah, I'm such a joker. The answers, of course, are: huh?/huh?/huh?/huh?/huh?/are you out of your mind?

And so, the question is not whether these images will be posted to the Internet. Of course they will be. The only question is how soon?

Me, I'm betting sometime this year.

Prior restraint

David at Fighting for Liberty knocks it out of the park:

Now, in order to speak your mind in public, you have to …

1) Register for a Free Speech ID Card (good forever, unless you’re ever arrested or run afoul of any forfeiture rules).

2) Register for a temporary Free Speech check card, good for 90 days, which is your window to register a blog, write an editorial for a paper, or speak freely in public about an issue.

RTWT, and bookmark it. Everything that you need to know about the gun control debate, and how to talk to gun controllers, is right there.

When I'm in a fey mood and talking with gun banners, I like to ask them whether they think I'm likely to shoot up a school. I've found that this makes people very uncomfortable indeed. It also makes them think I'm a jerk. This might be more effective.

Tuesday, January 12, 2010

All of Britain covered by snow

And by "all of Britain", I mean all of it, from Penzance to John O' Groats:

The Machiavellian asks the obvious question:

Why is a glacial melting in Greenland climate to the AGW crowd, but an entire nation covered by snow is deemed as only weather by the same crowd?

As a Full-Service blog, allow me to explain how it all works:

Weather: a localized and temporary phenomenon, unrelated to global trends.

Climate: anything that proves Global Warming.

No need to thank me.

Massive fraud in Carbon Trading

Carbon trading markets are the centerpiece of governmental carbon emission reduction. By letting companies that reduce emissions to sell carbon credits, encouraging companies to invest in reductions.

Governments in Europe in particular have set up some very large carbon trading markets. You will, no doubt, be shocked - shocked - to hear that they are plagued with fraud:

Europe's flagship carbon trading scheme suffered a blow today as the Danish government was forced to rush an emergency law through parliament to clamp down on a virulent form of VAT fraud.
On the eve of the Copenhagen climate talks, which will attract world attention to emissions trading schemes, police and tax investigators across Europe are believed to be investigating hundreds of millions of euros worth of fraud involving carbon quotas originating in Denmark.
Since British, French and Dutch governments took similar action in the summer, much of the "carousel" fraud involving carbon credits moved to Denmark, where registration of carbon quotas for the European Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) is easy and a VAT rate of 25% makes the fraud attractive to international criminals.
Experts said today that Copenhagen had long been an accident waiting to happen in terms of carousel fraud.
Richard Ainsworth, professor of VAT policy at Boston University in the US said: "It is extremely surprising that after the French, British and Dutch had to move against this fraud in the summer that the Danes did not act more quickly, especially with the climate summit about to start."
The Danish government today said it did not know how much money it had lost to the fraud but the number is likely to run into hundreds of millions – if not billions – of kroner.

This is me, looking shocked. Shocked, I tell you.

Via Watts Up With That.

Britain abolishes trial by jury

I'd say "Great" Britain, but while it occupies the same place, it no longer deserves that appellation:

The first criminal trial without a jury to take place in England and Wales in more than 400 years begins on Tuesday after lawyers' legal challenges were exhausted.

...

Twomey and his associates face the historic trial in the absence of a jury after the court of appeal examined secret evidence and ruled that "the danger of jury tampering and the subversion of the process of trial by jury is very significant". It is the first trial of its kind under provisions in the Criminal Justice Act 2003.

In the last 400 years, trials without juries have taken place only in Northern Ireland, where the Diplock courts were set up to provide justice in the intimidating atmosphere of the Troubles.

The case is being heard at the high court in London and is expected to last three months. The judge, Mr Justice Treacy, will act as judge and jury during the case. Unlike a jury, he will see all the witness statements in the case.

The right to trial by jury was won only with much bloodshed. It has been given up without so much as a whimper. Sic transit Gloria Mundi.

Hat tip: The Devil's Kitchen.

Kilroy was here

In Egypt's sandy silence, all alone,
Stands a gigantic Leg, which far off throws
The only shadow that the Desert knows:
"I am great OZYMANDIAS," saith the stone,
"The King of Kings; this mighty City shows
"The wonders of my hand." The City's gone,
Nought but the Leg remaining to disclose
The site of this forgotten Babylon.

There is something basic in the human spirit about building, or at least marking the landscape. Making something permanent. Life is fleeting, and making something that will withstand time and the elements better than our poor selves seems to come from deep in the soul.

Albuquerque is built on volcanoes. Long extinct, the horizon is marked with a chain of cones, and the landscape is littered with black volcanic rock. This makes the site unique in the area, and the ancient Anasazi people used it as a landmark.

They also took the opportunity to leave something personal. As the molten lava cooled, a thin black lacquer formed on its surface. Chipping off this layer revealed a lighter rock underneath, making it a natural medium for graffiti.

The origins of these petroglyphs are lost in the mists of time. They certainly pre-date the current Indian inhabitants, who migrated south from Canada in the 15th and 16th centuries - perhaps looking for warmer climes during the depths of the Little Ice Age. Both they and the Anasazi lacked writing, and while they have great epic tales, those tales say nothing of the petroglyphs. The Anasazi certainly had tales like these, but they are gone, and the tales lost with them.

Only the petroglyphs remain. Permanent, they will be here likely millions of years from now, long after we are gone ourselves.

I prefer stone (and brick) for my building, and have developed my poor skills to the point where I can build a wall that is (mostly) straight, plumb, and square. Dry Stone has a particular magic to it; lacking mortar, all that holds it together is gravity and the friction between the stones themselves. Done right, it will last far longer than I, or will take more work to disassemble than most people will care to do. It says that I was here. I made this thing.

We wonder, and some Hunter may express
Wonder like ours, when thro' the wilderness
Where London stood, holding the Wolf in chace,
He meets some fragments huge, and stops to guess
What powerful but unrecorded race
Once dwelt in that annihilated place.

- Horace Smith

Monday, January 11, 2010

Bringing the Smart

Via Neo-neocon, I've found a blog that is ground zero for smart. He writes clearly about an issue that I've stumbled towards but never summed up with such clarity - namely, the failure of the Intellectual Class. Sonic Charmer looks at the issue and brings the smart. And very smart it is, too:

An aspect of our political landscape that goes underreported is the role and influence of the faction I have taken to calling ‘Smart People’.

Even if you don’t know what I mean by that, you probably already instinctively know who I’m talking about. Smart People are the people for whom the most important thing of all is that politicians, leaders, bureaucrats, celebrities, etc. – basically anyone given a prominent public role in society – all be Smart. In addition, Smart People think that all those Smart People must be listened to and obeyed on every aspect of life, big and small, without constraint; in particular, listened to/obeyed by anyone who is not Smart. The driving motive behind how Smart People think and vote is to make sure that Smart People are in power, are respected, are given prominent and honorable roles in society, and have no constraints or limits on putting their Smart ideas into practice.

That's the opening, and the smart only grows from there. RTWT - highly, highly recommended.

UPDATE 12 January 2010 11:50: The Volgi over at The Gormogons linked with some very smart comments of his own.

Hoow cold is it?

Even web browsers are hard to start.

Sunday, January 10, 2010

Breeding

The Czar of Muscovy also brings the Smart, analysing why a "goofy" scientific study isn't so goofy after all:

Scientists investigated whether or not dogs suffer from OCD in large numbers, and it turns out they do. In fact, larger breeds suffer from OCD (or CCD, id est canine compulsive disorder) at much higher rates, and traced it back to the chomosome 7 location within the gene CDH2.

My only addition to his excellent analysis is of course dogs are OCD - we bred them for that. Anyone who's seen border collies herding sheep has seen the world's best example of Anthropogenic OCD.

John Stuart Mill, Utopianism, and the failure or liberalism

While I've been slacking off, Sabra has been bringing the Smart, and wicked smart it is, too. She's done a very in-depth post about why liberalism has gone off the rails, and traces it back to its roots (specifically John Stuart Mill).

I will link to the online text of Mill's work on Utilitarianism, as well as to a couple of articles about him. If you've got the time to kill, read 'em. It's quite intriguing to me just how far what now passes as liberalism has come from the classical version thereof. Even given his bizarre belief that despotism can (in some cases) be a legitimate form of government, can you imagine Maureen Dowd writing a treatise on liberty and the importance of the individual?

Her analysis of David Brooks' latest bit of silliness is much smarter - and more convincing - than mine.

Slow blogging

I'm out visiting Mom and Dad, and having such a good time with them that my blogging is way off. Back to regular when I'm home tomorrow.

Can I just say, though, that it's pretty funny that Caliber's shooting range is across the street from Target?

The Estonians

This ad by an Estonian TV station is done in the form of the intro to "The Simpsons." It's insanely clever.

Via Dad, who knows insanely clever.

Saturday, January 9, 2010

Boxcar Willie - The Wreck of old 97

Sometimes things are not what they seem. Most people remember Boxcar Willie - if they remember him at all - from goofy TV commercials in the 1980s. The story's more interesting than that.

For instance, he was a career Air Force pilot, and a combat veteran of B29 sorties over Korea. I hadn't known that.

Willie wasn't his name (it was Lecil Martin). Willie was one of his Air Force buddies; one day Martin was waiting at a crossing for a train to finish passing, and he saw someone who looked like his buddy Martin ride by in a Boxcar. Martin pulled out some paper and wrote the song "Boxcar Willie."

The name stuck. Willie (our hero, not his Air Force buddy) started singing and recording when he got out of the service in 1975. He ultimately had some success in "hobo music", and was inducted into the Grand Ole Opry.

Lots of people have recorded this song, about a wreck in 1903. It is thought that this is the first ever million selling record for those new fangled phonograph things that they young kids were using. It's also said to be the first major lawsuit over song copyright - RCA Victor seems to have gotten away with swindling the songwriter out of his court settlement. This is Willie's cover.

The Wreck Of Old 97 (songwriter: David G. George)

On one cloudless morning I stood on the mountain,
Just watching the smoke from below,
It was coming from a tall, slim smokestack
Way down on the Southern railroad.

It was 97, the fastest train
Ever ran the Southern line,
All the freight trains and passengers take the side for 97,
For she's bound to be at stations on time.

They gave him his orders at Monroe, Virginia,
Saying, "Stevie, you're way behind time.
This is not 38, but it's Old 97,
You must put her into Spencer on time."

He looked 'round and said to his black greasy fireman,
"Just shovel in a little more coal,
And when I cross that old White Oak Mountain
You can just watch Old 97 roll."

It's a mighty rough road from Lynchburg to Danville,
And the lie was a three-mile grade,
It was on that grade that he lost his air brakes,
And you see what a jump that she made.

He was going down the grade making 90 miles an hour,
When his whistle began to scream,
He was found in that wreck with his hand on the throttle,
He was scalded to death by the steam.

Did she ever pull in? No, she never pulled in,
And at 1:45 he was due,
For hours and hours has the switchman been waiting
For that fast mail that never pulled through.

Did she ever pull in? No, she never pulled in,
And that poor boy must be dead.
Oh, yonder he lays on the railroad track
With the cart wheels over his head.

97, she was the fastest train
That the South had ever seen,
But she run so fast on that Sunday morning
That the death score was numbered 14.

Now, ladies, you must take warning,
From this time now and on.
Never speak harsh words to your true loving husband.
He may leave you and never return.

Friday, January 8, 2010

The beaches of Cheyenne Albuquerque

I went for a walk along the Rio Grande river with Mom and Dad, and found something unexpected - the Siegfried Line, New Mexico Extension. I would have fixed bayonets, but was sadly bayonetless.

Actually, this was a flood control project from the 1920s. It wasn't trying to stop flood water; instead,it was to protect the river front from what was being swept downstream by the flood waters. Water is bad; big old tree trunks moving at 8 mph are battering rams.

Still, Albuquerque appears to be impressively defended from seaborne invasion. Pretty, though.

And can I just say that chipotle salsa is the shizzle? If this was to be found in Boston, I'd buy it by the 55 gal drum.

Later, we went to Belen, 30 miles south of Albuquerque, to see an art show. Mary Richardson, a local artist, found some Vietnam War photographs at a flea market. To her, seeing these pictures on sale for pennies struck her as the same as the way that whole generation of soldiers were screwed when they came home. And so she turned them into paintings.

Apologies for the glare on the picture - I snapped this shot with the iPhone's camera.

Sgt. Richard Watkin's memoir, Vietnam: No Regrets (see the sidebar on the right hand side) would be an excellent companion to this exhibit; he was a combat radioman just like the GI in the picture.

The exhibit was held at the Harvey House Museum, a preserved Harvey House restaurant on the Santa Fe rail road. Harvey House was a chain of restaurants (and sometimes hotels) along the trunk rail lines. Since there were no dining cars before 1939, trains had to stop to let passengers get off and eat. Most eateries along the lines in the late nineteenth century were pretty bad, and old man Harvey convinced the executives of the Acheson Topeka and Santa Fe rail road to build a set of high quality eateries along the line. Not only was the food better, but telegraph communications between the trains and the station let dining be very efficient. The waitresses were called Harvey Girls, and this was a sought after job for young women.

Of course, the definitive pictures of the Harvey Girls is over at Paladin's place, where they appeared last year in his Girl Friday posts.

Hitler at the code review

If you're in software or tech, this is really funny.

And big props for working "software bloat" into the dialog.

Hat tip: Rick via email.

Thursday, January 7, 2010

The Glamor of Air Travel

Running late to the airport doesn't exactly reduce the stress level. Will you win the game of Airport Roulette, or get some quality time with the booking agent?

Well, not only was my flight delayed just enough to grab a bite to eat, make some calls, and update the blog, but TSA was helpful, pleasant, and efficient. Plus, American Airlines seems to have found my lost status and upgraded me on both legs.

Gonna be a good day, Scooter. Don't often get the chance to say that at the airport ...

Security Smorgasbord, vol 2 no 1

Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) bug in home firewalls allows bad guys to take control:

By luring victims to a malicious link, the attacker can access virtually any service on their machine, even when it's behind certain routers that automatically block it to the outside world. The method has been tested on a Belkin N1 Vision Wireless router, and Kamkar says he suspects other devices are also vulnerable.

"What this means is I can penetrate their firewall/router and connect to the port that I specified, even though the firewall should never forward that port," Kamkar told El Reg. "This defeats that security by visiting a simple web page. No authentication, XSS, user input, etc. is required."

Personally, I'm not sure how bad this is. There's no doubt that Kamkar knows his stuff - her created the first Myspace worm a couple years back. However, there ia an easy way you can break this: don't let your browser remember your router's password. Write the password down (yes, this is usually a Really Bad Thing; it's not this time) and tape it to the router. When you have to log into the router (once in a blue moon), read the password and manually type it in.

That way, if you stumble across a XSS link, Mr. Bad Guy will have to guess your password.

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Slovakia plants bombs on unsuspecting airline passengers:

Irish police have released a man held over an explosives find, after Slovak authorities admitted planting them in his luggage as part of a security test.
The explosives were among eight contraband items placed with passengers at Bratislava and Poprad-Tatry airports last weekend.
The 49-year-old man unwittingly brought the material into Dublin when he returned from his Christmas holidays.

Wow. Not sure what else to say, other than they've said they're sorry. Or something.

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Adobe flaw being exploited, still no patch.

At least Adobe is working on an automatic Updater like Firefox has. Now if we could just get one for Internet Explorer 8 ...

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American Banker's Association: use dedicated PC for online banking:

The FBI and the American Bankers Association have issued a warning to small business owners to use a separate computer for online banking.
Small businesses, as well as churches, non-profit organizations and local government agencies and school districts, are prime targets for cyber theft, USA Today reports. The criminals depend on "banking Trojans," malicious software spread through the Internet that allows them to steal funds by manipulating electronic transfers.

Experts say a computer used only for banking is less likely to become infected than one used for e-mail and browsing the Web.

Good advice, really. This is a big, big deal. There is a lot of malware activity targeting these people.

World Champion

Congratulations to Kenda Lenseigne for showing those Cowboys how it's done. First time a woman has ever won the mounted shooting competition.

Hat tip: Whit Spurzon.

Government cracks down: bloggers hit hardest

OK, maybe not hardest, but 2009 showed that governments find bloggers to be as annoying as journalists,

2009 was a bad year for freedom of speech across the world, with journalists and bloggers getting the worst of it.

According to a report (pdf) released last week by internationally respected organisation Reporters sans Frontieres (RSF), journalists bore the brunt of the crackdown – but there was also a sharp rise in action being taken against bloggers.
...
Meanwhile, the spotlight is increasingly falling on bloggers, as 2009 was the first year that more than 100 bloggers and cyber-dissidents were imprisoned.
In a number of countries online dissent is now a criminal offence: authorities have responded to the internet as pro-democracy tool with new laws and crackdowns.

Information - and people - wants to be free. Nobody ever said it would be easy.

Borepatch: a thorn of the side of the government since 2008.

Pikachu, I friend you!

As a parent who had to suffer through far too much Pokemon, this is pretty funny.

Via #1 Son.

Wednesday, January 6, 2010

The Great Global Warming Swindle

A couple years back, an excellent documentary was shown in the UK, The Great Global Warming Swindle. Edge has the video. This is very, very well done. The producers interviewed leading scientists for this - guys like John Christy (who essentially created the satellite temperature record - you know, the one without all those mysterious "adjustments") and MITatmospheric physicist Richard Lindzen (who looked for - and could not find - the troposphere warming predicted by warming models).

This is excellent, accessible stuff. Kudos to Edge on this discovery.

UPDATE 6 January 2010 21:15: One last note. At the end of part 8 of this on Youtube, the following is the first comment on the documentary's harsh criticism of environmentalists who want to condemn the Third World to poverty by denying them the opportunity to develop. Reproduced in its entirety:

ITS CALLED POLLUTION!! Jesus the fucking africans cant govern themselves as people, much less control power plants and other obsolete technology, it took the west long enough to realise the issues with development, IE pollution, so we dont want the rest of these 3rd world nations to fuck it all up again. Acid rain, water pollution,air pollution, it will contribute to MORE overpopulation if these places have a warm house to fuck in, thats all they'll do!

Stay classy, leftists!

Grandpa

Grandpa came to visit around Halloween, back in 1961. You can see the three year old Borepatch (center), with older brother, father, and Grandpa. You can see what this visit meant to three year old Borepatch.

Grandpa lived pretty far away. It was a long trip from Kansas to Ohio back then, especially for him, but he came as often as he could. It wasn't enough for a three year old, but he did what he could. Grandma had died before I was born, and he lived alone. I hope it was a real treat for him when he came to visit - I know that it was for me.

His last visit was at Christmas, 1963, and when he left to go home, I was simply inconsolable. One of my most treasured possessions is a letter he wrote to me when he got home. He wasn't an educated man, or a wordsmith, but I think it was the first letter I ever received. There is something tangible about an object that was touched - created, really - by someone else. This only exists because someone cared enough about someone to make it.

Fredonia, Kan
Jan 6 - 64
Dear Borepatch,

Here is a letter just for you. Your daddy said how you felt about Grand Pa going home. Well I was upset too a few tears wet my cheeks too. You know big boys can cry, too, don't you? Well maybe some day we can live closer to each other and can see each other more often.

You are lucky to have a sled. If you were here you would have to use your wagon for no snow has fallen since I got home. It has been cold but no storm since before Xmas. Snow left mostly the day before Xmas.

I am having a cold the last 2 days now. Sure makes me feel tough. Well, boy you have all your folks to be glad with and Grand Pa has no one. Well, will see you again some day. Write me a letter when you can.

I am still, Grand Pa

Grandpa died 23 days later. I never wrote him that letter, until now. Hope to see you again some day, Grandpa.

Malinformed

If you don't read the newspaper, you're uninformed. If you do read the newspaper, you're misinformed.
- Mark Twain

I'm not worried about being misinformed. The thought that I'm being actively malinformed is what makes me so suspicious of the media.

There's a difference, of intent. Bernie Madoff committed malfeasance; he knowingly defrauded his investors. Meaghan Cheung committed misfeasance; her department at the SEC was incompetent in their investigation of Madoff, but she didn't mean to drop the ball.

David Brooks seems to have stepped into a big ol' pile of Class Warfare. Pretty smelly stuff, too:

What Brooks, with his touching faith in "pragmatic federal leaders with professional expertise" doesn't want to talk about, of course, is just how badly the Ivy League class has failed over the past couple of decades. All those rows of degrees from Harvard didn't keep a pack of Brooksian elites--mostly members of the Democratic Party--from running Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac straight into the toilet, and taking the private economy with them. Hiring out of the Ivies also didn't save Lehman Brothers or AIG from doing remarkably stupid things with other people's money.

Collier properly takes him to the woodshed and thrashes him soundly, so I won't bother. What I am interested in is what's published in the papers, and whether it's intentionally or unintentionally misleading.

I'm actually willing to cut Brooks some slack on this particular rant of his. He no doubt goes to all sorts of Manhattan dinner parties with the bankers who got us into the current mess, and possibly has friendships with some. It's simply human nature to not look too closely if what you'd see would tend to embarrass a friend. Put that one down to misinformed.

But there's a whole set of topics you see in Brook's paper where the only logical explanation is that the writer is so offended by the subject that their world view insists on suppressing evidence that contradicts the Newsroom Group Think. How the media covered Obama until the spring of last year is one example. How the media covers Sarah Palin to this day is another. Joe the Plummer. Gun control. Climate Change. The list goes on and on.

Misinformation is addressed differently than malinformation. A journalist who is misinformed but honest can be reasoned with, and might even print a correction. The honest journalist will want to learn when he's wrong.

But David Brooks doesn't want to learn where he's wrong about Gun Control, or Climate Change, or Sarah Palin. Neither does the rest of the New York Times' newsroom, or the dinner party buddies. Fair enough: he's entitled to his opinion.

As am I, when I say that I no longer follow the media because I think that the source is poisoned. Not just wrong, or incompetent - malicious. Actually, I often do follow the media, under the assumption that reality is reliably 180° from their thesis. This quite frankly is a weakness, because it's likely that much of what they publish about, say, Sarah Palin is actually correct. However, I recognize that their motivation is to see her (and those like her) defeated, and there's no easy way to sort the truth from the drek (Wassilla rape kits). And so I discount basically everything they say about her.

So, how do you solve a problem like David? The market is taking care of that, as people like me decide not to be malinformed anymore.

This is a shame, and a danger to the Republic. We need an honest media, and a population that trusts it. We have neither.

UPDATE 6 January 2010 18:38: Good example of press bias on display here. And here. And that's just today.

Tuesday, January 5, 2010

Proper prior planning prevents poor performance

Sure is fun going to the dentist

So much fun I'll go back a few more times ...

Newt and the future of the Republican party

Chris Byrne has a set of videos up on his site that are worth your while. It's Newt Gengrich giving a speech on how the Republicans can not just win, but sweep the coming elections. Chris comments:

I think he's brilliant as a political writer, and political commentator (which is fitting, because his background is as a history professor), but as a politician, he and I are probably below 50% in agreement on major policy issues.

But we're above 75% on major issues of principle; and that's what this speech is about. Taking principles, and making them into politics.... Something it seems most politicians are too cowardly to do.

Newt is talking about competitive differentiation, a topic that Marketing folks have studied for years. There's a lot that the ~~Stupid~~ Republican party can learn from this, so I'll keep it simple for them.

Consider a hotel chain. I'll use a european chain in this example, because europeans like their strong central government defining everything for them, and that makes it easier for us to measure things. Specifically, we'll look at the hotel "star" rating (one-star, two-stars, etc). Most hotels look like this:

(picture scanned from "Practical Product Management" class notes; highly recommended). Two star hotels will have better services across the board, compared to one star hotels. Duh.

So if you're a hotel, how do you differentiate yourself? You can improve services (move to three star, for example), but this costs a lot - you'll have to raise your prices. What if you want to target a particular price point? You focus.

Formule 1 is a chain that targeted business travelers. As frequent travelers, business folks make an attractive target for repeat business. They also let you focus your services, because some service options become irrelevant. For example, you don't need to have a good restaurant in your hotel, because a business traveler is almost certainly meeting clients for dinner. Likewise, the rooms can be small, because your business customers are out meeting with their customers, not hanging out in the room. The money you save by not investing in these services is money you can put into things that your business customers will value: better, more comfortable beds; better sound insulation for quieter rooms.

Focus gives you a more interesting, more valuable product for your target market. But focus isn't free. To gain something, you have to give up something. As Napoleon said, on any battlefield there will be a single decisive point. What happens there is more important than what happens everywhere else. A visionary can see this, and will not fear the sacrifices that will ensure victory ("What do you mean, there's no restaurant in the hotel?").

Newt is clearly a visionary. But what of the rest of the ~~Stupid~~ Republican party? Are they willing to sacrifice what is necessary to win big? Or are they too afraid of making a wrong move, ensuring that they make all the wrong moves? As Chris says:

Taking principles, and making them into politics.... Something it seems most politicians are too cowardly to do.

Judging from the Massachusetts senate special election - an opportunity for the ~~Stupid~~ Republican party to break the 60 vote filibuster-proof majority that the ~~Contemptable~~ Democratic party has - I'd have to say that the smart money is on "too afraid". If so, then 2010 will be a year of tactical, rather than sweeping Republican gains.

Know your rights!

From the indispensable Dr. Boli's Celebrated Magazine.

I see my work here is done

Heh. Number 6 out of 1.9 million. And what does the intrepid Googler find when he clicks through to my little corner of Al Gore's Intarwebz? This:

Double heh.

Monday, January 4, 2010

Lethal Austrialian Climate Laws

A while back, I posted about Peter Spencer, the Oz farmer who is on a hunger strike protesting the crushing oppression of his government:

Because people might die from the effects of climate change in the future, Governments are ensuring that people die today. Australian farmer Peter Spencer has entered his 30th day of a hunger strike against the Oz.Gov. Why? Their laws - enacted to comply with the Kyoto Treaty - prevent him from making a living on his own land.

Jo Nova has been all over this story:

It’s Day 43 without food, and Peter Spencer grows weaker. For those who don’t know, Peter Spencer’s farm has been stolen from him by our government through Native Vegetation Legislation — which locked up 80 – 90% of his entire farm but paid him no compensation. The regrowth on his farm holds “carbon credits” of supposed value to the Commonwealth, yet Peter has been obliged by law to pay the rates on that land-that-holds-these-carbon-credits, and the mortgage for the right to do nothing with this land that really belongs to the Commonwealth. Is this not an extortionate tax?
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has declined all requests to meet Peter.

Here in the US, we tend to see Aussies as good natured Crocodile Dundee blokes: friendly, helpful, self-reliant, and good natured. We must have missed the bit with the jackboot in the face of Joe Bloggs. And before you invoke Godwin's Law on me, check out what the Oz.Gov did to try to prevent a rally in support of Mr. Spencer:

One of the bus company operators confirmed that a man who identified himself as an inspector from the Department of Road Transport and Infrastructure had called the company on New Year’s Day from a motel in Coffs Harbour and announced a “safety inspection” would be conducted on their bus. The company promptly cancelled the previously-announced service to Canberra as such inspections can take up to six hours. Cars were organized instead. The other company was also reported to have cancelled its service. [Freedom Graffiti]
This is the fast encroaching face of fascism-by-stealth, where governments create a prickly web of legal clauses then pick and choose whether to ignore or enforce the laws. By so doing, those in power can selectively help friends and hurt enemies. The only thing that stands against it is the free press. Where are the journalists?

Where are the journalists? Why helping their friends and hurting their enemies, of course.

Australians, you should be ashamed of your government.

Global Warming: Stick a fork in it

Never mind that the actual data and science are terribly shaky. Global Warming is now radioactive in marketing campaigns:

Last week’s article, Build-A-Bear Scare, shows the video that was on the custom teddy-bear shop’s website, which indoctrinated innocent children into fearing climate change, to the point that Santa fears Christmas may be canceled because due to global warming.
The LA Times reported on Christmas that the Build-A-Bear has pulled the videos from their site and has issued an apology.

Scare The Childred For Mother Gaia™? Doesn't look like that's a sure bet to get that "exceeds expectations" box ticked in the next Marketing Annual Review.

No global warming since 1850?

The most disturbing aspect of the whole Global Warming science debate is how raw temperature data is artificially adjusted, and how this modification seems to account for most or all of the reported warming. Well, it looks like we can now add a selection bias, too. Only a third of the available weather station thermometers seem to be used in the CRU data set (the one relied on by the UN IPCC).

So what happens if you include all the thermometers? What does the planet's temperature history look like?

First some quick background. There will be a short quiz at the end, so please pay attention:

1. The UN IPCC reports use data from the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit (CRU). The CRU guys, you will recall, are the folks behind the ClimateGate scandal.

2. The CRU data set (CRUTEM) contains data from 1741 weather stations (this is listed on their web site, or was before the web site was taken down during ClimateGate; I haven't checked to see if it's back up).

3. CRU does not directly collect weather station data. Rather, they collect it from organizations who do. The controversy over Freedom Of Information Act requests being denied due to confidentiality agreements with some of these organizations was what helped launch ClimateGate.

4. However, 1643 stations in the CRU data set contain the same station IDs as stations in the US Government's Global Historical Data Network (GHCN) data set. We know that GHCN is a major contributor of station data to CRU.

5. GHCN has had as few as 50 stations (in 1850) and as many as 4495 stations (at the height of the Cold War). Yet only 1741 are included by CRU.

OK, let's look at CRU's (adjusted) data from the 1741 stations:

There is a pronounced warming signal after 1960. Remember, this is a subset of the 4495 stations, and it is adjusted, not raw data.

So what does the raw data look like for all 4495 stations?

Other than a short term blip in the 1990s, we see no warming at all since 1850. None.

Let me say this simply: The raw (unadjusted) weather data from the largest historical data set shows no warming for the last 150 years.

So what do you do if you're a climate scientist who wants to show warming?

1. You select a subset of the weather stations - the ones that show some warming (most of these likely would be due to increasing city size, where the "Urban Heat Island" effect - cities are hotter than the surrounding countryside). Remember, the Russians say that CRU did precisely this, and have specifics about which Russian stations CRU included and which they didn't.

2. You add poorly-explained "adjustments" to the raw data, to increase the recent recorded temperatures. Or just make it all up.

3. If anyone asks you about this, say that "the science is settled", that anyone who hasn't published in "peer reviewed" journals can STFU, and that people who "deny" global warming should be jailed.

Remember, I said that there would be a quiz. To make it easier, I'll make it multiple choice:

UPDATE 4 January 2009 15:29: I forgot that I posted about this sort of weather station "cherry picking" months ago.

One thing more about NSA

They run the National Cryptologic Museum at Ft. Meade, MD - highly recommended if you're in the Washington, D.C. area. Not only can you buy an NSA coffee mug at the NSA Store there (you think I'm making this up, but I'm not), they have tons old old crypto machines on display. Like this WWII German Enigma.

I'm guessing that with two posts in a row, I'll have some interesting Sitemeter logs ...

UPDATE 4 January 2009 10:34: Pretty quick, right here.

Via T-Bolt. Heh. But dude - Internet Explorer 6? You really should upgrade to IE8 (or Firefox) which is much more secure.

They're looking for a few (nerdy) kids ...

Yup, the "NSA for kids" web site. Err, ix-nay on the eek-gay stuff, dudes.

Of course, my friends and I did make secret codes when we were in school, but c'mon. I mean, you don't want your kid to end up like me, do you?

But this is good advice for parents who think their kids might fit right in at Ft. Meade:

The most important thing, kids, is to be a good listener.

Sunday, January 3, 2010

Northeast Gunblogger Dinner AAR

Everyone's blogging this, and blogging it better, so I'll be (uncharacteristically) brief.

Thank you, Marko, for letting me shoot your Smith. And thank you for letting me shoot your Steyr, which is pretty darn nifty.

Thank you, Scotaku, for getting clearance to come shooting. It wouldn't have been the same without you.

Thank you, Lissa, for bringing Mike shooting with us.

A big, big thank you to our "Community Organizer", JayG. Thanks for putting this together, and causing me to get out to the range for a change. I mean three months? Srlsy? This was an excellent time, and it simply wouldn't have happened without you.

The biggest thank you, though, goes to Doubletrouble and TOTWTYTR, who asked me the questions:

Doubletrouble: TOTWTYTR tells me that your Missus sure liked shooting the Enfield. My son is thinking about selling one of his.

TOTWTYTR: So when are you going to break down and get your FID?

Yup. Thanks for the kick in the seat of the pants, guys.

Global Warming Consensus reaches 130%

It's past the Tipping Point:

It's official: the consensus for Man-made Climate Change is now over-unanimous. The results from a recent poll conducted by the Mann-Hansen Group strongly support Man-made Climate Change theories by 130% for to -50% against. This unprecedented result was obtained by counting a 'no' vote as a negative response which is added by subtracting. This also generates a positive feedback raising the pro vote beyond the 100% level.

This is simply outstanding, top-shelf snark.

Also check out their Congress Passes New Law Of Thermodynamics.

Rassmussen: Obama net negative over the course of 2009

Everyone's seen this (via Insty):

What's interesting is that if you add up the net positive/negative, Obama comes out at -2 for 2009.

Why thank you very much!

It's not what it looks like, but it looks awesome!

Saturday, January 2, 2010

Overheard at the Northeast Blogger dinner

From JayG: I'm Jay, this dinner' Community Organizer.

Overheard at the range, earlier (from the next lane); Don't hold your hand in front of the muzzle.

Aisling Kavanagh - Tonight The Heartache's On Me

There is something basic about the human condition that is captured by Country Music, and this has propelled it far beyond its native shores.

This is the start of a new year, and so today I'd like to offer something new (well, it was new to me): the rich country music tradition of Ireland. This is most easily savored via the wildly popular Irish TG4 television program, Glór Tíre ("Country Voice"), Ireland's answer to American Idol.

Young Miss Kavanagh was one of last autumn's contestants, shown here singing the Dixie Chicks' Tonight The Heartache's On Me.

Tonight The Heartache's On Me (songwriters: Mary W. Francis, Johnny Macrae, Bob Morrison)

You could've heard a pin drop-when they
Walked trough the door
I had to turn my eyes away-my heart
Fell to the floor
Someone whispered, "Where's her halo?"-
Cause she had an angel's face
He stood there smiling holding on to the
One who took my place

CHORUS
So tonight the heartache's on me, on me
Let's drink a toast to the fool
who couldn't see
Bartender, pour the wine 'cause the
Hurtin's all mine
Tonight the heartache's on me

I wonder if he told her-she's the best
He's ever known
The way he told me ev'ry night when
We were all alone
She'll find out when the new wears off-
He'll find somebody new
She'll learn what the heartache's all
about-and what I'm going through

CHORUS 2x

Yes tonight the heartache's on me

Sadly, Miss Kavanagh didn't win the competition. That honor went to Patrick O'Sullivan, and his more traditionally Irish sound.

Friday, January 1, 2010

Attention Northeast Gunbloggers

Tomorrow is the Northeast Gunblogger dinner at Jillian's Billiards in Manchester, NH. Prior to the 1800 hours rendezvous, we have some lanes reserved at Manchester Firing Line at 4:30 PM, for an hour turning cash into noise as an appetizer (so to speak).

Confirmed attending (so far):

Yours Truly.
Lissa and her husband Mike
Marko
Scotaku
JayG

Anyone else who is attending the dinner and would like to join up (or who is not attending the dinner, but would like to join us) please send me an email. So far I have three lanes reserved, but can ask for more.

Done made it through another twelve
Still sane and in one piece
Only spent a month in jail
Been good since I's released

...

Next year I won't drink Jim Beam ...on the way to church
And I guess I'll quit dippin' ...this tumor reallly hurts
Won't git rough with my woman ...unless she hits me first
Come on new year, big boy, do your worst

Farce the Music has the rest.

I got nothing

Really.

Kind of weird.