This is a day book. It's not all that well edited. I try to keep this up
daily, but sometimes I can't. I'll keep trying. See also the monthly COMPUTING AT CHAOS MANOR column, 4,000 -
7,000 words, depending. (Older
columns here.) For more on what this page is about, please go to the VIEW PAGE.
If you have never read the explanatory material on that page, please do so.
If you got here through a link that didn't take you to the front
page of this site, click here for a better
explanation of what we're trying to do here.
If you are not paying for this place, click here...
If
you have no idea what you are doing here, see the What is this
place?,
which tries to make order of chaos.
If you intend to send MAIL to me, see
the INSTRUCTIONS.
Boiler Plate:
If you want to PAY FOR THIS there
are problems, but I keep the latest HERE. I'm trying. MY
THANKS to all of you who sent money. Some of you went to a lot of
trouble to send money from overseas. Thank you! There are also some new payment methods. I am preparing a special (electronic)
mailing to all those who paid: there will be a couple of these. I am also
toying with the notion of a subscriber section of the page. LET ME KNOW your thoughts.
.
Headed home from Chattanooga
Tennessee and Libertycon. Dallas airport, wireless connection working just
fine.
Got up at 0-dark hundred but except for starting very early
the day has gone well.
And home to find:
Dr. Pournelle:
That 'support messages' you referenced your mail for
today ("You've been sending a lot of spam") is the "MyDoom.O" version, which
is pretty widespread. That's one of the random messages in this virus. (Info
here, among others:
http://us.mcafee.com/virusInfo/default.asp?id=description&virus_k=127033
)
It is an email address harvester: going through your
computer to grab all the email addresses it can find, then opens a port on
your computer that can be used later on to grab the info (and possibly
control your machine).
The mantra "Don't Open Attachments, even if they are
from someone you know, unless you are expecting something (and even then, be
careful)".
Anti-virus updates will be out later today, ahead of
the usual schedule.
Regards, Rick Hellewell, information security at
digitalchoke.com
=======
Dr. Pournelle:
As a followup to the previous message about MyDoom.O:
The virus is rapidly spreading, and it's actions of using search engines to
find more email addresses is having a major impact on the search engines.
Users may find Google unresponsive due to the increase
in search requests, although they are actively correcting that situation.
Google gets more of the virus' attention (about 45% of the time) than Yahoo,
Lycos, and AltaVista.
The virus' searches are designed to collect more email
addresses from those pages. And the virus is smart enough to sense
obfusticated email addresses, such as "mickey mouse _at_ company dot name"
(and other variations, like mine below). Interesting new technique.
Anti-virus vendors have posted updates; users should
update today (and be very careful with 'helpful' attachments).
Regards, Rick Hellewell information security at
digitalchoke.com
Be careful out there...
==========
And Now I Am Packing Again for another week-long trip.
Eventually all this madness will be over. Of course by then it will be time
for the column. But the galley proofs of Burning Tower are also due.
It's a great life if you don't weaken, but I'm wondering if
I can hold up. One does what one has to do...
Anyway we'll be a bit late updating these pages tomorrow but
we will manage...
In Seattle. Tablet works fine, although the
keyboard is a bit small for production typing; if I really need to do work
on a novel, I need either the Mac (carry a separate computer) or carry a
heavier duty USB keyboard. I already have a red-eye mouse, which I use if I
set the Tablet up for any given time. But the WACOM pen works for this quite
well, and on an airplane even when the seat in front is leaned all the way
back, I can still edit with Tablet and pen: even writing in notes on Word
Documents. Or whole sentences and paragraphs. I would hate to produce an
entire novel with the pen but it could be done.
Rutan has announced the schedule for the X prize and all the motels in
Mojave have filled up, but I got a reservation earlier. Or I can camp in a
local hangar if I have to. I'll be there, or I hope so.
Doing galley slavery on Burning Tower among other duties. Just about done
with that.
I need to write an essay conservatism, Jacobinism, imperialism, and
American policy.
====================
On those musicians:
Almost all of the Syrian musicians who were
questioned by law-enforcement officials after exhibiting suspicious behavior
aboard a Northwest Airlines flight were traveling on expired visas.
The 14 men in the band were questioned by several agencies that make up the
Joint Terrorism Task Force after the pilot aboard Flight 327 from Detroit to
Los Angeles on June 29 radioed for law-enforcement assistance.
A spokesman for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) confirmed that
13 of the 14 musicians entered the country May 30 and the visas expired June
10, but the men were not detained. The 14th musician is a U.S. resident and
citizen.
The backup band was hired to play with Nour Mehana, widely referred to as
Syria's Wayne Newton, and were flying on one-way tickets with a return trip
on JetBlue.
I would say there was something irregular; but we don't really enforce
immigration laws any more, do we? Snopes is careful to explain that an
expired visa is not the same as a required exit date, but we don't know the
exit dates for these people. I do know I would have been a bit suspicious
too.
As to over reaction, the TSA tried to confiscate a Medal of Honor from a
retired general because it might be used as a weapon. "Security" they said.
And this was less suspicious?
Well, the last needed work on Burning Tower is
done and acknowledged, so that's one less thing to worry about.
The papers this morning are full of Edwards and his speech and the theme
of "no longer two Americas." The problem is that the Democratic party
isn't a party and hasn't any common principles. There may be this wish to
unify the country, but it comes out hollow when expressed by an outfit that
not merely includes but depends on the good graces of Jesse Jackson, the NEA,
and the Trial Lawyers; the fact is that the Democratic Party resembles a
bandit horde of smaller nomadic gangs, assembled and united only by the
prospect of loot. The major support groups -- the core -- of the Democrats
agree on nothing other than holding their turf and extracting as much from
the taxpayers as they can get.
Of course the Republicans have proved to be little better. Bush and the
Republicans have increased discretionary spending and "entitlements" beyond
reason, beyond hope, and while the tax cuts have helped -- better spending
with deficit than spending with ever higher taxes -- they haven't helped
enough. The War saw to that. If Bush had his priorities right, we would have
gone into Iraq and gone to each Iraqi general: "I will pay you $5.00
American per day for each man in your part of the army. You get the money,
you pay the troops. If any Americans in your security area are harmed the
payment are stopped for that week. If you revolt the other generals are also
on my payroll and their pay won't be stopped. If you all revolt the US
Marines are ready to show you why you should not have made that unfortunate
decision.
"And finally, we are going to pump oil. Your payments will
go up by 10 cents a barrel for every dollar/bbl decrease in the world oil
price. Every incident harming oil production will result in a decrease in
the payments every one of you gets. It's up to you."
Then pump oil. If Halliburton and the US military can't extract the
blasted oil, fast, who the heck can?
Pump oil and put the revenue into the Iraqi treasury; but the world oil
price goes to $20/bbl, the Dow goes to 12,000, US tax revenues wipe out the
deficit, and we are all happy.
But that didn't happen. Why not? I do not know, but Bush ought to find
out, and fire a bunch of idiot advisors.
We are in Iraq and reduced to the argument that Saddam was not a nice guy
so the Iraqi are better off now. That may be true, but it is hard to see how
we are better off now. No, we can't cut and run; but peace and order and
flowing oil are the best things Iraq can wish for, and as it happens, that
is what is best for us as well. And if the US Army and Halliburton can't get
the oil flowing, what good are they?
As to domestic politics, the NEA, the Trial Lawyers, and Jesse Jackson
are all no more than shakedown artists and bandits, and while some
individual members of those coalitions may have more in mind than loot, the
organizations themselves behave exactly as you would expect them to:
producing the ghastly American education system which Charlie Sheffield and
I described in Higher Education, only it's worse than we thought it would
be. And it will be worse yet. The Trial Lawyers have looted the nation of
billions and there is no end in sight to that. And Jesse Jackson's shakedown
techniques are honed to a fine point. And of course I name only three of the
groups that must be satisfied once the Democrats obtain office. There are
dozens, all voracious.
Where is anyone who wants to devolve the government back to the states,
and counties, and cities, and villages? Not that the Republicans have not
their share of thugs: but one would have thought, at least until recently,
that they were intelligent thugs who could be satisfied: parasites but at
least parasites who will not kill the host. But now I am not sure.
I don't believe the Democrats can get the oil flowing again; and the last
time they were in control of the military they demonstrated that they are
still the Party of War (US involvement in WWI, WW II, Cold War, Korea,
Viet Nam, Haiti, all started under Democratic presidents), and also that
they were now interested only in wars in which there is no discernable US
interest: Bosnia, and the whole Balkan affair. Republican adventures were
generally short and decisive (Granada and Panama come to mind) and had some
faint connection with national interest: even Iraq if we had done it right.
Bush the Elder got us into Somalia but was ready to get out: staying to
build nations was another President's idea. The Party of War kept us there
until the Black Hawk was down. The Party of War, but never war in American
interests. "What's the use of that splendid army if we can't use it to do
good?"
I do think the Republicans may be able to get the Iraq oil out of the
ground and flowing, and that can save us from the coming Depression; but it
is a faint hope, similar to my hope that most of the Republican thugs are at
least partly satiated with public pork. I have less confidence in Democrat
competence: not disciplined enough and too many horde leaders to satisfy.
That may be cynicism, but it is based on observation and experience.
We live in the wealthiest nation that ever was, and had until recently
the best educated population that ever was: and yet we live at the edge of a
precipice. Jane Jacobs' new book DARK AGE AHEAD holds many truths; one hopes
she is not correct in the title.
More to do in Seattle today. This will all be
short.
But take heed:
Yesterday afternoon, Microsoft posted three critical
patches. They considered these patches important enough that they posted
them outside their normal monthly patch cycle. For more details, see:
If you run Windows and Internet Explorer, you should
apply these patches immediately.
Note that these IE patches are *not* the comprehensive
IE fix that is to be released with Windows XP SP2. That IE fix will be
available only for XP. Those of us who continue to use Windows 2000 and
earlier versions will be left out in the cold with respect to that fix.
Still, the patches Microsoft released yesterday are
important and are definitely worth applying.
Best regards.
RBT
-- Robert Bruce Thompson thompson@ttgnet.com http://www.ttgnet.com/thisweek.html
http://forums.ttgnet.com/ikonboard.cgi
"*Description*: A vulnerability has been reported in
Mozilla and Mozilla Firefox, allowing malicious websites to spoof the user
interface.
The problem is that Mozilla and Mozilla Firefox don't
restrict websites from including arbitrary, remote XUL (XML User Interface
Language) files. This can be exploited to "hijack" most of the user
interface (including tool bars, SSL certificate dialogs, address bar and
more), thereby controlling almost anything the user sees.
The Mozilla user interface is built using XUL files.
A PoC (Proof of Concept) exploit for Mozilla Firefox
has been published. The PoC spoofs a SSL secured PayPal website.
This has been confirmed using Mozilla 1.7 for Linux,
Mozilla Firefox 0.9.1 for Linux, Mozilla 1.7.1 for Windows and Mozilla
Firefox 0.9.2 for Windows. Prior versions may also be affected.
NOTE: This issue appears to be the same as Mozilla Bug
244965.
*Solution*: Do not follow links from untrusted sites."
On an airplane home. the Alaska Airlines flight
was oversold and they did nor wait to give us seats although our bags were
already checked. A copy of Nikkei Byte with my picture may have convinced
than they were about to enjoy unwanted publicity. I don't know. I do Not
like hang to be The old Curmudgeon but it was thus or Nor get home and we
bought the tickets weeks ago. On platinum AMEX at that.
We did get seats. TSA was to more incompetents or infuriating than
usual.
the handwriting recognition Works well except for Some words and
Capital letters and such and I get used to i t.
And home now. The above sentence was done in handwriting and not
corrected. Normally I do some corrections.
CLICK HERE for
a Special Request. 
