View 297 February 16

THE VIEW FROM CHAOS MANOR

View 297 February 16 - 22, 2004

SECURITY NOTICES PAGE

For Current Mail click here.

FOR BOOKS OF THE MONTH 1994-Present Click HERE

Last Week's View Next Week's View

Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat Sun

Highlights this week:

Bagel Virus WARNING
Here's an interesting analysis of an E-card Hijack Spam
Iraq, Republic, and Empire

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...

Day-by-day...: Monday -- Tuesday -- Wednesday -- Thursday -- Friday -- Saturday -- Sunday

For Previous Weeks of the View, SEE VIEW HOME PAGE

Search: type in string and press return.

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.
.

If you subscribed:

CLICK HERE for a Special Request.

If you didn't and haven't, why not?

If this seems a lot about paying think of it as the Subscription Drive Nag. You'll see more.

For the BYTE story, click here.

For Current Mail click here.

The freefind search remains:

Site search Web search

This week:

Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday
Saturday
Sunday

TOP

Monday February 16, 2004

George Washington's Birthday is February 22

Monday TOP Current Mail

This week:

Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday
Saturday
Sunday

TOP

Tuesday, February 17, 2004

I got tied up yesterday, and today I have some errands. There's a lot of mail to clean up and I'll try to get at it later today. It's not really sloth, but I did put in the time to learn something of getting DOS games to work with Windows XP. Much of that in mail, and I'll summarize it in the column. Now I have to take Sable down to get her bath. I might contemplate doing that myself in summer, but in winter, I will pay someone else to groom her... (Summer I can strip down and get her in a tub without worrying about whether or not I get wet.)

First I have to catch her and put her muzzle on. She'll let me to that, and Roberta, but Huskies have a fine sense of propriety, as well as very good teeth. She's maturing but she doesn't like her tail combed...

And Yet One More virus warning:

Dr. Pournelle:

The "Bagel" virus is back...and is starting to be widespread. This one installs a back door on your computer, along with the usual propagation through it's own email engine. Network Associates/McAfee rates this one as 'medium' risk ; see here: http://us.mcafee.com/virusInfo/default.asp?id=description&virus_k=101030 .

The Subject line of this one will start with "ID" plus some random characters, and contains a randomly named EXE file as an attachment. Since this is a Virus, the user just has to open the attachment to get infected. There is no MS patch to prevent this one; just the anti-virus updates to protect the user.

McAfee/Network Associates just released (this Tues AM) a virus detection file update to handle this one, ahead of their normal weekly Wednesday update.

And the Microsoft "AFN" library vulnerability, announced by Microsoft last Wednesday, had an exploit by last Saturday. Pretty fast exploit release. This one is a worm, so it can get into your system by stealth. Right now, that exploit just includes a Denial of Service attack. It is spread by looking for un-patched systems.

The usual update/don't open attachment warnings apply.

Regards: Rick Hellewell, Information Security Dude, securitydude@digitalchoke.com

AND

One that Roland has warned us about already:

Dr. Pournelle:

As expected, the leaked MS-Windows source code is providing some fertile ground for nefarious hackers. There are some initial reports that someone has found a vulnerability in IE 5.x as a result of the leaked code. See this PCWorld article, just released: http://news.google.com/url?ntc=04SA0&q=http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,114816,00.asp .

Microsoft advises everyone to patch and upgrade to IE6.0 with Service Pack 1.

...Which we have said here more than three times.....

Regards: Rick Hellewell, Information Security Dude, securitydude@digitalchoke.com

Tuesday TOP Current Mail

This week:

Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday
Saturday
Sunday

TOP

Wednesday, February 18, 2004

I'm in a tearing hurry: it's about to rain like crazy here, and I need to secure. We're not in a flood area, or threatened by mudslides, but hard blowing rain can manage to get in through openings we don't normally worry about.

Open today with this from Jim Warren, founder of Dr. Dobbs:

Here's an interesting analysis of an E-card Hijack Spam: http://www.tjhsst.edu/~agupta/ecard-hijack/

It describes how opening a greeting card could result in intercepting your online banking accounts, especially for Windows/Internet Explorer users.

It's long and gets technical, but you should pay attention to the early parts. Among other things: note that the announcement said you had SENT a greeting card, which ought to be part of the warning.

=======================

You may also find this of interest:

http://www.eps.gov/spg/NASA/GMSFC/POVA/RFP%2D8%2DOSP/Modification%2001.html

=========================

Wednesday TOP Current Mail

This week:

Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday
Saturday
Sunday

TOP

Thursday, February 19, 2004

Michael Vlahos and I were once partners in a fiction project. It didn't work, but that has to do with fiction style, not any fundamental disagreements or lack of respect. He is an astute observer of the Washington scene but retains an historical sense: something rare, because people who get involved in what goes on in the Beltway often lose track of everything else, particularly history and principles.

His current essay http://www.techcentralstation.com/021904A.html is very worth your while. I don't say I subscribe to his remedies; but his analysis is correct.

The choices are stark. There is a logic to competent imperialism, and a cost. We need to think hard about both.

After you read that, try this:

Don't know if you've seen this or not, but it's quite an interesting article in Army Times. It's an army officer giving advice to officers just starting their tour in Iraq.

http://www.armytimes.com/story.php?f=1-292925-2581044.php

An interesting discussion of combat tactics in an urban environment.

Christopher B. Wright

And see Cochran on Vlahos in Mail

Thursday TOP Current Mail

This week:

Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday
Saturday
Sunday

TOP

Friday, February 20, 2004

Perhaps the business of the United States will be quite different from what we once thought. For a somewhat disorganized rant on trade and jobs, see mail.

Many have sent me this:

Which is a Hubble picture. They say it reminds them of some of my previous works. There is a bit of Inferno about it, isn't there? (Actually there's even a mote...)

While we are at it:

Subject: Spirit: Where It's Been, Where It's Going (map)

http://www.space.com/imageoftheday/image_of_day_040220.html

Steven Dunn

=====================

Dark Age of Camelot has become unplayable, with linkdead events at least once and hour and sometimes more often. Recovery takes forever. We can hope they'll get it fixed. This has been going on for two days now. Some players have adopted LD strategies. Me, I just get bored.

And in fact it is getting worse, not better.

7:30 PM Worse yet. This is getting ridiculous. And it means, generally, getting killed and thus wasting the time you were able to be on line since you lose experience. This is less than fun. BORING.

Friday TOP Current Mail

This week:

Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday
Saturday
Sunday

TOP

Saturday, February 21, 2004

I have twenty copies of the following:

From: anonymous@remailer.hastio.org [mailto:anonymous@remailer.hastio.org]
Sent: Saturday, February 21, 2004 9:39 AM
To: JerryP@jerrypournelle.com
Subject: your site sucks

No major redesign in YEARS. Get with the program dude!

My question is, can anything be done? That is, it's simple to make a rule to weed out anything with the word 'remailer' in the header, and I am doing that; but who are these hastio people? Only, it turns out, there are 20 or thirty others from other remailers. Well, I have taken care of the situation, but if you are sending me mail through any of those places, I will never see it.

Did someone think it would be amusing to send such things? What in the world was all that in aid of?

Saturday TOP Current Mail

This week:

Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday
Saturday
Sunday

TOP

Sunday, February 22, 2004

Greg Cochran on Vlahos, with my comments, in mail.

More on Iraq, including my commentary, Krauthammer and the neocon position, and a commentary on that follow.

Sunday TOP Current View

Current Mail