| Tuesday, November
15, 2005
On IQ, G, and People Skills The LA Times has a series
on conservators. In California almost anyone can become a conservator, and
take over the affairs of almost anyone else, including people they don't
know. There are supposed to be hearings, but judges can be conned into
believing that the person being kidnapped is unable to appear, and is gag a
so it wouldn't matter.
Today's Times tells of a woman, Baptist, probably sincere in believing
she is doing the best she can for the people she "protects". Dozens of them
mostly veterans and widows of veterans, some as young as 50, others quite
elderly. This woman has not only plundered the property of these people, but
seems to believe that she is doing, or wants to do, the right thing.
She is clearly incompetent. Clearly. Unable to pay bills on time or even
to stay out of the attention of the courts and relatives of her victims. She
is really really stupid.
Yet time after time judges have continued to assign her as conservator.
She apparently projects sincerity and probably is sincere. She is clearly
able to convince people that she knows what she is doing and that mistakes
in the past were not really her fault. Yet even a cursory examination of the
facts shows that she is so incompetent she may need a conservator for
herself.
This is a strong indication that "people success" is not particularly
related to "g" which IQ measures.
I do not know of any good test for "people success" predictors.
I do know that the result of paying attention to that without looking at
IQ resulted in living hell for dozens of people this woman was assigned by
courts and VA officials to "protect". I doubt she is evil; I suspect she
really thinks she is doing as well as she can, and can't even comprehend
what real competence is. And she can charm the system, which doesn't look
into competence. Is there a lesson here?
==========
Subject: SONY RootKit
Uninstaller Creates a Big Security Hole
Dr. Pournelle:
Reports today in several places about continuing
problems with the Sony rootkit. Using their web-based uninstaller appears to
open some major security holes in your system. This is a developing story as
I write this (800am PST), so further details will be forthcoming.
USA Today is reporting that Sony will be recalling any
unsold CD's with that rootkit. The executable-based (downloadable)
uninstaller may not have the security problems; this is not quite clear now.
Readers who want to check for the existence of the
root kit can use Notepad or similar to create a text file with a filename
that starts with "$SYS$". Save it in a known folder, then use Windows
Explorer to list files in that folder. If you don't see the file, then
you've got the root kit. If the file is there, then the root kit is probably
not there (or has been modified).
If you have the rootkit installed, I'd recommend
leaving it there for now, but ensure that your anti-virus is current, and be
careful (as usual) about "helpful" programs attached to email messages. And
I'd install the MS Anti-Spyware program (even in beta form), since there are
reports that the next update of that will safely uninstall the rootkit. It
appears that current anti-virus programs will detect viruses that try to use
the rootkit's ability to hide $SYS$ files.
There's a developing backlash against all Sony
products. It may be that this is Sony's "Tylenol" issue, and they don't
appear to be handling it very well. (Sony executive: "Most of our customers
don't even know what a rootkit is"...so it must be OK to install one, I
guess.)
Link to research on the security vulnerability of the
web-based uninstall:
http://www.freedom-to-tinker.com/?p=927 . Washington Post
"Security Fix" column:
http://blogs.washingtonpost.com/securityfix .
Be careful out there.....
Regards, Rick Hellewell
And see the warning in mail!
The Sony Rootkit stuff is all over the web now. Except for warnings I will
leave it to others for a while until there is something significant to say
as opposed to reacting to the news. ===================
And more on the Google Library Dear Jerry:
More grist for the mill on the Google
Print/Copyright debate. I found the reply particularly on point.
Francis
Critics misunderstand library project - Yahoo! News
http://news.yahoo.com/s/usatoday/20051114/cm_usatoday/criticsmisunderstandlibraryproject
The above gives a statement by
Jim Gerber, Content Partnerships Director,
Google Print Library Project, Mountain View, Calif.
Which shows either naiveté or ingenuousness or plain
ignorance of technology. As SFWA has shown, if your system delivers a
"snippet", software scripts to cause it to deliver the entire work can be
written. This is all discussed in the column at
www.byte.com and I recommend that to you.
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