Category: Interesting Reads

Bush authorizes fence for U.S.-Mexico border

Guess what? I’m not going to gripe about this one. I’m not going to bad-mouth President Bush over this. I think if we are going to work on controlling illegal immigration, this is a necessary step, and I don’t see how this infringes on American citizens’ rights. Unless someone can show me good reason to oppose this, I’m buying in to the plan to build a fence between the U.S. and Mexico.

U.S. President George Bush has signed legislation that provides roughly $1.2 billion for fencing and other enhanced security measures along the border with Mexico.

. . .

U.S. President George Bush has signed legislation that provides roughly $1.2 billion for fencing and other enhanced security measures along the border with Mexico.

. . .

The White House had hoped for a wide-raging immigration reform bill. Instead, the U.S. Congress approved money to erect fencing in some of the most porous border areas and added it to legislation funding the Department of Homeland Security.

This is a good start. Of course, my fencing the most porous border areas, initially all we’re doing is pushing those who would enter illegally to find new places to come in. Eventually, for this to be of real value, it needs to be fence running the entire length of the border. Some people call me insensitive or a jerk for suggesting this, but I think we might want to consider getting the East Germans to help with this project.

Senator Kennedy said pushing money for the fence is only a campaign ploy and not a real solution to the problem.

Just in case you thought something good could be done without a Kennedy telling us what’s wrong. True, it’s not a real solution, but it is a start. And I’ll be optimistic (which I’ll grant is unusual for me) and say I expect more work to be done on limiting illegal immigration in the near future.

[tags]Bush authorizes fence for U.S.-Mexico border, Making a run for the border about to get more challenging[/tags]

Diebold touch screens on e-voting machines make devices fail

So what can you do when you make a product for electronic voting that security experts have shown to be bad for voting due to insecurity? Well, the best possible thing might not be to make sure the touch screens on those devices will cause them to fail poorly when touched, wouldn’t you think? Yet that’s what happens to the Diebold e-voting machines right now. Thankfully Diebold has a fix – don’t touch the touchscreen. And the company will provide a mouse for every machine.

After a daylong test of the state’s retrofitted voter check-in computers, it remained unclear yesterday whether the $18 million system works well enough for the state’s elections chief to deploy it in the November general election.

. . .

One reason for the relatively smooth test was the addition of a computer mouse to each of the touch-screen terminals, bypassing a software flaw first identified during the Sept. 12 primary and which remained unsolved throughout the day yesterday.

. . .

The e-poll books are supposed to be operated by tapping a small plastic stylus against the computer screens. The terminals are linked together and are used to register, among other things, whether a voter has shown up at the polls.

But during last month’s primary election, on occasion, one machine in a precinct would show voters as having cast ballots, while another would say they had not come to the polls.

To fix the problem, Diebold officials said yesterday the units could be operated with computer mouses and that they could provide the state with 5,500 of them in time for the general election. Or they could install new software and allow election judges to touch the screens.

Yes, you are reading that right. To use the touch-screen based e-voting machines, one has to use a mouse and not touch the touch-screen. If someone does use the touchscreen, well, the device could lose connectivity with the rest of the systems and require a reboot. After the reboot, the user might still be able to vote, but apparently their vote from before the reboot will still be kept in the system. Instant doubling of votes, just by touching the touchscreen after voting!

Lamone’s deputy, Ross Goldstein, said yesterday that elections officials would hear from their quality-assurance consultants and Diebold about whether the underlying software flaw causing the machines to lose sync could be fixed before a mid-October deadline to return the improved units to local election boards.

. . .

When the e-poll books fail to communicate with each other, or “lose sync,” the lists of who has voted in that precinct, which are stored on the e-poll books, don’t match. Should someone try to vote again, an out-of-sync system wouldn’t flag the double vote until the system had been corrected.

A spokesman for Diebold said yesterday that likelihood of such fraud would be low. If the system requires mouses, poll workers would be instructed repeatedly not to touch the screens and to check whether the system is communicating properly.

They also said that yesterday’s test proved that the system works smoothly and that the mouses would not interrupt an election.

OK, I’ll grant – the mouse probably won’t interrupt the election. But I bet all the people touching the touchscreens will. I wonder if anyone else worries about that?

County elections directors, many of whom came to the event, heaped praise on the machines, saying that they eliminated days of work updating voter histories after the election.

“Your instinct is to touch the screens,” said Sandra M. Logan, elections director in Caroline County, as she checked in a voter. “But I think my judges are used to using mouses and would like them.”

Nope. Or at least the elections director isn’t. Because people trained to not use the systems the wrong way after 2 test runs have mostly learned how to not use the systems the wrong way. Which I’m sure will translate into 100% non-misuse in a real election.

The likelihood for fraud if this problem stays in is high. Anyone saying otherwise is flat out lying to anyone that listens. There are groups of people who will do anything to tamper with an election (and no, I’m not talking about liberals). Once they know about a flaw this easily exploitable, they will take advantage of it. Saying the likelihood of fraud is low is akin to saying you trust the criminals will not try to take advantage of a flaw once they are made aware of it. And that would be laughable if it weren’t such a serious issue.

[tags]Diebold voter machines work great as long as not used in manner designed for,Easily exploitable flaw in Diebold e-voting systems no cause for concern according to Diebold[/tags]

Hops – up in flames

From NPR:

About 4 percent of America’s hops have gone up in flames. Most of America’s hops are grown in the Yakima Valley in Washington state, where a 40,000-foot warehouse storing hops burned down yesterday. According to the AP story, “By mid-afternoon flames engulfed most of the building, sending up plumes of smoke and a pungent aroma.”

The cause of the fire is not known. Nor is the effect on beer and beer prices. The world mourns. Start hoarding now.

If you brew your own, it might be time to hoard an extra bit of hops now. (via boingboing)

[tags]Hops – up in flames, A heavy hit to American beers?[/tags]

Government wiretap program ruled illegal – allowed to continue

I often look at how things work in politics and in the judicial system and think that for the problems we see in these arenas, a large part of the operation involved goes well enough. Sure, there are occasional WTF? moments for some court rulings, and some zOMG thoughts come up when politicians do idiotic things. But mostly, things work well enough that there isn’t a pressing need to seek change in the processes. However, when rulings like this get passed down, I really wonder how these decisions can come about.

The Bush administration is allowed to continue its warrantless surveillance program while it appeals a judge’s ruling that the program is unconstitutional, a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday.

The president says the program is needed in the war on terrorism; opponents say it oversteps constitutional boundaries on free speech, privacy and executive powers.

“Yes it’s unconstitutional. Go right ahead with it until you get the answer you want from the court system.”

This is absurd, and leaves me wondering exactly who thought this was a good idea.

The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals’ ruling by a unanimous three-judge panel allows the program to continue during the appeal that could take months.

In their brief order, the judges said they balanced the likelihood of success of an appeal, the potential damage to either side and the public interest.

And I have to assume weighing in the public interest didn’t take citizens’ Constitutional rights into account, or the decision would not have been made. The Constitution should outweigh any judgement made based on likelihood of success of an appeal. But to the 6th U.S. Circuit Court, apparently it doesn’t.

Another annoying bit in this whole fiasco is this quote:

But the government says it can’t always wait for a court to take action. It says the NSA program is well within the president’s authority but proving that would require revealing state secrets.

Fortunately, the creators of the 1978 FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) understood that, and put in specific provisions to allow the President the power to initiate wiretaps without a warrant, provided a warrant is applied for within 48 hours of initiating the wiretap. Once the request is put in, the wiretap can continue until the request is approved or denied. If it is approved (which damn near always happens), the entire tap is legal. I don’t understand why the President feels requesting authorization from a court dedicated to authorizing these taps within 48 hours of initiating a wiretap is so difficult. But I think a lot of things are more difficult for the President than for most people.

[tags]Court – wiretapping unconstitutional; keep it up!, Current state of NSA wiretaps[/tags]

Today in History – OJ acquitted

I wanted to title the post OJ gets away with murder, but then I figure someone would accuse me of slandering the man (or is it libeling – I never can keep them straight and I’m too lazy to check which is in print and which is verbal), and I just wanted a humorous title. So I’ll stick to what we know, and leave the hypothesizing to water-cooler chat groups.

Today in 1995, after only 4 hours of deliberation, the jury in the OJ Simpson murder trial returned with a not guilty verdict. I remember the event well enough, because about 90% of the folks in the office where I worked all went into our large conference room to watch the broadcast. I sat with my supervisor talking about work instead. When someone else on the way to watch the reading of the verdict asked if I was going to come watch, I responded “No, I already know they are going to say not guilty.” He was amazed I could think Simpson was not guilty. I pointed out to him that I didn’t say he was not guilty, but rather that the jury would find him not guilty. And my reasoning was simple (and correct, thankfully) – no one would convict a well known and well liked man of a double murder with the harsh penalty that verdict would carry. I simply didn’t believe the people on that jury would announce in that short a time a guilty penalty against someone who came across as a generally likeable person.

At the end of a sensational trial, former football star O.J. Simpson is acquitted of the brutal 1994 double murder of his estranged wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ronald Goldman. In the epic 252-day trial, Simpson’s “dream team” of lawyers employed creative and controversial methods to convince jurors that Simpson’s guilt had not been proved “beyond a reasonable doubt,” thus surmounting what the prosecution called a “mountain of evidence” implicating him as the murderer.

Orenthal James Simpson–a Heisman Trophy winner, star running back with the Buffalo Bills, and popular television personality–married Nicole Brown in 1985. He reportedly regularly abused his wife and in 1989 pleaded no contest to a charge of spousal battery. In 1992, she left him and filed for divorce. On the night of June 12, 1994, Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman were stabbed and slashed to death in the front yard of Mrs. Simpson’s condominium in Brentwood, Los Angeles. By June 17, police had gathered enough evidence to charge O.J. Simpson with the murders.

Simpson had no alibi for the time frame of the murders. Some 40 minutes after the murders were committed, a limousine driver sent to take Simpson to the airport saw a man in dark clothing hurrying up the drive of his Rockingham estate. A few minutes later, Simpson spoke to the driver though the gate phone and let him in. During the previous 25 minutes, the driver had repeatedly called the house and received no answer.

. . .

In polls, a majority of African Americans believed Simpson to be innocent of the crime, while white America was confident of his guilt. However, the jury–made up of nine African Americans, two whites, and one Hispanic–was not so divided; they took just four hours of deliberation to reach the verdict of not guilty on both murder charges. On October 3, 1995, an estimated 140 million Americans listened in on radio or watched on television as the verdict was delivered.

In February 1997, Simpson was found liable for several charges related to the murders in a civil trial and was forced to award $33.5 million in compensatory and punitive damages to the victims’ families. However, with few assets remaining after his long and costly legal battle, he has avoided paying the damages.

I would like to point out that after the trail, Simpson said he would not rest until the real murderer was found. Since then, he has been seen frequenting numerous golf courses in Florida. I have to assume this means he thinks the real murderer is a golfer who has taken up residence in Florida.

[tags]OJ Simpson acquitted today in 1995, Today in History[/tags]

Wacko kills kids in Amish school building

I was taking a nap yesterday. I had asked my mother to call me at a certain time to wake me up so I wouldn’t be late for work. When she called, she told me about this nutjob who had taken over an Amish school in Pennsylvania. I didn’t have time to post about it before leaving for work, but I think it is important to point out when crazy people do crazy things. I can’t post about all of them, but this is so fucked up, I can’t *not* post about it.

A 32-year-old truck driver walked into a one-room Amish schoolhouse Monday, binding and shooting three girls execution-style before killing himself, police said.

Eight other girls were wounded in the attack, which police said appeared to be a revenge killing for an incident that occurred two decades ago.

. . .

The gunman, Charles Carl Roberts IV, was armed with three guns, a stun gun, two knives and a bag holding 600 rounds of ammunition, Miller said.

He was also carrying an assortment of tools and other items, including toilet paper, that led police to believe he was prepared for an extended standoff

. . .

The Bart, Pennsylvania, resident had three children, and left several notes for his family “along the lines of suicide notes,” Miller said.

The notes were “rambling” and “didn’t make much sense,” Miller said.

Roberts did not respond when police at the scene attempted to communicate with him, and troopers were preparing to storm the schoolhouse before the shooting began, Miller said.

Roberts’ wife tried to call him when she found the notes, Miller said. He returned the call on his cell phone, told her he wouldn’t be coming home and “that he was acting out to achieve revenge for something that happened 20 years ago.”

The article goes on, detailing the storming of the school by police, the shootings that happened during the stand-off, some information on the apparent plans for a lengthy stand-off, and a little of what the police know about the attacker.

Finding out what happened 20 years ago that made this person feel sufficiently slighted to shoot execution style several young girls won’t bring them back to life, but it will be interesting to hear, I’m sure. Unfortunately, what we will hear from this incident is more politicians spewing forth the need for gun control. The trouble with that viewpoint is this person could have done this attack just fine without the guns. The real problem in this attack is the attacker, not the weapon of choice. Find out why the attacks occurred – taking away the guns wouldn’t stop them, just changed his attack method.

[tags]Nutjob attacks Amish shool – kills girls, Crazy in PA[/tags]

Hysterics over H.R. 6166 – Military Commissions Act of 2006

While catching up on much of my geek reading for the day, I stumbled on this boingboing article about the newly enacted bill H.R. 6166 – what many are calling the US torture law or something to that effect. In it, the person who sent boingboing the article tries to induce hysteria by claiming that because of the bill, non-allegiance to the President makes one a terrorist. Given my newfound interest in knowing the difference between reality and the state of existence each major US political party tries to present as reality, I figured this was something worth learning about. So I follow the link to bill H.R. 6166, print out the version as passed through the House (hint:it prints out soooo much nicer if you copy the entire text, paste is into Word, and print out that verion), and start reading.

I don’t find anywhere in the bill that people who don’t ally themselves with the President are defined as terrorist. I don’t ally myself with our current President, so this is a point that really matters to me. There is a Sec. 950v. Crimes triable by military commissions section where article (26) WRONGFULLY AIDING THE ENEMY *might* be something which one could consider as somehow tangential to seeming like what Eris Siva (the submitter of the article to boingboing) is saying, but not really. That article says any person subject to that chapter of the bill who knowingly and intentionally aids a US enemy in breach of allegiance or duty to the US is subject to the bill. But that ‘any person subject to’ the chapter qualifier matters. In a preceeding section, it is made clear that these articles only apply to “Any alien unlawful enemy combatant” throughout the bill.

So I go back to the boingboing article, hoping to find comments from other readers which would help me understand how I am being labelled a terrorist for not showing allegiance to the President, and I find that Josh Larios has seen and written about the same problems I saw:

HR 6166 is bad enough for what it actually _does_ say. There’s really no need to make up new things to be alarmed about. Specifically, the bill does _not_ define non-allegiance to Bush (or to the office of the President) as terrorism.

The text of the bill says: “Any person subject to this chapter who, in breach of an allegiance or duty to the United States, knowingly and intentionally aids an enemy of the United States, or one of the co-belligerents of the enemy, shall be punished as a military commission under this chapter may direct.”

The important bit is “subject to this chapter”. Section 948c of the bill defines who is subject to this chapter as “[a]ny alien unlawful enemy combatant”. Previously, in section 948a, it defines “alien” as “a person who is not a citizen of the United States”. The authors of the article you’ve linked to have taken the “breach of allegiance” snippet as proof that the bill is aimed at US citizens, when the text of the bill clearly indicates otherwise.

Section 948d of the bill lays out the jurisdiction as follows: “A military commission under this chapter shall have jurisdiction to try any offense made punishable by this chapter or the law of war when committed by an alien unlawful enemy combatant before, on, or after September 11, 2001.”

The “breach of allegiance” excerpt is as meaningful as “before, on, or after September 11, 2001”. That is to say, not at all. I cannot see any reasonable interpretation of the text of the bill that includes non-allegiance to the president (by a US citizen — who else would have any allegiance to the president?) equating to terrorism.

Folks, there are problems with this bill. There are things I don’t like in it. I believe this bill will be found unconstitutional due to it’s explicit denial of the judicial branch’s rights to speak on matters of law. I don’t like that through this law, anyone accused of anything covered by the bill can be held without information necessary to form a defense. I think the bill as passed explicitly defines as an unlawful enemy comtatant (and therefore subject to the rules in the bill) everyone which the White House has labelled an unlawful enemy combatant prior to passage of the bill.

But let’s focus on what is actually wrong with the bill, and not make up crap in an attempt to induce hysteria. As with every other far-reaching law ever passed by Congress, this will be used in ways it shouldn’t be. And there will be abuses of the law due to lack of clarity on some points. But nowhere in the bill does it state anything that would allow one to be labelled a terrorist for non-allegiance to the President. So let’s just deal with what is wrong with the bill, try to keep the things in the bill that are good, and stop with the spreading of falsehoods, OK?

[tags]Military Commissions Act of 2006, Bill H.R. 6166, Author claims US torture bill makes non-allegiance to President a terrorist act[/tags]

On gerbils and other stuffings

This comes from a co-worker way back in time. I meant to post it when I read it, but forgot. So, now that I’m cleaning out my old mail, I find it again and decide to post for you a response to the question of gerbil stuffing. On the question of whether or not this phenomenon is real, the response starts as follows:

Brace yourself, toots. What follows is not for the weak of stomach. For starters, an awful lot of stuff has been found where that gerbil was found. The medical journals list, among other things, the following astonishing array:

A bottle of Mrs. Butterworth’s syrup, an ax handle, a nine-inch zucchini, countless dildoes and vibrators including one 14-inch model complete with two D-cell batteries, a plastic spatula, a 9-1/2-inch water bottle, a deodorant bottle, a Coke bottle, a large bottle cap, numerous other bottles, a 3-1/2-inch Japanese glass float ball, an 11-inch carrot, an antenna rod, a 150-watt light bulb, a 100-watt frosted bulb, a cucumber, a screwdriver, four rubber balls, 72-1/2 jeweler’s saws (all from one patient, but not all at the same time, although 29 were discovered on one occasion), a paperweight, an apple, an onion, a plastic…

So read on for all the, um, tasty details.

[tags]Gerbil stuff, How’d that get in there?[/tags]

How to sell $20 million in art? Rock, paper, scissors competition

When faced with deciding who should handle the auction of $20 million of art, Takashi Hashiyama, president of the Japanese electronics company Maspro Denkoh Corporation, turned to the age old game of rock, paper, scissors. Both Christie’s and Sotheby’s seemed equally qualified to handle the sale, so he told them to compete, and suggested the game.

In Japan, resorting to such games of chance is not unusual. “I sometimes use such methods when I cannot make a decision,” Mr. Hashiyama said in a telephone interview. “As both companies were equally good and I just could not choose one, I asked them to please decide between themselves and suggested to use such methods as rock, paper, scissors.”

. . .

“The client was very serious about this,” said Jonathan Rendell, a deputy chairman of Christie’s in America who was involved with the transaction. “So we were very serious about it, too.”

Kanae Ishibashi, the president of Christie’s in Japan, declined to discuss her preparations for the meeting. But her colleagues in New York said she spent the weekend researching the psychology of the game online and talking to friends, including Nicholas Maclean, the international director of Christie’s Impressionist and modern art department.

Mr. Maclean’s 11-year-old twins, Flora and Alice, turned out to be the experts Ms. Ishibashi was looking for. They play the game at school, Alice said, “practically every day.”

So who won? Well, naturally, it was the company who’s representative chose the better move. But since you probably want to know who that was, you’ll have to read the full article at the New York Times web site. (via DubiousQuality)

[tags]Game of Rock-Paper-Scissors to determine handler for $20 million art sale[/tags]

Mythbusters defeat “Never been beaten” digital lock

(via Engadget)

I love watching Mythbusters. My favorite myth to date is probably the chicken gun myth (which they confirmed to be true), although there are so many other good ones that are close. This video of a recent Mythbusters shows the guys defeating a digital fingerprint lock with a latex copy of a fingerprint, a ballistics gel copy, and finally a photocopy with a little water on it. This doesn’t mean defeating this types of locks is trivial, but it does show that these types of locks aren’t as foolproof safe as many people believe them to be.

Of course, this type of testing has been done before. It’s just more fun watching the Mythbusters do it.

[tags]Mythbusters defeat undefeatable lock, Mythbusters break biometric lock[/tags]

Hurd (HP’s new CEO) plays the “I don’t remember” Reaganesque card

I like Reagan and think he was a fine President – don’t take that headline the wrong way. However, much like Reagan during the whole Iran Contra debacle, Hurd played the “I don’t remember” and “I didn’t know about that” game in a completely unconvincing manner. In a press conference (in which, oddly enough, the press were not allowed to do anything but listen, kinda making is a press-listening event, which in its own right is unusual I suppose) Hurd said he authorized a fake email to help track down the source of a news leak at HP, but that he didn’t recall if he had authorized sending spyware with the email.

He acknowledged approving a plot earlier this year to trick a CNet reporter into revealing her sources by having an investigator e-mail her, posing as a disgruntled HP employee. But he said he didn’t recall approving another gambit: e-mailing the reporter a purported HP document containing hidden spyware to trace her sources.

And he admitted he was given a report in March detailing the methods used by investigators, as well as the results. “I understand there is also a written report of the investigation addressed to me and others, but I did not read it. I could have, and I should have,” he said.

Ahhhhh, the whole ignorance is bliss defense. Of course, we all know that lack of knowledge does not excuse one from a crime – just ask my wife about the ticket she got for turning right at a no-right-turn intersection where the sign was completely covered by a tree (we had pictures at the time – the sign was indeed not visible but the judge still made her pay because “you should have known” about the sign). He had the necessary information to know what was being done. And seeing how important the high level executives seemed to believe this matter was, I would expect he should have read the report to know what was going on.

Hurd said the “trigger for me” that something was wrong came in the form of an e-mail he received after a May board meeting. At that point, he retained the law firm Morgan, Lewis & Bockius to do “a more comprehensive investigation,” he said.

I’m just curious on this – if he retained a law firm in May (or June, if it took a while to react or the board meeting was late in the month), why did we not find out about HP’s illegal activities until August? I mean, if this was really important to handle properly, which Hurd seems to claim in his statements if you read the full article, why wasn’t it important to let people know of HP’s illegal activities before that information escaped somehow last month?

Elsewhere in the article is this quote from former HP chairwoman Dunn:

Dunn issued a statement saying she was resigning “in the best interests” of HP and blaming the fiasco on the investigators the company used, saying she didn’t select them. She said she “followed the proper processes” but that the investigators “let me and the company down.”

Again – “It’s not my fault. I played by the rules. Someone else screwed up.” In other words, she’s really an innocent victim of someone else’s mistake. I almost shed a tear for her. (via Dan Gillmor’s blog)

[tags]More on the HP illegal spying case, HP execs play “Pass the buck” on blame for spy fiasco[/tags]

Checked baggage security – take your gun

What’s the best way to be certain your checked baggage won’t be tampered with? Apparently, the answer is to travel with a gun in your checked baggage. Matt Brandon tells his unfortunate tale of losing some expensive camera equipment while traveling, due to the camera being in checked baggage instead of hand carried. The interesting part comes in the comments to his post.

One note on using TSA rules to your advantage.

Weapons that travel MUST be in a hard case, must be declared upon check-in, and MUST BE LOCKED by a TSA official.

A “weapons” is defined as a rifle, shotgun, pistol, airgun, and STARTER PISTOL. Yes, starter pistols – those little guns that fire blanks at track and swim meets – are considered weapons…and do NOT have to be registered in any state in the United States.

I have a starter pistol for all my cases. All I have to do upon check-in is tell the airline ticket agent that I have a weapon to declare…I’m given a little card to sign, the card is put in the case, the case is given to a TSA official who takes my key and locks the case, and gives my key back to me.

That’s the procedure. The case is extra-tracked…TSA does not want to lose a weapons case. This reduces the chance of the case being lost to virtually zero.

It’s a great way to travel with camera gear…I’ve been doing this since Dec 2001 and have had no problems whatsoever.

Hope it works for you…
John

(via Bruce Schneier’s security blog via boingboing)