] The paper reports that, using that database, e-mails
] coming from a computer on the spam list are sent directly
] back to the computer, not just the e-mail account, that
] sent them.
]
] "We're doing it to shut this guy down," Stuart McIrvine,
] IBM's director of corporate security strategy, told the
] paper. "Every time he tries to send, he gets slammed
] again."
]
] This anti-spam offering is IBM's first major foray into
] the anti-spam market. Its executives argue that trying to
] capture spam with filters or discard it as quickly as
] possible isn't enough.

... ... But thats exactly what you are doing! You have to ID the email as Spam. Sure you have a Database with IPs or Razor hashes or whatever. But you still have to evaluate the Spam. Once you ID it, how is it faster to send back a message to DoS them than simply discard it. Assuming you even can knock the spammer off with this tactic.

] IBM will have to be careful not to violate anti-hacking
] laws, which prohibit gaining unauthorized entry to a
] remote computer system, even in order to stop it from
] harming yours, according to the paper. But IBM executives
] said their service will not violate that law, nor other
] prohibitions on increasing network traffic under "denial
] of service" rules.
]
] "Yes, we are adding more traffic to the network, but it
] is in an effort to cut down the longer-term traffic,"
] said McIrvine.

... ... This is retarded. First off all I cannot see how this will not violate DoS laws. You are generating traffic for the sole purpose of degrading or denying some target network access. You also assume that this traffic will knock the Spammer offline.

While the article is not clear on how they are DoSing the spammer, most spammers don't have anything running on their host to DoS! He will not have an SMTP server listening for you to half-open TCP to death. Unless they are PING/Smurf/Bouce attacking him, (All layer 3 or 4 attacks) nothing is going to happen. Chances are good the spammer has an asymmetric connection. At worst you will flood his downside pipe. IPTables that only accepts any traffic from the open proxies/zombies the spammer is using would pretty much defeat this.

Am I missing something here or does this not make any sense?

IBM set to use spam to attack spammers

] Wisconsin's Democratic governor thinks it's not fair that
] tangible items get taxed while downloads, like music,
] ebooks, software, etc., go completely untaxed. So, he
] proposes to rectify the situation by having Wisconsin's
] 5% state sales tax apply to Internet downloads. This is
] kind of like that famous hoax about how the USPS wants to
] charge people 5 cents for e-mail messages, except it's
] for real. What a dumb idea.
]
] Of course, when you look more closely at the idea, it
] looks even dumber:
]
] A little-noticed provision of the Democratic
] governor's proposed state budget would extend the sales
] tax to those Internet transactions, officials said
] Monday. There would be no Internet sales tax police,
] however, because compliance would be on the honor system.
]
] That's right: it's voluntary.

Everyday I see just how out of touch most of the country is about technology. Using the Internet as an avenue for traditional distribution methods is like using a Kentucky Derby Winner to pull a milk cart. But most people and sadly many large companies see it as just "like Television, but interactive." People are forcing buisness models that work just fine in traditional markets on the web, and then sue people when it fails.

Embrace that is it NOT TV, and NOT Radio, and in fact NOT like anything you have every dealt with. Embrace the minimal cost of storage most people have, and adapt business models to exploit this instead of jumping on things like the Broadfact flag and other tools created to stop us from using what we paid for.

Stop trying to make us a subscription society. Any decent financial planner will tell you renting anything instead of owning is throwing money away. Take your streaming Napster bullshit and shove it.

WI governor proposes state sales tax on downloads

] USB HID for Linux USB

Some nice C examples of USB HID access under Linux.

USB HID for Linux USB

] The USB HID class is a powerful and versatile way to get
] your device on the USB. If your USB device can exist
] within the bandwidth limits of the HID driver, then using
] this driver may save your sanity and your schedule. An
] example shows how.

You can use the surprisingly able HID Class of USB drivers (including in all OSes) that normally control keyboards and mice to do just about anything, if you don't mind using the low speed interface.

This is definately the future of my hardware device research. Even Java can access these HID devices. Thus I can create hardware devices that work on all platforms supporting USB, and quickly write applications that will work without having to write device drivers for multiple platforms. SCORE

Creating custom cross-platform USB devices using HID

While not making nearly the noise of its large brother Firefox, Mozilla Thunderbird is every bit as good. Reaching 1.0 not too long ago, this mail client is small and quick. I had been using Evolution+Razor+SpamAssassin, but recently perforance issues (ever try to use a Gnome app on the upstream of a Cable modem?) among other things caused me to explore other options. Before Evolution I was using the mail client that came with the full mozilla suite.

While getting the correct SMTP servers associated with the correct email address was a little annoying (the directions online use menu options and buttons that don't exist in 1.0), I am very pleased with the results. I get around 60 emails a day, and after 3 days Firefox is catching all of the spam, without needing to train it on a 60 meg file like Spamassassin. The interface is light and the firefox-like extensions are very cool.

People who liked the mozilla mail client, no longer use the full suite, and are looking for a mail client should check out Thunderbird.

I just finished a really cool project for my CS Theory class. We were given the information about how the various Autonomous Systems on the Internet were connected for 1997, 1999, 2002, and 2004. The assignment was to find things like what the average number of connections (called degree) nodes had with each other, what the largest number of hops between 2 nodes could be (Called the diameter), average distances, etc.

The cool part was when we investigated how the system reacts to failure of nodes. I have attached the reports here:

http://www.msblabs.org/as-attack/report-100.txt
http://www.msblabs.org/as-attack/report-500.txt

Basically, here is what these reports say:

If 100 or even 500 random nodes failed all at the same time, over 99.5% of the nodes stay connected in 1 mass, and can still talk to each other. If the largest nodes were deliberately attacked and removed, the shit hit the fan.

When 100 ASes are attacked and removed, only 55% of the nodes remained in 1 mass, and the average distances between any 2 nodes as well as the max distance inside the mass doubled. Now only half the internet is reachable (if you were lucky), while the speed tanks and the bottlenecks double.

When 500 ASes are attacked and removed, the Internet fractures into an unusable mess. Over 11000 little "islands" of 1 or two nodes are created (remember there were only ~17000 nodes to begin with!). The largest single mass only has 1388 nodes. Only 8% of the Internet is reachable, if you are luckily enough to be in that mass. The speed is now 1/5 of what it was as the average number of hops jumps from 3.7 to over 21.

I'm going to do some more reseach on AS systems and how protected they are, but I think I understand what Mike meant about the Internet being taken out without poisoning the DNS trees.

I had written 3 "sub articles" for Make. On about wiring a reader, one about a parallel port adapter, and one about a multi-track modification. They didn't have room for the 3rd one, so I took my photos and whipped together a nice step-by-step guide. Features a cameo by my $10,000 pen!

Stripe Snoop :: Multi-track Modification

] The Eternity Service is a distributed data-haven, it
] takes a different approach to ensuring unpopular content
] can be published. Traditionally unpopular content has
] been surreptitiously exchanged via DCCs in IRC, or PGP
] encrypted email, or FSP, or in funny named directories
] via FTP or via agreed file names in incoming directories
] set drwx-wx-wx. Other kinds of unpopular content have
] been published on web pages for a short time until the
] censor gets to work and threatens the ISP, the
] publisher's employee, and the publisher with law suits.
] Sometimes these web pages get mirrored, if there is
] someone interested, and spoiling for a fight, or if the
] content is only censored by force of law in one
] jurisdiction.

Decius and I were talking about anonymous messaging over the weekend, and he pointed this out to me. I don't know why more people do not use this.

Eternity Datahaven

] The US broadcast regulator has been told by appeal judges
] it has "crossed the line" with an anti-piracy tag which
] stops programmes being copied.
]
] The "broadcast flag" is a small bit of data attached to
] US digital broadcasts. It tells devices that receive
] digital signals the level of copy protection.
]
] From 1 July, any device that cannot read the flag will be
] illegal to make.
]
] But the panel of appeal judges said the Federal
] Communications Commission (FCC) should not dictate how
] devices work.
]
] "You crossed the line," Judge Harry Edwards told a FCC
] lawyer during arguments before a three-judge panel of the
] US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit.
]
] "Selling televisions is not what the FCC is in the
] business of."

At least some judges get it. First of all the FCC shouldn't make mandates that solely benefit the MPAA. They are an agent of the government, and their decisions should be made solely on its benefit to the American people. Giving NBC the power to decide whether I am allowed to record "Law & Order" is not in my interest.

] They are also concerned that the rule would mean the FCC
] has the right to say how TVs, computers, and other
] devices capable of receiving digital signals, are built
] and used.

... Hmmm I could see that if the court favors the FCC, the FCC will basically have the power to regular how devices receive any digital content boardcast over the air. Such as Video and Audio streams traveling to my PC over wireless networking.

] The entertainment industry is concerned about technology
] that facilitates piracy
] It could also mean, they say, next-generation TVs and
] other receiver technologies are more expensive.

Take your lobbyists and their bullshit fear-mongering and go home. Just because most of SE Asia is pirating "24" doesn't mean that my TV needs to be more expensive. A kid sewing my Nikes isn't buying from you anyway, so don't tell me you lost billions last year.

I'd be very interested in a more detailed breakdown of their "piracy" stats. I want to see how many movies/TV shows are downloaded by *Americans* a year. I want to see the revenue numbers for movies and TV shows for the last 5 years. I want to see *exactly* how revenue matched predictions. I want to know revenue loss. And no, each download of a show of "24" does not translate to $29.99 DVD that now will not be sold. And I want a mathematical proof showing that US equipment needs to be more expensive to offset your "losses" due to US piracy.

] The UK digital terrestrial platform, Freeview, and other
] receivers do not employ a copy protection technology.

I love the UK. Even if they are rather socialist and have cameras everywhere. They don't let bloated businesses that fail to evolve their business plan fuck their citizens.

Court: FCC 'crossed the line' with broadcast flag

] SHA-1 has been broken. Not a reduced-round version. Not a
] simplified version. The real thing.

All your digital signatures are belong to us.

You have no chance to survive make new keys.

(well, not really new keys, but you get the drift)

Schneier on Security: SHA-1 Broken