The first person to note that the Aleutian Cleveland Volcano was spewing ash was astronaut Jeffrey N. Williams aboard the International Space Station.

Looking down on the Alaskan Aleutian Islands two weeks ago, Williams noted, photographed, and reported a spectacular ash plume emanating from the Cleveland Volcano.

APOD: 2006 June 7 - An Alaskan Volcano Erupts

We've all heard of the Great Firewall of China. These guys found a clever way around it:

The Great Firewall of China is an important tool for the Chinese Government in their efforts to censor the Internet. It works, in part, by inspecting web traffic to determine whether or not particular words are present.
...
It turns out [caveat: in the specific cases we’ve closely examined, YMMV] that the keyword detection is not actually being done in large routers on the borders of the Chinese networks, but in nearby subsidiary machines. When these machines detect the keyword, they do not actually prevent the packet containing the keyword from passing through the main router (this would be horribly complicated to achieve and still allow the router to run at the necessary speed). Instead, these subsiduary machines generate a series of TCP reset packets, which are sent to each end of the connection. When the resets arrive, the end-points assume they are genuine requests from the other end to close the connection — and obey. Hence the censorship occurs.

However, because the original packets are passed through the firewall unscathed, if both of the endpoints were to completely ignore the firewall’s reset packets, then the connection will proceed unhindered! We’ve done some real experiments on this — and it works just fine!! Think of it as the Harry Potter approach to the Great Firewall — just shut your eyes and walk onto Platform 9¾.

Ignoring the Great Firewall of China

Charlton explained to Discovery News that humans have an inherent attraction to physical youth, since it can be a sign of fertility, health and vitality. In the mid-20th century, however, another force kicked in, due to increasing need for individuals to change jobs, learn new skills, move to new places and make new friends.

A “child-like flexibility of attitudes, behaviors and knowledge” is probably adaptive to the increased instability of the modern world, Charlton believes. Formal education now extends well past physical maturity, leaving students with minds that are, he said, “unfinished.”

“The psychological neoteny effect of formal education is an accidental by-product — the main role of education is to increase general, abstract intelligence and prepare for economic activity,” he explained.

“But formal education requires a child-like stance of receptivity to new learning, and cognitive flexibility."

"When formal education continues into the early twenties," he continued, "it probably, to an extent, counteracts the attainment of psychological maturity, which would otherwise occur at about this age.”

WHAT A POO POO HEAD! HAHAHAHAHA!

Serious Study: Immaturity Levels Rising :: Discovery Channel :: News - Human

The world's second richest man - who's now worth $44 billion - tells editor-at-large Carol Loomis he will start giving away 85% of his wealth in July - most of it to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

FORTUNE Magazine: Warren Buffett gives away his fortune - Jun. 25, 2006

This report contains good news and bad news. Here is the good news:

In Jordan, Pakistan and Indonesia, there have been substantial declines in the percentages saying suicide bombings and other forms of violence against civilian targets can be justified to defend Islam against its enemies. The shift has been especially dramatic in Jordan, likely in response to the devastating terrorist attack in Amman last year; 29% of Jordanians view suicide attacks as often or sometimes justified, down from 57% in May 2005.

Confidence in Osama bin Laden also has fallen in most Muslim countries in recent years. This is especially the case in Jordan, where just 24% express at least some confidence in bin Laden now, compared with 60% a year ago. A sizable number of Pakistanis (38%) continue to say they have at least some confidence in the al Qaeda leader to do the right thing regarding world affairs, but significantly fewer do so now than in May 2005 (51%). However, Nigeria's Muslims represent a conspicuous exception to this trend; 61% of Nigeria's Muslims say they have at least some confidence in bin Laden, up from 44% in 2003.

Pew Global Attitudes Project: Introduction and Summary: The Great Divide: How Westerners and Muslims View Each Other

As one might expect, he uses the Katrina disaster to underscore the point that climate change may have serious impacts on society, but he doesn't highlight the connection any more than is appropriate (see our post on this, here).

There are a few scientific errors that are important in the film. At one point Gore claims that you can see the aerosol concentrations in Antarctic ice cores change "in just two years", due to the U.S. Clean Air Act. You can't see dust and aerosols at all in Antarctic cores -- not with the naked eye -- and I'm skeptical you can definitively point to the influence of the Clean Air Act.

OK, I watched it. Its worth watching. It does a good job of describing a number of troubling developments, and risks, in an accessible way.

Unfortunately, the reaction is likely to be rooted in political assumptions. People on the left are likely to be wooed, and the film ends with a positively propagandist song by Melissa Etheridge with information about what you can do to reduce your carbon emissions interspersed with the credits. One wonders which they are more interested in getting the viewer to read.

People on the right are likely to assume that its all a bunch of bullshit. This is not helped by a few points in the film that are debatable. People who find one point to disagree with are likely to blow the whole thing off it they are so inclined. The linked article provides some balanced criticisms. I'm concerned that the Katrina implication does go too far, as the question is, at least, debated. Furthmore, I was suprised to hear him praise Chineese cafe standards, as I recall watching a PBS program on Chineese environmentalism that argued that their standards were not directly comparable to American standards and claims that they had lower emmissions were disingenuous (I can't find a good link for that now).

The fact is that these things shouldn't motivate you to toss the whole film in the bin. There are significant changes occuring in the environment, and there are real risks associated with them, and if you're not knowledgable about the subject this film offers a digestible starting point for thinking about it.

RealClimate » Al Gore’s movie

I (Fyodor) asked users from the nmap-hackers mailing list to share their favorite tools, and 3,243 people responded. This allowed me to expand the list to 100 tools, and even subdivide them into categories. Anyone in the security field would be well advised to go over the list and investigate tools they are unfamiliar with. I discovered several powerful new tools this way.

Top 100 Network Security Tools

The judge in the EFF's surveillance case against AT&T handed out a last-minute homework assignment Tuesday -- a list of 11 written questions (.pdf) that attorneys on all three sides of the case "should be prepared to address" by Friday morning's oral arguments.

This is very suprising, IMHO!

27B Stroke 6 - Judge in AT&T v. EFF case looks critically at State Secrets claim

AT&T has issued an updated privacy policy that takes effect Friday. The changes are significant because they appear to give the telecom giant more latitude when it comes to sharing customers' personal data with government officials.

AT&T rewrites rules: Your data isn't yours

On June 17 2006, a press release denouncing a big bribery scandal was sent out by Taiwan’s Defence Ministry Network. The announcement came from the official source of the Ministry, and the press soon reported the news while outraged comments raised among citizens. However, the statement was not real: Governmental Security Systems were hacked and the intruder managed in using official credits to spread out a fake press release...

What’s interesting in this case is that the operation seems to have been planned to work on a larger scale, over a long period of time in order to damage the public image of Taiwanese government.

www.zone-h.org - CHINA VS. TAIWAN: IT'S CYBER WAR