A drug created by the former KGB to keep its agents sober so that they could drink opponents under the table before stealing their secrets is being sold on the internet to Hollywood stars as a defence against hangovers.

anti-hangover pill

On the one hand, its good to have access to their views. On the other hand, they are very careful about what they say. Enemy Combatant detention authority may have been sustained, but frankly, the only people who agree that this is a good idea are people who self identify with the government and feel like they should be able to do anything to "bad guys." No reasonable explanations for this power have been made to the public, and by not making one here the DOJ further demonstrates that its not defensible.

This is just an example. The ACLU ought to offer a response.

DOJ spending your money to take your rights

] Before a few days ago it didn't matter whether VeriSign
] was the owner or a caretaker. Now it matters a lot.
] VeriSign kicked a sleeping dog. It's a bizarre thing to
] do. Was it really VeriSign's decision to make,
] unilaterally? Did it need permission to make this
] decision?

ONLamp.com: Paul Vixie on VeriSign [Sep. 23, 2003]

] We call on ICANN to examine the procedures for changes in
] service, including provisions to protect users from
] abrupt changes in service.
]
] We call on the IAB, the IETF, and the operational
] community to examine the specifications for the domain
] name system and consider whether additional
] specifications could improve the stability of the overall
] system. Most urgently, we ask for definitive
] recommendations regarding the use and operation of
] wildcard DNS names in TLDs and the root domain, so that
] actions and expectations can become universal.

This really didn't get much coverage yesterday given that it came out shortly after Verisign's arrogant response. Its interesting. If ICANN could do something, this document would specifically say "Verisign is in violation of XYZ." It doesn't. What it says is that rules need to be reconsidered and clarified. IE, what they have done is not against the current rules. ICANN has the right under their contracts to create new policies, and Verisign must abide by those policies once they are approved within a reasonable period of time. This document is part of a long documentation trail that will ultimately result in Sitefinder getting shutdown. This process could take years. There are a number of methods that Verisign can use to delay things, including disputing the ICANN process, and filing a breach of contract suit along with a request for preliminary injunction preventing any new ICANN regulation from taking effect, and then delaying and delaying and delaying on going to trial, and then appealing and appealing... Once the court process is over with Verisign gets 4 months to implement any change ICANN requires. Furthermore, we're not anywhere near that stage yet. We are miles away. There is all kinds of IAB, IETF, and ICANN beaurocratic bullshit that has to occur first.

I hope I'm wrong, but I doubt it. They should have had a clause in the contract that prevents Verisign from making disruptive changes without seeking approval. They don't. This is a loophole big enough to drive a truck through, and Verisign just did. By the time this actually gets resolved will we have been living with it for so long that no one will notice.

If this issue is not resolved by Phreaknic I will use my speaking time there to call for a move to a DNS system that exists outside of ICANN's control. Its not really their fault, but this situation cannot be allowed to go on for years.

ICANN can't do anything...

] Activists have also questioned the political affiliations
] of the leading voting companies. Late last year, Harris
] found that Sen. Chuck Hagel, a Nebraska Republican, used
] to run the voting company that provided most of the
] voting machines in his state. And in August, the
] Cleveland Plain Dealer reported that Walden O'Dell, the
] CEO of Diebold, is a major fundraiser for President Bush.
] In a letter to fellow Republicans, O'Dell said that he
] was "COMMITTED TO HELPING OHIO DELIVER ITS ELECTORAL
] VOTES TO THE PRESIDENT NEXT YEAR."
]
] But the problems Harris found in Diebold's system are
] perhaps the best proof yet that electronic voting systems
] aren't ready for prime time. Indeed, the vulnerabilities
] in the software, as well as the internal memos, raise
] questions about the legitimacy of the California recall
] election. In its ruling, the 9th Circuit Court put the
] election on hold until the six counties that currently
] use punch-card systems -- six counties that comprise 44
] percent of the state's voters -- upgrade their systems.
] On Monday, 11 judges on the 9th Circuit reheard the
] recall case; they may very well allow the election to go
] ahead on Oct. 7. If the recall vote is put on hold until
] March, however, many may wonder whether to trust the
] results: Four of the six punch-card counties -- including
] the largest, Los Angeles and San Diego -- have plans to
] upgrade to Diebold machines by March.

Very good article, with links to Diebold's internal memos, on the electronic voting systems.

I think that Harris is a conspiracy theorist. Certainly if the elections in Georgia were stolen that would be a historic fraud, a great mar on our history. However, it is not appropriate to allege that unless you've got proof. Saying "Oh, oh, oh, this might have occured..." simply serves to rile up people's emotions and it contributes to the ignorance and confusion that surrounds this issue. The quotes in the Diebold memos about "King County" are obviously not in reference to election fraud. Later in the same memo the same person discussess the concerns that Texas has about the use of this capability for such a purpose.

On the other hand, the Diebold memos demonstrate a complete lack of computer security clue on the part of the engineers. The fact that you have a password on your .mdb file isn't going to keep me out of it, in particular when you've handed me software that has access to it. Furthermore, the fact these morons are confident enough of their clue level to be poking fun at the "technical wizards" in the certifying companies is enough to turn the stomach.

All of these people simply seem to be in way the hell over their heads, and none of them seem to realize it.

Salon.com Technology | An open invitation to election fraud

Global warming or local warming, it's still probably not too super...

CNN.com - Report: Giant Arctic ice shelf breaks up - Sep. 22, 2003

] WASHINGTON, Sept. 22 — All nine members of an expert panel
] established by Congress to advise NASA on safety resigned today,
] with several citing frustration over a lack of influence.

Whoa!

All 9 Members of a NASA Safety Panel Resign

] This will respond to the ICANN Advisory concerning
] VeriSign's Deployment of DNS Wildcard Service
] dated 19 September 2003. In the footsteps of several
] other registries that have done the same, we recently
] deployed a wildcard in the .com and .net zones.
] This was done after many months of testing and
] analysis and in compliance with all applicable technical
] standards. All indications are that users,
] important members of the internet community we
] all serve, are benefiting from the improved web
] navigation offered by Site Finder. These results
] are consistent with the findings from the
] extensive research we performed.

Verisign Responds to ICANN

] An international group of cryptographers, the Kryptos
] Group, announced this week that the decade-old Cyrillic
] Projector Code has been cracked, and that it deciphers to
] some classified KGB instructions and correspondence.
]
] The Cyrillic Projector is an encrypted sculpture at the
] University of North Carolina in Charlotte, that was
] created by Washington DC artist James Sanborn in the
] early 1990s. It was inspired by the encrypted Kryptos
] sculpture that Sanborn created two years earlier for CIA
] Headquarters.
]
] The message on the Cyrillic Projector has turned out to
] be in two parts. The decrypted first part is a Russian
] text encouraging secret agents to psychologically control
] potential sources of information. The second part appears
] to be a partial quote from classified KGB correspondence
] about the Soviet dissident Sakharov, with concerns that
] his report to the Pugwash conference was being used by
] the Americans for an anti-Soviet agenda.

Press Release: The Cyrillic Projector Code Has Been Solved

] Whenever someone thinks that they can replace SSL/SSH
] with something much better that they designed this morning
] over coffee, their computer speakers should generate some
] sort of penis-shaped sound wave and plunge it repeatedly
] into their skulls until they achieve enlightenment.

Problems with popular open source VPN tools