EULAlyzer™ 1.0

Analyze license agreements for interesting words and phrases.

This is a very good idea. I've wondered before about the idea of making a parser to sum up legal contract text. It always seemed like something that was possible, even if way outside my personal coding skill level.

I hope they release a OSX version of this.

EULAlyzer

One clever MySpace user looking to expand his buddy list recently figured out how to force others to become his friend, and ended up creating the first self-propagating cross-site scripting (XSS) worm. In less than 24 hours, "Samy" had amassed over 1 million friends on the popular online community.

MySpace has gotten hit with the first XSS worm to target social networking sites. Here is some analysis from Acidus:

Basically the worm was XSS embedded in someone’s profile on MySpace. When someone would view the profile, they would execute the Javascript in their own browser. The payload of the XSS was Ajax which would make GET and POST requests to MySpace, adding the XSS Payload to that user’s profile. This spreads the worm!

As with most worms using a new attack vector, this was harmless, adding the message “samy is my hero” to each infected profile along with the XSS payload.

Acidus has also posted the source code of the XSS Payload, and says he plans to post a more detailed analysis later.

BetaNews | Cross-Site Scripting Worm Hits MySpace

Please don't get pissed off cause we think you're cool and all but you can't see the forrest for the trees, so stop doing what you are doing right away. Also, could you please document all your processes so we can fire you and take over your operation? Oh, and if you happen to have $100,000 could you help a brother out? BTW, we think your web site is totally COOL!!!11 I've enclosed a copy of my latest spoken word album. If you could host it that would rock.

Translated by Decius. I had no idea he could speak Arabic...

Letter from Zawahari to Zarqawi

A four-month ABC News investigation found gaping security holes at many of the little-known nuclear research reactors operating on 25 college campuses across the country. Among the findings: unmanned guard booths, a guard who appeared to be asleep, unlocked building doors and, in a number of cases, guided tours that provided easy access to control rooms and reactor pools that hold radioactive fuel.

Why does this not shock me at all?

ABC Investigation Finds Gaping Lapses in Security at Nuclear Reactors

noteworthy wrote:

If you compare johnny cash and thomas friedman over the last two months, you'll find that Thomas Friedman has about as much "influence" on the blogosphere as the late Johnny Cash. Interestingly, you'll also find that a curiously large percentage of the peaks and valleys coincide on the two graphs, suggesting that other factors are at work. The same can be said for sheryl crow. In other words, garbage in, garbage out. This isn't exactly a well-groomed data set.

All your points are valid.. BlogPulse isn't exactly the greatest way to gauge interest in a given subject accurately. There are cases when you can see a sudden surge of interest, but that's about it. The hurricanes are a good example of that. However, there is another metric available to us that is quite telling.

In the web statistics for MemeStreams, we have seen a very noticeable surge of inbound search engine traffic for all posts that mention NYT columnists such as Thomas Friedman and Paul Krugman. This implies that people are looking for posts in the blogs that are quoting material from their columns, via bloggers who are actually paying for the TimesSelect service. This post will get a significant number of hits just because I mentioned their names.

If there is any dispute that Johnny Cash is way more important than Thomas Friedman, it would be a slightly refined version of your query that searches for "thomas friedman" as opposed to just "friedman". Johnny Cash is part of the background radiation of American culture, where Friedman is at best part of its more informed business and foreign policy dialogue.

Johnny Cash is way more important than Thomas Friedman

"We would not have invaded a country that didn't attack us," he said, referring to Iraq. "We would not have taken money from the working families and given it to the most wealthy families."

(AP) Former US Vice President Al Gore speaks at an economic forum in Stockholm, Sweden, "We would not be trying to control and intimidate the news media. We would not be routinely torturing people," Gore said. "We would be a different country."

I like Gore, but I don't think it was prudent for him to make these statements when out of the country. Do it here, but don't do it overseas. Come to MTSU and do it. Its too easy for foreign media to twist around. You don't have to blow sunshine up the presidents ass, but don't act like you are campaigning for your political party when out of the country. Its just unwise.

"Of course a woman could get elected president," he said. "I am not going to make any comment on individual candidates. It's quite premature."

Not that this should have been open game, but it shows his thinking was very partisan in nature. When overseas, you are not representing a party, you are representing the country.

My Way News - Gore speaks out on Bush when in Sweden

When reading the latest commentary on Harriet Miers, I found myself curious about where her position in the West Wing was. Over the course of trying to get an answer to this, I got sidetracked reading various papers about the history of various parts of the White House. I figured I'd pass this on, in case anyone else found it interesting.

The best source I've found for the current West Wing floor-plan come from the Washington Post. Depending on which version is correct, Miers has an office either right down the hall from the president or on the south-west corner of the second floor. Both are prime locations.

The Federation of American Scientists has another page with the layout of the West Wing, including the ground floor containing the Situation Room. This paper written by a Navy staffer who worked in the Situation Room gives a good breakdown of its history and operations.

Its been closed since September 11th, but the bowling alley in the White House complex is still there. It was in the West Wing previous to 1961 when the Situation Room was built, and now resides in the Eisenhower Building. Strangely, the bowling alley has never made an appearance on the The West Wing TV show, who's floor-plan is similar to the real West Wing in some ways, but has major differences.

The people of Belgium have been left reeling by the first adult-only episode of the Smurfs, in which the blue-skinned cartoon characters' village is annihilated by warplanes.

Anyone who comes across a torrent of this, please post it.

Telegraph | Unicef bombs the Smurfs in fund-raising campaign for ex-child soldiers

After research, John Fund has changed his mind about Miers, leading to this must-read article.

Conservatives shouldn't care about her personal views on issues if they can convince themselves that she agrees with Chief Justice John Roberts's view of a judge's role: that cases should be decided the way an umpire calls balls and strikes, without rooting for either team. But the evidence of Ms. Miers's views on jurisprudence resemble a beach on which someone has walked without leaving any footprints: no court opinions, no law review articles, and no internal memos that President Bush is going to share with the Senate.

It is traditional for nominees to remain silent until their confirmation hearings. But previous nominees, while unable to speak for themselves, have been able to deploy an array of people to speak persuasively on their behalf. In this case, the White House spin team has been pathetic, dismissing much of the criticism of Ms. Miers as "elitism" or even echoing Democratic senators who view it as "sexist." But it was Richard Land , president of the Southern Baptist Convention, who went so far as to paint Ms. Miers as virtually a tool of the man who has been her client for the past decade. "In Texas, we have two important values, courage and loyalty," he told a conference call of conservative leaders last Thursday. "If Harriet Miers didn't rule the way George W. Bush thought she would, he would see that as an act of betrayal and so would she." That is an argument in her favor. It sounds more like a blood oath than a dignified nomination process aimed at finding the most qualified individual possible.

Reactions to her from her former colleagues were mixed. Craig McDaniel, a liberal council member, praises her ability to get along with diverse groups of people and tells the Dallas Voice, a gay newspaper, "This is as good as we would ever get out of a Republican administration." Jerry Bartos, a conservative council colleague, rated her effectiveness at "zero" and called her "the consummate loner." But Sharon Boyd, a longtime friend and GOP activist, says many conservatives resented her solely because she had remained a Democrat until 1988. Ms. Boyd calls Ms. Miers's record on the council "very conservative." Yet when pressed for examples, she could only offer Ms. Miers's opposition to civil unions for gays and support for a constitutional amendment against flag burning.

David Frum, a former Bush speechwriter, who describes Ms. Miers's role in the White House as largely that of a "bureaucrat who couldn't see the forest for the trees," nonetheless believes that Team Bush is right--but only for a while. He believes she will be remain a conservative justice at least until Mr. Bush leaves office in early 2009. "But then the Bushies will have gone home, and she will develop new friends, and then the inevitable tug to the left may prove irresistible."

Indeed, in many ways, Ms. Miers resembles the early Sandra Day O'Connor, another elected official who backed some liberal positions during her time in the Arizona Legislature. As Justice O'Connor began drifting to the center she became the crucial swing vote on a host of cases. Legal scholars began referring to the "O'Connor Court." Now, with Ms. Miers slated to take the O'Connor seat it may become the "Miers Court."

"This is the most closely divided court in history," says Jay Sekulow , a conservative legal activist who backs Ms. Miers. "Everybody knows what is at stake here." With such high stakes, it should disappoint everyone that the Senate will now have to debate the confirmation of a nominee who, when it comes to Constitutional law, resembles a secret agent more than a scholar.

I also suggest reading this post on The Volokh Conspiracy.

OpinionJournal - Miers Remorse

I am sorry to inform all interested parties that Red Rose Stories is a DEAD site.

The FBI has suceeded in closing me down.

I am being charged with 'OBSCENITIES' and face charges for having posted fantasy stories.

They are trying to say fantasy stories are illegal.

The men in black (FBI) took ALL of my computer equipment, and many of my diskettes,
and have access to ALL my files and site information. They came when I was NOT home and seized my belongings, I had no choice, and no recourse.

BoingBoing seems to be providing coverage of a number of cases. My understanding is that the stories on this site were, ehm, perhaps a bit over the top. Certainly not the sort of writing one would recommend in polite company, or even, perhaps, in impolite company.

Nevertheless, they are just stories. They aren't pictures. They aren't movies. They are written stories. They are someone's thoughts. If it can be a crime to publish these stories then the only appropriate name for that sort of crime is thoughtcrime. This person's house has been raided for sharing inappropriate thoughts.

The owner of NowThatsFuckedUp is also feeling the heat and has been charged with 300 misdemeanors and one felony. He's in jail on more than $150K bail. The site is basically a discussion board where people are encouraged to post links to pictures and video of amateur porn. In this situation, the web site administrator was encouraging people to send pictures from Iraq in exchange for free access to paid sections of the site.

Ask your Republican friends who claim to advocate a strict constructionalist jurisprudence to explain how this is consistent with a literal reading of the first amendment.

The Bush Administration's porn war has begun