Decius: I hope this post looks silly in 24 hours.

The good news is that your post doesn't look silly.

Three attempts to pump mud and 16 tries to stuff solid material into a breached Gulf of Mexico oil well failed to stop the flow, top BP executives said Saturday, and engineers and executives with the oil giant have decided to "move on to the next option."

That's the bad news.

The next option is to inject lawyers and lobbyists into the breached blowout preventer until a compromise is reached with the oil well.

Top Kill, fail.

And this is new? HONK if you want to hack in China, as long as it is against the US, right?

General: China taking on U.S. in cyber arms race - CNN.com

From Decius:

If anyone has advice about appealing to the companies providing filtering solutions, chime in...

Ok, here is what I'd do right off...

This is crazy - THIS? lol A HACKER site? WTF? US? Never!
...ahem...this is a news site much like digg in apparent functionality and presentation. (On a superficial level.)

I'll try to read up and find out what I can. I did quickly find that Chris Prillo's site is also blocked. For, of all things, Mature Content. WTF
http://chris.pirillo.com/2005/01/10/sonicwall-content-filter-service/

Perhaps it is just that the techs at Sonic Wall think the best way of protecting networks is to protect their users from associating with highly technical users. lol

So it seems their filters are totally whacked, but surely they have some way of updating them.

Surely they don't expect admins everywhere to handfix their boo boos?

I've never messed with Sonicwall, (I thought those things were cheap toys, so Pix or Checkpoints for me...) I'm not sure how the filters are applied. I have a friend that has one implemented, I'll ask her. I assume it is some sort of Sonic Wall subsciption service or web push on the filtered list. WHo maintains that? That's the contact point.

If I had one of them, I'd consider it defective, lol, I'd write the attorney general in their state, and the bbb in their city. OH man that works wonders.

If a friendly request doesn't remove memestreams from the list, then perhaps it needs to be very widely blogged and posted on individual webpages, in a factual way - of how ludicrous the filters seem to be. (Finding other examples to post links to, as well.) Also product reviews...and of course...a bit of a factual, viral advertisement of how their filter system performs.

Many of us here are security consultants...we don't have to implement or advertise their stuff, do we?

MemeStreams banned by Web Filters

What a way not to connect with the modern pagan audience.

Slaughter: Horror at Sony's depraved promotion stunt with decapitated goat | the Daily Mail

In May, London-based Hip Hop artist M.I.A. revealed that she was denied a visa to come work with American music producers on her next album. News reports indicate that the Sri Lankan-born artist was excluded because government officials concluded that some of her lyrics are overly sympathetic to the Tamil Tigers and the Palestinian Liberation Organization.

Here is some background on MIA:

Level 2 is a bit thornier. Arular's lyrics don't seem to mean much, but they're catchy as all hell: "Blaze to blaze, galang-a-lang-a-lang-a/Purple haze, galang-a-lang-a-lang," she sings on "Galang," her debut single from last year. You notice a few other catchphrases, too, like "freedom fighter," "Pull up the people/Pull up the poor," and "I got the bombs to make you blow/I got the beats to make you bang." Whatever—none of this means much, in and of itself. Intrigued, you go to her incredibly psychedelic Web site (www.miauk.com) and wait for a Flash animation to load. The graphic shown on the screen while you wait is a cute cartoon image of bundled sticks of dynamite, ready to explode. You read her bio and see that she had a rough childhood; she lived in war-torn Sri Lanka as a kid, and her father wasn't around much. He was in the Tamil Tigers, where his nickname was "Arular"—the title of M.I.A.'s album. You don't know much about the Tamil Tigers, besides the fact that they don't seem to be a baseball team, and read on. It looks like she moved to the U.K. with her mother as a refugee a little over 15 years ago. Since then, she's turned her life around, graduating from a top British art school and making a name for herself by playing with loaded images, tearing them out of context and throwing them onto canvases: bright, Warhol-esque screen prints of war and strife, from guns and bombs to tigers.

So is MIA a threat to state security? Somehow, I don't think so.

As far as idealogical slants go, rock n' roll, hiphop, and just about every other form of popular music has been a dangerous threat to the state at one point or another. Not to go into one of those arguments that contains the phrase "slippery slope", but common people.. [ waves his hand ] These are not the threats to the state you are looking for...

Ladies and Gentlemen, just because we killed Mother Russia in the 80's doesn't mean we have to take her place in the uh-oh's...

Musical Threats to The State | Will the Jedi Mind Trick work?

A judge violated a juvenile's free-speech rights when he placed her on probation for posting an expletive-laden entry on MySpace criticizing a school principal, the Indiana Court of Appeals ruled.

"While we have little regard for A.B.'s use of vulgar epithets, we conclude that her overall message constitutes political speech," Judge Patricia Riley wrote in the 10-page opinion.

In February 2006, Greencastle Middle School Principal Shawn Gobert discovered a Web page on MySpace purportedly created by him. A.B., who did not create the page, made derogatory postings on it concerning the school's policy on body piercings.

The state filed a delinquency petition in March alleging that A.B.'s acts would have been harassment, identity deception and identity theft if committed by an adult. The juvenile court dropped most of the charges but in June found A.B. to be a delinquent child and placed her on nine months of probation. The judge ruled the comments were obscene.

Indiana Court: MySpace postings are free speech - Yahoo! News

It is the policy of The Washington Post not to publish anonymous pieces. In this case, an exception has been made because the author -- who would have preferred to be named -- is legally prohibited from disclosing his or her identity in connection with receipt of a national security letter.
---

Without the gag orders issued on recipients of the letters, it is doubtful that the FBI would have been able to abuse the NSL power the way that it did. Some recipients would have spoken out about perceived abuses, and the FBI's actions would have been subject to some degree of public scrutiny.

I found it particularly difficult to be silent about my concerns while Congress was debating the reauthorization of the Patriot Act in 2005 and early 2006. If I hadn't been under a gag order, I would have contacted members of Congress to discuss my experiences and to advocate changes in the law.

I recognize that there may sometimes be a need for secrecy in certain national security investigations. But I've now been under a broad gag order for three years, and other NSL recipients have been silenced for even longer. At some point -- a point we passed long ago -- the secrecy itself becomes a threat to our democracy. In the wake of the recent revelations, I believe more strongly than ever that the secrecy surrounding the government's use of the national security letters power is unwarranted and dangerous. I hope that Congress will at last recognize the same thing.

My National Security Letter Gag Order - washingtonpost.com

OH man - those people need help. Really.

Boston PD: Putting the 'error' in Terror

Bomb units scrambled across Boston and Somerville today to investigate several suspicious devices.

The reports forced the temporary shutdowns of Interstate 93 out of the city, a key inbound roadway, a bridge between Boston and Cambridge, and a portion of the Charles River but were quickly determined not to be explosive.

"It's a hoax -- and it's not funny," Gov. Deval Patrick said.

Officials at Mayor Menino's office say the devices appear to resemble a cartoon character. It could be related to characters from the cartoon, "Aqua Teen Hunger Force."

This is right up there with the smiley face bomber.

Heh.. It was a marketing campaign. Adult Swim paralyzed Boston. I don't care what anyone says, this is funny as hell. I mean, everyone know that having LEDs in the shape of a cartoon character is the perfect way to disguise an IED...

cbs4boston.com - Hoax Devices Creating Gridlock In Boston

Rita Katz is in the kill chain!

Open-source information gathering can rival, if not surpass, the clandestine intelligence produced by government agencies.

The "collaboration" section of this article essentially describes the MemeStreams model.

Why aren't you selling it? (A: We are not sure anyone takes us seriously. We are working on that.)

America will be a more secure country once it discards the notion that secrecy is equal to strength.

The Jebsen Center at Tufts, mentioned in this article, has an open-invite Brown Bag lunch seminar program. Coming up in February, the NYPD intelligence department will conduct a recruiting Q&A session for those interested in counterterrorism.

The Wikipedia way to better intelligence