First, a mashup for the recent Holidaze Season, which is thankfully gone. Or is that another Holiday ?
That'll be Led Zep combined with Xmas tunes for an interesting mix and ... then we have garlic mushrooms.
Just saute some garlic, then toss in some sliced 'shrooms.
Next year they'll be selling it at the Phone Booth in San Francisco or whatever the ballpark is named now.
http://www.quotationspage.com/quote/30302.html
An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.
http://quotes.liberty-tree.ca/quote/thomas_jefferson_quote_efec
"God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion.
The people cannot be all, and always, well informed. The part which is
wrong will be discontented, in proportion to the importance of the facts
they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions,
it is lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. ...
And what country can preserve its liberties, if it's rulers are not
warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of
resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as
to the facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost
in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from
time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
It is its natural manure."
EDIT: August 21, 2007 The Microsoft connection clarified
1. Are we blaming Microsoft for what happened?
We don’t blame anyone but ourselves...2. What was different about this set of Microsoft update patches?
In short – there was nothing different about this set of Microsoft patches...3. How come previous Microsoft update patches didn’t cause disruption?
That’s because the update patches were not the cause of the disruption...
Thank you for being honest about the disruption and not passing the blame to "someone else", Skype.
=====================================================================
On Thursday, 16th August 2007, the Skype peer-to-peer network became unstable and suffered a critical disruption. The disruption was triggered by a massive restart of our users’ computers across the globe within a very short timeframe as they re-booted after receiving a routine set of patches through Windows Update.The high number of restarts affected Skype’s network resources. This caused a flood of log-in requests, which, combined with the lack of peer-to-peer network resources, prompted a chain reaction that had a critical impact.
Normally Skype’s peer-to-peer network has an inbuilt ability to self-heal, however, this event revealed a previously unseen software bug within the network resource allocation algorithm which prevented the self-healing function from working quickly. Regrettably, as a result of this disruption, Skype was unavailable to the majority of its users for approximately two days.
The issue has now been identified explicitly within Skype. We can confirm categorically that no malicious activities were attributed or that our users’ security was not, at any point, at risk.
I'm not that familiar with Skype's software but, ANY software one installs that insists on running when Windows starts up via it's Duhfault settings, is a major PITA.
There's also security implications to consider. There have been known exploits and vulnerabilities in IM/Chat Clients that are resolved when said issuer of such Clients either patch them or upgrade them. Do you really want a vulnerable Client to be connecting to the internet even though it may have a critical vulnerability for which a newly issued exploit is aimed at ?
If I want to run your software, I very well know how to start it, thank you.
Frankly, I do not recall the latest version of Skype that I installed having that as a Duhfault setting. If it did, it was disabled as soon as it was installed, trust me.
Even if Skype's lame excuse were possible ... then I say GOOD.
Serves you right for having your software run on boot because you were the ones who chose that invasive behavior, not Microsoft.
Global Summit 2007
The Microsoft MVP Program is proud to announce plans for the 2007 MVP Global Summit. The Global Summit will occur March 12–15, 2007 in Seattle, Washington at the Washington State Convention and Trade Center, and also at the Microsoft Corporation main campus in Redmond, Washington.The 2007 MVP Global Summit will provide MVPs, regional directors (RDs), and special community influencers four days of activities and technical sessions. At the summit, guests can exchange information with Microsoft executives and product managers, share best practices, network, and have fun. We are especially excited to have Microsoft Chairman and Chief Architect Bill Gates kick off the event with a keynote address.
According to this newspaper article , Teacher guilty in Norwich porn case
State Prosecutor David Smith said he wondered why Julie Amero didn't just pull the plug on her classroom computer.The six-person jury Friday may have been wondering the same thing when they convicted Amero, 40, of Windham of four counts of risk of injury to a minor, or impairing the morals of a child. It took them less than two hours to decide the verdict. She faces a sentence of up to 40 years in prison.
Oct. 19, 2004, while substituting for a seventh-grade language class at Kelly Middle School, Amero claimed she could not control the graphic images appearing in an endless cycle on her computer."The pop-ups never went away," Amero testified. "They were continuous."
The Web sites, which police proved were accessed while Amero was in the classroom, were seen by as many as 10 minor students. Several of the students testified during the three-day trial in Norwich Superior Court to seeing images of naked men and women.
Computer expert W. Herbert Horner, testifying in Amero's defense, said he found spyware on the computer and an innocent hair styling Web site "that led to this pornographic loop that was out of control."
"If you try to get out of it, you're trapped," Horner said.
But Smith countered Horner's testimony with that of Norwich Police Detective Mark Lounsbury, a computer crimes investigator. On a projected image of the list of Web sites visited while Amero was working, Lounsbury pointed out several highlighted links.
"You have to physically click on it to get to those sites," Smith said. "I think the evidence is overwhelming that she did intend to access those Web sites."
Detective Mark Lounsbury, a computer crimes officer at the Norwich Police Department testified as an expert witness for the prosecution. He maintained that Amero was intentionally surfing for pornography while her seventh grade class busied itself with language arts.Lounsbury told the court that Amero musts have "physically clicked" on pornographic links during class time in order to unleash the pornographic pictures. However, he admitted under cross-examination that the prosecution never even checked the computer for malware.
Why didn't the police check for malicious software? According to prosecutor David Smith, the police didn't check for malware because the defense didn't raise the possibility of a malware attack during the pretrial phase, as required by law. Defense attorney Cocheo could not be reached for comment as of press time.
Herb Horner, the proprietor of the consulting firm Contemporary Computing Consultants, testified as an expert witness for the defense. His exhaustive independent forensic analysis of Amero's hard drive showed that the machine had been infected with multiple pieces of malicious software before she arrived at the school, and that these hidden programs were responsible for the pornographic deluge.
Horner arrived in court with two laptops filled with the voluminous records of his investigation. However, the judge only let him present two slides. Prosecutor Smith objected because his team hadn't been previously informed about the malware defense.
Did she knowingly and deliberately visit the pornographic sites while teaching class ?
The police and prosecutor say yes; Mr. Horner says definitely NOT, the system was not in her control and was downloading the porno without any intervention by Ms. Amero.
As anyone who has had their computers taken over by malware will testify, once the virulent form of malware witnessed here takes over, the computer belongs to the Bad Guyz, not the owner nor operator of said system.
Let's hope that justice is served when this case is appealed.
From SF Gate - After Pat's Birthday
Copyright Kevin Tillman
Kevin Tillman joined the Army with his brother Pat in 2002, and they served together in Iraq and Afghanistan. Pat was killed in Afghanistan on April 22, 2004. Kevin, who was discharged in the summer of 2005, has written a powerful, must-read document.
It is Pat's birthday on November 6, and elections are the day after.It gets me thinking about a conversation I had with Pat before we joined the military. He spoke about the risks with signing the papers. How once we committed, we were at the mercy of the American leadership and the American people. How we could be thrown in a direction not of our volition. How fighting as a soldier would leave us without a voice ... until we got out.
Much has happened since we handed over our voice:
Somehow we were sent to invade a nation because it was a direct threat to the American people, or to the world, or harbored terrorists, or was involved in the September 11 attacks, or received weapons-grade uranium from Niger, or had mobile weapons labs, or WMD, or had a need to be liberated, or we needed to establish a democracy, or stop an insurgency, or stop a civil war we created that can't be called a civil war even though it is. Something like that.
Somehow America has become a country that projects everything that it is not and condemns everything that it is.
Somehow our elected leaders were subverting international law and humanity by setting up secret prisons around the world, secretly kidnapping people, secretly holding them indefinitely, secretly not charging them with anything, secretly torturing them. Somehow that overt policy of torture became the fault of a few "bad apples" in the military.
Somehow back at home, support for the soldiers meant having a five-year-old kindergartener scribble a picture with crayons and send it overseas, or slapping stickers on cars, or lobbying Congress for an extra pad in a helmet. It's interesting that a soldier on his third or fourth tour should care about a drawing from a five-year-old; or a faded sticker on a car as his friends die around him; or an extra pad in a helmet, as if it will protect him when an IED throws his vehicle 50 feet into the air as his body comes apart and his skin melts to the seat.
Somehow the more soldiers that die, the more legitimate the illegal invasion becomes.
Somehow American leadership, whose only credit is lying to its people and illegally invading a nation, has been allowed to steal the courage, virtue and honor of its soldiers on the ground. Somehow those afraid to fight an illegal invasion decades ago are allowed to send soldiers to die for an illegal invasion they started.
Somehow faking character, virtue and strength is tolerated.
Somehow profiting from tragedy and horror is tolerated.
Somehow the death of tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of people is tolerated.
Somehow subversion of the Bill of Rights and The Constitution is tolerated.
Somehow suspension of Habeas Corpus is supposed to keep this country safe.
Somehow torture is tolerated.
Somehow lying is tolerated.
Somehow reason is being discarded for faith, dogma, and nonsense.
Somehow American leadership managed to create a more dangerous world.
Somehow a narrative is more important than reality.
Somehow America has become a country that projects everything that it is not and condemns everything that it is.
Somehow the most reasonable, trusted and respected country in the world has become one of the most irrational, belligerent, feared, and distrusted countries in the world.
Somehow being politically informed, diligent, and skeptical has been replaced by apathy through active ignorance.
Somehow the same incompetent, narcissistic, virtueless, vacuous, malicious criminals are still in charge of this country.
Somehow this is tolerated.
Somehow nobody is accountable for this.
In a democracy, the policy of the leaders is the policy of the people. So don't be shocked when our grandkids bury much of this generation as traitors to the nation, to the world and to humanity. Most likely, they will come to know that "somehow" was nurtured by fear, insecurity and indifference, leaving the country vulnerable to unchecked, unchallenged parasites.
Luckily this country is still a democracy. People still have a voice. People still can take action. It can start after Pat's birthday.
Brother and Friend of Pat Tillman,
Kevin Tillman
Editor's Note: Pat Tillman gained fame after he gave up a National Football League career with the Arizona Cardinals to join the Army with his brother following the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, then was killed by friendly fire during combat in Afghanistan.
Thank you, Kevin. May the memory of your fearless, unselfish brother never be forgotten
An extremely interesting article by Ben Edleman on Yahoo's relation to
notorious spyware programs receiving payments, directly or indirectly, from Yahoo!'s pay-per-click (PPC) (Overture) search system. Yahoo pays numerous other companies to show these ads via syndication relationships. So when a spyware vendor can't find advertisers to buy its ad inventory directly, the spyware vendor can show Yahoo ads instead. Every time a user clicks on such an ad, the advertiser must pay Yahoo. Then Yahoo pays a revenue share to the spyware vendor that showed the ad. My August article documented relationships between Yahoo and 180solutions, Claria, Direct Revenue, eXact Advertising, IBIS, and SideFind.
My August article covered "just a few of the ... examples I have observed and recorded." Since then, my Yahoo-spyware collection has grown dramatically. I now have many dozens of different examples of Yahoo pay-per-click ads shown within spyware.
On Veterans Day, for all who served, fought, and perished to defend Freedom, I want to say, I will never forget you. Without you I could not freely express my thoughts. Without you I could not vote for whom I wished to vote for. Without you I would never have experienced Freedom.
From Canada, Two Minutes of Silence is a Pittance ( Right click the link and choose Save as to save bandwidth.
From the US: Experiencing War - Stories from the Veterans History Project
Please view a personal interview with James Frank Dorris where he describes what it was like Liberating Dachau ( Click the Liberating Dachau link under Video (Interview Excerpts) to view it )
No words can adequately express the gratitude that I feel towards you. I will never forget your sacrifice and your bravery. To those who gave their all so that I could live in Freedom, you will always be in my heart and thoughts. So, from the bottom of my heart, I want to say THANK YOU.
Beware crudware vendors ... Just like in the Old West days, vigilantes are a huntin' for ya. This blog is going to go after them, software vendors who's updating mechanism leaves Users at risk, software vendors who do not live up to their agreements, and any one else who tries to bully or rip-off innocent Users.
If I run across any newly published vulnerabilities or patches for them, which I believe will impact a large number of the Internet Community, I'll post 'em here.
Yee haaaa ... there's a new Sheriff in town.
Special thanks go to Robin and Paul. When do you guys sleep ?