You are currently browsing the monthly archive for March 2007.
I love to read… Yes, I know I’ve said that before, but it’s true. I love the feel of words of words in print just as much as I do how those words were used to craft a message or a story.
Yes, some people are writers and some are authors, and no doubt it’s true that most people cannot tell the difference, but I’ll leave that to the professionals
… and now for something completely different?
It’s always sad when a publishing house folds or is absorbed by a larger conglomerate and it’s authors are relegated to the archives… often because what they write does not fit within the new editor-in-chief’s mindset of what is good and what isn’t, what is relevant and what is not… and given some of the books I’ve seen in print recently, I don’t believe many of them know the difference.
Why must we force children to accept adult responsibilities, adult behaviour and adult depression? It seems adults insist that “if I feel bad, so must everyone else.”
I’m tired of angst books for teens. So many of them, written by adults in the publishing industry, are simply therapy for the author who is either trying to get over a broken heart… twenty or thirty years after the fact, or is dealing with the pain and loss of a loved one… and want’s everyone else to feel their agony.
… and get paid for it while they’re at it.
Whatever happened to humour? Or are afraid to laugh because the political and media mindset of “terrorism, death and sickness… live with it or die” is so pervasive that we need to read about it in every book we pick up? Do teens really need to read about office politics?
Maybe this guy knows the answer.
While browsing the web for some spec’s on an old tape deck I ran across a real audio treat… If you like jazz, try listening to some sweet samples here
The first track on the flash player is The Kuniyoshi Yashiro Project’s recording of Hammond Bossa. Unfortuantely, the albumn that this track comes from seems to be unavailable… a pity.
The other four tracks are equally sweet… and seemingly impossible to find.
If the good folks at Nakamichi ever decide to loose these tracks to the world, I’ll be willing to buy the CD… Really!
Colorado Woman Sues To Hold Web Crawlers To Contracts
A Web Site owner has filed a lawsuit against the Internet Archive.
Question: “Can software programs be held liable for their actions?”
“Computers can enter into contracts on behalf of people”… Yes,and thanks to the UETA, therein lies half of the problems we face as a result of using the “World Wide Web” as it exists today.
According to the Uniform Electronic Transactions Act (UETA), a “contract may be formed by the interaction of electronic agents of the parties, even if no individual was aware of or reviewed the electronic agents’ actions or the resulting terms and agreements.”
…and as the author of the article points out, “This presumes a prior agreement to do business electronically”.
So what constitutes such an agreement? The Internet Archive, which spiders the Internet to copy Web sites for posterity (unless site owners opt out), is being sued by a Web site owner for…and I quote; “conversion, civil theft, breach of contract, and violations of the Racketeering Influence and Corrupt Organizations act and the Colorado Organized Crime Control Act.”
Whoa…
The Web-Author’s site states, “IF YOU COPY OR DISTRIBUTE ANYTHING ON THIS WEB SITE, YOU ARE ENTERING INTO A CONTRACT,”
Imagine trying to teach a Web Spider how to read contracts… and laugh yourself silly.
… or sick.
Driving home the new car today, trying deperately to avoid people talking on cell phones while driving and not paying attention to other cars around them made me think of these…
Courtesy of Infoworld.com
Oh… and the new car?
Ja! V-dub in da house!
Oh No Mister Bill?
Poster seen in beauty shop:
Wanted to Rent: Country farm house, with no irony water.
“When a force of nature like John Belushi is lost, 25 years isn’t time enough to ease the grief or erase the laughter.” I agree hearitly with that sentiment.
Actor, Commedian, Impish Genius… died 5 March 1982, but not forgotten.
It is heartbreaking when someone you’ve come to know and care for deeply over many long years has to say goodbye to something that is so close to their heart and that is so much a part of that person that you wonder how they will go on without it.
… and so it is with a heartfelt prayer that my dear friend Annabelle and I say adieu for now to the real life Senor Whip (pronounced: seen-your-wheep).
Let it not be too long before we meet again.
No Fooling… and it’s not even April.
Justice is not for all. Any longer, it’s ‘guilty until proven innocent!’
A good and innocent woman has been served an injustice. Julie Amero was found guilty of something she could not possibly have done.
… and here’s the reason why!
Please read the following article carefully. It comes from Windows Secrets, one of the leading newsletters dedicated to analyzing and reporting on Microsoft’s OS and software.
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Pop-up ads can land you in jail
By Ryan Russell
If you find yourself the victim of pop-up ads on a computer, with children in the vicinity, you could face decades in prison.
I wish that I was exaggerating or being sensationalistic, but for Julie Amero this is far too real.
Meet Julie Amero, substitute teacher
There’s a good chance that you’ve already heard something about Julie. She’s perhaps better known as the Connecticut substitute schoolteacher who’s been convicted of “child endangerment.” She now faces a sentence of up to 40 years in prison because porn pop-ups appeared on a school computer.
For background on the case, you can read articles from the New York Times, MSNBC, or SecurityFocus. (Full disclosure: WSN editorial director Brian Livingston is quoted in the New York Times piece supporting Julie. The article at the MSNBC site is also a good read, but I don’t recommend the accompanying video, which starts out with a falsehood and goes downhill from there.)
Let me begin by saying that I’m biased when it comes to Julie’s innocence. I’m doing my best to spread the word about her case, and have offered my technical skills to support her defense. I have access to some technical experts who are reviewing the trial transcripts and computer forensic evidence. I can’t point to a public reference to support all of my positions yet, so you’ll just have to take my word, for the time being.
There are many points I could make about what’s wrong with her case. But I’ll stick with my core competency and just point out some of the technical flaws.
Flawed technology condemns an educator
The key issues were set in motion before Julie ever arrived to substitute-teach on the day in October 2004 that the pop-ups occurred. The school district had allowed its Web-filtering software support contract to expire, preventing the software from receiving updates. The computer in question was running Windows 98, and the browser in use was IE 6.
According to evidence analysis performed by Alex Shipp, an independent malware researcher, the antivirus software was a trial version of Cheyenne Antivirus (CA). That product had been discontinued by Computer Associates on Mar. 17, 2004. It appears that CA issued a last courtesy update on June 30. Julie taught the class on Oct. 19. The computer had no antispyware software.
In other words, this computer had almost no protection and an unsecurable operating system. This is the machine Julie was given to use.
On the day in question, the regular teacher was there before class to log Julie into the computer. Substitutes didn’t have their own accounts, and were ordered not to log out or shut down the computer. Julie left briefly and, when she returned, the regular teacher was gone. She found students, some of whom didn’t even belong in the upcoming class, Web surfing on the teacher’s computer.
Experts now analyzing the hard-drive image have confirmed that the computer had been infected with adware days before Julie’s arrival. Unfortunately, in this case, that means that when a student tried to visit a hairstyle Web site, he or she was instead redirected to a different site that had adult products advertised. When Julie tried to close the site down, this started a pop-up cascade.
One thing I should mention about Julie: She’s a total “computerphobe.” She can perform basic computing functions, but that’s about it.
So what did she do when she couldn’t get rid of the pop-ups? She turned the screen away from the students. It was at the front of the room, where the students would have had to be essentially at the teacher’s desk in order to see. She did her best to get rid of the images without making it obvious to the students that something was wrong. If a student approached, she reportedly chased them away.
During a break, Julie went for technical help to get rid of the pop-ups, which reappeared as fast as she tried to close them, but she received no help. No one would return to the classroom with her. She was told not to worry about it. However, she was worried about it, and it turns out she had reason to worry — she was later arrested for “child endangerment.”
Legal system fails pop-up victim
When law enforcement became involved, sanity should have prevailed. Instead, the technical flubs continued, and the case sped downhill. A detective was assigned to take a forensic image of the computer and perform a technical analysis.
Let me briefly tell you what I know about taking a proper forensic image of a computer that will be involved in a criminal case. Keep in mind that I’m not a forensics expert; these standards are just common knowledge in the computer security field.
If you’re going to image a drive for evidence, you have to use special write-blocking hardware that helps take a sector-by-sector image of the entire hard drive, including the “empty” space. The image is then hashed so that any tampering will be evident, and you always work from copies.
Typically, only software tools with support from existing case law are used. Otherwise, questions can arise over the soundness of the tools and techniques. The imaging tools that have case law behind them are EnCase and the Unix dd utility.
The detective in this case took an “image” of the hard drive with Norton Ghost. Norton Ghost is a tool used to back up a computer’s hard drive in order to restore it to a known state after people have modified the configuration. It is often used on training or lab machines. There is nothing wrong with Ghost for what it does, but it is not a forensic tool.
So what did the detective use to examine the “image”? He used a program called ComputerCOP Pro. It appears that the program displays a version of the Internet Explorer history, which shows the URLs that were visited. At trial, this ended up translating to the prosecutor telling the jury that this means that Julie “physically clicked” those links. In fact, pop-ups show up in the history the same way as a link you click on.
In truth, the software also cannot tell you who was in front of the computer, who typed in a URL, or who saw the pictures displayed. It’s clear that someone who lacks the technical background to properly interpret the results, and is not willing to put in the time to figure it out, can jump to some very wrong conclusions. The detective never even looked for spyware on the computer.
This is the kind of technical evidence on which Julie was convicted.
An innocent teacher awaits sentencing
Julie is now awaiting sentencing, which is scheduled for Mar. 2. I could discuss jail-time possibilities, but many of us are still refusing to accept any possibility other than someone coming to their senses and throwing the verdict out.
To that end, the experts I mentioned are frantically preparing their report on the technical information. The hope is that the prosecution or court will recognize that there has been a basic mistake in the facts presented at trial before a sentence is handed down.
Despite my bias that I told you about, do you have reasonable doubt about Julie’s guilt? For more information, see the julieamer blog at Blogspot, which is largely maintained by Julie’s husband. There’s a PayPal button at the top of that blog so people can contribute to help pay Julie’s defense costs, which are reported to be over $20,000 so far.
