Misc. Ramblings

Speaking of fish stories, a Great White shark was spotted in Hawaiian waters. Although it's not possible to say with certainty how many such sharks cruise local waters it is not something that seems to be common. One long-time diver said in 40 years of sports diving he had seen Great Whites only twice.

That said, a Great White estimated to be between 18 - 20ft (5.5 - 6m) was spotted late last week and was recorded on video tape. The video has been shown on local TV but I can't find a source for your viewing pleasure. The clip I saw showed the huge shark brush the under side of the dive boat, partially lifting the boat out of the water with the flick of its (the shark's) tail.

The photographer was lucky that the shark wasn't in a hunting mood because such a shark could have easily cut the diver into two piece with just one bite.

Anyway, welcome to all our mainland visitors who want to splash and cavort in our safe waters. Except, that is, when a Great White shark is around...

Aloha!

Speaking of trust, in order to be trusted, you have to be trustworthy. Most people will give someone the benefit of the doubt. But get burned, even just once, and that trust may be gone forever.

So, when I post something that turns out to be untrue, I try to post an update to let everyone know. Such is the case regarding the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth student who alleged that he had been visited by Homeland Security agents because he had requested the inter-library loan of Mao's "The Little Red Book."

It seems the student lied about the entire incident. His own professors gathered enough information to make the student confirm that he (the student) had lied about what happened. No such incident had occurred.

The article says it is not clear why the student said the things he said.

However, I know why I said the things I said. I said them because I believed the news report. As it turns out, the report was wrong. I therefore must retract all that I said that was related to that incident.

If you are regular reader of fellow Daynoter Rick Hellewell, as I am, you would have heard about what may be one of the more serious Windows vulnerabilities to come through recently. The exploit requires only that you visit an infected site or view an infected email and the dirty deed will be done.

Rick, and other respected security experts, are taking the unprecedented step of recommending the installation of a non-Microsoft patch because of the seriousness of the threat and Microsoft's apparent lack of concern about this threat. As the SANS people indicate:

You cannot wait for the official MS patch, you cannot block this one at the border, and you cannot leave your systems unprotected.

It's time for some real trustworthy computing. All we're asking is if we've proved ourselves to be worthy of your trust.

If you trust these guys, and they've earned such trust over the years, now is the time to take the leap and download the patch.

It was good advice during Watergate and it's good advice now. Follow the money trail and you will track the full meaning of any story. It is not for nothing that Congress has resisted any attempt at meaningful campaign reform. Including attempts to create blind trusts in which donors could contribute to whomever they wished but the receiving party would not know who donated what and how much.

Obviously, such a system would insulate our Congress critters from the intended bribes monetary influence so it will never happen. If donors can't pay off their employee, also known as the Congressman from Texas, why bother contributing?

As the Delay-Abramoff money trail begins to be followed, it becomes clearer just how corrupt both are. From tunneling a million dollars from Russian oil and gas executives to millions from gambling groups. Money flowed to those in power and bought legislation to support their goals.

Whether this distorts our democratic form of government and, as a result, endangers our freedom, I will leave to you to decide. But to the extent our democracy works, it is because of the consent of those who are governed. Loose that consent and you loose what little legitimacy you may have.

Aloha!

Speaking of Linux, Desktop Linux has a short review of Kubuntu 5.10 . As many of you know, Kubuntu is the KDE little brother to the better known Gnome Ubuntu 5.10 ("Breezy Badger". Badger? I don't need no steenkin' Badger!). The reviewer's bottom line? While there is much to like about Kubuntu, if you are looking for a Linux desktop, check out SUSE Linux 10 or Xandros 3.0 instead.

Aloha!

If you like to be on he bleeding edge of technology, Xandros is accepting applications to be beta testers for the Desktop Linux version 4.0. I have no information on what will be included in version 4 nor how stable it currently is so don't blame me if you use it and it eats your hard drive for breakfast, chews it up for lunch, and spits it out for dinner. On the other hand, you get to play with all the cool new tools for Xandros Linux before any of the other kids. YMMV. Insert disclaimer here.

What has 200lbs of thrust, two wheels, and runs on roofing tar?

A rocket propelled bicycle, of course. The folks over at Popular Science have a short story about the bike and the rocket scientist who designed and built it. They say it does zero to 60mph in about five seconds, which is faster than most cars can accelerate. Still, riding a bike traveling that fast must be exhilarating, to say the least.

The article says

To ignite it [the roofing tar], Pickens placed a model-rocket motor inside the engine. A button on the handlebar fires the model-rocket motor, which in turn sets off Pickens's larger motor by lighting the roofing-tar fuel.

What next? A rocket propelled skate board?

Have a Great Weekend, Everyone - Aloha!

Do not try this at home. I repeat, do not try this at home. The folks over at Toms Hardware have a story on using eight gallons of cooking oil to act as a cooling medium for a PC.

Strange at it may seem, I seem to recall that oil is commonly used to cool high power electrical components. However, I have never heard of anyone using oil to cool a PC via immersion. That said, these people took the time to seal a case and make other needed changes to a motherboard and CPU and apparently ended up with a stable, completely quiet PC.

However, I'm not an electrical engineer and I have no idea whether this is safe to do so I'll say it once again, don't try this at home. YMMV. Insert disclaimer here.

Aloha!

There is a political truism that says if you need to announce news that you don't want people to know about, do it on a Friday afternoon/evening or Saturday morning. That way it will get "lost" in the Saturday newspaper editions, which few people read. Although there may be a large measure of cynacism in the saying, there is also, I believe, a kernel of truth.

Whether this is what happened I am not sure, but the most politically damaging report (so far) relating to President Bush's assertion that he can legally order secret wiretapping of US citizens without Congressional approval or judicial oversight was reported in this Saturday's editions .

The Congressional Research Service, issued a 44-page memorandum (380k PDF) that examines President Bush's claim that his secret order is fully supported by the Constitution and the laws of the United States. I quote, in full, the concluding paragraph:

From the foregoing analysis, it appears unlikely that a court would hold that Congress has expressly or impliedly authorized the NSA electronic surveillance operations here under discussion, and it would likewise appear that, to the extent that those surveillances fall within the definition of "electronic surveillance" within the meaning of FISA or any activity regulated under Title III, Congress intended to cover the entire field with these statutes. To the extent that the NSA activity is not permitted by some reading of Title III or FISA, it may represent an exercise of presidential power at its lowest ebb, in which case exclusive presidential control is sustainable only by "disabling Congress from acting upon the subject." While courts have generally accepted that the President has the power to conduct domestic electronic surveillance within the United States inside the constraints of the Fourth Amendment, no court has held squarely that the Constitution disables the Congress from endeavoring to set limits on that power. To the contrary, the Supreme Court has stated that Congress does indeed have power to regulate domestic surveillance,[142] and has not ruled on the extent to which Congress can act with respect to electronic surveillance to collect foreign intelligence information. Given such uncertainty, the Administration's legal justification, as presented in the summary analysis from the Office of Legislative Affairs, does not seem to be as well-grounded as the tenor of that letter suggests.

[142]United States v. United States District Court, 407 U.S. 297, 323-24 (1972).

The report is full of carefully chosen code words but the story between the lines is that, in the opinion of the report's authors, the President acted illegally and continues to act illegally. Indeed, that President Bush's acts are unconstitutional.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, it appears President Bush has committed and continues to commit acts that rise to the level impeachment. Yet, because Congress appears unwilling to hold the President accountable, the President is free to wantonly disregard the Constitution, US citizens, and Congress itself, while Congress does nothing.

In my opinion, this action on the part of the President and inaction on the part of Congress diminishes us all. Citizens must not let this stand. Those in Congress who are unwilling to act must be removed in the coming elections. This is not a partisan issue. I don't care if other Republicans replace the present ones as long as the replacements uphold and support the Constitution of these United States.

Otherwise, the over 200 years of blood, sweat, and tears that have been shed since the founding of this country will have been in vain and what we now have is a king - not a President, and subjects - not free citizens. And if that is the depths to which we fallen to, then we truly live in dark times.

Aloha!

Speaking of local blogs, the Hawaii Legislative Reference Bureau has one that links to interesting legislative topics such as a meth offender registry in Tennessee (similar to a sex offender registry but instead lists those convicted of methamphetamine offenses), a California telecom bill of rights , and the emerging topic of bioprospecting ("searching for, collecting, and deriving genetic material from samples of biodiversity that can be used in commercialized pharmaceutical, agricultural, industrial, or chemical processing end products."). Interesting stuff.

Aloha!

The Hawaii Legislature officially opens next week Wednesday so it's kind of appropriate to note that a state senator has begun blogging. Senator Gary L. Hooser , representing the good people of Kaua'i, has a LiveJournal site and has been posting since November of last year. He should be applauded for opening another path for conversations from not only his constituents but from 'netizens as well.

Drop me a line if anyone knows of other local legislators that have blogs and I'll be glad to list them here (both Republican and Democrats are welcome). So far, I've found Representative Jon Riki Karamatsu (blogging since 2002) and Representative Brian Schatz (blogging since 2004).

As I've mentioned before, I believe in paying my way on the Internet. So, when I download and use a program that is released as shareware or donateware, I pay the fee. I reckon that if an author has created something with the expectation of getting paid for it, then not getting paid would tend to reduce the probability of his or her continuing support/updating of their creation. Hence, if the program has worth to me, and I wish to use it, I will pay the author.

One of the places I visit on a regular basis is Dr. Jerry Pournelle's site. As he puts it, his site is paid for using the public radio model. That is, he asks for reader donations and as long as enough comes in to pay for the place he will continue to post. It sounds fare to me. He is a professional writer and wishes to get paid for his creations. What I write is for free and I don't expect any such payment in return.

One of the ways to pay for Dr. Pournelle's place is via Paypal. Paypal is a relatively painless way of making Internet payments. It's by no means the only way, but it is fairly common.

In any case, as I have done in the last three years, I recently paid my $36 using Paypal (I paid by credit card in prior years) but noticed that Paypal was calling it a subscription that would automatically renew unless I specifically requested termination. The help screen says there would be link to terminate the subscription but when I looked for such a link, I couldn't find anything.

If I take Paypal at face value, then my account should have been automatically debited last year and should automatically occur again this year around the end of the month. I know it did not automatically occur last year but can't say what will happen later this month. If I remember to check back, I'll let you know what happens at the end of this month but I sure hope I don't get charged twice...

Let me say up front that I think local female golfer Michelle Wie is amazing at what she does. She is only 16 years old but plays golf with the skills of women decades older than she. Michelle has used those skills to earn commercial endorsement contracts reported to be worth about $10 million a year and has done well in several women's tournaments.

That said, I think I've mentioned before that Wie may never reach the goal of making the cut in a men's tournament (the last female to do so was decades ago). Michelle is playing at the men's Sony Open here on O'ahu this week. Her score yesterday was, shall we say, less than what she is capable of.

If she has a problem, it is in having the focus and drive to win. It is not coincidental that Eldrick Woods got the nickname he has. To me, you have to look at a golf course as a piece of meat to be devoured. To be stalked and eaten with relish. You have to be the master, not the course. While I am no expert, and I certainly don't play golf, I don't see Wie as having that kind of single focused drive.

That's not to say she won't ever have whatever it takes to be a competitor like Eldrick "Tiger" Woods, just that she seems to sometimes play more like a lamb.

Have a Great Weekend, Everyone - Aloha!

Sorry for the late post for yesterday. I had uploaded it but did not "publish" it so it didn't appear until this morning. My apologies for that.

Speaking of yesterday, I was on the island of Kaua'i for a meeting at the new court house. The site is located across the street from the airport so it is in easy walking distance. I think the courthouse opened last year, though I could be wrong on that, but the point is it's new and I've never been there before.

My camera phone picture of the court didn't turn out so well I'm using a photo from our internal website. To me, it's an impressive building, although I'm told tourists sometimes mistake it for a hotel! Perhaps the court needs to put up a sign saying what it is.

The inside is also impressive. The conference room we used had one of those screens that drops down from the ceiling. A new laptop was hooked up to a LCD projector so information could be displayed on that screen. The only thing is the location of the floor electrical/data outlets don't let you rearrange the desks. The conference room seems to have been designed to provide a passive experience. That is, it seems that the architect expected someone to stand at the front lecturing to people passively sitting there. What we wanted to do was have an open discussion where everyone participated. So, to that extent, the design of the room made it difficult, but not impossible to do. Note to you planners out there, think about how to make rooms as flexible as possible so that what people need to do is facilitated.

Sorry, no post today. It's a state and federal holiday celebrating the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Aloha!

This week is a really busy one. I have long meetings today and tomorrow. In addition, tomorrow is the opening of the Hawaii Legislature so posts, if any, may be short. That said, the Supreme Court has ruled on the Federal government's attempt to further centralize power over the states. I have not had time to read the 62-page opinion but on the face of it, the feds used a curious tactic to try to prohibit the use of controlled substances. Said substances were used to end people's lives under Oregon law. The subject of the right to die is a very complex one and deserves more time than I have right now. Perhaps tomorrow or Thursday.

Aloha!

I am not a lawyer. These are my opinions and no one elses. Insert disclaimer here.

As I sat down last night to read the US Supreme Court's decision, I became sore afraid. It was as if I was staring into the hissing mouth of the Great Serpent. A serpent intent on squeezing the life out of every living thing. But I digress.

In a 62 page opinion (link to PDF of 546 US ___ 2006 ), the US Supreme Court struck down yesterday an attempt by the Federal government to invalidate the state of Oregon's physician assisted suicide law.

In a curious use of existing regulations, the Executive Branch sought to bypass Congress and, in effect, create laws that would ban the state of Oregon from using controlled substances to carry out the wishes of certain terminally ill patients.

Whether you agree with physician assisted suicide or don't is not the point. Rather, do you believe in checks and balances? Do you believe that no one, including the Executive Branch, is above the law? Do you believe in the Constitution? Do you believe in a form of government in which the ultimate power resides with the people, not the government?

Ultimately, this is what was at stake here.

In building it's case against the Attorney General, the Court found that "A rule must be promulgated pursuant to authority Congress has delegated to the official." That is, the Executive Branch cannot legally create or exercise powers that Congress has not specifically delegated to it. Hence, when the Executive Branch sought to create, seemingly out of thin air, the power to jail physicians who were carrying out the legal wishes of their patients, the Court correctly held, in my opinion, this taking of power illegal.

In an almost chilling foretelling of recent acts by this Executive Branch, the Court found that "The federal-law factor requires the Attorney General to decide '[c]ompliance' with the law but does not suggest that he may decide what the law is." Here the Court slapped the Attorney General for attempting to make the case that the Executive Branch, not the Judiciary, is charged with determining what laws mean.

It is amazing to me just how brazen this Administration is. As far as I can see, this President, and his appointees, see no limit to their powers. These people apparently feel they are omnipotent and perfect in their understanding of the law because only they can judge its meaning. To suggest otherwise, in the eyes of this Administration, is to be unpatriotic because, by definition, they are omnipotent and perfect.

If that wasn't bad enough, the federal government sought to expand its dominion over the states by preempting and interfering with the state of Oregon's ability to manage its own affairs and ultimately, entering into the physician's office itself and intruding with the physician - patient relationship. "The Government, in the end, maintains that the prescription requirement delegates to a single Executive officer the power to effect a radical shift of authority from the States to the Federal Government to define general standards of medical practice in every locality." How this radical attempted expansion of federal powers is squared with Republicans who say the best government is the least government is not clear to me.

What seems to be clear is the present administration will continue to attempt to get its way, regardless of what Congress has stipulated and regardless of what the Constitution grants. If Congress does not go along with proposed legislation, then the Executive Branch will simply ignore Congress and illegally do want it wants, regardless.

What seems to be clear is the present administration will continue to try to expand its powers as long as no one is willing to stop it (which Justices Scalia, Thomas, and newly appointed Chief Justice Roberts are more than willing to let the Executive Branch do what it wants without limits).

Although the Court has ruled against the Executive Branch in this case, it is just a matter of time before enough fellow traveling judges are appointed to the Court. On that sad day, the transformation to the Dark Side will be complete. Woe be unto those who are alive to see the sunset of our freedoms.

Aloha!

There is an old axiom that says just because you are well versed in one area does not mean you are in all areas.

Such seems to be the case, once again, with the Mozilla browser called Firefox. It seems they've added a "feature" to their branch builds (By branch build they are referring to non-stable, testing versions of Firefox). This feature, called a ping attribute on anchor and area HTML tags, provides that "When a user follows a link via one of these tags, the browser will send notification pings to the specified URLs after following the link." That is, when you click on a link that includes this new ping attribute, you will automatically send a ping message to a server informing them what your IP is, what IP you went to, when, what browser/operating system you have, etc.

Be clear, websites get this information now, without using this new attribute. What the folks at Mozilla are doing is implementing a way that, according to them, will speed up response times when compared to sites that use re-directs to get the same information. In their estimation, it is better to provide this attribute and speed up the 'net than it is to do nothing or actively oppose businesses who implement user tracking (i.e.,removing such re-directs would also speed up the response times on the 'net).

As a quick reading of the comments to the announcement indicate, there are those who disagree that implementing the attribute is a Good Thing(tm). I happen to agree with the comments. To me, this feature is like the "pre-fetch" debacle in which Firefox, by default and without any user intervention, downloads the pages linked to the page you are currently viewing. So, for example, you do a search on Google and it displays 25 links to other pages. Firefox will go ahead and download and store on your PC each of those 25 pages without your knowledge or approval. Obviously, should the police/FBI/Homeland Security/your employer one day knock on your door and ask why are you going to sites with illegal content, you can thank Firefox's "feature".

It appears the developers of these Firefox features have not learned from the problems plaguing Microsoft's Internet Explorer. Further, the developers need to understand that security, transparency, and privacy come before performance. That is, I'd rather use a slightly slower browser that is secure than one that is faster but a vector for all kinds of problems.

That said, Firefox is still more secure than IE and based on that, I will continue to use Firefox. But should the Firefox developers continue to be blind to the foreseeable and logical consequences of their features, I may need to start looking for something else.

Aloha!

Warning: Political views below. Send the children, women, and small pets into the other room before reading. These are my own opinions. Insert disclaimer here.

Hawaii Congressman Ed Case dropped a bomb shell on local politics yesterday when he announced he would be running against incumbent Hawaii Senator Daniel Akaka. In local politics, it is rare for one Democrat to run against an incumbent Democrat. Usually, if it occurs at all, it is because the incumbent has legal problems and the powers that be anoint someone else to run (usually a former public school teacher or principal). No such problems are known to exist for the beloved Senator Akaka.

And yet, Rep. Case announced his intention to do just that. Why? Blame the Republicans. First, I must note that I am very distantly related to Rep. Case's children and have provided some small financial support to his campaigns (nowhere near the legal maximum allowed). That said, and I'm not providing any insider information - just my idle speculation - I think Rep. Case has planned his run for some time and he assumed that Senator Akaka would retire this year - thus leaving the way clear for his run.

I further believe Senator Akaka did plan to retire this year. That is, until the Republican's went back on their word to hear the proposed measure commonly referred to as the Akaka Bill . This legislation would start the process to organize native Hawaiians in order to provide a voice in our own governance. Had such hearings and votes occurred, I think the bill could very well have passed and then become law. But, due to behind the scenes arm twisting by certain conservative Republicans, the hearings were put on hold. Some would say permanently.

To have come so close, after so many years, must have been heart wrenching to Senator Akaka. So, his decision to run for one more term to try to get this bill back on track is understandable. And that, dear friends, may turn out to be the highest mountain Representative Case will have to overcome.

Yes, it is time for a change. Yes, both of our incumbent Senators are in their 80s and there is a need to transition to the next generation so that at least one of the new Senators can begin to accumulate seniority. Yes, Representative Case may better represent the current generation of Hawaii's more moderate citizens. But can he carry forward the Akaka Bill? Does he want to? And if he does, would it make any difference to the Republicans opposed to the bill?

As we have seen in the past, fear is sometimes a strong force in resisting change. Even if that change is in your own best interest, fear can make it difficult to implement such change. So, I can see the Akaka forces saying we must stay the course. We must not change senators in the middle of getting the Akaka Bill passed. We must not change.

All I can say for sure is that Representative Case has just made things a lot more interesting during the run up to the election primaries in September. Whether he succeeds in his bid no one can foretell. But I support Ed Case and I know he will overcome these challenges. If not this year, then maybe the next time around because, in my opinion, he is the right man for the job.

Have a Great Weekend, Everyone - Aloha!

These are my personal opinions. Insert disclaimer here.

Sometimes, I hate being right. A long time ago, in galaxy not so far away, I wrote a post about the possible security/privacy concerns of using an external search engine on your website. I noted that the search phrases were no doubt logged by such engines and a profile probably created. Said profile would likely be used for commercial purposes and I questioned whether that was appropriate. At the time, some criticised the post as not being realistic.

However, my concerns appear to be becoming true. But in a way I had not foreseen - namely, political.

Recently, Republican President Bush's administration subpoenaed search engine data from at least Google, Yahoo, AOL and Microsoft . Except for Google, everyone immediately caved in under the pressure and submitted at least some of the data without even trying to quash the subpoenas.

Although reports indicate no personal information was requested or released, search queries can be mined in ways that can lead back to an individual. For example, databases can be cross referenced such that information that appears safe when viewed in each database can be combined to point to an individual.

Even single, aggrate databases that don't have names can be queried in ways that can lead to an individual. That is, even if the database doesn't have a name field, but does include items such as, but not limited to, race; age; city or zip code, queries can be constructed that slice the data down to one person. I've seen it done and it's almost trivial to do.

Please note: I'm not saying this has occurred in this or any other instance. But since it is theoretically possible, it comes down to - who do you trust?

This time, no names were apparently requested. But I'll be taking odds as to when the proverbial nose of this camel is soon followed into the tent by the tail.

Aloha!

System Note: I have been having problems with reader comments not getting through to me. By that I mean the comment itself gets published okay on the website, but I'm supposed to get an email notice telling me that a new comment has been left so that I am alerted to that fact. Unfortunately, for awhile now, only some emails have been getting through.

I assume the problem is with how pair.com (my web host) filters emails for spam. Why do I think this? Because some emails get through (including my own test messages) while others do not. I realize the problem could be an intermittent bug in MovableType (my content management system which handles the background task of posting the comment and emailing me) or it could be my host. I dunno for sure.

In any case, if you left a comment and I didn't get back to you it's highly possible that I was not made aware that the comment was made. Sorry in advance and in arrears.

It's nothing new to acknowledge that Microsoft's Office suite of applications is number one in sales. According to this article on c|net news.com, MS has 95 percent of the market. What is interesting is who is number two.

Go ahead, take a guess. Nope. Try again. Wrong. It's Apple's iWork. It seems the long-time second place suite, Corel's WordPerfect Office fell from second to third last year.

To be sure, iWork doesn't have all the applications that, for instance, Office Professional or WordPerfect Office X3 Professional has (e.g., iWork doesn't have a spreadsheet). In addition, it is surprising that an application that runs only on Macs, versus one that runs on PCs has taken second place. So take the article with a grain of salt.

Nonetheless, if true, this does not bode well for WordPerfect. I should note I'm not a big fan of WordPerfect. To this day it is full of bugs that will cause your document to go up in smoke. But, I believe, competition improves the breed and Microsoft's Office could stand some improving.

To a lesser extent, Microsoft should also be concerned. According to the article, the split between iWork and MS Office on the Mac platform is about 17 percent versus about 82 percent. Seventeen percent of the market on Macs is a large percentage when you consider MS Office, as noted earlier, holds about 95 percent of sales, overall.

Aloha!

As if it wasn't bad enough that President Bush agreed to and supports the apparent illegal electronic surveillance of phone/data communications, did you know some of the surveillance is sub-contracted out to private companies?

This startling claim is buried in a larger story written by PBS columnist Robert X. Cringely in his January 19, 2006 post . In it, he says that the so called pen/traps that record call identifying information (i.e., the outgoing and incoming phone numbers) is sub-contracted out by the phone companies. Cringely speculates that they (the telcos) do this to isolate themselves from legal liability concerns (like the ones that will be coming their way when all of this hits the courts).

It's bad enough that the NSA may be doing illegal surveillance - at least they are government employees and are therefore accountable to elected officials (theoretically, if not in practice). But who is a private business accountable to? The frightening answer is - no one. And to shield themselves even more, the telcos are sub-contracting out this very serious work.

But this whole story keeps getting worse.

Cringely also, in an earlier post, talks about the technology used to make the phone taps:

The typical CALEA installation on a Siemens ESWD or a Lucent 5E or a Nortel DMS 500 runs on a Sun workstation sitting in the machine room down at the phone company. The workstation is password protected, but it typically doesn't run Secure Solaris. It often does not lie behind a firewall. Heck, it usually doesn't even lie behind a door. It has a direct connection to the Internet because, believe it or not, that is how the wiretap data is collected and transmitted. And by just about any measure, that workstation doesn't meet federal standards for evidence integrity.

And it can be hacked.

And it has been.

He goes on to say:

This vulnerability is never discussed in public because it is an embarrassment to law enforcement and because the agencies that pay for CALEA don't want its vulnerability to be known. That might compromise national security. Alas, national security is already compromised by the system itself, and the people who might take advantage of the vulnerability have known about it for years. Only we are kept in the dark.

To these people President Bush's administration has entrusted the private communications of its citizens.

End note: Please be aware I am not saying we don't need intelligence. The US does have enemies. These enemies are trying to kill us. However, the point is not whether we should have intelligence gathering. The point is, how to do we go about in a way that preserves our freedoms? How do we go about in a way that preserves the checks and balances that the founding fathers felt were critical to our very survival as a republic? These are the questions that I am concerned about.

Speaking of people who may have been living under rocks, this guy says Dell customer support ain't what it used to be. Well, I have other news for him: there's no such thing as a tooth fairy, money doesn't grow on trees, you don't tug on Superman's cape, you don't spit into the wind, and you don't pull the mask off of the 'ol Lone Ranger [sorry for the obscure reference to an old Jim Croce song - Ed].

All kidding aside, no, Dell customer support isn't what it used to be. Yes, they did it to lower costs and thereby increase profits. Unfortunately, for Dell and its customers, this change may have the opposite effect. As customers realize that Dell is no longer providing support, they will try to find another company that will. What that company might be I don't know. Suggestions appreciated.

Aloha!

The Ars Technica site has a story that says the MPAA admits it creates copies of copyrighted materials and is justified in doing so. In fact, the MPAA made the copies even though the copyright holder specifically prohibited the MPAA from making such copies.

Taking a cue from the Bush Administration, the MPAA says it's justified in making the possibly illegal copies because, well, they say they can. They go on to say they are justified in making the copies because the subject matter includes some of their staff.

To the few people who have been living under a rock for the last few years, the MPAA has sued to enforce copyrighted movies. Essentially, the MPAA feels all movie customers are pirates and therefore they are justified in whatever action they may choose. Apparently, including breaking the very laws they have used to sue others.

Needless to say, such two-faced behavior by bully associations like the MPAA is not surprising. But I wouldn't be surprised if the copyright holder of the movie in question sues the MPAA.

The folks over at the UK Register site have a longish Camera Labs review of the new Nikon 200 10.2 megapixel prosummer digital camera. Although this camera has received mixed results from at least one other reviewer, Camera Labs' bottom line is:

There's very little to fault about the Nikon D200. It's very robust, has great ergonomics and a wide array of features, while handling superbly and delivering excellent image quality...

Ultimately until the market responds, Nikon has delivered the best mid-range digital SLR yet, boasting professional quality at a highly affordable price point.

Of course, "affordable price point" is in the wallet of the beholder. A quick price check finds the D200 body and 18-70mm AF-S IF-ED Nikkor Lens going for about $2000 USD. To me, that is a lot of money.

As some of you may know, Hawaii is one of the few places in which you can snow ski in the morning, water ski at lunch, and surf in the evening. Snow ski? Well, okay, conditions may be more packed ice than packed powder but the white stuff does fall at the summits of Mauna Kea, Mauna Loa, and sometimes Haleakala. This picture was taken this morning from the National Radio Astronomy Observatory cam atop Mauna Kea on the Big Island of Hawai'i.

The weather conditions at that time was below zero degrees temperatures (Celsius), winds of about 30 knots, and a relative humidity of about 98 percent.

I don't know if it's fogged in or if the winds are blowing the snow around making conditions next to impossible to see very far. In any case, it's very cold, windy, and you don't want to be in this kind of weather. Even if you do like to ski.

Sorry, no post today. I have a meeting in the morning and then have to prepare testimony for a legislative hearing on Monday.

Have a Great Weekend, Everyone - Aloha!

Sorry, no post today either. I have the legislative hearing this afternoon and we are still revising the testimony.

Aloha!

You know the drill...

Aloha!