Thursday - September 10, 2009
I love my ISP
think you have slow internet? Think again. And count your blessings YET AGAIN that you don’t live in Africa
A South African carrier pigeon has transported data faster than sending it via the country’s internet network.
Internet speed and connectivity in Africa’s largest economy are poor because of a bandwidth shortage. It is also expensive.
Local news agency SAPA reported the 11-month-old pigeon, Winston, took one hour and eight minutes to fly the 80km from IT company Unlimited IT’s offices near Pietermaritzburg to the coastal city of Durban with a data card was strapped to his leg.
Including downloading, the transfer took two hours, six minutes and 57 seconds—the time it took for only 4 per cent of the data to be transferred using a Telkom line.
SAPA said Unlimited IT performed the stunt after becoming frustrated with slow internet transmission times.
The plucky 11-month-old homing pigeon took on state-owned Telkom’s ADSL line on Wednesday to see which could deliver four gigabytes of data fastest to an address around 85 kilometres away.
Winston was racing on behalf of The Unlimited, a telemarketing company based in the port city of Durban, which wanted to transfer the data from its call centre in Howick, north of Durban, to its offices in Hillcrest, on the city’s norther outskirts.
Announcing the race on its website Unlimited complained about the “great challenges in getting data from its locations across KZN (KwaZulu-Natal province) back to its central location for storage.”
Unlimited had decided to test the contention of a member of staff remarked it would be faster to send the data by pigeon than through Telkom, the fixed-line operator which has a monopoly on ADSL.
Visibility was poor on race day but Winston completed the flight in one hour and eight minutes
Sucks to be Telkom SA.
Posted by Drew458
on 09/10/2009 at 09:40 PM
Filed Under: • Cyberspace-Internet • High Tech •
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Permalink • Friday - August 07, 2009
Protect Your PC
Passwords are a pain in the tail. But they have become an aspect of our everyday lives. Use your ATM card at the store, enter your PIN. That’s a password. Access your bank account online, enter a password. Log onto BMEWS to make a comment, enter your password. You can’t get away from them.
Lots of people use short, simple passwords that are meaningful to them and easy to remember. Birthdays, Social Security Numbers, favorite colors, the name of your secret fantasy movie star. And these are all very unsecure and easy to crack, especially by anyone who knows a bit about you.
Sarah Palin had her email hacked during the ‘08 campaign. She had an account on Yahoo, and somebody was able to reset her password by properly guessing the clues that Yahoo asked for in their “I forgot my password” area. Most places have that kind of area, and most of them use pretty common questions, which defeats the whole concept of passwords. Some banks and credit card companies have come up with a few new questions since then. It’s a small help, but only a small one.
Lots of people use just a couple of passwords for almost everything. I know I do. Trying to remember the 70 or so passwords I need to log onto various forums, blogs, my accounts at any number of business pages, etc., is impossible. Sure, I could write them all down. Or I could let Windows “remember” them for me. Not a chance, no thanks. And even if I did write them down, I’d hide the list somewhere smarter than the underside of my keyboard or taped to the back of the monitor. Duh.
I do not let my computer store anything about anything, not even browser history, cookies, Most Recently Used lists, nada. I am forever stripping information out of my PC by using CCleaner, MRUBlaster, and RegCure daily. I have an old co-ax A/B switch on the back of my computer, so that when I am not online I can physically disconnect my computer from the internet. I only do online business with places that don’t store my credit card information. Any bills that I throw out go through the bi-directional shredder. And I check my credit rating and my Social Security a couple times a year, just to keep an eye on things. So far, I have never had any kind of problems, but hacking and identity theft happen. You have to be aware, and you have to act smart.
I have one “don’t care” password I use for all the blogs and web sites I need to log on to. It’s of reasonable length, and has nothing to do with any aspect of my life. I use serious, unique passwords for all my credit card and banking sites, and my private email. And I change those at least twice a year. I don’t pay for any credit card “protection”, but I do have credit cards with companies that will alert me if something unusual occurs.
It turns out that most people don’t do anything as “extreme”. Most folks still use passwords that are short, simple, and easily guessed by people who know them even a little. Bad form.
By the way, I can not read your passwords here. Even though I own this blog and have access to everything right down to the database tables and the blog template source code, I can not read your member password. I can reset it if necessary, but I can’t see it.
So, what to do? Try making a smarter password. Add numbers, spaces, and special characters if you can. Then run the new password past the Microsoft password strength checker (there are others too) to see if it scores at least a “medium”. And figure out a “best” password for each online credit card and bank account that you access.
Passwords not to use? Here is a list of the 500 lamest ones. “abc123”. “password”. “letmein”. Oh come on, you have to do better than that these days!
You want a good password? Are you a car junkie, or a gun nut? “454 Ch3vy R0cks!” meets all the criteria for a “best” rating. It even has a tiny bit of “leet” in it, which can help. (substituting 4 for A, 3 for E, 1 for I, 0 for O adds a lot to password strength. Many places do not let you use spaces or special characters) Another strong one is “Marlin 336 .30-30”. And they are especially good if you don’t have one of either. “I Love Lucy” only rates a “medium”, and it isn’t on that list of 500, but if people know that’s your favorite TV show, then it’s a poor choice.
So be smart. Just in case.
Posted by Drew458
on 08/07/2009 at 09:59 AM
Filed Under: • Crime • Cyberspace-Internet • Self-Defense •
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Permalink • Saturday - April 04, 2009
A Debatable View
You can find your house on Google Earth. You can zoom in pretty well, but not right down to the ground. And the images aren’t real time. Yet!
Microsoft has a similar thing online. You can do “bird’s eye view” and change the angle low enough to almost look into people’s windows.
Not to be outdone, Google’s online Map has Street View, which puts you right down on the ground and let’s you spin around and zoom in on things close enough to almost read a car’s license plates.
And now that a large part of the urban areas of the USA are mapped out, the Google camera crews are moving to Europe. As their add page puts it:
I moved from Amsterdam to London last year and even though I’ve enjoyed getting to know London, I can’t help feeling a bit homesick sometimes. Which is why I’m really excited that today we’re launching Street View for both the Netherlands and the United Kingdom; now I can take a trip down memory lane and explore my new home, even if it’s raining. Starting today you’ll be able to view 360º street level imagery for Amsterdam, London, Rotterdam, Manchester, Liverpool and several other cities in these countries—25 cities in all!
Now whenever I feel like going back to the Netherlands I can use Street View to admire the beautiful canals in Amsterdam:
...or visit my old university in Rotterdam:
...or even take a look at the bike I left behind:
... and they include the pictures to prove it.
Is this proper? Should this be done? Is it an invasion of your privacy? Well, this is all coming to the UK too, and some folks don’t like it.
Gang of villagers chase away Google car
Google’s ambitious plan to offer a 3-D street level view of communities across three continents hit a snag when angry residents of a UK village blocked the search engine’s camera car from photographing their homes.
Fearing the appearance of their well appointed properties on the Web site would attract criminals scouting for burglary targets, villagers in Broughton, north of London, summoned the police after spotting the car.
“I was upstairs when I spotted the camera car driving down the lane,” resident Paul Jacobs told The Times of London.
“My immediate reaction was anger: How dare anyone take a photograph of my home without my consent? I ran outside to flag the car down and told the driver he was not only invading our privacy but also facilitating crime.
“This is an affluent area. We’ve already had three burglaries locally in the past six weeks. If our houses are plastered all over Google it’s an invitation for more criminals to strike. I was determined to make a stand, so I called the police.”
A Google spokesman, quoted by the UK Press Association, said: “Embarking on new projects, we sometimes encounter unexpected challenges, and Street View has been no exception.
“We know that some people are uncomfortable with images of their houses or cars being included in the product, which is why we provide an easy way to request removal of imagery. Most imagery requests are processed within hours.”
The spokesman added: “We take privacy very seriously, and we were careful to ensure that all images in our Street View service abide by UK law.”
Yeah, sure they do. And it’s just so easy contacting ... a search engine. How the hell do you talk to a webpage? Oh sure, you can fill out a CGI form. And hope somebody reads it eventually.
But back to the story of “Pegman" in the UK… pull up the map ... move the pegman about, over to ... there. Hit zoom ...
... hey, while we’re here, let’s pan the camera around. This is cool! Ah, I figured out how to “walk” down the street. Neat!! What’s that, further down the lane? Looks like a crowd of protesters! Zoom in ... look, it’s Peiper, holding the pitchfork, and Mrs. Peiper with her burning torch! Nice sweater mum! So glad to see them properly arrayed for storming the castle, to kill the dread Googlestein monster.
But, all jocularity aside ... has this gone too far?
Posted by Drew458
on 04/04/2009 at 12:20 AM
Filed Under: • Cyberspace-Internet • High Tech •
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Permalink • Monday - March 30, 2009
CHINA’S WORLDWIDE WEB OF CYBER-SPIES.
China in the news big time with regard to cyber thingy. To be exact, worries over China’s hi-tech spy network.
Just for the heck of it I went to Google looking for info and “Sink Me” as the man said in that old movie, darn if I didn’t find reporting on this subject as far back as 2001. And it goes further back then that but I just stayed in that one year of 2001. I don’t really know if I should be worried or not. At my age I doubt I’ll see any results of bad news this day anyway. What? Me Worry?
So then, here was the headline on page 13 of today’s paper.
EXPOSED: CHINA’S WORLDWIDE WEB OF CYBER-SPIES.
But I couldn’t find the exact story under that headline online. Typical Telegraph. But I did find a BBC article that was close but NOT exactly the same as what I saw in the Telegraph. Damn sorry bout that too because the Telegraph seemed to have a more complete story. The journalist there (Telegraph) is Malcolm Moore if you want to hunt further.
Major cyber spy network uncovered
So anyway .... here’s the deal.
The Telegraph says that a “vast” cyber network code named GhostNet has penetrated 103 countries and infects at minimum a dozen new PCs every week.
They say that GhostNet has been designed to infiltrate sensitive ministries and embassies across the world. This part of a result of a ten month investigation carried out by a Canadian group. Apparently some people are far more concerned then I am but they’re far younger then I am.
Here’s what the BBC has to say.
Major cyber spy network uncovered
An electronic spy network, based mainly in China, has infiltrated computers from government offices around the world, Canadian researchers say.
They said the network had infiltrated 1,295 computers in 103 countries.
They included computers belonging to foreign ministries and embassies and those linked with the Dalai Lama - Tibet’s spiritual leader.
There is no conclusive evidence China’s government was behind it, researchers say. Beijing also denied involvement.The report, Tracking GhostNet: Investigating a Cyber Espionage Network, comes after a 10-month investigation by the Information Warfare Monitor (IWM), which comprises researchers from Ottawa-based think tank SecDev Group and the University of Toronto’s Munk Centre for International Studies.
They were acting on a request from the Tibetan spiritual leader’s office to check whether the computers of his Tibetan exile network had been infiltrated.
Researchers found that ministries of foreign affairs of Iran, Bangladesh, Latvia, Indonesia, Philippines, Brunei, Barbados and Bhutan appear to had been targeted.
Hacked systems were also discovered in the embassies of countries including India, South Korea, Indonesia, Romania, Cyprus, Thailand, Germany and Pakistan.Analysts say the attacks are in effect industrial espionage, with hackers showing an interest in the activities of lawmakers and major companies.
Compromised
The researchers said hackers were apparently able to take control of computers belonging to several foreign ministries and embassies across the world using malicious software, or malware.
“We uncovered real-time evidence of malware that had penetrated Tibetan computer systems, extracting sensitive documents from the private office of the Dalai Lama,” investigator Greg Walton was quoted by the Associated Press news agency as saying.They say they believe the system, which they called GhostNet, was focused on governments in Asia.
By installing malware on compromised computers, hackers were able to take control of them to send and receive classified data.
In this case, the software also gave hackers the ability to use audio and video recording devices to monitor the rooms the computers were in. But investigators said they did not know whether or not this element had been used.According to the New York Times, the spying operation is the largest to have been uncovered in terms of the number of countries affected.
In an abstract for a second report released on Sunday by two Cambridge University researchers - entitled The Snooping Dragon: Social Malware Surveillance of the Tibetan Movement - investigators said while such attacks were not new, these particularly stood out for their ability to collect “actionable intelligence for use by the police and security services of a repressive state, with potentially fatal consequences for those exposed”.
CORRECTION: The BBC News website mistakenly gave the impression in an earlier version of this story that the IWM produced the “Snooping Dragon” report. We wish to stress that this report is entirely separate from the “Tracking GhostNet” report.
Posted by peiper
on 03/30/2009 at 10:29 AM
Filed Under: • Commies • Cyberspace-Internet •
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Permalink • Monday - February 16, 2009
New Conservative Talk Radio Online Today
For those of us without AM radio, or who can’t find Rush or Mike Savage on their FM dial, RFC will be on “the air” today starting at noon Eastern. Click on over to RFCradio.com, click the big yellow button on the right (of course!) and give them a listen.
Radio For Conservatives launches today at noon! RFC is a 24/7 news, talk, and rock Internet radio station created by conservatives, for conservatives.
Oh yeah, they have music and videos too. Naturally, they’re starting things off with Ted Nugent doing the National Anthem. Give a listen, leave an opinion.
There are also several articles available to read, like today’s post from Minority Report that reminds us that today is NOT “President’s Day”, it is BY LAW, the Washington’s Birthday holiday. “President’s Day” is a cultural misconception foisted on us by the left, one of their earlier - and successful - attempts to water down the culture. Today is NOT a celebration of Obama, McKinley, Taylor, Wilson, Clinton et al.
Posted by Drew458
on 02/16/2009 at 11:22 AM
Filed Under: • Cyberspace-Internet • The New Conservatives •
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Permalink • Wednesday - February 11, 2009
Economic Collapse: Act of War, or Act of Politics?
Representative Paul Kanjorski (D-PA), Capital Markets Subcommittee Chair, talking about why the government was in such a rush to inject $700 Billion into the banking industry back in September, and why that money really isn’t to be used for loans. It’s there to build capital reserves, to put some bedrock back into the banks’ foundations. Kanjorski talks about what went on at a closed door meeting between Paulson and Congress.
“On Thursday at about 11 o’clock in the morning, the Federal Reserve noticed a tremendous draw down of money market accounts in the Unites States to the tune of $550 Billion dollars was being drawn out in a matter of an hour or two. The Treasury opened up their window to help. They pumped in $105 Billion into the system, and quickly realized they could not stem the tide. We were having an electronic run on the banks. They decided to close the operation, close down the money accounts, and announce a guarantee of $250,000 per account, so their wouldn’t be further panic out there, and that’s what actually happened.
If they had not done that, their estimation was that by 2 o’clock that afternoon $5.5 Trillion would have been drawn out of the money market system of the United States, would have collapsed the entire economy of the United States, and within 24 hours the world economy would have collapsed. Now we talked at that time, about what would happen if that happened. It would have been the end of our economic and political system as we know it.”
In plain English, he is saying that there was a deliberate run on the banking system. He does not say where the run came from, or who was behind it. Soros, with his history of shorting the Pound and mangling the Thai money a few years ago? The Saudis? Iran? Russia? Was this an act of war, or an act of political leverage? Both are possible. It only takes a few snowballs to start an avalanche.
Want to point fingers? Go read all about it at Atlas Shrugs. The links trace back to Capitalism Gone Wild. You can watch the video in both places, and it’s out at Live Leak. Start really listening closely at the 2:10 mark.
Don’t throw this idea away because it seems like a gold plated tinfoil hat conspiracy theory. This is the modern world, and wars can be waged and won sometimes without firing a shot. And we are involved in a war right now, and it is global, and we have many enemies.
Want another example? Better be glad that no military emergency cropped up in Europe last month. Because the British and the French air forces and navies weren’t working too well ... because the planes and ships had been brought down by the conficker computer virus. A virus that got inside and started sending all the British military emails to a Russian computer server. But it caught fire right at the same time Russian bombers were “testing” the edges of British airspace. Coincidence?
The UK Ministry of Defense (MoD) confirmed inquiries made by the website The Register that since the 6th of January 2009, “the performance of the MOD IT systems in a number of areas was affected by a virus… This meant that some people were without regular IT access (i.e. email, internet). There have been no infections detected on any networks with sensitive information.”
The Register’s story says that the virus is affecting Royal Navy warships like the carrier HMS Ark Royal.
“The Navy computers infected are the NavyStar (N*) system, based on a server cabinet and cable-networked PCs on each warship and used for purposes such as storekeeping, email and similar support functions. N* ship nets connect to wider networks by shore connection when vessels are in harbour and using satcomms when at sea,” says the story.
Virus sends RAF emails to Russia
The Ministry of Defence is investigating a major breach in security amid claims that all e-mail traffic from a number of RAF stations has been sent to a Russian internet server.The e-mails were allegedly diverted to the Russian sender by a worm virus that entered the MoD systems 12 days ago bringing down computers and blocking e-mail communications across the military.
Small peanuts? Think how effective and instantaneous a spy system would be if it got BCCed on every email that went through the military. Now, if a virus can get in that can do that, what’s stopping a more malicious virus from doing a bit of harm? Let’s try one out on the French and see what happens ...
French fighter planes grounded by computer virus
French fighter planes were unable to take off after military computers were infected by a computer virus, an intelligence magazine claims. The aircraft were unable to download their flight plans after databases were infected by a Microsoft virus they had already been warned about several months beforehand. At one point French naval staff were also instructed not to even open their computers.Microsoft had warned that the “Conficker” virus, transmitted through Windows, was attacking computer systems in October last year, but according to reports the French military ignored the warning and failed to install the necessary security measures.
Sacre bleu! Brought to their knees faster than they could even reach for the white flags! But they rescue a bit of Gallic pride by noting that the British were screwed even worse the month before by the same bug!
The French press also reported that the only consolation for the French Navy was that it was not the only ones to have fallen victim to the virus. It said that a report in the military review Defense Tech revealed that in the first days of January 2009 the British Defence Ministry had been attacked by a hybrid of the virus that had substantially and seriously infected the computer systems of more than 24 RAF bases and 75 per cent of the Royal Navy fleet including the aircraft carrier Ark Royal.
What was 9/11 2001? It was a physical attack against our financial and military control systems. It sure would be illuminating to know what date Kanjorski was really referring to in the video. He states that the meeting was on September 15th, but he starts his explanation of the bank run with “On Thursday, at about 11 o’clock”. September 15th was a Monday. The previous Thursday was September 11th.
Kanjorski - “Someone threw us in the middle of the Atlantic ocean without a life raft. We are trying to determine which is the closest shore and whether there is any chance in the world to swim that far. We don’t know.”
Let’s find that someone. And kill them.
Posted by Drew458
on 02/11/2009 at 02:38 PM
Filed Under: • Cyberspace-Internet • Economics • War On Terror •
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Permalink • Wednesday - January 28, 2009
Privacy? You Doan Nee No Steenkin Privacy
Part 1, sort of
And think of that as the good news. The bad? So is everyone else. Follow Mr. Christian on Twitter. Tune in to Wi-Fi anywhere. Broadcast yourself. Make intimate connections with total strangers! And the whole world, thugs included, will know who you are, where you live. what you look like, and whether you’ve got any nice stuff ... and they’ll also know when you’re out of town. Oh, you have privacy concerns? Not to worry. Just lie. Create a false you. Photograph someone else’s attack dog, someone else’s apartment. But don’t not be part of the total social net. That would be, like, like being a free thinker who doesn’t fit in. No. Go along, get along, sign up, tune in, fit in.
Resistance is futile. Take the pledge; remember: ”Together we can. Together we ARE. And together we will be the Change that we seek.” Fucking zombies. Get wired. Like a puppet on a string. Then dance for your new master, whom you have just pledged to serve. It’s cool to be a slave.
UPDATE: Folks, watch the video at the above zombies link please.
Part 2, kinda
Welcome to the future. And it sucks. No thanks.
Mathew Honan explores the perks and the perils of being part of the open source generation.
The location-aware future—good, bad, and sleazy—is here. Thanks to the iPhone 3G and, to a lesser extent, Google’s Android phone, millions of people are now walking around with a gizmo in their pocket that not only knows where they are but also plugs into the Internet to share that info, merge it with online databases, and find out what—and who—is in the immediate vicinity. That old saw about how someday you’ll walk past a Starbucks and your phone will receive a digital coupon for half off on a Frappuccino? Yeah, that can happen now.
Simply put, location changes everything. This one input—our coordinates—has the potential to change all the outputs. Where we shop, who we talk to, what we read, what we search for, where we go—they all change once we merge location and the Web.
I wanted to know more about this new frontier, so I became a geo-guinea pig. My plan: Load every cool and interesting location-aware program I could find onto my iPhone and use them as often as possible. For a few weeks, whenever I arrived at a new place, I would announce it through multiple social geoapps. When going for a run, bike ride, or drive, I would record my trajectory and publish it online. I would let digital applications help me decide where to work, play, and eat. And I would seek out new people based on nothing but their proximity to me at any given moment. I would be totally open, exposing my location to the world just to see where it took me. I even added an Eye-Fi Wi-Fi card to my PowerShot digital camera so that all my photos could be geotagged and uploaded to the Web. I would become the most location-aware person on the Internets!
To test whether I was being paranoid, I ran a little experiment. On a sunny Saturday, I spotted a woman in Golden Gate Park taking a photo with a 3G iPhone. Because iPhones embed geodata into photos that users upload to Flickr or Picasa, iPhone shots can be automatically placed on a map. At home I searched the Flickr map, and score—a shot from today. I clicked through to the user’s photostream and determined it was the woman I had seen earlier. After adjusting the settings so that only her shots appeared on the map, I saw a cluster of images in one location. Clicking on them revealed photos of an apartment interior—a bedroom, a kitchen, a filthy living room. Now I know where she lives.
A couple years ago this was scary. Now it’s so far beyond being old hat that few people even realize it’s wrong. It’s a convenience feature, dammit, and they demand this level of connection and service!! (Ok, this doesn’t actually exist yet. But it’s nothing compared to the technological power shown above. All it would take is a flip of a switch, one that already exists, to make public that information that you can only pray is still “private”. And Bush was Hitler because of the wiretap thing. Riiiight.)
Posted by Drew458
on 01/28/2009 at 12:01 AM
Filed Under: • Cyberspace-Internet • Obama, The One • Scary Stuff • Science-Technology •
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Permalink • Thursday - January 08, 2009
Hey, it’s the American Way
Lovely Russian immigrant
gets rich and famous online by teaching English ... or at least by telling people the etymology of certain words in YouTube videos and running her own website.
How does she do it? Well, she sits on her rumpled bed or on the floor, dressed in sexy outfits, sometimes holding her little white dog, and tells you about words in her liquid sexy Russian accent. Plus she’s kind of funny, and seems like a real sweetheart. A couple little special effects on the videos, and it’s an instant winner. Plus she really puts out. 5 to 7 videos a week that is. Natasha Fatale, eat your heart out!
She is Marina Orlova and you’ve probably seen here already on TV. She’s done interviews on O’Reilly, on CBS, NBC. She’s won teh Sexy Geek of the Year award at least once already. She’s made the cover of the latest issue of Cool! English magazine. I didn’t know there even was such a thing, but I gather it’s popular in other countries. Her YouTube videos have been watched over 155 million times. Wow. She has her own channel there, and it’s #1. She has a biweekly radio show on Maxim Radio on Sirius satellite radio. And of course, the website: HotForWords.com. More than a million registered members.
Is she making money off of this? I hope so. And from more than just the ad revenue from her blog. Her website registration is free. She’s got a calendar for sale. Today’s word is “Gun" . (not that this is her first firearms related video)
I like the concept: intelligence is sexy. The woman has 2 degrees in philology, so she must be quite sexy intelligent herself. And as the English language approaches 1 million words, there has to be somebody out there to tell us what they mean and where they come from. Too bad the one place this concept doesn’t fly is America. Here, brain power is way down the list. That’s a shame.
Now, I’m wondering how she can parlay this into some real money. Maybe she’ll take some acting lessons and become a new tech on CSI. I could see it. Heck, I’d be tempted to commit crimes just to here her describe them. Or maybe a gameshow host. Alex Trebek will have to retire sooner or later. If she keeps showing up on O’Reilly as part of his rotating eye candy squad, she’ll wind up working for Fox. That’s my bet. I’m actually amazed that they haven’t discovered already how mesmerizing women are if they have the right kind of foreign accent.
Posted by Drew458
on 01/08/2009 at 05:52 PM
Filed Under: • Cyberspace-Internet • Eye-Candy •
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Permalink • Tuesday - December 23, 2008
MERRY CHRISTMAS AND BE OF GOOD CHEER … FROM ACROSS THE BIG POND TO BMEWS.
Christmas 2008
As the year comes to it’s close I want to wish a very Merry Christmas to all of you wherever you are. Most especially however my thoughts are home and with my compatriots so a special Merry Christmas to you in the USA.
My Home Sweet Home.I cannot post this and end the year without singling out two really special people here at BMEWS. Now unless you’re a kitten or a puppy or maybe my wife, I am not a touchy-feely person at all. However, I have to single out Mr. Christian and Drew.
I was fairly new to BMEWS a year ago and certainly very new to the blogging world.
I have a computer, a keyboard and an opinion or two and Mr. Christian emailed me and invited me to join the BMEWS team. That was a shock of the first order. I was flattered and would be less then honest if I didn’t own up to that. I was not sure I was up to it. Mr. C. must have thought I was, and told me I’d do fine and if I had any questions I could always ask.I had never before had to cope with things too technical and if I did, I didn’t.
That is, I turned my back on things tech because I have a hard time grasping the idea. It’s all-new to me. And it is true that it’s near impossible to teach an old dog new tricks. It has been like returning to school and I didn’t care much for school. I was mostly bored. Well that sure isn’t the case here. I was literally handed another life, in a manner of speaking. And it began with that invitation from Mr. C.And so it started. With emails from me to him. Hey Mr. Christian, how do I do this?
What happens if? Where do I find? How do I go about? Yadda,Yadda?I could just see and hear him after awhile saying,
“Oh Lord. What have I done? Why me Lord?”I have discovered how rewarding BMEWS is and also just how time consuming it can be. Especially when you barely know what you’re doing and still learning the tech ropes.
There are some very smart and very articulate people here and I do not kid myself that any one of them could easily replace me and BMEWS might be the better for it.
If any of you people think I take you for granted, think again. No way. I have the greatest respect for the people who populate this site with their insights and comments. Even where I might question some comments, you folks have the knack to make me stop and question my own position and take a second look. I might stick to my original thought but you made me dig a little more and forced me think more.
I cannot thank you all enough.Ah … so now we come to the second troublemaker. DREW! He can write on any subject and really does know what he’s talking about. The problem is, sometimes I don’t. LOL. I’m pretty sure it was one of our two Christophers who once said it wasn’t a good idea to have anything liquid near a keyboard when reading Drew because often, out of the blue he will say something on some subject and in a way that starts unexpected laughter. Usually while holding a cup of coffee or worse, a mouthful. Drew is the chief engineer at BMEWS, the tech guy who keeps it up and running. When Mr. Christian more or less withdrew to the background to tend to things like family and personal life, and also to escape my endless questions, guess who took his place?
He (Drew) is very tech savvy. He’s even taken courses in things tech. I could do that too. Except I wouldn’t understand any of it. From my years as a disk jockey at many radio stations in my working youth, I came to know a few chief engineers. These are the guys who can read a schematic, know how everything is wired and are in fact so knowledgeable they could if they wanted to or had the money it takes, and some actually did, build their own radio stations.
Drew falls into that wizard category and here’s an example. I once told Drew this after he answered one of my questions. I now share it with you.
If you were to ask a chief engineer what the time of day was, he’d tell you how to make the damn watch instead! So when I started to pepper Drew with questions, he started teaching me HTML. Or tried to anyway. Our emails went flying back and forth, I’m a first grader, no. Make that kindergarten, and he’s speaking Latin or maybe it was Greek, in replies. ?? Well it certainly was all Greek to me. He finally got me books. Thought he’d get rid of me that way. Ha. Boy have I got a surprise for him. I have all these notes see, and a stack of questions just waiting for after the first of the year.
So Mr. Christian and Drew,
My special wishes to you and to your families for a Very Merry Christmas and my thanks as well for your continued patience. I hope your holiday will be restful cause I’m gonna need that patience extended for another … oh … lifetime?Finally, I can’t quit just yet because there are two others that I must thank. One not with us and of course that is The Skipper.
The other is a friend and he is Vilmar. He too has answered questions I’ve struggled with, and done so with patience. So, I thank him here publicly and wish he and his a wonderful Christmas.
It is amazing that so many people who are total strangers come together for no other reason then the desire to be helpful to one another.
So thanks to all of you, and to all I hope the New Year will be more then happy. I hope it will be healthy as well. Oh yeah. And safe.
Posted by peiper
on 12/23/2008 at 03:36 PM
Filed Under: • Blog Stuff • Cyberspace-Internet •
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Permalink • Wednesday - December 17, 2008
Just get Firefox already wouldja?
REDMOND, Wash. – Microsoft Corp. is taking the unusual step of issuing an emergency fix for a security hole in its Internet Explorer software that has exposed millions of users to having their computers taken over by hackers.
The “zero-day” vulnerability, which came to light last week, allows criminals to take over victims’ machines simply by steering them to infected Web sites; users don’t have to download anything for their computers to get infected, which makes the flaw in Internet Explorer’s programming code so dangerous. Internet Explorer is the world’s most widely used Web browser.
Microsoft said it plans to ship a security update, rated “critical,” for the browser on Wednesday. People with the Windows Update feature activated on their computers will get the patch automatically.
Thousands of Web sites already have been compromised by criminals looking to exploit the flaw. The bad guys have loaded malicious code onto those sites that automatically infect visitors’ machines if they’re using Internet Explorer and haven’t employed a complicated series of workarounds that Microsoft has suggested.
Microsoft said it has seen attacks targeting the flaw only in Internet Explorer 7, the most widely used version, but has cautioned that all other current editions of the browser are vulnerable.
Microsoft rarely issues security fixes for its software outside of its regular monthly updates. The company last did it in October, and a year and half before that.
On the Net:
Microsoft’s security advisory:
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/advisory/961051.mspx
Gosh, Microsoft has a product with a glaring security hole in it. Who’da ever thunk that would happen?
Ok, I guess I’ll have to get the fix and install it. As much as I hate IE, I keep a copy around because some sites just won’t work with Firefox. Especially online shopping sites that need to enable session cookies. And it’s that online shopping time of year.
Posted by Drew458
on 12/17/2008 at 12:15 AM
Filed Under: • Computers • Cyberspace-Internet •
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Permalink • Sunday - December 07, 2008
RSS for the rest of us
Hey look, a web site that gives you links to all the blogs and other websites you’ve always meant to visit. Pretty cool. They do the RSS work so you don’t have to. I don’t think BMEWS made the cut, though I didn’t explore the place fully.
Politics left right and center. News commentary. Hollywood Gossip. Sports and Marketing on their way. Everything you ever wanted from the Internet other than porn and email.
Maybe they’ll have a bunch of the gun blogs when the Sports area gets finished. And I hope the milblogs are strongly represented too.
Posted by Drew458
on 12/07/2008 at 01:10 PM
Filed Under: • Blog Stuff • Cyberspace-Internet •
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Permalink • Saturday - November 22, 2008
Darn those immigrants!!
Looks like the UK has let in a new crop of former Nigerian princes ... the actual ISOC is not amused.
You will be paid asap..!!!
21/11/2008
Dear Recipient,
Are you the owner of this email address?
Then Congratulations! We wish to duly notify you that the Internet Society (ISOC) in Geneva, Switzerland has named you among 5 other internet users as Prize Winner of their “FAN-OF-THE-WEB” Promotion. Your Prize is GBPЈ1,000,000.00 (One Million Great Britain Pounds Sterling). Your Unique Email Reference No is [ISOC-08-6754489-3].
________________
FULL NAMES......
STREET ADDRESS..
CITY NAME.......
ZIP CODE........
STATE NAME......
COUNTRY NAME....
TELEPHONE NO....
OCCUPATION......
SEX.............
DATE OF BIRTH…
________________Please complete the above form and submit immediately to the Global Events Manager below for immediate verification and payment.
THE EVENT MANAGER
MR.ROLAND SCHIMEK
EMAIL: roland.schimek@hotmail.co.uk
CELL : +44-704-570-5496
FAX NO: +44-870-133-3927Congratulations again!!!
From Global Team,
ISOC Promotions Dept.
Office: +44-871-263-7341
Don’t be a sucker.
Posted by Drew458
on 11/22/2008 at 03:47 PM
Filed Under: • Crime • Cyberspace-Internet •
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Permalink • Wednesday - October 29, 2008
Dear Mr. Obama
A guest post by Carol, who sends me emails all the time. Thanks Carol.
Date: Mon, 27 Oct 2008
From: “Dennis”
Subject: A MUST READ… PLEASE OPEN YOUR EYES TO THE TRUTH
To Barack Hussein Obama,
The New York Times carried a story on Saturday, October 4, 2008, that proved you had a significantly closer relationship with Bill Ayers than what you previously admitted. While the issue of your relationship is of concern,
the greater concern is that you lied to America about it.
The Chicago Sun reported on May 8, 2008, that FBI records showed that you had a significantly closer relationship with To NY Rezko than what you previously admitted. In the interview, you said that you only saw Mr.
Rezko a couple of times a year. The FBI files showed that you saw him weekly. While the issue of your relationship is of concern, the greater concern is that you lied to America about it.
Your speech in Philadelphia on March 18, 2008, about ‘race’ contradicted your statement to Anderson Cooper on March 14 when you said that you never heard Reverend Wright make his negative statements about white America. While your attendance at Trinity Church for 20 years is of concern, the greater concern is that you lied to America on March 14.
In your 1st debate with John McCain, you said that you never said that you would meet with the leaders of Cuba, Venezuela, Iran, and North Korea without ‘preparations’ at lower levels ... Joe Biden repeated your words in his debate with Sarah Palin ... While the video tape from your debate last February clearly shows that you answered ‘I would’ to the question of meeting with those leaders within 12 months without ‘any’ preconditions. While your judgement about meeting with enemies of the USA without pre-conditions is of concern, the greater concern is that you lied to America in the debate with McCain.
On July 14, 2008, you said that you always knew that the surge would work while the video tapes of you from more than a year ago show that you stated that the surge would not work. While your judgement about military strategy as a potential commander-in-chief is of concern, the greater concern is that you lied to America on July 14.
You now claim that your reason for voting against funding for the troops was because the bill did not include a time line for withdrawal, while the video tapes of you from more than a year ago show that you voted against additional funding because you wanted our troops to be removed immediately ... Not in 16 months after the 2008 election as you now claim. While your judgement about removing our troops unilaterally in 2007 is of concern, the greater concern is that you lied to America about your previous position.
You claim to have a record of working with Republicans while the record shows that the only bill that you sponsored with a Republican was with Chuck Lugar ... And it failed. The record shows that you vote 97% in concert with the Democrat party and that you have the most liberal voting record in the Senate. You joined Republicans only 13% of the time in your votes and those 13% were only after agreement from the Democrat party. While it is of concern that you fail to include conservatives in your actions and that you are such a liberal, the greater concern is that you distorted the truth.
In the primary debates of last February, 2008, you claimed to have talked with a ‘Captain’ of a platoon in Afghanistan ‘the other day’ when in fact you had a discussion in 2003 with a Lieutenant who had just been deployed to Afghanistan. You lied in that debate.
In your debates last spring, you claimed to have been a ‘professor of Constitutional law’ when in fact you have never been a professor of Constitutional law. In this last debate, you were careful to say that you ‘taught a law class’ and never mentioned being a ‘professor of Constitutional law.’ You lied last spring.
You and Joe Biden both claimed that John McCain voted against additional funding for our troops when the actual records show the opposite. You distorted the truth.
You and Joe Biden claim that John McCain voted against funding for alternate energy sources 20 times when the record shows that John McCain specifically voted against funding for bio fuels, especially corn ... and he was right
.... corn is too expensive at producing ethanol, and using corn to make ethanol increased the price of corn from $2 a bushel to $6 a bushel for food. You distorted the truth.
You and Joe Biden claim that John McCain voted like both of you for a tax increase on those making as little as $42,000 per year while the voting record clearly shows that John McCain did not vote as you and Joe Biden. You lied to America .
You and Joe Biden claim that John McCain voted with George W. Bush 90% of the time when you know that Democrats also vote 90% of the time with the President (including Joe Biden) because the vast majority of the votes are procedural. You are one of the few who has not voted 90% of the time with the president because you have been missing from the Senate since the day you got elected. While your absence from your job in the Senate is of concern, the greater concern is that you spin the facts.
You did not take an active role in the rescue plan. You claimed that the Senate did not need you while the real reason that you abstained was because of your close relationships with the executives of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Countrywide, and Acorn ... who all helped cause the financial problems of today ... and they all made major contributions to your campaign. While your relationship with these executives and your protection of them for your
brief 3 years in the Senate (along with Barney Frank, Chuck Schumer, Maxine Waters, and Chris Dodd) is of concern, the greater concern is that you are being deceitful.
You forgot to mention that you personally represented Tony Rezko and Acorn. Tony Rezko, an Arab and close friend to you, was convicted of fraud in Chicago real estate transactions that bilked millions of tax dollars from the Illinois government for renovation projects that you sponsored as a state senator ... and Acorn has been convicted of voter fraud, real estate sub prime loan intimidation, and illegal campaign contributions. Tony Rezko has contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars to your political campaigns. You personally used your political positions to steer money to both Tony Rezko and Acorn and you used Acorn to register thousands of phony voters for Democrats and you. While your relationships with Rezko and Acorn are of concern, the greater concern is that you omitted important facts about your relationships with them to America.
During your campaign, you said: ‘typical white person.’ ‘They cling to their guns and religion.’ ‘They will say that I am black.’ You played the race card. You tried to label any criticism about you as racist. You divide America .
You claim that you will reduce taxes for 95% of America , but you forgot to tell America that those reductions are after you remove the Bush tax reductions. You have requested close to $1 billion in earmarks and several million for Acorn. Your social programs will cost America $1 trillion per year and you claim that a reduction in military spending ($100 billion for Iraq ) can pay for it. While your economic plan of adding 30% to the size of our federal government is of concern, the greater concern is that you are deceiving America.
The drain to America ‘s economy by foreign supplied oil is $700 billion per year (5% of GDP) while the war in Iraq is $100 billion (less than 1% of GDP). You voted against any increases to oil exploration for the last 3 years and any expansion of nuclear facilities. Yet today, you say that you have always been for more oil and more nuclear. You are lying to America.
Mr. Obama, you claimed that you ‘changed’ your mind about public financing for your campaign because of the money spent by Republican PACs in 2004. The truth is that the Democrat PACs in 2004, 2006, and 2008 spent twice as much as the Republican PACs (especially George Soros and MoveOn.org). You are lying to America.
Mr. Obama, you have done nothing to stop the actions of the teachers union and college professors in the USA. They eliminated religion from our history. They teach pro gay agendas and discuss sex with students as young as first grade. They bring their personal politics into the classrooms. They disparage conservatives. They brainwash our children. They are in it for themselves ..... not America . Are you reluctant to condemn their actions because teachers/professors and the NEA contribute 25% of all money donated to Democrats and none to Republicans? You are deceiving America .
Oh, Mr. Obama, Teddy Roosevelt said about a hundred years ago that we Americans should first look at the character of our leaders before anything else.
Your character looks horrible. While you make good speeches, motivating speeches, your character does not match your rhetoric. You talk the talk, but do not walk the walk.
1. You lied to America. You lied many times. You distorted facts. You parsed your answers like a lawyer.
2. You distorted the record of John McCain in your words and in your advertisements.
3. You had associations with some very bad people for your personal political gains and then lied about those associations.
4. You divide America about race and about class.
Now let me compare your record of lies, distortions, race baiting, and associations to John McCain: War hero. Annapolis graduate with ‘Country first.’ Operational leadership experience like all 43 previously elected presidents of the USA as a Navy officer for 22 years. 26 years in the Senate. Straight talk. Maverick. 54% of the time participated on bills with Democrats. Never asked for an earmark. The only blemish on his record is his part in the Keating 5 debacle about 25 years ago.
Mr. Obama, at Harvard Law School, you learned that the end does not justify the means. You learned that perjury, false witness, dishonesty, distortion of truth are never tolerated. Yet, your dishonesty is overwhelming. Your dishonesty is tremendously greater than the dishonesty that caused the impeachment and disbarment of Bill Clinton. Your dishonesty is tremendously greater than the dishonesty of Scooter Libby. You should be ashamed.
Mr. Obama, it is time for us Americans to put aside our differences on political issues and vote against you because of your dishonest character. It is time for all of us Americans to put aside our political issues and vote for America first. It is time for America to vote for honesty.
Any people who vote for you after understanding that you are dishonest should be ashamed of themselves for making their personal political issues more important than character. Would these same people vote for the anti-Christ if the anti-Christ promised them riches? Would they make a golden calf while Moses was up the mountain? Would they hire some one for a job if that someone lied in an interview? Of course not. So why do some of these people justify their votes for you even though they know you are dishonest? Why do they excuse your dishonesty? Because some of these people are frightened about the future, the economy, and their financial security .... and you are preying on their fears with empty promises ... and because some (especially our young people) are consumed by your wonderful style and promises for ‘change’ like the Germans who voted for Adolf Hitler in 1932. The greed/envy by Germans in 1932 kept them from recognizing Hitler for who he was. They loved his style. Greed and envy are keeping many Americans from recognizing you ... your style has camouflaged your dishonesty .... but many of us see you for who you really are ... and we will not stop exposing who you are every day, forever if it is necessary.
Mr. Obama, you are dishonest. Anyone who votes for you is enabling dishonesty.
Mr. Obama, America cannot trust that you will put America first in your decisions about the future.
Mr. Obama, you are not the ‘change’ that America deserves. We cannot trust you.
Mr. Obama, You are not ready and not fit to be commander-in-chief.
Mr. Obama, John McCain does not have as much money as your campaign to refute all of your false statements. And for whatever reasons, the mainstream media will not give adequate coverage or research about your lies, distortions, word parsing, bad associations, race baiting, lack of operational leadership experience, and generally dishonest character. The media is diverting our attention from your relationships and ignoring the fact that you lied about those relationships. The fact that you lied is much more important than the relationships themselves .... just like with Bill Clinton and Richard Nixon ... Monica Lewinski and Watergate were not nearly as bad as the fact that those men lied about the events ... false witness ... perjury ... your relationships and bad judgements are bad on their own .... but your lies are even worse.
Therefore, by copy of this memo, all who read this memo are asked to send it to everyone else in America before it is too late. We need to do the job that the media will not do. We need to expose your dishonesty so that every person in America understands who you really are before election day.
Mr. Obama, in a democracy, we get what we deserve. And God help America if we deserve you.
Michael Master
McLean, Virginia
Posted by Drew458
on 10/29/2008 at 06:01 PM
Filed Under: • Cyberspace-Internet • Politics •
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Permalink • Thursday - October 16, 2008
FAKE MICROSOFT PATCH TUESDAY.
I get the Tuesday Patch on Wed here, and this arrived in Thurs. email.
While tech things not usually my forte (but I’m in there trying to learn. Slowly. ) I simply wondered how many have seen this and are aware.
My guess is that most BMEWSers would be aware of something in email anyway. Even I know about that. BUT ..
hey. Just on the off chance that even one hasn’t caught this and might get nailed, I thought I should post the article and the link.
October 14th, 2008
Fake Microsoft Patch Tuesday malware campaign spreadingPosted by Dancho Danchev @ 3:00 pm
Malicious attackers are once again taking advantage of event-based social engineering attacks, and are currently mass mailing fake notifications for Microsoft’s Patch Tuesday, attaching a copy of Trojan.Backdoor.Haxdoor, next to a legitimately looking PGP signature which is, of course, fake too :
“We received some questions from customers about an e-mail that’s circulating that claims to be a security e-mail from Microsoft. The e-mail comes with an attached executable, which it claims is the latest security update, and encourages the recipient to run the attached executable so they can be safe. While malicious e-mails posing as Microsoft security notifications with attached malware aren’t new (we’ve seen this problem for several years) this particular one is a bit different in that it claims to be signed by our own Steve Lipner and has what appears to be a PGP signature block attached to it. While those are clever attempts to increase the credibility of the mail, I can tell you categorically that this is not a legitimate e-mail: it is a piece of malicious spam and the attachment is malware. Specifically, it contains Backdoor:Win32/Haxdoor.”
Posted by Drew458
on 10/16/2008 at 10:32 AM
Filed Under: • Computers • Cyberspace-Internet •
• Comments (1)
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Permalink • Five Most Recent Trackbacks:
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Not that very many people ever read this far down, but this blog was the creation of Allan Kelly and his friend Vilmar. Vilmar moved on to his own blog some time ago, and Allan ran this place alone until his sudden and unexpected death partway through 2006. We all miss him. A lot. Even though he is gone this site will always still be more than a little bit his. We who are left to carry on the BMEWS tradition owe him a great debt of gratitude, and we hope to be able to pay that back by following his last advice to us all:
It's been a long strange trip without you Skipper, but thanks for pointing us in the right direction and giving us a swift kick in the behind to get us going. Keep lookin' down on us, will ya? Thanks.
- Keep a firm grasp of Right and Wrong
- Stay involved with government on every level and don't let those bastards get away with a thing
- Use every legal means to defend yourself in the event of real internal trouble, and, most importantly:
- Keep talking to each other, whether here or elsewhere
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Oh, and here's some kind of visitor flag counter thingy. Hey, all the cool blogs have one, so I should too. The Visitors Online thingy up at the top doesn't count anything, but it looks neat. It had better, since I paid actual money for it.
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