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Monday 13 May, 2002
- BadTrans Call Home
-
Got an email infected with a variation of the
W32.Badtrans virus (see a description of one
variation
here). Fortunately, Norton Anti-Virus
successfully detected the payload and deleted the
file. According to the mail headers, the email came
from 63.193.37.149. A reverse DNS lookup says this
is a Pacific Bell ADSL line
(adsl-63-193-37-149.dsl.sndg02.pacbell.net). From
there it went to what appears to be a Pac Bell
mailserver (206.13.28.240 or mta6.snfc21.pbi.net).
The return address, for anyone who is interested is
mlumicao at b-alert dot com (M. Lumicao).
I've sent a courtesy email to Lumicao but have
not received a reply (nor did it bounce). Well, at
least I did my part. I also got another Klez
infected email but I did not bother to track it.
All I can say is you really do need to have some
kind of virus protection. Which program you use is
up to you, I don't particularly care which, the
important thing is that you use one and update it
frequently. And heh, let's be careful out
there.
- Rainy Days and Mondays
-
Yup, we had one heck of a rain storm last night.
Thunder rolled down the valleys and lightening lit
up the sky. We had put out our trash bin for
garbage pickup today and were afraid that the water
running down the street and sidewalk would carry
the bin away. Fortunately, that did not happen but
there sure was a lot of rain falling.
By the way, I'm taking Wednesday morning off so
there may not be a post. Also, I'm off all day
Friday because we are having our house windows
tinted to reduce the heat buildup during the day.
This should help to reduce electricity costs due to
A/C use, although I won't know by how much until
later this summer and things really heat up.
Discoveries are made by not following
instructions. - Aloha!
Tuesday - 14 May, 2002
- Faulty Ivory Towers
-
The US Supreme Court opined yesterday (see the
syllabus
here for Ashcroft v. American Civil
Liberties Union (00-1292) 217 F.3d 162. There
are links on that page to the individual opinions.)
that "contemporary community standards" in part,
can be used to judge the content of web sites, thus
vacating and remanding to a lower court that found
this ran afoul of the 1st Amendment (free speech)
to the Constitution.
In isolation, the opinion makes sense. As a
practical matter (insert Disclaimer here), and as
an indication of the lack of understanding of the
web by these Justices, it is totally wrong headed.
The model used by Justice Thomas (yes, the same one
that allegedly repeatedly, over a period of years,
sexually harassed university law professor Anita
Hill and, if I remember correctly, included
unwanted discussions of obscene sexual acts and
movies depicting women having sex with animals) is
one of magazine publishing. That is, one in which
paper magazines are printed and distributed in the
mail. In that model, a publisher must consciously
send a copy to a particular address in a particular
city and state. Hence, such a publisher can
determine whether his or her magazine is
appropriate for that community (actually, a court
would determine that but at least the publisher has
control over the distribution). On the web,
conversations flow to all points that have a
connection.
To say that a web publisher can somehow restrict
where information flows shows an extreme lack of
understanding of the plain meaning of the words
"World Wide Web". The web was designed to take
advantage of redundant routing so that if one part
of it went down, others would take the load. So as
a practical matter, if the "community" of the state
of Mississippi considers some conversations to be
obscene, how does a web publisher restrict the
connection to that specific area? The only way it
could work is to require logins to the publisher's
web site and they could somehow determine where the
person trying to access their site was physically
located. This can theoretically be done, but free
speech is not based on theory, it's based on the
practical exercise thereof. And as a practical
matter, anyone who has a credit card, minors
included, would be able to access such sites.
Further, if someone, for example, an adult from
Idaho travels to Mississippi for business or
pleasure, and then using his or her laptop, tries
to login to the web site in question, the community
standards of Mississippi would apply. As a
practical matter, how does one know what standards
are in effect for a particular area? The answer is
you wouldn't and therefore, a prudent person would
not access the website from anywhere else. This has
an obvious chilling effect on free speech but is
one the court feels is Constitutional in order to
"protect the children." Hogwash.
And yet, in the opinion of the highest court in
the land, the publisher just needs to choose
another medium. In other words, get off the web:
"If a publisher wishes for its material to be
judged only by the standards of particular
communities, then it need only take the simple step
of utilizing a medium that enables it to target the
release of its material into those communities."
What medium is that? Whichever it is, it's not the
World Wide Web.
If something I write offends you, don't read it.
And don't come back because I'll probably say other
things you don't like. I'm not forcing anyone to
come here. I don't send SPAM trying to get people
to stop by. I don't buy banner advertising at
various sites. I don't try to get legislators to
pass laws that would force you to read what is
here, so why should I have to censor myself to meet
the lowest common denominator possible in the
entire United States of America? Yes, I know the
ruling refers to "commercial" speech, and no, I am
not for speech which will illegally harm anyone.
But it is but one slippery step down the slope to
censorship.
As you can probably tell, I am not optimistic
about the course our nation is on. We seem so
concerned about safety, that we are willing to
sacrifice all of our freedom, just
to have a small amount of it (safety). The most
tragic part about all of this is that in
voluntarily giving up our freedoms, we will not get
our yearned for security. We live in dark times,
and they will soon get even darker - in large part
to our own doing, all in the name of safety,
security, or perhaps even religion. May the Lord
forgive us our sins.
If the press is not free, if speech is not
independent and untrammeled, if the mind is shackled or
made impotent through fear, it makes no difference
under what form of government you live, you are a
subject and not a citizen. - William E. Borah, US
Senator, Idaho(R) - Aloha!
Wednesday - 15 May, 2002
- Vacation Day
- I took the morning off so no post today. See you
all back here tomorrow.
Thursday - 16 May, 2002
- Episode II: Send in the Clowns
- I could lose my Geek license if I don't have at
least one item on the newest Star Wars movie so here
it is. Follow this link here
to the characters that didn't make the cut. My
favorites are Rar Rar Rinks (half-brother to you know
who) and Darth Brooks (loved the hat, hated the
shirt).
- Rotund Female Aria
- For you Opera fans out there, Opera 6.0 for Linux
finally went gold yesterday. Also, version 6.02 for
Windows slipped out the door. No word on when Aida
0.1a will be released.
- A Kodak Moment
-
Give it to Kodak to market the first, as far as I
know, 4MP digital camera for less than $400USD (see
the PC Magazine review of the Kodak EasyShare
DX4900
here). Obviously, there are trade-offs that
must be made to reach that price point, but still,
if you are looking for a point and shoot camera
that can shoot images large enough to print 8"X10"
glossies with, this could be the one.
As noted earlier, I'm taking tomorrow off so
unless something really unusual happens, I won't
have a post up.
A thief believes that everybody steals. -
Aloha!
Aloha Friday - 17 May, 2002
- *****
- Not yet.
© 2002 Daniel K. Seto. All rights
reserved. Disclaimer
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