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!

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!

Vacation Day

I took the morning off so no post today. See you all back here tomorrow.

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.

------<O>------

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!

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Not yet.