2005-01-16

The Puzzle Palace

I just finished reading James Bamford’s The Puzzle Palace: Inside the National Security Agency, America’s Most Secret Intelligence Organization. If you have any interest the intelligence community, spys, or privacy, read this book. It has more information than I ever thought the NSA would possibly let out. (The fact that they did let it out frightens me. What are they hiding?) I can’t emphasize this enough: Read This Book. You’ll be amazed.

At the same time, that capability at any time could be turned around on the American people and no American would have any privacy left, such [is] the capability to monitor everything: telephone conversations, telegrams, it doesn't matter. There would be no place to hide. If this government ever became a tyranny, if a dictator ever took charge in this country, the technological capacity that the intelligence community has given the government could enable it to impose total tyranny, and there would be no way to fight back, because the most careful effort to combine together in resistance to the government, no matter how privately it was done, is within the reach of the government to know. Such is the capability of this technology... I don't want to see this country ever go across the bridge. I know the capacity that is there to make tyranny total in America... That is the abyss from which there is no return. -Senator Frank Church, 1973, referring to the NSA's SIGINT technology

This article was modified 2012-12-22.

2005-01-14

LiveJournal is down

http://www.livejournal.com/

Our data center (Internap) lost all its power, including redundant backup power. We're currently dealing with bringing our 100+ servers back online. Not fun. We're not happy about this. Sorry... :-/ More details later.

Another reason why everybody should find some free hosting and Wordpress.

Edit:

"... there was a recent rash of suicides related to the "gothic" subculture Friday night. The cause of these suicides is still unknown, but is believed to be related to the recent and total server farm crash of livejournal.com." The InterNAP facility where LJ hosts their gear apparently had a total and catastrophic loss of power today somwhere on or after 1530MST today. They're still working on recovery.

This article was modified 2012-09-15.

2005-01-12

Virus Found

I stayed home today. Just woke up a few minutes ago.

I think I’ll watch Akira today.

Back into the system tomorrow.

This article was modified 2012-09-15.

2005-01-11

crypto

UKUSA (a.ka. ECHELON)

“Signed in 1947 and known as the UKUSA Agreement, it brought together under a single umberlla the SIGINT organizations of the United States, Britain, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Under the pact, the five nations carved up the earth into spheres of cryptologic influence, each country assigned specific targets according to its potential for maximum intercept coverage.

The UKUSA Agreement…has never been officialy acknowledged by any country even today…” Page 391, Jame Bamford’s Puzzle Palace

This article was modified 2012-10-12.

2005-01-09

Blizzard?

Is this the storm that’s supposed to hit? Arctic blast, indeed.

This article was modified 2012-09-15.

2004-12-31

When CUPS won't die...

I upgraded CUPS yesterday and apparently broke my printing. After some googling and searching on the Gentoo forums, I came up with the following: 1) Delete the printer from http://localhost:631/printers/ 2) killall cupsd (perhaps using the PID and -9 switch if the bastard won’t die) 3) /etc/init.d/cupsd zap 4) /etc/init.d/cupsd start 5) Add the printer back into the web panel

It works now.

(Note that you could probably fix the problem with a reboot, but that’s just so Windows-like.)

This article was modified 2012-09-15.

2004-12-25

Just Wait 'Til Next Year!

‘Twas the year before Christmas, and all through the land The disk drives were whirring with computer thefts grand. Though the codes and the passwords were prepared with great care, The embezzlers and felons popped up everywhere.

While bankers and executives were snug in their beds And visions of profits danced in their heads, Computers and terminals and DP machines Were covertly used for criminal means.

Commercial Trust in New Jersey received such a clatter When a keypunch mistake made a bank account fatter. One-tenth of a million was lost in a flash And a simple coin dealer had that much more cash.

In Flushing, a student who knew some DP Awarded himself a Phi Beta key. His grades were altered so lively and quick That his peers were amazed and the faculty sick.

Two agents in Bridgeport for the U.S. DEA Discovered that selling drug data would pay. An IBM mainframe was used for the crime, And they managed to profit for quite a long time.

In Toronto, an Amdahl was used for abuse As students put CRT screens to misuse. And Hawthorne, California, saw funds fade away When a Honeywell system took part in foul play.

Even NASA had its share of computer-crime men, Stolen DP directories and breached PDP-10’s. And who can forget the Belmont affair, When programmer and cash were suddenly not there.

In L.A., the UCB staff had a fright When one million dollars was lost overnight. And Security Pacific had its day to rue When a clever programmer took ten million-two.

Now congressmen, now senators and banks of the nation, All struggle to enact preventative legislation. And Abraham Ribicoff is getting his licks. While sponsoring Senate Bill Seventeen-Sixty-and-Six.

Today, for computers with data encryption, Total security is nothing but fiction. And computer criminals and crooks continue to jeer, “If we didn’t get you this time, just wait ‘til next year!”

Thanks to the reader, who sent this to Richard Forno, who posted it to the Info Warrior list

This article was modified 2012-09-15.

2004-12-21

Gallery

A few weeks ago I put up a Gallery.

This article was modified 2012-09-15.