Trust No One!

That was the mantra of an old favorite Role Playing Game of mine, "Paranoia". (Before they ruined it with the 2nd edition)

So, back to the point.

I'm working on a client's computer this weekend. It has two problems, CPU Utilization in Windows XP is a constant 100%, and Microsoft Word would not open any files. So I start poking around with the obvious things. Spyware and Viruses.

The computer already has Norton Internet Security on it (up to date), and the user ran Adaware multiple times. With the CPU being at 100%, I didn't want to try to run anything on it. Besides, if it was compromised, it wouldn't have done any good. So off comes the cover, out comes the hard drive, and in it goes to my forensics workstation, which has several versions of different scanners of different types.

So I run Command Antivirus, Norton Antivirus, Trend Micro's Housecall Web-based Free Scanner, Spybot Search and Destroy, Adaware (again), McAfee's AntiVirus, Grisoft's AVG. Basically, the kitchen sink of scanners.

Nothing.

Didn't find a thing, and CPU was still at 100% when the Hard Drive was replaced.

OK - System process was using 80-90% of CPU time. That usually indicates a device driver using the wrong version (Say for Windows ME, which this machine originally had installed.)

Check all the drivers by hand. All are the Digitally Signed XP versions. Shoot. No dice.

Check the registry (where I should have started). Found buried in an obscure section a reference to 'server.exe' (Sub7 trojan program) and 'systray.exe' where it shouldn't have been (another Trojan). Removed those two files, reboot.

System works fine now.

The date on the Trojans were October 24th, 2003. I took the hard drive out of a system and scanned it in another, yet it never found those two programs (One in C:\ and the other in C:\Windows\System32) even though they were in non-hidden directories. The drive was even formatted in FAT32, so it didn't have anything to do with file permissions or ownership. The Anti-Virus program on the system had been there for 8 months and was kept up to date.

Still feel protected by your Anti-virus programs?

Think again.

Just be careful using your system.

Dumbass Disposable DVDs

A while ago, there were several articles about the idea of selling disposable DVDs. The idea was that the DVDs would be encased in an airtight package, and once opened and exposed to the air would begin to darken to the point that after 48 hours they would be unusable. This way you didn't have to return the DVDs to the rental store. No late fees, no hassle, you just throw them away.

Sure, a nightmare for the environmentalist wackos among us, but it could work.

Blockbuster rents DVDs for $4.29 around here, and with the ability to buy the latest releases at the local Walmart for $14-$16, it's just not worth renting anymore. I'd rather spend the extra few bucks and buy it straight out.

So I liked the idea of throwaway DVDs, almost no retail overhead for the manufacturers, so I thought it would be cheaper.

So along comes "EZ-D", the throwaways in test markets.

As you can see from the article, they aren't going over too well. At $7 a pop, I'm not surprised. What are they thinking? SEVEN dollars for two days of viewing? Again, when you can buy the non-disposable ones for just a little more why would you buy throw-aways for such a price? Sell them for $2-$3, and I'm in; otherwise forget it. Hopefully their test market data will tell them that.

In My (And Every Other Man's) Dreams

I am willing to make a bet that many of us men can get our wives/fiances/girlfriends to read this one, and not look at the URL.

I'm going to give it the old college try.

Jack's willing to volunteer for any women out there who want to see if this is indeed true. Just drop me an e-mail, I'm willing to travel.

I Couldn't Believe My Ears

So I'm flipping channels on my Hauppauge WinTV device that allows me to watch TV on my computer. Yes, it's the ultimate in sensory overload; TV and the Internet.

Anyway, I flip over to Fox News, my preferred Cable News Channel (like that's a surprise), and there's Geraldo. Yes, Geraldo, who couldn't get a good gig anywhere (for good reason), and Fox has him because he's a left-leaner and they picked him up back when the Big 3 networks noticed that Fox was taking some of their viewers. Well, in their attempt to paint Fox as being the extreme right-wing news source, they caused the upper muckity-mucks at Fox to hire Geraldo for some 'balance', and now they're stuck with him.

Even if he did get kicked out of Iraq.

So, here he is on his show (which I didn't even know he had), talking about the Kobe Bryant case (which I could give a shit about), and in a straight face he's speaking about dried semen and pubic hair on the victim's underwear. He also has some Forensic Pathologist there, whom he's asking how accurate the science is for determining how old the crusty spooge is.

Please Fox, dump Geraldo and quit reprinting AP stories on your website.

Please.

I'll even pay for a subscription.

Updated Redhat 9 Java Installtion for Mozilla 1.5

A while back I posted instructions to installing the Java plugin for Mozilla on RedHat 9 Linux. I've added a section for Mozilla 1.5 and the new J2re1.4.2_02 version of the Java Runtime Engine and Plugin.

If you're stuck, like I was (again), go there and check it out.

Oh, and I would suggest running Mozilla Firebird as a browser on Linux OR Windows. IE is no longer my default browser due to all of the recent security problems plaguing it. These vulnerabilities allow all of this damn spyware that innundates everyone's computers these days to be installed without the user's knowledge simply by visiting a website. Do yourself a favor and try it out. Save yourself some time and get the Windows Installer Version of Firebird 0.7 by clicking here. Otherwise you'll have to unzip it yourself, put it in the right places, and make registry changes.

Yup, the installer is easier.

Poor Man's Drive Imaging and Backup

Most of you have probably heard of products like Norton Ghost, Powerquest Drive Image, or similar disk imaging software. If you need to create an exact duplicate of the data so that you can restore it quickly in the event of data loss or hardware failure these two products can fill your need. There's even partimage, that will make an image of a drive and compress it for restoration later.

However, Norton Ghost and Drive Image are rather pricey (close to US$1000) if you want to back-up a non desktop OS like Windows 2000 Server (Standard or Advanced) or Windows NT Server. The consumer level version of these products won't install on those OS's, and partimage only experimentally supports NTFS.

And what if you don't have the money to buy these products, especially if you need to backup 20 or so servers or workstations from time to time.

Along comes a neat little *nix (or *BSD) tool called dd. It is a very powerful (and dangerous) tool that takes input from any sort of partition (/mnt/path), device (/dev/hda), or even a network mounted (NFS, SAMBA, nc) sources and outputs it to the same myriad of destinations.

The simple way is to use dd to create an image of a hard disk and copy it to another disk. This will give you an exact duplicate of the original disk, free space and all. However, if you are only using 10GB of a 60GB hard drive, you waste a lot of space imaging the empty sections of your disk. On a server this could get to be quite a headache, as you can have many large drives to image, and would require the same sized disks to back them up on.

So, in the tradition of other articles such as "Poor Man's Ghost", I present to you instructions to take any source drive and back it up, all while compressing the image so it takes up quite a bit less space. For this set of instructions, all you need is a secondary hard drive to store the images on, and a bootable CD Linux distro such as Knoppix (or any of its variants).

In my example I used Knoppix 3.3 to backup a 60GB Hard Drive with Windows XP Professional installed. The disk image storage drive is 120GB, enough space to normally store two 60GB images.

I'm going to assume this is a brand new backup drive, so I'll walk through the steps of creating a partition and formatting it for use.

First boot the Knoppix CD, and at the prompt type:

knoppix 2

This will boot Knoppix into Console-only mode. You can optionally just press enter at the prompt and work with the full KDE interface, but its not really necessary.

So, in our computer we have two IDE hard drives (original and backup) and one CD-ROM drive. Usually (though not always), the Master drive on the primary IDE channel is hda, the Slave is hdb, on the secondary IDE channel you have hdc (Master) and hdd (Slave). In our case both hard drives are on the primary channel, so the original is hda and the backup drive is hdb. This isn't really a good idea, due to IDE signaling slowing down transfer rates on the same channel, though if you have SATA (Serial ATA) this is not a problem - but for this example it makes things less confusing.

If you aren't sure which disk is which (and even if you are I would recommend doing this), issue the following command:

root@tty1[/]#fdisk -lu

This will show you a list of all of your drives, their sizes, and partition types. In our example, one shows NTFS/HPFS (hda) and the other shows no valid partition (hdb).

Knoppix and most CD distros don't turn on 32-bit drive access and DMA by default, so we're going to do that here so that we can increase transfer rates by 400-500% over 16-bit PIO mode:

root@tty1[/]#hdparm -c 1 -d 1 -k 1 /dev/hda (If your hard disk supports 32-bit I/O "c" and DMA "d")
root@tty1[/]#hdparm -c 1 -d 1 -k 1 /dev/hdb (If your hard disk supports 32-bit I/O "c" and DMA "d")

Now we're going to prepare the new disk by creating a new primary ext2fs partition on hdb that uses the entire drive:

root@tty1[/]#fdisk /dev/hdb
Command (m for help): n (For a new partition)
Create primary partition #1 with size equal to entire disk('p', then '1', then 'return')
Command (m for help): w (to write the changes and quit)
root@tty1[/]#mke2fs -c /dev/hdb1 (Will use entire partition)

Now we're going to create a directory "dskimgs" to hold our image, and mount our new partition to that directory:

root@tty1[/]#mkdir /dskimgs
root@tty1[/]#mount -t auto /dev/hdb1 /dskimgs

We should be now all set to make an image of the original and compress it, storing the image into a file called 'diskimage.gz'. We use gzip and maximum compression "-9" here. You can use any compression agent you wish, its just that gzip is usually present in any distro by default.

root@tty1[/]#dd if=/dev/hda bs=1k | gzip -c9 > /dskimgs/diskimage.gz

In that line, we take dd's input and pipe it to gzip a 1024-byte size block at a time, which with the -c option sends the compressed image to standard out, which we redirect to a file. You can try larger bs= sizes if you have the memory for it, since the compression is done in memory. I've used 1024K blocksizes before.

This takes about 90 minutes to run with our original 60GB hard drive. After its done, we have a 14GB file which contains an exact duplicate of the original drive.

How do we restore our image from hdb to hda if we need? Easy, just do most of the same steps with a change in our last command:

Boot the Knoppix CD:

knoppix 2
root@tty1[/]#hdparm -c 1 -d 1 -k 1 /dev/hda (If your hard disk supports 32-bit I/O "c" and DMA "d")
root@tty1[/]#hdparm -c 1 -d 1 -k 1 /dev/hdb (If your hard disk supports 32-bit I/O "c" and DMA "d")
root@tty1[/]#mkdir /dskimgs
root@tty1[/]#mount -t auto /dev/hdb1 /dskimgs
root@tty1[/]#gzip -cd /dskimgs/diskimage.gz | dd of=/dev/hda

The last line uncompresses the drive image to standard out, which we pipe to dd's output which is the hda drive.

Now remove hdb and reboot, and your OS is back just like it was when you imaged it. (In our example, the restore took about 30 minutes to complete).

DISCLAIMER: Use this at your own risk, no guarantees or any other warranties are implied or transferred. This may or may not work for you.

I Had To Come Back To Comment

Yes, I know it's been almost 3 months since I've put anything here, but I had an experience today I have to share.

A local man, his name is Matt, returned from Iraq for his 15-day leave and arrived in Columbus to see his Mom and the rest of his family.

His Mom hadn't seen him in a year. His Aunt, an old neighbor of mine, moved about a mile away a few years ago but has stayed in touch. She was throwing a 'Welcome Home' party for Matt, and all of the Neighbors (new and old) were invited over to celebrate and show our support. Matt is with the 101st Airborne and is stationed in Northern Iraq, though he's seen action many places from what I was told. He's going back soon, but we all wanted to go over and say "thanks" for helping to protect our country and our livelihood.

I'm not sure who tipped them off, but the local media showed up and started interviewing everyone about what was going on in Iraq and what it meant to have Matt back for a short time.

I myself have little use for the media, and tried to stay out of the way. Thankfully no one from the TV stations or newspapers asked me for my comments. Though they would have been just like Matt's, which I'll speak to in a moment.

I heard two of the reporters whispering that they wanted to get camera shots of Matt's Mom's face when she first saw him after a year. Unluckily for them, I was the only one left on lookout outside when Matt arrived, and OOPS, I forgot to tell them that he had arrived and was outside until after his Mom had already greeted him. Heh.

Anyway, when the reporter approached him he pushed away the microphone and immediately began talking about how Iraq was nothing like the terrible place that we the American public were hearing about in the news, but instead that the Iraqi people had never had freedom, and now that they had a taste of it they wanted more, and how glad they (the Iraqis) were that we (the Americans) were around. He thanked the crowd and that was about all he said to the news media. He wanted little to do with them.

I had been bothered by the almost 100% negative coverage we had been getting from the media on the situation in Iraq, and was glad to hear that what I (and many others) suspected was true. I wholly believe there is both a conscious and unconscious effort on the part of the media to just make our President, George W. Bush, look bad no matter how good things are really going.

Made me feel proud, it did.

Is This Still Here?

Wow. I'm surprised Blogger hasn't killed this place due to lack of activity. Yes, its me - the busy guy running his business. You'd think I'd have a few minutes to write something here, but when I can manage to get a few free minutes, I don't know what do post about.

So maybe I can just make you laugh.

Until next time...

Hell Of Being Skinned Alive

That's where it's going to feel like you are after reading this post. Yes I've been slacking again, so this will be a long rambling article that will jump from subject to subject without any cohesiveness.

Actually, I had written this article once before, about 3 days ago. Spent an hour or so writing it, and it was witty, well written, humorous, and something everyone would want to read. Well, that's the story I am sticking to, and you can't go back and see what I typed up to prove differently, because its gone.

Long gone.

You see, I was doing the article on my laptop, like I am now, only I was running Linux. I was typing it in Blogger's interface and copying and pasting the article as I went along to Open Office Writer. Open Office is a free "Office" Suite that is very similar to Microsoft Office. It has Writer (Like Word), and also an Excel and Powerpoint Knockoff, as well as a few others. It comes in Linux and Windows versions. If you can't afford $400 for a Microsoft Office Professional License, and you aren't a student, give it a try. It will read Office formatted files, so you can still open Word, Excel, and Powerpoint documents you get mailed to you.

Anyway, you are probably thinking at this point that Blogger crashed and lost my article. Nope. It was Open Office's fault, I was using the spell-checker, and it spawned a runaway process. No, the machine didn't try to run away, but the process was so bad that I couldn't do anything but reboot, and I lost the whole document.

So here I am again, going to give it the old college try again. Only this time I am in Windows 2000, and using UltraEdit as the master copy, and will paste it into Blogger once I am done. Speaking of Blogger, James over at Hell In a Handbasket has moved off Blogger and onto a Hosting Service using Movable Type. Damn, now I have to update my blogroll. I understand the draw on moving off, and I was thinking about it myself, but I've been too busy/lazy.

Speaking of laziness, that leads me into something that pisses me off to no end. I recently bought a bike, and have been tooling around the neighborhood getting some lower-body exercise, and chasing the kids around too. There's a Super-Megastore about two-miles ride from my house (much closer as the crow flies, but longer taking the back roads), and I've been biking up there. Well one day the weather looked a little dark, and so I drove up, not wanting to ride back in the pouring rain. It was about 2:00 in the afternoon on a weekday, so the parking lot was pretty empty.

Other than the shopping carts.

Meijers, like many other stores, has those 'cart corrals' where you can place your shopping cart after you empty the contents into your vehicle. The corral keeps the lot clear of those kamikaze carts that seem to be pointed in just the right direction to get blown by a slight breeze and crash into the side of your or someone else's brand new car, putting quite a dent in it.

However, as I have noticed before, there are carts left out in the open, but within six feet of the nearest corral! [That's 2 meters for those not in the US]

Now Come-on People! I'm a reasonable guy, but I'm seeing a very unreasonable thing. I mean, we're not talking about pushing an empty cart that far. OK - I'm no skinny-mini (though I'm trying to get there), but dammit, you used your carb-bloated body to push the cart full of twinkies, bon-bons, potato chips, and other sugar-laden items to your car, at least you can have some consideration and waddle your cart over to the corral. You might burn off a half a bite of that melted Snicker's bar you have in your hand. I wouldn't have been so miffed if it was one or two carts, but it had to be at least 15-20. If you're an old Granny with a walker, get one of the Meijer's baggers to take your stuff out to the car. Dammit.

Speaking of Mega-stores, why do I shop at Walmart? The parking lot is full almost everyday, but there's more teeth in a toddler's head than there is in the whole store. Maybe its for the greasy hair and tattoo show? No, dammit, its the prices. My friends over at Chaos Theory call me the "Ferengi", and I suppose its somewhat true, and I can't argue with saving the money when stuff is considerably cheaper. We even have a "Super" Walmart with Groceries as well.

(Insert your favorite Redneck joke here)

Walmart is a cultural melting pot. I can get as much culture as I can possibly stand there, though not of the kind I'd like. Maybe I'm getting to elitist - oh well, so be it.

Speaking of Culture Shock, I received an emergency call through a Sales Dude at a large Telecom provider. Seems one of his clients had a major routing problem, and it had taken one of their manufacturing centers off-line. Those if you in manufacturing know that having a plant down is a bad thing, especially if its due to computer failure. You're losing money each minute the assembly line isn't running.

This however, was a new and strange experience for me.

The company headquarters is in the Far East, and the main facility in Ohio was where I was headed after speaking with the IT Manager there. It's about a 30-minute drive from my place.

Once I arrived, I could see that the plant was run just like it is over in that country in the Far East. It was strange, there were few "offices" as most everyone worked out in the open and wore a single-colored coverall with the with company name and their surname on it. Even the executives and managers wore them, so you really couldn't tell who was who in the pecking order. There seemed also to be two distinct "chains of command" and separation depending on what language was your native tongue.

It seemed to be quite a chore to get anyone to make a decision, in fact, there was argument about replacing some defective network equipment, which along with my charges were minimal compared to the money being lost due to the connection to one of the other plants being down. Once they decided to order the equipment, it was going to be a day before the stuff got there, so they sent me on a two-hour drive to the remote plant the next day to configure the router on that end.

I discovered the "Certified" Network Admin, who kept offering excuses why he didn't know how to work on the equipment, was pretty clueless, even in the stuff he "knew". The defective routers were a different brand than his certification, however I have discovered that a router is a router is a router (at the lower levels), the interface is just a little different. So I walked him over the phone getting his side configured as well. Everyone thanked me for the job well done, and I was on my way. I have a feeling the IT Manager will be calling me straight away next time there is a critical system down.

Speaking of people calling for business, I was at my eldest daughter's last day of school pool party. She's starting 2nd grade next school year, and one of the pools local to the school opened up just for the kids getting out that day. I was headed over to the concession stand, feeling like a dirty-old man (did the Senior girls look like THAT when I was in school? Wow.), when the owner of the pool walked up and said "Hey, aren't you that computer guy?"

I had no idea who he was or how he knew me.

Feigning familiarity, I nodded in the affirmative. He asked for my business card, which I retrieved from my car. He was muttering something about a crashed computer and a family member, and he'd need my help. It was neat, I had never had that happen before, and the wife was speechless as well. She couldn't believe it either.

Speaking of the computer business (I'm trying to tie these sections together, OK?), James sent me two articles. One was about FastTCP, which supposedly was going to speed TCP/IP connections up to 6,000 times. Problem is, the author of the article either misunderstood or fell victim to some tech-speak from some money-hungry researchers. Sure, TCP/IP has some overhead, but not nearly enough to account for that much of an increase. It takes bandwidth, not just fancy packet-mangling.

The other article was about a Professor of Video Gaming. This guy wants to start a curriculum that focuses in creating and programming video games. Now you might think this is a little bit of a stretch, but in reality, computer games are about the only software that pushes current systems anywhere near their capacity to perform. However, the guy in the picture looks too young and geeky to be taken seriously.

I have been interested in High-Speed Internet Access Over Power Lines. There was a company during the hey-day of the DotComs that was working on transmitting 4Mb/s (about 2x faster than the fastest common home high-speed connection) over the nation's power grid. This would have been perfect, and allowed those out in the boonies instant access to a much faster internet experience. However, the transformers along the way blocked the signal, and they were unable to work around it. Well, they've finally come up with a solution, but it is quite expensive.

Finally, I leave you with this. Click it if you dare.

"I like da moon...."

It's Not Supposed To Be Funny...

Most of you have probably heard of Massive Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Games (MMORPG) like Everquest, Ultima Online, or others.

Well, it seems that one of these MMORPG's, Shadowbane was cracked by some players who turned it into a massive bloodfest.

Now, breaking into systems is against the law, and people put lots of time into these types of games. But I found myself laughing out loud as I read what the people who broke into the games' code did. It was interesting to read that some players in the game also found it funny, but I'm sure there were those (who live their lives in games like this) that were mortified.

(Via www.hackinthebox.org)

Look at this Cool T-Shirt

Many of you have asked "Who is Jack Burton?", and I have directed you over to The Wingkong Exchange, an awesome website run by Josh Horowitz. It's probably the best website around for Big Trouble In Little China - the movie of which Jack Burton in the main character.

Josh has gone and had the original shirt that Jack Burton wore in the movie recreated. So head over there and get one (or two, or more). You can also read all about the best movie ever made (In my not so humble opinion).

More on SARS and ARDS

A while back I posted about SARS and ARDS. I didn't quite understand ARDS and how it related to SARS. In fact, I wasn't sure if it was a disease or simply the results of another disease and/or injury.

Eileen Rubin Zacharias, President of the ARDS Foundation was kind enough to send me an e-mail explaining:

"Jack, unfortunately, ARDS can be caused by anything. Currently, there are approximately sixty known precipitating causes. And one of our doctors, in fact, one from Toronto, verified that SARS has indeed become yet another precipitating cause to ARDS; Every ARDS patient is ventilated mechanically, most put into a drug induced coma for days, weeks or months. Half of those who get ARDS die. No prevention and no cure for ARDS. No press, either.

Dick Schaap, sports commentator, died from ARDS about a year ago, last January, after knee replacement surgery. (article copied at the bottom of the email) Jim Henson died from ARDS, but that was five years before I got it, and I was ill in 1995;

Here are all of our SARS/ARDS posts:

http://www.ardsil.com/cgi-bin/ubbcgi/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=15&t=000040

http://www.ardsil.com/cgi-bin/ubbcgi/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=23&t=000012

And this is what ARDS patients look like in crisis: http://ardsusa.org/patientphotos.htm"

People, January 14, 2002

Copyright 2002 Time Inc.
People

January 14, 2002

SECTION: TRIBUTE; Pg. 119

LENGTH: 314 words

HEADLINE: Great Sport;
A gift for storytelling--and making friends--defined sportscaster Dick Schaap

BODY:
Dick Schaap's last weeks were nothing like his vibrant life. The celebrated sportscaster checked into Manhattan's Lenox Hill Hospital Sept. 19 for what he thought would be routine hip replacement surgery. But acute respiratory distress syndrome, a rare complication of surgery, caused his lungs to fail, and the normally garrulous Schaap, 67, lay still and silent in intensive care for 13 weeks before he died on Dec. 21. "It's unbelievable," says his son Jeremy, 32, a fellow ESPN sportscaster. "He was perfectly healthy when he walked in, other than a sore hip. He couldn't have been busier." (Lenox Hill declined to comment.) Known for his quick wit and graceful writing style, Schaap will be most remembered for the passion he brought to his work. Born in Brooklyn, he was a columnist for the New York Herald Tribune before branching out to television in 1971 to report for NBC and later ABC. His poignant, intimate stories, such as one on AIDS-stricken decathlete Tom Waddell, were landmark features, and he would go on to win six Emmys. But Schaap also took on politics and pop culture, writing more than 30 books, including the seminal 1968 sports confessional Instant Replay with Green Bay Packer Jerry Kramer. "He was the smartest, funniest, quickest guy in the room," says Mike Lupica, his friendly sparring partner for the last 12 years on ESPN's The Sports Reporters. "You couldn't top him."

Yet the outgoing Schaap, who was married three times and fathered six children, took as much pride in his legion of friends as in his work. In his last days, though, only flashes of his lively, generous spirit remained. When Lupica came by the hospital, Schaap, by then unable to speak, slowly lifted his IV-strapped hand. "He gave me the finger," says Lupica with a laugh. "It was like he was saying, I'm not in great shape, but I'm still me. It was pure Schaap."


GRAPHIC: COLOR PHOTO: NEIL LEIFER, "I collect people," Schaap (with Muhammad Ali and Billy Crystal in '01) once said.; COLOR PHOTO: ADAM SCULL/RANGEFINDERS/GLOBE PHOTOS, "He had so much respect for those he covered," his son Jeremy says of Schapp (in '00).

LOAD-DATE: January 3, 2002


I suggest you head over to the ARDS Foundation Website and read about it. I don't see any links for donations, but if you are interested, drop a line to Eileen, and I'm sure she could arrange something.

Come-on, Give Me A Break

"Now this really pisses me off to no end!" - David Lo Pan, Big Trouble In Little China

Excuse me, but I am tired of the sycophantic, whiny, brain-dead morons who insist that because some money gets taken away from them due to their cavernous piehole spewing forth unintelligent political statements against the people who are giving them the money that their "rights" have been abridged.

What am I talking about?

Well, Jack's referring to Mr. Theo de Raadt (Is it pronounced "Rat"? It should be), the lead developer of OpenBSD, an allegedly secure Operating System (Based on Berkley's BSD Unix-like system). The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) recently awarded a 2.3 million dollar grant to Mr. Raadt's group to increase security and do other research and development with the software system to make it even more secure, so the military may use it as well.

You would think that a person with a highly developed technical brain would figure out it was asinine to make disparaging statements about the organization giving him the money.

Let's see, someone hands you millions of dollars from another country to help you work on your project, and you say things like: "I actually am fairly uncomfortable about it, even if our firm stipulation was that they cannot tell us what to do. We are simply doing what we do anyways — securing software — and they have no say in the matter," Mr. de Raadt said in a recent e-mail exchange. "I try to convince myself that our grant means a half of a cruise missile doesn't get built." He also goes on to say: "We're not doing anything for them. They just fund us to do what we do," said Mr. de Raadt, a 35-year-old graduate of the University of Calgary's computer science program. Mr. de Raadt is no fan of the U.S. military at the moment. He calls the war in Iraq an oil grab. "It just sickens me."

Then, he has the gall to whine, bitch, moan, and complain when the military pulls funding for the project.

What the hell was he thinking? Obviously there's little in his brain other than 1s, 0s, and computer code. If he's going to shoot off his mouth, he has to understand there will be consequences. Then get this, somehow he relates the money-pull to somehow limiting his speech: "In the United States today, free speech is just a myth," de Raadt said.

WTF? I just don't get how these people's brains are wired. I always knew that programmers were a different sort. Though you have to be to sit in front of a little computer screen and type out excruciatingly tedious and meticulous instructions for your very stupid but very fast computer to follow. How in the hell is this limiting his free speech? I didn't see the military holding a gun to his head and forcing him to take the money. I don't think he's in jail or has been charged with any crime, other than gross stupidity.

However, the sugar daddy took the cookie jar away, and now he's whining and crying like a 3-year old.

This is US Taxpayer money Mr. Raadt, we've worked hard for it, don't slap us in the face with your emotional rants and then complain when we take it back.

If he didn't agree with the US Government (and especially the military), which he is welcome to do, he should have never taken the money in the first place. Of course, most of the time those researchers have no idea how to put that amount of money to good use. They were using some of the cash to foot the bill for a conference of some sort, and now they can't pay for it. Serves them right.

Wow, I Found My Champions Stats

Champions is a role-playing game (Dungeons & Dragons is probably the most famous) where the participants create and play Super-Hero type characters.

You know: the Flash, Spiderman, Superman, Batman - those types of guys.

Seems that someone made up the Champions' Stats for Jack Burton. Even if you don't understand most of the article, it makes for an interesting read.

Check it out.

I Don't Usually Spam E-mail

But this was cute:

Subject: Snappy Answers to ........

Young Americans will die in battle.
-- Would you prefer they die in skyscrapers?

The United States is taking unilateral action against Iraq!
--So far, it's a 90-member worldwide "unilateral" coalition.

We are in a rush to war.
--A 12-year rush?

Tough inspections can disarm Saddam Hussein without invading Iraq.
--12 years of inspections have done wonders so far.

We should let the inspectors finish their job.
-- We did. They didn't. We will.

Why fight? The Iraqi military is weaker than in 1991.
-- But their biological weapons and chemical weapons are much more dangerous.

There's no proof of weapons.
-- We know they have 'em, we know they hide 'em, and we have tape recordings and photographs. What more is needed? An Iraqi rocket in Martin Sheen's shorts?

If we invade, Saddam Hussein might use those weapons of mass destruction against us.
-- I thought you said Iraq didn't have them?

But terrorists might attack if we invade Iraq.
--Oh, so if we don't attack Iraq, terrorists will never strike again?

We shouldn't go to war without a UN resolution.
-- ANOTHER resolution? What about the last 18 resolutions? Shall we use them as wallpaper? Or shall we use the same resolutions Bill Clinton used in Bosnia? (he didn't go to the UN on Bosnia)

We don't have a real declaration for war.
--It's called "Joint Congressional Resolution #114."

We are giving 20 billion dollars to Turkey. We could use that money at home.
--OK, we'll use that money to strengthen our Iraqi border with Wyoming.

If North Korea has nuclear weapons, why aren't we invading them first?
-- Uh...hello...isn't that the point?

European leaders are against the war.
-- The Reichstag wasn't attacked. The Grande Place wasn't attacked. The Kremlin wasn't attacked. And the Jerry Lewis Lifetime Achievement Museum wasn't attacked. America was attacked. And besides, except for the
tantrums of France, Belgium and Germany, only three European nations aren't willing to defend freedom. The entire rest of Europe is with America.

The French don't support the war.
-- Oh, did they surrender already?

Germany objects to this war.
-- Germany objected to Reagan's "attitude" towards the Soviet Union. Of course, they objected to our presence in 1943 as well.

Belgians are against the war.
-- I can live without waffles and ice cream.

Russia doesn't support the war.
-- They are still angry over Reagan's brilliant Cold War victory.

Polls show Europeans are against this war.
-- Polls show Europeans believe their freedom was achieved by endlessly debating in marvelous dining halls, conveniently forgetting their right to be pompous blowhards was granted with American blood, not fabulous wine
and brie.

We should build a coalition with our friends.
-- With friends like these, who needs enemies?

What happens if we can't build a United Nations coalition?
-- Who cares?

But the UN is the world's most respected governing body.
-- Not as respected as the US military.

America has always waited until enemies attacked.
--Now that oceans can't hold back enemies, pre-emptive war is forever a necessity.

War will cost billions!
-- So how much is YOUR city worth?

President Bush says he's willing to violate the 1976 executive order forbidding assassinations of foreign leaders.
-- As soon as the ink is dry on rescinding that idiotic order, will someone please pull the trigger? The line forms to the right.

Many Senators don't support Bush.
-- Are you speaking of the Senators from Bordeaux?

Tom Daschle says George Bush has a "credibility gap"
-- When was the last time we came to Tom Daschle for the truth???

These problems didn't happen under Clinton.
-- Actually, they happened. But Clinton ignored them. Now, Bush will clean up his mess.

But Clinton didn't start a war.
-- Unless his girlfriend was testifying before congress.

Bush senior should have taken out Hussein in '91.
-- That 1991 UN resolution forbade a march on Baghdad. Remember?

Millions of peace activists are demanding we stop the war.
--Millions of Iraqi's are begging for us to start the war.

Thousands of innocents will be killed or injured.
-- That's a lot less than Hussein is killing right now.

Protesters have genuine objections to war
-- Just like they did in WWII? Korea? Vietnam? Panama? The Gulf War? Somalia? Haiti? Bosnia? Afghanistan?

People are coming from all over the world to act as "human shields".
-- Quick...hurry up...before the bombs start dropping.
This is about American Imperialism.
-- So which country do we own? Name our colonies? What nation sends us their tax dollars? If America was imperialist, we'd already own the entire world. Who could stand in our way?

This is Blood for Oil
-- The only blood is the Iraqi people tortured, starved and killed while Hussein builds massive palaces to hide nuclear weapons...all financed with Iraqi oil.

This is a racist war.
-- America happily endorses a multi-cultural attitude towards anyone who dares to take away our freedom. Regardless of race, color, or creed; we will hunt them down and kill them.

A U.S.-led invasion of Iraq is a great recruiting tool for terrorists.
-- Have fun recruiting people into oppressive misery as they enjoy their first taste of freedom.

An attack on Iraq could seriously undermine and destabilize Arab nations.
-- Destabilize the region? What stability? The sooner we topple these oppressive 14th century terrorist regimes the better.

Are we prepared for a multi-billion dollar occupation?
-- Were we prepared to liberate Europe and Japan in 1945? South Korea in 1953? Grenada? El Salvador? Kuwait? The Eastern Bloc? Afghanistan? Nations always love Americans when we rescue them from tyranny. The price of freedom is never free.

Polls show Americans are more concerned about the threat from al Qaeda than from Iraq.
-- It's not a war against Al Qaeda. It's not a war against Iraq. It's a war against terrorism. Anywhere we find it. One nation at a time.

American opinion is against the war.
-- No, it's not. A majority of Americans want to fight now, not later.

According to a recent poll. . .
-- You know what? Screw those polls. We're in a war against terrorism. If you don't want to fight the ones who would murder you and your family in a heartbeat, get the hell out of the way. Go visit Paris. Or Antwerp. Or Berlin. Or Moscow. And stay there. Forever. But this time, don't call us when the heathens are at the gates.

Coming soon to an e-mail box near you...

Source of Maps of the Middle East

People have been looking for more detailed maps of the Middle East on-line. Here's a few:

Iraq
Baghdad (area)

Kuwait (Political)
Kuwait (Relief)

Qatar

Iran

Syria

Turkey (4016K)

Saudi Arabia

Jordan

Middle East

Hope you find these links useful.

I Guess I'm One of The Lucky Ones Too

"We are the lucky ones"

Yeah, OK, I can hear some of you now (those people who live in negativity-land) who will grouse that those days were full of hidden child and spousal abuse, alcoholism, and racism. Well, we could have fixed all those things without changing the good things, no?

It's Getting Worse

As you can see from this article, the SARS situation is getting worse. It appears that this outbreak started with a doctor from China (the area where SARS is thought to have come from) that was visiting a hotel in Hong Kong.

Cases have now been seen in Switzerland and New York City. I think this is going to get much worse before it gets any better. Since we have no treatment for this particular virus family, it's quite chilling to think what could happen in the next few months.

Hopefully Medical Technology Can Stop This One

Today the World Heath Organization and the U.S. Center for Disease Control released warnings about a Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS). You can read a FAQ about the little we know about the disease here.

Due to the mobility of our population, the disease seems to be spreading rapidly. It seems to me to have some of the same characteristics of the Spanish Flu Pandemic of 1918. The theory at this time is that it started somewhere in the Far East (China, Vietnam, etc). At this time, 9 of the 150 known persons with the syndrome have died, which is a 6% mortality rate. Pretty darned high. It's a little early to panic, but there seems to be a lot of genuine concern in the medical community about this one.

I did some searching, and came across something that looked similar, the Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS) which has been around a while. ARDS is not a disease in itself, its what happens to persons when they have some injury to the lungs or already have pneumonia. I found a treatment for ARDS, which may be what the medical community is using to treat this one. ARDS seems to be a direct consequence of SARS, though they seem almost the same.

The Spanish Flu Pandemic (so called due to the fact that reporting about it wasn't censored in neutral Spain) appeared and disappeared quite quickly. In fact, in 1999 this article asks if it could happen again. (The article is Part 1 or 2, but I couldn't find part 2). In 1997, a new strain of Influenza that is carried by birds was passed to humans in Hong Kong.

Both this Flu and the Spanish Flu died off quickly. Which seems very odd to me. In 1918 there was little ability to fight it. What caused it to go dormant?

Also, at the time draconian laws were passed to try to limit the spread of the disease. People are complaining about the Patriot Act now, imagine what will have to happen if this syndrome manifests itself in the same manner as the Spanish Flu did. We can communicate warnings much better now than in 1918, and medical researchers can share information, but we also travel more freely, and the disease may spread more quickly than anything before unless we do something about it.

This, along with West Nile Virus are a little disconcerting to me. Hopefully technology can nip this one before anything bad happens. At a 6% mortality rate, and with one-quarter of the US getting the Spanish Flu in 1918, we could see 4.2 million fatalities if the same rates of infection occur.

I hope history doesn't repeat itself.

This Is A Great Country

[shallowjack]
I'm sitting here, blogging and getting paid. Another Computer Forensics case, this time looking for porn. So I'm getting paid to look at porn. What a great country, no? Of course, having to wait for the computer to do keyword searches of a large hard drives entire contents can take a while, so I have to wait before I find the stuff.

I started the case this weekend, and while I was waiting for an md5sum to generate after a dd bit-copy of a forensic image to an analysis drive I turned on the TV. It takes a while on some of these drives for the copy and checksum to generate.

So I'm flipping channels, and I come across The Quick And The Dead. Yeah, so the plot is no different than a million other spaghetti westerns, except this one skips most of the hoopla and gets right into gunfight after gunfight. Way cool. To top it off, Gene Hackman is the bad guy, and Sharon Stone is the main character. So we have one of my favorite actors to watch, and one of my favorite actresses to look at, along with gratuitous violence and debauchery.

I don't know how personable Gene Hackman is in real life, but he is a great actor. I've enjoyed him in all the films I've seen him in, from Lex Luthor in the Superman movies, to the conspiracy theorist in Enemy of The State. In this one, he is the guy we all love to hate, and Sharon Stone is the one who is looking to take him out. For some reason (yeah, right!) they have Sharon Stone sleeping with no pants, but still wearing her boots. Oh well, its a fun movie to watch if you don't need a complex story-line. It's just good entertainment. Then again, my moniker comes from my favorite movie of all time, Big Trouble In Little China, so who I am to say what is bad?

Anyway, I see the DVD (yes, it's out on DVD) can be had for around $10, so I think I'm going to try to find a copy locally and pick it up.
[/shallowjack]