Individual Liberty — Individual Responsibility

For those we lost, We will not forget 09/11/2001

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”
— The Continental Congress, July 4, 1776

“The task of statesmanship has always been the re-definition of these rights in terms of a changing and growing social order.”
— Franklin D. Roosevelt (Commonwealth Club Address, 1932)

“Roosevelt was wrong! The principles laid down in the Declaration of Independence are the principles of individual liberty. Our unalienable rights, given to us by God are given to us as individuals. Our rights do not come from society or the government, and they cannot be redefined by politicians. The nature of these rights carries with it the implication of individual responsibility, without which we surrender them.”
— Perri Nelson, November 6, 2008

Yeah, sure, Apple is immune to hackers!

Published Wed, Dec 20 2006 2:11 PM
Technorati Tags: Computers and Internet, Annoyances

I've watched the PC vs. Mac commercials on TV, who hasn't? I think they're amusing. I also think that Apple is full of it. Take the commercial that shows the PC with the sniffles because it caught a virus while the Mac is healthy and "not worried" because Apples are immune.

That's a load of horse-hockey as Sherman T. Potter would say. The only reason hack attacks against Apple products aren't in the news very much isn't because Apples are more secure than PCs. It's really because there are so few of them out there compared to PCs that it isn't as profitable to hit them. Out of the last 1000 visits to my site, only 60 of them were Mac users. Over 870 of the visitors used a variant of Windows.

If you're going to target a PC for a hack attack to turn it into your personal spam-bot, I think it would make sense to target the most common operating systems. After all, you're more likely to find one that isn't secure when there are millions of users who likely haven't bothered to keep up with security patches. You know they're out there too, 8 of those 1000 users were using Windows Millenium, and thirteen were using Windows 98!

So I think it's interesting news that we're about to hear about a bug a day in Apple products for the next month. According to InfoWorld, two hackers are about to disclose one bug per day in Mac OS X, Safari, iTunes, iPhoto and Quicktime starting on January 1, 2007.

This latest Apple project is being launched to raise awareness of security vulnerabilities in Apple's products and to "stomp smugness," Finisterre said via e-mail.

While the Macintosh is generally considered to be more secure than the Windows PC, many security researchers believe that this reputation is not attributable to any superior security practices on the part of Apple. They say attackers have been deterred by the Mac OS X's more secure Unix kernel and the product's less widespread adoption.

Apple enthusiasts and security researchers have been at odds since last August, when David Maynor and Jon Ellch claimed to have discovered a flaw that affected Apple's wireless device drivers. They played a video at the Black Hat conference demonstrating how this flaw could be used to run unauthorized code on a MacBook. However, their claims have been slammed because the demonstration used a third-party wireless card rather than the one that ships with the MacBook, and because the two hackers still have not published the code used in their attack.

LMH said the Apple community's negative response to Maynor and Ellch's claims played a role in the decision to launch the Month of Apple bugs.

"I was shocked with the reaction of some so-called 'Apple fans,'" he said. "I can't understand why some people react badly to disclosure of issues in their system of choice. ... That helps to improve its security."

Maybe this will knock some of the "smugness" out of that Mac guy in the commercials, but I doubt it. At least people will know that it's really the popularity of the PC platform more than the security of Apple software that makes the difference in the number of hack attacks you hear about.

Trackposted to Rightwing Guy, Perri Nelson's Website, third world county, The Random Yak, The HILL Chronicles, Stuck On Stupid, The Bullwinkle Blog, Dumb Ox News, and Conservative Cat, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

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Is The Cold War Coming Back?

Published Wed, Dec 20 2006 12:11 AM
Technorati Tags: News and Politics, Open Trackbacks

The whole Litvinenko affair has had me wondering if Russia was returning to the days of the KGB and an oppressive police state. It hasn't helped that Russia basically stone-walled the British murder investigation, or that the Polonium that was used to poison Litvinenko most likely came from a Russian nuclear facility. From FOXNews.com.

Before dying, Litvinenko pointed his finger directly at Russian President Vladimir Putin, who denied committing any crime, and while the case will likely never be resolved, at least two U.S. senators say the former KGB colonel is moving the country away from democracy and other U.S. ideals.

"I think this guy is taking Russia backward," said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.

"Russia is moving more and more to an oligarchy here. Putin is consolidating power," added Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., incoming chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, who appeared with Graham on "FOX News Sunday" earlier this month.

Bipartisan agreement that Vladimir Putin doesn't exactly have a forward thinking democracy in mind for Russia? Now that's a surprise.

Putin is largely the reason why Americans are scratching their heads and wondering what happened since those heady days when hands across the two continents seemed to spell such promise.

Since taking office in 1999, he has consolidated economic and political power with the government, controls much of the country's rich oil and natural gas industry and keeps an iron thumb on dissidents through control of the media and intimidation, according to Aleksandr Grigoryev, editor of Washington ProFile, a privately run news bulletin that provides Russian journalists reports from the United States.

Not to mention the tendency of dissidents or people that don't agree politically with Putin or his adminstration to suddenly develop bizarre and "medically baffling" symptoms, that eventually turn out to be from one form of poisoning or another. Alexander Litvinenko wasn't the first after all.

"No one else has the same level of power as Mr. Putin does in Russia," Grigoryev said. "Everything depends on Putin."

In the midst of it all, Russia has consistently sided against the United States on critical positions at the U.N. Security Council, including support for the 2003 invasion of Iraq and calls for tough sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program.

"The level of anti-Americanism in Russia has risen sharply," Grigoryev said, noting that a recent poll showed 25 percent of Russians believe the United States is Russia's enemy. He said government control of the media steers public perceptions.

"Russian ideology is anti-American right now and nothing can change until Putin is out of power," he said.
...

As for Litvinenko, the former Russian spy turned Putin critic, he died on Nov. 23 from exposure to the radioactive isotope polonium 210. He was reportedly poisoned while meeting a source in London about the October murder of Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya.

Politkovskaya had been working on an article alleging torture in Chechnya under Kremlin-appointed Chechnya Prime Minister Ramzan Kadyrov, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. British police are still investigating Litvinenko's poisoning and Russian authorities have yet to finger Politkovskaya's murderers.

...

U.S.-Russian relations started out the millennium well, with President Bush and Putin on friendly terms. In June 2001 after meeting in Slovenia, Bush said he looked into Putin's soul and saw a good man and an ally.

In retrospect, many critics are wondering exactly what Bush saw. Reports persist that Soviet nuclear technology is getting into the hands of state sponsors of terrorism and the Russians are openly helping the Iranians with their nuclear energy program. Moscow has also reached out to China as a strategic partner.

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