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

Friday, Saturday, and Sunday

Published Thu, Jun 7 2007 11:41 PM
Technorati Tags: Open Trackbacks

This linkfest is for the 8th, 9th, and 10th of June, 2007.

If you have something interesting you'd like to share, feel free to link it here and leave a trackback.

Just remember the trackback policy .

For the best exposure, go to the blogger's oasis and use the linkfest chooser to choose the posts you'd like to hook up with.

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The Lincoln Memorial

Published Thu, Jun 7 2007 6:48 PM
Technorati Tags: Cool Stuff

Here's another image from the CD I picked up today. This one is of the Lincoln Memorial and the Reflecting Pool. It's taken from the top of the Washington Monument.

My dad sure took a lot of cool pictures when I was a kid.

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The Washington Monument

Published Thu, Jun 7 2007 6:18 PM
Technorati Tags: Cool Stuff

This photo of the Washington Monument was taken by my Dad from the inside of the Lincoln Memorial.

I think it stands out. It certainly beats the Clinton Monument from Futurama smile_wink

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1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20500

Published Thu, Jun 7 2007 6:11 PM
Technorati Tags: Cool Stuff

I picked up another CD from Wal-Mart today with pictures that were transferred of of our families slides. That makes three so far.

As I'm going through them, I see something cool every now and then. Here's the White House.

white-house

Like I said earlier, there's a lot to be said for growing up on the East Coast.

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Thursday Thirteen #7

Published Thu, Jun 7 2007 11:53 AM

Thirteen cool pictures I found when reviewing old family photos and slides

My dad's 1972 Duster
Thomas Jefferson
A baby Seal
A bear in our campsite
My parents' wedding party
A pair of small racecars
One of my "Pinewood Derby" racecars (notice the resemblance to the one in the previous picture).
The U.S.S. Constellation
Another view of the U.S.S. Constellation
A picnic in the Turkish countryside (that's me in the red shirt facing away from the camera)
Live television broadcasts from the 1969 Moon Landing
Santa Claus' home at North Pole Alaska
And finally, for this installment anyway, My great grandparents on their wedding day.

Links to other Thursday Thirteens! (My trackback filter won't let you trackback unless you link to this post, so you can leave a comment I will add you as I get time today.):

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!

The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!

View More Thursday Thirteen Participants

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Hackers targeting Macs more often

Published Thu, Jun 7 2007 11:24 AM
Technorati Tags: Computers and Internet, Software Development

Remember the "I'm a Mac — and I'm a PC" commercials? Who could forget them? How about all of those rabid Mac zealots on various forum sites that defend the security of their Macs as opposed to Windows machines? Or the anti-Microsoft people (you know the ones they always spell Microsoft with a dollar sign — like this: Micro$oft) that just love to point out the hundreds, even thousands of security flaws that have been found in Microsoft software?

How could you possibly forget? Anyway, a recent Technology News article on FOXNews.com points out how the Mac OS is becoming a bigger target for virus writers.

Compared with Windows, the Macintosh platform is still largely untouched by vulnerability exploits.

Gee, you don't think that's got anything to do with the fact that Windows machines outnumber Macintoshes by over 9 to 1 in the marketplace do you?

But the prompt release of exploit code for a vulnerability detailed in a May 24 set of updates shows that it's catching up fast when it comes to grabbing the attention of exploit writers.

But wait! Don't those commercials tout the "security" of Macs? How can this be?

"It is very Microsoft. It's something we've grown to expect in Microsoft: The descriptions of patches lead people to write exploits for something that's been patched," said Rob Enderle, principal analyst for the Enderle Group. "It was only a matter of time before that kind of behavior hit [the Mac] platform. People are going after consumers, and they're going after consumers broadly."

So people start hitting the Mac platform because when Apple releases patches they describe what the patch is fixing? Why would someone patch their software without knowing what the patch was supposed to fix? This is "very Microsoft"? How about it's common sense?

If you want people to apply a patch, it only makes sense to tell them why. Just because the criminally minded are paying attention doesn't make it right to leave your consumers in the dark.

The release of the exploit code for this flaw shows that interest in Mac vulnerabilities is high, analysts say.
That's not surprising; even though Macs aren't used as broadly in businesses as Windows machines, plenty of consumers use them, Enderle said.
Another factor that may be causing attackers to focus more on Macs is that Windows operating systems are getting "much [harder] to penetrate," he said.
And to top it all off, Mac users constitute a "relatively lucrative demographic."

That's right. Microsoft has been paying attention to security flaws. They may not be reacting as quickly as some would like, and there may be a lot of flaws to fix but they have been fixing them and with the patches in place, Windows computers are a lot more secure than they used to be.

At any rate, as pointed out by Ray Wagner, an analyst at Gartner, nobody ever said OS X was impregnable.

Except for the "Mac guy" in those commercials I mentioned, or the Apple zealots on the various technology forums, or the rabid anti-Micro$ofties anyway. The important thing he had to say though followed

"Any large code base has vulnerabilities," he said.

That's right. ANY large code base. Even Microsoft Windows. Even Linux. What determines how big a target your OS is is most likely the size of the installed base and the potential for profit when it's attacked.

"Macs are not the bastions of security a lot of people would have you believe, but it's not like Apple's doing everything wrong, like some of the hacker types would have you believe," Mogull said.
Still, it will be a good day when the company gets its first CSO, he said.
"If we saw Apple getting up and warning people about things people are using to penetrate [its operating system], and talking about practices beyond patching, and embracing Symantec [and its Macintosh security products] instead of treating them like you would any other evil," it would all be for the good, he said.
"At some point you have to step up to full responsibility of protecting your platform, and that means being aggressive about protection."

It also means you (Apple) need to stop the misleading advertising that makes people think your system is impregnable. Everybody should know by now that it's not.

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Keep your anti-spyware software running!

Published Thu, Jun 7 2007 11:04 AM
Technorati Tags: Computers and Internet, Courts

There's no excuse not to keep your anti-spyware software running. With four zero-day bugs recently found in Internet Explorer and Firefox there are bound to be more attacks on computers trying to exploit unpatched security flaws. Why give the hackers even more ways to compromise your computer?

That's the less on to be learned from the trial and conviction of a substitute teacher in New London, Connecticut. She was convicted on four counts of "risk of injury to a minor" after a "porn-storm" hit one of the computers in her classroom. It turns out the computer had been infected with spyware that caused pop-up ads for pornographic sites to take over the screen. From MSNBC News:

NEW LONDON, Conn. - A substitute teacher was granted a new trial Wednesday after her conviction for failing to prevent students from viewing pornography on her computer raised thorny questions about who is ultimately responsible for screening unsavory online material.
The woman, Julie Amero, 40, of Windham, Conn., adamantly denied clicking on pornographic Web sites that appeared on her classroom’s computer screen in October 2004 while she was teaching seventh-graders at Kelly Middle School in Norwich.
Amero was convicted in January on four counts of risk of injury to a minor, but computer security experts and bloggers across the political spectrum rallied to Amero’s defense when evidence later emerged that her computer had been infected with spyware that caused pop-up ads to take over the screen.
Superior Court Judge Hillary Strackbein granted Amero’s motion for a retrial Wednesday after determining that a Norwich police detective who was called as an expert prosecution witness had given “erroneous” testimony about the computer.
…
Assistant State’s Attorney David Smith acknowledged Wednesday that erroneous information about the computer was presented during trial. He said the errors came to light when prosecutors sent the computer to a state laboratory for examination after the trial.
…
Teacher becomes a technology cause
The sentence for what all sides eventually agreed was at best an inadvertent error made Amero’s case a call to battle for some technology experts, who said that what happened to her could happen to anyone.
Amero said the computer lacked firewall or anti-spyware protections to prevent inappropriate pop-ups, a contention supported by the school’s principal, who said a vendor’s bill had gone unpaid.
…
The Federal Trade Commission has been cracking down on companies accused of spreading malicious spyware to millions of computer users worldwide. Pop-up blockers that can prevent so-called porn storms are now in wide use.

It may be the case that the FTC is cracking down on spyware producers in the U.S. There's not much they can do about the ones overseas though.

Back when floppy disks were a principal means of storage and computer information exchange there was a saying "Practice safe computing — wear a write-protect tab". Today that should be updated. Use a firewall and pop-up blockers.

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