Dickinson Online
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Who knows what?
http://dickinsoncounty.com/blog/index.php?entry=entry070320-173132
Who knows what?
The "who" is anyone with the money to buy Internet logs. That leaves us with the "what". The what could be almost anything, Credit Card records from e-merchants, search terms from any of the myriad of search engines out there. It could also be something much more damaging to an individual or an organization.
There is a revenue stream used by ISP's lately, or maybe it has been going on for a long time, who knows. What is happening is that ISP's are selling access records. These access records, compiled from Internet access logs of their customers are cleansed of any way of linking the data to any individual accounts and ID as user1, user2, etc. Yet even then the data could prove very dangerous and not at all anonymous. Not that anyone buying the records can ID each and every user by name and address, they cant. But much could be gleaned and used for other than the intended purposes and its not very difficult to do.
But let me ask you this right now. And think about it. Knowing what the above is, would you feel threatened by the anonomzation and dissemination of your access data? Decide right now before you read any further. Then after you read the rest ask yourself again, do you feel threatened?
First you need to buy the records. So you start a shell marketing organization and buy the records from your local ISP's. The average going rate is thought to be in the range of $0.40 per user per month. This could translate into a sizeable bonus for most ISP's. For 10K users it would be 4k a month. To get the last 6 months data would be $24,000. Not a lot of money for a criminal enterprise or a political group/party.
So what are you looking for in the records that could be so damaging? How about looking for access to admin sections of the website of a political group or a local law enforcement/legal/judicial entity. You could almost bet that the IP associated with those accesses are from within the organization. Since many places use things like cable for Internet access they have at most one or a few IP addresses available. This means that anyone using networked computers within that organization use the same IP and are now lumped together in the reports. If it is political and there are questionable sites being accessed you now have dirt to be used as you wish. You now know the blogs they read. How they communicate, like which IM they use and how and where they access their email.
You next use known exploits against the application used on the website to try to gain access. You also run against the file looking for data transmitted as a _GET. A _GET is this - index.htm?user=superhero&login=captainamerica - it uses the URL to pass information. A poorly written script can be easily abused. In this example we have a user/password combo we can use to login with the privileges of that user. No telling what you can find if you poke around their website, at the least you could insert your own script to pass along to you anything of interest. You would also know the search terms used and the results they looked at. This would be useful if the records you isolated were from law enforcement. Any proper investigation would probably begin with Googling for the individual or business/corporation under suspicion. That would probably be followed by a case law search for any relevant action so you would now know just exactly were whoever is pointing the investigation. This would also be useful if an attorney ID'd the opposition in a potentially huge settlement lawsuit.
Whats worse is that most individuals are very susceptible to social engineering. This is where idle banter at a party or elsewhere with a target person reveals possible user/password information. There is a way to also use social engineering to help here. Say an attorney hires a person to go to the opposition and offer a business card with a fake company name and URL. They claim that there are remarks in the company blog that are harmful to them. A small retainer may even be paid. Of course the attorney or someone on the network will visit the site and print out the blog. What they dont know is that this website was created just for them. No one else has accessed it or knows of the site. A few days later the person goes back and says that its over and thanks but they will need no further services. Now in a week when you purchase fresh data from the ISP you can easily ID the traffic of the attorney, and not only in the fresh data but also your earlier data. Even if the IP's change due to DHCP re-issue, the traffic pattern you now know can be used to go back and ID them. Each place of access has specific traffic patterns, users that access the same site at near the same time daily Monday through Friday. The person who comes in 20 minutes early to check their yahoo mail, the person who checks their stocks each noon, etc. Everybody, everywhere, has patterns.
I have nothing to fear or hide. I dont care who knows where I go. Heck, my daily visits are
What about you? Could somebody, somewhere, use your data to some advantage? Could it hurt you or an employer/client/spouse?
So, should ISP's be able to sell your data? Should you be able to opt out. Should you be compensated somehow if you opt in? Should you compensate the ISP to opt out? Should the ISP be liable if the records are misused?
Internet Radio
I ran across a site called Pandora that has a fun way to create a playlist for you. You start by searching for a song or group, if the result is acceptable Pandora then selects from its data base songs/groups that are mapped as similar to put in her box for you. I started by searching for "vinegar joe", a fairly unknow late 60's group. What followed was a trip through the late 60's and early 70's rock. Some groups I had never heard of and others were familiar yet songs I had not recalled hearing. You have the option of thumbs up/down for songs/groups to refine the channel further. You can also save the music channel you create and share it on the site or email it to friends. My channel is Old Hippy Music
]]>Music
http://dickinsoncounty.com/blog/index.php?entry=entry070213-185945
[PDF] to ISP's to cut down on misunderstandings between the RIAA and those it is trying to sue. The letter enlists the ISP to send on behalf of the RIAA a letter to the users of IP's it has subpoenaed notifying them of the RIAA intent to sue. The letter further asks ISP's to tell their customer that the RIAA is willing to settle out of court. The RIAA will give the intended victim a discount of up to $1,000 if the ISP agrees to keep the log files associated with the IP's use for 180 days.
What a nice way to bury the number of victims of RIAA abuse.
ArsTechnica discusses a study that was done in 2004 on p2p file sharing but is only now getting much notice. The full document is at CiteSeer, the upper right link to cached PDF works.
The entire study is excellent reading but if you choose not to read it all make sure to go down to pages 24-25 and read the conclusion. Here is the last paragraph.
If we are correct in arguing that downloading has little effect on the production of music, then file sharing probably increases aggregate welfare. Shifts from sales to downloads are simply transfers between firms and consumers. And while we have argued that file sharing imposes little dynamic cost in terms of future production, it has considerably increased the consumption of recorded music. File sharing lowers the price and allows an apparently large pool of individuals to enjoy music. The sheer magnitude of this
activity, the billions of tracks which are downloaded each year, suggests the added social welfare from file sharing is likely to be quite high.
It does not take long for the hackers to get it together. The HD-DVD and Blu-Ray DRM is now completely broken. When will they learn. Maybe someone has, or maybe Jessica just needed a little sales bump.
The change in daylight saving time this spring will take many computers by surprise. Windows vista and XP with SP2 are all set but M$ will not issue a patch W2000 or 98/ME. There is good news however for users of windows besides Vista and XP. This site has patches, one for W2000 and another for 98/ME.
I happen to like 60's and early 70's music and have lately been listening to lots of it thanks to the Internet. This is an album I recently came across at another blog. A 1971 release from UK group Dark named "Teenage Angst".
]]>proxy safety
http://dickinsoncounty.com/blog/index.php?entry=entry070209-003828
Certain countries have jailed journalists and private citizens for publishing to the internet to blogs, forums, or press articles that are not approved. Things that we take for everyday freedoms can send residents of some countries into months to years of dungeon darkness and silence.
You may have some information yourself that you wish to publish on the internet in such a manner that it is next to impossible to trace it back to you. You may have a wish to communicate by instant messenger in complete confidentiality with business partners while leaving as small a footprint as possible. You may just want to be anonymous because you are a paranoid schizo with latent closet type tendencies compounded by forgetting to wear your tinfoil hat last fourth of July.
The perfect way would be to surf through a series of proxy servers like an onion, shedding a layer of skin at each router you passed through. That is what the Tor bundle does for you. It is a tool set that routes your internet traffic through a series of anonymous proxy servers. As your packets pass through each server the previous routing information is stripped away. This gives your packets random and varied routes to and from and makes it very difficult to figure out who you are from the server logs.
This means that if you are running Tor the logs of the servers you access will be next to useless as a start to finding out your true identity.
Use the Tor bundle link above or use this to download the newest version. Don't get the alpha version, it may be unstable.
The file will install three applications that will allow you to access the onion network and use the internet anonymously. The windows install does them all at once and they are configured to work together. The three are Tor, Privoxy, and Vidalia.
Privoxy is a proxy server that is used to access the onion network and is what you configure your applications to use. It can also be configured to act as an outside proxy server transferring onion network packets for other Tor users, just as many of them are transferring your packets.
Tor is the application that does the packet munging and keeps control of packet routing.
Vidalia runs as an interface to start and control the Tor application, which is dos based. Vidalia can be configured to start Tor on computer startup. You then start the privoxy server or drop its icon into the startup folder.
I had trouble on the first install and could not get it working so I unistalled all three via the windows application remover and then went to the /Documents and Settings/user/Application Data/ and deleted the Tor and Vidalia folders. I then reinstalled and all was well, it was all self configured as advertised.
Next I had to configure my router that sits between my computer and charters cable modem, protecting me from many of the Internet's ills. privoxy is the only thing that talks to the outside world and by default it runs on port 8118. I went to my router in my browser and opened the router 192.168.1.1 and to the advanced set-up. I then opened the Forwarding section and in the triggering I entered the port 8118 to go from internet to external. All that does is transfer any outside port 8118 packets to the internal port 8118. I then to port forwarding and in the next open row I used Vidalia as the name and then 8118 for the port, checked TCP, and used my computers static IP, 192.168.1.40. That is one of the advantages of setting up your network via static IP's. vs DHCP. Routers like IP's over names for configuration, unlike your internal network where group/name is good enough to reach neighborhoods.
If you are not using Firexfox you should go get FF and use it as your first level of internet security. It also has Tor button, an add-on that toggles Tor on and off for surfing or whatever else you have your browser configured to do like email, ftp, downloading and html editor uploads.
The image below shows the lower right desktop. The Tor Enabled/Disabled label can be clicked to toggle the browser for Tor use. Below in the tray, the last button is privoxy and next to it is Tor. Vidalia does not show after it starts Tor but it stays running in the background monitoring Tor.
Tor is not for everyday surfing, it is far to slow. There is a 5-10 second delay when accessing pages. This has nothing to do with your computer but rather how the Internet works. The Internet was designed to generally bring you there and back in the least hops(servers) possible. With Tor we are trying to go through many servers, shedding our previous server information at each hop. The delay is the result of your packets being passed through as many a 50 anonymous/stripping servers.
When the little green aliens come and your tinfoil hat is looking kind of small just fire up Tor and send out updates to alt.alien.invasion.now and the ones that are after you will never be able to trace it back to you. I gave up my tinfoil hat. I bought one of those big sombreros and covered it with five layers of super-heavy duty tinfoil. The big point is good for deflecting and splitting up their direct probes and the huge brim with the upward curve should send enough scattered energy back at the aliens to hopefully confuse their sensors.
Combine this with one of the previous articles encryption for files and use free website space to use a browser to drag and drop files to and from temporary free sites space with Tor enabled. You could also configure instant messaging software to use privoxy and make use of their utilities for transferring files.
]]>more on encryption
http://dickinsoncounty.com/blog/index.php?entry=entry070117-143902
The first thing to learn about encryption methods is that no matter what method is used it is only as strong as your password. While you may use an eight character password it is not as secure as using a 16 character password. The recommended minimum password lengths of 128 bit is 32 characters and 64 characters for 256 bit encryption. While you may think that 64 characters is a lot the maximum lengths are 128 and 256 characters, respectively.
This large password length leads us to another problem. How to remember a long password. We know we should keep written copies of passwords under lock and key, that is the only guarantee of some sort of safety. But there has to be a better way, and there is, the use of pass-phrases. A pass-phrase is simply anything you want it to be usually consisting of words, spaces and punctuation. This phrase should be a passage from a poem, a favorite quote, line from a movie or for the more mathematically inclined, a formula or theory. It can even be something you make up. How about something like this. "Now is the time for all good men to stand on their heads and feed the mice!" Easy to remember and 77 characters long and a strong pass-phrase. Or how about now1is2the3time4for5all6good7men8to9come10to11the12aid13of14their15country15
that is easy to remember and secure. By now you get the idea so I'll stop with these silly phrases.
Both winZip and WinRar are two common applications used to encrypt files and both have advantages and disadvantages. WinZip does not encrypt the original file data but stores it on an unencrypted file included in the archive. This can reveal the file name, size and some other info. While the WinZip default encryption method is rather weak WinZip allows the choice of both 128 and 256 bit AES. WinRar only uses 218 bit AES but a good thing is it does encrypt the original file information. If you are only keeping information hidden from casual lookers either program will do fine. My choice is WinRar with a fairly long pass-phrase. I would prefer the file info is encrypted rather than leaving it easily visible to anyone who has access to the archive and unless you are hiding info from super-spies or government 128 vs 256 bit is not really an issue.
But lets say for certain reasons you also want to keep the files with you or under lock and key and still be able to read them on your computer. What do you use? The answer is a USB thumb drive. It does rely on the computer having a USB port but most modern computer do have USB ports. So how do these things work? One of two ways, the thumb drive comes with built-in encryption or you purchase a regular thumb drive and use a third-party software package. Which is best? Depends on your needs. You could buy a Kanguru Drive and have 256 bit AES password encryption or even buy a biometric drive that can store up to five fingerprints, no more passwords.
But what if you want more tha 256 bit encryption. Say you want to be able to keep even the NSA out of your drive? You could buy a USB thumb drive and then use a third party solution like TrueCrypt that has numerous encryption choices. Blowfish is a 448 bit/16 pass method that is virtually unbreakable by anyone including governmental agencies. The real nice thing about complete thumb solutions or those provided by third parties software are that these are so easy to use even a computer klutz can learn to keep data safe in just a few minutes.
Now that you can keep your mushy poems private even from the likes of the NSA in my next article I'll tell you what to do to keep your computer data safe. This will include whole drive encryption and private areas that are encrypted and hidden.
]]>Happy New Year
http://dickinsoncounty.com/blog/index.php?entry=entry070102-100303
A Matter of Privacy
Last year privacy was an issue all over the net. People everywhere wondered how they can protect themselves. The main answer is not to be stupid. But there are some things you can do to protect yourself. I am not going to discuss common sense things like not opening or responding to spam and keeping some form of anti-virus updated if you run windows or how to spot pshing scams. What I am going to discuss is how to hide data from those who might pry.
This method is a down and dirty simple way to hide something like a text file or a graphic within another image. We will use a jpg image as a base and add a text file to it then create a new image file using both files. The result is an image file that opens in any image viewing or editing software and behaves like any regular graphic would but that also contains hidden data. This data is not blended into the graphic itself but is added to the file source, so it is never visible when the graphic is viewed or printed.
This is the magic line that makes it all happen:
copy /b base_image.jpg + text_file.txt encoded.jpg
Just where do you enter this magic line? Click the start button then "Run". At run type in "cmd", a command widow should open. It will probably be sorta ugly with a black background and say something like:
Microsoft Windows 2000 [Version 5.00.2195]
(C) Copyright 1985-2000 Microsoft Corp.
C:\>
At the c:\>
type "cd" to change directories to wherever you have the base image and file to be hidden.
ex. "cd My Documents\private"
"dir" lists the contents of a directory
"dir /p" lists contents a page at a time
"dir *.jpg" lists only jpg files
"dir *.jpg *.jpeg /p" lists jpg then jpeg files a page at a time.
This is what the files in the copy command are.
base_image.jpg = base image to start with - this image is not destructed
text_file.txt = text_file to be hidden within the image
encoded.jpg = the finished image file with the hidden data embedded in it.
Its pretty simple, copy this file and that file making this file.
You would then open the image in a suitable text editor to see the hidden text file.
But this is not secure, anyone who can view the image can also save it then look at it to see whats hidden. So what we will do first is compress the hidden file with winRar so we get a xxx.rar file. You could just as easily use winZip for this and end up with a xxx.zip file. It does not matter what file type you compress. It can be a text file, an image, a short clip of video, a voc or mp3 file. Anything. Multiple files, multiple types. The reason we are using a compression application is so we can use a feature the apps have, password encoding. We then add the password encoded zip or rar file to the base image for a new image with hidden data. Now we drop the encoded image on the winRar or WinZip icon and it will open the image, prompt us for a password and then, if correct allow us to extract the now very safe data, whatever it is. This is done using mainstream applications that most all computers have installed so most participants would not have to install anything.
How to encrypt in WinRar: Right click on the file you wish to hide. If WinRar is installed you have option in the menu. You wish to "Add to Archive". On the window that opens the "General" tab you can give the file a name. Click the "Advanced" tab and select the set password button on the right side. You now have a xxx.rar file that will prompt you for the password before it will be decrypted and uncompressed.
How to encrypt in WinZip: Open WinZip and click the "New" icon. enter a name for the new zip file and click the OK. In the next window that opens select the file you wish to hide. Near the bottom of the window is an "Options" area, select to encrypt the file and when you click the add button you will be prompted for a password. The file is now encrypted and only the right password will decrypt the archive.
Now that we have the archive we need to add it to a jpg image. Again we use the magic line, with only a file name change:
copy /b base_image.jpg + hidden_image.jpg.rar encoded.jpg or
copy /b base_image.jpg + text.txt.zip encoded.jpg
Now when the encoded.jpg file is dropped onto the WinZip or WinRar icon it will try to open the image, prompt for a password and if correct will decrypt the file for use. No password -- No access. There are password crackers for compression files but if you select aHrd$p4sS#*WrD2 it will never be broken. Don't use dictionary words or names, thats what crack apps use first is dictionary and name files to run against the password.
Now you know a way to store something safely and securely against prying eyes, whoever they may be. With the file encrypted even if someone now looks at it in a text editor they will not see anything.
An interesting use would be to use the base image as a hint for the password. Once the password is guessed the hidden content would be a clue to the next web graphic. Which would be a clue...which would eventually lead to some minimalistic prize like a dried bologna sandwich and some stale pretzels.
Next post we will look at a few ways to encrypt and store data. This method is great for using a small USB thumb drive for storage.
.]]>Interesting Websites
http://dickinsoncounty.com/blog/index.php?entry=entry060817-134617
HotSoup is a new site that I am curious to see how it develops. I am not sure just what it will be or how the site will succeed in its goals but it does look interesting.
HOTSOUP will create a new community of influence among those in government, politics, business and entertainment who make the decisions and those who want to impact them. It will bring the inside world out and the outside world in, and create a richer dialogue and stronger connections among all of these Opinion Drivers.
The group behind it is a mixture of republican strategists Matthew Dowd and Mark McKinnon; Democratic strategists Carter Eskew, Joe Lockhart, Michael Feldman and Chip Smith, Internet gurus Allie Savarino, John deTar, and Bart Barden; and former Associated Press political reporter Ron Fournier. The official launch will be in October.
Relakks is a site that arose in response to the RIAA's attack on The Pirate Bay, which I profiled in past posts. This site is a redirect to a proxy server that masks your IP and will not let you be ID'ed by the powers that be. This will protect you from the long arm of the RIAA and MPAA if your tastes run to sharing music or download and sharing movies. While these are either illegal, with regards to movies or gray for music the use of a proxy server is legal. At present the site has been so overwhelmed with use that it is having resource problems but that will shortly be corrected and I will be a proud registered user soon. Not for the legal protection but for personal privacy as it seems that everyone wants to keep track of you and the Federal Government wants those records, which I am dead set against. This is an ideal way or protecting personal privacy which technology erodes and is constantly under attack by the bush administration.
A site that I enjoy is Old Time Radio. This site is a free repository of old radio shows that were popular before TV took control of the nation. My mother told me that it was a family event to listen to the weekly show of The Shadow, Fibber McGee and Molly and others. As I have been using this archive of over 11,000 shows I have also noticed the many popular actors lent their voices to these shows. Many of these shows developed into TV shows like Red Skeleton (one of my favorites), Have Gun Will Travel and Tales of the Texas Rangers. There is something for everyone here, all you need is Real Player. If you don’t have it a link is on the OTR site to download it from.
]]>Linux
http://dickinsoncounty.com/blog/index.php?entry=entry060809-215113
Here is a good description of what Linux is.
Linux is just the opposite of windows. Microsoft owns windows while Linux is owned by no one. Windows costs money to use while Linux is free. Windows is prone to various bugs, exploits, malware and viruses while Linux for the most part is immune to such ailments. Windows takes forever to patch bugs while the Linux community pounces on them like a hungry wolverine, patches are available in days. Not even Microsoft can dispute the fact that Linux is more secure than Windows and is less expensive. Despite the claims made by Microsoft that total cost of ownership of Linux is more that windows independent study after study shows those claims to be false. The only studies that support Microsoft’s claims are those that Microsoft has underwritten and funded.
Many myths surround Linux, the most prevalent is it’s more difficult to install than windows. Some people who claim to have insight will even state it is nearly impossible for the uninitiated to even install Linux. A few years ago this was true but Linux has made great progress lately and is now easier and faster to install than windows on computers from the latest screamers to older slower computer.
In fact, this is where Linux shows its stuff. Microsoft has killed off W98 with no more support or upgrades available since June 30, 2006. So what do you do with a still usable computer running W98? The obvious, dump windows and install Linux. It’s easy, fast, free and fun. Not to mention more secure and supported almost forever.
So what’s so fun about Linux? First a standard install has many free low end games. You can also spend hours going through the screen savers selecting from hundreds of different ones. If you are feeling a bit technical and web savvy how about your own private web server, database and FTP server. Best of all is the satisfaction you gain from knowing you are on your way to geekdom, and geek is cool.
SMB(small/medium business) owners have a choice of many different and free groupware products that effectively allow your employees and sales force to become more effective. Take a look at what's available from Google and at SourceForge and Freshmeat, almost any application or solution you may ever need. A big plus is for those using Exchange server, you can again lower your costs and rid youself of the license restrictions while increasing stability and uptime. It is not uncommon for Linux boxes to have uptime measured by the month. When was the last time you had to reboot your windows box? Just search and download your way to productivity.
Linux is free and anyone can use the basic open source projects and make their own version and sell it. Both Novel and RedHat have enterprise level Linux distributions that are cheap enough to lower your TCO.
Now you know what Linux is and why you should possibly use it, where to get it and find all the documentation you could ever read. The rest is up to the geek in you to put yourself apart from the mainstream users stuck on windows and free yourself from the ties that bind.
]]>Office Alternatives
http://dickinsoncounty.com/blog/index.php?entry=entry060726-200038
OASIS compliant. Here is a quick run down on its features from the Open Office website.
WRITER is OpenOffice.org’s word processor: use it for anything from writing a quick letter to producing an entire book with embedded illustrations, cross-references, tables of contents, indexes, bibliographies... Auto-complete, auto-format, and real-time spelling check make light work of the hardest task. Writer is powerful enough to tackle desktop publishing tasks such as creating multi-column newsletters, brochures – the only limit is your imagination.
Use CALC to bring your numbers under control. This powerful spreadsheet has all the tools you need to calculate, analyze, summarize, and present your data in numerical reports or sizzling graphics. A fully-integrated help system makes entering complex formulas a breeze. Sophisticated decision-making tools are just a few mouse clicks away. Pull in external data using the Data Pilot, and sort it, filter it, and produce subtotals and statistical analyses. Use previews to select from thirteen categories of 2-D and 3-D charts including line, area, column, pie, XY, stock and net with dozens of variants.
IMPRESS is the fastest, most powerful way to create effective multimedia presentations. Your presentations will truly stand out with special effects, animation and high-impact drawing tools.
DRAW will produce everything from simple diagrams to dynamic 3D illustrations and special effects.
New to Version 2, BASE enables you to manipulate database data seamlessly within OpenOffice.org. Create and modify tables, forms, queries, and reports, either using your own database or Base’s own built-in HSQL database engine.
You can download it from the OO website linked to above or even better, you can get a CD sent to you free. To get the CD you must request it from the UBUNTU website.
What is Ubuntu? Ubuntu is a Linux distribution that's quickly gaining popularity among new users to Linux. It is easy to use and install, easier than windows 2000 or XP and much more stable. Because it’s a Linux distro it is also not vulnerable to the threats that befall the windows OS and Internet explorer. The nicest thing about the free CD is that you get two CD's sent to you. One is an install CD to install Unbuntu on your computer. The second CD is what is called a "live" CD. This CD will allow you to try Linux without having to install it onto your computer. You simply insert the CD and restart your computer. This CD does not install anything to your hard drive, it runs from the CD and your computer RAM. This will only work of course if your computer is able to boot from your CD driver. Don't worry, if your computer is less than a few years old it should be able to boot from a CD drive, and all laptops that lack a floppy drive can boot from their CD drive. This "live" version will find all your devices and will find your Internet connection if you have cable or will find your modem allowing you to securly access the Internet.
One of the CD's also contain free Open Source applications to run on windows computers. Besides Open Office there is also "The GIMP". GIMP or The Gnu Image Manipulation Program is a viable alternative to Adobe photoshop and is well worth using. New users will quickly figure out the interface while photoshop users will find it not quite comfortable but will also quickly figure it out if they keep an open mind.
Other included free Open Source windows applications are:
Audacity An audio file editor and mixer
Abiword A lightweight word processor
PDFCreator Create PDF documents from any program
Mozilla Firefox A secure and fast web browser
Mozilla Thunderbird A safe and easy email client
What are you waiting for, a free invite from bill gates? Get it now! ]]>Veto Bush
http://dickinsoncounty.com/blog/index.php?entry=entry060719-164628
In 2004, the latest year for which I could find statistics, there were almost 1.3 million abortions. The reasons for the abortions are moot, there are almost 1.3 million fetuses a year wasted that are available for harvesting and research. Medical experts are in consensus, stem cell research is a valid part of fighting disease and illness and shows great promise to combat many ailments that are today mostly untouchable by modern medicine. Here is a list of clinical trials underway right now. A cure for even 10% of these would be of great benefit to human beings all over the world.
Dubya feels that his own brand of world healing is better. Civil war is better, famine is better. Rather than treat and cure, georgie boy would rather shock and awe the world to a better place. As we can see he has done a great job so far, he has helped lessen the number of starving Iraqis by killing tens of thousands of them, more food to go around. Started a civil war in Iraq so now the average Iraqi citizen is more worried about his neighbor than the occupying soldiers. Allowed Afghanistan to again lead the world in raw opium production so our American addicts can have all the cheap heroin they can shoot up.
Let’s look at Mr. Snows remark, "The president believes strongly that for the purpose of research, it's inappropriate for the federal government to finance something that many people consider murder. He's one of them."
How much is “many” to Dubya? Surely not most Americans. And this part here, “...it's inappropriate for the federal government to finance something that many people consider murder.” What do most Americans think of his war on Iraq? His approval ratings tell the true story.
On the bright side, there is one thing georgie is number one at. That is marking his place in US and world history as the worst president ever. I doubt any future president will be able to eclipse him on that one. Congratulations Mr. Bush!
And on the light side, or maybe not.
In Wales a store keeper wanted to stop young people from hanging out near his store. He came up with a device called the mosquito that emits a rather shrill sound at 17 Hz that supposedly only young ears can hear. Many people over the age of 30 suffer from high frequency hearing loss. Here are some test tones to see where your hearing is at. I clearly heard all but the 16000 sound, which I could not hear even if I turned up the volume to its max. At least I can still hear them pesky skitos before I feel em. ]]>Copyright Abuse
http://dickinsoncounty.com/blog/index.php?entry=entry060712-131127
ruled that it was against copyright law to take a movie and alter its contents then sell or rent it to the public. Was this a fair ruling? Anyone has a right to watch whatever movie they wish, when they want watch it. They have the right to fast-forward through any part they find objectionable. This no one would disagree with.
This suit started as action brought by CleanFlicks against a group of movie producers. CleanFlicks wanted to show that they were in fact legal in their business venture of scrubbing DVD's of their objectionable parts then selling and renting the DVD's. 16 directors filed a suit as a counterclaim. This all started in the fall of 2002. The court ruled there was a direct violation of copyright law as the altered DVD's are a derivative of the original and fall outside any fair use.
CleanFlicks had nothing more than profit in their mind when starting this venture of scrubbing DVD's clean. A look at their site will tell you so. They charge two to three times as much as netflix or blockbuster, who are the leaders in the DVD rental field. You can pay over $50 monthly to rent up to 7 DVD's, a steep price to pay for simply watching movies.
There are many G and PG movies released each year, all good family material containing no objectionable content. Many of these G and PG releases are socially redeeming instead of filled with excitement and gore. But what do we go to see a movie for? For social redemption? To have life altering experiences in front of the big screen? No, we go for entertainment.
So I visited CleanFlicks site to see just what they offered the folks who objected to questionable content. I scanned the list of movies offered for rent and sale and saw many that would lose their intended meaning if scrubbed clean. The Libertine, starring Johnny Depp, is a great movie, based on pure gluttonous debauchery. Scrubbed clean it would be a meaningless shell of its depiction of a mans true-life story. How about SAW and SAWII, anything to those plots except violence and pure gore? Remove the good parts and what do you have? A few scenes of a dirty disused subway bathroom. There are many other R rated movies cut to shreds available from CleanFlicks. A small sample is 12 Monkeys, Kill Bill 1 & 2, 21 Grams, Crash and Traffic. Cut out the "good" parts and you have something that does not even suggest the original plot, if even decipherable from the cleaned version.
While I feel that copyright and IP laws need a severe tweaking and some parts need abolishing, this is one instance where the courts got it right. A movies purpose is not only to entertain but to put across a definite idea or plot and no one has the right to alter the view presented.
On the flip side here is a site with some good poetry.
