The Rotten Word

Valley Swim Club Says Nevermind, We're Not (All) Racists

2009-07-13T16:46:00.005-04:00

I read via Philly.com today that Valley Swim Club (site down, snapshot from 2007 at the Wayback Machine) has decided to ask back the day camp whose summer swimming arrangement it initially refused to honor. Yes, it's because of the bad press. Yes, it's because of the pending lawsuits. No, it's probably not because we declared them Asshole of the Week last week at Phillyist (read all of Phillyist's coverage here). But we weren't alone. They have a popular topic.

It's a shame to watch something like this go down. It appears to me that this swim club does, in fact, include racists among their members. They may not be the majority, but they are vocal enough to put words in the ears and minds of children who are told, with increasing frequency and perhaps too little thought on the part of the tellers, that we live in a "post-racial" society.

I have nothing official or authoritative to bring to this discussion. But it is my personal belief that while a post-racial society is a worthy cause and should be sought with tenacity, it's attainment in the United States is unlikely to occur during the lifetime of anyone reading this, however young you may be.

I can only imagine that very few non-whites can listen to the phrase without a dark chuckle, somewhere between pity for the one who actually believes it, and disgust that they didn't think long enough about it to realize how ridiculous a statement it is.

And the looks on those kids' faces tell the whole story. All it takes is a few people with limited-enough mental capacities to endure in their prejudice to teach a kid that this is no post-racial society. You can only stick to the facts when slathering dramatic phrases like "post-[insert dramatic thing to be post about here]." Post-slavery. Post-African Americans-can't-vote. Post-segregation.

Post-racial finds its best use as part of the ironically titled post about this mess at Eschaton, 'Post-Racial America'.

I sometimes wish that the world were a lab, or a computer simulation (Yes, it may be, but this isn't a philosophy blog). I wish we could re-run the scenario and replace the 65 black kids with white kids. Would the patrons who found themselves vocalizing absurd concerns about changing the "complexion" of the pool find themselves vexed simply by the several-fold increase in the pool's population on Mondays? Or would they rejoice in the influx of youthful spirit?

Something tells me that the word "complexion" wouldn't come up at all.

Reconsidering Wordpress

2009-07-13T15:02:00.000-04:00

I posted the following at my WordPress blog earlier today:

It’s not something I’m sure about yet, but I think I may need to move on from Blogger. I’ve been with them for more years than I can remember offhand. But, in an effort to avoid taking the blame for my less-than-stellar record as a solo blogger, I’m thinking maybe the difficulty I’ve had finding a template I like and the complexity involved with customization thereof, it’s time to move on.

The full refresh might be for me. I've over-crowded this otherwise lovely theme with gimmicky sidebar stuff that distracts from the real content, whenever there is any, which isn't often. So, stay tuned for a serious change. You can keep right on coming over here http://therottenword.com and you'll still get whatever blog I've decided to run with.

"Supertendo" Is a Handheld Super Nintendo - Via Engadget

2009-07-02T11:26:00.003-04:00

I know I haven't posted in a while, and I'm really only reposting content from the gadget gurus over at Engadget, but this is a great video and I had to share it. A Super Nintendo console, shrunk to fit in your hands, with full controls and even speakers!

Read the whole story at Engadget.

The Fountain at Logan Square

2009-06-29T13:51:00.003-04:00

Pics like this make we want to go on vacation. Yet another Logan Square shot.

I'm Back, And I'm Posting From My Palm Pre

2009-06-15T00:17:00.004-04:00

It's something I have wanted for a very long time: a smartphone. I waited and researched and read. I flirted with the iPhone. I made eyes at several iterations of the ubiquitous Blackberry family. I even test drove that hideous bastard child of Samsung's, the Instinct.

But, in the end, I chose the Palm Pre, which everyone hyped as an iPhone killer (it's not, but I'll get to that), as the last best effort of embattled PDA pioneer Palm, Inc (it is), and as the king of super-synchronous next-generation social communication devices.

After owning one for a little over a week, I can say that it doesn't kill the iPhone.

But it shouldn't try. They aim for different people and take markedly different angles on what a smartphone should do and how it should do it.

Cue the Apple fanboys spewing about my sniveling equivocation. But it's true: the iPhone is king, but Palm would be smart to realize that they should stake a claim on new land instead of bellowing a war cry.

The fact that Apple has been giving them the silent treatment speaks to the fact that Palm is on to something with their WebOS platform.

Of course, I could blog from an iPhone, or any other email-enabled device. But it's a different story (at least for now) if I want to have my Twitter, Pandora and IM applications running alongside my email client.

I'm waiting for more apps, more bug fixes, and a stronger sense of longevity and developer interest to come to WebOS. But the good news is that I have no buyer's remorse.

Enjoy the new iPhone, the new Blackberries, and the new (and admittedly very sexy) Nokia N97.

As for me, I am happy with my Palm Pre.

Quick and Dirty: New Eels Record Streaming In Its Entirety at MySpace

2009-05-29T17:10:00.004-04:00

Go to the Eels' MySpace page to stream the entire new album. I haven't listened to all of it yet, but I've been a fan for a while and it's nice to see a group making the whole record available pre-launch. The Eels will release Hombre Lobo in stores June 2nd. You can catch the first video from the record over at Stereogum.

Image via Eels and Vagrant Records.

"New Media Douchebags"

2009-05-25T16:47:00.001-04:00

Found via @anniemal and her blog, Social Media: The New Black.

Palm Pre Available June 6 From Sprint

2009-05-19T16:04:00.002-04:00

I might, I really just might. iPhone on AT&T offers rollover minutes. Pre on Sprint offers unlimited messaging (SMS and MMS). Otherwise, 450 anytime minutes and unlimited data cost you the same amount of money. Decisions, decisions.

	The new Palm^® Pre™ phone will be here June 6, starting at $199.99 on the Sprint network (after rebate and service agreement). People, events, information that matters. With Palm Pre, it´ll come to you.

Portable Productivity Apps: They Don't Make Windows, They Make Windows Better

2009-05-06T13:50:00.005-04:00

No frills, just a quick list of programs I love:

Dexpot

A kind German programmer put together an application called Dexpot, which allows Windows to mimic the workspaces feature common in Macs and many Linux distributions. It's highly customizeable and, even better, installs to a USB stick for portable use (you'll get two error messages, regarding file access - these may be a result of my not having admin privileges during the install, or a result of the USB destination - clicking the 'Ignore' button did not appear to break the installation). This allows for much less cluttering if you're working on a lot of things at once.

Direct download: dexpot_142_r691.exe

Taskix

Taskix is a tiny application that, again, installs to USB just fine, and lets you reorder the taskbar buttons. For example, if you opened a text file, an image, and then your browser, but for some reason want to place the taskbar buttons for those apps in a different order, Taskix lets you shuffle them. It seems silly, and maybe I just have OCD, but it comes in handy sometimes. The user experience is similar to moving tabs around in a browser.

Direct download: Taskix32_2.0Beta.msi (32-bit) | Taskix64_2.0Beta.msi (64-bit)

Launchy

Launchy is a program similar to Quicksilver that let's you use a keyboard combination to bring up a search window that can be used to open applications or find files. It saves a lot of time usually spent wading through Windows Explorer. Oh, and it's portable, too.

Direct download: LaunchySetup212.exe

These three applications, with their powers combined, can turn your Windows workstation into a productivity powerhouse.

Universal Extractor

Finally, for the more technically minded among us, try Universal Extractor, which essentially unzips installation files. It useful for trying to make portable versions of programs that aren't natively portable and works most of the time. Just save the installation file to your USB stick, open Universal Extractor, drag and drop the installation file into Universal Extractor, and open the resulting folder, which contains all the files included in the installation.

Direct download: uniextractor16.exe

Mininova Torrent Site Testing Content Filter

2009-05-06T12:49:00.005-04:00

Image via Wikipedia

My RSS feeds spat out this story from TorrentFreak this afternoon, which discusses a new content filtering system that torrent tracker Mininova is testing. The site's founders go to trial in a few days over copyright issues (see the site's current policy here), so the new filter seems appropriately timed. Basically, the system will scan the site for copyrighted (and thus pirated) content and remove the torrents automatically.

Furthermore, it will actually prevent users from re-uploading the same torrent.

The site, which has served up over 8 billion torrents since its inception in 2005, is under fire from local anti-piracy advocates BREIN. If they win the court case, Mininova likely shuts down. If the filters actually work and result in the removal of copyrighted material from the site, Mininova likely shuts down.

Content creators need to make their work available digitally, very soon after it is available in meatspace. For example, most production studios make a movie, market the movie, and distribute the movie to theaters. Then, it may be months before that movie shows up as a DVD in stores or on iTunes or Netflix. By then, assuming I didn't see the movie in a theater, I have forgotten all about the movie. The marketing reach and effectiveness has been diluted.

But, if studios shrink the time span between theatrical release and these other forms of a release, the movie is still fresh in my head. Maybe they can ink a deal with Netflix for "early release" rights, so users who pony up a few extra bucks on top of their however-many-movies-per-month subscription can view it using the "Watch Instantly" streaming feature on the Netflix web site, perhaps as soon as a month after release.

I don't know if that would really work, I'm just throwing out an example to illustrate a point: content creators, advocates, torrent enthusiasts and legislative efforts must converge somewhere if the sloppy mess that is 21st century intellectual property regulation is ever going to be sorted out.

"The Hunt For Gollum"

2009-04-29T11:46:00.005-04:00

I'm going to follow up my mammoth law school post with a quickie, via Cory Doctorow on BoingBoing:

Trailer 2 - The Hunt For Gollum at SCI-FI-LONDON
by HuntForGollum

This is exciting. Read the makers' blog here.

Why I Choose Temple Law

2009-04-27T14:54:00.005-04:00

In the Beginning...

It's not a choice easily made. First of all, just the decision to take the LSAT is a journey in itself. It requires research, asking the right questions of the right people, preparing for failure and, perhaps most importantly, preparing for success.

It's the success that can be most confusing. After all, if you do poorly on the test the first time, you resolve that you probably didn't take it seriously enough, or that it was just a bad day. There's a "choose your own adventure" feel to it. The first time I took the LSAT, my score was embarrassing. The only saving grace was that the average friend and family member has never had any reason to learn the how the test is scored, so they don't know how poorly I did.

I could have gotten off the train right there. I almost did. I almost decided that maybe it isn't meant to be. But then I thought about it, and remembered that I don't think anything is meant to be. That's the great liberating foundation of my personal moral value system: freedom at the cost of accountability. Things happen to me because (a) I have made a decision that caused them or (b) someone else has made a decision that caused them. Thus, I can decide that I'm not cut out for lawyering, or I can decide that I am, and then act.

So I took it again. And I did better. Much better. Suffice it to say that I am no longer embarrassed, even by my first score, because my second vindicated me. I studied harder, focused more deliberately, and made executive decisions about which questions I could answer well and which ones I could not.

But getting a score you can respect yourself for is only the beginning.

Decisions, Decisions

Will you devote all of your time to your studies, subsidizing your living expenses as well as the cost of your education? Or will you retain your current employment, making the (in my opinion) far more daunting commitment to maintain your financial standing and continue to accrue work experience while you submit to the rigor of a legal education?

On the one hand, going to school full time looks like the most sensible decision. Everything you have heard about law school is true: it's hard. It's not an afterthought, or a hobby. It's at least as mentally stressful as your job, and probably more. Like any graduate school, every hour of class time requires at least an hour outside the classroom. So, the ability to go to class all day and devote your evenings to study and work is a precious resource.

On the other hand, the economy is (still) bad, and even if previously borrowed loans are deferred while you are in graduate school, there are bills and rent to be paid, not to mention food and (dare I say) the occasional drink. Borrowing money for these expenditures is inadvisable at best. Working through law school is difficult, but, since the evening division is a part-time program, credit requirements are flexible: you must complete a certain amount, but you have summer sessions during which you can earn credit, as well. You can keep earning money, and producing promotable deliverables. But you'll be spending a few hours a night, a few nights a week, in a classroom. And that's before you even start your homework. It may be a part-time education, but it's a second full-time job.

So why did I choose Temple Law?

Well, even taking into account the (generous) aid package Drexel offered me, I would have had to borrow more money to cover living expenses than I'll likely need to borrow to go to Temple. Also, my 401(k) account makes me smile, and cutting it off for a few years would mean less smiles. Finally, I've got a good thing going at my current job: good work, good people, good benefits. These are not things to be taken lightly in today's job market. For every lawyer making $80k right out of school, there are three more at the unemployment office. And we're talking partners here. People with experience.

I made the commitment to work and go to school at the same time. It want to be confident about it, even arrogant. But the truth is that it's terrifying. After all, I might not be able to do it. Then what? I don't know. But I know that it's what I want, and people do it every day. People with more stressful jobs, people with children. There are really no excuses.

Classes are technically from 6pm to 10pm. I'm going to be in danger of succumbing to my burgeoning caffeine addiction. I'm going to be in danger of burning out. I'm going to be in danger of driving the girlfriend (more) insane (than usual).

But maybe I'll quit caffeine and start meditating. Or running. Maybe I'll apply my work ethic to my studies, and develop a schedule that includes class time, study time, and mental stability time. Maybe I'll do well.

Closing Argument

This absurdly long post has served primarily as a "thinking out loud" session for me, in which I've tried to express what has been going on in my head as I near the next and most important part of my journey: actually going to law school. But this is the tip of the iceberg. This stuff takes me away mid-conversation at work, puts blank stares on my face while Meg's talking to me, and keeps me wide awake in bed. It worries me, aggravates me, scares me. This is the stuff I always thought adults had to deal with, the stuff that I got to watch other people figure out while I wrote stories or played my guitar.

Now I'm one of those people. I have a job, investments, credit cards, an actual (and good) credit score. I don't think I could afford to work a side job and go to school. So it might take me longer to finish, while i take fewer classes. But my sense of financial security is young and, with the exception of some indinspensable help (for which I'll always be grateful), largely self-wrought. Risking it doesn't seem right. So wish me luck.

I'm going to need it.

Unsubscribe From Google Feed Emails Via...Postal Mail?

2009-04-17T16:10:00.003-04:00

Just a random observation today: For some reason, I am signed up for email versions of the comments feed on this blog. While I was in the process of realizing the redundancy, I found the unsubscribe options at the bottom of the email. The option I outlined in the red box struck me as odd. I can unsubscribe from an emailed RSS update via...snail mail? I wonder what kind of person is nerdy enough to have RSS updates emailed to them, and reactionary enough to prefer snail mail in the event that they no longer wish to receive those emails. It looks like at some point (it was probably inadvertent) I told Feedburner to send me the updates. But I have to ask Google Chicago to unsubscribe me by letter, if that's my preference. At least, I think that's the situation. Weirdness.

The Pirate Bay's Liability, Or Lack Thereof

2009-04-15T15:05:00.002-04:00

Image via Wikipedia

UPDATE: The Pirate Bay's operators were convicted in a Swedish court of the copyright infringement charges brought against them. They were each sentenced to 1 year in prison and will share the responsibility for paying out a USD $3.5M fine.

I just wanted to drop a quick post about this BBC News story, "Pirate Bay confident of trial win." Basically, as the trial nears a conclusion, representatives of The Pirate Bay are pointing out that theirs is a product that is susceptible to use in the execution of both legal and illegal endeavors. It brought to mind a simple analogy, and one that probably highlights the fact that I just I only just got accepted into law school, and have no real knowledge yet.

Companies that manufacture spray paint are required to place a warning on the can, saying something like:

Use of this product for purposes other than those for which it was intended is a violation of federal law.

There's a health warning, too, but that doesn't apply to our analogy.

Now, although Swedish and U.S. law obviously differ, why can't sites that provide torrent searches be required to display a splash page, or a pop-up window that shows up when you click "Search," stating something like:

[Name of site] provides this search index for the legal backup of content users have previously purchased from appropriate vendors. Use of this site for purposes other than legal use is strictly prohibited by both [Name of site] and applicable local, state, and/or federal law.

Again, such an idea may indicate my amateur status, but the predicament in which these sites find themselves seems similar to the problems posed by a company that wants to sell spray paint and remain immune from prosecution for providing giddy teenagers with easy access to a huff-tastic evening of getting stoned and potentially dying of asphyxiation.

I would love to hear some thoughts on this one. Uncle Anonymous? Anyone? Bueller?

I Want A Palm Pre

2009-04-13T16:42:00.009-04:00

Image by monty.metzger via Flickr

I stayed up way too late last night because I stumbled upon a story about the upcoming release of the Palm Pre. Conclusion: I want one. Badly. Unfortunately, it's not likely to be something I can afford, since, as Gizmodo reported in early January, it's probably going to be at least as expensive as the iPhone.

This is where you come in: I wouldn't mind at all if someone bought me this for my birthday. Engadget reports that leaked internal Sprint documentation implies a release date around May 16 - mere days before my birthday.

Sure, hundreds of dollars may seem like a lot of money to spend on someone's birthday, but imagine all the joy I'll get out of this machine. Can you really place a monetary value on joy?

The video below is kind of long, but, if you're anything like me, it's going to be love at first sight. Their propaganda focuses a lot on one-handed operation, and the "organic" nature of their design aesthetic. And, for better or for worse, I'm sold. The interface is sexy and I'm a sucker for a physical keyboard. I could go on and on and on. But I'm not. Just watch.

And now, the Palm Pre:

Amazon Should Thank Apple For Change In iTunes Pricing Model

2009-04-08T11:31:00.018-04:00

Image via Wikipedia

UPDATE: Ars Technica is reporting that Amazon, Lala, and Rhapsody are now selling more popular songs at higher price points, as I reported below about Apple. Read the story here.

Let's not kid ourselves: When Apple decided to give up its across-the-board $0.99 price for songs on iTunes, they were toying with the concept of leveraging a song's popularity against its pricing. The theory itself really isn't bad on paper. Crappy songs sell for $0.69, the mediocre go for the traditional $0.99, and the chart-smashers - currently in the majority - demand a (relatively) whopping $1.29. Welcome to variable pricing.

Consequently, Amazon's music, or at least the overwhelming majority of its catalog (which, at 5 million songs is roughly half of what Apple's iTunes Store offers), is the best deal in town, thanks to Apple's tendency toward the highest of the three price points.

This, coupled with the abandonment by both Apple and Amazon of digital rights management (DRM) is undoubtedly going to change the way music sells online. The only uncertainty is: how?

The fact is that the death of DRM use by the two biggest retailers of digital music is something to be celebrated. Of course, the fact (also) is that DRM was a flawed solution from the start. The idea behind DRM is that if you buy a digital track from me, I license you to listen to it on one device. This is the equivalent of saying that if you purchase a CD from me, I license you to play it on one CD player. The best they could with CDs, after 30 years of existence, is make it a slightly annoying chore to back up your collection. Sure, once in a while the mousetrap gets trickier - but so does the mouse.

It was the industry's way of making record companies - and the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) - happy, by ensuring that there wouldn't be a copying bonanza with digital music the way there was with VHS and DVD. They had nightmares about people slinging bootlegs on street corners all over the world. And their new nightmare was one purchase that found its way into many iPods. Solution: There can be only one. (Thank you, Highlander)

But some people have more than one iPod, or, horror of horrors, want to share their music with friends. This is where things get murky. I can buy a book, read it, and lend it to you. Or give it to you, for that matter. But this isn't as big an issue, from the distributor's standpoint, since I can't easily make several, or several hundred, copies of the book I bought, to give or sell to people. Digital content is as easy to copy as analog content is to burn. One rogue purchaser could mean hundreds or thousands (okay: or millions) of dollars in lost profit.

Case in point: the debacle over the recent leak of the upcoming movie X-Men Origins: Wolverine onto peer-to-peer file sharing sites. The fear is that if you see it because you downloaded it from a file sharing site, you won't see it in the theater. The leaked "workprint" of the X-Men film is apparently unfinished, lacking in the amazing visual sheen bestowed upon modern action films by the magic of digital special effects. I, for one, plan to catch the movie in theaters, and that wouldn't change if I saw a workprint. Indeed, such an unfinished version would only serve to whet my appetite for the final masterwork. So, those proclaiming the demise of theater-going are sadly - and luckily, for everyone - mistaken.

Unfortunately, a Fox reporter was recently fired for reviewing the movie, in all of its leaked, unfinished glory. Roger Friedman had logged no less than ten years with FoxNews.com and was contributing heavily to the site all the way up to his termination. It's a sobering reminder that this is no longer business as usual. Maybe Friedman didn't realize what he was doing. Ten years in the business, though, should leave you with some idea that reviewing a leaked movie, especially one with the same daddy company as your employer, is not a good idea.

Mark Wilson, Associate Editor of the Gawker outfit Gizmodo, recently posted A Pirate's Code of Conduct For BitTorrent. I quote a piece of it below, thanks to Gawker's recent decision to license all of its content with the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial license.

TV is to be downloaded, movies are to be attended when a man returns to shore. If ye aren't a Neilsen family, what you watch doesn't matter for ratings anyway. Since advertisers pay by rating, it's a theft-less crime. Movies, on the other hand, do see profits of gold and jewels. So support independent/foreign film in the theaters, and save the action flicks with high production values and many beautiful explosions for the big screen, too. Hollywood romantic comedies? They are for plundering (in secret). (Via Gizmodo)

That last bit is obvious snark, but Wilson has a point here. It's likely that some people consider a film fair game once it has made an absurd percentage over cost in the box office, but too few people adhere to this code of conduct. Ironically, the studio's outcry, and the media's coverage, of the Wolverine leak constitute exposure that you just can't buy these days, even if you're Rupert Murdoch.

Okay, I'm sure he can buy that kind of exposure. But now he can save that money and spend it on legal fees in his quest to crucify the source of the leak.

Apple, Amazon, the RIAA, and the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) have a lot of work ahead of them, competing for the diminished discretionary funds of the average U.S. consumer. Piracy is not going anywhere, so these groups will have to embrace the technology behind that piracy.

They need to adapt or die. Re-appropriate file sharing as a method of sales and distribution. Establish consistent pricing, across platforms, conglomerates, and devices. Compete for our money through ease of use, quality of product (Ogg, anyone?), and - and this is a big one - integration of social networking and the cloud.

Last.fm has been getting that last one right all along, using profiles, similarity estimations and streaming audio to allow users to bring a remarkably accurate approximation of their ideal listening experience with them, wherever they have internet access.

Now, for those of you who subscribe to Netflix, I suggest you go watch The IT Crowd: Season 1. You can stream it, for free.

And it's legal.

Hilarious, British, and legal.

Open Letter to Conficker and Its Author(s)

2009-03-31T21:45:00.005-04:00

Image by TedRheingold via Flickr

Dear Conficker:

I know you are a nasty recent computer virus. By now, many people who don't even know what an RSS feed understand the potential threat from your evil and underhanded infiltration of our precious computers.

It has come to my attention that you are receiving new instructions at some point in the next 24 hours. It is not without anxiety that the world of digital security professionals, geeks, and cyber-banking gurus awaits the go-live moment of those instructions. Some fear the worst will happen during your April Fool's Day update. They picture loud and nasty "denial of service" attacks, or sinister and silent keylogging nightmares.

The truth is that at least a few million people will probably fall victim to Conficker.c at some point during the next 48 hours. Whether directly infected, or victims of the exploits penetrated by the zombie botnet scourge that some experts believe your hacker progenitors have created, these people will either knowingly or unknowingly do your digital bidding.

This is why I have decided to write to you, proposing a solution to both your problems and those you have caused for your victims. I posit that a simple "Gotcha!" message, popped up on every infected screen and emailed to every contact in every infected address book would more than prove your point and, moreover, establish such a demand for your abilities and services in the security industry that your likely federal indictment on cybercrimes charges would be either:

(a) financed handsomely by one of the many private security firms out there that would gladly pay you a king's ransom to work for them, preventing attacks just like yours from undermining their efforts

or

(b) financed rather covertly by the United States government, particularly (but not limited to) such agencies as the United States National Security Agency, the Central Intelligence Agency, or the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Cyber Investigations Unit. This would enable them to give you the classic free-pass-for-service-to-your-country's-national-security schpiel, which is, typically, a difficult schpiel to reject while staring down the barrel of a fully loaded (and paranoid) United States legal system.

Either way, it can't be denied that you have simultaneously made the average hacker's life easier and more difficult.

The media coverage on this particular issue has been so saturating that any loser with enough time on his hands is going to be able and inspired enough to seek out the potential for committing similar, if less-than-flattering attacks, using off-the-shelf malware or, worse yet, becoming one of those pimple-faced botnet renters that never really learn how to write a single line of code but instead inflict their damage as a third-party financier and enabler.

At the same time, System and Network Administrators, some of whom have become lazy over the years, with no challenge of your caliber having come along for quite some time, have been awakened in their resolve and in their fear that they, too, may find their jobs in jeopardy during this time of recession, especially if the network they have been effortlessly stewarding for so long comes down with a bad case of the Confickers.

But all the better for the average internet user, right? Well, maybe. Maybe you're going for a (relatively) proof of concept angle, not unlike the participants in the annual Pwn2Own contest, which got a lot of play at the recent CanSecWest security conference. The main issue was browser exploits.

The fact that security expert (read: legitimately employed hacker, and I mean that as a compliment) Charlie Miller, who cracked the Safari browser on the Mac he was set up on for the contest in about 10 seconds, was working for a security firm (Independent Security Evaluators), speaks to the evolution of the industry.

Mr. Miller's personal slogan is "No More Free Bugs." If companies are paying good money (read: damn effing good money) to people to find these vulnerabilities internally before their software or updates are pushed out to end-users, why should hackers, even in contests in which they win cash prizes and the machines that they penetrated, just give away the vulnerabilities and exploits that they so tirelessly worked to discover and of which they so carefully learn to take advantage?

Whatever happens, I am happy that I am a faithful Linux Ubuntu user, more concerned with April's release of Jaunty Jackalope than any of the (non-existent) viruses that threaten my OS and surfing security.

Between NoScript, AdBlock, FlashBlock, and Cookie Button (Status Bar) and RefControl, I feel pretty confident that I'm locked down while I surf.

I hope you achieve yours ends, because, either way, it's going to help people.

Just don't take my financial information. Because I love money, don't ave enough of it, and need more of it, not less of it.

Yours truly,

Joe

Spam Files: ATM PAYMENT NOTIFICATION

2009-03-19T16:03:00.005-04:00

It's not the attempt to scam me, but the insult to my intelligence when someone thinks this might work. Those on whom such a scam does work will get no sympathy from me.

ATM CARD PAYMENT NOTIFICATION OFFICE OF THE GOVERNOR INTERNATIONAL CREDIT SETTLEMENT, CENTRAL BANK OF THE STATES OF NIGERIA ATTENTION HONOURABLE BENEFICIARY , THIS IS TO OFFICIALLY INFORM YOU THAT WE HAVE VERIFIED YOUR CONTRACT /INHERITANCE FILE AND FOUND OUT THAT WHY YOU HAVE NOT RECEIVED YOUR PAYMENT IS BECAUSE YOU HAVE NOT FULFILLED THE OBLIGATIONS GIVEN TO YOU IN RESPECT OF YOUR CONTRACT/INHERITANCE PAYMENT. RIGHT NOW WE HAVE ARRANGED YOUR PAYMENT THROUGH OUR SWIFT CARD PAYMENT CENTER ASIA PACIFIC, THAT IS THE LATEST INSTRUCTION FROM OUR NEW ELECTED PRESIDENT DOCTOR BONI YAYI. THIS CARD CENTER WILL SEND YOU AN ATM CARD VALUED TO THE AMOUNT OF $950,000.00 AS FIRST PART QUARTER PAYMENT FOR THIS FISCAL YEAR 2009.WHICH YOU WILL USE TO WITHDRAW YOUR MONEY IN ANY ATM MACHINE IN ANY PART OF THE WORLD.YOU WILL BE ADVISE TO COME TO NIGERIA FOR COLLECTION OF YOUR ATM MASTER CARD OR YOU PAY THE LITTLE INSURANCE AND SHIPMENT FEES FOR DELIVARY SO IF YOU LIKE TO RECEIVE YOUR FUND THIS WAY PLEASE LET US KNOW BY CONTACTING THE CARD PAYMENT CENTER AND ALSO SEND THE FOLLOWING INFORMATION: 1.FULL NAME 2.PHONE AND FAX NUMBER 3.ADDRESS WERE YOU WANT THEM TO SEND THE ATM CARD TO(P.O BOX NOT ACCEPTABLE) 4.YOUR AGE AND CURRENT OCCUPATION 5.A COPY OF YOUR IDENTIFICATION HOWEVER, KINDLY FIND BELOW THE CONTACT PERSON AND CALL HIM IMMEDIATLY:

DR. MICHEAL BROWN TEL;;;234 80 23537608 DIRECTOR, ATM PAYMENT DEPARTMENT WITH H S B C BANK NIGERIA NOTE THAT BECAUSE OF IMPOSTORS, WE HEREBY ISSUE YOU OUR CODE OF CONDUCT, WHICH IS (ATM-711).
SO YOU HAVE TO INDICATE THIS CODE WHEN CONTACTING THE CARD CENTER BY USING IT AS YOUR SUBJECT. REGARDS, GOV CHARLES SOLUDO GOVERNOR CENTRAL BANK OF THE STATES OF WEST AFRICA

BBC Gets Its Botnet On

2009-03-12T23:55:00.002-04:00

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

Britain's numero uno TV station has a new show, called Click. They want to market their new show, about technology and all the things you'd imagine a show named 'Click' to be about. So they decided to take advantage of a little-known black market internet ploy known as a 'botnet.'

Think of it this way: you don't know any better, so you surf through some spam and some porn and some scams and BAM - you get a virus. Or, as is more likely, a myriad of viruses make themselves a comfortable home among the once-clean sectors of your hard drive.

From this point on, they don't do much. They sit and they wait. Until someone calls to them, reciting the incantation that can get their zombie muscles twitching again. Then, the email starts flowing. For male enhancement, or the banking needs of a royal African widow, or a too-good-to-be-true mortgage scheme.

Or, your computer just starts loading a web site - the same web site - over and over and over again. Until the server that hosts the target site says 'Sorry buddy, you've had too many requests today. We have to cut you off.'

It's called Denial of Service, and I capitalize it because, if you're the webmaster of a lucrative site (wholly unlike mine, unfortunately), it's your worst nightmare. If they can't read your blog, they can't click your ads.

Enter British public television. They enlisted 22,000 computers to email some email accounts. And it worked wonderfully.

Well, as you can hear, a few hours and some silly techno background music later, you've got a clearer picture of how all that spam in your email client gets from point A to point B. Now if only we could get those spammers to offer us 25% discounts on 24 inch plasma television/computer monitors like the one my brother got earlier this year, everyone might be able to get along.

Via TechRadarUK.

Twitlet Helps You Addictively Post to Multiple Twitter Accounts

2009-03-04T20:25:00.001-05:00

This isn't going to take very long. I just had to mention that Twitlet's automate Twitter bookmarklet generation rocks. Consider this: I have my own account (@joeross) and do some work with the Phillyist account (@phillyist) account, as well.

I am a huge fan of the TwitterFox extension for Firefox and it does have multi-account support. However, their implementation, although lovely from a programming standpoint, is susceptible (through no fault of their own) to human error. And if there's one thing I do really well, it's human error.

Enter Twitlet. Go to their web site and click on the Create image. Enter your username and password for Twitter and drag the resulting hyperlink into your bookmarks toolbar.

Yes, I realize some people may not want to give out their information, but, let's face it, the people behind Twitlet aren't that hard to track down. And, after all, they seem trustworthy, right? The risk is worth it, since I'll just change my password and delete the errant tweets if someone evil does something mean.

Also, if you're one of the lucky 20% of netizens rocking Firefox, you can connect that bookmarklet to a keyword. Then, just jump to the address bar by hitting CTL+L (CMD+L for Mac OS X), type your keyword and press enter. My keyword for my account is just "j", so I'm three keystrokes away from calling up the post box and sending off a tweet. Pretty cool, huh?

Of course, experimental Firefox addon Ubiquity has a Twitter functionality, and many, many more life-changing features that will impress the shit out of any power user.

Alienable Rights, or How John Yoo Pwned the Consitution

2009-03-03T15:49:00.009-05:00

Matters of Introduction
Most of my work on this post went into the title. Ars Technica did a hell of a job writing this up on their Law & Disorder blog. Yesterday, the Obama administration released several of the infamous memos to which John Yoo was connected while working in Bush's Office of Legal Council (OLC). It's not necessarily Yoo's opinions that are so abhorrent, many people will readily agree with some of his stances - they're called conservatives. Instead, it's the environment in which it was acceptable for his opinions to hold such sway over administration policy. For example, he did not

think that a military commander carrying out a raid on a terrorist cell would be required to demonstrate probably cause or to obtain a warrant. [PDF]

Let the Light Shine In
The recently released memos are available at the Department of Justice's web site here. The top-most document (click here to download the PDF, about 3MB), from a more recent iteration of the OLC is dated January 15, 2009 and essentially says "Uh, we disagree with the dudes that used to sit over here." They've apparently been saying that, in one way or another, since 2003.

John Yoo Sez: Im In Ur Konsteetooshun, Eracin Yoor Ritez
The Wikipedia article about Yoo is, in all fairness to our conservative countrymen, probably of dubious reliability. However, it contains a good list of documents associated with the OLC during Yoo's time there. But remember, that doesn't mean that he contributed to all of them (unless, of course, he signed them). It merely indicates that he knew of them, and, at least passively, approved of their content. Even if we allow for the fact that we probably haven't met anyone whose rights were overtly stomped upon by government action directly or indirectly tied to Yoo's outrageous claims, we have, occasionally, been inconvenienced.

Like the time one of my 4 or 5 readers was put on the no-fly list for buying a ticket the night before and printing the boarding pass online. It took him months to get off that list. The problem isn't that guys with M16s and bad attitudes are arresting people on our blocks - the problem is that it's a slippery slope, to enable that behavior, to make it a possibility. It's like having a gun in your house. Sure, the odds of the kids ever finding it in your awesome hiding spot are next to zero. But what if they do find it? What if the government finds the right to have the DoJ burst into your home, take you into custody, and hold you indefinitely, all without evidence or due process, despite its being tucked away in the What's-the-Consitution-anyway? section of John Yoo's legal cortex.

Final Disclosures
Let it be known that I have no legal expertise, only a minor grasp of the complexities of our Constitution, and a tendency to lean pretty left of anything like warrantless search and seizure, wire-tapping, and granting government the theoretical ability to perform arbitrary domestic anti-terrorism operations with no basis in evidence or fact.

Let it also be known that I transmitted my law school applications a couple of days ago.

United States Congress Hearts Twitter

2009-02-25T08:54:00.004-05:00

CNN reports that at least 70 United States Congresspersons are consistently tweeting, from work and from home. And while it seems like the kind of thing that would give your spokesperson an anyeurism, many constituents, as well as transparency wonks like the folks at the Sunlight Foundation, are happy to find their federal representatives accessible via the social networking site Twitter.

We're going to press on with this point, using last night's speech by President Obama as an example. CNN also reports, via their Politicker blog, that Congress was all a-tweet during the presidential address last night in the House chamber. At least 8, including Democrats and Republicans, updated their twitter accounts during the moments leading up to the speech.

There are, as mentioned near the end of the embedded video, some security concerns associated with the nation's top-level movers and shakers thumb-punching their every move into their mobile browser. But that is a line that can be clearly defined by the right social media liasons, or that intern in their office who updates 10 or more social networks at once with a tool like Ping.fm.

Ultimately, tweeting is an opportunity for elected officials to reclaim some of the humanity you lose when your every appearance and word is orchestrated and written by someone else, someone who may not know you as well as your constituents know you. That is not to say that politicians need not trust or utilize their press liasons. Indeed, it will be more important than ever to work closely with those people to ensure that you're not opening your big mouth and sticking your foot (and possibly your career) in it.

Good public relations specialists are vital media planners that guide political careers the way a decorated fighter pilot delicately lands his plane back on the aircraft carrier: political careers and fighter jets both move fast, often too fast for the average person to control, and they can both explode at any moment without the right maintenance and attention.

You might be curious as to whether or not your congressperson has a Twitter account. Luckily, there is an easy way to check. Tweet Congress, a web site that aggregates all the congressional tweeters, provides a user-friendly lookup you can use to find out whether or not your legislator has a Twitter account, and then sign a petition demanding they get one if they haven't already.

According to Tweet Congress, Philly isn't represented yet on Twitter. Don't forget to consider signing the petitions Tweet Congress has started asking Senators Robert Casey and Arlen Specter and Representative Chaka Fatah to consider joing their social media-savvy colleagues.

CNN on Twitter: http://twitter.com/cnn
Ping.fm on Twitter: http://twitter.com/pingfm
Tweet Congress on Twitter: http://twitter.com/tweetcongress
Joe Ross on Twitter: http://twitter.com/joeross

Court Lets Law Firm Tell Real Estate Site How to Link

2009-02-20T16:02:00.004-05:00

International firm Jones Day took real estate news site BlockShopper to court over how they linked to one of the firm's profile pages in a story about a couple of their attorneys purchasing homes in Chicago. The site had to settle the frivolous suit, letting the victorious firm tell them how to write their HTML.

The firm cited trademark infringement in its filing, claiming that the site had violated the law by not hyperlinking explicitly to "Jones Day", but instead using the employee's name as the label for the link.

Despite a brief filed by the information advocacy and rights organizations Electronic Frontier Foundation and Public Knowledge seeking dismissal of the case, the judge sided with the firm, and made it clear that the site had better settle. He even went so far as to say:

Do you know, young man, how much money it's going to cost you to defend yourselves against Jones Day?

Maybe it was a signal to BlockShopper not to post about the firm's employees, despite the fact that the site publishes only publicly-available records. Maybe it was target practice. Whatever the reason, the outcome is clear: given a firm with enough free time, and a judge with a limited enough knowledge of trademark law and internet publishing conventions, it's possible to make innocent outfits like public records web sites bow to any frivolous editorial demand.

Story via Techdirt via Consumerist.

Image via Flickr user steakpinball.

Facebook Wants YOU...Forever, and Ever, and Ever

2009-02-16T10:44:00.006-05:00

UPDATE: Facebook have withdrawn the changes they recently made to their TOS. Read the New York Times story.

The folks over at Consumerist are ever-vigilant. They proved it again yesterday when they reported that Facebook recently updated their Terms of Service. A powerful omission is followed by blanket close of their fist around what you leave behind on their servers when you leave.

The fact is that, no matter how hard you try, it's almost impossible to remove yourself from the internet. Every email address, user account, and profile, however unfinished and barren, leaves a trace. Sure, you can delete, cancel, close out, erase, and remove. But the web is, by nature, an archival beast. Google's cache does it, the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine does it and, usually, the servers on which the service of your choice is located also do it. While you're frantically deleting, they're faithfully copying.

I'm not going to try to beat the pros over at Consumerist at their own game, so I'll summarize. Facebook once surrendered their license to, well, do pretty much whatever they want with whatever you do on their site or with any of their services at the moment of account termination. Now, they claim permanent ownership. Yes, permanent. Yes, ownership. So, as an analogy, it used to be that if you didn't want to play anymore, you could pick up your toys and go home. Although they could keep archived versions of the toys in our analogy, they couldn't use them anymore.

Not anymore. It seems that they have removed that language from the updated TOS. Now it all belongs to them. If you don't want to play with them anymore, you have to leave your toys at their house, where they can still sell, modify, redistribute, sacrifice to Satan, and do anything else they want with them. Sure, you can get the same toys again. But if they catch you doing any of the things they are permanently licensed to do, you'll get a cease and desist order. Sans smiley emoticons.

Also, they have added the following juicy tidbit:

The following sections will survive any termination of your use of the Facebook Service: Prohibited Conduct, User Content, Your Privacy Practices, Gift Credits, Ownership; Proprietary Rights, Licenses, Submissions, User Disputes; Complaints, Indemnity, General Disclaimers, Limitation on Liability, Termination and Changes to the Facebook Service, Arbitration, Governing Law; Venue and Jurisdiction and Other.

The moral of the story? Well, start with posts like this one at the Dead Dog Cafe 2.2, which I dug up with a quick googling. Facebook is a beast. There are myriad services out there with much kinder TOS. No one wants to read these arcane tracts, but many of them come dangerously close to the equivalent of signing your life away, even if only in the digital realm.

(As a side note, it scares me that a quick googling of "how to read terms of service" yields as the second result - you guessed it - Facebook's TOS themselves.)

My personal take is this: I'm getting rid of Facebook and MySpace, and any other service I can replace with email, IM, microblogging, or some other content-specific service. I was already planning this extraction when I read the Consumerist story, but something like this just reinforces my decision.

Maybe my attempt to extract myself from the corners of the web I don't want to occupy would make a good series of posts...

Image via Flickr user jaycameron.

Why I Love Reality Television

2009-02-15T14:05:00.002-05:00

There are many reasons, most of which have probably been cited before. But I can't help but talk about this. I'm usually nerdy and pretentious about my media consumption - think Slashdot, WRTI, and documentaries about fonts. But then, finally, Sundays roll around. The intelligence quotient starts to dip:

At first, I levy my usual judgements about American tastes and the necessity to provide an opiate, especially when the masses are increasingly cash-strapped or unemployed. But the longer I sit here, the more I start to feel like Narcissus, unable to look away from the lake. Except that it isn't my reflection I see (thankfully, because if it was I'd be dangling from a homemade noose instead of blogging right now), but a reflection of what it really takes to sufficiently distract the majority.

And my verdict: I am amazed. It is beautiful in that horrible way that a city burning is beautiful. It is enlightening the way a homeless person sleeping on a subway vent is enlightening.

It's important to know who you are and who you want to become. But it's also really important to know who you aren't. So tune in once in a while, and take comfort.