Off and On

Well, I am finished with my hissy fit.

Upon mature reflection, me getting pissed off because the government was exposed doing what everyone knew that they were doing all along is silly.   If people are discovered doing what you expect them to do, the response should be a sad resignation, not some shrill hissy fit.

I still don't agree that the government should be snooping everywhere and on everyone.  Hell, Orwell's world would have been drooling over the capabilities.  The Angela Merkel and her old retiree buddies from the Ministerium für Staatssicherheit  hanging around the currywurst stands in old Berlin would just sigh and think that they missed out on an opportunity.

The security state apparatus being formed here in the US is not the sign of a healthy culture.  It is a unholy alliance between the bigots and zenophobes currently lodged in the right-wing of the American political spectrum, the fear-laden kumbaya crowd imbedded in the left-wing, and the military-industrial-congressional complex that feeds the middle class.

Look folks, whether you like it or not, the fourth amendment has been killed.  The fifth amendment is on its way out, the first amendment is under attack.  I have attached a plain language explanation of the bill of rights at the end of this article.  Take your time, indulge in a little self-reflection, and then tell me honestly that you are not guilty of supporting the government taking an axe to one of these little gems at some time in the past twenty years.

AMENDMENT 1

Congress can’t make any law that:

• Favors one religion over another religion, or no religion at all, or opposes any religion;
• Stops you from practicing your religion as you see fit;
• Keeps you from saying whatever you want, even if you are criticizing the President of the United States;
• Prevents newspapers, magazines, books, movies, radio,  television or the internet from  presenting any news, ideas, and opinions that they choose;
• Stops you from meeting peacefully for a demonstration or protest to ask the government to change something.

AMENDMENT 2

Congress can’t stop people from having and carrying weapons.

AMENDMENT 3

You don’t have to let soldiers live in your house, except if there is a war, and even then Congress needs to pass a law and set the rules.

AMENDMENT 4

Nobody can search your body, or your house, or your papers and things, unless they can prove to a judge that they have a good reason for the search.

AMENDMENT 5

Except during times of war or if you are in the military:

• You can’t be tried for any serious crime without a Grand Jury meeting first to decide whether there’s enough evidence against you for a trial;
• If at the end of a trial, the jury decides you are innocent, the government can’t try you again for the same crime with another jury;
• You  cannot be forced to admit you are guilty of a crime and if you choose not to, you don’t have to say anything at your trial at all;
• You can’t be killed, or put in jail, or fined, unless you were convicted of a crime by a jury and all of the proper legal steps during your arrest and trial were followed; and
• The government can’t take your house or your farm or anything that is yours, unless the government pays for it at a fair price.

AMENDMENT 6

If you are arrested and charged with a crime:

• You have a right to have your trial soon and in public, so everyone knows what is happening;
• The case has to be decided by a jury of ordinary people from you are, if you wish;
• You have the right to know what you are accused of doing wrong and to see and hear and cross-examine the people who are witnesses against you;
• You have the right to a lawyer to help you. If you cannot afford to pay the lawyer, the government will.

AMENDMENT 7

You also have the right to a jury when it is a civil case (a law case between two people rather than between you and the government).

AMENDMENT 8

The government can’t make you pay more than is reasonable in bail or in fines, and the government can’t inflict cruel or unusual punishments (like torture) even if you are convicted of a crime.

AMENDMENT 9

Just because these rights are listed in the Constitution doesn’t mean that you don’t have other rights too.

AMENDMENT 10

Anything that the Constitution doesn’t say that Congress can do, is left up to the states and  to the people.

Not feelin’ it

 

I am in the middle of an outrage overload. 

Usually when this happens, I slap myself until I settle down or get all philosophical and explain how it really doesn’t matter.

I really don’t feel the need for that pattern this time around.

Doesn’t mean this time will be better.

Just different

The Axe You Use

In the recent past, I posted a bit about how Windows 8 didn’t suck too bad.

I stand by that claim, but now I wish to throw in a caveat about the use of that system and its attendant shortcomings.  I don’t have any proof of this worry, and all of this may be just delusional ravings of a borderline paranoid.

Look, excluding the occasional foray into sedition, I am a pretty law-abiding type.  I feel that government can and does have a valid and important place in peoples lives.  Hell, I even work for the Fed.

All that being said, I am in no way shape of form embarrassed regarding my opinion that the US Federal government’s security apparatus is out of control and is no longer responding to the will of the governed, but instead serves the interests and wishes of an oligopoly.

All that being said, lets talk about EUFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface).  This is the basic reason that is why I wrote the first article noted above.   I wasn’t able to get by this little dingus to swap out my operating systems.

Now I am wondering about the nature of this little beast.    Consider this little gem from the Wikipedia article on the Beastie

“UEFI can support remote diagnostics and repair of computers, even without another operating system”

My oh my. 

Think long and hard on that one.  My nice little Windows 8 box that I am cheerfully typing away at, down at the most basic level, I controlled by a beast that is designed to let others in to “repair and diagnose”. 

Thinking back to my previous post, and thinking on the revelations reading about the boot cycle of new PC’s.  I am thinking that it might be a good idea to keep handy an older computer, preferably a laptop with a wireless card, to use for secure communication.

Tradecraft and other such inconveniences

I recently got an e-mail from an on-line friend. I am sending this mail in response to his concern.  I am not ragging him, and I feel flattered that he would include me, but the technical merits of his proposal need to be addressed

Been chatting with this guy for a while, and oddly enough I trust him.  Me sent me an e-mail about a "secure" e-mail/browsing service that is coming up.  I realize that he is looking out for my best interests, but there are some issues that I will discuss here that needs to be addressed in light of the recent revelations of the Federal Governments activities in monitoring correspondence and conversations.

First:  this has to be done carefully from the get go.  If you wish to go blank, you can't click a site that a friend sends you on your home computer and set something up.  

First and foremost I will direct your attention to the following site:

https://tails.boum.org/

If you really wish to create a secure means of communication, here is a first step.

I will be speaking of this soon.  I will probably enlist some assistance through some friends online.

If you want to speak securely.  It will take some effort on your part.  It will not be convenient, and you will have to begin to monitor your behavior.

More meat for the paranoid

http://learn.adafruit.com/onion-pi?view=all

Been reading more on the Snowden thing.

I still like the boy.

As for the "Top Secret" nature of the fight on terrorists, the young man was able to bring a thumb drive into a top secret facility and walk out with with the goods.

What kind of dumbasses are in charge of the security at Booz Allen?

Oh Yeah…This is why we should trust the NSA

 

 

http://www.nsa.gov/public_info/press_room/2011/50000_declassified_docs.shtml

 

This is their own website.  This was only two years ago.  They declassified:

• Early publications on cryptography, including Cryptology: Instruction Book on the Art of Secret Writing from 1809;

Doing the Competition a Bad Turn

Am I the only person who sees the irony in this
Google Inc (GOOG) Wants to Prove It’s Not Complicit in NSA Data Collection
Read more at http://www.insidermonkey.com/blog/google-inc-goog-wants-to-prove-its-not-complicit-in-nsa-data-collection-167683/#sdlEwvLg4jzu77Xw.99
So,the company which makes a business model of hoovering up every scrap of information in the world is trying to prove it isn’t helping the NSA.  Apparently Facebook is also trying on the air of innocence.

More thoughts

"The progress of science in furnishing the Government with means of espionage is not likely to stop with wire-tapping. Ways may some day be developed by which the Government, without removing papers from secret drawers, can reproduce them in court, and by which it will be enabled to expose to a jury the most intimate occurrences of the home. . . . Can it be that the Constitution affords no protection against such invasions of individual security?"
                                                                                      Justice Louis D. Brandeis
 

I spent some time during the last couple of posts talking about how the internet is not secure and can never be secure.  Since no one commented and flamed me, I think that I will continue this line of thought and talk more about Messrs. Snowden and Manning.

Their lives are going to suck huge from here on in.  Neither of them appear to be all that stupid, so this thought had to go through their heads before they went into the light with their information, and they still did it.  Both of them appear to have done so as an attempted antidote to what is more and more appearing to be an overweening federal intelligence apparatus. 
 
Now, the boyz at the top of the heap have every intention of taking these boys down.  Now, I realize that these two gentlemen are young men, but a geezer my age has a tendency of labeling a 29 year old and a 25 year old as boys.  Sorry guys, but it is just the way it is.  So when the big boyz get them (and you can rest assured both of them will rot in prison), all that one can hope for is that folks out there won’t forget the sacrifice and begin talking rationally about what kind of power we are going to allow the security state.

That being said,I am kind o proud of these two.  I hope that their sacrifice will have the effect that they hoped it would have, but the deck is stacked against them.

Chances are you think that I will start a rant about the governments seizure of power.  That is about the farthest thing from my mind.  What I want to talk about is the passive nature of the American people and how they are getting exactly the government they deserve and which they have worked so tirelessly to elect.

It is every government’s prime directive to protect its own power and perquisites.  This country is no different.  What makes this whole issue a tragicomedy is the extent that the American people have actually worked at making sure that the government has greater and greater power.  They have done this for the most sad of all reasons, because the greater bulk of the American people really and truly feel that the government will take care of them.  

Government jobs, government mandated and supported education, government courtship of the media, government sponsored retirement plans, government roads, all these things say security and prosperity to the run of the mill American.  It would appear, from conversations with my fellow Americans that the government protecting itself is not a thing to be feared, but an activity to be supported, because that same government will act as the backstop for their lives.  The government will provide.

What Snowden and Bradley do is hold up lens to what the government is doing.  It would appear that the bulk of American people prefer their benevolent myth of government to the ugly truth that Messrs. Bradley and Snowden show us.  You may rest assured that, following the in-the-media-full-court-press by those currently holding the reins of power, around 60% of Americans will be baying for the “Traitors” blood.

 Take a while and read this paper.   There is also a shorter article (with more lively writing) located Here

I find it interesting that the folks who wrote the article noted in the PDF used well-loved historical figures for their examples.  The founding fathers were probably considered “terrorists” by the authorities in London.

Who will endure?

I have recently been watching (from a safe distance) Dmitry Orlov’s recent dealing with the denizens of the progressive left.  Since I am safely ensconced on the other side of the continent, it has been a instructive interlude.  I have no doubt, were I closer to the action, that my amusement would be less and my sympathy would be greater. 

I need to give you some background on the reason that I tend to agree with Dmitry on the issue of “fringe” groups. 

I grew up in Northern Utah, the product of Italian Immigrants and a Scots-Irish/Jewish mutt.  The high school I attended was >80% Mormon and they shamelessly threw their weight around.

So, In a sense, I grew up as part of a fringe group circling a fringe group.  A meta-fringie if you will.

The Mormons kept to themselves and kept the booze tight.  The only land that was available to our church was right next to the stockyards.  They tried to force everyone into their system and for the most part succeeded.  But even with the repressive nature of the Mormon Church when it is allowed control, there is much to admire about the organizational structure of the church.

First and foremost, the Mormons took care of their own.   Oh, don’t go believing that nonsense that the church PR department spews out about the cradle to grave nature of the Bishops Warehouse.  They will feed their needy into the state and federal welfare systems to make sure that the resources of the church are stretched as far as possible, but they do have a welfare system that works.   The Mormons also support a rational education system (or did), none of this nonsense about college for everyone.  The educational system was tied through and through to church doctrine (hell, back in the day, they even used public school land and buildings to hold “seminary” classes for the majority.  The grades in seminary even counted toward GPA.)

But enough about the LDS.  Lets talk now of the Italian ghetto in West Weber.  Insular as hell, thank you very much.  In theory, ruled by the stooped Italian men at the Depot Grocery, in fact ruled by the incredibly bitchy Italian women in the altar society.  Insular as hell, but I repeat myself.  My mother marrying out of the ghetto was a source of scandal for years (it also started a trend which ended up with half my family being Mormon now).  We spoke Italian around the farm until my Nona died.

Now that we have a meandering history behind us, let’s start talking about the differing natures of two fringes.

First the Mormons:  Patriarchal as all get out.  They have a defining overall structure, a clear source of funding (10% is quite a bit), a clear hierarchy, and a us-vs-them attitude to beat the band.  The one thing that stands out is the inclusion of new generations into their scheme.  Last time I looked their religion and reach were expanding.

Now the Italians:  Matriarchal as all get out.  No clear structure, just a series of agreements between the matriarchs, no clear funding, most of the progeny wanting desperately to get out from underneath the thumbs of the matriarchs.  The new generations were not included in the planning, merely directed following the decision.  The whole structure is now dust.

Now, you are probably expecting me to begin a tirade against matriarchy.  Nothing could be farther from the truth.   What I am arguing against is the idea that robust structures can be made, whole cloth, from the ideas of a small group.  The idea that a community of “Ideas” can be formed has been disproved so often in the past that I will leave it as an exercise to the reader to find a case where there is a success (Good Luck).

Nope what I see is an issue of organization.  For all the talk about “flat” organizations with consensual goals, I cannot seem to find evidence of longevity.  All of the Corporations that tried this either backed out as fast as possible or succumbed to “creative destruction”.  The only attempt at a similar structure on a non-corporate basis was locally in the Spanish Civil War, a miserable failure.

The progressive left wants a Kumbaya-based structure, even though every previous attempt in the millennia preceding this has failed or been co-opted.  This is the core of the matter.  If you are to have a workable, long-lived group, the only known method of doing this is the tribe, complete with tribal elders, a defined population, and well-established methods of recruitment of new members and disposal of the non-compliant.

The culture I grew up in is now dead.  Ground to dust by the incursion of mass-culture and a more dynamic and effective sub-culture.  I would recommend, should you wish to create a sub-culture, you take heed,

An Expectation of Privacy

Grow the fuck up.

What I write for dissemination on the lovely little media called the internet has no chance of being “private”.  This goes for e-mail, blogs, FaceBook (were I sufficiently puerile to want to join such a circle jerk) Skype, Twitter, etc., etc., etc.

Phone conversations are a completely different story altogether.  Though that thought is continually eroded by the headlong rush into internet telephony and other means of communication over the Internet.   I am still mulling this one.  It appears that he case law and the wiretapping laws when applied to twisted pair wire lines is pretty damn well established.

My big trouble is that when I hear the “privacy advocates” get all up in a twist about their “rights” being infringed, I want to laugh out loud.   Especially when it comes to written words on the internet.

But let us get this straight, I am not supporting the intrusion of a state into private affairs of it’s citizens. 

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.^[1]

But the other side of the issue is that the technology profile of the Internet is such that there can never be an expectation of privacy, any more than there is an expectation of privacy when having a physical conversation in a public space.

What we have now is a bunch of technical morons wanting something that the medium cannot provide.  The physical act of connecting your computer to the internet makes it de facto insecure.  Writing something, then sending it over the internet is roughly akin to:

1. scratching out a note on a piece of paper,
2. folding it in half
3. writing a name and address on the outside of the sheet
4. handing it to the first guy passing you on the street and telling him to hand it to the next guy he sees until someone sees fit to drop it off at the address and name on the note.

Look, say what you want on the net.  I have spoken on any number of things and put it up for all to see on the internet.  I have written things and stored them on servers, I have written confidential e-mails.  I have never expected for even a second that these things were secure.  I have even gone down the anonymous paranoid path with TOR and Tails.  But when I look at the physical structure of the seven layers of the OSI model, there is only one (the physical layer) that is not imminently insecure.  So I said fuck it.

What you say on the internet, even in secure/encrypted/trusted sites is public.  The internet is a public space.  If you write something and publish it in any form on the internet, it is subject to being read by any number of actors.  You wanting to be “private” in your internet ravings is not a reasonable expectation.

If you want privacy, go have a face to face in the woods somewhere.

The Blackest of Heresies

OK:

I had to go out and buy a new laptop.  The Compaq that I bought back in 2007 finally gassed out and I needed something to work with. 

So, over to Dell to see what they have on sale.  Nice 17 inch monitor laptop with a reasonable processor, 500gb of hard drive and 4gb of RAM.  $335.00

Sweet.

But it came with Windows 8.  Shit.

So I say to myself, what the hell.  I’ll strip off the windows and install Linux.  No harm, no foul.

I get the machine and start playing with it to see what all the fuss is about.  The interface is a touch odd, but that is about it.

So I get to the point of starting to install the latest flavor of Linux Mint and I find that the spiffy new computer also has a spiffy new BIOS called a EUFI.  Doesn’t like a lot of the flavors of Linux.  The Linux community currently has it nipples out of joint because Microsoft is taking care of the digital signing of the EUFI interface and selling the license for $99.00.  Now, just so you know, I don’t see how this can be anything but a pain in the ass for Microsoft.  The Linux community has a tendency toward going gibbering batshit whenever you mention Microsoft.  I think that if Microsoft had a lick of sense , they would offload the job to someone else, but hell, who really cares.

I am sitting here with a nice laptop that I can’t install Linux on without 2 days of sitting on my ass (It is beautiful outside), mucho cussing, and several pots of coffee.  

As I procrastinate,  I begin using the system as it stands.  Now it is a week later and I have come to the conclusion that It really is not that bad.  It really is just cosmetic changes to Windows 7 which I use all the time at work.  The start button is gone, but once you get it into your head that the lower left corner is a big ol’ start button, I can’t really see a lick of difference.

Look Microsoft is now back in the realm of the mortal.  They are trying to get back to their glory days of earth-shakers, but they really don’t have the gas to do it.  I think that we can review their products without the histrionics.

Windows 8 isn’t bad.  Seems to be stable.  Using it is not really all that different from using anything else.  The learning curve isn’t that bad. 

Sure as hell beats RSTS on a PDP-11

The Return of the New Yorkers

Long Story, Mostly uninteresting but I though that I would take the time to explain why I am more uneasy than usual about the current state of affairs.

So, I have some friends/long-term acquaintances in New York City who I have been dealing with for years.  The company I worked for back in 1999 went through some self-inflicted hard times  back in 1999 during the tech boom and these folks bought the company, adopted me, and I helped them get the product line moved back to New York.  During this first dealing with the boys from New York came the tech-market crash.

Went to work for myself after I finished the move for them, built a company and sold same.  I was working for the firm that bought the company and they were getting into some hard times.  This was 2007.  The boys from New York called me up and convinced me to go to work for them.  OK sure, beats travelling.  Moved over, started doing the work and bang came the 2007 crash, Lehman Brothers and all.  The work lated about a year, then I said to hell with it and went looking for my current gig with the fedguv.

So two months ago, the Boys from New York called me and asked me to go to work for them again.  I told them that I was keeping my day job but I would work for them on the side (Note my lack of blog posts and you can probably even figure out when I started).  Anyway, list night I started thinking.

What if these guys are bellwethers for bad times?

Every time I go to work for them, the money moving around gets easier and easier.  They really don't have a clue of what they are doing, but the money is there and they have to do something with it.  So they bring yours truly in to flog the dead horse for them.  They pay me until things get weird and then cut me loose.

OK, so this time the money is just gravy money to me, I have kept my day job and it doesn't look to be going anywhere, but the principle remains the same.

Hot money is going crazy right now.  People are trying to park money anywhere to get a return. The crappy plans of the world get trotted out and dangled in front of hot money hoping for a nibble.  The boys from New York may well be at the level of bottom-feeding which, when they start feeling they can get a share of the hot money, actually coincides with the level of oversold and stupid the market requires for a blowout.

None of this matters per se, I still have a garden to plant and have to wake up to go to work every day.  But if the market goes South again in the next six months, I will be amused to know that I may have a candidate for a signal.

Been a while

I think that I will start writing again soon.  The mood is starting to take me and workloads look to be slowing down soon.

I hope that you are all well, and will forgive me for my poor manners in not keeping you posted.  Truth be told, blogging should be a "I want to do this today", not a "I have to do this today" type of activity.

When I get back I might even have something interesting to say.

But don't get your hopes up.