- This hasn’t been verified. Could the FBI really put a backdoor into an open-source operating system — and have it go unnoticed for 10 years? Seems dubious. Isn’t a major point of open-source that thousands of geeks can freely examine the code to find and correct bugs, bad coding — and backdoors? In any case, hats off to Theo de Raadt for immediately taking the accusation public. As the creator of OpenBSD, he has as much to lose as anybody. But he’s obviously got a boatload of integrity, too.
- “A fresh Gallup Poll released this morning reveals that somehow 13% of Americans still approve of the job being done by Congress. The new Gallup survey did not identify those people, understandably.” Heh. Couldn’t have said it better myself.
- KnifeRights.org. I’ll be doing a future S.W.A.T. magazine article about the political perils around edged weapons. Thought this might be a good time to link to one of the fighting organizations.
- Why did she go after a gunman with only a purse for a weapon? Because her purse was the only weapon you allowed her, morons. Gutsy woman, though.
- Time demonstrates its growing irrelevance by naming Mark Zuckerberg Person of the Year. I try not to care what Time does. But the idea behind its Man/Person of the Year choices has always been to point to the most influential people in the world. Not the most popular. Not the biggest newsmakers of the moment. The most influential. That’s why its notorious old choices of Hitler and Stalin made sense — even as they turned stomachs. But Mark Zuckerberg? A man who’s done nothing but create a new forum for billions of people to blurt the drivel they were already sharing with each other? A man who’s done nothing but cannily advance a trend that began forming back in the ice age when the first FidoNet node went online? And to choose Zuckerberg when their readers intelligently told them that Julian Assange was the man most likely to make a serious difference on the world scene? Yikes! I don’t watch TV, so I’ve never seen “The View” and wouldn’t know Elizabeth Hasselbeck if I tripped over her. But gotta admit, her observation is right on. Zuckerberg is more important than Assange only “on a gnat-moving scale.”
- Oh, but enough ranting about TPTB and their media Wormtongues. On a lighter note …
Gosh, I have not heard the term FidoNet in ages! I wish it, Usenet and some of the other old ways of moving around the Net were available. I certainly miss the old dial up BBS boards, too.
On the other hand, Time, I’m sure was coerced into naming Zuckerberg as TMOTY, so Assange would have less influence on the public. The less he is exposed, the more they can keep him from being a political martyr.
In a crisis each of us must make a choice.
I find it remarkable when a deranged person is threatening violence, and one person decided to act bravely and fight, the rest of the members just sat there. It seems to me that they were given a golden opportunity as the woman with the purse distracted the attacker the others could have used that as the chance to rush and subdue the attacker.
Sadly, I see this as yet another example of people unable to come to grips with the violence they are facing. Remember that the 9/11 attackers used nothing more than box cutters to overtake the aircraft. The culture has been taught to submit….some of us will never submit.
I wouldn’t worry too much about the IPsec backdoor allegations — the accuser is a known crackpot and the code, as with all open source, is, well, open. Anyone can inspect it. Yes, cryptography is hard and subtle changes can have large implications, but given that the source has been available for 10 years I very much doubt there is anything to this.
But you should ask yourself, can you have the same level of certainty when you are using a closed operating system like OSX or Windows? Do you think Apple and Microsoft are immune to government pressure…
@Chris Usenet is still around. Google Groups is based on it and carries most of the old groups. Some local ISPs also still have news feeds or you can use.
Theo de Raadt is a mind-bogglingly colossal ass. Anyone who’s read the NetBSD archives of the fight that led to him breaking off and starting OpenBSD can tell you that.
However, it turns out that sometimes a mind-bogglingly colossal ass is exactly what the world needs.
(Knowing some of the people who have been examining OpenBSD code, it strikes me as rather unlikely that these allegations are true. But since Theo isn’t in a position to either conclusively refute them or single-handedly conteract the damage if they turned out to be true, disclosure of the risk is the right thing to do.)
Matt, hm. Thanks for the insight. I had never heard of Theo de Raadt before this. Colossal ass he may be (and I don’t even think I want to know about that fight). But you said it: sometimes a mind-bogglingly colossal ass is exactly what the world needs.
Guess I’d put Julian Assange in that same category, from all I’ve read about him. But bless ’em, anyhow.
when you have a shot from behind go for the head…or neck, and KEEP GOING!….like that ole girl tho…
Just 13%? That’s only a small fraction of the many idiots, morons, dumbasses, imbecilles, simpletons, fools, ignoramuses, and other assorted stupid people living in this country…I guess even they are catching on now…
As for the Florida situation, the luck came because the dude couldn’t shoot straight…..and leave it to the lady to put that purse to good use, hehehe….
The 13% is probably themselves or relatives or something like that….I don’t know if that’s a correct number reflecting the people such as Winston mentions, & I doubt they’ve caught on yet…..
Thankfully, I don’t care who ends up Time’s MOTY choice……but I think that 71 yr old lady who beat the crap out of her attacker should get a few covers on magazines, hehe…….
What really strikes me as hilariously shallow about the Time MOTY award is that the only reason that Facebook Bob was even in the news this year is that there was a hit movie about him.
That “Knife Rights” looks like an interesting org. As a point of ironic fact, I found out the hard way that you cannot take a knife on board the USS Constitution. ;0@