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Here's John Perry Barlow with an interesting take on Cheney and what might really be going on in his head. I'm not agreeing with everything here, but it's really worth a read.
- jim 2-26-2003 8:25 pm [link] [13 comments]

Yeah, I guess I'm just going to keep mixing the anti-war sutff in with the geek gadget stuff. You should just pretend that the one doesn't make the other look pretty unimportant. Or worse.

In any case, I've been finding lincoln plawg to be the best source for the important stuff. Take this one for instance:

.... The technique of the War Party is not a million miles away. It's designed to focus the Average Joe's mind on inessentials; and to make him feel as if he's already agreed to go to war. Now, there's something in the psyche of most of us that we're reluctant to go back on a deal we've already made. Hey, that's welshing, isn't it? It's bad, m'kay? Hell, it's unAmerican!

The whole idea of the War Party is to get folks - the guys with votes who don't count now, but will count come New Hampshire - to assume they've already ordered the most expensive thing on the menu, and make them so embarrassed that they don't choose to send the dish back to the kitchen.

And how, exactly, is that done? By assuming that the fact that Saddam has not complied with 1441 and its predecessors is a valid reason to go to war. The War Party say, Everyone already agreed at the time UNSCR 1441 was passed that non-compliance, material breach, were as good as an invasion of Kuwait as a pretext for war. Surely everyone realised that? All except the retarded and the mental, that is. And everyone committed to serious consequences if he didn't.

So, he hasn't. And now we're going to give him serious consequences. And - now you're whining, you lousy sons-of-bitches? But you already agreed! You some kind of welsher?

The whole show - PT Barnum, eat your heart out: this is Sucker Heaven! - is designed to keep folks' minds from what they know: that violence is only justified in self-defence: against an actual attack, or the real threat of an imminent attack. They know that applies in Podunk, USA; and are pretty damned sure it applies everywhere else....
You've got to keep your ears tuned to the phrase "material breach." The administration repeatedly uses this phrase as a trigger for war, and yet it's not at all clear that this is justified. (I mean under international law, which, granted, our administration cares little about.) The fact that I have yet to hear any real questioning in the mainstream media about what "material breach" actually means is a bit disturbing.
- jim 2-26-2003 8:02 pm [link] [1 comment]

Gizmodo visits famed Japanese electronics district Akihabara, and has the pictures to prove it.
- jim 2-26-2003 7:05 pm [link] [add a comment]

First full report on the SonyEricsson P800 super 1337 uber cellphone. Sounds like the long wait has been worth it.

Having bought the danger hiptop I can't possibly contemplate getting a new phone for quite a few more months. But I cannot wait to see what will be around when I'm finally ready. Cellphones are the one consumer electronics niche that is still holding my interest. I'm very optimistic about what the next 12 months will bring.
- jim 2-26-2003 6:52 pm [link] [add a comment]

New from daypop: word bursts.

For background, check out the work of Jon Kleinberg, a professor of computer science at Cornell University.
- jim 2-25-2003 11:41 pm [link] [add a comment]

Got lucky with an invite to dinner last Sunday at the latest Jean-George venue, 66. Wow. They're open for lunch too (I wonder if it's easier to get in then?) Best meal since Austria.

The sesame noodles and the tuna tartar are absolute must have orders.
- jim 2-25-2003 11:25 pm [link] [1 comment]

Alluvium

The technology behind the next generation of file sharing legal battles was unveiled at CodeCon today. Brandon Wiley describes Alluvium as "Peer to Peer radio" - which it is, but it also blurs the distinction between streaming and downloading once and forever.

- jim 2-25-2003 11:15 pm [link] [add a comment]

I was raised in the Catholic church (meaning I grudgingly went to church every Sunday.) And perhaps I'd still be somewhere on the outskirts of the Chrisitian fold if I had run into any clergy members with the depth of thought I find in AKMA's writings. He's my second favorite religious blogger (Mr. Wilson gets the alpha position, of course.)

Read AKMA's take on the upcoming war with Iraq.

There may be no room for pride in war, only penitence; there may be no room for pre-emption in war, only response. (A righteous combatant will not strike a first blow, because she or he doesn’t know that the adversary actually is a combatant until the adversary starts the fight.) The Bush administration’s actions in North Korea illustrate that there are indeed other ways of addressing unstable tyrants who possess weapons of mass destruction. When Bush singles out Hussein and Iraq as “deserving” a pre-emptive war that will surely affect non-combatants disproportionately (perhaps even deliberately so), his selectivity falsifies any claim that this could be a “just” war.
Amen.
- jim 2-25-2003 11:10 pm [link] [add a comment]

CNET interview with Dave Winer who has been tapped to bring blogs to Harvard University.
- jim 2-25-2003 10:44 pm [link] [add a comment]

(via JOHO)

From Risk Digest, via a mailing list:

ATM vulnerabilities and citibank's gag attempt

Ross Anderson
Thu, 20 Feb 2003 09:58:47 +0000

Citibank is trying to get an order in the High Court today gagging public disclosure of crypto vulnerabilities:

http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/ftp/users/rja14/citibank_gag.pdf

I have written to the judge opposing the order:

http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/ftp/users/rja14/citibank_response.pdf

The background is that my student Mike Bond has discovered some really horrendous vulnerabilities in the cryptographic equipment commonly used to protect the PINs used to identify customers to cash machines:

http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/TechReports/UCAM-CL-TR-560.pdf

These vulnerabilities mean that bank insiders can almost trivially find out the PINs of any or all customers. The discoveries happened while Mike and I were working as expert witnesses on a `phantom withdrawal' case.

The vulnerabilities are also scientifically interesting: http://cryptome.org/pacc.htm

Source URL: http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/go/risks/22/58/6
- jim 2-25-2003 10:40 pm [link] [1 ref] [add a comment]

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