Y'know, I gotta say this: If the TSA is scared of Bruce Schneier, one of the *good* guys, then they'd wet their pants and burst into tears if they ever encountered a bad guy. Not that they ever will, because the TSA has caught a grand total of, err, *NO*, terrorists, in its entire ten-year existence...
-- Badtux the Snarky Penguin
Well, in fairness, many three year olds are a terror, but not ones in a body cast with a broken leg. Because his wheelchair set off the beeper, the poor little tyke was taken aside -- parents not allowed to come with him -- and searched.
If seeing a child like this being patted down like a convicted criminal checking into a prison makes you feel safe, you don’t belong on board an aircraft, you belong in a psychiatric hospital. Really. Get some help.
-- Badtux the Snarky Penguin
You remember seeing the story here about that bomb in the post office dropbox that got blown up by the San Jose Police Department? No? There's probably a good reason for that. I snorted at the time that story came out and said to one of my co-workers, "I bet somebody's Christmas gift just got turned into confetti." And sure enough... wait a couple of days, and we find out that turned out to be Calendars of Mass Timekeeping. Which, I suppose, are dangerous if you are a Time Lord, but otherwise... uhm, no. Yet we were being told that we had to poop our panties in fear? Really?
Which reminds me, do you remember when I posted that story about the Russian hackers getting into a SCADA system? Oh wait, I already posted the one where it turned out that the "hacker" was actually a contractor on vacation in Russia, and the SCADA system crashed because it was old and simply died of old age. But again we were supposed to be pooping our britches in fear.
Oh wait, I just saw a fly buzzing by. OMG, the terrorists are attacking! Run away, run away!
-- Badtux the Snarky Penguin
Just got home after a long day at work, so going to blog about stupidity rather than about the economy. Everybody already tweeted about Michelle Gaffman's notion that the U.S. has an embassy in Iran (we don't, and haven't since 1980). Then there was the story from last week about how Russian hackers had hacked into a water system's SCADA and burned out a pump, cutting off water to the town. Except they didn't -- the "Russian hacker" turned out to be the water system's IT consultant who ssh'ed in while on vacation in Moscow and Berlin to diagnose a problem with the system, and the "hack burned out the water pump" turned out to be just a worn-out water pump that the water system knew was failing that finally gave up the ghost. So the Department of Homeland Security spun up this whole story about the Russian hacker menace that, err, wasn't, out of thin air apparently because if there are clean undies in any IT machine room they wanted to remedy that situation. Go figure.
So what other stupidity? BAE gets into a fight with a Medal of Honor winner. Even bets on who wins that one -- the Marine, or the international mega-corporation. And Teabaggers continue to whine that they're overtaxed... despite the fact that the only nations that collect less in taxes than the United States are third-world hellholes.
And finally, yet another GOP politician caught trading meth for sex with a gay prostitute. So now we know how Sheriff Patrick J. Sullivan Jr. stayed so slim as he aged... it was all the exercise in the closet that did it for him.
-- Badtux the Snarky Penguin
The police were called by a homeowner reporting a suspicious package. The cop who responded took one look at the package, asked the homeowner one question, and then closed the incident.
Question to the reader (without peeking at the link): What was the question the police officer asked? And what was the home owner's response?
I bet 99% of you can answer that one without even peeking at the link, heh.
-- Badtux the Snarky Penguin
General Ripper knows the truth about flouridation, and now the Colorado Republican Party has identified the next Commie conspiracy against America: Bicycles.
Yes. Bicycles. Bet you didn't know you were riding a Commie plot to destroy America back when you were a kid riding your bicycle around your neighborhood, did you? That's why kids aren't allowed to ride bicycles nowdays without being swathed in so much gear that they can barely see and only if their parents are accompanying them -- the children! Oh the children! They must be protected from this vile and horrid Communist plot against America! And Colorado Republican gubernatorial candidate Dan Maes says he's just the one to do it!
-- Badtux the Bicycling Penguin
As a network administrator, I have an informal description of what a computer connected to my network needs to look like in order to be a "good citizen". Its networking must be properly configured (with the proper netmask and etc.) so that it is properly routable and does not create ARP storms or routing loops. It must have a currently-supported operating system on it (that is, one whose vendor still provides critical security fixes), and must have those critical security fixes applied. It must be properly licensed (i.e., the OS is not pirated), and all software on it must be properly licensed. All unnecessary services should be shut down, and it should have current antivirus protection and no spyware or viruses installed on it. If it contains critical information, firewall software must be running on it that restricts access to information to only those systems that have a "need to know", and there should be no extraneous user accounts on the system other than for those users that absolutely need it.
In short, it must comply with the NSA's security configuration guidelines as well as with my own personal guidelines. And I will regularly run network scanners looking for open ports (that may be viruses or unauthorized services) as well as run the Big Brother SNMP monitor program, which will verify that the systems are properly running and alert me if something goes wrong. And if everything is completely and properly set up... well, a system connected to my network might well be a Perfect Citizen.
Which is the name of a $100M program that has been set up by the NSA, which they insist is a program to secure critical infrastructure networks at utilities and other critical locations rather than a spy program. And you know what? I believe them. This is exactly the sort of thing that the NSA has been doing on the cybersecurity side of things ever since they were tasked with securing the government's networks back during the Clinton Administration.
In other words, after looking at the details, and with my background in network security, it appears that "Perfect Citizen" is exactly what the NSA says it is -- a voluntary program to secure and certify critical infrastructure networks. The words "perfect citizen" in the context of network security means a network node that is secured and configured 100% compliant with security standards... a completely different meaning than common usage, but this term has been in use amongst network security professionals for at least the ten years that I've been interested in network security. In other words, nothing to see here folks, move along... the left-wingers and right-wingers doing a collective freakout on this program need to get a grip. The NSA doesn't spy on Americans anyhow. They simply loan people to the FBI to do so :-).
-- Badtux the Snarky Network Security Penguin
Role-playing game participants clad in chain mail and carrying blunted padded swords and arrows. Because, y'know, if LARP'ers weren't arrested and their evil weapons seized, then this might happen:
The horror! Oh the horror!
-- Badtux the Snarky Penguin
Just thinking about the Underpants Bomber. I haven't posted on it before because, well, there's no "there" there. Some cretin tried to light his junk, got tackled by other passengers, problem ended. Worthy of about 15 minutes on the nightly news, then story over until the moron goes to trial, at which point he gets another 15 minutes of fame. Yawn. BORE-ing.
But then there came the collective underwear-soiling reaction of the Reich Wing and their enablers in the press, a collective underwear-soiling that is still going on today, and slowly I realized that the Underpants Bomber is a perfect symbol of the "War on Terror". Because the war isn't *really* on "terror" (which, after all, is a tactic, and you can't go to war with a tactic). Rather, it's really a War on Clean Undies -- a concerted attempt to have the American public soil their undies whenever prompted to do so. And the Underpants Bomber's roasted undies are the perfect symbol to use to prompt the American people to soil their undies once again.
Clean undies. According to the Reich Wing, they're the terrorist's best friends. Soil your undies upon prompting by your Party commissars in the media, or the terrorists win!
-- Badtux the Snarky Penguin
