An Open Letter to the Media and Politicians Personal Commentary I'd like to see a letter like this placed in the New York Times as a full page ad. (I have posted this to the scriptingNewsWTC mailing list a couple of hours ago but as of this writing, it has not appeared there yet.) I think this next week is going to set the tone for the next five or ten years.

Flash Worm Analysis Misc. 'In conclusion, we argue that a small worm that begins with a list including all likely vulnerable addresses, and that has initial knowledge of some vulnerable sites with high-bandwidth links, can infect almost all vulnerable servers on the Internet in less than thirty seconds.' Steal a car in sixty seconds? Bah! Amateur stuff! You can steal the whole Internet in thirty! (Or so the authors claim, plausibly.

They can't see why they are hated Misc. 'Nearly two days after the horrific suicide attacks on civilian workers in New York and Washington, it has become painfully clear that most Americans simply don't get it. From the president to passersby on the streets, the message seems to be the same: this is an inexplicable assault on freedom and democracy, which must be answered with overwhelming force - just as soon as someone can construct a credible account of who was actually responsible.

Civil Liberty the Next Casualty? Misc. 'In the wake of the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks, scholars fear that Americans will sacrifice civil liberties that could be difficult to win back. Many civil liberties watchdogs say freedom in the United States have been slowly eroding for the past several decades. But they say Tuesday's attacks will redouble efforts by the government to infringe on civil freedoms, and now people won't resist.

What were they thinking? Personal Commentary Did the terrorists want to show us we were not invincible?       They did. Did the terrorists want to remind us that we are not isolated from the world?       They did. Did the terrorists want us to experience a revival of the American spirit?       We are. Did the terrorists want our resolve to weaken?       It is not. Did the terrorists want us to to come away from this stronger then we were?

Plane Hits Building Personal Commentary 'Lost amid the hoopla surrounding the celebrations of the end of World War II has been the 50th anniversary of the army plane crash into the Empire State Building. Many do not know of the tragic incident of July 28, 1945 -- the day a B-25 bomber, lost in fog, rammed into what was then the world's tallest building. Fewer, still, remember the miraculous survival of the woman who fell 75 stories when the cables to her elevator were severed.

Wow Personal Commentary Today is an emotional day. My condolences to those lives lost today. I want to comment, but this is not the day for it. May you find healing.  

Reading your mouse movements Privacy from Companies 'A team at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Boston, US, say they have developed a way to record mouse movements on a page and learn how people behave when they are on the internet.' If I was at MIT now, and a prof had asked me to work on this, I think I'd have actually refused. Certainly there's a lot of neutral technology, like facial recognition, that can be used in positive ways or negative ways (privacy invasion, computerized psuedo-justice), but there's just no neutrality about this.

Congress Plans DMCA Sequel: The SSSCA DMCA From Slashdot: "If you thought the DMCA was a nightmare, wait 'til you find out what Congress is planning this fall. The sequel is called the "Security Systems Standards and Certification Act," and it requires PCs and consumer electronic devices to support "certified security technologies" to be approved by the Commerce Department. Backers of the SSSCA include Sen. Fritz Hollings (D-S.C.), who heads the powerful Senate Commerce committee, and, reportedly, Disney.

Arguments Against [Arguments Against] Privacy Privacy from Companies 'For the past couple of years, I have been collecting arguments against privacy. Periodically I have gathered these arguments in a newsletter I edit, The Network Observer, together with rebuttals.' This document is a gem among gems. Absolutely amazing. Read it. Memorize the URL. Spread it. Wow.