An Addition to the Certainty Index January 10, 2006
Posted by Resident Egoist in : Sci-Tech , comments closedBenjamin Franklin once said that in this life only two things are certain: death and taxes. Of course today, everyone knows he was wrong: that Microsoft Windows is absolute crap is an undeniable and unalterable fact of nature pretty much accepted by everyone. That makes it three things we can be certain of now.
A mere five days ago, Microsoft released a patch to fix a critical vulnerability in its Windows Metafile (WMF) format that could allow a compromised computer to be hijacked … of course this was only after they let their customers unprotected for days on end to the point that third party groups had to release their own fixes to the flaw. The reason cited for this was that they wanted to make sure that the patch worked. Well, today, two new WMF bugs were found again! An interesting thing to keep in mind here is that this is not the first time Microsoft has been patching this flaw — it was first patched in November of 2005, before it was patched again last week.
I wonder what this means for Microsoft’s recent entry into the security business with Windows One Care Live (Beta) and Microsoft AntiSpyware (Beta). It’s a funny thing: Microsoft sells you buggy and insecure software and then charges you for protection against those very same bugs and vulnerabilities! It’s almost sad that most people think this is the only choice they have.
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Sidenote: You can read longer discussions on this subject at Gus Van Horn’s and also at Slashdot.org.
Technorati Tags: Microsoft, Windows
What You Might Not Know About the Privacy You Do Not Have January 10, 2006
Posted by Resident Egoist in : Politics, Sci-Tech , comments closedRecently, I learned of a new breed of rather very dangerous individuals: they call themselves “information brokers”, and they are a product of the popularity of the internet. And just in case you’re wondering what kind of information it is that these people “broker”, well, it is pretty simple: your phone records … that is, for a very modest fee these people promise to delivery to you accurate and current calling records of anyone in North America — all of it in as little as a single hour.
You can get a first hand experience by visiting the following sites: LocateCell.com and BestPeopleSearch.com. The former offers both land line and cellphone trace, and the latter a plethora more. And just to give you an idea about just how good these people are [at what they do], LocateCell recently sold the Canadian Privacy Minister’s phone records to a Newspaper which used it to illustrate the gravity of the issue.
Keep in mind that this is not merely information that can be accessed by your spouse who suspects you of infidelity [though I suppose that would be deserved, if in fact you are an "infidel"], it is available to such people as stalkers and other sorts of criminals as well.
But that is not all: just recently, the Chicago Police Department was warning its officers (especially those who are undercover) of the dangers this could put them in.
Via the Chicago SunTimes:
The Chicago Police Department is warning officers their cell phone records are available to anyone — for a price. Dozens of online services are selling lists of cell phone calls, raising security concerns among law enforcement and privacy experts.
Criminals can use such records to expose a government informant who regularly calls a law enforcement official.
[...]
“Officers should be aware of this information when giving out their personal cell phone numbers to the general public,” the [PD] said. “Undercover officers should also be aware of this information if they occasionally call personal numbers such as home or the office, from their [undercover] ones.”
It gets better:
To test the service, the FBI paid Locatecell.com $160 to buy the records for an agent’s cell phone and received the list within three hours …
[...]
“Not only in Chicago, but nationwide, the FBI notified its field offices of this potential threat to the security of our agents, and especially our undercover agents,” [Frank Bochte, a sopkesman for the FBI in Chicago] said. “We need to educate our personnel about the dangers posed by individuals using this site and others like it. We are stressing that they should be careful in their cellular use.”
As to how these “info brokers” get to your records, their method of choice [when they don't have someone on the inside who sells it to them] is called “pretexting” — which essentially consists of pretending to be you, and duping your average customer service agent into giving away your information. ‘Nuff Said.
On to the second privacy issue of the day. This one is particularly interesting: did you know that there is a federal law dictating what kind of showerhead you must have in your bathroom, and by extension, what kind of shower you must take? Yep, it’s not just the Jesus-Freaks and your bedroom, it’s the Eco-Freaks and your bathroom as well.
The Seattle P-I reports:
When Al Dietemann ran across some Internet ads for shower heads promising experiences akin to tropical waterfalls, he went online and ordered some.
Then he sent them to a lab for testing.
The city of Seattle announced [recently] that it will seek sanctions against manufacturers of water-guzzling shower heads, armed with lab results showing that the products tested far exceeded the federal “maximum water flow rate requirement” standard.
“The people of Seattle have a very strong environmental ethic, and I think most people would be appalled at others who are wasting energy or water,” said Dietemann, water conservation lead for Seattle Public Utilities.
Dietemann had received complaints from local plumbers and developers about body spa and waterfall-type shower heads not conforming to code.
“This has the potential to significantly undermine all our efforts to encourage and achieve water conservation,” Dietemann said. “It’s a leak in the dike we want to plug.”
“[A] leak in the dike we want to plug.” Isn’t that a humorous thing for a bureaucrat to say. I believe it is. As to the people who “would be appalled [yes, appalled!] by people who are wasting energy or water”, I say cry me a river. Are they not paying for the water and energy they are supposedly “wasting”? But unfortunately we don’t have a true free market in water distribution, but the point here is to show how such alleged “waste” problems are, if they arise at all, solved by that “unknown ideal” called capitalism.
Jeffrey Tucker of the Mises Institute wrote one of its better articles on this subject today. You should have a look at it — if only for the humor.
Technorati Tags: Privacy, Bureaucracy, Capitalism
The Spoliation of Central Banking January 5, 2006
Posted by Resident Egoist in : Economics , comments closedStefan Karlsson has a great article on the destrutiveness of central banking at the Daily Reckoning. He offers a rather insightful way of looking at the all the different and oft-hidden ways that the centralized banking system can manipulate economies. Here’s the gist of the article:
The Fed does not just manipulate the economy through increasing the money supply. It also manipulates the economy through the expectations of changes in the money supply.
Illustration:
[Fed Chairman, Alan] Greenspan has been the single most powerful individual in the world in the economic sphere.
By merely changing his choice of words between different speeches he has been able to rattle the markets. When he merely removes or add words like “measured” or “accommodative” somewhere in his speech, the markets either rally or panic. And through his words and his actions he has had a profound effect on the US Economy and the world economy as a whole.
Read the rest here.
Technorati Tags: Alan Greenspan, Federal Reserve, Inflation
Vulcan Capitalism, Austrian Drivel January 3, 2006
Posted by Resident Egoist in : Culture, Economics , comments closedThe things that come out of the Mises Institute nowadays are starting to become nearly unbelievable. Mr. Rockwell & Co. seem to be publishing every piece of B.S that labels itself as “pro-market.” A recent example is an article by a certain Jack Maturin which entertains the [literally] out-of-this-world idea that the Vulcans of the Star Trek universe are “really future Austrians in disguise.” By “Austrian,” he means “advocate of the free market social order.” As proof of his megatheory he offers his collection of quotes from Uber-Rationalist Mr. Spock — among them the following one:
Being a Vulcan means to adopt a philosophy, a way of life which is logical and beneficial. We cannot disregard that philosophy merely for personal gain, no matter how important that gain might be. — Journey to Babel.
Altruism anyone? As to logical, give me a break! What the hell does Spock mean by a “beneficial way of life” [sic] if said way must be followed without — or better yet, at the expense of — personal gain, i.e., benefit? Somehow however our dear author seems completely blind to this blatant contradiction, for according to him the meaning of the above quote is this:
… if you want to understand the social sciences, adopt the praxeological method of a priori logic. You need to have your theory straight before you begin to try to come to some clear understanding of how the world around you works. In the long term some of us may die, but our children will succeed to inherit our decisions, good or bad. So if you want your children and your neighbor’s children to prosper, always follow the Austrian method of logic.
Excuse me, but what the [bleep] is he talking about? How on earth did he arrive at this bizzare interpretation? I must let you divine, as I have no idea. Mr. Spock’s quote is clearly an ode and an urge to principled Altruism, and Altruism in Ethics translates into Statism in Politics, as demonstrated both in our actual history and the fictional semi-socialistic world of Star Trek. To the credit of the series’ authors however, the Borg race is an excellent depiction of the nightmare of collectivism. As to the allegedly “Austrian” way of doing “logic”, well, it must be rather good — so good that it is incapable of spotting a glaring self-contradiction in the same single sentence.
Thankfully, a commetator with a cooler head on his shoulders quickly put Jack Maturin’s dreams to rest with one quote of his own:
The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.
Yes, that was Mr. Spock speaking — guess who else spoke (and still speaks) in similar ways? So much for Vulcan Capitalism.
Technorati Tags: Mr. Spock, Star Trek, Mises Institute, Capitalism, Reason, Rationalism, Austrian Economics, Altruism
Moving to Wordpress January 3, 2006
Posted by Resident Egoist in : Meta , comments closedWell, that’s it. I think the old saying may just be true: when you go Wordpress, you never can go back! I wonder why I ran away from this elegant piece of sotware in the first place — well the price was paid.
Anyway, the archive transfer is done. This blog is now Wordpress 2.0 powered — and the comments are back as well. Not to imply that you noticed they were gone, of course. 
Feel free to leave your thoughts on the new layout.