Accueil

Wiretaps

2009-12-03T14:29:38Z

Usually when I hear about government supported wiretapping, I tend to roll my eyes and think "Okay, it's business as usual for the government." But based on what I read on cryptome.org last night, I grew concerned. The story was linked to a blog belonging to Christopher Soghoian, a privacy analyst. In it, one finds:

Sprint Nextel provided law enforcement agencies with its customers' (GPS) location information over 8 million times between September 2008 and October 2009. This massive disclosure of sensitive customer information was made possible due to the roll-out by Sprint of a new, special web portal for law enforcement officers.

That's roughly eleven months, and yet Sprint Nextel provided customer information to the government over 8 million times.

Verizon is in on it too.

"First, Verizon revealed in its letter that it 'receives tens of thousands of requests for customer records, or other customer information from law enforcement'...Assuming a conservative estimate of 20,000 requests per year, Verizon alone receives more requests from law enforcement per year than can be explained by any published surveillance statistics. That doesn't mean the published stats are necessarily incorrect -- merely that most types of surveillance are not reported."

Being that these telcos received hundreds of subpoenas per day, what are the odds that a phony subpoena (sent by say...a jealous stalker) might be submitted to one of these organizations? Further, suppose one of these phony subpoenas slip through the cracks and begins to reveal personal information about a subscriber?

Even so, this is a disaster for privacy rights.

I guess that amounts to nothing in spite of government immunity for telecoms involved with illegal wiretapping.

dB

2009-11-18T02:48:01Z

Some of the stuff I studied for the test was difficult. Granted, it doesn't take a Carl Sagan to figure some of this stuff out, but enter the decibel (dB).

The formula for computing it is such:

dB = 10 log (power ratio)
dB = 20 log (voltage ratio)

Amplitude is also given in:

L_dB = 10 log ₁₀ (A²₁ / A²₀) = 20 log ₁₀ (A₁ / A₀).

Verizon Building

2009-11-09T19:16:23Z

I took a stroll around South Philadelphia today, and noticed the Verizon Building off Broad Street. I took some pictures. Too bad I didn't have my camera with me, so I had to use the cell phone camera. I was curious, because I didn't know what the red device (in the picture) with the dangling coaxial cable was. What is this?

Google is Funny

2009-11-06T15:25:59Z

This made me lol

Philly

2009-10-26T02:51:07Z

I'm moving to Philadelphia.

House

2009-10-21T02:53:07Z

I was telling some of my friends that any show with the word "house" in its title sucks. For example:

1) Full House
2) House, M.D.
3) This Old House
4) Tyler Perry's House of Payne (not totally though - there are pockets of funny in it)
5) Little House on the Prairie (perhaps past my time)
6) Desperate Housewives

The list goes on...

Went To The Mall Today

2009-10-13T02:39:41Z

I went to the mall today in order to meet a friend, since we made plans to go shopping together. Unfortunately, I was running low on battery power on my cell phone, so I couldn't make a call to him. I was waiting and getting impatient.

Rather than sit around waiting, I decided to give him a call. I didn't want to use a payphone and pay $2.00/minute just to call a cell phone, so I went to a large retail store and used their in-store phone used to contact the billing office. Without going into too many details, let's just say I managed to op-divert and was able to contact my friend through the in-store phone belonging to this large retail store. It turns out that he was still at work and couldn't meet me.

Anyway, I managed to pay off my Macy's card! ^__^

7-11

2009-10-04T15:29:49Z

7-11 Rules

Scalia: 'We Are Devoting Too Many of Our Best Minds to’ Lawyering'

2009-10-02T14:52:49Z

Maybe this is the first time I agree with Justice Scalia. He made a few jabs at the quality of lawyers.

Well, you know, two chiefs ago, Chief Justice Burger, used to complain about the low quality of counsel. I used to have just the opposite reaction. I used to be disappointed that so many of the best minds in the country were being devoted to this enterprise.

I mean there’d be a, you know, a defense or public defender from Podunk, you know, and this woman is really brilliant, you know. Why isn’t she out inventing the automobile or, you know, doing something productive for this society?

I mean lawyers, after all, don’t produce anything. They enable other people to produce and to go on with their lives efficiently and in an atmosphere of freedom. That’s important, but it doesn’t put food on the table and there have to be other people who are doing that. And I worry that we are devoting too many of our very best minds to this enterprise.

And they appear here in the Court, I mean, even the ones who will only argue here once and will never come again. I’m usually impressed with how good they are. Sometimes you get one who’s not so good. But, no, by and large I don’t have any complaint about the quality of counsel, except maybe we’re wasting some of our best minds.

Interesting. True, they certainly don't produce anything.

Wi-Fi

2009-10-01T16:15:22Z

I suggest that Starbucks should rethink its Wi-Fi usage policy for its customers, given that Borders is now offering it completely free. For instance, at Starbucks, one has to jump through several hoops in order to get on the web.

Also, read the Starbucks FAQ section on how to get internet access at their locations.

What do I need to get online?
To get your AT&T Wi-Fi account, you simply need a Starbucks Card that you have used in the last 30 days, and agree to receive up to four emails per year from AT&T [- my underline]. As long as you continue to use your card at least once a month (make a purchase or load a balance) you’ll continue to enjoy up to 2 hours per day of complimentary Wi-Fi access in any U.S. Starbucks store which offers Wi-Fi.

Why do I need two accounts?
After completing this special signup process, you will have both an AT&T Wi-Fi account and a Starbucks.com account. We’ll try to make these accounts as similar as possible, and will only ask you for information one time. You will enjoy all the benefits of having a registered Starbucks Card and starbucks.com account, including balance protection and other great rewards – see starbucks.com/card for more details. The AT&T account you create will be used to access Wi-Fi in our stores. You’ll be able to manage this account with AT&T separately, if you choose.

Suck on my tall grande, Starbucks and your shitty demographic. I'm going to Borders for WiFi.

FreeBSD

2009-09-29T19:18:12Z

This is so cool. Now I can look up man pages through the web without opening up the terminal. It has man pages for other Unixes too (Unices? - I don't care).

Ubuntu

2009-09-17T17:07:32Z

I think I might switch over from Fedora to Ubuntu. Judging from the next release on October 29th, Ubuntu claims to support it until April 2011. You don't get that kind of support with Fedora. When a new release comes out there's no longer any support: The plug is simply pulled.

Video Editing

2009-09-16T17:37:49Z

And the Livejournal video music award goes to..............rob_t_firefly whose edit of Kanye West's stunt at the VMA is as follows:

Gosh Kanye is a major egotistical douche.

anti_feminism

2009-09-05T22:57:49Z

I'm getting so tired of all of the bickering in anti_feminism. Is there any other way of taking one's anger at feminist theory and using it in a more 'constructive' manner?

I've seen some of the posts in there. They make me blush.

Red Light Cams

2009-09-01T17:00:23Z

Here's another reason why I don't want to travel to Newark: Red Light Cameras.

Check this out too:

In Newark, Redflex Traffic Systems Inc., a company based in Phoenix, will spend $100,000 to $150,000 per intersection to install the cameras, and then will receive $34 of each ticket paid. The state will keep some of the money from the ticket, and the rest will go to the municipal courts and the city, Nata [Newark's Traffic and Signals mgr.] said.

I would go on about the ineffectiveness of the timing mechanism/calibration behind Robocop photo-enforcement, but then I'd start to sound deranged. I don't trust computers in situations such as this.

Lame.

Tone Generator for Sale

2009-08-21T04:23:52Z

I'm selling my old tone generator. It's a TraceTone model: It comes with a set of RJ-11 alligator clips (not shown in the pics). $25 and it's yours.

This device was useful, though. It's fun for games such as "guess that line". hehehehe

Fallacy of Composition

2009-08-10T02:23:46Z

I think the fallacy of composition has reared its ugly head into cyberspace. The fallacy of composition is, writ largely, subsumed under the heading “Fallacy of Distribution”. This type of fallacy is more so inductive. That is, based on a few instances of x, one might conclude that x is true of all instances.

To give an example or two:

(1) I have met two men inside this crowded room so far. They are both Republican. Therefore, all men inside this crowded room are Republican.

(2) I have only been in this town for one hour. Twice I’ve been greeted by Jehovah’s Witnesses. It follows that everyone in this town is a Jehovah’s Witness.

Online social networks, I would say, are guilty of promoting this, since some preselect ideal candidates for someone’s friendship, based on a few scant characteristics of a user’s personality. That is, since two-thirds of Facebook users on Marco’s friends-list are Christian, it follows that everyone on his friends-list may be interested in purchasing a Bible.

And, yes, it even goes on LiveJournal.

Another example:

Jones and Robinson are on Smith’s friends-list. Jones and Robinson are smart. Thus, everyone on Smith’s friends-list is smart.

It’s kind of cute watching people on LiveJournal act like this. I would even say it’s absurd of online social networking in general, since it fails to take into account individual instances which aren’t necessarily indicative of the whole.

Aristotle and Rationality

2009-07-31T21:09:12Z

I find myself confused with how people deal with temperance in relation to self-control and rationality. I remember an account of it taken up by Aristotle--who quotes Hesiod:

οὗτος μὲν πανάριστος ὃς αὐτὸς πάντα νοήςῃ,
ἐςθλὸς δ᾿ αὖ κἀκεῖνος ὃς εὖ εἰπόντι πίθηται
ὅς δέ κε μήτ᾿ αὐτὸς νοέῃ μήτ᾿ ἄλλου ἀκούων
ἐν θυμῷ βάλληται, ὁ δ᾿ αὖτ᾿ ἀχρήιος ἀνήρ.

Far best is the man who can himself advise;
He too is good who hearkens to the wise;
But who, himself being witless, will not heed
Another's wisdom, is a fool indeed

The one who is "witless" will not "heed another's wisdom." Obviously, the one who takes care of him/herself is better off as Hesiod explains through Aristotle. But Aristotle goes on in his Ethics with a description of a rational principle [1102b-15]:

τοῦ γάρ ἐγκρατοῦς καί ἀκρατοῦς τόν λόγον καί τῆς ψυχῆς τό λόγον ἔχον ἐπαινοῦμεν (ὀρθῶς γαρ καί ἐπὶ τὰ βέλτιςτα παρακαλεῖ), φαίνεται δ᾿ ἐν αὐτοῖς καί ἄλλο τι παρὰ τὸν λόγον πεφυκός, ὃ μάχεται καί ἀντιτείνει τῷ λόγῳ.

--which Rackham translates as--

"In self-restrained and unrestrained people we approve their principle, or the rational part of their souls, because it urges them in the right way and exhorts them to the best course; but their nature seems also to contain another element beside that of rational principle, which combats and resists that principle."

But there are plenty of purely rational, highly intelligent, people who quite often make poor choices or who exert poor self-control. Am I right?

This is almost a platitude. I have trouble, I guess, finding where "right reason" meets with right action--which is a theme often repeated in the Ethics

Jakob Dylan Sucks

2009-07-25T01:43:11Z

I find Jakob Dylan completely unattractive. I hate his bitchy lyrics too.

Most of all, I'm tired of his pretentious photoshots. He looks like a meth addict.

Easton, PA

2009-07-24T17:29:34Z

I was in Easton, Pennsylvania last night. I didn't think that city would be so rough at night. Here's what I saw during my brief stay:

(1) Two guys fighting outside of the Wawa

(2) A prostitute looking for johns outside of a McDonald's drive thru

(3) I almost drove into this guy wheeling a shopping cart at about 11 o'clock at night alongside Philadelphia Road.

...damn!.

Scammers

2009-07-21T01:09:56Z

I’m not earning as much money as I would like to have earned. I’m not poor or anything, but I would like to work during my spare time, as most of my work involves working with clients at night and sporadically throughout the weekend. Although I like conquering the bash shell during my spare time, doing that doesn’t help finances.

I had sent my resume to a few potential employers this past week. I also updated my profile on CareerBuilder. Well, it’s “slim pickins” on both sites. I did receive a few replies from a few people---although they weren’t employers. Instead, these people were scammers.

So, not only did I send the would-be employer my resume (containing fairly personal details about my career experience), but I also was chosen to be a “quick earner” in a check cashing scheme. That is to say, if I deposit a bounced check into my account, I would be responsible for forwarding the funds to the scammer and paying the substantial overdraft fee.

I hate scammers. In tumultuous economic times such as this—to sound cliché—they bilk the unemployed for money with promises of money and a career--not to mention the possibility of identity theft, as was the case with Monster.com. It really makes me sick.

I guess one can say I put my foot down on a particular scam this week. This person on Craigslist posted a part-time job which sounded somewhat legit and decent. In turn, I replied with my resume and cover letter. A few hours later, an email with my name in the header with a hyperlink in the body was sent back to me. Out of curiosity, I opened the link. Of course, it was yet another check cashing scam.

I then “whois”-ed the owner of the domain. It belonged to a guy in upstate New York. Let’s just say he lived in a town in “Franklin County” (random upstate county—not his of course). There was also an email address associated with the owner’s information. I Googled that too.

It was more than obvious to me that he lived in “Franklin County.” I decided to call the Franklin County Prosecutor’s Office. I asked to speak to an investigator in the criminal investigation unit. I did, and the investigator seemed sincerely interested in what I had to say. I forwarded to him all of the email correspondences I had with the scammer. I also forwarded all of the links referring to this person. I wanted to reinforce to him my concern about someone or some entity being scammed.

The investigator said that he will be in contact with me as the week progresses. I’m not sure whether anything forthcoming will result from this. It would be interesting if something did.

Though, it would be pretty badass if the scammer tries to scam the cop. hehehe

A Few Thoughts on Republicans

2009-06-24T16:48:53Z

♬ ♬ Lah dah dee lah dah dah ♬ ♬

Mark Sanford is a complete asshat. I don't want to jump to conclusions yet, since I have yet to hear the full story regarding his supposed hike along the Appalachian Trail. I came across a video featuring the South Carolina governor, where he is seen protesting pork barrel spending. No offence, Republicans, but I used to be of the opinion that Democrats were the dramatic and obnoxious bunch. But here, in the video, Sanford is seen carrying pigs into the South Carolina statehouse to protest pork barrel spending.

I'm not sure of his intended goal. Why carry pigs into the statehouse? I don't really get the punchline.

The conservative rhetoric is reminiscent of the recent tax tea party in DC.

Umm....you guys are retards.

"Defeated Ahmadinejad rival arrested in Iran"

2009-06-14T14:15:55Z

From this

Iranian presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi was reportedly arrested Saturday following the reformist's defeat at the polls by hardliner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Supporters of Mousavi, the main challenger to Ahmadinejad, have responded to the election with the most serious unrest in Tehran in a decade and claim that the result was the work of a dictatorship.

Proof Time

2009-06-01T03:36:21Z

Problem 54 of A Profile of Mathematical Logic states within the domain of ℕ allowing the standard interpretation of '<' the following proof:

(1) ∀x (x < x)
(2) ∀x ∃y (x < y)
(3) ∀x ∀y ∀z (((x < y) & (y < z)) ⊃ (x < z))

(1) - (3) is true within the domain of ℕ, but not within a finite domain. Interestingly enough, when the finite domain of ℕ consists of just the first natural number, one arrives at a contradiction, because (1) would amount to '(1 < 1)' and (2) would be tantamount to '(1 < 1)' as well.

Mir-Hossein Mousavi

2009-05-24T20:21:35Z

I'm a bit excited for Mir-Hossein Mousavi, because of his progressive-reformist position on Iranian politics. His wife, Zahra Rahnavard, has also been likened to "Iran's Michelle Obama." He and his wife seem to be well received by young Iranians. I sincerely hope this is a step in the right direction--opposing Ahmadinejad's ultra conservative iron fisted control over Iran.