Symbols

ACTA and TPP

noreply@blogger.com (Joshua S. Day) — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 03:04:00 +0000

The same people and corporate entities that backed SOPA, that horrible piece of legislation that would trample on Internet freedoms and innovations based on falsehoods and misdirection, also strongly support ACTA and TPP. The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) and Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) are secretive, backdoor trade agreements that would criminalize Internet behavior, globally. The wording of the agreements continues in the same vein as SOPA and PIPA, that is: vague, ill defined and designed to effectively trample on the rights of average, everyday citizens.

The law as it now stands is well thought out and efficient at combating threats to the interests of copyright holders. No new laws were required to arrest and jail the people involved with Megaupload. That case clearly shows no new initiatives are needed to counter online copyright violations. The FBI has all the tools it needs to perform its duties with the utmost diligence.

A lucid and conservative approach to law easily shows ACTA and TPP for what they really are, a radical and dangerous power grab on the part of giant media and multimedia conglomerates, the MPAA and the RIAA. The sane, commerce friendly course on these matters is to trust in the well functioning system as it now stands, and refuse to allow dangerous changes to the way the Internet works. Conservatives should be just as outraged by these shady maneuvers as liberals and progressives, or more so, as ACTA and TPP would radically alter a major facet of our lifestyle, in direct conflict with conservative values.

Please do everything in your power to spread the word about these secretive trade agreements, and help stop them. We don't need government mandates encouraging our ISP's to spy on everyday citizens. We don't need our sons and daughters running the risk of being branded as criminals, if they ever make the mistake of file sharing without full knowledge of the consequences of their actions. ACTA and TPP would create legal pitfalls for an entire generation of youth that simply do not need to exist. There's nothing positive about these agreements, and we, as thoughtful, competent citizens of the world, should not stand for this sort of shenanigans on the part of politicians in the back pocket of big money.

Thank you for your time, and please, please consider speaking out and contacting your representatives. They do listen. You can make a difference. Your voice does matter.

Joi de Vivre: A Notice and a Disclaimer

noreply@blogger.com (J. S. Day) — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 06:01:00 +0000

February 8, 2012:

"Blood Red Mist of Gouache" will be laid to rest with a novella to tie up loose ends. My entire life changed not long after beginning work on the novel. I've lived in three states and four towns in the past year, and continuing writing on the work was literally impossible for a variety of reasons. My life outlook changed significantly as my surroundings shifted, and I no longer feel the plot outline could serve as a vehicle for the statements I'd like to make. One thing that can be said about it: I wrote the entirety of it as it now exists in crowded public areas.

7:00 A.M. January 1, 2010:

Day: We're gonna need more guns, bombs.
5link33: I thought we were completely non-violent now.
Day: Oh, we're not going to use them.
5link33: Are you drunk again?
Day: They're for the Minutemen. If we can funnel them enough armaments --
5link33: I don't like that.
Day: -- they'll start a war with Mexico.
5link33: I thought we agreed you wouldn't try to talk to me when you're drunk.
Day: Once the price of weed goes up, we reap converts from among the people who have to quit.
5link33: This is why we broke up.
Day: I'm not drunk. I'm more sober than I've ever been.
5link33: Oh, God, why did I give you my new number?
Day: I want you so bad.
5link33: Don't call me until you're not crazy anymore.

- Names and places here are not necessarily based on real life. Some of the written material is fiction. Some proper place names reflect futuristic and fantasy views of those places. -

=::=

Instead of deleting comments, old material is moved to an entry called "Comments." That's instead of having comments from the random factor of the general public. This is not a campaign to be the next person who gives you hope until taking office. This is not an attempt to get your money. These are just excerpts from a writer's mind.

☮☯♡⚮♡☯☮ ⚖ ☮☯♡⚮♡☯☮

noreply@blogger.com (Joshua S. Day) — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 01:09:00 +0000

Tonight's Playlist

Glitch Burrowed Into My Flesh:

Venetian Snares - Mutant Cunt Sniffer
Biosphere - The Things I tell You
edIT - More Lazers
Coldcut - Everything Is Under Control
Kid 606 - She's=Defective
Xanopticon -Constant
Zazen Boys - Himitsu Girl's Top Secret
Stendeck - Run Amok
Goddess in the Morning - Flower Crown
Kashiwa Daisuke - Requiem
Ryoji Ikeda - Dissonanz
Cycheouts Ghost - Kingdom of Dreams
Gocoo - Celebration
Middle 9 - Island Pull Out
Worriedaboutsatan - You're in My Thoughts
Dalek - Asylum
Teeth of the Sea - Red Soil
Royksopp - Eple
Hauschka - No Sleep
Tunturia - Silence Is Consent
The Ascent of Everest - As the City Burned

☯☮ ⚖ ☮☯

Aaron Funk created Venetian Snares in 1997 and released six significant recordings between then and the turn of the millenium, four albums and two major singles. He produced music for multiple labels in quick succession in those early years, an EP with the company History of the Future, an album with label CLFST, but his self-released creations greatly outweighed that commercial work. In 2000 Funk inked a deal with Planet Mu, a label that has continued to unite the public with Venetian Snares albums throughout the years since then.

Although Venetian Snares comes out of Winnipeg, Manitoba, that has not hindered the success of the music or international recognition, and indeed VSnares has gained a respect and admiration from music lovers the world over. Funk's skill with the electronic medium spans a wide range of elements. It can be both audacious and introspective at the same time, hard hitting and thoughtful. The song included on this playlist comes from the album Invasion from xXx Dimension and provides a fine introduction to the edgier side of Funk's Venetian Snares.

---

The electronic ambient genre encompasses a wide array of styles and talent, a field so incredibly vast that more than a dozen sub-genres easily spring to mind. At times categorizing music can create limitations on listener interpretations and create false preconceptions. Such a thing is absolutely impossible when it comes to Biosphere's album Substrata. The music engulfs the audience and snatches words away, sending them back to the setting where they work the best, silence.

The depth and richness of this modern classic thickens to a point that almost feels like solidified emotions, like liquid sensations, but at the same time roils and bubbles away concerns. Ocean waves and oxygen floating up from the depths far out at sea fit well as a natural comparison to this digital experience. The ears that perceive it bob and sway upon the audio swells.

Geir Jenssen explores the peaks and depths of synaptic experience in this work, outdoing his past artistic incarnations in the process. Not every listener will feel blown away or consider Substrata to be a masterpiece, but none could possibly deny that Jennssen shaped and molded the music to the intense intricacies of his own spirit. Substrata was one of the best offerings to reach the public in 1997, and continues to feel ultra-relevant yet timeless to this day.

---

Edward Ma, member of The Glitch Mob, member of The Variations, created edIT back in 2003. Ma then introduced the world to that appellation in 2004 when he released Crying Over Pros for No Reason. The glitch style of regulated syncopation and arrythmic simultaneity captures the listener's attention and causes every regular beat to come across like treasure scattered just below the surface of the earth, waiting to thrill and enthrall those who bring them to light. The discovery of each new twist and turn in the maze of a single composition brings a sense of freshness and delight. At the same time hard hitting beats and masterfully looped melodies and riffs direct the speakers to grab the audience by the mind and squeeze until every fiber of their being is awake to the experience.

The startling vibrancy of edIT can not easily be forgotten or dismissed; it's difficult to understand why anyone would try. It's possible that some folk could be intimidated by a style of music they do not understand, or that they are frightened by the social and technological advances that made Edward Ma's music possible. Regardless of what detractors might think, and in addition to what fans and admirers feel abut the genre, this music is a sublime taste of pure creative genius.

---

Matt Black and Jonathan More banded together to form Coldcut way back in 1989, when the concept of a DAW was still in its infancy and creating electronica required hardware and instruments on a grand scale. Black brought his expertise in computer programming to the table, More creative intellect and a desire to enlighten the world, that drive so ever present among educators. For almost a quarter of a century the two men have entertained fans and newcomers alike with music heavily influenced by the underground scene, a scene they expanded and fed in turn.

While Londoners have known and enjoyed Coldcut for decades, the success of the duet has been limited in the United States. They played many international venues after the release of their fifth studio album album and have earned respect the world over. Unfortunately many average Americans may never have heard of them due to the restrictions placed on commercial radio by corporate entities such as Clearwater, in partnership with the profit mongering RIAA. It's a shame, because while the music of Coldcut may not be astounding in its influence and engenuity, it happens to be a pleasure.

---

Venezuelan born musician Miguel Trost De Pedro, raised on the West Coast and now a denizen of San Francisco, is Kid606. His tracks most often feature the frantic percussive measures common to happy hardcore in combination with sampled lyrics, the style common to post-industrial dance taken to a higher level. De Pedro's carefully crafted album Don't Sweat the Technics brought innovations to the electronic genre that could not be confined to the designation "trance," innovations that easily defined breakcore and the early stirrings of glitch. Kid606 drops music to work to, music to workout to, sound that makes your body move involuntarily and stirs the urge to dance. Or you could just pop it into the car stereo and drive a couple hundred miles an hour down the interstate. Kid606 is also on the Planet Mu label.

---

Ryan Friedrich, a thirty-two year old from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, is more well known as Xanopticon. While Xanopticon's web site summons a lot of dark imagery and sets its sites on a Gothic feel, the music is not industrial nor post-industrial, but just good old glitch from another planet. It's quite an experience, but one thing it also isn't is dance music. Luckily the music speaks for itself, because the web site really fails to do it justice.

---

On the heels of Friedrich's work, Zazen Boys sounds ordinary and simple, but even transitioning out of a brutal glitch-tech nightmare the group's sound hold's together to punch holes in any notion that math rock is an American thing. Mukai Shutoku, the front man for the band, early on in his career demonstrated a talent for a raw, experimental creative approach. Combined with Hinata Hidekazu on bass and Yoshikane Sou on guitar Shutoko and Zazen Boys enjoyed a warm reception from critics, a love affair with smart rock connoisseurs that never really ended. Everything the group releases meets with critical acclaim, and its easy to understand why. It only takes one listen to appreciate their technical brilliance.

---

At this point I have to confess that I haven't heard the rest of the playlist. That's going to put a damper on the review process. To be entirely honest I have heard neither Himitsu Girl's Top Secret nor Xanopticon's Liminal Space in their entirety, in case anyone was wondering why the reviews are so short. In addition to that minor detail about actually listening to the albums I'd like to review, something in RL came up, and depending on how my schedule looks it may be a couple of days before anything here gets updated.

Doxic Journeymanalism

noreply@blogger.com (J. S. Day) — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 22:18:00 +0000

While others slept restlessly or soundly, or full or empty, what point, what dread, someone wrote:

◊ saw the other approaching, ghostly light cascading down extended tendrils. ◊ signaled back assent, a complex pattern of blue and green flickering through ◊'s own extents. The two worked with the spiraling air currents, transferring processing to their aft sections to take advantage of convection.

In time they grew closer, and each flashed indications of intent, identification, internal structure. ◊ spread its tendrils on the side of the other, and observed the other doing the same. Currents and light propulsion brought them together, thin, luminous tendrils intertwining, Thought-light flickered, brightening on the overlapping tenders as they aligned, closed, and, at last, *connected*.

◊'s thoughts spread, traversing familiar but alien paths. Its mind stretched, widened, split and combined, moving across the other's mind-net and returning different, better. The other's mind passed through ◊'s, ideas, memories, and plans colliding and merging where they crossed the same mind-path.

For a brief moment, there was no ◊ or the other, but something else, grand and new. And then the currents carried them apart, the connection broke, and they drifted apart, forever changed, carrying a small part of the other.

:-:-:-:

Internet hacking savants under the name 'Anonymous (Anon)' disabled multiple government and corporate websites including the Department of Justice, the FBI, Universal Music and more Thursday...

That's from The Lantern. Those websites were disabled by Low Orbit Ion Cannon, or High Orbit Ion Cannon, simple tools which can be used by anyone with enough knowledge to load a web page. Thousands of people took part in the Distributed Denial of Service attacks that actually knocked those websites offline. It takes no skill to participate in such activities. James Garcia obviously has no real grasp of his subject matter. Those tools are available in numerous locations, to anyone.

***

As requested, what follows is a list of email addresses for every Teachta Dála in Ireland's Parliament, beginning with long time representative Gerry Adams, as per alphabetical:

gerry.adams@oireachtas.ie, james.bannon@oireachtas.ie, sean.barrett@oireachtas.ie, ceann.comhairle@oireachtas.ie, tom.barry@oireachtas.ie, richard.boydbarrett@oireachtas.ie, pat.breen@oireachtas.ie, my.broughan@oireachtas.ie, john.browne@oireachtas.ie, richard.bruton@oireachtas.ie, joan.burton@oireachtas.ie, ray.butler@oireachtas.ie, jerry.buttimer@oireachtas.ie, catherine.byrne@oireachtas.ie, eric.byrne@oireachtas.ie, dara.calleary@oireachtas.ie, ciaran.cannon@oireachtas.ie, joe.carey@oireachtas.ie, paudie.coffey@oireachtas.ie, aine.collins@oireachtas.ie, joan.collins@oireachtas.ie, niall.collins@oireachtas.ie, michael.colreavy@oireachtas.ie, michael.conaghan@oireachtas.ie, sean.conlan@oireachtas.ie, paulj.connaughton@oireachtas.ie, ciara.conway@oireachtas.ie, noel.coonan@oireachtas.ie, marcella.corcorankennedy@oireachtas.ie, joe.costello@oireachtas.ie, simon.coveney@oireachtas.ie,
barry.cowen@oireachtas.ie, michael.creed@oireachtas.ie, lucinda.creighton@oireachtas.ie, sean.crowe@oireachtas.ie, clare.daly@oireachtas.ie, jim.daly@oireachtas.ie, john.deasy@oireachtas.ie, jimmy.deenihan@oireachtas.ie, pat.deering@oireachtas.ie, pearse.doherty@oireachtas.ie, regina.doherty@oireachtas.ie, stephen.donnelly@oireachtas.ie, paschal.donohoe@oireachtas.ie, timmy.dooley@oireachtas.ie, robert.dowds@oireachtas.ie, andrew.doyle@oireachtas.ie, bernard.durkan@oireachtas.ie, dessie.ellis@oireachtas.ie, damien.english@oireachtas.ie, alan.farrell@oireachtas.ie, frank.feighan@oireachtas.ie, anne.ferris@oireachtas.ie, martin.ferris@oireachtas.ie, frances.fitzgerald@oireachtas.ie, peterm.fitzpatrick@oireachtas.ie, charles.flanagan@oireachtas.ie, lukeming.flanagan@oireachtas.ie, terence.flanagan@oireachtas.ie, sean.fleming@oireachtas.ie, tom.fleming@oireachtas.ie, eamon.gilmore@oireachtas.ie, noel.grealish@oireachtas.ie, brendan.griffin@oireachtas.ie, john.halligan@oireachtas.ie, dominic.hannigan@oireachtas.ie,
noel.harrington@oireachtas.ie, simon.harris@oireachtas.ie, brian.hayes@oireachtas.ie, tom.hayes@oireachtas.ie, seamus.healy@oireachtas.ie, michael.healy-rae@oireachtas.ie, martin.heyden@oireachtas.ie, joe.higgins@oireachtas.ie, phil.hogan@oireachtas.ie, brendan.howlin@oireachtas.ie, heather.humphreys@oireachtas.ie, kevin.humphreys@oireachtas.ie, derek.keating@oireachtas.ie, olm.keaveney@oireachtas.ie, paul.kehoe@oireachtas.ie, bily.kelleher@oireachtas.ie, alan.kelly@oireachtas.ie, enda.kenny@oireachtas.ie, taoiseach@taoiseach.gov.ie, sean.kenny@oireachtas.ie, seamus.kirk@oireachtas.ie, michael.kitt@oireachtas.ie, sean.kyne@oireachtas.ie, anthony.lawlor@oireachtas.ie, michael.lowry@oireachtas.ie, ciaran.lynch@oireachtas.ie, kathleen.lynch@oireachtas.ie, john.lyons@oireachtas.ie, padraig.maclochlainn@oireachtas.ie, eamonn.maloney@oireachtas.ie, micheal.martin@oireachtas.ie, peter.mathews@oireachtas.ie, michael.mccarthy@oireachtas.ie, charlie.mcconalogue@oireachtas.ie, marylou.mcdonald@oireachtas.ie, shane.mcentee@oireachtas.ie, nicky.mcfadden@oireachtas.ie, dinny.mcginley@oireachtas.ie, finian.mcgrath@oireachtas.ie, mattie.mcgrath@oireachtas.ie, michael.mcgrath@oireachtas.ie, john.mcguinness@oireachtas.ie, joe.mchugh@oireachtas.ie, sandra.mclellan@oireachtas.ie, tony.mcloughlin@oireachtas.ie, michael.mcnamara@oireachtas.ie, olivia.mitchell@oireachtas.ie, mary.mitchelloconnor@oireachtas.ie, michael.moynihan@oireachtas.ie, michelle.mulherin@oireachtas.ie, catherine.murphy@oireachtas.ie, dara.murphy@oireachtas.ie, eoghan.murphy@oireachtas.ie, gerald.nash@oireachtas.ie, denis.naughten@oireachtas.ie, dan.neville@oireachtas.ie, derek.nolan@oireachtas.ie, michael.noonan@oireachtas.ie, patrick.nulty@oireachtas.ie, caoimhghin.ocaolain@oireachtas.ie, eamon.ocuiv@oireachtas.ie, sean.ofearghail@oireachtas.ie, aodhan.oriordain@oireachtas.ie, aengus.osnodaigh@oireachtas.ie, jonathan.obrien@oireachtas.ie, willie.odea@oireachtas.ie, kieran.odonnell@oireachtas.ie, patrick.odonovan@oireachtas.ie, fergus.odowd@oireachtas.ie, john.omahony@oireachtas.ie, joe.oreilly@oireachtas.ie, jan.osullivan@oireachtas.ie, maureen.osullivan@oireachtas.ie, willie.penrose@oireachtas.ie, john.perry@oireachtas.ie, ann.phelan@oireachtas.ie, johnpaul.phelan@oireachtas.ie, thomas.pringle@oireachtas.ie, ruairi.quinn@oireachtas.ie, pat.rabbitte@oireachtas.ie, james.reilly@oireachtas.ie, michael.ring@oireachtas.ie, shane.ross@oireachtas.ie, brendan.ryan@oireachtas.ie, alan.shatter@oireachtas.ie, sean.sherlock@oireachtas.ie, roisin.shorthall@oireachtas.ie, brendan.smith@oireachtas.ie, arthur.spring@oireachtas.ie, emmet.stagg@oireachtas.ie, brian.stanley@oireachtas.ie, david.stanton@oireachtas.ie, billy.timmis@oireachtas.ie, peadar.toibin@oireachtas.ie, robert.troy@oireachtas.ie, joanna.tuffy@oireachtas.ie, liam.twomey@oireachtas.ie, leo.varadkar@oireachtas.ie, jack.wall@oireachtas.ie, mick.wallace@oireachtas.ie, brian.walsh@oireachtas.ie, alex.white@oireachtas.ie

*Northern Ireland does not have any representation in the Oireachtas. This information was provided by CabinCr3w and #OpIreland. It would have been easier to just tell you that every TD uses @oireachtas.ie, but shortened names made a full list necessary (e.g. pat.rabbitte for Patrick Rabbitte). Good luck in your endeavors, and here's to hoping Ireland's parliamentarians have a higher opinion of their constituents than do some of our House members.

noreply@blogger.com (J. S. Day) — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 13:42:00 +0000

Old:
1/20/12
After the Blackout: LOIC

Anonymous is bombarding the DoJ, RIAA and Universal Music, and promises have been made that campaign raising abilities of SOPA supporting Democrats will be targeted in the near future. Anonymous has asked that opponents of SOPA not inclined to use LoIC follow #StopSOPA on Twitter and retweet all tweets. (see pic)

This comes on the heels of a unilateral takedown of Megaupload earlier.

Justice dot gov has been down for at least half an hour. Mike Masnick at TechDirt made a very good point earlier today: Democrats may think young people aren't paying attention to this issue, but they are WRONG. If they aren't careful they are going to alienate an entire generation of potential supporters with their asinine authoritarianism, an authoritarianism that is hugely invalid because of the very high level of ignorance among Congressmen concerning the technical aspects of these bills. [writer stops before rage causes temporary blindness again]

also: https://twitter.com/#!/anonops/status/160117673173323776

****

We won, for now, but only against SOPA/PIPA. OPEN is next and is very much alive. The fight is just beginning.

The following is another relic:

STOP PIPA (Senate 968) & SOPA (HR 3261)

Imagine a world without Wikipedia, Google, Craigslist, multi-channels [your favorite sites here]...

News Corp, RIAA, MPAA, Nike, Sony, Comcast, VISA & others want to make that world your reality.

80 Members of Congress are in their sway, 30 against, the rest undecided or undeclared.

Please take a minute to tell your Members of Congress you OPPOSE PIPA & SOPA

Debian_GNU/kFreeBSD

noreply@blogger.com (J. S. Day) — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 08:17:00 +0000

The time for action is now. The Symbols system needs jails(!) kFreeBSD has "jails." Stability demands ZFS(!) The Debian BSD kernel supports ZFS. The author craves both Linux and FreeBSD. Behold, such a thing exists(!) Not only that, but instances of lawsuits over patents and licenses become nil as the operating system leaves the Linux area and draws closer to the Berkeley Software Distribution model. There may be nothing to sue for at this end right now, but the future still exists when last I checked, a few seconds ago.

The sweetness deepens: Operating benchmarks for Debian kFreeBSD are phenomenally inviting. H264 video encoding is faster on AMD64 kFreeBSD than on any other kernel. Benchmark tests show the kernel chalks up almost a frame and a half per second more than in normal Debian 64 bit operations.

That's not as impressive as the 23% improvement in speed over straight Linux during 7zip compression. kFreeBSD wasn't the top performer in every test. It came in second on Gzip and LZMA compression, and in GnuPG encryption. All these tests were reported by Phoronix, and are slightly dated. It would be nice to see a bleeding edge redux of the study because this one was damned impressive and kernels generally improve over time.

There are other nice traits of kFreeBSD. Here's one: Further reading has shown that BSD-loyal developers tend to merge new features rather than create a distribution fork. Having to commit to development course deviations based on progress that could potentially move the system away from improvements in other areas has always been a troublesome aspect of Linux.

Further. A positive quality of FreeBSD which probably would not affect my systems anytime soon is the hardware support advantage FreeBSD has over Linux with a couple of companies. FreeBSD does include some proprietary binary in its hardware driver source code. Agreements have been made in the past to allow proprietary closed code into the FreeBSD kernel to enable a closer working relationship with some hardware manufacturers. That code has been excluded from the Debian_GNU/kFreeBSD release in order to keep it 100% compliant with FOSS standards, but the working relationship still exists. Some hardware may be functional under this kernel that may not be supported under Linux, or at least not supported as quickly. [It is irresponsible and disrespectful to say that Linux reverse engineering and driver hacking could ever entirely fail to support some form of hardware, considering how hard the developers work and the seemingly miraculous things they have pulled off in the past, hence the italics.]

I just had a conversation a few days ago about how much I missed Debian, brought on by the complications I encountered during the aborted migration to BSD. If I had known there was a Linux/BSD hybrid before this week I would have been running it already. There's only one other thing on the planet that gets me as excited as I am right now, and that's sex. An-tici ... pation!

Once Again BSD [Friday Night Update]

noreply@blogger.com (J. S. Day) — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 22:33:00 +0000

Friday Night PC-BSD Party Problems:

ZFS by itself will run with as little as 1 gb RAM, but performs optimally with 4 gb and upward. The way ZFS has been linked into PC-BSD makes 4 gb a requirement. 3.25 causes prefetch disable. Working around that problem hovers on the edge of the catastrophic. Booting into the system can only be accomplished by using BIOS to limit RAM to an OS install 256 mb setting, which isn't really enough to run KDE in PC-BSD. The system makes a valiant effort to work, so at least it dies gallantly as it chokes and collapses.

For me using ZFS was one of the selling points for making the switch to BSD. The idea of a file system that detects and self-corrects file integrity problems makes my mouth water. Having been through some insanely painful data loss debacles because of things like electrical current anomalies, learning about ZFS brought an actual tear to my eye. It sounds so beautiful, and, realistically, it is as wonderful as it sounds. Unfortunately my current system doesn't meet the criteria.

Anybody who does have the requirements should consider using ZFS. Keep in mind that I only decided on PC-BSD out of laziness. Partitioning into a ZFS format can be done with FreeBSD, with a certain amount of hassle. Webmasters and server guardians are migrating to it enthusiastically, heedless of the extra effort required to implement the file system using back door methods. I simply have not done so yet. And it's very simple to migrate during a new install of PC-BSD 9.

PC-BSD has a couple of other sweet points. The ease of file encryption is staggering to someone like me, who has gone through all the partition mounting and unmounting necessary to use file encryption with Linux. Encrypting user data is automated during install, and entering one's password at a prompt during boot completely takes care of enacting usability.

PC-BSD also sports a bubbling test tube background during login. Ahh, science. It may sound like I'm scraping the bottom of the barrel for positive characteristics of the operating system, but mad scientist lab nostalgia is its own brand of awesome. Yeah, though, unfortunately PC-BSD is about to get scrapped because without ZFS there aren't enough checks in the pros category for it to stay. Back to the drawing board!

One more thing should be mentioned. Booting into the system using the OS install RAM limiter caused the computer to sound like an airplane taking off. That's a huge red "x" in the cons column. It never sounded like it was going to explode before. It sounded bad, people, it sounded bad. That experience comes on the heels of reading this quote from a BSD developer: "Sometimes hardware damage is a good thing." Uh, no.

[I am not a computer expert, merely have a lot of experience and a good background. I am not absolutely sure as to the reason why PC-BSD exhibited such problems. I simply hazarded an educated guess.]

I-yie-yie kawaii - Image for tldr:

werds:

After a couple of days tinkering with FreeBSD's latest stable release I decided to chunk it and do an install from PC-BSD. That decision primarily resulted because using ZFS systemwide can be implemented in FreeBSD, but it's a pain in the ass to get it in place. PC-BSD 9.0 Isotope allows ZFS partitioning from the very beginning, as opposed to the default UFS. After much reading, passing up ZFS while switching to BSD seemed like buying a new Corvette body with an old engine. A lot of people hoped that FreeBSD 9.0 would enable ZFS at installation, but it didn't. In fact, it became more difficult to implement because the old method, using fixit, is no longer available.

Not only does PC-BSD support ZFS installation, it uses a graphical installation utility. Having brushed up on installing all packages and enabling a desktop manager from the command line, it became easy to remember just how time consuming the process really is. For me switching over to a new operating system means upwards of four installations, the tedium I would face became tangible. The brevity of the primary requisite command, pkg_add -r packagename, does not cover all of the other steps that are automated by a graphical installer. Bsdinstall made FreeBSD is definitely a lot simpler than the old sysinstall menu, but that's because it completely sidesteps package installation.

The downside to using PC-BSD is that the community is smaller, so any problems that might arise will have to be solved by a much smaller group of people. It's not that the support at pcbsd.ord lacks in any way, but fewer people means greater demands on those who are available. I personally hope to never need support, but in case anybody out there wants to try PC-BSD they should know what they are getting into.

The first step to installation is getting the medium. PC-BSD compact disc and DVD images are available here. Once you've downloaded the iso it needs to be burned to a blank disc. If you're using Windows that means you need Nero, or a program much like it. In Linux you'll need K3B or Brassero. Once it's burned you're ready to boot into install mode. Switching over to BSD means using a file system that's different from Windows and Linux, so any data you have on the target hard drive will be lost during formatting and partitioning.

It is highly recommended that you read up on installing and using BSD before jumping in. Not only does it use a different file system, but the organization is different. This operating system is extraordinarily stable and versatile for web servers and on machines used for data transmission and retrieval. You can still do everything on BSD that's done on Linux and Windows, it just takes a little tweaking. Conversely, BSD does things that would take a lot of work to do from Linux and Windows. BSD is well suited to the use of Nmap and remote shell operations. Another fine example is that virtual honeypots work best from BSD.

After I use PC-BSD for a couple of weeks I'll report back about it. It's based on FreeBSD to the extent that it's almost a clone. You'll hear anything out of the ordinary about it, positive or negative, and about ordinary excellence as well.

The original post follows. I figured it wouldn't hurt to illustrate the difference in my mindset between then and now. The cutesy, matter-of-fact sarcasm sort of makes me want to barf. "Too Easy!:"

Operating system switched from openSuSE 12.1 to FreeBSD 9.0. Essentially I was tired of having an operating system that no longer required any advanced open source system knowledge whatsoever, and by that I mean command line knowledge. I was not disappointed. FreeBSD immediately failed to install on first try, hung up on the ACPI driver, which evidently is sometimes shaky.

Slight headache began to form after disabling ACPI only to have install hang up again a mere two seconds farther down the line. Fixing the failure of the BIOS to assign an IRQ spot proved a lot more difficult. Backed up, regrouped. Still hadn't made it to the SysInstall screen. Turned off all but 256 mbs of RAM of 3 gb. Still failed. Turned ACPI back on, install kicked in, made it to first screen.

Installed hostname, minimal packages [doc, game, man, ports, src], boot daemons, configured IPv4, IPv6, DHCP, added user, added user to groups, set password, then exited base install to get to package installation. That was when having a CD instead of a DVD became a huge handicap. Everything has to be installed from the shell without the DVD. Wouldn't it have been funny if I had been installing to the only available computer in the house and the Internet wasn't available without it? No, it would not be funny, because that's what happened. It was not funny. It was not funny at all, but could have been so much worse.

Many long pages of hand written instructions tediously transcribed to make the installation process easy in the absence of Internet access became completely worthless due to the implementation of bsdinstall over sysinstall. Luckily I just had to switch wires to use Linux again. Detiled installation instructions can be found at Freebsd.org.

Back in the day every Linux distribution upgrade of my operating system required manually configuring KDM because of the fancy schmancy Nvidia graphics. In the case of FreeBSD, dbus and hald had to be added to rc.conf and started, and .xinitrc to start kde4 had to be added. Init 6 and startx enabled the graphical desktop environment people like me use. I would say "people like me" means those whose time is too valuable to waste on doing everything from the command line, but I'll be honest. I'm just lazy, so I like to use windows and widgets and buttons and a mouse.

Anyway, if you ever get bored with your operating system, install FreeBSD. If it doesn't install properly right away you're bound to get a minimum of 4 or 5 hours out of the experience. The installation could get nearly FUBAR, like mine did, in which case you could easily burn 6-7 hours on the install. Ask yourself, is using your computer too easy?

Depth of Winter 2: Nyet, Tovarische

noreply@blogger.com (J. S. Day) — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 14:07:00 +0000

Even as the joyful, uplifted smiles of the brainwashed Republican youth turn to confused grimaces and pouts of imminent political constipation, the old guard grit their teeth and prepare to bombard everything in the nation not approved by Fox News with hatred and venom. The Iowa caucus voting, decided by only eight votes, shows billions of dollars really can buy an election, almost. Just imagine if Rick Santorum hadn't had toilet paper stuck between his teeth, the product of wiping away two years of "discussion." The biggest tragedy of the Republican nomination process has got to be that Ron Paul managed to look very attractive as a candidate next to the rest of the field. Yep, Mitt Romney should just relax, everybody loves him; he's a shoe in. Demand to have Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal speak on behalf of the GOP and surviving candidates will likely ramp up. "Can we get Governor Jindal to speak? Nobody cares how he looks. Let him take the hit again. That's been working great so far"

*

Kurt Havelock completely dropped the ball during final exams for Batshit Insane Manifesto Distribution 101. Due to his failure to target specific individuals instead of just corporations alongside his threats to blow up every airplane that "looked at him wrong," charges against him have been dropped. Justice has been miscarried! Or has it...

This is a victory for the NDAA. The indefinite detention law will apply to someone. It's just a matter of time before Havelock releases the manifesto's second draft. Doing away with guaranteed protections of the law for United States citizens was a good idea after all. We can either have habeas corpus or we can have safety. That's the bottom line. Just ask NDAA supporters. Meanwhile, Havelock fans have a message for their guy: "Don't give up! We know you can prove you're dangerously crazy!"

*

Hana Beshara received a sentence of two years in prison for making pirated movies and television shows available for download. Evidently she never read any of those disclaimers from tracker sites that say "no content is hosted on our servers." Ninja Video's Queen Phara went the extra distance for users of her service and hosted everything. Authorities may have become suspicious because of the website's giant logo that read "Stolen Stuff Here."

Wait... oh no! Terms of her sentencing says she can't have any computers at her residence. Well, the choice is clear. Beshara can't stay at my place when she gets out; the computers are staying.

*
Warning: The following game has hentai sex scenes featuring handicapped, crippled people. Also, this post was so not fair. The game is brimming with sensitivity. If the players who keep falling in love with the characters are any measure, the game is overly sensitive. Biggest complaint heard so far: Can't play more than once, feels like cheating on the character from the first run through. That's why I say the game makes them basket cases.

Do you have no life? Katawa Shoujo! Do you have a life and want to get rid of it? Katawa Shoujo! Extra brain cells? Missing socks? Racing thoughts and voices in your head? Katawa Shoujo! Katawa Shoujo! Katawa Shoujo!

[Note: Author would not play the game for any amount of money, just gets a good laugh when people's lives are ruined. Don't tell anyone the game turns normal people into basket cases. It's a secret.]

A Saturday in 2012

noreply@blogger.com (J. S. Day) — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 14:52:00 +0000

Having a hard time working up the nerve to change header image. It's tough to just discard it. Spent like no time on this 5cm image, a minute or two getting it and getting it into png. That doesn't rep it well to head the site like the hours and hours spent on the current header image.

*

Take this, lawsuit happy association Internet goons: File sharing is now an official religion. It's currently only recognized in Sweden, but practitioners are everywhere. We don't want peyote, just to share knowledge. Can't wait until this gets to SCotUS so Bush appointees can empty the bile pouches in their throats against it. You have to sing hymns, you poor bastards. We sing Rush (well, at times). *__*

*

"We weren't really sure what viruses were, or how to cripple Norton and Symantec, but then we got this stolen source code." Source code for the corporations anti-virus software was stolen this week. Symantec was so all over security they found out someone got root when their code was released, not because they detected it. Thank goodness for them Sec exploits didn't happen without a release. "Credit cards or it didn't happen" did not apply in this case, but you Windows users who pay hefty fees for Norton should be sweating balls over this.

*

Anonymous: "This attention is relevant to my interests. Can be famous tiem nao?" Online hactivists look around and realize they have the world's attention. Suddenly the movement as they envisioned it is a huge success. Some just don't know what to do with themselves, don't see the massive amount of danger and work involved and ahead. Criminal genius (pfft) of the morning: jargon7.

Current leaks:

Organicemporium
http://www.organicemporium.co.za/
Leak: http://pastebay.com/265865

Hydrogen software
http://hydrogensoftware.com/
Leak: http://pastebay.com/265867

Live Out Doors
http://liveoutdoors.co.za
Leak: http://pastebay.com/265868

City Vibe
http://www.cityvibe.co.za/
Leak: http://pastebay.com/265869

Bucky Larson: Born To Be a Star

noreply@blogger.com (J. S. Day) — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 03:16:00 +0000

Christina Ricci brought some light to Nick Swardson's latest release, Bucky Larson: Born To Be a Star, on DVD. It could be argued she managed to make the movie almost tolerable for someone who wasn't drunk, stoned or twelve years old. Even though the movie may have been one of the worst ever made, and it would be difficult to imagine a normal person sitting through the entire movie of their own volition, it had saving graces, of which her role was one. There were other bright spots. Swardson is a genuinely funny guy. The viewer got to see Don Johnson in a truly horrible role, and being unable to hide what appeared to be feelings of extreme discomfort about it at times. Finally the American public can feel they got a little payback from Johnson for what he put audiences through in Nash Bridges. The movie would have been a lot worse if it had not been so bad.

There's a business bearing the name J Day in the middle of it. Thank God it was in Bucky Larson and not one of the gaggle of worthless horror movies that come out every year. Seeing that was no pleasure, however. Considering how much differently things may have gone down for a writer with those letters in his name had the publish button not been so easy to hit, that scene felt like a knife in the stomach. Thank God all of my plans for success aimed at posthumous recognition. Having a name similar to one on a marquee in Bucky Larson is so far my claim to fame.

To be very honest this movie may be funny as hell to some people. It's impossible for a person such as myself to know. I couldn't sit through the entire thing. Whereas little of what I write makes it to the public anymore, shamefully I don't even save most of it, I do a hell of a lot of it. I watched 45 minutes of the movie and went back to typing, because I knew I could get laughs out of that. Yet despite all that negativity, overall, seeing Ricci in a different kind of role made Bucky Larson worth the time I spent on it.

Chapter 17: In Need of Ewers, Truly

noreply@blogger.com (J. S. Day) — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 16:44:00 +0000

Relocated due to disturbing content. However, it was written with comedy in mind.

This version of Chapter Seventeen will likely never reach the completed work, just as the last one is also gone forever. It went too far in the ghastly direction. This title was chosen because I intend to wash my hands of it the way it now stands, just as most people I know will. It's too out of place with the rest of the content. Have a lot of very good ideas along this storyline, though, so there will be salvaging. [the work continues to pile up, book should be called Set's Back]

Security Blog List

noreply@blogger.com (J. S. Day) — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 00:09:00 +0000

These are higher quality links dealing with security: Linux, Unix, Windows. None of them are dead. A large number of them update regularly. Now you can know what I know about the subject. Almost feel the need to apologize about the length.

http://blogs.adobe.com/psirt/
http://anti-virus-rants.blogspot.com/
http://asert.arbornetworks.com/
http://blog.avast.com/
http://www.blackbag.nl/
http://www.bunniestudios.com/wordpress/
http://cansecwest.com/
http://carnal0wnage.attackresearch.com/
http://www.cerias.purdue.edu/site/blog
http://cerias.purdue.edu/site/blog/author/spaf
http://blogs.cisco.com/security
http://blog.clamav.net/
http://blog.commandlinekungfu.com/
http://computer.forensikblog.de/en/
http://www.cryptogon.com/
http://www.cryptome.org/
http://www.cutawaysecurity.com/blog/
http://cyb3rcrim3.blogspot.com/
http://garwarner.blogspot.com/
http://cyberspeak.libsyn.com/
http://ddanchev.blogspot.com/
http://darknet.org.uk/
http://darkreading.com/
http://www.thedarkvisitor.com/
http://blog.didierstevens.com/
http://digfor.blogspot.com/
http://edsmiley.com/
http://emergentchaos.com/
http://blog.emsisoft.com/
http://blog.eset.com/
http://fasthorizon.blogspot.com/
http://www.financialcryptography.com/
http://blog.fireeye.com/research
http://www.forensickb.com/
http://fraudwar.blogspot.com/
http://www.f-secure.com/weblog
http://blog.oxff.net/
http://gleeda.blogspot.com/
http://googleonlinesecurity.blogspot.com/
http://www.sophos.com/blogs/gc
http://grandstreamdreams.blogspot.com/
http://www.hackaday.com/
http://ha.ckers.org/blog
http://www.hexblog.com/
http://holisticinfosec.blogspot.com/
http://honeyblog.org/
http://www.h-online.com/security/
http://blogs.iss.net/
http://invisiblethings.org/
http://theinvisiblethings.blogspot.com/
http://jeremiahgrossman.blogspot.com/
http://krebsonsecurity.com/
http://www.l0t3k.org/en/
http://blog.layeredsec.com/
http://www.lightbluetouchpaper.org/
http://blog.trendmicro.com/
http://www.malwaredomainlist.com/
http://chargen.matasano.com/
http://www.avertlabs.com/research/blog/
http://blog.metasploit.com/
http://blogs.technet.com/mmpc/default.aspx
http://securityincite.com/blog/mike-rothman
http://www.milw0rm.com/
http://blog.mandiant.com/
http://www.offensivecomputing.net/
http://www.offensive-security.com/blog/
http://www.openrce.org/articles/
http://www.packetstormsecurity.org/
http://philosecurity.org/
http://praetorianprefect.com/
http://www.prevx.com/blog.asp
http://pseudo-flaw.net/log/
http://www.rationalsurvivability.com/blog/
http://rdist.root.org/
http://blogs.sans.org/
https://blogs.sans.org/computer-forensics/
http://www.schneier.com/blog
http://blog.zoller.lu/
http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/
http://www.secsocial.com/blog/
http://secunia.com/advisories/
http://www.securelist.com/en/weblog
http://blogs.securiteam.com/
http://blog.security4all.be/
http://securosis.com/blog
http://www.shmoocon.org/
http://www.shmoo.com/news/
http://blog.snort.org/
http://blog.stopbadware.org/
http://sunbeltblog.blogspot.com/
http://www.symantec.com/business/security_response/weblog/
http://taosecurity.blogspot.com/
http://www.teamfurry.com/wordpress/
http://blogs.technet.com/msrc/
http://blog.threatexpert.com/
http://threatpost.com/
http://blog.tsa.gov/
http://blog.uncommonsensesecurity.com/
http://volatility.tumblr.com/
http://securitylabs.websense.com/
http://windowsir.blogspot.com/
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/
http://blogs.zdnet.com/security/
http://blog.zynamics.com/
http://www.afcea.org/signal/signalscape/
http://dhs-daily-report.blogspot.com/
https://blog.torproject.org/
http://www.securitywire.com/
http://pauldotcom.com/
http://www.exploit-db.com/
http://www.networkworld.com/topics/security.html
http://www.acunetix.com/blog/
http://www.allspammedup.com/
http://www.gfi.com/blog/
http://www.infosecblog.org/
http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/security
http://www.theemailadmin.com/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/security/
http://seclists.org/
http://www.afcea.org/signal/signalscape/
http://www.woodmann.com/forum/blog.php
http://www.nsa.gov/
http://blogs.technet.com/b/sysinternals/
http://www.securityweek.com/
http://superantispyware.com/blog/
http://www.securitytracker.com/
http://spyblog.org.uk/
http://www.net-security.org/
http://news.cnet.com/security
http://www.fas.org/blog/ssp/
http://cryptocomb.org/
http://anonymous.livelyblog.com/
https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/wiki
http://www.security-ray.com/
http://ticklethewire.com/
http://vulnfactory.org/blog/
https://psal.cs.drexel.edu/index.php/Main_Page
http://www.pgpboard.com/
https://yorkporc.wordpress.com/
http://www.catonmat.net/
http://www.heinz.cmu.edu/~acquisti/shb/participants.htm
http://www.cyberciti.biz/
http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/
http://www.ledge.co.za/software/lpinotes/
http://inciweb.org/
https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/
https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/topics/
https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/
https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/aix/library/
http://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/934274-freeware-alternative-list/
http://www.hackinglinuxexposed.com/articles/
http://dankaminsky.com/
http://blog.bodhizazen.net/
http://askubuntu.com/
Freedom Box: http://wiki.debian.org/freedombox
http://blogs.pcmag.com/securitywatch/
http://labs.m86security.com/
http://www.irongeek.com/
http://rijmenants.blogspot.com/
http://blog.webroot.com/
http://crypto.stanford.edu/
https://ssd.eff.org/
http://publicintelligence.net/
http://www.wikileaks.org/
http://www.itstactical.com/
http://www.forensicswiki.org/
http://p4r4n0id.com/

The list came from Cryptome. I had a great many of the sites bookmarked already, but can not take credit for compiling the entire thing. Would have mentioned this sooner, but find it bothersome linking to the same site repeatedly.

Year of the Poll Rat

noreply@blogger.com (J. S. Day) — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 08:24:00 +0000

Right now it's very early New Year's Day. Exalt in beauty for we still take in air, and until the sun comes rejoice in our old celebration, fleeting as youth. Once solar energy embraces the earth rejoice anew and with even greater vigor, for we who live can always count something in our lives as fortunate if our hearts are in the right place. Also, enjoy the holiday, for in the days ahead the gnarly little creatures who run campaigns, and their fatter, greedier counterparts who seek election, will be much in the news.

[Personal drivel moved to "Comments."]

Saturday Stratfor, Today Special Forces

noreply@blogger.com (J. S. Day) — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 22:38:00 +0000

Specialforces.com, a supplier of police and paramilitary supplies and equipment, labeled itself as hacker proof. Their customer database has been hacked by the same people who hit Stratfor [The Strategic F. Hack "Data Breach Now Affects More than ¾ Million people: 859,311 Email Addresses, 68,063 Credit Card Numbers, 50,618 Addresses, and 50,569 Phone Numbers" - IdentityFinder ].

Here's the release. The credit card numbers of the customers there were encrypted, unlike at Stratfor, but were decoded after the group owned the server. I personally snatched this scrolling by in real-time at Pastebin. A few minutes later it got released everywhere, so it doesn't make much difference I just happened to see it scrolling by. There's not much more to tell.

*

AnonNews took swipes at destructivesec, but destructivesec got a greetz in a 5k Barnes and Noble gift card hack giveaway. Dude must have some legitimacy in their little community. Wonder if they kept it to 5k thinking it wouldn't be big enough to generate a major investigation though. If so, oops, it went big after getting posted.

Statfor Hack [Updated]

noreply@blogger.com (J. S. Day) — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 13:36:00 +0000

A group claiming to be Anonymous hacked security firm Stratfor and released names, emails, passwords and credit card numbers for over 10,000 people either involved with the firm or who are at the firm's client end. All of that information can be found here. To give you a better example of the nature of the information released, if you just wanted the names,emails, passwords and numbers of people whose last names begin with "b," that can be found here. It goes on like that for a while.

A second less complicated hack took place after the first, just because it could be done, but also so a few late comers could get in on the tail end of the exploit. Meanwhile, in an "emergency Christmas press release," Anonymous claims not to have executed the attacks. Perhaps the definition of that word should be brought to their attention. There was a point, though:

It may be that a group of Anonymous has just picked the "low hanging fruit," but it seems that if someone really wanted to stick it to a private intelligence firm that worked with/for the government they would have gone after more shady intelligence companies such as GK Sierra [26], Aegis [27], GPW [28], or Hakluyt [29].

Anyway, an example of "acceptable" credit card use: http://imgur.com/kr8sM -- taking into account the whole Robin hood theme. This is such a bad time for there to be no metro wifi. Please no, "I can haz free shipping with my 55" plasma screen?" [Somebody isn't going to find this funny...]

Author listens for sounds of vans outside library - retracts links upon further consideration of value of freedom. Cryptome has all of them anyway. This was only written and posted after I discovered the entire Comodo-hacker GPS RSA spoofing story (Iran got a United States drone out of it) had not been written up for almost a week after I read about it, and may still not have been written up in English. I hate to waste valuable news information.

Supposedly the hack involved a brute force dictionary exploit, using such a program as can be found here. It couldn't have been too difficult. Some senior Stratfor executives used "stratfor" as their password. Now that's elite! For any 12 year olds who are dying for more tools, more advanced scripts in Perl and Python can be found here.

Update:
Hours ago Anonymous responded to "emergency Christmas press release" claiming Stratfor hack was not the work of Anonymous. The response has been titled Anonymous Emergency Press Release Part Deux. Entertainment like this can't be purchased:

THE PASTEBIN CLAIMING THAT THE STRATFOR HACK IS NOT THE WORK OF ANONYMOUS IS NOT THE WORK OF ANONYMOUS

Stratfor is an open source intelligence agency, publishing daily reports on data collected from the open internet, essentially making millions of the work of other people and using free interships to do the actual work. they also have a very extensive network of NARCS inside and outside the "official anonymous collective" (you know who you are <3). Stratfor employees claiming to be Anonymous have distorted this truth in order to further their hidden agenda, and some Anons and Media outlets have taken the bait.

The leaked client list represents subscribers to a daily publication which is the primary service of Stratfor, it's composed of a hoard of evil companies that Stratfor analysts are trying to protect to save their neo-con face. Stratfor analysts are widely considered to be extremely unbiased, which is utter crap. Anonymous does not attack media sources, that is why Antisec released the PI and CC deets of the fucking evil corporations that are clients of Stratfor, like the fucking army, Monsanto, Coca Cola, Walt fucking disney and whatever more... fuck, even GOLDMAN SACHS IS IN THERE, HOW COULD WE NOT DO THIS ?!

[snip]

"INSERT USELESS QUOTE FROM STRATFOR IN ORDER TO GET MORE SEO POINTS AND MAKE PEOPLE SKIP TO THE END

FILLER FILLER FILLER FILLER FILLER FILLER FILLER FILLER FILLER FILLER FILLER FILLER FILLER FILLER FILLER FILLER FILLER FILLER FILLER FILLER FILLER FILLER FILLER FILLER FILLER FILLER FILLER FILLER

[snip]

#antisec has been purposefully misrepresented by these so-called Anons and portrayed in false light as a collective that hacks the little man, the 99% or even the 89%... Stratfor employees are well versed in counter-intelligence, though they kinda lack intelligence per-se and are nothing more than opportunistic attention whores who are definetly agent provocateurs. As a media source, Stratfor's work is protected by the freedom of press, a principle which Anonymous does not give a fuck any day of the week. only moralfags do. and we all know where moralfags go when they die (they join fucking internetwhitekights and anontalk pedos in hell)

This 30k view pastebin is most definitely not the work of Anonymous. (see how it's spelled correctly? this copy paste is obviously too well written to actually be anonymous)

For my own holiday season exploit I may into roomie's computer via usb stick root password change [now that takes real knowledge!] to use video capability and monitor. How dare there be a password in my way? Need... more... hd... anime.

Massive Twitter Security Flaw

noreply@blogger.com (J. S. Day) — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 19:33:00 +0000

For an uninformed user of twitter, OAuth can cause them to provide access to their twitter account from secondary devices even after changing passwords at the source.

Obviously this has huge implications for citizen journalists, activists, and human rights workers among others. Anyone who is detained and whose twitter passwords become compromised (as well as other applications, i'm guessing the facebook app for iPad also uses OAUTH, though it may just store the password) is at risk of providing ongoing access to these apps if they fail to remove the OAuth authorization after changing their passwords.

[sic]
cryptome

Anti-SOPA and "Protect IP" Songs

noreply@blogger.com (J. S. Day) — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 15:41:00 +0000

SOPA, the Stop Online Piracy Act, which would literally destroy Internet freedom while making no guarantee at all to help anyone but the lobbyists for the bill. isn't even close to being dead. Neither is the ironically named Protect IP bill. Here are two songs about it. If you didn't know about it before, you may not be able to get it out of your head after this.

*

SOPA opposition community

My Kingdom

noreply@blogger.com (J. S. Day) — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 01:56:00 +0000

My Kingdom is a lot better than reviews might lead you to believe; it's difficult to discern what the critics expected. If anything the movie suffered because it had greater ambitions than it could possibly live up to, but the overall viewing experience was not conspicuously unpleasant. The choice for General Lu was the biggest flaw of the film. Many problems existed, but none of them crippled the entertainment value. Most of the other problems were easy to ignore.

Here's what My Kingdom has:

Choreography from Sammo Hung.
A beautiful leading lady
Two "ridiculously good looking" leading men
A plot that does not get boring, no matter what else it does

There's no point in listing what the movie lacks. That's just way too obvious once you've seen it.

International cinema fans have been spoiled by the above average quality of the movies that come our way. Hollywood has such a stranglehold on the industry that foreign directors face a much higher artistic standard to become successful here. Because of that many really magnificent pictures have come out of Asia in the past ten years. To become commercially successful on this side of the Pacific requires nothing less. When a movie like My Kingdom comes along and it is merely entertaining instead of a virtuoso production the criticism leveled against it can be less than fair. My Kingdom was easily better than 60% of the movies being made in the United States today, even though it was really very average and had more than one continuity problem.

Not worth buying. Worth a cheap rental. Definitely worth a Netflix viewing if one is running low on things to watch on a nasty, wintry day. Or you could watch it with friends and make fun of the awkward parts, which would not be difficult to accomplish.

Patents [heavy sigh]

noreply@blogger.com (J. S. Day) — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 14:12:00 +0000

Morale among progressive reformists rode an all time peak going into January 2009. President-elect Barack Obama was poised to take power and spirits were running high. So many people believed great changes were in store for our nation. As soon as the appointments began that elation subsided rapidly.

Software patents have been a huge obstacle to the advancement and development of new technologies and the opening of new avenues of business. For creative, hardworking programmers and development teams with innovative insights, building on available knowledge faces legal challenges and financial hurdles because of the current judicial interpretation of patent law. It's impossible to say exactly how many worthwhile, life-improving software projects have been shelved because of litigation hungry corporate legal departments with their feelers out for ideas that traverse terrain that has been registered, but the impact on software developers has been very significant and burdensome.

For a clearer explanation of dept of that impact one must look beyond the initial claims of infringement. Software patents stop business projects in their tracks not only when pieces of code and processes under a claim of ownership have been used, but all advancement that would be built on that usage is also halted. The existing new software under a claim of infringement becomes unavailable, and also any future advancements that may have come from that software ceases to be possible. The effect of software patenting is stifling.

Many supporters of the Electronic Frontier Foundation had high hopes that the 2008 shift in power would herald a more insightful legal approach to patent law. Fingers were crossed that Justice Department appointments would contain the names of some of our nation's full field of brilliant, forward thinking attorneys. The announcement of the appointment of a significant percentage of attorneys who had previously worked with the Recording Industry Association of America put a damper on the emotions of anyone who was giddy with optimism. Those appointments indicated that the interpretation of digital rights wasn't heading down an openly reformist path. For some people, at that moment those appointments were announced at the very beginning of the Obama Administration, progressive supporters had been betrayed.

Currently, in related news, there's a case before the Supreme Court involving medical patents. Rather than attack the fact that such patents shouldn't exit at all the defense attorneys are arguing over the scope of the patent in question. Perhaps they believe that path has a higher probability of success. Once again, however, an opportunity to challenge the validity of current patent practices has been missed. The lower courts have created law through ruling, and so far it still stands.

This issue may seem like trivia to the average citizen. Patent law may become more important to them when someone in their family faces medical hardship because of it. Perhaps that's what it takes for more people to care about how corporate greed has defined the law of the land. The technical details of obscure rulings may have to start killing people before the issue really takes center stage. Hopefully it won't come to that.

Updated:
It should be pointed out that the stifling effect of current patent jurisprudence as applied to medicine is that potentially life saving advancements may be shut out due to doctors being barred from applying an independently derived procedure if the procedure applies to an area that has already been patented. As with software, the initial block to innovation potentially blocks much greater progress. That avenues of treating people may be shut off because of legal interpretations based on corporate profit is really quite chilling, and very serious.

Dos:
I completely left out the biggest reason these patents shouldn't exist, for those who need context. They all deal with intangible processes. They have nothing to do with concrete inventions.

Open Source: Some Context and Direction

noreply@blogger.com (J. S. Day) — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 17:52:00 +0000

This blog contains a lot of references and commentary on open source computing, Linux primarily. Before switching to Linux from Windows, open source operating systems seemed like something only programmers and experts used. Having used Unix and Apple computers while I was a young adult I had the mistaken impression that anything that ended in *nix meant command line computing only. Immediately upon installing a Linux system that mistaken notion was forever dispelled. It turned out Linux these days isn't any more complicated than Windows, at least not for someone who uses their computer for more than entry level productivity.

The primary attraction behind switching to a Linux system was security. First Windows 95, and then Windows 98, exhibited a pattern of bogging down after a few of months of use. Applications and processes slowed down over time, until usability was so impacted the problem could no longer be ignored. By the time Windows XP came out protection against spyware, adware, backdoor orifices, trojans, viruses and worms wasn't optional. For anyone who spent a lot of time on the Internet without security software the computer was a sitting duck. On top of that, quite often the security slowed down the computer almost as much as malware and malicious code. Linux is invulnerable to the vast majority of such material, and so the switch was made.

In the course of developing proficiency in creating a desktop to be proud of, compiling, command line code and in depth security fluency becomes part of one's knowledge base, at least for those who desire a full featured computing experience. A computer is a marvelous thing. It can be used as a home entertainment system, an advanced tool for calculations and scientific processes, and it is especially magnificent in the realm of communications and data transfer. It is in the lattermost area that security information is so incredibly valuable.

It was while learning how to streamline the Linux kernel that I first discovered the answer to all the questions I ever had about hacking. Once the mystique of hacking vanishes the dividing line between ethical hacking and the malicious and illegal becomes absolutely clear. Those who use the techniques available for intrusion into private and public systems can provide no rationalization for their actions that can make the practice acceptable, although the justice system does take into account the difference between thrill seekers and those out for profit.

Open source makes securing Linux desktops and servers easily possible for the individual, instead of something that has to be done with third party software. While learning about security all of the techniques and methods used by malicious hackers becomes transparent. When the task of hardening your system becomes tedious and time consuming any mistaken romantic perception of the hacker conjured by pop-culture, like the movie with Angelina Jolie and Jonny Lee Miller, will likely go right out the window. The learning experience is still highly enjoyable. None of that experience comes out of using a proprietary operating system.

So, yup, there's some context and direction...
;)

Also, and it is a BIG also, many Linux distributions come with GIMP, the GNU version of Photoshop. I'm a visitor using Windows here and I am hurting without a photo manipulation program. Thanks for nothing, Mickeysoft.

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Creepy Walls: Pyramid Head at the top, with his impression of Boxxy ♥s Addy [Pyramid Head will mess you up, man] -- all Silent Hill.

More Than A Few Words

noreply@blogger.com (J. S. Day) — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 20:00:00 +0000

Recently Whiskey Fire had 8000 unique hits in one week. An uptick in political interest, especially an expanding interest in the smart mouthed left wing intelligentsia, warms away some of the chill of the mausoleum where some of us crawled away to die after the plague of bipartisanship consumed the passion of the 2008 election. 2012 will have none of the fire and thunder "Renegade" conjured to life during his first whirlwind campaign, but with contenders like Newt Gingrich waiting in the wings there's at least sure to be plenty of high entertainment.

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Bin-jip, or Three Iron, from director Ki-duk Kim, delivered a surprising neural experience with lengthy periods of silence and fluid examinations of internal space. The story follows a young man who breaks into the homes of strangers in order to feel life from their perspective. Along the way he picks up a battered wife who appreciates the allure of the peculiar nefarious practice. She speaks almost as little as he does.

The couple wind up in police custody after staying at the home of a deceased older man. Even so, while the mute burglar goes through a period of confinement the mood of the film only sinks briefly. Shortly after his release he haunts the residences where he previously trespassed before returning to the home of the discontented wife and her loathsome husband.

Ki-duk Kim began to develop the theme of secrets outside the 180° range of human vision and the impossible hidden relationship between the woman and the burglar as the movie ran out of time. Perhaps Kim judged that the improbabilities of the plot grew too cumbersome, but the suddenness with which the movie ended felt like an admission of defeat by the director. The story cried out to be made more plausible and wrapped up tidily. Instead it ended with what seemed like an obvious appeal to admirers of dreamy romance.

This movie would be great for a dreary, rainy day when the viewer has nothing else to do. The fact that it is subtitled makes it cumbersome for a date or for watching with a group. However, it was quite a pleasant diversion.

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The L.S.U. Tiger football team: It really doesn't get much better than this season. For superstitious reasons nothing more will be said here, except Geaux Tigers!

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The Housemaid: An excellent flick about the trials and tribulations of a live-in servant. Husband does the nanny. Wife's mother tries to kill the maid. Wife poisons the lady's unborn baby. The rich bitches destroy her life. The wealthy husband shrugs and goes on with his. Nanny hangs herself and burns to death simultaneously. An extremely captivating reel.

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The Twilight Samurai completely destroyed any notion that it might be part of the stereotypical Samurai slice-and-dice genre. Yôji Yamada created a classic with this work. The portrayal of a low level Samurai working for his lord in the pre-Meiji years came across as brilliantly realistic. The continuity of the tale glowed with a vivid, transcendent normalcy, and thttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifhe camera work almost makes the viewer feel like a present observer.

It's difficult to understand why this movie is not more heralded by fans of historical fiction and Asian culture. Perhaps it's because of such travesties as the :

A 19th-century samurai tries to protect a battered wife.

That description could not be any farther from the truth. This movie is worth owning, and that is not something one will read here very often.

Yet Another Review

noreply@blogger.com (J. S. Day) — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 15:45:00 +0000

Any aspiring screenplay writers out there should know that there really is very little in the way of adrenaline exploitation that has not already been done, nearly ad infinitum, in Asian cinema. The Man From Nowhere delves into that sub-sub-genre of crime scenarios that deal with organ harvesting, heroin trafficking and child slavery. Thankfully the subject has now been covered with all due sensationalism, and no one will be led to cover it for its newness. Never fear: The culprits meet their deaths in gratuitous bloody sequences, along with just about every character connected to them in any way.

The "man from nowhere" dishes out the beyond-the-law vigilante justice, and his character is about as cliche as they get. Former spy -- check. Martial arts expert -- check. Mysterious air -- check. He's not the conventional muscle bound protagonist, however, as the movie starts out with glimpses into his life as a pawn shop owner and operator. When his dream life was shattered by criminal hands he abandoned his service to the state and went into the hock trade. He just happens to be the neighbor of a little girl who gets snatched up by the scuzziest people the writer could envision. Like any mysterious hero lethal in hand to hand would, he embarks on a quest to save the child.

Hollywood did not dump this film on the world. The California film industry may not be cutting edge with a lot of its story choices, but that can be a good thing, depending on one's perspective. Korean film makers don't seem to be burdened by the same PTA outrage that would surround a movie like this in the United States. Sometimes the lack of moral filters allow for a truly inventive and awe inspiring work of cinema, but at other times the viewer winds up with a movie like this. Anybody who can watch this movie and simply shrug their shoulders has probably seen too many movies. Welcome to the club. The proper reaction is probably to be deeply shocked and offended by the violence and subject matter. For those who are already jaded: It wasn't totally terrible, it was just mostly terrible, but it did make a couple of hours go by very quickly.

**
::bonus review:: :)

Meanwhile, in the romance genre, Windstruck tells the story of the person with the worst aim in all of Korea, a policewoman in Seoul. Don't let other descriptions fool you. You may hear that the movie is about love and loss, that it deals with matters of the heart and grief, and the touching of two souls. It is really about how the lead female actor (who would have been great in any role) can't hit the broad side of a barn with her sidearm. That fact remains consistent throughout the movie. Sure, she has a lover that bites the dust, but that doesn't help her get any better with her pistol. I'd be frightened to meet a person who could make it through the entire two hours and three minutes without laughing.

For the sake of honesty it should be said that the movie is a sappy romance, frivolously so. It waffles between happy and sad and has a wide variety of endings to choose from. The director made it impossible to know for certain if the boyfriend was shot to death. Instead the viewer is forced to choose their own interpretation of events. The movie is a flop as a normal romantic comedy, but was still enjoyable overall. It really helps that the leading lady is so pleasant to look at.

A Somewat Normal Title

noreply@blogger.com (J. S. Day) — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 20:05:00 +0000

A Bittersweet Life - Easily the most pointless bit of underworld tinged violence to come out of Korea in the past few years. The main character has no likable attributes, except that the female audience may find the actor attractive. Even suspending disbelief doesn't serve to make the movie's action remotely credible. It was not an unenjoyable film, but it failed to provoke any deep thought at all. The action sequences weren't executed well enough to salvage any good comments about.

The best that can be said is that the design crew saved this piece of cinema from utter mediocrity. Some of the sets were very attractive and set a handsome tone for bloodshed and gun play. If it weren't for the photography and attention to surroundings A Bittersweet Life would be a complete waste of time. It has a big following though, and a lot of fans who would disagree strongly with this negative review.

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Nein Emerging

- I went back to music, or something a lot like it. Plan to upload eventually. It is in fact called Nein Emerging. Have not abandoned "Blood Red Mist," just giving it a major rethink. Writing about a broken family disintegrated my motivation for the work; dark fantasy rears its hideous brain filled appendage once again.

Ghost Cities -- Brooklyn Bridge -- Robokopter

noreply@blogger.com (J. S. Day) — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 01:17:00 +0000

Google Earth photos of the Kumtag Desert in China show gargantuan earth projects in the middle of nowhere. The scale of some of these projects defy normal human perspective. One of them covers approximately two miles of width and four miles of length. The Nazca Lines immediately come to mind when viewing these photos. Of course unlike the ancient Peruvians the Chinese have machinery. Maybe a high ranking party member in Beijing had too much time on their hands and thought it would be fun to mess with the imaginations of Westerners. via Gizmodo.

The OWS Brooklyn Bridge march yesterday

Meanwhile, the occupation of many areas of major American cities has ended, but the Occupy movement won't be changing its name. These protesters have restored hope to some people in the United States that citizen activism is in the middle of a renaissance. No matter what name they take, the fact that so many people care enough to put their lives on the line for the betterment of the common working people of our country is highly admirable. The shortcomings of the movement are far outweighed by the existence of the movement itself. Occupy Wall Street has set a precedent worth more than any other grass roots movement in the past thirty years. As long as people have the knowledge that hordes of fellow citizens hold the same beliefs they do and are willing to take direct action to effect change, then the armor of big money can continue to be worn down. And maybe, just maybe, with continued work and diligence in this vein the tide of economic hopelessness will begin to turn in favor of an expanding middle class and greater opportunities.

Cheers to Occupy supporters nationwide for creating a bright spot on the economic horizon that has been bleak and dark for so long. A big part of that brightening is camaraderie -- an ideological one for those who can't make it out, and a physical one for those on the front lines. They deserve more recognition than simple words can give.

The end of the Internet as you know it is closer than you think. SOPA has a name that belies the horrible vagueness and potential for misuse in the actual bill. It would be more accurate to call the Stop Online Piracy Act the Totalitarian Internet Control Act. Ron Paul and Nancy Pelosi have both stepped forward in opposition to SOPA, and they don't agree about very many things. It will hurt our country far worse than it will help. I have been loathe to speak out against it since normally everything I condemn gets passed and everything I support gets trounced, but this matters too much to remain silent. I'm already bracing for a move to a national dimnet should this piece of legislation become law. The government will not be able to stop those of us determined to remain free of a federal stranglehold on information.

The above photograph was taken by a helicopter drone sent over streets in Poland by protesters there. The little white circles are the tops of police helmets. The protesters wanted to get a better view of police activity by filming it from above. Technology available only to the military and elite police for so long is now becoming more affordable and widespread. Turnabout is fair play. From Infowars, where footage from the helicopter drone is available.

LSU Obliterates Auburn -&- "Election"

noreply@blogger.com (J. S. Day) — Sun, 23 Oct 2011 00:52:00 +0000

The #19 team in the nation, the Auburn Tigers, came to Baton Rouge with hopes of upsetting the BCS #1 ranked LSU football team. Auburn did manage to put points on the board, somehow. This is the second time this season LSU has defeated a long time SEC opponent by the largest margin of victory in the history of their meetings. The score was 45-10. Alabama poses a real challenge on November 5th in a game that's sure to be a nailbiter, but right now the LSU Tigers seem like Roman's going into battle against Celts. They have continued to devastate opponents. They are a convincing top ranked team, to say the least.

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Louisiana had elections today. Before they started it was crystal clear nothing would change in this district. Groovenor Gin Doll has the big race sewed up, even with 9 people running against him (in fact he won very big). I refused to pick a different candidate because none of them really worked to win the office. They certainly did not tour Baton Rouge's inner city, and that shows how little they care. Jindal could never get my vote while remaining a member of the Glorious Oligarchy Party; the GOP has led the middle class to the brink of destruction. Gotta work hard to remember Louisiana kicks ass, otherwise some of the minor black marks against it will make the whole place seem like a detestable, poverty stricken third world country again.

A Table:

Election Winner

Governor Jindl

By a mile

No competition

What election?

Sad, really.

Sorry, activists.

A Colored box:

With elections like the one we had yesterday it's easy to understand why some people give up on the entire process, thinking it meaningless. If everyone in Tiger Stadium, Death Valley that is, had actively voiced support for change and voted to make it happen, the outcome may have been different. That's more difficult than drinking beer and watching LSU make grown men cry, however. Voter apathy may have had less to do with this election than football, to be honest.
[Another meaningless comment.]

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Have been reading Templesmith's Gentleman Corpse series. It's a great little work of dark comedy. No comic book has been this enjoyable in so many years I can't remember. It follows the adventures of a corpse possessing maggot named Wormwood. The very polite and refined maggot solves ghastly crimes. Highly recommended.

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How does someone miss a spelling error in their title? Finally noticed 2 weeks later.