music { Week of Music - Friday October 19, 2007

Queen - 'Bohemian Rhapsody'



Mischa Maisky - 'Le Carnaval des Animaux XIII: Le Cygne' (Camille Saint-Saëns)

word { WoWiversary

Now it's time for another in our series of highlighting non-words making it into life's grand pageant:

WoWiversary

not a word

Brought to you by the current champion of words: melty

music { Week of Music - Thursday October 18, 2007

Muse - 'Citizen Erased'



Otis Redding - 'I've Been Loving You Too Long'

music { Week of Music - Wednesday October 17, 2007

Kate Rusby - 'Jolly Ploughboys'



The Smiths - 'The Boy with the Thorn in His Side'

psa { don't copy your butt

music { Week of Music - Tuesday October 16, 2007

Eva Cassidy - 'Over the Rainbow'




Imogen Heap - 'Let Go'

philosophy { Steve Pinker/Rebecca Goldstein interview

Over at salon.com.

I found it interesting and recommend it to others, warning though, its a loooong interview.

tech { the coming 'Storm'

As an Information Technology professional, stories like this scare me and keep me up at night.

Storm represents the future of malware. Let's look at its behavior:

1. Storm is patient. A worm that attacks all the time is much easier to detect; a worm that attacks and then shuts off for a while hides much more easily.

2. Storm is designed like an ant colony, with separation of duties. Only a small fraction of infected hosts spread the worm. A much smaller fraction are C2: command-and-control servers. The rest stand by to receive orders. By only allowing a small number of hosts to propagate the virus and act as command-and-control servers, Storm is resilient against attack. Even if those hosts shut down, the network remains largely intact, and other hosts can take over those duties.

3. Storm doesn't cause any damage, or noticeable performance impact, to the hosts. Like a parasite, it needs its host to be intact and healthy for its own survival. This makes it harder to detect, because users and network administrators won't notice any abnormal behavior most of the time.

4. Rather than having all hosts communicate to a central server or set of servers, Storm uses a peer-to-peer network for C2. This makes the Storm botnet much harder to disable. The most common way to disable a botnet is to shut down the centralized control point. Storm doesn't have a centralized control point, and thus can't be shut down that way.

This technique has other advantages, too. Companies that monitor net activity can detect traffic anomalies with a centralized C2 point, but distributed C2 doesn't show up as a spike. Communications are much harder to detect.

One standard method of tracking root C2 servers is to put an infected host through a memory debugger and figure out where its orders are coming from. This won't work with Storm: An infected host may only know about a small fraction of infected hosts -- 25-30 at a time -- and those hosts are an unknown number of hops away from the primary C2 servers.

And even if a C2 node is taken down, the system doesn't suffer. Like a hydra with many heads, Storm's C2 structure is distributed.
5. Not only are the C2 servers distributed, but they also hide behind a constantly changing DNS technique called "fast flux." So even if a compromised host is isolated and debugged, and a C2 server identified through the cloud, by that time it may no longer be active.

6. Storm's payload -- the code it uses to spread -- morphs every 30 minutes or so, making typical AV (antivirus) and IDS techniques less effective.

7. Storm's delivery mechanism also changes regularly. Storm started out as PDF spam, then its programmers started using e-cards and YouTube invites -- anything to entice users to click on a phony link. Storm also started posting blog-comment spam, again trying to trick viewers into clicking infected links. While these sorts of things are pretty standard worm tactics, it does highlight how Storm is constantly shifting at all levels.

8. The Storm e-mail also changes all the time, leveraging social engineering techniques. There are always new subject lines and new enticing text: "A killer at 11, he's free at 21 and ...," "football tracking program" on NFL opening weekend, and major storm and hurricane warnings. Storm's programmers are very good at preying on human nature.

9. Last month, Storm began attacking anti-spam sites focused on identifying it -- spamhaus.org, 419eater and so on -- and the personal website of Joe Stewart, who published an analysis of Storm. I am reminded of a basic theory of war: Take out your enemy's reconnaissance. Or a basic theory of urban gangs and some governments: Make sure others know not to mess with you.

politics { 'Where have all the Leaders gone?'

This appeared in my inbox and I thought I would share:

Where Have All the Leaders Gone?

Remember Lee Iacocca, the man who rescued Chrysler Corporation from
death throes?

He has a new book, and here are some excerpts.



"Am I the only guy in this country who's fed up with what's happening?

Where the hell is our outrage? We should be screaming bloody murder.

We've got a gang of clueless bozos steering our ship of state right
over a cliff.

We've got corporate gangsters stealing us blind, and we can't even
clean up after

a hurricane much less build a hybrid car. But instead of getting mad,

everyone sits around and nods their heads when the politicians say,
"Stay the course."



Stay the course? You've got to be kidding! This is America , not the
damned Titanic.

I'll give you a sound bite: Throw the bums out!



You might think I'm getting senile, that I've gone off my rocker,
and maybe I have.

But someone has to speak up. I hardly recognize this country anymore.

The President of the United States is given a free pass to ignore
the Constitution,

tap our phones, and lead us to war on a pack of lies. Congress
responds to record

deficits by passing a huge tax cut for the wealthy. (thanks, but I
don't need it)



The most famous business leaders are not the innovators but the guys
in handcuffs.

While we're fiddling in Iraq , the Middle East is burning and nobody
seems to know

what to do. And the press is waving pom-poms instead of asking hard
questions.

That's not the promise of America my parents and yours traveled
across the ocean for.

I've had enough. How about you?



I'll go a step further. You can't call yourself a patriot if you're
not outraged.

This is a fight I'm ready and willing to have



The Biggest C is Crisis



Leaders are made, not born. Leadership is forged in times of crisis.

It's easy to sit there with your feet up on the desk and talk theory.

Or send someone else's kids off to war when you've never seen a
battlefield yourself.

It's another thing to lead when your world comes tumbling down.



On September 11, 2001, we needed a strong leader more than any other
time in our history.

We needed a steady hand to guide us out of the ashes. Where was
George Bush?

He was reading a story about a pet goat to kids in Florida when he
heard about the attacks.

He kept sitting there for twenty minutes with a baffled look on his
face.

It's all on tape. You can see it for yourself.



Then, instead of taking the quickest route back to Washington and
immediately going

on the air to reassure the panicked people of this country, he
decided it wasn't safe

to return to the White House. He basically went into hiding for the
day, and he

told Vice President Dick Cheney to stay put in his bunker.



We were all frozen in front of our TVs, scared out of our wits,
waiting for our

leaders to tell us that we were going to be okay, and there was
nobody home.

It took Bush a couple of days to get his bearings and devise the
right photo op at Ground Zero.



That was George Bush's moment of truth, and he was paralyzed. And
what did he do

when he'd regained his composure? He led us down the road to Iraq ;
a road his own

father had considered disastrous when he was President. But Bush
didn't listen to Daddy.

He listened to a higher father. He prides himself on being faith
based, not reality based.

If that doesn't scare the crap out of you, I don't know what will



A Hell of a Mess



So here's where we stand.

We're immersed in a bloody war with no plan for winning and no plan
for leaving.

We're running the biggest deficit in the history of the country.

We're losing the manufacturing edge to Asia , while our once-great
companies are

getting slaughtered by health care costs.

Gas prices are skyrocketing, and nobody in power has a coherent
energy policy.

Our schools are in trouble. Our borders are like sieves.

The middle class is being squeezed every which way.

These are times that cry out for leadership.



But when you look around, you've got to ask:

"Where have all the leaders gone?" Where are the curious, creative
communicators?

Where are the people of character, courage, conviction, competence,
and common sense?

I may be a sucker for alliteration, but I think you get the point.



Name me a leader who has a better idea for homeland security than
making us

take off our shoes in airports and throw away our shampoo?

We've spent billions of dollars building a huge new bureaucracy, and
all we

know how to do is react to things that have already happened.



Name me one leader who emerged from the crisis of Hurricane Katrina.

Congress has yet to spend a single day evaluating the response to
the hurricane,

or demanding accountability for the decisions that were made in the
crucial hours

after the storm. Everyone's hunkering down, fingers crossed, hoping
it doesn't happen again!



Now, that's just crazy. Storms happen. Deal with it. Make a plan.

Figure out what you're going to do the next time.



Name me an industry leader who is thinking creatively about how we
can restore our

competitive edge in manufacturing. Who would have believed that
there could ever be

a time when "the Big Three" referred to Japanese car companies?

How did this happen, and more important, what are we going to do
about it?



Name me a government leader who can articulate a plan for paying
down the debt,

or solving the energy crisis, or managing the health care problem.
The silence is deafening.

But these are the crises that are eating away at our country and
milking the middle class dry.



I have news for the gang in Congress. We didn't elect you to sit on
your asses and do nothing

and remain silent while our democracy is being hijacked and our
greatness is being replaced

with mediocrity. What is everybody so afraid of? That some
bobblehead on Fox News will

call them a name? Give me a break. Why don't you guys show some
spine for a change?



Had Enough?



Hey, I'm not trying to be the voice of gloom and doom here. I'm
trying to light a fire.

I'm speaking out because I have hope. I believe in America . In my
lifetime I've had

the privilege of living through some of America 's greatest moments.
I've also

experienced some of our worst crises: the Great Depression, World
War II, the Korean War,

the Kennedy assassination, the Vietnam War, the 1970s oil crisis,
and the struggles of recent

years culminating with 9/11.



If I've learned one thing, it's this: You don't get anywhere by
standing on the sidelines

waiting for somebody else to take action Whether it's building a
better car or building

a better future for our children, we all have a role to play. That's
the challenge I'm

raising in this book. It's a call to action for people who, like me,
believe in America .

It's not too late, but it's getting pretty close. So let's shake off
the horseshit

and go to work. Let's tell 'em all we've had enough."





Excerpted from Where Have All the Leaders Gone?.

Copyright C-2007 by Lee Iacocca. All rights reserved.

(I'm posting without permission but the message is good and should go out.)

music { Week of Music - Monday October 15, 2007

Thievery Corporation - 'Lebanese Blonde'



Weezer - 'Keep Fishin' '

music { Week of Music - Sunday October 14, 2007

The Tallis Scholars - 'Nunc Dimittis' (Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina)




R.E.M. - 'Country Feedback'

music { Week of Music - Saturday October 13, 2007

Now through Friday, I'll be posting music, two per day. Enjoy.


John Coltrane Quartet - 'Alabama'



Peter Schilling - 'Major Tom'

awards { Nobel Peace Prize

Former vice-president Al Gore, along with the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, have won the Nobel Peace Prize for their work in highlighting global climate change.

This almost makes up for their awarding it to Kissinger in '73.

politics { U.S. Senate race 2008

Joe Bodell at Minnesota Campaign Report says that Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer is making his Senate run official, and will announce later today.

He's got my support.

casual_friday { <3

Sting, 'Shape of my Heart'

politics { Bush to condemn Democrats as 'Tax and spend'

Which you know is different than the Republicans who are 'Spend and let someone else take the fall for paying for it.'

In other news Bush will veto S-CHIPs because, you know, it costs too much and it really only covers poor people and since we're America (Fuck Yeah!) we don't have poor people.

Someday I will wake up and this will all have been a bit of bad beef, an undigested piece of potato or something like that.

atheism { Sam Harris @ Atheist Alliance International

This last week, some of the major luminaries of the 'new' Atheism ("Now with less shutting up!"&trade) were at the Atheist Alliance International Conference in Washington D.C..

Sam Harris gave an interesting talk that apparently didn't go down quite as well as some of the other speeches. Worth a read.

energy { 2007 Nobel Conference

Gustavus Adolphus College is hosting a Nobel Conference this week, and the topic is "Heating Up: The Energy Debate". Noted presenters include Professor Kenneth Deffeyes of Princeton, James E. Hansen of NASA Goddard and Columbia University, and polar explorer and conservationist Will Steger. The conference will undoubtedly touch on the major interrelated issues of energy, peak oil, and global climate change. I cannot attend the conference myself (although I made the time to hear Ray Kurzweil at Mayo this morning), but Gustavus will be posting online video of the two days (today and tomorrow) shortly. Worth a look, given the importance of the topic and the notability of the speakers.

Information on the conference is here.

The webcast will likely be posted here.

life { Rushford six weeks later

Star Tribune did a piece about Rushford, MN, a town not far from here that was destroyed by the flood. It covers a topic that I've been wondering about, what happens when winter hits?

I've lived in MN for my whole life. I grew up farther north where the winters are a bit harsher than down here in SE MN, but winter is winter. And even though its felt like I've not had winter the last 3 years, the SE MN winters can get get to -10F. We can still get two feet of snow, often all at once (the first winter we lived here, we received 27" inches of snow over night in March 2005).

Donate clothing or cash to the relief effort. Many in this area have lost everything except the clothing on their backs and they will need more of that in the coming months.

SE MN 2007 Flood Volunteer/Relief Information

politics { Its Monday

Found this video via 'Second Life'.



Wonder if the MN House has the same issue...what about the Federal House of Representatives?