MassPerception.com

It’s turning out to be more like a “day without a central or south-americanâ€? . . .

At lunch I saw a caravan of 4 small import cars blaring their horns and driving around downtown Oakland with American, Mexican and Nicaraguan flags flying . . . the unfortunate part was that the largest of the flags had been taped to the trunk and bumper of the cars. In case you didn’t know, this is a clearly disrespectful way to display the American flag. Rather than translating the National Anthem into spanish, maybe they should start with this website . . .

a day without an immigrant, american flag, politics

Following up on my previous post about the Bush administration using child pornography as a reason to force ISPs to store records regarding all of your web access, a post over at Identity Woman got me thinking . . .

Maybe we should have a “day without a computer admin”; we could all shut down our networks and march in the streets to protest big brother’s attempt to put us Internet users down.

Just to drive the point home, the CNet Article point out:

Critics of DeGette’s proposal have said that, while the justification for Internet surveillance might be protecting children, the data would be accessible to any local or state law enforcement official investigating anything from drug possession to tax evasion. In addition, the one-year retention is a minimum; the FCC would receive the authority to require Internet companies to keep records “for not less than one year after a subscriber ceases to subscribe to such services.”

Scary, every site you visit would be logged and the data would be accessible to law enforcement at a moments notice. I guess the terrorist boogey man is played out . . . now they are playing the child porn card.

But seriously, ISPs don’t regularly log, let alone store the kind of data that these guys are trying to mandate . . . the volume of data is huge!

I’m turning off my logs right now in protest. Now were did I put that TOR install file . . .

freedom, politics, privacy, rant, george bush

An administrative law judge in New York has recently ruled against the City of New York in a lawsuit filed by an employee terminated for surfing the Internet on city time. The judge ruled that “surfing the web is equivalent to reading a newspaper or talking on the phone” and has suggested that “only a reprimand is appropriate as punishment”.

The ruling did not address surfing porn at work . . .

The article is located over at MSNBC

new york, web surfing

Scott McNealy has stepped down as Sun’s CEO. All I can say is that it’s about time!

Hopefully they can now do something with the wonderful intellectual property they have socked away in the vault.

scott mcnealy, sun

Proving that the combination of pen and checkbook is mightier than the sword, RSA Security announced the acquisition of PassMark Security for approximately $45 million dollars (far less than RSA’s acquisition price for Cyota).
The acquisition will bring together the top two multi-factor and risk-based authentication vendors serving the financial services space. While both RSA/Cyota and PassMark have very strong solutions, neither has a complete package – this merger should bring together the best parts of each company to make an unbeatable solution.

As for timing, this may be a bad time for an acquisition as all US financials to comply with the FFIEC Multi-Factor authentication guidance by the end of the year. If RSA is unable to integrate quickly, there may be enough chaos to drive many of their potential customers into the arms of their competition.

This might be a good time to let both products carry forward without making any major changes . . . at least until the banks have chosen and deployed their solution of choice. Integration and deployment of a common platform could be presented as a version upgrade in the future.

Only time will tell.

ffiec, authentication, cyota, multi-factor, passmark security, rsa security

In another power grab orchestrated by the Bush Regime, Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez has announced a push to require ISPs to maintain records of all sites a user may access while online. A particular quote of interest from the article included:

Mr Gonzales also said that he is also investigating ways to ensure that ISPs retain records of a user’s web activities to track down offenders.

“The investigation and prosecution of child predators depends critically on the availability of evidence that is often in the hands of internet service providers,” he said.

“Unfortunately, the failure of some internet service providers to keep records has hampered our ability to conduct investigations in this area.”

I guess the terrorism excuse is not playing well anymore, so they needed a new ‘boogey man’ that tests well with the focus groups.

No one can deny that child pornography is sick and disgusting, but to use it to justify a blatant power grab and a gross invasion of privacy of all Internet users is equally disgusting.

You cannot shortcut a good investigation by law enforcement. The basic premise of law in the US does not mandate that private industry maintain a paper trail on every citizen to be produced upon request of the government. The burden of proof is on the prosecution for a reason . . . we shouldn’t make their job any easier.

If this law passes, ISPs would be required to maintain records of your online activities in the event that you are suspected of participating in the trade and distribution of child pornography.

Now in the age of the Bush regime, where a court order is no longer ‘required’ to procure data under the guise of national security, there are no safeguards to protect ordinary citizens from spying by the government.

In other words, there’s no one guarding the hen house . . . and the chicken hawks are circling outside.

george bush, child pornography, freedom, politics, privacy, rant, abuse of power