Chaos on the hill as Pelosi & Dems run off on vacation and from dealing with the energy crisis!

Posted in Politics with tags , , on August 1, 2008 by wa4zko

From a very interesting read on the Politico here.

Also here.

From Minority Whip Roy Blunt’s (Rep MO) office:

“Although, this Democrat Majority just Adjourned for the Democrat 5-Week Vacation, House Republicans are continuing to fight on the House Floor. Although the lights, mics and C-SPAN camera’s have been turned off, House Republicans are on the Floor speaking to the tax payers in the gallery who, not surprisingly, agree with Republican Energy proposals.

All Republicans who are in town are encouraged to come to the House Floor.”

This is great too (from the Politico):

“Update 6 - Rep Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) just pretended to be a Democrat. He stood on the other side  of the chamber and listed all of the GOP bills that the Dems killed.

He then said “I am a Democrat and here is my energy plan” and he held up a picture of an old VW Bug with a sail attached to it. He paraded around he house floor with the sign while the crowd cheered.”

All I can say to the Dem’s on the hill is “keep it up, the American people are awakening to where the real problem is…and it’s not at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.” There’s a reason why Congressional approval numbers are lower than the President’s.

Apple releases BIND & ARDAgent patches

Posted in IT Security, Internet, Mac OS X with tags , , , on July 31, 2008 by wa4zko

Since I took them to task on their patch turnaround time, I’ll tip my hat when it’s due. Let’s hope they can learn from this experience and refocus on improving their security processes. I’ll leave it at that.

Security Update 2008-005 has been released for OS X.  The BIND patches are in this along with several other security updates. This update also addresses the long standing CVE-2008-2830 issues aka the “ARDAgent” vulnerability.

The related downloads can be found here.

Apple beginning to stumble?

Posted in IT Security, Internet, Mac OS X with tags , , , on July 30, 2008 by wa4zko

For those that know me, know I’m a pretty big fan of Apple, especially Mac OS X….so writing this is not easy.

I fear Apple’s talk of security is looking more and more like just talk anymore. OS X comes with a pile of 3rd party applications. Thankfully many of these are either off by default, or not overly exposed to external attack. Unfortunately OS X still defaults to “firewall” off leaving a few things exposed. Bad idea Apple, really bad idea that will likely come back to bite you bad eventually.

Now we’re closing in on a month after just about everyone else has patched the recent DNS vulnerability and there’s still no patch from Apple. Sorry, but WT% Apple? Since this vulnerability and the release of patches for it was well coordinated with major vendors (including Apple), there simply is no excuse for Apple not having this patched weeks ago. Now granted, at this time this vulnerability is more applicable to folks running against OS X Server. Still the nature and severity of this issues makes Apple’s lack of a patch after all this time just flat inexcusable. Does Apple take the security of their customers seriously or not?

Then we have the Safari on Windows vulnerability that probably would not of been patched yet if everyone hadn’t tore in them to fix it. If Apple is really serious, beyond hype, towards their software security we should not have this mess of hounding them to do the right thing every time something like this comes up. Waiting till something is actively attacked in the wild before you fix the vulnerability in your software is a pretty piss poor approach to security….I’m being nice here. Hell using that logic I should  just leave the door of my home unlocked till I hear my neighbor’s house has been burglarized.

OS X is nice and has some security perks over Windows, but it’s anything but impenetrable. Right now Apple benefits greatly from a “security from obscurity” advantage over Windows. This is changing as Mac’s gain market share and the bad guys start paying more attention to Apple’s products.

Apple needs to stop being so distracted by their iPhones and trying to get MobileMe to work and take a long hard look at their security department. Their days of being able to fly under the radar of the bad guys is coming to an end. They’ve enjoyed a tremendous resurgence of late, but one good virus/worm could wreck every gain they’ve made.

it’s almost like Apple doesn’t want to talk openly about security, vulnerabilities, patches and acts if ignoring things and leaving it’s user base in the dark will make the problem go away. Wow. It’s a real shame when even Microsoft and Sun have beat you to patching a vulnerability…that’s not a compliment.

Time to wake up Apple! Again, does Apple really take the security of their customers seriously or not?

You look at the pile of non-security updates that have come out in July here and the answer to the above question appears to be “no.”

Additional reading:

Apple skewered over missing DNS patch.

Apple falls on DNS security bug patch.

Ten thoughts on the interesting country we live in.

Posted in Politics with tags , on July 23, 2008 by wa4zko

1. No real statesmen, but we sure have plenty of career politicians in Washington. Most have forgotten who they really represent….us!

2. We’ve got two candidates for President that frankly don’t really inspire myself or most of my friends. I don’t know about you, but I’m tired of voting for the lesser of two evils! I think we need a truly viable 3rd party in this country.

a.  McCain has such a maverick track record, who knows what he would do as president. His age doesn’t concern me, surely he can survive 4 more years, grin. There’s a good reason why you can’t be president at age 18, 21, 25, or even 30. You have to be at least 35. It’s also why we need to pay more than just passing attention to who the VP will be, regardless of candidate. In life there are no guarantees that any of us, regardless of age, will live to see tomorrow so act accordingly.

b. I love the fact that we have a black man running for president. The fact that he’s made it as far as he has says so much about our country and should make us all proud. Problem is I see so many acting like he’s something new, something special, when the facts and his track record simply don’t match the hype. Sorry, but he’s just another run of the mill politician, nothing new other than when on script/teleprompter he’s a great public speaker. Peel back the talk, ask a few tough questions, and there’s little left to impress.

c. We’re electing an American President. Nothing against Europe or the Middle East, but we’re not electing the president of Europe or the Middle East. We have become such an overly vain society anymore and it’s truly sad in many ways. As such, I guess it’s not surprising that so many seem to care way TOO much about what other countries think of us. Far too many of these countries that are so critical of America, seriously need to get their own acts together before preaching at us. If we’re such a horrid country, then why do we have such a massive illegal immigration problem?

d. I haven’t checked lately, but just how much money has been poured into this election? Think either of these candidates are really going to represent you, me, or the big money donors? Look at the numbers, they are just staggering!

e. We have two candidates for President running around talking the big talk of how they’ve got the fix for all our problems. I find this interesting, very interesting indeed, considering they are both currently Senators. If they’ve really got the fix, why have they not already done it or at least tried getting it up for a vote? They are members of arguably the most powerful branch of our government. If things are really this bad and they have the solution, why wait?  Fix things now and you’ll win the Presidency in a landslide. Go back and read this one again….think about it.

f. Upset over all the spending in Washington? Don’t put all the blame on the President! Congress has to approve the budgets folks! To fix a problem you have to correctly identify the source of the problem. Don’t like the war? Guess who has to approve the funds for it?

3. We simply place way too much emphasis on the President. Maybe I missed something in school, but the President simply isn’t that powerful of a man. As a country we need to start focusing more on the folks that actually have the power to affect our daily lives….the folks in the House and Senate. Until we do, little is going to change for the better regardless of who is President.

4. For those that think their choice for President this fall will make their lives better overnight (or even over many years), you need to wake up. We’re going to be lucky if things don’t turn for the worse. The solution to most of our problems doesn’t start with the person at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, with another government program, or higher taxes for the rich. One of these days we’ll learn. See item #3 above.

5. To fix our energy crisis we have to learn supply and demand concepts. Apparently far too many don’t understand these concepts. We’re not the lone economic superpower in the world anymore, think China, think India.  Drill here, drill now, pay less. I’m all for alternatives and learning to make better use of what we have, but we are an petroleum based economy and that is not going to change overnight or even this decade. Ethanol is not the answer. Electric/hybrid cars are not the answer, at least not for now with our already overloaded electric grids.  Plus imagine what your electric bill will be if you have a couple battery powered cars in your driveway being charged nightly. Yeah, lots of this stuff sounds good at first till you think them all the way through in the real world.

6. There are certain fundamental laws of physics and thermal dynamics that are what they are. No “magic” technology is going to change them. Time for many to wake up to this and get real for a change. Let’s think pragmatic, not emotionally when it comes to energy.

7. We have many that preach tolerance, yet often are the most intolerant of all. We have too many in America that preach racial equality, yet operate in a manner inconsistent with their preaching. Why all these labels? Why all these classes of people? Enough of the hyphenated American crap, the last I checked we’re all Americans. Let’s stop letting certain big mouths and our pathetic news media manipulate us into these divided classes. We’re not perfect, but it’s still a wonderful country to live in with lots of opportunity. If you think it’s so bad here then go pick a dozen countries at random and go visit each for awhile.

8. Real journalism is nearly dead in this country. We’ve got left wing media. We’ve got right wing media. Both tell us they have to exist to cancel each other out and one is more fair and unbiased than the other. Yeah right! How about a refreshing change? How about reporting ALL the facts. How about reporting both sides of a story? Ask the tough (and often obvious) questions of both sides? Present the facts, let people decide for themselves, if you give opinion state that it’s opinion only. I fault our horrible sad sack excuse for news media in our country for for a lot of our problems that never seem to get fixed and why our country is so divided currently.

9. I don’t agree that America is still a racist country. That said, I’m not so naive as to think we don’t still have a few racist morons around, but they are not the norm. I just don’t think most Americans judge others by their skin color. I tend to think that most of us judge people by their character, qualifications, and the company they keep. We have far too many people running around looking for a reason to be offended. I’m an 1/8th Indian, but I don’t go around getting offended by Indian jokes, the name of a sports team, and so forth. Lot of folks dearly need to lighten up and learn to get over themselves.

10. Many say our schools need to get back to the basics of reading, writing, and arithmetic. I would have to add a couple more area of study….history and basic economics.

end of rant!

Have a laugh - the tale of two crocodiles

Posted in Humor, Politics with tags , on July 22, 2008 by wa4zko

I don’t normally get into nor pay much attention to all the joke/fwd emails, but this one is pretty good… Warning, mild language in it.
——————————————–

Two Crocodiles were sitting at the side of the swamp near the lake.

The smaller one turned to the bigger one and said, ‘I can’t understand how you can be so much bigger than me. We’re the same age; we were the same size as kids. I just don’t get it.’

‘Well,’ said the big Croc, ‘what have you been eating?’

‘Politicians, same as you,’ replied the small Croc.

‘Hmm. Well, where do you catch them?’

‘Down the other side of the swamp near the parking lot by the Capitol.’

‘Same here. Hmm. How do you catch them?’

‘Well, I crawl up under one of their Lexus cars and wait for one to unlock the car door. Then

I jump out, grab them by the leg, shake the shit out of them and eat ‘em!’

‘Ah!’ says the big Crocodile, ‘I think I see your problem. You’re not getting any real nourishment. See, by the time you finish shaking the shit out of a Politician, there’s nothing left but an asshole and a briefcase!’

2008 CQ WW VHF Contest wrap up

Posted in Contesting, Ham Radio, Uncategorized with tags , on July 22, 2008 by wa4zko

Total QSO’s: 38 (2007 was 21)
Claimed Score: 1064 (2007 was 336)

BAND 6m 2m
QSOS 33 5
GRIDS 23 5
STATES 13 4

6m was 100w 5el 50′
2m was 45w 10el 58′

The CQ WW VHF 2008 was pretty slow this year. Considering all the nice 6m/2m action in June and many of the weekends prior to this contest, don’t guess I can complain. This is usually one of the better contests for me, historically at least. Last year was slow, so I was hoping this year things would pick up. My QSO and score is up this year, but still nothing in comparison to previous years activity levels.

Hardly anyone on 2m for some reason. I think they were busy chasing the very fleeting 6m openings we had. 2m was actually in good shape to the north and west. WB9Z over in Illinois (EN60) was easy on 6m direct and very loud on 2m.

I found and worked our local rover Dan, K9ZF in both EM68 and EM78. Hats off to Dan and his rover efforts when gas isn’t cheap!

6m was pretty slow most of the time. We had a couple decent, but short lived openings into Texas and New England areas. Then a few more very fleeting openings and what sounded like very weak scatter to the NE Saturday night.

Sunday morning 6m picked up somewhat and I managed to snag a pretty rare grid that I needed on 6m. During a brief New England opening I worked Nick, KC1MA portable out on Cape Cod in FN51. FN51 is mostly water and considered pretty darn rare! I think this is the last grid I needed on 6m to have all the New England grids. Needless to say the QSL card for that one is already in the mail! Punch FN51 in here and you’ll see why it’s rare (BTW, neat tool for finding 6 digit grids):

http://f6fvy. free.fr/qthLocat or/fullScreen. php

Even EM85 has been strangely dead this year in terms of rovers/portable operations down there. Several others have noticed it. So I’m still contemplating an EM86/EM87 grid/mountaintop mini dxpedition this fall for the sprints. Several of the CT gang need them both. We’ll see how things play out. I need to take a Saturday or Sunday and run down there and recon out some operating spots.

FYI - CQ WW VHF Contest this weekend

Posted in Contesting, Ham Radio, Packet Radio with tags , on July 18, 2008 by wa4zko

FYI,

Contest rules/announcement:

http://www.cqww- vhf.com/rules. htm

Watch out for some tropo Sunday morning. There was some big
enhancement to the NE this morning. Dry Ridge 220 packet logs were
showing paths to central/eastern Ohio, West Virginia, and into the
Somerset PA areas. Some of what was heard this morning:

K8LG-2  Morgantown, WV area.

MTD22-4, KC3XD-2, and K3SMT from the Somerset PA area.

K8QIK-14  Lancaster, OH area.

K8AL-6  Cambridge OH area (hear them often on 220)

Latest tropo forecast has backed off
some, but still some chance there:

http://www.dxinfoce ntre.com/ tropo.html

I plan on working portions of it from the usual EM78pp location.
Should be on Saturday afternoon/evening, and maybe parts of Sunday.

73 & GL
Jeff
WA4ZKO

Adobe Acrobat Reader 9 bloatware/piggybacking at it’s finest.

Posted in Bloatware, IT Security, Internet, Internet Scum with tags , , , on July 18, 2008 by wa4zko

Adobe Acrobat Reader 9 came out recently. Seems to be a nice PDF tool, but comes packed with some unexpected extras. Some of these extras are allegedly still in “beta” and no option to not install them. This is raising many concerns with security and corporate network management folks in regards to rolling this out on their networks. It’s also alleged that even if you tell it to not check for updates, it still does.

If you go through the usual download pages on Adobe.com you get the option to not download the eBay Desktop component. Oh how generous of you Adobe. Unfortunately you still get stuck with Adobe Air and “adobe.com” apps/icons getting installed without any option to not install them. The “Adobe.com” icon launches an online app service that allows for file sharing, collaboration, and so forth…..your network security hackles up yet? As if that isn’t bad enough, it’s alleged that this stuff is all “beta” status….OUCH! There is no option to not install this stuff, you have to go into add/remove programs and remove it manually afterwards (good idea IMHO).

They do offer a much more stripped down download, but it’s anything but easy to find here. You want the file named AdbeRdr90_en_US_Std.exe for a more reasonable install. Just like with Apple’s software (Quicktime, Itunes, Safari) I recommend you go checking for and remove the “extras” that are installed afterwards. Apple should buy Adobe! IMHO, their software packaging/bloatware bundling practices would compliment each other well.

For Adobe and Apple, it’s our computers and networks. If you want to add additional things to your installation bundles that’s fine, but make it clear and easy to tell what is optional and provide an “OPT-IN” option during install…and honor the end users selections.  This stuff is getting ridiculous. No wonder why many of my clients have banned iTunes and QuickTime from their desktops; Adobe may find itself in the same boat soon!

Enough is enough Apple and Adobe!

FaceBook privacy concerns raised again.

Posted in Bloatware, IT Security, Internet, Internet Scum on July 18, 2008 by wa4zko

Here is yet another study that raises privacy/security concerns with FaceBook. Not the first time their practices have come under fire.

Compared to the way too bloated MySpace system, I’d much prefer the FaceBook approach. Many have urged me to get on FaceBook, but I’ve refused thus far. In many ways I can only place them in the same boat as Real Networks and prefer not to use their software/systems over security and privacy concerns.  After you smell smoke enough times, eventually you can’t ignore the fact that you’ve got a fire on your hands, grin.

FYI - NBC Dateline to air a story about “Tower Dogs”

Posted in Ham Radio, Radio Broadcasting with tags , on July 18, 2008 by wa4zko

Thought you all might be interested in this. Below is per a release….

http://www.msnbc. msn.com/id/ 25736991/

The statistics should remind us all just how dangerous tower
climbing/work is.

73
Jeff
WA4ZKO

———— ——— ——— ——— ——— ——— -
July 16, 2008 - NBC’s “Dateline Presents” says it will take “a
never-before- seen journey into the hazardous world of the tower
climbers who work on the front lines of America’s high-tech
communications system.” The program, “Tower Dogs,” will air on
Monday, July 21 at 10:00 PM/ET.