George Will: Congress is a Toxic Asset
This is one of the few times I agree with George Will:
With the braying of 328 yahoos — members of the House of Representatives who voted for retroactive and punitive use of the tax code to confiscate the legal earnings of a small, unpopular group — still reverberating, the Obama administration yesterday invited private-sector investors to become business partners with the capricious and increasingly anti-constitutional government. This latest plan to unfreeze the financial system came almost half a year after Congress shoveled $700 billion into the Troubled Assets Relief Program, $325 billion of which has been spent without purchasing any toxic assets.
TARP funds have, however, semi-purchased, among many other things, two automobile companies (and, last week, some of their parts suppliers), which must amaze Sweden. That unlikely tutor of America regarding capitalist common sense has said, through a Cabinet minister, that the ailing Saab automobile company is on its own: “The Swedish state is not prepared to own car factories.”
Read the whole thing… Will nails it, at time when we need reasoned, intelligent leadership we’re saddled with what can best be described as a Parliament of Whores.
Related
Breaking: Senate Stimulus Plan Vote Underway
It’ll be a while before we have the final tally as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid intends to hold the vote open so that Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) can return to Washington and vote later tonight.
Right now it looks like the bill is going to pass there are 57 yes votes with three Democrats (including Brown) left to vote.)
Erstwhile Republicans Arlen Specter, Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe have all voted yes.
More to come…
Update (6:52 p.m.): Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) – Aye… They need 2 more reach the 60 votes needed for passage.
Update (8:05 p.m.): It’s all but done… 59 yeas, just waiting on Brown to make it official. I can’t help but think the framers are turning over in their graves.
Microsoft’s Zune Music Player Hit With Glitch?
I haven’t been paying close attention to the news today but this caught my eye:
Microsoft’s Zune Hit With Glitch
By Jessica Hodgson, Wall Street Journal, December 31, 2009
Microsoft Corp.’s Zune portable music player is suffering from a glitch that may have frozen thousands of units, in the latest setback for the world’s biggest software company.
On Wednesday, Zune owners flooded blogs and Internet chat sites to complain that they couldn’t listen to music on the 30 gigabyte version of the Zune, an early version of the device, because it wouldn’t start up properly. The postings noted that the digital music players get stuck on the Zune logo screen when the machine’s software is loading.
A message on the Zune support Web site acknowledged the problem and informed customers Microsoft was working to address it, but didn’t identify the cause. Microsoft declined to say how many devices were affected.
“We are aware that customers with Zune 30GB devices are experiencing issues with their Zune device,” a Microsoft spokesman, in a separate statement, said.
“We are actively working now to isolate the issue and develop a plan to address it. We will keep customers informed on next steps via the support page on zune.net.”
The Zune devices appear to have started freezing early Wednesday, according to multiple blog postings. In a video posted on the Internet, one Zune user described how his device, after having been fully charged, froze and wouldn’t move past the Zune user screen. Read the rest…
Jennifer LeClaire has more at Newsfactor.com:
While the rumor mill is focused on Apple developing a larger-screen iPod touch, the blogosphere is churning with angry reports about frozen 30GB Microsoft Zunes.
Discussions board like ZuneUser.com, ZuneScene.com and Zune.net offer first-hand accounts of the problems with Microsoft’s music player. It seems the Zunes reboot, then freeze once the status bar reaches 100 percent.
Some are calling it the “Z2K” problem, playing off the infamous Y2K bug that many thought would throw the computing industry in chaos at the beginning of the century when dates changed from 1999 to 2000. That’s because the problem seems to have started at exactly midnight PST Wednesday — the first moments of the last day of 2008.
Makes me glad I bought an iPod.
MoblieMe Helps Nab iPhone Thief
I was reading RISKS Digest this morning and came across this little gem from TUAW:
iPhone thief thwarted by MobileMe sync
by Brett Terpstra on Dec 17th 2008 at 9:30PM
To say that MobileMe hasn’t made everyone happy may be a bit of an understatement. We don’t generally hear from the satisfied customers, but we have received a fair amount of email from dissatisfied users of Apple’s “cloud computing” solution. Given the barrage of negativity, it’s nice to hear a positive take now and then. TUAW reader Rob had just the thing …
While at the dry cleaner one day, Rob’s iPhone was stolen. He immediately chalked it up as gone forever, and proceeded to purchase a brand new one that same evening. It was the next day when unfamiliar contacts began to appear on the new phone. The (not-too-bright) thief was unwittingly supplying him with names and phone numbers of his or her closest friends, via the magic of MobileMe synchronization from the stolen phone to the cloud and eventually to his new phone. “It didn’t take long for me to realize that MobileMe was leading me right to the thief!” wrote Rob.
Thank God for stupid criminals.
Microsoft Patches Critical IE Bug
Microsoft has released a special out of cycle update for its Internet Explorer web browser. The update, described in Microsoft’s security bulletin MS08-078, fixes a flaw present in all available versions of the popular browser, including IE5.01, IE6, IE7 and IE8 Beta 2.
Computerworld has more on the story here.
On a related note Mozilla and Opera Software both released updates for their respective web browsers today.
Oh Happy Day
A few weeks ago I published a short post on the demise of Atrivo (aka Intercage). Today Washington Post technology columnist Brian Krebs brings word that McColo Corp., a Northern California hosting firm that had been identified by the computer security community as home base for machines responsible for coordinating the sending of roughly 75 percent of all spam each day, has been taken offline.
Host of Internet Spam Groups is Cut Off
Spam Drops After Internet Providers Disconnect a California Hosting Firm
By Brian Krebs
washingtonpost.com Staff Writer
Wednesday, November 12, 2008; 7:16 PMThe volume of junk e-mail sent worldwide dropped drastically today after a Web hosting firm identified by the computer security community as a major host of organizations allegedy engaged in spam activity was taken offline, according to security firms that monitor spam distribution online.
While its gleaming, state-of-the-art, 30-story office tower in downtown San Jose, Calif., hardly looks like the staging ground for what could be called a full-scale cyber crime offensive, security experts have found that a relatively small firm at that location is home to servers that serve as a gateway for a significant portion of the world’s junk e-mail.
The servers are operated by McColo Corp., which these experts say has emerged as a major U.S. hosting service for international firms and syndicates that are involved in everything from the remote management of millions of compromised computers to the sale of counterfeit pharmaceuticals and designer goods, fake security products and child pornography via email.
But the company’s web site was not accessible today, when two Internet providers cut off MoColo’s connectivity to the Internet, security experts said. Immediately after McColo was unplugged, security companies charted a precipitous drop in spam volumes worldwide. E-mail security firm IronPort said spam levels fell by roughly 66 percent as of Tuesday evening.
Spamcop.net, another spam watch dog, found a similar decline, from about 40 spam e-mails per second to around 10 per second. Read the rest…
Score one for the good guys… Of course I’m sure we’ll all miss those ads for male enhancement products in our inbox… 
HP, Dell, Toshiba Recall Laptop Batteries
Computerworld is reporting that HP, Dell & Toshiba are recalling approximately 100,000 Sony made laptop batteries.
October 31, 2008 (IDG News Service) Three of the biggest laptop computer makers are recalling certain batteries because of a risk they may overheat and catch fire. Sony Corp. made the batteries. The recall mirrors, yet appears a lot smaller, than a similar one that occurred two years ago.
This time, around 100,000 batteries are affected, a fraction of the 9.6 million recalled in 2006. Dell Inc., Hewlett-Packard Co. and Toshiba Corp. have already issued recalls for the batteries that were used in their products, and the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission said “consumers should stop using recalled products immediately.”
The batteries in question were manufactured between October 2004 and June 2005, and there have been about 40 incidents reportedly worldwide of overheating to date, Sony said today.
Most of the incidents are believed to be the result of manufacturing-line adjustments made during the period that may have affected some batteries, Sony said. In addition, some may have been caused by raw material flaws.
Of the 100,000 batteries affected, around 35,000 were used in laptops shipped in the U.S. By far the greatest number, about 32,000, were shipped with HP laptops. Read the rest…
Detail about the effected batteries and the recall programs can be found at:
- HP Notebook PC Battery Pack Replacement Program
- Toshiba Sony Battery Pack Recall Programs
- Dell Battery Recall
Update: engadget.com is reporting the recall also includes Li-ion batteries used in some Acer laptops as well as those from HP, Dell and Toshiba.
A Quick Update on the Palin E-mail Hacking Case
It’s been a few weeks since Sarah Palin’s private e-mail account was broken into and I’m sure many of you are curious about what’s happening with the case.
Unfortunately, I don’t have any new information on the investigation or suspects… Michelle Malkin has confirmed the investigation is ongoing though:
I talked to Justice Department spokeswoman Laura Sweeney today for a follow-up. She says the “inquiry is ongoing.” She couldn’t comment on any federal grand jury activity that might be taking place related to the case.
SecurityFocus columnist Mark Rasch’s latest column examines the relevant federal statutes and how it might apply to the Palin case:
The Vice of Vice Presidential E-Mail
Mark Rasch, SecurityFocus, October 6, 2008Is it a crime to read someone else’s e-mail without their consent?
Seems like a simple question, but the law is not so clear. In mid-September 2008, a hacker using the handle “Rubico” claim credit for breaking into the Yahoo! e-mail account of Governor Sarah Palin, the Republican Vice Presidential candidate. In a post online, Rubico wrote that he had been following news reports that claimed Palin had been using her personal Yahoo e-mail account for official government business. (Editor’s note: Reports have linked David Kernell, a 20 year old undergraduate at the University of Tennessee, with the intrusion, but Kernell has not been charged nor indicted.)
To break into Palin’s account, Rubico had to figure out the personal details that the governor used as security questions. From behind a single proxy server, Rubico used a form of social engineering to change Palin’s password to “popcorn” and then posted both the technique he used and a few of the e-mails he observed. The technique was relatively simple and took less that 45 minutes, because much of Palin’s information was public. Read the rest…
Update (Tuesday, October 7, 2008 @ 10:05 a.m.): I originally wrote this post a little after 11:00 p.m. last night and after rereading it this morning I decide to change the title and rewrite parts of it. The most significant change is quote from Michelle Malkin’s article.
Update: Palin E-mail Hacker Indicted
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Palin E-mail Hack Follow-up – Updated
Updates Below the Fold…
As I mentioned yesterday the FBI and Secret Service have opened a criminal investigation into the unauthorized access of Sarah Palin’s private e-mail account. That investigation is undoubtedly progressing quietly outside the public view.
According to media reports the Associated Press has refused a Secret Service request for copies of the stolen e-mails. Smooth move AP, I can understand your desire to protect your sources, but the theft of those e-mails represent a gross violation of Sarah Palin’s privacy. You can either be part of problem or part of the solution.
On the bright side the operator of the proxy service used by the hacker is ready and willing to cooperate with investigators. From The Register:
Memo to US Secret Service: Net proxy may pinpoint Palin email hackers
Not quite Anonymous
By Dan Goodin in San Francisco
Posted in Security, 18th September 2008 01:22 GMTMemo to law enforcement investigators tracking down who broke into Sarah Palin’s Yahoo email account: Gabriel Ramuglia might be a good place to start.
The 25-year-old webmaster and entrepreneur is the operator of Ctunnel.com, the browsing proxy service used by the group that hacked into the vice presidential candidate’s personal email account and exposed its contents to the world. While he has yet to examine his logs, he says there’s a good chance they will lead to those responsible, thanks to some carelessness on their part.
“Usually, this sort of thing would be hard to track down because it’s Yahoo email, and a lot of people use my service for that,” he told El Reg in a phone interview. “Since they were dumb enough to post a full screenshot that showed most of the [Ctunnel.com] URL, I should be able to find that in my log.”
Ramuglia got into the proxy business a few years ago, after schools began blocking access to an online game site he used to co-own. Pretty soon, people began using the proxy service to access YouTube, Gmail, MySpace, and dozens of other sites that are routinely blocked by IT departments.
As an aside… I used to carry a badge, criminal investigations happen at their own pace. I wouldn’t expect to hear much, if anything, about the progress of this investigation for several days.
Sarah Palin’s Private E-mail Account Hacked – Updated
Filed under: Crime, Internet, Politics, Security, Technology
Scroll For Updates…
Network World and Wired are reporting that Sarah Palin’s private Yahoo mail account has been hacked and that screenshots of messages have been posted on various web sites.
From Wired:
Vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin’s private Yahoo e-mail account was hacked, and some of its contents posted on the internet Wednesday.
The internet griefers known as Anonymous took credit for the intrusion, and screenshots of e-mail messages and photos belonging to the Alaska governor have been published by WikiLeaks. Threat Level has confirmed the authenticity of at least one of the e-mails.
The cache of stolen data contains five screenshots from Palin’s account, including the text of an e-mail exchange with Alaska Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell about his campaign for Congress.
Another screenshot shows Palin’s inbox and a third shows the text of an e-mail from Amy McCorkell, whom Palin appointed to the Governor’s Advisory Board on Alcoholism and Drug Abuse in 2007.
Hacking into someones e-mail is a federal crime punishable by up to five years in prison and it appears that the FBI in coordination with the Secret Service has begun an investigation into this incident. I’m a little fuzzy on the law here but I’m reasonably certain that sites like WikiLeaks and Gawker that published the stolen information could face prosecution along with the hackers.
Update: The McCain Campaign has released the following statement:
“This is a shocking invasion of the Governor’s privacy and a violation of law, the matter has been turned over to the appropriate authorities and we hope that anyone in possession of these e-mails will destroy them. We will have no further comment.”
Update: The FBI has confirmed that an investigation is underway. From CNN’s Political Tracker Blog:
FBI Spokesman Eric Gonzalez in Anchorage, Alaska confirms to CNN an investigation is underway.
“We are aware of the allegations and we are coordinating with Secret Service as far as the allegation that someone has hacked into Governor Palin’s personal e-mail account,” he said. “We are going to be working a joint investigation with Secret Service on this.”
Brian Hale, an FBI spokesman in Washington, also confirms the FBI has been contacted about the incident. Two federal law enforcement sources say the FBI and Secret Service would have concurrent jurisdiction normally on a matter such as this, but it remains to be seen if the Secret Service will take the lead on the investigation because Palin is a protectee.
Update: The always indispensable Michelle Malkin has the story behind the story:
This afternoon, I mentioned an infamous group of hackers whose Internet bulletin board was the gathering place for those who bragged about and publicized the Sarah Palin private e-mail hacking.
A tech-savvy reader who monitors the hackers’ site e-mailed me a detailed explanation of how it went down, who was responsible, and how someone with a conscience warned a friend of the Palin family of the crime (language warning):
As an aside… This would be a good time to change your passwords. A strong password should be at least 8 characters and include letters, numbers, and at least one special character. It should also be easy to remember but not easily guessed.
Hat Tip: Michelle Malkin & Ace.
For Additional Updates see:
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