Blackhacker

First …

Fresh Security Breaches at Los Alamos - Newsweek National News - MSNBC.com
In late May, a Los Alamos staffer took his lab laptop with him on vacation to Ireland. A senior nuclear official familiar with the inner workings of Los Alamos—who would not be named talking about internal matters—says the laptop’s hard drive contained “government documents of a sensitive nature.” The laptop was also fitted with an encryption card advanced enough that its export is government-controlled. In Ireland, the laptop was stolen from the vacationer’s hotel room. It has not been recovered.

And then…

Then, 10 days ago, a Los Alamos scientist fired off an e-mail to colleagues at the Nevada nuclear test site. The scientist works in Los Alamos’s P Division, which does experimental physics related to weapons design, a lab source says. The material he e-mailed was “highly classified,” the same source says. But he sent his e-mail over the open Internet, rather than through the secure defense network.

How can one of the most important and sensitive military research facilities have no clue about data security? Reporting about Los Alamos security breaches, is almost not news anymore. I mean did we become the most powerful nation on Earth by accident? Are we really THIS stupid?

SIMPLE things could have stopped these breaches. Policies that once implemented would have required no thought by the participants.

1. ALL EMAIL SHOULD BE ENCRYPTED
   Why this has not been adopted at east as a defense industry standard is beyond me. There must be several COTS solutions that could be used if they don;t want to use OSS, which is also available. This is important because even if sensitive email, is sent over the internet, it can not be read except by the intended recipients.
2. DON’T TAKE WORK DATA HOME
   15 or maybe even 10 you might have had to have that data physically on you PC if it was large, and if you r deadline was tight enough that might require you to take it home for you take it home. (AFAIK there are laws , and rules about where you can store classified information. Even if the laptop was cleared for such use, his home and car must also be cleared for such use if he is going to leave it unattended for any length of time) But that is no longer necessary. High speed networks and encryption technology has made working from home easy and secure, without actually having the data on your local machine.

Common sense wisdom: There are only two reason why any nation want to import workers

1. It is actually having trouble filling positions.
2. It want to push down labor costs by important cheap labor.

After seeing this video what do you think is happening here in the US with H1B?

Read the story at computerworld

Dap: Darkstar

If you look to the right you’ll see I have links to Amazon for books I’m reading and music I listening to right now. Among them you will find one for Chrisette Michele’s debut CD “I AM”. I heard about this young lady from a Hony Soul(A streaming “radio” show and podcast that features interviews with soul artists and a great music show), and Soul Sanctuary(which I’ve talked about before). Anyway I heard some tracks from those podcasts and saw the the CD in Target for only $10.00. THE BEST TEN BUCKS I SPENT ON MUSIC IN A LONG WHILE.

Favorite track is “Be OK.” Gosh Darnit when you hear that song you really think it all gonna be OK. Not to mention the fact you can’t help but bob that head when you hear it. Besides I’m partial to song that use horns.

I can’t believe it!!! REAL music, about REAL STUFF, from people that can REALLY SING is back. I’m tempted to turn the radio back on …. almost

Dap: Tiffany B Brown

… I don’t even have HBO. But I used and I did watch it when I did. So I was kinda interested in how The series ended up. I was talking with colleague about the show and he informed me that Tony whacked Christopher “So I had my What ?! Christopher’s Dead” moment about a week ago. Now I doubt ANYONE, with the exception of maybe Helen Keller could have escaped the news how the Series ended on Sunday Night. Even then I think that dang Miracle Worker lady would have spilled the beans to her too. Anyway, being that I didn’t see it I really can’t, and therefore won’t comment on how it ended. But Ron Moore, head writer and one of the executive producers of the GREATEST SHOW EVER TO BE ON TV, “Battlestar Galactica” liked it:

It’s poetic. It’s exciting. It’s perfect.

And most of all, I wish I’d thought of it first.

Don’t Even think about it Ron!!!! BSG’s got one more season, and in this season I want ANSWERS. They don’t have to be neat, but sure as HECK they better be plausible. Starting with What The !@#$ is the Cylon plan. Man! I sometimes wonder if they even know. But to tell you the truth it should not even start there. Before you even start with the battle that we left the ragtag fleet in at the cliff Hanger, OR with how Starbuck can STILL be alive, you need to tell 4 back stories. You HAVE to explain to me Torie, Anders, Tyrol and Tigh are Cylons, and it better make sense.

Wow, I’m pretty worked up about this. whew … I watch TOO much TV.

1. Batteries that ignite
2. rootkit CDs
3. Blue-Ray Falling behind HD-DVD.
4. The delay of PS3
5. Add to that the Nintendo Wii, is handing them their hind quarters, after removing it from their sneaker, in their own back yard

BetaNews | PS3 Falls Further Behind in Japan
apanese gaming magazine company Enterbrain said that the PS3 had only managed to sell 45,321 units in May, far less than the Wii’s 251,794 units during the month of May, a five-to-one margin. In April, the Wii was outselling the PS3 by a four-to-one ratio.

emphases mine

As you can see my Blogroll is back. (I still have to do some pruning.) Normally, a link will enter and leave with little, read no, fanfare. But I have decided that I will highlight some of them, to let you know why they are here. Being that June is Black Music Month, I will start with a link to one of my favorites.

If you scroll down to the “Music Art Culture” section you’ll find the Soul Sanctuary link. (Be warned that this link has the flash intro that plays music, so if you are at work and don’t want your boss to know that you ain’t workin’ turn the sound down, or use some head phones.) Soul Sanctuary is a non-profit group that produces a podcasts and streaming broadcasts for various outlets. It has so many offerings now that has grown to 7 podcasts in one. That means on a single feed you will get all of these shows:

• The Original Soul Sanctuary
  This is a weekly one hour show that showcases a variety of soul, hip hop, jazz, and spoken word. Here you will get current, and classic, and stuff that is nearly IMPOSSIBLE to find in any commercial outlet.
• Enharmonic
  “…more great spoken word and soulful music to groove you through your week…incorporating some of the artist interviews, special music spotlights and other fun features…”
• Stereotroniqs
  Nas is is wrong. Hip Hop is alive and well. Stereotroniqs is a head noddin’ feast for the senses. Featuring Staf Sharif, and co-hosts Sleeves and Tyree, and DJ Luke Raws on the 1 & 2
• Project Vibe
  An Hour long biweekly show show of even more of that great Music that origanlly is streamed from Project Vibe
• Soul Speak
  This is an interview show featuring so of the most talented and interesting people in Hip Hop, Jazz, Soul and Spoken Word
• The Feel Good Flow!!
  “Join RhapsodE for an hour-long exploration of personal positivity…songs that will inspire and uplift you.”
• SuiteSpot
  “… will feature a rotating staff of DJs: Stephanie Renee, RhapsodE, Staf Sharif, and special monthly mixes from talented turntablist friends around the world”

Not exactly news but, 17 days ago Wordpress 2.2 was released. Just a few days ago, I upgraded to this version. I actually didn’t mean to but a debacle I made while doing some maintenance forced me to do so.

There are a lot of fixes in this version, but the best thing is that widgets are a core part of this release. You don’t need the widget plugin anymore, but your old widgets may not be compatible with 2.2. I found that for plugins that pass parameters to widgets at registration time, won’t work. Apparently the signature for ‘register_sidebar_widget’ has changed. It now has 4 parameters instead of 3.

The old signature looks like this:
void register_sidebar_widget ( string name, callback [, string classname ] )

The new looks something like this:
void register_sidebar_widget ( string name, callback [ x, [, string classname ]] )

Notice that there is a possible new parameter but, it is not added at the end but before the classname param. If you are calling it the old way your value won’t get passed in. And if your widget code is expecting a parameter it will error out. Passing in a null value for the third field, fixes this problem. Like so:

register_sidebar_widget(array("BTW '$title'"), array('BH_Text','widget'), null, $title);

I don’t know what this new param, is used for yet.