June 13, 2002

War On Error

/ current events

War On Error: Live Pictures Taken by U.S. Planes Were Freely Available

The war on terrorism in Europe is being undermined by a military communications system that makes it easier for terrorists to tune in to live video of U.S. intelligence operations than to watch Disney cartoons or new-release movies.

Now, I’m all in favor of openness in government, but I believe someone’s pants are down around his ankles here.

What do you suppose the odds are that this’ll get to be a big story, and that Ashcroft will then tell us something scary to distract us?

Spam & Viruses

/ net stuff

So I’ve been thinking. Spam is evil. So are e-mail viruses like the klez worm. As are, of course, the people that perpetrate both. Now, one of a spammer’s main burdens is getting the spam out–running software to pump it out. It surprises me a little that no spammer has (yet) used e-mail viruses as a means of distribution. It would make them harder to track down, and alleviate their computing burden (putting it on everyone else, of course, which is the spammer’s stock in trade anyhow).

Of course, viruses are illegal and spam isn’t (yet), which might create a disincentive to use that method. But if it starts happening, well, you read about it here first.