February 27, 2004
Sell What You Know
Smith & Wesson Chairman Quits As Past Armed Robberies Surface
Is That So?
The Department of Homeland Security sent someone to give a keynote address at the RSA Security conference:
Retired lieutenant general John Gordon, presidential assistant and advisor to the Homeland Security Council, used his keynote address at the RSA Security conference in San Francisco on Wednesday to question how much effort developers are putting into ensuring their code is watertight. "This is a problem for every company that writes software. It cannot be beyond our ability to learn how to write and distribute software with much higher standards of care and much reduced rate of errors and much reduced set of vulnerabilities," he said.
Gordon's keynote followed a day after that of Microsoft chairman Bill Gates.
According to Gordon, if developers could reduce the error and vulnerability rate by a factor of 10, it would "probably eliminate something like 90 percent of the current security threats and vulnerabilities.
Gordon is author of the popular management book The Things I've Learned: 1.0 - 0.1 = 0.9 and Other Observations.
February 23, 2004
Nearly Now
Hot diggity, it's almost the present again in NASDAQ Years. The National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotation Composite Index closed today at 2007.52.
February 15, 2004
February 14, 2004
TMI
It is well known that the press, respecting Franklin Roosevelt's privacy, hid his polio from the eyes of the public.
Today, the Washington Post was kind enough to share with us the following "extraneous personal details:"
His tonsils were taken out at age 5 and he had appendicitis at 10. A fatty cyst was removed from his chest in 1960, and he had a hemorrhoid while in the Guard.
I really didn't need to know this.
February 09, 2004
Meet the Bush
Does this war president have any idea what he's talking about?
February 07, 2004
Stoked
I'm a big fan of the Hemp waffles sold, for example, at the Glut Food Coop. They're very tasty and get me stoned out of my gourd. Just kidding: they have only trace amounts of THC. And yet that was enough to get the DEA to issue a ban on hemp food products in October of 2001, arguing that they had no choice because, according to the Controlled Substances Act of 1970, "any material, compound, mixture, or preparation which contains any quantity of THC' is a . . . controlled substance." The Family Research Council had been pushing for the ban.
The Hemp industry challenged the DEA in court, and in March of 2002 the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a stay permitting the continued sale of the food products pending a decision in the case.
Yesterday, a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit unanimously ruled that the DEA lacked the "authority to reclassify hemp as a dangerous drug without first showing that it has a 'high potential for abuse.'" Now we will see whether the Bush administration feels strongly enough about this gathering threat to appeal the decision to the Supreme Court.
February 05, 2004
Unreasonable
Somehow I missed this. As Bruce Schneier summarizes in the latest issue of his Crypto-Gram newsletter:
Last month Bush snuck into law one of the provisions of the failed PATRIOT ACT 2. The FBI can now obtain records from financial institutions without requiring permission from a judge. The institution can't tell the target person that his records were taken by the FBI. And the term "financial institution" has been expanded to include insurance companies, travel agencies, real estate agents, stockbrokers, the U.S. Postal Service, jewelry stores, casinos, and car dealerships.
How does one challenge this in court? It's my understanding that in order to do so, one would have to demonstrate injury (what's the Lawyery word for that?). This law makes it illegal to notify the potential plaintiff that they've been the victim of an unconstitutional search. Perhaps that fact would come forth during a trial, but it seems just as likely that such a trial would be in the form of a military tribunal. Or, if the defendant has been declared an enemy combatant, there might be no trial at all.
February 04, 2004
My World: Rocked
Just now recovered. Incredible!
See this (2/4/04 entry) for some background.
February 03, 2004
Good one
I love it when reporters get cheeky:
Powell noted that not only the CIA but other intelligence agencies and the United Kingdom "suggested that the stockpiles were there."
Asked whether the American public should be reassured that so many intelligence agencies were so wrong, Powell replied: "I think it should be reassuring to the voters of the United States that we found a regime that's clearly demonstrated intent and clearly had the capability, and that the president had the information from the intelligence community."