HeartBleed - Not So Fast?

--- CAUTION -- Blasphemy Warning --

I've been programming computers since 1981 and run several in my "home lab." I haven't done anything yet in response to Heartbleed.

Recommendations based on my experience...

Windows Systems -- Watch the tech news for a week or two after patches/upgrades are released to see if they work and don't screw other things up. Then apply and watch for another week to be sure your systems are running okay and give the big services more time to insure they have everything reliably fixed. Then change passwords.

Mac Systems -- Do whatever Apple says to do. It's usually right.

Android Systems -- Most software is automatically updated so nothing to do. Wait a few weeks to change passwords.

Linux Systems --Many systems are using older, unaffected versions of OpenSSL so nothing to do. If you have affected systems and they're running servers, patch/upgrade OpenSSL and related software even though there might be problems. People are depending on you. If you're running as anything else, keep watching tech news for reliability of OpenSSL and related patches/upgrades. Patch/upgrade when everything is stable.

If you don't have "a system" for assigning passwords, this might be a good time to develop one. Change passwords when all the major services you use are fixed. It does no good, and even exposes you more, to change your password and then connect to an unupgraded system.

Courage

A note to conservatives...

We know you're scared s***less of any kind of human progress. If it hasn't been done before, it must be "... lies straight from the pit of hell."

We try to explain that things will be better with improvements in the human condition. But your fears just won't let you go there. We understand.

The survival of the human race depends on overcoming our fears of the unknown... "to boldly go where no one has gone before."

That famous line was a metaphor by-the-way. While fictionally "exploring strange new worlds," the story-tellers were really exploring the human condition. How we treat each other. How we react to change. How we overcome our beliefs in what is possible on encountering the "impossible". And how we embrace it a grow as a result.

We know your fears for they are ours too. We've chosen to let our rational minds hold our fears at bay, for there is no way out of fear but through change.

The only way to remove a threat is to learn. We either learn to understand that it is not really a threat, or we learn how to mitigate or overcome it. We'll keep trying.

Edward Snowden is a patriot

Today, I'm very proud of the ACLU.

I'm proud of ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero for having the courage to publicly pronounce Mr. Snowden a patriot while the administration that I otherwise love continues to vilify him and aggressively seek his extradition and prosecution.

Today, I'm even proud of my country.

It has not been so for many years now. For the last 33 years, America has been dominated by a profound state of fear.

That all-consuming fear has driven administrations to oppress and abuse any who disagreed... both foreign and domestic. That all-consuming fear has driven American business to levels of exploitation and corruption of law not seen in a hundred years. And that all-consuming fear has driven half of the American people to re-embrace racism and sexism; to arm themselves beyond all reason; to actively reject 50 years of making the world a better place in which to live.

I'm proud of my country today because, despite all that, despite the tremendous official and public vitriol towards Edward Snowden ... despite the historic condemnation by many of the ACLU's work ... Mr. Romero and the ACLU have the freedom to speak out without fear of retribution.

That cannot be said in much of the world.

That cannot be said in the world that half of this country wants to return us to.

As one of our most famous patriots once said, "We must, indeed, all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately."

Mr. Romero and the ACLU have chosen to "hang together" with Edward Snowden.

I couldn't be prouder.

Are men, by nature, rapists?

I believe history provides a great deal of supporting evidence that men are, indeed, exactly that. It is only the "civilizing" affect women have managed to have on men in the last century that curbs the most overt expressions of it.

Male dominance over women is near-universal throughout history.

Note that every major religion is patriarchal and places stringent requirements on women to act in ways that are subservient, powerless, and non-enticing. The Christian Crusades of the late Middle-Ages virtually wiped all of the religions with female deities.

A case can also be made that the "war on women" by conservative men over the last 30yrs, particularly recently, is a kind of retaliation. Greater restrictions on actual sexual dominance may very well have caused many men to find other ways to assert themselves.

"Civilizing" a society is the act of teaching men to think more like women.

Reagan Started It All

JJR wrote on Facebook Oct 1, 2013
re: today's government shutdown...

"One of the ways you can acquire a prion disease is to eat right out of its skull the brains of an infected monkey. We are now seeing the country reeling and jabbering from the effects of the prion disease, but it was during the time of Reagan that the country ate the monkey brains. . ."

I was so naive back then. Here I thought no elected official could be more Hitler-like than Reagan. Then I was sure Newt had him beat. Then it had to be "W."

Who knew they were wusses compared to Ted Cruz, Mitch McConnell, John Boehner, Paul Ryan, Eric Cantor, ... (I'm tired of typing)?

You're absolutely right, Reagan set it all in motion.

NSA surveillance: A guide to staying secure

Bruce Schneier at TheGuardian.com says...

• Hide
  
• Encrypt
  
• Be a needle in a haystack
  
• Be suspicious of commercial encryption software
  
• Use software based on public domain standards

Which means to me...

Use open source software!

Exploring

Those who have spent a lifetime "believing" are very unlikely to change their views unless faced with some serious emotional trauma that creates a "a crisis of faith." It's a normal and usually beneficial trait of our psyche to comfortably arrange our values to fit our beliefs.

Broken Hearted (revised)

Here I sit broken hearted.
Tried to vote, but was only thwarted.

"You're name's not a match." they said to me.
"The computer says so. Look, here see."

"I always vote here!" I cried.
They looked at me as if I lied.

"Computers are never wrong. That's the law."
"Now get out of here. There can be no flaw."

"Perhaps you're a felon, a terrorist or both."
"Or an illegal alien... do you know the oath?"

"We've no time for your sort. Poll closing is near!"
"What do you mean, 'stolen elections'? That Can't Happen Here!"

Is Your Boss A Psychopath?

Is Your Boss a Psychopath?
Psychopathic characteristics have come to dominate business management "success". Business is the model for running all organizations in this country these days including medicine, government, charities, etc. Thus the same values and qualities are used for promotions and elections. If a psychopathic personality is so highly valued, then the most psychopathic individuals would be found at the top. Hmmm....

Maybe we're all nuts
In Bob Lewis' Keep the Joint Running column "Maybe we're all nuts" from 08/08/2005, is more about psychopathic bosses. His column implies that the world has changed and that psychopathy is the norm, even the ideal, in business because everyone else is doing it. Blinders firmly in place, shutting out all distractions to the business of running a business today, I couldn't agree more. However... Is this a sustainable practice?

History would indicate that it is not.

In the past, when employers exceeded large numbers of employees' thresholds of tolerance for abuse, employees resisted, most recently (first half of the 20th century) by forming labor unions. Unions are a shadow of their former selves today but great upheavals are occurring. The breakup of the AFL-CIO could be seen as a further erosion, but the parting unions are saying they're leaving because the AFL-CIO has become complacent and too beholden to the status-quo. They're leaving in order to become more activist in attracting new members and resisting employer abuses. This suggests that the tolerance threshold has been reached.

Psychopathy has long been considered a mental illness that is extremely dangerous to society and possibly to the patient as well. A world of psychopaths does not decrease the danger because everyone is approaching life the same way. Quite the contrary. Without compassion, empathy, remorse and guilt, our daily little differences are amplified and acted on aggressively, escalating to destructive behavior.

For example, psychopathy would seem to be almost a prerequisite for terrorism. To indiscriminately kill large numbers of people in pursuit of one's goals would seem to require an extraordinary lack of concern for others. How many people can hold such a lack of concern up as an ideal in the workplace and shut it off when they walk out the office door?

Perhaps Dr. Hare's recognition of this tragedy will be an important signpost that makes us stop to consider its ramifications.

Will we continue down this self-destructive path until the body count (or the sales of anti-depressants) exceeds our capabilities?

Or will we stop and consider that the world survives, and even flourishes, by constantly seeking balance.

Extremes create progress, but allowed to run unchecked, without resistance, like a short-circuit, are ultimately destructive to society.

"The Da Vinci Code"A Threat to Christianity?

"The Da Vinci Code" proffers a fictional alternative interpretation of what's been written about Christianity and its origins. However, a number of prominent Christian leaders, who are more aware of how tenuous is the evidence upon which they've invested their entire lives, have railed against Dan Brown's best selling novel and still more are calling for boycotts of the upcoming movie. They seem to feel that any question of what they preach suggests that they may have it wrong and that such a possibility is terrifying.

The threat of such ideas is not to Christianity. It is to the personal self-image of those who know that vast amounts of the rhetoric used by religious leaders is not only objectively unsupportable, but is specifically designed to gloss over that and indoctrinate followers into blind obedience.

Repetition is the most effective way to train the mind to react automatically, without conscious thought. Repetition of simple concepts dominates Christianity. Followers are taught that any attempt by "laymen" to interpret the writings for themselves for example, is a breach of faith which makes them a nonbeliever, an outcast.

Christian leaders who are secure in their faith realize that faith is the most effective way to provide a "moral center" to human decision-making. A great many choices in our lives have no clear, objective right or wrong. Somehow we must decide. Faith, religious beliefs, can provide that "tie breaker".

Beliefs that are simple and unambiguous seem to work well. "Thou shalt not kill" is such a belief that, when adhered to in all situations, brings peaceful coexistence. Exceptions undermine the authority of such a belief however. First is the exception for plants and other animals, primarily as sources of food. It was long ago decided that this "commandment" only applied to killing other humans. Then came exceptions for killing anyone trying to kill us. So far, most everyone is in agreement. Then, however, we move down the slippery slope to it being alright to kill people who potentially might try to kill us in the future and further to people who don't hold the same beliefs we do. Beliefs that require adherence to very specific behavior are fraught with peril.

In modern terms...

Long term strategies are very beneficial.
Micro-managing undermines leadership.

The uproar over "The Da Vinci Code" is micro-managing of the first order. It is short-sighted and undermines the trustworthiness of religious leaders.

Most of all, it exposes leaders more interested in exercising the power to control others than on the wisdom Christianity can bring to heal and strengthen them.

Why Am I Here?

"The Purpose Driven Life" is a popular book that purports to answer this question.

Here's a more accurate and useful answer...

Any one of us is here because our biological parents had sex, our mother was fertile, one of our father's sperm beat out a few million other sperm to fertilize an egg, and our mother did not abort us.

It's up to each of us to find our own meaning and purpose.

The choice is ours. Not God's, not The Church's, not anyone else's.

Some choose to serve humanity by adding their voice to that of others working for change.

Some choose to try to destroy humanity.

Much of the time it's hard to tell which is which.

By far the most popular choice though, is to do nothing.

We immerse ourselves in work, sports, exercise, gardening and a host other pastimes in an effort to ignore societal problems that are depressingly troubling, largely because we feel helpless to solve them. We become terminally passive.

We're not going to find answers in a book or in a church or even on Google.

The answers are within ourselves.

Evolution vs. Intelligent Design

Well Said Dr. Fullam...

Debate Over Intelligent Design Of God
and the case for unintelligent design

by Lisa Fullam

As the theory of intelligent design again hits the news with President Bush's encouragement this week that the theory be taught in schools alongside evolution, I have one question: What about unintelligent design?

Take rabbit digestion, for example. As herbivores, rabbits need help from bacteria to break down the cell walls of the plants they eat, so, cleverly enough, they have a large section of intestine where such bacterial fermentation takes place. The catch is, it's at the far end of the small intestine, beyond where efficient absorption of nutrients can happen. A sensible system -- as we see in ruminant animals like cattle and deer -- ferments before the small intestine, maximizing nutrient absorption. Rabbits, having to make do with an unintelligent system, instead eat some of their own feces after one trip through, sending half-digested food back through the small intestine for re-digestion.

Horses are similarly badly put together: They ferment their food in a large, blind-ended cecum after the small intestine. Unlike rabbits, they don't recycle their feces -- they're just inefficient. Moreover, those big sections of hind gut are a frequent location for gut blockages and twists that, absent prompt veterinary intervention, lead to slow and excruciating death for the poor horse. The psalmist writes: "God takes no delight in horses' power." Clearly, if God works in creation according to the simplistic schemes of the intelligent design folks, God not only doesn't delight in horses, but seems positively to have it in for them.

Furthermore, why wouldn't an intelligent designer make it possible for animals to digest their natural food without playing host to huge populations of bacteria in the first place: Couldn't mammals have been equipped with their own enzymes to do the job?

But that's not all: Consider mammalian testicles. In order to function optimally, they need to be slightly cooler than the rest of the body and so are carried outside the body wall in the scrotum. Why would one carry one's whole genetic potential in such a vulnerable position? Clearly it's not a gonad problem in general -- ovaries work just fine at body temperature and are snuggled safely within the pelvic girdle for protection. But for testicles, nope -- the scrotum is jerry-rigged to allow for a warm-blooded animal to keep his testicles cool. Surely an intelligent designer could have figured out a way for testicles to work at body temperature, as ovaries do.

Here's another: Do you know anyone beyond the age of 20 or so who has not had a backache? Let's face it: The human body is that of a quadruped tipped up on end to walk on only two legs. The delicate and beautiful cantilever curve of the human spine
compensates (but not enough) for the odd stresses that result from our unusual posture. Perhaps the God of intelligent design has a special place in his plan for chiropractors? And what about the knee? Between the secure ball-and-socket of the hip and the omnidirectional versatility of the ankle is a simple hinge joint, held together only by ligaments (including the anterior cruciate ligament) whose names are known to athletes and sports fans because they're so easily and frequently injured. Again, unintelligent design.

The real problem with intelligent design is that it fails to account for the obvious anatomical and physiological making-do that is evident of so much of the natural world. Evolutionarily minded folks see this as the result of genetic limitations and adaptations accumulated in specialization for certain environments, while the intelligent design folks are left with a designer who clearly cannot have been paying close attention.

While there are extremely precise and fine-tuned mechanisms in nature, there is also lots of evidence of organisms just cobbled together. For instance, take marsupials, who give birth to what in other animals are analogous to fetuses, then have to carry them around in what amounts to an exterior uterus until the offspring are ready to face the world.

As a theist who sees natural evolution not as a theory but as well-established observation, I take comfort in the catch-as-catch-can of the natural world. I have every confidence that an all-loving creator walks in and with the natural world as it struggles to fruition, cheering on our evolutionary triumphs (let's hear it for the opposable thumb!) and standing in solidarity with the evolutionary misfits and misfires, like rabbit guts and horses generally.

Isn't this how God walks in and with us in our individual lives as well, cheering us on, emboldening us and consoling us in our often misguided attempts to live well and do right, and standing in compassion and solidarity with us when we fail, and loving us into trying again? And isn't this a more compelling vision of God, and truer to the biblical God who comes again and again to offer salvation to erring humankind, than that of a designer who can't quite seem to get things right?

Lisa Fullam, a former veterinarian, is an assistant professor of moral theology at the Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley

Published on Thursday, August 4, 2005 by the San Francisco Chronicle

Origins of Values

[Comment #3 by Robert Watson to the post "Bush ethics adviser gets her principles from Star Trek" and "Update on trekkie ethics adviser " on Enterprise Ethics, Apr 1, 2005 1:09 am ]


Let me offer a counter argument to "I do not see Star Trek as an authoritative ethical source..."

For good or ill, some interpretation of The Bible and Dead Sea Scrolls has become the basis for most of the world's ethics.

The Bible is an anthology of stories designed to illustrate moral (ethical) lessons. Star Trek is an anthology of stories designed to illustrate moral (ethical) lessons. The purpose of both is to educate. The most effective way to educate is to convey knowledge in an entertaining way. It maximizes memory retention.

Since Christianity dominates American values, and Star Trek is written by Americans, most of its lessons are compatible with Christianity -- or at least some interpretation of those biblical teachings. Others have grown out of the application of secular logic to solve societal problems.

Thus, the Star Trek stories could be seen as an offshoot of Christianity much like Christianity was an offshoot of Judaism. It took Christianity several hundred years to rise above the status of "cult" but it has, and now more than a third of the planet's population are Christian. Star Trek lore is just getting started.

Personally, I find the values promoted in Star Trek to be more fair, honest and beneficial to long-term survival of human beings than the divisive, hateful, revenging, oppressive interpretation that dominates Christianity today. It is on that basis that I can say that my principals derive in large part from the Star Trek stories I've watched and read.

If most of the world can base its life and death decisions on 2000 year old stories written by men trying to keep an illiterate and superstitious population from destroying themselves, I can base my values and decisions on the lessons in a far larger set of stories that are much more applicable to the ethical dilemmas we face today.

Personal or Professional?

It's pretty well documented that most news people in the waning years of the 20th century personally leaned liberal. However, the evidence does not support such a leaning in their professional choices of what to cover and how to cover it. The bias, my friends, was not liberal vs. conservative, but rather pro-government vs. con- and the media clearly preferred the latter.

In the old axiom of "what is news-worthy", restating the government line already spouted in speeches and press conferences would have been old news: boring and unworthy of reporting. Public figures already got prime access to the bully pulpit; none more so than the President, so we'd already heard what they wanted us to hear. What we wanted (and I believe still do) was the counter view, the details, the ramifications, "The rest of the story".

As the most successful embodiment of the constitutional guarantee of freedom of speech, the news media became as indispensable as any other checks and balances. While seldom as eloquent and certainly less restrained, the news media challenged government's assertions and oppressions in the same way Jefferson, Adams and other men of letters used the mighty pen to wrest these lands from the leeching clutches of a monarchy unaccountable for its excesses. Frighteningly, such advocates for "We, The People" are no more. What happened?

Any paradigm, any principle of governing, can be carried to a destructive extreme. We saw how corruption and unbridled fanaticism chipped away at communism to destroy the old Soviet Union (And good riddance to it too.) There are numerous examples throughout history of personal fanaticism and excess bringing down powerful dictatorships and monarchies. That most of these cases have resulted in more capitalistic forms replacing them; we can take great pride. While an improvement to be sure however, to conclude from it that we should abandon the mixture of capitalistic and socialistic principles that have brought us to our current state of world dominance is dangerously arrogant at best and could very well be the beginning of our own extinction. Like removing sodium from table salt (sodium chloride), ignoring the indispensable socialistic principles that have combined with capitalism to create our great democracy, would leave a poison sure to destroy us. Today's mad pursuit of pure capitalism threatens to return us to those laissez faire days of a century ago where robber-barons ruled -- getting fat raping our land, our people and our souls. Turning the news media into the entertainment business it has become is a watershed event in that slide into oblivion.

All may not be lost however. Perhaps we are witnessing (and participating in) a major shift in the way the citizenry obtains news. There is much discussion these days of the rise of blogging and its role in gathering and reporting "the news". Is blogging a "democratization" of mass communication? In a few years, will most people get their news from some sort of summarization of information supplied by dozens, hundreds, thousands of citizens via blogs and other forms?

The traditional news media have clearly violated the trust of the people and abandoned their constitutional responsibilities. How will we fill the void?

We need not a media that is liberal or conservative, commercial or non-. We need a media that is curious, critical and courageous. Where will we find it?
[Robert C. Watson on Enterprise Ethics, Mar 13, 2005 6:37 am ]

Here I Sit Broken Hearted

Here I sit broken hearted.
Tried to vote, but was only thwarted.

"You're in the wrong place." they said to me.
"The computer says so. Look, here see."

"I always vote here!" I cried.
They looked at me as if I'd lied.

"Computers don't lie. That's the law."
"So if you're not there, there can be no flaw."

"Perhaps you're a felon, a terrorist or both."
"Perhaps you're just lost, or prone to Democratic sloth."

"Whatever the trouble, it's not our fault."
"Try again next time. While you wait - read up on John Galt."

[Robert C. Watson, 01/14/2005]

Santa is Dead!Washington Denies Responsibility

Robert C. Satire
Washington, D.C.
Shortly after 1am this Christmas morning, President Bush issued a press release expressing his dismay and deepest condolences to the people of the United States over the untimely death of Kris Kringle, a.k.a. Santa Claus, in the skies over Washington, DC. He vowed to open a comprehensive investigation under the direction of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. When the Secretary was later asked to confirm reports that his office gave the final shootdown order, Mr. Rumsfeld denied any involvement. "We have procedures in place for these situations and everyone knows what to do. It's unfortunate that he was in the wrong place at the wrong time, but these things happen in war."

According interviews with officials and eyewitness accounts, at around midnight, the NORAD public relations desk was tracking the jolly old elf as it does every year when they lost contact. At first there was no concern since this had occurred several times throughout the night due to inclement weather over much of the country. About the same time however, over at the NORAD air defense desk, jets were being scrambled from Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland. They were investigating an unknown aircraft approaching the Temporary Flight Restriction Area over Washington, DC that was created after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

"Its radar signature read as a small private plane but its altitude, speed and erratic flight pattern indicated that it was way overloaded for that size aircraft," Major Snivly of NORAD advised. "We don't know how it got off the ground, but a normal landing under such a load would seem impossible. Thus it was a reasonable security precaution to determine the intentions of the track and formulate a response which could include the use of lethal force."

However, the aircraft entered the restricted space before the jets could reach it or establish radio contact. Per Executive order 09-666, they had no choice but to establish a weapons lock and again issue numerous warnings. There was no response. The protocols dictated that the aircraft posed a serious threat to The White House and Capitol below. The lead jet received clearance -- and fired.

On the ground, the first reports received by police were of burnt and broken toys falling from the sky. A cab driver was killed when his car was struck by a 400lb reindeer. Wood splinters rained down on an encampment of homeless vets just a few blocks from The Capitol sending many to the hospital for eye injuries. Bar patrons along 4th Street NE claimed to find a half-burnt Santa's cap rakishly cocked on the head of the newly unveiled statue of Vice President Dick Cheney across the tracks in Haliburtan Park. And the charred body of a large man was found in a dumpster behind the Republican National Committee headquarters on First Street. The coroner's office is still investigating.
[Robert C. Watson, 12/25/2004]