This series of hexidecimal numbers should not posted according to some people:

09-F9-11-02-9D-74-E3-5B-D8-41-56-C5-63-56-88-C0

So, why are they there?

See rootkit to understand why.

The creator of that sequence has authorized its publication.

Melissa and Echidne, as well as many others, have been discussing the Saletan article on ultrasound.

I haven’t noticed an MD after Saletan. I’m not aware that he has any degrees or training in medical imaging. He’s an on-line columnist and occasional media talking head. Where is his basis for making medical decisions?

I use ultrasound [above 20kHz] for cleaning small parts and chasing off pests. While there have been no major studies that have revealed any problems with ultrasonic imaging, that may be because it is only used when problems are suspected. There are an awful lot of babies born in this world who have never been scanned by ultrasound.

I wonder how Mr. Saletan and legislators who are pushing sonographs would feel if they were required to have a prostate exam and marriage license before they could get a prescription for Viagra or buy condoms?

The guys and gals in Wired’s Danger Room have been looking at the new Army Regulation 530–1: Operations Security (OPSEC), and it is pretty pathetic.

The Army seems to believe Reporters = Foreign Spies?, and the DR people worry that New Army Rules Could Kill G.I. Blogs (Maybe E-mail, Too).

I know something about military security, you don’t get assigned to NSA unless it is thoroughly embedded in your brain. I dealt with stuff that had classified classifications, i.e. the indicators of the level of protection required for the information were themselves classified.

NSA isn’t only about gathering intelligence, it is also heavily concerned with insuring that US intelligence isn’t compromised. You have know what is important, and what isn’t. There is a lot of classified information, that isn’t inherently secret, but is classified because of how it was gathered. For example, there’s nothing secret about someone going to a particular restaurant, but if the only way you could know about it is via a phone tap, it is classified because of what it reveals about “sources and methods.”

When I read these reports the first things that came to mind were “Abu Ghraib and Pat Tillman.” These revisions are only peripherally concerned with operational security, the real thrust is to make it more difficult to expose incompetence and criminal behavior.

The flag officers must really be concerned that their retirements are threatened by the truth, and really worried they are going to be required to work for a living.

Ferret

Mustela putorius furo

Weasel¹

Mustela giuliana

1. see Wolcott on Weasels.