Posts from — June 2013

Position: 16.7N 88.9W [10PM CDT 0300 UTC].
Movement: West-Northwest [290°] near 9 mph [15 kph].
Maximum sustained winds: 30 mph [ 45 kph].
Wind Gusts: 40 mph [ 75 kph].
Minimum central pressure: 1007 mb ↓.

Currently about 40 miles [ 60 km] Northwest of Monkey River Town, Belize.

It finally got organized just before it came ashore. If it can hang together across the Yucatan, it might spin up over the Bay of Campeche.

Here’s the link for NOAA’s latest satellite images.

[For the latest information click on the storm symbol, or go to the CATEGORIES drop-down box below the CALENDAR and select “Hurricanes” for all of the posts related to storms on this site.]

I have actually been spending a lot of time on a plumbing problem that is turning into the project from hell. There are two shut off valves on the line I’m trying to fix, and both of them gave up the ghost. They not only don’t shut off the water, they leak. As they are in 50-year-old galvanized piping, I am avoiding any major applications of torque, as that will probably just break something else.

Hopefully I will be able to fix the primary problem tomorrow, and then can consider how to fix the shut off valve problem.

Along with my ‘wrenching’ problems, I’ve been making some software changes that haven’t been working. I use Filezilla in Linux for uploading, so I decided to finally dump the ancient FTP program I have used since Win95 and use the Filezilla version for Windows to maintain cross platform compatibility. I fought with it for hours, reading FAQs and Help pages before it finally occurred to me that I had been using the wrong Port Number. I have used Port 21 for FTP for so long, I had been automatically typing it in, when I really needed Port 22 for the SSH/SFTP connection.

At some point I will probably convert this place to a secure connection via HTTPS. I need a certificate for that, and the choice of vendors is ripe with con artists. I’m not going to sell anything, so I don’t need 2048-bit encryption, but it will annoy the contractors if they can’t see clear text going to and from this place. They are going to have to read it to find out what’s going on.

This has nothing to do with Pink Floyd [an allusion for the ancients among us], this is about contractors pawing through our lives on-line.

First off, realistically, the only ‘direct connection’ the government could have to Google, would be to a secure server on which Google loads the specific data that it has been ordered to deliver. The contractors that now comprise NSA don’t have the resources to contain the data that Google generates. Think of it as trying to unload an oil tanker with a 5-gallon gas can.

Not convinced, how about the resources necessary to keep up with PMS day on Microsoft, when Windows users are all upgrading their machines at the same time.

This isn’t a matter of whether or not the contractors want the access, it is whether they can actually handle what they would get, and they don’t have the resources.

Get real, broadband in the US sucks. We are at the bottom for speed and top for cost. The ‘free market’ is not providing the US with a first world data infrastructure. The contractors can create whatever they want in Utah, but they aren’t going to have the available bandwidth to really do much. The telecoms have been focused on getting more money from their existing system, not spending money to expand it.

That said, I agree with the EFF that a lot of questions need to be answered about PRISM. While we are waiting, PRISM Break has a listing of products that help to preserve your personal privacy to some extent. Pretty Good Privacy/GNU Privacy Guard 128-bit encryption should easily last your lifetime.

The top two rectangles are both from the SpringStar, the circle is from the Victor, and last one on the lower right in the plastic bag is from the Enforcer. These glue boards prove a couple of the things: they all catch fleas, and I had a really big problem.

The reason I have two glue boards for the SpringStar is because the one on the left costs over $2, while the one on the right is a Real-Kill Household Pest Glue Board that I cut to fit in the SpringStar and it cost right at $1. Frankly if cash is tight and you don’t have pets, a small night light over a Real-Kill will attract fleas, and anything else with six or more legs.

If you do have pets, you need to have the glue boards in an enclosure. The reason the Enforcer board is in a plastic bag is because I put it in the bag to prevent the cats from getting stuck to it, and it is firmly stuck to the bag. You need mineral spirits to dissolve the glue.

[Read more →]

Some may wonder why I keep fixating on these invasions of our privacy, and the 798^th anniversary of the signing of the Magna Carta is a good time to explain myself.

I believe in the principles laid down in the Magna Carta and the Constitution of the United States. I have sworn to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States three times in my life, and I wasn’t kidding, I meant it.

The US flag is a military signaling device that is supposed to designate where US troops are located. Sorry, for me, that’s it, and some of my ancestors were the first to fight under that flag at the Battle of Oriskany.

The US government is the result of the choices made by political parties that are currently owned by moneyed interests and ratified by a minority of people willing to take the time to vote. At present only one in ten Americans think Congress can be trusted to do the right thing, that puts it at the bottom of the list among major institutions in this country, below even banks.

The real United States is the totality of the ideas expressed in the Constitution – it isn’t land or people, it is an ideal. When people mess with it, I intend to defend it. If something in the Constitution no longer works, there is a clear process to amend it, and it has been done 27 times, so people know how to do it when necessary. You don’t get a free pass from me to ignore the Constitution, no matter what your supposed reason.

The last two administrations have twisted laws into pretzels and classified everything in sight, to prevent a court decision on what they are doing. They know damn well it is unConstitutional, which is why they are resorting to secret laws. Fresh air and sunshine are the best ways of killing the mold that has overtaken the US government.

John, by the grace of God, king of England, lord of Ireland, duke of Normandy and Aquitaine, and count of Anjou in the meadow which is called Runnymede, between Windsor and Staines, on the fifteenth day of June, 1215, signed the Great Charter in the presence of assorted heavily armed peers of the realm, who assured him it was the right thing to do.

The British Library has pictures of the Magna Carta available, and Wikipedia has a nice discussion of the document.

The Magna Carta of 1297 is permanently residing in the US National Archives.

The Avalon Project’s translation of the 1215 version with an index and definitions.

John abided by the charter for several months, before he returned to business as normal, but the principle was established – no one is above the law.

I wish I could remember where I saw that. Some apologist for NSA hoovering up everyone’s meta data, said the government wasn’t really spying on everyone. All they collected “was just a bunch of numbers”.

Why don’t we just publish all of his tax returns, after all they’re “just a bunch of numbers” including the Social Security Account Number, bank account numbers, and telephone numbers. If a “bunch of numbers” aren’t important, why does the RIAA get to sue people for copying songs, because they are “just a bunch of numbers” on a computer or CD.

Everything stored on a computer is “just a bunch of numbers”, which why they are called “digital”, and there are actually only two numbers involved – One and Zero. This entire web page, text, pictures, graphics, all of it is a collection of Ones and Zeros. Movies on DVD are One and Zeros. If they record your telephone conversations, they’ll be stored as Ones and Zeros, as will any video they take.

BTW, since I created some of the numbers they are sucking up, they are infringing on my copyright.

So while you are looking at the features available from PGP and Tor, I’ve been reading all of the lies from public officials like General Keith ‘Empire builder’ Alexander, and the retiring FBI director, Robert Mueller. They have the same credibility as the Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, who point blank lied to Congress about this mess.

Senators Ron Wyden and Mark Udall having been trying to warn people about this for a very long time, but couldn’t tell people what was bothering them because it was classified.

Look, Obama established the level of trust he is due on this issue before he was President. He said he would vote against a law that gave retroactive immunity to telecom companies for cooperating in the Shrubbery’s warrantless wire-tapping schemes. He turned around and voted for it. He has no credibility on this. He clearly demonstrated that he can’t be trusted.

If you were wondering why the slide show was classified “No foreign dissemination”, the reaction of the European Union to these programs should give you a hint – they are livid.

If you would like a collection of some different opinions on the revelations of Edward Snowden, go to Naked Capitalism and read Top National Security Experts: Spying Program Doesn’t Make Us Safer, and Spying Leaks Don’t Harm America.

Richard Clarke was the guy who tried to convince the Shrubbery and MS Rice that Osama bin Laden was a threat, and the only member of that administration to apologize for the failure to stop the attack.

Congresscritter Jim Sensenbrenner, the author of the PATRIOT Act said that section 215 was drafted to prevent data mining, not allow it.

William Binney, former head of NSA’s global digital data gathering agrees with Badtux and me about what they are doing, and adds some details that make it even more explicit that they are using it to go after ‘enemies of the state’, not terrorists.

Thomas Drake was an earlier NSA whistleblower whose post on this issue, Snowden saw what I saw: surveillance criminally subverting the constitution, is worth a read, even though it is extensively quoted at Naked Capitalism.

NTodd notes that the Postal Service doesn’t spy on you. Maybe this is a conspiracy to have everyone go back to using first class mail?

[Full disclosure – Thomas Drake did in RC-135s, what I was doing in RC-130s in that area ten years earlier. I was also in RC-135s, but in different areas. We weren’t called crypto-linguists, but then they kept classifying our job title as being too descriptive, and changing it.]

Adopted as the flag of the United States of America by the Flag Resolution of 1777 enacted on 14 June, 1777.

The flag was first flown from Fort Stanwix, on the site of the present city of Rome, New York, on August 3, 1777. It was first under fire three days later in the Battle of Oriskany, August 6, 1777.

An official flag has a rise to run ratio of 1 to 1.9 [the flag should be 1.9 times as long as it is high] with the canton [the dark blue part] that rises over the top seven stripes with a run of 40% of the flag’s run.

The only time you will see a “correct” US Flag is if you see the official colors of a military unit. Most flags are 3’X5′ or 4’X6′ instead of 3’X5.7′ or 4’X7.6′.

Frances Bellamy, the Baptist minister and socialist who wrote the Pledge of Allegiance was from Rome, New York.

No Respect

Hee…Hee…Hee…

[Editor: JR pulled a fast one on me, turning his back when I hit the shutter. I ignored it as I thought I had an nice shot of the Hermit, but the light conditions slowed down the shutter and I blurred the shot.]

Friday Ark

I see a lot of people trying to make something out of the fact that Edward Snowden didn’t graduate from high school. They would be amazed at the number of people in Mensa who didn’t see the point in hanging around for a piece of paper after they had gotten everything they thought was necessary from a training program.

Snowden was making a six figure salary with his GED, so a lot of other people weren’t worried about diplomas. He had something more important than a high school or college diploma to a military contractor – he had a security clearance. It costs a lot of money for a contractor to get a security clearance for someone, so they don’t worry about paper credentials.

Snowden was at the right place at the right time. When he went into the Army, he chose Special Forces and was accepted. Special Forces get a higher clearance than the Infantry. Even though they released him as a result of his injuries in training, he left with an honorable discharge.

That made him acceptable to the CIA which often works with Special Forces, where his clearance would have been elevated. Even though he started as a security guard, the CIA was undergoing a rapid expansion due to the GWOT™ so he was given an opportunity to move up, and chose computers. The military gives everyone intelligence and aptitude tests, so his bosses at the CIA knew what Snowden could learn to do.

Snowden learned his trade on the job, so when contractors were brought in to take over the computer operations, they hired him with a decent bump in salary. He was then established as a contract employee with known skills and the always important security clearance. That’s how he made his way to where he was when he left.

Given what he did, he obviously was good at his job, with or without paperwork and student loans from any educational institutions.

Oh, yes, Lambert noted that a piece in the LA Times reports that Snowden can’t be extradited from Hong Kong for disclosing classified information. The ‘high school dropout’ seems to know what he’s doing.

[Full disclosure: My first experience with computers was teaching myself COBOL ISAM programming with an IBM reference manual. It isn’t easy, but it can be done when the military doesn’t want anyone to know they are doing something that requires computers.]

That is the beer stein that I intended to use to quaff massive quantities of Löwenbräu while waiting for the events I was able to get tickets for at the 1972 Munich Olympics. I gave the tickets to people who could go, while I was involved in other things as a result of the terrorist attack.

The Stars & Stripes had a short piece on one of the other annoyances I dealt with at the time: Baader-Meinhof Gang attacked U.S. troops, bases in 1970s-1980s. They didn’t mention the interesting car chases on the Autobahn, with BMG in stolen BMWs firing automatic weapons at the green Porsches of the Polezi, who returned the favor. It was invigorating in a 850 Fiat Spyder when they blew by you well in excess of 100mph.

Yes, BMG was a definite hemorrhoid, but they weren’t alone. If you went to London for Christmas shopping the IRA could try to kill you. In Spain it was the ETA. Every nation in Europe had somebody with a grudge who thought blowing you up would prove their point.

There were groups on the left, groups on the right, groups that wanted their own state, groups that wanted yours. They would highjack or blow up planes, trains, buses, cruise ships … basically any mode of transportation.

I didn’t enjoy being rousted out of bed several times a month so the EOD guys and the dogs could search for bombs. We started keeping beer in a cooler, so we could kill the time while our living quarters were searched.

It was the way it was and you lived it. You went on about your business and avoided any recent craters. The bad guys were pursued by the appropriate police agencies and quite often arrested, tried, and convicted. No sane politician suggested that everyone in Europe surrender their rights to prevent terrorist attacks. Security was tightened around transportation facilities, but it didn’t get out of hand.

People didn’t panic. The older people had survived World War II. They knew what a serious threat looked like, and they weren’t ready to surrender the rights many of them had only recently recovered because of the actions of a few individuals.

For me, this stuff was background noise. I was dealing with reality. I was stationed at the focal point of the Fulda Gap. I knew for a cold, hard fact, that if things went wrong I would, at best, be on an aircraft out of there, but more probably die as a result of the Soviet armor rolling over Frankfurt, or the fallout from the tactical nuclear weapons that would be launched to stop them. Despite that, no one suggested that the government should be reading my mail.

So Badtux and I have been talking in comments about this mess, and shaking our heads over it, and then he goes and writes this.

He’s right, that is the only conceivable reason to collect all of that meta data. There is too much to process for patterns of “terrorist activity”, since they obviously don’t know what they are looking for, and if they have an individual that they are targeting as a possible terrorist, then they could get all of the data related to that individual without hoovering up the rest of the country.

This is about targeting ‘enemies of the state’, not about terrorism.

Then, if you still aren’t concerned, why not drop by Digby’s for a reminder that the real threat may be the contractors, not the government.

One of the disturbing things that Snowden said in his Greenwald interview was that he had access to everything. He worked for a contractor, not the government and he had access to EVERYTHING?!

I had the best security clearance that the government hands out. Based on that clearance I could access everything … except the “right to know” granted by the clearance has to be matched to a “need to know”. I went to NSA headquarters for a specific purpose, and I only had access to areas associated with that purpose. I would have loved to compare notes with the guys working on my specialty at NSA, but that wasn’t the reason I was sent there, so that was not even remotely possible. NSA was strictly compartmentalized. Working in the field was a friendlier environment.

If you are a media person, you can forget about having ‘confidential sources’, the meta data tells all. If you know any drug dealers, they’ll explain how you beat the system.

Having noticed that a number of Congresscritters seem to woefully uninformed on these matters I thought I would quote the relevant portions of the US Constitution.

The US Constitution defines “treason” in Article III, Section 3:

Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort. No person shall be convicted of treason unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, or on confession in open court.

The Congress shall have power to declare the punishment of treason, but no attainder of treason shall work corruption of blood, or forfeiture except during the life of the person attainted.

Congress doesn’t get to redefine it without a Constitutional amendment. The reason is simple – the people who wrote the Constitution had deal with a treason law at a time when losing your head over a beautiful queen was not a metaphor.

Then there is the second bit the Congresscritters are having real problems with – Fourth Amendment which says:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

There has been a suggestion that because things like e-mail are sent through a separate entity, you have no expectation of privacy. I’m sorry, but that is just ignorant. You need a password to access your e-mail account, as well as many other services on the Internet. The requirement for a password is a rather obvious indication that such things are private.