Blackmoor Vituperative

Well, it’s lobbying time in Richmond again, and once again the folks who want to disarm other people are at it, trying get laws passed to “close the gun show loophole”.

News flash: there is no “gun show loophole”. The same laws apply at gun shows as apply anywhere else firearms are bought or sold. Period. The “gun show loophole” is a fantasy concocted by anti-civil-rights groups like the Brady Campaign, which cynically use the tragedy of a handful of crime victims to further their despicable agenda.

CATO Institute had a short but persuasive article on this back in 2000: The facts about gun shows.

It is interesting to note that firearms are the single most heavily regulated consumer item in the USA, and are subject to far more restrictions than a host of other items which are directly involved in a hell of a lot more deaths (e.g., automobiles, red meat, etc.).

My niece Makayla being interviewed on television.

She earned third place in a school-wide spelling bee. 🙂

A quick list of what books I am reading right now, or intend to read in the near future:

• Characters & Viewpoint
• Description & Setting
• Dialogue
• How to Write Science Fiction & Fantasy
• Learning Nagios 3.0
• Manuscript Makeover: Revision Techniques No Fiction Writer Can Afford to Ignore
• Plot & Structure
• Practical Subversion
• Warriors & Warlocks: A Mutants & Masterminds Sourcebook

I need to read more fiction. I will start looking at novels or short story compilations after I finish with this stack.

TechRepublic has an interesting article that gives a brief explanation of the MD5/SSL exploit that was the cause of such panic last month.

On the surface, this “event” proves that it’s possible for an attacker to insert himself into the certificate acquisition process, resulting in wrongful authentication of visited sites. However, SSL might not be in as much danger as originally reported.

Yes, there are many CAs still using MD5 for at least some certificate signing. In fact, the rogue certificate used in this exploit emulated a VeriSign RapidSSL cert. TC TrustCenter AG, RSA, and Thawte Inc. also still use the vulnerable hash function. But there are four significant mitigating factors.

1. Most enterprise-class certificates, such as VeriSign’s Extended Validation SSL Certificates use the still secure SHA-1 hash function.
2. Certificates already issued with MD5 signatures are not at risk. The exploit only affects new certificate acquisitions.
3. CAs are quickly moving to replace MD5 with SHA-1. For example, VeriSign was planning to phase out MD5 by the end of January 2009. The date was pushed up due to the December proof of concept. On December 31, 2008, RapidSSL certificates shipped with SHA-1 digital signatures.
4. The researchers did not release the under-the-hood specifics of how the exploit was executed.

Again, these are mitigating factors. It isn’t impossible for cybercriminals to come up with an attack on their own now that conceptual understanding of approach is public knowledge. But SSL is not broken. The only thing broken is a portion of the public key infrastructure (PKI) which underlies it, and the risk is manageable.

(from The new MD5/SSL exploit is NOT the end of civilization as we know it, TechRepublic)

I do not pretend to understand the mathematics behind much of this, but I find it all very interesting, nonetheless.

It looks like the NSA is actually doing something useful for a change, rather than just spying on American citizens.

I love Lawrence Lessig. He is one of a tiny handful of clueful people that actually gets some attention from the media. If only lawmakers paid attention.

You have probably heard it by now, but Apple has announced that all music on iTunes will be free of DRM.

iTunes is still AAC-only, so I won’t be using iTunes, myself. Still, this is a milestone in the fight against the corrupt Digital Rights Mafia.

When I was in my late teens, dirt poor, and new to credit cards, I learned very quickly that I could get a cash advance on one card to pay the minimum amount due on another card. As the amount I owed spiraled upward along with the minimum payments, I realized that this strategy would have one inevitable outcome. So why is this simple economic lesson beyond the ken of the sages running our government?

After betting the farm, the Benz, the Rolex and the college fund, Congress is about to take another $800 billion economic stimulus gamble. But economists say it may be time for an intervention.

The federal budget deficit already is projected to reach an unheard of $1.2 trillion this fiscal year, and President-elect Barack Obama’s economic stimulus package, under review by lawmakers, would only add to the deficit.

That’s on top of a $700 billion financial rescue, a $17 billion auto bailout and the first $150 billion stimulus (that’s the one approved right before the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression).

So where does it end?

(from Economists Warn Against Feeding ‘Trillion-Dollar Deficits’, FOXNews.com)

Anyone over the age of 20 who has ever had a credit card knows where it ends. So why don’t our elected representatives?

From YouTube, we have more evidence that smoking is cool.

Any excuse to play with fire in public is cool in my book.

In the world of the TV sitcom “Seinfeld,” Festivus is a goofy, high-tension Christmas substitute dreamt up by George Costanza’s angry dad. Revelers gathered around an aluminum pole and couldn’t leave until someone pinned the head of the household to the floor.

Festivus is still good for a laugh among “Seinfeld” loyalists, even 11 years after the episode was first broadcast.

Funny, but nobody’s laughing much about the Festivus pole that popped up under the dome of the Illinois Capitol this week.

(from Festivus pole goes up in the Illinois Capitol, and the gripes begin, Pantagraph.com)