Tech post: Encryption is a Good Thing...

Some of my friends know that I'm a bit of a crypto-buff. I consider myself a regular-guy crypto buff. That means that I care strongly about my privacy, feel that my email and instant messages are my own, and cringe whenever I hear about unscrupulous companies or governments intercepting and reading the emails and messages of their private citizens. What I don't know is the technical aspects of computer-based crypto.

In short, I use encryption, just don't ask me how it works.

For those who wonder why I care, consider this. It is a felony to open another person's US Mail. That's right, a felony. Not a misdemeanor. Felony means you can serve jail time, it stays on your permanent record. But if you open someone else's email, nothing. Nada, Niente. If I'm enterprising, I can intercept your email, read it, and even alter it and send it on. You'd have to catch me altering it, AND prove that you suffered monetary damage from my altering. But at that stage, the legal costs would be too much. In short, email and instant messaging have NONE of the protections standard snail mail does. In this day and age, much information is passed electronically, and much of the information is sensitive. So why does the average American put up with this, knowing full well that Verizon and Comcast can read your email to Aunt Melba complaining of their service and act accordingly?

Because the average American doesn't care.

"Why encrypt it? Do you have something to hide?"

Well, if that's the way you feel, why don't you parade naked around the house with all your windows open? What, you have something to hide?

So, I like encryption and I'd like others to use it. Since others do not (yet), the least I can do is digitally sign my emails. This proves that the email actually came from me, and not, for example, Dr. Svavimbi from Nigera (you all know him, right?)

There are a variety of programs out there that allow you to encrypt, sign and decrypt content, messages, and emails. The most popular is PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) and it's open-source cousin, GPG (Gnu Privacy Guard)
Better pages exist that describe the full process, but here's the short end: PGP/GPG uses shared keys. Each person has their own key, that exists in two parts. A secret/private key and a public key. I give the public key to you, and you use that key to encrypt an email addressed to me. I receive that email, and use my private/secret key to decrypt it. Only messages encrypted with my public key can be decrypted with my secret key. But no messages encrypted with my public key can be decrypted with the same public key. The same process occurs with each message recipient I want to securely email. Therefore, I can freely give out my public key, and receive any encrypted emails I want.

PGP was the originator of the whole shebang, and they've since become a private company, selling PGP Desktop to the masses (both corporate and individual). It is a nice, integrated program with neat GUI visuals and easy to use documentation and features. It also costs money.

GPG is the open-source spinoff, fully compatible with PGP Desktop. Not as integrated, not as fancy, but containing all the pertinent functionality. It costs nothing.

I've decided that free is better at this point, so GPG is my choice. MacGPG more to my point, as I interface with the matrix through my Powerbook. It took installing a few packages, but really had little setup time, and I'm able to integrate it nicely with Mail or Entourage. I don't have the PGP Disk feature, that encrypts folders/disks, but it's not available for Tiger anyway, so I'll make do.

Overall impression? I like it. You should too.

Here's my Public Key. Send me an email and welcome back to privacy!

Technorati Tags: puppy

Taking a chance on Broadband...

It's official. We've left the bonds and chains of conventional telephony and taken a bold leap into digital future.

Well that sounds corny, right? What we really did is sign up for Vonage and tell Verizon to stick it.

I am pleased to report that the first few days have been wonderful. The quality is fine, no dropped calls, and the web-based dashboard appeals to a geek like me. Any service that emails me WAV's of my voice messages as they happen has my vote. Thankfully, Verizon completely disconnected our service instead of leaving a carrier signal. This allowed me to plug Vonage into the wall and repeat the signal to the entire house. So really, there's no perceivable difference, which is what I like. (And Mrs. Splice. She's fine with newtech in the house, as long as she doesn't have to do backflips in order to operate it. My Modded-Xbox was significantly modified until it performed as a home entertainment center first, and geekdom-toy second.)

The reasons for our jump were two-fold. One, we were paying upwards of $70 to Verizon per month for "Freedom Unlimited", which means free calls anywhere in the US and Canada, and Voicemail, 3-way calling, yadda yadda.

Seventy bucks is a lot of money.

Comcast serves our cable modem, and that's close to 60 bucks a month, so combined, that's a lot of money. Vonage offered essentially the same deal for $25 a month, and even went down to $16 a month if we did 500 minutes or less. Mrs. Splice spends most of her speaker-ear time with the cell-phone and I communicate largely in text, so 500 seemed a good spot to start.

The detractors would say "Why not kill the cable modem and sign up for DSL with Verizon? They charge $30, versus the $60 you're currently paying. Average it out and you're paying the same price." Treu, Treu. We actually tried that. And what happened forms the basis for Number Two.

4:30AM. Los Angeles Time. The phone rings. The Splicehold growls unintelligibly in bed. Ringer vibrations invade our dreams, but our autonomic systems refuse to wake us from our slumber. The voicemail takes it. Later on, we discover that no message was left.

4:43AM. Los Angeles Time. The phone rings. This time we wake up. We can't believe anyone we know who loves us would call at such ungodly an hour. So we let it go. Again, no message is left.

This pattern continues for a few more days as we go through the emotional landscape of anger, denial, fear, and finally more anger as we realize that whomever is calling simply isn't getting it.

So on the last day, Mrs. Splice picks up the phone to tell whomever is calling off.

It's Verizon customer service! They have a question concerning our upcoming DSL Installation and have been trying to contact us.

You're kidding me.

Nope, they're cheerfully serious, and little despondent that they've had to call multiple time to reach us. My wife explains that it's 5:30 in the morning, and since 80% of the western half of the USA is still sleeping, Verizon should not expect us to be any different. Verizon explains that while it's 5:30AM in California, it's actually 8:30AM in Florida, where the call center is based, and therefore, is perfectly within normal business hours.

Wrong Answer.

Let me rephrase that. After initial disbelief in this answer, Wrong Answer. This is before the service is even turned on!

The Verizon representative proceeds to quash any attempt my wife has in explaining that while it's business time in Florida, it's not in California, it never will be for us, and they should not expect to contact us at this time.

The Verizon rep then says that the person opening the account was actually MR. Splice, not my wife, and could she please speak to me.

Unbelievable. Mrs. Splice explains that Mr. Splice can't come to the phone as he is currently sleeping! She tells them to call back after noon and then we can talk.

2 Hours later they call back. I'm up now and I pick up the phone. Verizon sounds happy to hear me. I tell them to cancel the order. It's just not going to work. I don't care that they're 30$ a month cheaper. If this is the way they treat customers, then I want nothing to do with it.


So there is no love lost on Verizon and the Splicehold.

Goodbye Verizon, hello Vonage. Treat us right and don't call before 9am, and we'll be loyal customers for life.

Back again

Apologies for the delay....

It seems that blog entries come in waves for me. Sometimes I have words that are dying to get out, sometimes I have commentaries I feel like sharing. I don't often have the discipline to comment on the ephemera of Pop Culture like some of my peers, or the mentality to hold a continuous discourse on subjects far and wide. So my posts often come scatter-shot. So keeping in the tradition of not being present or prescient, here we go again.

FAVORITE BOOKS OF THE MOMENT



I'm reading Phillip Pullman's His Dark Materials saga currently. (The fansite is better than the official site). I'm in book two, The Subtle Knife, and so far they have been brillliant. A fantastic tale set in the kind of world that differs from ours in every enchanting way. Everything makes sense and his treatment of morality and religion pose brilliant questions to the reader. The series has taken a lot of flack for the apparent atheism of its author, but I've never felt my faith to be in question in enjoying the series. Although I disagree with Mr. Pullman on theological matters, I feel his depiction of a religious magisterium gone mad, to be a thoughtful rebuke and sounding point on matters where this world's religions have used and been used for ill rather than good. It forces me to question, and I like that in a book. Also the economy in which Pullman tells his stories is a welcome refresher to the often overwrought prose of current fantasists. Overall, a thoroughly enjoyable series I recommend to anyone who've enjoyed Tolkien, Lewis, Eddings, Jordan, et. al.

Laziness

New stuff to report, just lazy.... Enjoy.

The Raw Story | Rep. calls for deeper inquiry into secret Iraq attack plan

The Raw Story | Rep. calls for deeper inquiry into secret Iraq attack plan:
SECRET PLANS
Eighty-eight members of Congress call on Bush for answers on secret Iraq plan

RAW STORY

Eighty-eight members of Congress have signed a letter authored by Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) calling on President Bush to answer questions about a secret U.S.-UK agreement to attack Iraq, RAW STORY has learned.

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In a letter, Conyers and other members say they are disappointed the mainstream media has not touched the revelations.

"Unfortunately, the mainstream media in the United States was too busy with wall-to-wall coverage of a "runaway bride" to cover a bombshell report out of the British newspapers," Conyers writes. "The London Times reports that the British government and the United States government had secretly agreed to attack Iraq in 2002, before authorization was sought for such an attack in Congress, and had discussed creating pretextual justifications for doing so."

"The Times reports, based on a newly discovered document, that in 2002 British Prime Minister Tony Blair chaired a meeting in which he expressed his support for "regime change" through the use of force in Iraq and was warned by the nation's top lawyer that such an action would be illegal," he adds. "Blair also discussed the need for America to "create" conditions to justify the war."

The members say they are seeking an inquiry.

"This should not be allowed to fall down the memory hole during wall-to-wall coverage of the Michael Jackson trial and a runaway bride," he remarks. "To prevent that from occuring, I am circulating the following letter among my House colleagues and asking them to sign on to it."

The letter follows.

###

May 5, 2005

The Honorable George W. Bush President of the United States of America The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20500

Dear Mr. President:

We write because of troubling revelations in the Sunday London Times apparently confirming that the United States and Great Britain had secretly agreed to attack Iraq in the summer of 2002, well before the invasion and before you even sought Congressional authority to engage in military action. While various individuals have asserted this to be the case before, including Paul O'Neill, former U.S. Treasury Secretary, and Richard Clarke, a former National Security Council official, they have been previously dismissed by your Administration. However, when this story was divulged last weekend, Prime Minister Blair's representative claimed the document contained "nothing new." If the disclosure is accurate, it raises troubling new questions regarding the legal justifications for the war as well as the integrity of your own Administration.

The Sunday Times obtained a leaked document with the minutes of a secret meeting from highly placed sources inside the British Government. Among other things, the document revealed:

* Prime Minister Tony Blair chaired a July 2002 meeting, at which he discussed military options, having already committed himself to supporting President Bush's plans for invading Iraq.

* British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw acknowledged that the case for war was "thin" as "Saddam was not threatening his neighbours and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea, or Iran."

* A separate secret briefing for the meeting said that Britain and America had to "create" conditions to justify a war.

* A British official "reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."

As a result of this recent disclosure, we would like to know the following:

1) Do you or anyone in your Administration dispute the accuracy of the leaked document?

2) Were arrangements being made, including the recruitment of allies, before you sought Congressional authorization go to war? Did you or anyone in your Administration obtain Britain's commitment to invade prior to this time?

3) Was there an effort to create an ultimatum about weapons inspectors in order to help with the justification for the war as the minutes indicate?

4) At what point in time did you and Prime Minister Blair first agree it was necessary to invade Iraq?

5) Was there a coordinated effort with the U.S. intelligence community and/or British officials to "fix" the intelligence and facts around the policy as the leaked document states?

We have of course known for some time that subsequent to the invasion there have been a variety of varying reasons proffered to justify the invasion, particularly since the time it became evident that weapons of mass destruction would not be found. This leaked document - essentially acknowledged by the Blair government - is the first confirmation that the rationales were shifting well before the invasion as well.

Given the importance of this matter, we would ask that you respond to this inquiry as promptly as possible. Thank you.

Sincerely,

Members who have already signed letter:
Neil Abercrombie
Brian Baird
Tammy Baldwin
Xavier Becerra
Shelley Berkley
Eddie Bernice Johnson
Sanford Bishop
Earl Blumenauer
Corrine Brown
Sherrod Brown
G.K. Butterfield
Emanuel Cleaver
James Clyburn
John Conyers
Jim Cooper
Elijah Cummings
Danny Davis
Peter DeFazio
Diana DeGette
Bill Delahunt
Rosa DeLauro
Lloyd Doggett
Sam Farr
Bob Filner
Harold Ford, Jr.
Barney Frank
Al Green
Raul Grijalva
Louis Gutierrez
Alcee Hastings
Maurice Hinchey
Rush Holt
Jay Inslee
Sheila Jackson Lee
Jessie Jackson Jr.
Marcy Kaptur
Patrick Kennedy
Dale Kildee
Carolyn Kilpatrick
Dennis Kucinich
William Lacy Clay
Barbara Lee
John Lewis
Zoe Lofgren
Donna M. Christensen
Carolyn Maloney
Ed Markey
Carolyn McCarthy
Jim McDermott
James McGovern
Cynthia McKinney
Martin Meehan
Kendrick Meek
Gregory Meeks
Michael Michaud
George Miller
Gwen S. Moore
James Moran
Jerrold Nadler
Grace Napolitano
James Oberstar
John Olver
Major Owens
Frank Pallone
Donald Payne
Charles Rangel
Bobby Rush
Bernie Sanders
Linda Sanchez
Jan Schakowsky
Jose Serrano
Ike Skelton
Louise Slaughter
Hilda Solis
Pete Stark
Ellen Tauscher
Bennie Thompson
Edolphus Towns
Stephanie Tubbs Jones
Chris Van Hollen
Nydia Velazquez
Debbie Wasserman Schultz
Maxine Waters
Diane Watson
Melvin Watt
Robert Wexler
Lynn Woolsey
David Wu
Albert R. Wynn

Brazil rejects U.S. AIDS cash over policy

Good. Although abstinence does prevent all STD's, the fact is you cannot get humanity to stop having sex. The best thing to do is to educate totally. In the event some one does have sex, they should know how to protect themselves.

Gus Cairns, Gay.com U.K.
Wednesday, May 4, 2005 / 05:39 PM

SUMMARY: Brazil has become the first country to turn down grants totaling $40 million from the U.S. in protest against U.S. demands that the funds be used for abstinence education.

Brazil has become the first country to turn down grants totaling $40 million from the United States, in protest against U.S. demands that the funds be used for abstinence education, not outreach to sex workers.

The $40 million was the bulk of a $48 million grant which was due to run till 2008.

Brazil can afford to turn down the Bush dollars. Unlike some poorer countries, it has an anti-AIDS program that is largely self-financed, and less than 2 percent of its money comes directly from the U.S. government.

The U.S. money was originally supposed to include $190,000 for eight sex workers' support groups. Gabriela Leite, co-ordinator of the Brazilian Network of Sex Professionals, said that they had hammered out a 50-page agreement with the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) that the money would go only to AIDS education and prevention, but the deal fell apart when they refused to include a written clause condemning prostitution.

Brazil's anti-HIV program is seen as a model for the developing world. It has kept its HIV rate down to about 0.6 percent, when it was widely expected to be at least double that by 2005. It's success has been attributed to a combination of free anti-HIV drugs for everyone who needs them, widespread condom distribution and open and accepting communication with prostitutes, gay men and drug users. Prostitution is legal in Brazil, and the age of consent for everyone -- regardless of sexuality -- is 14.

"We can't control HIV with principles that are ... theological, fundamentalist and Shiite," said Pedro Chequer, director of Brazil's AIDS program. He condemned "interference that harms the Brazilian policy regarding diversity, ethical principles and human rights."

Brazil's former Health Minister Paulo Teixeira told the United Nations Commission on Population and Development that the United States' preferred policies of sexual abstinence until marriage and fidelity in marriage were less effective than condom distribution.

"Based on international experiences, today there is no evidence whatsoever that moral recommendations, such as abstinence and fidelity, have any impact that might prevent infection and curb the epidemic," he told the U.N.

In the United States, Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., has condemned the Bush government requirement that any AIDS organization receiving U.S. federal funds sign up to a written pledge opposing commercial sex work, even if the work it does in developing countries has nothing to do with prostitution.

Waxman said such a declaration was against the constitutional right to free speech. But Rep. Henry Hyde, R-Ill., urged a tightening of U.S. policy. He said that one-third of the U.S. Presidential Executive Provision for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) was supposed to go to abstinence programs, yet the money mainly went not to faith-based groups but to "organizations long-associated with the social marketing of condoms. This must not continue."
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Happy Texas

Count on a Texan to give this a little spice. I don't condone his actions, as everyone has a right to speak, even Ann Coulter.


Another Counter-Coulter Bust - May 4, 2005:

Another Counter-Coulter Bust

Lewd heckler arrested at conservative's Texas college lecture

MAY 5--Months after members of "Al Pieda" marred a campus speech by Ann Coulter, another appearance by the controversial conservative commentator has been disrupted by a protester. During a speech last night at the University of Texas in Austin, a 19-year-old UT student was busted after asking Coulter a lewd question, which he followed up with equally inappropriate hand gestures, according to the below police affidavit. The student, Ajai Raj, was arrested by campus police and hit with a misdemeanor disorderly conduct charge. The police affidavit notes that Coulter's lecture was attended by "several children under the age of ten," which probably made them particularly sensitive when Raj queried Coulter about the sexual proclivities of certain right-leaning men. Raj is pictured at right in an Austin Police Department booking photo. (1 page)

"IDOL" CHATTER: Bo blows away past, Scott beati

First Blog using DASHBlog in Tiger!!!

Whooo hooo! New OS!