Thursday, April 29, 1999

Strange Days -- Thinking Out Loud

Jon Katz: The Price of Being Different -- "Since Littleton, the cost of being different has gone up. Thousands of powerful e-mail messages have chronicled an educational system that glorifies the traditional and the normal, and brutalizes and alienates people who are or who are perceived as different...."

Nando Times: As millenium bug fears fade, survivalist sales slow -- "As fears subside about the Year 2000 computer bug and its power to disrupt basic services, Americans are losing interest in stockpiling freeze-dried foods and other survivalist-type goods." (So, are things really in that great shape, or are the spinmeisters winning?)

Plate tectonics on Mars? -- Magnetic stripes on Mars suggest that tectonic plate activity may have occurred there as presently occurs on Earth, a hypothesis possibly furthering the premise that Mars once contained water and, hence, perhaps microbial life.

Newsbytes: Securities Industry Passes Y2K Test -- "In a combined effort involving the U.S. Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Securities Industry Association (SIA), live beta testing completed today shows that the American securities industry will survive the dawning of the new millennium."

Dress codes tighten after shootings -- Besides the plausible reason of making it difficult for students to smuggle weapons into school, "other dress code measures are aimed at imposing conformity and reducing feelings of isolation." [AP/Yahoo] Opponents argue that dress codes will not prevent kids from tormenting other kids, will not stop kids from forming cliques, and will not address social isolation experienced by many students.

GAO questions Defense Department anthrax vaccines -- "The Defense Department is inoculating members of the services against anthrax without knowing if the vaccine will work effectively in biological warfare or if it is sufficiently safe, congressional investigators said Thursday." [Reuters/Yahoo]

The Globe & Mail discusses Peter de Jager's seeming turn-around from Y2K prophet-of-doom to optimist.

Salon: American Poison -- "The Littleton massacre is horrifying proof of our society's spiritual emptiness."

CNN: Colorado lawmaker may quit over gun foe threats -- "A top Colorado lawmaker, who had pushed a bill making it easier to carry concealed weapons, said Wednesday he may quit politics due to angry calls from gun foes following the massacre at Columbine High School."

Wired: DejaNews Monitors Email Links -- "A snippet of embedded HTML allows the discussion service to monitor what are supposed to be private exchanges."

China denies stealing U.S. nuclear warhead designs.

Federal Computer Week: FAA will roll out an early version of the troubled STARS flight control system at "a few smaller airports while delaying full rollout of the $1 billion project until the final system is ready for use." [Also see article from April 12.]

Wednesday, April 28, 1999

HCFA and GAO disagree over Medicare's Y2k readiness. The Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA), which handles payment of Medicare claims, is relatively optimistic; the General Accounting Office (GAO) feels that the HCFA has not been "rigorous enough."

The U.S. now acknowledges an "egregious" security breach at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. "...Wen Ho Lee, a former Los Alamos scientist suspected of spying for China, improperly transferred millions of lines of computer code related to how U.S. nuclear warheads work." [Yahoo/Reuters]

Copycat shooting at Canadian high school. (Although there have been a number of bomb and gun threats at U.S. schools following the Littleton tragedy, this came as a large surprise to me personally.)

Salon: Draskovic Fired -- "The Yugoslav deputy prime minister is removed from office for criticizing Milosevic."

Tuesday, April 27, 1999

Jon Katz: More Stories from the Hellmouth -- "These jarring testimonials explained more - a lot more - about Littleton than all the vapid media stories about video violence, Goths, game-crazed geeks."

U.S. calls up reserves for NATO air war.

Wired: Washington: The Net Must Pay -- Demands for Internet regulation soar following the Littleton tragedy. Can we move beyond scapegoating and political jockeying? [See The Internet as the New Satan, May 1998]

Monday, April 26, 1999

Biometric profiling -- Can we prevent our DNA "fingerprints" and retinal scans from being stored in a federal government computer database? There appears to be a trend developing to accumulate as much information about private citizens as possible. "The US Secret Service paid Image Data LLC US$1.5 million to develop [a] database [of driver-license photographs], which has become the target of at least two lawsuits since the agency's role became public." [Wired]

Chernobyl virus strikes. Although not as widespread as the recent Melissa virus, the Chernobyl (or CIH) virus has caused severe damage, trashed hard drives, and rendered some PCs unbootable. Back up thy data!

Sunday, April 25, 1999

Draconian Net Censorship Proposals Attacked -- Electronic Frontiers Australia press release on the incredible swing to the right Down Under.

Also see The Dawn of a New Dark Age? from the Australian law firm of Gilbert & Tobin.

Friday, April 23, 1999

salon.com: Of Course it Happened Here and Misfits Who Don't Kill

Wired: Looking for Someone to Blame -- The world struggles to make sense of the Littleton, CO, massacre.

Thursday, April 22, 1999

The U.S. Space Command will test the Global Positioning System over a period of four days, both in regard to any potential year-2000 problems, and also in regard to the End of Week rollover which will occur approximately midnight August 21, 1999.

Political influence peddling in Australia -- "'The Liberal government is bowing to [Harradine's] whims on censorship -- particularly TV and Internet -- to buy his vote for the goods and services tax,' said one source familiar with the situation." [Wired]

Britain's Taskforce 2000 concurs with Gartner Group that most Year-2000 failures will actually occur during 1999. The countdown clock metaphor is a misleading image.

Michael Moore: The Bombing of Kosovo

Wednesday, April 21, 1999

The Clinton administration deems Rep. Harold Ford Jr.'s (D-Tenn.) proposed national Y2K test day as redundant, difficult, and a waste of time. John Koskinen, chairman of the President's Council on Year 2000 Conversion, stated again that major U.S. industries will be OK but foreign nations will have problems. [Federal Computer Week]

For a taste of Mr. Koskinen's grasp of matters, check out Scott Johnson's interview on Y2K Today (April 18), which asks some serious questions. Also check out the Motley Fool interview from March 31; I know we'll all sleep better at night after reading these...

Cypherpunk convicted of threatening government officials and Bill Gates. Internet essays posted last year may earn Carl Johnson seven years or more in prison. [See April 15]

Tuesday, April 20, 1999

Tennessee lawmaker proposes a national Y2K test day for July 1, 1999. The bill also "would set aside Aug. 16 as a 'National Y2K Disclosure Day,' in which federal agencies would be required to reveal the readiness of their mission-critical computer systems." [Federal Computer Week] FAA and airlines collaborate on profiling customers.

Saturday, April 17, 1999

The case of the misplaced embryo. [AP]

Through the looking glass... -- Webcams and microphones attached to a networked computer are vulnerable to hackers, according to a top Army computer protection official. [Federal Computer Week]

Indian Government Falls [Reuters]

Friday, April 16, 1999 Dirty needle scare -- A Palo Alto, California, lab technician sometimes reused disposable hypodermic needles.

Note: In the story linked immediately below, CNN has apparently posted information from a February 1999 briefing based on NERC information from November 1998. The March 1999 NERC report puts Y2K completion at 75%, not 44%. Not wonderful. but quite a difference. However, note (see April 11 below) that the utility companies are allowed to declare that they will be "compliant" by June 30, 1999 (even if they will not be) if they have exceptions which they report to the NERC. Given that NERC is guarding "exception" information from public or D.O.E. view, it is impossible to decipher how valid their 75% figure really is.

CNNfn: Power Firms Face Y2K Woes -- "The nation's electric power utilities have completed only 44 percent of Year 2000-related preparedness and testing, giving rise to concerns about the possibility of widespread power failures as the new year approaches, according to a government report."

Unprivate bookmarks -- "An obscure feature in Microsoft's Internet Explorer 5.0 Web browser informs Web sites when users bookmark their pages." [Wired]

We want the money back! -- "Senate bill S. 544, would divert emergency Y2K funding to a bill that would appropriate $2.4 billion for Central American hurricane victims, among other things. The proposal asks for $973 million back from the Y2K fund, although there is only $500 million left unspent." [GovExec.com]

Newbytes: Koskinen Explains Y2K Number Discrepancies -- The continually shrinking number of Federal computer systems not designated "mission critical" is a perfectly normal thing, according to John Koskinen, the Federal Y2K czar. Other commentators have expressed concern that the feds are fudging the numbers in order to achieve higher percentage-complete numbers.

Thursday, April 15, 1999

Whither free speech? -- Does loud political commentary and parody on the Internet warrant charges of obstruction of justice?

New solar system discovered.

Wednesday, April 14, 1999

David Eddy: Bogus Numbers -- "The ultimate example of such lunacy is when the Air Force blandly tallies the B-2 bomber as one system and the F-16 fighter as 82 systems. Let's do the math...fix the B-2 and we're 1.2 percent done, fix the F-16 and we're 98.8 percent done." [Westergaard Year 2000]

Mr. "Potatoe" announces presidential candidacy. I suppose it could be worse...

Pakistan reacts, tests own missile. Tit for tat!

Searching for the Big Bang.

Tuesday, April 13, 1999

Kevorkian sentenced to 10-25 years.

Health advocates demand credible public research of effects of cellular phone transmissions.

Monday, April 12, 1999

FAA's Denver "test" a success. Not to nit-pick, but this was a demo, not a test. It turned out that confidence was based on a series of four previously undisclosed "dry runs" leading up to this weekend's test. [ZDNet]

Federal Computer Week discusses the FAA's STARS system, a floundering one-billion-dollar project designed to replace FAA's antiquated air traffic data system. "STARS is a disaster," Michael Fanfalone, the national president of the Professional Airways Systems Specialists, said in a prepared statement. "Despite spending years, and millions, on its development, the [FAA] now acknowledges it cannot be used in high-density airports."

Bill Gates says Y2K bug won't be as bad as feared. -- Gee, I feel sooooo much better now.

Another "it's their fault" lawsuit? The computer games, the suit claimed, ``trained Carneal to point and shoot a gun in a fashion making him an ... effective killer without teaching him any of the constraints or responsibilities needed to inhibit such a killing capacity.'' [Reuters/Yahoo] -- Isn't it the responsiblity of parents to teach their children restraint? Values? Common sense?

Susan McDougal found not guilty.

This writer is convinced that Y2K is a hoax. Maybe he should read the Senate Report?

More on the alleged NERC conspiracy. (This does not appear to be a static link. The article has been posted on Usenet and also appears here.)

Sunday, April 11, 1999

Today is catch-up day!

India tests upgraded nuke-capable ballistic missile.

Al Gore says no plans to resurrect the draft.

Some feel Congress should debate sending ground troops in Kosovo. "America, wake up," said Rep. Steve Buyer (R-Indiana). "Europe is at war, and we are in it." [CNN]

Electrical utilities' drill deemed a success; however, this article is one of few that correctly points out that the drill was about backup communications, not testing remediated computer systems.

The NERC drill is seen as a conspiracy in this Worldnet Daily article. You decide... ;-)

Here comes da' judge! -- Irate Pennsylvania judge subpoenas AOL.

Shootings mar Daytona Beach festival [see Thurs., April 08, 1999]. But what color are flames? A local resident muses: ``As far as the traffic goes, it's bad enough any time the town fills up with tourists,'' said local resident Tina Dean, who had supported the bridge closings. ``It's just that we worry about what might happen. What if a riot started? Every home on the beach side could go up in flames.'' [Yahoo/Reuters]

From Friday:

Russian speaker sets off alarm bells with statement that Russia has retargeted its missiles towards NATO targets. As we've seen, this statement was apparently "misinterpreted."

New York state comptroller in flap over Y2K prison security issues.

Thursday, April 08, 1999

Archive: "After the Lights Go Down Low" -- Whistling "Auld Lang Syne" in the dark?

Discrimination or traffic control? [Reuters]

Power companies planning April 9 Y2K drill. [AP/Abq. Journal]

Wednesday, April 07, 1999

EPA flubs and mistakenly declares toxic waste site safe. During the EPA's original probe in 1981, agency officials visited the wrong site because of ... ``misinformation'' from county records. [AP] (What might we see when various unprepared/underbudgeted counties' computer systems fail on or before 1/1/2000?)

Kosovo - the bleak becomes bleaker. [salon.com]

The Melissa virus and computer monocultures... "Why is it that a word processing document can grab a copy of your address book and send out copies of itself under your name without you even knowing about it?" -- [salon.com]

Students develop a wearable web cam/PC. [Wired]

Tuesday, April 06, 1999

Federal fudging? -- "Koskinenís job is to keep confidence in the banking system," said Y2K expert William Ulrich in a recent talk at TechWeekís offices for the Northern California chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. "He has no understanding of Y2K." -- [TechWeek]

Ed Yourdon refutes the Y2K three-day snowstorm metaphor.

Friday, April 02, 1999

Power Fantasies - The strange appeal of the Y2K bug -- "Wouldn't it be great if civilization as we know it collapsed? A lot of people seem to think so." [Reason Online]

From the Writer's Corner, A Hammer and Some Nails -- something to think about at Eastertime.