Microsoft's on my sh*t list again

Editing documents. Going through changes. Windows decides to do an automatic update. Since I'm busy going through (hardcopy) sources, I don't see the "I'm going to reboot your computer in 5 minutes unless you tell me not to" notice. Computer reboots. Office dumps some of my changes -- no recovery notice or anything else.

Microsoft, the only reason I use your crappy products is that I'm locked in to being compatible with other people who dislike your crappy products as much as I do. I have no idea what you were thinking with that misfeature. Automatic reboot with an opt-out? And I have to lose work because you couldn't be (a) bothered to test your security-hole-ridden operating system properly in the first place, (b) couldn't be bothered to make sure Office saves properly on a forced reboot, (c) chose to design a system that's so brain-dead it has to force a reboot just to update itself, and (d) didn't have the foresight to do even a modicum of thinking about the fact that people who are locked into your crappy products have to use them to do real work?

I've now neutered autoupdate on this machine. It'll download automatically, but that's it.

P.S. If you read this, kindly explain to me why Windows Update sets its reboot period to 5 minutes, but Word defaults to saving autorecovery information every 10 minutes.

FM 96.9 goes off the air again (but comes back)

San Diego has a pirate radio station at 96.9. An article a friend wrote put me onto them. Some time ago, they got raided, their equipment was confiscated, and they got knocked off the air. Then they came back. Well, as of about 10:50 this morning, the signal blinked out again. It came back at 11:08, so I guess it must've been a technical problem. What's odd is their web page is also down (they know about it, but they weren't sure what the problem was.)

I noticed the problem around 10:30 when I couldn't get to their web page (normally www.pirate969.org, it's in Google's cache here ). "OK," thought I, "something's probably wrong with our DSL." I turned on the radio to double-check and picked up their signal just fine. Then I started troubleshooting the network. Then, at 10:51, the signal suddenly cut out. At that point, I figured another raid had confiscated their transmitter, but as I was writing this entry the signal came back. So I called the station (got the phone number off the Google cache of the web page -- for future reference, in case the cache evaporates, their phone is 619-501-9532 and e-mail is freeradiosandiego at gmail dot com). They know the web page is off the air but don't know why.

Further exploration showed that their web hosting service is no longer serving their domain name. The Internet, you see, runs on addresses, those 1.2.3.4 numbers you sometimes see. Humans don't remember those addresses very well. We much prefer names, like "www.pirate969.org". So there's a translation service, called the Domain Name Service, or DNS, that translates names to addresses. If there's no translation, then when you type in "www.pirate969.org", your web browser doesn't know what address to go to, so you can't connect.

Righto, so let's figure out what's up with the station's web page. We'll start with the ".org" part and ask the computers that handle ".org" where to find "pirate969.org". On linux systems, the "dig" command will do that:

$ dig @tld2.ultradns.net. pirate969.org. soa

; <<>> DiG 9.3.2 <<>> @tld2.ultradns.net. pirate969.org. soa
; (1 server found)
;; global options:  printcmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 55133
;; flags: qr rd; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 0, AUTHORITY: 2, ADDITIONAL: 0

;; QUESTION SECTION:
;pirate969.org.                 IN      SOA

;; AUTHORITY SECTION:
pirate969.org.          86400   IN      NS      ns4.flawless-hosting.com.
pirate969.org.          86400   IN      NS      ns3.flawless-hosting.com.

;; Query time: 28 msec
;; SERVER: 204.74.113.1#53(204.74.113.1)
;; WHEN: Sun Aug 13 11:24:32 2006
;; MSG SIZE  rcvd: 87

Translation: "Yo, people who handle all the '.org' domain names, who's got 'pirate969.org'?" "Dude, ns4.flawless-hosting.com and ns3.flawless-hosting.com handle that."

$ dig @ns4.flawless-hosting.com. pirate969.org. soa

; <<>> DiG 9.3.2 <<>> @ns4.flawless-hosting.com. pirate969.org. soa
; (1 server found)
;; global options:  printcmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: SERVFAIL, id: 59423
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 0, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 0

;; QUESTION SECTION:
;pirate969.org.                 IN      SOA

;; Query time: 88 msec
;; SERVER: 66.45.232.84#53(66.45.232.84)
;; WHEN: Sun Aug 13 11:27:05 2006
;; MSG SIZE  rcvd: 31

Translation: "Yo, ns4.flawless-hosting.com, who handles pirate969.org?" "Beats me, man, no idea."

So it looks like someone's confused, but at least the station's still on the air. For now. I gave them a heads-up about the DNS problem so maybe the web page will be back too.

what was the 9-11 response after all

Well, summer's over. Today was my last day of work at the summer job. School starts back up in a week, so I guess it's time to get back to blogging. This story from the Washington Post is interesting -- I hadn't realized the military's response on Sep. 11, 2001 was very unlike what got reported at the time:

Some staff members and commissioners of the Sept. 11 panel concluded that the Pentagon's initial story of how it reacted to the 2001 terrorist attacks may have been part of a deliberate effort to mislead the commission and the public rather than a reflection of the fog of events on that day, according to sources involved in the debate.

over-lawyering

OK, I haven't written in a while, mostly because of too much going on and not enough interesting to write about, but here's a lovely bit of over-lawyering courtesy of Consumer's Reports. Behold the HoMedics SQuSH Travel Pillow, which bears the following warnings:

• Do Not Use for Sleeping. For Decorative Purposes Only.
• Use caution to avoid inhaling beads. If beads are inhaled, seek medical assistance.

I'm still trying to figure out how you use a travel pillow decoratively.

phone companies respond to NSA record allegations

Finals are almost over. I'm just poking my head out of the hermitage during a quick study break.

It looks like Reuters is reporting on some interesting developments in the NSA domestic wiretapping and record collection issue. Apparently there's a multi-hundred-million-dollar class action suit forming against the long distance companies that have allegedly been turning over records to the NSA. From the Reuters article, it sounds like their responses are, paraphrased, "We didn't give them records. We won't say whether we let them come in and collect their own records."

It'd be a shame in this case to rely entirely on one news source. Here are direct links to the press releases:

• Verizon (intereting URL -- I'm curious what the "PROACTIVE_ID" field means):

  Again, Verizon cannot and will not confirm or deny whether it has any relationship to the classified NSA program. Verizon always stands ready, however, to help protect the country from terrorist attack. We owe this duty to our fellow citizens. We also have a duty, that we have always fulfilled, to protect the privacy of our customers. The two are not in conflict. When asked for help, we will always make sure that any assistance is authorized by law and that our customers’ privacy is safeguarded.



• BellSouth:

  As a result of media reports that BellSouth provided massive amounts of customer calling information under a contract with the NSA, the Company conducted an internal review to determine the facts. Based on our review to date, we have confirmed no such contract exists and we have not provided bulk customer calling records to the NSA.



• AT&T:

  We prize the trust our customers place in us. If and when AT&T is asked to help, we do so strictly within the law and under the most stringent conditions.

In the meantime, an ABC blogger has reported the government is using phone records to try to locate reporters' confidential sources, though it's not clear these phone records came from the same data collection program. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me if it's a different program, since the NSA one seems to be more about broad spectrum data mining than individualized suspicion (which, I think, would allow a FISA warrant.)

The times are indeed getting interesting. But I need to get back to studying.

Update: this post from Schneier on Security appears relevant. It provides highlights from an EFF lawsuit against AT&T that seem to discuss an NSA-owned data collection system within AT&T's network: "In January 2003, Klein observed a new room being built adjacent to the room housing AT&T's #4ESS switching equipment, which is responsible for routing long distance and international calls. . . . Klein's job eventually included connecting internet circuits to a splitting cabinet that led to the secret room."

I think the bottom line on this wiretapping issue is to ask yourself what sort of world you would like to live in. I don't have time to write much more about this issue now, but a good starting point might be to think about whether it's really true that there's a necessary tradeoff between security and privacy. If you believe there is, then another question to consider is what we're trading away, exactly what we're gaining, and whether the exchange is worth it.

Al Gore on subjunctivision

Subjunctivision: a term from Godel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid. Subjunctivision is a sort of "what if" television: by twiddling the controls, you can watch TV as if things had gone differently.

Al Gore opened for Saturday Night Live this past weekend. I hadn't seen the opening sequence until tonight. It's a very funny bit of comedy subjunctivision where he addresses the country as if he were elected President in 2000. You can catch the Quicktime link here.

the President's immigration speech

Up to 6,000 national guard troops stationed along the Mexican border.

An estimated 6,000 soldiers in Santa Anna's army.

A President from Texas.

Now, it's probably just a coincidence, but maybe it wasn't such a good choice of numbers. I'm just sayin'.

So's Vicente Fox.