News

DNSSEC will be imposed on all .gov sites by next year. Why this wasn't done sooner is beyond me. At least they are wising up to this stuff.

Quote

DNSSEC prevents hackers from hijacking Web traffic and redirecting it to bogus sites. The Internet standard prevents spoofing attacks by allowing Web sites to verify their domain names and corresponding IP addresses using digital signatures and public-key encryption. With DNSSEC deployed, federal Web sites "are less prone to be hacked into, and it means they can offer their services with greater assurances to the public," says Leslie Daigle, Chief Internet Technology Officer for the Internet Society. "DNSSEC means more confidence in government online services."

As a follow up to my previous post on this subject, it seems that the US Federal Reserve decided it would be good to bail out more companies and the Treasury will fund those bailouts. Why isn't anyone up in arms about this?

Lehman Brothers wasn't bailed out, yet AIG was? If this situation isn't a perfect example of saving their own buddies, I don't know what is. The US Federal Reserve needs to be disbanded and we need to turn back to a proper monetary standard. You can't keep injecting cash (were does that come from?) into the market. Our currency is taking a dump again thanks to the government-banking complex. It is time the people take control and speak to your politicians. If enough of you speak up, things might get done.

Stop complaining and start acting. These bailouts are the wrong choice and it is the financial corporations that are making out like bandits from our own money. These companies should just die and let the market bare the results.

Before you say anything, I have a load of money in the stock market and it does cause me grief. It causes me more grief to watch our government continue to march towards socialism. The Federal Reserve has failed and the Tax Act of 1913 really screwed up this country. Time to go back to gold.

I try not to really step into politics that much on ASE Labs except when it comes to freedoms and digital matters, but I'm truly appalled at what the US government is doing with the financial institutions.

Let me give my thoughts on what I THOUGHT the USA was: I thought the the United States of America was a capitalist society. Granted, I understand that a pure capitalist society may harbor problems such as monopolies and such, which is why we have limits on such activity. Even so, business in America is capitalistic. Private entities own them and run them. Government DOES NOT own or run them. They may regulate some industries (utilities or things that provide life giving services like power and water), but all in all, they stay out of the way.

What the government proved when they decided to bail out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is that it is a SOCIALIST entity. These two companies ARE private entities and as such the government should not get into their affairs to help them when THEY SCREWED THEMSELVES. Think about this, the government now owns those companies. See a problem with this? Or are you blinded by how well your stocks are doing now?

When big businesses don't need to worry about falling under due to bad choices or risk, what is the point of providing a good service to the market? The problem is the US government, not the closing of these two companies. If these two companies were destined to close, then so be it. They are private and it is their problem, NOT THE TAX PAYERS. Do not throw me the line about how the economy will suffer. What you need to understand is that the people that decided to bail these companies out ARE IN BED with the group that controls the money. Everyone on the board of those companies should be indicted and the Treasury secretary needs to be removed and perhaps charges be brought against him. This is absolute lunacy when the people let things like this slip by unnoticed. The board of those companies should not walk free.

Letting these things pass by is the start of very, very bad things for this country. Call your politicians now and let them know that you are NOT in favor of turning America into a socialist country. I know I'm making the call to all of them in my state.

I do not enjoy watching my country that I grew up knowing that it is the best country in the world fall by the government-banking complex. Break this trend now, let the country go back into capitalism and stop these banking bailouts.

It seems that Judges think that the Feds are immune from laws governing the US. The USAF cracked some code and the company sued under the DMCA. The judge threw the case out saying that the government is immune from laws (basically). I'm sorry, in America (that's the US), we abide by the laws at all levels of government. If we didn't, the administration gets a blank check to trample over our rights... ohh wait, they already did that. This country is getting more and more screwed by the day. Write your congressmoron and tell them that if the government doesn't like a law, THEY HAVE THE POWER TO CHANGE THE LAW! The DMCA is a piece of crap and the USAF knows it. The judge is too stupid to hear the case. If he did, the law might turn out to have been unconstitutional.

Quote

The backstory on the case involved, Blueport v. United States, borders on the absurd. It started when Sergeant Mark Davenport went to work in the group within the US Air Force that ran its manpower database. Finding the existing system inefficient, Davenport requested training in computer programming so that he could improve it; the request was denied. Showing the sort of personal initiative that only gets people into trouble, Davenport then taught himself the needed skills and went to work redesigning the system.

Although Davenport did his development on a personal system at home, he began to bring beta versions of his code in for testing, and eventually started distributing his improved system within his unit, giving the software a timed expiration. A demonstration to higher-ups led to a recommendation for his immediate promotion, but that was followed by demands that the code for his software be turned over to the USAF.

Davenport responded by selling his code to Blueport, which attempted to negotiate a license with the Air Force, which responded by hiring a company to hack the compiled version by deleting the code that enforced the expiration date. Blueport then sued, citing copyright law and the DMCA.

And then...

Quote

But the court also addressed the DMCA claims made by Blueport, and its decision here is quite striking. "The DMCA itself contains no express waiver of sovereign immunity," the judge wrote, "Indeed, the substantive prohibitions of the DMCA refer to individual persons, not the Government." Thus, because sovereign immunity is not explicitly eliminated, and the phrasing of the statute does not mention organizations, the DMCA cannot be applied to the US government, even in cases where the more general immunity to copyright claims does not apply.

It appears that Congress took a "do as we say, not as we need to do" approach to strengthening digital copyrights.

Terrible. Judges in this country are just plain stupid.

The House just approved the warrantless wireless tapping bill. This is a terrible day for America. Hopefully the Senate will be smarter and NOT allow this kind of crap to happen. If it does become a law, a judge should have no problem in overturning it due to the precendent set in the Bill Of Rights. These assholes in government need to know that people will not stand for their freedoms being violated in this manner.

Quote

The Senate also could vote on a similar bill before Congress recesses at the end of the week. Leaders concede that differences between the versions are so significant they cannot reconcile them into a final bill that can be delivered to Bush before the Nov. 7 congressional elections. For its part, the White House announced it strongly supported passage of the House version but wasn't satisfied with it, adding that the administration "looks forward to working with Congress to strengthen the bill as it moves through the legislative process."