Security

Get a temp number for your mobile

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Shadow/substitution solutions are becoming all the rage as people look for ways to create plausable deniability both from an attack and defense perspective. That’s just a fancy way of saying that more and more people want to be able to disappear.

Safe Talk is a UK company that suggest you use their service in order to

give out a temporary phone number to people you first meet so they can call you – until you know if they’re fit or fit to drop!

If people haven’t started adopting transaction-based IDs for their credit cards (offered by issuers for years now) how likely are they to start using them on their mobile? Maybe the motivation is higher on mobiles because the relationship is more likely to sour in ways that require a disappearing act? Fake name, fake number, imagine the possibilities. Will this be a convenient add-on service for social network sites, or the next big thing for spammers and phishers to abuse? I mean if it is successful as a (legitimate) service, and able to handle the looming liability/trust issues, I wonder how long it will be before this is a standard service from the major carriers.

History, Security

Cheney indicts self

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Can you say, double-standard or questionable ethics?

But 9/11 changed everything in the sense that it forced us to think anew about our enemies, about who our enemies were, about the kind of threat we faced as a nation, about what kind of strategy we needed to pursue to be able to safeguard our nation from those attacks. The President made a very basic, fundamental decision that very first night after the attacks. And that was that henceforth, we would hold accountable those — not only the terrorists, but also those who supported terror. If a state or a government provided safe harbor or sanctuary, or financing, or training or weapons to a terrorist organization, they would be deemed just as guilty of the terrorist act as the terrorists themselves.

Mr. Cheney, the threats you refer to were not new to you, but your change in thinking about the enemies of the US should have happened prior to 9/11. Why? Because that’s what the bipartisan commission said in early 2001, echoed by Clarke as well as the outgoing staff from the prior Administration. Remember when you and Bush ignored those? Ooops, so much for leadership. I guess you guys like to dismiss anyone who disagrees with you. Remind us again why your wife resigned from the Hart-Rudman commission? She refused to think anew about the “kind of threat” and didn’t like being disagreed with? Sad that it took such a huge disaster to open your eyes and allow you to agree with what honest and good people had been telling you; even more sad that your choice of words in the public forum do more harm to your nation than good. We expect this kind of incompetence from Rumsfeld, but you too now?

Just for reference, here is another voice of leadership to compare yourself with:

The president of the United States hears a hundred voices telling him that he is the greatest man in the world. He must listen carefully indeed to hear the one voice that tells him he is not.
—Harry S Truman

Now, if you want to talk about accountability…

Poetry

Keep Living

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Here’s a true story of poetry in action.

Heather Wagner, a 26-year old mother of three in Texas, had her husband deployed to South Korea in 2005. She describes on her website how she felt when she watched a news broadcast soon after her own goodbyes where the “camera kept focusing in on all the crying women”:

“Well sure they are crying now,” said Heather, “They are saying goodbye. But if the cameras followed these women home they would see how they pick themselves up and take care of business”. She wanted James to know that he didn’t have to feel guilty about leaving to do his job. ” I understand that his absence is both necessary and important and I honestly believe that the support a servicemen gets at home directly affects his ability to do his job and support the mission. When I wrote Keep Living, I was trying to tell my husband that I was behind him 100 percent and ready to take care of things here while he’s gone. I was also trying to paint a word picture for others who see the news broadcast with the crying women and don’t realize how strong the military spouse really is. This doesn’t mean that we have to be thrilled about them leaving, it means that we accept it and stay determined to keep living and serving while they are gone.”

Mrs. Wagner then brushed off her performance skills, apparently dormant since 1999 when she married and started a family. She wrote and sang “Keep Living”, and then made copies on her own computer and gave them away. Word quickly spread to the point where she started selling the music on her website and donating a portion of the proceeds to OperationHomefront. Here are the lyrics:

They always seem to show a woman standing at a gate clinging to her children as her husband walks away. When duty calls he’ll do what he’s gotta do. and even though I don’t get paid, I serve my country too.

Because I know he’s where he needs to be. I know he always thinks of me. and yeah, I know the stars he sees are the stars I see each night. Until the day he makes it home I’ll take care of things on my own. When he’s
here he’ll be glad to see that we just kept living .

With pride and dedication I take the wheel when I’m on my own. By the time I reach the driveway those first
tears need to be gone. I get the lunches packed, pay bills, and cut the lawn, and then I toss and turn and tell
myself get some sleep before the break of dawn.

Because I know he’s where he needs to be. I know he always thinks of me. and yeah, I know the stars he sees
are the stars I see each night. Until the day he makes it home I’ll take care of things on my own. When he’s
here he’ll be glad to see that we just kept living .

I don’t deny the river that I’ve cried or the pleading that goes on in my prayers each night

I know you’re where you need to be. I know you always think of me. Yeah I know the stars you see , are the
stars I see each night. But baby till you make it home know that I’m okay and not alone. I’m as strong as I
will ever be, and we’ll just keep living.

I’m as proud of you as I can be. Just keep living.

It’s awesome to see the power of a poem and the influence a single woman can have in so many people’s lives. Interesting that she sings about how to keep living and be strong, while a portion of the profits are sent to a private non-profit for military families. She is surely doing a lot of good for people in need. I can’t help but wonder, however, why the military itself is so unable to care for its soldiers that care and assistance has to come from outside the organization. Is this due to symptoms of system-wide failure or just gaps in the safety net?

Poetry, Security

Will encrypt text for food

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Mark Van Dine has a cool WordPress site with some funny graphics. I thought this was was particularly catchy. See if you can solve the message. Here’s a hint, if you can find the key, the answer will be clear.

Hmmm...this is a tough one.

Wonder if anyone is writing crypto-poetry? (No, I don’t mean the infamous “Banned Code Lives in Poetry and Song” since that is code turned into poetry rather than the other way around)

Oh, and for a really good laugh, check out his thoughts on his father’s new book called “If Instead of Apes We Had Come from Grapes, We Wouldn’t Just yet Be Wineâ€?. Here’s an excerpt from the book itself:

Things appear for reasons.
Reasons appear for things.

The ring announces there’s a bell,
so there’s a bell. And sure as hell,
if there is a bell… it rings

It’s a call to mate or to salivate
or to fold with a pair of kings.
To the ding-ding jingling clang or gong,
the trains pull out and the planes take wing,
the boxers box and the singers sing
and everyone sings along:
jingles for soap and for soda pop,
so the shippers ship and the shoppers shop.
It’s all arranged at the stock exchange,
and you can’t sit still for long.

2. Nature & Nurture

If cradle training taught you well,
you learned which bell’s for you:
when you counted ribs or the bars on cribs,
noting nipples, inscribing bibs
with what was what and who was who,
learned on your fingers the proper things
your own bell tells when you hear it ring,
how you go to hell if you hear the bell
and you don’t know what to do.

But how, pray tell, do the ringers of bells
know when it’s time to ring?

Well,

Things appear for reasons.
Reasons appear for things.

Yeah, the absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence. Music anyone?
(i.e. Rose Rouge by St. Germain)