Security

Me, Myself and I

Leave a comment

Bruce Schneier started the Individual I campaign last year with an interesting idea. All you have to do is adopt the logo to show that you are in favor of:

Individual I

  • Freedom from surveillance
  • Personal privacy
  • Anonymity
  • Equal protection
  • Due process
  • Freedom to read, write, think, speak, associate, and travel
  • The right to make your own choices about sex, reproduction, marriage, and death
  • The right to dissent

All noble causes, but I’m not so sure of the logo concept. The current logo looks like something you might find at a construction site. Contractors always seem to have some giant letter and a globe or world image. Or maybe it just too similar to the international symbol for tourist information. Imagine when people who display the logo suddenly find all the tourists asking them for help — “but your button means you are to give me a map of the local area, no? Can you at least point me to the hostel?” Might be a good conversation starter, but it could also start to annoy the legitimate information booths.

And what is the split down the middle of the “I” supposed to represent? Brackets?

Maybe I’m the wrong kind of person to comment on button and sticker design (having little/no experience myself). But it seems to me that a campaign for human rights based on privacy needs something a little more iconic and unique. I propose some variation of the following as an alternative:

    Eye for an I

Or does that infringe on the “cats” trademark?

More seriously, I’m kind of curious how an “Individual I” concept might merge or overlap with the “Army of One” campaign. Anyone else notice the very similar themes of ontology? For some reason I would have expected Bruce to have more in common with Martin Buber’s I and Thou than a US military advertising campaign.

Speaking of the US military, here’s another idea: the famous logo from the 1st Armored Division could be transformed into an I, in order to achieve a good mix, like saying “an army of I”:

From this: Big Red 1 to this: Big Red I

Although you wouldn’t be allowed to call it the “big red i”, or “red bone”…

Security

Update for Windows XP (KB912475)

2 Comments

Some updates are critical and deserve immediate attention, such as today’s announcement (Microsoft Security Bulletin MS06-001 and MS06-012) that Vulnerabilities in Microsoft Office Could Allow Remote Code Execution (905413).

However, other updates provide little more than amusement (in between the remote code execution crises). Take KB912475 for example, which was officially published on 2/28/2006:

Australia has changed the regularly scheduled end of Daylight Saving Time in five Australian states from March 2006 to the first Sunday of April 2006 due to the 2006 Commonwealth Games. Install this update to enable your computer to automatically adjust the computer clock on the correct date. After you install this item, you may have to restart your computer.

I’m not sure which issue is more strange, that Australia is trying to cheat time for the games or that you may have to restart your OS when you adjust the clock. I guess the bigger issue becomes whether the time changes will cause any kind of application outages among systems that are not patched in time for the games to begin. Imagine a contestant using an unpatched version of the Windows OS while assuming that the time-change will happen automatically and failing to make it to their event on time.

And speaking of changing the system time, when will Microsoft release a patch that pushes back the IRS filing deadline…?

Poetry

Poetry is like making Beer

Leave a comment

The Economist has an amusing review of the economic and social impact of blogging:

JOURNALISM is like making beer. Or so Glenn Reynolds says in his engaging new book. Without formal training and using cheap equipment, almost anyone can do it. The quality may be variable, but the best home-brews are tastier than the stuff you see advertised during the Super Bowl. This is because big brewers, particularly in America, have long aimed to reach the largest market by pushing bland brands that offend no one. The rise of home-brewing, however, has forced them to create “micro-brews� that actually taste of something. In the same way, argues Mr Reynolds, bloggers—individuals who publish their thoughts on the internet—have shaken up the mainstream media (or MSM, in blogger parlance).

Funny metaphysical questions. Can journalism be said to exist even if it is not printed in the New York Times? Does poetry exist outside literature? I say absolutely and thankfully, yes, as long as existence is a matter of good taste rather than income alone.

As the metaphysicists might say, we should be forbidden from mourning the loss of macro brews…

Holy Sonnet X
by John Donne

    Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
    Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so ;
    For those, whom thou think’st thou dost overthrow,
    Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
    From rest and sleep, which but thy picture[s] be,
    Much pleasure, then from thee much more must flow,
    And soonest our best men with thee do go,
    Rest of their bones, and soul’s delivery.
    Thou’rt slave to Fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
    And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,
    And poppy, or charms can make us sleep as well,
    And better than thy stroke ; why swell’st thou then ?
    One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
    And Death shall be no more ; Death, thou shalt die.