I saw this link on the Doc Searls site. The Baghdad Burning Blog is an interesting read.

He won’t get my vote, but the Dean campaign certainly has my respect. How many political events put out a call to attendees to bring their laptops and then set up an 802.11b network connected to a T1! I’ve always been fascniated by the use of technology for political purposes. In fact, I participated in the first online town meeting with Senator Leahy in 1995 [Link to Transcript] and found it to be a very interesting event. The Dean Internet machine will be marked as a significant turning point for grassroots campaigning and the use of the Internet.

Just another one of those reasons, I am absolutely happy about my switch to Mac.

“Microsoft Corp., whose Windows operating system and e-mail programs have been under siege from new computer “worms” for at least 10 days, has released a patch for two critical vulnerabilities in its Web browser. As a result of the Internet worms — which are viruses that spread through a network — hundreds of thousands of PCs worldwide, at the minimum, have been infected. Many have crashed and networks have slowed to a crawl. “

Don’t know why, but those words from U2’s Rattle ‘n Hum came to mind when I first viewed this picture. As a parent, it is one of those things that takes your breath away. Confronting violence is a vital piece of what I do for a living, but it still doesn’t prepare you for an image like this. The only images I can think of that are more haunting that this one is the picture of a young Kurdish child after having been subjected to chemical weapons and the award winning child and vulture image.

You knew it was bound to happen. Brought to you by the same slackers who started We Love the Iraqi Information Minister, we now have the We Love Arnold web site!

I always have a tough time articulating the true potential impact of cascading infrastructure failures. Not any more…

If you haven’t read his resignation letter, you ought to. Unconventional threats require unconventional thinking. I’ve never met a terrorism expert that didn’t support the type of “thinking outside the box” exploration this program represents. Additionally, once most privacy advocates invested the effort to educate themselves on the project, they had limited objections. Politics and public perception impact government projects all the time, I just hope those that want to restrict the exploration of new ideas are willing to live with the consequences.

This threat is here to stay:

“The FBI arrested three people Tuesday for allegedly plotting to smuggle a shoulder-launched surface-to-air missile into the United States, government and law enforcement sources said. The missile was successfully smuggled into a port in New Jersey from Russia, several U.S. government sources said. FBI agents arrested a British citizen of Indian descent Tuesday afternoon in Newark, New Jersey. Law enforcement sources said he was an independent arms dealer and had sold weapons to al Qaeda in the past.”

This Nader claim from US News, borders on insulting to those of us actually in the business of preventing terrorism:

“Get a load of this: Likely 2004 third-party presidential hopeful Ralph Nader thinks the 9/11 terrorist attacks wouldn’t have happened if he had been president. He claims that amid all the big decisions new presidents have to make after inauguration, he would have ordered cockpit doors to be hardened against attack. He says an old report warning about how easy it is to get in the cockpit still sticks with him. What’s more, he would have wiped out Osama bin Laden and his gang without a shot being fired. How? Bribe Osama’s friends to hand him over.”

Charles Cooper writes about public perceptions of DARPA. With the media coverage these days, it is easy to forget the DARPA charter and the intended unconventional nature of the research it conducts. As Cooper writes:

“The fact is that TIA data was supposed to focus on foreign intelligence and counterintelligence information gathered–not whether you rented “Debbie Does Dallas” on your last trip to Blockbuster. It’s not hard to build in safeguards that protect against potential abuses of the system. The Defense Department set up internal and external oversight boards to make sure that constitutional rights and privacy protection are not compromised.

Painting a worst-case scenario of mission-creep, TIA critics say this is an open invitation to an Orwellian future. Really? I haven’t seen any proof of that, though I did see the smoking hole that used to be the World Trade Tower complex in my hometown of New York City. “Full Story