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There are some issues, but all is not horrible. Check out the pdf to bring yourself up to speed on what's coming.

Basically, Section 14 is potentially unconstitutional based on the 4th amendment. See the text beginning on page 38 of the document I've linked above:

(a) DESIGNATION.—The Department of Commerce
shall serve as the clearinghouse of cybersecurity threat
and vulnerability information to Federal government and
private sector owned critical infrastructure information
systems and networks.
(b) FUNCTIONS.—The Secretary of Commerce—
(1) shall have access to all relevant data con-
cerning such networks without regard to any provi-
sion of law, regulation, rule, or policy restricting
such access;

The emphasis above is mine. First of all, the government having unfettered access to private sector ANYTHING is highly problematic. Secondly, why on earth would they need access to the data concerning these networks? Access to any private data requires a warrant. Enough is enough with the OMGEMERGENCY policy.

I see where banks have taken TARP money from the government are now unable to get them out of the banks even by paying the money back. And now with the forced management change at GM, here is another timely piece:
SEC. 18. CYBERSECURITY RESPONSIBILITIES AND AUTHOR-
ITY.
The President—
(1) within 1 year after the date of enactment
of this Act, shall develop and implement a com-
prehensive national cybersecurity strategy, which
shall include—
(A) a long-term vision of the nation’s cy-
bersecurity future; and
(B) a plan that encompasses all aspects of
national security, including the participation of
the private sector, including critical infrastruc-
ture operators and managers;
(2) may declare a cybersecurity emergency and
order the limitation or shutdown of Internet traffic
to and from any compromised Federal government
or United States critical infrastructure information
system or network;
[snip]
(6) may order the disconnection of any Federal
government or United States critical infrastructure
information systems or networks in the interest of
national security;
I do not trust anyone in government with this level of power. At this point I wonder if this could even be enforced? Could the President order the disconnection of private networks if they are deemed "critical infrastructure?" What is the penalty if someone says "NO" or simply provides a way around these controls? We already know how well the DMCA has been working for our best interest...

Here's hoping there will be loads of negotiation over this and the bill will be corrected as it must be.


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This has to be one of the coolest things I've ever seen: Linux running inside of Windows. This evidently fits on a USB thumb drive and can access Windows files directly. Apt-get even works! I'll be giving this a try once I have access to a Windows box again (Monday) at work.

The main thing that would hold me back would be typos on the (tiny) site for the application. I guess I'm making a pretty big assumption in believing that this will work just fine. How else can we find new software besides being trusting?

More info over at Lifehacker...I guess that can ease my mind if nothing else. I'll be waiting with baited breath for a Linux Mint version.


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To see if you have the Conflicker worm, follow this link to the eye chart by the conflicker working group: http://www.confickerworkinggroup.org/infection_test/cfeyechart.html.


You'll know immediately if you are infected. If you DO have the worm, shame on you for not letting Windows update itself properly. Nothing of note has happened thus far, but who knows what will be going on in the future if you do not remove it. Instructions for removal are at the bottom of this page.


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We all know Google will end up owning everything attached to the internet in the end.  It wouldn't be terribly surprising if they did purchase twitter, but in my opinion it wouldn't be very interesting either.  I must be the only person in the world who could care less about twitter.  I still use skype and google talk for my IM (microblogging) needs.  For web browsing I enjoy reading more well thought out postings.


At any rate, it looks like it ain't happening...yet at least.  How would it affect twitter if it did happen?  I'm not sure if things would change at all...


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This seems to be the latest trend, but it just seems to be stepping in the wrong direction. Isn't access getting cheaper and more broadly available? Why would we now ADD restrictions to unlimited plans? Unlimited actually means something to most of us.

I believe these ISP's are shooting themselves in the foot because they think they have a monopoly. If we're lucky, this will lead to the rise (once again) of local ISP's. Maybe this is no longer financially feasible, but things sure were much nicer back in the day. I happened to be friends with some of the local techs at the dial-up place (cococo.net FYI, sadly now taken by a squatter with a pr0n fettish, don't say I didn't warn you). They ran linux and let me and my friends look in on the operation from time to time...it was fascinating. Now you're lucky to even get someone on the phone after being on hold forever.

Get off my lawn!


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Hulu claims to be here to take over the world, but they refuse to be spread in an unapproved manner.  This is completely contradictory to everything their commercial claims!  We WANT to see your shows on Boxee and other apps that allow us to break away from a browser and use, you know, a television to watch television shows.


In what way is this a bad thing?  Why do you keep trying to stop it?  I completely don't understand, other than the providers are just extremely afraid of what might happen.  I thought a larger market for your product would always be better?

Besides, some of us run a local proxy server that strips out all the ads anyway.  One of these days somebody will come up with a way to run a browser on these set top machines that performs an auto zoom on the video content, and THEN where will you be Hulu?

Update: Boxee is already around all the problems Hulu has put in the way.


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Here's a question for all you folks not reading this blog yet: Does anyone have any experience running Linux Mint on a Dell PowerEdge 1750 server? I happen to have an extra one just lying around with no hard drives. It does have USB, and I happen to have a 4GB SD card and a USB card reader. Can I install Mint on that card and boot it? I can use the CD-ROM drive but it's quite slow and quite unwriteable.

Another question, will the dual Xeon 2.8's be faster at video ripping/compression than my laptop's 1.7 Centrino Duo? Both machines have 2GB of RAM.


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Found this iPhone holder at Boing Boing. Made one, it works relatively well, especially for the price.


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This is how not to do tech gifts.

1) Don't give the Prime Minister DVD's (for the wrong region even)
2) Don't give an iPod to the Queen.

START DOING BETTER. Thanks!


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Hello! We will be posting tech info for you on this blog.


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