[lug] On NPR this morning

[Sean LeBlanc]

On 12-11 10:03, Scott A. Herod wrote:
> Actually, the business report on KUVO.
> 
> There was a bit this morning about the FBI proposing to
> write an email trojan horse that would infect computers
> and send them encryption passwords.  If I saw the story
> on the web I'd discount it.  Has anyone seen the story
> crop up somewhere else?  I figured slashdot would have
> it but saw nothing since Sunday.  Perhaps it is time to
> finally start signing emails and encrypting stuff.

It actually popped up twice on Slashdot, I believe...over a week ago. Once
for each major virus "protection" program that decided to opt out of
scanning for it. I put "protection" in quotes because that's now a rather
dubious claim. I think the articles did point out that at least so far, only
Windoze and related virii-spreading tools will be impacted at the beginning
- I think "infecting" my FreeBSD box via Mutt will be an interesting
challenge to say the least. :)

However, I am reminded of that quote about the Nazis - something like "First
they came for the Blacks, then the Communists...by the time they came for
me, there was no one left to speak out" 

And weren't we trying to get hacking classified as terrorism post-Sep 11? If
the FBI is engaging in this, wouldn't they be engaging in terrorism (if
hacking gets classified as such)?

All the posturing last week from Leaky Leahy last week about military
tribunals - that's not even an issue, IMHO. The kind of stuff the FBI is
doing/proposing against CITIZENS should be the topic at hand - not suspected
non-citizen terrorists that are here on student visas that fit a certain
profile(no, not RACIAL profiling!!!) being detained. Talk about misguided. 

-- 
Sean LeBlanc:seanleblanc at attbi.com Yahoo:seanleblancathome 
ICQ:138565743 MSN:seanleblancathome AIM:sleblancathome 
Don't vote, it only encourages them. 
(contributed by Chris Johnston) 
Management QOTD:Look, it doesn't matter if the change makes things better or
worse as long as we recognize who our customers are and
micro-manage the project farming.