Circuit Writer Version 6.2 by Jim Scheef My biggest problem this month is that I can only write two columns, this one and one more, before we go to the polls in our most important election ever. Even more than four years ago, the future of our country is at stake. Whether you lean left or right it has never been more important to vote. Your Vote and your Civil Liberties It is now obvious that your vote can have a real impact on your civil liberties. The assault on the Constitution over the last seven years has been beyond belief. Without Habeas Corpus none of the other rights guaranteed by our Constitution have any meaning. What good is free speech if the guy you want to criticize can throw you in jail and throw away the key? This is exactly the situation created by the U.S.A. Patriot Act. The update to that act made some things only marginally better and made many things worse. If you think the domestic spying controversy ended with the telecom company immunity passed a few months back, read this report from the ACLU. If we lose our liberties, are we really winning the war on terror? Your Vote and the Economy As I write this, Wall Street is in a near panic. The institutions they hold dear are failing. Many of the talking heads are predicting a severe recession. Even Alan Greenspan says this is the worst situation he has ever seen and that it could still get worse. As we watch our retirement savings melt with the Dow, it might be logical to ask how we got here and from where we might seek relief. One party always cries that there is too much regulation and that the market will take care of everything. The other party seeks more transparency and at least some oversight. The Savings and Loan bailout should have taught both parties something. Unfortunately, the mechanism created to fund home mortgages was so obscure that few in Congress understood how it worked. The fact that more people could buy homes was wonderful so no one asked about the man behind the curtain. Unfortunately, the pain that reached a crescendo last week and into this week is only one facet of the problem. Normally, I try to limit my columns to issues that are more directly computer related, like your digital rights, etc. In a few weeks we have a chance to vote. We can vote for the people who created the environment that led to this pain, or we can pick another choice. Keep in mind that our choices are important at every level, not just for President. In two years there will be another census. Connecticut may lose another seat in the House of Representatives. It is the State legislature which determines the new district boundaries. While the opportunities for gerrymandering are limited in Connecticut, the people you send to Hartford will have an impact. Some people think our Governor is too liberal, but it is very likely that she will need to appoint a replacement for one of our Senators regardless of who is elected to the White House. The point is that our choices on that paper ballot have impacts beyond who we get to blame for our current problems. I cannot advocate here in these pages for any particular candidate, but I can ask that you make an informed choice when you vote. Now on to the regular stuff… Google Chrome Remember all the fuss when Firefox was released? A browser that is truly new really is a big deal that deserves some hoopla. Every computer publication on the planet has, or will, provide endless analysis of Google’s new browser, so rather than do that here, I will ask questions instead. I hope Google and the industry press will provide answers to these questions as Chrome moves thru beta and on to release 1.0. Controlling the browser directly gives Google a direct connection to the very heart of our computers. A Google browser could allow them to collect every keystroke you enter into the browser or any other application! So… I’m asking these questions after hearing an interview on the National Public Radio program “On the Media of Google” where Marissa Mayer, Google VP of Search Products and User Experience, spoke about these concerns. While she did not answer my specific questions, Ms. Mayer did state that Google is reducing the time in which that retained information remains personally identifiable. As I type this, somewhere there is a hacker sniffing packets to see exactly what Chrome does. Hopefully that person will report his and/or her findings to the public rather then use it for nefarious deeds. If Google is dipping too deep into our computers, I’m sure we will hear eventually. In the meantime, I would not suggest installing any beta version of Chrome on a computer used for anything that must be HIPAA-compliant or in a business where customer personal information is entered or viewed. Seriously. FAA Flight System Crash The word is that a corrupt file caused the FAA’s flight plan system to crash in August. The system is 20-something years old and I’m sure you won’t be surprised to learn that this was not its first crash. The 90-minute outage caused flight delays all over the country but mainly in the East. Read the eWeek article for more details. This is not the system that controls planes in the air, but merely records and processes the flight plans filed by every aircraft not flying under visual flight rules, which would be every commercial and most private flights. The system runs on Phillips DS714 mainframes (never heard of them) which are to be replaced with “new heavy-duty Stratus FTserver 6400s, which run on Intel Xeon processors.” This project was first contracted in March 2005, and I’m sure is more complex than falling off a log. Current completion target is the end of this year. As if the security lines and new baggage charges at the airports aren’t bad enough, now I’d really rather never fly again. Internet Traffic Begins to Detour the US This sounds good at first – less congestion for us, right? Well, it seems this has implications for overall Internet security. This story began with an article in the New York Times about how our dominance over the Internet has given US intelligence agencies a home field advantage. Since the passage of the Patriot Act, many overseas companies are reluctant to store information on equipment located in the US. So, given the choice, a growing percentage of Internet traffic is routed by way of links that do not touch equipment run by US backbone carriers. Go figure. |
 Click Here |
 |
 |
DacsGear!
|