Tag: galactically-stupid

Alice Cooper: Too hot for Tampere

Paul Cashmere writing for Undercover.com.au reports on a rather icy welcome received by Alice Cooper. Apparently, the act is not welcomed in Tampere, Finland, as he is barred from performing at Tampere Areena Oy per a statement issued by the managing director, Harri Wiherkoski, which states in part “Artists who express suspicious values from Christianity’s point of view cannot be allowed to perform at the venue.”

Not to be outdone, Alice Cooper management has invited fans of the act to come to Helsinki which, it would seem, is outside of Finland’s version of the Bible Belt. Quoting from the article:

In response, Alice Cooper management said “We hope fans from Tampere denied access to these ‘suspicious values’ can come to Helsinki and make their own judgment. What’s really ‘suspicious’ to us is the act of judging something that one has never seen, heard or, otherwise, experienced. There’s nothing like an open mind and, clearly, Mr. Wiherkoski has nothing like one.”

Some rather harsh words for Mr. Wiherkoski. But it is my firm belief that he deserves them. If Alice Cooper was booked at a church, I could see the logic behind the restrictions on “suspicious values.” Culturally literate people know what Alice Cooper is about, and can see far above and beyond attempts to unjustly paint the concert as a thinly-veiled demon worship session. Unfortunately, it seems cultural literacy is lacking in Tampere. Based on what I’ve read, I think when I go to Finland, that’s a city I’d rather avoid.

Shark-infested financial waters

Okay, last UK-related story for a while, I promise. But it’s not like I’m ending this string with a whimper, or even a garden variety bang. No, don the earplugs, kids, because this story is more like a sonic boom.

The Daily Mail reports on a truly frightening case of predatory lending, more coloquially called loan sharking. The woman, Debra Wilson, paid £88,000 (approx. US$132,000) over seven years on what was originally a £500 (approx. US$750) loan.

The loan shark, Robert Reynolds, wound up with a 51-week jail sentence suspended for two years (probation), when the prosecution reduced the original blackmail charge to harassment.

For reasons I won’t go into at this time, I often side with the defendant or at least try to see the case a little bit from the point of view of the accused. From what I’ve read in the article, however, I am not really sure how I can do that this time.

Reynolds damn near got away with what he did, at least from the standpoint of his sentence, and that’s a shame. The only real consolation here is that at least his monetary gains from the crime may be forfeited, so at least the victims may get something back.

I may have finally dissuaded someone from moving to or staying in the UK. That wasn’t my original goal, of course, it just sort of happened that way. Such is life, I guess.

Rootkits in a keyboard? Really?

A recent ZDNet blog entry mentions probably the most bizarre type of exploit I have ever run across in about a quarter-century of computer use. Apparently, a firmware update for an Apple keyboard can be infected with such things as keystroke loggers and nearly undetectable rootkits.

From the post:

Chen, from the Georgia Institute of Technology, said malicious code embedded into the firmware would be immune to the typical rootkit detection methods which examine the integrity of the filesystem, check for hooks or direct kernel object manipulation, or detect hardware and/or timing discrepancies due to virtualization in the case of a virtual-machine based rootkit.

Now, this may sound pretty damned scary to those of you who usually glaze over the technology-related articles I write and happened to land on this, and yes, it’s pretty scary stuff. What I really find scary about this whole thing, is the question that goes completely unanswered in this article and the other articles I have read about this.

That question is: Why the hell does a keyboard need to have a software-updatable firmware capability to begin with?

The function of a keyboard is so simple that it barely needs to have a microcontroller. There has traditionally been no way for PC keyboards with PS/2 connectors to have their firmware updated. I don’t get why Apple would open up their customers to such a gaping security hole, either knowingly or recklessly.

This security exploit highlights the very real risk of having updatable firmware where it is not needed. If Apple’s engineers get firmware programming wrong to the point where keyboards have to be software updatable, I think a manager at Apple needs to start firing engineers and replacing them with people more capable of doing their jobs in a competent fashion. Unfortunately, I don’t see any revolving door installations happening in Cupertino any time soon, as badly as they may be needed.

The RIAA: the true pirates

It totally amazes me what the RIAA is doing in attempts to retain a clearly outdated business model.

Electronista reports on one of the RIAA’s infamous lawsuits. The interesting thing about this lawsuit? The defendant did not even have a computer!

Combined with the absolutely absurd verdict against Jammie Thomas-Rasset, it makes me wonder what we have come to. And yet the RIAA, like the rest of the copyright lobby, still uses the loaded word “piracy” to describe sharing. And in light of what the RIAA is doing, the hypocrisy is glaring.

Robbing someone for $1.92 million for sharing music? That’s the kind of money pirates take home after boarding and looting a ship. Fleecing the musicians who work their tails off by paying them pocket change for a $15-20 album sale? The RIAA executives should don the eye-patch and a parrot, and fly the skull and crossbones in front of their offices.

The RIAA has a lot more in common with crimes on the high seas than anyone sharing music with friends, or even with random people. This is why the FSF recommends avoiding use of the term “piracy” to describe copyright infringement, and rightfully so.

I think it is unfortunate that those who are against the current copyright establishment have chosen to associate themselves with criminals of the high seas, even glamorizing them.

(Yes, it’s robbery even if one uses the courts to do it.)

Did the ADL go out of bounds?

An article from SocialistWorker.org reports on the case of William Robinson, a professor of sociology at the University of California-Santa Barbara (UCSB). This controversy centers around Robinson’s condemnation of the Israeli invasion of Gaza that began in 2008 December.

As stated in the second paragraph of the article:

This campaign against academic freedom is not just an attempt to punish me. Much more importantly, it aims to create an environment of fear and intimidation in which any criticism on Israeli policy is subject to sanctions and censorship.

Robinson’s article goes on to detail the course material he chose for his class on 2009-01-19, the birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr. Suffice it to say, he does not mince words in his condemnation of the atrocities.

Two students out of a class of 80, who Robinson does not know personally, were offended by the images that they withdrew from the class. If only that were the end of it. Fast forward to 2009-02-09, when Robinson receives a letter from the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), courtesy copied to the president of the University of California, the chancellor of the Santa Barbara Campus, and other universiy staff not specifically named in the article.

Then, a month later on 2009-03-09, Abraham Foxman, the director of the ADL, flew all the way from Washington to Santa Barbara to meet with about a dozen university officials, including two deans. Most thought the meeting was about a Jewish studies program; it instead was a thorough indictment of Robinson, discussed for an hour.

A short while later on 2009-03-25, UCSB begins investigating Robinson for violations of the faculty code of conduct.

Robinson reports that he is accused of two things: anti-Semitism, and introduction of course material “substantially unrelated” to the course. From what is mentioned in the article, I believe neither hold water.

First, anti-Semitism. I fail to see how condemnation of Israeli state conduct, particularly the scoffing of international law, can be anti-Semitic. Israel is subject to the same international law as any other country, and when that law is violated, they are subject to the same sanctions and criticism.

Second, this is a global affairs course that Robinson is teaching. The assertion that the conduct of Israel, especially within the context of complaince with international law, is irrelevant to a global affairs course is absolutely, positively, galactically stupid and absurd.

I believe the Holocaust was a tragedy and condemn true anti-Semitism, just as I condemn hate based on criteria such as race, gender, and sexual orientation. But at the same time I’m not going to give the modern-day Israeli government a free pass when they thumb their collective nose at international law.

Robinson concludes the article with a stirring condemnation of those responsible, implying the Israel lobby are “anti-democratic, authoritarian, or totalitarian” and also highlighting the suppression of academic freedom in apartheid South Africa, dictatorships in Latin America, the now-collapsed USSR, in the US under McCarthyism, and, oh yeah, Nazi Germany.

I believe my thoughts on the matter are summed up quite nicely by this quote from a reader of the Los Angeles Times, whom I wholeheartedly agree with:

[I]f you do not like Nazi comparisons then urge Israel not to commit Nazi-like atrocities rather than condemn and ostracize those who make the comparison.