Digital Choke Daynotes

"Daynotes" are popularized by a Internet Web site called the "Daynotes Gang" (www.daynotes.com or www.daynotes.org), a collection of the daily technical and personal observations from the famous and others. That group started on September 29, 1999, and has grown to an interesting collection of individuals. Readers are invited and encouraged to visit those sites for other interesting daily journals.

Rather than be a couch potato until the grandkids come (there's that 'grandfather' word again), I decided to goof around with the decorations around these pages. How does it look on your end? Your comments are appreciated.

The design is based on the "Digital Choke" story (available here), but without the frames. The story itself is about what led up to a massive crash of the Internet, who was behind it, and how 'our hero' found out about it and fixed it. It may be fictional, but there is some basis in fact. Witness the problems the Internet had with the "Slammer/Sapphire" worm a couple of weeks ago. We all think of the Internet as being fairly resilient, but that particular worm did some major damage to connections, both public and private. The "Digital Choke" story takes those events, along with other Internet problems, and weaves a somewhat plausible story about the results.

It was an interesting journey to write, and you might find it a bit interesting to read. Just remember that it is a first fictional attempt, so there may be a few narrative holes in the story. Comments from those who have already read the story are mostly positive. And there is a way for you, the reader, to 'participate' in the story. All of this is explained in the story's site; your comments, as always, are appreciated.

The news about the space shuttle is sad, of course. These pioneers are brave men and women. One would hope that space exploration will continue. Jerry Pournelle, noted science fiction author, has many thoughts on space exploration, all are worth a reading. (Look for his entries starting 2-1-03.)

Today is bright and sunny, about 60(F), with just a bit of a breeze. Visibility is probably near 100 miles. Not like the weather of other Daynoters, some of whom have probably shoveled a bit of snow this weekend. Of course, some of the Daynoters are in different hemispheres, and Dan Seto is in Hawaii, where the weather is always pleasant. So, I think that I'll take a short walk and enjoy the nice day, and then enjoy the grandkids when they arrive.

Under the weather ... no post today.

"Back in the saddle again"....

I have a condition called 'lone atrial fibrillation', which means that occasionally my heart starts beating erratically, sometimes at a very fast rate (fibrillates), and sometimes at a slower rate. I've had this for a number of years, and take a Beta Blocker and Digoxin daily to help keep the ticker ticking at a normal rate.

Yesterday was one of those days. This one was just the irregular beat: beats skip, or are not evenly spaced. The result is that you get a bit tired during the episode. And it takes about 8-12 hours for the heart to decide to get back into a normal rhythm. In the meantime, you don't feel like doing anything.

There are several potential causes for this: an enlarged heart, thyroid problems, heart valve problems, electrical problems with the 'heartbeat generator'. Diagnosis steps include EKG's, echo-cardiograms (a 'sonar' image of the heart beating), and various blood tests. I had all those when this first started several years ago, and there was no specific cause found. So, I've been taking the meds daily, and patiently waiting for each episode to finish.

In the past, these episodes have happened about every 3-4 months. Lately, it's been every 4-6 weeks. So, as it was time for a physical anyway, I headed to the doctor today.

We decided it was time for the above tests again to see if anything has changed since the last time. And, the next time it happens, I get to zip on down to the ER to get an EKG. I might also get a monitor thing -- you strap the device to your belt, and you wear it for a while, and it records your heart information.

In the meantime, it's no fun. It does have a tendency to get you worried about your mortality, although the condition is not normally life-threatening. And there are some other meds you can take, but they have some side-effects problems, and are usually prescribed for people older than me.

And, along with the other tests and 'skin inspection' (for bad moles and stuff), I got to have a check of the old prostate. A really fun task, and that's all that I need to say about that. The doctor also said that it might be time for a PSA test, and even a more visual (camera-probing) look at that area. What fun.

On to another subject: today was our second teleworking committee meeting. We still hashing out the details of the new corporate policy. But we hope to have a first working draft in two meetings. This is all assuming that there is some high-level support for the new changes that will have to be made. And some parts of the new policy will require the teleworker's department to cough up some money for a computer dedicated to business use.

Some think that it might be OK for a person to use their home computer to access the company's network. Although we require a VPN connection, it's not too secure if you have the home computer connected to your corporate network. Lots of vulnerabilities there. My feeling is that if the dept thinks that the person needs to work at home, the dept needs to provide them with the appropriate tools, just as they do at the work office. If that includes a computer and firewall, then so be it. We don't allow people to bring their home computer to work and plug it into the network. That's too scary. And if you connect from home through a VPN connection, that's essentially what you are doing. Not a good practice. Lots of issues to fix up, but we are making progress.

Still tweaking the anti-spam server settings. It's still in a passive mode, looking at every message and seeing if a blocking rule would be applied to that message, but delivering the message anyway. In the meantime, I get a blind carbon copy of all potentially offensive messages, and get to look at them to see if there are some that should have been let through the rule. A few of them are false positive, but perhaps only 1-2% of the total. So, I look at those, and decide how to tweak the rule to let the good ones through, while still blocking the bad ones.

Some of the stuff is very personal, or very graphic (but not as much graphic stuff as you would think). But there are some people in the company that use the company's email system to send very private and descriptive messages to their close friends (of the opposite sex, or even the same sex). People don't realize how public email messages can be. My rule is that if it's a message my boss (or spouse or mother) wouldn't want to see (or I wouldn't want them to see), it's not appropriate to send via email.

My lovely spouse just returned from the bookstore, where she picked up a copy of the "2600" magazine I haven't read yet. So, I think I'll glance through that until '24' starts. New episode tonight. Good show, I'm hooked on it.

Did some housekeeping on the site tonight. A couple of bad links, and this week's page had a really weird name that I just noticed.

Last week, I mentioned the problem with identity theft being more visible to the press and to people. Here's what on Associated Press report said:

January 31, 2003, 1:24 PM EST

TORONTO -- More than 180,000 customers of a Canadian insurance company have been warned about possible identity theft after a subsidiary of IBM lost a computer hard drive containing personal information, the president of the insurance company said Thursday.

Other stories about this particular incident are at this Google search.

One of my readers (Brian C) sent this follow-up. (I looked for some new stories on the recovery, but couldn't find any yet.)

FYI, the missing/lost/stolen harddrive has been recovered. No info yet on where it was or who had it although they say the data wasn't taken (like to know how they can be sure of that!). A number of folks have started a class action suit to compensate for worry over the possibility of identity theft.

Brian

There's been lots of articles that say that police reports of identity theft are rapidly increasing. In the case of the missing hard drive, it's hard to tell whether the theft was intended to get identity information, or just someone grabbing a hard drive for some quick cash.

While I agree identity theft is a growing concern, not every theft of a computer is because of (or will result in) identity theft. "ID Theft" is a good attention-getting story for the media. But it also brings up the need for us to be careful about the information we give out, and the security of our own systems, whether at work or at home. I've covered this before, and will continue to keep telling people about it. It's an important concern, even without all the media attention.

Last night's post ended with a mention of the '24' television show that has turned out to be quite engrossing. I finished up the post, uploaded it to the server, then got ready to watch the show. About 10 minutes before it started, the lights flickered, then went out. Totally. (It was pretty windy last night.)

I use the "Helen Keller" method to stumble down the hall to the bedroom, grabbed a flashlight. Got the extra flashlights for everyone else. Then made a call to the automated system at the local electric utility, and reported the outage. And then sat around in the dark, hoping that the power would be restored in time to watch '24'.

No such luck.

A look outside showed the whole area was dark. It looked like a large area of my neighborhood was dark. And a call back to the utility estimated that power would be restored about 10:30pm, too late to watch the show. So, as it was a bit chilly, I climbed into bed with the flashlight (and my wife), and we read a bit before giving up.

I realized, just about 11pm, that I had a Sony Watchman, a little LCD TV that works off of batteries. And I could have used that to watch my show. It was a "Homer Moment" .... "Doh!".

Sigh.

Let's try again now for "West Wing". And I'll grab the batteries for the TV.

Some short items...

Brian C reports back on the big identity theft case in Canada (referenced above). Turns out that an employee took home a 'extra' 30G drive for his personal use. He wiped out the data; I guess he needed some more room for his MP3 collection.

That brings to mind what I've mentioned before. If your company sells or gives away old computers, do they wipe the data clean? And you don't do that by just erasing files. What liability does a company have for data that gets left on a hard drive when the computer is 'surplused'? How do you protect your company data when a computer goes to the shop for repair? Do you have a confidentiality agreement that you trust with the people that fix your computers?

How about some guidelines for waging 'cyber-war'? A news story on ABCNEWS.com says that President Bush has ordered the development of those types of guidelines. The report says that "the cyber-warfare guidance would establish the rules under which the United States would penetrate and disrupt foreign computer systems".

So, are you protected against a cyber-war? There's already one out there, in case you haven't noticed. And some of those guys are pretty smart. To paraphrase the advertising slogan of the "Capital-One" credit card guys: "What's in your computer?". In fact, the more paranoid among you might claim that the cyber-war tools are already out there. Which (begin shameless plug) is in the story line of the "Digital Choke" story I've written.

On a lighter note, John Dominik, one of my favorite Daynoters, has a humorous account of why husbands should keep their mouths shut when their wives are in a 'contrary mood'. From his post (in the section titled "And Let That be a Lesson For You"):

Now, mind you, I said nothing other than "I think I'll shut up, because you're in a contrary mood." It took no more than two seconds for her to twist that into my insinuating that she was unbalanced, irrational, illogical, mentally unstable, and potentially dangerous to herself and others.

Been there, done that, still haven't learned my lesson. What's sort of interesting about that is that his lovely wife (and I say that with great respect, given the fear I have of her retribution...even at this distance) also has her own Daynote-type pages. And she writes her side of the story here. [She says in her pages that ",,, I have been convinced that (1) I have something to say and (2) my husband most definitely needs rebutting on occasion and I am just the person to do it. "]

Now, since John gets to post the info on their web server, he sometimes puts his comments (usually defensive) within her notes. (He calls them "editorial notes", but I think it is just him trying to get in the last word.)

So, being a troublemaker, I sent off this note to John:

I've read with amused interest your post about your interaction with your wife. As you probably know, it is best to keep your mouth shut during those types of episodes, with the occaisional "Yes, Dear" to let them know you are paying attention. (But you have to be careful with the tone of your "Yes, Dear".) Any participation, even being in the vicinity, of those types of discussions is fraught with danger. A very slippery slope, indeed.

I also looked at your lovely wife's pages of the same time period. It is interesting, to a dispassionate observer (and one who is not within arm's reach of any throwable objects), to see your editorial comments on her pages.

But, being somewhat of a troublemaker (and because it is more interesting to see someone else's discomfort, rather than experiencing it yourself), I find it interesting that you have comments on her pages, but there are no comments from her on your pages.

But, again, I am a troublemaker.

Now, I better get to bed before I cause any more trouble!

Lessee, orange alert announced today. So, should I use orange text here? Nah, it looks rather silly. But, be careful anyway.

John Dominik is at it again. He posted these puns on his site, which must be reprinted here. (Sorry, I can't help myself.)

1. Two vultures board an airplane, each carrying two dead raccoons. The stewardess looks at them and says, "I'm sorry, gentlemen, only one carrion allowed per passenger."

2. Two boll weevils grew up in South Carolina. One went to Hollywood and became a famous actor. The other stayed behind in the cotton fields and never amounted to much. The second one, naturally, became known as the lesser of two weevils.

3. Two Eskimos sitting in a kayak were chilly, but when they lit a fire in the craft, it sank, proving once again that you can't have your kayak and heat it, too.

4. A three-legged dog walks into a saloon in the Old West. He slides up to the bar and announces: "I'm looking for the man who shot my paw."

5. Did you hear about the Buddhist who refused Novocain during a root canal? He wanted to transcend dental medication.

6. A group of chess enthusiasts checked into a hotel and were standing in the lobby discussing their recent tournament victories. After about an hour, the manager came out of the office and asked them to disperse. "But why?" they asked, as they moved off. "Because," he said, "I can't stand chess nuts boasting in an open foyer."

7. A woman has twins and gives them up for adoption. One of them goes to a family in Egypt and is named "Ahmal." The other goes to a family in Spain; they name him "Juan." Years later, Juan sends a picture of himself to his birth mother. Upon receiving the picture, she tells her husband that she wishes she also had a picture of Ahmal. Her husband responds, "They're twins! If you've seen Juan, you've seen Ahmal."

8. These friars were behind on their belfry payments, so they opened up a small florist shop to raise funds. Since everyone liked to buy flowers from the men of God, a rival florist across town thought the competition was unfair. He asked the good fathers to close down, but they would not. He went back and begged the friars to close. They ignored him. So, the rival florist hired Hugh MacTaggart, the roughest and most vicious thug in town to "persuade" them to close. Hugh beat up the friars and trashed their store, saying he'd be back if they didn't close up shop. Terrified, they did so, thereby proving that Hugh, and only Hugh, can prevent florist friars.

9. Mahatma Gandhi, as you know, walked barefoot most of the time, which produced an impressive set of calluses on his feet. He also ate very little, which made him rather frail and with his odd diet, he suffered from bad breath. This made him ....what? (Oh, man, this is so bad, it's good) A super calloused fragile mystic hexed by halitosis.

But, besides being humor-impaired, John does know his way around computers. But he is a victim of his local economy, and is looking for a job. I've been reading his postings for over a year, and would recommend his talents. He lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and has much knowledge in all things computer. If you know someone in his neighborhood, here is his resume.

And, this weekend you should install a free program on your computer. Rather than look for aliens, let your computer help in the search for cures to diseases. Here's an article from ZDNet about some distributed computing projects.

I signed up one of my computers for the Grid smallpox project (http://www.grid.org) to find a cure for smallpox.

If the Smallpox Research Grid can round up 2 million participants, the collective computing power could be as high as 1.1 petaflops, or 1.1 quadrillion calculations per second, the companies said. Potential participants can download a screensaver at Grid.org.

A simple download, and safe. Download, install it, and let it run on your computer all the time. If you want, you can join my "Digital Choke" group, but that's not required. Just find one and let your computer help out.

Digital Choke Daynotes