The US. Dept. of Justice looks at a "good-ol'-boys-club" ("gentleman's"[sic]) agreement to not hire each other's employees. While some sources slant the practice in a more business friendly way that the only activity that might be at issue is 'one employer trying to woo(poach) away others from their a member of their 'in-group', others point at the illegal practice and still others go the extra mile and give examples of what could easily be considered anti-competitive business practices that harm employees who might look to one of the other 'conspiring' companies for a better fit or better pay. That level of competitive restriction between the largest employers could have a noticeable and adverse effect on employee salaries and could be the basis for the DOJ's involvement.

If large companies agree not to compete for each other's employees, then employees at one of those companies would find themselves locked out of valuable (in terms of experience, and personal satisfaction, as well as monetary) job offers among the controlling clique.

Of interest are are the inter-collaborations of giants such as Microsoft, Apple and Google. Having MS & Apple, who often over extend their idea of what is their proprietary property, extend it to their employees isn't entirely surprising (though the fact that they are supposedly competitors is more than a bit suspicious), but 'do no evil'[sic?] Google?: seems a bad sign. Also mentioned were Yahoo and Genentech.

To thicken interest, the WSJ article points out that Apple and Google share at least two members on their boards of directors.

I guess the question of whether or not Google will refrain from 'doing evil', is no longer so much of a question if they are in bed with Apple and engaging in "Gentleman's"[sic!] non-compete agreements with Microsoft, in regards to employee talent.

In reference to this article about the problems in writing realistic wargames, I commented:

So let's see, we want a 'game' with a "compelling" story-line that is based, as much as possible, on "what is 'real'":

• First, it's important to note the parallels in this story with other media trends. There are parallels in the photographic news and in books as American's "sophistication" levels have evolved over time. Now there is a demand toward more realism vs. in the past^(**1).
   
  Now, realism demands are making stronger demands into modern gaming, where the game researchers strive for increased realism and send researchers out into the field and across world-sites for gathering actual field info for inclusion in modern simulation games (from world-photo trips for the latest LaraCroft games, to the Iraq-War Game example of gathering data from the actual war-zone to interview soldiers, AND, for realism's sake, the 'enemy' side. Makes perfect sense. But with a couple of points about the collision of reality and simulations-for-fun (games).
   

• Showing 'real', may collide with 'politically correct'^(**2).

• To be historically accurate, how will the illegal nature of the war being started handled (or avoided)? Is deliberate "avoision"^(**3) collusion? Might such potential for collusion be regarded negatively by those judging the moral value of such a game?
   
   
• Will a game, for sake of realism, include real-life episodes (or subgames) of torture^(**4) Would not including that void the "realism" aspect of the Iraqi War simulation?

In light of the realities of this war and what has been (and is being uncovered) that an attempt to portray an accurately realistic game might be judged NOT to make for "good", or "fun" "game play" is not exceptionally surprising.*cough*

Hopefully war-games and such will stop being the 'fodder' for 'fun'-role playing games as they only lead impressionable minds into believing that such war 'games' are fun and that going to war isn't very ugly when it becomes sufficiently 'realistic'.

Footnotes:

1. (**1) Parallel events are seen in the literary-world, where 'real-life' stories from those who have survived 'trauma' make NY Times best seller lists, and Oprah selected reading lists because of their 1st-hand viewpoint of the realities of events that most US readers will never come close to experiencing.
    
   In a more "naïve" time, we contented ourselves with stories about such events. And for news, we had had produced video reals shown as entertainment-news in theaters during WWII, with stirring interpretation and music supplied by news/video-production organizations that were designed to inform, but also stir patriotic feelings of support for what was portrayed (and was mostly so) as a war against 'evil' ^(**1a).
    
   Coinciding, heavily with the advent of first-hand video reporting of the news -- starting in the Vietnam era, but continuing up through modern times, we've become sensitized to the differences between 'real-life' portrayals and the 'produced' versions of 'real-life' events, somehow believing that only 'real-life' portrayals have true and lasting value (whereas the reality depends on the depiction, but such subtleties are lost and subjectively lost for judgment by the viewer). This 'black'-or-'white' thinking of 'real' or 'fake' is permeating culture -- so much that weird 'photo-ops' need to be created at expense and possible terror, vs. creating the same with a photo-shop program^(**1b).
    
   Much emphasis has been placed on the authenticity of book narratives written in the first-person about current events. It's of prime importance that such narratives be clearly labeled as non-fiction (meaning the person lived through them), or 'Fiction', meaning it's a story that gets relegated to a back book shelf, possible one for "current event commentary", or "political commentary" depending on the nature of the reporting. The result, though, is that masses of people who are focused only on the 'authentic', 'real-life', 'first-person' reports and events will disregard any account that is not labeled as 'non-fiction'.

• (**1a) The concept of 'evil' v. good and dividing the world, moralistically, into simple categories of 'good' and 'evil' makes for easier control of the large masses, who have little education beyond the basics. Basics meant 8 years beyond Kindergarten(introduced in latter 19th century for 4-5 year olds). Beginning in the early 20th century the movement was to increase 'basic' education to 12 years, with it being the expected standard up through the 1st half the 20th century. However, in some areas, those extra 4 years were considered 'controversial', and there was resistance.
   
  It is notable that even today in the US, Amish children (mostly in Pennsylvania), are exempt from education beyond 8th grade, where it was considered that education beyond the 8th grade would be harmful to the Amish cultural way of life (with the exemption based on the 'religion' as being at the core of the Amish's simple way of life - rejecting nearly all modern conveniences -- until roughly the 90's when they started wanting the benefits of modern medicine to save their children's lives and extend the lives of their 'elders' who became repositories of knowledge of the 'old ways' (a contentious and troublesome issue in the Amish community considering the cost of such Medical advances and the limited ability of the Amish to produce anything of value to trade for such modern technological advances).
   
  But the idea of ruling the large masses using simple concepts of good v. evil (strongly true when 8 years post-'K' education was the norm, and mostly true but with decreasing effectiveness when education was increased to 12 years) was a central use of the 'church', by the state (though, unofficially in the US).
   
  There has been increasing effort by the religious right to 'dumb-down' education in the 9-12 years, as those were the years that were designed to be teaching children about the latest and most modern advances of science, math, technology and world advances, to prepare them for 'adult-hood' that was now being "postponed" till they finished their full education. Such education was considered (and is) necessary for participation in a democracy, and, especially, for participation in the increasingly modern requirements of today and tomorrow's workforce.
   
  The efforts to remove various parts of modern education (with special emphasis on dumbing down biology and human development, among other higher social skills involving critical thought) continue into today, as schools debate and strive to lower standards for advanced science (biological, geological, astrological, physics, evolution).

• (**1b) With Reuters and other news organizations taking the hard line against *any* modifications of photos for news inclusion, for any purpose (being enforced by subsequent bans of the photographer or news-org responsible for the 'not-exactly-real' photo), to satisfy the need for "real" photos of "real planes" (even if they are empty and the entire action is staged), empty "Air Force One" jumbo jets are chased through the skies by a fighter plane around the Statute of Liberty, so a "REAL" photo can be created that satisfies real "NEWS" photo requirements (despite that what's being portrayed is a 'setup') -- since it is a real, non-photoshopped pic, it can pass NEWS organization's requirements for authentic, untouched photos!). Idiots. Following the letter of the 'law' (of journalism), to comply with legalistic picture requirements -- but missing the point that the picture was supposed to be a real-life event, not faked. But since it was a real-life-fake event, and not a photoshopped pic, that passes stringent news-picture and event requirements.
   

1. <value=2>(**2) This happened in Vietnam, where camera views of war totally undermined support for the Administration's casual use of American boys (soldiers) in their Cold War Chess game. This type of 'on the ground', first hand reporting has grown more limited, over time.
    
   In the first Gulf war, reporters were kept away from front lines and only permitted access to the military control centers at the rear of the action. Unfortunately they blew it when they went live with broadcasts of ongoing military operations that told the enemy exactly what we were doing in real-time and caused the failure and abortion of affected military operations.
    
   In the Cheney-Bush-II war-operation all news communication was severely controlled by the state -- with pre-censorship fully alive and active "for the sake of national security". Not even pictures of wounded or dead US boys (soldiers), this time were allowed -- NOT even pictures of the rows and rows of coffins being returned with bodies of the dead. The Cheney-Bush-II was noted for keeping a lid on nearly all info for the sake of 'national security'.

1. <value=3>(**3) Evoision - "Coined in tax-code" to refer to a moral 'grey' area, somewhere between technically legal "avoidance" and technically illegal "evasion". Used here in the sense of its morally grey implications.

1. <value=4>(**4) Torture and humiliation seemed to be part of the US Cheney-Bush-II attack against 'terrorists, who justified it through legal memos as necessary evils to fight this 'new' type of war. New information confirming earlier, dis-credited excesses. The supposed actions of what the Cheney-Bush-II admin called "a few bad-apples"[sic], are now seen to have been functioning in an environment that was dictated from the top, on down through through pseudo-legal memos to perform such actions. These resulted in illegal torture techniques, where some people were knowingly violating (and some were deliberately kept 'stupid' and/or deliberately mislead about) Geneva Convention Law that applies to all foreign US military operations.
    
   Reports of those who objected on Geneva Convention grounds who, in some cases, died days later after objecting by supposed 'suicide' are already noted (^Ibid).

p.s. Please excuse primitive slashdot-enforced list-number messing-up and slashdot's non-superscript support.

The Wall Street Journal published an article this morning that says remote-controlled software was found in electric-grid systems to allow future disruption of the grid.

The espionage appeared pervasive across the U.S. and doesn't target a particular company or region, said a former Department of Homeland Security official. "There are intrusions, and they are growing," the former official said, referring to electrical systems.

Many of the intrusions were detected not by the companies in charge of the infrastructure but by U.S. intelligence agencies.

There are claims that Chinese or Russian hackers are behind the break-ins. Officials from both governments deny knowing of any involvement. Both statements could be true. The hacks could have come from Chinese or Russian hackers not working under their government's direction.

I didn't know so many of those control systems were "online" and accessible through the internet. I thought they were deliberately kept off the internet to prevent exactly this type of problem. It seems I was giving utilities more credit than was due. Talk about being "caught with your pants down".

I'm wondering how much of this is reactionary hype (the only source is the WSJ). If hackers had broken into multiple utility control computers, does anyone think it likely that NONE of them would have exercised or tried the control to see if they actually could control or shut down a system? They have done so in other countries, but have not heard of such here, so I'm wondering how much real danger was actually found vs. evidence of attempts to hack in and gain control. Unfortunately, the WSJ isn't likely to be a level-story source for something like this. Making the attempted break-ins sound more "alarming" would be in the Journal's interests (journalistically and politically).

Looks like a few more people are beginning to wake up to the facts.

A US Science advisor, originally to Condoleezza Rice, but now to Hillary Clinton, Dr. Fedoroff, says we need to work on decreasing the growth rate -- we are approaching limits and are really probably over the limit of what the Earth can comfortably support.

I keep wondering who they idiots are that think earth can support multiple times the current population -- do they expect people to be hot-swapping beds and living spaces? Is everyone comfortable with their quality of life at that density? Could they be? Are there sufficient resources for everyone to be comfortable now with their quality of life? I certainly don't see anything close to a sign that even half of the world's population are happy or comfortable with their lives. Is it intelligent to condemn our species to increased misery and condemn other species on the earth to extinction in order grow, or, even maintain current population?

Earth *could* support more if **magic occurs** and we get unlimited, free, nonpolluting energy in unlimited volumes. But I don't see that happening in the near future...sure 'fusion' is just around the corner...but for how many decades has it been so? Given current tech we may be exceeding earth's population limits even now to allow for long-term sustainability of the planet. But if some don't care about our future as a species or about other species and a sustainable existence on the earth, then I believe those people are in the true evil among us that need to be dealt with in order for humanity to survive.

GRR....woke up this morning to an evil email about another drive gone dead. Another 750G SATA. That's my 3rd Seagate SATA drive gone dead in the past 2 months 1-750G in Dec., 1-1T at beginning of Jan, and another 750G this morning...

What is this?? I been adding more fans & cooling when my 400GB Seagates went out after only ~30 months (out of a 5 year warrantee, but I don't care about warrantee, I want them to last, not be replaceable!). My idle drives maybe run in the 30-35C range, under load I try to keep them under 40C -- have alerts set for 38C. So I'm pretty sure these latest drives have maintained their cool. I *still* have a 750G ATA drive that's running 'fine'...That scares me -- But outlasting all of them are some 15K SCSI drives that I know have run hot in the past before they got dedicated cooling fans (didn't realize how warm they got and that case fans weren't enough). But the 15K SCSI's are running at twice the speed -- yet they are lasting 4-5 years or more (I replace drives before fail when I can -- at the first sign of a sector remap).

But the sector/track remapping, that's adds another question. Am I to believe that one the 750GB went to getting some unreadable sectors before fail, but it was less than a year old -- died it run out of spare tracks and sectors? I thought it should be able to handle some failures before exposing bad sectors to the user -- and allocate spare blocks. Two out of three 400, and 1 out of the 2 750GB drives showed unrecoverable sector read errors that I couldn't get rid of by reformatting or overwriting the partition or files. I'd hope that a write would remap a known bad sector -- back 5-10 years ago, hmmm....I think I had more IBM/Hitachi drives -- so maybe that's the difference. Looks like Seagate is going down hill in quality fast -- but this all seems to have happened since they purchased MAXTOR -- almost as if Maxtor's low quality disks were being sub'ed in for Seagate drives?

I had something similar happen on my Seagate 1TB -- it was a retail box, but inside was a OEM model 1TB disk -- the serial numbers MATCHED, but the model numbers did not. Fry's eventually took it back because I argued it was an open-box when I bought it and it could have been switched -- but both the Fry's person and I suspected the switch had happened at the Seagate factory -- which the Fry's person was still willing to 'cover', since they'd sold me a drive, fraudulently (in retail, 5-yr warrantee box, but with OEM-no warrantee disk inside).

Maybe this is someone at Seagate giving Fry's a bad deal due to the Fry's payola scandal. Seems trite, but someone might have been out for some payback.

I keep seeing these advertisements about Windows "Mohave" -- a ad campaign where they convince 'everyday users' (i.e. people who don't know squat about computers) how great Vista is by fooling them into trying it on specially tuned systems provided by Microsoft. Of course, the systems provided by MS have all certainly been equipped with high-end hardware, and pre-installed and pre-tuned by MS engineers to shine. And the non-computer savvy types see the new Vista interface and, of course, "oo" and "ah" over the high end interface (only in premium versions of windows costing up to hundreds extra on top of the high end hardware).

The 'computer-ignorant' "users" were easily fooled by MS and thought it would great to try it home...so the ads would have us believe.

So what does this tell us? If you throw computers at customers that cost 3-4x what mid-range computers cost and pre-tune and set them up with the most user-friendly settings and extra hardware (how man computers, available today, 'come' with the ability to receive HD-TV already built-in? Even if you buy an HDTV card, how many would be able to save HD-video & audio to disk "in the background"... OR are they only intending to sell these computers as "Media Centers" -- and not general purpose computers? Did they show any of the consumers the feature where NBC "accidentally" tests remote blocking of end-user recording of their favorite programs? I'm sure they'll love Vista once they've switched over and depend on it to record their favorite shows...

Vista got a bad wrap because it was evaluated by experts and compared to Windows XP. It was slower and provided little to no user benefit. The only beneficiary of Vista was NBC & Hollywood. Of course Apple users have nothing to feel smug about, Apple has bowed down and added the same DRM to all their new system.

Upcoming, probably more for the computer experts, is 'Windows 7' -- already said not to be a radical departure or change from Vista. But the problem is -- all the things added to Vista that slow down drivers and performance and remove user rights -- they all be in Windows 7. So how would Win7 be different from a Vista SP2 or SP3? I'm guessing most of the work on Win7 will be to support new hardware and to address performance problems -- so reviewers won't slam it as bad as they did Vista. MS has already lowered expectations with Vista, so even if they get back all of the speed lost in Vista -- will it be any faster or better than XP? Or is it just another offering to seduce us into a MS-NBC-Hollywood media controlled future?

Perhaps Windows 7 is more like a "Mohave 2" (with no real improvements, and almost as good as XP in performance (even with all the DRM layers in the background). MS may also be hoping that the price of high-end hardware will come down to mid and lower price-points so consumers can buy more computer to handle the 'basic' Aero-version. But since most consumers will want media playin too, they'll be persuaded to buy 'ultimate' to get Windows Media Player (a free download under XP, but a new level of expense when sold as part of Vista).

So much for computers being a benefit for all mankind. Instead of being used to further knowledge, their biggest use appears that it will be to further subdivide waning resources in order maximize money extraction from the masses to the elite. But hey, it's the word of God: For to all those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from those who have nothing, even what they seem to have will be taken away (Math 13:12 + 25:29, Mark 4:25, Luke 8:18 + 19:25-6, Thomas 31:1). Hmm...when Christians say the US is a 'Christian' nation are they really meaning Christianity = Capitalism? Interesting...

Certainly no big surprise to me -- and not that it really should matter (given research on effectiveness of placebos and potential harm of 'nocebos'), but A committee of scientiests setup by the US Dept. of Veterans Affairs has reported physical causes for Gulf War Syndrome (organophosphate nerve gas, nerve gas remedies and insecticides) as reported in this New Scientist article.

And yet another of one of those "all in your head" diseases is now shown to be real. When will medical science learn -- that just because they can't find or don't know the cause doesn't mean it is psychological -- especially when large groups report similar symptoms...

Maybe this will get some vets some much needed treatment & respect (though I won't hold my breath).

Anomalous events measuring decay of radioactive isotopes have been noticed in what seem to be events correlated with our nearest 'heavy-duty' nuclear reactor (the sun). Coinciding with X-ray bursts (but before any solar flare particles would reach the earth) -- and even on the dark-side of the earth -- odd effects in radioactive decay of various substances has been noted.

In the most recent case, the test was on the dark side -- at the moment of a sun's X-Ray burst at the start of a solar flare -- but long before the charged particles from the flare could get to earth and even longer than it would take for those reactions to percolate around the atmosphere to the 'backside' of the earth. Neutrino emission variations are one possible explanation.

Other tests on other isotopes have also noticed small but regular variations that coincided with the seasons by +/- 0.3%.

Variation implies faster and slower decay? The reasons for the variations haven't been identified -- but have been noticed
with some regularity -- a minor curiosity, or a way to detect incoming solar flares? Or a way to control (speed up/slow down)
radioactive decay -- allowing for tuning of radioactive output rather than blocking it with absorption materials. Could be start of something fun...or just a wobble in earth's orbit...who knows?

this is an old MS trick -- they publish and document it when writing software for their platform -- you need to give the user feedback 'action' -- so they think the computer is doing something -- this is part of the reason why progress bars on windows jump all over the place -- they don't really indicate %done, often, but often crude estimations like trying to decide how much of your file system you've done a find through by only looking at the TLD's. Well when it gets to the "W"'s, it might take a bit longer to enumerate the Windows dir unless they build-in a pre-fudge.

The point is that Vista-V7 (aka Vista v2, windows 7) isn't going to get faster unless the hardware speeds up. MS has added some new layers of mis^h^h^hindirection between the HW and SW -- mostly for DRM purposes. They needed to secure -- and not screw it up or hollywood wouldn't trust them as a distribution platform. Just like several months back... the auto-record features built-in to media player and the Win-Media player versions -- they needed to ensure that they would properly NOT record digital broadcast programs off the air when NBC(of MSNBC) "accidently" turned on the do not allow local time-shifting or recording "flag". They want to prove the superiority of the Windows platform to deliver content by having superior DRM controls on windows which will be slow enabled over time -- but to do all that they had to totally change the driver layer -- disallowing all old XP drivers (except maybe in some degraded compat mode), and get HW manufacturers to only release MS certified drivers. Only drivers certified by MS to conform to MS's security standard will get a signature -- so only signed drivers can be used in a trusted path. It might be the case that if *any* untrusted drivers are loaded, some content providers my disallow playback. It's all about control and prying more rights away from consumers.

We are living a world with mostly fixed resources. The only way for companies to 'grow' (a requirement for businesses in the real world or die -- stagnation isn't good enough) is to further subdivide the rights you already have and and get you(the consumer) used to paying for smaller and smaller portions --

It's like in the US-NorCal region, at least, both Pepsi and Coke (thus virtually all soft drinks) switch from a common 12-pack (advertised to fit perfectly in the fridge -- it did), to an 8-pack (which doesn't, to fill up the same space you need to buy 3 packs and put one sideways in the back. Less ideal, more packaging, more waste). But it allows them to raise the price the per-unit price by 25%, while reducing the package cost by 8% (approx). You can't have major packs of food going for more than certain 'magic amounts' people are used to -- the magic amounts go up slowly, but the other way is to reduce size, and charge near the same...then slowly inch up the price again...repeat.

Perhaps it's just me, but have you ever noticed when some cracker or chip company releases a new flavor of chips or crackers or similar, they'll be bursting with flavor -- then after a promotion period where the advertiser has touted the ALL NEW EXPLOSIVELY INTENSE FLAVOR of NEW XXYZ, the stop adding as much flavoring...and slowly over a 6-12 month period the amount of flavoring drops off till you almost need a an unflavored variety eaten side-by-side to the flavored variety to detect any difference at all.

The effects on this are 'two-fold'. 1), For the consumer who craves the new taste -- they slowly need to start taking more and more of the drug, er, food, to get the same 'taste-fix'. This goes on until the new product is 'cut' too much with non-flavor stuff (white-bread cracker filler - empty carbs and unhealthy (saturated or trans) oils).

The unhealthy oils are used because because the 'healthy oils' (like hemp oil, flax-seed oil, evening primrose, some fish oils, that have Essential Daily Fatty Acids (just as "Essential" as vitamins) have short shelf-lives (on the order of dairy products). One of the main characteristics that make them healthy and essential in your body are their chemical instability -- your body can use them to create necessary components. Unfortunately this isn't good for product shelf life. Pure hemp or flax seed oil where health is concerned are sold in dark bottles (light proof), and sometimes sealed with Nitrogen -- and even then are kept in the refrigerated sections and have a stamped expiration date measured in a few-several weeks (depending on how they were packaged and refined). An excellent book on the oils and fatty acids "Fats that Heal, Fats that Kill: The Complete Guide to Fats, Oils Cholesterol and Human Health". The author also sells his own mixture to take advantage of the hype, but the best (as measured by ideal balance of EA's for humans) oil(hemp) and the close competitors are available slightly less expensively, but still at stiff prices due to government control (legality of Hemp, for example).
Anyway -- once the manufacturer notices that his customers are falling off -- because the "flavor" component is too low to support a "flavor craving" habit -- (cut w/too much non-flavor) -- they restart the cycle. New add campaign -- about the "whole new and improved" product xxyzz, with more flavor than ever -- it's a BLAST". So you try it again, because you liked the flavor -- and if it is the drug^h^h^h^h flavor of choice that stimulates your endorphins -- then you are hooked again. The process repeats...ad infinitum.

Some products are easier to manipulate in cycles, than others. The leap from records to 8-tracks was a poor first media attempt, and cassettes were as much of an annoyance as a help -- but CD's offered the 1st big thing. VHS -> DVD was the first successful transition in video -- now they sell entire seasons of some shows for Gini coefficients too high for the masses to afford the new tech) and insufficient driving reason. As in the record/LP industry->CD conversion, it may take a few years to raise the prices of the DVD's to meet Blue Ray -- once they are equal, people will eventually convert and (the industry hopes) rebuy all the movies you already have in the new format.

With videos -- even songs, though, even stronger subdivisions are already being marketed and sold as common to a younger generation -- who's now used to buying songs by the 1-at-a-time 1$/ea, but then repaying to have it on their cell phone, or repaying again to have it as a ringtone, and in some cases -- (usually business models that have, so far, failed, but they will keep trying) charging per-device -- or, the Holy Grail -- charging you the full retail price each time you want to view or listen to the media.

Thus Vista-2 (win7) is another attempt to convince people to switch over to the "new secure" platform where Windows hopes to allow content providers to provide the detailed level of control they crave -- it will then only be a matter of market acceptance -- playing with price and availability to continually raise prices and lower expectations among new users. The older users who are used to full access will always whine and complain, but those who have grown up on the iPod generation -- just downloading songs on the whim, one at a time, will be easier to nudge into pay-per-device and pay-per-view models.

The sad thing about it -- is that most of it is not about providing new features and new value to users -- it's just about realigning their perceptions so you can continue to get value out of capital assets (IP) that you already own -- then you've basically set yourself up as a 'service provider' that can get a payment from you monthly whether you use the service or not -- an even better state to be in than charge for even a electronic-evaporating song or video.

Why spend money in R&D to develop newer & better (which, being a creative process is not a stable business model) when you can just spend your R&D in better ways money extraction?

I found the following in an article about the Big Brother that may be coming to a the inside of a computer near you". (Assuming you don't have it already). In particular, the author refers to this capacity already existing in nearly everyone's cell-phone.

In the late 1990s, many complaints were filed about a believed-to-exist, yet unproven and undisclosed technology in cell phones called ECHELON. This technology was later acknowledged to exist and is now known to be in nearly all modern day cell phones. The only way to disable it is to remove the battery from the phone, thus rendering the device useless to ECHELON - but also the user.

ECHELON is a hidden system which operates in the background in cell phones. Its purpose is to grant remote access to the phone's microphone and data files. The remote authority (typically an authorized government agency (FBI, police, etc.,) working under a duly authorized search warrant, but theoretically anybody who has access to the cell phone network) can access a phone, turn its features on and off and access all of its data. Any cell phone files, including camera images and voice data, can then be searched or sent across the cell phone network at any time.

The ECHELON system inside of cell phones operates only in the background. It allows the phone operate normally from all outward signs and without any observable changes in behavior for the user. In fact, the average user would never know ECEHLON was even present or working as everything it does is totally behind the scenes and outside of the user's awareness. This is also its appeal to governments, authorized agencies, and of course hackers.

I thought it was only "special" phones -- not all phones. Is it really the case that anyone (or any capable hacker) can tap into your cellphone and activate the microphone and camera without any sign that the phone has been tapped into?

This seems more than a little bit discomforting...

Michael Moore is releasing his new movie "Slacker Uprising" as a free download for 3 weeks starting Tuesday, September 23. It's a full, no DRM, freely copyable film -- for 3 weeks, then goes to DVD afterward at a low price.

He's been touring the swing states from the last election to convince non-voting "slackers" to vote -- he's even been handing out a clean change of underwear and free Ramen noodles as a gimmick to reach tempt and reach audiences.

Of course some Republicans are looking into pressing charges against Moore, for his actions, claiming he is trying to buy votes by handing out free underwear and noodles (they must be joking). Of course, corruption charges, coming from Republicans is a bit like the pot calling the kettle black.

Looks like it could be interesting....Moore's movie is said to have a democratic bias....can't imagine that! :-)

If this isn't news for nerds watching late night sci-fi and such...

Consumerist reports an Associated Press release that Steve Warshak, 42 was found guilty of 93 counts of conspiracy, fraud and money laundering. His 75-yr/old mother who has cancer was found found guilty of conspiracy and other charges and was sentenced to 2-years but is free, pending appeal. US District Judge Arthur Spiegel, in Cincinnati, OH, denied Mr. Warshak's request to remain free pending appeal but gave him 30 days to wrap up his affairs and report to prison.

Besides Enzyte, Washak's company, Berkeley Premium Nutraceuticals, who also distributes products to boost energy, manage weight, reduce memory loss and aid sleep, will be allowed to stay in business -- but must forfeit $500 million.

Among their most egregious offenses was a requirement of a Notarized statement from a doctor certifying that they had a small penis. Amazingly, remarkably few customers availed themselves of the refund offer.

Unfortunately, it looks like the commercials will still be able to continue...*sigh*...

Interesting -- anyone else notice the McCain/Colonel Tigh similarity in look...

And then -- check out the running mate vs. Laura Roselyn in glasses....

Did the GOP get subliminally influenced by BSG, or did they use BSG prototypes to build a Pres-VP team that would evoke the BSG look to those "in the know"...?

You tell me...:-)

Gotta love our Nazi States of America...from the 'homeland' security policies. From the Washington Post, among other locations:

officers may "detain" **any information** "for a reasonable period of time" to "review and analyze information." This may take place "absent individualized suspicion.
** any-information includes: any device capable of storing information in digital or analog form," (i.e. - disk drives, flash drives, cellphones, iPods, personal organizers, pagers, beepers, and video and audio tapes) and "all papers, published, printed, or written," including books, pamphlets and written materials, including small notes commonly referred to as 'pocket trash' or 'pocket litter.'".

The constitution no longer applies to US (or foreign) citizens on US property at the borders. Apparently, the borders have the same status as Guantanamo -- i.e. US law doesn't apply.

I don't see why my laptop isn't protected as part of my personal property -- my home, my castle, my private writings. They can take anything without cause or reason -- and hold it for months -- and share it with other organizations...this is just 'sick'.