It’s the End Of The Internet!

Again, that is. Another remote sendmail root vuln. http://www.cert.org/advisories/CA-2003-12.html

This time, alas, without the long lead time the last one had. Jury is still out on how nasty it is. The last one relied on compiler goofs to be exploitable, so turned out to be not-exploitable on most major architectures. This one … we shall see.

Er, on book-related matters: Any day now it’ll be off to the printers. Yup.

And …. as I am on late shift this week, I took the opportunity to look up an old keynote address that really, REALLY impressed me: Dr. Ball speaking on Human Rights issues and software.

http://www.cultdeadcow.com/panel2001/hacktivism_panel.htm

Hacktivism by any other name.

I’ve wanted to do something “useful” for years now. So, I sniffed around some of the links Dr. Ball gives, and came across “Analyzer”. http://shr.aaas.org/hrdag/product/analyzer/index.html

That might just fit me. The Hacktivismo group is a bit too closed, and also a bit too “be 1337 or be roadkill” for plain old me ). Analyzer will be good to get my feet wet again. It’s been over a decade since I did any serious programming.

Don’t be fooled, folks. Terrorism is not the #1 issue. We don’t need Patriot Act II. http://www.aclu.org/SafeandFree/SafeandFree.cfm?ID=12234&c=206 . It’s Human Rights and, I feel, environmental issues, that will “make or break” our civilization in the next 100 years or so.

Then again, I may be viewing things in too grand a light, and we’ll just muddle through. Who knows. I doubt it though. Either we (collectively “we” as in “der Mensch”) get our act together, or there’s another dark age coming for us. Take heart, however; the last one only lasted a thousand years or so. Less, I believe.

Quick-update

Kids: Still silly
Nerdiness: Increased. Playing Palladium FRPG with Chris and Amberlea; thinking of doing some Python coding; stuff
Life: Er … yes.
Music: Andi sent me my pipes. Cool. They need minor repairs, but minor only. Found a local band. Now to, hmm, join and practise. Yeah. Hmm. Right next week.
Health: Mine’s fine. Chris is mighty pissed he’s still not. Poor wuff . Caitlin’s counseling has started. Yay!
House: Can’t get a mortgage as a nonpermanent resident. Let’s hope the new landlord will let us stay. Meanwhile, working on getting permanent status
Mate: Nerdier. Watching Japanese Anime with English subtitles. I will have to do that, too
Book: Got my chapter back from review. Comment was “looks very good, just some minor changes, please”. And still I’m afraid to unzip the damn thing and take a peek at it. Which I shall do forthwith, right now.

Dr. Frankenwuff

Yesterday morning, just as I was snuggling up to my sweetie, Amberlea hammered on the door, announcing an emergency (the kids have been told not to bother us unless it is an “emergency” that goes beyond “can we have cereal?!?”). She said something about Caitlin’s earring being in her ear and blood being everywhere. Urk.

It turned out that the (already healed) piercing had become infected, and the clasp of the earring had wandered into the earlobe. Ouch. Double-ouch. Christopher swabbed the area to loosen the gunk some, Caitlin shivered in fear and clung to his lap, and I removed first the pin … which hurt her, but wasn’t so bad … and then proceeded to take out the clasp, which was completely inside her earlobe. Press from one side, pull from the other … it came out after a few seconds. Caitlin, amazingly, held very still, while weeping copiously. Very brave girl of 6, there.

Narf. Thinking about it later made my guts clench. That must’ve been painful. Funny how one can be calm while doing what needs to be done, and shudder at the thought later. )

Christopher cleaned out the earlobe, then took her to a doc since the other earlobe still had a lump in it. That’s clean now, too. It will heal fine, although I can see Caitlin balking at the prospect of getting her ears repierced. If so, that’s fine. No need for a six-year-old to wear earrings. Or so I think, but then I’m a geezer, eh .

Inquiries by Christopher along the lines of “why didn’t you say your ear hurt, Caitlin?” didn’t lead anywhere. She is remarkably odd about such things. You’d think she’d sound an early warning. Nope. Ah well.