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<\/p> \nChaos Manor View, Thursday, July 30, 2015<\/p>\n
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There is new material at Chaos Manor Reviews. http:\/\/chaosmanorreviews.com\/<\/a> I am still in fiction mode, but today was a day of adventures\u2026 See below<\/p>\n <\/i> Don\u2019t waste your passion on the election yet; it\u2019s early days.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n A day of adventures. It began with Roberta telling me that when I go to the front downstairs office, she doesn\u2019t get to sleep until I go back to the back bedroom where there is my hospital bed \u2013 since my stroke we have had to be in separate bedrooms. That\u2019s frequently at midnight or after. She hears me trundle past her bedroom door.<\/p>\n That induced panic because I don\u2019t change subjects well. For instance, yesterday I worked on fiction, and I\u2019m not really here when I\u2019m doing that; it takes me a while to focus on this page, or answer mail, or whatever. It\u2019s particularly difficult just at the moment when our book really needs my attention.<\/p>\n Before the stroke I got most of my best work done at midnight and thereafter, but I only slept about four to six hours a night. I need more sleep now. And if I don\u2019t get some time to refocus \u2013 that\u2019s the main effect of that stroke on me, difficulty changing the subject I\u2019m thinking about, with mild panic when that inevitably happens \u2013 it\u2019s going to be hard to keep up this place and do fiction. I like doing this place, and apparently a lot of you want me to; my subscription renewal rate is high, and while I could always use more I get enough from subscribers to make a significant contribution to my income. For which thanks, of course. But that\u2019s a strong incentive for keeping this up. Another is that I enjoy rational discussion, and while the Internet has provided us with plenty of communication, rational discussion gets increasingly more rare as time goes by.<\/p>\n About then I discovered that my ancient ThinkPad needed updates, the way I used to synchronize outlook pst files doesn\u2019t work any more, I bumped Alien Artifact \u2013 my Windows 7 main machine \u2013 and the front panel came off. I couldn\u2019t get it back on while sitting in my chair, and I had to keep telling myself that despair is a sin<\/p>\n The ThinkPad was the way I did this place from the beach house when we used to go down there. I kept all the Outlook pst files in a root folder called, surprisingly, Outlook, on both my main desk machine and the ThinkPad. When I\u2019d go on the road, or to the beach house, I\u2019d simply copy the Outlook folder with Xcopy from my main machine to the ThinkPad. Xcopy, because I could use \/D \/Y to copy only newer files, saving a lot of time. I\u2019d tell Outlook to leave the old files on the server. Then off I\u2019d go. When I got back I\u2019d reverse the process, so the main machine knew what I\u2019d been doing, then bring Outlook up on me desktop and merrily proceed. <\/p>\n But that was on an older main machine that\u2019s still upstairs, and I don\u2019t use it anymore; I now have a new system, Alien Artifact, as a main machine and it was set up while I was still in the rehab hospital, and the Outlook pst files are stored all over the place to the default whims of Microsoft and Windows 7 and Outlook 2007, and it\u2019s incomprehensible to me; I have no idea of how to daily synchronize two machines in Outlook.<\/p>\n And I had a physical therapy session at Kaiser at 1300 but I needed a shower first and that would have to be first because the girl who helps me shower would not be here when I got back, and I left in a black mood.<\/p>\n But before I left, Eric pointed out that I have a perfectly good modern 64-bit machine upstairs and fast Ethernet in the back room, and we can simply bring Swan down to the back room and synchronize with this machine, and Peter pointed out that all I really need is a good chair and I can work back there after Roberta goes to bed at ten, and since I don\u2019t need the wheel chair back there I can have a better chair to sit in and watch TV and socialize with Roberta, and the wheel chair is certainly not very comfortable so all I really need is a good comfortable office chair back there.<\/p>\n I pondered this as we got to Kaiser, where the physical therapist took my blood pressure and pronounced it dangerously low and sent me to urgent care. I refused to panic, but I must admit I wondered about it. We got there and I got a red flagged card which got me to see the nurse \u2013 who took my blood pressure and found it my normal 121\/68 as it has been for years. Apparently the new instrument in Physical Therapy was improperly calibrated. <\/p>\n Got home to find the ThinkPad couldn\u2019t update and failed to boot, would I like it to attempt to restore? Never did that before, but what the hell. Told it yes. Then got out of my chair and onto my knees and was able to put Alien Artifact\u2019s front panel back on without problems.<\/p>\n Alien Artifact with his front cover back on properly. Was easy once I could get at it.<\/p>\n ThinkPad trundled a while and restored Windows 7 fine, and seems none the worse for wear; he is a little ancient and may need replacing but I\u2019m hoping the Surface Pro 3 will do take his place. The Surface has larger keys and easier to type on, but the screen is smaller; and it\u2019s been devoted to alpha versions of Windows 10; but that experiment is about over. Precious, the Surface Pro, seems stable now, and I\u2019ll start to putting her to good use. Or try to.<\/p>\n The cramped quarters I now live in; they won\u2019t let me work upstairs in the grand office. But we wrote Mote in God\u2019s Eye here, on a Selectric typewriter, and Zeke lived here all his life<\/p>\n This weekend I hope to get Alex and Eric over to bring down Swan and get her set up in the back room and we\u2019ll worry about synchronizing Outlook; my agent sent reasonable royalties for May, so I can afford a good office chair, probably a duplicate of the Henry Miller I\u2019m in now, and keep it in the back room in place of the wheel chair which can go to someone who needs it; and the ThinkPad popped up with \u201cThreat Warnings\u201d but Norton said it could fix them; turns out I haven\u2019t used it much and Windows Security Essentials wasn\u2019t happy either, so I\u2019m doing all the scanning anybody wants, smoothly and without problems.<\/p>\n And I typed all this, two fingers, but I got several whole sentences without errors \u2013 some of that is that I have trained autocorrect to find lots of words with numbers in them where I hit two keys at once, but also I\u2019m not hitting two keys at once so much either. I got nit for not in that last sentence, and ion for in in this one, but fortunately I found those. <\/p>\n So, after many adventures, it has been a good day after all. When I get back from my LASFS meeting tonight I will have Precious in the back room and see if I can add anything to this, but any mail I\u2019ll have to put in from here, where I won\u2019t get until tomorrow. But for a day which looked like disaster, it turned out well.<\/p>\n The 97% consensus of climate scientists is only 47%.<\/p>\n <http:\/\/fabiusmaximus.com\/2015\/07\/29\/new-study-undercuts-ipcc-keynote-finding-87796\/<\/a>><\/p>\n Also, note that the survey questions were biased – there wasn’t any option for disputing the statements, only ‘I don’t know’ or ‘Other’.<\/p>\n —————————————<\/p>\n Roland Dobbins<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n I remain of the opinion that we have insufficient data; but Bayesian analysis would indicate spending more on data than on amelioration of either coming warm or coming cold age. Reduction of uncertainties will save money; preparations before uncertainty reduction is expensive. Do we buy blankets or bathing suits?<\/p>\n And there are repeated stories like this:<\/p>\n Mind-Blowing Temperature Fraud At NOAA.<\/p>\n ‘Almost half of all reported US temperature data is now fake. They fill in missing rural data with urban data to create the appearance of non-existent US warming.’<\/p>\n <https:\/\/stevengoddard.wordpress.com\/2015\/07\/27\/mind-blowing-temperature-fraud-at-noaa\/<\/a>><\/p>\n —————————————<\/p>\n Roland Dobbins<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Mostly the Iron Law at work. <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Quote from Madison<\/p>\n Jerry,<\/p>\n I think this quote from Madison is quite apropos for today:<\/p>\n “A popular Government, without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a Prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy; or, perhaps both. Knowledge will forever govern ignorance: And a people who mean to be their own Governors, must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.”<\/p>\n — James Madison to W. T. Barry, Aug 4, 1822, James Madison, The Writings of James Madison, vol. 9 (Correspondence, 1819-1836) [1910] <http:\/\/oll.libertyfund.org\/people\/james-madison<\/a>><\/p>\n Some days I think we are now in the Farce and Tragedy. But as you remind, despair is a sin.<\/p>\n Regards,<\/p>\n Charles Adams, Bellevue, NE<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n The joys of ‘smart’ rifles.<\/p>\n <http:\/\/www.wired.com\/2015\/07\/hackers-can-disable-sniper-rifleor-change-target\/<\/a>><\/p>\n —————————————<\/p>\n Roland Dobbins<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n : Massive Surveillance Crisis<\/p>\n I can’t find the words to describe this shocking development other than to say this is both disgusting and monumental:<\/p>\n <.><\/p>\n CISA is an out and out surveillance bill masquerading as a cybersecurity bill. It won\u2019t stop hackers. Instead, it essentially legalizes all forms of government and corporate spying.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s how it works. Companies would be given new authority to monitor their users — on their own systems as well as those of any other entity — and then, in order to get immunity from virtually all existing surveillance laws, they would be encouraged to share vaguely defined \u201ccyber threat indicators\u201d with the government. This could be anything from email content, to passwords, IP addresses, or personal information associated with an account. The language of the bill is written to encourage companies to share liberally and include as many personal details as possible.<\/p>\n That information could then be used to further exploit a loophole in surveillance laws that gives the government legal authority for their holy grail — \u201cupstream\u201d collection of domestic data directly from the cables and switches that make up the Internet.<\/p>\n Thanks to Edwards Snowden, we know that the NSA, FBI, and CIA have already been conducting this type of upstream surveillance on suspected hackers. CISA would give the government tons of new domestic cyber threat indicators to use for their upstream collection of information that passes over the Internet. This means they will be gathering not just data on the alleged threat, but also all of the sensitive data that may have been hacked as part of the threat. So if someone hacks all of Gmail, the hacker doesn\u2019t just get those emails, so does the U.S. government.<\/p>\n The information they gather, including all the hacked data and any incidental information that happens to get swept up in the process, would be added to massive databases on people in the U.S. and all over the world that the FBI, CIA, and NSA are free to query at their leisure. This is how CISA would create a huge expansion of the \u201cbackdoor\u201d search capabilities that the government uses to skirt the 4th Amendment and spy on Internet users without warrants and with virtually no oversight.<\/p>\n <\/><\/p>\n http:\/\/thehill.com\/blogs\/congress-blog\/technology\/249521-cisa-the-dirty-deal-between-google-and-the-nsa-that-no-one-is<\/a><\/p>\n Once we start looking at counterintelligence programs, false flag operations, and so on, things get even more interesting….<\/p>\n \u25ca \u25ca \u25ca \u25ca \u25ca<\/p>\n Most Respectfully,<\/p>\n Joshua Jordan, KSC<\/p>\n Percussa Resurgo<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Krebs on Security has posted a new item. I have numerous comments from informed sources; the consensus seems to be that all the default options are opt in; but you should be aware of them.<\/p>\n Windows 10 Shares Your Wi-Fi With Contacts<\/p>\n In spite of the hysteria, I believe it is already fully opt-in.<\/p>\n The only, only, only thing that defaults to \u201con\u201d is that the service is enabled. Every time a user adds a new Wi-Fi network, the dialog box specifically asks whether to share it with contacts or not, and which contacts to share it with from the three available options (Outlook\/Facebook\/Skype). All four of those questions, at least on my machine with a clean install, defaulted to OFF.<\/p>\n If the service itself is turned off, none of those sharing questions will be asked.<\/p>\n Now, if someone has turned on the service and shared a network, maybe it defaults to enable sharing the next time; I didn\u2019t test that.<\/p>\n I think this business Krebs raises (and the Register raised) about how a friend could share your Wi-Fi credentials without your permission is just nonsense. That still takes a deliberate effort. If you have a friend who would do that, you need new friends.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Rare outbreak of sanity<\/p>\n http:\/\/www.zdnet.com\/article\/no-windows-10s-wi-fi-sense-feature-is-not-a-security-risk\/?tag=nl.e539&s_cid=e539&ttag=e539&ftag=TRE17cfd61<\/a><\/p>\n Eric<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n <\/p>\n Freedom is not free. Free men are not equal. Equal men are not free. <\/p>\n Chaos Manor View, Thursday, July 30, 2015 There is new material at Chaos Manor Reviews. http:\/\/chaosmanorreviews.com\/ I am still in fiction mode, but today was a day of adventures\u2026 See below Don\u2019t waste your passion on the election yet; it\u2019s early days. A day of adventures. It began with Roberta \u2026 Continue reading <\/p> <\/p>\n![\"clip_image002\"](\"http:\/\/www.jerrypournelle.com\/chaosmanor\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/clip_image002_thumb4.jpg\" "\\"clip_image002\\"")
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Starting today, Microsoft is offering most Windows 7 and Windows 8 users a free
upgrade to the software giant’s latest operating system — Windows 10. But
there’s a very important security caveat that users should know about before
transitioning to the new OS: Unless you opt out, Windows 10 will by default
share your Wi-Fi network password with any contacts you may have listed in
Outlook and Skype — and, with an opt-in, your Facebook friends!
http:\/\/krebsonsecurity.com\/2015\/07\/windows-10-shares-your-wi-fi-with-contacts\/<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n
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