Kilo Seven

This emergency responder found Ford won't honor their extended warranty on multiple pretexts, including the installation of a two-way radio. Gee, with all those Crown Vics running around with 2-way radios in them, you'd think Ford could find a more creative excuse.

Verilan now offers free basic Internet access via 802.11b WiFi to a large segment of Portland. They don't give you NNTP or e-mail, but just plain web access will suit many people perfectly well. Forex, you can use Google Groups to search the entire history of USENET (sans binary groups), even post to USENET once you establish a free account with Google . Or, you can download Free Agent , a very useful USENET newsgroup reader/e-mail client, and use that with HotPOP which offers free POP3/SMTP e-mail access, if you're still waiting for your Gmail invite. A WiFi Cantenna ( WiFi primer and antenna review here) on top of a bamboo pole feeding a good* WiFi card could provide basic access for a laptop from many homes and other locations. For field ops with line-of-sight to the KGW tower, this could be very useful. Also, here's a WiFi HOWTO from Wikipedia, with more here , and more than you ever wanted here . I will put my card back in my laptop and do some ex...

Source: Canada NewsWire, 9 Oct 2004, excerpted British Columbia Institute of Technology cyber security research leader Eric Byres testified for the U.S. Congressional Subcommittee on Technology, Information Policy, Intergovernmental Relations and the Census in Washington D.C. on 1 Oct 2004, warning that hacker attacks on North America's critical industrial infrastructure [power, etc., and of course the information technology on which they all depend] could soon become as commonplace as the practice of hacking Web pages. Particularly vulnerable are the Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems used ubiquitously for operation and maintenance. They efficiently enable the collection and analysis of data and control of equipment from remote locations. There is a growing concern that this reliance on computers and computer networks raises the vulnerability of critical infrastructures to attack by cyber terrorists. A recent National Research Council report has...

CBS News reports our national warning system is very, very lame. It's also optional. Yes, optional, for local or regional alerts. The huge megalithic radiocorp that owns the majority of stations people listen to can decide whether to alert you to volcanic eruptions, flash floods, tornadoes and the like. Of course, if you're listening to satellite radio, or watching tapes, DVDs or satellite TV, you would not hear it anyway, as Uncle Sam never required the incredibly cheap ability to listen to an alert frequency at all times to be built into TVs and radios... but, it can require that you be nannied with the V-chip. Sleep tight tonight! Me, I got a All-Hazards alert receiver that's SAME-compliant.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), those atomic clock people , has a step-by-step guide for law enforcement investigators to find and preserve digital evidence so that it stands up to scrutiny once cases are tried. And, Uncle Sam wants your help in being the best he can be: A draft version of such rules for collecting evidence for PDAs is now available for review and comment . It neglects the Symbian OS and Linux (??), but at least my first comments to ditch the section on PQAs (a dead letter now that Palm.Net's gone forever) got listened to, and the guide is a useful primer on the architecture of PDAs.

A virtual slide rule.

A British software engineer was pinkslipped for documenting Windows insceurities in a combat context . As a result, Her Majesty's Royal Navy will be running on Windows. Yes, Windows for Warships, even including the UK's sole remaining nuclear deterrent. "Sorry, Captain, we canna fire, tha server has crashed. Again." WWST? (What Would Scotty Think?)

Here's a quick review of upcoming palmtop PCs ; machines which will fit in a coat pocket, and maybe pants pocket, but not a shirt pocket, and run Windows and/or Linux to give you all of your programs while out in the field. I've actually used two of these, the OQO and the FlipStart, as well as a lot of other mobile computing gear. Since I've just had the touchscreen on my Fujitsu one-kilo notebook fail, with a probable repair cost of 75% of a new unit, I appreciate that the Vulcan folks might have left ouff the touchscreen for ruggedness reasons. This is the best solution for really portable packet radio, as well as being tremendously useful in general. Palm has got to be sweating over this one, and it explains why Sony retreated from the PDA market.

You absolutely, positively, need a firewall, software or otherwise, with Windows PCs, even if you only have dial-up Internet access . Twenty minutes is an average, but last year it was 40 minutes.

This guide from the non-profit and respected SANS, Windows XP: surviving the first day , shows how to set up a PC and get it ready to connect to the INternet without getting hacked in the process. Highly recommended.

If you are using Windows XP, 2000 or NT, this freeware will alow you to make multiple backups of your Registry, and to 'optimize' (reorganize) it for best running. Windows 98 does this automatically, as does ME, and it's easy to do with Windows 95 (and here's a script which does it, using the previously described PKZIP25 program) : REGBACK.BAT - (C) 2004 John Bartley K7AAY : Archives five last Registry files c: echo off md \data : (delete the first line above once run for the first time) cls cd \data if exist back-reg.5 del back-reg.5 if exist back-reg.4 ren back-reg.4 back-reg.5 if exist back-reg.3 ren back-reg.3 back-reg.4 if exist back-reg.2 ren back-reg.2 back-reg.3 if exist back-reg.zip ren back-reg.zip back-reg.2 cd\windows\system PKZIP25 -a -max c:\data\back-reg.zip SYSTEM.DAT USER.DAT cls dir back-reg.* echo Registry backup successful if you see echo BACK-REG.ZIP above with today's date pause exit If your Registry is corrupt...

Recommended by the esteemed Dr. Pournelle, and now, by Yours Truly.

I use PKZIP25.COM from PKWARE, and call it within a script ('batch file'). If I accidentally delete data I don't discover as gone until after the next sync, I can go to an old data archive made with PKZIP 2.5 for DOS and recover it. BTW, if anyone knows of a freeware archiving utility which can be invoked from within a DOS script, please do let me know at johnbartleyTHREE@yahoo.com (please change THREE to 3 before sending). I obtained my PKZIP25 through purchase, but believe I'd like to try an Open Source or Freeware solution if there's one which works scripted within DOS. I created this batch file which I place in C:/WINDOWS (or somewhere else in the path) and call it every time Windows reboots by adding COMMAND /C PALMBACK.BAT within C:\AUTOEXEC.BAT on my 98 machines. NT-based machines would place the file in C:/WINNT instead and use CMD instead of COMMAND. Before use, Palmists must go to C:\Program Files\Palm and find the name of their data subdire...

I grew up on the Gulf Coast, and spent some time in Tornado Alley as well. Now, I live on the Ring of Fire. All three have their disasters; hurricanes, twisters and earthquakes. I also know many volunteer disaster workers who had Ground Zero assignments. They found low-bandwidth texting (often through paging networks, since cell nets were down for many days) their best source of information. Howard Rheingold's Smart Mobs website led me to this article on Moport , a text blogging net for mobiles, which will make its debut during the Republican National Convention in the Big Apple at the end of this month. Why not establish a Moport for Hurricane Charlie, and then create protocols for quick deployment of other Moports for other natural disasters? My motivation is that people deal with disasters better when they have a sense of being informed. Traditional disaster relief organizations, however, have to do that through the commercial media, who are rather cumbersome and have their ow...

A recent analysis of the Emergency Alert System, which replaced the Emergency Broadcast System (itself heir to CONELRAD), shows the hackability of emergency alerts . The EAS was launched in 1997 to replace the cold-war era Emergency Broadcast System known best for making the phrase "this is only a test" a cultural touchstone. Like that earlier system, the EAS is designed to allow the President to interrupt television and radio programming and speak directly to the American people in the event of an impending nuclear war, or a similarly extreme national emergency. The system has never been activated for that purpose, but state and local officials have found it a valuable channel for warning the public of regional emergencies, including the "Amber Alerts" credited with the recovery of 150 abducted children. As first reported by SecurityFocus nearly two years ago , the EAS was built without basic authentication mechanisms, and is activated locally by unencrypted...

Here's a BargainPDA report on how the new ruggedized PDA (whoops, CDA, or "Commander's Digital Assistant" will use Linux, instead of Microsoft's PocketPC. I can see that; I would not want to have my CDA hacked by a virus or stuck in a reboot cycle when out on a mission.

> http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3553368.stm ELE = Extinction Level Event NEA = Near Earth Asteroid So: when do we expect that particular doom? Well, I don't know when it will occur, and neither do the experts, beyond 'soon' (in geological terms). But, then I moved from Collier County, Florida (where the highest point is 17' above mean high tide) a dozen years ago, after I read LUCIFER'S HAMMER , right after I read ON THE SLOPES OF VESUVIUS . I think Dr. Pournelle and The Admiral both provided a Clue.. and now, I live in cheeful, happy, mountainous Oregon, with in-laws who have a spread at 2,200' on the other side of the Cascades. > And is there a way to trigger such things? The article suggested a volcanic eruption would be required, and we don't know how to trigger those any more than we know how to set off an earthquake. There may be some Russians still around who worked on their equivalent of PLOWSHARE, or mayb...

Add-ons for Gmail

Here's the yock of the day .

Here's a very useful summary of how to maintain your Windows PC's software . Of course, you have to clean your desktop machines to remove the dust, lint and hair which accumulate within and block the cooling air flow, but this is a good start for all Windows users.

Originally posted 2004-06-18: Here's a site (was: http://gmailmachine.mmgn.com - gone now); which, if you like the 1 in 30,000 odds and don't mind the risk of carpal tunnel syndrome, allows you to gamble on winning a Gmail account. Groovy. And, here's another similar site . It's cheaper than the Oregon Lottery, and to my mind, more entertaining.

This month's M$ Security Updates show multiple security patches . Please make sure to apply all the relevant patches, today. Secunia reports yet another IE security vulnerability . Solution: Find another web browser or turn off JavaScript and ActiveX. There are security bugs in Word and Messenger as well. Bill Gates: "Our software should be so fundamentally secure that customers never even worry about it." Uh-huh.

If you enjoy listen to folks talk about tech, this web link leads to a list of radio and Internet talkshows on technology.

Looking for a way to make WiFi reach further? Here's the improvizations of a New Zealand ham who's done rather well with off-the-shelf hardware. In spite of wind susceptibility & carrying weight, pressed steel parabolic woks have also emerged as suitable homemade WiFi dishes.

The BBC (hardly a bastion of conservative thought) here reports the Sun is at a 1,000-year high of sunsports (a key indicator of how much radiation the Sun emits). Gee, if the Sun's hotter than usual, could that explain 'global warming'? Perhaps it can, if it's really happening... for the key study which claims it's underway has been 'corrected' because of collation errors, unjustifiable truncation or extrapolation of source data, obsolete data, geographical location errors, incorrect calculation of principal components and other quality control defects... poor data handling, obsolete data and incorrect calculation of principal components. So, we're actually no warmer now than in the 15th Century, according to the true data. This surprises me not, for I remember from history class the Perfidous Brits hauling cannon on sledges across the frozen Hudson River to defend Staten Island in 1779 ... and, when was the last time the Hudson froze that s...

YAIESR (Yet Another Internet Explorer Security Risk): OWIE (Outlook, Windows, and Internet Explorer)! (updated 7-07, original post 6-30) As per Robert Bruce Thompson , author of O'Reilly's extremely useful PC HARDWARE IN A NUTSHELL : The SANS Internet Storm Center has announced yet another critical exploit against Internet Explorer, this one related to the Browser Helper Objects (BHO) commonly used by banks (Note: and other web sites) to extend the functionality of IE. This exploit subverts SSL and HTTPS security to give the malefactor access to passwords and other account information. For details, see: SANS (SysAdmin, Audit, Network, Security) Institute report Tech Republic report This exploit is still more confirmation that the focus of these attacks has changed. Until recently, most viruses/worms/Trojans were mere vandalism perpetrated largely by teenage script kiddies looking for a cheap thrill. Most malware/spyware was, if sometimes skating gray areas of t...

This story shows how one of the allegedly more 'helpful' power companies could not make BPL work without significant interference to amateur and other bands. And, here's the Slashdot discussion thread with more facts, innuendo and mudslinging.

Those wacky engineers at Toyota have evidently created an accellerator pedal replacement which drives Camrys into snowdrifts. That, and more car-computer horror stories, are documented at WIRED. Daddy, can I have your '56 Bulgemobile for graduation?

Grid Square Conversion . Need we say more?

Burt Rutan, designer of SpaceShipOne, revealed multiple glitches in Monday's first private flight to space . "As I came out of the atmosphere I no longer had any attitude control," (63-year old test pilot Mike) Melvill told reporters. "If that had happened earlier, I would never have made it and you all would be looking sad right now."

Here's the best story by any observer of the SpaceShipOne first flight into space, today. More coverage with video and photos here . Here's the CNN story , too. Wow. This project (financed by Paul Allen, co-founder of Micro$oft) makes up for every time I cursed M$ for Windows.

Here's my new page at PalmSource , the folks who write the Palm operating system for Palm and other PDAs and smartphones. If you have ham content, devices or PalmOS software you would like Palm users to see, drop me a note at johnbartley3 {at} yahoo {daht} com or the usual address which follows from a callsign, and I would be very happy to look into it. I am especially interested in doing packet from a Palm, and have directed Minions to scour SeaPac for a PicoPacket. Anyone who can find me that or a ShineMicro Springboard packet module for the Handspring Visor, please e-mail me at the above address.

Do you create web pages? If you don't and ain't gonna, move right along, nothing to see here, folks. However, if you do, you face the problem of how to put your e-mail address on a page without it being harvested by bots , evil software programs which (among other things) crawl the web, look at web pages and harvest e-mail addresses (including yours) to sell to spammers. There are two traditional methods to deal with this: 1. Mung your address by injecting spaces and substituting words for the tradtional punctuation,, e.g., johnbartley3 {at} yahoo {dot} com - which, unfortunately, does not give you a link whereby folks can easily click on your name and it appears in a Create an E-mail window of their e-mail client program. 2. Use the ASCII codes which correspond to the characters of your e-mail address, instead. Forex, the letter a is instead represented with a & # 9 7 ; (spaces between the characters added to keep Blogger's software from actually ...

Just thought I'd mention I offer support through the All Experts website for problems with, and questions about, PalmOS PDAs.

Class Action Lawsuit Filed in California Against Major US GSM Carriers for Subsidy Locks If you have a cellphone, it was probably 'locked' to the cellular company which provides you service. T-Mobile will unlock phones on request after three months, and a few carries don't lock them in the first place, replying on their quality of service to keep you with the company (Verizon comes to mind, IIRC). It's a little easier nowadays to change from one cell phone carrier to another, as a result of Number Portability (more info here ). You can file with your new phone company to have your old number move to your new company (and this applies to wired phone companies as well, like if you decided to change from Qworst to Vonage for your phone service. A few small telcos are exempted; see this list . That ease of changing is nicknamed 'churn', and it drives the cellular companies berzerk. It requires them to actually provide service to make you want to stay ...

Start with a backpackable 802.11b/g relay station , suitable for providing Internet connectivity at disaster operations. Preferably, it's been upgraded with the Sveasoft optimized firmware for much better performance. Draw a feed from Verilan via either 802.11 or 802.16 over a directional antenna, and voila! 802.11 coverage, wherever you need it, for WiFi phones, laptops and PDAs. Having full Internet at a disaster site is getting to be extremely useful, and hams can make this happen better than anyone if we learn the lingo. Of course, the Personal Telco Project is doing this right now in the core of the city , a Seattle City Councilcritter is looking at subsidizing it all over Pugetopolis , and there is much buzz at Slashdot on the subject.

Here are several links to information on metro area government and business radio systems of interest to folks who like to listen to events as they happen (or, mostly, don't happen.) Clackamas County trunking systems ( registration required) Multnomah County trunking systems ( registration required) Portland and area trunked scanner frequencies operated by Portland Bureau of Emergency Communications Washington County trunking systems ( registration required) Washington County trunking system, supporting Clackamas County agencies Search OR-WA-SFO trunked scanner information Joe Scanner Home Page NW Oregon Radio Information NWSCAN Yahoo Group Oregon Electronic Order of Battle Radio Scanner WebRing

US Army wants "wise" G.I.s ..the Army would like to find leaders "who possess the wisdom to extend their expertise and values beyond service interests." But right now, it doesn't have an efficient way to find out who's wise and who's not. Gee, why not just screen all recruits, and add their Wisdom score into their 201 file? I'm sure Hasbro could have someone at WOTC run down I-5 to Ft. Lewis and talk to a procurement officer for a screening system to run during induction , before boot.

MSNBC reports a California company with an alternate launch site in Texas , JP Aerospace , is on their third test article of a blimp system specifically designed to fly to space. Blimps. To Space. At payload costs around a dollar a ton-mile to LEO . This compares rather favorably to NASA's $155,555 per ton-mile with the Shuttle. Their concept, first unveiled at the Space Access '04 conference in Phoenix last month (with a blog report here , include the Ascender , a ground-to-near-space blimp, which docks to a helium-inflated two-mile-long station at the edge of space , over 20 miles up. Another ship , also a blimp but specifically designed to reach orbit, takes the payload from there to LEO, using well-proven electric propulsion (AKA ' ion drive '). That trip to LEO would take up to nine days, but that's a good thing; for, what goes up fast, must come down fast, and speed is energy which must be bled off by either massive amounts of expensive and explosi...