Yearly Archives: 2009

Here’s Your Chance to Stuff the Ballot Box

Posted on March 3, 2009 by Michael Froomkin

South Florida Daily Blog: SFDB February Post Of The Month: The Nominees lists something I wrote as one of the choices.

In all honesty, I wouldn't have said Eleventh Circuit Says Miami-Dade Schools May Pull ¡Vamos a Cuba! from the Library Shelves was actually one of the Discourse.net Greatest Hits, but hey, I'll take what's on offer.

If you liked the post, or if you have heard of the post, or if you're breathing, why not vote. Or, while you're there you could read the three other posts and vote for the one that's really the best….

Posted in Discourse.net | Comments Off on Here’s Your Chance to Stuff the Ballot Box

More on the Joys of Weak Passphrases

Posted on March 3, 2009 by Michael Froomkin

Emergent Chaos: This Data Will Self-Destruct in 5 Seconds is a fine chaser to Pentagon Media Strategy Document Decrypted Due to Weak Passphrase.

Posted in Cryptography | Comments Off on More on the Joys of Weak Passphrases

99 Things

Posted on March 2, 2009 by Michael Froomkin

Thanks to Dan Burk, Greg Rutter's Definitive List of The 99 Things You Should Have Already Experienced On The Internet Unless You're a Loser or Old or Something.

I'm guessing from the titles that I've seen maybe a quarter of them. I guess I'm something, huh?

Posted in Internet | 2 Comments

We’d Like to Know

Posted on March 2, 2009 by Michael Froomkin

Emptywheel asks, Who Watched the Torture Tapes?

And since the CIA now admits it destroyed scads of them, that's the question to ask.

Posted in Torture | 1 Comment

Pentagon Media Strategy Document Decrypted Due to Weak Passphrase

Posted on March 2, 2009 by Michael Froomkin

RISKS Digest, Wikileaks cracks key NATO document on Afghan war

Wikileaks has cracked the encryption a key NATO document relating to the war in Afghanistan. The document, titled “NATO in Afghanistan: Master Narrative”, details the key facts and themes NATO representatives are to give—and to avoid giving—to the world press.

Among the revelations … is Jordan's presence as secret member of the US lead occupation force.

…

The password is “progress”, which perhaps reflects the Pentagon's desire to stay on-message, even to itself.

Wikileaks identified four other documents on the Pentagon web site with the same password.

Remember: strong crypto isn't much use if you have a weak passphrase.

Posted in Cryptography, National Security | Comments Off on Pentagon Media Strategy Document Decrypted Due to Weak Passphrase

Crickets Chirping

Posted on March 2, 2009 by Michael Froomkin

crickets.jpgI'm hearing crickets chirping.

“Crickets Chirping” is sort of bloggers' cliche: it's often used to mean a silence so deep on some issue (where there should be noise) that one can hear the crickets. But since Sunday afternoon I'm really hearing real crickets chirping — two transparent bags of them fresh from the pet store. They're going into school with one of the kids tomorrowtoday to feed the science teacher's bearded dragon. And meanwhile, they're loud.

(The picture is nothing like what the bags look like. I just liked the picture.)

Posted in Personal | 1 Comment