Author Archives: Michael Froomkin

Fix a Microsoft Vulnerability

Try this experiment: Click on the simple test created by greymagic.com. If a calculator pops up, you have a problem: your computer is configured to allow web sites to run programs on your machine … without using Active X, which is usually the culprit for such security holes.

If the calculator didn't pop up, you can congratulate yourself, you're probably running Unix, a Mac, using Firefox, or all at once. If you're just using Firefox on a windows machine, you might want to open up IE and try it again, just to be safe.

If you want to understand the problem a bit better there's a sort of explanation at DSO Exploit – Executing programs without Scripting or ActiveX.

If you are (justifiably) nervous about running a self-described exploit on your machine, and thus don't want to click the link above, you can download and run Spybot, which will tell you if you have the vulnerability (and check for many others as well).

How do you fix the problem? That's a little complicated as it may require you edit your registry settings (I'm unclear if Spybot actually fixes the problem or not). Instructions on doing this can be found at the link to DSO Exploit – Executing programs without Scripting or ActiveX.

Posted in Software | 12 Comments

Sleaze Party Wants Your Tax Returns

They almost got away with it: GOP embarrassed by tax returns measure

Congress passed legislation Saturday giving two committee chairman and their assistants access to income tax returns without regard to privacy protections, but not before red-faced Republicans said the measure was a mistake and would be swiftly repealed.

Some Democrats didn't accept the assertion that the provision was a mistake and demanded an investigation.

“We weren't born yesterday, we didn't come down with the first snow,” said Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-California. “This isn't poorly thought out, this was very deliberately thought out and it was done in the dead of night.”

Members of the tax-writing Senate Finance Committee and House Ways and Means Committee now have limited access to tax returns, but there are severe criminal and civil penalties if the information is disclosed or misused.

Finance Committee Chairman Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, said the measure will “bring us back to the doorstep to the days of President Nixon, President Truman and other dark days in our history when taxpayer information was used against political enemies.”

The dead-of-night amendment was inserted by Rep. Istook. I look forward to his explanation, which will probably be he was just a conduit, never read it, etc etc. It's usually better to look dumb than criminal. See, e.g., Bush. But see DeLay.

Posted in Politics: The Party of Sleaze | 4 Comments

Progressive Blog Digest Joins the ‘Party of Sleaze’ Bandwagon

PBD – Progressive Blog Digest leads today with 'The Party of Sleaze'.

Posted in Blogs | Comments Off on Progressive Blog Digest Joins the ‘Party of Sleaze’ Bandwagon

The Party of Sleaze

Let's crank the meme into full gear:

AP—Top Bush fund-raisers enjoy an array of perks: One-third of President Bush's top 2000 fund-raisers or their spouses were appointed to positions in his first administration, from ambassadorships in Europe to seats on policy-setting boards, an Associated Press review found.

The perks for 246 “pioneers” who raised at least $100,000 also included overnight stays in the White House and at Camp David, parties in the White House and at Bush's Texas ranch, state dinners with world leaders and overseas travel with U.S. delegations to the Olympics and other events, the review found.

The Party of Sleaze

It ties so many threads together: secret energy task force, Haliburton, tax breaks for the millionaires, DeLay, and many more.

Posted in Politics: The Party of Sleaze | 2 Comments

No Borscht This Winter

U.S. Reports Possible Case of Mad Cow.

Maybe it's natural cynicism. Maybe it's living in the UK during their right-wing government's denial of what turned out to be a serious Mad Cow problem (right down to the then-Agriculture Minister feeding his young daughter a hamburger on national TV). Maybe it's an economically irrational attempt to control visible if low-probability risk in a world full of invisible higher-probability risks. But Caroline and I don't believe the US government has a handle on the potential for a Mad Cow epidemic — it isn't doing enough testing, for one thing — and we haven't been eating any beef for months now.

So, no borscht this winter (the family recipe involves beef as well as kasha and sour cream).

Posted in Science/Medicine | 2 Comments

Strange Doings at WIPO

Looks like Jamie Love, EFF and the other goods folks who have been working the refs at WIPO are making enough progress that someone is getting nervous.

Posted in Law: Copyright and DMCA | Comments Off on Strange Doings at WIPO