I do not fly nearly as much as I used to. But I fly enough to still dislike TSA.

I remember when “inspection” was relatively new. The year was 1974. I was going to college as a new Junior.

For that trip, I decided to carry my tuition as Eisenhower dollar coins. Long gone now, those coins were, big and hefty. My semester tuition, about $1,000 (which seems so cheap now) weighed about 45 pounds. As I was getting on the airplane, the inspector gingerly opened my briefcase, opened one of the three bank bags and asked me what it was. When I said “money”, the inspector gingerly closed the case and handed it back.

This was before the days of scanning and before removing shoes and on and on. And it didn’t really matter then.

Today it is much, much worse. And it still doesn’t really matter.

Bruce Schneier wrote a recent opinion in the LA Times. It lays out the issues very clearly. And, it explains exactly how to work around the sytem.

Anyone on the no-fly list can easily fly whenever he wants. Even worse, the whole concept of matching passenger names against a list of bad guys has negligible security value.

How to fly, even if you are on the no-fly list: Buy a ticket in some innocent person’s name. At home, before your flight, check in online and print out your boarding pass. Then, save that web page as a PDF and use Adobe Acrobat to change the name on the boarding pass to your own. Print it again. At the airport, use the fake boarding pass and your valid ID to get through security. At the gate, use the real boarding pass in the fake name to board your flight.

The problem is that it is unverified passenger names that get checked against the no-fly list. At security checkpoints, the TSA just matches IDs to whatever is printed on the boarding passes. The airline checks boarding passes against tickets when people board the plane. But because no one checks ticketed names against IDs, the security breaks down.

This vulnerability isn’t new. It isn’t even subtle. I first wrote about it in 2006. I asked Kip Hawley, who runs the TSA, about it in 2007. Today, any terrorist smart enough to Google “print your own boarding pass” can bypass the no-fly list.

So, why are we doing this? Are we just protecting ourselves from the people who don’t know any better?

Does all of this hassle make people feel better? Does it make you feel better?

It happened several days ago. But I just learned about it. Jerry Reed has died.

As a singer in the 1970s and early 1980s, Reed’s hits included:

• Amos Moses
• When You’re Hot, You’re Hot
• East Bound and Down
• She Got the Goldmine (I Got the Shaft), and
• The Bird

Though I knew his songs, I met him as a person in Smokey and the Bandit with Burt Reynolds.

I’ll miss him.

ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gtCKwgisw0t7ftgEpx3zQa1gEjtQD92UROC00

www.nme.com/news/various-artists/39487

For your enjoyment
http://snipr.com/3nggw  [www_inews3_com]
(you have to click the little triangular “play” button to get this to play)

Did you know I am a presidential candidate?

Well, just because you see it on the news, doesn’t mean it is true.

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Sometimes when people are interviewed on camera, they assume that when the interview ends, it really ends. And sometimes when they assume that they say things they later regret.

On Wednesday, 03.Sep.2008, John McCain’s former campaign chief Mike Murphy and former Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan talked after an NBC interview. Their comments were caught on tape. Their comments seem to reflect their their real thoughts on McCain’s judgment in his selection of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin to be his running mate.

Noonan asked, “The most qualified? No.” Then, she called the selection of Palin “political [B.S.].”

Murphy called McCain’s selection “gimmicky and cynical”.

The video is above. The transcript (courtesy of MoveOn.org) is below.

TRANSCRIPT (from MoveOn.org):

Mike Murphy, former McCain advisor: You know, because I come out of the blue swing state governor work. Engler, Whitman, Thompson, Mitt Romney, Jeb Bush. And these guys, this is all like how you want to (inaudible) this race. You know, just run it up. And it’s not gonna work.

Peggy Noonan, former Reagan speechwriter: It’s over.

Murphy: Still, McCain can give a version of the Lieberman speech to do himself some good.

NBC’s Chuck Todd: Don’t you think the Palin pick was insulting to Kay Bailey Hutchinson, too (inaudible)

Noonan: I saw Kay this morning.

Murphy: They’re all bummed out.

Todd: I mean, is she really the most qualified woman they could have turned to?

Noonan: The most qualified? No. I think they went for this, excuse me, political [B.S.] about narratives and (inaudible) the picture.

Murphy: I totally agree.

Noonan: Every time the Republicans do that because that’s not where they live and it’s not what they’re good at and they blow it.

Murphy: You know what’s really the worst thing about it? The greatness of McCain is no cynicism and this is cynical.

Todd: And as you called it, gimmicky.

Disclosure: I am a Barack Obama fan.

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JibJab … the original. Always good. Always good to share. 

Disclosure: I support Barack Obama. 

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Every now and then I see something that makes me smile. The cool thing is that the web lets me share.

Disclosure: I support Barack Obama. 

Well, that’s what Computerworld said.

And, it is what PHP said too (www.php.net/archive/2008.php#id2008-08-07-1). I’d considered it dead since 03.Jan.2008 with the release of 4.4.8 (www.php.net/ChangeLog-4.php#4.4.9). But it managed a few more breaths.

Of course users should migrate to PHP5. But gee, it is hard to blame them for not doing it yet. After all, post-beta version 5.0.1 has only been out since 12.Aug.2004 (www.php.net/ChangeLog-5.php). You really can’t expect technology people to turn on a dime you know.

See article at www.computerworld.com.au/index.php/id;1239055978

California has a problem. Seems the governor and the legislature can’t agree on a budget. (That’s news?)

So Governator Schwarzenegger opted for an approach to try to force the issue. He decided to cut payroll.

He issued an order to temporarily reduce employee salaries to the federal minimum wage level. As Bill Snyder wrote, he tried to “cut (albeit temporarily) state employee salaries to the level of fry cooks at McDonald’s”. But wait. Seems that is impossible because state Controller John Chiang, (the Controller issues the checks) believe that all the COBOL programmers have died and that it is just impossible.

In 2003 my office tried to see if we could reconfigure our system to do such a task,” he told a State Senate committee on Monday. “And after 12 months, we stopped without a feasible solution.

Well, at least Bill Snyder knows a fairy tale when he hears one.

The story has been interpreted by the media (including the New York Times on Wednesday) to make it seem like COBOL is similar to ancient Egyptian, carved on stone walls and only read by priests in loin cloths or cloistered academics. In particular, the writer quoted some bozo at Carnegie Mellon University who likened COBOL to “a television with vacuum tubes,” and then said: “There are no COBOL programmers around anymore. They retired centuries ago.” Wrong, wrong, wrong.

Well, I don’t know about California, but this COBOL programmer is alive.

But Why in the world would you change the programs anyway?

Just write a quick and dirty file update to store the current payroll file, then update all the records with a new pay rate.

After the crisis, write a quick and dirty program to change it back to the stored value.

You don’t even need to know anything about COBOL.

Article:
weblog.infoworld.com/tech-bottom-line/archives/2008/08/calling_all_cob.html

Every now and then, government politely gives us a lesson in one of the many ways to do things that really aren’t government’s business. It is good to watch for these. After all, the United States of America exists, in part, because Mother England kept trying to do things that really weren’t any government’s business.

The 01.Aug.2008 issue of the Houston Chronicle carries this story
“State loses attempt to argue anew for sex toy ban”
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/tx/5919987.html 

I wonder how many of my tax dollars we spent trying to protect me.

In the comments of that article, I was alerted to a film entitled “Dildo Diaries”. It’s for sale. It is 63 minutes long. But an 11 minute excerpt is available for free on You Tube here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYXUUsDGxkU

It’s a simple but very sad story. Dr. Libshitz want to get an account with Verizon to have DSL.

Verizon wouldn’t let him use his own name. Specifically Verizon’s computer objected to 4 … count’em 4 … characters in the doctor’s last name.

Ok. Computer’s aren’t perfect. But come on. It shouldn’t take an act of the gods to get this sorted out. The problem wasn’t the computer saying “no”. The problem was that no person would override it and say “yes”. Every person thought their job was to do what the computer told them to do.

GIVE ME A BREAK!

Verizon should put this story of incompetence in their new employee orientation for every single member of their customer service team.

Read the story here
http://www.philly.com/philly/hp/news_update/26089374.html 

(A special thanks to Jim Huggins (no known relation) for posting this here
http://jkhuggins.livejournal.com/96029.html?view=149021)