Cyber Warfare -- Governments Developing Computer Viruses

Two articles caught my eye in the last week:

• 'Proof' Links Flame, Stuxnet Super Cyber Weapons: Researchers

Researchers say they have uncovered "proof" linking the authors of the Flame cyber espionage program to Stuxnet, the most powerful offensive cyber weapon ever developed -- both of which are believed to have targeted Iran.

• Obama’s data advantage

CHICAGO — On the sixth floor of a sleek office building here, more than 150 techies are quietly peeling back the layers of your life. They know what you read and where you shop, what kind of work you do and who you count as friends. They also know who your mother voted for in the last election.

I write software for a living. In recent years, most software vendors have become much more pro-active about hardening their software against security threats. If word of a vulnerability gets out, it is corporate suicide not to address the problem immediately. But this takes lots of time away from doing our primary job of developing programs that address what our customers really want: Programs that make them more productive or provide entertainment. It isn't that they don't want security, but addressing security concerns slows development and increases cost.

I just discovered our job got a lot more difficult and expensive. Until recently, most malware (i.e., computer viruses) was written by "hackers" who want to vandalize your machine, or by organized crime, which wants to steal your identity, and thus, your money. But now, two very sophisticated computer viruses have been discovered in the middle east that are so destructive, and so complex that they could only be developed by a nation-state: a government with the ability to print money or leverage its tax base for seemingly unlimited resources. But my employer doesn't have  unlimited resources. Not by a long shot.

So far, these weapons have been directed at Iran. Stuxnet successfully sabotaged Iran's nuclear program, by making computerized centrifuges spin out of control and fly apart. Flame is a spy tool. Suppose that a government wanted to aim its weapons at its own citizens, or at citizens in another country. We already have political candidates using computer data mining to get themselves re-elected. Who could stop it? Not the private sector.

Both Stuxnet and Flame have leaked out into the wild, which means everyday hackers and "script kiddies" will be able to use these powerful tools for their own nefarious purposes. Think of the dysfunctional computer nerd living in his parents' basement  -- or a crime ring -- with a pile of hand grenades. With these apps, it's essentially the same thing, only much harder to track. How much longer do you suppose the private sector will be allowed to develop software, when software is a military asset?

We're entering a brave new world, my friends.

Got Principles?

I believe that most of the problems facing this country at all levels of government derive from unprincipled citizens electing unprincipled leaders – the blind leading the blind.

When I say “unprincipled”, I mean people who do not understand – or people who reject – the principles of the American form of government: constitutional government. Mind you, unprincipled does not mean “unscrupulous”. Nevertheless, the unscrupulous can easily take advantage of the unprincipled. It is a dangerous combination.

Many people think tea partiers and property rights wonks are a bunch of anarchists. We do not want anarchy; we want the level of limited government that will maximize liberty and justice for all. We believe humans are happiest when we are free to make our own decisions and take responsibility for our own lives.

In the chart below, you can see that self-determination coincides with maximum liberty. Liberty suffers in a totalitarian state, as it does in a state of anarchy. We are called “far right” because in recent decades, the political window has moved so far to the left. We actually want something closer to the center.

This chart is not to scale -- assuming a scale even exists. It is merely to illustrate the relationships being discussed here.
Red is on the far left (of course), and violet is on the far right. Yellow-green is optimal. 

Government derives its just authority from the consent of the governed. Our constitutions and charters are the official specifications for our government. They are the instruments of all government authority. Any regime that distorts or disregards the documents that they swore an oath to uphold and defend are untrustworthy and dangerous. It is crucial that we adhere to these documents, or amend them as needed, with the consent of the governed.

The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield, and government to gain ground. ~ Thomas Jefferson

Elected leaders: I am sure that you have doubts from time to time about some of the votes you cast in session – where you might go either way. When that happens, I would only ask that you please give liberty the benefit of the doubt.

Operation Chaos

For the 2008 election, Rush Limbaugh invented something he called Operation Chaos, urging conservative voters, or more accurately, Republican voters, to cross over in the primaries and vote for Hillary Clinton. This was supposed to make Barack Obama have to work hard at something for the first time in his life.

Fast forward to 2012: I would never advocate using our official vote to disrupt the "other" side. However, I receive lots of calls and emails, polling me for my political views. My instinct is to proudly declare my preservative principles and honestly answer which issues and candidates I prefer in this election.

I propose that all preservatives submit the opposite answers. Skew the polls more than they already are. Make the 'progressives' think that they have more support than they actually do. It will make them complacent, and (we hope), make the preservatives work harder. When the 2012 election is a blow-out, they'll be completely flummoxed. They'll never know what hit them.

Polls are garbage, and we should not cooperate. The only poll that matters is the one in November.

Update: Better yet... Just don't participate in the media polls. You don't have to lie; you just let the 'progressives' over-represent themselves. If they have no response from people calling themselves "preservatives", the effect will be the same. Their data will be worthless.

Inalienable Rights

It was pointed out to me that some people might have no idea what inalienable rights are. Inalienable rights are the rights that we are born with (among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness). Thomas Jefferson cites three important examples in the Declaration of Independence, but the actual number is indefinite.

The word inalienable means "incapable of being alienated, surrendered, or transferred". From this we know:

• Government cannot grant rights: We the People retain our inalienable rights (by definition!), and with those, we voluntarily grant specific authority to government. We did that when we ratified The Constitution of the United States, and subsequently, the state constitutions, and county and city charters. The only way that government can legally and morally assume more authority is through the informed consent of the governed; that is, by constitutional amendment.
• Government cannot create rights: We do not have a right to food, clothing, shelter or health care. We have a right (and a responsibility) to obtain those things by honest labor, but to demand that someone provide them for us, would infringe on their right to keep what they earned -- it is called theft. We have a moral obligation to help those who are down on their luck, and unable to provide for themselves -- this is called charity. However, government hasn't the authority to compel us to provide for anyone -- not even ourselves -- that is called slavery.

Obama's Kill List, And Mine

Barack Hussein Obama has a kill list. Kill lists are for tyrants. That is all I have to say about that.

I too, have a kill list, but it is predicated on time travel, so I probably don't fit the description of a common tyrant. I would use time travel to go back and kill the following people at birth, or at least before they became powerful enough to defeat me. Using advanced technology, I would locate them in time and space, and dispatch them with weapons not available in their time:

• Mohammed - dictator, tyrant, warrior, pedophile, false prophet. Invented a religion as a form of crowd control. He and his religion are responsible for much death and destruction since its inception. 
• Vladimir Lenin - political theorist, revolutionary, tyrant, dictator, communist, father of the USSR. He and his ideology and regime are responsible for much death and destruction since its inception. 
• Josef Stalin - politician, dictator, bureaucrat, communist, successor of Lenin as premier of the USSR.  He and his ideology and regime are responsible for 20,000,000 deaths since its inception. 
• Adolph Hitler - politician, dictator, tyrant, national socialist (Nazi), fuhrer of Nazi Germany. He and his ideology are responsible for much death and destruction during World War II. His regime killed 6,000,000 Jews. But WWII claimed approximately 66,000,000 lives. Hitler was responsible. 
• Mao tse Tung - politician, dictator, tyrant, communist, premier of Communist China. He and his ideology and regime are responsible for 40,000,000 deaths since its inception. 
• Pol Pot - terrorist, dictator, tyrant, communist, leader of Kmer Rouge in Cambodia. He and his ideology are responsible for approximately 1,650,000 deaths during his reign of terror from 1975 ~ 1978.

I saved the worst for last:

• Karl Marx - political theorist, invented communism (and communist lite -- socialism), he and his ideology is responsible for much death and destruction since its inception (61,650,000 deaths, if you add up the deaths from all major communist regimes -- double that if you include Hitler's "contribution"). Also responsible for much pain and suffering in this country from around 1913 to the present time, due to the perversion of our constitutional government by his socialist followers in the US. 

Oh, and if I had a time machine, I'd stop and see if I could get Beethoven to play me a piano sonata if I gave him a ride in my time machine.

Know Your Pot Holders

When selecting kitchen accessories, it is important to choose the right tool for the job. If you pick the wrong one, you could be seriously burned. You never want to choose form over function. Be sure you get it right next time. Select Mitt vs. Pot Holder, below.

Useful Tool

Useless Tool

Free Stuff

This has been going around the internet as a perpetually forwarded email.

The folks who are getting the free stuff don't like the folks who are paying for the free stuff, because the folks who are paying for the free stuff can no longer afford to pay for both the free stuff and their own stuff.

And, the folks who are paying for the free stuff want the free stuff to stop.

And the folks who are getting the free stuff want even more free stuff on top of the free stuff they are already getting!

Now... the people who are forcing the people who pay for the free stuff have told the people who are RECEIVING the free stuff that the people who are paying for the free stuff are being mean, prejudiced, and racist.

So... the people who are getting the free stuff have been convinced they need to hate the people who are paying for the free stuff by the people who are forcing some people to pay for their free stuff and giving them the free stuff in the first place. We have let the free stuff giving go on for so long that there are now more people getting free stuff than paying for the free stuff.

Now understand this. All great democracies have committed financial suicide somewhere between 200 and 250 years after being founded.

The reason?

The voters figured out they could vote themselves money from the treasury by electing people who promised to give them money from the treasury in exchange for electing them.

The United States officially became a Republic in 1776, 236 years ago. The number of people now getting free stuff outnumbers the people paying for the free stuff.

We have one chance to change that in 2012. Failure to change that spells the end of the United States as we know it.

Thanks to Dave for forwarding this one to me.

Actually, last I heard, the US still has 49% receiving free stuff, and 51% paying for free stuff. So we're still barely above break-even, although I suppose it depends on how you account for it all.

A Great Society does not create a helpless, dependent class (The 99 Percent) with only a few producers (The One Percent -- slaves, essentially) to provide for them. That's not a Great Society, it's a Pathetic Society. A Great Society has no classes; it is simply a collection of self-sufficient individuals working at whatever level each is capable of, and who voluntarily help the less fortunate, while keeping them responsible for themselves, and guarding against malingerers and unscrupulous opportunists.