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Category Archives: Uncategorized

I thought I had CORS all figured out. Of course, like all things programming, the more you think you know the sooner something is going to blow your world wide open. As a guy who codes for the web a lot, these errors are get under my skin. They’re annoying when you know you put a line of code in your server to allow all origins. They’re even more so annoying when the browser (or framework you’re using) tells you that you CAN’T use a wildcard and just allow ALL origins.

Let me leave this link right here:

If you’re having CORS trouble on your server, it would behoove you to click that link there and finally be done with it. If you’re using ASP.NET chances are you’re using a Windows server and you’ll be able to use either the ASP.NET or IIS6/7 solutions.

My current favorite method for handling CORS with ASP.NET applications ( especially if you’re using SIGNALR and UseCors(CorsOptions.AllowAll) isn’t what you need, as browsers still puke with this in place )

             <add name="Access-Control-Allow-Origin" value="http://localhost:58547" />
             <add name="Access-Control-Allow-Methods" value="GET, POST, OPTIONS, PUT, DELETE, TOKEN" />
             <add name="Access-Control-Allow-Credentials" value="true"/>

This goes in your web.config with <configuration> as its parent element. You can use a wild card in place of the

You CANNOT add another origin to the Access-Control-Allow-Origin. Why? No idea. But if you try, you’ll get an error like this

The ‘Access-Control-Allow-Origin’ header contains multiple values ‘http://localhost:58547,;, but only one is allowed. Origin ‘; is therefore not allowed access.

Being less stupid.

This is going to be basically just a ramble — TLDR version at the bottom.

I’ve been learning IdentityServer3 for the better part of 2, maybe 3 weeks now. I’m a self-taught developer with nearing 3 years of development. When I jumped on, I knew how web servers worked to a degree thanks to taking HTML classes and my Net Sec degree but I never understood how underlying frameworks like ASP.NET MVC and OWIN worked. I pressed a pretty button and BOOM a WEB API / MVC Application was born and I could start coding away. For the most part, how it worked was magic to me but I knew which code did what after the project was spun up and was good to go. While attempting to setup my server w/ IDS3 to accept its own tokens for the API it is also hosting… I’ve begun to start understanding what goes on underneath those templates when you hit the button for a new project…

I was tasked to spin up a new API in a language I’m unfamiliar with, where there are no pretty templates to get things up and running… you just have to understand how the underlying framework works. I failed. I had no idea HOW MVC created an API or, as I’m realizing now, what OWIN even was. Each of these frameworks can be used separately or in conjunction to spin up a flavor of Web API whether you’re using MVC’s global.asax which is tied to a code-behind file for configuration or using OWIN to specify a start-up file which does about the same thing, with a different flow.

I never really took the time to actually learn how the hell these things worked, and I see now I’ve suffered because of it. Here’s an example of what I’ve been talking about:

In an ASP.NET project, there’s a file called global.asax…

The Global.asax file, also known as the ASP.NET application file, is an optional
file that contains code for responding to application-level events raised by
ASP.NET or by HttpModules. The Global.asax file resides in the root directory of
an ASP.NET-based application.

When you’re spinning up a WEB API with ASP.NET, this file routes to a code-behind which begins all the configuration for the server. So the markup for it would look like

<%@ Application Codebehind="Global.asax.cs" Inherits=" WolfSoftware.IdentityServer.WebApiApplication" Language="C#" %>

The codebehind for it would then by default have some configuration done

public class WebApiApplication : HttpApplication
    protected void Application_Start()

Up until now, this was all really magic code for me. I didn’t understand how this really configured the server, just that it did.

So now, throwing OWIN into play…

Open Web Interface for .NET (OWIN) defines an abstraction between .NET web
servers and web applications. OWIN decouples the web application from the server,
which makes OWIN ideal for self-hosting a web application in your own process,
outside of IIS.

So OWIN can do exactly what ASP.NET just did, but without having the global.asax and depending on markup. With OWIN, you declare a class as the startup class and begin configuration from there.

[assembly: OwinStartup(typeof(LobbyGuard.IdentityServer.Startup))]

namespace LobbyGuard.IdentityServer
   public partial class Startup
      public void Configuration(IAppBuilder app)
      private void ConfigureWebApi(IAppBuilder app)
         HttpConfiguration config = new HttpConfiguration();
            name: "DefaultApi",
            routeTemplate: "api/{controller}/{id}",
            defaults: new { id = RouteParameter.Optional }

This has a bit less configuration than what was shown with the ASP.NET but the idea is there. Now that I know (I feel like I did, it just didn’t click when I needed it to…) how it all works… I completely understand now how to spin up the Web API in the new language I was tasked with because I know how more about the framework itself.

I didn’t know how to spin up a ASP.NET or OWIN Web Api in a new language because I’ve been used to C# templates doing the configuration for me; Now I understand the differences between the two, how they both work, and how I could use said new language.

I don’t know what was mystifying me before about any of this, did I just not look? did I not read? Time to be a little less… stupid.

Getting started with package management using NPM’s package.json file in VSCODE

The files used in this blog can be found here:

I’ve really been getting into VSCode recently when doing my own projects and even at work. One thing I’ve noticed is that packages seem to be handled a little differently between using something like a feature-packed IDE like Visual Studio 2015 compared to Visual Studio Code or another editor like Sublime or Brackets. In Visual Studio 2015 you generally have proj files like a .csproj and/or a .sln which would handle packages using a list of entries in a package.config file which is used by NuGet. The entries would probably look a little something like

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
 <package id="angularjs" version="1.5.8" targetFramework="net452" />
 <package id="bootstrap" version="3.3.7" targetFramework="net452" />
 <package id="jQuery" version="1.9.1" targetFramework="net452" />

This package.config file would install angularjs, bootstrap, and jquery to a nice and tidy Scripts folder and you wouldn’t really have to worry about them again unless you wanted to update the packages. Other Developers coming onto the project would most likely already have those files in source or would be able to run a NuGet restore to get those files into their environment. Package.json works kind of in the same way except it uses packages from NPM, stores those packages in a node_modules directory, and generally come with insanely long file paths that drive Windows and myself mad (the package will have dependencies, which will have dependencies, which will have dependencies… etc, outcome = long ass file paths).

Getting Started

Alright… so lets start off with an empty website and lets add some basic files to start off

All of these files are empty except the .gitignore which has one entry… node_modules/
This is because node_modules shouldn’t be placed into source and only on the machines that will be developing the app or the server running the app (so part of the build/deployment process would be to run ‘npm install’ so that all the dependencies are available on deployment)

Ok. So what the hell do we do now? We’ve got an empty package.json file… what goes in it? Well, with a little help from VSCode’s intellisense… it’s pretty easy to know what can go in this file along with some help from NPM’s documentation located here

As its a JSON file, you might be able to infer that you’d start off with some squiggly brackets and that properties will be listed in normal JSON format using “property”: “value”… so what happens when we attempt to add a new property?

Well hi there intellisense, long time no see, are those the properties I can use in the file? Why yes, yes they are. I can see two properties already that’ll be helpful, 1) author and 2) dependencies. So if we begin to enter author, we’ll see what this property is suppose to contain in terms of it’s value.

OK Cool, so the author property is supposed to include information about me. Now, in your own project you don’t really need to add this property as its really more helpful for when you actually put a lib on NPM so people can know who created the package as that’s what you’re essentially doing by using package.json, you’re entire project is now technically a ‘package’. Filling out the author though intellisense will allow you to tab-complete a new object for its value so once that’s done you can then start to add properties of the object belonging to ‘author’

As you can see, the object that belongs to ‘author’ contains email,name, and url properties. Lets fill those out really quick. After adding those properties to the object ‘author’ will be happy it has been given the correct data. But you may notice there is a green squiggly under the very first bracket… why is this?

Looks like the package.json file is looking for two properties right off the bat that we don’t have, lets go ahead and add those. After seeing how the author property was added, you should be able to have intellisense help you add these two properties. You should end up with something that looks like this:

Ok. So that’s nice, we’ve got this information in our package.json but… WHAT ABOUT THE DEPENDENCIES?!?!? That’s what you’re here for in the first place, right?

Adding Dependencies to your package.json file

So if you read Getting Started section you’ve been exposed to the intellisense provided by VS Code in the package.json file and you might be able to conclude that intellisense will also help us with adding dependencies… you’d be correct. Remember seeing dependencies in the intellisense from before? Lets try adding that property now.

By clicking on the blue ? icon next to ‘dependencies’ when intellisense pops up, you’ll see the full version of the description for this property. Ok, so this property contains the dependencies of our package AKA our project. Let’s tab complete it and see what we get.

Alrighttttt, so this is where intellisense abandons us, and for good reason… there’s a shit ton of packages out there and trying to fit them all in that intellisense window would be kind of asinine and probably be a humongous load to handle. So, in order to begin adding the dependencies we want, we have to go checkout for the packages we need. So say we want Angular…

That first package looks right to me, lets add it to the dependencies. Add “angular”: “” under dependencies and that will tell package.json to install any version of angular available, which means it will choose highest version it can find and install it.

What if we want a specific version, or, near a specific version if that version cannot be found? Well, intellisense can actually help us out here but it requires the first number and decimal to pick up. We can see the current version on npmjs, the screenshot above shows that angular is currently on 1.5.8 so lets start to define the version as 1.5.8… but wait… what is that intellisense?

VSCode can pick up on the rest of version… but sometimes there are different options that’ll show up here. Sometimes you’ll get the prefixes on the version to appear to which show how can infer which version to use based on a specific version. Here’s the documentation from to show you your available options for versions:

So we now know that we can do a lot of different things when specifying the version such as expecting an exact version, multiple ways to choose a version close to the one we specify using > and < variants as well as using git repositories to get packages instead of NPM’s repository. Lets try finishing the angular dependency by using an exact version then adding another dependency to jQuery but use a variant of the version selector.

Intellisense on jQuery is giving me the option to use the approximate version, so lets give that a shot. Ok. Cool. How do we actually install these dependencies now?

Installing your dependencies

If you’ve followed through this far, you might realize I’ve made a mistake. The version needs to be in a specific format for node, something like v1.0.0 instead of 1.0 so lets go ahead and change that now.

After you’ve filled out your package.json with the dependencies (and fixed the version number!) all you have to do is run ‘npm install’ through the command prompt or a terminal. I prefer using VScode’s built in terminal which can be opened by pressing CTRL + ` (backtick) at the same time.

If you look in the TERMINAL window in bottom-middle of the screen you can see ‘npm install’ was ran, a few errors about missing details in the package.json file which aren’t required and the packages were installed. Looking at the Explorer pane on the right you can see that there is now a node_modules directory with angular and jquery installed.

Congratulations – You’ve officially created your first package.json file and installed dependencies onto your machine!

TypeScript definition files

As you may know, TypeScript is a superset of JavaScript. However, that doesn’t mean when you use a framework such as Knockout or Angular that TypeScript will be able to interpret what you’re trying to do. Typescript allows you to  use the keyword ‘declare’ on a variable to indicate that it’s supposed to be from an external resource. This will prevent errors but we don’t get any intellisense. This is a pretty error prone way to work, hmm?

Here’s an example of using Declare to define ko. Now… notice something wrong in that code?

What the hell is an oberserverable?! This was an a mistake I honestly didn’t mean to make when I was going to show off what ‘declare’ does. But there it is. I created an error in the first 3 lines of code because I always screw up typing ‘observable’

In order to solve this, TypeScript allows you to make use of Type Definition files. These files allow TypeScript to utilize the frameworks you want to use instead of flying around without that oh-so handy intellisense. Where does one get a Type Definition file? Well…

There are TONS and TONS of definition files for TypeScript in the link above, including knockout. Download the file or copy/paste the code into a new one, whatever works. I’d recommend putting it somewhere close to your .ts, but hey, go crazy if you want. Now, if you’re using an editor like Visual Studio you can just drag and drop the file into your .ts and it’ll create a reference to that file, if not, you can just manually enter the reference.

****This reference is supposed to be commented out! Its not actually used in the JavaScript that gets transpiled! It ONLY helps TypeScript****

Now that there’s a reference to the Knockout Definition file, if I remove my declaration of the variable ‘ko’, I’ll see an error where I misspelled observable.

If I delete my crappy spelling and try again…

Oh… Well hey there intellisense… long time no see buddy.

The definition file even takes the intellisense a step further than what you normally get in regular JavaScript. Say I have a observable and placed “” as the default value. In TypeScript, this will be recognized and intellisense will show you that a string is supposed to go in. JavaScript does not do this because JavaScript doesn’t care. JavaScript is a Honey Badger.

If you try to put a string for the name value, everything is A-OK; If you try to pass in a number it gives you a red squiggly telling you that the value isn’t the correct type.

Getting Started with TypeScript in Visual Studio Code

TypeScript lets you write JavaScript the way you really want to.
TypeScript is a typed superset of JavaScript that compiles to plain
JavaScript. Any browser. Any host. Any OS. Open Source

TypeScript brings classes, types, constructors, interfaces, and a whole bunch of other shenanigans to JavaScript. Learn more @ because they know all the stuff and things.

  1. Visual Studio Code
    (Any IDE will work but I’ll be setting this up with VS Code)
  2. TypeScript installed (npm install -g typescript)
    This installs the compiler that converts the .ts to .js
    (go to for npm to work in cmd)

Getting Started

Visual Studio Code allows you to work on a single file or in a directory. Navigate to a folder on your drive and select it to be the folder you work in.Some steps if you need help:

  1. Click ‘File’
  2. Click ‘Open Folder…’
  3. Navigate to folder
  4. Click ‘Select Folder’

The folder will now open in Visual Studio. Click it in the explorer so the the little drop down arrow triggers and then select new file.

A prompt appears to name the file, give a name with a .ts extension (like typeScript.ts).

When the file has been created, it will open in the right pane as an empty file. If you’re used to using a language like C#, this will be a breeze for you. We can start filling this file up by creating a new class. Place the following, or something similar, into the file:

A class is defined by prefixing it’s name with the keyword ‘class’ and then two curly braces for all the code to go in. We can then put a function inside that’ll do some work for us, you may notice some familiar keywords like ‘public’, ‘static’, and ‘void’. These all do exactly what you think they do if you’re familiar with them. The public keyword sets the accessibility level on the function, the static keyword means it doesn’t have to be newed up, and the void represents the nothingness that the function returns… deep. Inside the function is a normal console.log() with a string.

Compile/Transpile… gimme the .js

Now that we’ve got some TypeScript down… how is it actually used? Visual Studio Code comes with a built-in Task Runner that will need to be configured to compile the TypeScript file down to a JavaScript file that’ll actually be used in your view.  Press F1 to open Visual Studio Code’s command prompt and put in Configure Task Runner as the command, press Enter when done. This will have created a .vscode folder in your working directory with a tasks.json file in it.

Scroll down until you see something familiar to what’s above. the “args” value should be the location of your .ts file in your working directory. When you compile the .ts file it creates a .js file, so I have my .ts in a scripts folder inside my working directory.(TYPESCRIPTLEARNING is my working directory, .vscode and scripts are two folders inside my TYPESCRIPTLEARNING folder). After your change the args to your .ts file’s location save the file. You should now be able to compile the file by pressing CTRL + SHIFT + B which is the shortcut for Run Build Task. A little spinny thingy appears at the bottom left of Visual Studio Code to let you know the task runner is working in the background. When it stops you’ll have .js inside the same directory as your .ts file.

So as you can now see, the TypeScript has compiled/transpiled down to JavaScript and now that we’ve got the JavaScript we can attach it to a view. By the way – doing things in TypeScript and reviewing what it compiles down to is actually a pretty neat way to learn some new tricks in JavaScript. Create an index.html in the root of your working directory and add a script reference to the JavaScript file that was generated.

Save the file and open it in a browser, then open the browser’s developer tools to see the log!

So now that we know how to create a TypeScript file, fill it with a class, get some output, and how to generate the JavaScript for it. Just a heads up, if this was a full fledge version of Visual Studio the JavaScript would be auto-generated and we wouldn’t have to compile this every time.

Properties, Constructors, Variables

Look over this next block of code, would you kindly.

I’m going to guess you can tell what this code does just by looking at it. Lets run through it though just in case.

main() on (lines 2-6) now creates an instance of the Greeter class on Line 4 passing in a string “HULK”. The string passed in is used by the constructor on line 12 to set the value passed in equal to the name property on the Greeter class. You may notice the syntax used to create the variables in the constructor and property, you define the name of the variable and you can declare its type by adding ‘: typeName’ where typeName can be ‘number’, ‘string’, or ‘any’. The property is also referred to throughout the class using the this keyword, this.myProperty,  which may be a little new to you if you’re coming from C# where property names don’t require the keyword to use.

Continuing on, line 5 invokes the greet function of the Greeter class and also passes in a string. Line 16 defines what the greet function does, it takes a variable of type string, has a return type of void just like main(), and then logs a message that uses the name property and the string passed into the function.

If you build this using the task runner, the same way as before using CTRL + SHIFT + B and open up the view, you’ll see the new message appear in the log.

So we’ve now got at least and understand of how the basic building blocks work in TypeScript, nothing fancy as of yet. We know how to set up Visual Studio Code to be able to read and compile/transpile ( I’m really still not sure which term I’m supposed to use, I feel like transpile is a better word for it than compile ) and how to use the generated JavaScript file in a view. I’m probably going to be doing some follow up posts with TypeScript and eventually with Angular 2 so if this interests you, stick around for more posts 😀

Creating an HTML5/AngularJS hybrid mobile app using the Ionic CLI

The Ionic Framework is an open source front-end SDK which helps developers create beautiful hybrid HTML5 mobile applications alongside with AngularJS. Creating an app while using the Ionic Framework allows for the GUI of mobile applications to be built uniform manner with relative ease. With the CLI commands provided after downloading Ionic Framework it only takes seconds to begin work!

Installing the Ionic Framework

Ionic is installed with npm, which means that Node.js will need to be downloaded and installed first. This is easily done by visiting and clicking the INSTALL button right smack dab on the front page.

Once node is installed, you have access to using the npm (node package manager) which will allow you to install thousands of different packages like Ionic. Open up a command prompt (or Power Shell) and issue the following command

npm install -g Ionic

This will install Ionic globally on your system and allow the Ionic commands to be used from the command line

Creating an Ionic application

Now that Ionic has been installed globally, creating the base application will take only seconds using the command line. The Ionic CLI provides a couple templates to create an application, the possible templates are Blank, Tabs, and Sidemenu. Let’s take a look at what these will look like, from the command line, enter the following:

Ionic start myTabsApp tabs

This command will create an app called myTabsApp with the tabs template in place in whichever directory you are currently in.

We can now launch the application as-is by using the Ionic Framework command Ionic serve, this will create a locally hosted version of the application for you much like starting an application in Visual Studio would do.

The tabs application will look like this once ‘served’

As the template name indicated, there are 3 tabs at the bottom of the page which allows you to switch between different pages using provided tabs. If we used Ionic Start to create an app using the sidemenu template, this is what it would look like:

and finally, here’s the blank template which provides the most basic form of the app with of course all the required resource to build out what the other templates provide from the get-go

next, let’s take a look at the different directories that were generated and try to make some sense out of it. Here’s what the structure of an Ionic application looks like:

There’s a couple directories here that control different parts of the application. the www directory is where the actual application is housed and contains all the html, js, css, and image files that your application will use. The resources folder contains items like icons and splace screens for the different platforms you’ll be deploying to like Android and iOS. The plugins directory includes the different ionic and cordova plugins that will help your application feel more native such as the com.ionic.keyboard plugin. The platforms folder contains the code required to build your application for the different mobile platforms and also helps to emulate the app using Cordova’s or Ionic’s emulate CLI commands.

By default, the platforms folder will be empty, in order to add the platforms you want to build for issue the following command

Ionic platform add <platform>

where platform could wp8 (windows phone 8), android, ios, or blackberry. Once a platform has been added, you’ll have the ability to emulate your application for that given platform using the following command

Ionic emulate <platform>

As a heads up though, some extra setup may be required in order to get the emulators to work correctly.

Protecting Azure VM from unwanted attempted access with ACLs

For about the past two weeks, I’ve been noticing that my server has been running a little slow. It’s a tiny server and I was just chalking it up to that – small server = not great response, no biggie right? Yesterday however, My server was down for good, which actually turned out be unrelated… but what I found was a little unsettling. While I was looking through my servers Event Viewer I noticed a lot of failed log ins going to MSSQL… and I mean, 4-5 a minute failed log ins… for over a week. Needless to say, somebody was trying to get access to the data in my SQL via some sort of Brute-Force or Dictionary attack.

Here what Event Viewer looked like (x10000)

There were tons of different IPs being used to attempt these log ins,,, — the list goes on

this means someone’s also spoofing their IP address like anyone trying this sort of thing would. The one in the above image for example is supposedly from the city of Nanjin in Jangsu, China… another one identified as being from California. You can easily find out where an IP address is located by using free services like, however, it doesn’t mean much when your attacking is spoofing their IP address to throw you off the trail.

This could have been easily avoided had I taken the necessary preventative measures. Azure’s VM management allows for the easy control of an ACL over each VM you may have. ACL, if you don’t already know, stands for Access Control List. What it does, is exactly like what it sounds like it does, it’s a list that controls access to your machine. This is done by permitting and/or denying selected ranges of IP addresses.

When you choose a VM from from your list of Azure items, you’re brought that VM’s dashboard.

The third item on the row of tabs for your VM are your endpoints which are used for connecting to that VM via Remote Desktop, PowerShell, and SQL. Each endpoint is allowed to have to have it’s own ACL in order to provide access from whomever may need that resource and deny everyone else that shouldn’t have access. When you choose one of the endpoints, in the footer menu of the page, the option for ‘MANAGE ACL’ will appear.

Once MANAGE ACL has been selected, a window will appear

This is where you’ll actually provide the permitted IP ranges as well as the denied IP ranges. ACLs work top to bottom, if you deny an address up top, then permit it lower down, that address will be denied. If you do the opposite and permit an address up top then deny that address lower down the list, that address will be permitted. The remote subnet requires a CIRDR address which uses a {ipAddress}/{subnetBits} notation – you may need to do some research on this to permit or deny the correct ranges of addresses. The best way to ensure that no one but you want to permit access to the endpoint is allowed in is by putting the permitted address in then on the bottom of the list, enter the CIDR address — this will deny everyone who was not approved before this point. Any address afterwards will not be permitted.

Addresses beginning in 192.168 area addresses reserved for interfaces that aren’t actually connected to the internet – so this address isn’t actually viable. You can use here as well to discover what your actual Public IP address is. Once your ACL list is finished, click the checkbox on the bottom and Azure will set the rest up for you in a matter of seconds.


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Archive: 26/06/2011

Amid US gas boom, split over environment risks

The United States is seeing a natural gas boom thanks to discoveries of abundant shale gas, and at the same time a groundswell of opposition from critics who say the environmental risks from drilling are too great.

dateJun 26, 2011 in Environment
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LulzSec member says group is 'bored'

A member of a publicity-seeking hacker group that sabotaged websites over the past two months and has announced it is dissolving itself says his group wasn't disbanding under pressure from the FBI or enemy hackers.

dateJun 26, 2011 in Internet
shares0 comments 6

Hitting moving RNA drug targets

By accounting for the floppy, fickle nature of RNA, researchers at the University of Michigan and the University of California, Irvine have developed a new way to search for drugs that target this important molecule. Their ...

dateJun 26, 2011 in Biochemistry
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Ocean currents speed melting of Antarctic ice

Stronger ocean currents beneath West Antarctica's Pine Island Glacier Ice Shelf are eroding the ice from below, speeding the melting of the glacier as a whole, according to a new study in Nature Geoscience. A growing cavity ...

dateJun 26, 2011 in Earth Sciences
shares0 comments 24

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Internet access is ‘a fundamental right’

It’s reached the point where apparently anything you can think of is ‘a fundamental right’ to somebody. Healthcare, education, housing, food, transportation, you name it, it’s a fundamental right. Apparently no one is concerned about paying for these fundamental rights or cares where the money comes from so long as the government takes care of it for them.

From the BBC:

Almost four in five people around the world believe that access to the internet is a fundamental right, a poll for the BBC World Service suggests.

The survey – of more than 27,000 adults across 26 countries – found strong support for net access on both sides of the digital divide.

Countries such as Finland and Estonia have already ruled that access is a human right for their citizens.

International bodies such as the UN are also pushing for universal net access.

Read entire article

Driver’s Licenses for the Internet?

Sure, great idea. Will I need to take some type of proficiency test before I can get my license? Will I need to get my computer inspected yearly? Will I need some type of insurance? And what exactly is the purpose of this anyway? What are they supposedly trying to protect all of us from? Unlicensed users? Unlicensed computers? Yeah, I can see this taking off in a big way. If you can’t shut something down, you can at least regulate it out of existence.

From The New York Times:

Today’s idea: Let’s have “driver’s licenses” for the Internet to counter online fraud, hackers and espionage, a Microsoft executive suggests.

Internet | Maybe on your busy junket to the World Economic Forum in Davos last week you missed the panel where Craig Mundie, Microsoft’s chief research and technology officer, offered up the Internet licensing proposal above. Barbara Kiviat of the Curious Capitalist blog was there, and summarizes the idea thusly:

DARPA, Microsoft, Lockheed team up to reinvent TCP/IP

Microsoft, inventor of the most insecure OS ever, is working with DARPA to invent something more secure than TCP/IP. I sincerely hope for the sake of the military that Microsoft decides to pull out.

From The Register:

Arms globocorp Lockheed Martin announced today that it has won a $31m contract from the famous Pentagon crazy-ideas bureau, DARPA, to reinvent the internet and make it more suitable for military use. Microsoft will also be involved in the effort.

The main thrust of the effort will be to develop a new Military Network Protocol, which will differ from old hat such as TCP/IP in that it will offer “improved security, dynamic bandwidth allocation, and policy-based prioritization levels at the individual and unit level”.

“New network threats and attacks require revolutionary protection concepts,” said Lockheed cyber-arsenal chieftain John Mengucci. “Through this project, as well as our cyber Mission Maker initiatives, we are working to enhance cyber security and ensure that warfighters* can fight on despite cyber attacks.”

Lockheed will be partnered with Anagran, Juniper Networks, LGS Innovations, Stanford University and – of course – Microsoft in developing the MNP. Apart from that, Lockheed’s own Information Systems & Global Services-Defense tentacle will work on amazing new hardware.

According to the firm:

Lockheed Martin’s team will develop router technologies that include strong authentication and self configuration capabilities to improve security, reduce the need for trained network personnel and lower overall life cycle costs for network management.

The original Arpanet, which turned into the TCP/IP internet we all know and love, was developed for DARPA’s predecessor. It was at least nominally intended for military use, though in reality it took off first in academia. There is some mild irony in the sight of DARPA deciding to more or less repeat the process all over again at this late date. ®

* Perhaps one might speak of “warfs” for short.

“Preserving a Free and Open Internet: A Platform for Innovation, Opportunity, and Prosperity”

I haven’t had time to read the speech so I can’t comment on it. Here it is, FYI.

Prepared Remarks of
Chairman Julius Genachowski
The Brookings Institution, Washington DC
September 21, 2009

I’d like to thank Brookings for hosting me and this discussion about the future of broadband and the Internet.

We’ve just finished a summer of big-ticket commemorations, celebrating the 40th anniversaries of the Apollo landing and of Woodstock; 1969 was also a good year to be a kid in New York, with Joe Namath calling the Super Bowl, and the Knicks’ season that ended with the legendary Willis Reed in Game 7. I grew up a long fly ball from Shea Stadium and soaked up every minute of the Miracle Mets’ season. Maybe that’s why I tend to believe in miracles.

But perhaps the most momentous birthday from that famous summer of 1969 went by just a couple of weeks ago with little mention. Just over forty years ago, a handful of engineers in a UCLA lab connected two computers with a 15-foot gray cable and transferred little pieces of data back and forth. It was the first successful test of the ARPANET, the U.S.-government-funded project that became the Internet — the most transformational communications breakthrough since the printing press.

Today, we can’t imagine what our lives would be like without the Internet — any more than we can imagine life without running water or the light bulb. Millions of us depend upon it every day: at home, at work, in school — and everywhere in between. The Internet has unleashed the creative genius of countless entrepreneurs and has enabled the creation of jobs — and the launch of small businesses and the expansion of large ones — all across America.

That’s why Congress and the President have charged the FCC with developing a National Broadband Plan to ensure that every American has access to open and robust broadband.

The fact is that we face great challenges as a nation right now, including health care, education, energy, and public safety. While the Internet alone will not provide a complete solution to any of them, it can and must play a critical role in solving each one.

Openness is the Key

Why has the Internet proved to be such a powerful engine for creativity, innovation, and economic growth? A big part of the answer traces back to one key decision by the Internet’s original architects: to make the Internet an open system.

Historian John Naughton describes the Internet as an attempt to answer the following question: How do you design a network that is “future proof” — that can support the applications that today’s inventors have not yet dreamed of? The solution was to devise a network of networks that would not be biased in favor of any particular application. The Internet’s creators didn’t want the network architecture — or any single entity — to pick winners and losers. Because it might pick the wrong ones. Instead, the Internet’s open architecture pushes decision-making and intelligence to the edge of the network — to end users, to the cloud, to businesses of every size and in every sector of the economy, to creators and speakers across the country and around the globe. In the words of Tim Berners-Lee, the Internet is a “blank canvas” — allowing anyone to contribute and to innovate without permission.

It is easy to look at today’s Internet giants — and the tremendous benefits they have supplied to our economy and our culture — and forget that many were small businesses just a few years ago, founded on little more than a good idea and a no-frills connection to the Internet. Marc Andreessen was a graduate student when he created Mosaic, which led to Netscape, the first commercially successful Web browser. Mark Zuckerberg was a college student in 2004 when he started Facebook, which just announced that it added its 300 millionth member. Pierre Omidyar originally launched eBay on his own personal website. Today more than 600,000 Americans earn part of their living by operating small businesses on eBay’s auction platform, bringing jobs and opportunity to Danvers, Massachusetts, Durham, North Carolina and Lincoln, Nebraska, and many other communities in both rural and urban America. This is the power of the Internet: distributed innovation and ubiquitous entrepreneurship, the potential for jobs and opportunity everywhere there is broadband.

And let us not forget that the open Internet enables much more than commerce. It is also an unprecedented platform for speech, democratic engagement, and a culture that prizes creative new ways of approaching old problems.

In 2000, Jimmy Wales started a project to create a free online encyclopedia. He originally commissioned experts to write the entries, but the project only succeeded after moving to volunteers to write them collaboratively. The result is Wikipedia, one of the top 10 most visited websites in the world and one of the most comprehensive aggregations of human knowledge in our history. The potential of collaboration and social media continues to grow. It is changing and accelerating innovation. And we’ve seen new media tools like Twitter and YouTube used by democratic movements around the globe.

Even now, the Internet is beginning to transform health care, education, and energy usage for the better. Health-related applications, distributed over a widely connected Internet, can help bring down health care costs and improve medical service. Four out of five Americans who are online have accessed medical information over the Internet, and most say this information affected their decision-making. Nearly four million college students took at least one online course in 2007, and the Internet can potentially connect kids anywhere to the best information and teachers everywhere. And the Internet is helping enable smart grid technologies, which promise to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by hundreds of millions of metric tons.

At the same time, we have also seen great strides in the center of the network. Most Americans’ early exposure to the Internet was through analog modems, which allowed a trickle of data through the phone lines to support early electronic bulletin boards and basic email. Over the last two decades, thanks to substantial investment and technological ingenuity, companies devised ways to retrofit networks initially designed for phones and one-way video to support two-way broadband data streams connecting homes and businesses across the country. And a revolution in wireless technologies — using licensed and unlicensed spectrum — and the creation of path-breaking devices like the Blackberry and iPhone have enabled millions of us to carry the Internet in our pockets and purses.

The lesson of each of these stories, and innumerable others like them, is that we cannot know what tomorrow holds on the Internet, except that it will be unexpected; that the genius of American innovators is unlimited; and that the fewer obstacles these innovators face in bringing their work to the world, the greater our opportunity as citizens and as a nation.

At a Crossroads

Notwithstanding its unparalleled record of success, today the free and open Internet faces emerging and substantial challenges. We’ve already seen some clear examples of deviations from the Internet’s historic openness. We have witnessed certain broadband providers unilaterally block access to VoIP applications (phone calls delivered over data networks) and implement technical measures that degrade the performance of peer-to-peer software distributing lawful content. We have even seen at least one service provider deny users access to political content. And as many members of the Internet community and key Congressional leaders have noted, there are compelling reasons to be concerned about the future of openness.

One reason has to do with limited competition among service providers. As American consumers make the shift from dial-up to broadband, their choice of providers has narrowed substantially. I don’t intend that remark as a policy conclusion or criticism — it is simply a fact about today’s marketplace that we must acknowledge and incorporate into our policymaking.

A second reason involves the economic incentives of broadband providers. The great majority of companies that operate our nation’s broadband pipes rely upon revenue from selling phone service, cable TV subscriptions, or both. These services increasingly compete with voice and video products provided over the Internet. The net result is that broadband providers’ rational bottom-line interests may diverge from the broad interests of consumers in competition and choice.

The third reason involves the explosion of traffic on the Internet. With the growing popularity of high-bandwidth applications, Internet traffic is roughly doubling every two years. Technologies for managing broadband networks have become more sophisticated and widely deployed. But these technologies are just tools. They cannot by themselves determine the right answers to difficult policy questions — and they raise their own set of new questions.

In acknowledging the existence of challenging competitive, economic, and technological realities for today’s Internet, I want to underscore that this debate, as I see it, isn’t about white hats or black hats among companies in and around the network. Rather, there are inevitable tensions built into our system; important and difficult questions that we have an obligation to ask and to answer correctly for our country.

When I worked in the private sector I was fortunate to work with some of the greatest innovators of our time. That taught me some lessons about the importance of innovation and investment. It also taught me the importance of developing clear goals and then being focused and practical in achieving them, making sure to have the best input and ideas from the broadest group possible.

I am convinced that there are few goals more essential in the communications landscape than preserving and maintaining an open and robust Internet. I also know that achieving this goal will take an approach that is smart about technology, smart about markets, smart about law and policy, and smart about the lessons of history.

We Must Choose to Preserve the Open Internet

The rise of serious challenges to the free and open Internet puts us at a crossroads. We could see the Internet’s doors shut to entrepreneurs, the spirit of innovation stifled, a full and free flow of information compromised. Or we could take steps to preserve Internet openness, helping ensure a future of opportunity, innovation, and a vibrant marketplace of ideas.

I understand the Internet is a dynamic network and that technology continues to grow and evolve. I recognize that if we were to create unduly detailed rules that attempted to address every possible assault on openness, such rules would become outdated quickly. But the fact that the Internet is evolving rapidly does not mean we can, or should, abandon the underlying values fostered by an open network, or the important goal of setting rules of the road to protect the free and open Internet.

Saying nothing — and doing nothing — would impose its own form of unacceptable cost. It would deprive innovators and investors of confidence that the free and open Internet we depend upon today will still be here tomorrow. It would deny the benefits of predictable rules of the road to all players in the Internet ecosystem. And it would be a dangerous retreat from the core principle of openness — the freedom to innovate without permission — that has been a hallmark of the Internet since its inception, and has made it so stunningly successful as a platform for innovation, opportunity, and prosperity.

In view of these challenges and opportunities, and because it is vital that the Internet continue to be an engine of innovation, economic growth, competition and democratic engagement, I believe the FCC must be a smart cop on the beat preserving a free and open Internet.

What We Can Do

This is how I propose we move forward: To date, the Federal Communications Commission has addressed these issues by announcing four Internet principles that guide our case-by-case enforcement of the communications laws. These principles can be summarized as: Network operators cannot prevent users from accessing the lawful Internet content, applications, and services of their choice, nor can they prohibit users from attaching non-harmful devices to the network.

The principles were initially articulated by Chairman Michael Powell in 2004 as the “Four Freedoms,” and later endorsed in a unanimous 2005 policy statement issued by the Commission under Chairman Kevin Martin and with the forceful support of Commissioner Michael Copps, who of course remains on the Commission today. In the years since 2005, the Internet has continued to evolve and the FCC has issued a number of important bipartisan decisions involving openness. Today, I propose that the FCC adopt the existing principles as Commission rules, along with two additional principles that reflect the evolution of the Internet and that are essential to ensuring its continued openness.

Fifth Principle of Non-Discrimination

The fifth principle is one of non-discrimination — stating that broadband providers cannot discriminate against particular Internet content or applications.

This means they cannot block or degrade lawful traffic over their networks, or pick winners by favoring some content or applications over others in the connection to subscribers’ homes. Nor can they disfavor an Internet service just because it competes with a similar service offered by that broadband provider. The Internet must continue to allow users to decide what content and applications succeed.

This principle will not prevent broadband providers from reasonably managing their networks. During periods of network congestion, for example, it may be appropriate for providers to ensure that very heavy users do not crowd out everyone else. And this principle will not constrain efforts to ensure a safe, secure, and spam-free Internet experience, or to enforce the law. It is vital that illegal conduct be curtailed on the Internet. As I said in my Senate confirmation hearing, open Internet principles apply only to lawful content, services and applications — not to activities like unlawful distribution of copyrighted works, which has serious economic consequences. The enforcement of copyright and other laws and the obligations of network openness can and must co-exist.

I also recognize that there may be benefits to innovation and investment of broadband providers offering managed services in limited circumstances. These services are different than traditional broadband Internet access, and some have argued they should be analyzed under a different framework. I believe such services can supplement — but must not supplant — free and open Internet access, and that we must ensure that ample bandwidth exists for all Internet users and innovators. In the rulemaking process I will discuss in a moment, we will carefully consider how to approach the question of managed services in a way that maximizes the innovation and investment necessary for a robust and thriving Internet.

I will propose that the FCC evaluate alleged violations of the non-discrimination principle as they arise, on a case-by-case basis, recognizing that the Internet is an extraordinarily complex and dynamic system. This approach, within the framework I am proposing today, will allow the Commission to make reasoned, fact-based determinations based on the Internet before it—not based on the Internet of years past or guesses about how the Internet will evolve.

Sixth Principle of Transparency

The sixth principle is a transparency principle — stating that providers of broadband Internet access must be transparent about their network management practices.

Why does the FCC need to adopt this principle? The Internet evolved through open standards. It was conceived as a tool whose user manual would be free and available to all. But new network management practices and technologies challenge this original understanding. Today, broadband providers have the technical ability to change how the Internet works for millions of users — with profound consequences for those users and content, application, and service providers around the world.

To take one example, last year the FCC ruled on the blocking of peer-to-peer transmissions by a cable broadband provider. The blocking was initially implemented with no notice to subscribers or the public. It was discovered only after an engineer and hobbyist living in Oregon realized that his attempts to share public domain recordings of old barbershop quartet songs over a home Internet connection were being frustrated. It was not until he brought the problem to the attention of the media and Internet community, which then brought it to the attention of the FCC, that the improper network management practice became known and was stopped.

We cannot afford to rely on happenstance for consumers, businesses, and policymakers to learn about changes to the basic functioning of the Internet. Greater transparency will give consumers the confidence of knowing that they’re getting the service they’ve paid for, enable innovators to make their offerings work effectively over the Internet, and allow policymakers to ensure that broadband providers are preserving the Internet as a level playing field. It will also help facilitate discussion among all the participants in the Internet ecosystem, which can reduce the need for government involvement in network management disagreements.

To be clear, the transparency principle will not require broadband providers to disclose personal information about subscribers or information that might compromise the security of the network, and there will be a mechanism to protect competitively sensitive data.

Application to the Internet, However Accessed

In considering the openness of the Internet, it is also important to recognize that our choice of technologies and devices for accessing the Internet continues to expand at a dizzying pace. New mobile and satellite broadband networks are getting faster every day, and extraordinary devices like smartphones and wireless data cards are making it easier to stay connected while on the go. And I note the beginnings of a trend towards openness among several participants in the mobile marketplace.

Even though each form of Internet access has unique technical characteristics, they are all are different roads to the same place. It is essential that the Internet itself remain open, however users reach it. The principles I’ve been speaking about apply to the Internet however accessed, and I will ask my fellow Commissioners to join me in confirming this.

Of course, how the principles apply may differ depending on the access platform or technology. The rulemaking process will enable the Commission to analyze fully the implications of the principles for mobile network architectures and practices — and how, as a practical matter, they can be fairly and appropriately implemented. As we tackle these complex questions involving different technologies used for Internet access, let me be clear that we will be focused on formulating policies that will maximize innovation and investment, consumer choice, and greater competition.

Rulemaking Process

I’ve talked about what we need to do; now I’d like to talk about how we should do it. I will soon circulate to my fellow Commissioners proposed rules prepared by Commission staff embodying the principles I’ve discussed, and I will ask for their support in issuing a notice of proposed rulemaking. This notice will provide the public with a detailed explanation of what we propose to do and why.

Equally importantly, the notice will ask for input and feedback on the proposed rules and their application, such as how to determine whether network management practices are reasonable, and what information broadband providers should disclose about their network management practices and in what form. And — as I indicated earlier — it will pose a series of detailed questions on how the Internet openness principles should apply to mobile broadband.

While my goals are clear — to ensure the Internet remains a free and open platform that promotes innovation, investment, competition, and users’ interests — our path to implementing them is not pre-determined. I will ensure that the rulemaking process will be fair, transparent, fact-based, and data-driven. Anyone will be able to participate in this process, and I hope everyone will. We will hold a number of public workshops and, of course, use the Internet and other new media tools to facilitate participation. Today we’ve launched a new website,, to kick off discussion of the issues I’ve been talking about. We encourage everyone to visit the site and contribute to the process.

Moving Forward

Some have argued that the FCC should not take affirmative steps to protect the Internet’s openness. Let me be clear about what this is about, and what it isn’t.

The fundamental goal of what I’ve outlined today is preserving the openness and freedom of the Internet.

We have an obligation to ensure that the Internet is an enduring engine for U.S. economic growth, and a foundation for democracy in the 21st century. We have an obligation to ensure that the Internet remains a vast landscape of innovation and opportunity.

This is not about government regulation of the Internet. It’s about fair rules of the road for companies that control access to the Internet. We will do as much as we need to do, and no more, to ensure that the Internet remains an unfettered platform for competition, creativity, and entrepreneurial activity.

This is not about protecting the Internet against imaginary dangers. We’re seeing the breaks and cracks emerge, and they threaten to change the Internet’s fundamental architecture of openness. This would shrink opportunities for innovators, content creators, and small businesses around the country, and limit the full and free expression the Internet promises. This is about preserving and maintaining something profoundly successful and ensuring that it’s not distorted or undermined. If we wait too long to preserve a free and open Internet, it will be too late.

Some will seek to invoke innovation and investment as reasons not to adopt open Internet rules. But history’s lesson is clear: Ensuring a robust and open Internet is the best thing we can do to promote investment and innovation. And while there are some who see every policy decision as either pro-business or pro-consumer, I reject that approach; it’s not the right way to see technology’s role in America.

An open Internet will benefit both consumers and businesses. The principles that will protect the open Internet are an essential step to maximize investment and innovation in the network and on the edge of it — by establishing rules of the road that incentivize competition, empower entrepreneurs, and grow the economic pie to the benefit of all.

I believe we share a common purpose — we want the Internet to continue flourishing as a platform for innovation and communication, with continued investment and increasing deployment of broadband to all Americans. I believe my fellow Commissioners share this purpose, and I look forward to working collaboratively with them in this endeavor.

In closing, we are here because 40 years ago, a bunch of researchers in a lab changed the way computers interact and, as a result, changed the world. We are here because those Internet pioneers had unique insights about the power of open networks to transform lives for the better, and they did something about it. Our work now is to preserve the brilliance of what they contributed to our country and the world. It’s to make sure that, in the 21st century, the garage, the basement, and the dorm room remain places where innovators can not only dream but bring their dreams to life. And no one should be neutral about that.

New browser red-flags disputed facts on the web

Of course, this means that someone has to be in charge of “The Truth.” Wikipedia is bad enough when it comes to supporting certain belief systems (their stance on global warming is that it’s real and man-made and people who tend to disagree and edit articles accordingly have been known to have been banned). But that’s just one site; now your interface to the web (the browser) will be letting you know that the truth of whatever you’re reading has been dispute.

Oh and I really wonder about the last couple of lines in the story:

“Once you actually believe something, it takes quite a lot of data or evidence to overcome that belief and it takes a lot of attention to do that,” says Fugelsang.

“With a lot of repeat exposures, it does change.”

It almost sounds like brainwashing.

James Keller

The Canadian Press

VANCOUVER (Aug 29, 2009)Developers of new web browsing software that flags questionable claims or outright lies on the web hope it will become a valuable tool to deal with the misinformation that litters the Internet.

But observers say Dispute Finder, an experimental browser extension developed by Intel, and the many websites that already aim to debunk online rumours and falsehoods face an enormous task. It isn’t as easy as simply telling someone they’re wrong.

Once installed, Dispute Finder highlights in red what it determines are disputed claims on websites, then offers users links to alternative points of view and evidence to back them up.

“It’s important to be aware when something you’re reading is not the only opinion, when there is another point of view worth paying attention to,” says California-based Intel researcher Rob Ennals.

“The real problem is, when you don’t realize something is disputed, you don’t realize there are other points of view and you might not be aware you’ve wandered into a dispute.”

The current version of the software relies entirely on users to identify disputed claims, provide evidence and point the software to other instances of that claim on the web, so right now there’s still not much content being highlighted.

Eventually, Ennals says users who input claims will be able to train the software to seek out examples and continue to flag new content as it’s posted. And, as the software becomes more popular, more claims will be catalogued.

He says real people are in a better position to determine whether a claim is in dispute than any computer and he brushes aside suggestions that doing so might just provide another forum for bogus assertions.

“The good thing is that if something is disputed enough that people will care, the chances are that someone is going to care enough to mark it as disputed,” says Ennals.

“I don’t think we can really be the arbiters of truth, we can’t tell you automatically what is true and what is false. All we can really hope to do is, if there’s a credible source that gives a credible point of view, let you know.”

There already are a number of websites that attempt to poke holes in fiction masquerading as fact, such as and Media outlets have done so-called “reality-check” stories to assess claims in the news for years.

However, Jonathan Fugelsang, an expert in cognitive psychology at the University of Waterloo, says it’s incredibly difficult to change people’s minds once they’ve decided a certain claim is a fact.

“Once you actually believe something, it takes quite a lot of data or evidence to overcome that belief and it takes a lot of attention to do that,” says Fugelsang.

“With a lot of repeat exposures, it does change.”

Crime expert backs calls for ‘licence to compute’

From ITNews (Australia):

By Ben Grubb
Aug 27, 2009 4:03 PM

But education should take back seat to product safety.

Australia’s leading criminologist thinks online scams have escalated to such a point that first-time users of computers should have to earn a licence to surf the web.

Russel Smith, principal criminologist at the Australian Institute of Criminology said the concept of a “computer drivers licence” should be taken seriously as an option for combating internet-related crime.

“There’s been some discussion in Europe about the use of what’s called a computer drivers licence –  where you have a standard set of skills people should learn before they start using computers,” Dr Smith told iTnews.

“At the moment we have drivers licences for cars, and cars are very dangerous machines. Computers are also quite dangerous in the way that they can make people vulnerable to fraud.

“In the future we might want to think about whether it’s necessary there be some sort of compulsory education of people before they start using computers,” he said.

The Australian Computer Society launched computer driver’s licences in 1999. It aimed to give users a basic level of competency before they started using PCs. But the growth in cybercrime has led to IT security experts such as Eugene Kaspersky to call for more formalised recognition of a user’s identity so they can travel the net safely.

Last week Dr Smith sat in front of a Federal Government Inquiry into cyber crime and advised Australia’s senior politicians on initiatives in train to fight cybercrime.

He said that education was secondary to better technology solutions.

“I think at the starting point of it you need manufacturers of both hardware and software to devise technology that makes it difficult or impossible for people to be defrauded,” Dr Smith said.

“And the main development in that area, I suppose, is the use of biometrics where you have fingerprint scanners or some biometric linked in with the authentication processes on computers”.

Dr Smith said that the use of chip and pin credit cards had been a “very effective development” in Europe.

“I think when that happens in Australia we will be much better off,” he said.

The banks are “being kind”

Dr Smith also said that Australia’s banks were “being kind” when they bore the costs of cyber crime.

“There’s a code of conduct for electronic transactions and under that code if people suffer a loss through an electronic transaction and there’s no evidence that they’ve been implicated in anyway, then the banks undertake to compensate that individual,” he said. “Some people probably are partially responsible to what happens to them if they’ve done something very silly or negligent.

“What that really means is that the banks are suffering a loss and eventually that money will be put on the cost of running the banking system. Consumers probably end up paying at the end of the day.”

Senate Bill Would Give President Emergency Control of Internet

From Fox News:

A Senate bill would offer President Obama emergency control of the Internet and may give him a “kill switch” to shut down online traffic by seizing private networks — a move cybersecurity experts worry will choke off industry and civil liberties.

Details of a revamped version of the Cybersecurity Act of 2009 emerged late Thursday, months after an initial version authored by Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.V., was blasted in Silicon Valley as dangerous government intrusion.

“In the original bill they empowered the president to essentially turn off the Internet in the case of a ‘cyber-emergency,’ which they didn’t define,” said Larry Clinton, president of the Internet Security Alliance, which represents the telecommunications industry.

“We think it’s a very bad idea … to put in legislation,” he told

Clinton said the new version of the bill that surfaced this week is improved from its first draft, but troubling language that was removed was replaced by vague language that could still offer the same powers to the president in case of an emergency.

“The current language is so unclear that we can’t be confident that the changes have actually been made,” he said.

The new legislation allows the president to “declare a cybersecurity emergency” relating to “non-governmental” computer networks and make a plan to respond to the danger, according to an excerpt published online — a broad license that rights experts worry would give the president “amorphous powers” over private users.

“As soon as you’re saying that the federal government is going to be exercising this kind of power over private networks, it’s going to be a really big issue,” Lee Tien, a senior staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, told CNET News.

A Senate source familiar with the bill likened the new power to take control of portions of the Internet to what President Bush did when he grounded all aircraft on Sept. 11, 2001, CNET News reported.

Spokesmen for Senator Rockefeller and the Commerce Committee did not return calls seeking comment before this article was published.

But Rockefeller, who introduced the bill in April with bipartisan support, said the legislation was critical to protecting everything from water and electricity to banking, traffic lights and electronic health records.

“I know the threats we face,” Rockefeller said in a prepared statement when the legislation was introduced. “Our enemies are real. They are sophisticated, they are determined and they will not rest.”

The bill would also let the government create a detailed set of standards for licensing “cybersecurity professionals” who would oversee a single standard for security measures.

But many in the technology sector believe it’s a job the government is ill-equipped to handle, said Franck Journoud, a policy analyst with the Business Software Alliance.

“Simply put, who has the expertise?” he told in April. “It’s the industry, not the government. We have a responsibility to increase and improve security. That responsibility cannot be captured in a government standard.”

Clinton, of the Internet Security Alliance, praised President Obama’s May science policy review, which he said would take cybersecurity in the right direction by promoting incentives to get the private industry to improve its own security measures.

But he faulted the Senate bill, which he said would centralize regulations for an industry that is too varied to fall under the control of a single set of rules without endangering the economy and security.

“We think a lot of things need to be done to enhance cybersecurity,” he told, but this bill is “not something that we could support.”


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  • Warp
"Reach for the Dead" artwork

"Reach for the Dead"

Via SoundCloud

Boards of Canada have been busy scattering little mysteries around the release of the forthcoming Tomorrow’s Harvest, but "Reach for the Dead" is a timely reminder that Scottish brothers Mike and Marcus Sandison don’t need to lean too hard on such devices. It feels like a teaser for the album, suggesting much but veering away from a full-on reveal of exactly where it's heading. It’s certainly much darker than most of their prior material, marrying the mournfulness of Popol Vuh’s soundtrack work with the swell of underground artists producing John Carpenter-indebted electronica.

But a subtle sense of grace that creeps in as the track progresses is what separates "Reach for the Dead" from similar work from other artists. Boards have chosen beauty over macabre thrills, excising the shock value from horror soundtrack tropes and instead crafting their own artful take on them. That sense of fond nostalgia you get from their past work is noticeably absent; instead this appears to reflect on a gloomier side of Britain’s past, a place where Boards tap into a strangely powerful amalgam of sickness and sorrow.

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Archive for May 2015

~~ In Dark Places ~~   5 comments

Brightness ends with the closing door

The dark carved door marked Nevermore.

It is in these caverns that is stored

The decorous vessels into which were poured

An ambergris was known as life.

Birth leads to the journey

To that far, shining shore

Searchers travel…, seek to find

The dark carved door marked nevermore

And what treasures lie behind

Not aware as they trekked along the way

That the treasure was the journey

That led them to this day.

To a place called

– The Moon and Stars   1 comment

She brings the moon to my window at night

And lights the stars in my evening sky

Posted May 21, 2015 by PapaBear in Uncategorized

Boston   1 comment

Just a little story I found in a magazine I was reading this week.  Thought y’all might enjoy it…..,

(well, if you’re from Boston, maybe not)  🙂

An explosion last week killed a wild-living navy boilerman and
he found himself in hell.

Being used to stoking fires and extremely
hot temperatures, he found hell actually quite comfortable.
When Satan went to check out the new arrival, he found him sitting
in his room smiling.

“You like this?” Satan asked.

“Yes, sir,” said the sailor, “this feels like a spring day to me.”

Not wanting the new guy to be too comfortable, Satan turned up the
heat a bit. When he went back the next day to see how his new
arrival was doing, the sailor was still happy; he hadn’t even
broken a sweat.

“I like this kind of weather,” he told Satan.

For the next few days, Satan turned up the heat more and more,
but each day the Sailor looked as comfortable as ever.
By Sunday, Satan decided to try something different. Rather than
turn up the heat even more, he turned it off and turned on the
air conditioning. Icicles formed in the sailor’s room! When he
checked on the guy, the room was icy and he was shivering, but
he had a grin from ear to ear, bigger than ever.

Satan was exasperated! “Why are YOU so happy?” he demanded from
the sailor. “It’s FREEZING in here!”

“Well, I’m from Boston,” said the sailor, “and evidently the
Red Sox just won the World Series!”

Good Night Everybody !

Posted May 13, 2015 by PapaBear in Humor, Prose, Story

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~~ Good Night !   1 comment

Now the pen has been still for many nights

Dim the lights and lock the door

Heart’s tired, can write no more

To bed now, and dim the lights

Posted May 11, 2015 by PapaBear in Experiences, Personal, Poetry

Tagged with , , , , , ,

Memories of Another May   1 comment

May, ’twas the month we met
A moment I could never forget
‘Twas  magic happened that eve
 Came to my heart, would never leave
I celebrate the memories you gave
Stored safely in my heart to save
To recall ‘neath starlit sky above
Once again to know your love.

Sometimes I don’t understand
Why I can’t still hold your hand
But I can still feel your warm love
Wrapped tenderly around my heart.

~ SleepyHead ~   2 comments

Sleep is a stranger tonight.  I lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, contemplating the age old question…

Why ?

The questions have no answers

The poem has no rhyme

The song has no music

There is no meaning in the words

The story has no ending…

There comes a time when thoughts are too ambiguous,

A time when words seem totally inept, either spoken or written.

Pictures and drawings are useless.

The mind seems an open book, but with blank pages.


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About Me

“Imagination is more important than knowledge” — Albert Einstein

I am an Indonesian, a researcher at Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Jakarta. I am currently a Fulbright scholar, a Permanent Head Damage (Ph.D) student, at Department of Political Science, Northern Illinois University.

Some areas that I am really interested in: political science in general and comparative politics in particular, conflict and security studies, foreign policy, international politics, and democratization studies.

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What’s Buggin’ Me May 21, 2009

Posted by alwaysjan in Travel.
Tags: , , , , , ,

The weather in England is fabulous, so what could be wrong? I’ve been through two, count them TWO, computer adaptors, and I’m now running on the second battery. T’was not meant to be. But, I just had to post this photo of a poster I took in the window of a shop at Southwold.

I’m half-way round the world and the first thing I thought of when I saw it was, “Bug Girl (on my blogroll) would love this!”

Lesley and I had an outrageously fun day in London. We went to the National Gallery first. Touring a gallery with Lesley is oh so educational.  She studied Botticelli’s Venus and Mars, in which Venus lounges while Mars is having a snooze, and announced, “They’ve obviously just had sex, he’s smoked a fag and is already asleep.” I think these cultural exchanges are invaluable.

When I return, I shall post about our romp through The Portrait Gallery, the Tate Modern, and resting on the crypts of some of Britain’s most historic personages. In the meantime, Lesley and I are conspiring to win the Turner Prize, and there are chickens that need tending. From across the pond.

Always, Jan

Leaving on a Jet Plane May 16, 2009

Posted by alwaysjan in Travel.
Tags: , , , , ,

Forget what clothes I should pack. I’m too busy trying to figure out which cables, battery chargers, and atomic reactors I need to take to keep me and my Significant Other (Mac) up and running in England. Then there’s the cell phone and the digital camera…  So much for getting away from it all! If you’re feeling a tad envious that I’m jetting off, just reread Time Zone Zombie – Asleep at 30,000 Feet. Feel better now?

Photo Credit: Leaving on a jet plane by Aky B on Flickr.

London Calling May 9, 2009

Posted by alwaysjan in Life, Travel.
Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Screen shot of Lesley showing me her date book so I would pick a date.

I’m off to England, I’m off to see the queen!  No, not THAT old girl – my friend Lesley, a sassy redhead, who could teach the royals a thing or two about having a good time.

“You know this is all quite mad?” Lesley said as we chatted via SKYPE. But it wasn’t so much of a question as a statement of fact.

But some days, I think the whole world’s gone mad. Fortunately, I subscribe to the “Life is short, eat dessert first” school of thought. So, when I found out I got accepted to graduate school (See Masters of the Universe), I knew I needed to reward myself before I got bogged down with classes two nights a week for the next year. And since the classes start only four days after the last day of school in June, it had to be soon – before the end of school.

Lesley and I met via the internet less than two years ago. When she invited my husband and me to come to England to celebrate New Year’s Eve with her family in 2007, all of our friends thought we’d both gone quite mad. (See Thinking of England) But, we’re two crazy redheads, and yes, everything they say about redheads is true! I once read an interview with a man who’d lived to be 105. He said his secret to a long life was he stayed away from “wine, whiskey, and red-headed women.” Poor old sot!

After Lesley and her family spent two fabulous weeks with us last summer, we both worried it would be too long until we met again. So, I couldn’t believe it when she’d offered to pay half my airfare just to get me over there. I found a cheap enough flight, so I’m going on my own dime. I was able to sandwich (as in The Earl of…) the trip in between Testing and Open House, so I’ll only miss five days of school. The MANDATORY MEETING for grad school is May 15th. On May 16th, I’m outta here til May 25th.

We’re taking the train to London for a day to see the art at the Tate Modern and the National Gallery. The rest of the time, I’ll be blissfully enjoying English village life in Framlingham where we plan to sit out front of The Dancing Goat cafe each morning, have breakfast, and watch the world go by.

I’m still deciding whether to take my laptop along so I can blog from the UK. I’ve been known to get “the DTs” (Digital Tremors) when deprived access to the internet for too long. I’m SO not PC –  as in I don’t do PCs, so I might have to pack my Mac. Okay, I’m taking it. You should know that we redheads are prone to impulsive behavior, but we DO know how to have a good time.

Can’t help but add Mad World from one of my all-time favorite movies, Donnie Darko.

Thinking of England December 30, 2008

Posted by alwaysjan in Holidays, Travel.
Tags: , , , , , , , ,

I was done writing cloying holiday posts, but then my friend Nora sent me this Christmas ornament. It arrived in a big box delivered on Christmas morning and was handed to me by an exceptionally cheery guy from Fedex, who smelled of pine and overtime.

Alas, I tried to pry the little suitcase open, hoping to find a miniature raincoat and Wellies, but no luck. It did remind me though of what a difference a year makes. Last year at this time we’d just arrived in England so I could finally meet Lesley, the friend I’d met via the internet only months earlier. Yes, it was all crazy, but some things in life are meant to be. I made up a cover story so my parents wouldn’t worry – something about visiting people we’d met in California.

I didn’t even know Lesley’s real name and actual address til the week before we left. At one point I emailed her and asked if she wasn’t concerned that we might be serial killers and she could end up in a shallow grave, what with us being Americans and all. Lesley was nonplussed. She informed me her brother was a police detective in Ipswich, so we’d never get away with it.

When we staggered off the plane at Heathrow, there was Lesley and her husband, Ian, waiting. We fortified ourselves with coffee (Yes!) and then made the two-hour drive back to Framlingham in Suffolk. All bodies were accounted for.

England was a dream. Cold and grey, but after the relentless California sunshine, England seemed so utterly – English! We toured the local castle, queued up for fish and chips in Aldeburgh, and trapsed the cobblestone streets of Cambridge. We spent the most memorable New Year’s Eve ever at a posh hotel outside London as their guests. A piper escorted us into a magical wonderland where we sat at a table awash with glitter and crystal. There was unlimited champagne and the revelers sang every rousing verse of “Rule Brittannia” and “Oh Jerusalem” while balloons whooshed overhead like incoming missles.

I figured this was how the English celebrate, what with the waving of the Union Jack and the English flag of St. George until Lesley disabused me of this notion. She looked almost aghast and confided this was all rather over the top – downright Las Vegas-y. (said with a wrinkle of the nose). Oh. How ironic that the first song everyone danced to was “La Bamba.” Pacoima posh.

But the soundtrack for our visit was Amy Winehouse’s CD, which greeted us each morning after Lesley yelled, “Get up, you lazy bastards!” That’s what you call the Queen’s English, I believe. I was surprised that the grass was green in January and most of the houses had red tile roofs mottled with moss, while others were thatched. Indian restaurants were “curry houses” and  “bits and pieces” is English for what we call leftovers or odds and ends. Following this logic, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein was made from bits and pieces.

But this is the memory I hold dearest. We’d all agreed to eat a late dinner, so while everyone else took a nap, Lesley and I stole away in the dark. Not only was it cold, it was spitting rain. We followed a winding route along a path marked “Lover’s Lane,” which led over a hill. I lost my sense of direction and imagined being adrift out on the moors, even though there were no moors, and we could see the lights of nearby houses. We were taking the back way to Lesley’s favorite pub, The Station, once actually the village train station.

Never could I have imagined how welcoming a English pub could be on a cold winter’s night. A three-foot wide cloud of mistletoe floated in front of the bar. (The bartender, Gareth, is also an arborist.) It was still early and not yet crowded. Lesley asked if we could sit in the “snug,” a small room behind the main pub and off the kitchen. A party had reserved the room, but they weren’t due for an hour so we got the okay.

The snug was aptly named. There was a crackling fire and it was just big enough for two long farmhouse tables which had been set for dinner. It looked like a medieval feast was in the offing. Lesley and I sat at one end of the table and she ordered a bottle of red wine. You could hear the clanking of pots in the kitchen and the pop of the fire. Aside from a plastic child’s highchair folded up in the corner, it probably looked the same as it did a hundred some years ago. (Okay, white Christmas lights outlined the windows.)  As we sat there sharing a bottle of wine by candlelight, this is what went through my mind: I can’t believe I’m sitting here in this magical place with this amazing person I met on the internet! I must take in every detail and commit it to memory because this is the one of the most amazing nights of my life!

We talked and drank, and talked some more. When we’d finished the bottle, we bid farewell to Gareth, and walked back home to join the others. It is this memory that warms my heart when I’m thinking of England.

Back to Reality July 26, 2008

Posted by alwaysjan in Travel.
Tags: , , ,
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It took two cars to transport my friends from England to LAX with all their plunder. They gave it their all trying to buoy the U.S. economy. Lesley spent valiantly until the very end. Down to her last $20, she fixated on a lawn ornament at Joanne’s, a metal stake that featured a pyramid of farm animals. She carried this Americana saber around for half an hour before finally admitting it wouldn’t fit in her suitcase.

Instead, Lesley bought some new fangled things, evidently unavailable in England, called paper napkins.These matched the stack of plastic picnic plates she’d purchased on sale. Hey, the dollar is worth only 50 percent of the English pound and all items were 60 percent off. If you do the math, the cashier was handing out cash.

Facing the 11-hour flight back to Heathrow, our friends were in no great hurry to leave until I told them the tonic had run out. That sent them packing. Now we’re left with a big bottle of gin, no tonic, and sadly, no houseguests.

Who could ever have imagined that I’d meet someone over the internet, jet off to spend New Year’s Eve with their family in England, and they’d be sitting out on my porch in sunny California sipping G&Ts six months later? When Richard left for the airport with Ian and Lucy, he said they both waved to our house and said, “Goodbye our American home!”

So, after hosting a two-week long party that made the Boston Tea Party look like a rather sedate and proper affair, it’s back to reality. Reality sucks.

Here’s the skinny on the cultural exchange between the Brits and the Americans. Let’s keep score. (If you’re a teacher, you might want to use a Venn diagram.)

The British learned:

People in LA are way nicer than people in snotty San Francisco.

People in the U.S. have pigs living inside and broom closets outside.

If you use the toilet at a restaurant, someone will take away your salad.

The sun may never set on the British Empire, but it’s always sunny in California

If you order a hamburger “without salad,” you have to also specify that you don’t want lettuce, tomato, or anything green.

The Dewey Decimal system is alive and well in America. (Lesley made a surprise spot check)

Americans eat these strange contraptions called artichokes. Then, after performing a bizarre cutting ritual, consume their hearts, which are actually quite tasty.

The Americans learned:

Brits call leftovers “bits and pieces.”

Brits take this shagging thing quite seriously and also engage in something referred to as snogging, which they say the Scots also do with sheep. We talked about joining them in Scotland to check our the veracity of this claim.

Brits refer to the lowly rhinestone as “diamonte” and covet it like raccoons.

People from Manchester, England are referred to as Manculians, which is just downright kinky.

I’d say it was an even exchange with the common currency being laughter. I don’t think I’ve laughed so hard and so much in ages. What’s funny is that after all my obsessing about where to take my visitors, they seemed to be happiest when sitting out “in the garden.” That’s Brit-speak for a patio. They wallowed in the sun, as I believe it took them two full weeks just to dry out. After a few days they were casually stepping over the pig and throwing the mousetraps back on the couch, so the dogs wouldn’t sit on them. In short, they made themselves at home.

I can hardly wait to say, “Hello English home” again. Hugs across the pond to all my friends in the UK.

Bienvenidos al Los Angeles June 22, 2008

Posted by alwaysjan in Travel.
Tags: , , , ,

The British are coming! The British are coming! One by land, two by sea. Okay, make that three by air. My friend, Lesley, and her family are flying in from the UK on July 8th. This is their first visit to the states, or the colonies as I refer to them, and they’re eager to see Los Angeles.

There are so many things to see and do in LA that I’m feeling overwhelmed by all the possibilities. Future diplomatic relations between the UK and its petulant offspring, the US, could hinge on my choices. I don’t want to muck this up like George W. And the timing couldn’t be better, what with the price of a gallon of gas fast approaching that of a vial of Botox. Of course, for each kilometer they fly west, their wallets grow fatter. So America beckons like one giant factory outlet.

I met Lesley on the internet late last summer. After a flurry of emails, and several conversations via SKYPE, she invited my husband, Richard, and I to come to England to celebrate New Year’s Eve. Crazy? Absolutely! But we had such a fabulous time now they want to see how how those wacky Americans live.

Yes, there’s lots of history in Pasadena, but really! As Eddie Izzard said, “I come from Europe – you know, where history is from.” When we were in England we toured the local castle, where Mary Tudor aka Bloody Mary (not to be confused with the urban Bloody Mary who haunts the bathrooms of elementary schools) mustered her supporters in 1553, before being crowned Queen. We walked the streets of Framlingham, their incredibly quaint 17th century village and toured the local church,  which traces its origins to the 12th century. No,  I won’t be playing the history card.

When we were in the UK, we trapsed through castles, and along the cobblestoned streets of Cambridge.  We queued up for fish and chips in Aldeburgh on the North Sea. But what do I remember most? The people! For one thing, I’d never seen so many people who looked vaguely like me or so many redheads, including Lesley. But mostly, I remember how lovely the people were. Once we’d mentioned that we thought George W. was the village idiot, people embraced us like the long lost relatives that we probably are.

It helped that Lesley is the town librarian in a town of 2600 people. The library is located in a 300-year-old building that’s a gathering spot for local folk. Think of it as Starbucks, only the books are free. No espresso, but there was a pot of coffee brewing. So much for the stereotypical, “Would you like a cuppa…?” People popped in to pick up DVDs they ordered or for just the chance to chat up Lesley and her co-workers, Sally and Crawford.  It was a delight just to walk about the town with Lesley, who knew everyone!

So what should I show my friends? It’s made me think about what it is I find so unique about this place called Los Angeles, the most multicultural city in America. The place I call home.

I definitely want Lesley and her family to meet our friends and neighbors, a diverse lot indeed. While they’re here, my neighbors, Chuck and Chris, are having a block party to celebrate Chuck’s 50th birthday. They’re also celebrating 10 years of being partners and their house’s 100th year. I’ll count that as history in the making.

And then there’s the food. In Framlingham, we ordered out from the “curry house” one night for fabulous Indian food prepared by the local Pakistanis. Since Fram is an hour east of London, that’s about as diverse as it gets. I recently sent Lesley an email detailing some of the food options. Mexican food and margaritas, Cuban food at The Cuban Bistro in Alhambra, Spanish tapas at La Luna Negra, Thai food from Saladang, sushi, Chinese dim sum, and kick-ass bar-b-q from the new Gus’s in South Pasadena, and a late night stop at In-N-Out Burger. Maybe we’ll get lucky and my next door neighbor, Stella, will whip up one of her Greek specialties which she loves to share.

If my house guests get homesick, we can always take them out for Indian food. But at our local Indian restaurant, the cook is Latino. Only in America.

I couldn’t believe it when Lesley told me she’d never heard of Target. And I thought England had come out of the Dark Ages centuries ago! After a visit to Target, I’ll take her for a look-see at Costco. I don’t think she believed me when I told her you can only purchase soy sauce in a gallon-sized gasoline can.

Then there are the artichokes and the avocados to be enjoyed on the patio with pitchers of sangria. Trader Joe’s alone is worth a trip across the pond. Oh, and I can’t forget the parrots!  We live in their fly-over zone. Not only are they loud and colorful, they too are immigrants, which makes them the consummate Americans. Of course, we’ll have to spend a day at the beach and wallow in the craziness that is Venice.

Come to think of it, I know now exactly what I’m going to show them. I’m going to show them what the New World looks like. It’s called Los Angeles.


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#799: Corporate! Income! Tax!

Manage episode 189300620 series 1324387
By Discovered by Player FM and our community — copyright is owned by the publisher, not Player FM, and audio streamed directly from their servers.
Republicans are proposing big changes to the corporate income tax. Trillions of dollars are at stake. Here's what it all means.

404 episodes available. A new episode about every 3 days averaging 20 mins duration .


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