Fold/Spindle/Mutilate 2.1

Answer: When the hole is still open, as users of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer browser are in danger of finding out. The “object type vulnerability” was acknowledged by Microsoft about a month ago, and a patch was issued. The flaw allows an attacker to take control of a user’s system by embedding malicious code in a Web page. Since then, however, variations on the exploit have cropped up that continue to endanger even patched browsers, and a fix from Microsoft is still forthcoming. Various attacks aimed at the hole can hijack AOL Instant Messenger accounts, plant Trojan programs or send the browser to a Web page — usually porn — that invisibly changes the user’s dial-up settings to an expensive long-distance number. A patch for the patch is in the works, courtesy of the emergency room that is Microsoft’s Security Response Center.

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AOL accounts hijacked for some expensive talking dirty…
Also.. See When is a patch not a patch?

Security holes in Microsoft’s Internet Explorer have been exploited by hackers to hijack AOL instant messaging accounts and force unsuspecting web surfers to run up massive phone bills, computer experts cautioned on Friday.

Some Internet Explorer users are also finding that malicious websites are secretly slipping Trojan programs onto their computers, which could prove an even more dangerous exploit, said Drew Copley, a research engineer at eEye Digital Security, who discovered the original security vulnerability. Such stealth programs can include keystroke loggers that record everything a person types, or software to erase the hard drive, among other things, he said. Microsoft has released a patch for the original hole, which was reported about a month ago, said Stephen Toulouse, security programme manager for Microsoft’s Security Response Centre. The company is looking into what it says are variations of the original hole that have been discovered since then that the patch does not fix, Toulouse said. “We will release a fix for the variations,” he said.

(Read the article)

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By Joe Conason  |  Sept. 29, 2003
Who is protecting the Plame leakers?
Which Washington journalists — in addition to Robert Novak — did Bush administration officials select to receive the revenge leak about Ambassador Joseph Wilson’s wife? And why hasn’t a single one of them stepped forward to report the crime?

Now that we know the CIA has asked the Justice Department to investigate the “outing” of Valerie Plame — aka Mrs. Wilson — as an agency operative, this scandal has broken onto the front pages. Sooner or later, John Ashcroft may be forced to appoint a special counsel, as both Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., and John Kerry, D-Mass., have demanded. (One reason to name a special counsel, or independent counsel, is that a key suspect named Karl Rove used to work as a political consultant for Ashcroft — and played a part in his appointment as attorney general.)

While the president’s press secretary insists that Rove was not involved in this outrage, I can’t help wondering how reporters, editors and bureau chiefs in the capital justify their silence. Tim Russert of NBC and Robin Sproul of ABC both said they wouldn’t discuss any matter involving sources. That’s an ironclad rule of journalism, up to a point. But what should a journalist do when a source commits a serious crime in his or her presence? What if that crime not only threatens to jeopardize human lives, but also harms U.S. national security in the most profound way?

The spiteful unveiling of Plame very likely did both. She is reported to have worked undercover on matters involving weapons proliferation, an issue of the deepest concern at the moment. Those who exposed her, including Novak, ran a great risk of compromising her sources. In many countries where proliferation is a problem, those people could be killed immediately.

Salon.com | Joe Conason’s Journal

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By ERIC LICHTBLAU and RICHARD W. STEVENSON

ASHINGTON, Sept. 29

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By DOUGLAS JEHL

ASHINGTON, Sept. 29

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How the Bush administration’s propaganda machine — with the help of Roger Ailes’ Fox News — distorts the truth in the Middle East and at home.

By Jennifer L. Buckendorff
Sept. 29, 2003

It seemed like an auspicious debut: The new magazine Hi was just off the presses and it generated heavy buzz. It was glossy. It was young. It was fresh and hip and just a little bit sexy. The multimillion-dollar launch across 14 countries got headlines worldwide. And for the U.S. State Department that seemed to be good news, because Hi is a government publication issued to win hearts and minds in the Arab and Muslim world.

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Published: September 29, 2003

his country needs a purposeful long-term energy strategy that reduces its dependence on foreign oil and deals with climate change and all the other air-quality issues that are directly related to the burning of fossil fuels like oil and coal. So how has Congress chosen to develop such a strategy? By passing two mediocre energy bills and then handing the task of reconciling them to Senator Pete Domenici and Representative Billy Tauzin, both reliable allies of the fossil fuel industry (although Mr. Domenici is also a big fan of nuclear power) and neither a visionary thinker. Since Labor Day, these two veteran deal makers have been cherry-picking provisions they like, discarding those they don’t and for good measure infuriating their colleagues by adding new items of their own.

This process is undemocratic even by Congress’s clubby standards. Even worse is the almost certain outcome: a tired compendium of tax breaks and subsidies for energy producers leavened by a few gestures toward energy efficiency. The best evidence of Congress’s bias in favor of production as opposed to conservation is the fact that the legislation would authorize oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge while doing nothing to improve the fuel economy of automobiles and light trucks

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By CARL HULSE and DAVID E. SANGER

ASHINGTON, Sept. 28 — The Bush administration, which has been laboring to build domestic and international support for its Iraq policies, is facing renewed criticism about how it managed intelligence before the war, and internal tensions over the leak of a C.I.A. agent’s identity.

The debate over the rationale for the war was reopened by leaders of the House Intelligence Committee, who have delivered a critical interim assessment of how intelligence agencies concluded that Iraq had forbidden weapons and ties to Al Qaeda.

There were “too many uncertainties” in the outdated and inadequate information underlying a National Intelligence Estimate that the administration used to justify the war, the senior Republican and the senior Democrat on the panel said in a newly disclosed letter to George J. Tenet, director of central intelligence.

At the same time, officials confirmed that Mr. Tenet had asked the Justice Department to look into whether one or more administration officials had leaked information to the news media disclosing the identity of a covert C.I.A. agent. Mr. Tenet’s request was first reported by NBC News.

The agent is the wife of Joseph C. Wilson 4th, a former ambassador to Gabon. It was Mr. Wilson who, more than a year and a half ago, concluded in a report to the C.I.A. that there was no evidence that Saddam Hussein tried to buy uranium ore in Niger in an effort to build nuclear arms. But his report was ignored, and Ambassador Wilson has been highly critical of how the administration handled intelligence claims regarding Iraq’s nuclear weapons programs, suggesting that Mr. Bush’s aides and Vice President Dick Cheney’s office tried to inflate the threat.

(Read the article)

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Bush: ‘World is safer today’

WASHINGTON (Reuters) –President Bush sought to reassure Americans on Saturday that the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq was appropriate despite the failure to find weapons of mass destruction and with U.S. troops under daily guerrilla attack.

Bush used his weekly radio address to echo some of the themes of his Tuesday speech to the U.N. General Assembly, where he got a cool reception from many international leaders who disapproved of the U.S. policy of taking pre-emptive action against countries deemed to be a threat to the United States.

“The world is safer today because, in Iraq, our coalition ended a regime that cultivated ties to terror while it built weapons of mass destruction,” Bush said.

Who would have thunk it, you read this far, click the link
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LONDON, England (AP) –Thousands of protesters demanding an end to the occupation of Iraq took to the streets in London, Athens, Paris and other cities around the world, chanting slogans against the United States and Britain.

Saturday’s protests, the first major demonstrations since Saddam Hussein was ousted earlier this year, come as the United States tries to gain international help in rebuilding Iraq. The demonstrations were organized in each country by local activist groups that have informal contacts with each other.

London’s was the biggest protest, drawing 20,000 people. Demonstrators turned out in a dozen other countries, including South Korea, Turkey and Egypt.

“No more war. No more lies” proclaimed a banner pinned to the pedestal of Nelson’s Column in London’s Trafalgar Square, where demonstrators rallied after a march through the city. People of all ages, from gray-haired couples to toddlers in strollers, joined the orderly stream of protesters marching from Hyde Park.

Some young marchers chanted, “George Bush, Uncle Sam, Iraq will be your Vietnam!”

(Read the article)

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Candidate attacks president’s economic plan, Iraq strategy

(CNN) –Democratic presidential candidate Gen. Wesley Clark has attacked President Bush’s economic plan as a failure, and said the war in Iraq was “unnecessary” and lacks a way to succeed or end.

Speaking after an event in Washington at the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation’s annual conference, Clark, 58, told reporters that the American people are “really embarrassed” by the administration’s leadership.

“We’re in there without a strategy to win, and without a strategy to exit properly, and now the president’s asked for $87 billion to prosecute it,” said Clark.

“I think the reality is really striking the American people that this is an administration that doesn’t have an effective foreign policy, and it doesn’t have an effective strategy for prosecuting the war on terror,” he added.

Clark, who only joined the race 10 days ago, is a former CNN military analyst who led U.S. and allied forces in NATO’s 1999 air war in Kosovo.

Just this week, the retired general unveiled his first major domestic policy initiative, proposing a three-part, two-year $100 billion economic incentive plan that would be funded from reductions in those parts of Bush’s tax cut program that benefit families with high-end incomes.

Clark said the president’s tax cuts have made the country poorer.

“I’ve done more with a better plan for jobs here in eight days than this president’s done in two and a half years,” Clark said.

His plan, Clark said, “calls for pulling back the tax cuts for those Americans that are making $200,000 a year and above, and using that money in a way that will advance our national interest. It’s creating jobs. It’s focused like a laser beam on job creation.”

The money in Clark’s plan would focus on improving homeland security, bolstering public education, meeting health care costs, and financing law enforcement and social services.

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Overcoming his church’s bizarre reputation and his own criminal record, the Rev. Sun Myung Moon has cemented ties with the Bush administration — and gained government funding for his closest disciples.

By John Gorenfeld

Last December, at his three-day God and World Peace event, the Rev. Sun Myung Moon drew a notable slate of political figures, from Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., to Rep. Danny Davis, D-Ill., and, perhaps most notably, James Towey, director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, who offered some respectful opening remarks to Moon’s Unification Church faithful. Moon followed, and called for all religions to come together in support of the Bush plan for faith-based initiatives.

Coming from Moon that made perfect sense, because he already believes all religions will come together — under him. “The separation between religion and politics,” he has observed on many occasions, “is what Satan likes most.” His gospel: Jesus failed because he never attained worldly power. Moon will succeed, he says, by purifying our sex-corrupted culture, and that includes cleaning up gays (”dung-eating dogs,” as he calls them) and American women (”a line of prostitutes”). Jews had better repent, too. (Moon claims that the Holocaust was payback for the crucifixion of Christ: “Through the principle of indemnity, Hitler killed 6 million Jews.”) His solution is a world theocracy that will enforce proper sexual habits in order to bring about heaven on earth.

What sort of proper sexual habits? According to Moon, in order to restore blood purity, very specific practices are prescribed. Sex before marriage is out of the question, and when sexual consummation does happen, it must adhere to very specific instructions. First, a photograph of Moon must be nearby, so that everything occurs under the reverend’s watchful eye. After two nights of woman-on-top sex, the couple reverse positions, whereupon the man, according to Moon, restores dominion over Eve, via the proper missionary position. Then, according to the instructions attributed to the U.C.’s American Blessed Family Department, “after the act of love, both spouses should wipe their sexual areas with the Holy Handkerchief” –referring to the church-supplied washcloth — which must “be kept individually labeled and should never be laundered or mixed up.”

Incredibly, it now appears that under the new priorities of the budding Faith Based Initiative, the federal government has given Moon disciples its imprimatur — and funding.

(Read the article)

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by Joe Conason

The 2001 videotape of Colin Powell’s remarks about Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction is damning. So why isn’t it getting more airtime?

Sept. 26, 2003  | 
Has everybody seen the videotape of Colin Powell’s remarks about Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction on Feb. 24, 2001? I suspect not.

Uncovered by Australian investigative reporter John Pilger, the tape of those comments strikes me as just as damningly untrue — and much more significant — than Bill Clinton’s famous “didn’t have sex with that woman” lie — but for some inexplicable reason this tape isn’t getting quite as much airtime.

Here is what Powell told reporters on that day in Cairo at a press conference with the Egyptian foreign minister Amr Moussa. Asked about angry local reaction to his visit because of American policy toward Iraq, the secretary of state sought to explain:

(Read the article)

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We were both professionals. Now I’m sweeping up popcorn, my husband is selling motorcycles, and our house is on the block. There are a lot of us these days.
By Barbara Card Atkinson
MIDDLESEX COUNTY, Mass. —

Several months ago, my husband and I received two rebate checks simply for having children, all part of the Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003, an economy-stimulating incentive. Congress approved this quickie tax cut so we’d all go out and buy Pottery Barn lamps and Gap boot-cut trousers and then presumably the economy, and we, would be saved. Instead, I cashed the checks, paid off some bills, and then tucked my dignity under my arm and went to file for food stamps.

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By ERIC LICHTBLAU

ASHINGTON, Sept. 27

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By MAUREEN DOWD

ASHINGTON

There are many disturbing passages in the soon-to-be-published book “Rumsfeld: A Personal Portrait,” by Midge Decter.

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AtStake’s firing of Dan Geer for his authorship of a report that Microsoft’s worldwide monopoly on desktop software makes it easier for worms to flourish (aside: was the report for Duh magazine?) serves as a useful reminder that ”free speech” is a right only for publications that don’t depend on support from advertisers and for individuals who don’t depend on their employers’ paychecks.

Complaining about Microsoft is about as useful as complaining about an atmosphere that is 80/20 nitrogen/oxygen.  You might not like it but that’s what you get on Earth.  You could escape the ratio and Microsoft’s monopoly by moving to Mars but the trip would be more expensive than the license fee for Windows 2005 or whatever.  A company focussed on medium-term profits would probably not want its workers wasting time complaining about something that isn’t going to change.  (My own lame attempt was to encourage the federal government, which created the monopoly to begin with and sustains it as Microsoft’s largest customer, to switch to open source software.)

So in solidarity with Mr. Geer, let’s fill the comments section with Microsoft hatred.  I’ll start off with the things that I hate about Microsoft, some big and some small…

Philip Greenspun’s Weblog
an interesting idea every three months;
a posting every day.

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