Brought to you each week by
the 84 Online Team, a loose collection of volunteers from around the Kentuckiana
region.
84 Online is broadcast live
each Sunday from 3:00 PM to 6:00 PM (EDT) on WHAS radio, 840 AM. You may call the show directly during
this time period at 502-571-8484 or toll free at 1-800-444-8484. You may also interact with the team
online by visiting www.84online.com and
clicking on Chat Room. IRC users
can access the room through server ucanweb.com, channel #84online. Chat hours match the show on Sunday and
generally some of the members are in weeknights from 8:00 to 9:00 PM
EDT.
Vol. 1, No.
10
6-19-01
Carnivore. The word conjures images of a T-Rex
stalking a herd of saurapods waiting for a young or ill longneck herbivore to
stray from the pack, then attacking that individual and rendering them limb from
limb. Meat eater extraordinaire
meets mild mannered plant eater with blood and gore as the
outcome.
We’ve seen this scenario played out from Ray Harryhausen to Steven
Spielberg, the T-Rex is the bad guy and the brontosaurus is the innocent
victim. Enter the FBI. They have a device called Carnivore
(recently renamed to the less threatening DCS1000), which is basically a black
box that they can attach to an ISP’s server and record traffic to and from an
email or web address. They need a
court order to deploy it but its actual functionality remains a
mystery.
Privacy groups and the ACLU are having kittens (quite rightly in my
opinion) over the fact that the box apparently captures all traffic to and from
the ISP and depends on the FBI to examine only data packets that are covered by
the warrant. It’s somewhat akin to
giving a law enforcement organization a warrant to collect and read one
individual’s mail (the snail mail variety) but to do so they have to manually
sift through every letter, package and postcard that passes through the local
Post Office looking for ones addressed to that
individual.
In the above scenario the possibility of abuse is enormous! Even though they are tasked to finding
and reading mail sent to or from John Smith, they see the sender and recipient
of every letter to and from the area.
One would think that Chad Smith getting a letter from EarthFirst or Laura
Brown getting something in a plain brown wrapper from Adam&Eve might tempt
the law enforcement officer to take a peak. Since all Carnivore operators log in as
“Administrator” there’s no way to audit who does what to which data
packets.
This controversial technology has been in the news for months but the
recent Supreme Court decision in Kyllo v. United States (which involved law
enforcement use of thermal imaging equipment to find evidence of “grow lights”
inside a residence without first getting a warrant) was ruled
unconstitutional. Antonin Scalia
spoke for the majority when he wrote “In the home.... all details are intimate
details, because the entire area is held safe from prying government eyes.”
House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-Texas) used this ruling as a basis
for calling for an end to Carnivore.
In a letter to Attorney General John Ashcroft, Armey
says:
“Where... the Government uses a device that is not in general public use, to explore details of a private home that would previously have been unknowable without physical intrusion, the surveillance is a Fourth Amendment "search," and is presumptively unreasonable without a warrant.
It is reasonable, then, to ask whether the Internet surveillance system
formerly known as "Carnivore" similarly undermines the minimum expectation that
individuals have that their personal electronic communications will not be
examined by law enforcement devices unless a specific court warrant has been
issued.”
Armey’s
assumption that this ruling means that “any” monitoring of what you do in the
confines of your home is unconstitutional without a warrant dovetails nicely
with what Carnivore does. It allows
Federal Agents access to your email and web traffic, even if they never look at
the content. If they don’t have a
warrant they aren’t supposed to have access to what you do
online.
Armey is
threatening the funding of the DOJ if they don’t render Carnivore toothless and
I couldn’t agree more.
Kevin Mefford,
Editor
A Screensaver or Two
While we all know that screensavers no longer serve any purpose on modern monitors, I have to admit they are colorful ways to customize the look of one’s machine.
One of my all-time favorite
screensavers is called “ZoneRings from Outer Space”. This is a very customizable graphical
screensaver. There are some 350
settings that can be tweaked in tens of thousands of configurations. The one
feature that is missing is the ability to make the graphics respond to musical
input like the visualizations in most MP3 players do. This fascinating program is no longer
available from the original developer’s site, but can be downloaded for free
here: http://www.graphicsdepot.com/szoner.html
There is also an enhancer
for ZoneRings called “The ZoneRings SuperCharger” that adds another 200-300
settings. While a demo version is
available at the site listed above, a free version is available at ZdNet’s
site.
Here is that link: http://hotfiles.zdnet.com/cgi-bin/texis/swlib/hotfiles/search.html
You will also find
additional “Space” themed screensavers at the Hotfiles site. Many of those have some spectacular
pictures from NASA included in the programs.
That’s it for this week, so
get spacey…Pop Pink Floyd’s “Meddle” into the player, turn on ZoneRings and
hearken back to the 60’s.
Art
Maley
Does the
fact that you have to double click icons on your PC to start programs but single
click links and icons on the Web have you a bit schizophrenic? How about making your PC single click as
well! Simply open Windows Explorer,
click View from the text menu at the top and choose Folder Options. Click the little dot next to Web style
on the General tab, then Apply and OK.
Going on vacation? No
one there uses AOL? But you are expecting important email and you really need to
be able to read it? And your "hosts" don't have AOL?
Not to worry! You can
access your AOL email from any computer that has access to the Internet. If your
"host" doesn’t have a computer, try the
Library, copy shops (such as
Kinko's), cyber cafes, etc.
Once at a computer -- go to the Internet, go to
http://aolmail.aol.com (no
www), click Go. When the AOL Mail window opens,
type in your Screen Name and Password -- and there you are -- Your email. You
can read it, save it, answer it and write new email.
Now you can relax and
enjoy your vacation.
Q: While listening to the show on Sunday I
caught the tail end of a
conversation about a possible logbook virus.
Has that been confirmed
and would it have anything to do with a "Frunlog"
such as I found on my
Windows Explorer (Windows 98)? What is the
Frunlog and should it be there.
Also does reformatting the hard drive get rid
of most viruses? I panicked,
being new to computers. Thanks in
advance, great show.
A: Reformatting will get rid of most
virii. The exception is a boot sector
virus. Here is an info link
on those:
http://antivirus.about.com/compute/antivirus/library/blboot.htm
As
for frunlog, that is usually a .txt file associated with a first run log
of a
screensaver or some other program.
Art
Maley
If you have tech support
questions or ideas and/or submissions for our newsletter please email them to bob@iglou.com .
Copyright 2001, The 84
Online Team. All rights
reserved. Publication, rebroadcast
or storage is prohibited without prior consent, however you may freely forward
this publication to friends as long as A) it is forwarded in its entirety and B)
no fee is charged.
Information provided in this
publication is provided "as is" without warranty of any kind, either expressed
or implied. Although the
information provided is known to work on most systems, it may not work on ALL
systems. Make use of any
information supplied at your own risk.
The 84 Online Team is a
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with nor employed by Clear Channel Communications or WHAS. Views and opinions voiced in this
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