The etymology of Zango

The indefatigable PaperGhost takes on the role of lexicographer and hunts for the derivation of the word Zango, and ends up… nowhere. 

But the journey is the reward.

Zango Mango Soda

No information on what it tastes like, but the logo is wonderful. At this point, I need to go back to Kick Arse E Drinks boy, who is the inside source on all things drink related, as long as it’s called Zango. From his reviews page:

“Its sour, strong, Has Gurana, Caffine, costs 1.99, stings like a motha f**ka, ALL good lol.”

More fun here.

Alex Eckelberry

Eric Schmidt’s “let it happen” remarks

There was a bit of an (ahem) stir earlier this week in the blogosphere over a post by respected ZDnet blogger Donna Bogatin, where she wrote about some comments on click fraud made by Google CEO Eric Schmidt.

While she reported Eric’s comments accurately, her blog lead off with the startling headline “Google CEO on click fraud: ‘let it happen’ is perfect economic solution”.   Her blog got all kinds of furious reaction in the blogosphere, with people blowing up about how terrible Google is, etc.  Google ultimately responded here (via Battelle).

I have examined the actual talk he gave and have come to the conclusion that he was misunderstood.

First, understand the context of his remarks: Schmidt, himself highly educated, was giving a talk at SEIPR, the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, a group of smart people who discuss and work on matters involving theories of markets and the like. It’s not a talk with a group of Wall Street analysts, who want facts and figures. 

At the forum, he was asked a question by a Stanford student which came in two parts:

a) What are you thoughts on click fraud?

b) Is there an economic solution more than just technological solution?

Schmidt answered the first part of the question by saying that:

1. Google worries about click fraud a lot

2. They have engineers who think it’s “great fun” to get ahead of click fraud (in this case, he didn’t mean “great fun” as marginalizing the issue — it’s a phrase more in keeping with the spirit in scientific and academic communities to look at deep problems with a sense of game).

3. Click fraud is not that large of an issue for Google. 

4. Google does, in fact, try to detect it and eliminate it, and tries to decrease the time and increase the rate by which they automatically detect it  — a process Schmidt refers to as “a good economic answer”.

Then in answering the second part of the question, Eric waxed theoretical on something like a form of efficient markets, where he said, “let’s imagine, for purposes of argument” that nothing was done about click fraud, there would ultimately be “a self-correcting process” (basically, advertisers will pay less for ads because the quality of ads are being diluted by click fraud). 

While econ wonks can argue about his point ad infinitum, citing asymmetrical information theory and the like, one can see that his point is, in fact, fairly reasonable — on a theoretical basis, which is exactly how he framed the answer. As a crude example, look at the market for post-Katrina housing right now in New Orleans.  The price of the houses already reflects the fact that they are a) mostly destroyed and b) have a risk associated with future hurricanes.  Yes, I know there are other sides to this perhaps overly-simplistic view but it’s a long and exhaustive discussion perhaps relegated to another arena.

In a world increasingly demanding hard facts and answers in some kind of obsessive Teutonic fashion, a world which operates on sound bites, Schmidt made the mistake of exercising his right to talk in abstract terms.  Now, the content of his economic theory may be under debate, but in no event did he actually state this theory as Google policy. And for that the uproar?  Is it not just possible to simply speculate or theorize publicly in the subjunctive, without worry that words will be taken out of context and transformed into the indicative?  

You can see Schmidt’s actual words here — just forward to 31 minutes (or listen to the whole talk, it’s quite interesting).

Alex Eckelberry

Private Folders yanked

My faithful blog readers are probably well aware of this, but that Private Folders thingie I blogged earlier about is now zapped — pulled by Microsoft, apparently because of IT managers getting severely nervous.

CNET link here via /.

 

Alex Eckelberry

Update:  Well, faithful blog reader Stuart just alerted me that the Microsoft download link is still live.   It’s possible that Microsoft is providing the program as a free download, but won’t be incorporating it as a feature into future versions of Windows. I will try to find out more as to what is going on.

Spysweeper 5 torrent is actually adware

Adware comes in all forms, and this time, it’s under the false pretense of being Webroot’s Spysweeper 5. To be specific, there is a torrent for SpySweeper 5 that comes with a “keygen” to bypass registration, but when executed it is actually adware —a 180solutions installer. It immediately connects to the net and then installs the Aquarium screensaver. 

The link is here:  www(dot)torrentspy(dot)com/torrent/793200/Spy_Sweeper_5_Final

 

Jarrett Levine
Lead Spyware Researcher

 

Umm, no, that’s a Dell LAPTOP, not a LAPDANCE

Just a little stupid side humor.  Earlier this week I blogged about Dell’s new blog.

However, Donna Bogatin over at ZDNET had an unfortunate mishap visiting the site.  Since the Dell blog is called “One2One”, she naturally went to www.one2one. com and was in for a surprise.  It’s an adult site.

Dellone2one

Well, like I said, it’s a little stupid side humor.  The official Dell blog site is one2one.dell.com.

Alex Eckelberry
(Thanks Corrine for reminding me about this one).

PowerPoint zero day

Another zero day exploit, with Powerpoint affected this time. Symantec link here

Here’s what you see if you’re unfortunate enough to open an infected Powerpoint file.

Trojan_ppdropper_b_1

(Image from Symantec Security Response)

While this may not be widespread, it’s worth noting that Andreas Marx over at AV-Test recently got involved in an industry espionage case today where a (now patched) hole in Office was used to collect and steal quite a bit of data. 

Some German media attention here

Alex Eckelberry
(And thanks to Andreas Marx)

Is Microsoft resorting to bribes?

Yesterday we learned that Microsoft will be taking the unusual step of spifing resellers 20% of their license sales — in addition to their normal margins. It seems that it’s going to be more profitable to become a reseller of Microsoft product than a developer of Microsoft product. 

Is this a good thing?  Well, hear me out.

When I wrote recently on predatory pricing, I got all kinds of interesting reactions.  There were really two camps that emerged:

Camp #1. Alex is a big fat whiner. The argument went something like this: “Security companies have been screwing the customer for years now and it’s about time someone set them straight.  Besides, it’s not really predatory pricing that Microsoft is practicing.  It’s natural market forces at work.  Besides, there’s no evidence that Microsoft is losing money on its bid to get into security.” 

Camp #2. Alex is bringing up a good point.  This is something we need to be concerned about. 

Unfortunately for me, Camp 1 was the majority.

It’s notable that Camp 2 was largely people who have been long-time Microsoft observers or have actually had the unfortunate circumstance of competing directly with Microsoft.  

I don’t mind the slings and arrows.  I want people to think, discuss and argue these points.  It’s important stuff to debate. 

And thinking about it, I came to the conclusion that Camp 1 had a pretty good point:  Some security companies have been screwing customers for years.   Overpriced, bloated suites.  Constant hikes in subscription fees.  Poor quality products.  You know, that kind of thing.

But that’s really on the consumer side of the business.  On the enterprise side (protecting corporations), most security companies have been doing a pretty good job. 

And I made a big mistake in my blog:  I started off talking about OneCare, which really isn’t the major issue. In fact, it’s the enterprise, where Microsoft has significantly underpriced the market.

The thing is, it actually costs a lot of money to run an enterprise security software company.  It’s an intensely competitive business and the research alone will eat your operating expenses.  And when it comes to protecting corporations, it’s a whole different ballgame.  You need enterprise support specialists, sales engineers, and a high level of quality assurance.  Plus, the expense of marketing to corporations is pretty high, paying for outside sales offices and the like.  There is a real danger that Microsoft’s brutal undercutting of enterprise software companies will take the wind out of a lot of sails.

I compete with free and inexpensive products all the time, and in fact, I have a free firewall myself that I give away. The point is not price — the point is predatory pricing — where a large manufacturer like Microsoft comes into a market and undercuts the incumbents. 

Is Microsoft pricing their products below cost?  You tell me:  I would estimate that Microsoft’s investment in security is perhaps three-quarters of a billion dollars.  Can they make back that investment while covering their expenses selling security software at low-ball prices, then giving discounts to resellers and then giving more back-end discounts?  As one customer said to us today:

Microsoft has seriously cut the price of Antigen compared to what Sybari charged, especially for Select customers.  We can get the Antigen suite for about $10 per user per year, and that’s for nine AV engines, Exchange scanner, SMTP scanner, antispam, and central management server.  With Sybari we were paying about double that and didn’t get the central management server, antispam or SMTP scanner — just AV.  

Antigen Gateway is annually $7.80 per user for a five-user shop.  Assuming a reseller discount of 30%, then the 20% bribe, you’re looking at a wholesale cost of $4.38 per user.   That’s for a five user shop — never mind 1,000 users.  Is Microsoft is going to make money at those prices, recouping their massive investment at the same time? 

Perhaps some may think all of this is nothing to be concerned about, and perhaps they are right.

One might, however, propose that the security industry should be a vibrant, diverse one; and that the business should not be dominated by one vendor who can be taken down by attack; and to whom the majority of the community relies upon. If Microsoft wants to compete fairly, I have absolutely no problem with that. But if they want to undercut the market, it makes things a bit different.

I remember 15 years ago, when we had a variety of databases to choose from in the small to medium business market. dBase, Paradox, FoxPro, etc. Today we have primarily MS SQL and Access, at least for the small to medium business market (Oracle and IBM continue to be the major providers in the high-end market, and let’s not get into the LAMP discussion—MySQL is a far cry from MS SQL).

In the early 90s, Microsoft priced Access below their cost, they blew the margins out the business, and took out the incentive for new entrants to innovate and push the envelope. This is a simple fact that any Borland executive who was there at the time will testify to, and as an ex-Borlander myself, I can say that it was certainly not a good thing.  Can you really tell me that there have been vast improvements in database design over the last 15 years since Microsoft barreled into the market?  

The same goes for languages — we had Borland and other really innovative companies. Now we have Microsoft as the dominant commercial language provider. Borland finally gave up and is moving into automated testing.  

It’s been the same wave in browsers, as well. The majority of the market moved to IE. And after that, we had the massive wave of adware and spyware, directly targeted at IE. And on and on and on.

Is this healthy in the security market? Will new companies be able to get funding for their products? Will businesses continue to invest in this space, given that Microsoft may dominate? That’s the critical issue – will companies go on cruise control in the security market because major investment just isn’t worth it, while budding innovators put their efforts elsewhere?

There are those who welcome Microsoft’s entry into the security space, and many are feeling (justifiably) that there are security vendors who have been selling bloated, overpriced products and deserve a bit of a kick in their backside.

It’s just that I question whether or not it’s healthy in the end to have a Microsoft hegemony in security. 

 

Alex Eckelberry

Every breath you take…

Now, web publishers can watch movies of “individual browsing sessions”.

Unlike traditional web analytics that produce only pure statistics, ClickTale gives webmasters the ability to watch movies of users’ individual browsing sessions. Every mouse movement, every click and every keystroke are recorded for convenient playback. With ClickTale, webmasters can improve website usability, enhance navigation, and increase website effectiveness.

Link here via MediaPost.

Alex Eckelberry

Dell has a blog.

And it’s not in India.  It’s in the US. 

I’ve spent time at the Dell offices in Austin and there are a lot of good people there, trying to do the right thing.  We also buy a lot of Dell systems.  But things like moving support to India don’t help. 

My only advice for their blog might be to have a central person who blogs.  It really helps to focus the blog, create the style, create the right energy.  Umm… how about Michael Dell?  Heck, I make the time to blog and it’s not that much work, really.  Every CEO should blog.

Whatever.  At least they’re blogging.

Link here (one2one.dell.com).

Alex Eckelberry
(PS I hope to have a big post up in the next couple of weeks about corporate blogging.)

84% of companies have had a virus, worm or trojan horse infection through email?

Osterman Research has just released a study of email security trends, and has this interesting statistic:

Eighty-four percent of organizations have had a virus, worm or Trojan horse successfully infiltrate their network through email, while 54% of organizations have had such a threat successfully enter their network through the Web. However, only about one in five organizations have been infected by a public instant messaging (IM) network worm or virus.

Through email?  To me, this highlights how dangerous it is to rely on only one vendor for your email antivirus. 

Use a multi-engine approach.  Our own email security product for Exchange, Ninja, uses multiple antivirus engines, so of course I’m biased here.

But so do others — Microsoft Antigen and even GFI.  You can also use one AV product on the Exchange server, and another at the gateway.  But relying on one engine alone seems to me to be asking for trouble.

Alex Eckelberry

Zango and MySpace

Monday, our good friend PG discovered 180Solutions Zango on MySpace.

Well who put the Zango on MySpace?  180Solutions! As reported in TechWeb, “the marketing company admitted one of its own developers had set up the MySpace profiles.” A claimed mistake, as the company said “the developer was acting without approval and in ignorance of the company’s ‘hands-off’ policy regarding MySpace.”

But then there’s this: “the two sides — adware provider and security researcher — couldn’t be farther apart, and Zango’s Stratz made it sound as if that would always be the case…”

Where is the love, people?  Come together!

Alex Eckelberry

 

Sunbelt TechTips for the week of July 10

Windowsxp-2

How to turn the guest account on and off
If you want to allow someone to access your computer without creating an account for him/her, you can activate the XP Guest account. The guest account has limited privileges and users who log on with this account cannot access password protected files, folders and settings. If it’s not being used, you should turn the Guest account off to prevent hackers from using it to get into the computer. Here’s how to turn it on and off if your XP computer is not a member of a Windows domain (most home systems):

  • Log on with an administrative account.
  • Click Start | Control Panel | User Accounts.
  • Click Guest.
  • Select “Turn on the Guest Account” or “Turn off the Guest Account.”
  • Click OK.

You can also activate or deactivate the Guest (or other) account using the Computer Management console, by clicking Users in the left console tree, then right clicking the user account you want to enable or disable and selecting Properties.

Error connecting Xbox 360 to Windows Media Center PC
If you try to connect your Xbox gaming device to your XP Media Center Edition PC, you might get an error that says “Connection Error.” You should try installing (or reinstalling) the Media Center Extender software on the XP Media Center computer. For instructions on how to do so, see KB article 909163.

Can’t remove trusted root certificate authority
If you’re using certificate-based authentication and you try to use Internet Explorer to remove a trusted root certification authority on your XP computer, it may not get removed or it may get reinstalled automatically. What’s up with that? It happens because the Update Root Certificates component is turned on. It’s easy to turn this component off and prevent this from happening. To find out how, see KB article 283717.

Error 1719 when you try to add or remove a program
If you try to add or remove a program that uses Windows Installer Microsoft Software Installation (.msi) package files (such as Microsoft Office programs) you may get Error Message 1719 that says “The Windows Installer Service could not be accessed. You may be running in safe mode or Windows Installer may not be correctly installed.” If you aren’t running in safe mode, the most likely cause is that the Installer files on the disk are missing or damaged. You may need to re-register the Windows Installer by editing the registry, or you may have to reinstall the Installer. For instructions on how to do both, see KB article 315346.

Block common ad server URLs
Don’t want to see all those ads from common Internet ad servers like ads.doubleclick.net, ads.infospace.com, ads.msn.com and many more? As you probably know, your browser goes to the IP address associated with those URLs, and you can use the hosts file on your computer to redirect those unwanted URLs to a non-existent address. The hosts file is one of several ways your computer matches addresses to IP addresses. The hosts file is a text file that you can edit. You’ll find it in the WINDOWSsystem32driversetc directory in XP. But you don’t have to go through all the trouble of finding the URLs for those ad servers because Mike’s done it for you. He’s created a host file that contains all those servers and even built an installer program that will install it for you. Link here.  You can also test-drive our Kerio Personal Firewall, which provides ad-blocking.

WinVista_h_Thumb

Keep up with New Vista Developments: Windows Vista Team Blog
The Vista Launch Team at Microsoft keep you updated on what’s going on with the new OS, as well as other cool tech ideas and gadgets they run across, in this blog. Check it out here.

While you’re there, be sure to take a look at the screenshots of the new Windows Standard theme.

Use Vista’s Reading Pane to preview your docs without opening them
One of my favorite new features in the Vista Explorer is the Reading Pane. When you turn this on (by clicking the Organize button in the toolbar and selecting Layout | Reading Pane), you get an instant preview of documents that you highlight in Explorer, without opening them. For instance, just click a Word document and you can examine its contents in the Reading Pane, including all formatting and any embedded graphics (similarly to the way you can preview a message in Outlook’s reading pane without opening the message). Way cool! If you’re beta testing Vista, let us know your favorite new feature and we’ll compile a list of the top vote-getters.

Deb Shinder

Whatever happened to the “customer is king” philosophy?

There are plenty of drawbacks to being older in our youth-obsessed society, but one of the good things, to me, is that I’m able to remember a time when most businesses actually cared about pleasing and keeping their customers – or at least they made a good stab at pretending to. Now many of them don’t even try to pretend. Oh, they’re falling all over themselves to get your business, but once they have it, you find yourself feeling completely taken for granted.

This seems to be especially a fact of life in so-called “service” industries. Maybe that’s why so many of them feel compelled to lock you in with long term contracts obligating you to continue to do business with them or pay a hefty price. We visited that subject about a year and a half ago, when I moved to a new home and discovered that the “two year” contract a security monitoring company salesman told me I was signing was actually a three year contract and I had to keep paying for another 13 months for a service I was no longer using or risk damaging my credit record. Well, hallelujah, that contract was finally up last February, though it took numerous phone calls and certified letters to get them to confirm my cancellation and prevent the heinous “automatic renewal” clause from kicking in.

My latest experience with customer non-service is with our cell phone company, Verizon Wireless. First I have to be fair and say that up until now, I’ve been pretty pleased with Verizon. I left Cingular several years back because of what happened when my mom died. She had a cell phone with approximately a year left on a two year contract. I wanted to keep the phone and pay out the rest of the contract, but there was a problem. We couldn’t find her phone. I still don’t know what she’d done with it. I went to the Cingular store and asked to buy a new phone – I didn’t expect to get it replaced for free. But they wouldn’t let me do it because my name wasn’t on the contract. Instead, they wanted me to take out a whole new contract – for another two years – in my own name.

I patiently explained that if they would let me take over this contract, they’d get paid for the rest of the contract term, and if they didn’t, they wouldn’t because mom was deceased and had no estate to speak of. It would have been in their own best interest because I probably would also have taken out a new contract in my name at the end of that contract term, but I didn’t want to be forced into doing that yet. No go. I went to Verizon and they sent “past due” notices to mom for the next six months, threatening to damage her credit and refer her account to a collection agency. I’m not sure what part of “deceased” they didn’t understand.

So I’ve been with Verizon for the last four years and I like their service and coverage. When I renewed my contract last time, I got Samsung i730 Pocket PC phones for both my husband and myself, with unlimited Internet access. I also have my son’s phone on my plan, so we spend a nice little chunk of money with them every month. We’ve been loyal customers and recommended them to others who were thinking of switching cell phone providers.

Then last week my husband saw a new PPC phone they have out, the Starcomm XV6700.  He liked the “side slide” keyboard and the claims of better battery life, and wanted to upgrade from the Samsung. The Verizon web site advertises the phone for $399 with a $100 online discount, so a new customer can get it for $299. That seemed pretty reasonable to us for this type of phone.

Unfortunately, existing loyal customers don’t get the same deal. We soon discovered that to upgrade, we’d have to pay $519 for the phone – more than $200 more than the cost for a new customer. The “screw the customer” policy strikes again.

I’m sure you all have your own examples of this policy in action, since it seems to be prevalent all over these days. You see it when you buy a computer from a major vendor – the sales folks are quick to smooth talk you in fluent English, but just wait ’til you’ve already paid for it and need tech support. You get to wait on hold for long minutes to try to communicate with someone in a foreign country who barely speaks the same language.

And it’s not just in the tech-related industries that customer service is doing a disappearing act. I just bought a very fancy Jenn-Air outdoor grill from Lowe’s. Paid extra to have them come out and set it up. They didn’t tell me until they got here with it and had it all in place that they “weren’t allowed” to connect the propane tank. Okay, so how hard could that be? We consulted the manual, screwed the hose to the tank, turned on the gas – and there was a loud screeching noise.

Now what? I’m no propane expert, so I figured the thing to do was call one. First I tried a plumbing company that had done work on some natural gas appliances for us. Sorry, they only handle built in NG grills. Calls to a couple more plumbers yielded the same results. Then I tried a company that sells propane. Sorry, they don’t do that unless you bought the grill from them – even for a fee. They suggested I send the grill back to the manufacturer. Now we’re talking about a huge contraption that has two “island” wings on each side and spans a corner. It’s not like I can even load it in the car and take it back to the store, much less somehow ship it back to the manufacturer.

So we have an enormous grill that cost us $1500 and looks real pretty, but we can’t cook on it. I suppose we could throw charcoal in the bottom and use it that way. I’m going back to Lowe’s tomorrow to hunt down a manager and plead for some help. I’m willing to pay someone to make the thing work – if I can just find someone who does that. Who knows? Maybe they’ll surprise me. I fully understand that sometimes things don’t work. I just don’t understand why there seems to be no one who’ll fix it, even for extra money.

So: is it just me or are others having the same sorts of experiences?

Does it seem to you that once a company gets your money, they have no more use for you?

Are there some companies out there that do provide good customer service (I’ve had good experiences with Sears following through and taking care of problems that arise with their merchandise and services).

What’s causing this decline in customer service, and is there a way to turn it around? 

Deb Shinder

PIRT continues to devastate Phishers

Pirt2312312312_small

I’m so impressed with the dedicated volunteers who, without any compensation but the sheer desire to terminate phishing sites and help others, continue to do an amazing job with PIRT, the Phishing Incident Reporting and Termination squad.

For June, we have the following top-10 phishing reports:

PayPal => 279
eBay => 142
Bank of America => 50
Nationwide => 31
Wachovia => 30
e-gold => 21
Wells Fargo => 18
Banca Intesa => 18
HSBC => 16
Chase => 15

A full list is here.

PIRT is a community effort and believes in freely sharing information and working as a team. The organizations PIRT works with and notifies in their exclusive PIRT email and XML feed alerts for every confirmed phish are:

Alice’s Registry  
Anti-Phishing Working Group
Australian Computer Emergency Response Team (AusCERT)
Authentium
Blue Coat
Brand Dimensions
Co-Logic
CyberDefender
EveryDNS
Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)
Firetrust
Fortinet
Forum of Incident Response and Security Teams (FIRST)
FraudWatch International
Infotex
Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3)
Internet Identity
Intellectual Property Services
Korea Information Security Agency (KISA)
Korea Internet Security Center (KrCERT/CC)
Laboratoire d’EXpertise en Securite Informatique (LEXSI)
Malware Block List, National Cyber-Forensics and Training Alliance (NCFTA)
Netcraft
Okie Island Trading Company
OpenDNS
Rede Nacional de Ensino e Pesquisa (RNP)
Sunbelt-Software
Support Intelligence
SURBL
Team Cymru
TrustDefender
United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT)
Websense
Webwasher
XBlock

Remember to submit phishing reports to Castlecops.com/pirt (or by email — pirt(at)castlecops.com). 

But we also need more handlers.  If you want to join and help, click here.

Alex Eckelberry

Private folders…

Bn3

Microsoft has released a free software program, Microsoft Private Folder, which allows you to password protect a folder.

Privatefolder_123108It’s pretty easy to work with for the home user but one wonders what businesses will think about employees using it without permission (imagine if an employee puts valuable company material into a folder and then leaves, without any way for the company to retrieve that data).  I’m not even sure it’s manageable through Group Policy.  

At any rate, it’s free and you can download it here (via CNET).

Alex Eckelberry

 

 

Everything you wanted to know about information privacy but were too afraid to ask

Daniel Solove, associate professor at GW Law, has written a very interesting piece on information privacy, entitled “A brief history of information privacy law”. 

The law had long protected one’s home. The maxim that the home is one’s castle appeared as early as 1499.  More well-known is a judicial pronouncement in Semayne’s Case in 1604 that “the house of every one is to him as his castle and fortress.”  According to William Blackstone, the law has “so particular and tender a regard to the immunity of a man’s house that it stiles it his castle, and will never suffer it to be violated with impunity.”

At the time of the Revolutionary War, the central privacy issue was freedom from government intrusion. The Founders detested the use of general warrants and writs of assistance. Writs of assistance authorized “sweeping searches and seizures without any evidentiary basis” and general warrants “resulted in ‘ransacking’ and seizure of the personal papers of political dissenters, authors, and printers of seditious libel.” As Patrick Henry declared: “They may, unless the general government be restrained by a bill of rights, or some similar restrictions, go into your cellars and rooms, and search, ransack, and measure, everything you eat, drink, and wear. They ought to be restrained within proper bounds.”

Link here via beSpacific.

For Americans, it provides a good background as to how some of the recent degradation of our civil liberties fit into the framework of our country’s history.  And for my overseas blog readers, it will elucidate as to why us Americans are so nutty about privacy. 

So keep fighting.  Wiretapping, kicking down doors and the like just can’t be permitted to happen because there’s a precious legacy of freedoms wrung by the blood of a lot of good people, going back many centuries.  

As Ben Franklin once said, “Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.” (thanks Obi Wan/RichieB).

Alex Eckelberry