Archive for September 2009
Gallery Opening
6 Pieces of my work will be up at Gallery Vivace on the 3rd. The gallery opening is 4-8pm and the address is 2 River Road Stafford Springs CT Wine and cheese reception included
New Vids
I was talking with a co-worker Friday about Pripyat and go to thinking about the place again. So, I did what any good pirate would do, I downloaded a host of videos about the place. So, to that end I have a new file area on my server called Chernobyl.
I got some good shows too. Mostly Discovery Channel stuff… Of course this next week “Destination Truth” will be at Pripyat doing their own version of “Blair Witch” it looks like..
Still.. I will be watching! Enjoy the files.
CoB
Pattern Recognition:
Online chats led to Texas terror suspect’s arrest
DALLAS, Texas (CNN) — A terror suspect accused of plotting the bombing of a skyscraper in Dallas, Texas, drew authorities’ scrutiny because of his violent posts on an extremist chat site, court papers indicate.
The suspect, a 19-year-old Jordanian, was arrested Thursday in a sting operation, the FBI said.
Federal officials said Hosam Maher Husein Smadi, who entered the United States illegally and lived in Texas, tried to set off an explosive attached to a vehicle at the base of the 60-story Fountain Place office tower.
Long before authorities arrested Smadi, however, they were reading his posts on the extremist chat site, according to a court affidavit.
“Smadi was discovered by the FBI within an online group of extremists,” the affidavit says. “Among many others in the group who espoused and endorsed violence, Smadi stood out, based on his vehement intention to actually conduct terror attacks in the United States.”
Undercover officers then contacted Smadi, posing as members of an al Qaeda sleeper cell. After months of conversations, the agents considered Smadi a legitimate threat.
Smadi picked several targets to attack, including the Dallas-Forth Worth airport, before deciding on the skyscraper, which houses Wells Fargo Bank, the affidavit says. It details a conversation that Smadi allegedly had with authorities:
“I have decided to change the target,” he said, according to the affidavit. “God willing, the strike will be certain and strong. It will shake the currently weak economy in the state and the American nation, because this bank is one of the largest banks in the city.”
Smadi said many times that he wanted to commit violent jihad and he was a soldier of Osama bin Laden, the affidavit says.
Undercover agents tried to get Smadi to “re-evaluate his interpretation of jihad,” saying there were nonviolent ways to commit the act. But “Smadi again communicated his continuing commitment for violent jihad,” the affidavit says.
After casing the bank in July, Smadi told an undercover agent he would target it, according to authorities. Initially, Smadi told the agent he wanted to bomb the bank on September 11, but decided to wait until the Islamic holy month of Ramadan ended on September 20, authorities said.
After receiving what he thought was an explosive from an undercover agent, Smadi drove a car with the fake bomb into a parking garage under the skyscraper, authorities said. Smadi thought he could detonate the bomb by dialing his cell phone.
When he dialed, the number rang a phone in authorities’ possession, the affidavit says.
Counterterrorism officials on Thursday arrested Smadi before publicly disclosing a similar but unrelated terrorism sting arrest Wednesday in Springfield, Illinois. A federal law enforcement official familiar with the cases said authorities feared word of the Illinois arrest could tip off the Texas suspect to the sting operation.
Smadi will make his first court appearance before a federal magistrate judge Friday in Dallas.
A charge of attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction carries a potential sentence of life in prison, and a $250,000 fine.
In the unrelated Illinois case, undercover FBI agents foiled a plot to bomb Springfield’s federal building, authorities said.
In neither case did authorities find ties to known terrorist groups.
Are we detecting the pattern here yet? This was something that I remember some terrorists planning before 9/11.. In fact it was 1996 I think when a group was busted in Queens with similar plans. They were caught though because someone at the local hardware store thought it odd that they were buying so many PVC pipes with endcaps though.
Our internal metropolitan transit infrastructure has been slacking in the security area for some time now. In NYC the random searches of bags did not go over well with the people and eventually, we all began to feel like we were not going to be hit again and they stopped doing them.
… And then we get the Najibullah Zazi plan and now this guy…
We must keep vigilant because eventually, one of these guys with a plan might just succeed in carrying it off….
Ignorance.. Rampant, Rapacious, Ignorance
How is it that people just don’t even get the overt nature of “The Joker” from the Dark Knight film and mistake Anarchism for percieved “Socialism” It’s really akin to those anarchists “meeting up” to protest the G8
Dumb…
9.11.09 Eight Years Of FAIL
I woke this morning to NPR talking about the 8th anniversary of 9/11. As I got ready for the day, I pondered just where we have gone from 8:46 am that morning of 2001 to where we are collectively today on this anniversary. Just what have we achieved? Are we any better off than we were at 8:45 am on September 11th 2001?
How about I sum it up for you all through your average grade system for school:
1) Osama Bin Laden, Ayman zawahiri, and Adam Ghadan captured and in jail?
NO.
He is happily living in Pakistan (which has been my belief since Tora Bora) and recently again posited as where the spooks think he is now.
Grade: F
Osama is still alive, he has recently put out another audio tape to prove it. Even if the tape is a splice together of his “greatest hits” so to speak, he still wins this one as we have not come even close to getting him since Tora Bora.
What the hell are we doing?
Well, we are busy playing footsies with Pakistan and the ISI that’s what. All the while the ISI has given Osama and Qaeda shelter and help while they have sat in Wazirastan or other parts of the Kush.
Osama wins there. He is still looked upon as a hero to the Jihadist masses not only for pulling off 9/11 but also for thumbing his nose at the “Great Satan” lo’ these 8 years. Of course it is also helpful to him that the Bush administrations goals seemed not to be to capture Osama, but instead attack something with real infrastructure and, dare I say it? Yes, OIL in Iraq instead of going into the rough areas that Russia failed to capture (aka Afghanistan)
I proclaim EPIC FAIL on the capture and or killing of OBL… Thanks Bushy! and all your little Neocon pals… You fuckheads.
2) Al Qaeda eradicated from the world and everyone is happy with new Democratic governments (forced upon *cough*) “seeded” by the US and the Bush administration?
NO.
Grade D –
Well, this one is loaded question really. I don’t believe we could eradicate Al Qaeda completely, but, we could be doing a better job of hunting them down as well as integrating them into less islamofascists to moderates. That is IF we worked with the islamic states properly.
3) America’s airports, ports, cities, communications systems, and general infrastructure are secured and we are in a far better position to detect, deter, and respond to another attack?
NO
Grade: F
This one has been one of the worst handled situations on the part of the government. Much like their response to Katrina, they have horribly failed at apropriating funds, allocating them, and effecting change for the better. Our ports still do not have the protections that they need, they still can’t even implement an ID system for all the workers as yet! Millions spent, and no working process has been put into action.
The same can be said for biological attack response, communications issues (i.e. all the problems with radios on 9/11) etc. NYC still does not have an adequate communications system for firemen and police should another 9/11 happen. Comms would be down.
Airports, good god, they are still not x-raying all of the baggage, DHS/TSA workers are still asleep at the wheel much of the time, and generally, not the sharpest marbles in the bag. I am surprised that no airline has been attacked since 9/11 here… No, really. The last plan was thwarted by intel though, so they didn’t actually get to getting on the plane… But they were still trying.
4) The people of the US are 100% behind our actions on behalf of “the people” in the med and we have sagaciously deployed our forces to eradicate the problems as well as re-build and shore up ties with the Middle East?
NO
Grade: F
While at no time other than perhaps 9/12/01 could I think we could have 100% approval on our actions, I do think that we could have done much better than what we got. G’Dub really screwed the pooch on this one.. Which leads to the allocation of assets.
Going into Iraq was a mistake. No, more than that, it was an outright wag the dog action. Meanwhile we let OBL run off into the hills because we did not put our troops into Afghanistan even before we went into Iraq. So, we screwed the pooch utterly and we are now reaping the whirlwind in Pakistan and Afghanistan as a consequence of ineptitude.
I guess overall though OBL and Ayman have won. No, really, they did. Their goal was not only to scare us, destroy a landmark, and put us into the culture of fear. They also wanted to ruin us financially. They saw where we are vulnerable and hit that spot. Wall Street was a hot target and we are now dealing with the fallout of not only that attack, but our own greed and sloth.
So here we sit today.. Many not really paying attention to this day of rememberence. All too wrapped up in their lives of commerce, too many just go about their day without thinking on the lessons of 9/11.
My big lesson?
We as a species are unable to learn.
Inglourious Basterds
Inglorious Basterds is, well, “Glorious” I don’t say this easily mind you, after all, this is a Tarantino film. However, I found myself liking the pace, cinematography, and story line of this film. What’s more, I also found the film kind of cathartic in a twisted “killing Nazi’s” way.
I also have to say that Quentin’s choice of the Bowie “Cat People” song “Putting Out A Fire” an inspired one that was all the more powerful with the color schemes and imagery used. He also did a fine job at painting the Nazi party and those in the inner circle as completely without humanity.
A shame really that all these guys weren’t in one place at any time where a plan like this could have been carried out…
“Nazi’s… I hate these guys”
Go see it.
E-Waste: Pollution, Security Risks, Epic Greed, Epic FAIL
E-Waste
Through the years working in the information security game I often saw the upgrades that happened rather frequently. Such upgrades seemed to happen almost bi-monthly in some cases, but overall it was always about the speed of systems.
We need the speed to work faster faster faster!
Well, where did all that old equipment go that actually still worked? For that matter what about the stuff that actually broke? I had been living in the dream world that said:
Don’t worry, we will re-cycle your pc and pass it on to bridge the digital divide! Soon, second and third world countries will also have the beginnings of digital infrastructures using our old systems and the economy will grow.
Wrong… It rarely really happened. Whats worse, the systems in question would go out of the country to Ghana, China, Pakistan, etc including hard drives that had not been wiped or cleaned of data. Is it any wonder why then Ghana is a capitol of cyber crime?
Gee, I wonder if Nigeria and Ghana work together, ya know, rival gangs trading in our data from e-waste that unscrupulous dumpers have just sent over for a quick buck. Of course that is only one part of the problem, but I will be getting to that in a bit. For now though, I would like to look at the PII and Digital dumping ground angle where our data is concerned.
Exactly what are companies thinking just getting rid of hard drives full of data by selling them wholesale to just anyone? Working hard drives filled with corporate, personal, and other data that perhaps could be the next transwarp drive plans from Rocketdyne? WTF? Are we just stupid? Are we collectively brain damaged? We do this, then we get robbed digitally and we moan and wail about it all the while not comprehending that we did it to ourselves?
Do we just inherently lack the capabilities to comprehend that we save shit to hard drives that can be easily plugged into another machine and just pulled up on a screen? Are we just too busy playing with our digital navels to care? It would seem so.
I guess we deserve to be p0wn3d….
Now on to the pollution:
I just don’t get it rationally… I can only really understand this: We are greedy, fat, and stupid as a country. We don’t care about other countries peoples, we don’t care about the environment as a whole, and really, what it comes down to is this:
Not in my back yard… But meh, its fine for the Chinese or the Ghanians to poison the water and air in “their” country.. I mean hell, its not “MY” back yard…
Well fucktard, it is YOUR back yard. You see, we live on a globe suspended in space. What poisons the Chinese will eventually make it here by wind or water… Trust me.
I am just flabbergasted by it all… I really have no idea what to do either. I tend to keep my equipment and recycle things that are still running. There have been more than a few donations I have made to individuals who had no systems to use that now can get on the internet with some older machines.
But this.. the proportions of it.. What can one person do? Hell MIT tried to help people with one laptop per child and M$ and others pretty much killed that one… M$, yeah… fuckers… Talk about greed. Of course Bill now is trying to use his money to patent “alleged” technology to stop hurricanes..
Think on that a minute.. He is PATENTING the anti hurricane technique! It’s like saying I am patenting the cure for cancer! How about doing something for humanity Bill?
Ugh… My heads exploding.
See the videos:
Frontline report: http://preview.tinyurl.com/nyl9w4
60 minutes: http://preview.tinyurl.com/6a7rt4
Manufactured Landscapes: http://preview.tinyurl.com/mpdanu
Krypt3ia 