Russian Kulturny: Espionage Old School Meets the New Tech Comrade

But many things shown even in bad movies are unfortunately true: Yes, the Russians like to wear fur hats, drink vodka, eat caviar, take pretty girls to the sauna. And, apart from some modern innovations like ad hoc networks, burst transmissions and steganography, the old proven tradecraft is pretty much the same. It is good and it normally works well (except in cases, when somebody is already being shadowed – then nothing works).

Boris Volodarsky: Former GRU Officer

Los Illegals.. Comrade…

With all of the hubub over the capture of the illegals, and of course all the rattling on about the “swallow” known as Anna Chapman, one has to cut through the dross to get to the real importance of the story. The fact is, that though the wall has fallen (long ago) and W looked into the “soul” of ol’ Pooty Poot and saw teddy bears and rainbows, the reality of it is that the “Bear” never went away or to sleep.

We are still a target, a rather rich one still, for collection of intelligence as well as corporate IP as Putin has pointed out in statements he has made over the years. It was Putin who actually said that Russia needed to step up its game in industrial espionage (I am paraphrasing) and created the means to do so within the new FSB *cough* KGB. This type of infiltration in hopes of collection never went away and I suspect that even with out own dismantling of the HUMINT departments of CIA, we still had a reasonable amount of assets and agents within Russia as they transitioned from the Sov bloc to today’s powerhouse of malware and Russian Mafia run state apparatus.

So, while reading all the news sites, it became clear to me that people really do not have a grasp of the realities surrounding the nature of espionage today. Everyone thinks that its all shiny technologies and protocols within the hacker scene that the next gen of spies are using and that old school techniques called “tradecraft” are outdated and useless.

Nope… It’s not just that. This is said rather well here by Boris again:

The public and writers alike do not really realise that this is NOT a film — a very large group of very experienced FBI agents and watchers spent a very considerable sum of taxpayers’ money and plenty of time to uncover a REAL group of the Russian undercover operators who brazenly operated in the United States, as they had been absolutely sure that no one would ever catch them because their education, training, intelligence tradition, and the belief that the wealth of the country behind them is much superior than the FBI. They forgot that the FBI of 2010 is much different from the Bureau of the 1950s.

It is highly likely that these agents were outed by a defector back in the 90’s. The defector was a Directorate S operative who worked within the UN in the NYC area and it is possible that he gave up the program. The FBI then was tasked with either finding them all blindly, or, they had at least one couple in their sites and steadily built their case by watching the illegals to get at their handlers. You see, the same logic applies to the FBI as does the perception of the KGB. The FBI is seen as slow witted and usually in the media, the blue sedan with guys in suits and sunglasses inside watching you ever so not subtly.

This is not necessarily the case as has been seen in some areas of the FBI’s counterintelligence unit. They really can do a good job at surveillance and counterintel collection.. They are not as bumpkin as they used to be in the 50’s… Nor the 80’s for that matter. Unfortunately though, it really took the Hanssen’s of the world to force them to be better.. But I digress..

Why Were They Here?

I think that there has been a basic misunderstanding in the press and the populace from reading poor press reports on the nature of the “illegals” program. Yes, they were tasked at times with getting data that could be readily available through open source (OSINT) channels such as the news or Google. However, their main task was to insert themselves into our culture, economy, and social strata in order to get “at” people of interest. Basically they were talent spotters.

These people got on to Linkedin and other social networks for the exact reason of making friends and gaining access to those who might be “of use” later on for their handlers and masters. They were facilitators really. You see, like the whole Robin Sage affair that is ongoing now, these folks already knew about the vulnerabilities within social networking and the social nature of human beings from the start. They were trained on this by the SVR and its not something that common people tend to think about. This is where the hacker world and the spy world meet (well they meet in many other places too but go with it for now) The hackers take advantage of the same flaws in our “systems” (cognitive as well as technical) to get what they want.

In this case, these illegals actually did gain some traction and some had access to potential sources that I think, had yet to be plumbed. Perhaps they were getting close to someone and this is what tripped the arrest cycle. Perhaps there are other more arcane reasons for that… As you may be seeing now that there is a prisoner swap with Russia in the works. Once again I direct you to Boris’ comments on their aegis:

What Russian intelligence in striving to get is secret information (political, economic, industrial, military, etc) and have a chance to influence decision-making and public opinion in favor of Russia. This is why agents are recruited or penetrated into sensitive or politically important targets.

The role of illegals is threefold:

1. to act as cut-outs between important sources and the Centre (directly or via the SVR station);
2. to serve as talent-spotters finding potential candidates for further intelligence cultivation and possible recruitment (a rather long and complex process, where the illegals only act at its early stage); and
3. to establish the right contacts that would allow other intelligence operators (members of the SVR station) or the Centre (visiting intelligence officers under different covers, journalists, diplomats or scientists tasked by the SVR) to get intelligence information and/or receive favors that the Centre is interested in.

These illegals are really, like I said, facilitators for the real spies that are sent to our shores.They were practiced in the old school tradecraft of spying and were they not already under surveillance, they may not have been noticed at all by our counterintelligence services. Which brings me to another issue with all the reporting on this espionage round up.

Tradecraft VS High Tech Espionage:

As mentioned by Boris, the tradecraft angle is not only history for the SVR, KGB, or the GRU. Much as I believe that it is still in play for ALL of the intelligence services throughout the world. These practices are tired and true. They have been used to great effect by all spies and only are really heard about in books, film, or news stories like the ones today when the spies were busted.

Since the days of 007 on the screen, we have seen the Q branch and all their toys as a high profile part of “spying” when in reality there is some of that (see H. Kieth Melton’s books) but mostly, it has been the old school that has won the day for spies. The use of things like a Shortwave radio and a “One Time Pad” are still used today because they cannot easily be broken. The use of rapid burst radio transmissions too was a bit of a shock to me in the current case, but once I thought about it, the use of a rapid burst to a local “rezidentura” makes a lot of sense given the amount of RF we have placed into our landscape today. It would easily be lost in the noise and thus, a good way to go about secret communications.

Meanwhile, the use of “Brush Passes” “Chalking”, “Pass Phrases” and other old school techniques for communicating and passing intelligence never have lost their usefulness. Just because one can create an email dead drop on Gmail today pretty easily, does not infer that it is at all safer than meeting someone on the park bench, or leaving a postal stamp on a kiosk as a marker that “somethings up” These things hide within the static of every day life and often, because of “situational awareness” levels, go totally un-noticed. The other means via the “technology” of today’s internet is more circumspect because of so many factors. One of the primary of those being the hacking and cyberwar issues that are ongoing.

Even today, the news is full of “Perfect Citizen” an uber protection plan and technology that the NSA wants to use to protect the national infrastructure. How will it do this? By monitoring ALL of the traffic that it can and look for anomalous behavior. As the technology becomes more prevalent so too are the chances of your secret communications being discovered. It made sense that given the NSA’s power, the illegals and the SVR decided that old school was still the best bet. It was however, that the more technical approaches (i.e. netbooks, crypto, and adhoc networks) failed them, only proving my hypothesis above.

As an aside to LizzieB, the old bury the money under or near the bottle thing.. It still does work *heh*

The Final Analysis:

Much has yet to be told about these illegals as well as the reasons why this group was busted 10 years later. Why now? Why this sudden trade for spies? What tipped the FBI off to these spies in the first place? Was it indeed the defector I spoke of? We may never know. What we can deduce though, is this:

• Spies never went away
• Spies aren’t just stealing IP from corporations
• Hey you, you with the access to the important people… You are a target
• Technology does not always win the day, sometimes it is the weakest link
• We have not seen the last of the SVR, KGB, Mossad, MI5 etc etc…
• Russian spies do like their Vodka and sauna’s but they aren’t all Boris and Natasha caricatures

A full text of the cited Boris interview can be found HERE

CoB

How prepared are you for Cyber Attacks?

The AFCOM association, whose members include 4,500 administrators from 3,900 data centers around the world surveyed  436 data center sites last year. Some of the findings of the survey indicated that cyberterrorism is an increasing concern, mainframe deployment is on the decline, storage deployment is on the rise, and “green” technologies are definitely happening.

It was found that there is a shift in data centers away from mainframe computers and toward other types of servers.Just less than 40 percent of data centers run two or more mainframes, with 45.7 percent of such data centers planning to replace at least one of their mainframes in the next year. However 33 percent of those replacing mainframes plan to replace them with other types of servers.

The more worrying fact that this study conducted in July2009 has brought to light is that 60.9 percent of data centers worldwide officially recognize cyberterrorism as a real threat but ironically only about one-third of respondents included cyber terrorism in their disaster-recovery plans. The survey has unveiled a major void in data centers in terms of securing its critical data against a very real possibility of cyber attacks.The report goes on to note that currently only about one of every four data centers addresses cyberterrorism, and one in five has procedures in place to prevent an attack. That means the remaining 4 out of five data centers are left dangerously vulnerable . The problem becomes more critical as several data centers expect massive expansion due to dramatic increase in storage demands and aggressive business plans in the next five years. The study finds that 22.0% will utilize a

The rest HERE

I find it funny that in most of the movies that have a “hacker” content, there is usually a heavy reference to the “Mainframe” as being the target of attacks. Of course in real life, the mainframe is not much more employed by companies to store data or perform functions, instead it’s all distributed or now “cloud” computing based on servers.

What’s even more laughable is that when I worked for IBM and they needed someone to do audits on mainframes they made me the “mainframe guy” by handing me some manuals and saying read up. I ended up performing assessments on Z and 360 systems on the fly really. Once I had done some AS400 as well I was the go to guy by everyone else. Me? Really? I am now an SME? HA!

In time I got more acquainted with the AS400 but man, being thrown into something on site is a pain in the ass.

Anyway, now we are talking about mainframes and cyberterror huh? Hmm, well I can see how this might be appealing. How many of the kiddies out there know Z systems or 360? For that matter AS400? So maybe there is a little security by obscurity there, but, not really. Nope, in the end, I only see the advantage in being that there aren’t too many people programming malware for these operating systems.

On average, when I looked at mainframes out there as an auditor I found them to be lacking utterly in security being turned on. Most of the time you had maybe one or two people who knew how to run them, but not at all securely. So, do I have hope that a mainframe is more “secure” in the case of a cyberwar?

No.

Of course, just how many Z systems are out there now with the security module added on?

No idea.

How many of these “clouds” I keep hearing about actually use mainframe technology and LPARS?

Well, look at the numbers above. Nearly 50% of the data centers are  offing their mainframes. This means that they will be running servers with either *NIX or, more likely, Microsoft.

*Shudder*

One would hope its the *NIX, but I can’t say for sure that will be the case.

Hmmm So IBM, did you maybe pay for this article?

Heh.

CoB

The Cult Of Chris McCandless: Don’t Drink The Kool Aid Kids

Back in 2006-7 I posted an article and commentary on “The Cult Of Chris McCandless”, an article in Men’s Journal. It was an article in advance of the premiere of “Into The Wild” by Sean Penn and the re-release of “Into The Wild” the book by John Krakauer. Recently, this WordPress blog has seen a lot more traffic on that particular post and it got me wondering as to why now? I mean, it’s been 2 years since the film came out so whats the deal?

Once beginning to look at my traffic here, and Googling a bit, I came across an interesting site: TerraIncognita Films which is the frontpiece for Ron Lamothe and his movie “The Call Of The Wild”, a documentary that retraces the steps of Chris McCandless and offers up some revelations of insight into his death, his life, and the mindset he had when he walked into the Alaskan wild and the Stampede Trail.

The biggest of these revelations is that some of the alleged “facts” that John Krakauer had put into his book, were in fact wrong and perhaps, post his books publishing, were obfuscated as to their existence in the text.

Here are the salient facts that this new (2007 film that will be on PBS in 2009) has brought to light:

1) Chris McCandless did indeed have all his ID, $300.00 in cash, and a map in a backpack that was found by a local resident Will Forsberg in the fall of 1992. These items were returned to the family by the police shortly thereafter. So when Krakauer says he had no money, no map, and no ID because he wanted to be “free” of them to live, he was either mistaken or letting the mystique grow around the “ideal” that he had perpetuated in his book about Chris.

2) The pathologist who performed the autopsy of Chris stated emphatically that there was no chemical evidence from tox-screens that Chris was in any way brought down by Alkaloid poisoning. He in fact stated for the record that he believed McCandless had simply “Starved to death”, no other cause was the harbinger of this other than his lack of food.

3) The note that Chris had left at the bus when he was foraging for food that asked for help stated that he was injured, but no real injury was reported in the pathology report. Nor was this fact covered thoroughly in the book nor the biopic in 2007. Lamothe postulates that perhaps the reasons why Chris could not make it out even to the park road that was only 5 miles away (and not have to cross the Teklanika river) was because he had injured his arm and shoulder. Lamothe goes on to say that perhaps even this injury may have been healing or near healed but painful and thus not something that would have been seen by the pathologist at the time of autopsy.

4) The starvation that was the eventual cause of death was in fact a natural process and nothing to do with fungus growths on food nor the wrong plant being ingested. What Lamothe brings to the table is a BMI (Body Mass Index) assessment of McCandless while he was at the bus. The BMI shows that with his hunter gatherer lifestyle and the amounts of food and types, that he cataloged in his diary, that he consistently lost weight until he reached a BMI of 13. At such a point, a BMI of 13 will be the final point at which an adult male will expire from starvation… Coincidentally, when tracked with the diary, his death and the BMI of 13 coincide. He simply could not get enough nourishment to sustain himself.

So there you have it… Much of the premise of the book by Krakauer has been shown to be incorrect. Motivations, actions, altruism, and final outcome are not what they have been put out as by this book. Just how did all this information not make it out to the public as the movie was released back in 07 I wonder? Was it perhaps that all of this information would dampen the sales of the book and the film? Perhaps lessen the ardor of those “Alexander Supertramp” wannabe’s out there?

Which brings me back to the reason that I wrote the post in the first place. I had been seeing all kinds of articles and postings by people who were in the “Cult Of McCandless”. They spoke of how he lived a life that they wished to emulate, that they saw him as a hero, ballads were being written and sung! And I, I was agitated by it all because I saw McCandless’ death as a silly end to a bright individuals life all because he was too stubborn and foolish to really do the homework and survive.

Of course, this point of view is rather unliked by the “Kool Aide” set and I got some hate mail as well as posts like a recent one saying “You just don’t get it” Well, enlighten me moonflower please? I mean, this all has become a transcendant experience to you all.. Please explain to me how it was so fantastic that McCandless ran away from home to wander and end up starving to death alone in a bus about 5 miles from possible rescue? If he had “really” gone “Into The Wild” he would have really gone out somewhere that required a 6 hour helo flight to get there or back would he not? He didn’t, he lived alone on a dirt road in a bus… That’s it.

It was foolish and not something that you make a central part of your life to emulate kids.

So let me channel Red Foreman a moment and say “Don’t be a dumbass! Dumbass” All of this adulation has literally made the Alaskans consider destroying the bus or dragging it out of the Stampede to stop you fools from going up there and trying to re-live the McCandless tragedy. Something you can hear in an Alaska Radio show that I downloaded and listened to today. In general, Alaskans have a very poor opinion of this whole story and now, all of its attendant use by the powers that be, to make money off of the tale. Hell, they even found certain travel agents trying to sell “McCandless Magic Bus” tours! Ironically, if McCandless’ actually had  half the ideals that Krakauer put into the book, he would be sickened himself by it all.

So, in the end, all you who find yourselves linked to this new article by google, think upon what I have said. Perhaps catch the documentary by Laomothe, and think twice before you too set out with a 10lb bag of rice to “live off the land” and you too end up starving to death, which, is a rather slow and painful process.. Dumbass.

CoB

Cyber WAR! A Polemic On The Hoo HA and Reality

Cyber-Scare

The exaggerated fears over digital warfare

In part, then, the solution to cyber-insecurity is simple: if you have a lot of classified information on a computer and do not want to become part of another GhostNet-like operation, do not connect it to the Internet. This is by far the safest way to preserve the integrity of your data. Of course, it may be impossible to keep your computer disconnected from all networks. And by connecting to virtually any network—no matter how secure—you relinquish sole control over your computer. In most cases, however, this is a tolerable risk: on average, you are better off connected, and you can guard certain portions of a network, while leaving others exposed. This is Network Security 101, and high-value networks are built by very smart IT experts. Moreover, most really sensitive networks are designed in ways that prevent third-party visitors—even if they manage somehow to penetrate the system—from doing much damage. For example, hackers who invade the email system of a nuclear reactor will not be able to blow up nuclear facilities with a mouse click. Data and security breaches vary in degree, but such subtlety is usually lost on decision-makers and journalists alike.

Full article here:

Cyber War!

The full article above kind of misses the point I think that many of us in the infosec world have been trying to get across to the masses. However, the writer does have some salient points that are bang on that I agree with. Overall though, I think that this guy missed the boat on the cyber security – cyber war issue. It’s not just hype, sure there is some out there, but, think about it in OPSEC terms (OPERATIONAL SECURITY) as well as in the way the Chinese think of warfare shall we?

Sure, a foreign nation state can employ DD0S techniques to knock down operations in a country like Georgia. It’s a nuisance and yes, in the case of some places, could be quite debilitating. However, in our infrastructure here in the states it would not “take us down” It would not be a “Fire Sale” as they likened it to the last Die Hard movie. So, we may have portions of the infrastructure down, but I doubt it would be something that we could not manage.

Taking that scenario off the table, then what do we have? Well, for one, yes, the power grid could be vulnerable and already is so. So, yes, the enemy could potentially take down parts of our power grid with a cyber attack. This could be bad. Just last month there was a threat made to a nuclear facility by an ex employee who STILL HAD ACCESS after he was fired because they were lax in security protocols! He could have reasonably done some damage to a reactor’s systems with the right know how and access. You want to see panic? Then you D0S a nuclear reactors control systems (and yes, I know they are supposed to be redundant) but, it is still a possibility. After all, wasn’t it some “errant tree limbs” that allegedly brought down the northeast years ago? Yeah…

Now picture a concerted and paced effort to creep into systems and leave behind back doors to get in when the enemy wants to. Such implants being put in by agent provocateurs of say China or even some Jihadist group? Scoff all you like, but this is the basis of war. War is waged in many ways and many of them are now “soft” war as the Chinese say. So, a patient enemy could lay the foundations in systems and people to actually effect the types of “cyber war” that the popular press alludes to.

Is it likely to see something on the scale of “Die Hard”? Not so much.. But, perception is key here.

One has to look at the tactical advantages too. No one need create a massive attack to render the odds in favor of anyone, it can be a very small thing that can change the paradigm of winning or losing a battle. All you may need is for the lights to go out at a small targeted area to insert yourselves into a building that a bigger prize resides in no? So, this is not just an all out one way street of warfare here kids. It’s a tactical method to possible greater ends. Just imagine the press and the utter hysteria should something along the lines of the nuclear facility scenario actually play out and get in the press.

People would freak. There and then the enemy has won. The sheeple will be in the streets clamoring to be protected! Money will be spent, fear will reek in the air, and we as a country will live in fear and spinning our wheels. Mission accomplished.

So the biggest problem I have with this article is the guys perception of what the cyber war will be or should be. It’s not all about an all out lights out to the country and the erasure of all financial records… That my friend is passable cinema alone.

OPSEC & The Thousand Grains Of Sand

What really should be considered here are the precepts of OPSEC and soft war that can lead to actual financial loss, damage to infrastructure, and potentially the deaths of people. Without OPSEC, the enemy has an easier time of gathering the intelligence that they desire for a certain outcome. Such outcomes can be in the form of many types of “warfare” China does not necessarily need or want to fire a rocket at us when they can just slowly erode our economy.

Of course, if such principles of warfare actually give you the intelligence data to effectively defeat our “advanced” weapons technology and shoot down another EP3 or a JSF someday, then they have won right? Even if they were detected, like in the case of the recent JSF data stolen from Lockheed Martin, would we have to re-tool the avionics and the weapons systems because China had been copying the data for two years? One would hope so! But, I cannot guarantee that they have. Think though just how much more money and time would have to be spent on re-designing the systems to disallow such attacks. There we go spinning our wheels again while the Chinese sit back and smirk.

And why did they have this access to the data for over 2 years? Because the rules of OPSEC were not being followed. The systems that contained the data were not protected and audited well enough to assure that the data was safe. The APT had easily gained access to not only the data but also to the FAA systems in the US. Such systems were recently found to have over three THOUSAND vulnerabilities in their programs online that lead to direct and overarching compromise within the FAA networks behind. The net effect, the Chinese were watching all of our air traffic surrounding the JSF and its telemetry as well as everything else… And because we were not vigilent, and not following the precepts of OPSEC we failed to detect and deter them.

Now figure into this puzzle just how many private companies out there are making important parts to military systems and how poorly they may be protecting those assets.

Feel that? That pucker down below? Yeah, that’s the feeling you should have right about now. We are so behind the ball on this that even if Obama can effect change at the level of laws and regulations, we are YEARS from actually being able to implement effective technical, never mind LOGICAL security measures for our collective data.

The Chinese and others are really counting on our laxity.. And we are not at all disappointing them. Their plan is to slowly, methodically, nibble at our data and networks until they have the access that they desire… A thousand grains of sand approach.

ELINT & Low Hanging Fruit

So, the cyber war goes on. It’s a slow and quiet war with only sporadic noisy bursts when someone finds that their systems have been compromised and their data stolen. Of course this is when the news gets a hold of that fact and it ends up on the nightly news. Meanwhile fearful C level executives who have no concept of OPSEC, never mind Technology, rock back and forth in a cornder with their thumbs in their collective mouths fearing for their reputations and jobs.

Why is this? Well, because either they were just not cognizant of how things work with computers and technology, or, they were too fat and lazy to actually do something about the problems that no doubt had been pointed out to them by their technical staff’s. Of course in today’s environment, the board of directors and stock holders hold the sway.

“Greed, for lack of a better term.. Is Good”

So damn, it would be way too much money out of our pocket to secure the data!

Hell, why do we need to teach security to the employees! God dammit! We don’t need all that rigamarole! Just make sure we have all that high availability man! I don’t give a shit about security! I need a bigger boat! and your stinkin firewall upgrade is eating into my boat payment!

I have found through the years that its almost always come down to these concerns and not so much about the actual protection of the data (if they have even the concept that the data should be classified and treated accordingly) It’s all about the money.. Not the data… Which, oh gee, IS WHAT MAKES THE GOD DAMNED MONEY!

But I digress…

So, what do we have here? We have much of the data that the APT would like to get readily available through low hanging fruit attacks because the companies that create and hold them, don’t know or want to know how to protect them. Thus, the Chinese don’t have to work hard at ELINT to get what they want. Often its as simple as getting someone to get a job at company A. Once in, they have loose rules and the agent is able to just walk out the door with gigs of data on a USB stick.

What is often found at companies that have been audited by me, is that they have what we call “candy security” Hard on the outside (firewalls etc) but “Chewy” on the inside with lax controls and a completely open environment. So, once the APT is on the inside and has a tunnel out, they have a field day. Why is this so? Because generally, this country is not too progressive about “security” and people are mostly lazy.

“I have too many characters in my password!”

You get the drill…

Cyber WAR: Reality

I would say that the cyber war is already on. It has been being waged by the likes of China and Russia for some time now. No, its not the “Fire Sale”, though, in a way it is. All our data that they can get at is on “fire sale” because we are allowing them to take it so easily. It’s our own failures at securing our own networks and data that will lead to us losing the”cyber war”

From now on, when you see this all brought up in the media, think on this article. Think about how the war is already on and there is no Bruce Willis to save us from ourselves. No uber hax0r Mac guy who will stop the hack by encrypting the data with a super algorhythm! Nope, it will just be the securiy wonks who plead with management to do the right thing as opposed to being fat, stupid, and happy. They often getting told no.

Its then, as the war fighters systems are taken out because the APT have had the diagrams for a year, and have come up with a work around to disable them, that you should think back to all this talk of “cyber war” And then ponder how we just did it to ourselves.

BSG Finale

Well, the end has come and I, who kinda got tired after season 2, decided to watch the finale last night. Ultmately, I was somewhat unimpressed with the end. Really, we as SCIFI watchers are going to get all teary eyed and choked about how “we” as species are put through a giant repetitive rats maze by some “God” ?? Really? THAT is the end? THAT is the penultimate meaning to our existance?

Perhaps its that I am a rationalist at heart when it comes to most things. Perhaps its because I feel that they started this crazy journey with some novel ideas, but they were only 1/4 baked and they had to come up with “an end” but geez, really, could we please get off the whole “God moves in mysterious ways” claptrap? Sure, there is some self destiny here, but, in the last quotes from Six and Baltar, it gives a faint hint that we have no real destiny of our own and that “God” is just a slightly better scientist than Jerry Lewis.

Maybe this is why I really just walked away in season 2 of this thing. It’s the whole “God” and theology angle that I despise. How about instead we deal with our own shit because we made it instead of us having a divine hand involved huh? Might that actually be more “Science” than a channel called “SCIFI” can handle?

I also kind of feel that this series ripped off the original idea that was later to be so poorly played out by “The Matrix” The ideas of philosophy and reality all became more theology and giant explosions in that trilogy of films. In the end, it was the same damn thing with the oracle looking on a bright new day in the Matrix wondering if; “This time the experiment would play out differently”

Tired… Just tired.

CoB

It just hit me…

An Evening With Kevin Smith: NJ 2009

A while back we got some tickets to the NJ show of “An Evening With Kevin Smith” and the time finally came yesterday night. We began the day by driving down to NJ from CT and made a leisurely line to “Jay and Silent Bob’s Secret Stash” where I found a nice signed copy of “Green Arrow: Quiver” for a very nice price. Evidently Kevin had been at the store just before we arrived dammit and signed a buch of stuff.

After seeing the wonders at the “Secret Stash” we then headed off to Baumgart’s, a Chinese, Japanese, and 50’s Ice Cream parlor. I had the sushi but certainly could not have any ice cream because I was just too full. Quite the experience though. As luck would have it too, we could just walk to the theatre where we were seated in tiny tiny seats.

The night progressed with Kevin starting the show at 8pm by telling an  uproarious story of how he broke a toilet at the second “Stash” locale in LA that closed. I haven’t laughed so much in quite a while and the show went on from there to be very informative as to Kevin’s mind and ramblings, but also how Hollywood works as well as the travails of Jason Mewes drug addiction and getting clean.

However, by midnight even I could take no more of the seats and the heat in the theatre. Kevin though was STILL going strong and the line to ask questions did not seem to have diminished. Reluctantly we had to go and head home on the 2+ hour drive.

Hey Kevin… If you do the show in Hartford again lemme know… I will stay this time til you walk off stage if I don’t have to drive a couple hours to get home.

Computer Security Lessons on Fringe

What's That Noise? CLICK ME!

When something just appears on your desktop (a popup) that asks you to “CLICK ME” in large friendly letters DON’T! Cuz it could melt your brain into a gelatinous goo that seeps out of your nose and ears. Mmmmkay? Of course this is Fringe, so it’s a bit “out there” scenario wise, but, it’s still good policy to NOT click on those ok?

Fringe: The No Brainer

The Last Templar

Not a bad book, a bit derivative, but overall I liked it. Well now it seems that NBC has bought the rights to make a mini series out of it. It starts tomorrow night at 9pm EST. Check it out…

So, where is our Batman?

Two children and a woman have been stabbed to death at a creche in Belgium.

Forensic police take away a bloodied garment at the creche

The attack happened at a childcare centre near Dendermonde, north-west of the capital Brussels.

Earlier reports said a third child had died of their wounds – but Belgian officials confirmed the deaths of two children, both aged under three, and a woman, who worked at the centre.

At least 12 others were injured in the attack.

All were in a stable condition following surgery, according to Dr Ignace Demeyer, head of emergency services at Our Lady Hospital in nearby Aalst.

“This was a particularly violent attack. All the kids had multiple stab wounds on their legs, arms and all over their bodies,” he told reporters.

The creche. Picture: OCMW Dendermonde

Police had to show distraught parents digital photos of those taken to hospital, asking them to identify their children.

The knife-wielding man had his face painted white with black around his eyes, “like a joker” reports said.

He rode his bicycle up to the centre at about 10am, entered and began slashing a knife around, according to prosecutor Christian Du Four.

Staff reportedly tried to stop him, but he lashed out at them.

Sky News Europe correspondent Greg Milam, reporting from Dendermonde, said: “As always with a case like this, there are many questions about how it could have been allowed to happen and why more was not done to prevent it.

“The hearses were carrying victims under three years old. Nobody can believe what has happened on their doorstep.

“I think people around this region are hoping for answers about how he was able to get inside that day-care centre and cause such terrible carnage.”

Dendermonde, Belgium

A 20-year-old man was caught and arrested in a supermarket about an hour after the attack.

Reports said he had been carrying a “sack full of knives”.

“An act of great brutality has happened here against our weakest citizens,” Mayor Buyse Piet said.

“The whole city is united in support for the parents who are in deep grief.”

Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant named the 20-year-old as Francis V, from Grembergen, which is part of Dendermonde.

Officials have yet to identify the suspect but Mr Du Four confirmed the man was from the region.

Justice Minister Stefaan De Clercq later said the man was uncooperative during questioning.

It seems that the Dark Knight as it has been seen since the Frank Miller reboot of the Batman legend, has touched a nerve with the crazies. My question is where is the Batman? Anyone? Sure, you’d have to be a billionaire but, someone’s gotta be motivated to be the Bat right?

It’s a fucked up world…