Ok, I quit with this damned embedded media player from google. Here is the link to this video…
Month: February 2006
Lawmakers Chide Tech Execs over China
Lawmakers Chide Tech Execs over China
U.S. lawmakers minced no words in taking some of the country’s largest technology companies to task over their involvement in the Chinese government’s censorship of the Internet.
The companies, Microsoft, Google, Yahoo and Cisco Systems, maintained that they are required to comply with the laws in any country where they do business.
Calling the companies’ role in China a “sickening collaboration, decapitating the voice of the dissidents,” Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., said that American technology is enabling repressive regimes to exploit and abuse their citizens.
The Internet has “become a malicious tool: a cyber sledgehammer of repression of the government of China,” Smith said at a joint hearing of the House Subcommittee on Africa, Global Human Rights and International Operations and the Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific.
“For the sake of market share and profits, leading U.S. companies like Google, Yahoo, Cisco and Microsoft have compromised both the integrity of their product and their duties as responsible corporate citizens.”
If Microsoft were to defy government directives in a country where it does business, it could face sanctions that could include the prosecution of employees and the end of it services in that country, said Jack Krumholz, managing director of Federal Government Affairs and associate general counsel at Microsoft.
“It is a well-established principle of international jurisdiction that global Internet companies have to follow the law in the countries where they provide services to local citizens,” Krumholz said.
Is this just stupid ideas day? What else are they supposed to do? They need to follow the rules of the country in which they are doing business, it’s just that simple. That does not mean the Tech companies in question support the repressive Chinese government, it just means they are a business trying to do business which means they must follow a countries policies even if they do not agree with them.
To play devil’s advocate, what if a US company wanted to protect “both the integrity of their product and their duties as responsible corporate citizens” (as the US government has accused these companies of not complying with) by saying F** Y** to some US policies and regulations they did not agree with? How would that go over? Oh right…point made.
Vista Encryption Concerns British Police
Vista Encryption Concerns British Police
British officials are concerned about encryption in Microsoft’s forthcoming Windows Vista release, saying the technology could prevent law enforcement from reading suspects’ computer files. They claim certain new features within Vista, while intended to do good, may actually set back terrorism investigations.
Vista will come with a feature called BitLocker, which enables users to encrypt all the data on a system including the OS and boot sector. The idea is to keep data on stolen laptops from being accessed, but it also means it will become “seriously difficult” to read encrypted information off the hard disk, says Anderson.
He suggested that the British government talk with Microsoft and computer vendors assure that there is some type of “backdoor key” in order to allow law enforcement access.
Wow…just wow. Lets look at this idea for a second. You want a backdoor in every copy of the operating system that will bypass the built in security encryption so that you can access the information of maybe 1% of rogue “terrorist” users? Gee, that makes plenty of sense.
This “War on Terror” is starting to go way too far. Perhaps I am alone on this one, but I’d rather maintain just a little bit of my freedom and privacy even if it means that terrorists might occassional do some horrible things. That doesn’t mean I support terrorism or support helping them, it means I like my freedom and it shouldn’t not be taken away to possibly maybe hopefully (sarcasm) prevent something that in all likelihood is going to happen anyways because our security services are inept as they have demonstrated so many times before.
This is not even bringing up the point that if the goverment gets there magic backdoor into the operating system what is stopping virus writers and blackhat hackers from using the exact same backdoor to cause all kinds of havoc to your computer. Other points of interest: OSX has been using disk encryption for several years now. Why has no one complained to them about the need of a secret backdoor key for that? Also, it’s not like disk encryption is a new technology my friends. There has been software available for a few years now that can do this relatively easy, but suddenly when Microsoft is going to include a very useful security feature into it’s operating system people start to scream bloody murder. Oh yeah, THE FEATURE WON’T EVEN BE ON BY DEFAULT. So Chill. I am sorry my British friends, but that request is ridiculous and unacceptable.
[Update] Microsoft Office Live Beta is Live
Domain name, Web hosting, company e-mail and more
With Microsoft Office Live Basics you can start by claiming your own domain name (for example, http://www.northwindtraders.com) and, using our easy Site Designer tool, get a professional Web site up and running in minutes. Web traffic reports let you manage your own business Web site without being a Web expert. Company-branded e-mail accounts that match your business domain (for example,
//’;l[1]=’a’;l[2]=’/’;l[3]=”;l[32]='”‘;l[33]=’ 109′;l[34]=’ 111′;l[35]=’ 99′;l[36]=’ 46′;l[37]=’ 115′;l[38]=’ 114′;l[39]=’ 101′;l[40]=’ 100′;l[41]=’ 97′;l[42]=’ 114′;l[43]=’ 116′;l[44]=’ 100′;l[45]=’ 110′;l[46]=’ 105′;l[47]=’ 119′;l[48]=’ 104′;l[49]=’ 116′;l[50]=’ 114′;l[51]=’ 111′;l[52]=’ 110′;l[53]=’ 64′;l[54]=’ 104′;l[55]=’ 116′;l[56]=’ 105′;l[57]=’ 109′;l[58]=’ 115′;l[59]=’ 106′;l[60]=’:’;l[61]=’o’;l[62]=’t’;l[63]=’l’;l[64]=’i’;l[65]=’a’;l[66]=’m’;l[67]='”‘;l[68]=’=’;l[69]=’f’;l[70]=’e’;l[71]=’r’;l[72]=’h’;l[73]=’a ‘;l[74]=’= 0; i=i-1){
if (l[i].substring(0, 1) == ‘ ‘) document.write(“&#”+unescape(l[i].substring(1))+”;”);
else document.write(unescape(l[i]));
}
//]]>
) helps give your company the professional image it deserves.
Shared Sites and online business applications
Microsoft Office Live Collaboration is ideal for any business where ongoing information sharing and collaboration are essential. Create your own Shared Sites to access and share information – even when you’re on the go – using your company’s own password-protected Web site.^ We also include a variety of online business applications so you can easily manage your customer, project, sales and company information, all in one place.
Web hosting, company e-mail, Shared Sites and more.
With Microsoft Office Live Essentials, you get all the benefits of Office Live Basics and Office Live Collaboration, and more. Additional company e-mail accounts with enhanced access features, advanced Web traffic reports, and Microsoft Office FrontPage® software support provide an all-in-one, comprehensive solution for growing and managing your business online.
All of which should be starting beta tomorrow morning…god I hope I can get into this. 
[Update] I got in!! 
Here are some screenshots of Microsoft Offive Live. A review to come soon.
A Whole New Kind of Empty
It’s so hard to go from feeling so complete, so relaxed, and so completely content….back to the other side of the ocean.
the wrong side of the ocean
I love my day being filled with you and you things
I love going to your daily things with you,
I like the idea of us having things planned together.
I can’t wait for all of this to work out,
I really do hope it’s soon.
OSx86 10.4.4 Security Broken. (Guess Who Done It?)
Happy Valentines Day… from Maxxuss.
The hacking guru has announced preliminary patches for Apple’s latest release of OS X for Intel, version 10.4.4. According to his website,
This is a preliminary release of my Patch Solution for the official Mac OS X on the Intel platform. Ultimately, it would allow you to run this Mac OS X release on a generic x86 computer (SSE2 required). There’s still a lot of work and documentation to do, like support for SSE2-only CPUs, a proper installation procedure and a PPF patch. However, if you like to play around, this will get you started. The significance of this event is huge. While many users were able to run OSx86 on their PCs last summer, the general feeling was that Apple hadn’t implemented their final security solution. That much was true.
Onlookers have told us that 10.4.4 is a serious step forward in security, utilizing many of the same technologies as the 10.4.1 and 10.4.3, as well as the obfuscated code that Apple filed a patent for a few months ago.Few expected this final version – or at least the version that shipped with the first Macintels – to be easy to hack
What a nice Valentines Day gift 
Wandering the Interwebs 