TechSPOUT calls out Steven Slate or “You litigous son-of-a-bitch.”
Steven Slate is a douchebag.
And I will probably be getting a DMCA notice from him saying that by putting his name next to the word ‘douchebag’ that I am infringing on some kind of trade or service mark (This guy is so bad, I bet he actually DOES have that phrase registered.) and try to delete my entire WordPress account.
Why this crusade, you ask? Well, check out http://chillingeffects.org/search.cgi and type ‘Steven Slate‘ in the search box. This man files about 7,000,000,000,000 DMCA takedown requests per calendar DAY. He goes after anyone evidently who posts the name of his various types of software within the same digital space as any type of decompiler, hex editor, etc.
Now, I am not saying the DMCA doesn’t have it’s rightful uses, nor am I saying Mr. Slate doesn’t occasionally use the DMCA notice in the proper manner. However, you’ll find, more often than not, he just uses them as scare tactics or suppression of speech tools.
Do you understand how the DMCA even works, Mr. Slate? It’s not there for your personal police force/brute squaddery. You file a notice of something being amiss. The company/person receiving said notice has TIME TO RESPOND. The company doesn’t just immediately delete things, you dolt.
Grow up, and stop being a douche, Mr. Slate. You can’t DMCA everyone who mentions your name near hacking/tinkering tools. If you were to actually file these notices with a court authority, they would have thrown everything out past the first 3. But, since you’ve gone the civil route, you think you can just force the hand of these companies/individuals by mentioning the DMCA. Well, we don’t all give up that easily.
So, here’s to you, Steven Slate of SlateDigital. You are TechSPOUT’s DOUCHE OF THE MONTH for January 2011. The second we receive the DMCA notice we are expecting, we’ll post it here.
(NOTE: In the title, where we call you a son-of-a-bitch, Mr. Slate, we aren’t calling YOU a name, we’re calling your mother a bitch for raising a son like you.)
Oh man…If only I could tell you all…
…but alas, I cannot. I will in time people, in time. Gotta wait for the NDA to run out. But it’ll be a doozie, I promise. Until then, vigilance.
ABSO-FUCKING-LUTELY RIDICULOUS.
Deviating a bit from my normal way of doing things here to point out the worst story I have viewed in YEARS. Read the story and then read my answer below the story. I am fucking pissed. Really.
Story copied from: http://www.wpsdlocal6.com/news/local/Firefighters-watch-as-home-burns-to-the-ground-104052668.html
http://www.wpsdlocal6.com/v/?i=104052668
Firefighters watch as home burns to the ground
Reporter – Jason Hibbs
OBION COUNTY, Tenn. – Imagine your home catches fire but the local fire department won’t respond, then watches it burn. That’s exactly what happened to a local family tonight.
A local neighborhood is furious after firefighters watched as an Obion County, Tennessee, home burned to the ground.
The homeowner, Gene Cranick, said he offered to pay whatever it would take for firefighters to put out the flames, but was told it was too late. They wouldn’t do anything to stop his house from burning.
Each year, Obion County residents must pay $75 if they want fire protection from the city of South Fulton. But the Cranicks did not pay.
The mayor said if homeowners don’t pay, they’re out of luck.
This fire went on for hours because garden hoses just wouldn’t put it out. It wasn’t until that fire spread to a neighbor’s property, that anyone would respond.
Turns out, the neighbor had paid the fee.
“I thought they’d come out and put it out, even if you hadn’t paid your $75, but I was wrong,” said Gene Cranick.
Because of that, not much is left of Cranick’s house.
They called 911 several times, and initially the South Fulton Fire Department would not come.
The Cranicks told 9-1-1 they would pay firefighters, whatever the cost, to stop the fire before it spread to their house.
“When I called I told them that. My grandson had already called there and he thought that when I got here I could get something done, I couldn’t,” Paulette Cranick.
It was only when a neighbor’s field caught fire, a neighbor who had paid the county fire service fee, that the department responded. Gene Cranick asked the fire chief to make an exception and save his home, the chief wouldn’t.
We asked him why.
He wouldn’t talk to us and called police to have us escorted off the property. Police never came but firefighters quickly left the scene. Meanwhile, the Cranick home continued to burn.
We asked the mayor of South Fulton if the chief could have made an exception.
“Anybody that’s not in the city of South Fulton, it’s a service we offer, either they accept it or they don’t,” Mayor David Crocker said.
Friends and neighbors said it’s a cruel and dangerous city policy but the Cranicks don’t blame the firefighters themselves. They blame the people in charge.
“They’re doing their job,” Paulette Cranick said of the firefighters. “They’re doing what they are told to do. It’s not their fault.”
To give you an idea of just how intense the feelings got in this situation, soon after the fire department returned to the station, the Obion County Sheriff’s Department said someone went there and assaulted one of the firefighters.
==END STORY==
As a former brother firefighter, you fuckers should be ASHAMED of yourselves. You should be stripped of your positions, charged with CRIMINAL negligence and made to never serve the public, in ANY capacity, EVER AGAIN. We’re supposed to HELP people, not stand idly by while their lives (which includes property) are torched to the ground because they didn’t pay the local extortion fee.
The mission statement of the South Fulton FD is as follows, directly pasted from their website:
“The mission of the South Fulton Fire Department is to protect the lives and property of its citizens, and provide good public relations through fire safety education to all businesses and schools.”
Yeah, real good job sticking to the mission there.
Does this all surprise me, considering this asshole:
is their chief? He’s David Wilds, the moron in the story who called the cops on reporters asking questions. He’s got his firefighter 1 certification, and is also EMT certified…HOW THE FUCK DID THIS GUY BECOME CHIEF OF A CITY FIRE DEPARTMENT?
I hope it happens to someone you all (members of the South Fulton FD who responded [or didn't respond] to this call) know. I really do. Then maybe you’ll get the clue.
Thanks Vornado…
FUCKERS.
(For background, see http://www.twitter.com/SaveHotelPenn and http://twitter.com/Jayembee/status/22155175383 )
“Plate-Spotting Fun (?)” or “I should have known better.”
Hello kids and welcome to another episode of “Yeah, I saw that coming…” with your ever gracious host, Jay Embee!
I am a plate spotter. I like license plates as a hobby. I am a total transit nerd. To back up this point, check out LicensePlates.cc and see just how many “highs” I have.
So I came into work today, which is in Washington, DC doing a high triple digit deployment for an unnamed city agency and an unnamed computer company. I pay my $10, I park my truck in the building lot. As I am heading to the entrance to said building I came across a plate I had never seen before and didn’t stand much of a chance of seeing again. So, as is my want, I took a photograph with my iPhone.
Cut to 30 minutes later.
I am sitting in a users office, transferring data to their new system, when in walks this woman and her assistant.
“I’m looking for Jay?”
“I’m Jay, can I help you?”
“Yes, I am Leslie Meek, I own the truck you were down there taking a picture of…”
I interrupted, “I knew this would happen. I’m a plate spotter and you have a really rare type of license plate on your truck and I took a picture of it.”
I proceeded to show her the photo I took of her license plate and she seemed pleased with that explanation and left after shaking my hand.
Now, I am purposefully leaving out major parts of the story. Why? Well, suspense of course!
The plate wasn’t just any plate, the woman wasn’t just any woman, and her introduction above is incomplete. I will now post her complete introduction followed by the photo I took of the plate.
“Yes, I am Leslie Meek, wife of Congressman Kendrick Meek, I own the truck you were down there taking a picture of…”
UPDATE: I was reading a few Florida plate spotter sites and I have come to realize that Congressman Meek’s truck would carry the Member of Congress plate #17, which corresponds to the district number for the seat he holds. Any other vehicle he has would be eligible to carry Member of Congress tags, and as a result of Florida state law, can carry any designation asked for by the registrant. The plate above, in all its glory, is a “Florida Member of Congress VANITY tag“. Win.
DOUBLE UPDATE!: Thanks to PlateShack.com, I have a picture of Congressman Meek’s other license plate, the one with his district designation. See below.
“Fixing Idiots” or “Have you ever even SEEN pager data?”
Not all bloggers are technically oriented. Not all technically oriented people blog.
Remember these lines. They will come in handy with what is to follow.
Soooo, another month, another blog post. I really should commit myself to once a week, but by the time I sit down to post, my damn ADHD gets in the way and…hey, what’s that shiny thing?! *wanders off*
In a moment where my ADHD wasn’t acting up, I was doing some research into that pager data that Wikileaks released a while back and having done some work with pager traffic and networks in the past, I wanted to dig a little deeper into the data to see if I could find anything interesting that no one had found yet. Needle, meet haystack, then meet Jay, so to speak.
I didn’t even make it to the data. I got sidetracked. No, it wasn’t the usual kitty or pony or tomato plant distraction. It wasn’t even my notorious ADHD. Nope. I ‘Googled’ the string “pager data”. I got to the results page. I scrolled down and saw “Serious Doubts About Supposed 9-11 Pager Data”. Ok, being the curious bastard that I am, as well as my aforementioned pager experience, I had to read it. It turns out it’s a reader’s blog on the far-LEFT (you know, the supposed intelligent ones?) leaning TalkingPointsMemo website (itself a blog/news site).
Bo Obama is the bloggers name. (The President’s DOG? Really? S-R-S-L-Y?!) His writing in this article/blog, to the untrained eye, seems intelligent, thought-provoking, and thorough. BUUUUUUT it isn’t. Not by a long shot. As a matter of fact, let me conduct this visual experiment to show you how close this guy/girl/thing is to correct anywhere in his/her/its article. Here’s the ballpark *points to close object*, and here’s where the article went instead *points to Neptune*.
NOW FOR THE TECHNICAL TEARDOWN!
Let’s start with my initial observation about the data itself. It looks to have been captured by either PDW or Poc32, 2 popular pager decoding applications. (And before Mr./Ms./Creature Obama says anything, yes, both of those programs were freely available WAAAAAY back in 2001.)
Let’s now tear down the mighty blogger’s observations, one by one.
#1: “One of the problems with the supposed pager messages is that the listed phone numbers, in some cases, do not geographically match the locations listed in mapping software or the phone book.”
A: You know, we have had virtual numbers since (at least) the 70′s, right? Little known fact: 1-800/877/866/855 numbers HAVE to have a linked actual phone number because all the 800/888/877/866/855 number is is a virtual door to the real number.
#2: “(BEGIN PAGE)2001-09-11 09:37:50 Arch [0471527] B ALPHA 22-PLS CALL JO ANN HSING 408-398-0348 (END PAGE) The phone number is for “Cisco”, but if you compare the geo-location for the phone number, with the listed information for Cisco, the two do not reconcile. The difference is several miles.”
A: Really? My phone number puts me in the middle of town, but my address is in the suburbs *2* municipalities away from where my phone number puts me. Hmm, must be a glitch in the Matrix. Most phone number “geo-location” is done using the NPA-NXX. These numbers are also known by their more contemporary names “Area Code” and “Exchange”. If I search location for the number 212-555-1234, it more than likely checks where the central telephone company office is for NPA 212 and NXX 555. If my number is published, and I check the address listed for the phone number itself by either calling directory assistance or using WhitePages.com, it’ll show the address that I gave my telco when I signed up. Which *checks Google Maps* is about 2-3 miles away from the Central Office.
#3: “Some of the provided phone numbers do not reconcile with any valid phone number; but there is no evidence of a resend or correction of that apparent wrong/invalid information. Example: Furmen and 252-4411 do not match, from: 09:20:31 Skytel [002377219]. This many years after 2001, if Furmen and the number were real, there should be an overlap with the search engine. The point is that this happens multiple times with other name-number combinations: The data doesn’t exist in any public forum except for wikileaks. This consistent problem raises doubts about the veracity of the supposed data.”
A: It’s a known fact that, with few exceptions, most people who use alphanumeric pagers are either medical staff or office professionals. Now, does the damned yellow pages or Google have YOUR direct office line? I know mine doesn’t. Even so, do YOU still have the same office number you did back in 2001? It’s been 9 years man, you can’t really expect Furmen to be sitting at the same desk all these years.
#4: “Consistent Headline Problem. (O)ne would think that a high profile event — 9-11, plane crashes — would have been archived. However, there’s limited public use of the following phrase: Yahoo Alert, Plane crashes into second World Trade Center tower. One problem is that the public information about this phrase is from the AP.
A: Yeah, now you’re not using your noodle at all. Yahoo is a, say it with me kids, NEWS AGGREGATOR. They compile news from other sources. What is a big news source that likes to be aggregated? The ASSOCIATED PRESS. Hell, I can get AP headlines and auto-send them to MY pager as an alert. ON MY OWN. NO CORRELATION NEEDED. Not every little incarnation of everything from that day is archived, contrary to this guys beliefs.
#5: “Notice the way the pager message are sent: They’re usually plain-text. Meaning, they’re readable. However, in 2001, people sometimes used abbreviations and private codes, to save space, shorten text, and fit more information in a short space of a pager window. A long, wordy, non-abbreviated message wasn’t practical in 2001.”
A: Really? POCSAG and FLEX, the 2 most used pager traffic protocols in the world have been around since at least the mid 1990s (or earlier in POCSAG’s case) and can handle a METRIC FUCKTON of data in one page. The pager I carry (Motorola/Unication Advisor Elite Gold) has been around itself since the late 1990s. My pager can do about 15/20 lines per page at about 40-50 characters per line. Yeah. Long messages were not only practical in 2001, they were the NORM.
FINALLY, #6: “At worst, until the data and information content within the supposed pager data is independently verified as correct, the information can mislead and confuse researchers.”
A: Ummm…firstly, the capture of this data is technically illegal anyway. Secondly, barring the arrest of whomever captures the data, the ONLY way to verify the data independently is for the verifier to be IN THE ROOM when the data is captured. Now, looking at the pager data on the Wikileaks site, and having been in the room when this type of decoding/capture is done, I can tell you it is about as authentic as it gets. Try contacting someone in the know next time you open your mouth, Mr. Bo Obama, that way, you won’t be tasting shoe, like you are right now because of me.
Okay, enough of the Q and A, get to the point already!
IN CONCLUSION, Bo Obama, reader-blogger from TPM, YOU get my bad-researcher-of-the-month award for excellence in spewing BS without REAL fact checking required to make you even remotely look like you know what you are doing. I am revoking your blogging license until such tome as you can demonstrate an ability to, at the very least, use GOOGLE properly.
See you people in September, or maybe sooner.
“Let’s screw something up WORSE!” or “How the hell do Republicans exist?!”
Those of you may remember ages ago when I posted my SPOUT about the DEMOCRATS and their proposed internet kill switch bill. Well, the Republicans have topped it.
It seems that they weren’t satisfied with the bill as it was, saying it would “provide too much of a burden to the already overburdened Department of Homeland Security”. So they proposed their own bill. Which creates an office in the Pentagon to oversee United States civilian cybersecurity.
Wait…WHAT?!?
Those who have a good sense of governmental infrastructure understand that 99.9% of any office/agency housed in the Pentagon are under MILITARY CONTROL. Also, the mere fact that the Republican bill says the word ‘civilian’ in conjunction with creation of a Pentagon office/agency gives it away.
Sadly, neither bill is to my personal liking and neither bill is what I want to happen for our precious global resource called affectionately “the tubes”.
The bill as proposed by the Democrats is bad. The Republican bill is worse. Tell EVERY legislator you know to ditch both and start again.
At this point, the real question all of you out there is this: Who would you rather have in control of your country’s internet kill switch? The President or the Military?
Comment below and I will do my best to answer!
“Short and Sour Apples” OR “I’m gonna make this REEEEALLY easy for you…”
techSPOUT
1 We Are Not Fucktards Court
Sometown, Pennsylvania 1XXXX-XXXX
USA (We think)
Apple Computer Inc.
1 Infinite Loop
Cupertino, California 9XXXX
Appletania
RE: Chen-Gizmodo Warrant / iPhone 4G
CC: sjobs@apple.com
BCC: whoeverthefuckrunsmsftthesedays@microsoft.com
BCC: headdudes@google.com
Dear Apple,
This is NOT RoboCop.
Signed,
JayEmbee
CEO, techSPOUT
P.S. 10 uber-geek-I-don’t-need-no-stinking-umlaut-points to the first person who isn’t known by me who responds in comment to this letter with what the point is of the above statement.
“S.773, The Cybersecurity Act of 2010″ or “WTF DEMS SRSLY”
Good day to you all, and welcome to another fun-filled edition of techSPOUT! Oh man, that was dripping in sarcasm, wasn’t it?
Ok, Senate Bill 773 for 2010. It’s the Cybersecurity Act. Written by Sens. Jay Rockefeller (D-Who cares where he’s from at this point, he’s a freaking Rockefeller) and Olympia Snowe (R-From somewhere in the land of flannel and lumberjacks and counties named Aroostook), it’s not a bad looking piece of legislation. That is, until you dig out the gem laying buried in §201(b)(2)(B)…I’ll include the whole of §201 below and bold the part I am talking about.
S.773 of 111th Congress (2010)
“Cybersecurity Act of 2010″
TITLE II—PLANS AND AUTHORITY
SEC. 201. CYBERSECURITY RESPONSIBILITIES AND AUTHORITIES.
(b) COLLABORATIVE EMERGENCY RESPONSE AND RESTORATION.
The President–
(1) shall, in collaboration with owners and operators of United States critical infrastructure information systems, sector coordinating councils and relevant governmental agencies, regulatory entities, and nongovernmental organizations, develop and rehearse detailed response and restoration plans that clarify
specific roles, responsibilities, and authorities of government and private sector actors during cybersecurity emergencies, and that identify the types of events
and incidents that would constitute a cybersecurity emergency;
(2) may, in the event of an immediate threat to strategic national interests involving compromised Federal Government or United States critical infrastructure information systems—
(A) declare a cybersecurity emergency; and
(B) implement the collaborative emergency
response and restoration plans developed under
paragraph (1);
(3) shall, in the event of a declaration of a cybersecurity emergency—
(A) within 48 hours submit to Congress a
report in writing setting forth—
(i) the circumstances necessitating the
emergency declaration; and
(ii) the estimated scope and duration
of the emergency; and
(B) so long as the cybersecurity emergency
declaration remains in effect, report to the Congress periodically, but in
no event less frequently than once every 30 days, on the status of
emergency as well as on the scope and duration of the emergency.
(c) RULE OF CONSTRUCTION.—This section does not
authorize, and shall not be construed to authorize, an ex-
pansion of existing Presidential authorities.
Did you get it? Well, if it seems like more legalese and jargon, you’re right. Here’s the gist: President declares “national cybersecurity emergency”, President shut off internet. Yes, it IS that simple. Now, let’s use the attacks on New York, DC, and PA as an example, and we’ll sketch out a short timeline of what happened and what would happen under this bill.
What Happened
———————–
8:46:26AM: First Plane into North Tower WTC
8:47AM: TV networks begin to break into coverage with WTC story
8:48AM: People flood net with “Did you hear/ZOMG!!1!” IMs/Emails/Msgs
8:50-8:55AM: People begin tapping into streaming video/audio for news
9:02:54AM: Second Plane into South Tower WTC
9:03:24AM: Collective gasp ends, exponential increase in traffic, both streaming and messaging as well as standard web site views
9:37AM: Pentagon Plane Impact
10:06AM: Shanksville, PA Plane Impact
Next 5 days: Internet helps find people, console people and satisfies data need for people.
What Would Have Happened with Kill Switch Activation
——————————————————————————–
8:46:26AM: First Plane into North Tower WTC
8:47AM: TV networks begin to break into coverage with WTC story
8:48AM: People flood net with “Did you hear/ZOMG!!1!” IMs/Emails/Msgs
8:50-8:55AM: People begin tapping into streaming video/audio for news
9:02:54AM: Second Plane into South Tower WTC
9:03:14AM: President orders internet turned off “in case of it’s use as a mechanism to help carry out these now evident attacks”
9:03:24AM: Collective gasp ends, people attempt to reach out to others or to the web for news and information and find “server not found” messages for every site and service, panic begins as people, without information, believe the outage is part of the attack
9:10AM: President addresses nation, tells them of cybersecurity activation.
9:37AM: Pentagon Plane Impact, but no one finds out for nearly half an hour because the wire services work via internet now and all news is being filtered and delivered via telephone and fax
10:06AM: Shanksville, PA Plane Impact, no one finds out about this one for 2 hours due to seclusion of crash site in southwest Pennsylvania
Next 30 days: Internet stays shut off until President delivers report to Congress, in meantime, much data and information cannot be verified quickly by news services due to lack of connectivity, many hoaxes and false panics cause population to stay home, afraid of more attacks, stock market plummets worse than originally anticipated, production of essentials comes to a near grinding halt, economy collapses amid lack of spending and commerce during the second half of September
Extreme? Maybe only a little. The above illustrates the problems with “shutting off the internet due to crisis” in 2001. Think about how this would affect us now, with VoIP being a primary form of communication and the internet being even more entrenched in our lives as an immediate information source. It strikes fear into me to think this COULD happen.
Here is what I want you to do about this bill: Kill it. How can you do this? Contact your senators (find them at http://www.contactingthecongress.org) and tell them if this bill comes to a vote on the senate floor and they vote yes, then they have lost your vote in the general election. Your best bet to reach your senator is to CALL THEIR OFFICES! Email and fax are tied for second best and postal mail is right out, don’t even consider it if you can help it. Also, while you are at it, call DEMOCRATIC Senator Rockefeller’s office and thank him for turning his back on true information freedom with this bill.
“I thought this site was called ‘TechSPOUT’…” or “Why we do what we do, how we do it”
For starters, this past weekend I attended the North Carolina Regional Technology Conference known as CarolinaCon 2010. I had an AMAZING time. I ran the ham radio special event station at the event and met so many new people. Thanks to the organizers and everyone in attendance. If YOU want to find out more about the event, go to http://carolinacon.org and also head on over to the CarolinaCon forums at http://forum.nc2600.org and take part!
This week, we will cover something I literally thought of while sitting at my significant other’s nail appointment. (Usual full disclosure notice: I am still there right now. Typing this in the presence of acetone, powdered acrylic and more colors of nail polish than Glenn Beck’s face during a temper tantrum.) I have noticed many people saying “Hey, techSPOUT guy, why the hell is there so much political stuff on there…I thought this site was called ‘techSPOUT’.”
Here’s the explanation. Really easy. There will be a recap. There will NOT be a quiz.
I am a techie, thus the tech.
The rants are a form of spouting off, thus the SPOUT.
I am a techie who is spouting off, thus the techSPOUT.
Get it?
I am a tech, but the spouting will be whatever topic I deem fit for posting. Lately, it’s been primarily politically related, but that doesn’t rule out a technology post, or a post about butter and margarine or any topic I am in the mood to type about.
All of that being said, I lied. Pop quiz.
A. What is Jay? :
B. What does he do? :
Print this page out and write in your answers. Scan them, and send the resulting image to techspout@berkscomp.com and MAYBE you’ll win something. Only if I feel like it.
