The Gathering Storm

Delivered Tuesday afternoon, courtesy of Amazon, and read Tuesday evening (Mrs S-E being out). Boy, is it long. 750 pages of actual story. I suspect Jordan would have chopped out some of the less significant narrative but I can understand Sanderson felt he shouldn't and couldn't. There isn't much, if any, dross in there. And I can see now why we are going to have to put up with 3 volumes instead of one to finish it.

So, without plot spoilers, where are we now? Well, we don't hear anything about Andor (either the Lion Throne or the Black Tower). We don't actually get that much further with any of the plot lines, except one - the split White Tower. None of the principles gets an overt bonk, although Min is still with Rand and Siuan and Bryne do end up grinning. We do get a partial denouement regarding the Black Ajah and a couple of significant surprises (at least to me, and I have re-read all of the books this year).

It is, largely, a book about Egwene, with a strong second line about the Seanchen (although there is nothing here that has not been foretold, shadowed or actually done - Tuon was Empress in all but name at the end of Knife of Dreams and, not startlingly, peace and harmony does not magically break out in the West of the world - remember that the Prophecies of the Dragon are different in Seanchan) and enough about the other characters (nothing about Lan, though) there to keep you interested. Travelling does seem to make things much more disjointed.

Markedly, this is very similar to the easy-to-disregard middle volume of many good trilogies - they had too much plot for 2 books but not enough action for a proper threesome. Still, I have certainly read far, far worse and anybody who has got this far, having hacked their way through 11 previous volumes and the prequel is unlikely to stop now. And I am looking forward to Audible having it available.

Black allowed by the BNP!

Humour, that is. Black shirts being de rigueur (in private at least) and black people still being banned (until next month's AGM).

Would it be black humour if I was to suggest the Kenny Everett solution to the BNP? That's the "round 'em up, put 'em in a field and bomb the bastards!" one, for those wondering?

An "Opinion" Piece is not a "Stupidity Licence"

Lesley Riddoch, in today's Scotsman (partial article & comments here) maintains:

Scotland is moving naturally toward the same general policy of neutrality observed by all modern Scandinavian nations.

So she clearly hasn't heard of the NATO membership of Norway and Denmark - and Iceland, I forgot Iceland - (all considered both considered Scandinavian and members of the Nordic Council - the point of her article) or the recent death of a Danish soldier in Afghanistan. There was a Danish battalion as part of the British-led Division in Basrah for a number of years, as well.

Just to make a political point ... Words fail me.

Unseen Academicals

I laughed until I wheezed until I got embarrassing.

The second verse of the Ankh-Morpork national anthem.

Yes, YES, YES

The rest of the book is quite good too. Although it starts a bit slowly compared to others of his oeuvre.

Update: Now on Youtube!

Gary's $700,000 Damages Bill

Once again, we have somebody over here desperately trying to beat sense in to the amorphous "over there":

The US inflated the $700,000 bill for damages it slapped on UFO hacker Gary McKinnon by stuffing it with costs incurred for patching the gaping holes the hacker had exposed in its computer security, according to a document filed with the Supreme Court.

The US had not taken reasonable steps to protect its security and now expects McKinnon to pick up the bill, said an expert witness statement made in McKinnon's ongoing appeal against a US extradition order.

Peter Sommer, professor of security at the London School of Economics, said damage assessments of computer security breaches should consider "whether the victims have taken reasonable steps to limit the damage".

Now, I've not seen the details of the US damages bill but I have seen lots of guesstimates of clean-up costs after security breaches - $700k doesn't seem too bad in comparison with the hideous over-estimates for virus damages - if you think about it in purely work-terms, it is a less than 3 man years for a medium-grade consultant. Add in opportunity costs for your normal IT geekery and you could easily get to a large figure. Remember that it is not just the 97 computers that he got in to but you also have to check the others to see whether or not he had been at or into those.

However, we then have our colonial colleagues disagreeing:

But security experts in the US said McKinnon should be liable for the full $700,000 of security checks performed in his wake.

Professor Eugene Spafford, founder of the Center for Education and Research in Information Assurance and Security at Indiana's Purdue University, said the victim of a cybercrime should not take the blame. If someone broke a door to rob a store, he said, it was usual to charge them the cost of the door.

Anthony Reyes, a former cybercrime detective who helped develop the US Cyber Counter Terrorism Investigations Program, said, "Just because security is weak, it doesn't give you a red flag to go into a computer system and start browsing around."

Spaff, a famous and capable security academic, however seizes the wrong analogy. If somebody opens an unlocked door to rob a store, it would be unusual to charge them for fitting an additional lock.

Reyes, who I have never heard of, is entirely accurate and completely irrelevant. I don't think that anybody is arguing that McKinnon did not do anything 'wrong'. (Ed notes: There are technical arguments as to whether what he did was illegal under the precise wording of various statutes - but what he did was illegal under the UK Computer Misuse Act where it is the unauthorised access that is illegal, regardless of the method you used to gain it, although the latter may be an additional offence.) The question at point is two-fold:

• How much of the $700k claimed is for work that the DoD should have done regardless of McKinnon's intrusion? To look at Spaff's analogy - if somebody opened an unlocked door and, with the investigation, you realised that you only had a three-lever mortice on it, should they be charged for the five-lever lock?
• Secondly, how much of the costs actually incurred should be mitigated because the DoD were negligent in their basic Information Assurance? To look at the insurance example - your contents insurance will have a clause in it about the house being unoccupied for an extended period, because this increases the risk. I am not a lawyer, and certainly not an American one, so I have no idea how this actually plays in the context of a criminal breach of US law. Badly, I suspect.

BCS - Security. Epic Fail

Well, attempting to log on to the "New British Computer Society" site, this morning (Ed notes: what happened to the perfectly acceptable old BCS and how much did that new logo cost?), I was presented with this rather over-informative error:

exception 'AmaxusSecurityException' with message 'Invalid token for request' in /mnt/amaxus4/private/inc/controller/Frontend/FrontendController.class.php:157
Stack trace:
#0 /mnt/amaxus4/private/inc/controller/Frontend/FrontendController.class.php(131): FrontendController->checkRequestToken()
#1 /mnt/amaxus4/private/inc/class/common/Controller.class.php(678): FrontendController->runAction('login')
#2 /mnt/amaxus4/private/inc/class/common/ControllerDispatcher.class.php(68): Controller->handleRequest()
#3 /mnt/amaxus4/private/inc/class/common/ControllerDispatcher.class.php(56): ControllerDispatcher->handleRequest(Object(UserController))
#4 /mnt/amaxus4/site/_server.php(92): ControllerDispatcher->dispatch(Object(ClientRequest))
#5 {main}

Not very good at all for the:

Hannan actually called Obama a misogynist homophobe!

He did, look:

Like St Paul, he made a virtue of being all things to all men.

And, even being a Christian, I have to admit that St Paul is fairly well known, if not actually renowned, for having a downer on the fairer sex and a apocalyptic hatred of gayers. And Hannan clearly compares Obama to St Paul. Therefore, exercising my massive grasp of leftie logic, Hannan has accused Obama of all of Paul's flaws as well as the specific virtue he actually used. And then we have this nonsense from the media.

There have been enough comments from sensible people about the dog-whistle "you're a racist" tactics of the nu-Lab playground bullies so I point you the direction of Cranmer and go off on a rant instead.

Nooooo!

The official, government registered, "Hello Kitty" Tartan:

Bloody Slow BBC

I first saw it here, posted "9/11/2009 01:47:00 PM", if you'll forgive the Yank failure to do dates properly.

So I was quite surprised to see this, just now:

It's a wee bit late, folks, hum?

Oh Noes! The 'R' Word

So, the great Peanut farmer has spoken - opposition to Obama's heathcare reform is racist.

Now, I don't doubt that there are people who do actually oppose President Obama on the grounds that he is black, as well as people who oppose him on the grounds that he is(n't) Kenyan and, I expect, black people who oppose him on the grounds (also racist) that he is mixed race. There are definitely black people who oppose him on the grounds that he is African not "African-American" and, not being the descendant of slaves (the sort carried to the colonies by evil white folks rather than the sort enslaved back home by evil black folks - 'cause there weren't any of the latter). I am sure, also, that on the fringes (at the very minimum) of any group opposing any Obama initiative, you will have some of the people who oppose him for more visceral reasons.

However ...

The last time a Democratic president tried for health care reform (something I, like most Europeans and even Daniel Hannan think the Yanks really need to have a go at), it didn't go down very well either. Why?

Well, clearly it was racism. I mean, wasn't Clinton (completely inaccurately) described as the "first black president"? Well, possibly not. It may be because Mrs Clinton was (and still is) the sort of do-gooding shrewish harpy that really gets the hairs on the skin next to your spine standing up - even if she is saying nothing more harmful than "Good Morning"? It may be because the Republican party are firmly in the pocket of big business and HMOs are very big business indeed. It may be because the tag "socialist" can be easily attached. It may even be because these are not desperately well thought out ideas (v.g. tick, standard government practice) and are going to cost a rather large fortune (ditto).

But opposing health care reform 'racist' - I really don't think, Jimbo, you've made the point.

Beyond even a Labour Minister

From my spam bin:

Dear Friend,
GREETINGS FROM THE UK HOUSE OF PARLIAMENT

This might startle you a little as you might have seen or read about me but really don’t know me in person. Well, I am Rt. Hon Margaret Hodge MP. A British politician and Labour Party Member of Parliament for Banking. I was the first Minister for Children appointed in a newly created post with the Department for Education and Skills and presently Minister of State in the Department for culture, Media and Sport under Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth of the United Kingdom.

I got your contact info via your country’s national directory and intend introducing a project concerning charity in your country and maybe neighbouring countries around you.

A few months ago, I was compelled to make an over estimation during a budget and set aside the sum of Six Million Three Hundred Thousand Great Britain Pounds (£6, 300,000.00GBP) with the sole intention of channeling it all into charity which I am delegating you to executed on my behalf with complete supervision of my Attorney as he will also be the one in charge of securing these funds into your custody.

This transaction will result to you being paid a commission of 11% of the investment capital and the balance, distributed to charity organizations of your choice or reinvested and the net income, used for rehabilitating charity organization in and around your country through you/your agency annually for the period of five years or a little more. The last time I orchestrated this sort of Grant, the individual in Australia succeeded in successfully setting up three standard orphanage homes in less than a year. I have never been so proud of such a noble individual. I hope we would have a reoccurrence in your case. If you are willing to execute this Humanitarian Project, You must understand that I desire absolute confidentiality and professionalism on this issue.

For security reasons as regards my reputation, I will not be able to communicate regularly with you; but my Attorney will take up the processing on my behalf and get these funds processed and released to you without any delay. I don’t plan on benefiting anything from this project, but will be absolutely fulfilled, if and only if you remain sincere to me on the handling of this project with utmost sincerity and confidentiality; and eventually utilize the funds for the purpose which I have explained to you above.

Kindly respond urgently if you are interested as the fund have been tied down for too long, so I can equip you with the necessary details, alongside my Attorney’s contact information, so as to commence the transaction properly; on the other hand, if you are not, please let your intentions be known or better still, Kindly relent from replying this email.

You could get personal info on me via my official website, but do not try contacting me via any personal information you may lay your hands upon on the internet as almost all my contact info are connected to the British House of Parliament data base except the ones I personally sent to you; as I don’t want our effort and my reputation, jeopardized.

Kindly send your response to this E-mail:

margarethodgemp@yahoo.com.hk <-------
Sincerely, THE RT. HON MARGARET HODGE
DEPARTMENT FOR WORK AND PENSIONS,
RICHMOND HOUSE,
79 WHITEHALL,
HOUSE OF COMMONS,
SW1A 0AA LONDON,
SW1A 2NS UNITED KINGDOM.

:) Corrections for formatting only. All mistooks courtesy of the Lads from Lagos.

You just have to love weegies.

And here's to good old Glasgae,
The land of the bigot and the ned ...

It sort of runs out at that point but :)

Nickin' stuff off a pirate ship - that's cooler than having 3 machetes!

Ted Kennedy

Even Camelot had Mordred.

Although he wasn't Irish.

Supremacy of Parliament?

This is boggling beyond belief:

People who sell DVDs and videos illegally, including pornography to children, cannot be prosecuted because of a legislative blunder dating back 25 years, it has emerged.

Okay - I'm no great fan of the current (or 1984 :) quality of parliamentary draftsmanship but the Video Recordings Act was

ENACTED by the Queen's most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same,

So what is this blunder? Oh,

the then British Tory Government should have notified with the European Commission but failed to do so.

The error also went unnoticed when the laws were amended in 1993 and 1994.

The technicality means the act is unenforceable and urgent action is now under way to notify Europe and re-enact the legislation.

So, a law correctly passed by Parliament and in accordance with the British Constitution (and not over-ridden by legislation such as the HRA) is unenforceable because of a bureaucratic oversight? Has this got something to do with s8 (Cinematographic Films) of the European Communities Act? Or is there another control mechanism which requires all of our laws to be notified to the EU?

Hat tip to Caspar on the FIPR list.

This classic "reap as you sow" example of nu-Lab incompetence made me grin. H/t to Charles Crawford.

Multiple bigamist escapes prison

Al Beeb:

A female bigamist who admitted bigamy for a fourth time is speared jail in Manchester, a court hears.

Well, especially given her job, an amusing typo.

Excuse of the Day

Mrs S-E: "Can I speak to the IT Helpdesk, please."

Reception: "Err, no, sorry."

Mrs S-E: "Is there a problem?"

Reception: "Well, somebody has spilt a can of Irn-Bru over their desk and their phone is out of order."

Hmmm. Lucky they're not the ICT helpdesk, then.

No, no, fuck-off, no

This.

Not for the reasons you might suspect - the government actually has a responsibility to ensure that taxpayers money is only paid out in compensation where it is either deserved (or legally entitled - we can argue about the mismatch between the two later). This is the other side of the responsibility it has to ensure that compensation is paid out when deserved (or legally ...)

Now, I have no idea on the number of squaddies who are actually exaggerating the effects of an injury to claim compensation but exaggerating the effects of an injury to avoid work / get on light duties / get some additional time off is an military pastime of considerable antiquity (rather than an 'honoured tradition'). And, to move uniforms for a moment, the number of police officers retiring on medical grounds, especially to avoid a disciplinary investigation, is something that has quite correctly attracted considerable opprobrium. So it isn't impossible, despite the overwhelming majority who, I am sure, are doing their best to get back to a reasonable life after horrific injury, that one or two are trying it on a bit.

Any way, back to the point. RIPA is not a fucking anti-terrorist law. It is not the "Regulation of Terrorist Investigations" Act. Yes, some of the powers available under the Act should only be used to investigation more serious crimes (calling Hazel Blears - a better example than Jacqui Smith - a thieving scumbag - for example) but the Act brought in to a regulatory / legal framework a whole bunch of investigatory techniques (i.e. covert surveillance, confidential informants) that were used anyway, as well as replacing the previous and largely inadequate regimes for other forms of surveillance.

More Wikistupidity

Ah, the lovely smell of hypocrisy. Wikipedia, with its overt insistence on "public domain" only - yet when an 'influential' Wikipedia editor is caught out stitching together partial hi-res images from the National Portrait Gallery, we get this nonsense from the borg:

But the (sic) Wikipedia volunteer David Gerard accuses the gallery of bureaucratic empire building.

"They honestly think the paintings belong to them rather than to us," he wrote.

Now, Mr Gerard is an Australian, albeit living in London, and the sub-title of his blog pretty much says it all. Even if he was a British citizen, the 'us' he is clearly referring to is the elitist (for a peculiar definition of elite) Wikimedia Foundation. You could make a moral case that the original paintings belong to the British public. Morally and legally, the hi-res pictures clearly belong, under British law, to the National Portrait Gallery.

David is asking for comments on the talks between the borg and the victims - personally, I'd like to see Wikimedia Foundation bankrupted for breach of real law as opposed to it editing inconvenient people (i.e. those who do not hold the borg opinion) out of existence. For an encore, what about Mr Coetzee prosecuted and imprisoned for breaching the DMCA (he claims he can pick and chose from copyright law - let's pick the legal jurisdiction of the cabal - he bypassed an electronic protection measure, the same crime that Jon Johansen was prosecuted for in Norway). But then I'm just a reactionary grumpy old git.

"Rule of Law" or "Whim of Bureaucrat"

Well, this cropped up in my morning reading. Well, Brunstrom's gone, so to keep the legally mandated average fuckwittedness level up in Wales, somebody has to turn into a real pillock - so, I thought "ASBO for growing tomatos" - seems like a pillock to me.

Then I read the article and the focus of my fury shifted, borrowed a spare booster rocket from ESA, and speed off in to the distance. Now, I don't know how much of this is unreliable BBC reporting, how much is Mrs Ware's opinion and how much is actually how things work in Port Talbot.

the council operates a green, amber and red warning system which ultimately leads to an anti-social behaviour order.

No, please. If the council wants to operate a system tracking behaviour before it applies to local magistrates for an ASBO and, in court, the matter is duly (Ed notes: the typo there was 'dully' which is most likely to be true as well) considered and stupid applications are thrown out, closely followed by the defenestration of the council official concerned, then fine. But that the council considers that it awards ASBOs or that the magistrates are so supine that they issue on demand (as they used to do with Community Charge default orders)?

Very Brunstrom.

Duh

England must play much better to win.

Not that this quote actually appears in the article, only in the taster, but Agnew actually gets paid for this level of insight?