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Alwin Hawkins at ViewFromTheHeart - Bang Bang Bang: nice words from Mr. Hawkins about my reaction to his comment on my vaccination conspiracy pointers. I don't read View From the Heart often, or I would probably have known when I made my nasty remarks that Alwin is also a libertarian:
I think we agree on the one central principle that unites all libertarians: That the initiation of force to coerce anyone to do anything is wrong.Glad to hear it! I am mostly scared about vaccines. It's hard to get good information. It appears that the pertussis vaccine that was used for years in this country was truly dangerous, and the medical establishment would not admit it. It is claimed that the newer vaccine is safer. I don't know who to trust here. I DO know that whooping cough is no fun, and I have heard that it is sometimes dangerous, but first world kids past their first birthday are rarely at risk. A homeopath whom I trust told me that measles is an important disease to get, and get over. It is also sometimes dangerous, though not usually. The only vaccine he recommends is tetanus, though he said that proper wound care also protects against the disease. Even the medical establishment doesn't believe that chicken pox is dangerous; the only reason for vaccination is to keep Mom at work. The books I have read recommend deciding about each vaccine individually. They're very different. And yes, vaccines are different from antibiotics, and I shouldn't have mixed them up. I still consider both to be poisons, though this belief is not a rational one. Thanks, Alwin, for talking calmly through my angry outburst.
Ross Anderson and others at Cryptome - Serious Bug in PGP - Versions 5 and 6: This was reported in lots of places on Thursday. I've finally taken the time to read it, well all but the mathematical details. Ralf Senderek has written a paper on Key Experiements that he did. He discovered that it is possible to hide additional keys in the new PGP public keys that cause PGP messages to be decipherable by the private keys corresponding to the hidden additional keys. The bottom line according to Mr. Senderek is that if you care about security, you should revert to PGP Classic, version 2.6.x, and generate a new version 2 key if you're not already using one. [grabbe]
PGP Security - PGP ADK Security Advisory: PGP claims that the two major key servers now "cleanse" public keys of unhashed subpackets. This should make them safe. They also claim that PGP Freeware 6.5.8 cleanses keys. It is available at MIT's PGP Download Site (as is version 2.6.2). What's an anarcho-crypto-libertarian to do? I like the fancy GUI, but there's something nice about a 276K DOS command line download compared to a 7.53 megabyte GUI behemoth. Somehow the former feels much more likely to be secure. But I ain't no cryptography expert, so don't take my word for it.
Gene Callahan at LewRockwell.com - I've Seen the Light -- Goodbye! A tongue in cheek embracing of communitarian values. [lew]
Turning to the international scene, the picture is little different. Through the influence of market-oriented policies, many third world countries' traditional way of life -- poverty, famine, rule by a corrupt elite, and frequent military juntas -- were rapidly being destroyed. However, the blessings brought by government agencies, such as the IMF, have managed to put these institutions back in place.
"Tuneprint is an audio fingerprinting algorithm. It takes the unique 'fingerprint' of a sound clip, which can then be compared to a fingerprint database to get more information about the clip, like title and artist, lyrics, URLs, related music, copyright status, or almost anything else. The fingerprint doesn't change even if the sound is compressed, converted to a different file format, broadcast over the radio, and so on." Looks interesting, if it works. They're giving away the code, but want you to sign an NDA so they can track who's got it. It's currently in pre-alpha state, i.e. it doesn't work very well yet. [script]