Port 80

I’ve been working to research a post discussing the recent arrest of two University of Dayton Students at Ft. Benning while they were protesting the SoA/WHINSEC. The full post will be coming over the next few days, but I’ve discovered something that merits comment during my research. I’ve been re-reading some of the statements of the USCCB prior to the war in Iraq, and have stumbled across this line:

[A previous letter] raised serious questions about the moral legitimacy of any preemptive, unilateral use of military force to overthrow the government of Iraq.

I can understand the concerns raised by the Bishops about a preemptive use of force, or about any use of force at all. But why exactly was the word “unilateral” included in this statement? If an action is immoral, then it will never become moral, no matter how many people support it. Likewise, a moral action cannot become immoral if not enough people wish to undertake that action. “Consensus morality” doesn’t hold together any better than does “consensus science.” Have the Bishops forgotten principles of morality that are taught in second-grade religious education classes?

The other option is simply that “unilateral” is included because, alongside “preemptive” it was one of the major political charges leveled against the Bush Administration’s push to war in 2002. However, this possibility is hardly less disquieting. Why is morally irrelevant political terminology being inserted into what should be a statement wholly derived from the teaching and tradition of the Catholic Church? Did the Bishops simply decide to play politics for a change?

I am forced to hope for a third alternative, that the statement was sloppily written, and the word “unilateral” was inserted without careful consideration. However, it is a dark day indeed when my fondest hope is that the USCCB has not thought through what they are saying. One should never assume malice when incompetence will suffice for an explanation - in this case, those are my only two options.

A Catholic moral framework does not easily fit the ideologies of “right” or “left,” nor the platforms of any party. Our values are often not “politically correct.” Believers are called to be a community of conscience within the larger society and to test public life by the values of Scripture and the principles of Catholic social teaching. — USCCB Administrative Committee, Faithful Citizenship: A Catholic Call to Political Responsibility

I’ve had a little time free, and have finished up a new design for the site. This is a task that I’ve meant to do for some time, and the move to a new server finally gave me the impetus to finish the project. Although I have some minor tweaks planned, the overall layout of the page is finished. Do you love it? Do you hate it? Have you found any glaring bugs? I’m open to suggestions.

Lycos "spokesperson" Malte Pollmann is a strong contender for the 2004 Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf awards with this comment on the "Make Love, Not Spam" screensaver:

Contrary to some reports, the service never launched a ‘distributed denial of service attack’. Rather, a centralized database ensured all known spammers’ sites were left with at least 5% of bandwidth. The idea was simply to slow spammers’ sites and this was achieved by the campaign.

With all due respect, Malte, the use of the screensavers was distributed, and the stated goal was to deny the spammers the ability to effectively offer their services on the web. If this isn’t a Distributed Denial of Service Attack, then what on Earth is?

The possibility of electronic counterstrike systems deserves serious consideration - it may very well be an idea whose time has come. However, it is becoming clear that Lycos failed to give the possible consequences of their DDoS campaign even the most cursory evalation.

Consider Symbiot, a company that made headlines by launching a counterstrike security system. Symbiot’s page discussing the possible counterstrike options available to customers is filled with cautions on the legal ramifications of deploying such systems. Other links on their website will take you to extensive white papers discussing the subject. The legal and ethical questions accompanying counterstrike systems are unresolved, and Symbiot recognizes this fact. (Although, as a vendor of such systems, they do have a well-established viewpoint.)

Lycos, on the other hand, doesn’t even appear to have prepared a coherent argument to defend their decision to launch a massive, multinational DDoS. Instead, we get this:

The aim of the campaign was to ignite a debate about anti-spam measures. We feel that we have achieved this through our activity and will now continue that debate with others in the email industry. We hope that this will lead to further new and innovative solutions to the problem of spam.

Igniting the debate on solving the problem of spam would involve writing a provocative whitepaper on the possibilties of an anti-spammer DDoS attack. What Lycos actually did is akin to "igniting a debate" on gun control by handing out free revolvers on a city sidewalk.

I previously wondered what case law might emerge from this Lycos campaign, and I hoped that this case law might help better define the legal liabilities of counterstrike systems. At this point, I’m mostly wondering what heads will roll at Lycos for this fiasco.

I now inform you that you are too far from reality. — Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf, Iraqi Information Minister (Retired)

I’ve now begun the process of migrating from my NeoPages Blosxom installation to a new WordPress site here at Blogsome. All of my old posts should be appearing here over the next few days - however, since I have to import them manually, the process will not be instantaneous.

As soon as I get this site reasonably complete, my old site will be redirected to this location. The administrator at NeoPages will be deleting the old site on December 18th.

Thank you all for your patience with these changes!

Update: All of the posts are across which I’m bringing across. The rest of the site will be coming shortly.

I had planned to spend my free time this upcoming weekend writing follow-ups to several of the posts I had put up recently. Instead, if I’m lucky, I’m going to be moving Port 80 from its current home at NeoPages to a new server.

The reason, ladies and gentlemen, is the work of those fine gentlemen at the “Q8Cracker Crew” (That’s Kuwait Cracker Crew, for those less experienced in deciphering hacker lingo) who, over the past few days, cracked the NeoPages web server and defaced dozens of the sites hosted here. No real damage was done to the server - most of the websites were quickly repaired.

However, the same is not true for our benevolent overlord and system administrator, Roy, who has finally had enough. As a result, the free hosting he has offered here will be ending no later than December 11th. Many thanks to him for all he has provided to date.

The upshot of this is threefold:

• I am on the hunt for a new host. I’ve got a few possibilities in mind, and I’ll post a URL here when I know where I’m ending up.

• I have a new personal policy on the philosophy of “hactivism.” Whenever someone attempts to explain to me exactly how web site defacement is a valid act of political speech, I will render him unconscious with a sharp blow to the head, and write a political slogan on his face with a felt-tip marker. When he comes to, I will proceed to explain to him how this temporary, largely harmless, defacement was a valid expression of my political beliefs.

• My policy towards those I meet who are self-styled “h4x0rs” is much the same as the above, but with less emphasis on felt-tip markers and more emphasis on sharp blows to the head. I’ve always thought crackers were basically a motley collection of antisocial teen vandals and organized crime syndicates, but that was purely an academic evaluation. Now, it’s personal.

  Furthermore, given the nature of their defacements, the fine gentlemen of Q8Crackers appear also to be hard-line Islamists, making them members of another group of people I just adore. (To top it off, these “hackers” write their HTML with FrontPage.)

I’m signing off for now, hopefully to return shortly. Check back before December 11th for a new URL.

Don’t you just hate them? Don’t you just wanna break their ribs, cut their backs open and pull their lungs out from behind? — Ina Faye-Lund, on script kiddies