Dickie's Quickies

Ten thousand people show up in South America to protest George W. Bush. My guess, and this is simply a guess, is that his approval ratings sink at home is topped in South America.

Bound to hurt his ratings at home, immigrants brought in to help rebuild the Gulf Coast are being mistreated. Some aren't being paid. Some are housed in deplorable conditions, made to work 75 hours per week, and some are caught and rounded up by INS agents. Well, it would hurt his ratings at home if the mainstream media would report on this bullshit.

I wonder how reports of some in the Bush administration, including new Cheney chief of staff (Scooters replacement), David Addington, support torture of our enemies and alleged enemies? Of course, we may never know since many are housed in secret prisons.

Have you heard about the Sony rootkit scandle making the rounds? Sony, the record label, apparently installed a rootkit as part of their Digital Rights Management program without telling users in the EULA. A rootkit is a set of tools used to by hackers to gain access to computers. According to Wikipedia:

These tools are intended to conceal running processes and files or system data, which helps an intruder maintain access to a system for malicious purposes.

The legality of Sony's program is still being debated. However, if they left large numbers of users open to exploitation through a back door of some sort and didn't notify the users, then some sort of class action suit seems likely. In any case, if you want to read up on the original report along with all of the technical details, then look at Mark Russinovich's report here. I read Mark's blog regularly - he posts rarely - and it's generally worth it for the geeks.

In entertainment: check out this classic gallery of strippers in the UK.