text:
Conservatives set aim for women to make up 50% of election candidate list
Posted on July 8, 2020 by Mike Buchanan
A piece published on the website of Justice for Men & Boys (and the women who love them), the political party of which I'm the chairman, in August 2018:
Outrageous. Extracts:
Conservatives have set out an ambition for women to make up half of its list of approved candidates for Westminster elections.
The 50% figure was announced by party chairman Brandon Lewis, who said that the party needed to "do more" to make sure its gender balance better reflects the society it seeks to represent…
Speaking to BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour, Mr Lewis made clear Tories were not following Labour's lead in operating all-women shortlists for candidates.
"In terms of quotas and shortlists, I think that just masks the underlying problems within organisations," he said. "We need to change the culture across our political landscape, get that systemic change, not just a short-term fix." [J4MB: WHY do they need to do that?]
Mr Lewis said that two out of the three Conservative candidates selected so far for the general election expected in 2022 have been women. [J4MB: A huge degree of anti-male discrimination.]
"This is a promising start," he said. "But in order to reach our ambition, we need to have a wider strategy."
He promised further action to "level the playing field" between male and female candidates…
Mr Lewis's announcement was welcomed by women's rights pressure group the Fawcett Society. [J4MB emphasis]
But the society's chief executive, Sam Smethers, added: "The challenge now is how they roll this out at constituency level, address attitudinal and procedural barriers and get those women into winnable seats.
What times we live in. The Conservative party's chairman being applauded by the chief executive of the Fawcett Society.
Two or three years ago Caroline Spelman MP – party chairman in 2008 – admitted on Radio 4 that when she was chairman, men had outnumbered women 10:1 in applying to be prospective parliamentary candidates. I doubt the ratio has changed much in the intervening years.
The calibre of incoming new MPs is set to decline further, and decline dramatically. Those who benefit from anti-meritocratic initiatives are invariably keen to sustain them for others – especially if they're women.


text:
On R-Day, Govt buildings lit up with multicolour lights
Srinagar Airport illuminated with Tricolour light
Several government buildings were lit up in Kashmir ahead of the celebration of Republic Day.
Srinagar Airport, Civil Secretariat Srinagar Jammu and Kashmir High Court Jahangir Chowk flyover was illuminated and decorated with colourful lights and garlands.
Srinagar Airport was specially decorated and lit up with Tri colour lights.
Director Srinagar Airport said, "26th January is a day on which every Indian heart fills up with patriotic fervour and immense love for motherland, On the eve of 72th Republic Day we have lightened and decorated Srinagar airport on this beautiful occasion."
The Republic Day celebrations take place all over the country, however, Delhi being the capital of India, witnesses the largest Republic Day celebrations.
On the day all important government buildings are beautifully adorned with sparkly lights every evening till 29th January, when Beating the Retreat ceremony is conducted.
In an official statement, it said, "On 72th Republic day on 26th January Airport Authority of India, Airlines, CRPF, and CISF witnessed the celebrations at Srinagar International Airport."
"The importance of the Constitution and its unique features such as Sovereign, Socialist, Secular, Democratic and Republic enshrined in the preamble of the constitution," Director Srinagar Airport Santosh Dhoke (IAP) said in his address.
On the occasion Director Airport also distributed the certificate of appreciation to AAI, Airlines, AAICLAS, CRPF, CISF and J&K police employees for their extraordinary services and dedication to their profession.
Tricolour flags were also seen raised on the banks of the Dal Lake.
Meanwhile, low-speed internet service was snapped in the Valley which was later restored in the evening by authorities.
Tags: Jammu and Kashmir Republic Day
Previous Statehood to J&K will be restored soon: Ashok Koul
Next Covid-19 claims one more life, 74 test positive in J&K

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


New month, new Medik8 post, am I right? I enjoy a good scrub, and while I've had my heart broken by some scrubs that didn't quite hit the mark in the past, I've been pretty happy with this one, and here's why!
The Medik8 Pore Refining Scrub is part of their Pore Refining product range, with each product developed to help target enlarged pores.
The Pore Refining Scrub is a dual-action exfoliating facial scrub that utilises a mixture of chemical and physical exfoliants. There is salicylic and mandelic acid to help dissolve impurities and oil, and to aid in decongesting the pores. The inclusion of jojoba grains is to help slough away dead skin cells, and improve the texture of your skin. This also has niacinamide in it, which is great for the skin.
For $59, you'll get 75 ml of product, which comes in a white tube with a flip lid. This is relatively creamy, with a bit of grit that doesn't feel like it's buffing off half of your face when you're working it into the skin in circular motions. I love how smooth my skin feels after washing it off, and while I don't know that my pores are any more refined than before (blessed with good skin, I'm afraid!), I enjoy the other benefits, like smooth skin and a bit of glow, that I attribute to this scrub. If you're keen on trying it for yourself, head to their website over here.
What's your favourite scrub and why?


Wacky Wacko collaborate with Unity with artwork by Jeffrey Cheung!
Unity is a queer skateboarding company and zine press from Oakland, CA that organizes queer skate meetups around the world.
Wacky Wacko is a clothing line produced by Los Angeles-based musician and artist, Seth Bogart. Seth performs live under his own name or sometimes as Hunx & His Punx. He is a Fantazy Toothbrush© Artist. He founded and creates most of the artwork for the clothing brand Wacky Wacko. He made a tiny tv show called Feelin' Fruity. He's currently working on a new album and is busy in the studio making things for his upcoming exhibitions.
100% cotton, all over print on front and back.


Renewals for 2019 VCA memberships are now closed. Any renewals received on or after March 1, 2019 will need to be in the form of a new applications and must be go through the new membership application process.
By applying for membership in the VCA, applicants agree to adhere to the VCA Code of Ethics, which serve as guidelines for responsible vizsla ownership and breeding practices, and sportsmanship in general.
All breeders must be current VCA members in good standing.
The new owner must not be an existing or prior member of the VCA.
VCA Associate Membership for new puppy buyers will still require voting confirmation by the Board of Directors.
The breeder must submit all applications and litter registrations by mail or email within 6 months of whelp date starting 1/1/2019. Any litters born in 2018 will have until June 30, 2019 to submit member applications and registrations.
A copy of the AKC litter registration must accompany all applications.
The VCA offers a calendar year subscription (4 issues) to The Vizsla News for $45/year. There is a postage supplement required for non-US subscriptions. Please send the subscription form and payment to address noted on form.
Many VCA members have agreed to be a resource to those looking for information about the breed, breeders, regional clubs, activities and the VCA. VCA members agree to adhere to the VCA Code of Ethics. Publication of VCA membership information, however, does not constitute an endorsement of any individual(s) listed. If you would like your name added to the list, a form is enclosed with your annual renewal or update notice.


text:
Joe Fox
Louie Miller
by J. Fox | Mar 17, 2021 | friendship
We remember Detective Louie Miller, especially this time of the year. He sacrificed his life for us on March 11, 1987. In December, 1981, my first day on the job after graduating the Police Academy, I met a man who I would remember and look up to for the rest of my life. Louie Miller trained me, and countless others. He not only taught us how to be better cops, but he showed us how to be better people. He was a father figure for each of us, when we needed it most. One of the many gifts he left us was our ability to tell his stories, the stories of love, compassion, caring and service. I am honored to share a few of them.
Louie could have had practically any assignment he wanted, but his true passion was training new officers. He had a gift for helping rookies make the transition from the Police Academy to police officer. He considered being a training officer a special privilege. Louie would regularly remind his fellow training officers and supervisors of the enormous potential they had. Louie would often say to them, "The future leaders of our department may be in this group. Some of them will be bosses someday. Someone in this group may be a chief someday. And we have the ability to affect what kind of cop they become, and what kind of bosses they will be."
He affectionately referred to the young officers he was training as "my kids." Louie had been given a nickname, "The Commander." Although he was not a supervisor, the name reflected his strong command presence and his way of always taking charge at a job. The name fit him well. Even in his late fifties, Louie continued to run into buildings with officers who were less than half his age. The Commander knew the glory of being the first to show up at the home of someone who needed help, someone who was experiencing some kind of crisis that only a cop could handle. When asked when he was going to retire, Louie would say, "I love my job; I love my kids." Sometimes he would add, "The only way I'm going to leave this job is with an "Inspector's Funeral." (An honor given to a police officer who dies in the line of duty.)
The compassion Louie showed for others was a way of life for him. No one escaped his kindness. He carried containers of dog food in the back of his patrol car, for the occasional hungry stray dog he may happen upon. His caring also extended to homeless people who he would see on a frequent basis. He would sometimes give them change, coffee or tea, and something to eat, but always a few kind words, and the most valuable gift one can give, his attention.
His wife Veronica's mother had bought a Persian Lam coat as World War II began that she passed on to Veronica. Years later she had the long coat altered and cut down to a shorter version, consistent with the style of the day. She wore it a few times, and put it away in the back of a closet. It stayed in her closet for years without her wearing it. One day Veronica noticed the coat missing. She asked Louie if he had seen it. He told her, in a matter-of-fact tone, "I got rid of that old coat. I found someone who really needed it." Louie had given it to a homeless woman at the train station on Church Avenue. He got into a bit of trouble, but not for long. Veronica was as loving as he was.
Sector "George" was Louie's steady sector. As he and his rookies started an hour after the regularly scheduled platoon, on each day a team would already be assigned to sectors "George/Henry/Ida." When Louie got to his sector, he would message the dispatcher, "Car 2059 to Central" The dispatcher would respond, "Good afternoon Commander!" He'd continue, "Be advised, we will be designated sector "George." Please advise the old "George/Henry/Ida" that they will now be known as "Henry/Ida." The dispatcher would say, "10–4 Commander." Then, cops from all over the division would get on the radio to great Louie, "How are you Commander?" "Hey Commander!" "Good morning Louie." There were strict prohibitions against "unauthorized transmissions" over the department radio, such as those, but no one would ever question the honorable greetings given to Louie each day. Knowing he was working and the sound of his voice comforted and motivated everyone.
One day in my first month in training I was on a foot post on the south side of Church Avenue, between 18th Street and 19th Street. Standing alone, I planted myself against the building line, doing my best to look "hard," intensely focused on appearing strong, and "in charge." As I was standing against a building a marked car pulled up and inside the car were two cops in training with me and Louie. When I started walking toward the car, I noticed a man approaching from down the block, walking toward us. His clothes were disheveled and he had a swagger that gave me the impression that he probably spent a good deal of his time hanging out on street corners. So, as he quickly neared, I stepped back again, toward the building line, standing erect and trying to look like a street hardened cop who had seen it all.
As he was passing us, he spotted Louie. He smiled and turned and in a friendly voice he said, "How ya' do'in, Detective Miller?" Louie smiled and answered, "How are you doing Sammy?" They both shook hands, and had a pleasant exchange. Sammy had some experience on the wrong end of the law, and Louie Miller knew that. However, he treated Sammy with dignity and respect. He spoke to him with the same kindness he would show me, or anyone else.
On March 11, 1987, I was assigned as the desk officer of the 61 Precinct. Desiree, a police officer who was being trained in Louie's unit, came down the stairs and walked quickly toward the desk, looking at me from the moment she came out of the stairway. Desiree was very pleasant and was always smiling, but as she walked quickly toward me her face was very serious. Before she even got to me, from about twenty feet away, she said, "Louie was shot." I stared at Desiree; she stared back at me, both of us with a look of helpless disbelief. For a moment, everything seemed to stop – my thoughts, my body, and time. Then, a few moments later, I heard that Louie might not make it. And within the hour, I learned that the Commander had died. That bad news traveled quickly. It spread throughout the entire NYPD, to every station house in every borough, to every patrol car, to every cop on a foot post. And the momentary paralysis Desiree and I shared was felt by every one of New York's Finest. A cop was shot in the 70, and he didn't make it.
As a Chief, I spoke of Louie throughout every rookie orientation, but during those two days I could only speak about him a few minutes at a time, because if I spoke about him longer, I would get emotional. At the end of the session, I would call his wife Veronica in Charlottesville and tell her that a couple of hundred officers have been given some of the wisdom of "The Commander." At the end of every phone call, she would say to me, "Awe, you've made my day." I would then tell Vera, who passed away in October 2014, that people will be remembering, and telling stories of the beloved Commander for many years to come. And 34 years later, last Thursday I got to stand with my partners in the 70 back then, Mike Collins and Jack Driscoll and address the cops of the 70 and share the gifts of my mentor, mentor to so many. I am forever grateful to Louie, for all the lives he has touched, and for the impact he has had and continues to have on mine.
God bless Louie and all of our heroes, and all of our departed loved ones. Stay safe, stay inspired and stay healthy, in body and spirit.
Fox on the Beach – Purposeful Moments – Tears of Humanity – December 03, 2021
Fox on the Beach – Purposeful Moments – Thanksgiving And Gratitude – November 05, 2021
Fox on the Beach – Purposeful Moments – Months After 9/11, an October Miracle – October 22, 2021
Fox on the Beach – Purposeful Moments – Hurricane Sandy Anniversary: Seeking "Perfect Order" – October 08, 2021
Fox on the Beach – Purposeful Moments – Find the Pause Again– September 3, 2021


Here's the latest and greatest of KDE's software collection (Frameworks, Plasma, Applications). SInce my last 'ktown' release, all of KDE's sources have been renewed, and today I am making public a package set for KDE 5 aka Plasma 5 with version 5_15.03: my March '15 release.
This incremental release of KDE 5_15.03 consists of Frameworks 5.8.0, Plasma 5.2.2 and Applications 14.12.3 plus the latest updates of the KDE 4 Long Term Support (LTS) packages kdelibs, kdepimlibs, kdepim, kdepim-runtime and kde-workplace.
Slackware-current will stick with KDE 4, and therefore the next version of Slackware will likely ship with KDE 4.14.3 plus the latest LTS updates. KDE 5, or Plasma 5 as many people like to call it, is not yet fit for the average user. It is stable, has some nice new concepts but if you are not the curious or tinkering kind, you will be better off with Slackware's KDE 4.10.5 or my own KDE 4.14.3.
If you are curious and like to tinker, and don't care if some functionality is temporarily missing from Plasma 5 that you were used to in KDE 4, then my Plasma 5 packages will be a nice and interesting update for your Slackware-current computer (32-bit or 64-bit).
changes in system tray support is a must-read.
So after installing these packages there will no longer be a KDE 4 desktop on your computer. There is no choosing between KDE 4 and Plasma 5 – KDE 4 will be mostly replaced (I say "mostly" because there are still a lot of KDE 4 applications in this release – wait for Applications 15.04 to see more applications transition to Frameworks 5).
I run this Plasma 5 desktop on my laptop all the time and it's getting better with every incremental release. Don't worry, if you are disappointed with Plasma 5, you can always revert to one of the KDE 4 releases (Slackware's or mine).
Upgrading to this KDE 5 is non-trivial. You will have to remove old KDE packages manually. If you do not have KDE installed at all, you will have to install some of Slackware's own KDE 4 packages manually. I can not guarantee that there will be no deal-breakers for you (missing functionality or persistent crashes).
Posted: 28 March, 2015 in Slackware, Software.
Great news! Thank you Eric!
Would there be any benefit to using any of the updated packages in kde4 and/or kde4-extragear with your KDE 4.14.3 package. For example kdelibs-4.14.6 and the kde pim files?
BTW, will we ever see KDE 4.14.3 in -current? It has been almost 17 months since the release of Slackware 14.1. Has Mr. Volkerding been ill?
Hi Crdone – no, yes, no.
I have on my TODO list an update for the KDE 4.14.3 packages in my repository, using the new sources for kdelibs, kdepim*, kde-workspace, calligra but for now you just have to be patient.
With this release even the owncloud icon bug disappears.
after upgrading (current / kde 4.14.3 -> kde 5_15.02_02) lost suspend/hibernate actions from kde\'s menus, update to KDE 5_15.03 not fixes this issue. This is known problem of kde5?
# By default slackpkg+ deny to install 32bit packages.
# package to avoid problems, and NEVER upgrade exitant 64bit packages with relative 32bit package.
# Do not forget to install the multilibs.
# Add custom option to \'wget\'.
# remember to launch \'slackpkg update\' if you modify that row.
first time i update kde using slackpkgplus, what supposed to do?
I've been waiting for this. Thanks, Eric. Running smooth so far.
Arief JR – if this is your first time using that "ktown5" repository, did you run "slackpkg update gpg" and "slackpkg update" first?
Thanks Eric! Will be testing this one tonight!
i was waiting for it to get solved somehow in the future but since you mentioned your TODO about kde 4.14.3 update. When the time comes could you look at the phonon/gstreamer/vlc/amarok issue. Some friends have the same issue (all use intel_hda). When music starts to play it's very loud. upon trying to change the volume it gets stuck at a very low level. If it could be of some help, i have noticed the same issue on FreeBSD with the same version of kde, with both vlc and gstreamer backend (so, not a slackware problem). Sorry if it's off topic and thanks for the new plasma 5 packages.
These backslashes do not belong in the file, how did they get there?
fabio, if that's a KDE bug (and it looks like it) then you should report it there, otherwise you may have to wait a long time.
i'm sorry, i just copy paste on konsole with command # cat /etc/slackpkg/slackpkgplus.conf and output too.
and i don't know backslashes show on this comment, but in my configuration slackpkgplus.conf nothing backslashes.
And it looks like I'm not the only one.
this problem has solved, thanks for answer. yes phenixia, i forget to comment on /etc/slackpkg/blacklist but thank you.
When will it be possable to migrate one's kde4 configs to kde5, rather than making a big jump and having to start again?
KDE 5 writes to the same configuration directories as KDE 4 (~./kde , ~/.config and ~/.local). As long as the developers took care of migration paths where required, you should just upgrade and be fine. Most applications are still KDE 4 based anyway. And the Plasma 5 workspace is not compatible with the old Plasma 4 workspace, you will have to dress up your desktop with all the wallpapers icons and widgets from scratch.
Only my preview for KDE 5, last summer, used separated configuration directories and at that time, you could install the KDE 5 preview in parallel with KDE 4. That is no longer the case.
You aren't worried about migrating KDE 4 settings to KDE 5 but want to know what happens to all the programs you added yourself?
They will work just like they do on KDE 4. As long as the library dependencies are still met, they will start and use their configurations as always.
Perhaps you'll have to recompile some packages in case they are depending on versions that are shipped with KDE 4 and are no longer available in KDE 5, but I can not make any assumptions about those.
Thanks, I no longer need to play hide and seek looking for configurations. Probably also, I will not have many worries with my own hand-installed stuff. However, there may remain the problem with wigets and wall papers, or are these stored in~/.kde etc. ?
With last update from -current branch icu4c was upgraded from 51 to 54. All qt5 libs and apps now broken.
Sorry for annoyance, i\'m found LQ-thread about this.
Don't be sorry. This is the perfect place to discuss your issues with KDE 5 and the -current update.
Hi Eric. Do you have any points on what to do with our KDE5 setups after yesterday's big update?
Unless you want to find out yourself by recompiling anything that gives you errors, you'll have to wait until I have time for a new KDE 5 myself. The slackware-current update has many of the deps now, so I can get rid of those. And instead of recompiling the KDE packages I have, I will update Frameworks, Plasma and Applications with new releases.
However, I have only one computer that compiles my packages in virtual machines. It is currently compiling a new LibreOffice for slackware-current (that too is broken) ahd it takes a _long_ time to compile in a virtual machine… and then I still need to do the 32-bit package.
The changes to the new versions of Plasma and Applications are quite extensive and I have been working all night to update the KDE.SlackBuild framework for new and renamed packages. Part of the new sources are kdenlive and kde-telepathy but I think I will skip those for now, because they demand many new deps.
I had to downgrade icu4c from 54.1 to 51.2 and upgrade libxcb from 1.9.1 to 1.11. I'm not sure why to get Plasma to start. I'm not sure why.
Emacs says libopenjp2.so.7 is missing, and dolphin says libgstapp-0.10.so.0 is missing.
Like I said and as shown in the repository URL, Plasma 5 is a "testing" environment on top of slackware-current. You can expect some breakage at some points in time. A massive library upgrade in -current causes such breakage. Unfortunately, there are other broken packages too, and because I decided to fix LibreOffice first, creating new packages for that software eats up two of my working days… I start the compilation while I am at home and then the compilation runs while I am at work. First try, there was an ICU related linking error and I noticed that when I came back from work… a day wasted.
The libgstapp-0.10.so.0 library is part of the new gst-plugins-base0 package, did you install all the new packages that were added in the latest slackware-current batch? That's 77 NEW packages to install.
This weekend I will work on an uodate for my KDE 5 packages which should resolve the current breakage.
About Emacs: the library it's reporting as misisng is part of another NEW package: openjpeg.
Thanks, Alienbob, for all your work. Plasma works very well otherwise: it's fast and beautiful.
Can we update to KDE 4.14.3 applications? Will that break anything?
I would not try to mix the two. If KDE 5 is too unstable at the moment, it might be wiser to (temporarily) switch to the KDE 4.14.3 of Slackware-current.
Thanks, but it's actually stable enough, and the video a lot faster. (I was having some strange corrupt font problems before, but not since using Plasma; I'm using an Intel Integrated Graphics Controller rev. 18 graphics card on a 4 year old System76 laptop.) Your LibreOffice update made it work with Plasma. Firefox, Thunderbird, etc. work.


text:
Spyware FAQ
terrybollinger.com
(updated 2005-06-25, created 2004-12-01)
Copyright 2004 by Terry Bollinger, but unlimited rights to copy for free or for profit
are granted provided only that the document as a whole and this copyright remain
intact. Translation into other languages is also permitted, in which case the original
English version may be omitted. Please read the legal disclaimers at the end of this
document carefully BEFORE using any of the spyware removal methods given here.
What is spyware?
How bad is the spyware problem, really?
How can I tell if my system has spyware?
What is softcore spyware?
Is it OK to use a PC or laptop with softcore spyware on it?
Will upgrading to the latest version of Windows fix existing spyware problems?
Can I avoid spyware by not opening attachments and not downloading untrusted software?
What can I do to remove softcore spyware?
How can I avoid accumulating more softcore spyware?
What is hardcore spyware?
Isn't hardcore spyware so rare that I don't need to worry about it?
Don't most spyware checkers find and remove hardcore spyware?
Why is hardcore spyware so difficult to remove?
What is a Shiva?
Is it OK to use a PC or laptop with hardcore spyware on it?
Is it OK to use a PC or laptop with hardcore spyware if I stay offline?
Is it OK to use a PC or laptop with hardcore spyware for gaming only?
Surely, spyware attacks are not as common at all this implies?
If I reformat all the disks my computer and reinstall Windows, will that eliminate all spyware?
What can I do to remove hardcore spyware without obliterating my data and applications?
How can I minimize future hardcore spyware break-in attempts?
If I use a Mac, do I need to worry about spyware?
If I use Linux, do I need to worry about spyware?
I used backtracking tools in my spyware checker to find the source of an attack. What should I do?
Who is creating all of this spyware?
Recent elections have seen the rise of pure electronic voting. Is spyware an issue in electronic voting?
Are there any other types of spyware to be worried about?
Q: What is spyware?
A: Spyware is software inserted into your computer without your permission, to gather information about you for someone else's benefit. It is useful to distinguish two categories: softcore spyware and hardcore spyware.
Q: How bad is the spyware problem, really?
A: The best answer to this is a challenge: After reading and making sure you can agree to the legal disclaimers at the end of this document, try applying my procedure for removing hardcore spyware to an example PC or laptop. Some of the most interesting results come from systems that in which you are already using good virus and spyware checkers and would generally expect to be free from hardcore spyware.
Q: How can I tell if my system has spyware?
A: Common indicators of spyware infections include:
Your computer is plagued with odd hesitations and pauses that you don't recall seeing when you first had it. E.g., opening a folder may take tens of seconds, and small applications that used to come up quickly now seem to take forever to load.
Your computer is getting "old" and not functioning as well as it used to. The catch here is that computers do not really get old -- they generally either keep working or break down. If you have noticeable "aging" in your Windows PC or laptop, there is a good chance you have spyware, and probably a lot of it.
You are getting huge quantities of junk mail. The dark secret of junk mail is that it often comes not from anything you did directly on the Internet, but from spyware that is riffling through your computer to find email addresses and other marketing information. Such information can then used directly by the spyware controller or sold to third party junk mailers.
You have a DSL line and have never taken any extraordinary measures to protect your computer. Without active guards of various forms, a Windows Computer on a DSL line will typically start picking up spyware in a matter of minutes or hours, especially if you use the Internet often.
You have downloaded lots of software based on ads and popups, rather than based on product reviews and recommendations from groups that you trust. While many legitimate applications use such ads, all too often they are also sources of spyware.
You are using an older version of Windows. While any of the Windows operating systems can be plagued by spyware, older ones such as Windows 98 and ME are definitely more at risk. Windows XP with Service Pack 2 (SP2) should be probably the safest version, but using it does not guarantee immunity from spyware.
You occasionally get periods of furious disk and/or network activity for no obvious reason. Extensive disk activity is normal when you are first booting up, when previously scheduled programs start up, and when you are running certain types of disk-intensive programs such as virus checkers. It can also occur often if you use peer-to-peer file sharing network such as Kazaa. However, if you are not running any such programs, there is a good chance (but not a certainty) that the activity is being caused by spyware. Extensive unexplained network activity is even more suspicious, although that too is common for sharing programs such as Kazaa.
Your computer boots up, but is so severely impaired that you can no longer use the Internet or do ordinary tasks that used to be easy. In terminal cases, spyware effectively takes over your computer entirely. It makes free use of your disk, processor, and Internet connection, and may even lock you out of your own PC or laptop while it does so.
You have been using a name-brand virus for several years, and have been assuming that it would have alerted you to any really dangerous infiltrations of your computer. The sad truth is that until very recently, most virus checkers did not even consider spyware dangerous, and so did not scan for it. More pointedly, I have looked at Windows systems that have used virus checkers only for years to protect them, and have typically encountered hundreds to thousands of spyware hits on them. The cleanest such system I have encountered was one owned by the pastor of a church -- I supposed he, um, only used it on Sundays? -- and that one zero viruses and 103 spyware hits, all softcore.
You do not use a Mac, Linux, or BSD (similar to Linux) operating system. In other words, spyware has exploded mostly in the Windows community, while leaving other operating systems comparatively unscathed. It should be noted that while this is true in late 2004, the situation with spyware is fluid and could change in the future, especially if current trends towards more use of other operating systems continues.
Q: What is softcore spyware?
A: Softcore spyware uses your PC or laptop resources without your permission and collects information about you as a potential buyer, albeit not necessarily of a product in which you would normally have any interest. Examples include adware, which in one way or another subjects you to unwanted web or email ads. Softcore spyware is often nominally legal, in the sense that it does not attempt to steal critical information such as passwords or bank numbers. On the other hand, large numbers of softcore spyware applications can drag your computer down to the point where it seems "old" and unreliable, when what is really happening is that your PC or laptop is too busy running other people's software to bother much with yours.
Q: Is it OK to use a PC or laptop with softcore spyware on it?
A: Yes, but only if you enjoy being harassed. Leaving softcore spyware on a PC or laptop can result in significant annoyances such as seriously degraded performance, unwanted popup ads, and huge volumes of junk mail, but by definition this type of spyware will not attempt to take your identity or use your computer for illegal purposes.
The risky part, however, is how to determine with certainty that your system only has softcore spyware on it. In general, a system with lots of softcore spyware is also likely to contain far more dangerous, and far better hidden, hardcore spyware applications.
Q: Will upgrading to the latest version of Windows fix existing spyware problems?
A: No. If you currently have hardcore spyware in your Windows system, upgrading to a more recent version of Windows will help considerably in preventing entirely new spyware from coming in. For the burglar that is already in your house, however, putting up new and tighter walls does little to get him out. For that you will still need third-party spyware checkers.
The most secure version of Windows as of late 2004 is probably Windows XP with Service Pack 2 (SP2), which includes features such as a built-in firewall and a substantial reduction in security holes. In terms of price performance, however, you can almost certainly get a larger increase in spyware protection per unit of cost by simply adding third-party spyware detectors and firewalls to your current Windows version.
Q: Can I avoid spyware by not opening attachments and not downloading untrusted software?
A: No. For example, older browsers allow a mild form of softcore spyware called tracking cookies to be accepted by default, meaning you will accumulate this form of spyware simply be using the web. More importantly, hardcore spyware does not bother with such legal niceties as entering only through badly designed but legal browser defaults. If your system has security holes of any sort, networks of hardcore spyware will try and often succeed in loading spyware onto your system. On one Windows 98SE system, I encountered an average of about one attempt per day to place hardcore spyware (Cool Web Search and others) into the system. While I was able to detect such placements, I was not able to prevent them entirely without extensive reconfiguring of the Windows system.
Q: What can I do to remove softcore spyware?
A: Softcore spyware can be removed quickly and easily with any spyware checker that has a proven reputation for effectiveness and trustworthiness. I can recommend four such spyware checkers that I have personally checked out for effectiveness and trustworthiness. Any one of these will remove all or nearly all of the softcore spyware in your PC or laptop, and may provide a substantial improvement in performance and reliability if your system was badly infected:
1. Webroot Spy Sweeper - http://www.webroot.com/downloads/
2. Lavasoft Ad-Aware SE - http://www.lavasoftusa.com/support/download/
3. Spybot Search & Destroy - http://www.safer-networking.org/en/
4. Microsoft's GIANT AntiSpyware - http://www.giantcompany.com/
Spy Sweeper is the best of the free demos, and is also unusually good at removing any hardcore spyware from you system. It has a 30-day demo period. Spybot Search & Destroy is the best bargain by far. It is very powerful and free, with a donate-only-if-you-like-it revenue model, but it has also been around long enough that it is often specifically targeted by hardcore spyware. Ad-Aware SE Personal is especially thorough at finding softcore spyware. It is free for home or educational use, but is an bit of a resource hog and cannot be with other applications. Until it was purchased by Microsoft on December 16, 2004, GIANT AntiSpyware was a free demo with the best overall features, including in particular hardcore spyware removal, of any of the tools listed here. Microsoft plans to make a version of it available for Windows, but for now it must be purchased.
Finally, a note of caution: Never select spyware checkers based solely on their own advertising. Since this is a relatively new market, there are still some very shaky products around, including spyware checkers that do more harm than good, such as by removing the wrong files. There are also more than a few cases in which a spyware checker is actually itself a form of spyware. Due to such issues, I strongly encourage that readers of this document verify all spyware checker recommendations independently, including the ones I have just made. Good resources for making such assessments include reviews of the applications in major magazines or on accepted web resources such as TUCOWS.
Q: How can I avoid accumulating more softcore spyware?
A: Use a browser other than the default one on Windows. Despite many helpful changes in the early 2000s, Internet Explorer remains the single most significant entry point into Windows systems for both softcore and hardcore spyware. Changing browsers can help tremendously by removing a major entry point for such spyware.
Mozilla Firefox (http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/) not only follows excellent browser safety practices, but also provides convenient functions such as tabbed browsing, in which new pages are located on tabs instead of separate windows. Also, look into adding a software firewall such as the free Sygate Personal Firewall (http://www.tucows.com/preview/213160.html). While firewalls are aimed more at keeping out hardcore spyware, they also reduce softcore accumulation by increasing overall security.
Q: What is hardcore spyware?
A: Hardcore spyware attempts to take control of your computer system and/or personal identity for purposes that are almost never legal. It is comparatively less common, but far more dangerous, than softcore spyware. Examples include keyloggers that capture everything you type and send the records off to remote locations, and Remote Administration Terminals (RATs) that allow remote users to take more-or-less complete control of your computer. As defined here, hardcore spyware includes applications such as Trojans that attempt to take over your computer. Since all such applications share an intent to steal your data and resources, and since they are all for that very reason detected and removed by all the major spyware checkers, the phrase hardcore spyware provides a convenient name for any type of steal-your-resources software that must be removed before you can use your system safely.
Q: Isn't hardcore spyware so rare that I don't need to worry about it?
A: As of late 2004, hardcore spyware has become so common that everyone should be worrying about it. In the late 1990s, hardcore spyware was almost certainly less common than now because of its need for time-consuming "tending" by whoever planted the spyware. What has changed in the early 2000s was a dramatic increase in the use of automated methods to place and monitor hardcore spyware. With automated placement, any home or small business Windows system with even a minor security hole becomes a candidate for hardcore spyware. Consequently, a home network with broadband access, teenagers, and one or more old (e.g., 98SE) Windows PCs or laptops is now likely to have keyloggers and RATs somewhere in their home network. Fortunately, the ability of spyware producers to absorb and fully use the using the resulting flood of random personal data seems to be lagging behind their ability to install the spyware that collects it. Nonetheless, the financial and security implications of such high levels of data leaks from hardcore spyware are truly frightening when multiplied by the global size of the Internet. The fact that control can go in the other direction, allowing manipulation of data and even applications on affected computers, is even more worrisome.
Q: Don't most spyware checkers find and remove hardcore spyware?
A: Technically, yes, since any good spyware checker is aware of hardcore spyware and is nominally capable of removing it. In practice, even using a good spyware checker on a regular basis is more likely to result in a false sense of security than a PC or laptop that is free from hardcore spyware.
Q: Why is hardcore spyware so difficult to remove?
A: In sharp contrast to softcore spyware, hardcore spyware typically includes an impressive array of stealth and counter-attack capabilities of its own. Advanced forms of hardcore spyware can have detection and response capabilities comparable to, or even exceeding, those of the spyware checkers trying to find them. Furthermore, they are often designed to have specific knowledge of major virus and spyware checkers, just as major spyware checkers have knowledge of them. The result is that when hardcore spyware and good spyware checkers are placed on the same system, the result is more akin to outright warfare than a simple checklist scan for cookies and bad programs. Hardcore spyware uses its stealth, counter-attacks, and knowledge of virus and spyware checkers to hide itself, disable common spyware and virus checkers, and even take over virus and spyware checkers for its own purposes.
For example, I recently checked out one Windows 98SE PC using three fully updated spyware checkers, and all three of the checkers declared it to be free of spyware. I then tried another more recent spyware checker, and uncovered a keylogger and two RATs! It turned out that the spyware (or more likely its human owners) had compromised the top-end virus checker on the system, allowing the spyware to take over its privileged position within the Windows operating system. From this deeply entrenched position the spyware was partially able to prevent spyware checkers from detecting it, and fully able to prevent me from removing it. I was unable to remove the spyware until I took the system offline and fully deinstalled the virus checker.
I have since encountered variations of this same strategy in other versions of Windows, using virus checkers from other vendors. The ease with which I have encountered it and the variety of systems and applications involved indicates that it may be a far more common problem than one might expect. Since a spyware application that use this approach is infecting the "immune system" of a PC or laptop, my friend David J has suggested for them the appropriately ominous acronym Shiva, for Spyware HIV-like Attacker.
Q: What is a "Shiva?"
[Added 2005-06-18]
A: A Shiva is a program or configuration of system utilities that protects spyware either from being detected or from being removed. Shivas often take over well-known, widely-used virus and spyware checkers to help protect their client spyware programs. This tendency to take over the application "immune system" of a computer is the source of their full name, Spyware HIV-like Attackers (by Bollinger from a suggestion by David J), for which Shiva is the acronym. Possibly because they are not well recognized as a problem, spyware checkers do not typically look for Shivas. This makes it necessary to find them indirectly, such as by looking for unexpected offline reinstallations of previously removed spyware, or by deinstalling and then reinstalling potentially infected virus and spyware checkers to see if fresh installs detect additional spyware.
The dangers of having Shivas in systems cannot be overstated, since they lull users into thinking they are "safe" when in fact they are almost certainly infected with some of the most dangerous forms of hardcore spyware. For example, a Shiva is often part of a trio that also includes a keylogger and a Remote Access Terminal (RAT). In such a trio the keylogger gives a remote user access to your passwords, the RAT allows full remote access to your computer, and the Shiva keeps the keylogger and RAT from being removed by ordinary virus and spyware scans.
Q: Is it OK to use a PC or laptop with hardcore spyware on it?
A: No. A computer infected with hardcore spyware should literally be treated as if it belongs to someone else -- more specifically, someone who is entirely willing to steal your computer, your finances, and even your identity. Even if they are not interested in your personal data, they may choose to use your computer as a node in an illegal undertaking. As for privacy, the first preference of the new remote owner of your computer will be to capture all your keystrokes, since they are compact and can be transmitted with less chance of detection. It is worth noting that an especially nosy remote user can just as easily use a RAT to configure your computer to capture audio or even video from attached microphones or video cameras.
Q: Is it OK to use a PC or laptop with hardcore spyware if I stay offline?
A: No. While keeping a PC or laptop with hardcore spyware offline reduces the risk of it being used as active part of an illegal network, it does not keep hardcore spyware from capturing and storing personal data collected from the keyboard and other inputs devices. If at any point you reconnect to the Internet, the spyware can send out logs of devices such as keyboards even during a connection.
Q: Is it OK to use a PC or laptop with hardcore spyware for gaming only?
A: No. While avoiding using a PC or laptop for nothing but gaming reduces the odds of it being used to acquire personal or financial data about you, it is much more difficult to keep all personal data off such systems over long periods. For example, if other systems in a home go down, the temptation to use an infected system for "just a while" can be overpowering if the hardcore spyware does not cause any obvious symptoms. Finally, while using a system for gaming only does reduce the odds that hardcore spyware can collect information on you form your keyboard, it does not prevent hardcore spyware from hijacking other increasingly common types of input devices such as microphones and video cameras. While the high bandwidth of audio and video logging makes such inputs devices less attractive than keylogging to most categories of malicious remote users, the internal design of most operating system makes audio and video about as easy to capture -- if not easier -- than keyboard inputs.
In addition, specific categories of malicious users (e.g., porn nets) may actual prefer video capture and be willing to risk the additional attention that their extra bandwidth use can cause.
Q: Surely, spyware attacks are not as common at all this implies?
A: On a typical home system with wideband connections, casual attempts to break into my systems occur about once every ten to thirty seconds. By far the most common attempt is a query to Microsoft Directory Services (also called Port 445) to look for shared Windows resources such as printers or folders, both of which are extremely common in home networks. Most hardware routers do not even both to log such attempts unless you request them too, since they are so common that a user spend all their time responding to report incidents. My own experience with more subtle break-in attempts indicates that hardcore spyware such as Cool Web Search (CWS) attempts to place itself into well-protected, heavily firewalled systems, often successfully, with a frequency of about once per day. Most such break-in attempts appear to occur using applications that connect automatically to the Internet, combined with unfixed security holes in loadable Microsoft Windows software modules (called DLLs). This does not mean that such applications are directly infected by spyware; it just means that clever spyware can use them easily.
Skeptics should look examine the daily SANS overview of network exploits, located at http://isc.sans.org/top10.php. A blunt-spoken but also distressingly accurate assessment of the dangers of Port 445 and several other Windows ports can be found at the Gibson Research Corporation's Shield's UP!! site, http://www.grc.com/port_445.htm.
Q: If I reformat all the disks on my computer and reinstall Windows, will that eliminate all spyware?
A: This will of course also obliterate every application, update, personal customization, and file with personal that you have placed on your system over the months or years that you have had it. Nevertheless, yes, if you have an old PC or laptop that has nothing valuable on it (often a surprisingly risky assumption), and if you can reload Windows directly from original CDs or from verifiably undamaged hard disk partitions, then the resulting refurbished system should be free of both hardcore and softcore spyware.
With that said, please also note that as soon as you reload saved data or applications from your old system, download a new Internet application from an untrustworthy site, attempt to update your Windows software without proper protections, or simply reconnect to the Internet without proper protections, you run a substantial risk of reintroducing spyware into your system.
At the very least, be sure to install a firewall before attempting to connect your newly refurbished system to the Internet. If you do not, you run a substantial risk of acquiring new hardcore spyware in as little as few seconds (if you have locally shared resources such as printers or folders) to a few days (for spyware that exploits more subtle security holes).
Q: What can I do to remove hardcore spyware without obliterating my data and applications?
A: Hardcore spyware is far more difficult to detect and remove than softcore spyware. A procedure for detecting and removing hardcore spyware can be found at the following web site, which is also the source of this FAQ:
http://www.terrybollinger.com/spyware/
The procedure described at the above site uses the same spyware checkers mentioned above, but in combination with other tools and with procedures that greatly increase your odds of finding and removing hardcore spyware from your PC or laptop.
Q: How can I minimize future hardcore spyware break-in attempts?
A: Use firewalls -- at least one, and preferably two. If you have more than one computer in your home, your first firewall should be built into your router, the device allows your PCs or laptops to talk to each other and share your broadband line. If you have broadband and do not have a router with a built-in firewall, you should seriously consider getting one. They are relatively inexpensive, typically costing less than a hundred or so write-once CDs.
Your second firewall should be software. For this, I highly recommend the free-for-personal-use Sygate Personal Firewall, which TUCOWS gives its highest rating for any firewall, either free or purchased:
http://www.tucows.com/preview/213160.html
If you have a tight budget or are using dial-up access only, at least get the Sygate firewall, since it is free and provides an excellent approximation of a hardware firewall.
Q: If I use a Mac, do I need to worry about spyware?
A: Yes, but not as much. Viruses and spyware are both far less common in Macs than in Windows PCs or laptops. Ironically, one of the areas where viruses and spyware are more likely in Macs is applications ported from Windows. Virus and spyware checkers both exist for Macs, but are beyond the scope of this FAQ.
If you are deeply concerned about spyware, have the money to buy a new and somewhat pricey computer, and prefer not to deal with the details of your operating system, a Mac is definitely worth considering.
Q: If I use Linux, do I need to worry about spyware?
A: Yes, but not as much. As with Macs, viruses and spyware are both far less common in Linux than in Windows systems. Virus and spyware checkers both exist for Linux systems, but are beyond the scope of this FAQ.
If you are deeply concerned about spyware, would prefer to reuse your existing computer system instead of buying a new one, and enjoy diving into whatever level of detail you choose in your operating system, buying or downloading Linux is definitely worth considering. Current Linux systems have very good compatibility with almost any kind of PC or laptop, strong graphical users interfaces, and a remarkably rich variety of free applications, many of which would have to be purchases separately for Windows or Mac systems. Be sure to get a version that comes with a firewall preinstalled by default, unless you are already familiar with how to install a Linux firewall.
Q: What is the most spyware-proof operating system available?
A: Probably OpenBSD (http://www.openbsd.org/). OpenBSD is a distant cousin of the current Macintosh operating system, since both are originally based on the BSD Unix code base. OpenBSD tends to do well at resisting spyware break-ins because it has been scoured for over a decade by a group of users whose dedication to security can only be described as fanatical, in the best sense of the word.
Unfortunately, although it runs on PCs, OpenBSD is not an intended for everyday users. It is more a tool for system administrators who want to have very high levels of confidence in the security track record of the operating system they are using.
Q: I used backtracking tools in my spyware checker to find the source of an attack. What should I do?
A: Usually nothing. If the site appears to be owned by a reputable hosting or communications company, you may at most want to send the system administrator of the site a polite email including a copy of what you found. A good default strategy is to use the same level of politeness you would use to talk to a fellow victim, since the chances that you have actually found the real source of such an attack are almost vanishingly small. As of late 2004, most such attacks are automated attacks coming from other web sites that have been infected in much the same way as yours, and the owners of such sites are seldom aware of what is going on. This means that in most cases you are commiserating with fellow victims, rather than identifying the real culprits.
Q: Who is creating all of this spyware?
A: For softcore spyware, the answer is easy: Advertisers. The Internet has created an instantaneously available global market, and a marketer who can exploit even a very tiny sliver of that market often stands to make a sizable profit. This has created a cyberspace feeding frenzy of marketers vying to place annoying ads on your PC or laptop. The resulting effect on the target, your computer system, is about what you would expect from any good feeding frenzy.
For hardcore spyware there are two answers. The first one, surprisingly, is that much of the software used for hardcore spying is derived from software created for legitimate purposes. Remote administration applications are a good example, since the ability to control hundreds or thousands of PCs remotely is a useful and highly cost-effective capability when used legitimately within a large corporation or enterprise. The same capability can create horror stories when used illegally to take over other people's computers and identities.
A much stranger and far more debatable commercial source of spyware is the sale of applications for self-spying, either of your own system or of members of your household or small business. For example, such software might be used by people who are away from their computer and want to verify that it is not being abused in their absence. Apart from ethical and legal debates, the biggest practical problem with such products is that they are usually trivially easy to adapt to use as hardcore spyware of almost anyone. About half of the keyloggers I've seen are "legitimate" self-tracking packages that are being used for hardcore spying.
The second answer is that no one really knows where some spyware originates. For example, the creators of the very hardcore Cool Web Search (CWS) application are exceptionally good at covering their tracks, and take a perverse delight in obfuscation. The people who support CWS, for example, like to misdirect angry victims to the site of the computer science student (http://www.merijn.org/) who created the best available tool for removing it, CWShredder (http://www.intermute.com/spysubtract/cwshredder_download.html).
A further complication in analyzing the sources of hardcore spyware is that the creators of a particular spyware application are seldom its only users. Hardcore spyware creators are pretty much by definition highly opportunistic, and so will grab whatever spyware tools serve their purposes best, regardless of who originally created them. In several systems I have looked at, the behaviors of diverse spyware applications were closely coordinated, indicating a single group or individual had placed them. For example, different spyware applications would share identical installation dates, and would all re-emerge at the same time when any attempt was made to use the fully subverted out-of-date virus checker on the system. A particularly common form of multiple spyware use is to infect a system with a RAT/keylogger pair, since this provides the remote user with the passwords and detailed system information needed to achieve near-total control of a your system.
While it is always hard to identify the specific individuals behind a given hardcore spyware attack, it is easy to identify some of the incentives behind such attacks. Early coordinated networks of spyware (spynets) tended to be financially motivated, such as ones created by to skim very small percentages of funds from a large number of victims. The game in that case was is that if the individual amounts stolen are small enough, it is likely that even tens of thousands of victims will fail to notice them, ignore them as insignificant, or be too afraid of the consequences of announcing their lack of security to respond.
Spynets also steal computer resources for their own sake. Spynets grow more powerful and dangerous as they increase in size, and they way grow is not by adding legitimate resources, but by capturing and adding more computers. Porn networks are notorious for this kind of capture and exploitation of local PCs and laptops, placing them materials on the systems of unsuspecting users and then using broadband access of those users to further distribute their wares.
Industrial and international espionage -- true spying -- are likely to be behind some spynets, since poorly protected home computer systems are one of the easiest targets in existence for collecting data on what employees of technology companies and government agencies are doing at work. As of late 2004, however, most companies and government agencies are so poorly protected against hardcore spyware that the focus of hardcore spyware may be shifting away from home systems and towards direct attacks on the main systems of the primary corporate and government targets.
Another category of hardcore spyware incentives is opportunist blackmail. While hardcore spyware in one household is unlikely to come up with material that reaches blackmail potential, a spynet with hundreds of thousands of nodes is likely to uncover hundreds of examples of potential blackmail. Households also inadvertently create opportunities for "pure embarrassment" blackmail by leaving audio and video feeds open on infected PCs or laptops with broadband access.
The most worrisome incentive of all is spynets that troll to capture high-leverage computers -- that is, computers whose specific roles gives them very high value to the right bidder. Obvious examples from this category include computers used to tabulate electronic-only votes and military command and control computers, but more subtle examples could include misdirection of key pieces of information during a coordinated physical/cyber attack, such as a biological attack.
Finally, there is undoubtedly a small percentage of spyware that has been court authorized and is performing fully legal "computer tapping" of people for whom there has been significant prior evidence of criminal activity. This category, however, is necessarily very small compared to what is going on in 2004, which is a free-for-all in nearly every computer that is attached to a DSL line. Essentially every other form of hardcore spyware should, and hopefully in time will be, be made illegal in the future. In particular, sufficiently severe criminal penalties for are needed for even casual use of hardcore spyware to help establish some kind of reasonable rule of law in cyberspace.
Q: Recent elections have seen the rise of pure electronic voting. Is spyware an issue in electronic voting?
[Last updated 2005-06-18]
A: I am not aware of any rumors of spyware affecting elections. However, both the motives of spyware creators and the way in which computers are being used in elections argue that the danger of malicious groups influencing democratic elections is significant, and that the danger increases very rapidly if the election is made all-electronic. The counter for this danger is surprisingly simple: All elections should create and retain physical, non-electronic copies of every original vote, just as elections have been done for hundreds of years. If physical voting records prove to ambiguous -- e.g. the infamous dangling chads of the 2000 U.S. Presidential elections -- then the correct solution is to design voting machines that minimize the physical ambiguity of each voting record, such as by ensuring full removal of every selected chad.
Far from removing doubt, converting voter records from physical to all-electronic form enormously increases ambiguity in two ways. Firstly, since computer storage is by design immensely easier and faster to alter than physical media such as cards, the number of results that can be altered convincingly within a short period of time increases vastly, often by a factor of millions or more. For example, it is easy to come up with scenarios in which millions of magnetic disk based voting records can be believably altered within a single minute, whereas the impossibility of "repairing" punched holes in a physical card means that it cannot be altered in any amount of time. This forces physical voter fraud to rely on more easily spotted methods, such as large scale replacement of valid card records with counterfeit ones. Secondly, since for cost reasons electronic voting systems for large (e.g., national) voting must rely at least in part on publicly networked resources such as the Internet to collect and tally results, all-electronic records are at various points in their processing subjected to an much larger number and range of potentially malicious groups than is possible with physical records kept in a locked and guarded room. And while current computer technology can provide reasonable safeguards (e.g., encryption) against public attacks on such pathways, this is only true when the voting infrastructure is itself fully verified to be secure. Given the current levels of undetected spyware in many computing platforms, wagering the results of an election on the assumption that the voting infrastructure is fully and completely free of malicious software would be a risky bet indeed.
Also, it should be noted that an election need not be fully electronic for it to be affected by spyware. Since nearly every modern election relies on computers to collect and tabulate votes, the easiest scenario by which hardcore spyware could subvert an election is to alter the tabulation process. This requires subversion of a much smaller and more easily handled number of machines than does direct subversion of voting records. Consequently, the number of elections in the world that in principle already could have been influenced by hardcore spyware is surprisingly large. On the positive side, well-designed election processes traditionally include extensive checks and balances to prevent more mundane forms of election fraud. Provided that the people performing such checks and balances are not overly trusting of computer results, such safeguards would hopefully also detect the kinds of mismatches between raw counts and tabulated results that would be produced by hardcore spyware.
However, given that many elections are not done so carefully, and given the rise of more easily subverted pure electronic elections, I would judge that it is nearly a certainty that at some point hardcore spyware will alter the final results of an election somewhere in the world, if this has not already occurred. It is interesting to note that in terms of windows of opportunity, early 2004 was likely close to being the ideal time for such an attempt. At that time, spyware had already grown to epidemic proportions, while public and especially government awareness of it prevalence and risks was close to nonexistent. Fortunately, as of late 2004 there has been an increase in government recognition of the dangers of hardcore spyware, such as when the United States declared hardcore forms of spyware such as RATs to be illegal in late 2004. If public and government awareness of the spyware threat continues to grow in 2005, and if the difficulty of removing hardcore spyware is recognized and addressed with very thorough attempts to avoid, detect, and remove hardcore spyware from election related systems, this non-trivial risk to the global democratic process should hopefully begin to decline.
Evaluating the preconditions needed for hardcore spyware to affect the results of an election provides some idea of the level of risk. The first precondition is a failure to check meticulously for hardcore spyware in the computer systems used to collect and tabulate electronic votes. By mid 2005 this general awareness of the dangers of spyware had increased significantly, but the extent and danger of hardcore spyware was still underestimated by most computer users. The second precondition is that the computers involved must spend significant periods of time connected to the Internet, such as to exchange data or to coordinate the vote tabulation process. A totally isolated network with no physical connections to the Internet would be vastly safer, but would also be very costly. This precondition thus is also unfortunately likely true for many cost-conscious early forms of electronic voting. The third precondition is that the operating system used in voting systems must be ones sufficiently familiar to spyware creators to allow them to create or use sufficiently powerful hardcore spyware such as RATs (Remote Access Terminals). This precondition is most likely to be met if the designers of the voting systems choose to use a version of Windows, and especially if they happened to choose an older version of Windows, such as Windows 2000 or Windows 98SE. The final precondition is that no physical record of individual votes is kept. As mentioned earlier, this is not essential, since spyware can simply influence tabulation systems without bothering with vote collection systems. However, having the entire voting process exist solely in cyberspace enormously increases the likelihood that a malicious spyware network could influence an election significantly without being detected. From the perspective of any spyware networks interested in influencing an election, not keeping physical records of votes is like the government providing a built-in vote laundering system. That is, it allows the spyware network both to create any fantasy they desire and obliterate and inconvenient evidence to the contrary. Electronic measures to protect results, such as widespread duplication, may not be as effective as one would expect if the spyware has about the same level of control of the systems as a system administrator would. Such an extreme level of remote control is a real possibility if the voting system has been infected by RAT/keylogger pairs.
If the above preconditions exist, a spynet with enough participating nodes could manipulate the results of an election at multiple levels, from initial vote collection through final tabulation and certification. This would allow the spynet both to hide its actions and to construct a plausible overall fictional scenario for how any highly unexpected election result could have occurred.
It is hard to emphasize how bad an idea pure electronic voting is in a world where spyware is far more common than means for detecting it. As of late 2004, the danger in any country or state using purely electronic elections is threefold. The first danger is that at this time the level of undetected levels of hardcore spyware in home, small business, and likely even in large enterprise systems is far too high for voting to rely on technically similar classes of systems. The second danger is that the nature of the voting process unavoidably creates highly tempting targets for groups interested in cyber manipulation of world affairs, both due to the extraordinary criminal value of being able to altering the results of a national election, and because from a technical risk perspective the process of collecting and tabulating votes unavoidably creates both highly replicated processes and critical summarization points, both of which are examples of risk points for which relatively small amounts of technical efforts could result in dramatic changes to the outcome. The third danger is that by choosing to use a purely electronic voting process, a skilled spyware network is provide with a greatly improved opportunity to create a plausible and fully self-consistent fictional election scenario.
For voting processes that have been upset by the "dangling chad" phenomenon, the most powerful tool for removing ambiguity in the future is to design better physical voting machines that ensure both that a card is very unlikely to be ambiguous, and that the voter can easily verify that the vote recorded is the one that the voter intended. Faster but less trustworthy electronic vote could still be used to tally votes quickly, but only as long as the overall process ensures that the slower physical counting or recounting of untainted physical voter records always overrules electronic results.
Finally, no system of computers should be used for voting if it has not been rigorously evaluated for the possible presence of spyware and other forms of malicious software. As described elsewhere in this FAQ, such an examination is not trivial, and can easily be fooled by the presence of Shivas that are protecting spyware. The examination should take this possibility into account, and thus should include a process of deinstallation and installation of verification tools to make sure they have not been taken over by Shivas.
Q: Are there any other types of spyware to be worried about?
A: Yes. In an ominous new trend, manufacturers are coming out with hardware spyware that is truly undetectable both in terms of the behavior of your system and, in some cases, even in terms of logs of data sent out from your system. Keyboards with built-in keyloggers can be ordered over the Internet, and can be installed without the knowledge of users.
Given the abuse that is already occurring with software spyware, the growth of hardware spyware is a very serious legal issue that needs to be addressed with criminal penalties comparable to those for illegal wiretapping.
LEGAL DISCLAIMERS: This document is provided solely as a public service for computer users having problems with spyware. I have no direct, nor to the best of my knowledge any indirect (e.g., mutual funds), financial ties with any of the tools or applications listed or recommended within this document. The views presented in this document are entirely my own and do not represent the views of my employer or of any of customers of my employer. Removing spyware unavoidably entails risks that your computer will stop working or lose data. This procedure does not guarantee removal of all spyware. PLEASE NOTE THE FOLLOWING REQUEST FOR YOUR EXPLICIT CONCURRENCE BEFORE YOU USE ANY PROCEDURE DESCRIBED IN THIS DOCUMENT: By applying any spyware removal procedure originating either directly in this document or indirectly in documents referenced by this document, you are by your actions agreeing to the following two conditions: (1) You have sufficient legal ownership and/or administrative rights to apply operating system level changes to the computer or computers upon which you are performing any such procedure. (2) You accept all of the risks and responsibilities for any damage that could occur to your computer as a direct or indirect result of applying spyware removal procedures to the computer or computers. Please DO NOT apply any of the procedures in this document if you cannot or do not have sufficient authority to agree fully with the above two conditions.


6:00am Saturday, June 1967, Eagan, Minnesota, south suburb of Mpls, - St. Paul. I was 14 years old, delivered papers now for two years.
I just finished delivering the morning Mineapolis Star & Tribune. A contiuous strange whistling noise lasted twenty minutes or so, like a pressure relief valve, I couldn't figure out what it was.
Then I noticed a Saucer in the north east about a mile, mile and a half away. Its lower section was disc-shaped silver in color, its upper section was a round flat dome with porthole lights of different colors. It was about 60 feet in circomfrence. The saucer was about 1000 feet above ground level, headed in a southerly direction about 150 mph.
After 20 seconds or so I saw a fighter jet from the Air National Guard in Mpls. closing in on the saucer. The jet closed within 600 yards of the saucer, they traveled about one and a half to two miles south. The saucer then exicuted an ubrupt angle 45 degrees up and 45 degrees east turn and increased its speed 100 fold all in a blink of an eye.
The fighter jet then exicuted a 180 degree bank turn to the west and headed back to the air base which brought it right over head on its return leg. The fighter jet was of a delta wing style. The jet was approximetly the same length as the saucer, 60 feet.
This all took place in 3 to 4 minutes.


radDropDownButton and dynamic drop down contents, howto?
Is it possible to trigger OnMouseOver style from xaml?
should radsplitbutton close the dropdown part when the user clicks somewhere outside the dropdown part?


text:
Posted on 30 September, 2019 by Jill Briggeman
in: Categories: Blogs.
A Brief History of Making Copper Objects. Part 3: Hammering, Hot and Cold Work
* This text is based on an essay originally written for the MSc in Conservation, UCL *
By Mariana Pinto
As mentioned before, techniques used in the arts can leave traces in objects, and these may help us to understand the manufacturing process of an artwork. In the first entry, a short introduction of copper was provided, including the five steps for the smelting process of this metal. Since casting has already been discussed in the second entry, this third and last part will explain how hammering was carried out in ancient times, including some reflections on how to recognise such technique in manufactured objects.
Copper and its alloys are softer than other metals, so they can be hammered and stretched relatively easy. If the metal is hammered continuously, it becomes increasingly harder, but also more brittle; so if the treatment is not stopped in time, the metal will crack. The reason why this happens is because the hammering distorts the crystalline structure of the metal. If this happens for a long time, the structure deteriorates to the point where the crystals part. Therefore, the metal is annealed before it reaches this point. This means that the metal is heated and cooled down again, so a new crystalline structure is formed -although different from the original one- that will make the metal malleable again. If more cold work has to be done, the process of annealing may have to be repeated several times[1].
Minoan copper ingot from Zakros, Crete (Photo by Chris73, image from Wikimedia Commons) . File URL: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Minoan_copper_ingot_from_Zakros,_Crete.jpg
Hammering was used to make sheet bronze and bronze vessels. In the case of sheet bronze, the worker began with an ingot which was flattened by hammering, using stone pebbles of different sizes as tools for this process (image 1). Such product could be used, for instance, as cladding for wooden objects. On the contrary, bronze vessels were more complex to manufacture, and one of two different techniques was used, or even a combination of both of them. The first technique is called hollowing (image 2): the vessel was made by hammering the metal from the inside over a wooden anvil with a flat surface or a concave depression. This technique may also be called sinking[2].
Hollowing using a Hollowing Block (image from D&T Online). File URL: http://wiki.dtonline.org/index.php/Hollowing
The second technique is called raising, in which the vessel is made by hammering on the outside and the metal is placed over a small dome-headed anvil. This method is more difficult, although it also allows more variety and complexity of forms. Another technique is spinning. This can be considered as a mechanical form of raising, as the technique is the same; but a lathe is introduced to force the metal sheet to adopt the shape of the "dome-headed anvil" while both things are spinning (for illustration purposes, find here an online video about this technique). Because the metal is being compressed, there is a possibility that the object will pleat, so a back stick was sometimes used to avoid this. However, early spun work frequently shows some sign of pleating, especially near the rim, so this can be a good indicator of the method used in the manufacturing process. Spun objects also have simple open shapes most of the times (although some closed forms could also be achieved with the use of different chucks)[3].
Another method that also requires a lathe is turning, in which a cast shape is set up in the lathe and any irregularities removed by a sharp tool. This technique may be recognized because the sharp edges of the tool leave small parallel lines on the surface of the final object, unless the metal was very well cleaned up once it was finished. Still, it is important to consider that a burnisher used for spinning might leave a similar trace if it was badly handled. A way to distinguish these two techniques may be by looking at the shape of the object, since turned artifacts are thicker and the metal looks more rigid, whereas a spun object will usually look more even and will have a more gradual shape. For both techniques, the vessel will have a mark of the lathe centre in its base; although turned work may have another centre-mark[4].
In conclusion, we can say that detailed visual observation of artworks can tell us interesting stories about the manufacturing techniques used in an object, as artefacts contain material traces of their own history. Such traces not only inform us about the objects themselves, but they also help us to understand the cultures that produced them and their skills.
[1] Hodges, Henry. 1989. Artifacts. An Introduction to Early Materials and Technology. London: Duckworth, page 73.
[2] Hodges, Henry. 1989. Op.cit., pp. 74-75. Lang, Janet. 2005. "Metals" in Radiography of Cultural Material, edited by Janet Lang and Andrew Middleton, 49-75. Oxford: Butterworth-Heinemann, page 58.
[3] Hodges, Henry. 1989. Op.cit.


In 1914 Joseph Phang Soon Siew (彭順修), an Adventist colporteur, went to Sarawak to sell Chinese literature. Interest was aroused in Kuching. Soon a letter, written in Chinese and signed by quite a number of Christians, mostly members of SPG (the Society of the Propagation of the Gospel [福音宣傳會]), was sent to the Adventist headquarters in Singapore, asking for a minister to come and teach them more the Advent message. R. A. Montgomery (蒙哥美利), director of the British North Borneo Mission, carried with him a good supply of literature in Chinese and English and sailed from Singapore for Kuching on April 12, 1915. Arriving at his destination two days later, he was refused entry to Sarawak by police officers at the wharf, and was ordered to leave Kuching by the same steamer, which was to sail from Kuching four days later. In those days Sarawak was under the rule of White (British) Rajah [a Malay word which means ruler], and did not have religious liberty. The only denominations allowed to do missionary work were the Catholics and the SPG.
In 1916 C. M. Lee (李創錨), the former pastor of the Singapore Chinese Church, who had resigned due to his throat problem, arrived in Kuching to set up a photograph business, Sarawak Studio (真明照相館), next to the Tan's clinic. Mrs. Lee, nee Lily Chan Teck Soon (曾德順), was Mrs. Tan's older sister. The Lees made a vow to be true to God, especially in keeping the Sabbath, no matter what might happen to them in their studio business. When Tan's dental clinic became too small for Sabbath meetings, the more spacious studio became the meeting place.
In the early days, the Sabbath services were held in the second floor of a rented shop-house in Gartak Street (牙達街) near the riverside market, (where Sunday Market was being held in 1978 when the article was first written). There was then no public bus or taxi. Those worshippers who lived in Heng On settlement had to walk as far as 4 miles to the market place. After the services they walked another four miles to go home. Their enthusiasm truly makes our generation ashamed today.
In a letter to F. A. Detamore dated September 23, 1921, Chan Thiam Hee wrote, "Regarding the newly-baptized folks I am very glad to inform you that they are truly the chosen people of the Lord. Since their baptism they have been more firm in the truth and in the Lord. Some have been tempted in various ways and have come out victorious. Amid trials they appear to be much stronger. They go visiting each other when one is in trouble, and whenever there is an important work to do they all come and take part. Many people wonder and cannot understand why these brothers so loved each other as they never did before. Truly this is a good testimony, is it not?
"Concerning our church school, after careful consideration and consultation among the brethren here, we have started a temporary one in the third mile, so as to prevent our children from going to other schools. Two shop houses were leased about two months ago at a rental of $2.00 per month. All repairs are to be borne by us. For two weeks our brethren did all they could in repairing and making furniture for the school. The total expense up to date is only about $50.00. The enrollment is 21, which we hope will be double by next year.
Up to late 1920s and early 1930s, the old Singapore Mission comprised not only Singapore, but also Johore, Malacca, Sarawak, and Pontianak (坤甸), on the west coast of Dutch Borneo (now Kalimantan [加里曼丹]). Way back in early 1910s Adventist literature reached there before living preachers. In a report for the biennial period of 1919 and 1920, J. W. Rowland (羅蘭), director of the Singapore Mission, said, "In Sarawak, where Brother Chan had been laboring for the past year [in Kuching], there is a good interest. About twenty families (Chinese), numbering one hundred in all, are in the truth of this message. Twelve of these families are direct from heathenism. All belong to the farming class.
"Twenty miles further along coast is a Dayak village. These people, the land Dayaks, are kind-hearted and peaceful, in complete contrast to the fierce and warlike sea Dyaks. They are heathen, and have very little form of worship. We should establish work among these people so as to get a foothold for a large work in the central part of that great island. Recently I made a visit to this village. One of the leading men invited me to his home. A number who could speak the Malay tongue entered, and I gave a Bible study on the second coming of Christ. In establishing our work in this place it would be necessary to open a school and teach these people to read. They already have a Bible in their language, but we must take to them the special truths of this last message of mercy and warning.
Before he left Singapore for his furlough in 1921, J. W. Rowland reported, "In the small town of Pontianak, in the territory governed by the Dutch in Borneo, there lived a Hakka brother and his family. He was very anxious that the truth should be preached in Pontianak, so he wrote to the man in charge of our training school in Singapore, requesting that some one be sent to teach the third angle's message there. In response, Brother Tsen Shau Tse (曾紹嗣) was sent there for three months, and as a result four women, —– a doctor and three teachers of a Chinese girls' school —– became interested in the truth, and began to keep the Sabbath. The school with which these inquirers was connected, was conducted in a heathen temple six days a week, including the Sabbath; but as soon as these teachers learned the truth about the Sabbath, they closed on Sabbath and opened on Sunday. These four have all continued faithful in serving God. Two of them are still teaching in the school. The third teacher is in the training school in Singapore. The doctor is at Foo Cha, helping care for the sick of that place.
In 1922, G. J. Appel reported, "God has greatly blessed the work in the Singapore Mission during the past year. Forty-three new members were taken into the Church by baptism. I have just returned from making two trips to North and West Borneo, In Kuching especially the Lord has been working by His Holy Spirit. Although having had only one native [Chinese] worker, and that for only two years, there are about one hundred Sabbath-keepers, with a church membership of thirty-nine. It was a real inspiration to visit these people in their homes. They are living witnesses to what the truth can do when the heathen life is surrendered to God.
Around 1925 the Kuching church building and a worker's home were completed. In 1926 the Sunny Hill School (真光學校) was constructed on the land adjacent to the church. And ever since, the school had been closely associated with the church that mothered it.
Though work had been done among the Chinese around Kuching, the Advent message is not to confine to one locality or to one race, as mentioned in J. W. Rowland's report. However, work among the indigenous people was slow. It was in 1930 that the first Dayak by the name of U. R. Manju, a young man who had been a student in the Kuching church school for some time, accepted the Adventist faith.
In April 1938, Joshua Chong (張永和) with his newly wedded wife, Eunice Cho Tshin Chin (卓靜貞), a nurse, arrived in Kuching as missionaries from China. Joshua was to be pastor of the Kuching Church and a teacher of Sunny Hill School. After the Japanese occupied Sarawak in December 1941, the school was closed and the church was occupied by the Japanese soldiers. Joshua then conducted church services at different homes. In January 1946 Joshua became the acting principal of the school until he received a call from the Malay States Mission as pastor of the Kuala Lumpur Chinese church and a teacher in Teh Sin School (德新学校) in 1947. Later Joshua Chong served as principal of Teh Sin School till December 1948, for he was sent for upgrading in Philippine Union College.
Fifty years after the Kuching church was erected, the church committee decided to put down the old building and build a new one in order to accommodate more church members and expand the ministry. The new church building was dedicated on April 1, 1978.
Before World War Two the Kuching church was a Hakka-speaking congregation. The ministers and members were Hakka. But as the Hakka-speaking church members declined, the church gradually developed into an English-speaking congregation. (Most English-speaking church members were the 2nd-generation Hakka migrants, who were English-educated. There were also many English-educated indigenous people attending the church.) As a result, what started as a purely Chinese congregation is having more Dayak members attending the church services.
Based on the information gathered, the following is a list of pastors who served the Kuching Chinese church up to 1979.


I feel as though being thankful is a choice we have the authority to take control of in our lives. The more we are thankful the more doors of opportunity are opened. If we thank God each morning for life we open the door for blessings. When we thank Him for our housing or cars we open the door for upgrades because we are already thankful for what we have received. This differs from begging God to give us new things because we are already grateful for our current provision. I think we lack due to a lack of gratitude towards God for the provision He gives daily to us. We often take for granted the little things and when we have a multitude of little things we are not grateful I feel we close the doors to the bigger possibilities God has in store for us.
Let me make this a bit more on the personal side so as not to offend anyone with this particular blog. Take for instance my trailer. I loath it on most days with its' missing walls, holes in the floor, ripped carpet, black residue on the ceilings from the three years of using kerosene and this list could go on. I mumbled and grumbled every day to God that my daughter and I did not deserve to live like this. I tried getting things organized and cleaned up only to end up with pneumonia. Yes, it was my choice to not take care of things daily, yet I was not living a normal life. I was trying to put food on the table, work full time and meet the needs of my drug addicted husband. There was no time for normal things like housework.
About six months ago, I finally stopped crying about the trailer and decided to perhaps pray to God for a new home and He clearly showed me that I needed to be grateful for the roof over my head, as I was not living in a card board box or my car. He began to show me things as I grumbled about sleeping on the couch because my waterbed broke and the bed I bought was too uncomfortable. He taught me to be grateful for little things, such as solid roof over my head. As I began to change my thinking, I started to thank God instead of crying out for a new home. Now we have the prospect of a new home right around the corner all because I chose to be grateful and not bitter anymore.
I took me to find the joy in the sorrow and the gratefulness in my heart to see God is a God of provision even if it does not seem like the right place to be at the moment. I had to get over the "I deserve it" attitude before God could begin to make a new home happen for us. I know wake up thankful for my couch and the roof over my head. Yes I still get frustrated when some times the light in the bathroom decides it needs some prodding before turning on, but now I just close my eyes and visualize the new bathroom light I will be turning on soon.