Thank you all for the heart warming comments, both on the site and in my mail. Your support is much appreciated.

Status update: still critical, but with careful optimism. Current prediction is that his state will remain critical over the weekend, but his situation is improving (but very slowly).

Below I’ll post some entries in the style and atmosphere you are used to on this site – and I thank some of you for sending some of them to me, as I clearly don’t have much time to find the good stuff myself these days…

[Quote:]

A brace of new Internet Explorer vulnerabilities have been disclosed on a security mailing list.

The most serious of the two flaws, which has been accompanied by the publication of proof of concept exploit code, involves HTA applications and creates a means to trick users into executing malign code providing users can be tricked into double clicking on an icon.

Workarounds against the flaw involve disabling active scripting.

The second security bug involves processing of the object.documentElement.outerHTML property. This vulnerability creates a means for hackers to retrieve information from sites a potential mark is logged into, such as a webmail page, in order to swipe user credentials.

Microsoft is investigating both flaws. The SANS Institute says it’s yet to hear of the active exploitation of either vulnerability by hackers.

[Quote:]

They were government officials, telephone company honchos, military officers, three-letter-agency spooks and cops, all brought together by salesmen dealing in the modern equipment of surveillance. It was my job to learn what they were up to.

They’d gathered for the ISS World Conference, a trade show featuring the latest in mass communications intercept gear, held in the Washington, D.C., suburb of Crystal City, Virginia. Situated conveniently between Reagan National Airport and the Pentagon, Crystal City is an artificial place dominated by conference centers and hotels, set up to accommodate the endless, and often secret, intercourse between the U.S. military and its myriad itinerant contractors, lobbyists, consultants and trainers. They rotate in and out, civilians using the airport, military personnel taking the subway from the Pentagon, with Crystal City as the intersection in a figure-eight circuit of constant activity.

Back in the narrow hotel corridor, vendors manned their booths, exhibiting the latest gadgets for mass electronic surveillance: machines capable of scouring the data streams of millions of subscribers — industrial-strength kits for packet interception and analysis, RF interception, and voice and keyword recognition.

[..]

“I’m not much concerned about wiretaps in America and Europe,” I’d been saying to one of the Pen-Link engineers, “but I wonder if it bothers you to consider what this technology can do in the hands of repressive governments with no judicial oversight, no independent legislature.”

Our man interrupted. “You need to educate yourself,” he said with a sneer. “I mean, that’s a classic journalist’s question, but why are you hassling these guys? They’re engineers. They make a product. They don’t sell it. What the hell is it to them what anyone does with it?”

“Well, it’s quite an issue,” I said. “This is the equipment of totalitarianism, and the only things that can keep a population safe are decent law and proper oversight. I want to know what they think when they learn that China, or Syria, or Zimbabwe is getting their hands on it.”

“You really need to educate yourself,” he insisted. “Do you think this stuff doesn’t happen in the West? Let me tell you something. I sell this equipment all over the world, especially in the Middle East. I deal with buyers from Qatar, and I get more concern about proper legal procedure from them than I get in the USA.”

“Well, perhaps the Qataris are conscientious,” I said, “and I’m prepared to take your word on that, but there are seriously oppressive governments out there itching to get hold of this stuff.”

He sneered again. “Do you think for a minute that Bush would let legal issues stop him from doing surveillance? He’s got to prevent a terrorist attack that everyone knows is coming. He’ll do absolutely anything he thinks is going to work. And so would you. So why are you bothering these guys?”

“It’s a valid question,” I insisted. “This is powerful stuff. In the wrong hands, it could ruin political opponents; it could make the state’s power impossible to challenge. The state would know basically everything. People would be getting rounded up for thought crimes.”

“You’re not listening,” he said. “The NSA is using this stuff. The DEA, the Secret Service, the CIA. Are you kidding me? They don’t answer to you. They do whatever the hell they want with it. Are you really that naïve? Now leave these guys alone; they make a product, that’s all. It’s nothing to them what happens afterward. You really need to educate yourself.”

[..]

The best conversation I had was with Robert van Bosbeek of the Dutch National Police. I asked him if he was tempted to buy anything.

“Not really,” he said with a laugh. “But it’s always good to see what’s on offer. Basically, we’re three or four years ahead of all this.”

He said that in the Netherlands, communications intercept capabilities are advanced and well established, and yet, in practice, less problematic than in many other countries. “Our legal system is more transparent,” he said, “so we can do what we need to do without controversy. Transparency makes law enforcement easier, not more difficult.”

I know I should probably say something about the major political news that happened in the Netherlands while I was in the hospital, but right now I don’t really care very much… feel free to talk about it amongst yourselves in the comments…

Update: details

I just got back from the hospital. My dad had emergency surgery – an aneurism, meaning one of his main arteries sprung a leak. The operation was a technical success, but he’s in intensive care right now, and will be in critical condition the next couple of days – it all depends on his heart, his strength, possible infections, and numerous other things..

I’m sure he’ll pull through, but it’ll be scary for a few days…