response 3 of 62:

Jul 29 16:41 UTC 2003

Pentagon Abandons Plan for Futures Market on Terror
From the New York Times

WASHINGTON, July 29 - The Pentagon office that proposed spying electronically
on Americans to monitor potential terrorists has quickly abandoned an idea in
which anonymous speculators would have bet on forecasting terrorist attacks,
assassinations and coups in an online futures market. 

Senator John W. Warner, the Virginia Republican who heads the Senate Armed
Services Committee, said today that he had conferred with the program's
director at the Pentagon, ``and we mutually agreed that this thing should be
stopped.'' 

The senator's announcement - made during a confirmation hearing for retired
Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker, who has been nominated to be Army chief of staff -
signaled the end of a program that was met with astonishment and derision
almost from the moment it was disclosed. 

Under the discarded plan, traders bullish on a biological attack on Israel,
say, or bearish on the chances of a North Korean missile strike would have had
the opportunity to bet on the likelihood of such events on a new Internet site
established by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. 

response 5 of 62:

Jul 29 21:18 UTC 2003

It wasn't really a place to "bet".  What it was going to be (from what I
understand) was a place to trade stock in oil markets in the mideast.  By
doing so and watching the market, they would be able to tell wheen something
was likely to happen and where.

If 40% of the stock in iran suddenly switched to saudi arabian oil, you could
assume something was going to happen in Iran that would disrupt the flow of
oil from that state.

The Betting angle was derived because if you were able to make the right
purchase at the right time and then get out before whatever "it" was happened,
you could make a killing.

The same inetelligence could be garnered by watching actual stock market
trends and knowing who was investing where and pulling out when, but that
would require legal wrangleing that the DARPA program would have avoided.

I think it might have worked, but was to fazr outside the box for mass
acceptance.

response 7 of 62:

Jul 30 03:05 UTC 2003

re #5:
        Just like lots and lots of people putting money into into etoys.com
stock accurately predicted the huge longstanding success of etoys.com, right?
;)

response 9 of 62:

Jul 30 06:22 UTC 2003

Have you installed the free patch from M$?
If not the answer is unfortunately well, sorta kinda probably 
definately no.
Any M$ current OS prior to the release of the patch on 071603 that
doesn't have the patch installed is vulnerable OOB (out of the box).
This means that every new Wintel box you buy at the store is likely
vulnerable.  Personal FW software helps but doesn't solve the problem.

I haven't checked today, was too busy, to see who won the pool as today
was supposed to be zero day for 1st generation bad stuff.

Its too bad liberal democrats torpedoed an initiative that might have
set up a system to give quidance where actual lives are at stake - you
kinda wonder who's side they are on exactly.  (Some call it treason)
(I mean you get criticized for not predicting the future and then get
criticized for proposing a system based on proven technology to do
exactly that - you can't win.)

Instead, the time proven tech will continue to be applied to protecting
computers instead of protecting people.

Botton line, people.  Times up.  You really need to have already
installed this patch.  Sure it will break things and it will be fixed in
the future but thats the biz, sweetheart.

response 11 of 62:

Jul 30 07:32 UTC 2003

I have an example of how betting affects the outcome. Bookies bet on 
the outcome of a cricket match. Then bookies fix the match by paying 
off a few players!! 

So much for proven *technology*.

response 13 of 62:

Jul 30 09:28 UTC 2003

"Bookies don't gamble". Says who? Are you saying you haven't heard of 
match fixing ever?

response 15 of 62:

Jul 30 22:00 UTC 2003

It doesn't matter remmers. The header is correct. Liberals ARE stupid.

response 17 of 62:

Jul 31 04:05 UTC 2003

re#13: Ok, you are right, I should rephrase that.  Professional bookies
don't gamble.

response 19 of 62:

Jul 31 14:39 UTC 2003

Not everyone who wants to make a good living is without ethics.  We just 
hear a lot more about those who are, which tends to color our perceptions 
of the whole lot.

response 21 of 62:

Aug 2 06:27 UTC 2003

There are apparently now two variants, dcom.c and dcom48.c, as well as 
"worms" in the wild (none particularly effective apparently nor have I
personally seen any nor have I a copy of dcom48.c and only seen analysis
of (seeing source to dcom.c was enough to cause my heart to skip a
beat)). 

Folk, there is the potential here for a _Perfect Storm_, a confluence of
factors.  There is this fundamental flaw across the board in the M$ OS's
as well as a particularly well developed methodology for propagation. 
Along with it is the high speed interconnectivity of the global Internet
(heck, there are Internet cafe's operating in mosul and baghdad as we
speak only - this Internet thingy is widespread and cheap.)

response 23 of 62:

Aug 2 19:55 UTC 2003

re: 22 . . . as long as you're not installing the ones going around by email.

dcat, who had 40 of the damn (220KB) things today

response 25 of 62:

Aug 3 05:23 UTC 2003

re#24:  Thats not a particularly helpful suggestion.  There are many
orgs where even if the individual wanted to replace M$ OS entirely the
org rules specify approved OS and that is M$.  And further, 'virtual' M$
OS would in this case be equally vulnerable to the exploit (I gather you
have not seen the exploit code) and whats worse, the ISS free tool for
scanning for vulnerable machines won't find it.  (I have personal
knowlege of this)

Word.  Folk, install the update before its too late.