Top teachers hitting the road

I heard an alarming story last week. A teacher was discussing recent interviews she had conducted of potential new teachers. When asked “why would you like to teach at our school,” the job candidates could only muster lame responses such as “because it’s close to my house!” The teacher was dumbfounded that these people couldn’t even come up with a useful, halfway-convincing response.

What seems to be happening is that the good teachers are heading out the door after one or two years, discovering they can get paid twice a teacher’s salary in the private sector. Taking their place are often teachers who aren’t as bright or as capable. Where does that leave the education of our children?

If our governor and legislative leaders like to harp about running government like a business, they should remember the first rule of hiring: if you want top talent you have to pay for top talent. If our state leaders want North Carolina to be competitive, we should pay our teachers a competitive wage and not have our teacher salaries near the lowest in the nation.

The future prosperity of our state rests on the education we provide to our children. The mistakes we are making now will haunt us in the years to come.

Becoming a flasher

Now that our daughter’s in middle school and is involved with extra-curricular activities we needed to get her her own phone, so she inherited my smartphone as I upgraded mine. Having a new phone has provided me the opportunity to try out something I’d been meaning to do for a while: flash my phone with an open-source version of Android.

What’s the worst that can happen? Well, flashing a new ROM onto your phone can turn your sophisticated pocket computer into an expensive doorstop. Known as “bricking” your phone, a mistake in the process can make it inoperative. Fortunately, there are plenty of guides which walk you through the process as well as simple “one-click” programs which will do the dirty work for you. And even if you goof up, you can almost always fix things up again.
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War is so last decade

America & Not America. This sums it up.

Congress and the President are having a tough time drumming up support for bombing Syria. Locally, an informal Triangle Business Journal poll had 79% opposing war to just 21% supporting it.

One of my Facebook friends noted this:

Interesting that adamant left- and right leaning friends are posting the SAME photos & links regarding Syrian intervention. Refreshing change to see harmony! Wonder what impetus is bringing us together – is it expense, not wanting to intervene in another country, more pressing issues at home, or…?

I think a decade of never-ending war in the Middle East kind of sapped Americans’ enjoyment of the thing. I think we as a country are starting to question the utility and effectiveness of bombing as a foreign policy. Seeing Americans from both sides of the political spectrum reach this conclusion gives me hope that maybe we have turned the corner on the all-war-all-the-time mentality that has gripped this country for the last 25 years.

Linux Weekly News discusses 2003 Linux kernel attempted hack

Here’s a technical explanation from a Linux Weekly News contributor on the 2003 Linux Kernel hack.

An attempt to backdoor the kernel
[Posted November 6, 2003 by corbet]

The mainline 2.4 and 2.6.0-test kernels are both currently maintained in BitKeeper repositories. As a service for those who, for whatever reason, are unable or unwilling to use BitKeeper, however, the folks at BitMover have set up a separate CVS repository. That repository contains the current code and the full revision history. It is not, however, the place where new changes are committed. So, when somebody managed to push some changes directly into CVS, Larry McVoy noticed quickly.

Over the years, people have had numerous things to say about BitKeeper and the people behind it. Nobody, however, has accused them of being insufficiently careful. Every change in the CVS repository includes backlink information tying it to the equivalent BitKeeper changesets. The changes in question lacked that information, and thus stood out immediately.
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Revisiting a 2003 attack on the Linux kernel

Back in 2003, someone tried and failed to plant a security exploit into the Linux kernel code in a sophisticated and well-though-out operation. In light of yesterday’s revelations of NSA teams actively working to weaken software security, this incident from a decade ago raises some questions.

It also highlights why having the source code to your software is the only way to be sure it’s secure.

An unknown intruder attempted to insert a Trojan horse program into the code of the next version of the Linux kernel, stored at a publicly accessible database.

Security features of the source-code repository, known as BitKeeper, detected the illicit change within 24 hours, and the public database was shut down, a key developer said Thursday.

An intruder apparently compromised one server earlier, and the attacker used his access to make a small change to one of the source code files, McVoy said. The change created a flaw that could have elevated a person’s privileges on any Linux machine that runs a kernel compiled with the modified source code. However, only developers who used that database were affected–and only during a 24-hour period, he added.

via Attempted attack on Linux kernel foiled – CNET News.

Car thieves rob vehicles using ‘mystery’ wireless devices

Update 11 Aug 2015: Mystery solved?

Thieves are using a mystery device to break into cars and the cops are stumped. I came across this story back in June but never posted it here:

Cops across the country are investigating a new wave of car thefts that appear to be happening with nothing more than a click of a button, the “Today” show reports.

From California to Chicago, car thieves have been caught on camera breaking into parked cars using small electronic devices that could be “cloned” car remotes.

The thieves then raid the vehicles for valuables before skulking away.

Long Beach, Calif., Deputy Police Chief David Hendricks told “Today” he’s “stumped: by the robberies.

“We are stumped and we don’t know what this technology is,” he said.

via Car thieves rob vehicles using ‘mystery’ wireless devices: report – NY Daily News.

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US and UK spy agencies defeat privacy and security on the internet

Shocking, or long suspected?

The files show that the National Security Agency and its UK counterpart GCHQ have broadly compromised the guarantees that internet companies have given consumers to reassure them that their communications, online banking and medical records would be indecipherable to criminals or governments.

The agencies, the documents reveal, have adopted a battery of methods in their systematic and ongoing assault on what they see as one of the biggest threats to their ability to access huge swathes of internet traffic – “the use of ubiquitous encryption across the internet”.

via US and UK spy agencies defeat privacy and security on the internet | World news | The Guardian.

Guns and butter

Two things seemingly unrelated captured my attention last week. One was the threat of war with Syria, the other was a parent encountering a child who had shown up to school with an empty stomach.

President Eisenhower once called military arms a theft from those who hunger and are not fed. Sixty years later we have yet to heed his words. When will our country stop feeding the war machine and start feeding the needy among us?

I hope those advocating for war in the name of Syria’s children will consider the needs of our children first.

Blackhole exploit detected

I was putting some dinner on the table for the kids this evening when I walked by my laptop. There were two new tabs open on my Ubuntu Firefox browser that I didn’t remember opening. Popping one of these mystery URLs into urlquery.net indicated that the URL in question has been associated with distributing browser malware, essentially letting Russian criminals access my web browser.

URL http://disruptingplayhouse.biz/closest/i9jfuhioejskveohnuojfir.php
IP 93.171.174.224
ASN AS29182 ISPsystem Autonomous System
Location [Russian Federation] Russian Federation
Report completed 2013-09-04 23:50:04 CET
Status Report complete.
urlQuery Alerts Detected BlackHole v2.0 exploit kit URL pattern
Detected live BlackHole v2.0 exploit kit

Now, the fact that I’m running Linux and I usually keep my laptop updated might help keep me from being infected by this exploit kit. I can’t tell for sure, though, so I’m running a good virus scan on my system first. It just goes to show that you can never let your cyber guard down.

I recall some mention this week about a potentially huge cyber attack taking place soon. Can’t find the link now but I’ll see if I can find it.

Magic parent moment

Yesterday afternoon I was doing my best to finish up some work while at home. My son Travis needed attention, though, as he had a math assignment he needed to finish. To his credit, he went right to work at it once he got home but soon became stumped and frustrated.

He asked me to read his assignment to him and I did, though it drew more responses from him saying it was okay if he didn’t understand it. Knowing Travis, though, I knew he would get this assignment as it involved managing money. He is very money-aware and the problem’s scenario involved keeping a balance sheet for family savings.

As I explained the problem to him and pointed out how to fill out the balance sheet, he hopped into my lap. Soon I was gently stepping him through the problem, marveling at the light bulb coming on in his head as he figured out what was being asked. Suddenly, the once insurmountable math homework was easily conquered and Travis was happily flying the flight simulator that once had to wait. We spent the rest of the evening happily crashing Cessna Citation-X’s into the ground.

I’m no dummy, I’m getting old and my kids are growing up fast. The opportunities to have my kids hop into my lap while we work on homework are becoming fewer and farther between. It was a real treat to help Travis over his frustration and get to play parental hero one more time.