People seem to assume that Email is like regular mail only faster, and since it's a federal crime to tamper with postal mail, email communications must be covered the same way, and that the two are equivalently private. The problem is that a government employee (or several) are the ones that physically carry your snail mail from where you dropped it off to its final destination. Therefore the government has some ability to enforce that sanctity of mail--the postal workers are traceable sources of tampering, who can be fired or even legally punished for any evil they do. From there, the only thing you have to worry about is delivery mishap, and non-USPS hands at those weak points, before and after transit, where it might fall into them. These are relatively uncommon, and again, the fact that tampering with mail is a federal crime protects you in almost all cases.

But E-mail isn't carried by someone who has a stake in your privacy. The E-mail, as soon as it leaves your computer, is going to pass through dozens of other computers, some controlled by Comcast or Verizon, some controlled by Sprint or Level 3 Communications, some controlled by other companies you might not even have heard of. The fact is that these companies can easily monitor plaintext emails passing through. Even if you trust these companies, it is always a possibility that one of the servers happens to be compromised from without.

This is where a basic lesson comes in: don't send personal information by email. It is trivially easy to scan for certain things like phone numbers, Social Security numbers, credit card numbers, drivers license numbers, license plate numbers, just about anything else you might not want people to know. If you're sending these things to anyone via an unencrypted digital channel like email, it is very possible that it could be intercepted, identified, and later used for nefarious purposes.

Notice where I said "an unencrypted digital channel like email". That's the key thing. You see, it's safe (or at least much more safe) to enter things like that on an encrypted website, such as https://www.bankofamerica.com--because you trust Bank of America, and because the site has that handy "https" instead of "http", you know that there will be no computer between you and the Bank itself that ever sees your information in cleartext. Instead it sees something encrypted in such a way that it is virtually unbreakable--so that only you and the Bank see anything you type into that website.

So how do we fix it?

Effectively, there are two things you want to know about a message: #1, that it's from who it says its from. #2, that it remained unread until it got to you. This is why I propose that SMTP and IMAP mail servers all include a PKI server.

Here's how it works.

Example Smith (esmith@local.com) wants to send a message to Instance Jones (ijones@foreign.com). Example types up an email and sends it to his mailserver over an https connection, because he knows that he has to be careful about these things.

On a current smtp server, what happens now is that the mail is decrypted at smtp.local.com, and sent to the Instance's mailserver (mail.foreign.com) in plaintext, where Instance is free to access it through her client however or whenever she chooses.

Here's what should happen.

Example Smith sends the message via an encrypted connection to smtp.local.com.

smtp.local.com sends a message to mail.foreign.com asking for the public key of ijones@foreign.com. smtp.local.com then encrypts its message with Instance's public key, and signs it with its own private key for esmith@local.com.

When it gets to the other end, mail.foreign.com is able to decrypt the message using Instance's private key.

When Instance downloads the message (over https of course!) from her mailserver, she can now feel safe that Example's message was kept free from prying eyes during transmission. Her mail server can also decrypt the signature and read it using Example's public key by fetching it using the email in the "from:" email address. If mail.local.com sends back a key that successfully decrypts the signature, then she knows that Example's mail server certifies that the message was sent from Example's email account, through Example's outgoing SMTP server.

This would mean that nobody could send messages on some fake mailserver with the From: address of "someone@pigsflew.com"--because your email reader would be able to contact pigsflew.com on its mail port, find out that it signs its messages, and that it cannot verify that particular email's signature (if it even has one). And it means that the message is almost guaranteed to be safe from prying eyes, at least until it has been received by the receiving mailserver. And it has the added plus of being effectively transparent to the end users--they still send and receive messages on the web or through their email clients in exactly the same way.

Basically, if this feature was implemented, it would take only until Gmail, MSN, and Yahoo started using it, and then a good chunk of email would be safer, and the rest could be flagged as being unverifiable, unprotected, or both. If you had an email client supporting the extensions, you could set your send messages to require or prefer protection, in the preferential case having your SMTP server warn the client that the email will be unencrypted for transit if the recieving mail server doesn't support it. Assuming that you trust your mailserver administrator, the server administrator for the person you're sending the message to, the company that runs their e-mail, and the receiver him- or herself to treat your information with care, you could now effectively rest easy, although Social Security numbers and the like would still give me pause.

The major advantage is that you'd be able to make a more informed decision about whether you trust the information to this medium--since no hands should be able to touch the information.

It'd also be cool if your entire mailbox on your mailserver was encrypted with the user public key and the user's password, decrypted at user access time with their password and that user's private key. Then it'd be safe sitting at endpoints too.

I said, "I really can't give out that information, but you can send a message to their email address--they're extremely quick at getting back to people." I gave her the aforementioned address.

She responded callously: "Well, I spoke to"--and proceeded to name mispronunciations of several of my more senior coworkers--" and Raja, who I actually met in person recently"--here she probably meant a coworker of mine named Raju--" so my contacts are all in engineering, but can you cut me a break here and direct me to someone in IT?"

When I again declined to give her any specific information of my coworkers, she asked, "Your office is--the Boston office, you're in, what, Needham, right?"

And here I had the overwhelming temptation to say something I did not say, but am convinced would have been the right thing:

"Ma'am, I'm sorry, I have to stop you right there. You're not very good at this--I know, I know, cold calling is hard--but it sounds like you just incorrectly read off everyone listed on my LinkedIn profile. You should take a little time to try to pronounce names--like Raju. That's an Indian name, and means something completely different from the word 'Raja', which means 'King', and was incedentally the name of the tiger from Disney's Alladin. You should also sound confident in more details, like the name of my company, the location of my office, et cetera. I'm not going to ask you who you're calling for; I can't do anything for you anyway, but you should convince yourself before you call that my company needs what you're selling. Give it another try with someone else on LinkedIn, I'm sure you'll do great. Have a nice day, ma'am."

Instead I was more direct, and simply told her I couldn't give out any information further than the address I'd already given her.

One day I am going to be an old man who shouts inanities at telemarketers.

I look forward to that day with great relish.

def url_get_field ( url, field )
  m=/.*[&?]#{field}=(.+?)(&.*)/.match(url)
  n=/.*[&?]#{field}=(.+)/.match(url)
  if !m.nil?
    return m[1]
  elsif !n.nil?
    return n[1]
  else
    return ""
  end
end

def url_set_field ( url, field, value )
  m=/(.*[&?]#{field}=)(.+?)(&.*)/.match(url)
  n=/(.*[&?]#{field}=)(.+)/.match(url)
  if !m.nil?
    url = m[1] + value + m[3]
  elsif !n.nil?
    url = n[1] + value
  else
    unless /.+[?&].+?=.+/.match(url).nil?
      url = url + '&'
    else
      url = url + '?'
    end
    url = url + field + "=" + value
  end
  url
end

def url_remove_field ( url, field )
  m=/(.*)([&?])(#{field}=(.+?))(&(.*))/.match(url)
  n=/(.*)([&?])(#{field}=(.+))/.match(url)
  unless m.nil?
    url = m[1] + m[2] + m[6]
  else
    url = n[1] unless n.nil?
  end
  url
end

Now it's easy enough to do! check this out:

irb(main):160:0> url = 'http://pigsflew.com'
=> "http://pigsflew.com"
irb(main):161:0> url = url_set_field( url, 'test', 'omg' )
=> "http://pigsflew.com?test=omg"
irb(main):162:0> url = url_set_field( url, 'archives', '526')
=> "http://pigsflew.com?test=omg&archives=526"
irb(main):163:0> url_get_field( url, 'test' )
=> "omg"
irb(main):164:0> url_remove_field( url, 'test' )
=> "http://pigsflew.com?archives=526"
irb(main):165:0>

The problem of oil is multifaceted. As of right now, it is the most reliable, portable, and easily producible energy source on earth. The issue is that it isn't ours. Sure, we have some oil of our own, and we can increase drilling to use it, but then we're just competitors in a giant game of oil, and make no mistake, we will lose that game.

Going back, the United States has been very lucky. In World War II when supremacy had to be measured by firepower, we were on top because we could produce better firepower faster and in more quantity than anyone else--and our firepower that was just waiting to be used was considerably more than most of the other players in the war could even build. And we produced the Atomic Bomb, which demonstrated our prowess.

In the Cold War, when supremacy was measured by information and scientific prowess, we created satellites that mapped out every square inch of any place we thought might create a problem for us. Our central intelligence agency had files that grew quicker than the KGB could ever know. And we put a man on the moon to show that nobody could beat the scientific pace of this country.

The next moon landing, the next atomic bomb, my friends, is energy independence. We can't do this by using our own oil, because while we can sell weapons and space technology to our friends and use those infrastructures to keep ourselves on top, we can't use oil to that end. What we need is our own power source, one pioneered by and held by the United States. One that not only solves our problems, but we can sell it to our friends, and keep from our enemies, one that produces more income for our country, and reduces the GDP of our enemies who would otherwise compete, and pose a threat to our supremacy.

We need a scientific miracle. And the only way to get scientific miracles is to do what we did with the lunar landing: Contract it out.

What we should do is offer a multi-billion dollar semi-exclusive contract to the first United-States company that develops a decent working alternative to Oil for portable and potent energy generation and storage, and agrees to deploy it in ten major cities across the country. When those cities' demand for oil drops dramatically without significant cost increase to the average citizen, other countries around the world will look covetously at us for our ability to create what we need within our own borders.

What I mean by multi-billion dollar semi-exclusive contract: we are offering a competing company a fixed amount to offset their research and development for such an energy source, plus the energy demands of the United States for a set period of time exclusively to one company. We won't let you gouge us, we'll have to oversee your pricing models once your done, but you'll be allowed to be a five year monopoly on the energy business. The one provision is that you will not be allowed to sell the technology outside of the United States, though you are free to market energy produced by said technology. Any intellectual property you produce will be jointly controlled by your company and the US Military, and should be considered top secret except for your company's production and domestic distribution needs.

We need to stay on top. If we don't do this then in twenty years or so, it might be India or China in the world's center seat, and we will optimistically end up where Russia is now.

Now is where I get political: The policies of Senator McCain and Governor Palin are not terrible policies for the best of times. Work at defenses, decrease the budget, support the industry--fine. However these are not the best of times. Obama and Biden have policies that will cost money. They will in some ways be unpopular, and some things won't even go through the Legislature. But it is imperative that they take the white house, because theirs is the path that (at least) will not take us away from US Supremacy. McCain will focus on the defense system--which was important in World War II, but is no longer meaningful in a world where there are at least 5 countries (the permanent members of the security council) that are known to have the capability of leveling entire countries without incredible difficulty. We are also pretty damned certain that there are others with that capacity too. Let's face it, anyone who attempts to challenge the United States to a fair fight is completely stupid. So they won't fight fair.

They'll buy us. With oil.

I read in the paper the other day, yet another voter remarking their impression that "A vote for Hillary is just another vote for Bill, and he's had his chance." This common logic must be absolutely infuriating for you. Over the years you have shown yourself an incredibly intelligent, accomplished, and affluent woman in your own right, and just a quick glance at your Wikipedia entry (a dubious source perhaps, but the citations on that article are too many to re-list here), shows a list of feats so incredible that I am ashamed for those that would only recognize the feats of your husband.

According to the article, you had repeatedly denied Bill your hand in marriage before eventually consenting. When you did eventually marry, it states that you "still harbored doubts about marriage, concerned that [your] separate identity would be lost and that [your] accomplishments would be viewed in the light of someone else's." (Wikipedia.org)

While I do not claim to have done the due dilligence of checking the article's sources, nor have I read your book, I now wish that I had, and will go purchase a copy of "Living History" immediately. If, however, the words in this article are true, then it must absolutely sting to know that your fears have come to light for many Americans, and only because you selflessly helped to campaign for your husband when you were still an active and well respected lawyer.

Madame Senator, you have more than earned the respect of myself, and of the nation, and I wish you only the best luck as you continue your campaign for the Presidency.

Thank you,

Adrian Sud

Television Viewers.

Now in reality, I watch exactly two television shows that have not been cancelled, and two television shows besides. The two that aren't over yet are Heroes (NBC) and Battlestar: Galactica (Sci-Fi). The two that are were Firefly (FOX) and Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip (NBC). Given this fact I really don't consider myself a television viewer.

Therefore, let me explain why I'm mad at you people:

It's because of Studio 60. Aaron Sorkin's amazing talent for blindingly crisp dialog aside, this was an amazing show with a fantastic cast, and a solid concept. I could get mad that the show was taken off the air, but it was taken off the air when it just... failed to draw audiences.

Now, Firefly failed to draw audiences, but to be frank, it was never given an honest shot, what with multiple changes in its time slot, last minute reordering of episodes, and frankly poor advertising.

Studio 60 was given more than an honest shot.

Actually, it was given the slot before prime time, right there with Heroes, a dumb but extremely entertaining show I expect to stay on the air for quite a while. Studio 60 had a decent opening audience which faltered immediately, and continued to flounder, even when NBC tried to get people back into the show by having Masi Oka (plays Hiro on Heroes) make a cameo. It sputtered and they pulled it.

The problem was the show was smart. It was based on the premise that the fictional broadcasting company NBS was banking on American audiences not being "too dumb" for good television. The real thing was that NBC itself was banking on the same proposition, and we as audiences let them down. We showed them that we are indeed too dumb for good television.

So there you are, everyone who tuned in at 10 to watch that first season of Heroes but missed the good stuff that was on at 9pm, I'm mad at you tonight.

(oh, I'm extremely glad I own the Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip Complete Series.)

And I seriously pity anyone who didn't go.

They had jugglers. Live music. The best jungle gym ever. There were playpen balls and random toys. There was a mattress that got signed by Randall and I jumped off the jungle gym onto it. There was a dancing velociraptor. There was a dancing velociraptor.

This was amazing.

This program effectively spews out information for every packet, in or out, that touches the selected interface. Here's something I noticed this morning:

The internet ebbs and flows. Like the endpoint computer is a pristine beach on the sea of information, packets rolling in and out in bunches; the local computer responds to everything that comes in, and a quarter of a second passes before the next incoming wave arrives. And while it may be something people have remarked upon before, this is the first time I realized how true it is: I'm watching the waves crash in and out as I write this. If the browser is like scuba gear for safely navigating the water, then TCPDump and WinDump are the beach towel, so I can sit here, sip my powerade, and enjoy the view.

this is nice.

His eyes were tired. The light flashing off of the waves had filled them with dull purple, and when he did occasionally glance at his maps and the tools in his hands, the lines he had drawn only moments ago were lost to his vision. "I wonder what they'd do if I told them we're lost", he said aloud to himself, but quietly.