User talk:Merlinus
Merlinus
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— [[Image:Flag_of_Massachusetts.svg|100px]] [[Image:Flag_of_the_United_States.svg|90px]] [[Image:Peace_Sign_2.svg|40px]] <font face="Comic Sans MS" colour="navy" size="-1"><b>[[User:Merlinus|Merlinus]] ([[User talk:Merlinus|Massachusetts: Personal Freedom is Our Way of life!]])
— [[[— [[Image:Flag_of_Massachusetts.svg|100px]] [[Image:Flag_of_the_United_States.svg|85px]] [[Image:Peace_Sign_2.svg|40px]] <font face="Comic Sans MS" colour="navy" size="-1"><b>[[User:Merlinus|Merlinus]] ([[User talk:Merlinus|Freedom is lifestyle Not a slogan]])]] Actual signature 2
We Remember Concord, Massachusetts: Revolutionary War Battlefield, 1775 (Near my Home). Freedom is lifestyle Not a slogan Because Merlinus would like to say hi Sorry Folks; I was traumatized by my dealing with the Nambla site because of my own bad experiences as a kid. I should have been able to control my terror and stay calm, but I was really scared. When I felt provoked by Nathan (real)or just by my own fears I assumed wrongly that he was a member of NAMBLA. It was intuitive and it was wrong. I am fairly new to computers... and newer even to going on line and did not know capital letters meant yelling. I figure I owe Nathan a "Merlinus"...Whopper has smiled at you! Smiles promote WikiLove and hopefully this one has made your day better. Spread the WikiLove by smiling to someone else, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past or a good friend: Yes, good Idea, I should like to send one to Nathan and to George. On my page I said that I disabled and did not deal with stress well. I am sorry that my problems got the best of me.
Update about JeffyJeffy my 16 year old cat was very sick and it was really touch and go. The Vet gave him IV liquids under the skin to rehydrate him, gave him meds to help him a procudure to help him go to the bathroom and daily meds to do the same. A new special diet and a list of instructions to make sure he eats solid foods and does not lose more weight. He's not out of hot water yet, but seems to be getting stronger. Thanks for your understanding. Marc. --merlinus 20:30, 17 May 2006 (UTC) Welcome!Welcome and Congratulations on joining the project! I'm sorry this welcome message took so long, but you joined during my Wikibreak, and I assumed that someone else would welcome you in the meantime. Still, that's no excuse, and I am most humbly sorry. Sergeant Snopake 20:51, 17 May 2006 (UTC) I've been chilling out for a while and busy with my wife, family, cats and basicly trying to sort a few things out on this end. Jeff gained about 1/2 pound in the last week if your following his recorvery. My three cats mean a very lot to me- especially jeffy. Take care for now. Marc-- Just checking in:Using Wikipedia for some reference materials. merlinus --merlinus 11:05, 28 May 2006 (UTC)(UTC)
JeffyFor those of you that are following his recovery progress reports, Jeffy is about 100% better. Thanks for all of your well wishes (in person), E-mails and support.
FYI re HCIn case you didn't come across it yet, Laurascudder has written an excellent "Outside view" at MDW's RFC that you may want see or add commentary. We feel pretty much the same as yourself about HC. --hydnjo talk 18:55, 24 June 2006 (UTC) Marc PASSES Wiki Smiles to good Guys Happy Camper (and to Nathan too!)
Chapter 1 Spies “I could have been a devastating spy, I think, but I didn’t want to be a devastating spy. I wanted to get a little money and to get out of it clean—Robert Hanssen, FBI agent and convicted Soviet spy in Getting to Know Spies... Computer spies typically don’t wear trench coats. They don’t dress in tight black clothes and hang upside down from trapeze wires over your keyboard. They probably aren’t named Boris and don’t speak with heavy Slavic accents. Most of them aren’t even hackers or crackers, and likely wouldn’t know the difference between a rootkit and root beer. If computer spies don’t match the popular media’s perceptions, just who are they? As with most avocations, computer espionage is divided into the amateurs and the professionals. Amateurs are casual spies. Although they may have very good reasons for snooping, their livelihood doesn’t depend on it. These spies have a bit more experience with computers than the average user. That doesn’t mean they’re extremely technical; it means only that they have taken the time to learn about various technologies that can be used for computer eavesdropping and then applied that knowledge for espionage purposes. Learning about spying tools and then acquiring them is only a point and click away with an Internet connection. When you think about these types of spies, don’t picture Tom Cruise or Sandra Bullock. Instead think of your boss, coworker, spouse, children, or the neighbor next door. Professional spies tend to have more technical experience than the amateurs. One aspect or another of the professionals’ jobs is to spy on people. This spying can sometimes be legal, as in the case of a law enforcement officer collecting intelligence for a child pornography criminal case, or illegal, if without a trial he uses his position to damage the reputation of the defendent. Who is legally innocent until he goes to trial. Blacklists and Lynch Mobs, and damaging of reputations willfully is illegal in the United States. Corperate Spies are often Illegal also. These spies use some of the same tools and technologies that the amateurs use, they have a deeper understanding of the technology as well as access to more advanced and sophisticated eavesdropping tools. As with amateurs, you usually can’t tell a professional spy by his or her appearance. Consider Aldrich Ames or Robert Hanssen: white, middle-class, average-looking CIA and FBI insiders who successfully spied for the Russians but blended in with society for years. Again, professional computer spies don’t match the popular media’s romanticized versions of espionage reality—although perhaps one or two might have a partner in crime named Natasha. Secrets of Computer Espionage: Tactics and Countermeasures There are two reasons why it’s important to have insights into the different types of spies: ✓ To understand the technical capabilities and limitations of a potential adversary. This is obvious because you want to make sure that your own security measures can withstand a spy’s attempt to breach them. ✓ So you can put yourself in the spy’s shoes. Throughout this book, there are sections that present spying tactics, specifically regarding how people spy on computers. In most of these sections, you’re asked to put on the spy’s trench coat so you can better assess your own security; to fully protect yourself, however, you need to know not only the tools and the techniques, but also the mindset of a spy. Popular culture has the saying, “What would _______ (Jesus, Gandhi; fill in your favorite wise role model) do?” When you review your security, you need to ask, “What would Corporate Spy (or whichever type of spy may be a threat) do?” The famous Chinese military strategist Sun Tzu said, “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.” Throughout this chapter, the concepts of knowing the enemy, knowing yourself, and knowing both the enemy and yourself are applied to computer spying. What Spies Are After and Who They Are Let’s start with knowing the enemy. Computer espionage is about the purposeful discovery of information or evidence. If you use a dictionary definition (in this case, the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition), information is “knowledge of specific events or situations that has been gathered or received by communication, intelligence, or news.” Evidence, on the other hand, is “a thing or things helpful in forming a conclusion or judgment.” An industrial spy may be looking for secret information on a Microsoft project manager’s laptop that specifically relates to the company’s future and hush-hush Longhorn operating system. A The types of information and evidence gathered can be very targeted or generalized, depending on what the spy is trying to accomplish. Perhaps he is looking only for financial information that relates to an upcoming merger and will be content with snooping through spreadsheet files with accounting information. On the other hand, a government intelligence agency may examine the entire contents of a hard drive that belonged to a terrorist, seeking not only evidence, but any information that may relate to future terrorist attacks. The activity is typically unauthorized and unknown. In most cases, you aren’t going to give explicit or implicit permission to have someone snoop through your computer. Exceptions might be in the workplace in which employee monitoring takes place or when you tell the friendly police officer that you don’t have anything to hide, you don’t need a lawyer, and certainly he can look at your computer. Also in some types of law enforcement investigations you won’t have a say if a court has granted permission to a police agency to spy on your computer because of suspected illegal activities on your part. Remember that unauthorized doesn’t necessarily mean illegal. Although breaking into a computer network to steal trade secrets clearly violates a number of laws, placing a keylogger on your son’s computer without his permission to see if he talks to his friends about doing drugs would not be illegal, though it may be unethical to some people. The second element of computer spying is that if you’re the target, you don’t know it’s taking place until perhaps after the fact. Unlike clothing manufacturers, eavesdroppers don’t go around leaving tags on computers that read “Snooped on by Spy #39.” Sometimes, spies do leave tracks, but they usually aren’t that obvious. Whoever is spying doesn’t want you to know they are looking for information or evidence. Exceptions would be a publicized employee-monitoring program or the government’s ECHELON data surveillance system (discussed later in this chapter), which is known about—much to the chagrin of those running the program. ECHELON is an example of the government’s frequent “cult of secrecy” attitude. Although the existence of ECHELON has been exposed, the government steadfastly refuses to acknowledge its existence. For more on ECHELON and other data surveillance systems, turn to Chapter 13. So far, this discussion has all been about what spies are generally after, but we still haven’t answered Sun Tzu’s question of knowing who the enemy is. This is important because it gives us insights into their motivations and methods. Thinking like the bad guys is a valuable exercise in helping you protect yourself from them. Summary You now should have a better idea of who your enemy (a spy) is, whether you have the right stuff to take him or her on, and how to go about assessing the risk of computer espionage. Throughout the rest of this book, you will be exposed to a number of tactics that spies use to compromise data. When you read about these spy tactics, pretend you’re a spy, and see how effective some of these attacks would be on you, your business, or your organization. Always consider whether an attack is probable or possible, though. All the espionage tactics described are possible, but your own personal situation will make them either more or less likely. As new vulnerabilities are discovered on a daily basis, with some taking a long time to percolate into public view, it’s impossible to create a perfectly secure computer. There’s an old saying in the security industry that the only way to absolutely secure a computer is to cut all the cables, fill it with cement, and then bury it. Then it still might not even be secure. Your job should be to minimize the risk of computer espionage as much as possible. You can’t be 100 percent certain that you can keep a spy from accessing information or evidence, but you can make his job as difficult as possible. Hopefully, the cost in time and effort will cause him to look elsewhere for other targets. b537105 Ch01.qxd 5/16/03 8:39 AM Page 24 HelloHi Merlinus - I am healthy and back again :-) I was glad to hear your cat is doing well. I hope your enjoyment of Wikipedia grows with each day! --HappyCamper 02:44, 18 July 2006 (UTC) Subject: [IP] Not all pornography is illegal
Hi GuysAll is going well enough this summer for us. We are relaxed and having a good time, but would prefer it to be a little cooler out. Have been thinking a lot about the uselessness of American infighting over trival things when we really need to be more united against terrorists and greater threats. We really need to put things in perspective these days starting with national security. Secondly we need to protect each other physicaly and emotionaly as best we can. This needs to be a summer of great American maturing I think. Weve got a long way to go. Merlinus.--merlinus 00:38, 12 August 2006 (UTC)PS, I Made Some Edits here and around my site. They were approved by me. Merlinus--merlinus 00:49, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
Cats project newsletterHello. Please find here a copy of the first Cats WikiProject newsletter. Please feel free to make any comments, suggestions, etc., here or at the project page itself. Thank you. Badbilltucker 15:57, 7 November 2006 (UTC) Hi AllHave been quite buisy with my family and all and not had time for Wikipedia. I'm just checking in though. Hope all is going well for all of you in this Thanksgiving season. It is warm and beautiful here in Massachustts... I will count my many blessings too. Merlinus.--merlinus 16:01, 24 November 2006 (UTC) Proud Mass resident rebukes the rebuking of that garbage.
Bay Stater1. Bayer Stater is cool by me i guess! 2. Gay marriage is still legal in Massachusetts... deal with it... I am free to be legally married and strait and people are free to be gay and married- what can I say. I feel marriage should be legal for anyone... even livestock if it makes you happy! As a married guy, what's so magic about being able to get married? Don't ask me... I can be as confused about my marriage as anyone and its no magic picnic. Why can't they be as happy or unhappy as I feel today. I'll change mind mind though if my wife gives me a nice fattening Donut? > 3. "Pursuant... is that a real word? If I was in Pursuant of a Boston Cream Donut I would not be starving on a stupid diet? PS. I'm not actually sure if that last comment gives me enough credit for being a typical Massachusetts liberal- but i'm not ashamed of it, tired of watching myself write about but in the end I don't care enough to think about it again. But you can make me feel ashamed for a price... you guessed it... a nice fattening donut? --merlinus 20:39, 26 January 2007 (UTC)--merlinus 00:27, 27 January 2007 (UTC) |
