Last evening I attended a party at the Liberty Science Center, a place with a gorgeous view of Lower Manhattan. Not seeing the Twin Towers there (ugly boondoggles as they may have been) is still strange.

What’s even more strange to me is the lack of volunteer first responders around here. Around town, I’ve passed many EMS and fire/rescue stations like the Elizabeth Avenue Fire Company with big signs out front, begging for volunteers. Here I am in New Jersey, a place once in the shadows of the Twin Towers, and the fire-rescue crews can’t find enough volunteers? What happened to the heroic image firefighters earned on that dreadful day in September?

Have they traded their hoses and axes for guns?

Well, I suppose I’ll put off buying that Mac now. No one wants a lame-duck system.

I’m in Jersey this week for work. My hosts have graciously adjusted the weather to match Raleigh’s: muggy and in the 90s. And my Independence Air flight actually got here on time, wonder of wonders.

I’m missing the family already, however. I’m hoping these weeklong trips don’t become the norm. There are three faces (at least?) who are missing me as much as I’m missing them.

Yesterday, I configured the office phone system to forward calls to an outside number. No big deal, right? Phone switches have been doing this for ages.

After I set up the menus properly, I watched the logfiles as I tested things out. My call came in on an IAX trunk and reached the menu, where a keypress sent it on its way to the external number, again on an IAX trunk.

Here’s where things get interesting! As I watched in wonder, Asterisk realized “Oh! This is a conversation between two external parties. What am I doing here?” It then negotiated for both parties to speak directly to each other, seamlessly handed the call off and dropped out of the loop.

This is truly amazing stuff. Hundred-thousand-dollar phone switches don’t do this. Ordinarily, two trunks would have been tied up for this call, adding expense and degrading sound quality while they were in use.

Voice over IP protocols completely change the nature of telephony.

On the plus side, the News and Observer has launched a blog site. Looks to be something to keep an eye on.

I’m hoping we can use the site to get the background on the stories – stuff the paper may feel to stodgy to share in print. Stay tuned!

This week, the country found out the identity of the most famous anonymous (a contradiction in terms) source in journalism: Deep Throat. This source – Mark Felt – helped bring down a corrupt Nixon administration, proving that no one – not even the President – is above the law. At least some Presidents, anyway.

Also this week, the News and Observer‘s crack investigative journalists helped sound the alarm about the dangers of … big trucks. Yep, some of those trucks might be a teensy bit overweight. Stop the presses!

Am I the only one who finds this series a yawner? I know our highways – particularly the interstates – are in bad shape, but does this really qualify as front page news? Its about as exciting as a zoning board meeting.

What’s amusing is the way the N&O has been flogging this series, trying to make something of it. An editorial prodded the governor, saying Does Easley Care? Yeah, I’m sure his phone is ringing off the hook on this issue. The better question is, does anyone care? A lot of his constituents earn a living driving those trucks, because for them driving a truck is a pretty good job. Besides, have you ever known anyone to passionately defend a highway? It’s a freaking slab of concrete, for crying out loud! I think this might be the one issue that hippy tree huggers and jackbooted thugs alike can agree upon.

If only the series had emphasized the threat to “the children,” it might have more impact. “Those heavy, criminal trucks are destroying the stop-and-go-traffic experience of future generations. Who will act for the children?”

Phooey, I say. Get it over with, N&O, and give me more stories on the pervert of the day.

I took another trip to see the doctor today. It turns out my sinus infection hasn’t gone away. Month number five. Whee. I’ve been walking around with a low-grade fever pretty-much all the time.

No wonder I feel wiped when I get home. Well, that and work has kept me insanely busy.

I’ve got horsepills for antibiotics. A mega-dose in an effort to overpower this thing. If those don’t do the trick, its off to get a CAT scan of my noggin to see if there’s anything amiss with the pipes.

Now its on to bed.

A story in yesterday’s New York Times told of the CIA spy plane flights from Johnston Airport (or BugMeNot). According to the article, the Smithfield-based contractor, Aero Contractors, Ltd., is a long-time CIA front company. The article referred to Aero Contractors as a “major domestic hub of the CIA’s air service.”

Much of the article is old news to me, but the extent of Aero Contractor’s CIA connections surprised me. Also new to me is the use of the Kinston airport for the CIA’s 737. Hey, at least someone’s using those 10,000ft runways. And I was surprised to know that these flights are still going on.

Scott Shane, by the way, is the reporter who interviewed me during my Italy vacation. We traded voicemails a couple times before finally connecting, at which point he asked me what I knew about the plane. Though he never said so, I assume he had seen my MT.Net blog entry on the CIA plane. I was sad to say I didn’t have much to add that wasn’t already out there. With that, the call ended, and with it my first chance to get interviewed by the New York Times. Still, I think its cool that my humble blogging caught the attention of a “Gray Lady” reporter.

(I recommend you read the Times article rather than the other sites, as the Times one goes into detail you won’t find in the other versions.)

I know that pigs must be flying, but a Microsoft security expert recently made a very wise statement. Jesper Johansson told an Australia CERT gathering that employees should write down their passwords.

“How many have (a) password policy that says under penalty of death you shall not write down your password?” asked Johansson, to which the majority of attendees raised their hands in agreement. “I claim that is absolutely wrong. I claim that password policy should say you should write down your password. I have 68 different passwords. If I am not allowed to write any of them down, guess what I am going to do? I am going to use the same password on every one of them.”

Johansson is absolutely right. Human nature says that if you have many different passwords – as good security policy tells you to – you’ll likely recycle a few to keep things simple. This leads to multiple vulnerabilities should one of those systems become compromised.

Unless you’re Dan Rather, you aren’t going to get accosted on the street by goons asking “what’s the password, Kenneth?” You’re not have your password beaten out of you during a POW interrogation. You’re also not going to have your password pilfered from your wallet using RFID. Until some enterprising hacker invents a way to remotely read the paper on your desk, having your passwords written down rather than stored somewhere (or “recycled”), is actually pretty safe.

I’ve been doing this myself for a few years now and am glad that others are seeing the light. It may not make sense in all situations, but its better than using one lousy password for everything.