A posting from Peter Kaminski to a mailing list (with permission):

It’s a thing of terrorbeauty, this Slammer/Sapphire/W32.SQLExp.Worm. Weighing in at 376 bytes of assembly language code, it is shorter than some email signature blocks. Shorter than the next paragraph.

It fits entirely within one UDP packet. The packet goes into a Microsoft SQL Server box, and boom, the machine turns into a zombie, spewing the same packet back out at random IP addresses, over and over and over and over, running in a tight 23-instruction loop, cycling fast enough to fill the network it’s connected to with the tiny replicates of itself directed anywhere and everywhere on the net.

Here are some more links:
cstone’s annotated disassembly
archived version of the Matrix graph
the slashdot thread
NGSSoftware advisory on the Microsoft SQL Server exploit, 2002-07-25

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Bob Frankston has a new essay that makes the case that the current spectrum management system unduly restrains free speech. He writes:

It’s as if we were having a party and someone came into the room and told everyone to be quiet and gave out pieces of paper with a time and a place telling each person when and where they could talk. If there were a possibility young people would overhear you couldn’t use certain words even if there were no other venues and even if you felt the language was appropriate for them.

Put that way it seems outrageous. Yet if we communicate using radio waves instead of sound waves that is precisely what the FCC is doing.

The FCC was in 1934 created to deal with a technological limitation of radios of their day. Frequencies had to be assigned exclusively to broadcasters to optimize reception. That meant that access to the “public airwaves” was gated by corporations with enough capital to build expensive transmission systems. The government over the years has recognized that this is a problem, legislating ameliorating solutions. But modern technology means that we don’t need the broadcast chokepoints. All that’s keeping the public from using the public airwaves are regulations based on outmoded assumptions about technology. Our free speech is being restrained.

Bob also points to an essay by Yochai Benkler and Larry Lessig posted by the New Republic: Will technology make CBS unconstitutional? A snippet:

Our argument is straightforward: The FCC regulates speech. It says that, if you want to speak on 98.6 FM in Boston, you must get a license (or, now, buy one). If you speak on 98.6 without a license, you will have committed a crime. The FCC will prosecute you and seize your transmitter. All this despite the fact that the First Amendment to the Constitution says, “Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech.” What gives?

Both of these articles are must-reading. This issue is really beginning to boil…

(Don’t forget the two articles at GreaterDemocracy.org: Reframing Open Spectrum and an Open Spectrum FAQ.)

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Jim Law points us to a BBC news report that says that the UK government has opened up more spectrum for wireless networks.

I vie, you vie, we all vie for Wi-Fi!

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Getting good reaction to the FAQ on Open Spectrum I wrote with content from Dewayne Hendricks, David Reed and Jock Gill. So far, it’s been blogged by Cory Doctorow, Dan Gillmor, Eric Norlin, and Dave Winer. And I haven’t checked this morning’s blogiverse yet.

Open Spectrum is important and not on enough radar screens yet. Spread the meme!

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I’ve put together a FAQ on Open Spectrum, based on ideas and info from Dwayne Hendricks, David P. Reed, and Jock Gill. It complements a paper on Open Spectrum the four of us collaborated on also. The Open Spectrum FAQ is a further attempt to explain the issues in a way that non-techies can understand. (In fact, my chief role on the project was to keep saying “Huh?”) So, I hope you’ll read it, suggest changes and additions, and link to it.

Open Spectrum is a big issue we need to get on the table now because piecemeal solutions — some attractive in their own right — are being put forward. This is our chance.
(Thanks for Greater Democracy for hosting it.)

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Michael Powell, chairman of the FCC, was given a TiVo for Christmas. He’s already called it “God’s machine.” It’s only a matter of weeks before he’ll find himself at a staff meeting reaching for the rewind button so he can re-hear what someone just said.

I’d heard that Powell was a part-time tech junkie. Excellent. We want our tech policy driven by lust. (Thanks, Lawmeme via Doc for the link.)

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Safari is the new Web browser for Mac. It looks great. Doc likes it. I want it for Windows.

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I got my scanner working this morning. It took many hours and a couple of dozen reboots. Which raises the question: Just how badly does Windows suck? I mean this as a real question.

The scanner — an Epson Perfection 1240U — had worked fine under Windows 2000. It worked fine when I upgraded to Windows XP. And then it stopped working in a blaze of random weirdness: the scanner control panel would start up when I pressed the Start button on the scanner, but then the system would claim that it couldn’t find the scanner. Or, the XP dialogue asking how to deal with a data file it’s found would list the scanner twice but neither would work.

So, I did the usual Windows things. I downloaded the new TWAIN driver and app software from Epson. (Note to Epson: Your explanation of which files to download definitely sucks.) I installed them. I uninstalled everything. I started from scratch. I changed the order in which I installed the various scanner-related apps. I uninstalled and plugged the scanner in to enable Windows to find it and prompt me to do the installs. At every turn I ran the upgrade/patch software, rebooting between every encounter.

This morning I edited the registry, taking out every reference to Epson I could find. Then I went through the reboot-install-reboot-patch-reboot sequence. And the scanner works! At least for now.

With XP, there’s less of this time-stealing crap than ever. Remember how hard it was to install a scanner in the old days? But it still happens, and I’m not sure who to be pissed at. After all, Windows is dealing with an extremely complex environment. Assuming we want the maximum openness to peripherals and apps, is XP under-performing, performing, or over-performing? I know the Epson apps are not very robust — their preferred way of handling errors is to put up a dinging error message once a second until you reboot your machine — so perhaps the blame goes to Epson. And although the Registry is more fragile than any of us would like, the fact that a foolhardy user like me can hand edit it I count as a plus. But perhaps I shouldn’t.

I know we all enjoy being pissed at Microsoft, but let’s be honest. The last time I was a serious Unix user, installing apps took a systems administrator, and the OS was far from crash free. And I’ve watched Linux hackers tear their hair out trying to install a peripheral. Granted, they have the comfort of knowing that there’s a community that can make it better, but Linux isn’t free of experiences like my Epson battle. Is the Mac? OS X? Are these the inevitable difficulties of dealing with systems perpetually at the limit of their ability to manage complexity, and/or does Windows just plain suck?

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I just read a letter to the editor that listed as benefits of casino gambling what were actually disadvantages. It took me two sentences to suspect it was sarcastic and three to confirm it. In fact, the writer had to get all blatant about it: “Upticks in crime, problem gambling, and other harmful social consequences are things we all need.” A subtler writer would have left the pejoratives out. We still would have recognized it as sarcasm if the claims were outrageous enough.

Here’s my point: Sarcasm has to be a tough one for AI.

Ironically, Joseph Weizenbaum’s ELIZA program that responded as if it were a Rogerian psychologist was taken seriously by a surprising number of people although Weizenbaum intended its content to be a parody. (You can play it online here.)

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Bruce Kushnick’s book, “The Unauthorized Bio of the Baby Bells,” is available as a free download via the Teletruth organization. I haven’t read it yet, but I’m looking forward to it. Why, it even has an introduction by the redoubtable Bob Metcalfe!

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