Voodoo powder blights Miami courts

http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_847912.html ^ | Story filed: 17:03 Wednesday 17th December 2003

[Van der Waals]

Prosecutors in a trial in Miami complain that their seats and evidence boxes are being covered with voodoo powder.

US District Judge Patricia Seitz has been shown a large quantity of the greyish dust which was dumped in what's believed to be a Santeria ritual.

Santeria experts say voodoo powder can bring good luck, swaying juries, judges or prosecutors in favour of the accused.

The powder was left in evidence boxes next to the prosecution table in the courtroom which is trying defence attorney J.C. Elso on money-laundering charges.

Veteran Assistant US Attorney Richard Gregorie said he respects all religions but is tired of getting his suit coats cleaned of powder residue, says the Miami Herald.

A team of cleaners, known as the Voodoo Squad, regularly remove sacrificial chickens, roosters and goats from the grounds of the courthouse.

[JoJo Gunn]

"Bush declares America and himself trifecta winners"!

…."As I begin to create this webpage on the morning after the 2000 United States Presidential election (November 8th, 2000), the outcome is still is too close to call. Whether George W. Bush or his Democratic rival, Al Gore, becomes President, depends on a recount of the votes in Florida, where Bush is currently ahead by less than 2,000 votes out of over 5,800,000 votes cast. (Florida's official certification, on November 26th, reduced Bush's lead to 537 votes....)

If the election goes to Gore, I will delete this page from my website. If George W. Bush becomes the 43rd President of the United States, I will collect here examples of his in your face petulant stupidity and ignorance -- for which he seems to expect to be universally esteemed and rewarded…."

Hmmmmm.... A rat in our midst?

Michael miserable failureMoore

[JoJo Gunn]

Well, you most certainly linked to a site of dubious distinction.

If that's not your site, I of course owe you an apology.

Michael miserable failureMoore

[Constitution Day]

Nope. Just Googled up the image, sitelessly.

Ok, thanks for the clarification.
The woodcut(?) is cool, so I thought I'd look further to see from whence it came.

Then I found... a rambling leftist, bloviating for pages and pages!

[Van der Waals]

Don't think so.

[Constitution Day]

Thanks. You had me worried for a minute.

[Van der Waals]

How I found it: http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=www.users.cloud9.net/~bradmcc/jpg/Reader.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.users.cloud9.net/~bradmcc/cgi-bin/vuImag2.pl%3Fi%3D73&h=748&w=557&prev=/images%3Fq%3D%2Bsite:www.users.cloud9.net%2Bship%2Bof%2Bfools%26svnum%3D10%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26ie%3DUTF-8%26oe%3DUTF-8

Thanks for bringing the site to my attention. I have removed their image from my homepage.

[Constitution Day]

You're welcome, and if you like the photo, you can always upload it to Imagestation or some such site to post on your page.

Since the source is given as "Sebastian Brant's Ship of Fools, 1494", I would imagine the copyright has... expired. ;)

Take care.

CD

[JoJo Gunn]

Here's the page you linked to:

http://www.users.cloud9.net/~bradmcc/fools.html

Might I suggest from now on you check below the Google frame to see what the source is? We get a little jumpy around here. ;)

[Van der Waals]

HOLY MOLY! I unwittingly slipped into the trench of the enemy (red-faced).

[hellinahandcart]

You're lucky they haven't switched the picture on you.

That happened to me once. I posted a pic of Joe Scarborough here once, without looking at the link too closely, and the next day the webmaster had his revenge on me. He changed the picture to Bush superimposed over a swastika.

Which was now posted under my name, at FreeRepublic. LOL. I had to hit Abuse on myself to get rid of it.

[Mitchell]

This is silly. Are people going to be ostracized now for posting an image of a 15th-century woodcut, if the source webpage is by a scholar who happens to be a liberal (and who voices his political opinions on another minor part of his website)?

For your enjoyment, here's another woodcut from the Ship of Fools, with McCormick's accompanying quote:

The Moralist

Mistakes knowing about a thing for being responsible for it....

[Van der Waals]

Thanks for your input.

BTW - Remember Nimda?

Virus, Worm

Released on September 18, 2001

W32.Nimda.A@mm


Discovered on: September 18, 2001

Also Known As:
W32/Nimda@mm, PE_NIMDA.A, I-Worm.Nimda, W32/Nimda-A, Win32.Nimda.A


W32.Nimda.A@mm is a mass-mailing worm that uses multiple methods to spread itself. The name of the virus came from the reversed spelling of "admin."
___________________________________________________________


NMDA receptor


The NMDA receptor is a receptor for the neurotransmitter glutamate, which is the most important excitatory transmitter in the brain. It is not only a receptor, but also a channel (it is thus a ligand-gated ionic channel). N-methyl-D-aspartate is the famous agonist of the NMDA receptor, the latter being named after it. It is a very complex and fascinating ligand-gated channel that seems to be involved in the toxic effects of excessive glutamate, and in many other processes like synaptic plasticity and target recognition.

[Mitchell]

Yes, I remember Nimda. I don't know whether it was connected with the anthrax mailings or not.

But the name "Nimda" is of no import. It was picked by the anti-virus people, not by the writer of the worm. In fact, in one of the later Nimda releases, the author of the worm objects to his work being called Nimda; he apparently named it Concept Virus, or CV. (As I recall, there was an earlier virus that had been called Concept Virus, which is why a new name was assigned to this one.)

[An American in Turkiye]

I'm surprised PETA hasn't spoken out against this. If PETA started throwing red paint on them, would they be charged with a hate crime? Intolerance to anothers religion?

[RIGHT IN LAS VEGAS]

blow job from bubba

[Van der Waals]

Is that what you call a reverse Lewinsky or is more a Lewinsky by proxy?

[Van der Waals]

Good, you're still as sharp as ever, now...

September 18, 2003

Kaspersky Labs, a leading information security expert, announces the detection of the network worm, I-Worm.Swen. This malicious program spreads via email, the Kazaa file sharing network and IRC channels.

The worm, which goes by a variety of names, including Swen, W32/Swen@MM, Gibe, and W32/Gibe-F, can pose as an e-mail from Microsoft bearing a bogus security update as a file attachment.

October 9, 2003

Two additional variants of this worm have been received by AVERT, created by minor edits of certain strings within the initial worm, and subsequent packing with UPX. Both are already detected as virus or variant W32/Swen@MM with the 4294 DATs or greater. Exact identification of the first (as W32/Swen@MM ) was included in the 4297 DATs. Exact identification of the latter will be included in 4298 DATs. Both of these variants are of filesize 52,224 bytes.

When first launched, the worm accesses the following remote website:

http://ww2.fce.vutbr.cz/bin/counter.gif/link=bacillus&width=6&set=cnt006

[Van der Waals]

Ping.

[Van der Waals]

Hate crimes come in different colors and consistencies.

Some even come in small pre-stamped envelopes.

[Mitchell]

Cute. Needless to say, this isn't the same situation as with Nimda, because when Swen was released in 2003, the significance of the dates Sept. 18 and Oct. 9 was public knowledge (as was the theory that Nimda might have been related in some way to the anthrax mailings). Anybody could have intentionally released a virus on those anniversary dates in 2003 to make the virus appear to have something to do with the anthrax mailings. (In contrast, at the time of Nimda's release, nobody knew the significance of those dates except for the people involved with the anthrax mailings.)

By the way, I don't think the "bacillus" keyword for the counter means much here. Perhaps you look at the word "Bacillus" and imagine "anthracis" after it, but I think it would be quite natural for computer virus writers to pick words with biological connotations, like "bacillus", for use in their code.

Also note that the worm called Swen is apparently the latest incarnation of the earlier Gibe worm, so 9/18/2003 and 10/9/2003 are just the latest two dates in a longer series of release dates.

So, here are three possibilities regarding Swen:

• Possibility 1. The dates are just a coincidence. If you look, you can find many things that happened on Sept. 18, and some that happened on both Sept. 18 and Oct. 9 in some year.
• Possibility 2. Someone who had nothing to do with the anthrax mailings intentionally picked the anniversary dates, just because he thought it would be a cool thing to do.
• Possibility 3. Someone who had something to do with the anthrax mailings picked those dates on purpose. But why would he do that? Two possible reasons:
  • Possibility 3(a). Disinformation. This presupposes that the Nimda theory is false; the purpose of Swen would then be to divert resources into investigation of a (false) Nimda connection to the anthrax mailings.
  • Possibility 3(b). To draw attention to the earlier release dates of Gibe/Swen:
    
    • Mar. 4, 2002
    • Feb. 24, 2003
      (There were also minor follow-up variants released on Mar. 16, 2003, and Mar. 24, 2003.)
    Why draw attention to these earlier dates? I don't know, but that attention to the earlier Gibe-worm release dates is a predictable consequence of the later Swen releases on the anthrax anniversary dates. In this theory 3(b), it's as if someone is saying: "Look at the release dates!"

My guess is that it's just a coincidence - Possibility 1.