The Register is reporting that the FBI’s controversial internet surveillance tool has officially been retired and that the bureau has started using an unnamed commercially available alternative.

Carnivore, under the USA PATRIOT Act gave the FBI access to a lot of information that would normally require a warrant to obtain. It is surprising to me that after spending a ton of money to get Carnivore up and running the FBI would just turn to a pre-made solution and use it. I would really like to know the underlying reasoning behind all of this.

I finally have a permanent link system setup for the entries on here. The title of the entry is a link to its permanent location. It is a simple system with nothing fancy, just enough to make the site accessible to people who come in from search engines and are looking for old articles.

The proof is in the pudding is the way I think the saying goes. The insurgents in Iraq have not been focused on getting the U.S. out of the country, they’ve been dead set on causing chaos and unrest. That is all they want. The way they understand democracy is that one party is elected and that party makes the decisions, regardless of what the others want. But in reality, and in the U.S., we understand the system a little better.

Will we see the elections in Iraq go smoothly? Probably not and I doubt the turnout for the elections will be huge. If the situation for voting was the same here as it is in Iraq I am pretty sure I would not go out to vote either. The thought of fellow “countrymen” shooting at you because you want your voice heard is a little too much for me and I am sure it is the same feeling many Iraqi’s have.

There was an interesting piece on some news program last night about the insurgents and why they are fighting. The news crew talked to some and found out that most of them were not even from Iraq, they came from Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and even Pakistan to fight. Not because they hate Americans, but because they just wanted something to do. This kind of reminds me of the situation in Somalia. The fighters there were not fighting for king and country, they were fighting because they were bored and because they were usually paid in drugs.

The question is whether the situation in Iraq will ever improve and I believe it will. I think that our troops are doing the best they can to keep the peace and until the insurgents realize that terror will not get them anything our boys will have to continually be looking over their shoulders.

With the first week of school over I am surprised to say that I may actually enjoy this semester more than last. All of my classes are relatively interesting with the exception of Public Policy.

On Monday, Wednesday, and Friday I have Ethics and the professor seems cool and the class, so far at least, is very interesting. On Tuesday and Thursday I have Enterprise Applications, Special Topics in ISQS, and Public Policy. The Enterprise Applications class is going to deal mostly with ASP.NET and C# while the Special Topics class is all Jakarta Struts (exciting!). The Public Policy class is the only class that worries me because the teacher was overly rude on the first day of the class and the size of the class is around 300.

So I am off to a good start for the spring semester. I have a doctor’s appointment Monday afternoon which will hopefully clear up some more of my health issues.

It seems that there are rumors spreading that a G5 PowerBook may be on the horizon for Q2. This begs the question, did IBM fix the problems with the G5’s heat dissipations problems?

Thanks to Brandon for sending me the link.

More about the first days of school later 😉

With the Macworld Conference taking place in San Francisco this week Apple has released some very cool products.

Their newest MP3 player is the iPod shuffle. It is a flash media player that connects through a USB port and the 1GB model can hold up to 240 songs, perfect for those trips to the gym. There is no screen to view the current song or playlists on the shuffle, so you will need to upload a playlist that you want to listen to and know its order (if you want to skip songs).

The next piece of news, and probably biggest, is Apple’s announcement of the Mac mini. At $499 the mini is a great alternative to a Dell or Gateway.

To me, the mini looks like a great entry solution for those who are looking to get started with a Mac but do not want to spend the money. $499 is cheap and a decent monitor does not cost too much. You’d basically be paying the same for a lower end Dell.

Anyway, it is just some exciting news out of Cupertino, California.

I still do not feel well, though I am feeling better than I was this time last week. With school starting tomorrow I just wish I felt great and ready to get into the new semester right. Hopefully by tonight my body will agree with me and start feeling normal again.

I probably become annoyed and frustrated too easily by small things but professors not replying to somewhat urgent e-mails really gets me. Granted, school is not in session yet but I know the professor is in his office, all I need is a short little e-mail answering a few questions. How long does that take? 5 minutes, maybe, if he types slowly.

I try to reply to e-mails as soon as possible or if there are a lot, set aside some time to reply. It is just the courteous thing to do.

Via: Aaron

This happened a few days ago but it is still interesting:

Seen through a twenty-power spot scope, terrorists scrambled to deliver another mortar round into the tube. Across the Euphrates River from a concealed rooftop, the Marine sniper breathed gently and then squeezed a few pounds of pressure to the delicate trigger of the M40A3 sniper rifle in his grasp.

The rifle