Does Windows Vista Send Information to the Government?
http://tinyurl.com/3c7tg3
http://www.infopackets.com
Does Windows Vista Send Information to the Government?
by Bill Lindner on 20070726 @ 00:13AM EST
Is there more to Windows Vista being big brother than was originally
thought? There appear to be features and services bundled into Windows Vista
that stay in touch with the government and their associates, too.
If this is true, Microsoft has gone too far. This post was in an
abandonia.com forum, and appeared to get overloaded from all the attention
it was getting. Whitedust.net had a copy of it on their site.
A forum user switched to Windows Vista a month ago and actually
had some good luck with it. He began noticing latency on his home network
connection. He used port sniffing software and networking tools to see what
was going on. What he found he referred to as "foundation shaking." There
are some graphical images of a peerguardian 2 log with some very interesting
information. The computer was in an idle state.
It shows the computer connected to the following (in his own words):
a.. DoD Network Information Center (Department of Defense)
b.. United Nations Development Program (Seems to correlate to the parent
branch of the U.N. Informatics Division)
c.. Halliburton Company (We all know these guys)
d.. Ministry of Defense Data Return Agent
e.. DOHS-Recon (traceroutes for this address provided nothing, suspected
blocks on traceroute. Many of us who are monitoring this situation have
suspected the acronym stands for the Department of Homeland Security
Reconnaissance. This is merely a guess, but an educated one at that)
I ran traceroutes on the IP's, and sure enough they came back government
owned. I thought this might be exclusive to my system, so I ran over to a
friend of mine who upgraded to Vista when it first became available. After
installing monitoring software on his system, the hits it caught on his
network were immediate and almost identical in source.
Is there anyone in the abandonia community with a US based connection who is
experiencing this watchdog behavior? Are any foreign Vista users
experiencing similar attacks from their own countries ministries and
governing agencies?
It would be interesting to see how common this is. If Microsoft is doing
this to all their Windows Vista consumers, it's time to take a long hard
look at how they do things.
March 02, 2008
InfaGard monitoring update
December 04, 2007
Africa and Climate Change the bald truth
Africa: Climate Change Impact Report
There is evidence that climate is modifying natural mountain ecosystems via complex interactions and feedbacks including, for example, solar radiation
(Washington, DC)
ANALYSIS
2 December 2007
Posted to the web 3 December 2007
Washington, DC
"Climate disasters are heavily concentrated in poor countries. Some 262 million people were affected by climate disasters annually from 2000 to 2004, over 98 percent of them in the developing world. ...
In [rich] countries one in 1,500 people was affected by climate disaster. The comparable figure for developing countries was one in 19." - UNDP Human Development Report
| |
This global inequality cited by the UNDP report (excerpted in another AfricaFocus Bulletin sent out today). is echoed in the extensively documented Africa chapter of latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), excerpted below, and available in full at http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/ar4-wg2.htm
Both reports were released last month in time for the UN Climate Change Conference, scheduled for Bali, Indonesia, 3-14 December 2007. The climate change crisis, both reports stress, is not just an issue for the future. The changes are already adding to the impact of other stresses to increase risks to survival in areas and population groups that are already vulnerable.
The changes include dramatically visible ones, such as the rapid drop in the snow and ice cover on the summit of Mt. Kilimanjaro, as well as others with effects that show up in statistical studies.
See http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/stories/kilimanjaro_20021216/ for photos of Mt. Kilimanjaro, and the extensive documentation in the IPCC chapter on a wide range of effects.
Previous AfricaFocus Bulletins on climate change issues include:
Africa: Neglecting Agriculture, 2
http://www.africafocus.org/docs07/ag0710b.php
Sahel: Beyond Any Drought?
http://www.africafocus.org/docs07/sah0709.php
Africa: Up in Smoke?
http://www.africafocus.org/docs06/clim0611.php
Africa: Economics of Climate Change
http://www.africafocus.org/docs06/ster0611.php
Africa: Environmental Threats/Opportunities
http://www.africafocus.org/docs06/unep0609.php
Africa: Africa's Lakes
http://www.africafocus.org/docs06/lake0609.php
East Africa: Dams and Lake Victoria
http://www.africafocus.org/docs06/vic0602.php
PCC Fourth Assessment Report
Working Group II Report "Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability"












