chiasmar

Finally the NY Times recognizes that the occupation in Iraq is feeding the insurgency. If the insurgency is a response to, and thrives off of the occupation, our forces don't stand a chance at "winning." Of course, they are "winning" in another sense, in particular because companies like Haliburton and Boeing are able to sell their goods and services to the US government. We need to leave Iraq, now. Of course many have been saying this since the beginning of the occupation.

“The president wants to play on Al Qaeda because he thinks Americans understand the threat Al Qaeda poses,” said Bruce Riedel, an expert at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy and a former C.I.A. official. “But I don’t think he demonstrates that fighting Al Qaeda in Iraq precludes Al Qaeda from attacking America here tomorrow. Al Qaeda, both in Iraq and globally, thrives on the American occupation.” http://www.nytimes.com/ July 13, 2007

I finally fixed the last issue that was bothering me with OpenWrt. On my Buffalo WHR-HP-G54, the nvram was corrupted with non-ASCII values. Because of this, every time that I typed `nvram show` it messed up my terminal, causing me to have to log out and back in again. I finally fixed this with a `mtd -r nvram erase` issued to the router. Previous commands didn't work, I think because I didn't include the -r switch and for some reason this prevents the device from really erasing the nvram. Perhaps you could do it without the instant reboot if you do an mtd unlock nvram first?

Although the developers seem wary about issuing this command (mtd -r nvram erase), it worked fine on my box. Of course, since the nvram was clear it came back up on the address 192.168.11.1. Once I figured this out, I connected to the machine and started bringing the nvram back to normal. This involved taking some nvram settings off of the wiki page for openwrt to lock down the wifi interface with WEP, and some more changes so that syslog was sent to my syslog daemon process running on a linux box that I leave on all of the time.

Through this, the #openwrt community on freenode was really helpful. Way to go, open source software!

I recently came across a company called "fonero" that is based on the idea of "sharing" private internet access. This project is a thinly veiled way for those at fonero to profit off of the internet connection that others purchase. Of course, it is technically illegal in many ways because most of those who purchase internet connections are unable to share their connections with others, according to the terms of service (TOS) that they agree to upon signing up.

Based on this project, though, I think that there is potential in a new, more radical form of the project "fonero" that is not centered around a particular company. Fonero itself uses routers based on openwrt. All that a more subversive company would need to do is use the openwrt source, build a radius authentication server, and create a version of "el phonero" that does not rely upon the company that came up with the idea.

So, open source hackers, are you up to the task? Write a comment here and let's start a new social movement without the dependence on profit-seeking venture capitalists. Free the internet!

Cuba and Venezuala becoming independent of Microsoft's empire:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070216/ap_on_hi_te/cuba_software;_ylt=AqfMQFLaC.xso.WpaVBtBMaor7oF

According to the NY Times, surveillance by the New York City Police Department has been restricted. I think that everyone who has been watching the news in the last couple of years have heard of appalling actions by the NYPD which are succinctly described in the NY Times article:

"In recent years, police officers have disguised themselves as protesters, shouted feigned objections when uniformed officers were making arrests, and pretended to be mourners at a memorial event for bicycle riders killed in traffic accidents."

Although this is far from a reversal of the "panoptic" society that we live in (according to Foucault's work Discipline and Punish), the recent ruling is an optimistic sign of a change to slightly better times for social activists in the NY area.

Because of the project mentioned below, I decided to put some links to sources relating to QoS and OpenWRT here.

1) Blog of a web programmer interested in QoS on OpenWRT: http://lazutkin.com/blog/2006/jan/27/openwrt-qos/
2) Forum on QoS on OpenWRT: http://forum.openwrt.org/viewtopic.php?pid=19616#p19616
3) Apparently outdated, but perhaps useful QoS howto for OpenWRT: http://wiki.openwrt.org/MiniHowtos/QoSHowto


Additionally, the newest package of QoS scripts for openwrt seems to be here:

4) http://downloads.openwrt.org/people/nbd/qos/

Hopefully it will all go smoothly when the equipment arrives and I'll have QoS up and running for my VOIP connection.

I'm getting a new router in the mail in a few days... a Buffalo WHR-HP-G54. I'm excited about trying an operating system based on Linux for embedded systems with this device called OpenWRT (http://www.openwrt.org). The development community seems very cohesive and co-operative. This might seem like a truism for open-source projects, but too often it seems that one developer hijacks the project and makes it his own. I like seeing the kind of open source projects that appear to the outside as a community, rather than an individual effort, even though it might all be a matter of appearance in the end.

On a related note, it seems that X-Wrt (http://www.x-wrt.org/), a related project with a similar cohesive feel to the community, adds a lot of important usability features to openwrt. I'm probably going to try using this to get QOS up and running on the router soon so that my voip service improves. If anyone has gotten this working drop a comment here!

Previously, debts held over the heads of developing countries contributed to their continued poverty. More recently, even despicable arch-conservatives like George W. Bush have made statements for debt relief. Things were looking decidedly better... until the "debt vultures" stepped in. These companies bought the debts cheaply before they could be erased, and then sued the developing countries for the full amount owed, plus interest. This was all made possible by dirty politicking and the decisions of national leaders like "W" himself to turn their heads to the unethical actions of the debt vultures.

See accounts of what has happened on sites like Democracy Now: http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/02/15/1528209

There has been a call for a student strike against the war on February 15th. Notable intellectuals such as the historian Howard Zinn and the linguist Noam Chomsky have put their weight behind a movement to end the war in Iraq. Howard Zinn, on the web site http://www.worldcantwait.net/ says the following in support of the student demonstration:

I would like to endorse the idea of a student strike on campuses all over the country on Feb. 15, to rekindle the flame of protest that flared up all over the world on that date four years ago, as ten million people protested the pending invasion of Iraq by the United States. A student strike at this time would be a great boost to the movement against the war and would send a signal to Congress that it should listen to the American people and act immediately to stop this ugly war.

Every day the injuries to humanity continue in the Iraq war. Today, another 170 people died after bombings in Baghdad. The war, begun under false pretenses by President Bush, has claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of people and has disfigured and injured hundreds of thousands more.

We need to recognize that the war that was begun in the name of imperialist aggression for oil (and only under the false pretense of "Weapons of Mass Destruction") has no hope of repairing the gulf opened between the people of Iraq. At this point, it can only hope to further polarize the opposition between the United States and Iraq, and the United States and the rest of the world.

Because of this, we need to support the strike on February 15th. Only through an immediate withdrawal from Iraq can we begin to heal the wounds that our country has caused. Students, the onus is on you to demand an end to the US involvement in Iraq. Start by mobilizing your fellow students to act on February 15 by telling them about the web site http://worldcantwait.net and your commitment to help put an end to the war. Finally, let it be known that at least one instructor won't hold you accountable for a class missed for a worthwhile cause. :)

In a two-party system hopelessly buried under the weight of aggressive capitalism, the battle between two Democratic candidates may well be irrelevant. However, the fact that Obama has been more vocal about pulling out of Iraq seems to give him a clear edge over Clinton, who has denied to apologize for her vote allowing the use of force in Iraq.