@SteveBellovin@mastodon.lawprofs.org cover
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SteveBellovin

@SteveBellovin@mastodon.lawprofs.org

I'm a computer science professor and affiliate law prof at Columbia University. Author of "Thinking Security". Dinosaur photographer. Not ashamed to say that I’m still masking, because long Covid terrifies me.
https://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. For a complete list of posts, browse on the original instance.

SteveBellovin , to random
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I'm waiting for Trump to tell the Appellate Division of the NY Supreme Court that falsifying business records is an official act. After all, his Justice Department claimed that his defamation of Jean Carroll was an official act…

SteveBellovin , to random
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There are features, such as the ability to delay patch installation, that at least at some point Microsoft enabled for enterprise versions of Windows but not for consumers. I wonder if they’ll do the same for Recall. (As noted by others, Recall is a gift to hackers and opposing counsel, which means that any decent-sized enterprise will disable it or not run Windows. But consumers? Most won’t know and/or will think themselves safe and won’t care, and can’t switch to Linux or MacOS.)

SteveBellovin , to random
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DRM, but for email sent to Recall-enabled systems.

SteveBellovin , to random
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“NYPD Officer Fired Gun Inside Columbia’s Hamilton Hall, Manhattan DA’s Office Confirms”: https://www.thecity.nyc/2024/05/02/nypd-officer-fired-gun-columbia-hamilton-hall-raid/
Also note this: “Cohen said no students and only police officers were in the immediate vicinity when the shooting occurred.” In other words, the officer had their gun drawn for no reason and used flash-bangs when that would not be normal for this sort of situation. It is lucky that no one was killed. (It's probably also why the NYPD wanted no journalists or legal observers present.)

SteveBellovin , to random
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I also found some ancient Usenet maps.

A map from April 15, 1981, showing noticeable growth, though in the same areas.
A June 1 map, with even more slow growth. It’s mostly the same areas, but more sites in each. Quite notable: a link over the ARPANET.

SteveBellovin , to random
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So Columbia is apparently calling the police onto campus for the first time in >50 years. Bollinger, the immediate past president, said six years ago “the administration’s decision to call in the police in 1968 was “a serious breach of the ethos of the university” (https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/21/arts/columbia-university-1968-protest.html). I wasn't there in 1968, but I was an undergrad in 1972, with my camera. Some scanned images… (Read the alt descriptions for detailed descriptions of the settings on campus.)
https://press.coop/@nytimes/112293077116786977

A line of helmeted police on W 118th St. outside the plywood-covered doors and windows to the International Affairs Building. There are many students facing them.
Helmeted police with nightsticks ready, and many students, on South Field. Two dorms are in the background.
The police charged into the crowd. (I apparently stopped running long enough to take this picture.) One student is on the ground, with a cop leaning over him; two plainclothes officers are watching. On the right of the image, a helmeted officer is swinging a nightstick at a woman.

mattblaze , to random
@mattblaze@federate.social avatar

I normally am a huge fan of jury duty, both as a community service and interesting experience. But MAN am I ever glad I'm not in the Manhattan jury pool this week.

SteveBellovin ,
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@mattblaze I've thought about how I'd answer some of the questions. My job? It pretty much identifies me; there aren't many men in Manhattan who are computer science professors and affiliate law profs at universities in the city. (Aside: during a (minor SDNY civil) case voir dire a year or two ago, that answer really perplexed the judge, though not as much as the woman who answered that she was clerking for an SDNY judge in White Plains. Neither of us made it onto the jury…)

SteveBellovin , to random
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While looking for something else in the NY Times archives, I stumbled on https://www.nytimes.com/1989/07/25/us/sunnyvale-journal-store-serves-all-needs-of-the-computer-crazed.html — and those of us who remember Fry's will sigh for its loss.

SteveBellovin , to random
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If you use Homebrew on MacOS, you're affected—do 'brew update' and 'brew upgrade’.
https://infosec.exchange/@wdormann/112179988525798247

SteveBellovin , to random
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José Andrés really deserves a Nobel Peace Prize: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/07/world/middleeast/world-central-kitchen-gaza-aid.html

GottaLaff , to random
@GottaLaff@mastodon.social avatar

That's some platform, GOP Fascist Party: "NO SEX FOR PLEASURE!" Should garner a whole lotta votes.

1/...

Via Adam Jentleson:

Highly influential heritage foundation, which would help staff & direct a future Trump admin, literally said that a key conserv policy goal is “ending recreational sex.” they said it, not me. IMO we should take them both seriously & literally

(Heritage quote in next toot)

SteveBellovin ,
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@GottaLaff @cstross It was only in 1965, in Griswold v. Connecticut, that the Supreme Court struck down a law barring use of birth control by married couples—and Justice Thomas said, in Dobbs (the case where they allowed abortion to be outlawed in states that so choose), that Griswold was wrongly decided and should be overturned.

woody , to random

RIP Dave Mills. Because of his work, we know what time it is, more or less. A great contributor to the Internet.

SteveBellovin ,
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@woody @adamshostack Sigh. Another hidden hero has passed. Too few people know how important his work has been—but it was utterly vital.

SteveBellovin ,
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@paul_ipv6 @woody @adamshostack For those who did not know, or know of, David Mills, he devised a time-keeping protocol that was ultimately based on very high-precision clocks, but had a nice, distributed way for other machines to learn from them. His scheme was based on solid mathematics (the RFC describing it was the first non-ASCII RFC, since it was too painful to write those equations that way…). But you had to use the Internet before NTP to understand how important it was.

Nonilex , to random
@Nonilex@masto.ai avatar

has for years claimed income from a defunct real estate firm

Over the last 2 decades, Clarence Thomas has reported on required financial forms that his family received rental income totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars from a firm called P’ship
But that company… has not existed since 2006.


https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2023/04/16/clarence-thomas-ginger-financial-disclosure/

SteveBellovin ,
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@Nonilex @cstross It’s worth reading about why Abe Fortas resigned from the Supreme Court and comparing his transgressions with Thomas’.

SteveBellovin ,
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@Nonilex @cstross Ah, I missed that. But I'm old enough that I remember the incident, though not the details.

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