Is Personal Philosophy more important than your child's health?

Looks like that public health menace is at it again. Meryl Dorey has just sent out an email to her followers complaining about a Government Health care initiative. I couldn’t find a source for it, but according to Dorey the government is going to require welfare parents to take their children to a GP in order to check the child’s health. If the parent is not looking after their child’s medical needs then they could lose the taxpayer funded handout. (citation needed)

This sounds like an excellent initiative if the government is going to give parents financial support then it makes sense for them to check that the child is cared for medically. Although I think this should be extended to all parents, not just those claiming financial assistance from Centrelink.

As predicted the Anti-Vaxxers have a problem with this, as they seem to with health care in general. Why anyone would be so against health care, especially early childhood health care always escapes me. Meryl Dorey in particular seems to value personal philosophy more than scientifically proven medical procedure. Here is part of her email:

What if your primary care practitioner is not a GP? What if your health philosophy has indicated that mainstream medicine is not in your child’s best interests? What if you are a Christian Scientist whose religion says that you don’t see doctors?

Are there exemptions available for those who don’t normally see doctors? And if the doctor – whose philosophy and practices differ from you own – determines that your child is at risk, what are the potential outcomes? Meryl Dorey

While some people many indeed value their own personal ideology more than the health of their children, fortunately such people are just a minority of idiotic fringe dwellers. I’m sure most parents recognise the need for their child to visit a competent medical professional. A person does not have the right to deny their child health care just because it conflicts with their own; often unqualified ideas about medicine. I hope the government starts taking a hard line approach to people who think that their personal philosophy is more important than health care.

DDoS attacks are a cowards 'protest'.

There seems to be this belief floating around that the DDoS attacks that are carried out by the so called “hacker” group Anonymous are the equivalent of a legitimate protest. Some members of Anonymous even have the audacity to liken themselves to civil rights protesters; the irony.

Launching a Denial of Service attack against somebody you wish to silence is not the equivalent of a virtual sit-in for several reasons the one of which is accountability. When you conduct a sit-in protest you are held accountable for it, it’s an illegal activity (trespass) for which you can be prosecuted. In contrast when you lunch a DDoS attack on someone’s website over the internet with or without a proxy server you are removing the accountability for your actions. You are hiding like a sniveling coward.

It takes a certain amount of courage to stand-up for what you believe in and throughout history we have seen many examples of just that. People standing up for what they believe in from the civil rights movement to the Tiananmen Square protesters and countless others throughout history. Many of these people put themselves on the line to stand-up for their belief and ideologies and for many the price was high. It is at the very least a tremendous insult to these activists that a group of cowards hiding behind an IP address on the internet could ever compare themselves to real activists.

The group Anonymous is built upon hiding as opposed to standing-up. They are not activists but cowards who hide online and attack from the shadows some even employ the use of proxy networks to further cower away behind their keyboards.

If you think I’m being harsh on Anonymous then take a look at this and explain the logic to me because I cannot find it.

Lastly, they set up this website called mybart.gov and they stored their members information with virtually no security. The data was stored and easily obtainable via basic sqli. Any 8 year old with a internet connection could have done what we did to find it. On top of that none of the info, including the passwords, was encrypted. It is obvious BART does no give a fuck about its customers, funders and tax payers,THE PEOPLE.

Thus below we are releasing the User Info Database of MyBart.gov, to show that BART doesn’t give a shit about it’s customers and riders and to show that the people will not allow you to kill us and censor us. This is but the one of many actions to come. We apologize to any citizen that has his information published, but you should go to BART and ask them why your information wasn’t secure with them. Anonymous Dataleak

Wow, did I just read that? Anonymous is critical of BART.gov for not taking adequate steps to secure customer information. So in response they steal the data themselves and publish it on the web for the whole world to find. They then apologise to the users who have had their information published.

That right there shows the childish attitude towards accountability that characterises the group that calls itself ‘Anonymous’. Protecting privacy and free-speech while violating both? What a joke these so called ‘hackivists’ really are. You cannot claim to defend Freedom of Speech while attacking websites and you cannot claim to value the privacy of follow citizens while simultaneously publishing their personal information on the web.

Lulzsec and Anonymous script kiddie SQL Injection.

I have been following the activities of the so called ‘hacker group’ calling itself “Anonymous” for some time now. Not because I support their activities but because I find the whole Anonymous, Lulzsec and Wikileaks debacle interesting.

While there is certainly a valid argument that Wikileaks is doing some good in the world the same cannot be said for Anonymous and Lulzsec. Although unlike Anonymous at least Lulzsec is up front about why they attack other peoples systems. They admit to doing it for fun and entertainment, whereas Anonymous tries to justify themselves with Hypocritical bullshit. Such as claiming to defend Free-Speech while simultaneously taking down the websites of perceived opponents.

Anonymous even tried to take this blog offline when I wrote the article titled “Anonymous Script Kiddies are not defending the internet.” at the time I didn’t recognise the traffic pattern as an attempted SQL Injection because I wasn’t expecting one and nor was I familiar with the tool they use to “hack” peoples websites. Needless to say the attempted SQL Injection failed and I was able to remain online.

It turns out the method by which these groups infiltrate websites is remarkably unsophisticated. The tool being used by both Anonymous and Lulzsec to infiltrate websites is called Havij, it’s a GUI based SQL Injection tool and is available for download here.

It is only after testing Havij against my own system that I recognised the signatures left in the server access logs by the Havij software. The most concerning thing about this is how easy it is to protect WordPress and a variety of other content management software from this type of vulnerability; yet these attacks keep on happening. In most cases securing your website is simply a matter of keeping the software upto date.

While Lulzsec and Anonymous are using unsophisticated attacks, if they inject a vulnerable website that happens to contain sensitive information it can have direr consequences for the user. As we have seen with the recent Sony hacks in which millions of credit cards were stolen.

I believe the best way to defend yourself from the kids at Lulzsec and Anonymous is by understanding the treat. I don’t endorse trying an SQL Injection on someone’s website without their consent. Use your own system or create a Honeypot.

Here are some resources I have found. To get started with SQL Injections.

SQL Injection Using Havij

Basics And Working of SQL Injection Attacks

Trick for Advanced SQL Injection

I do not condone any criminal activity, nor do I support the actions of either Anonymous or Lulzsec. I am only sharing what I have learned so far. Both screen shots were captured from legal penetration testing of my own systems setup expressly for that purpose.

Greenpeace are crimminals not activists.

The so called “environmental” group Greenpeace consists predominantly of liars and frauds who have no problem resorting to criminal behaviour in order to push their idiology. A group of Greenpeace criminals recently attacked a valuable scientific experiment here in Australia.

Three Greenpeace activists broke into a scientific farm near Canberra overnight on 14 July and destroyed a crop of genetically modified wheat (see photo). The farm belongs to the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), the Australian national science agency, and the crop was part of research into developing genetically modified crop plants with enhanced nutritional value.

Suzanne Cory, president of the Australian Academy of Sciences, issued a statement in which she condemned the attack. “For an organisation that claims to be dedicated to the protection of the environment, this is an unconscionable act,” she said. Nature.com

These criminals have destroyed a scientific experiment because they just happened to disagree with it. There is no activism here only vandalism. Greenpeace does not care about science. All they care about is pushing their unscientific dogma and will resort to vandalism and thuggery any time they don’t get their own way. It is time for the worlds media to stop referring to Greenpeace as “environmental activists” and start labeling them as the anti-scientific criminals they are.

Wilson da Silva from Cosmos magazine has an excellent summary of what Greenpeace has become.

GREENPEACE WAS ONCE a friend of science, helping bring attention to important but ignored environmental research. These days, it’s a ratbag rabble of intellectual cowards intent on peddling an agenda, whatever the scientific evidence.

It was once the most active, independent and inspiring civilian group for the environment. Whether riding zodiacs alongside boats carrying barrels of toxic waste to be dumped in the open sea, or campaigning against CFCs and HFCs that were depleting the ozone layer, Greenpeace did admirable work.

But in the last decade or so, Greenpeace abandoned the rigour of science. When the science has been inconvenient, Greenpeace chooses dogma. Which is why it has a zero-tolerance policy on nuclear energy, no matter how imperative the need to remove coal and gas from electricity production. Or why it is adamant organic farming is the only way forward for agriculture, when organic could not feed the world’s population today. Cosmos

Now that these ratbag vandals have my attention it probably won’t be the last time I mention them. Especially if they are so insistent on attacking scientific progress.

The Census is more important than your Jedi.

The census campaign is just days away and I would like to point out writing Jedi, Pastafarian or anything else along those lines will not get counted. Neither Pastafarian or Jedi is a recognised religion in Australia as a result identifying yourself as one gets you marked as “not defined”. The problem with this is that Government policy is sometimes guided by the census statistics so if a percentage of people are recorded as “not defined” the Government will use those incorrect statistics in policy planning by assuming the accuracy of the census data.

But it’s not just the government that use census data. Many lobby groups and corporations also use data collected by the census. If you’re non-religious and you mark anything other than “No Religion” (which is a recognised and counted response) then you are balancing the statistics in favour of religion. In 2006 55,000 identified themselves as Jedi, not a single one of those individuals was counted in the “non-religious” category as a result of writing Jedi instead of ticking the “No Religion” box.

I think it’s a fairly safe bet that people who mock religion are predominantly non-religious and while it may be fun to mark Jedi or Pastafarian on the census form doing so will ensure that you aren’t counted correctly and as a result religious lobby groups have more power to persuade the government because statistics may show fewer non-religious people than there actually are.

Another way that people screw the statistics is by marking the faith they were brought up in despite no longer belonging to that faith. So unless you genuinely believe in the doctrine of a particular faith the only thing you should be marking on the census form in “No Religion”.

The census is all about statistics, and ensuring that the government has the most accurate dataset possible is that best way to ensure that your interests are represented in government policy and decision making. So don’t screw the statistics in favor of religion: instead answer the census honestly to ensure that you are not incorrectly counted.

No Religion? Just mark “No Religion”.

More information is available at: censusnoreligion.org

Four disclaimer stickers designed!

These are a little crude and will need some refining. But here are four designs that I have so far. They are to be printed onto stickers and applied to Hotel Room Bibles.

Design #1

This is my favorite and it’s inspired by the following joke image of a disclaimer on a bible. I don’t know if the disclaimer sticker ever really existed or was simply photoshopped into existence, in either case I plan to create the real thing.

Design #2

This is one that was suggested to me.

Design #3

This one is inspired by the warning label I was given at The Amaz!ng Meeting. It’s the one I stuck on the hotel room bible at South Point casino.

Design #4

Design #1 is definitely my favorite and is the one I’ll be putting into print first. However it may be necessary to have multiple designs on hand. So far only #1 is guaranteed to go into production, I think the others have much more room for improvement. Any suggestions for what should go onto a Bible disclaimer are welcome.

Content Warnings for Hotel Bibles

While attending The Amaz!ng Meeting in Las Vegas I encountered the EvolveFish.com table and they were giving out disclaimer stickers that can be placed on the hotel room bibles. This one reads “Warning: Belief in this book may endanger your life.”

Considering how much content these days needs to have a Content Warning I think it’s only appropriate that this medieval, violent, psychopath worshiping book be given an appropriate content warning.

With the Global Atheist Convention just around the corner next year. I have decided to begin printing my own content warning labels for the Bible. I will be distributingng them for free to anyone who wants them for the hotel room Bible.

 Each sticker will have the address “BibleWarning.com” at the bottom so that future hotel guests who find the warning can obtain further information about the absurd, violent and primitive nature of the content found in the bible.

The Page/Site at BibleWarning.com will not be associated with any atheist or activist organisation, nor will it be used to promote any website, blog or individual. This means that the stickers are 100% neutral and are appropriate to be used by anyone and everyone who feels that The Holy Bible should not be exempt from content warnings.

United States policy is at odds with Australian politics.

The United States government is funding the development of systems that will allow citizen in foreign countries to evade government internet censorship. However meanwhile in Australia the government is moving ahead with it’s draconian plan to censor the countries internet service. So we are left in an interesting situation where our own government is gearing up for a massive assault on our human rights while an allied nation is seeking to develop tools to mitigate such an attack.

THE US Government is reportedly financing the development of “shadow” internet systems to enable dissidents abroad to get around government censors.

Financed with a $US2 million ($1.9 million) State Department grant, the suitcase could be secreted across a border and quickly set up to allow wireless communications over a wide area with a link to the global internet. News.com.au

So how will this work with the proposed internet censorship here in Australia. Will we be able to import this technology from the US to help Australian citizens evade the governments censorship?

You would think that with all that’s been going on in the middle east recently, that our government would be taking a pro-democracy and pro-freedom of speech stance. Unfortunately it is not and senator Conroy remains as committed to the filter as ever. How can our government persist with it’s ideology of censorship and control while one of its closest allies (at least in the public spotlight) is developing tools to thwart such control.

The United States stance against internet censorship is incompatible with Senator Conroys desire for control. Is it wishful thinking for me to hope that the United States will take an agressive stance against this policy?

SensaSlim sues Dr Ken Harvey

SensaSlim a highly suspicious product has recently caught my attention after news of a lawsuit being filed against Dr Ken Harvey.

Dr Ken Harvey, adjunct senior lecturer in the School of Public Health, La Trobe University, and a regular campaigner against nonscientific products and services, has been put under great personal and financial pressure by a ‘SLAPP’ suit (a strategic lawsuit against public participation) over a complaint he has made concerning a slimming product.

Dr Harvey complained to the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) over promotion by SensaSlim Australia Pty. Ltd. for its weight-loss product that uses a spray to supposedly ‘desensitise’ taste buds and reduce hunger pains. The promotion claims that a research study of over 11,000 people had substantiated the company’s claims for the product.

Australian Skeptics

SensaSlim is suing Dr Harvey for libel because he dared to file a complaint against them with the regulator. The beauty of this is that the Therapeutic Goods Administration is powerless to investigate the complaint while it is the subject of a lawsuit. This means that SensaSlim can continue flogging it’s questionable product without intervention from the TGA so long as they can keep this lawsuit alive. You have to wonder why SensaSlim would be afraid of a complaint if their product works as claimed.

A Current Affair recently ran this storey about SensaSlim. It’s definitely worth watching.

Australian Skeptics is currently running a pledge drive to support Dr Ken Harvey should the need arise.

Dr Harvey is a particularly busy activist against dubious claims by suppliers of self-proclaimed ‘therapeutic’ goods, in particular those associated with weight loss. Over the last few years, all of his complaints to the Therapeutic Goods Administration and assessed by the Complaints Resolution Panel have been listed as justified. He is also a self-confessed “stubborn bastard”.

In support of his action, Australian Skeptics has instituted a program for individuals to pledge financial support for Dr Harvey should it be required. Anyone interested in pledging support should write to supportken@skeptics.com.au, with their name, phone number, and how much they are pledging.

Australian Skeptics has undertaken this pledge drive because we are concerned at the burden put upon one who has continually called to account those who promote and sell unproven and disproven products that have no basis in science. The suggestion that Dr Harvey could be stymied by such promoters and sellers’ resorting to legal action, and thus protect them (if even for a short time) from due process, must be countered at every opportunity. Australian Skeptics

This is about more than just shonky products, this is also about Freedom of Speech because SensaSlim are attempting to silence criticism with a lawsuit. If SensaSlim were to win such a lawsuit it would have devastating consequences as it would mean that criminals and frauds are now free to sell bogus products without fear of reprisal. Nothing enforces self censorship better than a lawsuit.

Mother tries to Murder Children before Judgement Day.

One of the Bat Shit crazies who thought the world was going to end on Saturday has attempted to murder her children before the return of Jesus. She apparently didn’t want them to suffer fire, flood, earthquake and all the other nasty things that Christians believe their “All Loving” God will throw at them.

Stupid primative beliefs are anything but harmless.