Originally, the bankruptcy laws were a catch-all for handling aggressive and dishonest lending allowing people to completely remove their debts once every 7 years. That way, even if someone made mistakes or was suckered in by bad credit deals, they could escape them under some circumstances and start over.

Lenders weren't happy with this and wanted it to be much harder for people to get out of the credit programs they carefully lured you into. They scored victory in 2005 by managing to secure a new law that made it much tougher for people to file bankruptcy, but didn't do anything to help curb the massive lending abuses by credit grantors. Now it seems the one-sided bill may have hurt lendors as much as it's helped them.

The Consumerist is having a contest for "Worst Company in America" and the top contenders have come down to Comcast and Countrywide Home Loans .

The winner will receive a "golden poo" award which they can proudly display in their central office or on their website. Get over there and cast your vote!

They sent out mailings that had the SSNs on the outside envelope. But don't worry! They're offering a free year of credit monitoring!

Whee.

Instead, do something useful and take advantage of Maryland's Credit Freeze law to actually protect yourself rather than get ripped off by credit monitoring

Some DNA lab workers have found that, while DNA is truly unique, the process of looking at only a small set of "loci" to make a match between people has flaws. In one case, a match was made in DNA testing between one person who was black and one who was white.

Not surprisingly, the FBI has been hard at work to cover up these finding:

In July 2006, after Chicago-area defense attorneys sought a database search on behalf of a murder suspect, the FBI's Callaghan held a telephone conference with Illinois crime lab officials.

The topic was "how to fight this," according to lab officials' summary of the conversation, which later became part of the court record.

Callaghan suggested they tell the judge that Illinois could be disconnected from the national database system, the summary shows. Callaghan then told the lab officials that "it would in fact be unlikely that IL would be disconnected," according to the summary.

(H/T to Slashdot for the link)

Here's a new twist on how having a tracking GPS in your car can be a GOOD thing. A teenager who was pulled over for speeding was able to prove that he was following the speed limit using the tracking data from his GPS unit.

(H/T to Slashdot for the link)

There's still no way in Hades that I'll ever vote for McCain, but Obama has been sorely disappointing recently. First he voted for Telco immunity despite his promises to filibuster any such attempt. Now Republicans have cleverly used web technology to alert them (and us) to changes on his website. Specifically to the pages that list his policies.

If anything, the changes simply reflect that Obama is just another politician.

Sad, but true. If I was certain McCain would lose, I'd put my vote where it counts. Either to Ron Paul or Patrick Leahy. Even if he is a scientologist, he at least defends our privacy rights.

(H/T to Slashdot for the link)

Usually when I get emotional and rant about something, I get nailed in comments by people who are offended or thing I'm an idiot or what-have-you. Someday I hope to be like Bruce Schneier who can say what he pleases (successful people are like that )

Here's his take on the current size of the terrorist watch list:

The U.S terrorist watch list has hit one million names. I sure hope we're giving our millionth terrorist a prize of some sort.

Who knew that a million people are terrorists. Why, there are only twice as many burglars in the U.S. And fifteen times more terrorists than arsonists.

Is this idiotic, or what?

Here's a take that I'm ashamed to admit I hadn't considered: Members of Congress may be protecting Bush because of votes they made previously that might seem to have supported his illegal activities. While it might not end in prosecution, it could end their lucrative Congressional careers.

So, of course key Congressional Democrats who were made aware of these illegal torture and surveillance programs are going to protect the Bush administration and other lawbreakers. If you were Jay Rockfeller or Nancy Pelosi, would you want there to be investigations and prosecutions for torture programs that, to one degree or another, you knew about? If you were Jane Harman, wouldn't you be extremely eager to put a stop to judicial proceedings that were likely to result in a finding that surveillance programs that you knew about, approved of, and helped to conceal were illegal and unconstitutional?

(H/T to Digg.com for the link)

It seems that the Second Life client can be made to connect to open servers run by anyone. If that's the case, then what will maintain the Second Life market structure? A lot of their income came from land (which you had to pay a monthly fee to own), but if you can now go to an open server for your land where there's no charge (or run your own), what will Linden do?

Even worse, if the only thing keeping people from copying items is a terms of service agreement, what's to stop someone from doing it on a completely open server? This is also great news for those involved in virtual sexual deviance ("age-play" for example) who will now be able to do what they wish without interference.

Researchers have determined that if you were to install Windows XP and connect it to the Internet to download the security updates, your chances of getting the updates before being hacked are slim to none.

If you want to use XP (as I and other computer security experts often recommend), use the following best practices when installing XP:

1) Don't install with the network cable attached. At least one commentor on the article cites a time when his windows 2000 (the basis of XP) was hacked during installation.
2) Get Windows Service Pack 3 which contains a cumulative patch of years worth of security updates. Download SP3 onto a second computer, move it to the new one, and install it offline [download here].
3) Install a virus scanner and a firewall prior to connecting the cable.
4) Download (on second computer) updates to Internet software such as Microsoft Office and Internet Explorer. While you can (and should) use Firefox instead of Internet Explorer, IE is integrated with the operating system so it's a good idea to keep it updated anyway.

You can also download incremental security patches from the Microsoft Download Center, but I couldn't tell you which ones are relevant and which aren't. I believe that Microsoft removes all security patches that are bundled into service packs already so, in theory, you should just download any security patch listed for XP on their site. If you can confirm this, please post it in comments.

Using a advances in medical science, soon we may see athletes altering their mood or even their DNA to get the edge in sports.

I've seen businesses do 4 and 5 so I guess next time, I'll call them on it.

1) Unsigned Cards Are Not Valid And Merchants Can And Will Refuse Them
2) The Maximum Liability For Unauthorized Use Of A Credit Card (not debit even if it's got a credit card logo) Is $50 According To Federal Law
3) Merchants Cannot Require You To Present ID, Unless Your Card Is Unsigned
4) Merchants Cannot Require A Minimum Transaction Amount
5) Merchants Cannot Charge A Surcharge For Using A Credit Card, However, They Can Offer A "Cash Discount"
6) Many Credit Cards Have Programs That Will Automatically Double The Manufacturer's Warranty And Other Excellent Benefits
7) Merchants Are Not Allowed To Make You Give Up Your Right To A Chargeback
Merchants Are Not Allowed To Place A Hold For The Estimated Tip
9) If Merchants Suspect You Of Fraud They Are Supposed To Call With A "Code 10"
10) If Merchants Break These Rules, You Can Report Them To The Credit Card Company

Read the details for each of these at The Consumerist.

If you've been listening to the commercials by the smooth talking Dennis Haysbert to be in "good hands" with Allstate, you might need to reconsider.

[Allstate ranked first] among 10 companies that do everything possible to avoid paying claims, employ hardball tactics against policyholders, reward executives with extravagant salaries, and raise premiums to maximize profits

State Farm also made the list, but Geico is absent.

In Senate debate, Patrick Leahy (D-VT) argued strongly against telecom immunity, because it would make it almost impossible to ever find out what really happened and "the American people ought to know who in the White House said, 'Go break the law.'"

Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) noted that, "We're considering granting immunity when roughly 70 members of the Senate still have not been briefed on the president's wiretapping program. The vast majority of this body still does not even know what we're being asked to grant immunity for."

These were the protests that smarter senators made before the vote. They were ignored. The "FISA update" including immunity was passed yesterday.

"I sit on the intelligence and Judiciary committees, and I am one of the few members of this body who has been fully briefed on the warrantless wiretapping program," said Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wis.), another prominent opponent. "I can promise that if more information is declassified about the program in the future, as is likely to happen . . . members of this body will regret that we passed this legislation."