Morning Whip, July 30, 2005

#11: BonusWhip! Whip it! Whip it good!
#10: Are YOU the office jerk?
#9: HP to stop reselling iPod
#8: The MicroWhip: Space News
#7: Devil Rays 6, Royals 3
#6: Vice edges virtue where profit is at stake
#5: Cisco whistleblower legaled into silence
#4: Republican-assisted suicide
#3: Can Islam reform?
#2: Bolton to get recess appointment
#1: Kelo fallout roundup

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BonusWhip! Whip it! Whip it good!

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HP to stop reselling iPod

OK, maybe the price for my 20 GB iPod at Sam’s Club was too good. HP is getting out of the iPod resale business[*1] .

“HP has decided that reselling iPods does not fit within the company’s current digital entertainment strategy,” Apple spokeswoman Natalie Kerris said. “As a result, HP plans to stop reselling iPods by end of this September.”

The MicroWhip: Space News

New planet discovered[*1] in Solar System, farther out and estimated to be one and one-half times larger than Pluto.

the discovery would rekindle debate over whether Pluto can be regarded as a planet at all.

Station managers want Discovery to stay one more day[*2] .

“The crew of Discovery and on the current space station assignment are looking at what, if anything, we can do while Discovery is there to pre-position the station for a longer gap between flights should there be one,” NASA administrator Michael Griffin told reporters via teleconference, stressing that it is much too soon to assume NASA’s next shuttle flight is beyond 2005.

Spacewalk[*3] starts to test shuttle repair methods.

On the first of three spacewalks scheduled for the STS-114 shuttle mission, Noguchi and Robinson are scheduled to test repair methods for the shuttle’s heatshield tiles, and restore power to a failed control moment gyroscope, which, together with others, helps the station maintain its correct position in space.

Debris problem update: NASA Administrator Griffin is optimistic[*4] .

“We are going to fix it in short order and we are going to get back to flying,” Griffin said in his first press conference since NASA decided July 27 to ground the shuttle fleet until the problem is solved.

Is he whistling past the Shuttle’s graveyard?

Vice edges virtue where profit is at stake

Daniel Gross writes at Slate.com[*1] regarding the relative performance of stock funds which cater to human vices[*2] and which try to invest virtuously[*3] . According to theYahoo chart[*4] linked in the article, Vice edges out Virtue in the money game. But it’s closer than a pessimistic cynic like myself might think.

Via Fark[*5] .

Cisco whistleblower legaled into silence

Cisco routers running their IOS operating system make up the vast majority of the Internet’s “infrastructure” devices. Basically, routers connect everything to everything else. IOS was widely considered to be rather secure. In particular, “running arbitrary code” on a Cisco router running IOS was thought to be extremely difficult.

Mike Lynn, a technologist at security company ISS, was about to reveal at the Black Hat security conference[*1] a method of running arbitrary code on IOS routers. Cisco, ISS, Black Hat, and Lynn entered negotiations and Lynn’s presentation was (literally) ripped out of the Black Hat conference proceedings. Lynn then resigned from ISS and gave his presentation anyway. Threats of proscecution and litigation ensued. Lynn has apparently backed down[*2] :

Lynn and his attorney agreed to a permanent injunction that prevents him from using any Cisco code in his possession for further reverse engineering or security research or presenting the same material at the DEF CON hacker convention which follows Black Hat. In addition, Lynn must hand over the names of any websites or people to whom he gave or sold the information. The permanent injunction does not prevent Lynn from doing further research on Cisco products, provided it is done legally.