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Commenter Ron Wright refers us to a great post on the Democracy in Iraq weblog:
Our cities are smoking, our graveyards full, and terrorists in our midst. But we are not defeated. We are not down, we are not regretful. We are not going to surrender. For all that the two years have brought, the greatest thign they have given us is a future, and a view of the finish line.
Iraqis see the finish line, the finish line of freedom and democracy and a functioning nation. We can smell it, taste it, and like a sprinter, one who has broken his legs, but who has a heart full of passion, we will crawl there no matter what the cost. No matter what we must endure, we have realized what we can become, and that is the biggest result of the last two years.
...We have been brought from darkness to light. And not only has the future been made better for Iraq, but the martyrs of our nation, their blood is watering the roots of democracy across the world. We are watching our neighbors come closer to the light, and this only pushes us more, and makes us stronger in our burning desire to reach the finish line, to realize the dream that our people have had for so long.
No, we will not give up, and we will not say that the last two years were a waste. They for all their trouble have been momentus. They for us, have been a turning point in history. Whether or not you agree, this is how it looks from Iraq.
Shhhh…. don’t anybody tell the LA Times.
(via Ron Wright and Roger L. Simon .)
VOIP (voice over IP) is a very low-cast way to make phone calls. But because it uses the Internet, it may be equally vulnerable to spam—which of course would make it useless.
Traditional phone networks operate over dedicated equipment that is difficult for outsiders to penetrate. Because VOIP calls travel over the Internet, they cost much less but are vulnerable to the same security problems that plague e-mail and the Web.
Internet worms that snarl online networks can render VOIP lines unusable, and experts at AT&T say VOIP conversations can be monitored or altered by outsiders.
Federal Trade Commission Chairman Deborah Platt Majoras recently warned that unscrupulous telemarketers could use VOIP to blast huge numbers of voice messages to consumers, a technique known as SPIT, for “spam over Internet telephony.”
They’ll get it all figured out eventually. But don’t put a VOIP number on your business cards yet.
It’s also possible to fake a caller ID using current VOIP technology. There’s a current scam going on where people call up pretending to try to sell you VOIP service, and their Caller ID says they’re some respectable company. It’s a scam to do identity theft.
Internet phone services have drawn millions of users looking for rock-bottom rates. Now they’re also attracting identity thieves looking to turn stolen credit cards into cash.
Some Internet phone services allow scam artists to make it appear that they are calling from another phone number—a useful trick that enables them to drain credit accounts and pose as banks or other trusted authorities, online fraud experts say.
So if you get a call like that, don’t give out any personal ID info.
Iraq Recalls Ambassador to Jordan over Jordanian complicity in recent terrorist actions in Iraq. I’m glad to see that Iraq is holding the government of Jordan’s feet to the fire over this.
