Live from Austin!

A few years ago the UK police carried out Operation Ore. It was a major operation targeting online child pornography. Some 7,272 British residents were added to a police database of people who paid to view child porn online. 4,283 homes were searched, 3,744 people were arrested, 1,451 were convicted. It was a major blow against pedophiles.

Or at least, that was the theory.

The US had a similar operation, Operation Avalanche. They assembled 35,000 entries in their database. Curiously, though, they only charged 100. If the US police could only justify prosecuting less than 1% of their suspects, how could the UK police be arresting more than half of theirs?

The answer is that many of the UK cases are based entirely on use of credit cards to sign up for suspected child porn web sites. Unfortunately, many of the credit cards were stolen. Oh, and many of the web sites contained only legal material. Minor details to the UK police.

The problem comes from the fact that many small porn sites use online transaction processors to handle their credit card transactions, rather than setting up their own merchant accounts. In particular, a company called Landslide in Texas provided credit card subscription services to a large network of affiliate porn sites.

It’s estimated that up to half the money Landslide collected actually ended up in the hands of a ring of Indonesian credit card scammers operating the familiar “small charge” fraud. Also (ab)using the service was a Brazilian hacker who “signed up” more than 3,000 stolen credit card numbers.

Before long, Landslide found itself on the receiving end of thousands of chargebacks from irate credit card owners. The company went bankrupt. Clearly the owner had been a victim of fraud just as the credit card holders had. That wasn’t a good enough excuse for federal prosecutors, though; he ended up in federal prison serving a 180 year sentence.

Meanwhile, UK police were swooping on houses, smashing down doors, seizing computer equipment, and arresting thousands of people on the basis that their credit card numbers had been found on Landslide’s hard drives. Never mind the massive amount of fraud that had pulled Landslide under; never mind whether the affiliate site the credit card holder had supposedly paid to see was legal or not. The police reasoning was apparently: At least one affiliate site held child porn; Landslide membership theoretically allowed users access to all the affiliate sites; John Doe’s credit card was used to sign up via Landslide; therefore John Doe signed up to view child porn.

The problem with the hysteria around child pornography and pedophilia is that if you’re accused, your life can be ruined even if you’re innocent. Plenty of employers will fire anyone as soon as they’re accused. The alleged pedophile finds himself jobless, with all his computer equipment seized by police, who have no obligation ever to return it.

For example, consider the case of naval officer Commodore David White. He was suspended from the navy, who feared that the case would hit the newspapers. It did anyway, but not in the way they expected—the commodore committed suicide by drowning. It turned out that he was totally innocent.

So far, 39 people have committed suicide as a definite result of Operation Ore. The true number may be higher, as not everyone leaves a suicide note. Maybe a few of the dead were guilty, but I’d place bets that the majority were innocent.

A web site has been set up covering the unraveling of Operation Ore. The police must realize things are starting to look bad for them, as they have apparently pressured Google to remove the site from searches. Another web site has information about the forensic investigation of Landslide’s computers. Journalist Duncan Campbell has been acting as an expert witness in some of the defence cases, and has written about Operation Ore in The Guardian. A recent Slashdot article has some first hand experience in the comments.

Update 2007-04-26: More from the Guardian and from Ross Anderson.

Apparently Sunday was a bit of a slow news day for the Dallas/Fort Worth Star-Telegram. I have to wonder how their graphic artist reacted when asked to draw the all-important inset map.

Monday was somewhat more exciting, for me at least. I went to put on the usual “I’m a responsible adult with a job” clothes, and discovered that the pair of khakis I had grabbed and stuffed into my case were too small. I don’t know when I bought them, but they were not only too tight around the waist, they were also a bit too short. While I could just about squeeze into them, the result looked uncomfortably close to comical, and didn’t really allow for breakfast. I had a long day ahead. This would not do.

I had the car direct me to the nearest strip mall, where I found a Kohl’s store. By a stroke of luck, they were having a massive sale on khakis. I soon found the perfect pair, at 30% off. (Cotton, pleated, easy fit, 34/34, permanent crease, anti-wrinkle, in case you care.)

Returning to the car, I ripped the tags off my new clothes and considered what to do next. I thought about the possible headlines: Pantsless IBM employee arrested in car, Early morning shopper shocked by hairy legs. No, not worth the risk. So I went to IHOP, ordered breakfast, snuck into the gents’ lavatory, and changed there. After breakfast I spent a little quality time at Fry’s Electronics before the first session at the IBM event. (Still haven’t managed to find a Wii.)

The rest of the day was pretty dull, as was Tuesday. The drive back was largely uneventful. There were the usual SUVs driving at 15-20 mph over the speed limit and weaving across lanes without signaling, but that’s just Texas. I stopped at a Starbucks in Waco, and eventually got home safe but tired.

Today I mostly caught up on e-mail, then for spouse night we went to Taste of Austin. My back is still sore from spending too much time sitting in bad hotel chairs, but I’m hoping it will be back to normal after another night in bed.

I’m in Dallas for a business event. I decided to drive up, rather than deal with airlines and security and all that hassle. Average travel time by air is 1 hour. Add in 1.5 hours at the airport, and a 3.5 hour drive starts to look pretty attractive.

A good way to get a feel for the size of Texas is to drive across it. A good way to get a feel for Dallas Fort Worth airport is to note that it’s larger than the whole of Manhattan island. Texas itself is bigger than France; they sell T-shirts that say so at the mall.

The journey up was mostly uneventful. There were plenty of pickups and SUVs weaving across lanes without signalling, but that’s normal for Texas. The most amusing incident was when I was passed by a pickup that had been painted in a desert camouflage yellow color. I noticed on the door that the driver had wanted to suggest his involvement in the first Iraq war: he had stuck on some vinyl letters that spelled out

OPERATION
DESSERT STORM

Maybe my laughter was uncalled for; maybe he’s actually a pastry chef. I was tempted to try for a photo, but I’d have had to accelerate to about 80 mph to catch him, and then operate a camera with one hand while driving, and it just didn’t seem like a good enough reason to risk death.

One of the things I’d like to do if I were rich, is start a restaurant. I decided years ago that I’d have a Desert Menu. The items on the menu would all be named after actual deserts; the Gobi would be (say) green tea ice cream, the Keros would be baklava, the Great Victoria would be pavlova, the Karakum would be Turkish delight, the Chihuahuan would be flan, the Antarctica would be ice cream, and so on.

It’s snowing. There are icicles on our roof. There’s ice on the outside of my office window (I love having a well insulated house). I remember this…it’s “winter”, isn’t it?

I imagine Texans are going into a state of blind panic. The roads are probably full of accidents. Fortunately we stocked up on food a couple of days ago, and can just sit in the warm and enjoy the show.

I ordered a book online. It was dispatched from Dallas, TX, zip code 75199, on October 10th. It arrived a few minutes ago.

According to Google Maps, it traveled approximately 225 miles. It took 20 days to do so. That means it moved at an average speed of just under 0.5 mph.

A human can walk around 20 miles per day. So it would literally have been faster for me to walk to Dallas, buy the book, and walk back, resting in hotels along the way as necessary.

On a related note, we’ve shipped our Christmas gifts to the UK, so they should actually get there in time, and we didn’t have to pay a small fortune.

I’ve been laughing at some online galleries of photos by home inspectors. (Volume 1, Volume 2.)

The wrench foundation is basically what was under our house, but with wooden shims instead of a wrench, and concrete instead of metal for the pillar.

The one that made me laugh hardest was the air circulation masterpiece.

Anyhow…there’s a saying that hard work pays off tomorrow, but laziness pays off immediately. Well, sometimes laziness pays off tomorrow as well, especially when it comes to gardening.

Last summer I noticed that the grass out back wasn’t doing too well. I have to assume it was planted by whoever built the house, and that they just picked the cheapest grass seed. In winter and spring it would grow like crazy, and then in summer it mostly turned brown and died. It clearly wasn’t suited to a Texas climate.

Then this summer, I noticed that some kind of plant was gradually taking over. It was a bit like clover, but bigger. It started as a couple of patches, but by mid summer it had pretty much replaced all the grass on the right side of the path, and had somehow made the leap to a patch on the left side. I pondered whether this was the kind of thing that ought to be treated with weedkiller.

In the end, though, I wasn’t too concerned about doing anything, for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it was too damn hot to do anything; and secondly, we wanted to get rid of the unsuitable grass anyway and replace it with something more suited to local conditions. The plan was to get some buffalo grass sod put down, or perhaps a hybrid like Turffalo planted via plugs.

Then last week we paid an arborist to inspect our trees and offer advice on how to best take care of them. I asked him about the stuff that had eaten the lawn, and he told me it was Horse Herb. It’s a native ground covering of the Texas hill country. It thrives in the shady areas under live oak trees, forming a thick, lush, lawn-like surface that you can mow just like a regular lawn.

So by being lazy, we got a free native plant lawn replacement. It doesn’t need watering in summer, and you only have to mow it every 2-4 months. It produces tiny yellow flowers at the end of summer, and is apparently robust enough to crowd out weeds. Sure, you can’t play golf on it, but you can walk on it, sit on it, and watch squirrels dig in it.

So instead of expensive lawncare, our best bet is to roto-till the bald patches in the back yard with some organic fertilizer, get some Horse Herb seed from the Lady Bird Johnson wildflower center, and sow. Then simply leave it alone. Awesome.

The other secret to Texas lawn care I have discovered is mulching. Get a mower which mulches. Sure, it’s good for the lawn, but what’s even better is you don’t have to rake, bag up clippings, or drag sacks of yard waste around.

When Josef showed us to our rooms, I couldn’t help noticing the Spitfire. It was a model, painstakingly constructed from a kit. Unlike the models I had built as a child this one was painted properly, and of course it had the correct RAF insignia. It was in a glass display case next to a model of a Messerschmitt, and one of some kind of US fighter plane I didn’t recognize.

I’d always been more into tanks as a child. I had a book about them, and a die-cast German Leopard tank that I would frequently disassemble and reassemble. When we visited Bournemouth in 2003 I got to visit the nearby Tank Museum and admire their collection. If it was OK for me to have an interest in World War II tanks, I told myself, surely it was normal for a German of roughly my age to have an interest in World War II aircraft?

In fact, we soon learned that Josef had worked in the Navy, as a liaison officer for groups of British sailors. I tried to imagine being a German in charge of a bunch of drunken English sailors. He’d probably heard slurs I couldn’t even begin to dream up, but I didn’t particularly want to talk about them, and dodged a couple of conversational gambits.

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The gas company sent us a required notice explaining the law regarding disconnection of service. It says that Texas law does not allow disconnection of service during an Extreme Weather Emergency Day, and goes on to explain:

An extreme weather emergency means a day when the previous day’s highest temperature did not exceed 32 degrees Fahrenheit and the temperature is predicted to remain at or below that level for the next 24 hours according to the nearest weather station for the county where the customer takes service.

Wow. That means I’ve experienced Extreme Weather Emergency Months.

Hamburg sits on the Elbe river, a few kilometers inland. A cunning tax dodge in 1189 propelled it into becoming Europe’s second largest port, and a world class red light district soon followed, surrounded by dive bars and seedy nightclubs. These days the city is keener to present the area through rose-tinted John Lennon glasses, omitting to mention that the Beatles played the Star-Club mostly because they couldn’t get a paying gig anywhere else in 1962.

The Elbe is apparently pretty deep, because the Queen Mary 2 was there. She’s the largest ocean liner in the world, making the Titanic look small in comparison. She takes around 7 days to cross the Atlantic, at a price of $1000+. Mind you, that’s not much more than we paid for our tickets, and if they have broadband on the ship I wouldn’t even need to use up vacation days on the crossing. I bet the food’s nicer than Continental. If they toned down the swanky ballrooms a bit and made it cheaper, they could have a compelling business proposition. But I digress.

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I found the missing gecko. He had crawled into the wastebasket. Tonight was trash night, and I emptied it into a black sack, then put the sack in the trash—at which point the gecko shot out into the bin.

I managed to catch him in a jar, and took a good look at him. Definitely a mediterranean gecko. I took him out to the back yard, and released him under the deck to rejoin his family.