[conspire] Election analysis, http://linuxmafia.com/~rick/election-2016-11-08.html

[Rick Moen]

And, as mentioned, today is National Voter Registration Day.
And why, yes, of course there's a Web site:
http://nationalvoterregistrationday.org/

----- Forwarded message from Rick Moen <rick at linuxmafia.com> -----

Date: Mon, 26 Sep 2016 10:13:09 -0700
From: Rick Moen <rick at linuxmafia.com>
To: skeptic at lists.johnshopkins.edu
Subject: Election analysis link, this time for sure(?)
Organization: If you lived here, you'd be $HOME already.

Remember that curiosity, last week, when every time I posted the URL of
a page on my Web server to Skeptic, JHU transformed the URL from (say)
http://linuxmafia.com/~rick/election-2016-11-08.html to

http://secure-web.cisco.com/1KkDeFVuJvBAvN-_JgUgu0mSAeha8JMtorUvsgMfamgtjw8ScJSdvz5eeJ76YOhmCTQbXOi52oDRF5ZPTfcWON61JZN0ZEtAnI_tfTikEWr2cw46gGf1bCkP5PCZHcTyKhBbNeUy9nGpavKQValIi6uDKrG8BOYdGbPzxIhjBBuQoXK2V5HcWXfOVw7Pwdvsfl5ma6-i0dqiRtiL39xzv8GWktZCe6tAFlRId_6tehUu_Ufvf6Cx9uo8FO10xxn7ezNH4m1xi8TNU-31-my4D6FnmyudsmdECZkQFigqnVAFVj3EmafhTikQH4GuYkOIPm8sz2j0ZFH7WY9uM84j6EzDJ6pUQx9GMfdLaG37ZW6g/http%3A%2F%2Flinuxmafia.com%2F%7Erick%2Felection-2016-11-08.html
?

That's because outsourced security is really stupid.

JHU uses on its mailing list server for Skeptic a Cisco SenderBase
security appliance.  SenderBase has a software bot that goes around
looking for Web servers having at least one page the software thinks
might be dangerous to poor little humans based on pattern-matching --
not on testing the pages to see if they actually do anything harmful,
just pattern-matching.

For decades, I had at http://linuxmafia.com/pub/ms-windows/malware/ a
small bestiary of antique network worms from the 1990s, such as
ILOVEYOU, all carefully made harmless through measures that included
giving each a .txt filename extension.  ILOVEYOU, for example, is an
interesting VisualBASIC Script file that normally has a .vbs filename
extension that one can 'safe' be renaming it to .vbs.txt so that even
feckless MS-Windows users who'll double-click even
ill-erase-your-files-if-you-run-me.exe cannot hurt themselves with
it, and will just see VisualBASIC Script code in a text editor.

But after decades of it being present and harmless, Cisco SenderBase
finally noticed it ~15-20 years late and declared it an emergency threat to
the public warranting quarantining of _every URL on my system_, because,
hey, if their moronic software bot sees one file somewhere on the site
the cut of whose jib it doesn't like, that means every goddamned page
including ones with nothing but English text on them must be perilous,
right?

Institutions like JHU pay good money for this sh*t.

Because of corporate moron outsourced security bots, I had to retire the
collection of antique network worms that had helped students of software
security for decades.  Having done so, I was then able to ask Cisco
SenderBase if it would kindly cease telling their oblivious customers to 
treat my entire Web site as a leper.

Substantially all of the outsourced-security bandits 'monitoring' Web
sites, here:  https://zeltser.com/lookup-malicious-websites/

Anyway, I've now completed my analysis of the November 8th General
Election issues votable at my address, and it's at
http://linuxmafia.com/~rick/election-2016-11-08.html -- which JHU's 
Cisco appliance _should_ no longer fool with.  In case it does:

http: // linuxmafia . com / ~rick / election-2016-11-08.html

(Remove spaces.)

Just in time for National Voter Registration Day, which is tomorrow.

----- Forwarded message from SenderBase Support <support at senderbase.org> -----

Date: Mon, 26 Sep 2016 12:27:53 +0000 (GMT)
From: SenderBase Support <support at senderbase.org>
To: "rick at linuxmafia.com" <rick at linuxmafia.com>
Subject: Senderbase.org support request 01223242
X-Spam-Status: No, score=-0.2 required=4.0 tests=BAYES_40,RCVD_IN_DNSWL_NONE
	autolearn=ham version=3.3.1

Dear Rick,

Based on manual verification, the site appears safe to visit at this time. We have taken steps to improve the reputation of the URL and it should be accessible within 4-6 hours.


Regards,

Debra H 
SenderBase Support



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