A report has been published saying what many have known for a while, the United States government is unprepared for a cyberwar. The Pew report cites a lack of computer security employees in the federal government, and even in the private sector. One solution to this problem is by reaching out to script kiddies (wannabe hackers) and even the hackers that are responsible for developing new attack vectors. Give these middle and high schoolers a program similar to what is done for congressional pages, whereby interested students can spend a semester working with an the likes of the National Security Agency in a sandboxed environment where they can hone their skills for good use.

Government agencies need to move quickly to change social security numbers after researchers discovered an accurate way to guess a persons social security number based on just birth location (or location were number was applied for) and birth date.

The Social Security Administration needs to let people reapply for new numbers that are at least somewhat randomly produced. They should adopt a policy of issuing two socials, one number would be kept solely private and for government use only, it would be against the law for any company to ask for this.

The other number would be longer, completely random, and disposable. This second number could be used by financial institutions and others with a need to verify identity. Because fraudsters could easily dump these “disposable” numbers to change IDs they would plug back into your permanent number were the SSA could then provide a a yes/no answer that the identity was true.

The grand finale of the July 4th fireworks show in Washington, DC. This video was taken with new 5d Mark II. As you can see I have a while to go before I can consider myself a videographer.

Reflection of the sky at the Newsuem building in Washington, DC.

Every time I visit the National Zoo I have been trying to capture a photo like this, and finally I’ve succeeded. Might seem pretty basic but getting the flamingos to all be in cooperative mood took many tries.

This is from a shoot I did several months ago with Laura. She was very easy to work with and we were able to accomplish several different looks. This one was impromptu, I saw this completely deserted road and thought, “lets go for this,” and Laura was quite content to lay down in the middle of a road.

I finally got my hands on the Canon 5D Mark II camera, and after upgrading from an EOS Digital Rebel XTi I am left amazed. The image clarity is so much better, the video function blows my mind, and the auto focus works so much better. Can’t wait to take some real pictures with it, I’m planning on heading over to the Botanical Gardens or the zoo today to put the camera through the paces.