It has been just about two months since I last discussed the Congressional revolt against Chinese manufactured computers and for a while I thought that perhaps the story was dead, but leave it to a Congress member to not merely flog, but actually hitch his wagon to a dead horse. Washingtonpost.com is running an AP story saying that the State Department has declared that the 16,000 computers they purchased from Lenovo will not be used for classified work. This followed a complaint by Virgina Representative Frank Wolf, who while he may have been elected to represent the good people of Virgina, seems unlikely to qualify for a job setting up internet connections at people’s homes.

The government, Griffin wrote, is committed to making sure the purchase from Lenovo, the world’s No. 3 PC maker, will not “compromise our information and communication channels.”

Wolf, R-Va., chairman of the House subcommittee that finances State Department operations, said he raised alarms after he discovered that officials planned to use at least 900 of the computers in classified work and at U.S. embassies and consulates abroad. That, he said, possibly could give China access to sensitive U.S. information.

While there may in fact be a miniscule theoretical possiblity of a security breach resulting from some sort of clever trojan hidden deep in the firmware of a China manufactured computer (such as if State were stupid enough to use the Lenovo security chip), there is something unaccounted for by Mr. Wolf that would prevent them from buying computers entirely manufactured inside the United States. Namely, there aren’t any.

As a chart in this piece at DailyTech.com illustrates, over the past several years every single PC manufacturer, whether Chinese, Taiwanese, Japanese or even American, has come to do at least some of their manufacturing and basically all of their final assembly in China.

Unfortunately for Representative Wolf, banning the purchase of computers manufactured in China essentially means banning the purchase of computers. At least, unless he wants the government to trove attics and garage sales to collect 1980s models like my old Mac Classic.

But as for the real issue of whether or not manufacturing in China is a security risk. I would have to say, not particularly. While the computers may be “made” in China, they aren’t designed there. Just because a piece of electronics has “Made in China” stamped on its outer shell does not mean that the entire contents was made in China, only that the case was. But while the system may have been assembled and some of the components manufactured there, virtually none of the highest tech components responsible for the actual processing of the computer are made there.

Does it seem likely that it is possible to add a trojan to imported AMD chips made in Germany, or modify the design of an Nvidia chipset, designed in California and manufactured in Shenzhen, China by a Taiwanese company, so that it stealthily transmits keystrokes over the internet to Chinese servers?

Regardless of where the hardware is from, while the systems are preconfigured by the maker, we can assume the State’s IT department will wipe the hard drive and reinstall their own carefully tweaked (hopefully) secure disk image, and then replace the BIOS and firmware with vetted software written by the American or Taiwanese companies that actually designed the components.

Speaking of book news:

Young LDP Diet member Taizo Sugimura (PR, South Kanto) has admitted that a post on his personal blog was plagiarized from the autobiography You Aren’t an Idiot After All. ZAKZAK has the story:

This Time Taizo is Suspected of Plagiarism…Just before his marriage
Blog Post Closely Resembles Popular Yoyogi Seminar Teacher’s Autobiography

A post on Lower House member Taizo Sugimura (age 26)’s blog was found to closely resemble the autobiography of popular teacher at the famous exam preparation school Yoyogi Seminar (Keisuke Yoshino, age 39). (Sugimura has since admitted to the plagiarism).

The blog post, uploaded at 11:32pm on May 10, starts out “It was my last night as a single man.” Sugimura describes that when he was 19, he “seriously hated myself,” went to a snowy mountain to kill himself, and “lay down on the snow, quietly waiting for death.” However, he returned to his car after being unable to withstand the cold. He tried going outside again, but ended up going home after thinking “At this rate I’ll catch a cold!”

Yoshino’s memoirs, You Aren’t an Idiot After All, were published in 1991 and were reprinted in paperback. A passage in the book, in which the 19-year-old author attempts suicide by going to the Shigakogen plateau, and after going in and out of his car a few times returns home after realizing he’d catch a cold – the resemblance is consistent even in the story’s punchline.

Yoshino, a former biker gang member, participated in a discussion group for NEETs (people Not in Employment, Education, or Training) held by Sugimura. During the discussion, Yoshino reportedly told that story.

The eery resemblance became a topic of discussion on the Internet, and by May 23 the offending passages were deleted.

(liberally abstracted from ZAKZAK 2006/05/23)

Thank god for the Internet. If you watch the video in which he admits to the plagiarism, you’ll notice just how little he seems to care that he’s a freaking dumbass for ripping off a popular book.

It sounds like he thinks it’s all over since he just deleted the passages in question. Doesn’t he realize it’s too late?

Reuters is reporting that Saddam Hussein’s last novel, entitled “Get Out of Here, Curse You” in it’s original edition, has just been published in Japan by a minor publishing company.

The book, believed to have been written on the eve of the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq and titled “Devil’s Dance” in its Japanese translation, hit stores around the nation Friday.

Jordan banned the book on the grounds it could damage ties with Iraq, but pirated copies of the tale of an Arab tribesman who defeats foreign invaders became a bestseller in Amman.

The original manuscript was smuggled out of Iraq by one of Saddam Hussein’s daughters, Raghad, and a copy given to Japanese journalist and translator Itsuko Hirata.

“The novel is dated to the times of ancient tribal society but the tribal warfare depicted in the novel is strikingly similar to what happened and is happening in the Iraqi war—totally,” Hirata told Reuters before the book’s release.

“He (Saddam) knew he was heading into a war he couldn’t win, so I think with this book he was trying to make his position clear and send a message to the Iraqi people.”

The book jacket text reads:

Worldwide first edition!
This is an indictment, and a warning.

That Hussein wrote a novel.

Anyone interested in ordering the book can get it from Amazon Japan here. I expect that the English translation that has most likely already been prepared by CIA analysts will not be published, so this may be your best shot.

From NJ Transit train window
April 21, 2006
Canon EOS 300D w/ Hartblei 65mm Superrotator

April 22, 2006
Washington DC
Canon EOS 300D w/ Hartblei 65mm Superrotator

A bill to revise the Education Law made it down to the floor of the Diet last week, and the LDP looks set to push it through by the end of next month. The bill has three basic goals:

1. Take the 9-year compulsory education period out of the law (it’s already provided for in another law, and may be revised in the near future anyway)
2. Add provisions for life education, private schools, and home schooling.
3. Make instilling patriotism one of the formal goals of the education system.

The last point is what has held up the rest of the bill in committee, since some fear that too much nationalism would be a Bad Thing. The language that finally made it to the floor is 我が国と郷土を愛する態度を養う – “instill an attitude of love of our country and homeland.” Even if the few remaining left-wingers in the Diet don’t have problems with that, you can bet that a lot of the teachers will, especially in the major cities where schools are dominated by more “liberal” (in the American sense) types. Should be fun to watch the bickering.

I finally got my passport back on Friday from the Japanese Consulate in New York with my new working visa plastered in and I’m finally ready to book a flight over, and the New York Times has to go and run THIS story!

Brace yourself for a summer of miserable air travel.

Planes are expected to be packed fuller than at anytime since World War II, when the airlines helped transport troops. Fares are rising. Service frills are disappearing.

Logjams at airport security checkpoints loom as the federal government strains to keep screener jobs filled. The usual violent summer storms are expected to send the air traffic control system into chaos at times, with flight delays and cancellations cascading across the country.

One of the better dictionarial resources on the Internet for English/Japanese translation is Eijiro, accessed through the ALC search engine. Here are a few prime examples that we’ve stumbled across, to show just how far ranging it is. In fact, if you get lucky you may even locate an entire bilingual text such as this one, which is always a good study tool.

◆「fuck」は、性的な交わりを持つことをいう、最も直接的な表現だ
Fuck is the most direct way of saying ‘having sexual intercourse.’

◆重要なのは銭、一番大切なのはお金、世の中は金だ。
It’s all about the benjamins◆アメリカの百ドル札の表にベンジャミン・フランクリンの顔が描いてある。◆〈語源〉ラッパーのパフ・ダディの歌のセリフ（1997 年）より。◆This phrase refers to the portrait of Benjamin Franklin on the American hundred-dollar bill. Popularized by the line in a Puff Daddy rap song (1997).

◆ひどく複雑な手続き
ring-dang-do〈米俗〉

◆「こどちゃ」最高！
Kodocha rulez!

◆見るからにオカマっぽい〔差別語〕
as gay as pink ink