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2012 ACC Outdoor Championship
|April 19-21
|Charlottesville, VA
|Meet Info
|Meet Schedule
|Friday Video
|Live Results
|Saturday Video
Duke will start the weekend off strong with sophomore Curtis Beach, the 2012 NCAA and ACC indoor heptathlon champion, competing in the men's decathlon event on Thursday afternoon. He will be joined by fellow decathletes freshmen Terrence Neal and Ian Rock. On the women's side, sophomore Miray Seward and freshman Teddi Maslowski will represent the Blue Devils in the women's heptathlon.
In the field events, NCAA All-American sophomore Michelle Anumba will kick off the weekend with the women's hammer throw while freshman Kyler Shumway will represent the men in the event. The Thursday throwing events will conclude with the men's javelin where Duke's Austin Carpenter, Thomas Lang and Zach Robertshaw are set to compete.
The Blue Devils will be represented well in the days only open track event, the 10,000 meter run. Senior Andrew Brodeur, junior Joseph Elsakr and sophomore Brian Atkinson will compete for the men while seniors Carly Seymour and Mary Carleton Johnston, juniors Megan Deakins and Kayla Hale and sophomores Juliet Bottorff and Ashley Brasovan will represent the women. This is Bottorff's first time racing in a Duke uniform since she won the 10,000 meters at the 2011 NCAA Championships.
On Friday, the multi-event athletes will wrap up their competition in the early afternoon and will be followed by two-time ACC Champion senior Amy Fryt and junior Emily Mattoon in the women's pole vault. Fryt earned her conference titles in 2009 and 2010 and was forced to sit out last year due to injury. The Goldsboro, N.C., native looks to capture her third crown in her final ACC Championship. On the men's side, sophomore Justin Amezquita will be the lone male Blue Devil participating in the event.
In the throws, Anumba is the favorite in the women's shot put and will be joined by sophomore Erica Brand. The Rancho Cucomango, Calif., native won the 2012 indoor title in this event and went on to earn second-team All-America honors. On the men's side, senior Michael Barbas is set to compete in his final ACC Championship event.
Juniors Andrea Hopkins and 2011 ACC Champion Shannon Sullivan will represent the women in the javelin throw to close out the Friday throwing events.
Events on the track commence at 4:00 p.m. on Friday with preliminary rounds. Some of the events to watch include the men's 1500 meters trials where sophomore Domenick DeMatteo, junior Brendan Pierson, freshmen Nate McClafferty and Brian Schoepfer will fight for slots in Saturday's final. In one of the last events of the evening, junior Dominick Robinson and freshman Shaun Thompson will race in the 3,000 meter steeplechase finals.
On the women's side, senior All-American Cydney Ross and freshman Abby Farley will compete in the women's 800 meter run with hopes of earning slots in Saturday's final heat.
Saturday, the final day of competition, will begin with the sophomore duo of Tanner Anderson and Michael Krone in the men's high jump while Brand and senior Michael Barbas will close out the field competition in the discus.
On the track, the athletes who qualified for finals will compete on Saturday afternoon. To close out the distance events, Brodeur, Atkinson, DeMatteo, Robinson and Thompson will be joined by freshman Morgan Pearson in the men's 5,000 meters, while junior Madeline Morgan will represent the women's squad at the same distance.
In the final and arguably most exciting event of the weekend, seniors Caleb Duncanson and Clark, sophomore Matt Marriott and freshman Kyle Moran will join forces in the men's 4x400 meter relay while the women's quartet consisting of senior Brittany Whitehead and freshmen Elizabeth Kerpon, Alexis Roper and Lauren Hansson will close out the meet.
Duke hopes to continue its championship trend set in the indoor season where Duke brought home a record-setting four individual titles between the men's and women's squads. Friday and Saturday's action will be streamed live at www.theacc.com and live results will be available. For a full recap of Blue Devil performances, check out www.GoDuke.com at the conclusion of each event day.


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- Week in Words
Winter Olympics in Bury anyone?
This week Luis Suarez thinks he could make a killing in journalism, Serena Williams reveals her frustrating development as a youngster and could Britain one day bid for the Winter Olympics? It's the week's best quotes...
"I won't be watching Oprah on Thursday. I'll watch Jeremy Kyle in the morning though - that's a far better programme."
Should Sir Bradley Wiggins ever split from Team Sky, we now know which TV programme will help them patch things up.
"I've been playing tennis far too long to hit myself in the face."
Serena Williams' forehand has come on a tad since she was a beginner.
"I have not been in Munich. I was in Frankfurt on a pleasure steamer."
Nothing Pep Guardiola's agent Josep Maria Orobitg ever says again should be taken at face value.
"Snowboard, tobogganing, we've got the Winter Olympics here."
Kevin Blackwell puts forward Bury as an outside bet for the 2022 Games.
"It's only a thumb - I have got another one"
Wales forward Ryan Jones' memory of the film 300 could do with refreshing.
"I was like, 'Oh crap, it's Roger'."
Bernard Tomic neatly sums up what goes through 99% of tennis players' minds when they find themselves on court with the man from Switzerland.
"The name of Suarez sells papers."
But perhaps not enough to bring out his own publication, although then again....we'd probably still read it.
For the rest of the week in words, check out our Quote/Unquote section.

subset: commoncrawl


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City Council Declines to Act on Citizens United Article
NEWPORT CITY – The Newport City Council Monday turned down a request to endorse an item on Town Meeting Day that would say corporations are not people.Vermont lawmakers and advocates plan to unveil a resolution for an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would overrule a U.S. Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. The Federal Election Commission. The decision, made two years ago, held that corporations have the same rights as individuals to make unlimited contributions to independent groups seeking to influence elections.Newport City Resident Pam Ladds, who identified herself as part of the NEK99 percent, said Sen. Bernie Sanders introduced a constitutional amendment into the U.S. Senate and other states and some towns have introduced similar bills. The purpose, said Ladds, is that they want transparency and corporate money out of elections.Ladds had hopes the council would have a similar article on the March 6 Town Meeting ballot. She told council members that she assumes no corporation has bought any of them off, but stated, "You never know." The council wasn't so fast to agree with the article request. Alderman Richard Baraw, who called himself a liberal, said the policy of the council has been to not put political statements on the ballot. However, that doesn't mean it can't be done, he said. "I don't think it's good policy for the City of Newport to do that through the city council," Baraw said. "I think you really should go the petition route."However, Ladds doesn't feel that's feasible, because she would have to go door-to-door to get signatures, something she said is challenging this time of year. City Manager John Ward Jr. said that an editorial in Monday's Wall Street Journal talked about the Citizens United decision. "It's worthwhile reading," said Ward, who said the editorial explains why corporations have a voice. "They aren't like you and I, but they represent people like you and I."Ward is concerned any such article would take away free speech. "The answer to freedom is not less free speech," said Ward. "I can't imagine anyone signing those petitions."


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THERE were quiet celebrations in the Warrnambool Telstra exchange yesterday afternoon when the last of 100,000 services blacked out by the November 22 fire were restored.
However, the achievement was dulled by fresh drama in the central south-west communications exchange when ISDN service to more than 120 major business customers dropped off at 8am and took almost five hours to restore.
Businesses from Warrnambool through to Portland were left with blank or intermittent lines and again had to rely on mobile phones in the interim.
Technicians scrambled to repair equipment in the mainframe, which had been affected by soot and smoke from the fire.
Telstra spokesman James Howe said links to several business customers and rural communities would be rerouted through the South Melbourne exchange in the next few days.
"There will be service interruptions for 10 minutes or so while the re-parenting switchover happens," he said.
"We had a pretty significant failure in the morning, but all services are back up and running now.
"The fire had impacted the capacity of the Warrnambool mainframe to handle peak load. When we re-parent some services through South Melbourne it will reduce the load and reliance on a single point."
Meanwhile, technicians used a giant crane yesterday to install new gear on the Warrnambool exchange mobile phone tower to increase data carrying capacity by 60 per cent.
"This upgrade had been planned to happen some time in the first half of next year, but because more people have been using their mobile phones during the outage and we had the technicians here we decided to install the equipment this week," Mr Howe said.
Technicians who have worked around the clock in shifts to rebuild the damaged exchange will stay for the next few weeks to iron out crossed lines and numerous service faults.
"We encourage people to notify us of faults on the 1800 171 355 helpline and technicians will be despatched," Mr Howe said.
"We expect there will be issues to resolve for a few weeks and we want to make sure the system is running properly.
"Our Warrnambool-specific call centre staff have been instructed to understand the needs of customers in this area and we are reminding other call centres of the issues also."
He said about 30 compensation claims under $1000 had been processed and about 10 claims of more than $1000 had been lodged.
"We are aiming to turn them around quickly," he said.
There is still no official explanation on the cause of the fire which broke out in a common room at the exchange about 4.30am on November 22, blacking out 65,000 landlines, 15,000 broadband services and more than 80 mobile phone towers.
The federal government parliamentary inquiry's first public hearing will be in the Warrnambool Lighthouse Theatre on Monday from 10am to noon.


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Incorrect. There is a reason -- convenience. It allows him to go anywhere and send mail without even changing his relay.There is no reason to allow sites from outside your LAN to relay through your mail server based just on the From line or the MAIL FROM smtp command.
However, the reason to not do this is that it's insecure. A large percentage of the spam I receive claims to be from the domain that it's being sent to, so his system would happily relay it.
The second reason should trump the first reason, but obviously if you're a clue resistant lawyer with a chip on your shoulder, it doesn't.
For those who appreciate irony, consider this --
He's basically written this big diatribe, which to spammers says `hey! you can relay through my mail server!'
As far as I'm concerned, everybody has the right to decide exactly how secure they make their server.What standard of hackproofing should every Mom & Pop on the internet have to meet, and why?
The flip-side of this liberty is that I have the full right to accept or deny any email I want and I have chosen to block email from open relays, so if Mom & Pop want to mail me, they'll have to make their server secure enough to meet my standards.
Btw, I'm using DSBL [dsbl.org] for my open relay and open proxy blocking...
How had it gained access to my mail server? Simple. It had forged the headers on its email to convince my mail server that the email it sent was from a permitted user. You see, my mail servers were set up to pass mail only from a domain name of which I am the only user. It blocks everything else. That's not an open relay. Unless you're a user in my domain, you can't use it.
The group based in Denmark had pretended to be me, forged an email as though it had come from an address that only I am authorized to use, passed it through the mail server in my house, and then placed me on a list of people who should be blocked from sending mail. They circulated that list around the world. ISPs used by my friends and family here the United States subscribed to this list. Now, through no fault of my own--and in fact because of the trickery of Danish email activists--I was no longer able to send email to many people in my address book.
It's hard to describe how angry this made me. The Danish consortium had lied about their identity, and I was paying for it.
In other words, he wants to solve his security problem via legislation rather than the appropriate technical fix. He's upset because someone "lied about their identify" (gasp! on the internet? I hope he doesn't go into many chat rooms) and was thus able to send mail.
This guy is an idiot. He has an open relay. He should be hit on the head with a lead pipe (in the conservatory?) for his idiocy, and his machine flooded out of existence for his open relay. Now THAT is vigilanteism.
Anyway, ASIP only allows you to selectively allow relaying based on domain name, just like this guy is doing. It, of course, doesn't explain this as the documentation is truly useless. Also, it doesn't allow you to do IP-based selective relaying, which is what people actually need.
This is a completely useless feature. You can simply do "MAIL FROM: email@example.com" and it allows mail through. Then, in the actual mail message, you add a header "From: firstname.lastname@example.com", and the second thing is what most users (who don't read relay headers) will see.
Someone else figured this out, and on a Friday evening, our server started spewing out LOTS of spam.
Now, I couldn't simply put up another mail server, as ASIP keeps all of its mail in one large, monolithic file, so I couldn't, for instance, export the mail to a qmail machine. Instead, I put the ASIP box behind a firewall so that NOBODY could connect to it. Then, I set up a secondary MX record for the box pointing to a Linux machine running qmail. Then, I poked a hole in the firewall to allow mail to the ASIP box ONLY from the Linux box (and from a couple other IPs for which it actually needed to do the relaying in the first place). Yes, this is quite a hackish solution, but Apple's software was extremely defficient and I was sick of working with it.
The point? This is an open relay, and it will be abused once some spammer runs out of open relays that don't even do "MAIL FROM:" checking. Whether or not this guy is an idiot, I don't know, but what I do know is that this guy needs a real admin.
Anyway, I think he should pick up the phone and call the dudes in Denmark. I think that being on an e-mail black hole list means never being ABLE to say you're sorry...
Authenticating by the domain that the sender says he is from is very weak...
Holes like this are what keeps the spam coming to my mailbox...
Well, setting your sender's address to a trivially guessed domain name (such as the reverse-mapped address of the host), you effectivly have an open relay. Guess what spammers are doing: they are using known-good addresses, and try sending spam from those addresses MX hosts in the hope that the MTA do this foolish kind of access check.
This has been discussed since at least five years, and has been a point in the many faqs and howtos on how to lock down your MTA for a long, long time.
If you really need to send mail through your MTA from arbitrary IP addresses, you need to employ authentication. Again, this is hardly a new technology, and many documents explaining how to combine SSL and authentication for SMTP exist.
How had it gained access to my mail server? Simple. It had forged the headers on its email to convince my mail server that the email it sent was from a permitted user.
One word: Authentification.
You see, my mail servers were set up to pass mail only from a domain name of which I am the only user. It blocks everything else. That's not an open relay. Unless you're a user in my domain, you can't use it.
Uh, it may not be a totally open relay in the literal sense of the word, but surely that still means it can be used to send spam, as long as the spammer figures out who to identify himself as - and if the Danes could do it, then it can't be that hard?
Any spam-block that relies entirely on the "from:" header is broken by design. What, spammers disguise their identities? Never!
One word: Authentification.
Yeah! Don't misunderestimate the value of authentification!
Remember: It all depends on what you mean by the word "is."
When that appears in the first paragraph the rest loses credibility. Anybody qualified enough to be commenting on SPAM should be aware that simply by opening the email you may have verified the address as valid (if it contains an external image).
interested in inventions [royalinventions.com.au]?
And if it isn't, it still serves the bastard right for running an open relay and not getting it. Wow, you can send spam by lying to his mail server, let's sue some Danes for pointing it out.
There is no we who needs to trust this group. Either you do, or you don't. If you don't trust them, then don't use the list.But what if we really can't trust this function to a bunch of volunteers, even if we reject that Microsoft is the alternative?
The making-it-easy-for-spammers argument seems to be identical to the exploitable-bug-disclosure argument. You keep a vulnerability secret, and it gets exploited by a small group of abusers for a long time. Make it publicly known, and it gets exploited by a larger group of abusers for a shorter time. I guess different people have a different opinion on which of those alternatives is better.
I fail to understand how this can be a valid argument against bad-maintained blackhole lists. The author was listed because *anyone could use his server to relay just by using a MAIL FROM command sporting his domain name*. Sheesh! When you configure your relay ACL, you use *IP ranges*, not domains (an awful lot of spammers forge all the headers in the messages they throw out). Even better, you use SMTP AUTH. That guy didn't bother to implement a technically valid solution, and thus his mail server definitely *could* be abused. No wonder it has been put on a blacklist...
BTW, this doesn't mean there aren't stupid blacklists out there listing innocent people. But this article proves nothing. Moreover, there are now better ways to filter spam, based on message content checksum, like Vipul's razor [sourceforge.net]. This is not the first time people bitch and moan about their badly-configured relays being censored by the antispam Nazis (I remember a guy, from the EFF I believe, that did the same thing some time ago) but they simply are irrelevant. Their solution is to RTFM and play by the rules. Period (grrrr, I really dislike bad admins
Forgive my ignorance*, but the article mentioned that he often checks email from hotels or foreign countries. Seems to me he's either using an IP address from the foreign point, or from an ISP with global reach. Either one would proclude using IP addresses in the ACL. So my question is, what's the best way to authenticate?Sheesh! When you configure your relay ACL, you use *IP ranges*, not domains (an awful lot of spammers forge all the headers in the messages they throw out).
However, the fact that it's a re-check implies that the Danish site previously checked his mailserver without permission. I still think it's silly for him to sue over that, but that does give him a slightly better case.
Second, once you're listed on a black hole, it can be hell to get off. My company had a secondary domain that was used for customer emails. It was, indeed, an open-relay due to misconfiguration. Eventually it got blackholed and our admins realized the mistake they'd made and set out to fix it. They did fix it eventually, but by that time the server was being slammed by spammers trying to use it as an open-relay. And on top of that trying to get the black hole list to remove the domain was difficult - it took well over two weeks, while the black hole-ing occurred in under a day. Eventually the entire domain was just dropped, since even with the open relay closed the spammers were still abusing the hell out of our pipe.
I'm sorry, but I'm really failing to see what part of this is not the spammers' fault... or yours. Certainly it wasn't the listing service "abusing the hell out of [your] pipe" or slamming your servers. And you say your admins "did fix it eventually." Was that in a day, a few weeks, a year, or what? A mere two-plus weeks to be taken off the blackhole advisory list sounds very reasonable under the circumstances.
Sounds like the blackhole service did you a favor. Certainly they limited the damage your company did to the rest of the Internet by passing along all that spam while the relay was open.
Blacklists ARE solving the problem. I subscribe to SpamCop.net [spamcop.net] and I get about 50 spams filtered out daily. Bandwidth is NOT chewed up because the message is never sent--just a small rejection notice.
I'm afraid I've got little sympathy for the author of the article. He is running an open relay. Yes, for someone to abuse it they've got to forge the headers. That spammers do this is news? I don't think so. So, he runs an open relay, it gets detected, he gets added to a blackhole list until he closes it, he's now upset that the list operator won't accept "Well, someone would have to lie to abuse my server, so it shouldn't count." as an excuse. Pardon my complete lack of sympathy for him. This isn't vigilante justice, this is simple shunning by the community. If he wants to restrict his server to authorized users, he should do just that. POP-before-SMTP and SMTP AUTH exist, they can be used. Requiring that someone forge his domain in a From: header is not securing a relay.
Sometime in the next week or so, I am going to stop by your home and probe for any security problems that a burglar might exploit. I know we have never met before but its in your best interests. Since I have the best of intentions, I am sure you won't mind. You wouldn't want to leave your home with security holes in it?
Wow! Coming from an expert, that must be a compliment. My analogy stands as we are talking about an unknown third party probing your mail server without your permission. The poster I responded to narrowed that focus. I re-expanded it to the subject being discussed in the thread.
Now grow up, child. Take the insults elsewhere.
Your concern about failing to circulate blacklist removals is misplaced with regard to DNS based blacklists. The data expires in a finite amount of time from the cache, and removal processes are working pretty damned good. I've watched a number of notices posted on news.admin.net-abuse.email asking to be removed from the SPEWS list, and I check out whether they have fixed the problem or not. In most cases I find that the data had already been removed from SPEWS by the time I checked that (so now I check SPEWS first before checking to see if the problem is fixed).
Private blacklists are a problem because there's virtually no way to track them all down and get removed from everywhere (once you fix the problem). That's why we need central DNS based blacklists. But what we also need is to shield these central lists from stupid lawsuits from people who refuse to fix their problems or simply don't have a clue. Those who even so much as threaten to sue the list operators instantly get their IP addresses and domain names put in thousands of private blacklists where no one even looks to see if anything is ever fixed. And when they end up shutting down the central lists, they make things worse due to all the private lists. That's the primary reason SPEWS is so secret. Sure, it comes across to people who didn't know about it as a "Star Chamber" thing. And I didn't use it for several months until I verified it actually works to list what needs to be listed, and removes things when fixed.
I was recently a victim of this problem. A machine at my former hosting provider (JTLnet, and they were already my former hosting provider before this incident) got infected by an email worm, and started propagating to everyone in that machine's address book - which seems to've included their entire customer-contact list. Being a modern email worm, it picked one address from that address book to spoof as the source of the messages, and I was the "lucky" guy so I ended up getting all the bounce messages.
There's a lot more to the story, but it's mostly about JTLnet and it's not their faults that are relevant here. The more interesting story is the part played by Verizon (my DSL service provider). Here's a major provider to millions of people, and their mail server was set up so it would happily propagate the worm's spoofed emails. A little experimentation quickly revealed that as long as the original FROM line (the SMTP one, not the one in the header) matched my email address the message would go through, regardless of where the connection came from. Unbelievable.
There is the tiniest shred of an excuse, though. I do remember being annoyed when they shut off SMTP access from outside their network entirely, so I couldn't reply to messages received on that account while at work. However, there are other ways to deal with the problem without allowing worms to spoof email through subscribers' accounts. SMTP authentication would be the obvious solution. A web interface for subscribers to specify which hosts could send email through their account would also have stopped the worm in its tracks. There's no excuse for a provider employing that many people to take the cheesy way out.
The truth is that these home-grown spam mitigation methods do have their problems.One of them is evident in the article: well-meaning users often do not understand what might be insecure about their server configurations, or what might need to be done to fix them. I am very comfortable with sendmail configuration, and I can tell you that setting up the authorizations correctly for mobile users to be able to send email safely is a narrow, twisty labyrinth in comparison to the big, flashing exit door marked "promiscuous relay".
Another problem in the home-grown nature of these solutions is the tendency for them to be personality-driven, instead of professional. Often, IP addresses (or even whole ISPs) are placed on blacklists because the blacklist maintainer does not mind creating a little collateral damage if they think it might create a little extra pressure on a spammer or an ISP.
Some blacklists have blocked out entire hosting companies, including some of the biggest ones on the net, simply because they did not think they acted with sufficient alacrity against spammers in their midsts. This kind of wild overkill is unfortunately too common, and perhaps it's a good argument in favor of for-profit blacklisting, which would probably exert some good influence on the question of list quality.
Earthlink rejects mail from any IP address that belongs to a dial-up pool that attempts to connect to their SMTP servers.
Ostensibly, this is done to reduce "direct-to-mx" spam, which is a very common spammer tactic. Unfortunately, it also makes life harder on the home linux enthusiast, or home business operator who might be running their own perfectly legitimate sendmail server. All part of the collateral damage in the spam wars: Internet access and Internet business are slowly becoming more expensive and possibly moving out of the reach of people with limited means.
So what should we do?
First, I think that current law against junk faxes should be extended to include junk emails. This would not eliminate spam, but it would give us the ability to correct the spammers who operate out in the open.
As a Libertarian, I want to jealously guard the right of the people to freedom of expression. But that right does not and cannot include the right to expropriate other people's time or money. You have a right to make your voice heard. You do not have a right to force me to pay for it.
Second, I think that we should be careful about the blacklists that we use, and prefer those operated by recognizable and accountable companies wherever possible.
Finally, I think that for the forseeable future, filtering at the user desktop will be necessary.
(Cards-on-the-table time: I am working on a new solution for end users to eliminate spam from their inboxes. It is based on a new method, and it will work for any user who uses a POP email account. It will be ready for public beta soon. Please write to me if you want to learn more.)
The struggle against spam is definitely picking up, and I think that a new equilibrium is approaching.
Rather than focus on what constitutes an "open relay," which is really a technical issue rather than a policy issue, I'd rather see more thought given to the damage caused by blackhole lists. Are we really interested in championing their use? Spam today, something else "offensive" tomorrow? How different is this than when Chinese ISPs decide to block Google? As vile as spam is, I don't think this is the right tool.
My response to the original letters sent in by New Architect readers:
Thanks.When it comes to mail administration, it appears I was several years behind the curve. Since my mail server software, circa 1996, had been purring along quietly without problems since it was new, I had never upgraded it to a version capable of a higher degree of authentication. I'm also old enough to remember when an "open relay" was a relay intentionally left open for anyone to use, not one merely susceptible to misuse. Thanks to all of the readers who wrote to bring me into the new millennium. Both my software and my definition are now upgraded.
At the same time, I labeled the blackhole list operators "vigilantes" for good reason. It was always my understanding that if you lie about your identity to gain access to something that would be closed to you if you told the truth, you've done something wrong. That's true whether you intend to send spam or prevent it. As vile as spam is, the ends don't justify the means. Regardless of whether my mail server used to be "open" or not, I stand by the legal analysis that placed fault on the blackhole operators who forged their identity.
-- Bret
www.lextext.com [lextext.com]
Quoth the poster:
Regardless of whether my mail server used to be "open" or not, I stand by the legal analysis that placed fault on the blackhole operators who forged their identity.
But you did ask the blackhole list people to check your server, yes? You do have the right to access your server in any way you see fit and to permit others the same access, correct?
If I contracted with a security testing firm to test the security of my office, I'd be severely annoyed with them if they did not try to lie their way past the office manager who watches the front door.
Similarly, you and/or your ISP don't have to subscribe to blackhole lists if you/they don't want. You ask what would happen if someone (say, the Chinese government) starts making a blackhole list of sites that deal with something they they consider offensive? (say, western media, Falun Gong, etc.) The answer is that you and most ISPs probably won't subscribe to such a list. They can blackhole as many sites as they want... but most of the world won't care, or even notice.
Open-relay blackhole lists thrive not because "vigilantes" are cramming their brand of justice down our throat, but because enough people agree with their philosophies that they're freely willing to make use of the product they're offering.
If not, then you may still have a legitimate complaint. But if they did, then I think the system worked the way it was supposed to.
You said that your "software and your definition are now upgraded". The opportunity for you to upgrade both your software and your understanding of what an open relay have been around for a very long time now. I think that by running your own mail server, you raise yourself to a higher level of Internet citizen. No longer just a casual web user, you have to take the responsibility of maintaining your server, keeping up with security patches and issues, and just generally being a good Net citizen. Blackhole lists are something of a last resort for people who won't/can't take care of the problem in any other way. Now that you've solved the problem and your site has emerged from the blackhole, I would take it as a lesson learned and go on from there - not spend 1/3 of a magazine column trying to figure out what the best way to sue a Danish company is.
P.S. Here's a quick, automated way for anyone to check and see if their mail server is an open relay:
> telnet relay-test.mail-abuse.net
The problem is that he has no direct or indirect proof that the "original probe" even occurred. I could easily imagine a scenario where an irate user forwarded a spam to the unnamed blacklist administrators who added Lextext's address based on the header contents. Since you and I don't know who the blacklist admins are, and Lextext isn't telling, we have no way of knowing that their policy requires them to verify open relays before blacklisting them.
In a nutshell, unless Lextext has server logs to prove that the blacklist admins previously scanned his system, I have no reason to believe that they actually did so.
I tried explaining this to him via email, but I think the point was lost on him.
As vile as spam is, the ends don't justify the means. Regardless of whether my mail server used to be 'open' or not, I stand by the legal analysis that placed fault on the blackhole operators who forged their identity.
If the list operator who tested your mail server did not test it by using the proper practices, which includes doing everything that spammers are known to be doing, or known to be capable of doing, then it would be the list operator who had failed to properly and correctly test your server. If it had been marked as closed, because of that, when in fact it was still open, then it would be the list operator who would have been negligent.
Security practices, and spam prevention is a form of security practice, do include performing tests that mimic what the security prevention is supposed to prevent. Your mail server is supposed to prevent relaying of forged addresses. So you have to do forged addresses to test that facility.
The only thing the list operators did wrong that I can see is they failed to get your signature in writing on a piece of paper that explained it to you. Had they done so, that piece of paper would have stated that they would be performing a test that adheres to current best practices in security testing, and that test would include every form of forgery and trickery known.
The ends not only do justify the means, they are also absolutely required!
Also, some mail server software is defective in ways that certain types of attempts, which spammers might try, and therefore have to be tested in a thorough test, could cause that defective software to fail, and may result in damage to your mail server. If that happens, your remedy should be with the maker of the defective software, unless the defects were documented and avoidable by proper configuration.
And if you want to have a private dialog about this, I am willing to explain it in more detail if you need that. I am not a lawyer, so I can't give it to you in purely legal terms, but I can certainly give you some real life analogies. You can find my email address a number of ways, such as the domain registration of one of my web sites.
Spammers never lie or forge domain names! So of course it's unfair that this lawyer's mailserver was blacklisted. .
Bah. With all the money lawyers make, you'd think he could buy himself a clue.
If they make a mistake, you and your organization are screwed until they decide to admit their mistake and correct it -- if they ever do. They have cute, pat answers to explain away any responsibility for their behavior and generally refuse to communicate with those they block. I have had a nasty experience recently with "relays.osirusoft.com" where a client of our was using them as a part of their Postfix RBL configuration. Some Nazi^H^H^H^H German nominated our mail server as a spamhaus when we were not. Without being tested, our server was blacklisted -- I checked my logs and saw no check on the date we were listed. We received no notice, no automated robot checked out server or would anyone respond to my inquiries, just accusations that I was supporting SPAM--an absolute lie. If you are listed, you have to be an evil SPAM supporter with their mentality.
It took one month of constantly e-mailing their retest e-mail address. Daily checking of my mail logs and seeing that their robot was being rejected from relaying, yet, we were not taken off the RBL. Finally, after a month, we were removed. Nothing changed in our configuration, no notice was given as to why we were removed nor why we were added outside of the nomination origin. We were just lucky that "relays.osirusoft.com" decided to do what's right but was too cowardly to admit they were wrong. Hiding behind the anonymity of the Internet with no responsibility to the people they harm. We will never know how many e-mail messages were lost because of "relays.osirusoft.com"'s mistake.
Here is what I wrote to this guy back on July 25 when the article had just come out. I never received a response from him. Was he totally embarassed by his idiocy once it was explained to him? I guess so.
I just read the article you wrote on New Architect Magazine entitled "Blind Vigilantes; Blackhole lists offer dark prospects". I feel you have missed certain points in your analysis, and as a result, you misunderstand what is going on. That's OK, because the majority of network administrators still do, too. As a lawyer you would not be expected to know this kind of stuff. You clearly know a lot more about it than the average lawyer. I'm writing in hopes of filling in the gaps. I sincerely hope you have the time to read this. It's long, but I think this is important.
First of all, I use these blackhole lists myself, so it is possible that your reply to me could bounce back. I can override it if I know the IP address of your mail server. But I won't know it until there is a server log telling me about it bouncing. What I'll do is get your IP address at that time, add it to the exception database, and you can repeat the reply later on. Or you can send me mail from Hotmail, which I believe is not blocked anymore.
I want to fast forward to the point in your article where I think the main misunderstanding is:
How had it gained access to my mail server? Simple. It had forged the headers on its email to convince my mail server that the email it sent was from a permitted user. You see, my mail servers were set up to pass mail only from a domain name of which I am the only user. It blocks everything else. That's not an open relay. Unless you're a user in my domain, you can't use it.
One of the methods spammers use to send their mail through a mail server configured like yours is to do exactly what you are complaining about. I see upwards of 10,000 of these a day on my servers. The spammers have these massive lists of email addresses, quite many of which are valid. What they do is look up which mail server those users would use, which is not hard because that's exactly what the whole system is designed to be able to do. Every delivered piece of email had to do that. Once they have this information, then they forge that user in their FROM line and start sending mail to the user's server. In the case of a server set up to test only the domain name in the FROM line, it works, and the spam message gets sent on its way.
That's why your mail server is considered to be an open relay, because it is possible for a spammer to use it, despite the fact that they are doing something illegal such as forging your domain name. If it lets a spammer forward mail, it's an open relay.
The group based in Denmark had pretended to be me, forged an email as though it had come from an address that only I am authorized to use, passed it through the mail server in my house, and then placed me on a list of people who should be blocked from sending mail. They circulated that list around the world. ISPs used by my friends and family here the United States subscribed to this list. Now, through no fault of my own and in fact because of the trickery of Danish email activists I was no longer able to send email to many people in my address book.
It is standard practice for every program (there are several available) which does the open relay tests to try dozens of different ways to fool a mail server into forwarding mail. Forging the domain name of the users of that server is one of the simpler tricks. There are some that are more complicated. These programs are simply doing exactly the same thing that a spammer would do. It's the same principle used by security test programs which test whether or not a computer can be broken into. They have to pull all the punches a hacker might try. Otherwise such programs will fail to detect a flaw and the program itself will be worthless.
I periodically run tests on all my mail servers to make sure I have not accidentally configured out the relay controls. I watch these tests take place, and they do this forgery exactly as expected.
It's hard to describe how angry this made me. The Danish consortium had lied about their identity, and I was paying for it.
The worst thing about being blacklisted, however, wasn't that I could no longer send email, but that spammers began actively trying to use my mail server to send their spam. You see, blackhole lists work both ways. ISPs use it to block traffic, but as I've recently discovered, the spammers themselves use the lists as a kind of directory of servers to use for sending their mail.
Actually, that is not true. Read on and this will be explained.
If you look at my mail server logs, you'll see that every few seconds or so, someone, somewhere tries to access my mail server and use it to send mail. Each time, without fail, my mail server declines the request and refuses to relay the requested message. It isn't an open relay. It's just doing its job. But my machine is bombarded with requests from all over the world from spammers seeking to use its minimal capabilities to send their penis enlarging, breast enhancing, get-rich-quick messages.
Last year, one of my client companies, a local web hosting business, had a case of one of their customers running a spamming operation right from the server they were paying my client to use, in violation of their AUP. The customer got cut off, and my client asked me to help him clean up the mess. In so doing, I obtained a copy of not only the spamming software (a special version intended for running from web servers), but also a copy of a big list of about 1.5 million addresses.
There was something very interesting in this list. The first 1000 or so entries were email address that were familiar to me. They were OTHER SPAMMERS. That's right, other spammers have their own names in these lists. What that means is if any spammer discovers an open relay, the others find out about it fairly quickly. The "spammer network" as I might call it is very well connected. They all see the successes of the others. And much like wild animals on the African Savannah when one makes a kill, the others circle around to take their own bite out of the carcass. That's what is happening to your server.
The anti-spam group have some of their addresses on these lists, too. That's how they first find out if your mail server is an open relay. They get spam that some spammer who found it relayed through. That's how you were first put on the list.
The blackhole lists are run through a distributed database called DNS. This is the same thing that allows looking up a domain name to get the numeric IP address which the routers use to send packets to the correct destination. But the point about it is that DNS works as a general distributed database, and unless someone runs the DNS server wrongly, there is no mechanism to get a list of these addresses. All that can be done is to pick and address and do a lookup. Unlike a regular database, there is no means to do a query lookup like "give me all the IP addresses which are open relays".
In reality, there are sometimes some breakdowns in that security and the blocked addresses can get out. I've acquired one such list myself. But for the most part, spammers do one of two things. They scan the net at high speeds looking for open relays, and they scan through their mailbox which is on the lists to check for good pickings in recent spam they received.
But, hey, I'm a lawyer, right? I'm supposed to be able to solve this kind of dilemma. And there are a few things I could do.
For one, the Danish antispam organization falsified an email header to gain access to my mail server. Illegal access to a computer system is, if not a criminal violation, then a trespass on my private property. As I've discussed previously in this space, one of the novel legal theories now catching on for these kinds of unacceptable accesses to computer systems is a centuries-old tort called "trespass to chattels." At a minimum, I ought to be able to sue the Danish company for the damage it caused me from its illegal access.
They have a legal defense. You actually gave them permission to do the scan. Although you did not know the scan involved the address forgery, their defense is that the practice is the only way to test to see if a mail server is an open relay (that is, if it could be used by a spammer who would forge the address). As mentioned above, this and many other tests like it are standard practice in security testing (and testing for an open relay is simply one form of security test).
This is why when an open relay listing is in the database they will not remove it by periodically testing on their own accord. That would truly be illegal. They require you to consent to the test before they will do it. And again, the standard for these tests is to do exactly every know trick a spammer would try.
Granted, the damage caused by my inability to send an email is likely not terribly significant. You can always pick up the phone, print the message out, and fax it or mail it or just use a different mail server. But in spite of all that, I could probably get an injunction, or least a dollar or two to compensate me for my injuries and establish that I have been wronged.
It is not their test that put you in the list in the first place. It was the fact that they received a copy of spam that some spammer relayed through your server first. It is that spammer that trespassed on your server and caused you the real harm.
The problem, of course, is that the loose organization of individuals who compiled the blackhole list is based in Denmark. Who knows whether the organization is a real legal entity or just some name cooked up by a group of self righteous individuals. However, they do have a domain name, and an IP address, and they circulate their work to ISPs around the world. In other words, there is a group for me to sue. But taking legal action on foreign entities is difficult. I would have to translate my legal documents into Danish. I would have to hire someone in Denmark to personally deliver these translated documents to the entity that I would be suing. That costs time and money.
Those who compile the database are just the messengers. But your real problem is that these guys are just the little fish. The big ones are even harder to reach. They are rumored to be in Bulgaria, an Eastern Europe country formerly behind the infamous Iron Curtain.
But I could sue them here in Los Angeles, California, that much I know. By sending their forged email through my mail server, which is located in my den in Los Angeles, they fulfilled certain California legal requirements that would let me sue them here. The connection to Los Angeles is also bolstered by the fact that I live here and my injury was suffered here.
Of course, all of this is starting to sound like the kind of hypothetical legal conundrum that you might find on a law school exam. Problems like mine often remain hypothetical because the expense of bringing them to trial is so great, and the ability to gain any monetary relief from lawsuits is minimal. That's why the black hole providers have been able to get away with their vigilante justice for so long. For any individual user wronged by their efforts and from what I understand, there are a lot of people in similar situations the costs of pursuing these organizations, which are often located overseas, is too great. These groups of volunteer organizations have no assets to speak of they are volunteers after all and plaintiffs' lawyers are hesitant to take a case without the prospect of a lucrative damages judgment.
And there is the risk that they would win if they were present to defend their practice. They would certainly bring up the point that the original listing was due to a spammer discovering your open relay, and that they received permission from you to test their server.
Before you think that this is all just about me and the fact that my father no longer receives any email from me, there are bigger policy implications for private individuals and companies that take steps to block connectivity. Much bigger.
I've long championed the idea that the Internet should remain largely unregulated by governments. But at the same time, any private operator at an end point in the Internet's architecture can restrict the flow of content to a user. What's wonderful about the Internet is that it enables end-to-end communication from anywhere in the world to anywhere in the world. For all of the problems caused by spam, email is still the most widely used application on the Internet. So the idea that private parties could get ISPs to block some people from talking to other people should be deeply troublesome.
The choice to use the information from blacklists to reject delivery of email in a mail server is something the owner of the mail server would do. This becomes a private property issue. I have the right to refuse any mail into my mail server I wish (except on the basis of the few parameters law now prohibits, like gender, race, religion, etc). I have the right to get my list of IP addresses to block from anywhere I like. If Joe down the street tells me he blocked email using his private little list of IP addresses and it cut out 90% of his spam, then of course I'd like for him to share it with me.
Could there be an issue of libel here? Sure, there could. But it's a clear line between saying "You are a spammer" and saying "Your mail server allowed a spammer (who uses forgery) to send spam to me, and when you gave me permission to test it, I found that by mimicking just what the spammer would do, it was still allowing it."
The Danish blackhole list operators want to block access to computers that might be used for spam, but it's easy to imagine blacklists used for less noble purposes. For example, imagine that the RIAA compiled a list of IP addresses which, it contended, had at some time used peer-to-peer file sharing programs. Because these peer-to-peer systems could transmit copyrighted materials in a way that infringes on the copyright owner's rights, the RIAA could argue, those IP addresses should be blocked. It isn't difficult to imagine that the RIAA could pressure a sufficient number of ISPs into subscribing to this copyright blackhole list and blocking access to their users, or to any traffic emanating from them.
I do worry that the techniques used to reduce and prevent spam could be put to less noble uses. I also worry that facilities that exist on the internet to allow anonymous communications (which some people sometimes need to have) are abused by spammers (there are techniques to reduce that abuse) and in turn blocked by anti-spammers.
Personally, I don't consider the anti-spam movement to be less noble than peer-to-peer file sharing. The vast majority of what is shared on those networks is copyrighted material being shared well beyond the rights of the copyright owners. While I'm not advocating that those file sharing programs be outlawed, or the networks they use be shutdown, I do consider it to be less noble a thing that the effors of the anti-spam community to help keep mailboxes cleaner.
Breaking end-to-end connectivity for any application, whether email or peer-to-peer or the Web, threatens the very thing that makes the Internet valuable. These are matters of principle. Which reminds me I have a lawsuit to file.
It depends on who is doing the breaking. If I break connectivity in my own server, even if I use information from someone else that I choose to use, who offers that information to me freely (I didn't illegally copy it), then what law have I broken? What tort have I committed? Who have I harmed? If it involves my customers in a service I provide to them, then it's a matter of the business relationship between me and that customer. In practice, my customers want the spam blocking since it proves to be very effective against spam.
As to your mail server. It is an open relay, and it needs to be closed.
If a thief enters a building by opening an unlocked door, it is breaking and entering. Merely opening the closed door was breaking, as opposed to the door being wide open. It does not matter if there was a lock on the door or not. It does not matter if the lock was left unlocked. It is still breaking.
Your mail server has a closed door, but it has no lock. You are making the assumption that spammers won't do the "breaking in" thing with address forgery. But they do. What you need is the equivalent of a lock on your mail server. Instead of just checking the FROM line to see if it has your domain name on it, it needs to check something that a spammer simply cannot forge at all. Usually this is an IP address. If you want to be able to use your mail server from other locations, then the IP address is not good enough. There is another method that is used which requires you to log in to READ your mail first. The way that works is when the mail reading login is done, the server notes what the IP address is from which the successful login came, and puts that IP address in a list which is valid for sending mail for some period of time, say maybe 30 minutes to an hour. Thousands of people use this technique successfully. It's typically called "SMTP after POP" (in reference to the POP protocol used to read mail in most cases).
The following has a number of useful links to help in testing and closing an open relay:
http://www.geocities.com/spamresources/relay.htm [geocities.com]
So what if mail servers accepted SMTP for inbound mail only, and required POP for outbound mail? Mail arriving from points unknown would be accepted via SMTP, but mail heading out would need that initial authentication -- no more forged headers. I think it's a great solution: it's compliant with IETF standards that are in place today. There's one problem.
Since PMMail, and I assume its short-lived Windows version PMMail 95, I haven't seen any mail clients that support POP for outgoing mail. Given the problem with spam and forged headers, I can't believe that no one has seized upon this idea.
Anyway, if the response is positive enough, I may be motivated to crack open some open-source mail client add support for outbound POP...
You know, Callahan's is a peaceable bar, but if you ask that dog what his favorite formatter is, and he says "roff! roff!", well, I'll just have to...


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Companions on a Journey
By Sister Sharon Nohner, OSB, Director of CSB Campus Ministry
Companions on a Journey, a group spiritual companioning program for women at CSB, kicked off the year with a fall welcome and orientation banquet on Sept. 16.
Journey Groups are composed of about five Bennies from the same grade and two women co-facilitators from the faculty, monastic community or broader St. Joseph community. Each Journey Group meets monthly to share their reflections on life and faith.
Of the 46 Journey Groups that will meet during the 2012-2013 academic year, nine new groups were formed for first-year Bennies and three new groups were formed for sophomore Bennies. The remaining 34 groups comprise returning students and facilitators.
Journey Groups will focus discussions on building strong foundations as leaders in the Church and in the world.
This is the first year that the Companions on a Journey program has fallen under the auspices of CSB Campus Ministry. Sister Sharon Nohner, OSB, the new coordinator for the Companions on a Journey program, is assisted by CSB junior Jenny Line and CSB sophomore Alyssa Terry.


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Update your fall look with a trendy parka. Lightweight yet warm enough to handle the season's often unpredictable weather this jacket not only looks great, but can battle quickly dropping temperatures. While the word parka may stir memories of bulky, fur trimmed coats, this time around we're seeing parkas in much thinner – read sleeker and more flattering – fits. Despite the many options, our fave remains the classic khaki green colour.
This Jersey Lined Parka offers casual cool protection from the elements with a military feel and oversized hood all for under $100. For something completely different Edun's Patchwork Parka combines shades of army green for a unique look. Alexander Wang's Crepe Parka is a lighter option for those fortunate enough to live in a warmer climate. Those who need something warmer can opt for the Pilgrim Parka which has a double layer ready to withstand the cold.
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For more daily news, trend reports and 'get the looks' in Fashion, Beauty and Celebrity Style visit realstylenetwork.com
Read the latest issue www.realstylemag.com
Follow Real Style Network on Twitter at @realstylenet


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Kapiolani Community College receives Hawaii Tourism Authority funding to provide cultural training for Hawaii's hospitality industry
Award supports training programs in Chinese, Japanese and Korean language and culture, and Hawaiian culture and valuesKapiʻolani Community College
Kapiolani Community College
Kristen Bonilla, (808) 956-5039
External Affairs & University Relations
HONOLULU — Kapiʻolani Community College has received an award of $155,580 from the Hawaiʻi Tourism Authority (HTA) to develop a comprehensive training program focused on applied Chinese, Japanese and Korean language and culture for the visitor industry. The Chinese and Korean language and culture training initiative is in response to the industry's need to prepare for the arrival of Chinese and Korean visitors to the state.
Kapiʻolani CC's team of language experts will utilize its already successful Japanese language and culture training program as a template. Additionally, they will train selected trainers from Hawaiʻi, Kauaʻi and Maui Community Colleges on these programs. The program is now in development and will be rolled out to the industry this fall on Hawaiʻi, Kauaʻi, Maui and Oʻahu.
"With the projected influx of visitors from China and Korea, we want to make sure that our visitor industry workforce is equipped with the tools they needlanguage training, cultural understanding and perspective, protocol awareness, knowledge of customs, and moreto provide quality service to these emerging markets," said Rex Johnson, president and CEO of HTA.
"Workforce development is an important initiative for Hawaiʻi's visitor industry, and HTA, with support from the legislature, is committed to this area. We felt that a partnership with KCC would be beneficial due to the success of their efforts with Chinese and Japanese language and culture training programs."
The HTA award will also support Hoʻokipa Me Ke Aloha training for youths at the Kalihi Youth Service Center and certify additional trainers for the Hoʻokipa Me Ke Aloha program on various islands.
Palakiko Yagodich, coordinator and instructor for Kapiʻolani CC's Interpret Hawaiʻi program, will train youths at the Kalihi Youth Service Center on Hawaiian culture and values. The second phase of this program includes site visitations to various organizations within the visitor industry. Participants will observe how organizations incorporate Hawaiian culture and values in the workplace, in addition to learning about job opportunities and the application process.
"We hope to create another career pathway for these young adults as they learn how their culture and values are applied not just in the home, but in the workplace," said Yagodich.
Due to the popularity and demand for Hoʻokipa Me Ke Aloha training, Yagodich will continue certification training on the islands of Hawaiʻi, Kauaʻi, Maui and Oʻahu. This initiative began in 2007 and Yagodich and his team will continue to work with selected trainers and certify them to deliver Hoʻokipa Me Ke Aloha training on their respective islands.
Kapiʻolani CC Chancellor Leon Richards said, "We are very proud of this award and especially pleased to support the Hawaiʻi Tourism Authority's efforts. The college has a long and successful history of developing and offering applied second language and culture programs for special purposes and for various businesses and industries in Hawaiʻi. For example, we have trained many industry personnel on Japanese language and culture, as well as on the Hoʻokipa Me Ke Aloha program. This partnership with HTA reaffirms our commitment to providing quality training programs for Hawaiʻi's visitor industry".
For more information about the Hospitality, Tourism and Culinary Arts programs at Kapiʻolani Community College, visit www.kapiolani.hawaii.edu.
For more information, visit: http://www.kapiolani.hawaii.edu


text:
product description
Related Products:
Misc Makers
1. Waterstone Sets
Sharpening Stones
Sharpening and Maintenance Items
Maker: Misc Makers (click to see more by this maker)
Item num: 89802
Item weight: 279.00 oz.
Description: This sharpening set is comprised of best quality natural waterstones. Despite the excellent performance of man-made stones, many experienced sharpeners still rely on natural stones (toishi) for sharpening their finest blades. Natural Japanese stones may be used with water only and must be kept protected from frost. Please note that the stones may have slight natural imperfections and may vary somewhat in size.
The initial shaping is done with a large Large Amakusa Natural Brown Stone. Moving through the Large Amakusa Natural White Stone and Natural Aoto Mountain Blue Stone removes initial scratches. The final razor edge is achieved using the XL Honyama Finishing Stone. A Nagura Stone and a deluxe stone holder finish out the set.
Availability: Not currently available


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I find washing my make up brushes, extremely, extremely tiresome because I have to many to clean. Nevertheless the other day I positioned myself over the sink and gave my brushes a good old clean.
I have all kinds of brush cleanser but I actually find a good bar of soap (especially when working with this amount of brushes) is just as good as any baby shampoo as long as you rinse it properly.
It also means I can rub the brush against a hard surface and really get the dirt out.
Here they are:
I'd say I have over 100 brushes – a mixture of brands but my top 5 make up brushes come from:
1. Nars
Nars Smudge Brush is possibly my favourite eye brush in the whole world. I also love the Japanese Kabuki Artisan Brushes like the Ita and Yachiyo brush.
Love them for: Eye Brushes
Prices: Expensive
Packaging: Black Handle
Moult Factor: Not the eye brushes but the Kabuki brushes moult sometimes, and also a bit after washing. They need delicate care
2. Trish McEvoy
Trish McEvoy's brushes are underrated in my opinion – some of her brushes are so soft and totally gorgeous. They are expensive though but totally worth it.
I love the Precise Eye Lining Brush (especially for tight lining), the Sheer Blush Brush 2b, Blender Brush 55 and the rounded cheek brush (forget the number).
Love them for: Eye Brushes, Cheek Brushes
Prices: Expensive
Packaging: Clear Handle
Moult Factor:Never noticed any
3. Armani
Giorgio Armani Brushes are gorgeous too – there's a few of the brushes I really love.
Must haves are the Blender Brush (for foundation) and the Large eye contour brush.
Love them for: Face Brush and Eye Blending Brush
Prices: Expensive
Packaging: Matte Black Handle
Moult Factor:Just a little with the powder brushes
MAC is one of the more affordable brushes and there's no denying that they have some great staple eye brushes. I think my MAC brushes are starting to die a bit though, after having them for 2 years or so.
I like the tapered eye brushes and blending brush. Hate the foundation brush and the one for cream blushers though. Yak.
Love them for: Eye Brushes
Prices: About 4 lattes
Packaging: Black Handle
Moult Factor:I got some with the bigger powder brushes but its not bad at all
5. Shu Uemura
Shu Uemura makes so many lovely brushes – they always win awards for them!
I rate their face brushes and Kolinsky eye brushes the most – not that keen on the lip brushes though.
I have three Kolinsky eye brushes 10F (flat for lining at the root) brush 15 for eyeshadow (I think the most expensive brush I own at £120) and the 4r which is good for lining with shadow.
Love them for: Luxurious kolinsky brushes
Prices: Expensive
Packaging: Black Handle
Moult Factor:Not the eye brushes, the powder brushes moult a little.
Sorry, all of the brands named above are fairly pricey BUT it is so worth paying more and collecting brushes a bit at a time because some of my brushes are 7 years old and are still in great condition.
Other brushes I rate include Louise Young , Essence of Beauty, Purple Dot.
So thats me and my lovely brushes! What about you? I'd love to know what you favourite make up brushes are and what ranges you rate.


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Lawyer Sues Citibank For Not Stopping Him From Losing Money In Nigerian Scam
from the blame-goes-around dept
This is a variation on a popular version of the Nigerian email scam. The way it usually works is that the scammer buys something that's for sale... and then sends a check that's for significantly more than the purchase price using some sort of excuse. Once the check "clears," the seller is asked to wire back the excess money. This version is interesting in that it's slightly more sophisticated -- carefully going after law firms that do collections. Rather than being a totally "out of the blue" situation, they worked hard to make it seem like business as usual until the scam is done. Sneaky.
While it's easy to mock the lawyer for getting tricked, the basic version of the scam and this more sophisticated version both rely on a very unclear part concerning check processing. Most people assume that once a check "clears" it's confirmed as valid. That's not true. Banks clear the check before it's actually validated, and the scammers exploit both the time between these two events and the fact that most people assume (or are told) that once a check clears, the money is definitely theirs. There are a few ways to solve this that banks could take. They could not clear the check until it's absolutely declared valid. Or, they could make it much clearer that, while the money is available, the check has not been validated and the money could be pulled. Since most banks do neither, the guy's lawsuit against Citibank is at least somewhat understandable -- though, it's unlikely a court will agree with him.


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WOODSTOCK – A judge has signed off on an order granting some immunity to a woman who prosecutors plan to have testify against her husband at his murder trial next week.
Timothy S. Smith, 28, is charged with first-degree murder, as well as pimping, pandering and obstruction of justice.
Police said he and his wife, Kimberly A. Smith, 30, placed an ad online for sex with her, which was answered over Memorial Day weekend in 2011 by 48-year-old Kurt Milliman of Prairie Grove.
A dispute broke out, possibly over money, according to police, and Milliman ended up dead.
Milliman was shot once, with the bullet entering his right shoulder blade, traveling across the chest and lodging near his left collarbone.
Timothy Smith's attorney, however, has said her client shot Milliman in self-defense.
Kimberly Smith faces her own charges, including obstructing justice, making a false police report and prostitution.
As part of the "use immunity" granted by prosecutors, whatever she says on the stand can't be used against her.
With her attorney present, Kimberly Smith told McHenry County Judge Sharon Prather that she understood that she must testify and has been subpoenaed to do so.
"I don't believe she has any choice," Assistant State's Attorney Michael Combs said.
As a result of the immunity, prosecutors said, Kimberly Smith also cannot invoke her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.
In the meantime, there still is no deal with her regarding her own case, and she is scheduled to go to trial two weeks after her husband on March 11.
Prosecutors have said in court documents that
they are "not inclined to offer Kim Smith any promise or expectation of leniency."
Order allows prosecutors to try forcing wife to testify at murder trial
WOODSTOCK – A judge has signed off on an order granting some immunity to a woman who prosecutors plan to have testify against her husband at his murder trial next week.


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Vercammen & Associates
Kenneth Vercammen Received the Municipal Court Practitioner-of-the-Year Award at the Middlesex County Bar Association Annual Awards Dinner
On March 19, 2008, the Middlesex County Bar Association held its annual awards dinner. The guest speaker was the Hon. Travis L. Francis, AJSC.
The MCBA paid tribute to notable bar members for their significant contributions to their respective practice areas.
The following awards were given:
-Pro Bono Attorney-of-the Year Henry Gurshman
-Civil Trial Practitioner-of-the-Year John Gorman
-Criminal Trial Attorney-of-the-Year Jim Nolan & Nicole Albert
-Municipal Court Practitioner-of-the-Year Kenneth Vercammen
-Young Lawyer of the Year Kimberly Yonta Aronow
-Transactional Attorney of the Year Michael Schaff
The purpose of the Awards is to recognize attorneys practicing in Middlesex County and adjacent municipalities who devote a significant portion of their law practice to their respective practice areas and exhibit one or more of the following:
Middlesex County Assignment Judge Hon. Travis Francis presented awards. Featured in the Photo are the 2008 Award Winners: Michael Schaff (Transactional); Henry Gurshman (Pro Bono); Nicole Albert (Criminal Practice); Ken Vercammen (Municipal Court Practice); Assignment Judge Hon. Travis Francis; and John Gorman (Civil Practice). Not in the picture: Jim Nolan (Criminal Practice) and Kimberly Yonta Aronow (Young Lawyer)
Kenneth Vercammen is the 2008 Municipal Court Attorney of the Year by the Middlesex County Bar Association.
Kenneth Vercammen was included in the 2015 Super Lawyers list published by Thompson Reuters and New Jersey Monthly in the Criminal- DWI section. Ken Vercammen is a Certified Municipal Court Law Attorney by the NJ Supreme Court. Kenneth Vercammen was the NJ State Bar Municipal Court Attorney of the Year and past president of the Middlesex County Municipal Prosecutors Association.
Kenneth Vercammen was the NJ State Bar Municipal Court Attorney of the Year and past president of the Middlesex County Municipal Prosecutor's Association. He is the past chair of the NJ State Bar Association Municipal Court Section. He is the Deputy chair of the ABA Criminal Law committee, GP Division. He was a Municipal Prosecutor for 9 years and currently is a lecturer for the NJ State Bar Association on Criminal, Municipal Court and Litigation cases.
For additional information on the Middlesex County Bar Association, contact the Bar Office at (732) 828-3433, ext. 102.
Event Details: http://mcbalaw.com/cde.cfm?event=186648
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Disclaimer This web site is purely a public resource of general New Jersey information (intended, but not promised or guaranteed to be correct, complete, or up-to-date). It is not intended be a source of legal advice, do not rely on information at this site or others in place of the advice of competent counsel. The Law Office of Kenneth Vercammen complies with the New Jersey Rules of Professional Conduct. This web site is not sponsored or associated with any particular linked entity unless specifically stated. The existence of any particular link is simply intended to imply potential interest to the reader, inclusion of a link should not be construed as an endorsement.
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LEXINGTON, Ky. (WKYT) - They say his lie sparked a standoff. WKYT is learning more about a man police say shot another man, then claimed someone else did it.
Lexington police have charged 22-year-old Darryl Brown with assault after a shooting Friday afternoon on Cambridge Drive.
Neighbors told WKYT they saw shots fired behind Winding Brook Apartments, then thought they saw the shooter go into one of the apartments.
"There were cops everywhere. We couldn't get to the house. They had our driveway blocked off and patrol cars everywhere, kids getting off the school bus," noted neighbor Mary Parker.
Police blocked off an entire neighborhood, thinking their shooter was inside one of the apartment buildings.
"Two gentlemen went into a building right beside mine. Not even two minutes later I heard two shots. The gentlemen come out, ran behind me, behind the building, into the creek and came out a little farther on down the parking lot," said witness Anthony Vaughn.
Police are now telling us 22-year-old Darryl Brown shot a man in the chest, somehow shot himself in the hand, and then lied to police, told them someone shot him too, and that someone was inside one of the apartment buildings.
Brown is now charged with assault. Police say his lies are the reason they brought in the SWAT team, and stood outside for hours thinking they were in a standoff with a shooter.
Police do believe the victim's injuries are life-threatening. They say he is in critical condition at UK Hospital.


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The Arkansas River looked more like a mudslide on Thursday morning, a result from a heavy rainfall in areas that feed water to the main river. Some areas west of Canon City received 3 inches of rain, according to Accuweather.com.
It's not likely to last long, so it won't become hazardous to fish or any other wildlife, Colorado Parks and Wildlife Officer Bob Carochi said on Thursday.
"On the flows like this, if it was consistent over a long period of time, it could have a negative impact just with the silt and stuff," Carochi said. "When it just washes through, it really won't have that much of an impact on them."
Taylor Edrington, owner of Royal Gorge Anglers said that he expected the Arkansas River to be clear by Friday morning, and he agreed that the fish won't be affected. He also said it wouldn't change the quality of fishing.
"It doesn't affect fishing unless it's much worse than it is," he said, adding that the dirty water is from Badger Creek.
The river has been flowing around 700 cubic feet per second since July 1 when the Voluntary Flow Management Program kicked into gear where it's guaranteed that water levels won't drop below 700 at the Wellsville measurement site.
Edrington has said that the management program is a good thing for fishing the river. That level is guaranteed until Aug. 15.


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Like in many communities of Uganda wife battering, marital rape, denial of love, defilement, grabbing of widows properties, early and forced marriage, forced prostitution, defilement, sexual harassment, widow inheritance and other forms of violence against women (VAW) seem to be normal practices in the rural communities of Busia District.
Women and girls suffer quietly because according to the Basamia Bagwe culture the women and girls are supposed to be submissive to men regardless of how the men treat them. Cases of violence against women are not reported since in most of these communities men are said to be more important and powerful than women and that 'they have a right and responsibility to discipline and control women'.
The VAW and ICT project implemented by Hope Case Foundation in partnership with Women of Uganda Network (WOUGNET) and with Support from the Association for Progressive Communications (APC) has restored hope and empowered women and girls in the rural communities of Bulumbi and Masafu sub- counties to break the silence and speak out against violence. Equipped with ICT skills in using cell phones, social networking tools such as face book, blogging and twitter women and girls have been empowered to speak out and report cases in their communities. Beatrice one of the trained project beneficiaries from Kubo parish, remarks, "I do not need to walk or ride my bicycle all the way to Busia Town to report a case to the Probation Office or the Family and Child Protection Unit; all I have to do is pick a cell phone and make a call or send SMS to Hope Case Foundation and my problem will be handled or followed up with".
Un heard of before many of the trained girls and women are using social networking tools such as face book, blogging and twitter to get and share information on VAW and other issues by 'a mere click of a Mouse'. Women trained in VAW prevention have since become change agents in their communities besides reporting cases using mobile phones provided by the project.
Through the project Hope Case Foundation has trained 50 women and 20 girls on using ICTs to combat VAW, reached out to 461 people through awareness campaigns; 202 females, 199 males, and 120 girls, and also handled cases of VAW in collaboration with the Probation Office. Examples of cases handled by the project include;
1) Family neglect
2) Divorce
3) Defilement
4) Child abuse
5) Property grabbing
Five cases of family neglect were reported and referred to the Probation Officer, three cases of defilement, one case of child abuse and one divorce case where the husband was summoned to the probation office and the couple helped to equally share their property and have access to the children. One case of land grabbing was also reported and referred to the probation officer.
Collaboration and community sensitization meetings on VAW have had great impact in the project area of Bulumbi and Masafu sub-counties and women/girls appreciate the help and empowerment given to them. Though not directly targeted, men in these communities have requested that they should be included as direct beneficiaries because their wives violet them too.


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"Hellooo Auckland! Are you ready to ..."
I was tempted to yell it out, but I didn't.
Standing on the stage at Vector Arena is both liberating (hence the urge to do my best James Brown impression) and intimidating (which means an urge to cover your head and shield yourself from the bright lights bearing down). The audience seem both closer and larger than you might think - though mine was an audience of empty chairs.
I wasn't there to perform, just to check out what Vector looks like in its newly available "theatre mode". It's an intimate set-up, which can cater for 1500 to 3000 people (as opposed to the usual 12,000), that has been introduced by Vector Arena's director Stuart Clumpas and well-known local promoter Brent Eccles in an effort to allow for a greater variety of acts to perform at Vector and to change public perception of what it's like to attend a show there (you know, things like "the sound is a bit rubbish", "it's like being in an enormous barn", etc).
That quantity of punters has long been a tricky gamble for Auckland promoters, with the Powerstation capacity around 1000 people standing; the Town Hall taking 1500 seated, or 2000 with standing room; the Civic Theatre taking 2200; and the ASB Theatre, 2000.
Do you try to sell multiple nights? Or do you take the show out of the city to somewhere like Trusts Stadium or the Logan Campbell Centre?
And, with the Civic and the ASB Theatre frequently booked for runs of musicals like Mary Poppins, the city needs an alternative venue that can accommodate a reasonable-sized seated crowd, with good acoustics.
Fortunately, Vector was designed with flexibility in mind and they can now configure it to recreate the size and atmosphere of a seated theatre.
Not a 100-year-old theatre, mind you - they're never going to be able to recreate the Civic's starry sky and Taj Mahal-like surrounds. But they have come up with a set-up (as Clumpas explains), where every seat in the house will have a good sight line, good sound, and the performers won't feel like they're playing in a cavernous sports arena.
The seats at ground level go back an aesthetically pleasing 16 rows, the stage can have a false proscenium arch, the black stage curtains look quite solid and are livened up by two tastefully New Zealand-themed "pillars". The seats are plush and comfy, there is red carpet as you enter - and they'll even disguise and close the McDonalds-style bar windows that serve hot chips and beer, in favour of a more genteel foyer area, complete with high chairs and tables.
It may still sound like a bit of a secondary option at the moment, but Clumpas and his team seem determined to make it a competitive alternative that can provide the atmosphere of a regular theatre - maybe they could just pipe in a bit of the old St James' mustiness in here, for an extra authentic touch.


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The debate is scheduled to stream live online at texasdebates.org
Leading Democratic candidates in the primary race for Texas governor convene for their first live debate on Monday, February 8, at 7 p.m. The Texas Debates: Race for Governor includes former Houston Mayor Bill White and Texas businessman Farouk Shami.
The Texas Debates will originate from the CBS-11/TXA-21 studios in Fort Worth. The debate will be moderated by CBS 11 News Anchor Karen Borta who will also take questions via social media. KUVN Univision 23 Reporter María Renée Barillas will host questions from voters in the live audience. Questions will also be posed by panelists Shelley Kofler, KERA-FM and KERA-TV and Dave Montgomery of the Star-Telegram.


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University of Vermont
2012-2013 Catalogue
Latin American and Caribbean Studies (Bachelor of Arts)
General Requirements
Specific Requirements
Twelve credits selected from the following five courses: ANTH 161; HST 062, HST 063; GEOG 156; POLS 174.
Two additional semester courses selected from GRS 195, GRS 196, GRS 197, GRS 198; or from courses recommended by the Program of Latin American and Caribbean Studies.
Plus six credits of advanced Spanish (SPAN 142, SPAN 279, SPAN 281, SPAN 286, SPAN 287, SPAN 293, SPAN 294).
An additional twelve credits from related courses chosen in consultation with an advisor.
- Colleges and Schools: College of Arts and Sciences.
- Departments and Programs: Global and Regional Studies Program.


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The man they once called Pretty Boy sinks his bruised hands into an iron bucket filled with ice. In a stifling gym behind a grimy side-street in downtown Las Vegas, Floyd Mayweather Jr bows his head as the cold eases the hurt in his knuckles and joints. As the world's best boxer, Mayweather's fists have dazzled every one of his opponents while compiling a perfect 41-0 record that stretches across 15 years.
After an intense afternoon of sparring, the only sound that can be heard is the soft crunch of ice as Mayweather looks up with a curious smile. In the mood to be as charming as he is compelling, the fighter shows me his glistening hands. They look surprisingly small.
"Yeah," Mayweather says. "These are very small hands."
They still earn him millions every time he fights. This Saturday, at the MGM Grand in Vegas, surrounded by glitzy high-rollers, Mayweather will serve up a timely reminder of why his nickname these days is "Money". Pay-per-view figures for his WBC world title welterweight bout against Victor Ortiz, who is 10 years younger at the age of 24, will ensure Mayweather racks up another multimillion-dollar purse.
He will seem a long way then from the sickly hookers and junkies who limp down the street a block beyond the boxing gym he owns. Mayweather finds refuge here from his trouble in real life. His most obvious problems are listed in the unresolved charges of assault, battery and coercion laid by various people, from the estranged mother of his children, to different security guards who claim to have been punched by Mayweather. He is also embroiled in an epic war with his father, Floyd Sr, which erupted again last month on HBO as the two men fought bitterly and crudely in this very gym.
The scars of their relationship run deep – and can be traced back to the moment when Floyd Sr, then a professional boxer, held up baby Floyd as his shield when he was shot in the late 1970s. Years later Big Floyd ended up in jail, after being busted for cocaine-dealing, and he had to allow his brother, Roger, to become Pretty Boy's trainer. The wounds have never healed.
Mayweather Jr now has different matters in mind. "I'm going back to business with these hands," he says, returning them to the ice-bucket. "They let me live my life."
A few hours earlier, "Money" Mayweather says, he had won a big bet. "A hundred thousand dollars," he murmurs with husky drama. "But I once won a million dollars on a bet. Yeah, I've lost a few big ones. Once I lost two hundred thousand dollars. It's my money. I can do what I want with it. But you can tell by my boxing record what I'm more used to doing."
We are jammed together on chairs so close, nose to nose, that it is hard to stop sweating – even if Mayweather has more of an excuse after a riveting display of his training regime over the preceding 90 minutes. His iron discipline contrasts with the chaos that threatens to engulf him outside boxing.
Mayweather has been accused of many crimes and lapses in decency but few fighters can match his dedication. Even when out of the ring, as he has been the past 16 months, he is never much over his fighting weight. And he is rarely far from the gym – no matter how many court orders are heaped upon him. Such impressive commitment has flowered out of a desolate place inside him.
"Exactly," he says quietly. "You know, as a young child, I lay in my bedroom and I swore to myself then: 'I'm not going to smoke and I'm not going to drink.' And I said I'm not going to just say that when I'm a kid. I'm going to stick to that as an adult. I kept that in mind my whole life."
His mother was ravaged by drug addiction; and her plight hardened his resolve. "My mother, you know, had a difficult time. She drank. She smoked. She was on drugs. Of course my dad was a drug dealer. A hustler. You know my background. But it's not so abnormal. Most young black people go through that same life."
Mayweather's eyes glaze briefly. "I would lie in bed, and I was nine years old, and say to myself: 'I want to be the richest man in the world.' I've come a long way from there. Yeah, I'm loud. But I'm backing it up. I'm still hungry, dedicated. I'm one of those very strong individuals."
Mayweather denies the allegations against him, insisting that the legal cases are motivated by vengeance or greed. "My mentality is the same – always. It comes with the territory. All kinds of things have been said and I just believe what will be, will be. If I'm guilty, come get me. If I'm innocent, it all melts away. I know the truth and I'm not worried. You have ups and down but I got the right lady in my life now [his fiancee Shantel Jackson]. When we're alone she talks to me about certain things and only wants the best for me. Some people are just right for you."
Waiting for Ortiz, his dangerous opponent, does not seem to unsettle Mayweather. "Boxing is real easy," he says. "Life is much harder. That's why there's a difference between being talented and being God-gifted. That's one of the gifts God gave me: to be the best. I feel a responsibility to live up to this gift. I ain't got nothing against other legendary champions before me. But I'm the king of my era."
There is another king of the ring right now. Manny Pacquiao is a real-life governor in the Philippines as well as the only fighter who cuts as riveting a figure as Mayweather. Pacquiao appears his opposite in many ways – he is humble and beloved, softly spoken and self-sacrificing. He is also a real fighter, a threshing-machine in the ring, while Mayweather is an artist, a defensive master whose boxing skills bear comparison with some of the greatest names in this battered old business. Mayweather, however, needs to fight Pacquiao in a showdown that would test him like no other.
It would be the richest fight in boxing history but negotiations have broken down repeatedly – partly because of Mayweather's insistence that Pacquiao should be subjected to random drugs testing. Both men have risen through the weight divisions but Mayweather argues that Pacquiao's extraordinary climb needs closer scrutiny. Last month they reached another impasse, with Pacquiao's lawyers asking a Nevada court to "issue a default judgment" after efforts to subject Mayweather to charges of defamation failed.
Mayweather, meanwhile, has avoided a supposed 20 dates to appear in court against Pacquiao. Money smiles his sweetest smile. "I don't worry about that kind of stuff. That's why I pay my lawyers so much."
His trainer, uncle Roger, escalated tensions by claiming that Britain's Amir Khan, who trains alongside Pacquiao while emerging as a seriously credible opponent for Mayweather, must be on "the same juice". Khan has vehemently denied the allegations and considers them to be nonsense. Does Mayweather Jr share his uncle's highly dubious view of Khan? "It's not my place to speak because you know how fighters are these days. They get the lawyers into court real quick. They go crying to the courtroom. But you know what? My courtroom is that ring."
Will he ever settle his differences with Pacquiao in a fistic courtroom? "I couldn't care less," Mayweather sighs. "I already know I'm the best."
I think Mayweather would beat Pacquiao, in a fascinating contest, but some venerable experts disagree. "They're wrong," Mayweather says, pointing to Pacquiao's record. "With three losses and two draws he'll never be in my league. He's just a fighter who has been unbeaten for six years. I've been unbeaten 15 years."
It still seems difficult to believe Mayweather and Pacquiao, who both spend or give away money as fast as they make it, will not eventually fight. Ortiz, an aggressive southpaw who pressurises his opponents, is also cast in the Pacquiao mould and could offer Mayweather the perfect preparation for his defining contest.
"They say I have problems with southpaws," Mayweather grins. "Well, the last time I checked I was 41 and 0. So it's obvious I'm doing something right. I make good fighters and even great future Hall of Fame guys look ordinary. But if I beat a guy that is 10 years younger than me, they'll say, 'Floyd, you had too much experience.' If I beat a guy around my age they'll say he's over the hill. I never get my just due."
He would get deserved credit if he fought Pacquiao or, failing that, Khan. The British fighter has the look of a man on the verge of a considerable challenge. "Every time I fight someone they say they're going to challenge me. But if Amir Khan wants to fight me he has to get past Jesse Vargas [the light-welterweight with a 16-0 record]. If he fights Vargas would I give him a shot? Absolutely."
Mayweather against Khan should happen – partly because the American is so smitten with Britain and thrilled that Saturday's fight will be screened in this country on Primetime. He is almost endearing when describing his British fans as the world's boxing connoisseurs. "I am blessed to be embraced by them."
His love of Britain extends to the three Rolls-Royce cars he owns. He has driven his cream Rolls to the gym today and, as the sun sinks across Vegas, Mayweather walks to the car in the company of three bodyguards so huge we are dwarfed by their shadows. After showing me around his car, he reflects again: "I still think of that nine-year-old kid," Mayweather says, remembering his boyhood. "Lying on my bed. My mom strung out in trouble. A whole lot of trouble going on with my dad. But I pulled myself out of that place. I found dedication and discipline as a fighter. I'm proud of that."
What would he say if his son announced that he also wished to become a fighter, and follow in the cracked family path of Little Floyd and Big Floyd? Mayweather shakes his head. "It won't ever happen. My kids come from a totally different background. They know nothing about poverty. They know nothing about hardship. And that makes me happy. I'm glad they haven't seen the things I did. I'm glad they don't live the same life I did."
Mayweather offers his hand, stressing with a light laugh that I can squeeze as hard as I like. "My hands are fine," he says, the ice having eased the hurt in fists he will shut tight again on Saturday night.
A few minutes later, the man called Money opens the blackened window to his cream Rolls. He flashes a winning smile and lifts his hand in farewell. The Rolls slowly picks up speed, heading towards Mayweather's mansion and away from the strip joints and lonely junkies staring at him on the corner adjoining his gym.
"There's Money," one of them suddenly shouts. "There's Pretty Boy, living the life … "
• Mayweather v Ortiz is live on Primetime on Sunday 18 September from 2am UK time