The Latest Summary of the Cory Maye case

Radley Balko has put together a post with the most up-to-date summary of known facts and controversies regarding the Cory Maye case.

Sophomore class president arrested for bank robbery

Greg Hogan, 19, the sophomore class president at Lehigh University (where Michael Behe is a professor), was arrested for robbing a Wachovia Bank branch of $2,871 on December 9. The getaway driver was the student Senate president, Kip Wallen, who was apparently in the dark about Hogan's plans.

Hogan is the son of a Baptist minister, Rev. Gregory J. Hogan of First Baptist Church of Barberton, Ohio. Is this an example of "preacher's kid" syndrome?

Indigo Children: How to Raise a Spoiled Brat Fake Psychic

What are "indigo children"?

Indigo Children are the current generation being born today and most of those who are 8 years old or younger. They are different. They have very unique characteristics that set them apart from previous generations of children. The name itself indicates the Life Color they carry in their auras and is indicative of the Third Eye Chakra, which represents intuition and psychic ability. These are the children who are often rebellious to authority, nonconformist, extremely emotionally and sometimes physically sensitive or fragile, highly talented or academically gifted and often metaphysically gifted as well, usually intuitive, very often labeled ADD, either very empathic and compassionate OR very cold and callous, and are wise beyond their years. Does this sound like yourself or your child?

Here's a story originally from the Orange County Register about some "indigo children." How hard would it be for an undisciplined, rebellious child to set up the "orange incident" to impress some gullible parents? (Thanks to several people on the SKEPTIC mailing list for the references.)

Yet more on Cory Maye

Radley Balko continues to update on the Cory Maye case as he obtains copies of original documents. Now it appears there was a warrant for Maye's residence, but he was not named. There's also more from the prosecutor, and evidence that the gun he used was stolen.

Another Botnet Talk

I'm giving another talk tomorrow on botnets, this time for the Phoenix chapter of Infragard, the FBI-sponsored 501(c)(3) that is devoted to public sector/private sector partnerships to protect national infrastructures. While Infragard has primarily focused on information technology, they are broadening their focus to include things like agriculture and food distribution, energy production and transmission, chemical plants, etc. This is an update for those who attended my April 2004 Infragard talk, and includes new material that hasn't been in any of my past botnet talks (for ASU, HTCIA, ATIC, FRnOG, and the Phoenix and Rochester, NY chapters of Infragard).

Internet History

I've been reading back issues of 2600: The Hacker Quarterly, and just read the April 1985 issue. They are fascinating historical documents. The last two pages of that issue contain the ARPANet hosts file as of September 27, 1984, listing the hosts by geographic location. This was shortly after the ARPANet/MILNET split and about the time of the introduction of the domain name system. The ARPANet hosts used the 10 network (which is now private IP space--it's not publicly routed and can be used by any individual or organization for internal numbering) and MILNET used the 26 network (26.0.0.0/8 is still assigned to DISA, the Defense Information Systems Agency).

Arizona at that time had two hosts: YUMA-SW (26.3.0.75) and YUMA-TAC (26.2.0.75), both on MILNET. The TACs (Terminal Access Controllers) were systems that allowed telephone dialup access to the network; they essentially played the role of a terminal server. The MILNET TACs developed a system for user authentication called the TAC Access Control System, or TACACS, which allowed a user to authenticate to a given TAC without the actual credentials being stored on the TAC. This protocol was enhanced by Cisco into XTACACS and then TACACS+, which is still used today, mainly on Cisco routers and switches. (The original deployment of TACACS meant that ARPANet users could not login using MILNET TACs--this is something that led to author and computer enthusiast Jerry Pournelle being kicked off the ARPANet in 1985 when his account on MIT-MC was shut down.)

There were a number of Multics systems on the net, including MIT-MULTICS in Cambridge, Massachusetts (10.0.0.6, through which I got access to ARPANet mailing lists back then), HI-MULTICS (10.1.0.94, the only host in Minnesota, belonging to Honeywell), USGS2-MULTICS in Colorado (26.0.0.69, belonging to the U.S. Geological Survey), and RADC-MULTICS (26.0.0.18, at the Rome Air Development Center in Rome, NY). The only hosts outside of the United States were MINET-RDM-TAC (24.1.0.6, in the Netherlands), MINET-HLH-TAC (24.1.0.13, in Scotland), FRANKFURT-MIL-TAC (26.0.0.116, in Germany--along with about 10 other hosts in Germany), three hosts in Italy, two in England, and three in Korea--all on military bases.

Magical Thinking in the Nation's Capital: Justice House of Prayer

One Good Move has a Nightline presentation from a series called "Faith Matters" about Lou Engle's "Justice House of Prayer." Engel, who is supported by a wealthy woman whose identity he keeps secret, rents a $7000/mo office space which is "shaped like an arrow pointing at the Supreme Court building" where 70 interns pray 24 hours a day in shifts. They appear to be Christians of a charismatic variety, though I didn't actually notice any speaking in tongues. They jump, they babble on, they face out the window attempting to move God to move the justices of the Supreme Court to ban abortion. They refer to Engle as "Papa Lou."

These are the same people who have been praying outside of the Supreme Court building with red tape with the word "LIFE" written on it, taped over their mouths.

The interns each spend three months in the program, and pay $1500 for the privilege, which includes housing costs. The internship application requires two biographical essays, recommendations from a parent and a pastor, two copies of a recent photograph, and a $20 nonrefundable application fee. If you aren't involved in a local church or ministry, you must offer an explanation. A list of your "spiritual gifts mix" is requested. You also must describe your sources of income and whether you have any savings accounts and debt. As part of your personal history in the past year, the application asks if you've struggled with eating disorders, pornography, or homosexuality, whether you've been sexually active, and whether you've been pregnant or fathered a child.

More at Pharyngula, and you can find the website of these lunatics here.

More on the Cory Maye case

Radley Balko has blogged a response from the prosecutor, who says there was a separate warrant for Maye and that this was not a no-knock warrant. He's also put Maye's account here.

Update 12/11/2005: Balko has put further commentary from the prosecutor in response to his questions here, and corrects some misconceptions here.

Speculators on an E-Ticket Ride of Blind Faith

Ben Jones' Housing Bubble blog has an amazing piece about a couple of speculators making a living off their home appreciation, but with no other sources of income. They've made $1.3 million buying and selling properties, but all of their net worth is in home equity, and they have a negative monthly cash flow of $5,000 to $15,000. They hold $2.3 million in mortgage debt.

What's amazing is that the mortgage lenders are letting them continue to buy properties with no income other than what they pull out of their properties in loans. As the market turns from a seller's to a buyer's market, they're likely to get crushed pretty quickly. Though at first I thought the new bankruptcy laws could potentially leave them in debt for the rest of their lives, their lack of actual income may save them, and leave their creditors with the short end of the stick.

Favorite quote: "Some people call it a pyramid, but I don't like to think about it that way."

Buying Pet Medicine Online

We were looking for places to buy arthritis medication online for our eight-year-old Queensland Heeler/Border Collie mix, and I was surprised to find how sleazy many of them are--hiding the true identity of the companies or individuals behind them with private domain registrations, postal mailboxes, etc. For example, discountpetmedicines.com had a great price, but turned out to actually be a directory service operated by a company called OnTrack Professionals, Inc. (an Oklahoma corporation whose registered agent is John M. Gerkin, an attorney who was just named as a Special Judge for Washington and Nowata counties in September). The directory service points to a Yahoo store called entirelypets.com. Entirelypets.com has a Network Solutions private registration:

Domain Name: ENTIRELYPETS.COM

Administrative Contact:
EntirelyPets.com, EntirelyPets.com rm3xt7yr2ra@networksolutionsprivateregistration.com
ATTN: ENTIRELYPETS.COM
c/o Network Solutions
P.O. Box 447
Herndon, VA 20172-0447
570-708-8780

Its website gives a mailing address in Norfolk, Nebraska that's a private mailbox service:

710 South 13th Street Suite 900
PMB# 384
Norfolk, NE 68701

I went into the site's online chat:

Please wait for a site operator to respond.
Chat Information
You are now chatting with 'Herman'
Herman: Welcome to EntirelyPets.com! How can I assist you?

Jim: Hello, Herman. I'm trying to find out if there is a legitimate corporation behind entirelypets.com before I do business with you.

Jim: How can I verify that?

Herman: That's an excellent question sir. We have been in business for over 6 years now. The name of our corporation is HealthyPets, Inc. We are certainly legitimate. If you would like to speak with one of our reps you can call us at 1-800-889-8967.

Jim: Is that a Nebraska corporation?

Herman: That is both a Nebraska and California Corporation. All of our shipments are made from CA, but our main branch is here in Nebraska.

Jim: OK, thank you very much!

I looked up information on HealthyPets, Inc., and found that there is no Nebraska corporate registration for a company with that name, but there is one in California:

HEALTHYPETS, INC.
Number: C2133197 Date Filed: 2/5/1999 Status: active
Jurisdiction: California
Address
43450 MINTWOOD ST
FREMONT, CA 94538
Agent for Service of Process
M GHUMMAN
43450 MINTWOOD ST
FREMONT, CA 94538

M. Ghumman turns out to be Mandeep Ghumman, DVM, and it turns out that HealthyPets, Inc. has a long history of registering domains in the names of other online pet stores and vets, and then losing them to those other pet stores and vets in WIPO arbitration hearings:

petsuppliesforless.com and lambiarvet.com (awarded to the owners of petsupplies4less.com and lambriarvet.com in 2003).

kvvetsupply.com (awarded to KV Vet Supply in 2001)

drfostersmith.com (awarded to Dr. Foster & Smith in 2000)

The site at the HealthyPets.com domain--which includes references to HealthyPets, Inc.--does not sell any prescription medications, so far as I can see, though clearly at least the entirelypets.com site, which contains no references to a real company, does.

I also found a record of complaints about HealthyPets, Inc. at ripoffreport.com, which points out that they use other domains like naturalpets.com, petmedications.com, and toppetmed.com, as well as reports on a number of consumer complaints about the company.

I decided to go instead with 1800petmeds.com, which is a publicly traded company whose CEO is named and pictured on the site, figuring that I'd rather pay more than do business with a sleazy company. As it turns out, 1800petmeds.com has a price-matching policy, and actually offered us a better price than entirelypets.com was offering.