Mark Russinovich over at SysInternals ran into a nasty surprise recently: a rootkit was found on his system. More disturbing, however, was its source: one of Sony's content-restricted audio CDs. Their latest DRM appears to install drivers on the system that not only interfere with system functions, but hide themselves to prevent detection and removal. The license agreement on the CD doesn't even mention this software. An entire analysis of the software, down to the very gritty technical details, can be found at the above link.

According to InformationWeek, Microsoft has managed to get two Massachusetts Democrats (William Galvin, the current Massachusetts Secretary of the Commonwealth, and state senator Marc Pacheco) to oppose the OpenDocument standard politically. The standard, now ratified, is scheduled to go into effect starting January 2007, but there is now a hearing scheduled for October 31, and Andy Updegrove, legal counsel to OASIS, apparently received a call from a reporter who claimed that Galvin "would not approve" the standard, despite the fact that he doesn't appear to have that authority.

Pacific Views is reporting that Michael Brown, despite having theoretically resigned shortly after the Katrina disaster, is still being paid (presumably at the same rate of $148,000 per month) to be a "consultant" for FEMA. Even assuming he goes unemployed for a year after this, this still constitutes a pay raise. Although the exact numbers for this month are unavailable, if he is making as much as for last month, he will have made almost as much in the last two months as he did during his entire tenure at FEMA.

Correction: the figure is apparently $148,000 per year, and he's being kept on month after month at that rate. This still isn't a bad deal for him at all.

A scan of the arrest warrant for Tom DeLay has been made available for download. Link credit to the Swing State Project.

Related entries:

• 2005.09.28: Tom DeLay and Ronnie Earle
• 2005.10.08: The second DeLay indictment

TomDispatch has put together a list of 42 government officials who were fired, made to resign, or otherwise had careers ended for presenting data factually as opposed to twisting it to serve the administration's goals, criticizing decisions, or otherwise upholding their honor. It is by its nature no more than a small cross-section, showing the most visible members of a rapidly dwindling group of honest government officials.

On Monday, Tom DeLay was issued a second indictment (PDF copy courtesy of the Jurist), this time for money laundering and conspiracy to commit money laundering (the first was for conspiracy to circumvent Texas campaign finance laws). The maximum penalty this time is life imprisonment. This closely followed DeLay's motion to dismiss the first indictment (PDF copy again courtesy of the Jurist), on the grounds that the element of conspiracy may only be illegal under a 2003 amendment to the campaign finance laws, and the transaction occurred in 2002. Some legal academics disagree, however, noting that the 2003 amendment was really nothing more than an explicit notation that existing law allowed prosecution of all felonies, including ones involving campaign finance.

It is now being widely reported that the corruption investigations begun two years ago have finally resulted in an indictment on conspiracy charges (also available as a PDF) against Tom DeLay himself. If convicted, the penalty will be six months to two years in prison, and up to a $100,000 fine. The current Republican struggle seems to be to make sure that he is treated better than everyone else going through the legal system when he is fingerprinted and photographed.

The response by FEMA to the damage in Houston has been, while perhaps not as downright hostile to the victims as in New Orleans, still quite inept. The Houston police, not being in as bad shape as the New Orleans police, however, have decided that they aren't going to let FEMA stand in the way of rescues in their own city.

I suspect he used a rather stronger word than "nonsense".

I had speculated before that the actions of the Gretna police might be representative of their entire town, which had a reputation for racism. I find that speculation unfortunately confirmed.

The coverup is in progress.

AmericaBlog is reporting that every Republican senator voted against forming an independent, bipartisan investigation of what went wrong (except Vitter of Louisiana, who simply didn't vote, probably because voting in either direction would have generated significant backlash from either his constituents or his party).

Every Democrat (except Corzine of New Jersey, who also didn't vote at all) voted for it.

Those voting against can't claim to be representing their constituents — 76% of the public was in favor of such an investigation.

Hat tip to the Swing State Project, which has posted contact information for each of these senators, for people that want to ask them why they made the choice that they did.