My work out today was done in the back yard rather than going to the gym in the morning. I’ve decided to start using the gym again on Monday morning.

So today I stepped into the back yard and done a bit of exercising the good’ol fashioned way.

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These people are my fricking heroes.

I’ve been doing tracerts to some domains out of curiosity as a result of this article on Wired. It’s a quick How-To to check if your traffic is being routed through AT&T and thus the NSA.

So I done a tracert on thepiratebay.org. How could I pass that up? When I saw the results I laughed out loud! click here to see it.

Sorry, ImageShack wouldn’t thumbnail the image.

Perhaps this is old news for most of you, but it was obviously new to me.

~Steph

First, a little mention about something that I have been expecting for a few days. My brother will no longer be going to the gym that I’m going to since the gym is at the YMCA. His religious views disagree with those of the organization that runs the YMCA and therefore he would rather pay to go to different gym, despite having a card that allows us to get into the YMCA for free.

Confused? My feelings about the situation are pretty negative, but that’s his choice.

Anyhow, as I’ve been going with him I’ll need to find another way to the gym in the morning. Now would be a good time to own a bike.

This morning at the gym I spent 20 minutes on the treadmill, and that was my morning. Ye’ol sweaty cardio goodness.

~Steph

This morning’s visit to the gym didn’t go so well, and was cut short due to feeling sick.

The only difference in this morning’s routine was that an extra weight was on the “squat” machine. This extra weight is typically hung on the machine off to the side and adds probably no more than ten extra pounds. Perhaps not even that much.

I went from the treadmill, to the latteral, to the squats. While doing the squats I noticed that it required more effort than usual. I passed it off to just being a Monday. “A tired morning”, as I thought to myself.

From there I moved to the “butterfly” machine that works the inner thighs. Perhaps it was a mistake to do so. Perhaps it was moving from one leg work out directly into another that caused my body to react the way that it did this morning. It’s a theory, I suppose.

From there, I went to the machine that I think of as the “push up” machine. You sit and push the bars away from you.

Then I moved to the last machine that I used this morning, and that’s the one that works the abs. Aka “the sit up machine”. My arms began to feel shaky while working this machine but I passed it off as nothing and finished the 20 reps. It was obvious by the time that I finished that I wasn’t going to be able to do more this morning. I sat in the machine with my arms feeling shaky and my stomech feeling queasy and I waited for it pass enough so that I could leave the gym.

I then walked out and sat on the curb for several minutes to slowly take in the cool air. My original intention was to go back into the gym once I cleared up, but that was ruled out after sitting there for a while. Instead, I moved to the truck.

Almost exactly half of this morning’s work out was removed. Even now my arms are feeling shaky and kind of weak.

Nothing at all different was done this morning in regards to the weights that I lifted. The only differences was the extra weight on the squats, the fact that I moved from one leg work out to another (I usually stagger body areas), and I had a very healthy fruit smoothy before leaving this morning.

The fruit smoothy is not one of those sweetened commercial dessert things. It’s made purely with blended fruit and water. It seemed like a good idea.

Sheesh, I’m still feeling kind of dizzy.

I don’t know what it was that caused this but I sure as hell wish that I did know. It’s a wholly unpleasant morning.

~Steph

You know what? I’m a hopeless romantic. I’m also an idealist. So it’s probably no surprise then that I love a good story. Something that really pulls you in and makes you love the characters. Experiencing that rare moment where you don’t want to continue the story because you’re afraid of how it’s going to emotionally affect you, but you do it anyway because the story has pulled you so far in – that’s a rare, magical thing.

A few weeks ago I was browsing some games and picked one up on a whim. In the reviews for the game everyone was saying how the game made them “cry their eyes out” and that it would definitely do that to anyone who played it.

It was obvious that the game contained sex and I had my doubts about the quality of the story, but I figured, “Why not?”.

It had been a long time since I had read a story or experienced a game that caused me to cry. Games don’t generally affect the player that way, and well, perhaps most of them are not ever intended to do so.

I did make one mistake with this game, though. It was a pretty big mistake. You see, I finished it at around bed time.

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A great deal has been going on in the U.S. government, and by the U.S. government, that is cause for significant concern. From the massive civilian spying to the torture camps ran in other countries, we U.S. citizens are experiencing a de-evolution on a national scale.

One of the most unfortunate – indeed, saddest – microcosmic phenomenons occuring within this de-evolution is that a great deal of U.S. citizens are blind to these things. Or if they are not blind to them, then they seem to think that it is some how OK for these things to be occuring. With freedoms and rights playing such a huge role in our daily lives, one would think (and hope) that such a thing “would never happen”. Yet it is.

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It was a pretty typical day at the gym this morning, though the routine itself was broken up a bit by a couple of “new guys”. Look who’s talking. Like I’m a “regular” or something already. Hah!

Anyway, I have increased the weight that I use with my legs when doing the “squats”. Each leg is worked individually, and I now start at 80 pounds (about 36 Kilos) and do ten reps with that, then increase to 100 pounds (about 45 Kilos*) and I do my best to do five reps at that weight. I typically succeed in the five; weak, eh? O Noes, five! :-O lol

I’ve always also (typo fix -ED) slightly increased the weight that I use when working my abs, but this is more the result of trial and error rather than an improvement in muscle. In other words, I feel as though I previously started too low so now I begin at 60 pounds (about 27 kilos), I think it is.

By the by, I’ve switched themes. As a result most of my posts take up the entire front page, so I’ll begin using the “More” link. After this short paragraph there should be a link to read the rest of this post, please click there if you’re interested.

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This is regarding my interest in encryption that I posted about here. Here is an example of why it’s important.

Here is a little example of encryption versus unencryption. This post contains a couple of screen shots. Each image is of a packet that was sent to a person that I know on ICQ. A “packet” is like a post card that is being delivered over the Internet. This is what the computers see when you’re talking to someone.

If someone looks at a post card that you are sending in the mail then they can easily read it. A packet sent over the Internet is exactly the same! Anyone who is looking at it can easily read it. This is why encryption is so important.

One of these packets can be understood by a human who is reading the information. The other would appear to be “random” data of some sort.

The following image is the readable text. You’re looking for a message that starts with, “You are now my test subject”. Obviously, there are other characters sent along with the message; those characters are similar to HTML code that creates a web site. They tell the chat program how the fonts of my message should appear. What color it should be, what size the text should be, and that kind of stuff.

Now what we are going to look at is the packet.. or the “post card”.. that was encrypted before being sent to the person that I was talking to. This message, too, should have started with “You are now my test subject”… but as you can see, there is no readable text here:

Also of interest to note, the encrypted messages that are sent over Trillian appear to be chopped up into a few pieces, and each piece is sent separately. The conversation happens so fast that the human on the other end never notices this. However, anyone who is trying to read our “Internet post cards” will find that the messages are not only “gobblygook”, but they won’t even receive the entire encrypted message. Brilliant!

Yes, the readable message looks a little strange. Not all text that is sent over the Internet will have this extra “stuff”. Some will have less extra bits sent along with your information, some will have none, and some will have all together different types of information added in.

The point is that it’s readable, just like a post card. Your email, your web sites, your instant messages; it’s all sent over the Internet unencrypted like this.

If you think that no one reads packets that are sent over the Internet, you’re wrong. People sniff this type of data all the time. For example, my neighbor has an unsecured wireless network and I could use his Internet connection if I wanted to. I could also log on to their wireless connection and watch their instant messages, see which web sites they’re visiting, and even read their email as it’s sent and received!

Your only hope of privacy is that there are so many people using the Internet at once that the odds of YOUR messages being read are very small.

Then again, there sure are a lot of people who send snail mail. The odds of someone reading your written or typed message is very small because there are so many messages that are sent (and you no doubt use envelopes). Despite those odds being in your favor, would you ever mail a personal message to someone without sending it in an envelope? No? Why not? Because someone may read it?

Using encryption is like using an envelope instead of sending all of your personal mail on an open post card. Even if the odds are against anyone reading YOUR mail, it’s still important to tuck it into those nifty protective packages.

~Stephen

Obviously I’m open about a lot of things. Otherwise I wouldn’t have a blog (or two). These are things that I choose to share, however, so I feel comfortable with other people reading it.

The U.S. government, on the other hand, is engaged in what are flat out attacks on personal privacy. Recently, in what is truly a chilling sign of events, the U.S. government has come out and stated that they are above the law. That they can spy on citizens if they wish to do so and there is nothing that the courts can do about it even if the spy program is legally proven to be criminal.

This is just another action in a string of actions that has had me deeply concerned over personal rights and civil liberties. Another example of what has me so concerned is the fact that AT&T is routing ALL Internet traffic (from all over the world) into NSA spy machines.

Frankly, the U.S. government of today scares me. It seems like my concern over the U.S. government grows more every few days as more information about their behavior gets leaked – as it well should get leaked!

Their behavior, along with this statement that there is nothign that the courts can do about their illegal spying, has prompted me to move more toward the use of encryption. Yes, the encryption could be cracked. I have no illusions that it’s impervious. This is not the point. The point is that people should darn well have a right to privacy, and if they’re going to snoop on our conversations (which they are obviously already doing) then I sure as heck will not make it easy for them.

Perhaps I am going a little too far. Or perhaps I should have done this sooner. Which ever the case may be, I am moving toward the use of encryption in even the most inconsequential of conversations.

This is not yet a requirement to swap messages with me, but if it proves easy for everyone that I know to implement then it will become a requirement. If it proves to be too much of a hassle for some to add to their computers then I won’t have a choice but to keep some contact open and unencrypted.

On the other hand, requiring encryptiong would go a long way to preventing spam – not that it’s a problem for me at this time. However, imagine being able to create email filters that automatically trashed anything that does not begin with the typical human readable text of a PGP message. You would never see spam again! At least not in your personal Inbox.

Shopping invoices and non-personal contact emails would be sent to a seperate address.

Anyway, I digress.

The signature at the bottom of my emails currently looks like so:

Stephen prefers that all communications are encrypted, even the inconsequential stuff. Though not a strict requirement, please use encryption or please consider doing so.

* Get Encryption:
   http://www.pgp.com/downloads/desktoptrial.php
* Get His Public Keys:
   * For [personal email address deleted]:
   [personal email address details deleted]
   * For shadowsinmotion.webmaster@gmail.com:
   https://keyserver1.pgp.com/vkd/DownloadKey.event?keyid=0×15892428827DE86C
Feel free to message me with any of your questions.

Of course, none of the info is deleted from the actual signature.

Some of the less intelligent among the human race will say that I have nothing to worry about so long as I have nothing to hide. The fact of the matter is, I have both nothing and yet everything to hide. That is the point of a personal life; of being an individual.

One does not have to be a criminal to have things to hide. One only needs to be a human. Privacy is paramount to free thought and healthy living. I guess that I’m just crazy for thinking this way.

If you have time, please investigate the possibility of installing software to add decryption and encryption capabilities to your computer. If it proves too much of a bother then this will have to be dropped, but I have found PGP to be relatively easy to add.

The PGP Desktop Trial will revert to a simplified version of the software after 30 days. This is perfectly fine. It will still allow you to decrypt and encrypt email messages, and that is the primary concern at this time.

Instant messages can be encrypted with the use of Trillian. You can obtain Trillian at http://www.trillian.cc. Encryption in Trillian is only supported through ICQ, but that’s what the majority of those whom I talk to use. So that works out just dandy for me.

Trillian, in my opinion, is significantly better than the actual IM programs themselves. Better than the chat programs provided by ICQ, MSN, or Yahoo to be sure. Others may not agree and may choose to not use it. Again, if that’s the case then I will simply need to keep some conversation channels open.

It is not my desire to cause frustration for those that I know. I truly do not want that. If this does not work out for you, then okay. What I am hoping is that all of those who I know will at least look into the measure.

I will be more than happy to answer any questions related to installing, setting up, or using the software. It’s actually pretty easy, and you soon pretty much forget that it’s there.

Later folks,
~Steph

Generally I’m the lazy one, but today it was my brother who didn’t wake up. So we didn’t go to the gym today. I’m still sitting here in my gym cloths and socks and playing with the idea of going anyway, but I really don’t like to be around a room full of strange, sweaty people. So I won’t. :p