Archive for February, 2006

Killing in the Name Of…

Wednesday, February 22nd, 2006

Apparently during Katrina, some of the staff of LifeCare Hospitals on the seventh floor of the Memorial Medical Center allegedly commited euthanasia on patients in order to evacuate the hospital. From what it looks like, there was a rule for staff regarding evacuating during emergencies whereby they must have no more patients before they could evacuate. Apparently some of the staff took it upon themselves to solve the problem by killing their patients using overdoses of morphine. Of course, the article indicates it will be very difficult to prove. There’s one thing for certain, if this is true, then they definitely didn’t live up to their name…

Converting SSL Keys to ikeyman Format

Tuesday, February 21st, 2006

I am posting this on my blog so it gets out on google.

Recently I had to help a colleague convert a key that was created in openssl and submitted to a Certificate Authority. I had problems w/ this in the past, and apparently 5 different helpdesks couldn’t help him. SO here goes….

First off, if you are having problems w/ ikeyman on a server, you can always install IBM HTTP Server on your windows workstation and run the ikeyman utility (called Start Key Management Utility under the IBM HTTP Server entry in the start menu). The keys are the same, and are independent of the actual server itself. Even the information you provide doesn’t really have any bearing on the key itself, except for reference from the key authorities perspective. Another common problem is not having the JAVA_HOME set to the location of your java executable. Mine’s set to the JRE directory under the j2sdk installation directory (ie… JAVA_HOME is set to c:\java\j2sdk_1.4.3.2\jre … something like that).

Another common problem with older versions of IHS & ikeyman/gskit is the JCE not found error. Try setting JAVA_HOME first, then update the java.security files as necessary if you continue to receive this error.

The way to convert any key pair is simple:

  1. Download the IBM Keyman utility.

  2. Open the keys in keyman.

  3. Export the key as a PKCS#12 database using no encryption. This merely sets the pkcs12 file’s encryption to none. Delete this file once you’ve successfully imported it into ikeyman.

  4. Import the key into ikeyman using previously defined passphrase for the PKCS12 database

And that’s it. You should then be able to setup ssl in IHS using the ikeyman db and everything should be smooth after this step. You might have to import the Trusted Root certificate used to sign the ca cert into ikeyman, especially if its not a mainstream CA.

Good Luck!

Privatization at the United Nations

Sunday, February 12th, 2006

Apparently the UN is thinking of privatizing part of its general assembly. The US has put some pressure on the UN to clean up its act and to make the General Assembly more efficient or it will withhold 50% of its annual dues (which come to a whopping total of 22% of the UNs annual dues, at least 16% more than its closest contributor).

Privatize? Why don’t we just disolve the UN and instead use the money to help Katrina victims? Or better yet, let’s disolve the UN and move the money to someplace useful, like beefing up some of the proposed budget cuts for this year?

After all, do we really want to keep an organization around that was the purported brainchild of a KGB agent? I think not. Let’s get rid of it once and for all.

Abortion Ban Passes House in South Dakota

Saturday, February 11th, 2006

An interesting story showed up on Drudge Report for only a few hours last night. I was fortunate enough to not have a life to see the headline and read the article.

The jist of it is that the South Dakota House has approved a bill to ban abortion in all cases, with an exception if the mother is dying. According to the story, this ‘loophole’ prevents Doctors from being prosecuted in these instances.

According to my roommate, this is how it was across the nation prior to Roe vs. Wade. So, this is probably a good sign. Of course, the bill still needs to go to the state Senate, so we shall see if it passes. Makes me think I should move to South Dakota because its so very progressive….

Hopefully this will be just the first of many to pass anti-abortion laws that look to the protection of the mother and the child, rather than just the mother’s rights to have an abortion. I think now would be a great time to pray for the people who are looking at these bills.