While we're picking on the administration, check out my favorite "Invalid URL" .gov site, which was apparently registered and abandoned: http://www.homelandsecurity.gov/ Some government agencies and politicos are still pointing the public to the non-existent homelandsecurity.gov site: http://www.fbi.gov/hq/ci/ansir/advisories/advisory041702.htm http://www.1maw.usmc.mil/ATFP/News/02-3.pdf http://www.house.gov/skelton/col020317.htm A dig suggests that homelandsecurity.gov and dhs.gov (the current site) inhabit the same section of Akamai's network. If I'm reading the dig output correctly, it looks like the homelandsecurity.gov site points here, at least from my network neighborhood: http://a830.g.akamai.net/ Because the department uses Akamai, it's odd that dhs.gov would have be overwhelmed with traffic in the last hour -- the department should have been able to anticipate the interest in today's announcement of a higher "alert" condition. The site is more accessible now -- kudos to Akamai for (apparently) compensating so quickly. (Fox News is touting the dhs.gov domain right now.) It's also odd that Tom Ridge would register homelandsecurity.gov and then abandon it instead of having it redirect to dhs.gov -- a case of pre-emptive and then forgotten cybersquatting, perhaps? :) -Declan --- From a .gov list member: >Worse, DHS.GOV had the wrong threat level all throughout Sec. Ridge's speech >and at least an hour afterward. I can't get through on the server now to check >(high traffic, apparently.) > >Sincerely, >Anonymous --- Date: Fri, 07 Feb 2003 11:17:07 -0800 To: declanat_private From: Malcolm Hoar <malchat_private> Subject: Re: FC: White House Homeland Security, at its technological finest? They tried to be too cute and got burned. Their goodbye.cgi script forwards you to the correct page under some circumstances and an error page in others. It appears to depend upon the exact combination of request headers that your specific browser sends. The User-Agent and Referer headers are the significant ones I *think*. In any event, those links will appear to work for some users but not others. -- |~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| | Malcolm Hoar "The more I practice, the luckier I get". | | malchat_private Gary Player. | | http://www.malch.com/ Shpx gur PQN. | ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ --- From: "the head lemur" <headlemurat_private> To: <declanat_private> Subject: Re: White House Homeland Security, at its technological finest? Date: Fri, 7 Feb 2003 11:55:37 -0700 We laugh We cry.... It would seem that The National Strategy For Homeland Security: Office of Homeland Security http://www.whitehouse.gov/homeland/book/index.html is only available to the sighted who have adobe reader installed. Screen Readers need not apply, Lynx Users need not apply, It probably doesn't matter to the blind either. there must be some part of Executive Privilege that makes the White House website not responsible for the Section 508 guidelines. the head lemur ------------------------------------------------------------------------- POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice. To subscribe to Politech: http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ Declan McCullagh's photographs are at http://www.mccullagh.org/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Like Politech? Make a donation here: http://www.politechbot.com/donate/ Recent CNET News.com articles: http://news.search.com/search?q=declan -------------------------------------------------------------------------
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