FALK FLAK AND MORE

Dear Reader,

I have just a couple of items here today for you. I did find out that the County has commissioned a study of Timmerman Airport, and can't wait to see what it will contain, and how much the study will cost the taxpayers. Also, I try to figure out why so much of the milwaukeeworld traffic is routed through Houston, Texas. Imagine my surprise when I find the answer.

Finally, I take a tour through the websites of the attorney general candidates. It seems at this time that the Republicans are the only ones on the ball. Paul Bucher, in particular is throwing some fastballs, calling Democratic Party opponent Kathleen Falk a "radical."

Bucher is from Waukesha County, Falk is from Dane County.

I made an error, I believe, trying to connect links in this story, so please pardon the confusion if it comes out that way, looking a little goofy. I also seem to have lost the formatting that bolded the names of all of the worthies mentioned here. Sorry.

I have to run right now.

Catch you later,
Michael Horne
Editor / Publisher
1 414 978-8039

TIMMERMAN STUDY EXPECTED IN 2006

Coffman Associates, airport consultants, are working on a master plan for Lawrence J. Timmerman Airport . The plan will be released after the end of the year, according to Pat Rowe, who handles information for Milwaukee County’s airports. The master plan is supposed to enable comments from the public, and after a laborious process I registered to make my comment. Unfortunately, the comment system does not work on the website, nor is there very much information on the ought-to-be-abandoned, 420-acre airport which is virtually entirely within the city limits. We’ll just have to wait for the report to be issued. Coffman Associates referred me to the County, so that wasn't very helpful. I'll get back to you with a report on how much Coffman Associates "Airport Planning is our Only Business" will be paid by the taxpayers for their study.-- Michael Horne

CITY DPW WEB TRAFFIC ROUTED THROUGH HOUSTON

A good deal of the traffic to milwaukeeworld.com is local, which you would expect. I was puzzled, though, by a considerable amount of visitors routed through Houston, Texas.
Upon research, I determined that the Houston-routed visits to milwaukeeworld were all from a domain called mpw.net , and registered to the funkily-named Beeper Boutique, Inc.
Mpw.net is the website of the City of Milwaukee Department of Public Works. It is the only website hosted by Beeper Boutique , Inc. I tried to connect to the Beeper Boutique website, but my connection was refused. I would like to know why the City of Milwaukee Department of Public Works, the municipality’s stodgiest, routes its internet through 3333 W. Katy Freeway in Houston.

This is the department that controls the underground conduit that will be leased to provide a wi-fi system that is to be the nation’s envy, and it runs its traffic from a company that sounds like it sells pagers? From Houston?

All other City and County traffic runs through the combined Milwaukee Portal. Looks like DPW got lost in the April 2005 creation of the portal - or decided to stay hidden in Houston.

I emailed the DNS administrator of the www.milwaukee.gov site to see what the story is, and will get back to you.

However, according to Joe Klein, who studied this at my request,

It is only a registration problem with the block of IP addresses used. Internet Protocol (IP) addresses are registered with ARIN (American Registry for Internet Numbers). Contact information is associated with contiguous blocks of IP addresses. This information is used to contact a site if bad traffic emanates from within that block of addresses. Time Warner Telecom allocated 128 IP address for one side of the dual-connected DPW firewall which uses a
technology called Network Address Translation (NAT) to map the many addresses used by the City of Milwaukee into two 128 address spaces provided by Time Warner Telecom and Wiscnet.

Time Warner Telecom apparently failed to change the registration on the block allocated to the City of Milwaukee, so it retains what is probably an old registration to the Beeper Boutique. The web tools used by snoopy webmasters and bloggers like yourself thus map the block back to Texas.

By Internet Best Current Practices (BCP), the owner of the block should insist on accurate registration data. Thus,when a computer is compromised within the City of Milwaukee network and it starts sending worms, viruses, or spam to the Internet, alert network administrators know who to contact. This protects both the Internet and the City of Milwaukee.

And, we gather, we are un- or underprotected right now, according to Klein's analysis. It's somebody's job -- fix it!

-- Michael Horne


FALK FLAK

Now that she has a primary opponent in Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk, I wondered how Attorney General Peg Lautenschlager’s website was doing. Alas, the Peg4ag folks have only a rather ugly red white blue page telling us that the exciting website is coming - someday.
There is still a Falk for Governor website that has been assumed by a search engine not related to the campaign. Net Nations Communications of Canada took over the site in January 2005 when Falk’s original dominion over it expired. I don’t see a Falk for Attorney General Website yet.
On the republican side, the Van Hollen for Attorney General site ranks among the top 9 million worldwide. His opponent Paul Bucher’s site is not yet ranked, but is mightily homespun.
Bucher put out a press release calling Kathleen Falk a “radical” and saying she is anti-law enforcement.
According to the release,
“Republican Attorney General Candidate Paul Bucher blasted the policies of Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk Monday, stating that Falk advances a radical agenda that will compromise public safety and which is out of touch with average Wisconsinites.
“You must be kidding,” Bucher stated of Falk’s entrance into the Attorney General’s race. “This anti-law enforcement individual wants to run for the state’s top cop? I work day in and day out and have spent my entire career putting criminals in prison, as have other law enforcement officers throughout this State, and this individual wants to release them? What does it say to the average law enforcement officer and citizen? That we care more about the rights of thugs and gangsters than we do about the safety of our families? I look forward to this race. I look forward to debating this anti law enforcement candidate who now conveniently cloaks herself in pro criminal justice rhetoric. Her consistent, long-time record opposing law enforcement both in Dane County and Statewide will be front and center in this race.”
--Michael Horne