HD-DVD cracked … or not.

Recently, if you care, a key for HD-DVD was accidentally leaked to the internet. This usually isn’t a huge deal, but it has caused quite a furor in many user generated blogs and other sites, including Digg and Reddit.
Many of these sites are taking actions, at the behest of the AACS consortium, to take this code down. Most are willingly doing so, but many users are completely outraged.
If you didn’t know, the new HD-DVDs are protected from copyright infringement by the use of a key system. This key system allows the producers of the content to allow or disallow certain players based on their key. In this instance, a key was leaked that allowed anything to play the content, including the popular operating system Linux. This was previously impossible. Now that this key is “in the wild” it is feasible to allow even non-allowed systems to play back HD-DVDs.
It seems that this breach of the key, however, isn’t going unnoticed by the owners of the content. Many websites hosting the key (a simple hex number) have been contacted and been notified via a cease and desist order. Most are complying, but not without voicing their discontent.
Here is where I may differ from most folks. I know that locking down content is a hassle for the end user, and I know that not being able to do whatever you want with your HD content is crappy. I just don’t understand all of the outcry over this key.
If I have it right, this key is only good for any HD-DVDs that have already been produced. All the content makers have to do is revoke that key, and any content produced after that date will no longer play in systems previously hacked with the leaked key. So, for instance, if I were to use the key to play some HD-DVD on my Linux system, any HD-DVD I bought tomorrow (or whenever the key is revoked) wouldn’t work, because the key in THAT disk would not jive with they key I was trying to use. (If you want to read more about it, “Página do jqr” blogs about it in technical detail.)
If I have this wrong, please let me know, but it seems just that simple to me.
SO, ya ya ya, down with the man and all of that, but by law, these guys have to ACTIVELY pursue any copyright infringements or they lose their copyright. This means that if they didn’t try and shut down these infringements, then it would become public domain and they would lose the rights to it. THAT is why, even though it isn’t that big of a deal to us, they will still pursue it.
So what does all of this really mean?
Not much, I’m afraid. The key wasn’t really hacked, it was leaked on accident, so it can’t be readily reproduced in future. The key will become useless, so users will soon be out of luck if they are trying to hack the players to play protected content.
All in all, much ado about nothing.

Us and them

There is a man in jail right now who is going to sue us all. He is going to own the county, and he will fire us all. There is a woman who is from the Central Intelligence Agency, and is eagerly awaiting a visit from the President. There is a man living with AIDS who, by all statistical rights, should not be alive. There is a man who is on trial for his 3rd strike, fighting for his freedom. There is a man sobering up to the DUI charge he received the night prior. There is a woman writing a letter to her children trying to explain why she is in jail “this time”. There is a man wondering if his family is going to show up at visiting time. There is a man thinking of ways to get out of jail. There is a man thinking of ways to score more dope when he leaves.

Then there’s me.

Sometimes I think that the only thing that separates me from most of them, is one or two really dumb decisions. We both feel, we both bleed, we both have wants and needs. There are many things that we have in common, but the only one that counts for now, is the fact that we are both in jail. I am on my side, and they are on theirs.
I think I like this side better.

Medical please…

Have you ever had a tooth-ache?
I have. It was horrible and I wanted to rip my whole head off. I called my dentist and couldn’t get in to see him for 2 weeks. It was not good. Needless to say, the next 2 weeks were not fun, but I made it, and I lived.
Tonight I worked on the third floor at the old jail. It was nice to not be at the Annex (the new jail), but I still had to deal with inmates. The inmates on the 3rd floor are all “low-risk” and generally mild mannered. If they weren’t, they wouldn’t be able to be there. Still, inmates are inmates. They still exude that air of entitlement, so as long as you can deal with that, you are A-OK.
Tonight I was doing my first round, and was hit-up by an inmate for some Tylenol. As a CO, we aren’t able to give any medications. Not Tylenol. Not Advil. Not aspirin. Not anything. It is a pretty hard and fast rule, and every officer is aware of it. We aren’t allowed to dispense meds because we aren’t medical professionals and we don’t know if the inmate is allergic to anything, and we don’t know what else the inmate may be on that could react with whatever they are asking for. These reasons aren’t the only ones, just the ones I could think of “right off the bat”.
So, this inmate tells me that her tooth hurts, and I tell her she needs to fill out a medical request form (standard procedure) so that she can be seen by the nurse. Fast forward a couple of hours, and still I have no request form. You can bet that she still asked for medication every time I saw her though. Then at about 9pm, she calls me on the intercom and tells me she needs to go to the hospital. I ask why; it’s because of her tooth-ache. WHAT!?
I tell her she’s probably not going to the hospital for a tooth, but I will advise the nurse, so she can be seen.
As I am about to turn off the intercom, I overhear her telling another inmate that she doesn’t want to see the nurse because of the medical fee, and that she will then have to pay for medications. She thinks that this is “F@!#ing stupid”, and that she shouldn’t have to pay anything to get her tooth taken care of. She says that it’s her “right” to be taken care of while she is in jail.
To that, I say, no… and yes.
OK, OK, you may be thinking “Poor girl with the tooth-ache”, but let me submit this:

Who of us doesn’t have to pay for our medical care?

Even if we have some kind of insurance, there is almost always a co-pay for the visit, and then another for medications. Why is it that this inmate feels that she is entitled to better medical coverage than I am. Even if she doesn’t have any money, she still gets the same level of care as an inmate that does. A debt goes on her account, but she still gets medical care at a greatly reduced cost to her. She doesn’t even pay an insurance premium. I do. Why is she entitled to, essentially, free medical care, when every month I have medical premiums deducted from my paycheck?
An inmate comes into jail and suddenly they get every ailment they have ever had, taken care of, and issues that have plagued them for years suddenly become emergent. Why? Why is it that taxpayers bear the brunt of medical costs for people who, more than likely (60% recidivism rate?) to go out and get into trouble again?
I know that we, as a society, are supposed to take care of the broken and the weak. I know that inmates are people, and that if they have medical problems, we are expected (by law and conscience) to tend to their needs. I just get sick of the entitlement.
If you are in jail, don’t expect for me/us to run you to the hospital for every hang-nail or tooth-ache. It is presumptive and asinine, but don’t worry, because we will still take care of you. We probably won’t even say anything to you about it, but you can bet we think it… loudly.

/begin rant
We will feed you when you haven’t eaten for a week because you have spent every last dime on the drug of your choice. We will give you your psych meds even though you stop taking them every time you leave jail, and not because you can’t get them. We will get you stitched up when you get into a fight with someone your better. We will clean up your shit-stained room after you come down from heroine. We will keep giving you your medications even after you try and hide them so you can take a larger dose to try and get high.
Just don’t ask us to like it, because we have seen too much and watched too many do horrible things to themselves over and over again.
/end rant

Why do I do this?

I don’t think I have a good handle on this question. More importantly, I don’t really have a good answer either. But you can just imagine that I’m gonna give it a stab anyway.

I know that I like the idea of writing my thoughts out so I am able to have a journal of types for myself. The funny thing, is that I get a bit excited when I hear that someone has read my blog, or when I talk to someone and they say something about my blog. I silently smile to myself. Though, I am not sure exactly why. Should I even care? What does it mean if I do?

I don’t really think that I say anything new or particularly EXCITING, but maybe that’s not what draws readers. For that matter, I seem to get about 7 “hits per day. Not exactly a HUGE readership, but respectable for someone who thinks he doesn’t care. I know that some people read to get an idea of what jail is like from an officer’s point of view. It’s not exciting to me, but to someone who has no real idea, it can be eye-opening.

I find myself checking my site stats about as often as I do my e-mail, and that can be a couple of times a day or more. I don’t hinge my efforts on how my stats are doing, but I do get curious about them when I see a spike or drop of any significance.

For instance, before I got into trouble at work, I saw a HUGE spike. Every one of my pages were looked at, and not just perused through, but really read. When I finally did get talked to about it at work, I had a good idea that my captain had read my ENTIRE site. I’m not sure that hurt or helped me, knowing he had, but I knew, so that’s something.
I don’t have stats of exactly who is reading my site, just basic info on where they are in the world. I don’t have money for the big-time stat monitor, and I don’t need it anyway. I use a free service from Google, that shows some interesting facts about who is reading and where they are coming from. This page is what February looked like.

The upper left is a stat for how many people have read the blog in the last time period you select. You can select any time. Day, month, year, hour, just about whatever you want.
The upper right, is an idea of whether they have been to the site before. You can see that the new to returning ratio is about 50%.
The lower right is a chart of how they got to your site. My referrers (as they are called) seem to be mostly direct (meaning, they typed www.thetreichels.com into their browser’s address bar) and Google. Sunnydaysareahead.blogspot.com gives me about 15% of my referrals, so thanks, Sunny.
The lower left window shows where the people are reading from. This is not precise, but is a good indicator of the general area of my readers. I can tell by this that most of my readers come from Longview. Go figure.

There is a plethora of other information available, but this is the meat-n-potatoes for me.

So, what is the answer to my question? I like it when people read my blog. What can I say. I know that not every post or every page is all that exciting. For instance, this post won’t mean much to anyone but me. On the other hand, I hope that my readers, you all, get a little from it. I just not too sure of my REAL motives. Do I write for myself or my readers?

If I had a gun to my head, I would have to say that I write some of my entries for myself, and some are for myself AND my readers. For instance, what you are reading now is mostly for me. I don’t really care if no one reads this. It is more an exercise for myself than a entertaining piece for other people. In contrast, THIS entry HERE, is for myself and the readers.

So, in conclusion, I would have to say that it really depends on the day. If it is just a “ME day” then it’s all about me, but if it’s a “US day”, then it’s about all of us. Hopefully, you won’t care either way.

Oderint Dum Metuant

Translated - Let them hate, as long as they fear.

I was perusing the web tonight after work (Imagine that!), and I came upon this little Latin gem from Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, also known as Caligula. According to Wikipedia, it was one of his favorite sayings, but was originally attributed to the Roman poet, Lucius Accius. (Okay, okay, enough with the history!)

I can relate a little to this saying. I don’t really know for sure that every inmate hates all of the officers, but I know that the ones that do, tend to not do anything about it because of fear. Now, I’m not stupid enough to think that their fear comes from us personally. I don’t think that we are seen as so big and bad that inmates are afraid to get physical with us (no, I’m not talking about sex, but that’s out of the question too…blehh. I think I just got sick a little), but I do think that they are afraid to act on that hate. Fear of reprisal from the law (as in Felony Assault Charges) is probably the largest thing that looms in their minds, and I don’t really mind that at all. Jail is a good reminder for this kind of thing. That’s not to say that inmates haven’t tried. It happens, but (*crossing fingers*) hopefully these incidents will stay few and far between. Normally, if something is going to happen, it happens at booking, so officers are numerous and usually ready.

I know that there are inmates that could beat me to a bloody pulp. I know that some of them probably talk about doing just that, but I also know that the constant reminder of where they are keeps the hate just enough at bay to keep them tame (*crossing fingers again*). There are murders and rapists and drug dealers who despise anyone even remotely associated with law enforcement. There are some that are HUGE. I mean, REALLY REALLY HUGE.

So, that’s why I like this saying.
Oderint Dum Metuant – Let them hate, as long as they fear.
(even if they aren’t exactly afraid of me…per se. hehe)

Does detox = cruel and inhumane?

I recently read a blog written by police officers in the UK titled “Blues and Twos“. I’m not sure what the “Twos” part of the title is all about (it IS written by more than one person), but either way, it was an thought provoking read.

They talk about a recent decision to compensate drug addicts for the “suffering” they had to endure when they came to prison and were forced to quit their drug of choice “cold turkey”.

There are 197 inmates making a claim, and according to the court decision, they get to split £750,000.00 ($1,458,449.00). That comes to about $7400.00 US dollars each. Of course, I am assuming that they are splitting the money and don’t each get the $1.4 million.

This is interesting, because I know that there are many many inmates who come to our jail hopped up on meth or another drug of choice. We book them in, and then they “crash” for a week or so. Most of these people don’t get tons of help in their “detox” during this time. While this may eventually become a liability like it did in the UK, I also believe that it is an important part of the jail experience.

Most inmates who come in high are not exactly looking for a way to quit their habit. In all likelihood, they have spent all of their recent time looking for ways to get money to get high. This usually involves simple theft or other more serious crimes like burglary. I believe that when someone comes to jail and they are made to quit, they are forced re-evaluate the price they have paid for their habit

If you ask most inmates about whether they are planning on using again, most will tell you that they are done with drugs. They remember the pain and discomfort of detox. They, albeit briefly, see the price of their folly and know that they have to make a change. Now, we do offer a small amount of relief for the more serious habits, but for the most part, even these inmates have to go through some sort of detox.

If we were to offer a drug that allowed these people to bypass detox altogether, then there would be no down-side to coming to jail at all. We, as taxpayers, feed them, we clothe them, let them watch cable television, we give them free medical care, we give free lawyers, and we keep them safe. If many of these people didn’t come to jail, they would be dead. They would either kill themselves or each other. Jail doesn’t really have much of a downside for the inmates, as they get all of the benefits with very little price. I don’t count their freedom as any real price since most see it as just part of the game anyway.

If they didn’t want to be there, they wouldn’t do the thing that got them there in the first place.

Ok, so you may think that making someone detox “cold turkey” is inhumane. You may think it’s great. You may not really care about any of this. I am just glad that if inmates come in who are abusing drugs, we “help” them quit, and hopefully in the process, they will take a second to look at their lives. I know that most will return to the same kind of lifestyle, but if only one out of a hundred changes, I think it’s worth it.

Hemorrhoid? Really?

Ok, so I should explain that this post isn’t going to be about ACTUAL hemorrhoids or any other sad anal state. If you find yourself disappointed at all by this, you probably need to move along now.
Tonight I was one of two area officers. I was responsible for about 70 men, which is a small number in comparison to the other area. I find that I don’t mind being an area sometimes; it allows me to have only one role at work. I am not expected to do anything else but work in my area, and often that can take all of my time anyway. I like to help the booking officer when I get a chance, but tonight he had plenty of help so I just worked my area and stayed out of the way.
Depending on the night, and some other variables, the inmates are self sufficient. By the time I come onto shift, the inmates have already been through one officer that day and, if the officer has done a thorough job, they have gotten (or been denied) most of what they want. Swing shift is nice this way.
Unfortunately, swing shift also means that everyone is now awake, bored, and generally in a state of malcontent from being in jail. This is understandable. I am a former Marine, and I know that when anyone monopolizes your time and doesn’t allow you to leave, it’s not too fun. I, in contrast to the inmates, volunteered for my personal prison though, so it’s probably not quite the same. Oh yeah, I also wasn’t accused of committing any crimes either, so maybe I don’t know what I am talking about. I like to think I do, so I guess that’s all that matters for now.
With that said, I find it amazing what a bored inmate can do. Just imagine that you are locked up for 21 hours a day with nothing better to do that think of ways to get around the thing keeping you locked up. I would imagine that most of us would be able to think of 100 things to circumvent the system. Most likely none of them would actually work, but it wouldn’t stop you from thinking about it. This is the life of an inmate, with menace as an added bonus.

As the perceived face of the reason for their lock-up, officers are seen as the inmates antagonist. WE put them there, and if it wasn’t for US, they wouldn’t be there. I have actually heard those words come out of someones mouth. Amazing! How about a little personal responsibility??

But I digress.
I generally have a good rapport with most of the inmates. I am able to laugh and joke when the situation allows, but I also take pride that I am able to “lay down the law” (as my dad would say) and get a positive response when needed. At least… I like to think so. Either way, I do what I can to not be an ass when I don’t have to be.
So tonight, as I am getting ready to leave one of the units for the last time, I hear someone ask if I know who the next officer will be. Meaning, they want to know who will be their officer on graveyard. I tell them that I don’t know. They ask again, and instead of asking who the next officer will be, they ask who the next hemorrhoid will be. Hemorrhoid?
If I knew who had actually asked the question, I would probably have locked them down for disrespect. Unfortunately for me, and fortunately for them, they were all locked in for the night, and I had no real idea who had asked the question. Disrespect is just a subtle way for inmates to try and take control of their situation. I just shrugged it off and left.
This little story goes back to the whole “21 hours a day idea to think” idea, and the fact that we officers are seen as the face of their lockup, and (more importantly to my story) the target of their discontent.
Officers are constantly “shrugging off” snide remarks and disrespectful comments. We are treated with all of the respect of an ant, and shown/told as much by the inmates. We are able to listen-in to any cell in the jail, and consistently we hear derogatory remarks pointed in our “general direction“. If you are working in an area and pass through a cloud of “rotten egg” smelling air.

It’s probably not eggs, and it wasn’t done on accident. Ya gotta love that!

All the time in the world, and the only thing most inmates are worried about is trying to make their officer feel like crap in order to try and establish dominance. It’s a nature thing. OR, it’s proof that locking someone up doesn’t change behavior it just changes the location of their behavior.
All in a days work.
When I first started this job, I was bothered by the constant barrage of hatred. I used to let it get to me. Nobody should have to deal with that. As time has passed however, I have found a tough outer shell to be invaluable and almost necessary. If I let every little comment bother me, I would be constantly bothered. If I started worrying about the fact that the inmate in cell number such-and-such thought I was a hemorrhoid, I might just start hating my job and become VERY burned out VERY quickly. As it is, I think I just may make it a couple more years, and who knows, I might even get my gold watch and retire someday.

One Year – sort of…

It seems that it was just yesterday when I started this site. For all you know, dear reader, it was yesterday. I didn’t know what the heck I was doing, and judging by the recent “activity” at work, I still have a long way to travel.
My first post wasn’t written until June 2006, but the site went live in in March. The 13th to be exact. June is when I started using Blogger for my CMS, so anything written before that date is long gone. I have had many positive experiences and some bad ones, but all-in-all I am glad to have started writing again. Previous to my recent snafu with work, I had about 80 entries, but after my sanitation of reports, I culled it down to about 60. Still pretty good for only one year, I think.
I first began keeping a written account of myself about 14 years ago after a particularly bad break-up, and it was nice to see a progression from feeling like crap to somewhere nicer. Writing became therapeutic. You know, “In with the good, out with the bad” kind of therapy.
I think the count is at about 20 regular readers now, (yay for me) and I hope you will bear with me. Keep reading and commenting. I could tell you that “without your support I wouldn’t write at all“, but in all honesty, even if I were the only one seeing this site, I would still do it. The most I can say, is that since I know there are others reading, I do my best to make sure my spelling and grammar are close to readable (Thank god for Spellcheck). Thanks anyway though. hehe.
My parents think I should write a book. Thanks, Mom-n’-Dad, for the vote of confidence, but I think you may be a bit biased on this one. Here are a couple of reasons, in no particular order, why this will probably never happen.

1. I don’t have the attention span to actually sit down and transfer my thoughts into more than a couple of paragraphs at a time.
2. Nobody’s gonna want to read a book by a guy named Treichel. Most people don’t know how to correctly pronounce it anyway…. trickle? trishell? trichell? It’s pronounced “TRY-KL”
3. My writing style is not exactly conducive to the book writing process.
4. Nobody would pay good money to someone like me for a book about someone like me.
5. I don’t really want to. I have more important things, like sitting and doing nothing, to keep me very busy.
6. I’m not a real writer, I just play one on this site.
7. and lastly, I don’t take notes. I have no idea about what happened last week, let alone last decade.

What do I see for the future of this site? I don’t know. I was thinking of incorporating mind control into the site to “TRY AND TAKE OVER THE WORLD”… you know, like the cartoon. What do you think I should do? Vote and let me know.

Content. What would you like to see?

Mind Control! Master, I am here to serve

More o’ the same, you awesome guy

I don’t care, either way you still RULE!

This is dumb, but you are smart…

I like polls, and I like you.

I hate polls, but I still like you.

(View Results)

Comments and Nudity

I like to hear comments. I like to hear feedback on my posts and ways to improve what and how I write. What I don’t believe in is censoring comments or requiring positive ID to comment.
I have found something interesting however. Whenever I get comments that aren’t, let’s say, “Nice”, I find that the person fails to leave any kind of info about themselves. Now, don’t get me wrong, I don’t think I am all that important, or even someone who warrants a huge readership. I also don’t think that comments from “Anonymous” are all that bad. Sometimes a co-worker leaves a telling comment that they don’t want attributed to them. I don’t see that as cowardly. I see that as more like keeping a source confidential.
I do, however think that if someone is so afraid of me that they don’t put a name or hint of who they are, then they are either:

A. Joking – a little razz now and then never hurt anyone.
B. Cowardly – Oh, please. What’s the worst I could do?
C. 12 – As in a bored 12 year old. (possibly combined with B)

So, here’s what I think. Either someone who is afraid of me (ha ha) and decided to “get me good” and leave me a sweet comment, or a pre-teen has been reading my blog. Of course, it also could be a joke, but usually I get a sense of where those come from, so I’m gonna go with B and/or C. Either way, I think further posting on this is moot.
So, on to other things.
Tonight at work was beautiful. We had plenty of officers and little to do. Usually it is exactly opposite, but tonight was a nice change. Usually, we have lots to do and few officers to do it. Of course, whenever it’s like tonight was, we almost wish that it was busy. At least that meant that there were fewer crimes being committed, or at least fewer crimes being caught. Last night was different though. Last night I worked an Area. Meaning, I was responsible for rounds in three inmate pods, consisting of about 60+ inmates each, one of which was the female pod. Here’s where things went wrong.
Last night I had a run-in with a naked female inmate. Yep. Completely naked. Why, you ask? (You may not have asked, but for this post, let’s assume that you did)
Well, I have a theory about that.
Some of our females try and use their femininity against officers. That may sound weird to some, but it is true. Now, not every female is this way, in fact, most are “normal” inmates who act in totally appropriate ways. BUT, from time to time, there are situations where females will go out of their way to show extra skin, or, in this case, be totally naked when a male comes around to their door.
I think that this may be done for a couple of reasons. One is purely to shock the officer. There is nothing less an officer wants to see than a naked inmate. Whether it is a male or female inmate, clothes are ALWAYS better than no clothes. Seeing a naked inmate is not something we usually expect to see, so when it does happen, and especially with the opposite sex, it is a shock, and not the good kind either.
The second reason is a little more sinister. I think that some female inmates try and use the situation to get the officer into trouble. For instance, if I were to see a female inmate and not tell her to put her clothes on, she may try to tell my superiors that I was staring at her or that I told her to get naked. Things like that.
What is nice about the new jail, is that we have cameras everywhere. Anything an inmate or an officer does is recorded. This is nice. As far as the naked female goes; I yelled for her to get her clothes on and had another female stand by her door until she did so I didn’t have to see her. When she was dressed, I told her, for all to hear, that nobody wanted to see her naked, and that if she was caught without her clothes on again she would be locked down.
I figured that if everyone in the area heard it, they may pressure her to act appropriately using positive peer pressure. Either way, at least she knows that her actions were noticed and not approved. Hopefully this will spare myself and other officers in the future. Only time will tell…

Taking a Break

So, I am gonna take a break… but a short one. I really do love writing this blog, as it is a cheap outlet for my rants and ramblings. I think, though, that I need to step back and take a look at my content. (what do you think?)
I guess you will just have to check back and see what happens in the next couple of weeks.
If you need any more clarification than that, you can e-mail me… if you already know my address. If not, you will have to wait and see. (I know that the anticipation is killing you.)