Saturday, October 16, 2010

Black and White Sunoco: Shots around Pittsburgh

ITEM: I don't know why Eli isn't proclaiming his Open Fear about my Peter Parker like photog gifts. That might be because he's a slightly better photographer (see here) who uses one of them fancy dan cameras. Or it might be the shoes.

Meet my cat: Miss Selina Kyle

This cat is named Miss Selina Kyle.

New Donation Widget

How much would it take to do this full time? This would be opposed to doing this part time and doing odd jobs to make ends meet and only publishing once or twice a week. I figured 10000 per year for 30 hours a week. I would be thrilled if 1000 people gave 10 bucks apiece once a year. Or just one rich person could give me 10000 bucks. Whatever. You won't get it if you don't ask.

Sunday, October 10, 2010

Pittsburgh Area Photos I've Taken: Thatcher Motel Sign on Route 22

Pittsburgh Area Photos I've Taken: James St. Tavern.

ITEM: Took a freelance job doing photos for what I hope will be a couple of months. How does it look? Watch out Mark Southers and Eli. I'm comin'...hard.

Friday, October 08, 2010

Your Elections Can Still Be Hacked

Actually, I don't think the Democratic Party cares all that much about election fraud because I don't think they care if they lose. They make more money as lobbyists. (See the Tom Daschle Story.) Its third parties that I'm worried about. But yes Virginia we have very hackable
elections.

Here's the report in its entirety:

Hacking the D.C. Internet Voting Pilot

By J. Alex Halderman - Posted on October 5th, 2010 at 9:07 pm

The District of Columbia is conducting a pilot project to allow overseas and military voters to download and return absentee ballots over the Internet. Before opening the system to real voters, D.C. has been holding a test period in which they've invited the public to evaluate the system's security and usability.

This is exactly the kind of open, public testing that many of us in the e-voting security community — including me — have been encouraging vendors and municipalities to conduct. So I was glad to participate, even though the test was launched with only three days' notice. I assembled a team from the University of Michigan, including my PhD students, Eric Wustrow and Scott Wolchok, and Dawn Isabel, a member of the University of Michigan technical staff.

Within 36 hours of the system going live, our team had found and exploited a vulnerability that gave us almost total control of the server software, including the ability to change votes and reveal voters’ secret ballots. In this post, I’ll describe what we did, how we did it, and what it means for Internet voting.

D.C.'s pilot system

The D.C. system is built around an open source server-side application developed in partnership with the TrustTheVote project. Under the hood, it looks like a typical web application. It's written using the popular Ruby on Rails framework and runs on top of the Apache web server and MySQL database.

Absentee overseas voters receive a physical letter in the mail instructing them to visit a D.C. web site, http://www.dcboee.us/DVM/, and log in with a unique 16-character PIN. The system gives voters two options: they can download a PDF ballot and return it by mail, or they can download a PDF ballot, fill it out electronically, and then upload the completed ballot as a PDF file to the server. The server encrypts uploaded ballots and saves them in encrypted form, and, after the election, officials transfer them to a non-networked PC, where they decrypt and print them. The printed ballots are counted using the same procedures used for mail-in paper ballots.

A small vulnerability, big consequences

We found a vulnerability in the way the system processes uploaded ballots. We confirmed the problem using our own test installation of the web application, and found that we could gain the same access privileges as the server application program itself, including read and write access to the encrypted ballots and database.

The problem, which geeks classify as a “shell-injection vulnerability,” has to do with the ballot upload procedure. When a voter follows the instructions and uploads a completed ballot as a PDF file, the server saves it as a temporary file and encrypts it using a command-line tool called GnuPG. Internally, the server executes the command gpg with the name of this temporary file as a parameter: gpg […] /tmp/stream,28957,0.pdf.

We realized that although the server replaces the filename with an automatically generated name (“stream,28957,0” in this example), it keeps whatever file extension the voter provided. Instead of a file ending in “.pdf,” we could upload a file with a name that ended in almost any string we wanted, and this string would become part of the command the server executed. By formatting the string in a particular way, we could cause the server to execute commands on our behalf. For example, the filename “ballot.$(sleep 10)pdf” would cause the server to pause for ten seconds (executing the “sleep 10” command) before responding. In effect, this vulnerability allowed us to remotely log in to the server as a privileged user.

Our demonstration attacks

D.C. launched the public testbed server on Tuesday, September 28. On Wednesday afternoon, we began to exploit the problem we found to demonstrate a number of attacks:

We collected crucial secret data stored on the server, including the database username and password as well as the public key used to encrypt the ballots.
We modified all the ballots that had already been cast to contain write-in votes for candidates we selected. (Although the system encrypts voted ballots, we simply discarded the encrypted files and replaced them with different ones that we encrypted using the same key.) We also rigged the system to replace future votes in the same way.
We installed a back door that let us view any ballots that voters cast after our attack. This modification recorded the votes, in unencrypted form, together with the names of the voters who cast them, violating ballot secrecy.
To show that we had control of the server, we left a “calling card” on the system's confirmation screen, which voters see after voting. After 15 seconds, the page plays the University of Michigan fight song. Here's a demonstration.

Stealthiness wasn't our main objective, and our demonstration had a much greater footprint inside the system than a real attack would need. Nevertheless, we did not immediately announce what we had done, because we wanted to give the administrators an opportunity to exercise their intrusion detection and recovery processes — an essential part of any online voting system. Our attack remained active for two business days, until Friday afternoon, when D.C. officials took down the testbed server after several testers pointed out the fight song.

Based on this experience and other results from the public tests, the D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics has announced that they will not proceed with a live deployment of electronic ballot return at this time, though they plan to continue to develop the system. Voters will still be able to download and print ballots to return by mail, which seems a lot less risky.

D.C. officials brought the testbed server back up today (Tuesday) with the electronic ballot return mechanism disabled. The public test period will continue until Friday, October 8.

What this means for Internet voting

The specific vulnerability that we exploited is simple to fix, but it will be vastly more difficult to make the system secure. We've found a number of other problems in the system, and everything we've seen suggests that the design is brittle: one small mistake can completely compromise its security. I described above how a small error in file-extension handling left the system open to exploitation. If this particular problem had not existed, I'm confident that we would have found another way to attack the system.

None of this will come as a surprise to Internet security experts, who are familiar with the many kinds of attacks that major web sites suffer from on a daily basis. It may someday be possible to build a secure method for submitting ballots over the Internet, but in the meantime, such systems should be presumed to be vulnerable based on the limitations of today's security technology.

We plan to write more about the problems we found and their implications for Internet voting in a forthcoming paper

Bad Obama Watch: Individual Mandate Gets A Win

The one thing I really hate about Obama's healthcare plan is the individual mandate. I don't even like mandatory auto insurance for cars. Its one reason I use car sharing. I don't have to buy auto insurance. Good news: this is just one of several lawsuits and not the lawsuit pursued by mostly republican attorney generals. In fact, the plaintiffs in this sixth circuit case were your usual right wing anti choice loons. If the mandate passes, then that would take picking winners and losers to a whole new level. For the first time, since watching the courts in the early 80s, I'm rooting for the republicans on this one. I can't ever recall doing that.

Read the full story at Firedoglake.

Thursday, October 07, 2010

My one disagreement with Sam Harris...

I just posted this in response to a Sam Harris comment. I do have one disagreement with him even though I agree with him 99 percent of the time...

Philip Shropshire

Well, generally, you're right about 99 percent of everything which is a pretty good track record percentage wise. My only disagreement with you about the evils of fundamentalism is its origins. Every fascist anti-progress True Believer thought process begins with poverty. For example, while I don't think crashing planes is a good way to solve your problems (Osama should have just started a multinational in good standing with the republicrats and he could have killed, frankly, an unlimited number of Americans. See Massey, BP, carbon and fracking polluters, etc.) I thought its origins was primarily economic not theocratic.

Irrational thought systems need irrational systems of poverty and misery to grow and thrive. The poor usually don't have, and they certainly aren't taught, the critical thinking skills you need to counteract religious and superstitious nonsense.

Really, the first goal of anyone who wants to rid the world of dangerous delusional thinking is to rid the world of world poverty. Remember: the fundamentalism abroad, and you can take your pick of Iran, Iraq and various other countries, usually starts with an American government taking out a democratically elected leader and putting in some Shah or other thug....Ayatollahs need Shahs. Tea parties need high unemployment and joblessness...

Just a thought....

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Somewhat awkwardly animated Orwell speech that describes the Tea Party

I look at just the fascist weirdness of the Tea Party and find that I'm at a loss for words. George Orwell finds those words here. Disturbing.

Don't let it happen. Update: When I think of that O Donnell woman I think of the woman in this pic wearing the anti sex league button.

Saturday, September 18, 2010

Justice for Jordan Miles Rally & March today at 2 PM at the corner of Tioga and Rosedale

I got this reminder from BPEP the other day. I'm just passing it along:

Saturday, September 18, 2010 @ 2 pm - Justice for Jordan Miles Rally & March
(The Corner of Tioga & Rosedale) Join the Alliance for Police Accountability to demand: Prosecution of Richard Ewing, David Sisak and Michael Saldutte! End police brutality and racial profiling! Community control of the police force! Click here for more details. For more information: bsfish27@aol.com or 412-628-5849

I did click for more details and I found this:

Justice for Jordan Miles
Issued by the Alliance for Police Accountability
For more information: bsfish27@aol.com or 412-628-5849
Rally & March
Sat, Sept. 18 2 pm
On January 12th, Jordan Miles was walking to his grandmother’s house when he was attacked by three plain-clothes police officers. The attack was brutal, and the three officers, Richard Ewing, David Sisak and Michael Saldutte, went so far as to rip the dreadlocks off of his head.
When the assault took place, Jordan was an honor student at CAPA high school. The attack was completely unprovoked, and it has become increasingly obvious that this beating was yet another incident of racial profiling by the police department.
The city government has done everything it can to make sure the guilty officers suffer no consequences for their actions. The only way that Ewing, Sisak and Saldutte will be held accountable is if we stand up and fight back by organizing a movement for justice. On Saturday, September 18th, march with us to show the Mayor, the Police Department, and every other politician and official that people across communities will not accept police brutality!
Join us to demand:
• Prosecution of Richard Ewing, David Sisak and Michael Saldutte!
• End police brutality and racial profiling!
• Community control of the police force!

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Lying Blackmailing Wilkinsburg Code Enforcer Jim Frank trails me for a block in a white city vehicle and calls me a "lazy fat bastard".

Lying Blackmailing Wilkinsburg Code Enforcer Jim Frank trails me for a block in a white city vehicle and calls me a "lazy fat bastard". His superiors have been notified.

So whatever happened to lying blackmailing Wilkinsburg code enforcer Jim Frank? The bad tempered grumpy old man (attempted representation of Mr. Frank at left) who stars in this story (Jim Frank: Wilkinsburg Code Enforcement or sleazy 70s Mafia-style goon demanding payment "or else".) and this one (Where Wilkinsburg Code Enforcer Jim Frank lies about blackmail attempt and runs away from me like a little girl.) and this one (Where I answer friendly comments by Patio and Vinny about lying blackmailing Wilkinsburg code enforcer Jim Frank...).

Well, for a long time, nothing had happened since the last story had been printed on August 3rd. I figured out that they had figured out that they didn't have much of case of forcing a tenant to pay for the landlord's property upkeep. I might also note that they probably also figured out that they could still use that law to intimidate more gullible people who can't research case law. If that ordinance were to ever be used against me, then I would kill it. Fair enough.

That changed last Wednesday morning Sept. 8, between 11:30 and 11:45 AM, when Mr. Frank approached me while driving a white City of Wilkinsburg vehicle and started shouting at me from his driver's window. I think I gave him an acknowledgment of sorts and walked away from him. Afterall, I tend to think that he's a jerk and not the brightest opponent I've encountered. So, and this is where it gets interesting. This nutjob follows me down the left side of the street for an entire block, occasionally yelling inanities and odd requests. (Would you give this guy a copy of your lease without a court order?) There was also this odd complaint about his bosses asking him questions about this particular case. Well, I would hope so. I reminded him, as I was striding away from this fruit loop, that I didn't go to his house and threaten him on his porch. Then the street ends at Wood so he can't stalk me anymore on a two way street so he jumps out of his car and calls me: "a lazy fat bastard." I then responded "Hey, can I quote you on that you fuckin' moron?"

His response sounded to me like he didn't care which is just fine because I was going to quote him anyway. Its okay I checked with my imaginary rich white male editor. He has my back unlike other editors I've had.

Now yesterday afternoon I spoke to Wilkinsburg Fire Chief Owen McAfee, who is supposed to be Frank's "boss" (Does he have one? I mean, really.) and I asked him is that the sort of behavior that he encourages in his code enforcers? And if it is can I please work for him because that sounds like a very cool job.

To McAfee's credit he said "No." Now, I have to complete the complaint form for the Wilkinsburg Borough Manager Marla Marcinko, which should be turned in Wednesday. But will Jim Frank receive any punishment at all for this? By the way, I put this into the very big box I call "Things white folks get away with at work that I could never get away with." Stay tuned...

Related: One odd thing about this: as soon as Jim finished describing me, inaccurately as I have noted in the past that I'm Forest Whitaker Ghost Dog fit, another white guy drove up right beside him. I have to admit that he looked more intimidating than Frank, who looks to be near death and as you can imagine I certainly wish him well. This other guy was the kind of guy you would cast in a Sons of Anarchy episode. He was a bald guy, tattoos on both of his forearms, drove a brown pickup of some kind. Let me guess: Frank provokes me, for after all we are all violent negroes who can't control our tempers, and this guy just happens to come along and what, shoots me..? Frank claims to the police. "Tragic officers jus' tragic. This big negro starts to strangling me fer no good reason as I was just minding my business trailing him down the street in my car and yellin' obscenities at him out the winda'...good thing my friend came along and shot him six times. Yep what luck.. Self defense all the way officers. Self Defense."

Ha ha ha. Nah. My speculation sounds far fetched. I would say that other guy arriving then and there was 99 percent coincidence. However, its that other one percent that nags at me...well, ready when you are. Hurm. More Related: If ever attacked, then I would vigorously defend myself.

Atheist toon break and buy the new Jesus and Mo book

ITEM: Atheist toon break.

Buy the new Jesus and Mo' book. And the always brilliant Mr. Fish.

Thursday, September 09, 2010

Church of Elena Dementieva's Thighs Upended by Heretical Aussie Ripped Torso Cult

The Church of Elena Dementieva's Thighs--the one true religion I might self righteously add--has been upended by Samantha Stosur, or the woman who heads Cult of the Aussie Lady with Ripped Upper Torso. It is a heretical cult of witches I would think.

And lo, it has been privately revealed to me: Elena's serve must become even stronger and she needs to develop her serve and volley technique. However, I think Elena's window closes in several years. I can't figure out why she doesn't excel on clay. Amen.

Genesis of the completely legitimate The Church of Elena Dementiava's Thighs.

Local trippy hippy Pittsburgh band I like called The Van Allen Belt

ITEM: Local hippy trippy band that I like called the Van Allen Belt. I'm thinking about seeing them live. I could be their African American fan.

You can watch the fine marijuana prohibition doc "High" free on Hulu

ITEM: I'm currently watching High, a documentary about the American war on Marijuana. I hear its number one on Hulu. Prohibition didn't work by the way. Just for the record: I don't use drugs myself. I just don't think you should get locked up for grass anymore than I think that cigarette users or drinkers should be locked up for their vices. Call me a radical. Besides, I don't need drugs. I've got the Acid Jazz channel. Related: More marijuana docs here. I highly recommend "The Union" if you can get it to load. More Related: Support Firedoglake's "Just Say Now" campaign. It might be the only good news that Progressives get this November. Too bad Barbara Boxer, a "democrat", is pro prohibition. I can sort of see that politically but sometimes you just need to do the right thing. Not that the democratic party has done that of late.

How not to get the progressive Democratic Party base hot bothered and excited parts one, two and three

How not to get the base hot bothered and excited Part One.

Here's parts two and three. You could do part 25 if you wanted to...It's not just one issue. I feel betrayed by this administration on a multitude of issues as a progressive...Related: I like Obama's attack on Boehner and the horrors of a "Let's apologize to BP" GOP house but Jon Walker's so what point is on the mark...

Rave reviews for new graphic works by Darwyn Cooke, Scott Morse and James Stokoe

ITEM: I highly recommend this special format edition comic, which features 60s criminal Parker. He's not a nice man. He once shot a double crossing fat dame in the back as she was running away. I might be giving away the ending but its not the story its the art. Just gorgeous to look at. Love this special format. Only 2 bucks. Highly recommended. Background from IDW publishing here. Related: I also enjoyed the first two issues of Strange Science Fantasy by phenom Scott Morse. I was more blown away, again, by the art rather than the story. The visuals are a perfect mind-meld of Eisner technique and Kirby vision. Not well written, however. Felt poetic though. Could you do an adaptation of Ribofunk or any Greg Egan short story?

ITEM: I have been blown away by the art of James Stokoe in Orc Stain. Feels like Paul Pope in that the art is mind-blowing but the writing isn't that good, or relatable. Please do something with Moore or Ellis. Characters feel more like impressionistic drug induced sketches than actual people. On the other hand, I try to buy everything that Pope does as well. Nice to see that Heavy Metal still has an influence on the Young People. This guy is drenched in the blood lines of Drulliet. Related: Here's a bit of Drulliet.

Here's my one labor day thought...

ITEM: My one thought for labor day: why doesn't labor have its own party? I mean, really.

New Artist I Like Called Pixelnase

ITEM: New artist I like called Pixelnase.

Tuesday, September 07, 2010

A few words about Philip Shropshire's Acid Jazz Channel.

Just a few thoughts about the online video channel I've created: The Acid Jazz Channel.

It beats out MTV and every excuse for a cable music channel that I've had the displeasure to attempt to watch. You can watch the Acid Jazz Channel for hours and always find something interesting and new and most importantly: challenging. When it works its like watching a lucid dream with a persistent sinewy groove. But its not all groove. Man can not live on groove alone.

Watch it for yourself. Then you'll know. You'll know.

Monday, September 06, 2010

Yet another post of the Acid Jazz Channel

It takes about 10 to 15 seconds for this channel to load. If you don't see a picture of some kind, then some of the videos don't load. I don't quite understand it myself. Also try here if the embed isn't working.

Thursday, September 02, 2010

The Church of Elena Dementieva's Thighs and Competing Heretical Cults

Here's a special US Open feature. As people may know I thought there should be a church that worshipped Elena Dementieva's thighs.

I started this church and called it: The Church of Elena Dementieva's thighs. I believe that it's a non profit. Just for the record, I think Elena is the greatest female player to not have have won a grand slam and I really think if she's going to win this would be a good time since Serena is out with an injury. Amen.

I must point out that I'm no heretic. I'm not at all tempted by other churches that may or may not involve the thighs of other professional lady tennis players. Such as this person:

I don't think her shoulder will allow her to win slams.

And certainly not this person. Twould be a mortal sin.

And I don't even like Danielle Hantuchova. She has round of 16 talent and that's it....

Stop looking at me temptress of Satan...!

STOP...!

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Great romance comics that never happened featuring tearful Modok

Great comics that never happened.

New episode of Lucky Ducky called "Deficit Hawk Down"

And here's another episode of Lucky Ducky called Deficit Hawk Down. A brief preview and a riddle: Are republicans for deficit reduction even when it comes to taxes for the rich? Oh its a conundrum

Friday, August 20, 2010

Vast Wasteland: I don't think the Oregon Vampire Equal Rights amendment is going to pass and other reviews.

ITEM: Let this mark the grand return of my Vast Wasteland TV Column. Last seen here.

I've been watching a lot of television lately, which is a good way to put off Ken Macleod books I should be finishing. Just short impressions:

True Blood: I don't think that the Oregon Vampire Rights Amendment is going to pass. I still think that our real world Just Say Now Marijuana legalization campaign has a shot, even though the Mormons and Barack Obama will probably be on the other side. I guess I should passively hope that a marijuana supporter won't fly into some Christian Broadcasting station and kill someone on camera by plunging a hand through the poor guy's chest and then snarl something about "eating your children". That wouldn't be helpful to the anti prohibition efforts I would think.

Rubicon: How does the lead character get his hair like that? I've seen characters with hair like that in anime but never real life. Its like some kind of arrow hat. Meanwhile, the side story of deciding to murder somebody with a UAV felt pretty realistic. Apparently, its always a go. I can believe that. No, really I can.

Burn Notice and Covert Affairs: I find these shows very entertaining. But, for the most part, we're the bad guys. We usually murder Democrats and replace them with Dictators. If you watch Burn Notice, then you'll understand why I think Simon would be the agent in good standing and Michael, who "helps" people, would be the one sent to some off the books black prison site. On the other hand, perhaps that's why Michael got burned: refused to assassinate Chavez. Related: Too poor for cable? I might be in that category myself soon. You can watch both of these shows online.

Related: Okay, you are too lazy to have read the Nation or the Progressive or Mother Jones for the last 28 years to know how evil our foreign policy is abroad. Can you watch a video? Try this one or this one or this one. I'll embed these over at Mirror Universe when I get a chance.

Oh, and one more thing: Jessica Centers is not credible.

And that Jessica Glynn Centers isn't credible either.

Thursday, August 19, 2010

Decided to update my soft porn page The Red Light District. Not safe for work at all.

ITEM: I've decided to start updating the Red Light District again. Not safe for work, at all.

Sunday, August 15, 2010

Let us have a moment of silence and a moment of song for the late Abbey Lincoln.

Let's all say a non denominational atheist prayer for the late Abbey Lincoln. Here's my fave Youtube vid of her with Max Roach. Check out the last notes here and that wonderful expression on her face:

[ Download ]

More on Examiner.com, Jessica Centers Fallout. What's next?

I'm still trying to figure out the transition away from Examiner.com. The Examiner is a part of something called a "Content Farm", which you can read about here and here. Content farms don't pay much but if you like to write and don't need to make a lot of money they're fine.

For the next month or so, I'm going to focus on Mirror Universe and here, with an effort to revive the Red Light District. That portion of my website still makes money even though I haven't updated it in over six months...so I guess that tells me something. Let's see how hard I can work...

Oh, and one more thing:

Jessica Centers is not credible!
Jessica Glynn Centers is not credible!

Monday, August 09, 2010

Copy of Hub Pages involving Jessica Centers and Examiner.com

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My Brilliant Career at the Examiner.com is at an end.

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By pshropshire

Rationale given by Jessica Centers simply not credible.

(For Working links go here.)

My brilliant career with the Examiner news service, run by apparently the Colorado version of Richard Scaife, appears over. Oh, where will I get an extra 40 to 90 dollars a month? I'd probably make more money panhandling. By the way, my career path over the last 10 years resembles this man.

Anyway, so this is the story that got all of my privileges pulled. I don't know exactly why those privileges were pulled even though I did ask . The reasons given by my "editor" Jessica Centers, our guidelines and high standards and whatnot, would make sense at a place like Firedoglake. Those reasons don't make sense at the Examiner, where writers have routinely just made stuff up so to speak and weren't caught for weeks. Do a search for UFO stories at the Examiner. I mean, the truth could be out there, but not from those writers... It would also have made a bit more sense had you cancelled the first two--stories in the series and not just the third. That would have made sense.

And now that I no longer work for the examiner I can state this: some of the worst writing I had ever seen is printed at Examiner.com. You can definitely apply Sturgeon's law to that particular enterprise. There are some good writers at the Examiner but its very rare that you find an actual "story" of any kind. The only reason I didn't mention it before is that I thought it was bad form and an obvious misplacement of loyalty: Never badmouth a brand that you're a part of. (Although I was about to ask. Some of the Examiner.com occult/paranormal/religious stuff was just too good to pass up at my atheism post...)

By the way, I lost all three of my posts not just the title of Progressive Examiner, but also the elections 2010 post and the Atheism post which I had finally figured out how to localize. Stay classy Jessica. What's also funny: the work I did on the Jim Frank stories was the most reporting and "work" that I did since arriving there. I actually had to do "things" in order to write those stories. I had to research the case law. I had to talk to two reps at the Allegheny County DA's office. I had to look over Wilkinsburg city ordinances. Most times, I'm just reworking press releases. This is why when people talk about the "dignity of work" my eyes glaze over in disbelief. If you have a choice between a "job" at the examiner-- or some other non union no rights private sector job--or unemployment benefits, then take the unemployment benefits. You can rely on those. You can't rely on many private sector jobs. There's an essay there someplace. Long live the 99ers....

My Brilliant Career at Examiner.com is at an end. Not sure why.

ITEM: My brilliant career with the Examiner news service, run by apparently the Colorado version of Richard Scaife, appears over. Oh, where will I get an extra 40 to 90 dollars a month? I'd probably make more money panhandling. By the way, my career path over the last 10 years resembles this man.

http://www.examiner.com/x-10379-Pittsburgh-Progressive-Examiner~y2010m7d21-Jim-Frank-Wilkinsburg-Code-Enforcement-or-sleazy-70s-Mafiastyle-goon-demanding-payment-or-else

and

http://www.examiner.com/x-10379-Pittsburgh-Progressive-Examiner~y2010m7d30-Code-Enforcer-Jim-Frank-lies-about-blackmail-attempt-and-runs-away-from-me-like-a-little-girl

--stories in the series and not just the third. That would have made sense.