I should be able to resume posting shortly.

Video: Three Natural Laws of Security is currently unavailable. Seeking new hosting site.

2009-04-29

Hmmm ... very business-like, but I like it. Check out the photos gallery at the bottom.
Home Invasion Roundup:
A home invasion robbery in Lodi quickly fell apart Monday night when one of the suspects shot himself in the leg.
... with a shotgun!
Arm yourselves and be ready to go, always!
I agree that the law is ill-advised and it's application is unwarranted (and probably won't pass constitutional muster in the long run), but your buddies strike me as ignorant douche bags and their tactics strike me as unbridled douche-baggery.
I can understand why they say that we are 'a nation of laws', but I think the fact that it's true is a big part of our problem. There are a lot of really irrational and corrupt laws on the books and enforcing them is no virtue, it's merely irrational and corrupt. I think that we would be better off if we adopted the wording from the Pledge and called ourselves 'a nation of Liberty and Justice for ALL' and then made sure that it was true. Yeah, it's a little more work, but I think it would be worth it.
Interesting, if somewhat short, video ...

2009-04-28

Fun AND profit.
... elsewise we might rile the Wussies.
Home Invasion Roundup:
And it's all based on ignorance of the nature of security. The third natural law of security states: All Security is Individual and Relative. The act of having a national information security office guarantees several things:

1) Security measures will be uniform across diverse systems so that no individual system will have security optimized to its own particular vulnerabilities.
2) Hacking any one system will reveal the vulnerabilities of all the rest.
3) Bureaucracies move slowly so solutions will become available just as the vulnerability-exploitation process has run it's course.
4) All systems that are covered by the NIS office will always be vulnerable to personal and political corruption in that office.

What a bargain!
Especially Number 5 ... but don't make the mistake of thinking that practicing these tips will take the place of being ready to go for it.
Interesting ...
Hmmm ... Ford's got it goin' on these days.

2009-04-27

That's just piling on ...
Home Invasion Roundup:

My God ... it's full of WIN!
... and then accidentally scorch a mile-wide scar across four states.
I hadn't noticed this before.
And yet ... the Second Amendment isn't about hunting, is it? If you feel better having clearly inferior firepower when the need arises (and I pray it never does), I support your choice. But if I choose to cover all the bases with sport/utility rifles so that I know I'll have the tools to get the icky jobs done, don't pretend that it's some kind of criminal tendency.
More on space tornadoes.

2009-04-26

On the off chance that it turns out to be nothing, we better panic now so we aren't deprived of the opportunity to demonstrate what a Nation of Wussies we've become.
It's nice to see some alternatives coming down the pike. If nothing else, it will probably make MS more responsive.
Interesting ... but somewhat crunchy.

Hmmm ... it's interesting how easy it is to wonder whether the tangos are the good guys or the bad guys when the news is coming out of Africa.

2009-04-25

Some inter-stellar eye candy ...
This is weird.
It can always be worse ...
Not your usual car show pics ...
If you singled out ANY OTHER group by race, religion, or color and persecuted them the way the left and the media goes after this group of law abiding citizens, the A.C.L.U. would be on your doorstep with an injunction in 20 Minutes! Imagine if you needed a permit to be Jewish, legally required to keep you Koranlocked up,restricted to certain “safe and approved” denominations of Christianity. Would you stand by and be limited to only one church service a month? What if it was a crime to practice your faithacross state lines? What would you do if all Gays were required to register themselves with the state? Would you support a ban on Catholicism if if could be proven it was the “religion of choice” for Mexican Drug cartels? Are these not the same “common sense” and “reasonable restrictions” that people want applied to Lawful American Gun Owners?

Hmmm ... Lautenburg, New Jersey ... vote out of office ... anyone else that supports ... vote out of office!

Always good advice.
Hmmm ... Richard Alloway II ... Pennsylvania ... OK to vote for - so far.
Home Invasion Roundup:

Arm yourselves and be ready to go, always!
What's scary is that this gal has any role in administering the legal system.
Gee, I wonder if they show the exact same tendency on the left. That's essentially what the report was ... a left-wing attempt to scapegoat the right.

2009-04-23

Never mess with the awesome power of science, Timmy.

Also ...

And as long as we're on the subject ...

Home invasion round-up:

I'll take one of each!
If college were this fun all the time, everyone would go.
Space tornados ... why wasn't I notified.
Hmmm ... Dragon Thrusters.

2009-04-22

Hmmm ,,, doesn't say whether he's a Republican or not.
This set of pics from Cassini is awesome (and full of win).
Yesss, and we're feeling far less forgiving now.
I didn't really expect this out of the 9th, but I'll take it wherever I can get it.
I doubt he would have done it, anyway.
There were far less-promising things than this funded.
Hmmm ... applied economics.
Home invasion roundup:

I'm going to let this one percolate for awhile. It's almost too perfect to be true.
Hmmm ... TSA missed the knives, the passenger that had the knives notified the crew that she had them when she realized it and they still had to turn the plane around and go through a bunch of theatre even though the knives didn't actually pose any risk.
This is a lesson that everyone should learn. Don't do things that are only supportable in an atmosphere of fear, because sooner or later the fear will subside and the formerly fearful will use you as reaction mass to push themselves away from there own sense of guilt and self-loathing. It has always been this way, which is why not torturing is always the correct answer.
In the U.S, the only objectives that seem to have been accomplished are the ones we ascribed to the tangos, i.e. reducing our liberty, dividing us, etc. They don't seem to have had much luck getting us to turn Islamic or making us go away and leave them alone.
I wonder if this type of research will precipitate a legitimate quest for FTL travel.

2009-04-21

Hmmm ... can't predict any difficulties here.


Maybe it's because they know the odds of actually being killed in one are very low. I know that's a relief to me.

I have my doubts as well but at least they're thinking innovatively.
Home invasion round-up:

Shaquan Altrek Johnson is wanted in connection with a home invasion on April 12.
I'm tentatively supportive of this (because I do so love it when they fight back), but confidence should always be directly proportional to competence or you're asking for a rather surprised look on your face as you die.
This only works if you don't have a violent history or do have supporting video.
Oh, sure. It's fun ... 'til somebody puts an eye out!
Gotta get me one of these!
To bad he otherwise seems to lean pro-authoritarian.

2009-04-20

Sounds good to me, Steve.
I think Israel has been signaling a clear interest to engage with Iran, as well, but it seems unlikely that it will be in terms of debate.
Large Hadron Rap
This IS pretty clever.
Reed was charged with possession of an infernal machine and possession of a concealed weapon in a secure area of an airport.
Infernal machine ... that's kinda catchy ... kinda catch-all too, but so what. Let the Supremes sort it out.

Having just over-thrown the existing government (remember King George?), I suspect they envisioned whatever weapons those they might have to face would have. If the other guys, be it criminals or oppressors, had innocent-citizen-mow-down-in-seconds weapons, then the general populace should also have them.
This is true. Do one thing well, not two things poorly.
What exactly is stopping them, and why not mention 10 or 20 just to give the journalists something to report on?

2009-04-19

Apollo was arguably some of the best money ever spent, but for some reason space flight just wasn't politically sexy.
Uhh ... short of arming the folks that would actually have to deal with it.

It probably still won't work (because they won't be willing to hire the 9 year-olds) but at least they're on the right track, now.

I bet this will be fun (if you don't die).
Cassini has given us some great photos ...
You can always clarify the law later. This is a great improvement over 'shall retreat' doctrines.

Now is a good time for a home invasion round-up:




Hmmm ... it doesn't really say how they keep it from interfering with other craft.
Maybe it's the magically, not-yet-existing trillions being wildly spent that someone (wink, wink) will eventually have to pay for.

2009-04-18

The free sale of those weapons has been an enormous boon for the Mexican drug cartels that now easily outgun Mexican police forces in border provinces. That is a major reason why President Calderon sent the Mexican army into those regions to try to re-establish law and order.
Naturally, the Mexican non-governmental populace, being subjects and all instead of citizens, have no guns and so are prostrate in a battle between an overwhelmingly corrupt government and several government-manufactured criminal enterprises.
O'course, being China and all, he might have just been innocent. That's the problem with not being strongly justice oriented, there's no reason to believe anything that happens within the system.
Hmmm ... never heard of this bunch.
Yes, friend or foe, indeed?
I do so love it when they fight back.

Also, an aphorism from Mrs. Bulldog: the best way to a man's heart is through his chest ...

2009-04-17

Nooooooooooo ...
Good one!

Mmmm ... fast breeders.
They DO seem to be increasingly fond of #2 these days (and it's about damn time).
Hmmm ... yesss!
My sense is that torture, or whatever you want to call it, significantly reduced the general invisibility (resistance to selection for interference) with minimal/no counterbalancing increase in invincibility (resistance to interference). If you watched the video linked to the side of the page, you would already know that means that the general security (protection from interference) was reduced.

Additionally:

Yeah, me too.
So it appears.

Additionally: A photo
The flip-side of over-zealous surveillance is that spying can achieve positive results for communities.

Hmmm ... it could ... but for some reason it never does. Perhaps they should do a stakeholder analysis.

2009-04-16

Texas did secede in 1861, but the North's victory in the Civil War put an end to that.
Somehow, I don't think it would go much better this time, but ...


I do so love it when they fight back.
For having our pulse, and all ... they sure seem to apologize a lot.

Update: They were even warned that it was dumb.

I certainly hope we're doing the same to them ... only better.
A cool space pic ...
Reopening the debate on gun rights is apparently a fight the White House does not want to take on right now.
Hmmm ... that must be why the sock puppets talk about nothing else.
Microsoft has announced two new projects aimed at helping governments increase multiagency effectiveness, reduce costs, and help combat threats to public safety and security.
I wonder if they mean those kind?


Possibly coming to a car near you.
I still can't believe that this didn't turn out to be a hoax.

I can't imagine anything going wrong here.

This is becoming more frequent and it's putting the citizens in a position of having to assume that anyone forcing their way in are bad guys even if they're saying they're the police.

2009-04-13

A man who murdered a British couple with a hammer in the Canary Islands has been jailed for nearly 40 years by a Spanish court.

It's a good thing he didn't have a gun.

I'm not sure what to make of this, but whether he was doing something illegal or not he (and everyone) should have any data you don't want being looked at on an encrypted drive.

Additionally ... some thoughts from Orin. (via Volokh)
Interesting idea ...
This worked out nicely (except for the guy dyin', of course).
The problem with this argument is that it misses the 'fact' that ex-felons having guns is not any more of a problem than 'good citizens' having them. The problem starts when the ex-felon has one and the good citizen standing next to him (or her) doesn't. I can see no reason why anyone not currently in jail or prison should be disallowed from being armed. Moreover, Columbine would never have happened if guns were as ubiquitous as they were meant to be by the founders, because the type of abuse that supposedly precipitated it doesn't happen in polite (read 'armed') society.
This almost looks like it could be real, but the file itself reads like some kind of pulp paperback. It's actually cheezy-sounding, so if it is real I'm very embarrassed for whoever the author was.

Update: This also seems unlikely.

Update: I can't believe it's not bullshit ...
It looks like piracy may become somewhat less safe in the near future.
"We still do not know how our records were compromised," said Lamb, who mentioned that his own name was on the list. "We don't know if somebody was supposed to shred that information, but it ended up in a Dumpster."
It really does behoove everyone to determine exactly which employees can possibly access identity data and them make sure that they, and there staff, understand how much damage they can do if they don't maintain proper data security measures.

Related:

For example, if a project involves PII, or personally identifiable information, that invariably leads us to one security procedure: encryption. But we constantly find ourselves having to justify the need for encryption. If we can standardize our encryption requirements for PII, we may be able to cut some arguments short.
Ford seems to be having some 'better' ideas, again. One of which was maintaining a sane financial base.

2009-04-12

Some eerie pics of seed pods ...

(via MeFi)
"CCTV enforcement lacks connection with the driver until after the event and some drivers might regards it as Big Brother."
D'ya think?
A little physicist humor ...
SEALS! Get sum ...
It's probably a good idea to remember that this is possible. It's a shame to go after the wrong person ...
Geez ...
A solar boat ... might be worth keeping an eye on.
Interesting ...
I think we may need to get some 10 year olds involved in this ...

2009-04-11

There is a big difference between favoring reinstitution of an assault-weapons ban, or any other limited gun-control measure, and such sweeping attacks on gun ownership as the NRA and Glenn Beck have suggested are in the works.
No there isn't.
This doesn't look like a very comfortable way to arrive.
Some interesting discussion on Missouri campus CCW bill ...
Indeed ...
An interesting piece comparing death sentences to life without the possibility of parole.
It's usually a bad idea to shoot them in the back ...
“If you wanted to create jobs in every sector of this economy and every community … you could do it in less than a month without hiring any federal employees,” Wynn said. “You’d simply say if a company can prove that it has increased its regular work force, with health insurance … we will give you a tax credit to support the payroll of that new hire.”
An interesting question ...
The difficulty here is that gubmints really have no 'desires' that can be furthered by continuing work on the space station. On the other hand, there are numerous fields of endeavor that have private firms that would benefit from having a presence in zero-g, pharma and materials come to mind. We need to come up with a way to treat ISS like Antartica, so that a private firm that has the desire and where-with-all to get there and hook on can do so with the understanding that the fact of being able to get there ensures there right to be there once they arrive.
Police Chief Greg Anderson issued an alert Friday asking for help in tracking down the individuals responsible for a series of dangerous pranks pulled on motorists traveling on Burlington Road.
There is frequently a disconnect between the citizens and police in such situations. Pranking is usually done by the young, and is usually done as a sort of self-test to determine ones own boundaries relative to the adult world. We all did it during that age. The citizens may desire police intervention but expect that the intervention will follow the form of 'OK, this is what happens, go and sin no more' which is the 'proper' form for the intervention to take to ensure that proper development of the young citizen in question takes place. Unfortunately, the state of the police paradigm is such today that there is no distinguishing between ritual interaction with our youth, and regular police-function interaction. The result is that the pranking youth is victimized rather than guided and leaves the experience with no feeling of obligation to the society he is trying to find his place in. I think that the main cause of this disconnect is that too many police officers are not old enough to have seen there own children go through this phase, and may not recognize that the pranking is a necessary part of growing up and is not, in fact, an indicator of criminal intent or tendency.
Oh! OK. Well ... let's roll over and go back to sleep then (prediction alert).
Stylin' for a chain lock, but it really doesn't overcome the weaknesses in all chain locks.
This sounds like fun ...
Citizen Security Reduction roundup:

“On the national level, the issue is considered toxic by Democrats,” said Ross Baker, an expert on Congress at Rutgers University. “I think part of it has to do with (the Democrats’) remarkable success in capturing seats previously held by Republicans. Many of these new Democrats ran on platforms of not tampering with Second Amendment rights, and they don’t want to pull the rug out from under them.”
This, at least, is a good thing.

President Obama has said that while he agrees with a citizen’s Second Amendment right to own a gun, gun ownership should be “subject to reasonable regulations enacted by local communities to keep their streets safe.” This is not an unreasonable statement.
All together now: Regulating the guns of people that abide by regulations doesn't make the 'streets' safe!

With some 280 million weapons available in the country, it's little wonder guns account for roughly 12,000 of the 17,000 people murdered each year. As the nation did following the April 20, 1999, Columbine murders, it is time to confront the many causes of gun violence.
We should start by making sure that the good citizens stop leaving all those guns at home.

I tremble with disgust ...

2009-04-10

We really need a war on ignorance and hypocrisy!
"He literally beat them to death with his hands and feet," Abdullin said. "The family were poor and drank a lot. He blamed them for infecting his wife and the entire corridor with lice."

I'm marginally ashamed at how funny I found this.
Despite this, I have a hard time believing that Iran (or anyone else for that matter) would be satisfied with destroying an Israeli (or anyone else's for that matter) city or 10 knowing that it is a dead-bang certainty that their country would then becoming a rather large, radioactive, smoking-glass crater. There is a valid argument to be made for FedEx-ing them a couple of 10 megaton nukes and saying "Welcome to the big time. Don't fvck up!"
SCC is the best show ever!!!
Hmmm ... outting Area 51. What's not to like?
Looks like it was a pretty cool plane ... before the crash.
I have difficulty understanding this. The stand-off is between a US guided-missile destroyer and a lifeboat and the Navy feels it's prudent to send back-up for the destroyer.
Mmmmm ... 196 megapixels.
I do so love it when they fight back.
I don't recall having one of these when I was in high school.
Interesting ...

2009-04-09

LOL!
It would probably have been better if I hadn't seen this.

(via Overlawyered)
Well, at least he's where he can get helped gang-buggered.

(via The Agitator)
Wonder if maybe we need to 'boost the cume' a little bit, intelligence-wise.
Economy of scale ... quickly, please.
You would think that since Y2K, somebody in government or business would have come up with a contingency plan to manually override computer control in the event that something like this took place. Networked systems are fine, but we all know that everything from lightning to EMP to Gamma Ray bursts in distant regions of space could knock the computer controls out for extended periods. It's not like we don't know how to manually control the power grid. And anything that has the potential for catastropic negative externalities if hacked should simply never be connected to a network. Neither the software nor hardware should even have the capability of being networked.

Update:

"The end result is that, as part of our modernization, we've made ourselves more vulnerable," said James Lewis, a senior fellow at the nonprofit Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).
Ummm ... dual redundancy disks ... 32Tb per side.
I wonder if it comes with A/C.

2009-04-08

I imagine this goes on quite a bit more that we hear about ... except the 'getting caught' part.
Oops! How embarrassing!
I do so love it when they fight back.
An Easter reminder ... I guess?!?!
Ouch!
This is very cool!
For some reason this nation’s leaders cannot stop teenaged drug dealers, certifiable nuts and criminals from easily getting a gun.
Maybe they could criminalize such behavior or something.
What tied these shootings together is that both incidents occurred with guns that, until four years ago, were illegal under the Federal Assault Weapons Ban (FAWB).
Gee, and all this time I thought it had only been illegal to import or make new ones.

I don't recall seeing anywhere that post-post-ban weapons were used in these incidents. If someone else did please correct me on this.
Hmmm ... there's this:

HARRISBURG — The killing of three Pittsburgh police officers will renew gun control efforts in the Pennsylvania Legislature, but the outlook for enacting laws remains doubtful because the National Rifle Association has "a stranglehold" over lawmakers, a key House member said Tuesday.


And then there's this:

Helmke blamed the NRA for "fear mongering" that leads people to believe the government is coming for their guns, as friends said Richard Poplawski feared. Police said Poplawski killed two of the officers with a shotgun and used an AK-47 to exchange gunfire with SWAT team members and other officers.
I'm thinking that it might not be the NRA that has people thinking the gubmint might be coming for their guns.
Get sum!!!
Ummm ... 22 inches ... cheap!

2009-04-07

In that the actions they're defending significantly decrease your invisibility and don't provide any counter-balancing increase to your invincibility, it's pretty clear that they aren't defending it to improve your security.
High-tech, WWII-style.

(via Dry Roasted Blend)
What our economy actually needs is a product that is so desirable that about 50 million people are willing to scrimp and save to get one. This isn't quite it, but with a some smart automation and some economy of scale it would be.

(via Instapundit)
Bruce is fairly crunchy, today (but thought-provoking as ever.)
It's cheaper to be invisible than it is to be invincible.
It appears that the military showed quite a bit of restraint while this was going on.

2009-04-06

Hmmm ... a fundamentally new way to search my interwebz. I can't wait.
My sense is that Nicotine Replacement Therapy would be far more effective if there were several more step decreases in nicotine from each system than are currently available. Once you've gone from 4mg to 2mg, you should be able to them move on to 1mg, 1/2mg, 1/4mg and so forth. It's still a huge leap from a 2mg piece of gum to a 0mg piece of gum.
I wish this was a little closer to Vegas.
If college were always this fun, everyone would go.
Gotta love the timing on this ...
"We get all worked up after every earthquake, but it's not in our culture to construct buildings the right way in a quake zone, that is, build buildings that can resist (quakes) and retrofit old ones. This has never been done," Boschi said.


That's a darn shame!
It seems likely that whoever develops the capability to project force from orbit with any effectiveness will be the superpower for the next hundred years or so. In the mean time, this is probably a good idea.