Sure, it’s miles away from 3D printing metal guns. Ages. But this gadget is probably making the ATF nervous about the future. And maybe someday soon some far more advanced version will make gunfolk very cheerful. (H/T MJR) Okay. Short quiz: When’s the last time you felt your life was endangered by a Jack Russell terrier? A. Absolutely freaking never; are you kidding me? B. Once, when one was riding on the back of a charging Rottweiler. C. There was that time my ex tried to stuff a Jack Russell terrier down my throat; that was scary. D. When I…
Category: Privacy and self ownership
Owning our own information and telling Big Brother to get lost
Seattle police continue to adapt well to cannabis legalization. (Though you may have to read carefully all the way through to hear their quiet chuckling.) I don’t know how good this “uncrackable” texting app is. I do know it’s yet another great sign that the tech world will smack down the NSA. (Tip o’ hat to MJR) And this is great, too. Kicking the No Such Agency and defending the Fourth while doing good deeds. In public. Here’s one I’ve been meaning to write a longer screed on but just haven’t been able to get to: the difference between knowing…
“Dogs are people, too.” At least in their abilities to feel and anticipate — something that will come as no surprise to anybody who’s lived with them, but is apparently news in neuroscience. (Tip o’ hat to MLS) Federal theater of the absurd. (I also agree with Carl that the Crazy Horse monument is so superior to Mt. Rushmore in every way that even after the silly feddies remove the barriers I’d still just drive on past and watch free enterprise at work a few miles down the road.) Erm … I don’t usually read Glamour. But I found this…
Source. And thanks to O. for finding this and kindly reformatting it in a blog-friendly way. Source. And thanks to H. for finding this.
Wired has the background on just what the fedspies did that prompted Ladar Levison to shut down the privacymail service, Lavabit. It was a heck of a principled thing Levison did, and a gutsy one, shutting down a service with 400,000 paying (including about 10k paying; correction from Steve in comments) customers rather than betray those who trusted him. We already knew that. What we didn’t know (among other things) was how he handled the fed demand when he was finally forced into a corner after a hard fight: The judge also rejected Lavabit’s motion to unseal the record. “This…
You may have heard that John McAfee (of both anti-virus fame and possibly-shooting-his-neighbor-in-Belize infamy) claims to have plans for an inexpensive, portable device to foil NSA snooping. Says he just needs to get backers & such — that the device itself is already feasible. It’s called “Decentral” or “Dcentral,” depending on which article you read. When I expressed doubt that the half-mad McAfee could pull this off, an acquaintance we shall call “Boris Badenov” for his background, replied: Well, I guarantee it will be a flawed individual who comes up with a “peaceful” solution to the Stasi… and shooting a…
Ever since Pamela Jones shut down Groklaw and announced she was not only abandoning the site but quitting the Internet entirely in light of the Edward Snowden revelations, I’ve been thinking about this. At the time, though I found her reasons poignant and pertinent, I thought she was overreacting. Now, I don’t know. Personally, I’m not on the verge of quitting. A big part of my life is here. And all of my career (such as it is) is here. That’s been true since 1986 when a client bought me my first 300-baud modem and set it up so I…
Edited The non-surprising, horrendously shocking, news about the National “Security” Agency’s perfidy gets worse. Again, we’re dealing with something that’s been speculated about for years but whose real bogeyman shape has only now materialized thanks to Edward Snowden. Wired has one take on it — and some doubts. A friend whose profession is data center security has a more apocalyptic take (the second half of what he says is what we all need to be aware and beware of): RSA has now admitted that they pushed a known flawed random number generator in most if not of all of their…
Mark Steyn on America as a banana republic. Political views mess up your ability to do math. Probably other things, too. Fascinating study but not surprising. Another example of confirmation bias in action. Do you get junk emails from your acquaintances urging you to connect with them on LinkedIn? I used to get a fair number of those and thought, “Wow, for people who supposedly know me, these guys are sure idiots.” Like I’m ever going to join LinkedIn. Like I think it’s just wonderful for acquaintances to give my address to all and sundry. Then I got a fervently…