Month: August 2011

Apple’s Response to the UK Riots

Let’s say you’re a store owner in a town that is being ravaged by riots, what do you do? If you’re Apple you move all of your inventory out of the store and close it down. That’s the best response a company could make in a place where violent criminals are attacking and looting private businesses. You’re far less of a target if you have nothing to take.

This is something that would also be smart for average people to learn. During times of civil unrest those who appear to have something worth stealing are more likely to be targets for the roving masses. Although a large number of random acts of violence will still make self-defense necessary, making yourself appears as poor as possible is one way to reduce the chances of you being directly targeted. Riots can often be kicked off by people angry with the actions of their government but it’s guaranteed that the rage of rioters will not be logically directed. As more and more people join the riots any possible message is lost as a large number of people will join in simply to loot and steal hoping they won’t get caught as there are so many people committing crimes. These thieves will target those who they perceive to have something worth taking so it’s smart to make it appear as though you have nothing worth their time.

Appearing as though you have nothing isn’t a fool proof way of voiding violence but it’s one additional step you can take in reducing your risk.

DNA Collection of Arrested Persons Deemed Unconstitutional in California

It’s about time some good news came from that hellhole known as California. A California appeals court has ruled that collecting the deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) of an arrested person is not constitutional:

A California appeals court is striking down a voter-approved measure requiring every adult arrested on a felony charge to submit a DNA sample.

The 1st District Court of Appeal in San Francisco said Proposition 69 amounted to unconstitutional, warrantless searches of arrestees. More than 1.6 million samples have been taken following the law’s 2009 implementation.

“What the DNA Act authorizes is the warrantless and suspicionless search of individuals, before a judicial determination of probable cause to believe they have committed a crime, for evidence of crime unrelated to that for which they have been arrested,” (.pdf) the court wrote. “The United States Supreme Court has never permitted suspicionless searches aimed at uncovering evidence of crime outside the context of convicted offenders.”

I don’t believe this ruling eliminates the ability of law enforcement to collect DNA but it at least establishes another step in requiring judicial review before the collection is performed. It’s also nice to see the court got it in this case. No, they really got it:

California argued that DNA evidence is an effective crime-solving tool. The court, ruling 3–0, found that argument immaterial.

“But even if DNA testing of arrestees was demonstrably valuable to law enforcement, the effectiveness of a crime fighting technology does not render it constitutional,” the court wrote.

Whether something is effective at assisting law enforcement is completely irrelevant if it’s infringing on the rights of individuals.

That’s OK, We Have Enough Problems

Minnesota has a lot of problems right now including a rampant deficit that will likely only be fixed when the state files bankruptcy. Sadly Obama has decided to make matters worse by coming here:

President Obama’s economy-themed bus tour next week will start in southern Minnesota, cut across northeast Iowa, and end in western Illinois, the administration announced today.

“The president will discuss ways to grow the economy, strengthen the middle class and accelerate hiring in communities and towns across the nation and hear directly from Americans, including local families and small business owners,” the White House said in a statement.

It’s OK Obama, save the taxpayers some money and feel free to skip Minnesota on your Tour of Economic Destruction. If we want a politician to tour the country and talk about economics we’ll take one that actually understands the subject matter, send Ron Paul our way.

An Important Lesson in Gun Safety

If you’re going to carry a gun you need to do it right. What does doing right involve? Well as The Firearm Blog points out one of the first things you should do is get a holster, not doing so may lead to unintended side effects:

As Joshua Seto, 27, and his fiance, Cara Christopher, walked to a local grocery store last week for refreshments, he tried securing her pink handgun in the front waistband of his pants.

The gun fired, striking Seto’s penis and continuing through his left thigh. The bleeding started immediately and was heavy, according to police dispatch recordings released Sunday.

I’m not a fan of carrying a firearm in the front of my pants as there is very important equipment there. Should some freak scenario unfold the resulted in my firearm discharging I’d rather not have it discharge into my junk. But that’s a personal preferences, so long as the bang switch is properly covered the risk of a negligent discharge is negligible. Even one of those cheap Uncle Mike holsters should have likely saved this man a lot of pain and agony.

Remember, firearms are weapons meant to cause damage to anything covered by the muzzle. Like any weapon firearms must be handled safety and with the utmost respect.

When Everything Goes to Hell

The situation in the United Kingdom (UK) went from bad to worse pretty quickly. After looking into the story more thoroughly I feel that I can make a more education post in relation to the riots. First we need to start with the catalyst, the shooing of Mark Duggan.

I incorrectly stated yesterday that Duggan was a demonstrator, like I said I hadn’t had time to look into the story and thus incorrect statements were likely. Mark Duggan wasn’t a demonstrator, he was a man the police were apparently trying to arrest. Early it was stated that Duggan shot at the police but recent evidence refutes such claims:

Mr Duggan, 29, whose death sparked the first riots in Tottenham, died from a single bullet wound, an inquest heard.

The police watchdog said ballistic tests showed “no evidence that the handgun found at the scene was fired”.

According to reports the officers that killed Duggan were part of Operation Trident. Operation Trident was established due to the fact people aren’t free to own means of self-defense in the UK. The specialty of Operation Trident is dealing with gun “crime” (quotations used because the task force deals treats ownership as a crime even though it’s not by any sane standards) in black communities. So why were the police initially attempting to arrest Duggan? Was it because he was in possession of a firearm? If so he was murdered in my opinion since ownership of an item isn’t grounds for the use of lethal force.

On the other hand if Duggan used his firearm in a threatening manner I can see why the police would consider the act one in which lethal force was an appropriate response. This scenario seems unlikely to me as the police would have mentioned it as their justification for shooting Duggan.

Either way we have a man killed by the police which lead to a demonstration and that demonstration lead to a multi-day riot in several cities in the UK. In a true statement of idiocy the people rioting over a grievance with their government have turned to destroying the private property of people who aren’t even employees of the government.

Another thing to note is the plight of the defenseless victims of the rioters. In the UK citizens have no right to self-defense and the most effective means of self-defense have been confiscated and deemed illegal. Because of this those who reside in the areas where rioting is prevalent are at the mercy of the roving mobs. Those of us living in the United States are fortunate that our government hasn’t completely stripped us of our right to keep and bear arms. When riots happen in this country the people being assault by rioters have a means of evening the odds and increasing their chances of surviving the encounter. Being the target of an angry mob is not a good situation regardless but having a firearm at least grants you the capability to defending yourself against multiple attackers.

Those living in the UK have no such ability and thus their only choices are pray that they aren’t preyed upon by the riots or become defenseless victims if they’re caught by those roaming the streets looking for violence. Hell, if the people in the UK weren’t prohibited the ownership of firearms this entire situation may not have occurred as it’s possible Duggan was being arrested merely for the possession of a gun (it’s also possible he was being arrested for something else, the police haven’t publicly released any information that I’m aware of). The last sentence is something for you anti-gunners to consider.

In the end the only thing that is certain is that things went to Hell quickly in the UK. It’s likely that we’ll never know the entirety of the story but it is likely that the UK government will use these riots as an excuse to further strip those living under it’s rule of their few remaining rights.

Oh, and those security cameras the government put up everywhere to spy on the citizenry didn’t do jack shit. I just thought I’d point that out in case anybody believed public surveillance somehow deterred crime.

Britain Implodes

I leave for one week and Britain decided it would be a bloody good time to explode into riots. I’m a bit out of the loop since I was basically on communications blackout so I haven’t had time to look into these riots much but I have found some of the usual. From what I’ve gathered these riots started when a British police officer shot a demonstrator. It’s refreshing to see a population outraged at government abuse but when you start smashing windows of store owners who have absolutely nothing to do with the actions of government you lose all legitimacy immediately.

Needless to say this looks like a giant cluster fuck and will likely end in the British government passing a whole slew of new laws further restricting the freedom of people living in that country. I’m also sure that the rioters will be labeled as terrorists and a bunch of rhetoric will be spewed by the government in an attempt to strike fear into the hearts of British subjects.

Defcon Summary

Well Defcon has concluded and I’m back in good old Minnesota. It saddens me to know that the convention is over but I don’t know how many more days of partying I could handle. I met some great people and look forward to meeting them again next year at Defcon 20.

So how about the convention? The convention itself was great. This was the first year in our new location, the Rio Hotel and Casio, and I must say it was a far better venue than the Rivera was. The Rivera was becoming too small for the thousands of attendees which was easily seen with the cramped hallways and speaker rooms overflowing with people. The Rio is huge and traffic flow was much better than last year which is good when you have somewhere between 11,000 and 12,000 people attending.

There were some good talks including one by Deviant about breaking into handgun safes. Needless to say most of the handgun safes you can purchase in stores such as Cabela’s and Gander Mountain are pathetically easy to get into without the key or thumbprint (yes he covered saves with biometrics as well). When the talk is posted I’ll link to it here.

Although I already knew that using Internet kiosks was a bad idea and therefore I avoided it, I never knew just how easy they were to hack. If you every sit down to an Internet kiosk and feel the need to hack it just visit this website. The site itself includes tons of ways to bypass the “security” found in most Internet kiosks. Likewise you shouldn’t used those kiosks as you have no idea what somebody has done to them.

The creators of the Wireless Ariel Surveillance Platform (WASP) gave a presentation on their drone. Although no live demonstration was given the capabilities they mentioned were impressive. The WASP is able to intercept and crack a lot of Wi-Fi traffic (it even includes a word list for attempting to break Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA) secured networks) as well as intercept Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) phone calls and text messages. The entire unit weights a mere 14 pounds.

Another presentation I found very interesting was the one on cellular security. The speaker examined the traffic sent over a standard Android phone. He covered several popular applications and it’s rather surprising the type of information some of those applications send back home. This, again, is nothing that most people didn’t already know but few have actually released the exact information that was being returned.

Dan Kaminsky did his talk which is always a pleasure to watch. I’ll have to wait for Defcon to publicly post his talk so you guys can watch it but there was one part that really made the Austrian economist in me laugh. He was able to insert ASCII art of Ben Bernanke into the Bitcoin network which will remain there for all eternity (eternity being measure as the lifespan of the Bitcoin network).

Outside of the talks the usual assortment of parties and boozing were had by most. On Saturday night the Freakshow party was thrown in the pool area of the Rio which included some impressive entertainment including a guy break dancing and moon talking on stilts. There were also a couple of scantily clad ladies rolling around the pool in a giant ball. This being Defcon nerdiness was present and a few of my friends and I attempted to calculate the girls weight by using the radius of the ball and the depth at which is sank into the water. What else can you expect from engineers?

Of course no post about my adventures involving flying would be complete without a little comment regarding the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). This year I decided to have a little fun and wore this shirt when I flew out of Minneapolis and this shirt when I went through in Las Vegas. I forgot most TSA agents are illiterate and therefore would not notice my witty shirts. OK, I’m assuming illiteracy is the reason I didn’t receive extra special attention but either way the TSA basically left me alone for once. Still I would like to close this post by saying fuck the TSA.

Defcon Attendees Set Record for Most Naked Body Scanner Opt-Outs in Las Vegas

I’ve been told some good news in regards to Defcon. The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has announced that the record for naked body scanner opt-outs at the Las Vegas McCarran International Airport was set yesterday before noon. This record was shattered because yesterday was the last day of Defcon and a large chunk of the attendees were flying home.

Congratulations is in order for those who refused to submit to the TSA’s cancer machines.