Protect Your Privacy

Why is it that people must always be reminded to avoid voluntarily divulging information they don’t want others to know? When you provide your location to servies like Facebook and Foursquare, don’t be surprised when some clever individual finds a way to use that information for less than noble purposes:

The developer of a controversial mobile app that used data from Facebook and Foursquare to reveal the location of nearby women defended its intentions Saturday after drawing a firestorm of criticism over privacy concerns.

On Saturday, Foursquare cut off access to the “Girls Around Me” app that made it possible to view the location of women on a map and their publicly available data and photographs from Facebook. Foursquare said the app violated a policy against aggregating information across venues. A number of blogs, led by Cult of Mac, raised questions as to whether the app encourages stalking.

You know what encourages stalking? Putting your location and other personal data out there for all to see. Think about this for a minute: when you check-in on Facebook or Foursquare everybody following you can see where you are, and those not following you can see where you are depending on your privacy settings. Since other people can see where you are, well, they know where you are. Should you want to avoid having stalkers it would be smart not to broadcast your location for all to hear.

Some may ask how you are supposed to alert your friends of your location if you don’t use a check-in service and to that I would say this: call you friends and tell them where you are. A phone call, unlike a check-in on Facebook and Foursquare, doesn’t get broadcast for all to hear. Instead only you, your friend, and the National Security Agency (NSA) will know where you are.

Don’t be stupid, when you put something on the Internet it’s there for all to see. When you don’t want people to see something don’t put it on the Internet.

Gun Control Fails Again

California consistently scores the highest on the Brady Campaign Scorecard [PDF] meaning they have the most draconian gun laws on the books. You can’t carry a firearm unless you’re extremely wealth or politically well connected so I have to ask, which was this guy:

The gunman who killed seven people and injured three others at a California college has been named by police as 43-year-old One Goh.

If Goh was not wealth or politically well connect it should have been impossible for him to carry a firearm into that school. That is, of course, if you’re dumb enough to believe the gun control advocates’ claims about gun control being an effective means of preventing crimes involving firearms. What could have stopped Goh before he managed to murder seven people? Another armed individual who could have fought back. Unfortunately this occurred at a school, which is a gun-free zone in California. Wait… if college campuses are gun-free zones then how did Goh carry a firearm onto campus grounds? Was he not properly informed? Perhaps the idea of gun-free zones is a load of malarkey and does nothing to prevent criminals from brining a firearm onto a college campus.

Time and time again the ideas of the gun control advocates are proven to be entirely wrong. It’s a good thing people are waking up to this fact because were people still listening to the gun control advocates we wouldn’t have so many states allowing individuals to legally carry a firearm.

You Can’t Rely on the Police

Those of us in the gun rights community say it time and time again; you simply can’t rely on the police. While a violent burglar is kicking down your door the police are outside setting up a perimeter :

The incident unfolded at about 11:40 p.m. in the 300 block of SE Fifth Street, as deputies responded to a report of someone roaming around the neighborhood acting strangely and banging on the walls and doors of homes.

As officers searched the neighborhood for the suspect, they heard a loud crash at a home down the street, said Cindy West of the King County Sheriff’s Office. At the same time, they received a 911 call from the owner of the home saying that someone had broken in.

As deputies set up a perimeter around the home, they heard loud noises coming from inside. Deputies then received a second 911 call from the homeowner saying that he had shot the intruder.

A lot of good that perimeter did. Let this be a lesson to people, even when the police do manage to arrive before your untimely demise they’ll be too busy dicking around to actually come in and help you. Stories like this demonstrate the fact that police are merely the cleanup crew, they exist to find the guy who killed you. Of course finding the guy who killed you is pretty pointless when you’re, you know, dead. Thankfully the homeowner in this story had a means of self-defense at hand otherwise he’d likely be another homicide statistic.

You Decide, Sting Operation or Giving the State the Finger

I’m not sure what to make of this:

A retailer selling tools to grow cannabis has opened in the US capital, just a few miles from the White House.

WeGrow sells plant food and lighting – but no cannabis or seeds – to help cultivators grow medical marijuana.

The chain, dubbed the “Walmart of weed”, launches its latest outlet just as Washington’s medical marijuana laws come into effect.

Is WeGrow a legitimate business run by people that love to give the state the middle finger or is it run by agents of the Drug Enforcement Agency who are using the chain as a clever type of sting operation?

The store claims to sell people equipment so they can grow marijuana at home:

WeGrow’s founder says he hopes his company will help create a “green rush” by selling the equipment needed to grow cannabis at home.

“The more that businesses start to push the envelope by showing that this is a legitimate industry, the further we’re going to be able to go in changing people’s minds,” Dhar Mann told the Associated Press news agency.

If the chain was targeting the medical marijuana business I would imagine they would setup a system to ensure they only sell to licensed growers, although I could be wrong. While I hope this is an actual business and not a fancy sting operation I’m left wondering. Has anybody heard of this chain before? Is there any news regarding their customers mysteriously being arrested after busying supplies from one of the stores?

That’ll Fix the Problem

The Minneapolis Police Department, in their infinite wisdom, have finally released their idea to combat the recent attacks by gangs of unruly individuals. The solution? Enact a curfew:

According to the Minneapolis Police Department, there have been at least six incidents since early February where mobs of young people have randomly assaulted individuals on Nicollet Mall or nearby. The last attack occurred in mid-March.

So now police are proposing a new curfew for teens on Nicollet and also on Hennepin Avenue.

Sgt. Steve McCarty of Minneapolis Police said, “Certainly the vast majority of kids that come downtown are not creating these problems. But we have seen in the recent weeks, there have been some problems.”

The new curfew would ban teens age 17 and younger from Nicollet and Hennepin Avenues after 8 p.m.

Because kids who get their jollies off of beating the living shit out of random strangers are surely going to obey a curfew. Curfews are one of the dumbest strategies to deal with crime problems, namely because they don’t work [PDF]. Setting aside the fact that violent criminals aren’t going to obey a law against staying out past a certain hour we also have the fact that determining who is and isn’t under 17 is nearly impossible. Either the police will have to card every person they see that looks to be underage, something that is going to be hard to do because nobody has an obligation to present identification to the police unless they’re being arrested, or they’re going to have to hope that underage kids are going to obey this law.

Also notice that the curfew only applies to Nicollet and Hennepin Avenues meaning it will have the exact same effect as the mobile Orwellian cameras, it’ll just move crime somewhere else. Instead of Nicollet and Hennepin Avenues being scenes of rare gang attacks another street will be. I’m constantly amazed at how stupid an agency granted a monopoly on a large section of the security business can be when it comes to implementing security.