Month: October 2013

Being Offline Won’t Stop the State from Tracking You

After Edward Snowden leaked the National Security Agency (NSA) documents that unveiled how vast its surveillance has become there were a lot of reactions. Some people decided they didn’t have anything to hide so the state’s spying wasn’t an issue, otherwise decided to pursue technologies that would allow them to keep private communications private, and others decided to go offline. Of the three reactions the last one was, by far, the most irrational. You don’t have to be online for the state to track you. As this article points out, there are other ways for the state to surveil you:

The people who have actually attempted to live without being tracked–most often due to a safety threat–will tell you that security cameras are just about everywhere, RFID tags seem to be in everything, and almost any movement results in becoming part of a database. “It’s basically impossible for you and I to decide, as of tomorrow, I’m going to remain off the radar and to survive for a month or 12 months,” says Gunter Ollmann, the CTO of security firm IOActive, who in his former work with law enforcement had several coworkers who dedicated themselves to remaining anonymous for the safety of their families. “The amount of prep work you have to do in order to stay off the radar involves years of investment leading up to that.”

People who believe themselves to be very clever will often brag about the fact that they use a burner phone (a pre-paid cellular phone you can buy in most convenience stores) that they bought with cash. In their mind this means that the phone isn’t tied to them in any way and that they are untrackable while using it. Most convenience stores have security cameras looking at every square inch of the store. Those cameras can have some fantastic optics that give crystal clear images (the days of grainy black and white video footage from security cameras is ending). Facial recognition software is frighteningly accurate (just post a picture of a friend’s face on Facebook sometime). The state can requisition surveillance video whenever it wants (assuming it doesn’t just collect all surveillance footage like it does with phone calls and e-mails). In addition to that, the NSA collects phone records. It doesn’t take much to look at the numbers you called and develop a social map that has a good chance of identifying you. Using a burner phone won’t keep you safe from Big Brother’s gaze.

Another major source of leaks when it comes to your personal information are your friends:

Friends can be an impediment to a life off the radar. For one, they probably think they’re doing you a favor when they invite you to a party using Evite, add you to LinkedIn or Facebook, or keep your information in a contact book that they sync with their computer.

But from your perspective, as someone trying to remain as untraceable as possible, they are selling you out. “Basically what they’ve done is uploaded all of my contact information and connected it to them,” Sell says.

This is the biggest one in my opinion. My family has given out my phone number and personal e-mail address to people even though I’ve told them numerous times that I didn’t want them to do that. Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean your friends and family are. Unless you’re willing to sever all ties with other people you’re trackable. You may not have a Facebook account but that won’t stop your friends from posting pictures of you and writing your name in the description.

Going offline won’t save you. It won’t even make tracking your more difficult. The only thing going offline does is prevent you from utilizing very powerful technology to your advantage.

Watching the GOP Crash and Burn

When people ask me to describe the Republican Party I generally compare it to the villains of Saturday morning cartoons. Its plots tend to be rather harmless but are perceived as being extremely evil to the children watching Politics: The Reality Television Show for Suckers. Like a Saturday morning cartoon villain, nobody is actually afraid of the Republican Party because it’s always defeated at the end of the episode.

Besides impotency, the Republican Party has another problem: an alarming number of their members are very loud assholes. By loud assholes I mean they can’t keep their mouths shut when it comes to their moral indignation. I try to withhold moral judgements unless somebody is hurting other people. Your religious beliefs, sexual orientation, gender identify, drug of preference, etc. don’t harm anybody in any way. More and more the population of the United States is turning in this direction. Previous generations held a lot of hatred for members of minority religions, homosexuals, transgenders, and drug users. That attitude is dying. Publicly hating against any of those groups is a surefire way to achieve political suicide. When people see shit like this, they get angry:

Many people will correctly point out that Mr. Kincannon has the right to express his beliefs. I agree but I also have to point out that actions have consequences. When members of the Republican Party go around saying they want transgenders put into camps it turns people away from it. Let’s be honest, putting people into a camp is pretty severe. You don’t toss around such things in an official manner unless you’re trying to drum up bad publicity. So long as members of the Republican Party keep saying shit like this their party is going to burn like Rome.

Also, on a purely personal level as a person who respects almost everybody, Mr. Kincannon is a fucking asshole. I wouldn’t even wish my enemies to be rounded up and placed in camps.

Put the Pedal to the Metal

The government “shutdown” is over, the debt ceiling has been raise, and the Affordable Care Act can be funded. Obama received everything he wanted while the Republicans received nothing. Business as usual has returned to the land.

Here’s the thing we should all consider. The politicians in Washington DC wasted our time trumping up political anger just to do the same thing they have been doing since forever, raising the debt ceiling. I think it’s time that we admit that the debt ceiling is nothing more than a figment of our imagination. To that end I hereby support the elimination of the debt ceiling.

It’s time that we get rid of all these artificial barriers between the United States and complete economic collapse. Let’s put the pedal to the metal and give everybody what they want and give it to them good and hard. Remove the debt ceiling? Pass it. Completely socialized healthcare? Pass it. $20.00 per hour minimum wage? Pass it. Free welfare and education for all? Pass it. Pass everything and anything that can drive this country over the economic cliff.

I’m not a fan of half-assing things and this country has been half-assing economic collapse for over half of a century. The time to step up and do a proper job is now. The sooner we get to the collapse stage the sooner we can begin recovering.

3D Printing with Metal

In the pursuit of manufacturing everything with 3D printers, a material limitation has continuously been encountered. Unless you’re willing to purchase a very expensive machines. Research is beginning to take off in this area though, which means more affordable 3D printers capable of working with metals are on the horizon. One organization that is beginning to look into 3D printing with metals is the European Space Agency (ESA):

The European Space Agency has unveiled plans to “take 3D printing into the metal age” by building parts for jets, spacecraft and fusion projects.

The Amaze project brings together 28 institutions to develop new metal components which are lighter, stronger and cheaper than conventional parts.

What’s interesting about the ESA’s pursuit is that it intends to manufacture parts capable of surviving high stress environments such as jet engines. One of the limitations of 3D printing with metal currently is the fact that printed metal parts tend to be weaker than mental parts created through other manufacturing techniques. If the ESA can create printed metal parts that are nearly as strong as metal parts created through other means we could be on the verge of something wonderful.

Obviously my interest is partially focused on firearms technology. I would love to live in a world where any state law against firearm ownership could be bypassed by the press of a button on a 3D printer. We’re at the early stages of such a world but the material limitations of current consumer 3D printers is providing some difficulties. Once that limitation is overcome we can print reliable firearms without the state having any knowledge.

Keith Alexander is Planning His Move to a Cushy Private Sector Job

The bastard who spearheaded the massive National Security Agency (NSA) surveillance apparatus has unveiled plans to retire:

Army General Keith Alexander’s eight-year tenure was rocked this year by revelations contained in documents leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden about the agency’s widespread scooping up of telephone, e-mail and social media data.

Alexander has formalized plans to leave by next March or April, while his civilian deputy, John “Chris” Inglis, is due to retire by year’s end, according to U.S. officials who spoke on condition of anonymity.

I’m sure a lot of credit for this retirement goes to Edward Snowden and Glenn Greenwald. If it wasn’t for all the bad publicity provided by those two Mr. Alexander would likely continue is reign of spying. But this news is bittersweet. Being a higher up in the military, Mr. Alexander has probably received numerous job offers from politically connected defense contractors. Those offers likely include an absurdly high salary with very few job responsibility. Lockheed Martin, for example, would almost certainly love to hire Mr. Alexander to wine and dine his former military buddies to convince them to go with Lockheed’s solutions instead of Raytheon’s.

In other words, Mr. Alexander spend years illegally spying on us and his reward will almost certainly be a high paying career as a salesman for a defense contractor. That doesn’t seem like a very just outcome but it is a typical outcome when corruption within the state is unveiled.

Immunity from Consequences has Consequences

What happens when you grant a monopoly on violence to an organization and then grant that organization a monopoly on determining whether or not it used too much violence? Incidents involving over 100 round fired into a car occupied by unarmed individuals with no consequences for the shooters:

CLEVELAND, OH (WOIO) – Cleveland Police Chief McGrath announced results of disciplinary hearings for patrol officers involved in the deadly November police pursuit on Tuesday morning.

[…]

According to Chief McGrath, 64 patrol officers were found guilty of breaking policy. No one will be fired, and the longest suspension will be 10 days. 19 Action News has learned some officers were cleared.

[…]

On November 29, 2012, police chased a car with two people from Cleveland to East Cleveland. Officers first saw the car speeding and heard what appeared to be a gunshot coming from it. The driver refused to stop, and officers reported seeing a weapon in the car, but no gun was ever found. The 28-minute chase ended with officers firing 137 shots into the car, killing the driver, Timothy Russell and the passenger, Malissa Williams.

Firing 137 rounds into a vehicle in a city is pretty irresponsible by itself. But unloading that wall of lead because you heard something that sounded like gunfire is totally irresponsible. To make matters worse, the officers involved in the incident received nothing more than a paid vacation. In other words, the officers who demonstrated total irresponsibility suffered no negative consequences, which will almost certainly encourage such behavior in the future.

As a side note, advocates of gun control often ask why us advocates of gun rights are opposed to allowing the police to decide who can and cannot own firearms (advocates of gun control generally hide this demand under the label of “background checks”). The answer is simple: police officers in this country frequently demonstrate a complete lack of responsibility when it comes to firearm usage. I, for one, cannot see the logic in putting people who are irresponsible with firearms in charge of deciding who gets to own a firearm.

Teletherapy

One of the hot topics in the gun control community is prohibiting people who suffer from mental illnesses from obtaining firearms. Setting aside the fact that such a prohibition is impossible we are still left with the fact that such a prohibition would further discourage people suffering from mental illnesses from seeking help. Mental illness has a major stigma here in the United States. People often perceive others who suffer from a mental illness as weak. There is also a common misconception that mental illnesses are permanent. I’m sure most gun control advocates who are pushing to prohibit people who have a history of mental illness from owning firearms are banking on the latter misconception. In the United States a person who sought treatment for a mental illness would likely become prohibited from owning firearms for life because the general attitude in this country is that mental illnesses can’t be helped.

This leads me to an interesting start up that is focusing on providing teletherapy:

Is the digital age sending the old therapist’s couch the way of the reference librarian, the CD, and the travel agent? Could be: several recent studies have found that therapy via the Internet is just as effective as face-to-face treatment. In 2012, a Veterans Affairs study found that teletherapy reduced patients’ psychiatric hospital admissions by about 25 percent, which means it could produce cost savings as well.

What I find more interesting about the prospects of teletherapy is the potential for anonymity. It would be easy to setup a system where the doctor didn’t know the actual name or face of the person they were treating. While the intimate nature of a patient-therapist relationship would almost guarantee that the therapist could find out the identify of their patient the potential to remain anonymous may be enough to encourage those needing help to seek it. Having an anonymous way of seeking help for a mental illness would render America’s two primary misconceptions irrelevant, which would be a step forward in my opinion.

Drone Delivery Service

I spend a lot of time complaining about the use of military drones. Like any technology, unmanned aerial vehicles can be used for good or evil. The United States government uses them to bomb brown children in sandy regions, which is downright evil. But a company in Australia is planning to use drones for something amazing:

Sick of relying on slow trucks and traditional delivery systems to get his company Zookal’s textbooks to people, Ahmed Haider decided on a fresh approach. Now, his Sydney, Australia-based company will deliver the textbooks via drones.

Today, Zookal, a textbook rental startup, is announcing that by using unmanned aerial vehicles to ferry textbooks to renters, it will cut delivery times from two to three days down to a matter of minutes, while shaving shipping costs down to a tenth of their normal prices.

Being able to make local deliveries with antonymous drones could decrease the time it takes to get packages, allow packages to be delivered on the customer’s schedule, and reduce the costs associated with delivering packages. As it currently stands you have to wait for the delivery truck to get to your home. If you have to sign for a package you have to be at your home when the delivery truck arrives, which is probably the biggest hassle when getting expensive items delivered. The delivery truck also consumes gas, a commodity that seems destined to continue rising in price. Battery powered drones could reduce energy costs if the battery was recharged by something akin to solar panels.

I hope this concept works out. Having packages delivered from local hubs straight to my door on my schedule would certainly improve my life (yes, I live in a first world country so my life is notable improved by seemingly trivial things).

Bloomberg’s War Against the Homeless

It appears as though Michael Bloomberg has finally won his war against the homeless:

NEW YORK—Drenched in drying blood and limping slightly, New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg triumphantly stated this morning that the city’s longstanding homeless problem had finally been solved. “Homelessness is over—it’s not a problem anymore,” a winded Bloomberg said to a City Hall press conference while gripping the lectern tightly to prevent his hands from shaking. “I fixed the problem. Problem solved.” When asked by reporters if permanent housing had been provided for the city’s 50,000 homeless, Bloomberg assured them the new lodgings were quite permanent.

Sometimes I can’t tell if the Onion is satire or truth.

Bitcoin as a Commodity Backed Money

One of the more heated debates going on in Austrian economics circles is whether or not Bitcoin is a currency backed by a commodity. Proponents of Bitcoin claim it is while opponents claim it is not. I fall into the former camp. I also believe that latter camp suffers from a misunderstanding of what Bitcoin is.

Bitcoin, above all else, is a network. The network is maintained by computing power. Disagreements within the Bitcoin network are resolved by going with whatever 50% + 1 of the computing power says. Who gets the Bitcoin when the same Bitcoin is sent to two addresses at the same time (something that could happen if the blockchain gets split)? Whoever 50% + 1 of the Bitcoin network’s computing power says it goes to. Furthermore, new Bitcoin can only be mined through the efforts of a great amount of computing power.

A commodity is nothing more than a raw material that can be bought and sold. Computing power is a commodity as it is a raw material needed to produce many of the goods we enjoy today and it can be bought and sold. One example of a good that is created using computing power is an encrypted communique. In order to encrypt a communique you need pass the plain text through algorithms that tend to be computationally complex. Computing power is also a resource that is bought and sold. When you sign up for an Amazon EC2 instance you’re buying computing power from Amazon. Just as a jeweler buys gold and turns it into jewelry that is later bought, Amazon buys computers from manufacturers that is later rented by people who don’t want to sink that much money into hardware they may only need temporarily.

The computing power put towards maintaining the Bitcoin network could be put to other tasks. Instead of participating in the Bitcoin network somebody could throw their computing power at Folding@Home or SETI@Home. But a lot of people have thrown their limited computing power behind Bitcoin. In fact, the processing power used to maintain the Bitcoin network outperforms the top 500 supercomputers combined. On top of personal hardware, many people are willing to rent your their mining hardware in the form of shares. You can buy into Bitcoin mining pools. The money you use to buy in is generally put towards more mining hardware and you are paid dividends based on the amount of Bitcoin mined.

Bitcoin, through the computing power necessary to maintain the network, is backed by a commodity. The raw materials necessary to maintain the Bitcoin network, including computing power and network bandwidth, could be put towards other uses but cannot be put towards simultaneous uses (even with multi-tasking, a computer can only work on one computation per unit of time per processor or core).