September 2014 – Page 6 – A Geek With Guns

The Terrorists aren’t Planning to Attack via Mexico

Let me just take a moment to stroke my own ego and point out that I’m not the only one calling bullshit on Judicial Watch’s report about terrorists planning to attack from Mexico. Matthew Olsen, the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, called bullshit as well:

The United States’ senior counterterrorism official said on Wednesday that there is “no credible information” that the militants of the Islamic State, who have reigned terror on Iraq and Syria, are planning to attack the U.S. homeland. Although the group could pose a threat to the United States if left unchecked, any plot it tried launching today would be “limited in scope” and “nothing like a 9/11-scale attack.”

[…]

But Olsen, whose organization was set up after 9/11 to assess terrorism intelligence and “connect the dots” about potential attacks, painted a more measured picture of the fundamentalist group. “ISIL is not al Qaeda pre-9/11,” Olsen told a Brookings Institution audience on Wednesday, Sept. 3. Osama bin Laden’s network had covert cells in European countries and Southeast Asia, as well as a home base in Afghanistan. The Islamic State is “not there yet,” Olsen said. There is “no indication at this point of a cell of foreign fighters operating in the United States.”

If you look up Judicial Watch, the organization cited by the fear mongering article on Allen West’s site, you’ll notice that it’s a neoconservative watchdog group. More often than not neoconservative watchdog groups peddle fear whenever neoliberals are in power in an attempt to scare Americans into believing that the military isn’t strong enough, the police aren’t well armed enough, and the border isn’t enough of a fortress.

The fact that the news of terrorists supposedly planning to team up with drug cartels to invade the United States came from Judicial Watch should have been the first red flag. Red flag two should have been the claim that Mexican drug cartels were working with the Islamic State (IS). Mexican drug cartels don’t want somebody like the IS in power because it would likely punishes drug producers and consumers far more harshly than the current regime. Neoconservatives and neoliberals spend a lot of time trying to make it appear as though Mexican drug cartels want to kill all Americans but the fact is Americans are those cartels’ biggest customers. This becomes apparent when you look at most of the violence committed by drug cartels and see that it’s mostly aimed at threats to its business. In other words drug cartels are just like states in that they use violence to hinder competition.

As a general rule if I see an article that paints a very scary picture I label it bullshit unless some concrete evidence proving the article truthful is available. Fear is the favorite tool of tyrants. When somebody is telling you to be scared then they are most likely trying to get you to kowtow to them.

Hoarded Cash May Be Circulating In the More Awesome Economy

The Federal Reserve bank has expressed displeasure at the fact that all of the funny money it printed hasn’t been circulating in the economy. As always the Fed is blaming people who save, err, hoard (I really need to get a newer version of the Newspeak dictionary) money for all of our country’s economic woes. But one economist has put forth an interesting theory. Edward Feige hypothesizes that a lot of the “hoarded” money is making it’s way around the more awesome economy, which is usually referred to derogatorily as the black or underground market:

Maybe. But another explanation was put forward by the economist Edward Feige, who argued recently that a lot more cash than traditionally assumed is circulating domestically. Where others estimated that half or more of all U.S. currency flows overseas, he said 75 percent or so is actually at home.

Again, is it just sitting there because of low interest rates
and economic doldrums?

Nope. Feige estimates that, in 2009, “18-23% of total reportable income may not properly be reported to the IRS.” That missing $2 trillion or so makes for a rather lower income tax compliance rate than the official 83.1 percent estimated by the IRS.

Which is to say, according to Feige, the money isn’t being hoarded (although some is certainly stashed for a rainy day), but
it’s being channeled into the shadow economy of otherwise legal goods and services to escape taxes and regulations. Much of it probably flows to outright illegal black market activities, too. But the huge increase in cash in private hands suggests less in the way of massively increased demand for hookers and blow than it does a growing parallel economy.

If so this is good news as it indicates that people are still producing and consuming but they’re also not paying the violent gang known as the state its demanded protection money. As we know every dollar of tax revenue obtained by the state allows it to build more bombs, hire more armed thugs, and improve its surveillance apparatus. Every dollar kept from the state is therefore helping protect innocent lives and thus the larger the more awesome economy becomes the safer most of us will be.

There is a Difference Between Victim Blaming and Valid Criticism

There is a term that is quickly losing any value due to dilution: victim blaming. Victim blaming, once used to point out a valid criticism against those who blamed victims of crimes for said crimes happening, is becoming little more than a phrase uttered to put a person who has been victimized above any form of criticism. I am, of course, referring to the nude phones that were leaked of several celebrities (what I can say, it’s the hot topic of the week and intersects with my computer science profession). As a computer scientist who has a strong interest in security I have been using these leaks as a platform to explain both the risks of using online storage services and the measures individuals can take to mitigate those risks. Not surprisingly I’ve been getting accused of victim blaming.

A thin line exists between victim blaming and valid criticism but it’s important line. To better understand this line let’s consider an all too common scenario. Most people, as far as I know, who live outside of rural communities make a habit of locking their vehicle doors when they are going to be away from it for a period of time. Locking your vehicle doors reduces the risk of a thief breaking into it. But many people also leave valuable stuff inside of their vehicle in plain sight. What this does is offset the risk of breaking into a vehicle for unknown gain with knowledge that breaking into a vehicle will result in a sizable gain. In other words the risk/reward calculation changed from increased risk for no potential reward to increased risk with reward. The vehicle owner isn’t at fault for the thief breaking into his or her vehicle but leaving valuables in plain sight wasn’t smart.

iCloud-gate, or whatever snazzy fucking name with “-gate” postfixed to it that you want to use, is similar to the vehicle analogy. Uploading unencrypted data to an online storage service is similar to leaving valuables inside of your vehicle in plain sight. In both instances you’re advertising the reward so a potential thief can more accurately make a risk/reward calculation. That thief may be a malicious hacker or they may be a system administrator at Apple. Either way giving them more information is not a good idea. Pointing this out isn’t victim blaming, it’s valid criticism.

It’s the difference between blaming a woman for being raped and telling a woman “It’s Dangerous to go alone! Take this.” and handing her a .45 pistol. The former is an accusation of fault and the latter attempt to help her mitigate risk. The difference is admittedly thin but also important.

It’s Hard Being a Gun Nut and Technology Enthusiast

Do you know what’s difficult for gun nuts and technology enthusiast to do? Turn on the news. Most of the gunny readers of my blog are used to the glaring idiocy emitted by reporters when they attempt to talk about firearms. You get ridiculous assertions like the word magazine being interchangeable with clip, every rifle being an AK-47, every handgun being a Glock, and Uzis being high-powered firearms:

The girl was being shown how to use a high-powered Uzi sub-machine gun at an Arizona shooting range when the recoil caused her to lose control of it.

Emphasis mine. Unless there is an Uzi model chambered in .308 (and if there is please tell me, I fucking want that for reasons) it is not high-powered. Uzis, as far as I know, are commonly chambered in 9mm with a few other models available that fire other pistol calibers. Pistol calibers, no matter how you look at them, aren’t high-powered. In fact they’re usually considered anemic, which is why military personnel usually carry rifles.

When media outlets report on topics related to technology we get similar levels of stupidity. The news that nude pictures of several celebrities have been obtained form their compromised iCloud accounts has received wall to wall coverage from several media outlets. And with great coverage comes great stupidity. Here we have a CNN talking head speculating on the nature of 4chan:

In the wake of the massive leak of hacked celebrity nude photos now known as celebgate, CNN—the most trusted name in news—is on the case. The cable news pioneer put its best tech analyst Brett Larson on the job and he speculated in wildly unhelpful fashion on Tuesday about just who this 4chan guy is, anyway.

“He might be a system administrator,” Larson suggests.

I guess the top tier research team over at CNN couldn’t be bothered to do a Google search. If they had they would have gotten the website 4chan at the top hit and a Wikipedia article entry on 4chan as the second hit. In other words a few simple keystrokes would have informed anybody capable of reading (I know, that’s expecting a lot from the research team over at CNN) that 4chan isn’t a person, it’s a website.

Because of my interests in guns and technology I feel as through I’m receiving a double dose of stupid every time I turn on the news or open a news site. I can only assume that the media’s coverage of basically everything else is just as ill-informed.

Citizen Patrol Aimed at Defending Against Police Shootings

Neighborhood watch, as it currently exist in the United State, is a concept born of the rape and murder of Kitty Genovese. The watches were created in response to the lack of intervention from onlookers of the crime. Today there are still groups of individuals who patrol their neighborhoods in the hopes of preventing crime. But there is one crime most neighborhood watches fail to consider. Shooting by the largest violent gang operating in our neighborhoods, the police, often go unchallenged by neighborhood watches. A group of individuals in Dallas are looking to change that. They have established a neighborhood watch expressly for the purpose of protecting the people from the police:

A new group calling itself the Huey P. Newton Gun Club launched armed self-defense patrols Wednesday with one stated purpose: to protect Dallas neighbors from police.

Group leader Charles Goodson said recent unrest in Ferguson, Missouri over the killing of an unarmed black teen named Michael Brown by a white police officer is only part of the reason for the new Dallas patrols.

The group is named after Huey P. Newton, a founder of the Black Panther Party in the 1960s who was killed by a rival militant in 1989.

“We don’t think that what happened to Michael Brown in St. Louis is an isolated incident. We have so many Michael Browns here in the city of Dallas,” Goodson said.

Another leader, Huby Freeman, said the group wants to educate neighbors about the right to bear arms and the need for it.

“We believe we can police ourselves and bring security to our community, ridding our community of black-on-black crime, violence, police terror, etc., etc.,” Freeman said.

Police brutality is a major problem in this country and it’s nice to see people looking for a solution other than begging the state to be a little less vicious. It’s unfortunate but police officers are unlikely to face consequences for committing acts of murder. Even if evidence against an officer is damning it’s common for him or her to receive a paid vacation and then get reinstated once the media is no longer covering the event. Once in a great while an officer will get fired from the department but that’s a rare enough occurrence to almost be relegated for folklore.

Who watches the watchmen? In most cases nobody. But if this idea takes off there could be watchmen overseeing the watchmen and that could decrease police brutality. If nothing else it would be nice if there were neighborhood watches that would intervene when police officers decided to go all ‘roid rage on somebody.

Off With His Head

Without the police who would decapitate the illegal chickens and leave the heads behind to traumatize children:

Ashley Turnbull said she knows she violated the city’s ordinance that prohibits fowl and acknowledges she was told Aug. 7 by police to remove the three chickens and two ducks.

But she said Police Chief Trevor Berger went too far when he came onto her property about a week later, when nobody was home, and clubbed, killed and decapitated a small, red hen with a shovel.

The fact that the officer snuck onto the property, clubbed the chicken to death, and beheaded it already raised the creepy factor to 10. But the officer took it to 11 when he justified his actions:

Berger said killing the chicken was justified.

“It’s against city ordinance for a chicken to be in the city and running around in people’s yards,” he said.

Because clubbing and beheading the chicken was the only conceivable solution to the problem of illegal chicken ownership. The officer couldn’t have called animal control to capture the bird or arranged for a nearby farmer to take it in. Nope. It had to be decapitated!

This is the problem with modern policing. Violence is its tool and we’re all nails. Modern policing has become almost entirely about law enforcement instead of protecting people and property. When you consider that all laws, and there are a lot of fucking laws, are enforced at the point of a gun this prioritization isn’t ideal for anybody but the state and its cronies.

A Scared Citizen is a Good Citizen

The Islamic State (IS), formerly known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Syria (ISIS), has been front page material for weeks now. After being unable to make citizens fear Iran and North Korean and only having moderate success at making citizens fear Vladimir Putin the state and its corporate media partners have been trying to make the IS the thing for fashionable citizens to be afraid of. But the IS is way the fuck over in the Middle East so why should an American citizen fear it? Here we see Allen West, one of the state’s most effective agents at instill fear in the hearts of neocons, entering stage right:

Judicial Watch reports that ”Islamic terrorist groups are operating in the Mexican border city of Ciudad Juarez and planning to attack the United States with car bombs or other vehicle borne improvised explosive devices (VBIED).”

“High-level federal law enforcement, intelligence and other sources have confirmed to Judicial Watch that a warning bulletin for an imminent terrorist attack on the border has been issued. Agents across a number of Homeland Security, Justice and Defense agencies have all been placed on alert and instructed to aggressively work all possible leads and sources concerning this imminent terrorist threat. Specifically, the government sources reveal that the militant group Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS) is confirmed to now be operating in Juarez, a famously crime-infested narcotics hotbed situated across from El Paso, Texas.”

This article combines the IS, illegal immigration, and drug cartels into one giant fear smoothy! Oh, I also forgot to mention, that it is almost certainly bullshit. Why would Mexican drug cartels, which are not exactly apostles of Islam, work with an organization that seems bent on destroying anything not Islam? If the only answer you can come up with is “Because drug cartels hate Americans.” then you don’t understand how drug cartels work. Americans are their biggest source of revenue. The last thing they want is for their customers to get slaughtered en masse, which the IS is supposedly interested in doing.

Another question one should be inclined to ask is why anybody would give weight to a government terror warning. Since 9/11 this country has lived in a constant state of terror warnings. Statistically if we looked at the number of terror warnings issued since 9/11 versus the number of actual instances of terrorism in this country we would see that the percentage is almost in the negative (for those of you who don’t believe I understand how percentages work please look up hyperbole)!

But the state needs a scared citizenry. Tyrannical bullshit is very hard to sell by itself. That’s why tyrannical acts are usually preceded by a period of fear mongering. The United States government has been trying to get widespread support from the citizenry to turn this country into a prison. We’re told that our “unprotected” border will let ~~communists~~ (removed from the latest version of the Newspeak Dictionary) violent drug cartels, terrorists, and other people who want to kill every American across. And since the threats looking to cross today are far more dangerous than the nuclear armed militaries that were supposedly trying to cross previously we’re also told that the police must be militarized. Supposedly if our police officers aren’t roaming the streets in armored personnel carriers, clad in body armor, and armed with machine guns we’re all going to be killed by terrorists!

But fences, guard towers, and barbed wired are interesting in their ability to equally keep things outside of an area and inside of an area. The more secure a border becomes the more difficult it is to cross it when escape is your goal. Uprising are also more difficult to successfully pull off when you’re facing a force that is much better armed than yours. People know this, which is why selling tyranny is difficult unless you have a good pitch. Fear is probably the best pitch of them all.

Whenever you hear people like Allen West, Bill O’Reilly, Anderson Cooper, and Wolf Blitzer talk about why you should be afraid of the week’s boogeyman just remember that their revenue is generated by generating fear. Fear leads to page clicks, video views, and better Nielsen ratings. They’re also in, what George Carlin referred to as, the big club. If you’re in the big club the tyrannical shit being enacted by the state doesn’t impact you. But we’re not in the big club so we should be wary of people peddling fear because what they claim we need sure as the hell will impact us.

Another Gun Blog Incinerated to Ash

I’m fairly disconnected from the gun blogosphere. It’s not that I don’t like my fellow gun bloggers, it’s just that I don’t have time to operate a blog and follow a bunch of them. Of the small number of gun blogs I read frequently one of my favorites has been Tam’s (if the link goes to a blog then it’s happy days and you can ignore the remainder of this post). She managed to wield snark like a surgeon with a scalpel. Sadly she has deployed a desiccator^* over her blog (Shall Not Be Questioned is another one of the handful of blogs I follow regularly).

Since I’m fairly disconnected from the gun blogging community I’m also the last to know about any ongoing drama or issues my fellows are dealing with. Based on the comments I’ve read it sounds as if Tam was dealing with the fun and excitement of a cyber stalker. Those can be a pain in the ass and are great at ruining any enthusiasm one may have for any online activity. Needless to say I understand why she burned her blog to the ground but I must also admit that it will be greatly missed.

I came into this gun blogging game late. Since I started several of the old timers have hung up their hats. Blogging requires a bit of work and doing it day in and day out for years isn’t easy and the pay usually sucks. Not to mention the difficulty of writing about one topic for years without falling into the trap of repeating yourself (because, let’s face it, there are only so many things to talk about regarding guns). I haven’t reached burnout point yet in part because I have broadened the topics I write about. Frequent blogging has also helps my writing skills considerably so I’m inclined to keep doing it just to keep the skill practiced. But there may come a day when I decide to deploy a desiccator over this site.

^*Obscure reference probably warrants context:

Dark Reign was totally underrated.

Replacement Parts for Your SPAS-12

If you’ve been reading this site since almost the beginning you know that I’m the proud owner of a SPAS-12. It took me 13 years (my desire to have one was a result of Jurassic Park, which I first saw when I was pretty young) to obtain one but the wait was worth it. The SPAS-12 is a fun gun but it’s an unsupported platform that was never terribly popular. What that means is replacement parts, when they can be found, are expensive. Furthermore some of the factory parts in the SPAS-12 don’t age well. Two parts in particular, the folding stock shock absorber and the receiver buffer, are made of a plastic that becomes brittle with age.

My SPAS-12 didn’t have a shock absorber on the folding stock when I obtained it. But the buffer was there and in working order. That changed when I did something really stupid, I let another person shoot my rare and no longer supported shotgun. The SPAS-12 comes from an era when 2 3/4″ shells were the only shells for all practical purposes. One day when I was shooting with a friend he asked if he could shoot it. I said yes, then quickly asked if his shells were 2 3/4″. He answered in the affirmative and I believed him. As it turns out the shells he was using were 3″ and after firing the first round the shotgun jammed up. When I got it unjammed I also learned something else, the receiver buffer had broken off. I was pissed but I also failed to perform due diligence on a gun that I knew spare parts weren’t easy to come by. Lesson learned.

Fast forward to today. The SPAS 12 Project has newly manufactured spare parts for sale! I ordered a folding stock shock buffer and an old style receiver buffer that showed up last night. Unfortunately they accidentally sent me a new style receiver buffer but it only took a quick e-mail to get everything sorted out so I could exchange it for the correct one (overall I’m very happy with how quickly they replied, other one or two man online operations I’ve ordered from haven’t always been as responsive). But I did get the folding stock shock absorber installed.

First let me say that the shock absorber is somewhat rough looking but well made. It’s made of a very dense polyurethane that flexes but not easily. Without the shock absorber the end piece of the folding stock has a habit of moving forward slightly when you shoulder the weapon. After repeated firings in this condition the piece wears at the locking button hole and eventually the piece cracks. Although I haven’t been able to test fire the SPAS-12 I can say that the play in the rear piece of the stock is entirely gone after installing the shock absorber. So far it looks like a quality piece.

As I messed with the gun I also noticed that the magazine spring appears to have aged beyond its useful point. While most of the shells reliably eject out of the magazine and onto the lifting gate the last one or two will eject very lazily and sometimes not fully. Thankfully the magazine spring, like the o-ring for the gas system, is easily replaced with Remington 1187 parts.

Obviously I can’t give a final verdict on the parts until I’ve test fired the gun. But the new style receiver buffer that I was sent looks and feels like an quality piece. I believe it will work well for a long time. So if you’re in need of spare parts for your SPAS-12 the people running The SPAS 12 Project are a good place to look. They also sent a few extra o-rings free of charge, which is appreciated since they have a habit of disappearing.

Once Data Leaves Your System You No Longer Have Control

I try not to waste your time talking about celebrity news on this blog. But once in a great while celebrity news can act as a launching point for something that’s actually important. The recent breach of several celebrities’ iCloud accounts is one of those rare times:

Someone claiming to be the individual responsible for the breach has used 4Chan to offer explicit videos from Lawrence’s phone, as well as more than 60 nude “selfies” of the actress. In fact, it seems multiple “b-tards” claimed they had access to the images, with one providing a Hotmail address associated with a PayPal account, and another seeking contributions to a Bitcoin wallet. Word of the images launched a cascade of Google searches and set Twitter trending. As a result, 4Chan/b—the birthplace of Anonymous—has opened its characteristically hostile arms to a wave of curious onlookers hoping to catch a glimpse of their favorite starlets’ naked bodies. Happy Labor Day!

This breach appears different from other recent celebrity “hacks” in that it used a near-zero-day vulnerability in an Apple cloud interface. Instead of using social engineering or some low-tech research to gain control of the victims’ cloud accounts, the attacker basically bashed in the front door—and Apple didn’t find out until the attack was over. While an unusual, long, convoluted password may have prevented the attack from being successful, the only real defense against this assault was never to put photos in Apple’s cloud in the first place. Even Apple’s two-factor authentication would not have helped, if the attack was the one now being investigated.

There is a valuable lesson in this story. Once data leaves your system you no longer have control over it. With the skyrocketing popularity of online data storage services (often referred to as “the cloud”) this lesson is more important than ever.

Smartphones are pervasive in our society. Millions of people are walking around with an Android, iOS, or Windows Mobile powered device in their pockets. These devices, by default, upload a lot of personal data to Google, Apple, and Microsoft’s online data storage services. While many conspiracy theorists will claim that these services are enabled by default for nefarious purposes the truth of the matter is consumers demanded these services. Automatically uploading data to online storage services helps protect against data loss. Since most computer users are unwilling to take the time to manually backup their data, and bitch an awful lot when they lose data, manufacturers have begun doing backups automatically. But security and convenience seldom go hand in hand. By backing up data to online services users have begun to lose control of their data. Once the data is been uploaded to a third party service that third party now has control over that data.

There are ways to alleviate many of the risks involved with using online storage services. The most effective method of reducing the risks involved is to encrypt data with a strong key known only to you before uploading it. That way the third party only has access to an encrypted blob and not the means of decrypting it. Using a strong password and two factor authentication and also help protect your online accounts but neither of those practices will offer much protection if there is a flaw in the service itself (as was the case with these iCloud breaches). Ultimately the most secure option is not to upload your data to begin with.

As a general rule I don’t upload anything to a third party service unless I’m OK with it becoming publicly accessible. While I don’t take selfies or record my sexual exploits, if I were to do so I wouldn’t upload them to iCloud, Dropbox, Azure Cloud, or any other third party online storage option. The iPhone is pretty good about giving you options to keep your data on your own services, and I utilize those options heavily. It’s been ages since I’ve used Android so I’m not sure if it has the same options (its options were sparse when I used it) and I have no idea what options are made available in Windows Mobile as I’ve not used that platform. But I highly encourage people to utilize such options when available. Apps, on the other hand, are seldom as flexible since most seemed geared towards getting people to utilize third party services. You may have the automatic upload features disabled in your phones operating system but if an app automatically uploads that data then all of your efforts are for naught. So it’s important to not only be familiar with your operating systems but also the applications you utilize.

Keep your shit under your control. If you fail to do so there’s no way to regain it.