Tag: 1984 was a Warning not a Blueprint

The Top of the Bad Idea Mountain

What would you say if you enrolled in a college and they asked for a DNA sample? If you would say “OK here’s the sample” then you get to go into the room for those who can’t think ahead. If you would say “Fuck off” congratulations you are a far more intelligent human being.

UC Berkley is asking all students to voluntarily submit DNA samples as part of enrollment:

The students will be asked to voluntarily submit a DNA sample. The cotton swabs will come with two bar code labels. One label will be put on the DNA sample and the other is kept for the students own records.

Now it’s no surprise to anybody that getting a DNA sample from somebody is fairly easy and if somebody wants it they can get it with a little work. But volunteering such information to any government entity (UC Berkley is a state college) is just stupid. The UK has established a DNA database which they claim is used for the following reasons:

* quickly identify offenders
* make earlier arrests
* secure more convictions
* provide critical investigative leads for police investigations

In other words they have it so they can fuck you over easier. Sure an innocent person will say they have nothing to fear from such a database but the second some legal becomes illegal you are in a position to face charges or at least public scrutiny. Of course at the time only people arrested are added to their database but alas some want everybody in it.

But the big question I really have is why the fuck is a college asking for DNA samples? Well:

The confidential process is being overseen by Jasper Rine, a campus professor of Genetics and Development Biology, who says the test results will help students make decisions about their diet and lifestyle.

Once the DNA sample is sent in and tested, it will show the student’s ability to tolerate alcohol, absorb folic acid and metabolize lactose.

Oh I see make it sound fun and exciting so students will be suckered into it. The best way to establish a database is to sucker people into volunteering their information for it. Also the easiest way to find out your alcohol tolerance is to drink alcohol until you can notice side effects. It’s cheap, easy, and fun. But here is the icing on the cake:

The results of the test will be put in a secure online database where students will be able to retrieve their results by using their bar code.

I just love the term “secure online database.” Without knowing how the security is implemented how can you know it’s actually secure? I bet money within the first year of this database being online (so a year from today) some bright student will find a way to break into it.

The bottom line is you should never volunteer any information you don’t have to, especially something that could be used to nail you for something ten years down the road. The main thing to remember is you never know when you could be caught up in something that is under investigation and if your DNA shows up you could face massive public scrutiny even if you didn’t actually do anything.

Obama Doesn’t Like Technology

This article perfectly portrays the meaning of double speak. Apparently Obama believes the following:

“What Jefferson recognized… that in the long run, their improbable experiment — called America — wouldn’t work if its citizens were uninformed, if its citizens were apathetic, if its citizens checked out, and left democracy to those who didn’t have the best interests of all the people at heart.

“It could only work if each of us stayed informed and engaged, if we held our government accountable, if we fulfilled the obligations of citizenship.”

I actually agree with Obama on something, namely this. I think part of the problem with America today is the apathy of its citizens and their lack of being informed. If you ask most Americans who their state representatives are they won’t be able to tell you. Of course if you ask a really important question like who won American Idol they can tell you right off of the spot.

One of the best things about technology is that is provides you with a constant 24/7 stream of news and information. There is no excuse to not being in the know these days. Thankfully Obama is bringing this to light and asking everybody to embrace this technology… oh wait:

“You’re coming of age in a 24/7 media environment that bombards us with all kinds of content and exposes us to all kinds of arguments, some of which don’t always rank all that high on the truth meter,” Obama said at Hampton University, Virginia.

Like everything Obama says:

“With iPods and iPads and Xboxes and PlayStations, — none of which I know how to work — information becomes a distraction, a diversion, a form of entertainment, rather than a tool of empowerment, rather than the means of emancipation,” Obama said.

He bemoaned the fact that “some of the craziest claims can quickly claim traction,” in the clamor of certain blogs and talk radio outlets.

So being in the know and having access to information is great unless that information doesn’t jive with what he thinks. For instance it’s just crazy to believe that people could be cooking the books on global warming climate is changing OMG!!!! climate change. It’s also crazy to think that GM used government money to pay back their loan from the government.

I love how Obama is all of the sudden an expert on technology that he admits to not knowing how to use. Seriously what a smug asshole.

More on Laptop Spying Case

I mentioned some time ago about a situation occurring where a school was caught spying on students via webcams built into laptops that were issued to students. Well apparently there is nothing to see here:

An “independent” investigation into the Lower Merion School District laptop scandal has concluded that there’s no evidence that students were being spied on. This is despite the existence of 58,000 photos surreptitiously taken of students on or around their computers and e-mails between district IT people commenting on the entertainment value of the photos. The 72-page report (PDF) from law firm Ballard Spahr claims, however, that most of the photos were not seen by anyone and that the district merely failed to implement proper record-keeping procedures.

Yeah obviously there was no spying. Sure they had 58,000 pictures of kids doing who-knows-what but most of the pictures weren’t actually seen by anybody, scouts promise. After all I’m sure the Ballard Spahr law firm has evidence proving none of the pictures were viewed:

Ballard Spahr admits that there is no way to determine how often the images were viewed, but says it found no evidence that the IT staff had viewed any of the images. Additionally, it says there was no evidence that district administrators knew how TheftTrack worked or even understood that large numbers of images were being collected in the first place.

Oops I guess not. Oh wait there was evidence… of the pictures being viewed:

This, of course, is the problem: because there was very little record-keeping going on and no official policies, there are few ways to know who knew what and when. However, claiming that there’s no evidence whatsoever that IT staff saw the images seems disingenuous, considering the fact that e-mail records were dug up last month that showed at least two IT administrators chatting about the photos. One staffer that has since been put on leave, Carol Cafiero, described the pictures as “a little [Lower Merion School District] soap opera,” while another staffer responded, “I know. I love it!”

Yes the school gave all the students laptops, installed spyware (in the most literal sense) on the machines, but didn’t really document it nor put any polices in place of when the cameras were to be used. That’s doesn’t scream trying to cover your tracks because you knew what you were doing was going to land you in very hot water.

But the fact of the matter is the school went to great lengths to ensure an outside party chose an independent entity to carry out the investigation so no possibility of bias could have entered into the equation:

One detail of note is that Ballard Spahr was hired by the Lower Merion School District itself to carry out the investigation, casting doubts on the true “independent” nature of the report.

Fuck me. I’m still hoping that school district gets sued right into oblivion.

I know quite a few parents who don’t want their kids having a laptop with a webcam because pedophiles may be able to access the camera without anybody’s knowledge and watching everything going on. I usually write such concerns off as over-the-top paranoia but I guess when the school is providing the laptops you should be worried about such things (the cameras being activated remotely without anybody’s knowledge, well and possibly the pedophiles doing it depending on the truth reason for installing that spyware).

My ultimate question here is who requested the installation of the spyware? Did the IT people do it without asking the school administrators or did the school administrators ask the IT people to do it? This will ultimately show the guilty party.

REAL ID Won’t Go Away

Even though no citizen wants it out politicians are ensuring some form of REAL ID gets passed into law. This time it’s being introduced to stop the “immigration” problem. From the article:

Lawmakers working to craft a new comprehensive immigration bill have settled on a way to prevent employers from hiring illegal immigrants: a national biometric identification card all American workers would eventually be required to obtain.

That’s right a card you’d be required to get in order to work. Doesn’t that just sound like big brother plus some? Of course Chuck Schumer’s name would appear on this project. What a bastard. Americans really want to beg the government for permission to work, make money, and live in this country. Also you know it’s a bad idea when:

Most European countries require citizens and foreigners to carry ID cards.

When most European countries do something you know it’s not good for individual liberty of human rights. Let’s not lie to ourselves our government is going to do everything it can to develop some federal method of tracking as many citizens as they can. But hey at least they aren’t using the terrorist card on this one.

Creation of a Police State Through Zero Tolerance

Pop quiz time everybody. What do you do when a 12 year-old girl draws some doodles on a desk?

a. Make her clean the graffiti off of the desk.
b. Give her detention after school.
c. Call the police and have her arrested.

If you answer ‘c’ to the above question you are qualified to be the principal at the Junior High School in Forest Hills, New York. That’s right a 12 year-old girl wrote, “I love my friends Abby and Faith. Lex was here 2/1/10 :)” on her desk with a marker. Shortly after the police were called and the girl was handcuffed and arrested.

This is another grand example of how zero tolerance policies work. You establish that there will be no tolerance for graffiti and if somebody doodles on a desk you call the police. Time and time again we are reminded that laws enforced without consideration of context does nothing more than create a police state where people expect to be arrested the second they do something that isn’t approved.

For an example outside of schools let’s say there is a zero tolerance policy put into place that states killing another human being is illegal. Of course this sounds OK on paper under you realize since no consideration is made for the event somebody who was legally defending themselves would be charged for murder. The linked story has a list of other abuses of zero tolerance as well as police involvement in things that should be handled by school administrators.

Big Brother is Watching

A tip of the old hat goes to Dvorak Uncensored for this story. A federal class action lawsuit is bring brought forth against the Lower Merion School District. The school district issued laptops to each child with an integrated web camera which the school was able to remotely turn on and spy with. From the article:

Michael Robbins thereafter verified, through Ms. Matsko, that the school district in fact has the ability to remotely activate the webcam contained in a student’s personal laptop computer issued by the school district at any time it chose and to view and capture whatever images were in front of the webcam, all without the knowledge, permission or authorization of any persons then and there using the laptop computer.

Additionally, by virtue of the fact that the webcam can be remotely activated at any time by the school district, the webcam will capture anything happening in the room in which the laptop computer is located, regardless of whether the student is sitting at the computer and using it.

Scary stuff. Several question arise from this. First what was the purpose of being able to remotely enable the web cameras? Was it to spy on the children to ensure they weren’t doing anything wrong? Was is because there are perverts in the school district who get their jollys off of underage kids on camera? The implications of this could be rather astounding.

This also further proves a motto in the security industry, trust no one.

South Australia Bans Anonymous Political Speech

Welcome the South Britain Australia. Feel free to go about your business but if you’re going to talk about any upcoming elections do note you cannot do so anonymously. South Australia just passed a law making anonymous political speech illegal unless you publish your legal name and post code. Media organizations also have to keep peoples’ names and address on file for six months or face a $5,000.00 fine.

Australia seems to be doing it’s best to become as hated in my book as Britain. They censor the Internet, claim women with small breast promote pedophilia, and now doesn’t allow the freedom of speech unless they government knows who you are. Of course all this shit started happening after the citizenry were effectively disarmed, but that could just be a coincidence.

The Memory Hole

There is a good story on Days of our Trailers. To sum it up The Detroit News decided a crazy person was a victim after attacking another driver and being shot in the process. Of course that’s not the biggest story in my opinion, it’s what The Detroit News did afterwards.

They decided to use the memory hole and edit out the word victim. They never made a note of the edit, they just changed it. Thankfully David got a Google cache before the memory hole ate up the original completely and posted a screenshot. This is a danger people should be aware of, things can be changed and edited without notice. If you’re referencing a story save a local copy to your computer in case the online story gets deleted or changed.

More British Tyranny

Oh Britain when will you ever learn. My friend sent me this article via old school e-mail (Yup no Twitter here). Well the British police decided to rip open and confiscate the contents of over 6,000 safety deposit boxes in a mad rush to find drugs and *GASP* guns.

I’m not going to spend time analyzing this as most of you are probably capable but I’m going to pull out some choice quotes:

A semi-automatic Glock 9mm, the weapon of choice for British gangsters, was lodged in Box 1653 at the Hampstead depository, rented by 44-year-old Gavin Leon, who was jailed for five years last March.

Wow I’m actually impressed, British gangsters have much better taste then those in the United States. Here gangsters usually haul around Hi-Points and Jennings as their gun of choice. I’m glad to see not every country’s criminals have the same lack of taste and sophistication. Next up:

However, by talking to scores of box-holders, none of whom have spoken before, Live has uncovered a different version of Operation Rize, one that shows how the vast majority of those caught up in the raids were innocent. They have had their lives turned upside down over the past 17 months. Many have struggled to recoup their money and possessions, been forced into legal trench warfare with police lawyers and told they must prove how they came by the contents of their boxes.

That’s right the police went in, stole the contents of every safety deposit box, and it’s the burden of those who were stolen from to prove they own what was in those boxes. That must have been one fucking general warrant. I’m guessing the description of the person was something along the lines of, “Human being between 3′ and 7′ tall weighing between 50 to 700 pounds. Skin may be white, black, red, yellow, or indigo.” And the description of the evidence must have read, “Any item in the possession of the suspect or being held in a place rented or leased by the suspect.” Seriously what the fuck? But that’s not all:

Mark Richardson, a former military intelligence officer and now a forensic accountant, who has been employed by several box-holders to explain their wealth, told us: ‘We had to get one family’s diamonds carbon-dated at great expense to demonstrate to the police that they had been cut in the Thirties, which tallied with their story of fleeing Germany before World War II.’

Yup guilty until proven innocent. “What’s that? Oh you say this diamond that we found in YOUR safety deposit box is in fact YOUR’S? Prove it.” I would assume that having an expensive item in a safety deposit box under your name would qualify as proof enough, just a thought. What else do we have? Well this:

Lawyer Sara Teasdale, of City practice Roiter Zucker, whose client had kept more than £900,000 in his box at the vaults in Edgware as cash flow for his business leasing black cabs, said: ‘The police are “deep-pocketing” – hauling people through a protracted legal process that they know is so costly that most will roll over.’

Not surprising. I’m sure the police get to keep anything that isn’t claimed, hence there is a conflict of interest there. The police are supposed to uphold the law but will try to fuck over people they stole from to keep the goods.

Anyways you get the idea. If you have heart pressure problems I’d advise not reading the article. The same goes if you have an allergic reaction to fascism.

1984 Just Gets Closer Every Year

OK I understand parents wanting to keep track of their kids but there really has to be a limit. I think that limit is crossed once you strap GPS tracking devices to your children and follow their every move. Well a company called Lok8u has a device called the num8 for those overly paranoid parents. It’s a wrist watch that lets you track your child’s every move because that’s better for their development or something I guess. Here’s their excuse:

Speaking to the Daily Mail, Steve Salmon, from Lok8u, said: “Losing your child, if only for a brief moment, leads to a state of panic and makes parents feel powerless. The overriding aim of num8 is to give children their freedom and parents peace of mind.”

Yeah so your saying that if parents lose track of their kid for even a moment it leads to panic? I wonder what was wrong with my parents because they did become paranoid every time I left the house to go do something. And this device doesn’t give children freedom beyond being able to roam where mom and dad say.

Of course people will bring up the whole “if you child is kidnapped you can find them” argument which is bullshit as well. See being this is a wrist watch you can just pull it off a child. For that matter a child can just pull it off, put it somewhere they are supposed to be, and go do what they want. Seriously this surveillance society thing needs to be put to death now.

I don’t see how a child can develop independence while be tracked everywhere they go. You need to let your children get out and explore on their own otherwise they’ll never develop that good old exploratory desire.