Tag: Politics

Biting Off More Than You Can Chew

Hot on the tails of attacking MasterCard, Visa, and PayPal the boys and girls that compose Anonymous are performing a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack against Amazon. The funny thing is it doesn’t seem to be working as I can access Amazon without any issue.

I don’t think these guys make the connection that Wikileaks chose to use Amazon’s hosting service specifically because of how robot Amazon’s infrastructure is. Amazon makes their money on people visiting their website and thus have made massive strides in ensuring it’s always accessible. Amazon has been a victim of DDoS attacks before (usually to extort money from Amazon to make the DDoS attack stop) and know how to deal with it. It’s would be like trying to take down Google via a DDoS attack, it won’t work.

This also sends a bad message to web hosts. Basically Anonymous are saying anybody who has hosted Wikileaks and stopped is going to be attacked. Likewise anybody hosting Wikileaks will also be attacked by people from the other side of the issue. Why would any web host be willing to host Wikileaks at all if all they’ll get for their troubles is a big old helping of DDoS. If you want to set a precedence in favor of Wikileaks work to stop the DDoS attacks that are targeting Wikileaks, not a web host who hosted Wikileaks and later terminated the hosting.

I’m still finding the events surrounding Wikileaks far more interesting than the actual leaks themselves.

The Science is In

File this under another reason to be against the war on drugs and government policy involving things we can and can not put into out bodies. The United Kingdom got a little irked when they told a group of scientists to do some research into various drugs. Unfortunately for the government the research didn’t give the results they wanted so now they’re making a new proposal that would remove the requirement for scientific advice when doing drug classifications:

The proposals will be of concern to the many doctors and scientists who have criticised the government’s treatment of scientific evidence in the wake of the sacking, last year, of ACMD chairman David Nutt. The then home secretary, Alan Johnson, removed Nutt from the post after the scientist criticised politicians for distorting research evidence and claiming alcohol and tobacco were more harmful than some illegal drugs, including LSD, ecstasy and cannabis.

And I love this wording:

“Removing the requirement on the home secretary to appoint to the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs at least one person with experience in six specific areas will allow us greater flexibility in the expertise we are able to draw on.

In other words it will allow the government the flexibility to classify things however the fuck they please.

I just want to emphasis the main point in this post, the United Kingdom government didn’t like the results of scientific research so they are moving to abolish the requirement of scientific input on drug classification.

Racism, We’ll Find it Everywhere

The best thing about racism is that you can find it everywhere:

Students for Transit Equality is a recently formed group of University of Minnesota School of Social Work students who are concerned about racial and economic inequalities in Twin Cities transit and transit planning.

Emphasis mine. What’s their case?

The purpose of this information campaign is to draw community awareness and publicity to the lack of any bus shelter at the bus stop at 7th Street and Nicollet Avenue. This bus stop is primarily used by buses bound for north Minneapolis, Brooklyn Park and Brooklyn Center. Despite being the most-used bus stop regionwide, this stop has no shelter or any other amenities. Meanwhile, bus stops on the rapid-transit routes of Marquette and 2nd Avenues, serving primarily suburban commuters, are equipped with heated and lit shelters, real-time arrival displays and large transit maps.

Obviously this is a clear case of racism! But wait:

The city of Minneapolis has slowly realized this inequality and has begun planning for an east-west transit spine through downtown Minneapolis that will potentially equip all bus stops along 7th and 8th Streets with shelters.

So… the group exists and is trying to raise awareness of itself even though their gripe is already in the plans to be fixed? What the fuck? I wonder what the next case of racism on Minnesota public transit will be. Wait the last time I took the light rail I remember there being far fewer white people on board than people of other races. RACISM!

Priorities

The Minnesota Vikings are whining that they want a new stadium or they may search for a new home. Caving to sports teams is like caving to terrorists, if you do it once they all expect you to do it again. Needless to say since Minnesota caved to pay part of the Twin’s new stadium with tax money the Vikings want the same:

There have been discussions about raising liquor taxes or possibly using “racino” money to help finance the project. Bennett has even suggested going to the old blackout days and charging people a small fee to get the game on TV, but he’s been told that can’t happen.

Oh, did I mention Minnesota is facing a $6.2 billion deficit? Priorities… we have them.

Close the Washington Monument

I think Bruce Schneier just posted one of the best article’s he’s ever tossed up on his blog. The post calls for closing the Washington Monument:

Securing the Washington Monument from terrorism has turned out to be a surprisingly difficult job. The concrete fence around the building protects it from attacking vehicles, but there’s no visually appealing way to house the airport-level security mechanisms the National Park Service has decided are a must for visitors. It is considering several options, but I think we should close the monument entirely. Let it stand, empty and inaccessible, as a monument to our fears.

I think he’s dead on here. Let’s just shut down the Washington Monument and let is stand as a testament to the fact we let the terrorists win by being allowed to be terrorized in the first place. We’ve tossed away so many of our rights and liberties in the false promise of security from terrorism that there is no doubt that the 9/11 attacks were a complete success.

Our politicians will claim that America refuses to be terrorized while at the same time justifying out of control legislation such as the PATRIOT Act and actions such as allowing TSA agents to sexually molest American citizens. But the actions of our politicians are done by preying on our fear of the terrorists meaning we have been terrorized. We let fear guide our willingness to turn over power to others who promised protection from that which we feared. This is how tyranny starts ladies and gentlemen, but surrendering our rights and liberties to those who claim to offer solutions to our perceived problems.

I Like This Judge

Some poor schmuck is being sent through the legal wringer because it made a side business of modifying Xbox 360 systems. Well the judge in the case isn’t too happy with the government agents who are bring the case out and went on a 30 minute rant against the actions of the government in this case. Here’s my favorite part:

Among the judge’s host of complaints against the government was his alarm that prosecutors would put on two witnesses who may have broken the law.

One is Entertainment Software Association investigator Tony Rosario, who secretly video-recorded defendant Matthew Crippen allegedly performing the Xbox mod in Crippen’s Los Angeles suburban house. The defense argues that making the recording violates California privacy law. The other witness is Microsoft security employee Ken McGrail, who analyzed the two consoles Crippen allegedly altered. McGrail admitted that he himself had modded Xboxes in college.

“Maybe two of the four government witnesses committed crimes,” the judge said from the bench. “I think it is relevant and the jury is going to hear about it –- both crimes.”

The government had fought to keep the witness conduct a secret from the jury.

So the actions of two witnesses may have been criminal and the government wanted to conceal that from the jury. Are they any people remaining who question my distaste of the government?

What I find most interesting is the fact this case exists at all. I understand the actions of the man being prosecuted were in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act but frankly that piece of legislation itself is unlawful. If I purchase a piece of hardware and want to pay somebody to modify it that’s my business, not the governments. My Xbox 360 is mine, I own it. Microsoft succeeded all rights to it upon my legal purchase of the device.

This is where many people will point out the license agreement that appears on the screen when you first power on the Xbox. Guess what? I never agreed to that before purchase and have no recourse should I disagree with the license. Would it be OK if I tossed in a license agreement to a car I sold that only became visible after somebody had purchased the car? “Oh hey I see you’re starting this car for the first time, just an FYI but doing so you agree to give me all the money in your bank account. K THANX BAI!”

Wikileaks

I haven’t spoke up about my opinion on the recent Wikileaks fiasco. Frankly I don’t know what to think here. I’m all for the information being released because a government that keeps secrets from it’s citizens is a government that is up to something bad.

What I find most interesting is the recent movements against Wikileaks. Some people are calling for Assange to be charged with treason which is moronic because he’s not an American citizen (so note to Sarah Palin, Wikileaks itself committed no treasonous act). Others are clamoring for him to be charged with Espionage under the Espionage Act of 1917. I find this rather interesting for the following reason:

(a) of this section in time of war shall be punished by death or by imprisonment for not more than thirty years; and

(b) whoever, in time of war, with intent that the same shall be communicated to the enemy, shall collect, record, publish or communicate, or attempt to elicit any information with respect to the movement, numbers, description, condition, or disposition of any of the armed forces, ships, aircraft, or war materials of the United States, or with respect to the plans or conduct, or supposed plans or conduct of any naval of military operations, or with respect to any works or measures undertaken for or connected with, or intended for the fortification of any place, or any other information relating to the public defence, which might be useful to the enemy, shall be punished by death or by imprisonment for not more than thirty years.

Emphasis mine. Under our Constitution the only way the United States can be at war is if Congress declares it. Congress has declared no war since World War II so can Assange really be lawfully charged under the Espionage Act? I’m not stating either way but I find it a most interesting observation.

Strangely enough you’ll notice many stories about people calling for the head of Assange. Do you want to know a little secret? Assange isn’t Wikileaks, he’s just their figurehead. Nabbing Assange will not shut down Wikileaks as there are far more people behind the scenes doing the real work of keeping the site up.

I’d also point out the fact that any potential damage has already been done. You can’t erase information from the Internet, especially a heavily mirrored site such as Wikileaks. Shutting down the main Wikileaks servers, high jacking the domain name, or any other such nonsense will accomplish absolutely nothing. The base technologies of the Internet were designed as a decentralized method of communication that would be difficult to take down should the Russian decide to let nukes fly. It’s incredibly resilient and does not lend itself well to censorship.

The United States government should realized the damage is done and there is nothing they can do to take the information back. They need to realize the only method of correcting this problem is to stop conducting backroom deals that would be embarrassing if they should ever come to light.

Everything You Need to Know About the Recent TSA Fiasco

With all the shit flying about the recent TSA molestation of airliner customers it’s become very difficult to keep up with events as they unfold. Thankfully Bruce Schneier has a really good summary covering pretty much everything. Read it.

Secretary of Transportation Looking to Require Cell Phone Jammers in Automobiles

Once before I’ve mentioned Ray LaHood on this site. LaHood is the Secretary of Transportation and is on a crusade to abolish all use of cellular phone technology in automobiles. To further this crusade he’s made mention of requiring automobile manufactures to equipment their vehicles with cell phone jamming technology.

LaHood seems to believe that cell phone use has cause a dramatic increase in automobile accidents over the years which I’ve previously research and found not to be the case. The only thing LaHood is chasing is a red herring. Automobile accidents have actually been on a slight decline since cell phone technology has become more popular which leads me to believe cell phone usage has had no negative impact on the rate of automobile accidents. I’m still of the theory that shitty drivers are shitty drivers no matter what laws and regulations you put into place. Yes you can jam a cell phone but you can’t stop people from reading a book, doing their make up, eating, or any thing else from a long list of potential distractions.

I wonder if LaHood has any investments in a company that produces cell phone jamming technology or if he’s simply a fucking moron.