Tag: Technology

Smart Guns and Fear Mongering

The topic of smart guns crops up periodically. Gun control advocates tend to believe smart guns are the magical technological solution to gun crime and gun rights advocates tend to believe smart guns are an infeasible idea that will never see widespread adoption. I think the concept of smart guns is interesting for different reasons than normally expressed. One of the science fiction series I really enjoy is The Lost Fleet. In it the marines have firearms that automatically cease firing when they are aimed at an individual that is identified as friendly and resume firing when that individual is no longer in the line of fire. This allows the marines to kick in the door and gun down enemy soldiers without worrying about friendly fire. It’s a great idea and one that will likely find its way into firearm technology some day. I look forward to seeing such technology some day.

But there is a lot of fear mongering over introducing electronic components into firearms. An example of such fear mongering can be found in this article:

But apart from reliability, which is by itself enough of an objection to ensure that most gun buyers will never go near a smart gun, there’s another objection that I’ve not yet seen raised to the smart gun. As a guy who knows a thing or two about technology, I’d like to raise the objection now: the smart gun and the second amendment, at least as many modern gun owners understand the latter, are fundamentally incompatible. Here’s why.

In September of last year, Apple introduced a technology that would let police remotely disable protesters iPhones. So if the police think that you might film them while they’re doing their thing, they could set up a “no pictures” zone by sending a wireless signal to disable the smart phone cameras in a certain vicinity.

[…]

Now, substitute “phone” in the above quote for “gun,” and you’ll see where I’m going with this.

Cops are going to love the idea that they can turn off suspects’ guns before doing a no-knock raid, but it’s hard to see gun owners getting fired up about it.

If you’re one of those folks who believe that the second amendment is the people’s last bulwark against tyranny, then you’re probably never going to buy a gun that the government magically render inoperable. To give the government the ability to remotely disable your weapon would turn the second amendment, at least in the “first the soap box, then the ballot box, then the ammo box” sense, into dead letter.

Firearms that can be remotely disabled is one potential feature that could be included in smart guns but is by no means a mandatory feature. The concept of smart guns isn’t incompatible with the Second Amendment. Some of the features may go against the generally accepted spirit of the Second Amendment but that doesn’t mean the technology isn’t compatible.

Firearms like those that appear in The Lost Fleet series are entirely compatible with the spirit of the Second Amendment. So are firearms that automatically adjust their point of aim for windage, distance, powder load, bullet weight, and other variables involved in aiming.

While I’m on the subject of smart guns I think it’s also worth addressing the reliability fears. The most common criticism of smart guns is that the introduction of additional features will decrease reliability. This is true, the more complex a device the less reliable it becomes. However acceptable reliability is still a subjective thing. Semi-automatic rifles are more failure prone than bolt-action rifles. Every major military and police force has chosen to take the increased failure rate of semi-automatic rifles because additional firepower they bring to the battlefield are immense. Electronic optics are another example of a devices that can introduce additional failure points in a firearm design that have become widely accepted.

My point is that the additional capabilities offered by more complex technologies tend to exceed the additional failure rates they introduce. Oftentimes these new technologies being life with a very high rate of failure and through refinement becomes extremely reliable. Additional technologies made possible by introducing more electronics into smart guns will follow this trend.

The idea behind smart guns isn’t inherently bad. There are even valid reasons to want a firearm that cannot be fired by anybody by yourself. Instead of fearing future firearm technology we should be embracing it. So long as the technology is voluntary there is no reason to oppose it or try to drum up unnecessary fear of the technology. Making arguments against laws that mandate any firearm technology is certainly appropriate but making arguments against the technology itself is, in my not so humble opinion, short sighted.

Dropping Bombs on Cellular Signals

There should be a new motto for the ongoing War of Terror: it gets worse. Every day new reports regarding the War of Terror manage to reveal facts that are worse than the facts revealed in previous reports. The fact we have regarding the United State’s use of drones is already pretty damning.

We know that the United States regularly practices double-tapping, the act of dropping a second bomb on a target minutes after the first, which often catches first responders in the blast. Two years ago the United States redefined the term militant to include all military-aged males inside a strike zone, which has done wonders for reducing the number of “civilian” causalities. With the term militant redefined the fact that drone bombings kill more civilians than terrorists is an irrelevant fact. Even with the term militant redefined the number of civilian causalities in the form of children is alarming. Even after all of this the United States still loosened restrictions in regards to who it can and cannot legally bomb.

As hard as it is to imagine it still gets worse. Yesterday it was revealed by Jeremy Scahill and Glenn Greenwald that the United States is now using geolocation data from cellular phones as sole criteria for determining where to drop bombs:

The National Security Agency is using complex analysis of electronic surveillance, rather than human intelligence, as the primary method to locate targets for lethal drone strikes – an unreliable tactic that results in the deaths of innocent or unidentified people.

According to a former drone operator for the military’s Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) who also worked with the NSA, the agency often identifies targets based on controversial metadata analysis and cell-phone tracking technologies. Rather than confirming a target’s identity with operatives or informants on the ground, the CIA or the U.S. military then orders a strike based on the activity and location of the mobile phone a person is believed to be using.

[…]

In one tactic, the NSA “geolocates” the SIM card or handset of a suspected terrorist’s mobile phone, enabling the CIA and U.S. military to conduct night raids and drone strikes to kill or capture the individual in possession of the device.

[…]

As a result, even when the agency correctly identifies and targets a SIM card belonging to a terror suspect, the phone may actually be carried by someone else, who is then killed in a strike. According to the former drone operator, the geolocation cells at the NSA that run the tracking program – known as Geo Cell –sometimes facilitate strikes without knowing whether the individual in possession of a tracked cell phone or SIM card is in fact the intended target of the strike.

This tactic is asinine. As the article points out, the location of a cellular phone doesn’t indicate the location of its owner. Cellular phones can be loaned to friends and family members, left in taxicabs, stolen, or otherwise relocated in a manner that doesn’t indicate the location of its owner. In addition to simply removing the phone from the target’s location there is also the issue of cloning. While cellular phone companies can often identify clones cellular identify information I have my doubts that the United States government takes such precautions when using geolocation information to determine where to drop bombs.

We’ve been told that the utmost care is taken when selecting targets for drone assassination. These claims have been invalidated by information leaked from the military and intelligence agencies. Perhaps the United States once took care when targeting individuals although I have my doubts. But it’s obvious at this point that little care is being taken when determining who to bomb. If things continue in this direction it won’t be long until a random populated location generator is used to determine where to drop bombs.

This war, like all wars, has gotten out of hand. The only purpose left in waging the War of Terror is to fulfill the blood lust of psychopaths and to line the pockets of defense contractors.

Applied Crypto Hardening

I spend a lot of time urging people to utilize available cryptographic tools to secure their data. While I also admit that using cryptographic tools is less convenient that not and involves a learning curve, I believe that everybody has a duty to take their online self-defense into their own hands. To this end a group of people have gotten together and written a white paper that helps individuals utilized cryptographic features in popular software packages:

This whitepaper arose out of the need for system administrators to have an updated, solid, well researched and thought-through guide for configuring SSL, PGP, SSH and other cryptographic tools in the post-Snowden age. Triggered by the NSA leaks in the summer of 2013, many system administrators and IT security specialists saw the need to strengthen their encryption settings. This guide is specifically written for these system administrators.

Initiated by Aaron Kaplan (CERT.at) and Adi Kriegisch (VRVis), a group of specialists, cryptographers and sysadmins from CERTs, academia and the private sector joined forces to write such a concise, short guide.

This project aims at creating a simple, copy & paste-able HOWTO for secure crypto settings of the most common services (webservers, mail, ssh, etc.). It is completely open sourced, every step in the creation of this guide is public, discussed on a public mailing list and any changes to the text are documented in a publicly readable version control system.

The document itself can be downloaded here [PDF]. I haven’t read through the entire guide but it is obviously still being written as there are quite a few omissions. But what is there is good information albeit information devoid of theory, which is OK, you have to start somewhere and enabling these features without fully understanding them is still better than not enabling them at all.

Another Bad Idea By Amy Klobuchar

I have to agree with Techdirt, whenever Klobuchar presents legislation involving technology everybody “should run screaming for the hills.” Her history on technology-related bills makes it obvious that she doesn’t actually understand the technology she’s attempting to legislate. Her latest attempt at infusing the state with our technology is a bill that would require mobile phone manufacturers to include a kill switch that can be remotely actives in all of their phones:

Her latest move is to propose a bill that would mandate a kill switch in all mobile phones that could be activated remotely. The idea, here, is that this would allow those who had their phones stolen to disable them, rendering them (sorta) useless. It seems that, as with the other bills discussed above, Senator Klobuchar introduces these with the best of intentions, but with no clue about how technology works, or the likely “unintended” consequences of such things.

This legislation mandates what Apple is already doing, include a mechanism for iOS customers to render a device unusable should it get stolen. If this feature isn’t already included in Android and Windows Mobile I’m sure it will be soon. But the choice of including such a kill switch should be made by the manufacturer because, get this, some customers don’t want a remotely activated kill switch in their communication device. Such a feature could easily be abused. How easy would it be for a police force to call up a mobile phone manufacturer and tell them to disable all of their customers’ phones in an area where a protest is taking place?

Remote kill switches, like everything else in the universe, have positives and negatives. For some people the positives outweigh the negatives and they seek a devices with a remote kill switch. The opposite is true for other people, which causes them to seek out a device that doesn’t have a remote kill switch. I know it’s difficult for a statist to understand that the human race isn’t like an ant colony. Each person is an individual who had different wants and needs. Some of us want to order a giant rib eye steak and some of us want to order a salad. The choice should be left to the individual making it not mandated by some asshole in a marble building.

Implantable Power Generator for Pacemakers

I subscribe to the idea that our lives are more greatly improved by technological advancements than diminished. For every nefarious use of technology that seems to be a dozen or more positive uses. We’ve effectively eliminated several diseases that once ravished our populations, put a man on the moon, enjoy speedy cooking via microwaves, can preserve food that would naturally spoil in a few days for months, and built devices that can generate power from sunlight. Adding to hour already impressive array of technological advancements is an implantable piezoelectric generator that can power a pacemaker:

(Phys.org) —Researchers from several institutions in the U.S. and one from China have together developed a piezoelectric device that when implanted in the body onto a constantly moving organ is able to produce enough electricity to run a pacemaker or other implantable device. In their paper published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the team describes the nature of their device and how it might be used in the future.

The ramifications of this technology stretch far beyond just pacemakers. Any number of implantable devices could theoretically be powered by such a piezoelectric generator so long as the energy requirements were low enough. Imagine an implant for your optical nerves that could general a heads up display that only you could see or an implantable wireless communication device. As these piezoelectric generators improve they could provide more energy just as increases in power efficiency could give us implants that provide very nifty features without requiring great deals of energy.

The Conveniences of Our Modern World

The conveniences of this modern world never ceases to amaze me. I have access to the collected knowledge of man via a computer that fits in my pocket, can complete a 30 mile drive in 30 minutes or less, can purchase any number of fruits and vegetables from around the world from most grocery stores, and can now get an exorcism via Skype:

SCOTTSDALE, AZ – The practice of exorcism isn’t anything new. It’s been around for thousands of years.

But thanks to the age of technology a Scottsdale reverend says he is getting a chance to help people possessed by demons, all over the world.

[…]

In the age of electronics, exorcisms are done over Skype.

I wonder if he can exorcise demons from my computer. That would hold real value for me.

The Future is Bright

My love-hate relationship with Google continues. On the one hand Google collects as much personal information about its customers as it can in order to sell it to advertisers. On the other hand Google develops some really interesting technology. Its latest endeavor are smart contact lenses:

SAN FRANCISCO — Google’s vision for wearable technology took another ambitious leap forward Thursday when the world’s largest Internet search company announced it is developing a smart contact lens.

The lens measures glucose in tears using a wireless chip and miniaturized glucose sensor. While at a very early stage, Google hopes the technology could help people manage diabetes better.

I have little interest in a lens that can measure glucose levels but I have a lot of interest in where this technology may lead. Someday this technology will likely lead to a contact lens version of Google Glass, that is to say a heads up display. Having a heads up display on contact lenses would offer a means of displaying information over your vision without requiring the use of goofy looking devices on your face. Furthermore it would allow you to conceal the fact that you have a heads up display over your vision, which may come in handy during boring business meetings.

I look forward to our technological future and all of the advantages it will bring and solving the disadvantages it will bring.

Glorious Super Mario World Hack

I’m a huge fan of hacking, which should be made obvious by my yearly pilgrimages to Defcon. Although I’ve seen many hacks that have impressed me few have impressed me as thoroughly as this one:

It’s at 1:39 in the video where things really start going pear-shaped, as the fabric of the game’s reality comes apart at the seams for a few seconds before inexplicably transitioning to Mario-themed versions of Pong and Snake. Understanding what’s going on here requires some deep knowledge of the Super NES’ internal sprite and memory management, which is explained in detail here and here.

Suffice it to say that the first minute-and-a-half or so of this TAS is merely an effort to spawn a specific set of sprites into the game’s Object Attribute Memory (OAM) buffer in a specific order. The TAS runner then uses a stun glitch to spawn an unused sprite into the game, which in turn causes the system to treat the sprites in that OAM buffer as raw executable code. In this case, that code has been arranged to jump to the memory location for controller data, in essence letting the user insert whatever executable program he or she wants into memory by converting the binary data for precisely ordered button presses into assembly code (interestingly, this data is entered more quickly by simulating the inputs of eight controllers plugged in through simulated multitaps on each controller port).

What makes this hack so impressive is that it didn’t rely on any emulator glitches. Instead the hack was performed on an actual Super Nintendo using only a standard controller as an input device:

Last week’s Awesome Games Done Quick “total control” demo is also notable for being run on actual, bare-bones SNES hardware rather than on an emulator (as is standard with most TAS videos). The robotic player at the event was powered by a Raspberry Pi hooked up to a special adapter (mounted amusingly to an NES R.O.B. controller) that let the computer send its preprogrammed controller inputs into the controller ports at superhuman, frame-level speed. Thus, the demonstration proved that this exploit was present in the actual system and cartridge released by Nintendo and not some sort of artifact of faulty emulation. That isn’t a foregone conclusion, either, as syncing up the vagaries of split-second timing and memory management between real and emulated hardware are not trivial (this is yet another area where the idea of perfect emulation accuracy might come in handy).

I can only tip my hat in awe at the sheer quality of this hack. Here is a video of the hack:

Even Your Automobile is Snitching on You

I enjoy the fact that we’re seeing some innovation in the long stagnant automobile market. But said innovation comes at a price. Every new feature that is capable of collecting data about your driving habits is a potential set of loose lips that can get you into trouble. The Vice President of Marketing and Sales at Ford let the cat out of the bag when he publicly announced that his company knows when you’re doing something illegal with your automobile:

Farley was trying to describe how much data Ford has on its customers, and illustrate the fact that the company uses very little of it in order to avoid raising privacy concerns: “We know everyone who breaks the law, we know when you’re doing it. We have GPS in your car, so we know what you’re doing. By the way, we don’t supply that data to anyone,” he told attendees.

His claim that that data isn’t given to anybody is a lie. If somebody holds data the government can issue a subpoena to take it or use the National Security Agency’s (NSA) surveillance apparatus to secretly take it. Furthermore, if Ford ever declares bankruptcy the data that it has collected on its customers will be sold at its asset auction.

The obvious solutions to this problem are to either forgo a new automobile or disable any new vehicle’s tracking and reporting capabilities. If the data is being collected it can be acquired by unauthorized parties. This fact is especially worrisome as the state continues its slow death spiral and beings desperately grasping at any opportunity to expropriate wealth from the people.

Test Firing of Liberator in Japan

I that 3D printable firearms will destroy gun control. Once individuals are able to easily manufacture firearms from their homes it will be impossible for any government to restrict ownership. But beliefs and demonstrations are two different things. Today I have a demonstration of 3D printable firearms apparently skirting gun control laws. Japan isn’t know for being a weapon friendly island. Throughout Japanese history rulers have disarmed segments of the population. Disarming people took the form of sword hunts, which eventually concluded in the disarmament of the samurai in 1876. Today acquiring a firearm in Japan is extremely difficult [PDF]. Even possessing parts of a handgun can get you into legal trouble. So seeing a Liberator pistol being fired in Japan is pretty exciting:

My understanding of Japanese weapons laws leads me to believe that the video is showing an illegal act but I’m not entirely sure as the demonstrator was willing to show his face. Either way I think this thoroughly demonstrates the viability of producing 3D printable firearms in localities with strict gun control laws. Gun control advocates will be quick to point out that 3D printable firearms aren’t yet viable, which is true today. Tomorrow will be a different story. 3D printer technology is advancing rapidly and we will see affordable printers capable of manufacturing reliable firearms in the near future. After we reach that technological achievement gun control laws will be unenforceable and thus gun control will be dead.