You’re Doing it Wrong – Page 26

Need Your Friend’s Wi-Fi Password? Ask Their Kettle!

A lot of companies are making a big deal out of the Internet of things. The Internet of things is just a fancy phrase for adding Internet connectivity to everything from lightbulbs to tea kettles. Theoretically this could enable some pretty neat functionality but it also means every device in your home could become an attack vector for malicious hackers. Not surprisingly the security record of current Internet of things manufacturers leaves a lot to be desired:

Following our recent demonstration at the Infosecurity Show and with Rory Cellan-Jones on the BBC here’s a write up and more technical detail on the Smarter iKettle hack.

[…]

For those of you who haven’t seen the demo in person, here’s how it works.

The brief version:

De-auth kettle from its usual access point. Use aireplay-ng
Create fake AP with same SSID
Kettle joins
Connect to telnet service, authenticate using default PIN of ‘000000’
Enter ‘AT-KEY’
Plaintext WPA PSK is then disclosed
Yes, it’s that easy

Oy vey! For some reasons each market appears dead set on learning the hard lessons the hard way. Software developers learned the mistakes of not taking security seriously. Automobile manufacturers are now learning that lesson. Manufacturers that produce Internet enabled devices will probably be the next in line to learn this lesson.

My advice for everybody is to wait a bit before diving too far into this Internet of things. Let the early adopters suffer the pain and misery of immature products. Then, when the time is right, move in and thank all those poor souls for their sacrifice.

Police Shouldn’t Receive Special Treatment

Being a victim is all the rage these days. Because there is no real war on cops some officers have been posting sob stories of people acting rude to them in what appears to be a pathetic attempt to generate some sympathy. Not too long ago an office whined because a Dunkin’ Donuts employee wrote “#blacklivesmatter” on his coffee cup (which that was certainly unprofessional it was also so minor that I, were I in the officer’s position, would have entirely ignored it). A few days ago a police officer claimed he was told to leave Olive Garden because he was carrying a gun:

The staff at an Olive Garden in Kansas City asked a police officer to leave during his own birthday lunch on Sunday. According to KMBC, officer Michael Holsworth was waiting for his family to arrive at the restaurant, dressed in full uniform and with his gun because he was on duty. While he was sitting inside of the Olive Garden, a staff member allegedly asked him to leave, telling the officer they do “not allow guns inside the restaurant.”

The supposed actions of the Olive Garden employee aren’t really newsworthy to me. In fact they shouldn’t have been an issue to the officer since the employee was “just following orders.” What is newsworthy to me is the general sentiment amongst a lot of conservatives. To them the real problem isn’t the establishment haven’t a gun prohibition but that the gun prohibition was enforced against a man with a shiny liability shield pinned to his chest.

Police officers aren’t special and there’s no reason they should expect special treatment. If Olive Garden has a prohibition against carrying firearms in the restaurant then there is no reason an officer should expect to be exempt from it. There is also no reason anybody else should expect officers to be exempt from it. Enforcing the prohibition against an officer is no different than enforcing it against anybody else.

A large contributor to the breakdown of trust in police officers is the immense amount special treatment they enjoy. When they unlawfully shoot somebody it’s not uncommon for them to be fired and receive no further punishment whereas an average individual will usually find themselves in prison. Officers can kidnap people without facing charges even if the kidnapping is later found to be unwarranted by a court. Civil forfeiture laws allow officers to confiscate anybody’s property so long as they can explain why they thought it could be involved in some way to a drug crime.

Conservatives have been decrying the public’s dwindling trust in law enforcement officers and their response has basically been to get on their hands and knees and lick the boots of officers. That is not an effective way to address the problem. And every instance of outrage over rules being applied to police officers specifically just further erodes the public’s trust.

Libertarianism: Simultaneously Impotent And The Most Dangerous Force On Earth

The best thing about being a libertarian is that you’re simultaneously accused of being completely impotent and the most dangerous force on Earth. Making the situation even better is the fact libertarianism is often blamed for things it has absolutely no part in. Take this recent article by statist economic stooge Will Hutton:

Yet there is a parallel collapse in the economic order that is less conspicuous: the hundreds of billions of dollars fleeing emerging economies, from Brazil to China, don’t come with images of women and children on capsizing boats. Nor do banks that have lent trillions that will never be repaid post gruesome videos. However, this collapse threatens our liberal universe as much as certain responses to the refugees. Capital flight and bank fragility are profound dysfunctions in the way the global economy is now organised that will surface as real-world economic dislocation.

The IMF is profoundly concerned, warning at last week’s annual meeting in Peru of $3tn (£1.95tn) of excess credit globally and weakening global economic growth. But while it knows there needs to be an international co-ordinated response, no progress is likely. The grip of libertarian, anti-state philosophies on the dominant Anglo-Saxon political right in the US and UK makes such intervention as probable as a Middle East settlement. Order is crumbling all around and the forces that might save it are politically weak and intellectually ineffective.

We’re seeing signs of the very economic turmoil libertarians have been warning about for decades. This turmoil is the result of unsound monetary practices, namely the reliance on debt instead of wealth for economic activity between nations. No matter how much evidence libertarians point to or how loudly libertarians scream the statists seem entirely unwilling to adjust their monetary policies. Instead they continue trying the same thing — only harder.

So who’s to blame for the current turmoil? Libertarians, of course!

There’s so much to laugh at in this article but the insinuation that libertarian, anti-state philosophies have any kind of old on the political right of the United States (US) or United Kingdoms (UK) is a real gut buster. The political right and left can best be defined as anti-libertarianism. Libertarianism is about individual empowerment at the expense of state power. Strong centralized militaries, militarized domestic police forces, national surveillance apparatuses, fortress-like borders, fiat currency, and other such nonsense the political right has a raging hard-on for are anti-libertarian in nature. Likewise the redistribution of wealth, heavy-handed market controls, widespread censorship, restrictions on voluntary association, almost zealous opposition to self-defense, and other politically left ideas are equally anti-libertarian in nature.

The economic philosophies, which Mr. Hutton claims to be libertarian, of both the US and UK are entirely statist in nature. Libertarians advocate for wealth-based currencies, usually in the form of gold or silver backed warehouse receipts, whereas the US and UK both use fiat currencies that are backed by little more than each nation’s respective capacity for violence against anybody who doesn’t recognize their full faith and credit. Debt, the US and UK’s preferred excuse for printing more worthless paper, is the antithesis of libertarianism’s advocacy of spending within one’s means.

The current economic turmoil is the result of authoritarian, pro-state philosophies. If libertarianism actually had a grip on these nations we almost certainly wouldn’t be facing this economic crisis.

But, of course, libertarianism is the boogeyman of statists everywhere so it must be blamed for all things, whether or not those accusations make sense.

I Wouldn’t Allow A Liability Into My Establishment Either

I have a confession to make. Most of these “patriot” organizations annoy me. It’s not just because I’m not a patriot (in fact I find the entire concept of patriotism perplexing) but also because a lot of members of these groups tend to be knee-jerk reactionaries.

A couple of people I know were sharing a story about a guardsman being kicked out of Waffle House because he was carrying a gun. This upset quite a few self-proclaimed patriots because guardsmen are apparently even better than you so when they’re booted from an establishment for carrying it’s doubleplus ungood. As it turns out, the guardsman wasn’t kicked out for carrying a gun. He was kicked out because he was carrying a gun after being involved in a fight in the establishment:

The Waffle House franchise owner told Eater that Welch, the National Guardsman, had been kicked out of the restaurant for fighting a couple of weeks prior to being asked to leave his gun outside.

A representative of the Oath Keepers, one of those “patriot” organizations that tend to get on my nerves, said the claim was completely fabricated. It could be but I would find it strange for a franchise owner to make such a claim since it could be considered slanderous.

Working on the assumption the franchise owner was telling the truth (mostly to make a point), had I been in his position I would have also supported my employee’s decision to kick the guardsman out. If you’ve been involved in a fight in my establishment you’re not getting back in. Period. And if I had a leave of my sense and decided to let you back in I certainly wouldn’t let you bring a weapon in with you. Once you’ve proven yourself to be a liability I, as a business owner, and going to take whatever steps are necessary to protect myself, my employees, my property, and my customers.

Let us remember the saloons of the Old West. A lot of people carried guns in those days. Saloon owners recognized the combination of alcohol and firearms was really bad. To protect themselves and their patrons from the known hazards of combining alcohol and firearms the bartender often required patrons to surrender their arms if they wanted to drink. The situation the same if you have a patron who is known to be violent.

As a gun owner you should have a right to carry a firearm. Property owners should also have the right to determine who and who cannot be on their property. If they don’t want to allow armed individuals onto their property their desire should be respected (it’s their loss anyways). The key for gun owners is not to be a dick and therefore hopefully be welcome in most establishments.

You Keep Using That Word: Rights Edition

There are a few pages on Facebook I enjoy reading. Occupy Democrats is one of them. Obviously I don’t agree with the philosophy of the page but the administrators running it are either amazing trolls or incredible idiots.

Case in point, they posted this image after last week’s shooting:

What do firearms and healthcare have in common? Almost nothing, which is why this image is so good! First, it tries to tie two unrelated things together. Why? Probably because the creator thought he was being clever by taking a swipe a gun owners and jerking themselves off about how awesome Obamacare has been. Second, it misses the boat by a wide margin.

Are ascetically offensive firearms (what the image creator calls “assault weapons”) a human right? Is healthcare a human right? The answer to both is yes, but not in the way the image creator was implying. Everybody has a right to acquire any firearm they choose just as they have a right to acquire whatever healthcare they choose. But nobody is entitled to either. We return once again to age old negative rights versus idiocy, err, positive rights.

Negative rights mean individuals should be free from interference from other individuals. Positive rights mean individuals should be given whatever is considered a right. The latter is nonsense because giving individuals goods and services necessarily requires enslaving others to make and provide them. If you have a right to healthcare then somebody has to provide it. On the other hand, if you have a right to acquire healthcare that simply means nobody should be allowed to interfere with you entering an exchange with a healthcare provider.

So, yes, firearms and healthcare are human rights so long as you use a sane definition of rights. Anybody who believes the State, or anybody else, should interfere with individuals acquiring either is an asshole.

If You Don’t Want People Viewing Content For Free Stop Posting It For Free

The war over online advertising just keeps getting better. Even though ad blockers reduce bandwidth usage, increase battery life, and protect against malware there are content providers whining that consumers shouldn’t install them. Some are even claiming that consumers have a moral obligation not to install them and have gone so far as to use loaded terms such as theft.

Now the pro-ads crowd is saying web consumers who view ad supported content while using an ad blocker are hypocrites. I might as well address this pile of bullocks since I’ve already invested so much time on this topic. The pro-ads crowd is painting a false picture. Namely that consumers should feel hypocritical about viewing something that’s been publicly displayed if they’re not viewing it how the creator intended.

Let’s consider a hypothetic scenario. A sculptor homesteads a plot of unused land in Libertariantopia (a magical land where everybody is supposedly a libertarian) and places one of his sculptures on it. He doesn’t build any fences or put up any signs indicating the land is his so people continue to walk through it as they always have. As they walk through his little plot of land they see his sculpture and stop for a moment to admire it. Suddenly the sculptor run at the people and starts screaming, “You can only view that sculpture through blue tinted glasses! You call yourselves libertarians?! You’re a bunch of hypocrites!” Assuming the people admiring the sculpture are good libertarians who believe in property rights, were they hypocrites for viewing that sculpture on the sculptor’s land without blue tinted glasses?

Absolutely not. First, they had no way of knowing they were even on private property since it wasn’t marked as such. Second, there was no indication that the sculptor wanted people to only view his sculpture through blue tinted glasses. Things would have been different had the sculptor fenced his land or put up obvious signs indicating the property was private. Then passersby would be aware that the property was private and not have entered it. Had the sculptor then hung signs stating, “Everybody is granted free entry for the purpose of viewing my sculpture so long as they are wearing blue tinted glass,” everybody entering his property would know that they could enter but their status as guests would be conditional based on the posted terms.

As you can guess this analogy is meant to illustrate accessing ad-supported websites. The sculptor’s plot of land is the website, the sculpture is the content, and the blue tinted glasses are the ads. Most websites have terms of service but they are not clearly posted just as no signs are clearly posted on the sculptor’s land. Under such conditions most visitors will remain entirely ignorant of any special rules they’re expected to abide by.

Unless web site owners clearly display their terms and conditions to visitors before allowing them access to the content they have no grounds on which to call visitors using ad blockers hypocrites. If you want people on your property to act in a certain way that’s outside of social norms, and let’s face the fact that using an ad blocker is now a norm, you should inform them. Don’t scream “Hypocrite!” because visitors are using an ad blocker if you don’t first display terms of services indicating such behavior was not allowed on your website.

What if the visitors aren’t libertarians and therefore don’t respect the owner’s property rights? Then you’ve got a much bigger problem on your hands because their philosophy may very well be socialist in nature and therefore they may view all property, including your content, as public. You’re going to have an even harder time successfully arguing that they’re hypocrites.

Basic Income Only Strengthens The Ruling Class

There appears to be a worldwide competition to see which country can implement the stupidest idea. Possibly heading the United States’ competition are the basic income advocates:

Basic Income Action is, according to co-founder Dan O’Sullivan, “the first national organization educating and organizing the public to support a basic income.” In an email, he tells me that “Our goal is to educate and organize people to take action to win a basic income here in the US.”

Interest in a basic income, also called a guaranteed or universal income, an annual unearned salary, or just “getting handed a giant lump sum of free cash every year,” is percolating. Of late, it’s been the subject of magazine features, it’s been championed by economists from major financial institutions, and it’s even been touted on the presidential campaign trail.

Basic income is an appeal idea to many for the simple fact that it promises everybody a salary for doing nothing. It’s an idea so appealing even some libertarians have been suckered into it (and then had their arguments ruthlessly decimated). And according to its advocates it will help topple the power of the ruling class (or the “one percent” as they call it):

Perhaps the biggest thrust of the basic income movement’s argument is that technology is eliminating jobs, and they’re not coming back. (Hence we see more wealth accumulating at the top 1 percent, the class that happens to own the bulk of the automated labor; and an infamous economic recovery that has largely benefitted the rich, not the middle class.)

I’ve already addressed the fallacy of technology eliminating jobs so I won’t go into that more here. What I want to address is the ludicrous claim that basic income will somehow loosen the grip of the ruling class.

Where, exactly, does the money to fund basic income come from? Basic income advocates will tell you it comes from taxes. Somehow they miss the fact that taxes are monies collected by the State, which is yet another name for the ruling class. In other words basic income gives the top one percent yet another justification to steal money from the people. More insidious though is that it makes receivers of basic income even more dependent on the top one percent.

It’s a trick the federal government has used for decades. After collecting taxes from each state the federal government then redistributes them under the friendly title of “aid”. Some states end up getting more than they paid in while others receive less but none of the money is given without strings attached. Each state is then told to either do what they’re told or their money will be cut off. For states that receive more than they pay this is especially bad because they’re receiving the sweet end of the deal. But even the states that receive less than they pay don’t want to piss off the federal government because they would then lose more money. So you end up with a system that allows the federal government to dictate any number of terms to the states.

Basic income would allow for the exact same thing on an individual level. After collecting taxes the State could, and certainly would, attach a number of strings to basic income. If you didn’t comply you wouldn’t get a basic income. For people entirely reliant on basic income this would effectively mean they would be entirely without money. Those who had an additional revenue source would still stand to lose a sizable chunk of cash and would therefore also be motivated to comply. Anybody who pays any attention to politics in this country can already tell where this would lead: the further empowerment of the ruling class.

Basic income is just another statist wet dream. It sounds benevolent on the surface but would only serve to further entrench the oligarchy. Toppling the ruling class requires decentralization. Their tools of control must be rendered impotent. Granting them even more power over the populace’s livelihood accomplished the exact opposite.

If It Walks Like Racism, Quacks Like Racism, And Looks Like Racism It Could Be Racism

I understand that libertarians are supposed to be on the right side of the political spectrum. And I understand that what defines the right side of the political spectrum is an abject hatred of everything on the left side of the spectrum. But sometimes when the left side of the spectrum makes a point it doesn’t have to be immediately shouted down.

Case in point, the police who terrorized of Ahmed Muhamed. Here we have a child with a very Middle Eastern name and a very Middle Eastern appearance who was accused of building a bomb, which is an activity very much associated with terrorism, which is very much associated with Middle Easterners in this country. The officer even said “Yup. That’s who I thought it was,” when Ahmed was brought to him, which suspiciously sounds like the officer was expecting a Middle Easterner when he received a report that a student had possibly built a bomb.

The political left, at least left as far as this country is concerned, quickly raised the issue of racism. So, naturally, the political right had to flip its shit and say that Ahmed’s situation couldn’t possibly be racism (or if racism was involved it was a minor point that really played no important part in the matter at all):

I bring up his race for one reason, and one reason only: Some are suggesting that Ahmed’s race is the only reason he was treated so badly. This is the obvious, inescapable conclusion, according to many left-leaning pundits: school officials identified a kid with an Islamic-sounding name, saw him carting around a device he had built, and cried terrorist!

I’m really fucking tied of the political right, especially self-proclaimed libertarian rags, jumping on any situation that appears to be fueled, at least in part, by racism and screaming “But it happened to a white person that one time so it’s obviously not racism!” Guess what? If it walks like racism, quacks like racism, and looks like racism it very well could be racism.

The political right, libertarians especially, need to get over this knee-jerk reaction of immediately disagreeing with anything the political left says. Sometimes you intellectual opposites make valid points.

In this case the author attempts to downplay racism so he can make a bigger issue of his pet peeve: zero tolerance policies. It doesn’t have to be either racism or zero tolerance policies; it can’t be both. In its zeal to shout down everything the political left says, the political right is missing some prime opportunities to make cases both sides should be able to acknowledge.

Zero tolerance policies and the war on unpatentable drug are two prime examples of seemingly fair, at least as far as race is concerned, laws can be used to target a particular group. If you read any school’s zero tolerance policies or any law related to the war on unpatentable drugs you will find no languages whatsoever that could be construed as racist. To many people that means these laws are fair and cannot be used for racist purposes. That’s an assumption that needs to be corrected.

There are two parts to every law: the law itself and the enforcement of the law. A broad law that appears to apply equally to everybody can be enforced selectively against targeted groups. Laws related to the war on unpatentable drugs are enforced more often against minorities than whites. The political right will argue that this simply means that minorities commit more drug offenses but a whole lot of evidence points to the contrary. Zero tolerance policies are no different. They can be written to apply equally to all students but may only be enforced against a targeted group.

A great deal of evidence supports claims that Ahmed was only treated the way he was because of his race. So immediately shouting, “It can’t be about racism because zero tolerance policies were used against this white kid,” makes you sound like a putz. Instead of immediately refusing to believe anything the political left says it would be much more productive for the political right, especially libertarians, to consider the evidence that supports the charges before responding. Who knows, both of you may be seeing the same problem from different angles and might stand a chance of addressing it if you worked together even if it was for a very brief period.

Law Don’t Protect Your Privacy

I have a confession to make. Even though I beat on the privacy drum constantly I can help by groan whenever I hear somebody saying stronger privacy laws are needed. It’s not because I disagree with their sentiment. Usually people demanding stronger privacy laws have their hearts in the right place. But their efforts are wasted. Privacy laws don’t protect privacy.

Consider medical records. The legal system through numerous laws and court rulings generally considers medical records to be confidential. While that’s all fine and dandy that hasn’t stopped the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) from obtaining medical records:

The Drug Enforcement Administration has been sifting through hundreds of supposedly private medical files, looking for Texas doctors and patients to prosecute without the use of warrants.

Instead, the agents are tricking doctors and nurses into thinking they’re with the Texas Medical Board. When that doesn’t work, they’re sending doctors subpoenas demanding medical records without court approval.

The DEA can’t even count how many times it has resorted to the practice nationwide. A spokesman estimated it was in the thousands.

Even though these medical records are generally treated as confidential the DEA can still obtain them without so much as a court ordered subpoena. That’s because privacy laws do not equal privacy. Privacy is the ability to control who has access to your personal information. It necessarily implies you being the primary controller of your information and deciding who can and cannot access it. If you really want medical records to be private you should advocate that individuals be granted sole possession of their records and be allowed the exclusive right to decide when and by who they can be accessed.

Sometimes I Forgot How Ignorant Of Guns Non-Gun People Are

Sometimes I forget just how ignorant of guns most gun control advocates are. Maybe this is because most of my friends are either gun people or have no interest in guns whatsoever. In the case of the former they know their shit and in the case of the latter the subject almost never comes up. But I was involved in a conversation with somebody who doesn’t know the technical aspects of guns but has a very strong opinion, which they express loudly, about what regulations are needed.

Although the entire conversation was comedy gold the thing that really hit my funny bone was his claim that assault rifles shoot assault bullets. What the fuck are assault bullets? Bullets that are larger than pistol bullets and smaller than rifle bullets. And, of course, they need to be banned because they’re, like, super dangerous and stuff.

This is probably why I don’t get along with gun control advocates very well. It’s not just that I disagree with them but it’s that they’re entirely ignorant of the very thing they want regulated. Why does anybody expect their opinion on something to be taken seriously when they don’t know jack shit about that thing?