On the first of every month I head over to
Bruce Schneier's to catch up on his
blog by reading the previous month.
July's is particularly juicy:
Scatterchat, a secure IM client
remote control airplane software
broadening the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA)
memoirs of an airport security screener"How do you know it's a gun?"
"I look for the outline of the cartridge and the..." Will started.
"What?"
"The barrel you can see right here," Will continued, oblivious to his pending doom.
"What the hell are you talking about? That's not how you find this gun."
"No sir. It's how you find any gun, sir," said Will. I knew right then that this was a disaster.
"Any gun? Any gun? I don't give a fuck about any gun, dipshit. I care about this gun. The FAA will not test you with another gun. The FAA will never put any gun but this one in the machine. I don't care if you are a fucking gun nut who can tell the caliber by sniffing the barrel, you look for this gun. THIS ONE." Mike strode to the test bag and dumped it out at the feet of the metal detector, sending the machine into a frenzy.
"THIS bomb. This knife. I don't care if you miss a goddamn bazooka and some son of a bitch cuts your throat with a knife you let through as long as you find THIS GUN."
"But we're supposed to find," Will insisted.
"You find what I trained you to find. The other shit doesn't get taken out of my paycheck when you miss it," said Mike.
sky marshals name innocents to meet quota
surgical equipment to contain RFID
Passport Rules Between the U.S. and CanadaBy January 1st, 2007, everyone crossing the border between the U.S. and Canada is supposed to have a passport. This is because of terrorism, of course. But now we learn that ferries and private watercraft will be exempt.
complexity and terrorism investigationsThe Committee's report accepts that the increasing number of investigations, together with their increasing complexity, will make longer detention inevitable in the future.
spy gadgets you can buy cheap
identity theft and methamphetamines
Galileo satellite code cracked
terrorists, data mining, and the base rate fallacy
annual report from the privacy commissioner of CanadaA popular response is: "If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear."
By that reasoning, of course, we shouldn't mind if the police were free to come into our homes at any time just to look around, if all our telephone conversations were monitored, if all our mail were read, if all the protections developed over centuries were swept away. It's only a difference of degree from the intrusions already being implemented or considered.
The truth is that we all do have something to hide, not because it's criminal or even shameful, but simply because it's private.
And much more, including Friday squid blogging.