Brown is the color of evildoers

 Unfuckingbelievable!
Sep 252008
 

God(s) help you if you’re flying into or around America nowadays and you have brown skin.  You’re especially fucked if your last name sounds even vagely foreign and your lineage doesn’t meet the U.S. Government’s standards.  These two horror stories spell it out as clearly as any:  America is suffering from a sickness of paranoia and hostility aimed at people who look “foreign.”  Even if you’re sick or pregnant–even if you’re an actual U.S. Citizen, for fuck’s sake!–prepare to spend hours in a questioning room if they don’t like something about you or where you’ve been.

  • At JFK Airport, Denying Basic Rights Is Just Another Day at the Office – This one’s outrageous:  ”I have traveled to many different places, some supposedly repressive, and have never seen people treated with the kind of animosity that Homeland Security showed that night.  In Syria, border control officers were stern but polite.  At other borders there have been bureaucracies to contend with — excruciating for both Americans and other foreign nationals.  I’ve met Russian officials with dead, suspicious looks in their eyes and arms tired from stamping so many visas, but in America, the Homeland Security officials I encountered were very much alive — like vultures waiting to eat.”
  • Doctor Flying Southwest Tries To Go To Bathroom, Ends Up In Jail – This poor guy tried to go to the restroom during his flight and was treated like a potential terrorist, and then he was interrogated by the FBI upon landing because the stewardess said he was “creating a disturbance” and of course they believed her:  ”During 30 years of my stay in America , I never felt so threatened nor my rights so violated as I did that fateful night. ‘You are not guilty until proven otherwise’, the anthem we are made to believe all the time was turned out to be not true; I was guilty until prove my self innocent. I was treated like a guilty person and was never given a chance even to tell my side of the story. Even after the incidence, I am finding it difficult to prove my innocence. I want Southwest Air Lines to realize their mistake and drop charges against me. I did contact Southwest airlines and was informed that they were standing by their stewardess and the issue had no racial profile or bias.”

This makes my blood boil.  And yet, what can we do?  Sue the government?  Sue the airline?  Will it really do any good?

Privacy is becoming the new terrorism

 General Blatherings, Unfuckingbelievable!
Jul 262008
 

The government-waged war on privacy is getting more and more ridiculous.  Turns out you can do pretty much anything you want if you can tie it to the Big Three Threats to civilization:  terrorism, child porn, and music piracy.

F’rinstance, U.S. border guards are now allowed to snoop through your laptop whenever they feel like it, because to them, every laptop is a potential threat to the country.  Their logic is becoming the norm in this Bush-era paranoia state we’re in:  “Why, you might have it loaded with all sorts of un-American things, so how dare you protest!  You’re obviously hiding something if you try to argue that privacy crap with us!  That’s the kind of thing terrorists and child molesters do!”  And if you refuse, they’ll just take your laptop and you’ll likely never see it again.  At the very least they’ll hold you for intense questioning and who knows what else, and it’s all in the name of this false sense of security they’re trying to give us.  They can do this to everyone, not just people visiting the country–doesn’t matter if you were born and raised here, let them sniff your data or else.  It’s the old “treat ‘em all like criminals” thing.  (At one point it was even suggested that these goons could search your iPod for pirated music, but even they know what an impossible task that would be, for many reasons.)

Over in New York, Attorney General Cuomo has decided to wage his own personal war against child porn by trying to force ISPs to stop carrying newsgroups.  If you’re not familiar with Usenet newsgroups, they’ve been around for nearly 15 years (if not more) and are a place where people discuss/argue/ponder a zillion different topics.  Some of the newsgroups carry binary files like photos, music, movies, and software (though they’re posted as giant text messages, so you have to download and convert them into their intended form).  Out of the 100,000+ newsgroups in existence, a small handful of the binary ones have been found to carry the occasional bit of unsavory illegal material posted by unknown creepos.  Yes, this is bad…but Cuomo wants to make ISPs shut off access to ALL newsgroups, which means an entire universe of free and open discussion will be silenced.  Obviously this doesn’t raise any red flags to him, because people on a Moral Quest (especially politicians) will stop at nothing to look like they’re doing something about a problem, no matter how stupid their solutions are.  Cutting off all newsgroups is like ripping off someone’s arm to remove a hangnail.  Or, as the linked story puts it:  “By that standard of responsibility, an entire library should be burned down if a single obscene book happens to be found on its shelves.”  He’s already convinced a few big ISPs in New York to cut off Usenet access to their customers for these bullshit reasons, and now he’s going after Comcast.  You should be outraged even if you don’t access Usenet, because this is a government-sponsored attack on freedom of speech and it’s a dangerous path to take.

Across the pond, the battle against music piracy is reaching ludicrous levels of its own.  Those poor Brits are already being spied on by their government in every possible way (while crime levels seem unaffected), and now it looks like six of their biggest ISPs have decided to collude with the government and sniff their customers’ internet traffic for file sharing.  Looks like they haven’t decided on how to punish their file-sharing customers yet, but it could include bandwidth throttling (slowing it way down), filtering their access, or just kicking their asses off the Net altogether.  But why stop there?  Send squads of Network Legality Enforcers into their homes to root through their computers, DVD collections, and iPods!  Tap their phone calls for blasphemous talk of piracy!  Install microphones in their homes and monitor all conversations!  Why not?  Anyone against such measures is obviously a filthy, copyright-breaking, music-swapping terrorist scumbag.

There is already very little true privacy to be found on line, if any at all, but at this rate I think the idea of privacy of any kind is going to be just a quaint memory in a few short years.  And for what?  Fake security, control of information, and protecting the bloated salaries of media executives.  I don’t know about you, but this makes me want to learn more about encryption.

Is nowhere safe? (Revisited)

 Marketing Scumbags
Jul 012008
 

A short follow-up to the original post…

According to a post on Wired, back in 2006 British Telecom was secretly infecting its customers’ PCs with spyware which injected targeted advertising into every website they surfed.  That means even mundane things like checking your bank account balance was disrupted by flashing banners for dating services and hot new car deals.  This apparently made life hell for customers in more ways than that:  BT “inserted JavaScript code into every web page downloaded by the users” which ended up causing flickering screens, slowed connections, and crashed browsers.  All this so that BT could snarf a little more money from the advertising companies?  Motherfuckers.

Oh yeah, and let’s not forget about that new camera system which tracks the eye movements of shoppers. That way they can see what you look at, from the moment you set eyes on that billboard for Disney’s new and improved Mickey Mouse Shaped Cheese Slices (a real product, I might add).  You gotta admit, evil and technology make a great team!

Turn that frown upside down…or the TSA will getcha

 Unfuckingbelievable!
Jan 072008
 

Despite the endless security-related hassles to be encountered while traveling nowadays, I’ve never been harassed much.  I’ve had pat-downs and bag-searches, had my camera bag tested for explosives, been questioned by moody Passport Guys, even yelled at by American border drones when coming back from Canada.  I also had my stick deodorant confiscated once, even though the TSA listed non-gels as OK.  (Hey, the label even said that it “goes on dry”!  I guess a moist stick still counts as a sort of half-liquid or something.)  But overall, I glide though the hoops and all generally goes well because I follow their silly rules, even when it means getting halfway undressed at the metal detector.

Now, however, there’s a new factor to take into account:  my face.  Later this week we’ll be passing through Sea-Tac airport, and according to an article in the Seattle PI, they’ll be watching our facial expressions to determine if we plan to commit an act of unspeakable evil.  Apparently “microfacial expressions” can betray our deepest, darkest, stinkiest secrets.  Oh dear.

I’m no expert, but I’m a tad skeptical.  This is the airport we’re talking about, after all.  Can they really sniff out “terrorist expressions” in a place where people feel rushed, cramped, and crabby because of traffic, tight schedules, delayed flights, lost luggage, and ludicrous security requirements?  People are going to have less-than-pleasant expressions on their faces quite a bit, it’s just a given.  Hell, some people just scowl naturally–maybe it’s their usual expression or maybe they’re simply trying to work something out.  I tend to scowl when I’m concentrating something, even in the best of moods…so I guess I’d better not think too much while I’m passing through Sea-Tac, hmmm?

Ordinary people who are feeling anxious are “much more open with their body movements and their facial expressions as compared to an operational terrorist (thinking) ‘I’ve got to defeat security,’ ” Maccario said.

I guess this means that if I’m pretty relaxed and looking confident but I’ve got a sore back which causes me to wince or scowl for a brief moment, they might pull me over for questioning.  Microfacial expressions, indeed.  According to the story, they say they’re be able to differentiate between standard expressions of impatience/nervousness and evildoer intent, but what do they base this on?  How did they practice for this?  Are they going to be able to tell whether some guy with a nasty look on his face is planning something dastardly or is simply irritated because the TSA goons threw out his stick deodorant after he went through all the trouble of finding one small enough to fit in the absurd little plastic bag they require?  Skeptical traveling minds on a schedule want to know.

“In the SPOT program, we have a conversation with (passengers) and we ask them about their trip,” said Maccario from his office in Boston. “When someone lies or tries to be deceptive, … there are behavior cues that show it. … A brief flash of fear.”

Keep in mind that the TSA is already doing its best to scare the hell out of us and keep us on edge.  We’ve got the bogus 3-oz bottle rule (“That sippy-cup of baby formula may kill us all!”), the no-outside-liquids rule (“Please enjoy the vastly overpriced drinks in the terminal!”), the constantly-repeating loudspeaker messages (“Suspicious bags will be destroyed!  Don’t park here more than 3 minutes or you will be arrested!”), the random pat-down-and-questioning routine (“I’m patting down your vaginal area for explosives, but I’m using the back of my hand so it’s OK.”), and many others.  Maybe some of those work and maybe they don’t, but with all of them piling on top of us, I’m willing to bet that most people are going to have a “flash of fear” when questioned by airport security people these days.

They also won’t say if any terror plots have been foiled this way, though they’ve referred a few to “couterterrorism investigation” and arrested others for things like outstanding warrants or drug possession.  I’m all for capturing criminals, but what worries me are all the false positives that can occur from something like this.  There are many innocent people every year who are mysteriously put on the Do Not Fly list and have to fight to clear their names–perhaps this sort of thing is connected, who knows.  I just hope they don’t read blogs much.

Safety, shmafety

 General Blatherings
Aug 252006
 

Tony Parsons rips today’s airline “security” a new asshole in his latest piece for the Mirror.  It’s a fun read, a snippy mixture of disdain for certain American types and the knee-jerk nature of these latest security rules.  He’s obviously not having any of it:

At all those American airports, did I feel secure when some fat redneck security guard was rifling through my smalls?  Not really.  Did I feel safe from terrorists because some pimply-faced kid who couldn’t get a job flipping burgers was making me take my shoes off, or turn on my laptop, or searching my buttocks for concealed explosives?  Hardly.

I often wonder how much training these people receive, especially the ones who look like they either just got out of prison or high school (or, in some cases, both).  There’s plenty more to enjoy:

…We are jumping at shadows.  Two innocent Asian men were removed from a flight from Malaga to Manchester because their fellow passengers became hysterical.  A flight from Gatwick to Egypt was diverted to Italy when a note was found scrawled on a sick bag warning that there was a bomb on board.  An F16 fighter jet was scrambled to escort the flight to the ground, where sniffer dogs found no sign of explosives.  It was all the work of some bored, tittering idiot with a Biro.  We can’t live this way.  It doesn’t work.  There is no sense in treating every putrid hoax as a serious terror threat.  There is no point in regarding every family off on their two-week holiday in Spain as potential al-Qaeda martyrs.

Zing!  Maybe I’ll take down some notes about our own flight security experience and see how it compares to this.  We fly to New Jersey on Thursday, wait a few hours, then fly to Germany.  I’m already practicing my “Yes, please search anything and everything you wish” face…

Unfriendly skies

 General Blatherings
Aug 102006
 

Holy shit.  This airplane terror plot over in London is just unbelievable.  What a lovely world we live in, hmmm?  It’s a scary thought that these psychos can conceivably kill vast amounts of people using carefully-concealed, homemade liquid explosives.  We’re not passing through London on our way to Germany at the end of August, but this kind of thing really could happen anywhere, on any airline headed for any destination.  Some are more likely than others, but still…  It’s not a pleasant thought.  One can only hope that the airline security folks in the U.S. are as sharp as the ones in London, since people still manage to get knives and other stuff through the screeners here.

Fair & balanced…really!

 Geek Streak
Mar 252005
 

Oh, this is delicious.  Taking a page from the pharmaceutical companies and their “objective” drug studies, Microsoft actually funded the security report from a few months ago which concluded that Windows is safer and more secure than Linux and other operating systems.  Hah!  How in the world can they think that nobody would notice or care about such a blatantly obvious conflict of interest?  Of course the researchers are insisting that their results weren’t tainted in any way whatsoever by the presence of MS cash.  MmmHmmm.

Two researchers surprised the audience at a computer-security convention last month with their finding that a version of Microsoft Windows was more secure than a competing Linux operating system.

This week, the researchers released their finished report, and it included another surprise: Microsoft was funding the project all along.

The researchers, from the Florida Institute of Technology and Boston-based Security Innovation Inc., defend their process and conclusions as valid. They say they had “complete editorial control over all research and analysis” involved in the project. Their report details their methods, and they invite other experts to examine and duplicate their work.

But their disclosure of the project’s funding source this week is stirring new debate over what had otherwise been viewed as encouraging news for Microsoft in an area in which it has struggled. The researchers had made the presentation at last month’s RSA Conference, which attracts some of the biggest names in the computer-security business.

Oh, come on.

 Geek Streak
Mar 182005
 

Dear Lord, there’s now a WebTV virus??  What lame dork sits around writing a virus for that?  Maybe I’m wrong, but I thought only certain hotels and hopeless technophobes use WebTV to surf.  It was big 7-8 years ago, but I didn’t even think it still existed until I saw one in a hotel recently.  You might find some in nursing homes, too.  OK, maybe this post was pointless. :)