SHMOOCON 2013 ROUNDUP

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Takeaways:

Well another Shmoocon has come and gone. While much fun was to be had I could not help but notice that there was a definite theme going on in talks this year both on and off the stages. That theme was just how much we are all being screwed by the legal system today as well as how much damage could be done to anyone at any time because the laws are either being abused or are ill suited to apply to the crimes that people are being charged with. In many cases the talk this year centered around fundamental rights granted by the Constitution that are steadily being eroded or tossed out the window because the word cyber has been placed in front of the charges.

With stories like the DHS’ right to search any of your hardware within 100 miles of the border to seizures of domains without having to produce a reason why we should be talking about it. Frankly we should be doing more than just talking about it we should be assailing the government with questions and attempting to protect our rights. Unfortunately what we have seen is that even trying to protect our rights cannot be done easily without a great amount of money and time while lawyers bill you many hundreds of dollars an hour. Without money we have pretty much no hope of changing the laws even with the likes of EFF trying to do so.

This conference just seemed to show that we are realizing these things more overtly because of late the law has been making some rather harsh decisions against the innocent as well as the guilty. For me though, when I see misdemeanors turn into felonies because they are compounded together in order to have a bigger win in the press and to further a career I see the scales of justice as being broken. The realization, which we all have but we put away to lead our daily lives and keep our heads down is that the law only really serves those who have money. The more money you have, the more malleable you can force the law to be.

The Law Won’t Protect You:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

It seems that since 9/11 the 1st and 4rth Amendment have become trite in some ways to the government. From the moment that GW Bush said you better watch what you say to today’s full blown surveillance state we have seen these fundamental rules be put aside by the government. Sometimes this is overtly but mostly it is done in muted ways that people are not paying attention to. The instance of the DHS’ right to search any hardware you have within a 100 mile radius of the border is part and parcel to this idea that they can do whatever they wish in the name of anti terrorism. A review of the privacy record for DHS generated a report that once really read shows they had no issue with this and thought that it was not a privacy issue whatsoever.

Evidently, the 4rth Amendments statement on reasonable search and seizure is moot if some $10.00 an hour security guard feels that I am an imminent threat with that laptop. I guess though that’s just par for the course in a world where warrant-less wiretapping is the vogue and approved by the government even though they were mandated by law to get things like FISA warrants to do so. It’s interesting to note just how quickly the government was able to re-jigger the laws around that in their benefit to allow for this as well as say rationalizing torture too. It’s all a matter of who’s got the juice and the legal teams to wordsmith language to allow what they desire to become the rule of law. It seems today that the laws to protect you are just platitudes and if you believe in them you are deluding yourself to some extent.

The Law’s Allow Over-Reach and Companies Like Microsoft Are Abusing That:

Another talk by @theprez98 was about how Microsoft in particular but also the government were seizing domains inside as well as trying to outside the country. The cases where Microsoft has been taking liberty with the law surrounds the C&C’s for malware like Zeus. These takedowns make the news and Microsoft get’s a boost for being the whitehat here but in fact they are using their great wealth to manipulate the law in their favor to carry out these extra jurisdictional actions. What it amounts to is a private company seeking approval from a judge to carry out actions that the police really should be but are not.

In the case of the Zeus takedown they seized assets and domains of not only the botmasters but also innocent victims in the process. The same has happened with the government taking down domains under seal. This means that the collateral damage (aka other peoples sites that had nothing to do with this to start) end up losing their data, have no real means of seeking redress (sealed means secret) and in the end lose money and time because they happened to just be in the way. Of course lest we also forget that if their site happened to have some content that may be considered illegal in some way, then they too could be charged in another case because suddenly their data is considered “plain view” This means that since the government could see it even without a specified warrant they could then act upon it.

Microsoft has been prosecuting these cases with more frequency as they keep citing earlier cases that they won approval from the judge to prosecute and thus case law is made. This precedent makes it all the more possible for any other company to make the same case and as such more searches and seizures could happen by companies and not the law enforcement community. I guess my question then becomes how long until the government privatizes the “net police” ideal and places it in the hands of the likes of a Xe? Will we have letter of digital marque as well one wonders as it becomes more expedient for private companies to police things on the internet.

The Government Is Ill Equipped To Handle Technology and Create Law:

A second talk that focused on the law and how poorly it is equipped to deal with modern technological issues was presented by the EFF at Shmoocon. This talk focused on two cases, the first being the case of Aaron Swartz. Aaron took his own life recently and many believe that it was prompted by the judicial over-reach against him in the JSTOR case. While Aaron did a couple things that could warrant misdemeanors the prosecutors in the case concatenated them change these into felonies. In the end the releases by the prosecutors were claiming that Aaron could go to prison for 35 years after downloading too many documents from JSTOR.

In Aaron’s case as in Weeve’s the interpretation of the 1984 CFAA (Computer Fraud and Abuse Act) allows for quite a bit of abuse and no substantive changes have been made to that law since it’s inception. As such the law is out of date and ill equipped to apply to much of anything that can happen today. Of course in the case with Weeve this is plainly shown because the data was publicly available and no escalation of privilege was carried out to get it. The access of the ATT data was as easy as tying in a URL yet ATT has made this a federal case and Weeve the target of some pretty hefty jail time as well as fines.

It was plainly seen in the presentation by EFF that the current laws are outdated and that the law makers are not very clueful on how things work today in a digital world. In a way one can infer that they like it this way because it leaves much more for interpretation and misuse but I don’t want to be too dark here. I guess I will just stick to the theory that they are all old and really do consider the internet to be a series of tubes. Either way unless we force change on this and get them to change the laws to reflect reality we all are subject to wrongful if not over prosecution because the current ones are too open to abuse by prosecutors seeking to make a name for themselves.

We Need To Know Who You Are So No Pseudonyms Allowed:

Evidently it’s also too hard for the government to know who’s who so there are pushes on to have a “Real ID” on the internet as well as AFK. Another talk at Shmoocon was about the idea of identity and how companies like Facebook as well as the government are seeking to apply rules on “Persistent ID” Since the lawmakers find technology so hard to understand and privacy is an antiquated idea they just seem to think that foisting a persistent ID on us will make it all better. Since you have persistence, you won’t do anything like troll anyone online will you? Sure, that’s going to work swimmingly don’t you think?

I am constantly surprised by these people and entities that seem to think that privacy is dead or that it is not needed. The reason people take up pseudonyms is because they wish to speak their mind not only to commit crime. In fact they are likely to really be afraid that the act of speaking their mind may in fact be a crime. You can see this going on in various countries today with authoritarian or theocratic governments. I myself have been taken to court over things I have said as well as have been warned not to rock the boat for fear of more litigation or other negative repercussions. I guess then that the 1st Amendment is just a piffle right?

Out of all of the talks this one scared me the most. This movement to mandate identity online is more venal than any talk of the government trying to erode the 2nd Amendment to me. Why you ask? Because this is something that the governments as well as corporations can get past people’s cognitive dissonance as opposed to taking their guns away. Just how much privacy have we already lost today with the likes of Facebook and others online? How much of your PII data circles the globe in databases showing connections to who you are, where you are, and what you buy? Think about it in the context of linked databases and you can start to see where I’m going here. We have already given up a lot so what’s the big deal in getting a drivers license on the net huh?

I guess the most astounding thing though to me is that the government as well as Facebook think that this will in fact end pseudonym use. If they try then those really seeking to be anonymous will just use someone else’s ID right? The person intent on doing so will just fabricate or steal another ID and thus the waters will be muddied once more. It is galling though that in today’s world we have entities like Instagram that want you to take a photo of your government issued ID to verify who you are and send it to them online.

HOLY WTF!

The Military Leaders Are Old and Do Not Understand The Technology:

Finally, I learned that the leaders of our government and the military on average tend to not understand “internet” I know shocking huh? A talk given at Shmoocon on cyberwar “Hacking As An Act of War” was enlightening to some in the room but for me it was status quo. The fact of the matter is that the people running the wars are old. Those actually prosecuting it are young though. As Mark Hardy said in his presentation “Once the older generation is out of control, the younger generation will be better able to make the changes needed to fight the next war online”  and I’m paraphrasing there but the sentiment is true.

The same goes for the policy makers where this is concerned as well. The paradigms have changed but those in charge have not nor have they tried to keep up with what’s going on. How many times have we all seen pieces in the news where some senator somewhere says something that clearly shows they have no clue what they are talking about? Now imagine that you are someone who’s an expert on that subject. All you can do is hang your head and walk away. I personally have tried with Senator Droopy Dawg to no avail to get across to him that his arguments are only crying wolf instead of being substantive and clued in. Of course nothing came of my trying, not even a response. …Even when I was nice about it.

Now consider the prosecution of war with a digital aspect. Mr. Hardy gave us some great information on the Tallinn manual as well as insight into NATO’s ideas on how to classify and prosecute the laws around digital or 5th domain warfare. At times they seemed to just be out of touch with reality but at least they are trying. The issue though is that this is all Terra Nova and the people trying to assess it are still locked into ideas that pre-date the internet. It’s akin to taking George Washington and placing him in the middle of a firefight in Viet Nam. I should think that George is not going to last long as a warfighter in such a scenario because he lacks the comprehension of the weapons of war for that era.

In other words we are screwed.

Final Thoughts:

Overall Shmoocon was a good time. Much more for the LobbyCon that was constantly going on than most of the presentations though. It was enlightening in many ways to talk to others about what was going on not only technically but moreover their concerns about the same issues as I have laid out here. We live in perilous times where the law and internet are concerned. Our ideals of privacy are at risk as well as our rights according to the Constitution. We are increasingly living our lives within the medium of the digital and yet we fail to see the machinations going on to spy on us with more regularity and impunity.

We are abdicating our privacy as well by allowing companies to keep have our data because we don’t read a EULA and encrypt our transmissions. In so many ways we will be the ones to blame when our data us used against us because we did not carry out the due diligence to protect it. We should not trust in Twitter to protect those conversations we have in DM because their EULA says that nothing you do there is private. … Even a direct message outside the Tweet stream. We need to either say no to these services or force them to change their EULAs to allow for some privacy. Failing that we need to protect ourselves with crypto. The question then becomes, as was intimated to me on a couple occasions this weekend, “Just how long until crypto becomes regulated as a munition again altogether?”

It’s a brave new world kids, best start paying attention.

K.

 

The Apocalypse Cycle: The Tea Party, American Politics, and 2012

But even so, the tragedy wouldn’t change this basic fact: for the past two years, many conservative leaders, activists, and media figures have made a habit of trying to delegitimize their political opponents. Not just arguing against their opponents, but doing everything possible to turn them into enemies of the country and cast them out beyond the pale. Instead of “soft on defense,” one routinely hears the words “treason” and “traitor.” The President isn’t a big-government liberal—he’s a socialist who wants to impose tyranny. He’s also, according to a minority of Republicans, including elected officials, an impostor. Even the reading of the Constitution on the first day of the 112th Congress was conceived as an assault on the legitimacy of the Democratic Administration and Congress.

This relentlessly hostile rhetoric has become standard issue on the right. (On the left it appears in anonymous comment threads, not congressional speeches and national T.V. programs.) And it has gone almost entirely uncriticized by Republican leaders. Partisan media encourages it, while the mainstream media finds it titillating and airs it, often without comment, so that the gradual effect is to desensitize even people to whom the rhetoric is repellent. We’ve all grown so used to it over the past couple of years that it took the shock of an assassination attempt to show us the ugliness to which our politics has sunk.

From: It Doesn’t Matter Why He Did It by George Packer

The multiple shooting alleged to have been carried out by Jared Lee Loughner, a mentally unbalanced 22 year old has been the top story on all of the networks. They have all been falling over themselves trying to cover this tragedy and much of the spin masters have been out there on both sides of the political isle making claims on the “motivations” that Jared had in carrying this out. Once you start to really look at his internet postings, you realize that Jared is and was at the time of the shooting, mentally ill. He seemingly had been escalating for some time and over the summer had begun to ramble on about the loss of literacy in the U.S. as though the “literacy” were some apotheosis of understanding the cosmic truths as well as the ills of our current political system.

In essence, the rhetoric that he was a party to by living in Arizona (the illegal alien situation and the Tea Party’s fringe elements being vocal and armed) as well as his deteriorating mental state, made for a timebomb’s fuse to be lit, finally gong off on Saturday morning in front of a grocery store. Now, before anyone starts to say “but you can’t lay blame on the Tea Party!” let me stop you and say, no, I cannot wholly lay it on the Tea Party, nor would I. I would however, lay it squarely on the fringe elements of ALL of the parties especially those of the right wing persuasion that have used the rhetoric of treason, don’t tread on me, and “The tree of liberty needing to be replenished with blood” as major players in shaping the direction that Jared Loughner took with regard to his shooting rampage.

It seems though to me, that increasingly the world is just losing its collective mind. Between all of the economic troubles globally, the specter of climate change, die off’s of bees, bats, and now seemingly thousands of birds by mysterious means, we are all a little bit on edge. Add to this the ever-present conspiracy theories, leaks of classified documents and the reprisals by embarrassed governments, tightening their grip and expanding their powers to surveill as well as detain, we all are feeling a bit freaked…

Then comes 2012… It’s a trifecta.

Like what happened in the lead up to 2000, I suspect that there will be more and more groups and individuals who are delusional enough to truly believe the end is nigh. These people may take the non violent way of killing themselves like Heaven’s Gate or, they may go the route that Jared did this weekend. The commonality though, is that the outside pressures of every day life and the things going on around them often become their fixation. In the case of Heaven’s Gate, it was the Hale-Bopp comet while for Jared, it was the frothing rhetoric of fringe elements saying that the government was full of traitors that should be killed to re-set the country on the right path to righteous freedoms that the founders had in mind.

So, where I fall on this whole debacle is pretty clear I think from what I have just said. The whacknuts tend to congregate and now they have a banner under which they can rally in the whole end of the world as well as the ruination of A-mur-ica and our freedom fry loving ways. Nuts beget nuts and they feed off of each other, just ask Dylan and Eric. I suppose its just the banner du jour though, there will be plenty of others as time goes on, in some cases they may not be at all anything external but instead the internal voices of the deranged with the gun. So all of this blame game political posturing will do no good for anyone. The Tea Party has its merits as do the Dem’s and Republicans. Where it gets scary is the fringe elements on each side that take their arguments to the plaid setting. I mean, it is bad enough that the two parties have been so entrenched so as to get absolutely nothing reasonable done for “The People”, who they always seem to be claiming to represent, but are, in my opinion, failing to do.

In the end, Jared Loughner was exactly that, a loner, a misfit, and a boy who needed psychological attention. Just how many knew about his faltering senses is the question as well as is what, if anything, they tried to do about it before he unloaded a 9mm with a 30 round clip into a crowd on a Saturday morning. So all of you out there yammering about the horror and pointing fingers, let me just interject one more little thing;

How about focusing a little more on detecting the mentally ill and disallowing them from obtaining weapons of mass destruction such as a 30 round magazine and a 9mm handgun?

Why not tackle something other than political asshattery and do some good for the next innocent 9 year old that happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time only to die at the hands of a mentally unstable and well armed individual.

We are all to be blamed.

CoB

DAMN YOU AND YOUR REASONABLENESS!

PHEAR NOW!

10.30.2010 Restoring Sanity

SANITY NOW!

Pssst, Dear Starbucks, I Have Been Carrying In Your Stores For Years

Gun fans cheer Starbucks’ stance on the armed

updated 5:03 p.m. ET, Sun., Feb. 28, 2010

Dale Welch recently walked into a Starbucks in Virginia, handgun strapped to his waist, and ordered a banana Frappuccino with a cinnamon bun. He says the firearm drew a double-take from at least one customer, but not a peep from the baristas.

Welch’s foray into the coffeehouse was part of an effort by some gun owners to exercise and advertise their rights in states that allow people to openly carry firearms.

Full story HERE:

Ok here we go again with the “open carry” debate. I frankly think that open carry is kinda silly and outmoded, but hey, we still can in certain states. Even CT seems to have the language to allow open carry but you won’t see anyone here doing that for fear of death by cop.

So, carrying in the open.. What are the advantages?… Well, maybe a half a second in draw capacity by not having to move your shirt? Other than that, its the perception that people can see you are armed and will refrain from illegal/dangerous activity yes?

The problem is, much of today’s society is rather unobservant and I should think crazy. So, even if you have a gun in the open, the likelihood that something will not occur because you are openly carrying is negligible I fear. So, really, its not so much a “need” that I feel is important.

Now, on the other hand, if you are legally able to do so, then do so. Just as you have the right to carry openly say in VA, so too do the businesses have the right as private property owners, to toss you out and not serve you because… Well just because right? On this issue at least they have a justification with rules on site about guns in the open.

I find though, that carrying concealed is just better. You don’t scare the “kids” and the cops unless you are being really obtrusive about it. Should anything happen, then you have your opportunity to use your weapon under the legal right you have to carry a weapon and use it in certain circumstances.

There you have it.

I avoid all the crazy yammering and most places here don’t even think about a rule banning weapons because they never know I have one.

That’s right lil miss barrista, I am armed and ya know what? You have never known all this time.

Silliness.

A response to a post about Meleanie Hain’s right to carry

A new comment on the post #5989 “EPIC STUPID THAT BURNS!” is waiting for your approval https://krypt3ia.wordpress.com/2008/12/12/epic-stupid-that-burns/

Author : syreene (IP: 208.65.192.1 , freefall.afginc.net) E-mail : syreene@yahoo.com

URL    :

Whois  : http://ws.arin.net/cgi-bin/whois.pl?queryinput=208.65.192.1

Comment:

Hey, did you hear that she’s dead now? Yeah… shot and killed by a gun owned by her husband in an apparent murder-suicide.

Irony is a bitch.

My response:

Dear Syrene@yahoo.com,

I got your response to my posting about Meleanie Hain and just get that feeling you are some sort of ardent “anti-gun” individual who is using the unfortunate demise of Mrs Hain to poke a finger in my digitally opinionated eye.

My response to your little ironical and snarky comment is the following: “Meh”

Your inferred argument that the mere ownership of guns and exercising your right as a US citizen to bear arms (mind you in PA, it’s an “open carry” and the poor ruling by the judge in the Hain case was handily overturned) is the leading cause to one’s own demise is faulty at best. At worst, it is the usual claptrap mind drivel that I would expect from your lackluster logical thinking and poorly worded argument cum “naaa naaaa” response to my post.

The facts are these:

1)      She had the right to carry her legal and licensed firearm openly in the state she resided

2)      The mere act of carrying a gun never in my opinion has voided the possibility of my own or others in like circumstances, demise simply because you have one on you

3)      As in many domestic cases there were issues in the home and had they not been armed with guns they likely would have picked up carving or steak knives to kill. Anything can become a weapon in the hands of a murderous minded person

4)      This case was all about the legal system and the right to bear arms. NOT about bad bad guns. I advocate the law as it has been laid down by the US government and states. It was the abuse of such laws by a rogue judge that the story was all about

So thank you Syrene for your screed, which you have your right to have and post on my site because of a law known as the “First Amendment” This does not however preclude me my right to the First Amendment and label you a “moron”

CoB

Why Liberals Should Support the Right to Armed Self-Defense

Mmmmm Hillbilly Heroin...

In the runup to the election, a common prediction among the right wing and conservative blogs was that if Obama lost the election that the negroes/liberals/commies/Obama-supporter

s would riot. Not like a burn down a few stores riot, but like a serious “totally lose their shit” riot. Nationwide. Many were preparing for such an eventuality.

I didn’t really think anything like that would happen. I thought it more likely that the right-wingers would riot if Obama won than the left-wingers if McCain won. There were no anti-Obama riots, I was wrong.

Sort of.

There were no instantaneous riots, but I said “The McCain/Palin campaign is unleashing some very ugly forces in this country that, combined with some dark economic days ahead, are going to be very hard to put back in the bottle.” And it appears that it might be the case.

From Throwingstardna on LiveJournal

As a pseudo left winger at times, and a bona fide “Northern Yankee Liberal” I just don’t get those who are so averse to exercise their 2nd Amendment right to carry a weapon. Its your right to do so and if the government local and federal says ok, then you should take advantage of it. Of course in today’s world it is something that possibly could save your life and the lives of others if you do carry.

In today’s society though, with the 2nd great depression and all of the instability in the U.S. and the world it seems to be more prescient. Of course there always will be the odd crank who will go nuts with a bunch of guns and kill a bunch of people, but, it seems lately with all the stress out there that this is happening a bit more frequently. This week has seen what, two or three of these events in the world?

Of course what this entry portends is even more scary in that I too have seen this trending not only from the run up to the election, but also now post election. All those crazy right wingers have been slathering rabidly at the jowls with a fervor that I can only say is akin to the old south around 1861. Sure they use “Socialist or Commie” but, the sentiment is much the same; “We want to remove the current administration any way we can!”

Quite frankly its scary.

So, insurrection? Are the Alex Jones set going to finally unveil the “New World Order” and cause a 2009 version of the “Turner Diaries” ? Are the Rushies lead by their corpulant and fatuous leader going to somehow facilitate the Obama administrations “Failure” ??

I don’t think so…

But it’s only going to add fuel to an already smouldering fire in the minds of all those trailer trash, dentally challenged, 5th grade educated, and mentally unstable morons out there who vote, shout, and slather over Rush. One can only hope that the light of sanity can outshine the dark of the uneducated ensorceled Rushies.

Bread and circuses my friends…

Well, glad I bought the Bersa Thunder instead…

Smith & Wesson has identified a condition that may exist in certain PPK and PPK/S pistols which may permit a round to be discharged without the trigger being pulled. When the manual safety is disengaged, Smith & Wesson’s Product Engineering Group has determined that the possibility exists in certain firearms that lowering the hammer may cause a chambered round to fire.

The Notice

Well, the Bersa Thunder (see pic below) was less money and had a great rating out on the interwebs so I bought it. I must say, it has been a great carry gun in either shoulder holster or on the hip. Shoots exceedingly well, and to date, has had only a couple misfires (duds) from bad reloads. How the hell could they have missed something this big for so long?

Oh well… Maybe someday I will get the PPK (James Bond fan here) but for now, this will remain the primary carry…