9.11.09 Eight Years Of FAIL

I woke this morning to NPR talking about the 8th anniversary of 9/11. As I got ready for the day, I pondered just where we have gone from 8:46 am that morning of 2001 to where we are collectively today on this anniversary. Just what have we achieved? Are we any better off than we were at 8:45 am on September 11th 2001?

How about I sum it up for you all through your average grade system for school:

1) Osama Bin Laden, Ayman zawahiri, and Adam Ghadan captured and in jail?

NO.

He is happily living in Pakistan (which has been my belief since Tora Bora) and recently again posited as where the spooks think he is now.

Grade: F

Osama is still alive, he has recently put out another audio tape to prove it. Even if the tape is a splice together of his “greatest hits” so to speak, he still wins this one as we have not come even close to getting him since Tora Bora.

What the hell are we doing?

Well, we are busy playing footsies with Pakistan and the ISI that’s what. All the while the ISI has given Osama and Qaeda shelter and help while they have sat in Wazirastan or other parts of the Kush.

Osama wins there. He is still looked upon as a hero to the Jihadist masses not only for pulling off 9/11 but also for thumbing his nose at the “Great Satan” lo’ these 8 years. Of course it is also helpful to him that the Bush administrations goals seemed not to be to capture Osama, but instead attack something with real infrastructure and, dare I say it? Yes, OIL in Iraq instead of going into the rough areas that Russia failed to capture (aka Afghanistan)

I proclaim EPIC FAIL on the capture and or killing of OBL… Thanks Bushy! and all your little Neocon pals… You fuckheads.

2) Al Qaeda eradicated from the world and everyone is happy with new Democratic governments (forced upon *cough*) “seeded” by the US and the Bush administration?

NO.

Grade D –

Well, this one is loaded question really. I don’t  believe we could eradicate Al Qaeda completely, but, we could be doing a better job of hunting them down as well as integrating them into less islamofascists to moderates. That is IF we worked with the islamic states properly.

3) America’s airports, ports, cities, communications systems, and general infrastructure are secured and we are in a far better position to detect, deter, and respond to another attack?

NO

Grade: F

This one has been one of the worst handled situations on the part of the government. Much like their response to Katrina, they have horribly failed at apropriating funds, allocating them, and effecting change for the better. Our ports still do not have the protections that they need, they still can’t even implement an ID system for all the workers as yet! Millions spent, and no working process has been put into action.

The same can be said for biological attack response, communications issues (i.e. all the problems with radios on 9/11) etc. NYC still does not have an adequate communications system for firemen and police should another 9/11 happen. Comms would be down.

Airports, good god, they are still not x-raying all of the baggage, DHS/TSA workers are still asleep at the wheel much of the time, and generally, not the sharpest marbles in the bag. I am surprised that no airline has been attacked since 9/11 here… No, really. The last plan was thwarted by intel though, so they didn’t actually get to getting on the plane… But they were still trying.

4) The people of the US are 100% behind our actions on behalf of “the people” in the med and we have sagaciously deployed our forces to eradicate the problems as well as re-build and shore up ties with the Middle East?

NO

Grade: F

While at no time other than perhaps 9/12/01 could I think we could have 100% approval on our actions, I do think that we could have done much better than what we got. G’Dub really screwed the pooch on this one.. Which leads to the allocation of assets.

Going into Iraq was a mistake. No, more than that, it was an outright wag the dog action. Meanwhile we let OBL run off into the hills because we did not put our troops into Afghanistan even before we went into Iraq. So, we screwed the pooch utterly and we are now reaping the whirlwind in Pakistan and Afghanistan as a consequence of ineptitude.

I guess overall though OBL and Ayman have won. No, really, they did. Their goal was not only to scare us, destroy a landmark, and put us into the culture of fear. They also wanted to ruin us financially. They saw where we are vulnerable and hit that spot. Wall Street was a hot target and we are now dealing with the fallout of not only that attack, but our own greed and sloth.

So here we sit today.. Many not really paying attention to this day of rememberence. All too wrapped up in their lives of commerce, too many just go about their day without thinking on the lessons of 9/11.

My big lesson?

We as a species are unable to learn.

EMP/HERF/HEMP: What.. Me Worry?

Recently I have been hearing more and more in the news how the senate and house have been having hearings on EMP threats to this nation. As I began to hear more of this, I inevitable came to the question of “Why now?” I mean, this has always been a threat as far as I am concerned. Of course now its even more pressing an issue as we are so “interconnected” today with the internet and communications infrastructure in general… But, just what was it that was making them get all hot for this now I wondered. Had they heard something from some intelligence body and were all freaked out?

I had thought on this a while and really had kinda just forgotten about it until this last Friday when I was headed home from work and listening to NPR’s Science Friday show. As if on qeue, I turned on the radio and there was Congressman Roscoe Bartlett railing on the dangers that we face should a terrorist or a nation state decide to use an EMP/HEMP device on the US’ infrastructure.

I sat in the car at the end of my trip still listening to the end of his interview, when it was over I knew I had to really take a deeper look into why these people had suddenly had a fire lit under their collective do nothing asses. Come to find out that perhaps that fire was lit 9.12.01 and has been steadily becoming a blaze as the eggheads began to show the congress-critters just how fucked we would be if someone used an HEMP on us.. Only now, something had changed in their collectively lazy minds.. We had been attacked on our own soil and SHIT WE’RE FREAKED OUT!

So, today I sat down and Googled the dhs.gov, .gov, .mil, and other domain spaces with key words of EMP/HEMP/HERF etc. What I found is a plethora of documents that began to spring up around 2003/2004 concerning the threatcon of a terrorist or nation state EMP attack… Funny thing too.. Gee, 2003, that was the year of the great blackout of the northeast.

Ya know.. the one that “trees” allegedly caused? Yeah…

The primary document that I came up with that was the most recent is: The Report of the Commission to Assess theThreat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Attack which, in 208 pages covers all of the problems this nation (and I assume other places) has regarding our infrastructure where an attack of this type is concerned. Suffice to say, that this document has some rather dire things to say. Including the following passage on the magnatude of weapon that could cause a major failure of our infrastructure;

The magnitude of an EMP event varies with the type, design and yield of the weapon,
as well as its placement. The Commission has concluded that even a relatively modest-to small yield weapon of particular characteristics, using design and fabrication informationalready disseminated through licit and illicit means, can produce a potentially devastating E1 field strength over very large geographical regions. This followed by E2 impacts, and in some cases serious E3 impacts operating on electrical components left relatively unprotected by E1, can be extremely damaging. (E3 requires a greater yield to produce major effects.) Indeed, the Commission determined that such weapon devices not only
could be readily built and delivered, but also the specifics of these devices have been
illicitly trafficked for the past quarter-century. The field strengths of such weapons may
be much higher than those used by the Commission for testing threshold failure levels of
electrical system components and subsystems.

Laymans terms, even a small device placed in the right place or even an HEMP (High Altitude) of moderate size, would likely bring this nations infrastructure to a grinding halt and it would stay down for some time. You see, our infrastructure is very much dependent on itself to feed itself. If the power goes out, then there is no power after the reserves run out to keep the other systems running. In fact, even the power generation, and its getting to you requires the very power that is generated to get it TO you and regulate it so that things don’t implode in on themselves! In essence, the grid goes down, then everything goes too soon afterward. No cell phones, no emergency services because you cant call them because the phones and cell phones don’t work.. because there’s no power… You see where I am going. The system, and by system, I mean the utilities infrastructure, is not only antiquated in many ways and stretched, but also, that which is not antiquated, is EXCEEDINGLY susceptible to this and other E1-E3 attacks. How do we know? Because the commission actually set up tests as best they could, and they could crash systems with low end EMP devices, thats how.

Yet, the commission also admits the following thing in this passage;

Additionally, analyses available from foreign sources suggest that amplitudes and frequency
content of EMP fields from bomb blasts calculated by U.S. analysts may be too
low. While this matter is a highly technical issue that awaits further investigation by U.S.
scientific experts, it raises the specter of increased uncertainty about the adequacy ofcurrent U.S. EMP mitigation approaches.

Even our testing and our data is suspect and we may even be in a worse state of affairs than we think from bad data!

Yay!

So lets break it down shall we? What’s vulnerable and just how much?

The Power Grid:

Fear not only the terrorist though my friends.. Did you know that nature too has actually D0S’d our power grid in the past? Yep, its true.. From lightning to the more fearsome EMP bursts from the sun. We live in a world where our very society hinges on the power being available to keep our lights on, our food cold, and our MTV on the tube and it could all be taken out by an EMP burst from the sun. Now that’s one hell of an EMP.

A key issue for the Commission in assessing the impact of such a disruption to the
Nation’s electrical system was not only the unprecedented widespread nature of the outage
(e.g., the cascading effects from even one or two relatively small weapons exploded
in optimum location in space at present would almost certainly shut down an entire interconnected
electrical power system, perhaps affecting as much as 70 percent or possibly
more of the United States, all in an instant) but more significantly widespread damage
may well adversely impact the time to recover and thus have a potentially catastrophic
impact.

High-value assets (assets that are critical to the production and delivery of large volumes
of electrical power and those critical for service to key loads) in the system are vulnerable
to EMP through the loss of protection equipment due to E1 and even if E3 levels
were not large enough to cause damage. The largest and most critical of these are
transformers. Transformers are the critical link (1) between generation and transmission,
(2) within the transmission network, (3) between the transmission and distribution
systems, and (4) from the distribution to the load.

Wait though, it gets better… Did I mention that much of the equipment, like transformers, actually is not something we can get “COTS” ? Did you know that it would take a year or more in some instances to get a new one? Now imagine that more than one.. More than three… Have been taken out permanently by an E1-E3 event?

The transformers that handle electrical power within the transmission system and its
interfaces with the generation and distribution systems are large, expensive, and to a considerable
extent, custom built. The transmission system is far less standardized than the
power plants are, which themselves are somewhat unique from one to another. All production
for these large transformers used in the United States is currently offshore.

Delivery time for these items under benign circumstances is typically one to two years.
There are about 2,000 such transformers rated at or above 345 kV in the United States
with about 1 percent per year being replaced due to failure or by the addition of new
ones. Worldwide production capacity is less than 100 units per year and serves a world
market, one that is growing at a rapid rate in such countries as China and India. Delivery
of a new large transformer ordered today is nearly 3 years, including both manufacturing
and transportation. An event damaging several of these transformers at once means it
may extend the delivery times to well beyond current time frames as production is taxed.
The resulting impact on timing for restoration can be devastating. Lack of high voltage
equipment manufacturing capacity represents a glaring weakness in our survival and
recovery to the extent these transformers are vulnerable

There you have it. The grid, the very SAME grid that the government now wants to make more “computerized” is insanely vulnerable to this type of attack. Come to find out too, that its actually pretty much vulnerable to many other types of attacks or accidents too. It’s just that an EMP would be large scale and or, would have a feedback loop associated with it that would systemically kill great swaths of the grid. Much like what we saw in 2003, August when the *cough* trees, caused the northeast to go down.

Oh, and by the way, think on this too. A cyber attack on these same systems, if carried out properly, could have the same effect. If you kill or futz with the SCADA you can kill the system and have that same feedback loop occur. So, if you are thinking well, whew! I really don’t foresee a nuke detonation at altitude you might want to consider our current security posture too and feel your sphincter tighten a bit. All it would take is a concerted effort and something along the lines of a BOTnet and BOOM, we could have deep power outages that could take protracted times to repair.

So where does that leave us? If the power is out, then nothing can really run unless you have backup power. However, backup power requires that you get more fuel, unless you have a Mr. Fusion handy, then you could just dump your compost into it. Nope, you will need a truck to bring you oil or diesel.. Of course you will need to call them.. But your cell phone is fried, and so are the towers, and the towers that may have escaped the full blast? They are overloaded just like the day of 9/11. You are not getting through.

So lets break it down by service.

TELCO/COMMS:

• Cell phones and towers are highly susceptible
• Landlines are not so much, but the switching stations that are more modern and thus will be inoperable

GAS/OIL:

• Just one word SCADA Its been tested and is highly vulnerable to EMP even to the point of having problems with radar causing systems to fail
• Gas and oil production would be at a standstill or worse, the plants could actually catch fire from pressure etc

RAIL:

• Switching systems on rail have gone to the computer and as we have seen recently, can get hosed up and cause large scale accidents
• The systems are basically SCADA/DC systems that are vulnerable to this type of attack
• Most of these systems reside in small metal boxes near the rail.. Open to attack

SHIPS/TRUCKS/PLANES/NAVIGATION SYSTEMS:

• GPS and other NAV systems on ships/trucks etc today are all micro circuit based and have proven to be vulnerable to attack by E1-E3 events
• Most cars and trucks now have microchip systems within them that regulate the operation of the car. No chip, no run.. so the car becomes a large paperweight
• Motorcycles not so much, unless you have a goldwing or something along those lines
• Air travel will be down. Not only the planes systems will be fried but also the towers will be without power and their computer aided radar will be offline

FINANCIAL:

• The financial system is a bit more resiliant to the power loss potential of an attack. However, their computer systems are still not shielded for an EMP event and thus, even redundant systems would be fried.. and without power after the generators ran out of diesel

What does this tell you all? It tells you that even though we have known about this type of attack since, oh, 1962, we have done nothing to really shield any of our systems that we have put in place. No Faraday cages, no shielding on the circuits, nada. It would have been too costly and no one could concieve of such an attack on us!

Right…

I vote more on the saving money thing and being generally lazy, but, I am jaded.

So where do we go from here?

The commission has made recommendations and even put in the monetary figures that would be necessary to take care of the issues. Will they happen? Will they happen especially since we are going to have a “smart grid” now that is going to likely be just as, if not MORE vulnerable to attacks both EMP and cyber?

My answer.. nope.

Why? Because inevitably people will say that the congress-critters are over reacting and that this attack is not likely to happen. If the Qaeda boys get their hands on a nuke, they aren’t going to get this kind of nuke! No! They are going to get a suitcase nuke and blow the fuck out of some poor city like Boston!

Whats that? The Russian navy just had TWO subs that avoided our SOSUS nets off the East Coast last week? Meh, Pooty Poot said not to worry! They were just here to listen to our “rock and roll” before heading down to Cuba for a good time! It’s not like they could carry a small yield ICBM style nuke that would make a damn fine HEMP! C’mon!! Don’t be crazy!

Never mind the idea that the Chinese have their hands on technology for E1-E3 devices that need not be high altitude. Did you know for instance that those BIG ASS transformers that take a YEAR to get are pretty much made only by them? Yeah, uh, the Chinese make our transformers that are the linchpin to our grid.. Ya know, the ones that are really really vulnerable?

Lets postulate here a bit too.. We’ve been worried about the Chinese market in fake chip sets getting into our military hardware.. Gee, how about them being in our big ass transformers? Hell of an exploit were they to hide chips or features in those transformers..

Click.. ZZZZZ POP! There goes the grid, and there goes our dominance in the world. Sure, you can say the Chinese would be only shooting themselves in the head being our biggest lender and trading partner… But, if you were them and you really didn’t care because you would WIN the war simply, wouldn’t you do the same thing?

So back to where do we go from here… For me I think its going to be looking into a faraday cage for the basement.. More power generation tools like solar etc for the house, and stocking up on non perishables. That’s about all one can do really. You see, your government is too big and too ossified to really effectively remedy the situation. While they argue with each other over who’s sleeping with who’s wife and what it means to be a “Real American” the enemies are collecting the armaments necessary to take us down.. At least for a while.

All YOU can do is prepare and take care of yourself and yours.

Lets hope this doesn’t happen.. But if it does.. Be ready.

For more reading go HERE

Listen to Roscoe Bartlett HERE:

What was it I was saying about the insider threat being the company or management itself?

The ex-employee, Dong Chul Shin, was fired from the company March 3 for performance reasons, and escorted off the premises, according to court records. But the company failed to immediately shut off his VPN access. That afternoon, someone using Shin’s account began logging onto the corporate network, e-mailing out proprietary data to a personal Yahoo account linked to Shin, and modifying and deleting files, according to a search warrant affidavit by Dallas FBI agent Robert Smith.

The Comanche Peak nuclear power plant in Texas.

Company logs showed that the VPN connection originated at Shin’s home IP address, Smith writes.

Oh yeah, that they were “the” inside threat. Well, case in point. These jokers walked him off premises but did not kill all his access. Gee, go figure that a disgruntled employee with intimate knowledge of the network would actually use their access to do something bad! Even more of a surprise that a company would not kill all their access right away.

Yeah.. Sorry to say that this is more prevalent than one might think. Good thing this guy didn’t do more damage.

Cyber SPIES in our GRID! Let the hand wringing begin!

Cyberspies have penetrated the U.S. electrical grid and left behind software programs that could be used to disrupt the system, The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday.

The spies came from China, Russia, and other countries, and were believed to be on a mission to navigate the U.S. electrical system and its controls, the newspaper said, citing current and former U.S. national security officials.

The intruders have not sought to damage the power grid or other key infrastructure but officials said they could try during a crisis or war, the paper said in a report on its Web site.

“The Chinese have attempted to map our infrastructure, such as the electrical grid,” a senior intelligence official told the Journal. “So have the Russians.”

The rest HERE

Well well well, aren’t the fear mongers busy huh? Ok, well I will weigh in here on this. Having been inside two large power companies I have to say I am not at all surprised that state actors as well as the odd script kiddie have been inside the works. That China has been doing this in a more pronounced way should be NO SURPRISE at all to anyone who reads this blog or pays attention to whats been going on in the world of INFOSEC for some time now.

Now, lets expand this idea a bit more and ponder the connections to SCADA systems at Nuclear facilities, water, etc as well as their antiquated technologies for networking.

(insert gasp here!)

Yes, that’s right kids, there is much more to be worried about even if Nuclear facilities have redundant systems for control over the nuclear reaction. These systems are all rather old in my experience, kinda like the space shuttle and the space station all run on old computer systems.. “Security Through Obscurity” eh? But I digress.

Our Chinese overlords are working as diligently as others I am sure at staking their ground on US systems for the opportunity to take us down when they decide to as a part of their war strategy. IF we are slow witted enough to NOT take care of these issues and eventually have our infrastructure fall to their machinations, its our own fault for being too sloth like and dullards about security.

So, turn on your tv’s tonight and this week.. I am sure you will be seeing much more hand wringing about this.. The question then becomes “Will we make the changes needed to prevent this?”

I hold out little hope of it…

“Bills S.436 and H.R. 1076, Their to protect the children!” No, it’s not and we know it fucktard

Two bills have been introduced so far–S.436 in the Senate and H.R.1076 in the House. Each of the companion bills is titled “Internet Stopping Adults Facilitating the Exploitation of Today’s Youth Act,” or Internet Safety Act.

Each contains the same language:

“A provider of an electronic communication service or remote computing service shall retain for a period of at least two years all records or other information pertaining to the identity of a user of a temporarily assigned network address the service assigns to that user.

” Translated, the Internet Safety Act applies not just to AT&T, Comcast, Verizon, and so on–but also to the tens of millions of homes with Wi-Fi access points or wired routers that use the standard method of dynamically assigning temporary addresses. (That method is called Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol, or DHCP.) “Everyone has to keep such information,” says Albert Gidari, a partner at the Perkins Coie law firm in Seattle who specializes in this area of electronic privacy law.

The full story here

How many times must they try to pass this type of bill and language in it before they realize that it just won’t work? When also, will they really admit the truth about this as being not a method to prevent or prosecute “child porn” surfers, but to clamp down on EVERYONE’s privacy? This is just bogus and again shows just how little the Senate and House understands the technology and the processes around it.

First, lets talk about the fallacy of “protecting the children” This bill will not affect the saving of children from predators online whatsoever. Why?

1) Logging is reactive and not proactive.. You are just taking notes. Unless the system warns you that a child crime is being committed, then it’s too late and it’s already happened. Looking at a log only “may” help you in finding them, that is IF the user is not using a spoofed address or on a TOR router etc.

2) Logging must be audited.. Anyone in the senate going to sit and audit all those logs?… Didn’t think so.

3) The logging is only as good as the security of the AP or the internet provider. If the security processes and implementations are the suck, then the data from any logging is suspect. A log can be turned off, futzed with, or outright deleted by an attacker. This is not a foolproof solution.

4) The VAST majority of child porn cases that I have seen do not rely on router logs from home AP’s to track their targets. As well, if there is a DHCP pool that they are tracking, they get a warrant and the providers work with them to trap and trace the IP address. THAT is how they track these pervs and lock it down to a physical address.

5) I have only heard of ONE case where a perv had driven along in his car and performed “War Driving” to get on unencypted AP’s to surf his child porn needs

6) The WIFI encryption protocols are all subject to attack and compromise. To force all home users to save 2 years of log files is just ridiculous. WIFI is ephemeral and not the main point of ingress for the “child predator” You can today, knock off a mac address on an AP and assume that IP (mac spoof) and unless you find that physical wireless card, you have no fucking idea who the perp was and I doubt that we will have teams of feds out there DF’ing perps as they surf my WIFI sig.

7) Recently there have been a spate of AP vulnerabilities, unless you make the routers completely secure, any logs are suspect and not admissible in court. It’s a fallacy to think that this is a real fix to the issue of child porn or predatory behavior.

So, you also gonna try and enforce this on TOR routers? Seems to me a way to try and knock down the security and privacy of this type of system eh? Someone else perhaps involved in this bill? Putting the bug in their ears? Ya know, a three letter agency perhaps? This law would pretty much put the TOR routers in the US into an “illegal” space right? I mean after all the TOR routers deliberately don’t capture logs… Interesting no? You start making the world log their traffic, those pesky TOR routers will break that whole theory huh?

This is total NANNY STATE mentality to attack a problem that they really should try to attack in a smarter fashion rather than use the usual lazy drifnet approach. Just how do they intend on enforcing this too? Roving bands of newly minted federal employees with NETSTUMBLER? Or perhaps something more 1984? Say a system that ties into the internet providers that seeks out the end point routers and checks their security and logging? Perhaps a nice back door into the routers?

No, just fucking no.

I am so sick and tired of the gubment trying to get a lock on the technology problems without actually consulting the security folks out in the world. I am also tired of them thinking that they can just create bills that will “protect” us and it’ll all be good through legislation. It’s not and it never will be. You can’t protect us you shitheads, at least not without destroying our personal privacy altogether. So just stop now. You are wasting my money and your time.

Oh, and by the way, you can also give up any thoughts of taxing downloads or emails like you also have been talking about. Take the crack pipe out of your mouths and start really working on the problems that you can. Not this bullshit, you collectively aren’t qualified.

Top Army Biowar Lab Suspends Research After Toxin-Tracking Scare

Rutgers University molecular biologist Richard Ebright wonders how many more biodefense labs are having problems tracking and handling deadly agents. In an e-mail to Danger Room, he notes:

1. There currently are 400 U.S. institutions and 15,000 U.S. individuals authorized to possess bioweapons agents.
2. Security measures at the overwhelming majority of the 400 U.S. institutions that possess bioweapons agents are inadequate.
3. Very few of the 400 institutions has comprehensive video monitoring of work areas.
4. Very few of the 400 institutions has a two-person rule (a rule requiring that at least two persons be present when  bioweapons agents are handled).
5. Very few of the 400 institutions perform psychological screening and psychological monitoring of personnel.

Of course, the historical problems seen in running academic and civilian labs are not necessarily indications of current problems in Department of Defense labs.  labs. However, Ebright’s right, that there’s an “urgent need” to “implement effective security at institutions with access to bioweapons agents.”

— Jason Sigger and Noah Shachtman

Wired Article HERE

Gee, given that back in 01 just post the Anthrax attack I was party to the FBI searches of the Uconn (Storrs Campus) bio labs for Anthrax that they “had” but had not cataloged well enough, I should think that the US would have locked this shit down since then.

Just goes to show you though that the human being is a POOR judge of long term danger. After 9/11 and a bona fide attack using a BIOWEAPON that was MILLED and ANTI STATIC treated, we STILL did not get our collective heads out of our ass and secure the nations labs! What the hell people?

I have written about this before. Recently there was an OIG report that showed that numerous labs were NOT using secure protocols, screening processes, and even in one case had a ground floor room with a plate glass window into the lab!!!

How we aren’t all pestilence ridden is beyond me.

Taken

Object Lesson 1: Never let a 17 year old girl travel ALONE to Paris

Object Lesson 2: If you are traveling outside the country DO NOT give out too much information about your vulnerabilities.. Like, hey, we’re 17 and staying ALONE in Paris at this apartment that we brought you to by cab!

Object Lesson 3: Do not piss off an ex operative for the CIA played by Liam Neeson by taking his daughter. Death is soon to follow… A painful one at that.

EDIT: MY FAVORITE PART

Sheik holding daughter in front as a human shield: “We can make a”

Liam with 9mm: BLAM

Sheik: Falls dead from headshot

Ahhhh….

Tense-ness at the homestead

Falling Down

So I come home today to find Semiotic in the laundry room here, shaken and somewhat scared and the source of her tension is a guy standing in the room too. This guy looks to be a bit older than me, close cropped grey hair, glasses, shorts and a t-shirt. On the outside he seemed harmless. However, he was rather intense, standing in the corner looking rather pissed off.

Semiotic whispered something about how he had been acting and I got the point, so I told her to go back to the apartment and I would sit with the laundry in the dryer. As soon as she had left this guy go’s over to the dryer opens it, hrupmphs, and then SLAM closes the dryer door. He then proceeds to stand in his corner and look crabby. So, I whip out my magazine and begin to read.

It’s then that this guy begins to show some pretty passive aggressive tendencies. He gets on his cell phone and starts to have a conversation (loudly so as I could hear) with someone about how he has a SIG220 and it’s a 1400 dollar gun and mumbles something about shooting after a string of epithets. The person on the other end then says something to the effect of

“What are you planning to shoot me?”

To which this guy launches into:

“No you fucker, we are going to shoot targets, what the fuck are you thinking?”

It’s at this time that I just look at him with a look of disdain that says;

“Yeah, big man, you have some self assurance issues as well as anger issues huh?”

He slams the door on the dryer after getting his 3 items out, and leaves. It was after that that Semiotic came back over and explained that this guy just went ape over his wash not getting dry and he was acting strange. She was nervous even though she had the Beretta in her pocket. I guess though, that she could not read this guy. What I got from him was that he is a guy living in an apartment complex and unhappy with his life. He feels that he has little control and perhaps had a bad day to boot.

All in all, he was full of shit and a prick, but, I don’t think a real threat. However, had he persisted more, I think I would have told him in no uncertain terms to cut it out, or he would find that SIG up his ass with me pulling the trigger til it went “click”.. Of course, my saying something like that could put me into his world huh? It’s more likely I would have told him to cut it out and had he would have left post haste.

One hopes…

So we started looking at loans for houses….

Am I gonna have to bust a cap in someone’s ass?

Woman Hospitalized After Scissors Attack

Police Say Man Also Tried To Attack Witnesses

POSTED: 8:30 am EST January 17, 2009

UPDATED: 11:11 am EST January 18, 2009

Attempted Murderer

MANCHESTER, Conn. — Police in Manchester are investigating a weekend stabbing that sent a woman to an area hospital.

Lt. Christopher Davis with the Manchester Police Department said the incident occurred at 8:30 p.m. Friday at an apartment at 158 Forrest St.Davis said initial reports indicated that the domestic disturbance started in apartment 716, where it is believed that a woman sustained an undetermined number of stab wounds before she fled into the lobby area of the apartment building.Davis said 29-year-old Edward Leonard chased her out of the apartment and was able to attack her again, stabbing her numerous times with a pair of scissors.Several people witnessed the attack and at least one person attempted to intervene, but was unsuccessful as Leonard attempted to attack the witness when he approached, police said.According to a police report, Leonard released the woman and dropped the scissors once confronted by officers.The victim was transported to Hartford Hospital where she is listed in critical condition.Davis said Leonard had injuries to his hand and was transported to Manchester Memorial Hospital for treatment and psychological evaluation.Upon his release Leonard is expected to be charged with criminal attempt to commit murder, first- and second- degree assault and unlawful restraint, according to a police report.His bond has been set at $1 million.

Well, recently the place I live in (a part of the chain of renovated mills in Manchester) has been seeing more and more crime happen. Manchester as it is, is almost a suburb of Hartford to start, but, of late there has been a creep of criminality including cases of assaults, break ins, purse snatchings, and destruction of property.

This escalation has roughly timed to the evolving issues with the economy as well as the rental company evidently leasing apartments (and these are not cheap) to more and more miscreants. This latest incident occurred just as another domestic happened within my adjoinning building where threats of murder were made on a female apartment dweller here. It wasn’t that long ago that a sexual predator/wanker was breaking into (with a master key) apartments and stealing womens underwear etc, in an escalation I am sure, to rape or other sexual criminal acts.

It has become clearer that we need to leave this place and have begun looking at houses. In the meantime, I am comforted in the knowledge that Semiotic has a nice Beretta in her pocket/holster/bag/ankle as well as I too have a 9mm and a 380 either on me or near my person in the apartment and out.

“The times.. They are a changin”