Watching the Watchers

Target Blu Eye:

"The £999 system (plus £100-£200 for installation) monitors the frequencies of emergency services’ Tetra and Airwave radios and, according to the manufacturer, listens for the distinctive regular pulses sent by the radios every four seconds. These could be emitted by marked or unmarked vehicles; by radios worn by beat officers or mobile speed camera operators; or by radios in police helicopters. When a transmission is detected, the driver is alerted."

And I agree they really wouldn't like this if someone created a network of dectors and publicized their locations.

Via Slashdot

The War on Copyright AKA General Purpose Computers AKA Software Defined Radio

Scary stuff.

Cory Doctorow: Lockdown - The coming war on general-purpose computing. 

He makes the argument that SOPA and the like are merely the next wave of assaults on our freedom. Ignorance, greed, and fear will lead to more invasive technology and laws. He connects the dots between copyright and general purpose computing and even things like Software Defined Radios. The "Evil They" would  prevent you from doing things like modifying your UV-3R to expand the usable frequencies. Or manufacture your own AR-15 in your garage.

"Consider radio. Radio regulation until today was based on the idea that the properties of a radio are fixed at the time of manufacture, and can't be easily altered. You can't just flip a switch on your baby monitor and interfere with other signals. But powerful software-defined radios (SDRs) can change from baby monitor to emergency services dispatcher or air traffic controller, just by loading and executing different software. This is why the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) considered what would happen when we put SDRs in the field, and asked for comment on whether it should mandate that all software-defined radios should be embedded in “trusted computing" machines. Ultimately, the question is whether every PC should be locked, so that their programs could be strictly regulated by central authorities."

Scary Paper

Theater Professor’s Firefly Poster Declared Threatening:

"The campus police at the University of Wisconsin-Stout deserve praise, bravery medals, and $100 gift certificates to their favorite steakhouse for ripping down theater professor James Miller's Firefly poster before it could murder any students. Oh wait—not praise and etc., but ridicule."

That Constitution thing is pretty scary, too. Maybe they can snag it and burn it while they are at it.

Via Slashdot

Slippery Slope

First they came for my detergent.
Then they came for my light bulbs.
And now they want my inhaler.
Bastards.

Bruce Schneier on the TSA

Bruce has a summary of all the TSA news.

If you've never read anything from Bruce, you should. He points out measures that are just "security theater" and suggests practical, common sense approaches. He puts terrorist attacks into perspective - you are more likely to be killed by a household appliance than a terrorist. It may not make the news, but it is a greater risk. And we are horrible at evaluating risk.

TSA and Security

Lots about the TSA, scanners, pat downs, and security in the news recently...

Part of the problem is that we think technology is the answer to everything. Maybe because I work in IT, I don't see it as a magical solution to every problem. Recently an HR manager complained about the head of the union forwarding e-mails to a third party. She wanted to know if the "ICT Appropriate Use" policy could be used to stop him from forwarding the messages. I had to walk her down from the ledge by asking what she would want to do if he put a memo from her into the postal mail. Turns out, she wouldn't do anything. Why would e-mail be any different?

Tried and true without fancy technology: Israeli Security Approach

It has happened before and it will happen again: How we react has changed