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And stuff like this is why many think the Department of Education should be eliminated or severely scaled back. Perhaps set national standards but not get into the day-to-day operations of a school.

There may be good reasons for keeping control over schools away from local authorities:

https://boingboing.net/2015/12...

Its easier for parents to remove the idiots at the more local level than at the federal level.

There may be good reasons for keeping control over schools away from local authorities:

https://boingboing.net/2015/12...

Whoa! My reply to states rights guy shows exactly what happens when you get an asshat like her involved. Short versions - I grew up in a town where creationists ruled. They meddle for very large values of meddling.

And stuff like this is why many think the Department of Education should be eliminated or severely scaled back. Perhaps set national standards but not get into the day-to-day operations of a school.

There may be good reasons for keeping control over schools away from local authorities:

https://boingboing.net/2015/12...

Thanks. :-)

Fair question, but with a simple answer: I've not said anything online that I haven't already said in court and/or isn't very blatantly obvious. I don't disclose pending litigation strategy or the like that might be damaging, nor anything private, privileged, etc.

I think it's beneficial to raise public awareness. Part of why they responded to me at all was because TSA's PR people (howdy, Curtis!) read the 2013 BoingBoing article about my SFO experience and had a subsequent internal shitstorm. (How do I know? Several hundred pages of FOIA docs — ones I haven't published yet.)

Exactly ... fund the creation of some super computers to brute force encrypted systems in a reasonable amount of time should a court approve an order.

The next thing you know, they'll require that all safe manufacturers create a master key that unlocks everything they make.

If they seize a safe, they can drill into it ... it's not pretty, but it's not something that someone might be sloppy with and post on the open internet for anyone to copy.

By many, many factories that quickly retooled to create competing variations on the concept, presumably many of these are poorly designed and could ruin the potential market for ones that work well.

http://boingboing.net/2015/11/...

At least the VW didn't crash into Mars.

Heh, but other people sure have.

Probably Slashdot's only non-spam burma shave link~

I feel you are overly optimistic.

If we want to do this kind of lockdown, we'd need some way to make computers only run authorized software. We'd need a standard for digitally signing OSs, and the BIOS would need to check the signature and enforce that only signed OSs can run. Then the OSs would need to run only whitelisted software.

How hard would it be for governments to coordinate getting a lockdown feature like that into every computer? Well... they don't need to. We already have it. MS has already bludgeoned everybody into supporting Secure Boot, which is exactly this feature/misfeature, in all new computers that ship with Windows (which is most of them -- and the rest support it too because nobody's going to make a separate motherboard just for computers that ship with Windows).

Sure, you can disable Secure Boot... except for when you can't. There are machines (often, not always, laptops) out there right now which don't let you disable Secure Boot, so you're stuck running only approved OSs on them. (MS do the approving, in case you were wondering.) It wouldn't take much at all to expand that to every machine; all it'd take would be MS adding "in order to keep machines secure, don't allow disabling Secure Boot" to the Windows Hardware Certification requirements

Given that we already have systems that will only run approved OSs, it doesn't seem like such a huge leap to "you can only run the software we let you run", especially when all the technology to make that happen is already in place. And, for that matter, being used routinely on tablets and phones.

The coming war on general-purpose computing and The Coming Civil War over General Purpose Computing are a good idea to read. I really wish I had my tinfoil hat on here, but sadly this is looking all too realistic.

I feel you are overly optimistic.

If we want to do this kind of lockdown, we'd need some way to make computers only run authorized software. We'd need a standard for digitally signing OSs, and the BIOS would need to check the signature and enforce that only signed OSs can run. Then the OSs would need to run only whitelisted software.

How hard would it be for governments to coordinate getting a lockdown feature like that into every computer? Well... they don't need to. We already have it. MS has already bludgeoned everybody into supporting Secure Boot, which is exactly this feature/misfeature, in all new computers that ship with Windows (which is most of them -- and the rest support it too because nobody's going to make a separate motherboard just for computers that ship with Windows).

Sure, you can disable Secure Boot... except for when you can't. There are machines (often, not always, laptops) out there right now which don't let you disable Secure Boot, so you're stuck running only approved OSs on them. (MS do the approving, in case you were wondering.) It wouldn't take much at all to expand that to every machine; all it'd take would be MS adding "in order to keep machines secure, don't allow disabling Secure Boot" to the Windows Hardware Certification requirements

Given that we already have systems that will only run approved OSs, it doesn't seem like such a huge leap to "you can only run the software we let you run", especially when all the technology to make that happen is already in place. And, for that matter, being used routinely on tablets and phones.

The coming war on general-purpose computing and The Coming Civil War over General Purpose Computing are a good idea to read. I really wish I had my tinfoil hat on here, but sadly this is looking all too realistic.

> Or any hybrid food for that matter. Or plant splicing, like done on tomatoes or fruit trees. Its a scary world.

Not even close. GMO is more "useful". That's why there are so many ninnies like you participating as willing dupes in the Monsanto propaganda campaign. If it were otherwise, then companies like Monsanto simply wouldn't bother. They would have no motive.

Ummm, spare me the "ninnies" comments. Truce? Or are you in the liberal version of the Fox News bubble?

Because trying to equate Monsanto's herbicide resistance malfeasance and my supposed usefulness to that program is perhaps less then insightful when you make it the equivalent of producing a fish that grows faster. herbicide resistance as part of the genetic makeup in plants is a lost cause in a crop because all it does is make the pest plants stronger. Which is already happening in roundup ready seeds. It's a dumbass lost cause.

http://www.usnews.com/news/art...

Fact is, we aren't supposed to be consuming herbicides like that.

We aren't supposed to be using utensils made of bisphenol A, or many other nasty-ass modern things.

Now you want to see interesting weed control?

http://loe.org/shows/segments.... The only resistance that can be gained against blasting is a thicker weed. What's more instead of the walnut shells they used as the original grit, they will be blasting with organic fertilizers. Two factors for th eprice of one

But on to your assessment that I am completely off, that hybrids are nothing like genetic manipulation.

You need to affirm that you are saying that hybrids or cross breeds are genetically identical to the plants they were bred with. Could you do that?

Because if they are not genetically identical across all the varieties that we hybridized or crossbred, then that is exactly genetic manipulation, and you are only facing a truth that is inconvenient for your worldview. Can we chat about crossbreeding as safe and GM as dangerous? The Lenape potato.

The Lenape Potato, a conventionally crossbred potato. A fine looking speciman that looked like it was going to take over the potato chip world for a while, had one slight problem. It was toxic.

http://boingboing.net/2013/03/...

Many scientists, based on this truth, are saying that the crossbred pant, which to you seems acceptable, should be held to the same standards as GM. Perhaps a new field for deniers?

howeever setting all that aside, I am willing to put my money where my mouth is, and eat only GM salmon for the rest of my life that have been produced this way.

Do you have the strength of your conviction to eat one meal of conventionally crossbred Lenape Potatoes in return? It's even vegan, so no problem there. Sounds like a fair test to me.

Really, please don't. I may be a useful ninnie, but I don't want anyone to come to harm. I'll still eat those salmon. I'll bet they are yummmmmy.

From a quick glance at their page, the focus seems to be on widely shared content that has subsequently been censored.

So you'd need a fairly big conspiracy to make a fake censorship story here (or at least a pretty long, hard slog making tons of fake screenshots).
On the other hand, this method will only work on things that arn't censored immidiately.

Although, if it's algorithmically censored on posting (see Tsu), it should be fairly easy to replicate.

might have "an appliance, that comes with a manual, and low-skilled operators." By using a setup that is not very common, the border cops might not know what to do.

Oh, they know exactly what to do.

"..border guards confiscated his laptop and phones and detained him, telling him he would not be allowed to leave until he gave them his passwords."

This is a solved problem as far as they are concerned. You sit in a room until you unlock the device for them. Lawyer? You don't get no steenkin' lawyer.

Probably because one or two people working for the school are paranoid ninnies, and once they acted everything after that was just a serious of consequences from independent people who had imperfect information being forced to make assumptions and "do their job" lest they be reprimanded.

Much like what happened to Star Simpson when a ticket agent at the Boston Airport acted as one would expect a stolid paranoid ninny to act, and called in a bomb threat because the girl decorated her sweater with flashing lights.

Bombs always have flashing lights. Don't you watch movies?

It's not universally boys.

http://boingboing.net/2015/09/...

http://boingboing.net/2008/09/...

They would have killed someone for wearing leds into an airport. Research.

This happens to non-muslims too. White teenage girls from MIT.

Shhh, that doesn't fit the "white people are all racist" message they're trying to push.

This happens to non-muslims too. White teenage girls from MIT.

http://boingboing.net/2008/09/...

http://boingboing.net/2008/09/...

Or Star.

But not Star Simpson.

So what you are saying is that they are no better than Boston? http://boingboing.net/2007/01/...

Surely not to act like Boston.

Then how do you explain Star Simpson?

Don't pretend you are immune. This happens to white kids too.
http://boingboing.net/2007/09/...

What short memory you have. Or maybe you are very young.

In many cases, I think that's the only way certain websites can survive, so yes. Ideally though, I should be able to send my monthly ad-free payment to one organization, like a bank, which will in return give my browser identity to all the sites on the web who offer both an ad-supported interface and a supporter interface.

Slashdot, Google, Pandora and Hulu have all already realized that people are willing to pay for an minimal advertising experience and offer both ad-supported sites and consumer supported sites. In my house we're already paying for Netflix, Amazon Prime, Pandora and three out of four of us put money in Google Wallet, and I've paid for Slashdot in the past. There is a lot of room to wrangle over the costs per visitor but those sites make a lot more from my family than any ad-supported sites do.

With Adblock Browser being accepted on both Android and iOS and the default browser in Windows now offering a Reading View (which pretty much eliminates ads), the future is clear: ad-supported websites are going to be forced to change the way they do things if they want to survive. The first thing I'd do if I were depending on income from advertising is move to a native-ad model, so that my advertising wouldn't be blocked as often but that's only going to last so long. Check out https://boingboing.net/2015/07... in Microsoft Edge browser. Right now the page shows what appears to be a scantily clad woman in the the upper right of the page, and an Intel banner, and a Boing Boing ad mid-right and a bunch of chlickbait junk at the bottom, and now I hit the Reading View button built into Edge and all that disappears.

I know which view I'd rather my boss see when he walks by.

is a big lens. Can it bootstrap its own lens, I wonder?

(Background: "The Man Who Sold the Moon", by Cory Doctorow. https://boingboing.net/2015/05...)

You could always just stick a couple of bright IR LEDs on normal glasses or a hat and achieve the same or better effect. They have the added bonus of having their existence be invisible to the naked eye, so nobody in person knows you're even messing with the CCTVs. Even more importantly, you don't have to wear some bizarre oversize glasses that would look out of place anywhere except a scifi convention.

Stop perpetuating Big Corp lies. Selective breeding is not the same thing as genetically modifying. The latter involves transferring genes directly, typically from other species. You know that. Stop the lies. I would give you 100 trollop points if I had them.

That's right. And simple selective breeding and hybridization just means mashing together entire genomes (often across species) to get the one trait you want. Surely there's no chance of any unexpected traits that way. Totally under control, right?

The same is true for traditional breeding and hybridisation, though. Mishmashing thousands of genes together has risks. There are practical examples of this happening. There's actually an argument to be made that putting one or two well-undrestood genes in is less likely to produce crazy results than making a hybrid that has the gene you want plus half of the genome of the other plant that you didn't want.

BoingBoing's publisher actually has evidence to the contrary:
His license plate is "DRUNK"

If your position is that use of Tor is circumstantial evidence that you're trying to evade the law or do something otherwise "shady", I don't think that's a valid assumption.

"Special Agent XXXXXX.

I represent Boing Boing. I just received a Grand Jury Subpoena to Boing Boing dated June 12, 2015 (see attached).

The Subpoena requests subscriber records and user information related to an IP address. The IP address you cite is a TOR exit node hosted by Boing Boing (please see: http://tor-exit.boingboing.net...). As such, Boing Boing does not have any subscriber records, user information, or any records at all related to the use of that IP address at that time, and thus cannot produce any responsive records.

I would be happy to discuss this further with you if you have any questions."

Bold emphasis mine. The "at that time" portion is what is relevant here. What it has been used for at other times is irrelevant, if they're asking for a specific point or period of time. You can provide logs all day long about the activities during other times without it implying anything about the activities during the time the address was used as an exit node. It may still implicate YOU as someone who runs an exit node but there's currently nothing illegal about that.

That's where my concern would be. How many times will this happen before some jackass tries to make logs a requirement or makes it illegal to even host such a thing in the USA.

I think it would be a great service to the Tor community to release the text of what Boing Boing sent to the FBI as a shining example of how to handle such requests. It may need to be specifically tailored to the sender, but something to go off of might be of benefit to folks running a node who don't have the funds to see legal help outside of /r/legaladvice.

From the article:

  We contacted our lawyer, the hard-fightin' cyber-lawyer Lauren Gelman, and she cooled us out. She sent the agent this note:

Special Agent XXXXXX.

        I represent Boing Boing. I just received a Grand Jury Subpoena to Boing Boing dated June 12, 2015 (see attached).

        The Subpoena requests subscriber records and user information related to an IP address. The IP address you cite is a TOR exit node hosted by Boing Boing (please see: http://tor-exit.boingboing.net...). As such, Boing Boing does not have any subscriber records, user information, or any records at all related to the use of that IP address at that time, and thus cannot produce any responsive records.

        I would be happy to discuss this further with you if you have any questions.

And that was it.

The only person who has a remote chance of caring about us is Trump.

Wait, wait, don't bring out the pitch forks... yea, I know he is a walking ego trip, yes he is a arrogant SOB.. I am well aware of that... but he also has nothing to gain by screwing us at this point. .

That doesn't mean he cares about you, it just means he's responding to different incentives.

He is now old, very wealthy, and has nothing else to do but take the country in a new direction.
    He also isn't owned by lobbyists or 30 years of political connections the way Bush and Clinton are.

If Bush or Clinton are elected, exactly nothing will change. If you keep doing what you've always done, you'll keep getting what you've always gotten.

The fact he has different baggage doesn't he has no baggage. If anything I'd say he's more likely to have some massive skeletons stuffed in the closet of an unsavoury operator.

As for a new direction 'new' doesn't necessary mean better, I don't see how a guy batting to the looniest of the fringes is going to be a change for the better.

At least Trump will kick over the table and say, "new direction".

Will it turn out well? Hard to say, we won't really know without trying, but at some point we either try something new, or accept the current situation forever.

Just read this twitter exchange. It's not a policy position or anything like that but I think it's illustrative.

First, who in their right mind gets in an insult fight with a professional comedy writer?

Second, once they're in that fight who throws out insults like a 5 year old and acts like they're kicking ass?

Trump was obviously once competent enough at one thing to make billions, but at this point, in this context, it's pretty clear that he's spent so long surrounded with yes-men that he's completely out of touch with reality. The prospect of having him in power scares me more than Sarah Palin.

Intelligently and thoroughly schooling a naysayer in how dangerous China is to US interests, for one.

Microsoft has been dodging WA State taxes at least since 1997 by redirecting ALL of its profits to a shell company in Nevada.
This petition here has a good analysis here showing running totals between $2.1 BILLION to $8.4 BILLION in dodged taxes.

Microsoft has effectively corrupted and captured the WA State's government, which routinely passes legislation to forgive Microsoft's back taxes, some as large as $100M a year, at times where the state is running deep into deficits.

Offering to "voluntarily" "contribute" 28M annually is like robbing a bank and then "offering" to return a few cents on the dollar.

In the end, a slightly less impressive variation on "Machine with Concrete."'?

Check out this boingboing article about a CNN video interview with the author of the ST story. Watch the linked video; it's stunning. The guy essentially admits the whole thing is a fabrication with zero evidence, and all they do is "report the position of the British Government".

http://boingboing.net/2015/06/16/cnn-interview-with-author-of-d.html

We grow up in a controlled society, where we are told that when one person kills another person, that is murder, but when the government kills a hundred thousand, that is patriotism.
- Howard Zinn

Find a zero day and report it to someone who might fix it, that is criminal. Find a zero day and report it to the navy, you've done a service for your country. There is a unfortunate disconnect when the things the government does in the name of keeping us safe, end up making us all decidedly less safe in the end.

One of them resigned to avoid being disbarred. Looks better on his CV I guess.

http://boingboing.net/2014/01/...

New York Democratic Congressman Steve Israel, two and a half years ago.

http://boingboing.net/2012/12/...

http://www.forbes.com/sites/an...

coding... yes, its "masculine"!

Nobody told this silly female: http://boingboing.net/2015/05/...

You point to an outlier and expect... what, exactly? Surely you're not making the ridiculous claim that all women, hell even most women, are budding Lovelace's or similar?

coding... yes, its "masculine"!

Nobody told this silly female: http://boingboing.net/2015/05/...

I don't get it. How does that disprove the notion that programming is "masculine" (whatever the fuck that is supposed to mean). Something being "masculine/feminine" and something being "male/female" are two different things. Again, I am not trying to argue that programming is "masculine", nor do I even know what it is about programming that OP thinks makes it count as "masculine". The only thing I am arguing is that you haven't disproved the notion.

coding... yes, its "masculine"!

Nobody told this silly female: http://boingboing.net/2015/05/...

heard this last millennium: little boys want a place to 'perform', while little girls want a place to 'relate'.

Um, yeah. About that: http://boingboing.net/2015/05/...

Actually, has there been any contest where the goal is to write the most useful program that can be stored in a tweet?

Yes, sort of

Why does GM claim we only license our cars?

http://boingboing.net/2015/05/21/gm-says-you-dont-own-your-ca.html

Real men don't need IDEs.

http://boingboing.net/2015/05/...