In 1955, a Sears Department store in Colorado Springs, CO misprinted Santa’s phone number so children calling for Santa accidentally reached the Continental Air Defense Command (CONAD) Commander-in-Chief’s operations “hotline.” Colonel Harry Shoup, Director of Operations, had his staff track Santa by radar and provide updates to the children who […]
Liberty, Politics, & Current Events
96 posts
Some interesting new details are emerging on the Stuxnet virus and the damage it did to the Iranian nuclear program: Jerusalem Post – ‘Stuxnet virus set back Iran’s nuclear program by 2 years’ The Atlantic – Stuxnet? Bah, That’s Just the Beginning FoxNews.com – Mystery Surrounds Cyber Missile That Crippled […]
Gawrker Media, parent of such sites as Gawker.com, Fleshbot [NSFW], Deadspin, Lifehacker, Gizmodo, io9, Kotaku, Jalopnik, Jezebel, Gawker.tv, and Cityfile, was hacked over the weekend. As a result, their user files were compromised. Although the password file was encrypted, the encryption was particularly weak, and vulnerable to a brute force […]
Previously, ÆtherCzar noted that the effectiveness of full body scanners has been called into question. Liquid explosives and other organic contraband contrast poorly and are said to be difficult to spot. These reports were largely anecdotal, however. Good technical information on the performance of x-ray backscatter full-body scanners has been […]
Can you tell which is which at a glance? Even otherwise tech-savvy folks like those at Ars Technica sometimes get it wrong. Once you understand the physics, you can tell which kind of scanner produced which image, at a glance. Millimeter wave scans bounce very short wavelength radar signals off […]
In April, University of California, San Francisco scientists wrote Dr. John P. Holdren, Assistant to the President for Science and Technology, expressing their concerns regarding X-ray backscatter scanners. Last month they received a detailed technical reply, posted on the FDA website November 8. One of the more egregious technical problems […]
Here are a few Thanksgiving day updates on full-body scanners: See My Helical Tryst: TSA X-ray backscatter body scanner safety report: hide your kids, hide your wife for an in depth analysis from a biochemist on the radiation dose from x-ray backscatter scanners. He reiterates the critical point that safety […]
This post extends on my post of last week: How Full-Body Scanners Work – and Fail The aim of this post is to explain x-ray backscatter scanning in further detail by examining a few of the patents that describe how x-ray backscatter full-body scanners work. In order to receive a […]
It’s been tough to keep up with all the news on body scanning developments. Here are a few items from the last few days: Your Morning Cup Of TSA Horror – The Consumerist. Representative Holt Continues to Question Science, Effectiveness of TSA Full Body Scanners. Hat Tip: Mark Frauenfelder, BoingBoing […]
Bruce Schneier Interview – Security Theater and the TSA – Popular Mechanics. Hat Tip: Glenn Reynolds.
http://bit.ly/dtNTAy Also, the Electronic Privacy Information Center maintains an updated news page on the subject.
Today’s post is a mix of recent updates and older background posts on full-body scanners. Kevin Poulsen writes in Wired that New York City may forbid TSA from using body scanners at New York airports, including JFK. There’s a summary on full-body scanners in New Scientist. Here’s an older piece […]
A couple of days ago when I explained How Full-Body Scanners Work – and Fail, I didn’t mention any potential health risks because millimeter wave signals are inherently non-ionizing and the power levels associated with the potentially ionizing backscatter X-ray scanners seemed at first glance to be negligibly small. However, […]
TSA has been introducing full-body scanners to perform a virtual strip search of air travelers. Although technically travelers have the right to opt out, the TSA discourages this behavior with aggressive and invasive pat-down searches. Initially, TSA denied punitive pat-down searches. Then they acknowledged testing a “more aggressive pat-down technique.” […]
Cracked.com has an entertaining and enlightening report on five popular safety measures that don’t make you any safer. It’s so hard to think logically about safety. We figure that any time our health or the safety of our children is at stake, it’s better safe than sorry. Our safety is […]
Time for more wireless updates: Here’s a great article about the British precursor to LORAN: “GEE.” GEE was one of the first implementations of the “Time-Difference-of-Arrival (TDOA)” concept used in some modern RTLS implementations. A simple explanation of Ekahau RTLS: “The Perfect Pairing of RF and IR.” Whatever happened to […]
Back in April, ÆtherCzar told the story of how the Dallas Office of the FCC discovered a 5W cell phone jammer in operation at the Cosmetology Career Center in Carrollton, TX. The FCC could have imposed fines of as much as $11,000 per day. Judging by the enforcement letter, there […]
Wired’s Threat Level blog has the story of California student Yasir Afifi. His mechanic found an unusual electronic gadget in Afifi’s car, that turns out to be a tracking device. Then he posted pictures to Reddit. Interestingly, the crowd-sourced analysis pegged the exact make and model of the tracking device, […]
Music labels and broadcast stations have long argued about the royalties radio stations pay to the music labels for playing their songs on the air. Now they’ve reached an agreement, and one of the key terms is a proposed mandate to force cell phone manufacturers to embed an FM radio […]
It’s not news to anyone who’s been following ÆtherCzar’s 1099 mandate coverage, but starting next year an onerous requirement will be placed on small businesses by clueless politicians with no real-world experience in business and no understanding of the unintended impact of their mandates.
Megan McArdle calls this “Housing Insanity:” If you want to know why us libertarian types are skeptical of the government’s ability to prevent housing market bubbles, well, I give you Exhibit 9,824: the government’s new $1000 down housing program. No, really. The government has apparently decided, in its infinite wisdom, […]
With tuition continuing to rise far faster than inflation, is higher education the next bubble to burst? Glenn (Instapundit) Reynolds still thinks so. And Paul Caron (TaxProf Blog) has more. What’s more, opponents of “for-profit” education continue to pillory the industry for their “shady” practices. Neil McCluskey at Cato has […]
You have no right to privacy in public places, and police can observe you to gather evidence without a warrant. But having a detective tail you everywhere you go is expensive. So why not automate the process by hiding a compact GPS tag to monitor your location? The system can […]
I’ve been busy in the wake of Q-Track’s FLARE testing, so it’s about time to flush my queue of collected links. Without further ado, here are some links that may not merit a full post by themselves, but are still worth attention: A must read piece on America’s Ruling Class […]