I am reminded of the troubles my parents experienced with their phone service when I was a kid. We lived out in the country, and every time it rained the lines would pick up horrific static. It was too much to have a voice conversation, let alone support the (slow) dial up Internet we used.
A multitude of technicians came out and apologetically said there was a problem somewhere in a line, but they couldn’t get approval to really dig in because there just weren’t enough complaints - they theorized there was just one broken line somewhere in a bundle that water would seep in to, and we drew the short straw.
Finally, one technician very quietly suggested that my parents go to the phonebook and call the state public utilities regulation commission. I still remember that their number was found on the one blue page in the telephone book.
Within a few business days, there were half a dozen lineman out stringing new lines, and a supervisor apologizing to my parents, promising the issue would be fixed that day, and giving his direct line to them with the instructions to call if they ever had phone trouble again.
My dad generally distrusts the government, but still marvels at that response to this day.
Yes - they are remarkably consistent in following the sun. Most automated doors wait until well past dusk, after which all the birds are up.
> Do the predators never attack during the day?
Raccoons and hawks are the predators I have had to worry about the most. Of them, raccoons are primarily nocturnal, and hawks are best dealt with by having plenty of covered spaces in your run and a rooster to watch the skies.
> I see little reason that buying, for example, a video game online needs my billing information more than walking into a store and buying it there, possibly with the same card.
In your latter example, a nexus clearly exists between the business selling you a video game and the state, so sales tax collection is patently obvious.
When you buy online, they have to ask - it’s the only way to figure out the proper jurisdiction.
It fights the development of cliques and forces people to focus on the message, not the messenger. And it sharpens your own need to make a good point, rather than posting as $KNOWN_USER and waiting for the clicks.
I've done this roughly every ~1-2 years or so since I joined about a decade ago, so my ~8-9k of aggregated karma is spread across multiple accounts.
On that topic, it's about time to rotate to a new one. Catch you all on the other side ;)
The good news is that I think no one human is at risk of such an attack. The way I’d frame it: if you assume the NSA can break AES-256 in reasonable timeframes, or the CIA runs every single Tor node, that knowledge gets compartmentalized to such a degree that next to nobody knows, and attacks would only be used at the highest levels against the most significant state level threats. Hell, I wager they wouldn’t even risk parallel construction for fear that it’d tip their hand.
I disagree. I thought the article's title was misleading. It was Justice Thomas's name that uncovered the bug, if anything. Justice Thomas himself had nothing to do with it other than his name.
He caused the bug to be exposed to another, he did not discover it, as he did not know there was a bug or that he had any sort of relation with it.
He was part of a phenomenon, someone else was the observer and discoverer of the phenomenon.
The lab rat did not discover rna.
However, the title says "uncovered" not discovered, and as someone else pointed out you could parse the title as referring merely to the text string and not the person.
Those 2 things do kinda make it at least arguable. I think this title would make it through court on a technicality!
> Popehat notes that this kind of reporting often oversells the likely sentence
This isn't reporting and it doesn't even purport to characterize the likely sentence except by saying “Actual sentences for federal crimes are typically less than the maximum penalties.”
> Several weeks ago, an EFF supporter brought her car to a mechanic, and found a mysterious device wired into her car under her driver's seat
If I saw this device under my seat I'd assume it was part of some electronic system and never touch it. The only thing that I'd see that would make me go "huh" would be CDMA – and even then I would probably assume it was part of my car's infotainment system like my old Saab's OnStar that used a Verizon 2G CDMA network that died before I purchased the car.
I have a pretty good mechanic as well, and unless I was complaining about a jammed seat adjustment, he wouldn't be down there to see. I wonder if he'd even be able to eyeball it as suspicious as he's an independent; who knows what kinds of things get hooked up below seats.
Assuming this part isn't narrative, kudos to those who found it. Now where should I go look?
I see three possibilities, from most to least likely: (a) completely fabricated by the subject of the story (perhaps because they are sincerely convinced they are being followed by someone and are seeking to furnish "proof"); (b) it's anti-theft; (c)(super super super unlikely) its a personal matter.
Humans notoriously overestimate their competence and underestimate dangers they face. Combine that with a federal investigation that's going to be slow because 1) it's complex and 2) the feds will happily investigate you for years if it increases their chance of a conviction, and you've got a recipe for people who think they got away with it right up until the moment of arrest.
Yea, listening to enough stories on Darknet Diaries about how people get caught it’s pretty crazy. Honestly makes working in the groups that catch people like this sound very interesting.
I think it's more underestimating the attention span of governments/law enforcement.
When someone steals your bike, the cops could spend weeks investigating, interviewing witnesses, searching Craiglist, Facebook Marketplace, staking out the neighborhood for anyone riding the stolen bike, etc.
But they don't, because it's a bike. But steal $3.6 billion, you'll hold their attention for a bit!
Ask me how many medical practices connect every day via IE on Windows 8.