I expected this result: George Zimmerman was found not guilty of the murder of Trayvon Martin.
This is America. He was in a state that allowed a vigilante to carry a gun, and to use it if he felt the least bit threatened. The victim was a black man in a hoodie. I would have been floored if they’d convicted him.
How about if people work to put laws in place that make it illegal to hunt black men?
It’s always sad to see science perverted to serve hatred, and here’s an awful example: two KKK members have been arrested in a plot to kill Muslims en masse.
A plot to design a radiation weapon that could fit in a small van and be used to silently kill humans was unraveled by an FBI task force that charged two men — a General Electric Co. industrial mechanic from Saratoga County and a computer software expert from Columbia County -— with conspiring to sell the weapon to Jewish groups or a southern branch of the Ku Klux Klan.
A federal complaint unsealed Wednesday in Albany said the vehicle-mounted radiation gear was intended to be remotely controlled and capable of aiming a high-energy lethal beam of radioactivity at human targets. The concept was that victims would mysteriously die from radiation poisoning within days.
The FBI on Tuesday arrested Glendon Scott Crawford, 49, of Providence, Saratoga County, and Eric J. Feight, 54, of Stockport, who are accused of developing "a radiation emitting device that could be placed in the back of a van to covertly emit ionizing radiation strong enough to bring about radiation sickness or death against Crawford’s enemies," according to an FBI agent’s sworn complaint.
I’m glad that they were caught. It would be small consolation if they’d succeeded, and managed to poison themselves during their development efforts.
Never give money to any organization unless you’ve investigated it first. The Tampa Bay Times did a lot of investigating for you, and compiled a list of the 50 worst — it seems a shame that we don’t have a law that sets a threshhold for the ratio of money spent on salaries to money disbursed for the actual cause — below this number, you’re a legitimate charity, above that number, you’re a grifting operation preying on the generosity of the public.
They probably can’t do that, though, because then every priest would get labeled as a con man.
The worst are the cancer charities, and the article singles out the Reynolds family and their nepotistic mill for turning dying people into salaries. Cancer is so easy for these crooks: everyone hates it, there’s no plus side to the disease, and there’s a wealth of tragic heart-string-tugging tales to be mined from it. And you can’t tell from the names what they’re doing! “Breast Cancer Society,” for instance…how can you refuse to support that? “Children’s Cancer Fund of America” — OMG, children with cancer? Here’s $50. And then the members of the family doing the bilking make 6 figure salaries for shipping boxes of surplus junk to cancer patients.
It reinforces my opinion that most people are good, but that there are always parasites who know what buttons to push to exploit them.
Georgia Weidman attended an Infosec conference in Poland and was sexually assaulted. It’s a very strange story, not because there’s any ambiguity — she was simply attacked by an acquaintance, and fought him off — but because she lets us in to all the tangled confusion going on in her head about this attack. It’s not just a physical event, dealt with and done, but a threat to her role in the community.
First, she builds up to the story with a lot of concern about “grey areas”. These “grey areas” are pretty damn sad in themselves, and I think it’s a symptom of her efforts to understand what happened to her that she’s discussing all this. The attempted rape wasn’t grey at all.
The third grey area for me is what constitutes rape. A lot of my fears in writing this post stem back to this post from Norin Shirley about being attacked at a conference. Reading the comments makes my stomach turn, knowing that the same thing is about to happen to me. “She’s a slut,” or “she’s making it up for attention,” sort of things. It makes me feel bad and like an anti-feminist to say this, but some guy putting his hands down my pants when I don’t want him to, while I certainly don’t condone it, sounds a bit more like life than rape. It’s just a sad fact. If you are female from time to time you will be touched without permission. Not too many years ago marital rape didn’t legally exist, and in the middle ages knights at arms were encouraged to practice chaste courtly love with the queen while gallivanting around the country forcing their lust on peasant girls. Sometimes it just sucks to be female you know. Then again sometimes it sucks to be male too. False rape accusations do happen. If I was a guy, I think I might be afraid of that. Luckily Norin Shirley was able to get away before her attack escalated, as was I.
I’ll skip over the actual account of her attack. It’s the usual sordid nastiness by an abusive guy, with the good news that smacking someone really hard in the temple with a coffee cup will terminate their arousal. But then there’s the aftermath. She calls the hotel staff, the conference organizers, works her way up to the Polish policy and the US embassy, and then…all the second guessing begins.
Conference staff was originally very supportive. But then they went to hear his side of the story and they suddenly wouldn’t even look at me. I realize it’s a complicated situation, but what I hit myself in the eye? I asked an organizer point blank if he believed me, and he said he didn’t know. I don’t know what the guy’s story is, but from the police and the conference’s refusal to act, I assume it’s pretty convincing. Hotel staff pulled the security tapes. Someone I thought was a friend of mine watched them with hotel staff. The general jist I got from the interaction was because I was on the tape letting him into my room, walking in the hallway with him, etc. I must be lying. Where in any of that did I consent to unprotected sex, being hit, etc?
The interesting stuff is the reactions. The people who say things like, “This isn’t what I think of course, but I bet a lot of people don’t believe you because you flirt on Twitter,” or “Everyone saw you kiss so and so at this party, so of course no one believes you didn’t want to have sex with that guy.” The implication is I think a bit disturbing. If I pursue a relationship with one guy, I have now consented to sex with any guy? I realize the typical argument is that a girl wearing a short skirt is asking to be attacked. But this seems to go a little further than that even. Because I from time to time express myself in a provocative manner, there was no attack at all. I have consented to any sexual thing any human being wants to do to me ever. Of course reasonable people should see that this is complete nonsense. “I watched the security footage. You let him in your room. How can I believe your story?” I never said I didn’t let him in. While in hindsight this was ultimately a bad move, the real irony is the author of the quote above invited me to hang out in his room alone at an event a couple months ago and have a few drinks. I accepted and we hung out and had a great time, alone. At no point did I feel threatened. The number of times I have hung out alone with another conference speaker are too many to count. I just want to be one of the guys you know. I want to be invited into your exclusive little groups of infosec rockstardom. I want to be good enough to be friends with you guys. I want to be invited to be on panels. I want to coauthor some research. Good luck having any of that ever happen for me if I have to hide in my room alone.
She was the victim, and what’s her concern? That she won’t be able to express herself sexually. That she will be locked out of the professional interactions needed to advance her career. We’ve seen that over and over, haven’t we? If a woman flirts at any time at all, it will be thrown in her face repeatedly if ever she tries to set boundaries. If she dares to protest casual sexism, she is going too far and must be silenced, or kicked out of the community.
That’s what I took out of Weidman’s story. The attempted rape was terrifying, but she was strong (but why does she have to be strong?) and handled that well. It’s the repercussions that bounce back and slam women over and over and over again afterwards that are really chilling. I’ve known people who were robbed, and no one afterwards questions their competence or the appropriateness of their activities at a conference; no one blames the victim. Why is rape different?
And she lost friends and reputation over something that was not her fault.
So do what you want to do infosec. Say that Georgia is a big whore and got what she deserved. Say that it wouldn’t happen to any other girl in infosec because no one else would be stupid enough to let a guy in her room. Say I’m making it up to further my feminist agenda and I’m secretly in league with Ada Initiative. Believe me, you aren’t going to say anything I haven’t heard already, and from people I thought were my friends. Do your worst. You can’t hurt me anymore than you already have. The people who were kind to me will forever have my thanks. Some of you really saved me that night. Some of you really saved me in the days after when I was alone in a foreign country and no one wanted anything to do with me. And some of you have hurt me. Some of you have failed to be there for me when I thought we were friends. Things like this have a way of clearing that up.
This is the last thing I have to say about all this. My duty is done. I don’t want to be the poster girl for infosec feminism. I want to be a researcher, and a trainer, and a speaker, and an icon. There’s a bad guy out there who has no remorse. I have reason to believe he was behaved badly towards women before at conferences and will do it again. The Polish legal system, while they have a report refused to take any action on the grounds that I had no proof, I had been drinking, etc. The US Consulate in Poland also has a record of it. But that’s it; it’s over and done with. I gave a talk the next day, I taught a class the next week. You aren’t going to get rid of me that easily, and I’m not going to stop expressing myself because someone can’t behave. If I want to show you my “I Love Joe McCray” sharpie tattoo on stage, I’m going to do it. If I want to say something silly on Twitter that could be construed as sexual I’m going to say it. The last thing I’m going to do is stop being myself because of this. Then he wins. And he didn’t win. People have offered to beat him up for me. I already did that. I’m not asking anybody to do anything for me, I’m asking you to do something for the next girl. This guy is dangerous. I was lucky. She might not be.
Is her attempted rapist now wrestling with his conscience and wondering whether he’ll be able to interact appropriately with his professional peers now? I doubt it. That anguish is left to his victims. He apparently has no worries that his fellow security consultants might reject him for his behavior…and he’s a goddamned rapist.
Greg Laden alerted me to a surprising message that I then found in my spam mail: Amazon has unilaterally terminated their contract with associates in Minnesota. They have a program called Amazon Associates which bloggers could take advantage of: we registered with Amazon, they gave us a little personal code to imbed in links to books, and in return for promoting Amazon with our linkage we got a little gift certificate every month, a small percentage of the profit. It wasn’t a lot of money, but it was a handy revenue trickle. For instance, I cashed out a couple of months worth of certificates from them and the money is being used to buy all the widgets (many of them through Amazon!) for the laboratory fish facility we’re building here.
So when you click through a book link here and it took you to Amazon, and you bought something, you were actually contributing a few pennies to undergraduate research at the University of Minnesota Morris.
But no more. Here’s the letter I got.
We are writing from the Amazon Associates Program to notify you that your Associates account will be closed and your Amazon Services LLC Associates Program Operating Agreement will be terminated effective June 30, 2013. This is a direct result of the unconstitutional Minnesota state tax collection legislation passed by the state legislature and signed by Governor Dayton on May 23, 2013, with an effective date of July 1, 2013. As a result, we will no longer pay any advertising fees for customers referred to an Amazon Site after June 30 nor will we accept new applications for the Associates Program from Minnesota residents.
Please be assured that all qualifying advertising fees earned prior to July 1, 2013, will be processed and paid in full in accordance with your regular advertising fee schedule. Based on your account closure date of June 30, 2013, any final payments will be paid by August 30, 2013.
While we oppose this unconstitutional state legislation, we strongly support the federal Marketplace Fairness Act now pending before Congress. Congressional legislation is the only way to create a simplified, constitutional framework to resolve interstate sales tax issues and it would allow us to re-open our Associates program to Minnesota residents.
We thank you for being part of the Amazon Associates Program, and look forward to re-opening our program when Congress passes the Marketplace Fairness Act.
Sincerely,
The Amazon Associates Team
So…all the Amazon links scattered throughout my site will still be contributing to Amazon’s revenue stream, but I no longer get any reward for them. That’s fai…wait, no, that’s totally unfair. Is this the kind of treatment we can all expect when the New World Order of Amazon achieves complete domination of the planet? That’s worrisome.
Hey, legal people: if I were instead to have my daughter, who lives out of state, set up Amazon Associate status, and then replace the code in my links to redirect income to her, would that be reasonable? I have no interest in evading state taxes and would happily pay those, but I would be interested in evading Amazon’s punitive behavior.
Then do not read this story about grief and loss. If you don’t have kids, but you have a heart, don’t read it either.
OK, that covers most people. Republicans and members of the NRA, you can go ahead.
In Syria, you aren’t free to argue in even the mildest terms about gods.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the boy had been arguing with someone about the existence of God, and was heard to say: "Even if the Prophet Mohammad returns, I will not become a believer."
But other sources suggested that the comment was misheard, and that the boy was actually arguing with another customer over giving him a free coffee, saying "Even if the Prophet returns, I will not give you a free coffee."
Qataa was reportedly abducted and tortured for 24 hours, before being dragged into the middle of a crowded street and executed in front of his mother.
It was quite explicit that he was murdered for atheism.
The Observatory said in a statement: “People gathered around him and a member of the fighting brigade said: ‘Generous citizens of Aleppo, disbelieving in God is polytheism and cursing the prophet is a polytheism. Whoever curses even once will be punished like this’.
“He then fired two bullets from an automatic rifle in view of the crowd and in front of the boy’s mother and father, and got into a car and left.”
I curse that cowardly gunman’s god a thousand times, and I won’t give him any free coffee, either.
Mohammad Qataa was 15 years old, and killed for being smarter than a pious thug.
How many more stupid tragedies will it take?
Authorities in northern Arizona say a 4-year-old boy has accidentally shot and killed his father at a Prescott Valley home.
Prescott Valley police say the shooting occurred just after noon Friday.
The 35-year-old man and his young son were visiting from Phoenix and were at a friend’s house.
Police say the boy somehow found a gun in the home’s living room and accidentally fired it and a bullet hit his father, who was rushed to a hospital where he died.
“Somehow” found a loaded gun lying about in the living room, in a place where a child can find it. “Somehow”. Maybe the gun fairy dropped it there, or perhaps Jesus miraculously poofed it into place.
Is the “friend” facing criminal negligence charges? Or is this just part of the freedom of owning guns?
The hacker who exposed the rot in the Steubenville rape case has been arrested by the FBI and faces serious jail time.
At first, he thought the FBI agent at the door was with FedEx. "As I open the door to greet the driver, approximately 12 FBI SWAT team agents jumped out of the truck, screaming for me to "Get the fuck down!" with M-16 assault rifles and full riot gear, armed, safety off, pointed directly at my head," http://www.projectknightsec.com/Lostutter wrote today on his blog. "I was handcuffed and detained outside while they cleared my house."
He believes that the FBI investigation was motivated by local officials in Steubenville. "They want to make an example of me, saying, ‘You don’t fucking come after us. Don’t question us."
If convicted of hacking-related crimes, Lostutter could face up to 10 years behind bars—far more than the one- and two-year sentences doled out to the Steubenville rapists. Defending himself could end up costing a fortune—he’s soliciting donations here. Still, he thinks getting involved was worth it. "I’d do it again," he says.
Rape a girl, get a sympathetic press and a light jail sentence in the juvenile system. Expose the rape of a girl, get a decade of prison time. Anyone else find this a little bit out of balance?
To compound the hypocrisy, Lostutter is being criminalized for cracking open supposedly private data. At the same time, it has been announced that the Obama administration has authorized the NSA to snoop on private email, chats, file storage—everything we put on the net. If the data has already been compromised to hell and gone by our own government, how can our government make a case against Lostutter? Can we expect a SWAT team to nab Barack Obama now?
Nigeria has just passed a vicious anti-gay bill. It not only forbids gay marriage, it criminalizes organizing or lobbying to allow gay marriage, helping gays marry, having a gay club, and public demonstrations of affection by couples in public.
Lawmakers in Nigeria passed a bill Thursday banning gay marriage and outlawing anyone from forming organizations supporting gay rights, setting prison terms of up to 14 years for offenders.
…
Nigeria’s Senate previously passed the bill in November 2011 and the measure quietly disappeared for some time before coming up in Thursday’s session of the House. Under previous versions of the proposed law, couples who marry could face up to 14 years each in prison. Witnesses or anyone who helps couples marry could be sentenced to 10 years behind bars.
Other additions to the bill include making it illegal to register gay clubs or organizations, as well as criminalizing the "public show of same-sex amorous relationships directly or indirectly." Those who violate those laws would face 10-year imprisonment as well.
I helped gay couples marry by voting in the last state election; I guess that makes me a criminal by Nigerian law, liable to a ten year prison sentence.
Which brings me to a tiny bit of happy news, at least: as of next Thursday, gay residents of the Twin Cities will be able to purchase marriage licenses. Maybe we should invite unhappy Nigerians to move here? Do it quick before your government decides to criminalize visiting more liberal countries!
