Border patrol to randomly search/seize iPods, laptops

Submitted by Mark on August 4, 2008 - 4:25pm.

The new policy allows random warrantless search and seizures at the border.  Under ACTA, border patrol agents will be able to seize peoples’ laptops, iPods, and other electronics which they suspect contain illegally-obtained media.  If the border patrol thinks they've found such media on the devices, they are authorized to destroy them at their discretion...

Recently released information reveals that the Department of Homeland Security has been granted the power to without any suspicion of wrongdoing seize travelers’ "device(s) capable of storing information in digital or analog form," including “hard drives, flash drives, cell phones, iPods, pagers, beepers, and video and audio tapes" as well as "all papers and other written documentation."  After seizure, the materials may be taken off site.  The contents of the laptops can then be shared with other agencies and/or private entities for language translation, data decryption or other reasons.

(Via: DailyTech) 

What an awful idea.

  1. In terms of "illegally-obtained media"...how would you be able to tell the difference between a person who has ripped a movie from a DVD they own to their iPod, and someone who has downloaded it off of BitTorrent? Short of the filename itself (which can be easily changed), there'd be no way to tell. Same thing with audio files.

  2. People who want to hide things on their computer are going to be able to hide things on their computer. This is not going to stop criminals who know what they're doing. Modern utilities, when configured properly, can encrypt data in such a way that it is virtually irreversible. Furthermore, they can offer deniable encryption, where if a border officer orders someone to enter the decryption key, they can enter a false key that will show a phoney set of documents, while the real documents remain hidden. And plus, if anyone wants to get something across the border, they could simply send it over the internet as an encrypted file, or through TOR or a VPN, or as a steganographic message, etc. This isn't even a deterrance for people who know what they're doing.
  3. This infringes on organizations and individuals who have a legitimate need to keep files hidden....trade secrets, financial data, corporate records, etc. Lets say some random border officer gains information about a company through one of these searches that would give him an advantage on the stock market. Or sells proprietary data to one of the company's competetors. This kind of search opens up some pretty awful possibilities for the infringement of legitimate data.
  4. For U.S. citizens, this type of search is essentially unconstitutional. Analysis of an individual's electronic device (at the level where it would be necessary to determine whether or not it contained any "offending" information) is not by any means, a "routine" search, and therefore cannot be conducted at random. "Routine" searches of luggage, briefcases, pockets, etc. are permitted at random, but the time it takes to conduct these searches is minimal, and they do not carry the same risk of data loss/theft that a search of an electronic device has. A briefcase can be searched in a few seconds, with the individual present. A hard drive or other removable media would need to be connected to a border agent's computer, and if that is done at random to the Average Joe crossing the border, that opens the door to simply too much potential for abuse. Now, if they have reason to believe that they are dealing with a terrorist, drug dealer or a child pornographer, then fine. You have cause for a non-random search. Go ahead and catch those sick bastards. But searching people's electronics randomly as they cross the border hoping to find something is a waste of both time and resources.
  5. Is the U.S. government really going to be able to have people at the border who know how to work a computer, let alone be familiar with the intricacies of data encryption? I think not.

The whole plan sounds fishy to me. How about using those border patrol agents to find bombs or curb illegal immigration, not wasting time snooping around on people's iPod's looking for pirated music. Since when did trade cartels have such a strangle-hold on government policy? Oh wait.

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Mission Accomplished?

Submitted by Mark on June 30, 2008 - 12:20pm.

Today at work, the power went out for a few hours. With nothing else to do, I look in the IT Office drawer and open up a copy of the Notre Dame Prep 2003 Yearbook.

I turned to that page at the beginning that summarizes the past year. I couldn't help but chuckle when I read the following quote. And yet, it was one of those chuckles that sorta trails off, as the actual gravity of the situation sinks in...

In the fall of 2002/3 school year, the threat of war was in the air. In late fall President George W. Bush announced his decision to send troops to Iraq in search of Saddam Hussein's chemical and biological weapons. U.S. troops entered Iraq in March of 2003 and the war was over in a matter of a few weeks with, thankfully, few American casualties and no proof of Iraqi chemical weapons found.

Interesting how people saw the war then. You gotta remember, George W. Bush had around an 80% approval rating when he initiated the Iraq War. Nearly everyone I knew at the time seemed to be for it. I know I was for it. Heck, even Senators Clinton, Edwards and Kerry voted for it. (In fact, 58% of Democratic Senators voted for the war.) They don't like to admit that now, of course. It's so much easier to point fingers then to try and actually fix things.

We all thought it was just going to be an "in and out" kind of war. Whatever that means. I don't know what it was...I guess we were just mad about September 11th and wanted to take it out on anyone possibly connected with it.

Five years, and 4113 US Casualties later, and we're still there. I guess it just goes to show: "Hindsight is always 20:20." Hopefully the surge will work and we can exit safely in a year or two. Hopefully.

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How to share a LaserWriter 300 with OS X

Submitted by Mark on June 28, 2008 - 10:47pm.

So I have an old Apple Personal LaserWriter 300 from about 14 years ago. It is in surprisingly good condition, works like a champ, and I have about 5 extra toner cartridges for it. Awesome.

So I went to Google to see what I needed to do to make it accessible as a network printer. Here's the snag: it only supports QuickDraw. Which meant that it would only work on an OS 9 computer, and could only be shared to OS 9 computers. Damn.

So I thought about it for a bit, and came up with a way to make it work. (It's kinda clunky, but my method works.)

1. Get an old OS 9 machine and set up your LaserWriter normally. (In my case, I used an old PowerMac 7600.)

2. Give it a static IP address and turn on Apple File Sharing over TCP/IP.

3. Create two folders on the desktop. One called "Print Drop Box" and one called "Completed". Open sharing and give the drop box guest access.

4. Download and install James Davis' AutoType / AutoClick plugins for AppleScript. 

5. Make the following AppleScript and name it "Print". (Note that the AutoClick command I have listed here assumes that you are running with a resolution of 1024x768 on the server computer. If your resolution is different, you may have to play around with the click coordinates.)

on adding folder items to this_folder after receiving added_items
	repeat with this_item in added_items
		tell application "Finder"
			set name of this_item to (time of (current date) as string) 
& "-" & name of this_item
			open this_item
			AutoType "p" holding "command"
			AutoClick {730, 50}
			AutoType "w" holding "command"
			move this_item to folder "Completed"
			beep
		end tell
	end repeat
end adding folder items to

6. Add the "Print" script as a Folder Action on the "Print Drop Box" folder.

7. Download Adobe Acrobat Reader 4.0 for OS 9 and install it. (Don't worry about using a copy from 1999. It's worked flawlessly with everything I've thrown at it. Plus, it's only 4.9MB and loads in two seconds. Which is better than I can say for Adobe's current version of Reader.)

8. Mount the drop box on your OS X machine via "Go > Connect to Server" by typing in "afp://192.168.0.11" (or whatever IP you gave it) and selecting "Guest"

9. When you go to print on your OS X machine, select "Save to PDF" and throw it into the "Print Drop Box". The file will print and be moved to the "Completed" folder when it's done!

And there you have it. You now have a server that will accept PDF files and send them off to your QuickDraw-only printer. Great way to make use of an old, previously unsharable printer. I've put the machine in my closet, made it headless and installed OS9VNC for remote administration. Works beautifully.

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Ron Paul hates Tibet

Submitted by Mark on April 9, 2008 - 6:56pm.

So as you may have read here previously, I've never been the biggest Ron Paul fan.

The man wants to get rid of NASA, let people own fully-automatic assault weapons, decriminalize illegal drugs, withdraw from the United Nations, and return to the "gold standard" for our monetary system (when we don't have enough gold on the planet to cover even half of the money we currently have in circulation in the U.S.). And his answer to everything else is "uh....let the free market work itself out!"

In short, he is an anarchist, an isolationist and a nutcase. But I really didn't know he was this bad...
 

The U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed a resolution Wednesday calling on China to end its crackdown on Tibet and release Tibetans imprisoned for "nonviolent" demonstrations.

The vote was 413-1.

Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, who recently dropped out of the presidential race, was the lone congressman voting against it.

(http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/04/09/house.olympics/)

Shame on you, sir.

I am now convinced that this man, if elected, would have made the worst president of all time.

Maybe even including our current one.

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