This is a repost of something I wrote a long time ago:

Filtering creates four problems.

First, it requires building an infrastructure that can be used for the censorship of any content. A different government elected to power could quickly react to a "crisis" situation by blocking access to international news sources. They could literally move from decision to implementation in hours. So the infrastructure represents a significant threat to liberty regardless of how it is being used today.

Second, it is usually overbroad in practice. The system in the UK seems very carefully maintained and so it is the exception to the rule. But even they ran into a problem where they literally blocked anonymous editing of Wikipedia for the entire country. Typically these lists are not well maintained and sites end up being listed that should not be listed. In most cases these lists end up containing sites that are blocked for politically motivated reasons.

Third, there is a lot of different kinds of content that western governments deem illegal. Gambling, information about narcotics, "hacking tools," torrent lists, etc. Once the system exists there will be political demands to expand its application and there is no clear limit to what might be filtered. Once the list begins to expand the risk of accidental or politically motivated blocks increases.

Fourth, to filter is to surveil. You can't block peoples web traffic without inspecting it. When it comes to something like child porn you'd be remiss if you didn't investigate hits on your filters. So these filtering systems constitute a defacto surveillance system. At least in America you'd have to square that with the principal that you don't spy on people without probable cause, and other countries claim to uphold similar values. I think in the US they'd argue out of this corner using the rationale applied in Illinois v. Caballes - that you've no expectation of privacy in regard to evidence of your guilt, but I don't personally agree with the conclusions of that case - I think it opens pandora's box for surveillance technology.

Child porn is bad, the police ought to go after it, but that doesn't mean that and any and all approaches are equally reasonable. A total internet censorship infrastructure is a step too far in my view. I think the threat that it represents to liberty outweighs its usefulness as a law enforcement tool.

Why I don't think mandatory ISP Content Filtering is a good idea.

Representing for East Oakland, Calif., at this year's Maker Faire Bay Area (May 22nd and 23rd at the San Mateo Fairgrounds), is the Original Scraper Bike Team.

Update on Scaper Bikes.

Make: Online : Maker Faire: Original Scraper Bikes

I bet she will grow up to be a huge bitch.

YouTube - TLC Summer: Toddlers & Tiaras Sneak Peek

“Do your friends a favor. Tell them to “batten down the hatches” because there’s a HARD RAIN coming. Tell them to get out of debt and sell anything they can sell (and don’t need) in order to get liquid. Tell them that Richard Russell says that by the end of this year they won’t recognize the country.

Bears Come Roaring Forth | The Big Picture

For years I've been suggesting the possibility of a Prius virus - that spreads over bluetooth between Priuses when they pass eachother on the road. Finally a serious look at the issue.

You should expect that various entry points in the automotive environment are no more secure in the automotive environment than they are in your PC,” Mr. Savage said.

A couple key excerpts from the paper:

We created a “Self-Destruct” demo in which a 60-second count-down is displayed on the Driver
Information Center (the dash), accompanied by clicks at an increasing rate and horn honks in the last few seconds. In our demo, this sequence culminated with killing the engine and activating the door lock relay (preventing the occupant from using the electronic door unlock button). This demo, which we tested on both cars, required fewer than 200 lines of code added to CAR SHARK, most of them for timing the clicking and the count-down.

In our car we identified no fewer than five kinds of digital radio interfaces accepting outside input, some over only a short range and others over indefinite distance. While outside the scope of this paper, we wish to be clear that vulnerabilities in such services are not purely theoretical. We have developed the ability to remotely compromise key ECUs in our car via externally-facing vulnerabilities, amplify the impact of these remote compromises using the results in this paper, and ultimately monitor and control our car remotely over the Internet.

Cars’ Computer Systems Called at Risk to Hackers - NYTimes.com

Our main finding is that higher per capita GDP growth is significantly negatively linked to the support for extreme political positions. While estimates vary between specifications, we find that roughly a one percentage point decline in growth translates into a one percentage point higher vote share of right-wing or nationalist parties.

The global crisis and political extremism | vox - Research-based policy analysis and commentary from leading economists

The phrase began as a simple post on the local Nashville Predators-centric Section 303 blog.

I often get odd looks when I explain that the Nashville Predators are my favorite hockey team. This is why the Predators are awesome - their fans are awesome.

'We Are Nashville' blog unites city | tennessean.com | The Tennessean

I think I agree with this:

The evidence we have from Kagan’s life and works might not be abundant, but on the whole, it shows her to be a conventional Democrat who is comfortable with at least certain progressive uses of judicial power.

Certainly, handwringing about her potential support for unlimited executive power to detain terrorism suspects does not seem based on a balanced reading of her statements and actions in this area.

However, the following statement is somewhat troubling (if unsurprising):

...the regulatory efforts that will achieve the most, given settled law, will be the efforts that may appear, at first glance, to promise the least... They will be efforts taking advantage of the long-established unprotected category of obscenity... Such efforts will not eradicate all pornography or all hate speech from our society, but they can achieve much worth achieving. They, and other new solutions, ought to be debated and tested in a continuing and multi-faceted effort to enhance the rights of minorities and women, while also respecting core principles of the First Amendment.

The sort of regretful way that this passage seems to accept the barriers that the first amendment places upon the progressive agenda of limits on speech reveals that the writer is not an advocate of strong freedom of speech protections and welcomes new legislation which would attempt to creatively limit speech within the available boundaries. The author seems to have respect for some of the reasons for the established barriers, but the passage also suggests that the author would be open to interpretations which expand the scope of obsenity regulation within those barriers, for example. The result will, ultimately, not be good for those who don't think the government should regulate what people think. It is, however, completely consistent with mainstream liberal thinking regarding the first amendment, which is anything but libertarian, and has been heavily influenced by radical feminism and other fundamentally authoritarian approaches to achieving a more liberal society.

The liberal case against Kagan is overstated - Obama's Supreme Court Nominees | Supreme Court Justices - Salon.com

hi all

this is v0.1 of this post and in this post i’m going to have a review and brief history on exploitation with focus on windows .

this post will be done III part :

* part I : brief history of buffer overflow
* part II : history of windows exploitation from windows 2000 to windows 7
* part III : feature of exploitation

This is basically a link to every paper you need to read (and practice) if you want to become an expert on exploitation.

Past, Present, Future of Windows Exploitation | Abysssec Security Researches

There are relatively few jobs in our society anymore where one is free to say what one believes, regardless of how it affects others or other institutions.

Lawrence Lessig: A Case for Kagan