Tuesday links
Tuesday, November 20th, 2012- Over at The Price of Liberty, Mama Liberty has the first passages of what looks to become a new novel. And it all started with the comment section here at Living Freedom.
- So. Where’s the real “war on women”? This one could actually be killing some — and all in the name of progress and humanity. (H/T O)
- “How to send anonymous email without getting caught.” (Thanks to JG for the best article yet on this month’s hot privacy topic.)
- Alleged “private” enterprise is once again poised to help the fedgov become more obtrusive.
- Cannabis reform marches on. Whatever Mordor does (or doesn’t) do about the recent legalizations, the governments of Washington state and Colorado look more and more serious about making their reforms a reality.
- Convert any car on the road to a fuel-saving hybrid?
- Politics as it should be.
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November 20th, 2012
Regarding email security; Here is a good read from Bruce Schneier.
E-Mail Security in the Wake of Petraeus
https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2012/11/e-mail_security.html
November 20th, 2012
Thanks, Woody. That’s indeed a good, comprehensive article. I hope everybody takes the time to read it and follow it’s links. I also got that one yesterday from the same person who sent the LiveScience link, but I didn’t get to it. Now I am.
November 20th, 2012
I did forget to mention that inspiration for that story came from comments here. I need to go edit to add that! :)
November 20th, 2012
MamaLiberty — You don’t need to mention that! It’s not like anybody gave you anything; the inspiration was all yours.
November 20th, 2012
Bolt on pancake motors-a side benefit is that if the gas engine conks out, you still might be able to get home.
November 20th, 2012
Y’know, on the email security front, I’d confuse things further by using Tor over a VPN with somebody who offers “anonymous” VPN to a lot of people. That way it muddies the water further, ’cause it’s not immediately obvious that your Tor traffic (which is easily recognized as such) is the relevant Tor traffic…and in fact it may successfully obscure your use of Tor entirely. After all, just date/time info from the email might be enough to implicate you. It’d be helpful to have VPN traffic for apparently legitimate reasons happening all the time, too.
Just in case someone did investigate at me specifically, I’d encrypt my hard drive, probably using something like TrueCrypt for Windows machines, and I might even consider setting up a “deniable” secure partition w/in the main TrueCrypt partition. Just in case I get a threat that makes me decide giving out my password is a good idea.
Further, I’d do all my relevant Tor browsing from within a virtual machine, just in case somebody hacks my machine by attacking its IP (starting from my VPN provider, perhaps, or a malicious Tor node, or a lucky accident).
At that point, with reasonable caution, I’d think the email I send would be difficult to identify as mine. And I may be missing something, too. In a truly paranoid scenario I’d buy a fresh laptop for cash & toss it afterward. If the email is truly explosive in nature and a whole lot of resources will be thrown at an investigation, a couple of hundred bucks might be a good investment. It’d also be good to download Tor & other tools from a public wi-fi access point, and be sure nobody knows you’re there.
YMMV. {8′>
November 20th, 2012
I know two men who died in Canada’s health care system. The entire system is set up to drag its feet hoping the problem is “resolved” before they have to spend money.
And By God, as a damaged man in constant need of caregivers, I salute Mr Gilman.
November 20th, 2012
I wasn’t far from dying in the US health care system, because ER docs pretty much operate off a checklist. If they vary from it, they’re potentially liable for a lawsuit. So they don’t.
If you don’t have one of the top 15 or so problems they deal with on a daily basis? You’re out of luck.
They saw high liver enzymes. They didn’t believe anything I told them abt how my symptoms had all started a few days before. So they tossed me out of the ER on the grounds that they didn’t treat symptoms of alcoholism at that hospital…I hadn’t had a drink in a couple of months & have never been even vaguely alcoholic (weird, with my mostly-Irish genes, but I don’t have the gift for it).
So I couldn’t walk or stand, and at one point they called the police b/c I was lying down in the ER waiting room without permission…where I’d fallen out of my chair.
Turned out it was spinal cord damage, and I’m very sensitive to aspartame, and these things may have even been related. All the associated drama, with lots of drugs prescribed for conditions I didn’t have, went on for months. Which I spent almost entirely in bed. Fortunately, when I finally figured out what was going on, I mostly recovered. Absolutely nothing the health-care guys did was helpful in any way. Except an MRI of my cervical spine, I guess. Months later.
Supposedly it would have been better if I’d had a “primary care physician” on tap. But I hadn’t been sick enough to see a doctor in twenty years, and I run my own business, so…why would I?
Result: I don’t plan to let any medical “professional” so much as take my blood pressure, ever again. It’s safer that way.
November 20th, 2012
I didn’t say this part: If I’d actually followed medical advice? I probably would have died. On top of that, these guys “snuck” drugs into my IV that my chart clearly said I should not be given b/c of bad reactions in the past…in the same hospital. In fact in the same week. But my reactions were weird and not “allergic” in nature, so apparently they didn’t count for some of the doctors. They also decided I had heart trouble (no evidence for this) and prescribed Lipitor (not a good idea with high liver enzymes of unknown cause). And decided eventually it was all just anxiety with no physical issues. So I found a neurologist…thus the MRI, which was the first clue. And lots of other stuff happened. Try weaning yourself off Prilosec sometime…takes months to quit hurting, if your stomach overproduces acid when you quit taking it. Which is common, and is why that drug makes billions.
If you’ve got what they call transverse spinal myelitis? All sorts of drugs may have weird effects. I got better, very slowly, after I started drinking only bottled water & avoiding all drugs.
Thing is? If I’d had no access to a doctor or a hospital? I’d have been better sooner.
Okay. I’m done now.
November 20th, 2012
The ER situation in the U.S. is already getting interesting. Our small-town-hospital ER regularly sees “emergency” patients who have driven from San Antonio (one hour away) and Austin (two hours away) because they figure they’ll get seen faster. And no, they can’t be turned away.
So we have “hall beds” for patients not scarylooking enough to put in a room.
But the Affordable Care Act will fix all that. It isn’t like Canada or England’s system at all. Except in a good way. And women will have all the choices they were denied under their employer plans. And free stuff.
November 20th, 2012
I’m wondering whether CO and WA’s enforcers, from door-kickers to DA’s, won’t sabotage the whole legalization thing. Either by continuing to arrest and prosecute weed buyers and sellers, or by ginning up other offenses to nail them with.
And don’t bother saying the magic word, “jury.” The system is already massively loaded toward forcing the accused to plead out to something – from federal sentencing guidelines that punish the accused for trying to mount a defense, to piling on ridiculous numbers of charges, to the fact that most people already can’t afford to defend themselves against a single charge of any gravity. Fewer and fewer cases are ever seeing juries. That’s a trend that will continue so long as government does.
November 20th, 2012
Victor — I’d be the last to say that police & persecutors couldn’t screw things up. But early indications are that a lot of them are going to be glad to get rid of small cannabis possession cases.
Even better: In Washington, for instance, it’s already been pretty well stated — and this is BIG — that police will no longer be able to pull the “I smelled marijuana” trick because the aroma alone, even in those rare cases where it’s real, won’t be enough to determine whether the amount being carried is legal or illegal.
I’m hopeful.
Now the feds, OTOH …