Category Archives: Technology

I’ve changed my mind on microstamped bullets

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After doing some thinking on the topic of microstamped bullets I’ve changed my opinion. I was vehemently opposed and couldn’t imagine this would catch on. I was wrong on both accounts. I now think it is a great idea and I think it will do exceptionally well and will be accepted by the majority of shooters.

What I realized was the company pushing this (see Sebastian’s post) was trying to use a government mandate instead of the free market. Which, of course, is nearly always a recipe for disaster. They will get much greater market acceptance with a free market approach.

I think that there are a lot of people that would pay another penny per bullet for something like “Mist Maker” engraved on their Speer TNT bullets. I’d pay an extra $0.02 per bullet so I could load up 9mm jacketed hollow points inscribed with “Please Don’t Rape” for the women in my life to carry. In my case even at an extra $0.05 per bullet I’d order 1000 Berger .308 caliber 210 Grain Match VLD’s engraved with Μολὼν λαβέ.

Cool!

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This article is very interesting for two reasons. The first is:

A group led by a Princeton University computer security researcher has developed a simple method to steal encrypted information stored on computer hard disks.

The technique, which could undermine security software protecting critical data on computers, is as easy as chilling a computer memory chip with a blast of frigid air from a can of dust remover. Encryption software is widely used by companies and government agencies, notably in portable computers that are especially susceptible to theft.

The development, which was described on the group’s Web site Thursday, could also have implications for the protection of encrypted personal data from prosecutors.

The move, which cannot be carried out remotely, exploits a little-known vulnerability of the dynamic random access, or DRAM, chip. Those chips temporarily hold data, including the keys to modern data-scrambling algorithms. When the computer’s electrical power is shut off, the data, including the keys, is supposed to disappear.

In a technical paper that was published Thursday on the Web site of Princeton’s Center for Information Technology Policy, the group demonstrated that standard memory chips actually retain their data for seconds or even minutes after power is cut off.

When the chips were chilled using an inexpensive can of air, the data was frozen in place, permitting the researchers to easily read the keys — long strings of ones and zeros — out of the chip’s memory.

“Cool the chips in liquid nitrogen (-196 °C) and they hold their state for hours at least, without any power,” Edward W. Felten, a Princeton computer scientist, wrote in a Web posting. “Just put the chips back into a machine and you can read out their contents.”

That’s cool enough, but this is just as cool:

The issue of protecting information with disk encryption technology became prominent recently in a criminal case involving a Canadian citizen who late in 2006 was stopped by United States customs agents who said they had found child pornography on his computer.

When the agents tried to examine the machine later, they discovered that the data was protected by encryption. The suspect has refused to divulge his password. A federal agent testified in court that the only way to determine the password otherwise would be with a password guessing program, which could take years.

A federal magistrate ruled recently that forcing the suspect to disclose the password would be unconstitutional.

Not that a child pornographer may be able to get away with his crime but that you can password protect your data and the government can’t force you to potentially incriminate yourself.

My opinion on microstamping

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In my previous posting on microstamping I tried to be as objective as possible. Now I want to give my opinion.

Microstamped bullets

As much as the anti-gun people would like to implement something as expensive and worthless as microstamping of bullets matched to their cases and boxes I believe they will be laughed out of the legislatures. It is just too difficult and impractical to implement and even the police will complain at the paperwork and expense. Add in the ease with which stolen and re-manufactured ammo will defeat the technology and only the most rabid anti-gun people will support it. The police have a lot of influence anytime guns are brought up and without their support this technology will be defeated.

Microstamped firearms

The argument that microstamping of firearms will help solve crimes committed with guns is invalid. The only criminals that will be caught with this technology will be the stupid ones, those that committed crimes of passion, or those that had no plans to get away with the crime (murder-suicide types). In those cases the criminal would have been caught/detected anyway and the microstamping of the firearm will be irrelevant. There will be a few borderline cases where the microstamping does make a difference but the numbers will be insignificant. This is of little concern to the anti-gun people. Even if all crimes committed with guns were solved instantly they would still demand the banning of firearms. It’s not about crime reduction, its about banning guns even at the cost of increased crime (see Washington D.C. and Chicago for example). That they tried less drastic measures and they failed will be one of the reason given for the more harsh measures which follow.

Microstamping of firearms, at this point in time, would be a great burden on manufactures. But I believe I have solutions to all the problems mentioned by NSSF as issues for manufactures. All those issues can be solved with a few changes in their processes. If so, then the promise of only adding a dollar or two to the price of the gun might become a reality. It will take some time and it will cost money to make the changes but ultimately it won’t be major obstacle to microstamping. I’m not going to provide those answers here because it does no one any good. If I can come up with the answers in less than a day then so can a lot of other people.

As much as I would like for all manufactures to follow STI and Barrett’s lead in refusing to do business with California and other anti-gun states the lure of having a less competitive market will mean some manufacture will fill the void. If there is a demand then someone will supply it. Just as with recreational drugs the price will be above free market levels and the quality may be lower but the demand will be filled. Once the boycott, if it ever becomes that, is broken by one or two manufactures then others will probably fold as well. The only question will be whether the manufactures will make guns specifically for sale in those anti-gun states or will they continue to sell non-microstamped guns in other states. I think the answer to that will depend on the “people of the gun”. Will we pay a premium for an non-microstamped gun and/or will we mount an effective boycott against the manufactures that sell into the anti-gun states? I don’t know the answer to that.

Conclusion

I’m left without a strong argument against microstamping and I’m afraid ultimately our legislatures will be too. It won’t make a measurable change in the solving of crimes but it won’t hurt the non-criminal gun owner much either. I can’t make a case for it violating the Jews in the Attic Test because I claim the technology can be easily defeated. I don’t like it because it is worthless and it gives validity to “reasonable government restrictions” on firearms. Ultimately it will lead to government restrictions on defacing the microstamping just as the existing laws against destroying the serial numbers of firearms. The replacement parts will ultimately be tracked and even if you purchase a gun through a private sale without a 4473 being filled out the repair of the firearm, even on your own kitchen table, will result in your gun being, again, tied to you. But this incremental firearm registration will be not be a sufficient hurdle to block it’s passage in the legislatures.

I believe the bottom line is that in order to stop state legislation mandating the microstamping of firearms we will mount an effective boycott of those manufactures that sell into those states. Against Federal legislation we will have essentially no defense.

Microstamping research

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I’ve been doing a little research into microstamping. High emotions on either side are not productive. I’ve tried to gather facts and sources for your own research.

This was instigated at the suggestion of Justthisguy in the comments.

First off I would like to point out there are two types of microstamping. Neither of which should be confused with “ballistic fingerprints”.

The Technologies

Ballistic Fingerprints are Dead for Now

“Ballistics fingerprints” are a system where law enforcement obtains a bullet and cartridge casing from the manufacture for every new gun. Maryland and New York have passed laws requiring this and at last check not a single crime had been solved with this additional data and Maryland State Police were advising the money should be spent on something more effective.

Microstamping of Bullets

This concept is about putting matching serial numbers on the bullet, shell casing, and bullet box. Of course there would have to be a database that tracked the bullets from manufacture to the end user. It is impractical for many reasons.

I don’t expect this to go anywhere in the immediate future.

Microstamping of Firearms

This is about putting unique codes (essentially a serial number) on the firing pin, breach face, ejector and extractor. Typically you will hear the example of the firing pin being marked but actually there will be markings in other places as well. Some people pretend it’s a secret where these markings will be. Anyplace that strikes or presses against the shell casing is a potential location for imprinting the codes. This includes inside the chamber but those marking are at high risk of being sheared or smeared away in semi-autos during the extraction while there is still some pressure in the barrel and casing.

These codes will correspond to the serial number of the gun. The manufacture of the gun will be required to cooperate with law enforcement to find the distributor->retailer->initial buyer — just like current firearm traces when law enforcement has the make, model, and serial number of a firearm.

This technology poses the greatest potential to be generally implemented and California passed such a law on October 13, 2007. This law mandates the technology be used on all new firearms sold in California beginning on January 1, 2010. It requires the microscopic codes be put in two or more places such they are transferred to the cartridge case.

For more information see Wikipedia on microstamping.

The Debate

Overview

The claimed benefit of the proposed technologies is the promise of making it easier to solve crimes committed with firearms.

The arguments against the use of the technology center on the ease of a criminal defeating the technology, the difficulty of manufacturers implementing it, the risk of innocent people being framed, and the increased costs to all gun owners.

Anti-gun advocates

Gun control advocate appear to be in favor of any restrictions on firearms and are in favor of all of the technologies. See also microstamping webpages for The Coalition to Stop Gun Violence and the Educational Fund to Stop Gun Violence and their PowerPoint presentation.

Pro-gun advocates

This report on a paper from UC Davis provides some support for the case against microstamping of firearms but probably made a lot of errors and should not be considered strong evidence for the case against microstamping.

The National Shooting Sports Foundation, Inc. has a document on microstamping that outlines the problems from the manufacturer’s viewpoint and the Association of Firearms and Toolmarks Examiners, and that it will not reduce crime. Other documents I found on the NSSF site probably have serious flaws and shouldn’t be used as reference material.

Technology advocates

Todd Lizotte is a co-inventor of firearms microstamping. Here is a video of him describing and demonstrating the technology. He also commented on David E. Petzal’s Field and Stream blog. I have extracted his comments from this blog and uploaded them here. One of his arguments is the following (a copy and paste with typos intact):

I am not sure a defensive strategy to protecting rights has ever worked. A proactive stretgy always keeps the fight off in the distance. Microstamping does not change the status quo, all data is at the manufacturer. No registration, no licensing and no imaging.

What many people are not aware of is there is a new 3D mapping imaging system being produced. We helped successfully defeat ballistic imaging for new firearms, however the ATF and its vendor are not giving up, the ATF has a $500 Million system in place for linking current ballistic imaging data from crime labs. The company who built that system, located in Quebec, needs to expand its market, it needs to capture the new firearm market.

The old system they built can not accurately imaging new firearms, however it is possible for the new 3D system to work at a much larger expense.

Microstamping neutralizes the need for imaging all togther.

In the end I am for being proactive, instead of being reactive.

If you want to see how bad it could really get, google 3D ballistic imaging and see how costly that system will be, since that system will require all info on the pruchaser and firearm to be entered into a government controlled criminal database.

I am not sure most people understand this fact.

Microstamping is a perfect technology — completely benign and all data remains at the firearm manufacturer.

In essence of what he is saying is the alternative to microstamping the firearm is a much more expensive version of the “ballistic fingerprint” system implemented with better technology and the associated additional databases.

Conclusions

Because no new database is required, only an additional entry in the manufacturer’s database with the serial number, firearm microstamping gets around a number of the arguments against “ballistics fingerprints” and bullet/casing microstamping. For this reason I expect the anti-gun people to push this technology the hardest and have the most success with it.

The best argument against microstamping of firearms is the manufacturing process does not lend itself to serialization of multiple parts. The firing pins are made by some supplier, the extractors, ejectors, and slides by other companies. The manufacture of the gun itself may just assemble the pieces. Each of the serialized parts must be matched with the frame that has the actual official firearm serial number. The code on these serialized parts are not visible without a microscope and all would have to be verified and recorded in database during the assembly process. This will make it expensive and error prone. This argument will not gain much traction with the anti-gun people because increasing the expense of firearms is not regarded as a problem.

The next best argument is probably that criminals can easily defeat the technology. This seems indisputable. Changing of firing pins, extractors, ejectors, and barrels is commonplace in the gun community. A few minutes with an grinding stone on a Dremel tool will obliterate the laser etching without affecting the functioning of the firearm. The counter arguments are somewhat weak; 1) Criminals aren’t very smart; and 2) There are redundant markings.

The framing of innocent people is probably the weakest of the arguments against firearm microstamping. The powder residue and other forensic evidence will eliminate most planted shell casing from the real shell cases involved in the crime. Multiple stampings from reloaded shell cases also are probably easily eliminated with the available forensic evidence. It will slow down the process however, but probably no more than it would if they were to do it with existing forensic technology and this appears to be a non-problem. Of course this assumes the prosecutors and law enforcement are forthright and trustworthy in dealing with the evidence. I am inclined to believe this is generally the case but the actual instances of unethical actions of our government officials is much higher than I am comfortable with.

Pretty Pictures

The following pictures are from Forensic Technology and show the level of detail possible with modern microscopes.

Update: The following pictures are from The Coalition to Stop Gun Violence’s PowerPoint presentation:


Primer after 2500 rounds through a Thompson SMG.
Glock firing pin after 1400 rounds (image reversed).
Primer from a Glock after 1400 rounds.


Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) image from Glock showing smearing of the primer.

Very cool (and wet)

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Via Sebastain we have this awesome picture. I love the balls of water suspended in the air. Today we can see things that a 100 years ago people probably didn’t even imagine.

Quote of the day–Coalition to Stop Gun Violence & the Educational Fund to Stop Gun Violence

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An individual would need intimate knowledge of firearms and microstamping, plus the appropriate tools, in order to render the technology ineffective. These tools are certainly not “household items,” nor would the common street criminal be expected to have the knowledge necessary to defeat the technology.

[…]

One can also imagine the scene at a shooting range as criminals or gang members wander around and gather spent cartridge cases in bags. Conspicuous? One would certainly think so, and Americans should expect the owners of such ranges to engage in more responsible business practices.

Coalition to Stop Gun Violence & the Educational Fund to Stop Gun Violence
Microstamping Technology: Precise and Proven
[Another example of the anti-gun bigots being clueless about the real world. Apparently they haven’t heard of a Dremel tool or picking up your brass for reloading.–Joe]

Unintended consequences strike again

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From the Washington Post, Studies Say Clearing Land for Biofuels Will Aid Warming:

One study — written by a group of researchers from Princeton University, Woods Hole Research Center and Iowa State University along with an agriculture consultant — concluded that over 30 years, use of traditional corn-based ethanol would produce twice as much greenhouse gas emissions as regular gasoline. Another analysis, written by a Nature Conservancy scientist along with University of Minnesota researchers, found that converting rainforests, peatlands, savannas or grasslands in Southeast Asia and Latin America to produce biofuels will increase global warming pollution for decades, if not centuries.

Also in the same article:

There is an urgent need for policy that ensures biofuels are not produced on productive forest, grassland or cropland.

Oh, so you expect you can just start growing corn or some other high energy crop on a bare, wind swept rock?

And finally this:

This is a good way of showing where we are, not where we’re going to be,” said Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), who is chairman of a House global warming panel and who helped write the energy legislation. Noting that the measure set benchmarks requiring any new ethanol plants to produce a fuel that is 20 percent more efficient than gasoline, and even more stringent standards for advanced biofuels,

I have a sneaking suspicious they misspelled that guys name. I’m thinking it should be Malarkey.

Ethanol has less energy content that gasoline. Unless they can produce something other than ethanol from the biomass the end result is they are doing the equivalent of legislating PI is equal to 3.00.

I’m laughing all the way to the bank.

This will make making babies more interesting

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If only I could have convinced Barb when we were in the baby making business we needed some help:

LONDON (Reuters) – British scientists have created human embryos with three parents in a development they hope could lead to effective treatments for a range of serious hereditary diseases within five years.

Researchers from Newcastle University, in northern England, presented their findings at a medical conference at the weekend, a university spokeswoman said on Tuesday.

The IVF, or test-tube, embryos were created using DNA from one man and two women.

Both women have could carried babies that were from all three of us. However great an idea I think this is I am sure Barb will manage to find some fault with it. She is kinda funny that way.

One shot, one kill at 2100 meters

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Ry reports on a new Army sniping record from Afghanistan by a Arfcom member. Awesome!

If you are wondering at all the amazing sniping shots coming out of Afghanistan you aren’t alone. I knew the high altitude would make a difference but I didn’t know exactly how much until I ran some numbers through Modern Ballistics. Below you see the numbers for the .50 BMG shooting a high end bullet/cartridge with a gun zeroed at sea level for 1000 yards at a target at 2300 yards (2100 meters) away for various altitudes. Notice the difference in expected group size as the altitudes goes from 0 to 10000 feet. Notice the windage difference. All those things help but still, the shooter and spotter had to be top notch and have a little luck as well. Assuming a target of 18 inches wide and 24 inches tall the altitude difference changed the odds of a hit from about 10% to 20% (not shown).

Good job SnakeaterM24!

Modern Ballistics Data Created: 02/04/08 09:24:30

Firearm: Default
Cartridge: .50 BMG HMI with 750 gr. A-MAX
Conditions: Standard Conditions.
Range: 2300
Altitude (ft):           0   1000   2000   3000   4000   5000   6000   7000   8000  10000

Drop (inches)         2263   2193   2129   2070   2016   1966   1920   1877   1837  1765
Height (inches)      -1609  -1539  -1475  -1416  -1362  -1313  -1267  -1224  -1184 -1112
Height (moa)        -66.84 -63.93 -61.26 -58.82 -56.58 -54.52 -52.61 -50.83 -49.16 -46.17
Height (mils)       -19.44 -18.60 -17.82 -17.11 -16.46 -15.86 -15.30 -14.79 -14.30 -13.43
Windage (inches)    258.89 244.21 230.39 217.47 205.43 194.19 183.72 173.94 164.81 148.27
Windage (moa)        10.75  10.14   9.57   9.03   8.53   8.06   7.63   7.22   6.84   6.16
Windage (mils)        3.13   2.95   2.78   2.63   2.48   2.35   2.22   2.10   1.99   1.79
Mid rng Ht (in)       78.8   79.2   79.5   79.8   80.2   80.5   80.8   81.1   81.4   81.9
Midrange (yds)       532.1  535.4  538.6  541.8  544.9  547.9  550.8  553.7  556.4  561.8
Zero (yds)          1000.0 1008.1 1016.0 1023.6 1031.2 1038.7 1045.9 1053.0 1060.0 1073.4
Near zero (yds)        5.3    5.3    5.3    5.3    5.3    5.3    5.3    5.3    5.3    5.3
P.B. Size (in)      157.66 158.35 159.03 159.69 160.33 160.95 161.56 162.15 162.72 163.82
P.B. Range (yds)      1182   1192   1202   1212   1222   1231   1240   1249   1258   1275
Velocity (ft/S)       1118   1157   1200   1245   1290   1335   1380   1425   1469   1553
Energy (ft-lbs)       2082   2229   2397   2581   2772   2970   3173   3382   3593   4018
PF                     839    868    900    934    968   1002   1035   1069   1102   1165
Time (S)             3.941  3.857  3.779  3.705  3.637  3.573  3.514  3.458  3.406  3.312
Group (inches)       81.20  77.10  73.25  69.68  66.37  63.31  60.47  58.02  55.56  51.17
Group (moa)           3.37   3.20   3.04   2.89   2.76   2.63   2.51   2.41   2.31   2.12
Group (mils)          0.98   0.93   0.88   0.84   0.80   0.76   0.73   0.70   0.67   0.62
Groups <= desired    0.00%  0.00%  0.00%  0.00%  0.00%  0.20%  0.40%  0.60%  1.20%  1.20%
1 grp of <= desired    0.0    0.0    0.0    0.0    0.0  500.0  250.0  166.7   83.3   83.3
—–
Constants:
M.V. (ft/S)        2794   M.V. SDev (fps)    10.0   B.C.               1.050 
Mass (grains)      750    Sight Ht (in)      1.50   Indicated SA (moa) 27.19 
SA Offset (moa)    0.00   Incline (deg)      0      Wind (mph)         10    
Wind error (mph)   2      Wind (deg.)        90     Temp (F)           59    
Barometer          29.53  Gravity            32.17  Shots per group    5     
Bullet acc. (moa)  0.50   Desired Grp (moa)  1.00   Group Simulations  500   
—-
Firearm name: Default
Firearm notes:
Cartridge name: .50 BMG HMI with 750 gr. A-MAX
Cartridge notes: BC is for Hornady A-Max.  MV is for max load of H50BMG.
Conditions name: Standard Conditions.
Conditions notes:

Free sex in exchange for film rights

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Interesting. They are making it into a chain. I wonder if they will be opening a “store” in Nevada. Not that Dr. Joe would have anything more than academic interest or maybe buying some stock.

Microsoft executive comments on rumor

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Contrary to what this web page says, Craig Eisler did have something to say about the feral child they found in the Word source code.

Crag and the Mac Office team are in a different building from our son James who also works on Office but I’ll still ping him to see if he knows anything more about the incident.

Quote of the day–former Yahoo employee

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Most Yahoo employees will feel that, A., we lost, and B., there is no way in hell that I am going to work for Microsoft.

Former Yahoo employee who wishes to remain anonymous
Microsoft and Yahoo!: Happily Ever After?
[After they get their Borg implants and take a couple swigs of Microsoft Brainwash they’ll be fine.–Joe]

Why do You Hate Your Customers?

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We have two cell phones on the same account.  My wife lost her phone while traveling.  I told her to go to a “Big Giant Phone Company” booth in any town and get another phone.  Big Giant Phone Company calls me, with her standing there, and wants a copy of my driver’s license.  Great – they’re protecting me against fraud.  I fax them my license while on the phone with them.  All is OK.  They hand my wife her new phone and she can now make and receive calls on her old number.

But there’s a problem.  This new phone is booby-trapped.  They had all her account information, they set up her new phone and personally handed it to her after having verified my account identity.  But she can’t get any of the many voice-mail messages that are pouring in, and she’s at a Big Expensive Out-Of-Town Convention and all.

They HANDED HER a new phone IN PERSON that doesn’t work.  She the user, is forced to set up the voice mail.  But that can be done ONLY AT CERTAIN TIMES of the day and ONLY if she has my Social Security Number (already faxed them my GD driver’s license).

Dear, Big Giant Phone Company,  Why do you harass and attempt to thwart your customers with this idiocy?  What do you think WE the paying customers have to gain from being harassed and thwarted by you?  Why should I ever spend another nickel with you if I can avoid it?

And while I’m venting:  Why does Verizon need a 37 digit account number, when anyone is this country of over 300 million can reach me with my 10 digit phone number?  Can you say, DUUHH!?

 

Spy Satellite

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We’ve all head the news about the satellite that’s going to make reentry some day soon.  They say it’s a spy satellite and that it contains hazardous materials.  I don’t know what that tells most people, but to me, even the term “spy satellite” says, “nuclear power on board”.  So, is that uranium or plutonium?  I guess it would have been too much trouble to go and either refuel the bird’s rockets, or at least remove the fissionable material?

 

Government is a source of insecurity

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There are some aspects of security the government is and should be responsible for. But when you give the government too much “responsibility” (power) it becomes a source of insecurity. Guns are probably the example most of my readers will readily identify with. The government has a need for weapons but it must never have a monopoly on weapons. To do so would change the fundamental relationship between a free people and their government.

Information is a weapon as well. Giving the government too much information puts innocent people at risk. Read IBM and the Holocaust or for a hint read my Jews in the Attic Test and think about it a little bit.

Here we get still another glimpse of why governments collecting data on people is risky:

Here’s an ugly prediction that you can take to the bank: as the amount of data that the feds collect on innocent civilians grows, so will the number of people who are victims of crimes that were made possible by unauthorized access to a government database. I’m not just talking about identity theft, though that is a huge danger with Real ID, but violent crimes as well. As I explained in the OneDOJ post linked above, this prediction is just Metcalfe’s Law at work:

This is, of course, a fundamental problem inherent in the very nature of any massive, centralized government data-sharing plan that spans multiple agencies and connects untold numbers of state and federal law enforcement officers: the usefulness of such a system to any one individual (a white hat or a black hat) grows roughly with the square of the number of participants who are using it to share data (Metcalfe’s law). So the more white hats that any of these programs manage to connect to each other, the more useful the network as a whole will be to the small handful of black hats who gain access to it at any point.

There is another ugly prediction you can take to the bank when these incidents happen: The politicians will always propose solutions that involve more money and more power being handed over to the government.

First they came for the gun owners

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Sebastian tells us about a Random Conversation About Fingerprinting. A woman (who happens to be very anti-gun) doesn’t want to get her fingerprints taken just so she can be a crossing guard near a school. Sebastian compares it to gun owners exercising constitutionally guaranteed rights having to submit fingerprints first. Which leads to his observation:

What goes around, comes around. You can’t expect to empower the state to take away liberty from people you find undesirable, and then expect the state to respect your liberty when you end up in the cross hairs. When you find yourself in that situation, the people who’s liberties have already been trampled on may not be sympathetic enough to help you.

Of course this reminded me of the famous Niemoller quote and I mentioned it in the comments and figured that will be the end of it. But then commenter ParatrooperJJ says the FBI just checks the fingerprints and discards them after they come back clean. That set off my alarms because just a few days ago this came out:

FBI effort will build biggest biometric database

The FBI is embarking on a $1 billion effort to build the world’s largest computer database of peoples’ physical characteristics, a project that would give the government unprecedented abilities to identify individuals in the United States and abroad.

Digital images of faces, fingerprints and palm patterns are flowing into FBI systems in a climate-controlled, secure basement here.

Next month, the FBI intends to award a 10-year contract that would significantly expand the amount and kinds of biometric information it receives.

And in the coming years, law enforcement authorities around the world will be able to rely on iris patterns, face-shape data, scars and perhaps even the unique ways people walk and talk to solve crimes and identify criminals and terrorists.

The FBI will also retain, upon request by employers, the fingerprints of employees who have undergone criminal background checks so the employers can be notified if employees have brushes with the law.

If the technology exists it will be used, data obtained will be kept, used, and abused. The features will creep into areas that were promised would never happen. Remember that NICS records were supposed to be destroyed and then Janet Reno kept them for “audit purposes”. Then they used those “audit records” to see if suspected terrorists had purchased firearms. My SS card says “FOR SOCIAL SECURITY AND TAX PURPOSES–NOT FOR IDENTIFICATION”. None of my childrens SS cards have any such markings. It used to be something like a $10K fine if anyone tried to use your SSN for anything other than tax purposes. No so anymore.

We are creating all the mechanisms necessary for an effective police state. Remember what Milton Friedman said.

Taking it to the limit

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There are some very interesting questions brought up by David Levy’s book, Love and Sex With Robots: The Evolution of Human-Robot Relationships (see also Programmed for love). Suppose robots get so human like they are practically indistinguishable from humans in their interactions? What if they are anatomically correct enough to have sex with without you being able to easily detect they are not human?

That’s thought provoking enough but the really interesting questions are what this means to the concept of marriage fidelity as the technology is taken to the limit:

  • If you have sex with such a robot is it “cheating”?
  • Does it depend on whether you knew it was a robot or not?
  • If it is considered cheating whether you knew it was a robot or not, then is it “cheating” when a person has sex with an “adult toy” of today?
  • If it is considered cheating to have sex with the human like robot, but it’s not considered cheating to have sex with an adult toy of today’s technology then at what point in the sophistication of the technology does it become cheating?
  • If it is not considered cheating if it was a robot then what is the basis for making that distinction? Is it just because one comes with a warranty and has parts that are dishwasher safe?
  • What if certain parts of the robot are actually from human donors? How many parts need to be human before it’s not considered a robot? Or how many artificial replacement parts must a human have before they are considered a robot?
  • If it is not considered cheating if it was a robot, you think it is a robot at the time, what happens if you find out later it was not a robot?
  • If it is not considered cheating if it was a robot, you think it is a human at the time, what happens if you find out later it was a robot?

Of course all these questions will have to be answered on a case by case basis by the humans and robots involved but my interest is in the basis of how people will make these decisions. I find it all wonderfully entertaining.

Okay, so there are two full auto toys I might like to have

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Full auto, recoilless, 12 gauge shotgun.

It has 20 and 32 round magazines available. I especially like the new ammo. Does Wal-Mart have the HE rounds in stock yet?

The other full auto that I would be interested in is this one.

Thanks to Joe D. on the Lewiston Pistol Club discussion list for the pointer.

Interesting questions

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From Sitemeter, “can a fingerprint be recovered from a fired shell casing”? My guess is yes, at least under some circumstances. DNA from the oils left behind should be possible too.

The more interesting question is, “Who’s asking?” Is it someone on the criminal side or on the law enforcement side?

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Time of Visit Dec 28 2007 8:02:07 amLast Page View Dec 28 2007 8:02:07 amVisit Length 0 secondsPage Views 1Referring URL http://www.google.co…a fired shell casingSearch Engine google.comSearch Words can a fingerprint be recovered from a fired shell casingVisit Entry Page https://blog.joehuffman.org/2005/01/16/ballistic-fingerprinting-fails/ Visit Exit Page https://blog.joehuffman.org/2005/01/16/ballistic-fingerprinting-fails/ Out Click  Time Zone UTC-5:00Visitor’s Time Dec 28 2007 11:02:07 amVisit Number 225,800

The free market is a wonderful thing

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The little guys try harder:

In what’s likely to be seen as a privacy-friendly move, IAC Search & Media’s Ask.com search engine Tuesday announced a new feature called AskEraser that deletes a user’s search activity data from the company’s servers.

When enabled by the user, the feature will completely delete search queries and associated cookie information from Ask.com servers — including IP addresses, user IDs, session IDs and the text of queries made, according to the company. In most cases, the deletion will take place within a few hours of the time a search is completed, the company said.

What’s bizarre is that some people want government involvement in something where the big concern is government involvement to begin with:

Ask.com has also said that it will also retain user search data in cases where it is required by law to do so, according to Chester. Formal legal requests for search data will continue to be honored, even if AskEraser is enabled.

As a result, Chester argued that Ask.com still hasn’t fully addressed consumer privacy concerns.

“Some privacy advocates will suggest that this announcement shows the ‘market’ is working,” he said. “No doubt, that’s what Google and the other online advertisers opposed to a serious privacy policy will echo, whispering it to regulators, lawmakers and journalists. That’s why a national privacy policy is required.”