Quote of the day (2007-11-28)

Bumper sticker idea: “How many soldiers per gallon does your SUV get?”

My take on the situation: The US soldier are fighting for the wrong reasons, on the wrong front, while the Canadian troops are fighting a war that is not ours...

New NSA-Approved Encryption Standard May Contain Backdoor

New NSA-Approved Encryption Standard May Contain Backdoor

It's neither malice not incompetence, it's both!

This is something I don't get: who, inside the government, wants to spy on people and why?
-It's not the politicians because it would have considerable negative impact if it were to be found out.
-It's probably not the lower guys in the police workers who work on this stuff day after day, because they know how trivial it is to replace the algorithm use with a strong one. (And it would have to be disclosed in court at some point, so it would be of use a couple of time, until either the bad guys found out or the public found out...)
-It has to be a higher up manager thinking it's a "great idea" and that it would "make work lots easier"...

Well, I got news for you: It boils down to the same argument behind Security-trough-obscurity and it's going to buy you a couple of years maximum (or like in this case, very bad publicity)

Anti-Terrorism and the Death of the Chemistry Set

An insightful post on slashdot about fascism and totalitarian regimes:

Anti-Terrorism and the Death of the Chemistry Set

I fear the day when we won't be able to count votes in here... It's a good thing that voting machines are not yet approved around here...