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TechCrunch – In July, [TechCrunch] about an ongoing case wherein a woman accused of fraud was being asked by the prosecution to provide the password to access her computer’s data, which otherwise would remain encrypted and unreadable, weakening their case. They got permission to compel her to reveal the password, but the defense said that it was unconstitutional to do so, as providing that information was essentially self-incriminating testimony.

So, doing what Judges are made to do, Judge Robert Blackburn made a decision: “the Fifth Amendment is not implicated by requiring production of the unencrypted contents of the Toshiba Satellite M305 laptop computer.”

This is a joke. You know how many times in college and they seized my computer because  of “suspicious network activity, botnets and viruses?” (all false accusations, mind you).  Like three times. They’d shut off my internet, send me a letter from the dean and be like “wah wah wah, we suspect you of X, Y and Z. Give us your computer so we can scan it for viruses and crap and then we’ll reactivate you.” So I did. You know what they found after searching it? Jack shit. Know why? 1) I didn’t do any of the ridiculous shit they were accusing me of and 2) who the hell do they think they are? FBI forensics dudes? Absolutely no way you’re getting my data! If you know what you’re doing, you can get around these things

Judge asshole over here is going to set a precedent that goes something like this: “Well, you don’t have to give us your password, but if you don’t you’re automatically guilty…”

If you know what you’re doing, you can give the password. And it will decrypt the computer. And you will not get caught. It’s called Plausible Deniability. Learn about it: http://www.truecrypt.org/docs/?s=plausible-deniability (for the record, I don’t have this set up because I have nothing to hide, but I am aware of it)

I’m a little bit late to post this, but if you haven’t heard, FileSonic (a leading file storage and sharing site) removed file sharing ability for every single file hosted by its users. Only the owners of each file can access their data after logging it. . This effectively broke millions of download links throughout the internet. So what caused this change?

The people running the site did not admit, why but it is very clear: The MegaUpload raid/ legal action. The FileSonic admins shit their pants and were like “What do we do – we don’t want to get arrested, fined $10 million and put in jail for 5 years. Oh, let’s just not let anyone share files anymore and make it a storage only service for individual users.”

This is what I am calling indirect censorship. The establishment is inciting fear by making examples of other sites with harsh punishment, lawsuits and jail time. This effectively trickles down and scares other startups and people running similar sites. Ultimately, big business and lobbyists win. This is exactly what they are trying to do. It’s only a matter of time before other services like this will be voluntarily shut down by site owners who do not want to get into any trouble.

The same way MegaUpload was shut down, what about Amazon Cloud (cloudfront and s3)? Thousands of startups rely on these services to inexpensively host user uploaded content. Suppose the users upload pirated material? Does that mean we seize the website of the startup? Does that mean we

You don’t need legislation like SOPA and PIPA to hinder creativity. The US already has that ability. Tech startups are booming again. It will not last forever, since economies and industries all boom and bust. History WILL repeat itself and there WILL be another dot com bust – I don’t know when. No one wants to admit that, because things are looking great right now. With all this censorship and the fact that the government can just shut down any site for any nonsensical reason – mark  my words “the internet as we know it now will be destroyed.”

Edit: Like 8 more sites shut down: http://torrentfreak.com/cyberlocker-ecosystem-shocked-as-big-players-take-drastic-action-120123/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Torrentfreak+%28Torrentfreak%29&utm_content=Google+Reader See!

Side note: Hey look. A blog post that intelligently discusses an issue and isn’t vulgar smut… I’m trying to tone it down a notch. I’ve been a little too aggressive. Batstool was rubbing off on me.

This will be very vague, because I need to protect identities since it’s work related. We have this IT consultant for a certain project (thankfully he’s not our full IT solution) who seemed to be okay. Then I get an email from him:

Is this gentleman fucking serious? DUDE. You’re a fucking IT guy. You should know about security. Keeping computers free of viruses is amateur hour. It’s like the first thing you learn when you’re 13 years old. I’ve been cleaning viruses off my family members’ computers since like 6th grade. You have to be a fucking idiot to get a virus, and you have to be a double fucking idiot to be an IT guy and get a virus – especially viruses that spam out to your client list.

But being a nice guy, rather than tearing this guy apart, I played devil’s advocate and tried to defend him for a bit. My conclusion? There is absolutely no possible defense. He’s 100% negligent on the grounds that he should know better and is a fake IT guy who doesn’t even know the difference between a CPU and computer.

Possibility 1: Maybe his teenage son or someone went to a bunch of porn sites and downloaded some crap.
Answer 1:  Nope. Don’t share a computer with anyone, imbecile. My computer is for ME. No one else. Separate the accounts, or better yet, get separate computers. Get a password. Keep people the fuck out.

Possibility 2: Maybe he downloaded cracked software, and the crack was infected.
Answer 2:  Use a sandbox, buffoon. Or test it on some other machine where your work email is not accessible, check for viruses and if it’s any good, then. No excuses.

Possibility 3: Maybe he typed a website wrong and it installed because of a buffer overflow exploit
Answer 3: This actually happened to me because Firefox and Win XP are shitty. 1) Get windows 7 and it won’t happen. 2) Use Google Chrome, because it’s sandboxed and even if something does exploit it, it cannot access the system. 3) if those two fail and it happened anyway, reformat immediately and change your passwords. I did and you didn’t see me get hacked.

Conclusion: He’s a clueless moron who is a sorry excuse for an IT guy, because any normal IT guy knows basic security. I’m not even talking about like assed linux security permissions, intrusion detection, cryptology and shit they use on banking websites. Just the basics. Like how to not run ActiveX controls in IE6. Shit like that. Like keeping your shit patched and updated. Things any 16 year old IT guy would know in his sleep.

So will this ever happen to me? Not a chance. There’s a better chance that Alex Morgan will show up at my doorstep ready to bang my dick off, than me getting a computer virus that compromises my account.  Not only do I not get viruses, my Google Account has 2-step authentication. I will get a text message any time someone attempts to try to log into my account. I also need to generate one time use passwords for any OAuth connections. There is no fucking way this account can get compromised.

You’re fired, bro.