Chapo Escapes
Yesterday, once and future Sinaloa kingpin Chapo Guzmán escaped from the high security Mexican prison where he had been held since February 2014. He escaped via the same kind of highly developed tunnel system in which Mexican Naval forces,…
Mankiw's Ten Principles of Economics 1: People Face Trade-offs
The introduction to this series is here.
The first of the Ten Principles of Economics laid down by N. Gregory Mankiw is "People Face Trade-Offs". Principles of Macroeconomics, 6th Ed. 2012, p. 4. In language more suited to a high school textbook…
Have Comey's Double Secret Independence Day Arrestees Been Denied Presentment?
Jim Comey has used what has thus far been an infallible PR tactic since he started as FBI Director. He invites a bunch of handpicked journalists to lunch and eats them alive with his charisma, after which they dutifully report stuff that makes…
Three Congressional Responses to the OPM Hack
After acknowledging that as more than 20 million people have been affected by the hack of the Office of Personnel Management, OPM head Katherine Archuleta "resigned" today.
In announcing that Office of Budget and Management Deputy Director…
Richard Burr's Backdoor Data Retention Amendment
The Senate Intelligence Authorization is now available here.
In addition to language requiring social media companies to report terrorist activity on their network to the government -- which yesterday Jim Comey said they didn't need -- it has…
Feinstein Wants to Introduce Reporting Mandate Jim Comey Says We Don't Need
I'll have a piece in Salon shortly about the two hearings on whether FBI should be able to mandate back doors (they call them front doors because that fools some Senators about the security problems with that) in software.
One thing not in…
"Technical Difficulties": United Airlines Grounded, NYSE Halted, What's Next?
This is a working post for discussion of today's outages. United Airlines grounded its flights for roughly two hours this morning; the FAA's advisory indicated an automation-related issue, and subsequent communications from United said it was…
T-Mobile's Transparency: "Other," and Granularity to Come on National Security Reports
I think CNet is correct to point out the most amazing thing from T-Mobile's transparency report released yesterday: somehow, T-Mobile is getting a lot more legal requests than its bigger rivals -- though I suspect that's because pre-paid/contract-less…
The Dangers of Crying Wolf
In the wake of yet another in a string of 40 terrorist panics that came to naught, two terrorism experts have posts commenting on crying wolf. Ali Soufan's consultant firm treats the over-response to the Fourth of July warnings as justifiable,…
Euros, Dollars and Morals
The Greek people overwhelmingly rejected the austerity demanded by the European Elites on Sunday, and the media filled up with opinions about what should happen, and predictions for what will happen, none of which is worth a bucket of spit.…
Jim Comey May Not Be a Maniac, But He Has a Poor Understanding of Evidence
Apparently, Jim Comey wasn't happy with his stenographer, Ben Wittes. After having Ben write up Comey's concerns on encryption last week, Comey has written his own explanation of his concerns about encryption at Ben's blog.
Here are the 3…
Did NSA Add a New Dragnet Provider with Its Latest Order?
Cryptome has published the latest phone dragnet order. Contrary to reports, the dragnet order is only for two months (until the end of August), not until the expiration of the bulk dragnet in November, plus retroactive collection to May 31.…
To Talk of Many Things: Of Vandals, and Cuts, and Cables, and Pings
The time has come,' the Walrus said,
To talk of many things:
Of shoes — and ships — and sealing-wax —
Of cabbages — and kings —
And why the sea is boiling hot —
And whether pigs have wings.'
(Excerpt, Lewis Carroll's…
Revolutionary Changes in Economics
In this series, I tried to learn what Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions meant for economics. In this post, I suggested a possible paradigm for neoliberal economic theory. It uses the Ten Principles of Economics preached…
NSA Gets Full Take on FISA-Authorized Web Forums
Among the document dump associated with the Intercept's two stories on XKeyscore, there's one that has importance outside of the discussion of how XKeyscore works in the slide deck on how XKS works on web forum data.
It reveals what was…
XKeyscore Suffers from Same Giant Oversight Loophole as Phone Dragnet and SIGDEV: No Tech Audits
I've long pointed to a giant oversight hole in key NSA programs: in both the domestic phone dragnet and SIGDEV (research and development), tech activities are excluded from auditing requirements.
In a piece reviewing what happens with XKS…
A Tale of Celebrity Bon Vivant Civil Servants and Access Journalism
There is a distinct problem in this country with excessive inbreeding of politicians, lobbyists and journalists. In a country where so many are now ruled by so few in power, it is becoming, if not already become, the biggest threat to American…
CryptoWars, the Obfuscation
The US Courts released its semiannual Wiretap Report the other day, which reported that very few of the attempted wiretaps last year were encrypted, with even fewer thwarting law enforcement.
The number of state wiretaps in which encryption…
FBI's 26-Day Old OPM FLASH Notice
Shane Harris, who has been closely tracking the bureaucratic implications of the OPM hack, has an update describing a "FLASH" notice FBI just sent out to the private sector.
Or rather, FBI just re-sent the FLASH notice they sent on June…
Once Again Sammy Alito's Speculative Chain of Possibilities Proves True
Back when SCOTUS Justice Sam Alito wrote the opinion booting the ACLU-argued challenge to Section 702, he said the plaintiffs' worries -- that the US government was collecting their international communications under Section 702 -- were too…