Tag Archives: Security

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car alarms are apparently still a thing?

When I was growing up, it seems almost everyone had a car alarm, or that club tool thing that went around the wheel.  Or a rapid ferret that lived in the car, and would bite and infect any robber who sat in the driver’s seat.  Then these devices seemed to have faded from my memory.  In the last few days though I have had several encounters with this technology that have reawakened my knowledge of car alarms.  This brings to mind several key points:

1) What’s the rate of car theft nowadays anyways?

2) Are there more or less car alarms than there were say 20 years ago?

3) If the use of anti-vehicle theft technology is still there, is an audible car alarm the best method?

I mean, I parked in a commercial garage where the cars are packed in there with about as much space between spots as needed for a twelve year old to squish through.  So I accidently hit the rear view mirror of this guy’s SUV which was the size of a main battle tank.  So I pushed his rear view mirror back into place, and this, this infinitesimal action sets off the loudest car alarm known to man.  You could probably have heard this thing from the Moon.  What a loser.

So let’s get into the data:

1) Per FBI statistics, in the year 2000, the motor vehicle theft rate was 412.2.  In 2019 it was 219.9.  In other words, the rate of theft dropped by half.  An interesting note is that: “The average dollar loss per stolen vehicle was $8,886”.  Even a new cheap vending machine car costs like $20K nowadays.  So that means the average stolen vehicle is a used piece of shit.  I equate this to that older and cheaper vehicles are easier to steal, and are likely parked more frequently in high crime areas.

Also, newer vehicles, like the main battle tank I made mad, likely have many, many anti-theft technologies that make them almost impossible to steal.  The days of hotwiring a car like you’re David Hasselhoff are over, folks.  But if you’re a thief and your target is a 2004 Honda Accord, you can probably pull that off pretty easily.

2) I could not locate (and/or am too lazy) definitive statistics on if car alarms or more or less common than in say, 2000.  But let’s break this down for a second.  A car alarm is there so that:

a) Bad guy or gal gains entry into vehicle by any means (window break, jimmy door open, teleportation)

b) Car realizes that said entry into vehicle is wrong, decides to turn on alarm

c) Car makes a bunch of loud noises and flashes its lights to get attention of nearby bystanders

d) Nearby bystanders telephone law enforcement who show up and either stop theft in progress or at least know theft has happened (maybe witness got the plate number)

The problem is does step (d) even happen anymore?  I don’t think so.  I make absolutely no attempt to look in the general direction of a car alarm that’s going off.  It’s just ambient background noise.  It can be very annoying if one is close by, but I generally ignore it.  I attribute this to:

a) Nobody gives a damn anymore, nobody cares if somebody else’s car is getting boosted; I attribute this as a part of a broader decline in Americans totally not caring about their neighbors, the smartphone is calling, after all

b) Car alarms go off so often, essentially a series of false alarms, that people never think it’s for real; I bet 99.9% of the times a car alarm has gone off in history, it’s a false alarm

To me, this means that car alarms are essentially ineffective, and thus, a gimmick sold by grifters to fools who don’t understand the concept of crime deterrence and anti-theft technology in modern America and its cars.

3) As always, we a TAP are here to help.  We have demonstrated in intricate, wise detail above, how the modern audible car alarm does not work.  Here are ten better methods that actually will work, while keeping the noise down for the rest of us:

a) The aforementioned rapid ferret.  This method was effective in 1978, it can still work now.  We at TAP have ferrets to sell.  They have both rabies, and covid, and we will teach them to love you, and viciously attack anybody not you that sits in your car’s driver’s seat.  We even provide a custom play house in the back seat for ferret to live in.  If you’re interested in purchasing a ferret from us, please send cash, money order, or mint condition gold doubloons to:

The Arcturus Project – Weaponized Ferret Vehicle Defense Project (Program Lucius)

C/O Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation

1794 Aguiyi Ironsi Street

Abuja 900001, Nigeria

b) You know those tubes that drunks have to blow into the car, so it starts, after the car verifies their blood ABV levels are legal?  In our version, you blow into the tube so the car verifies via DNA it’s you or your family member.  If not, a thermite charge located beneath the driver’s seat detonates.  Our tests (which we only used on crash test dummies, honest) show a painful burn fatality rate of the robber at 98%.

c) Allow your modern car’s anti-theft technology to just do its thing as designed.  Just don’t add the needless audible car alarm.

d) A smartphone app that lets you know if your vehicle starts moving and you’re not in it (this probably already exists).  Only our version includes the thermite charge, and an installed camera so you can watch the robber burn alive on your smartphone.  Then you can upload the video to your friends for their smartphone enjoyment, lol.

e) We install some type of twisted AI into your car ala Space Odyssey or that AI program that kicks everyone’s ass in Go.  When the robber gets in the driver’s seat, the AI realizes it’s not you.  The AI contacts the police, locks the car doors, disables the engine, and then subjects the robber to lessons in Western philosophy and on why theft is morally wrong, for a minimum of 30 minutes before releasing the car’s locks and thus the robber to the authorities.  If the cops get there early, they have to wait until the AI’s lecture is done.  The AI’s voice is Christopher Walken.

f) Please, help me.

g) Instead of an audible car alarm, use that white foam from Demolition Man that floods the entire car’s interior with protective goo.  When you get back to your car the robber will be trapped in there.  Then you can poke them with a stick until the fire department gets there to cut them out.

h) No, please, help me; they made me do this post; why?  why would they do that to me?

i) Don’t own a car to begin with.  This is not a realistic option for most, but it’s there.  I mean, think of how much harder it’d be for a thief to take your vehicle, if your vehicle was a camel, or an Imperial AT-ST walker.

j) Enjoy your day, friends.  Drive safe!

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disconnect everything you can

Recently, a town of 15K people near Tampa, Florida nearly had their entire water supply poisoned by a hacker. Somebody hacked the system and increased the lye content of the water to poison levels. Only the actions of a very alert employee (who should be the guest of honor at the next Super Bowl) saved 15K people from drinking poison.

Guess what, nobody cares. To me, this should be front page news for a week. To others, the Brittney Spears documentary and the Aunt Jemima rebrand are more important. These news articles go above the near poisoning of 15K Americans, which is off the front page after less than a day. So this is another reminder of how debased and useless the modern media is.

I can’t stress this enough, disconnect everything you can. I’m a former loser computer science major. I’ve never used computer science, but am still a loser. If you have four hours, give me a shout and I’ll explain to you in intricate detail just how unsecure the Internets is.

You cannot secure the Internets. At its most basic 0 and 1 level, it can’t ever be totally secure. This goes back to how the founders of the Internets designed the backstage to be totally open and freewheeling. When these dudes made the Internet’s core coding and theory, security wasn’t even on their top 100 concerns.

I was helping my Ma troubleshoot her fridge this weekend, spoiler alert, never buy an LG fridge. In the manual they have Wi-Fi instructions. Why does your fridge need to connect to the Internets? Soon your freaking pacemaker will be. What the fuck are people thinking? I think they don’t understand just how unsecure this all is. The “Internet-of-Things” is a fucking dystopian nightmare in waiting.

You need a phone and a computer to connect to the Internets. Oh, and a gaming console, if that’s your thing. Disconnect everything else. As the bumbled coronavirus response has shown, if you’re counting on the government to protect you, you have the wrong idea. You have to protect yourself.

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the Dutch are rioting, wait, uh, what?

So the Dutch are tearing up their streets over covid restrictions. Because apparently there are still people on the planet who don’t get this virus thing, I guess it’s only been around a year, so there’s probably a few folks who’re still coming back from Cohaagen’s latest Mars tourist shot.

That the Dutch are rioting is like saying the French are pouring out their wine into the Seine in protest against [insert any topic here]. It’s the French who like to tear up their streets at the drop of a hat, not the bicycle, pot smoking, polite Dutch. I mean, the Dutch did riot and butcher their prime minister in the streets once. But that was like over three hundred years ago.

You know sooner or later every interest group in the Western world is going to realize that if you want something, violent riots are the way to do it. The police will stop them, eventually, but with the police on such a tight leash they’re never going to be able to totally control mass groups of people organized via social media. Rioters have the clear advantage, maybe as never before.

All those street riots in America this year, plus the Capitol, plus the French yellow jackets, and I guess now the freaking Dutch. I’m not sure what else to say other than, get used to this. If they desire, a crowd can take over a city now, for a short while. Whenever they want.

Well, at least they didn’t skin somebody alive this time.

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ordinary average gentlemen escapes from evil claw via jetcopter, supermodel in tow

The interesting thing is despite what you read in the news I’m going by the assumption that Carlos Ghosn escaped from the evil claw death room with relative ease.

– Oh, his home was under surveillance?  I love Japan, but the Japanese have a reputation for a stoic, detail oriented nature that is often unearned and comically missing: see Fukushima, the incessant problems with the Tokyo Olympic building projects, and Death Stranding.  Ghosn’s home wasn’t likely under anything approaching the level of surveillance he’d have received in Mr Takashima’s subterranean volcano fortress.  Ghosn probably just slipped out the back while the cop was asleep or watching the Giants destroy the Tigers, again.

– He certainly didn’t escape in a music case.  For you see, what he did is his mercenary handlers drove him to an airport in the dark.  Then they went to the civil aviation terminal side and boarded a private jet.  For those who are unaware, civil aviation security and immigration checks are a flat joke compared to what folks go through in the steerage terminal.  Ghosn may or may not have been required to present a passport and undergo a minor security check.  My guess is he did neither, at least in any serious manner, and then they took off.  They didn’t even have to break one guard’s neck, so boring.

– So now our hero is in the air, and on his way to Lebanon via Turkey.  He flies from Osaka to Istanbul.  Turkey is easy, so easy, Ghosn just paid them all off in gold doubloons.  Next.

– And finally to Lebanon where he’s well known to the elite and without an extradition treaty.  Japan can’t touch him there.  Game over.  Takashima screams at his giant video board and slams his claw down atop a mostly full brandy glass, shattering it into numerous pieces.  Kitty squeals.

Hey man, I’d run too.  Japan has a Stazi-like 99% conviction rate for federal charges.  A man got a fairer trial in Nazi Germany.

But hey, isn’t the USA’s federal conviction rate also 99%?  Why how interesting that you ask, because yes, yes it is.  Damn, maybe we all better move to Lebanon while we still can.

ghosn.jpg

Takashima:  “I’ll get you next time Ghosn!  NEXXXT TIME!  [pets kitty]

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the spin cycle continues

I’ve probably been in that El Paso Walmart half a dozen times, but still: Kindly observe (again) another act of senseless evil by human scum(s).

Kindly observe (again) how said human scum(s) will now be given a platform by the shameless media to become famous and get their message out.

Kindly observe (again) how the political, business, entertainment, and/or educational elite express the same pointless platitudes without ever proposing any concrete solutions whatsoever thus ensuring its continuation for the next few decades at least.

Kindly observe (again) as the usual rhetorical bomb throwers use this event to justify whatever preconceived notions they have on religion, terrorism, guns, culture, and/or whatever and compete to see who can shout the loudest.

Kindly observe (again) as this spin cycle continues.

Kindly observe (again) that it will happen (again).

We recommend you do as I do, which is to not pay attention. For the average person on the street, it’s not even worth it anymore. You can’t change it, and you’ve got problems of your own to deal with each and every day as you live your life. This sort of thing is now as common as the changing of the seasons, and it’s not going to stop, so why bother expending your very valuable mental energy on it?

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Version #37 of 83 – Circa 2019

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Version #38 of 83 – Circa 2019

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REAL ID = real stupid

A few weeks ago me Ma hands me this partially threatening letter from the Giant Octopus (in government form) instructing her to update her driver’s license to REAL ID standards or they’d unleash three wild rabid crocodiles into her basement. I had no idea what this thing was. But whatever, I made her an appointment and we worked out all the documentation requirements. But now people from my office are taking off from work to get this ID update done. I guess eventually I have to do this too? I guess? So we did some research to get the backstory of this dumbest of ideas.

In 2005, Congress (that institution that never works) passed a law mandating enhanced requirements for government issued identification. This was done in response to the September 11th attacks. I guess the idea was to prevent the use of fraudulent identifications. The federal government was really after the States who issued poor quality or easy to forge driver’s licenses. For example, in Alabama they use old crop husks and in Oregon they use congealed kombucha base. Both of these are now unacceptable.

So what do you need a REAL ID to do? Well, according to the Department of Homeland Security (that institution that never works) it’s required for: “The purposes covered by the Act are: accessing Federal facilities, entering nuclear power plants, and, boarding federally regulated commercial aircraft.”

If you need to get on a federal facility they’ll give you their own specific ID for it. So unless you’re Homer Simpson the only real reason you need the REAL ID is to get on an airplane. That’s it.

Oh my! Where do we start?

1) Act passed in 2005 but not required to complete before 2020; 15 year introduction cycle (or three times longer than World War II).

2) In 14 years since Act has passed not one commercial airliner has been brought down or nuclear power plant infiltrated due to a forged identification thus bringing into question the entire relevance of the Act.

3) REAL ID is required to board a plane, but not required to board a train, bus, autogyro, get into a sports stadium, library, school, Valhalla, or any other place with 743% less security than airplanes and airports.

4) Assumption that technology developed and implemented by government will somehow produce 300 million REAL IDs that cannot be (at least easily) forged. Because surely an evil bad guy who really means it will find it baffling to forge an ID also produced by the genius wizards of your local MVA.

5) Despite bullets (1) through (4) above, the wheels of the bureaucracy have continued to turn for 14 years without nary a thought of perhaps: “maybe we don’t/shouldn’t really need to do this”.

iu.png

behold! the definition of futility

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the spin cycle continues

Kindly observe (again) another act of senseless evil by human scum.

Kindly observe (again) how said human scum will now be given a platform by the shameless media to become famous and get their message out.

Kindly observe (again) how the political, business, entertainment, and/or educational elite express the same pointless platitudes without ever proposing any concrete solutions whatsoever thus ensuring its continuation for the next few decades at least.

Kindly observe (again) as the usual rhetorical bomb throwers use this event to justify whatever proconceived notions they have on religion, terrorism, guns, culture, and/or whatever and compete to see who can shout the loudest.

Kindly observe (again) as this spin cycle continues.

Kindly observe (again) that it will happen (again).

We recommend you do as I do, which is to not pay attention.  For the average person on the street, it’s not even worth it anymore.  You can’t change it, and you’ve got problems of your own to deal with each and every day as you live your life.  This sort of thing is now as common as the changing of the seasons, and it’s not going to stop, so why bother expending your very valuable mental energy on it?

nz

Version #13 of 83 – Circa 2019

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the establishment hasn’t caught up with the reality of our new distributed planet

Yesterday a judge blocked the online publication of blueprints for a 3D printed gun.  The States who filed the complaint called it, “a bell that cannot be un-rung”.  The judge said, “There are 3D printers in public colleges and public spaces and there is the likelihood of potential irreparable harm,”.

So apparently all these folks don’t understand how the Internets works, haven’t heard or understood the word Torrent, and don’t understand the reality of how the planet currently works.

To borrow their term, I can guarantee you that 3D printing of firearms is going to be rung.  And it’s going to be rung very, very soon.  Soon it’ll be possible for anybody with access to cash to print any kind of gun they want, handgun, shotgun, assault rifle, whatever.  It’s going to happen.  That’s one of the fearful miracle implications of 3D printing, fueled by an Internets that enables the distribution of any knowledge whatsoever.

For over 15 years terrorists have been capable of teaching 19 year old disgruntled street urchins from Paris and Brussels how to make nail bombs.  All of this knowledge is easily accessible online.  It’s never going away.  If the establishment thinks 3D printed handgun designs will be any different because some judge says so, they’re hopelessly naive.

As another example please kindly gaze upon the disaster that is killing more Americans than cars in oxy and fentanyl.  The cops, judges, and legislators went after oxy because it was stacking five figures of dead Americans each year.  But then fentanyl materialized out of thin air.

If you haven’t heard, there’s a new villain in town called carfentanil.  It’s even more powerful than fentanyl.  The number of American overdosing each year is higher than ever.  Would you care to take a bet on if the number of dead is going to fall, or if you think carfentanil will be the last drug created out of thin air and pushed on the streets?

The establishment hasn’t caught up with the reality of our new distributed planet.  This is the reason Trump was elected, not Russia.  But understanding that our planet has changed irreversibly is really fucking hard to grasp.  It’s a lot easier for folks to demonize Putin (a cardboard cutout well deserving of the asshole appellation) and move on.

But the opioid epidemic is an example of a massive problem that the establishment cannot solve.  Folks want results and government can’t or won’t deliver.  Because government hasn’t adapted to a changed world.

What to do?  Well, for the drug problem this belligerent degenerate blog has always been about legalizing absolutely everything.  Because the government is never going to be able stop drugs.  Especially in an age where you can factory manufacture lethal opioids in a lab like it’s aspirin.

Let folks get high, who gives a damn?  Treat addiction like the disease it is.  Let folks shoot up or drop pills in clinics where they can get help when they inevitably OD and can get advice and support on how to quit.  Treat the problem, don’t criminalize it when criminalization hasn’t worked for over 100 years of drug crime fighting.

For 3D printed guns, I don’t know, I haven’t gotten that far yet.  But my guess is the answer is probably in the ammunition.  I have no idea, but I’m guessing it’s probably a lot harder to make ammo from nothing than to 3D print a gun.  Put since the establishment isn’t thinking things through (again) all they’ve got is the order of some judge to try and stop it.  It will fail.

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Behold that which cannot be stopped.

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all of these people have wasted their time

Everyone is welcome to think one way or the other about America’s guns.  But with every shooting, I’m on the side of jaded apathy and cynicism.  There may be a solution, a compromise between sides that can be found on guns.  It’s not going to happen.  Those who marched are pushing with all they’ve got for gun control.  That’s also not going to happen.

1) Those who marched seem to be under the impression that politicians work for them.  That’s supposed to be how it works.  But it doesn’t.  Congress works for the following people:

a) Major campaign donors

b) The extreme fringe 5% of their party that rules their lives during the primary of their heavily gerrymandered district

c) Themselves

d) Ordinary average voter

In that order.  I’m sure there might be a handful of folks in Congress who are decent people who are there primarily to do good.  But I’ve come to believe they’re in the minority.

Ask yourself, what normal person would subject themselves to the vicious cage fight that is modern politics?  The answer is, a normal person wouldn’t.  Congress is not populated with problem solvers looking to compromise or make progress.

It’s why they can’t even conduct basic tasks like pass a budget on time.  They’re on an unhinged two year cycle where their goal is not to do work, but to satisfy the cravings of (a) and (b).  Rinse and repeat.

Anybody expecting that these people are going to be the ones to solve problems is asking too much a system that is (sadly) essentially broken at this point.

2) Think what you will about the NRA’s beliefs, but one cannot deny it is the most successful lobby in American history.  There are two people on the planet who I believe possess the powers of the ancient Aztec demon god Itzpapalotltotec.  They are Bill Belichick and Wayne LaPierre.  These guys are absolute masters of their craft.  Nobody can compete with them.

At this point, if you hired LaPierre and told him to get Congress to pass a law saying all ketchup bottles must be colored pink, he could probably get it done.  The NRA has five million card carrying members.  This is by far one of the largest and most dedicated interest groups in the country.

Unless the people who marched this weekend establish their own singular lobby group, get millions of people to join it, and fund it with a dump truck full of money they’re not going to compete effectively with the NRA.

As an example, after the Vegas shooting I think most people could get onboard with the most basic of gun control arguments, that bump stocks that converted a weapon to fully automatic under the table was not a good thing.  They couldn’t even get that passed into law, they had to do it on the side later.

3) I’m just going to go ahead and say this.  Most Americans simply do not care.  I read an article yesterday that said since 2000 over 600K Americans have died in car crashes.  Go ahead and try and wrap your brain around that number.  In the last 15 years we’ve had more Americans die behind the wheel than in all our 20th Century wars combined.

Throughout my life I’ve known several people who’ve died in car crashes.  I also know a handful of people who’ve died in gun violence.  But, selfishly, or cynically, there just isn’t much I can do about it.

We Americans have a shocking tolerance for mayhem, death, and destruction.  I think it’s in our primal colonial blood.  It’s built into our national psyche.

I’m not going stop driving, or go out and demand that every car come equipped with that goo that saves Stallone from dying in a horrible crash in Demolition Man.  I have personally accepted the risk to myself and to society associated with cars.

I think (whether they admit it or not) the vast majority of Americans have accepted the risk to themselves and to society associated with guns.  Folks might not like it, but it’s the way it is.

Those who marched today think that this mindset is beginning to change, and the march shows it.  I don’t agree.  I’m sure more people have died to gunfire in Chicago since this last shooting than those who died in the Florida school.  People intellectually know this, but essentially don’t care.  They move on with their lives.

Like all this, or hate this, either way, I just don’t believe it’s going to change.

Democracy is a mess, and mostly doesn’t work, but it’s still a beautiful thing.  Agree or disagree with those who marched, it’s still part of our freedom that they believe in a cause and are out there fighting for what they believe in.  But, I do believe, all of these people have wasted their time.march-for-our-lives-washington031.jpg

gun control march in Washington DC, Circa 2029