This is cool technology from HP: Each printer with the ePrint capability will be assigned its own e-mail address. If someone wants to print a document from an iPhone, the document will go to HP's data center, where it is rendered into the correct format, and then sent to the person's printer. The process takes about 25 seconds. Maybe this...

The Atlantic on stupid terrorists: Nowhere is the gap between sinister stereotype and ridiculous reality more apparent than in Afghanistan, where it's fair to say that the Taliban employ the world's worst suicide bombers: one in two manages to kill only himself. And this success rate hasn't improved at all in the five years they've been using suicide bombers, despite...

A nice dose of risk reality: Last week, the American Academy of Pediatrics issued a statement calling for large-type warning labels on the foods that kids most commonly choke on—grapes, nuts, carrots, candy and public enemy No. 1: the frank. Then the lead author of the report, pediatric emergency room doctor Gary Smith, went one step further. He called for...

Doesn't the DHS have anything else to do? As someone who believes that our nation has a right to enforce its borders, I should have been gratified when the Immigrations official at the border saw the canoe on our car and informed us that anyone who crossed the nearby international waterway illegally would be arrested and fined as much as...

In at least three U.S. states, it is illegal to film an active duty policeman: The legal justification for arresting the "shooter" rests on existing wiretapping or eavesdropping laws, with statutes against obstructing law enforcement sometimes cited. Illinois, Massachusetts, and Maryland are among the 12 states in which all parties must consent for a recording to be legal unless, as...

Interesting: The capability, called "electrical network frequency analysis" (ENF), is now attracting interest from the FBI and is considered the exciting new frontier in digital forensics, with power lines acting as silent witnesses to crime. In the "high profile" murder trial, which took place earlier this year, ENF meant prosecutors were able to show that a seized voice recording that...

The number of different ways to read my essays, commentaries, and links has grown recently. Here's the rundown: You can read my writings daily on my blog. These are reprinted on my Facebook page. They are also reprinted on my LiveJournal feed. You can follow them on Twitter. And you can subscribe to the RSS feed, both full text and...

On April 1, I announced the Fifth Annual Movie Plot Threat Contest: Your task, ye Weavers of Tales, is to create a fable of fairytale suitable for instilling the appropriate level of fear in children so they grow up appreciating all the lords do to protect them. On May 15, I announced the five semi-finalists. Voting continued through the end...

From the Freakonomics blog: At some point, the Club was mentioned. The professional thieves laughed and exchanged knowing glances. What we knew was that the Club is a hardened steel device that attaches to the steering wheel and the brake pedal to prevent steering and/or braking. What we found out was that a pro thief would carry a short piece...

There's a long article in Nature on the practice: It remains unclear what the officers found anomalous about George's behaviour, and why he was detained. The TSA's parent agency, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), has declined to comment on his case because it is the subject of a federal lawsuit that was filed on George's behalf in February by...

Cute....

Hi and Lois, no less....

This essay in The New York Times is refreshingly cogent: You've seen it over and over. At a certain intersection in a certain town, there'll be an unfortunate accident. A child is hit by a car. So the public cries out, the town politicians band together, and the next thing you know, they've spent $60,000 to install speed bumps, guardrails...

From Scientific American, no less. EDITED TO ADD (6/12): A JAMA article....

Earlier this week, the Ninth Workshop on Economics and Information Security (WEIS 2010) was held at Harvard. As always, it was a great workshop with some very interesting papers. Ross Anderson liveblogged the event. EDITED TO ADD (6/10): The papers are all on the conference website....

Read this. EDITED TO ADD (6/10): Another article....

Any essay on hiring hackers quickly gets bogged down in definitions. What is a hacker, and how is he different from a cracker? I have my own definitions, but I'd rather define the issue more specifically: Would you hire someone convicted of a computer crime to fill a position of trust in your computer network? Or, more generally, would you...

This looks like a good research direction: Is it possible that given a clean slate and likely millions of dollars, engineers could come up with the ultimate in secure network technology? The scientists at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) think so and this week announced the Clean Slate Design of Resilient, Adaptive, Secure Hosts (CRASH) program that looks...

Supposedly, the latest terrorist tactic is to place fake bombs -- suspicious looking bags, backpacks, boxes, and coolers -- in public places in an effort to paralyze the city and probe our defenses. The article doesn't say whether or not this has actually ever happened, only that the FBI is warning of the tactic. Citing an FBI informational document, ABC...

Carly Fiorina wants to scare Californians into voting for her. Yes, terrorists kill -- about as often as home appliances. EDITED TO ADD (6/12): PolitiFact breaks down the ad. And we need to fear demon sheep (the best part starts around 2:20)....