The Breakfast Club (Pure as the Driven Snow)

First of all it will be another sucky blogging day because unless you’re interested in the Donald (I think he’s a hoot and hope he wins, TMC thinks he’s a disaster and has gone all prepper) or Greece (who knows and if Tspiras really was hoping he’d lose the referendum he should be the first one against the wall) or are convinced that Anonymous is attacking the tools of corrupt capitalism in the form of the NYSE, WSJ, and UAL (we can only wish it were true) instead of it being the logical outcome of their tightfisted parsimony and corporate beancounting ignorance, there isn’t really much new news, at least in science and technology.

However I did discover this sponsored link ad fishing around for material-

New Website Reveals Personal Information Even Google Can’t Find

9:06am Friday, June 5, 2015

Been issued a speeding ticket? Failed to stop at a stop sign? What about your family members? And friends? If you are like most of us, the answer to at least one of those questions is “yes”-the vast majority of us have slipped up at least once or twice.

…

Instant Checkmate aggregates hundreds of millions of publicly available criminal, traffic, and arrest records and posts them online so they can easily be searched by anyone. Members of the site can literally begin searching within seconds, and are able to check as many records as they like (think: friends, family, neighbors, etc. etc.).

…

After that, search all of your family members. If your aunt gets a speeding ticket every month, you’ll know. If your parents have kept arrests hidden from you, you could uncover them instantly.

One of the most interesting aspects of Instant Checkmate is that it shows not only criminal records, but also more general background information like marriage records, divorce records, various types of licenses (medical, firearm, aviation, etc.), previous addresses, phone numbers, birthdates, estimated income levels and even satellite imagery of known addresses-it’s really pretty scary just how much information is in these reports.

Mine?  Not so much.

Oh, I admit (kind of desire actually in a perverse sort of way) that ek hornbeck has left a screaming stain of infamy and obnoxiousness across the Tubz in 10 years of activity, but that’s not my real name.  In the Army they have what is called a “Good Conduct” medal that is jocularly awarded for “years of undiscovered crime” and that’s true enough (though I have never been a member of any armed service).

Under ek my record of shame is easily discernible, under my real name not at all.  Google doesn’t find me in it’s first 100 results and this service suggests 5 individuals, none of them me, and at that with the head start of the state I reside in.

Oh sure, if you happen to know my address you can get it on Google Maps, my phone number is pretty hard because it’s registered to my business, not to me.  I’ve had my occasional run ins with Johnny Law, traffic tickets and such, but apparently they are not electronically available.

So why am I so despised and yet so hidden?  It’s simple enough and I certainly encourage you to take these steps unless you are already compromised (and I’ll have some advice on how to fix that below).

I have never used my real name on the Tubz except in business situations (unavoidable if you want to buy stuff) and my credit cards are all business.  Personal stuff I pay for in cash.  Since there’s hardly any point to keeping your money in a bank at 0% I use one only where I must.

I belong to no social networking sites except Facebook (and blogs).  All of my accounts lead to blind e-mails and when requested for personal information I lie my ass off.  None of your damn business anyway.  There is no page in my real name and even ek doesn’t have one.  If you are my friend you know my friends only name (no, it’s not my real one) and that is strictly policed for privacy using independent accounts I haven’t revealed to anybody, to the average enquirer there is my Avatar and Background- that’s it.

Now what I’m mostly concerned about is casual harassment from companies that want to sell me stuff and people I’ve pissed off with my sentiments (you ‘Good Germans’ and rapist apologists know who you are).  Surprisingly I still maintain my Welcome New Users mailbox so if you hate me enough you can direct your spam there where I can report it troll.

Nothing is going to conceal you from a government agency with sufficient interest so you might as well give up on that, but it’s impressive the amount of hassle and garbage you can avoid if you’re reasonably careful.

That’s all well and good, but I’m hopelessly exposed.

Say goodby to all that.  What I mean is that you must abandon all your old accounts except as curiosities and contact points.  Change your IP or get a VPN.  Change your bank, preferably to a small credit union.  Change your name if necessary (marriage is good for that and hardly raises an eyebrow, better yet get gay married).

Most importantly and hardest to do, you have to change your habits and the people you’re associated with.  Not that I would, but if I were to sock dK in a serious way (I have half a dozen accounts I have access to, I don’t use them because dK is boring and silly) the very last thing I’d do is show up in the Daily Show diary posting as if nothing had changed.

As a matter of fact I got bit by troll hunting the other day at European Tribune.  BruceMcF had said it was a good place to keep up on Greece and I hadn’t visited for a really long time.  When I tried to log in I found out I had never registered.  Ok- ek hornbeck, I’m not ashamed of my history, I have a body of work and I called out people who were assholes and bullies (that includes you Denise and you too Meteor).

In my introductory comment I mentioned my association with some past members of ET which generated the instant “How is it that this n00b knows these figures from our past?  He must be a witch!”

Well, you know, better late than never.

Anyway my point is if I were looking to sock I would have been very careful indeed not to say anything which would indicate I had any experience at all other than what you’d randomly find in a casual Google covering the past couple of weeks.  As it is I’m not very interested in being anyone except ek at this point nor do I have a need to.

Science Oriented Video

The law that entropy always increases holds, I think, the supreme position among the laws of Nature. If someone points out to you that your pet theory of the universe is in disagreement with Maxwell’s equations – then so much the worse for Maxwell’s equations. If it is found to be contradicted by observation – well, these experimentalists do bungle things sometimes. But if your theory is found to be against the second law of thermodynamics I can give you no hope; there is nothing for it but to collapse in deepest humiliation.

–Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington, The Nature of the Physical World (1927)

Science News and Blogs

• Reaching Pluto, and the End of an Era of Planetary Exploration, by Dennis Overbye, The New York Times
• This is the way the world ends: not with a bang, but with a Big Rip, by Hannah Devlin, The Guardian
• No alien life on Philae comet, by Stuart Clark, The Guardian
• Measuring research: what are the units of assessment?, by Stephen Curry, The Guardian
• Why your smartphone takes better photographs than the Hubble space telescope, by Monica Grady, The Guardian
• Who is Wendy and why is this dinosaur named after her?, By Will Dunham, Reuters
• What’s Inside Saturn Moon Enceladus? Geyser Timing Gives Hints, By Charles Q. Choi, Space.com
• The Science Behind Why You Can’t Read in the Car, By Gianni Jaccoma, Huffington Post
• Mean Machines: US & Japan Mega-Robots to Battle, By Elizabeth Palermo, Live Science
• Exxon knew of climate change in 1981, email says – but it funded deniers for 27 more years, by Suzanne Goldenberg, The Guardian

Obligatories, News and Blogs below.

Obligatories

Welcome to The Breakfast Club! We’re a disorganized group of rebel lefties who hang out and chat if and when we’re not too hungover we’ve been bailed out we’re not too exhausted from last night’s (CENSORED) the caffeine kicks in. Join us every weekday morning at 9am (ET) and weekend morning at 10:30am (ET) to talk about current news and our boring lives and to make fun of LaEscapee! If we are ever running late, it’s PhilJD’s fault.

I would never make fun of LaEscapee or blame PhilJD.  And I am highly organized.

This Day in History

News and Blogs

• The NYSE Shutdown Isn’t Just A Glitch, It’s A Glimpse Into Our Chaotic Future, by Lauren C. Williams, Think Progress
• Dutch Government Moves To Let Intelligence Community Have More Hacking & Mass Surveillance Powers, by Tim Cushing, Tech Dirt
• China Surprises No One By Passing Cybersecurity Law That Gives It More Control Of The Internet, by Tim Cushing, Tech Dirt
• Spain Government Goes Full Police State; Enacts Law Forbidding Dissent, ‘Unauthorized’ Photography Of Law Enforcement, by Tim Cushing, Tech Dirt
• FBI’s James Comey: I Know All The Experts Insist Backdooring Encryption Is A Bad Idea, But Maybe It’s Because They Haven’t Really Tried, by Mike Masnick, Tech Dirt
• The Latest In The ‘Collect It All’ Collection: An Entire Nation’s DNA, by Glyn Moody, Tech Dirt
• FBI & Homeland Security Now 0 For 41 In Predicting Imminent Terrorist Attacks On The US, by Mike Masnick, Tech Dirt
• Computer Security Experts Release Report Slamming Proposals To Backdoor Encryption, As FBI Makes Latest Push, by Mike Masnick, Tech Dirt
• Feinstein Wants to Introduce Reporting Mandate Jim Comey Says We Don’t Need, emptywheel
• The New York Times Urges the Troika to “Make an Example of Greece”, By William K. Black, New Economic Perspectives
• The Daily Donald: GOP now in full panic mode as Trump runs wilder, by Sophia Tesfaye, Salon
• Alan Grayson lets both parties have it: “People’s lives are circling the drain, and nobody’s even talking about it”, by Alan Grayson, Salon
• “It’s not a good record”: When it comes to worker safety, Obama is a lot like Bush, by Elias Isquith, Salon
• FIFA Expels Chuck Blazer for Life for Bribery, Corruption, Associated Press
• Berlusconi Is Convicted in Graft Case, By GAIA PIANIGIANI, The New York Times
• The FBI doesn’t want to have to force tech companies to weaken encryption, by Trevor Timm, The Guardian
• The New York Stock Exchange goes down: inside the dystopian aftermath, by Molly Crabapple, The Guardian
• CNN investigates claims Sanjay Gupta misled viewers in Nepal report, by Jason Burke and Lauren Gambino, The Guardian
• Weekend With Bernie, By Mark Binelli, Rolling Stone
• CVS Health quits U.S. Chamber of Commerce over tobacco stance, Reuters