Category: Technology

This is what can happen when a state decides to be the NICS point of contact for dealers. Of course, states actually do this to make an illegal registry of, if not guns, gun owners. And, you have to wonder just how real the “hack” is, as opposed to the state goobermint simply wanting to shut down dealers for however long they want.

Nevada Cyberattack Leaves Gun Buyers in Limbo

Many gun sales in the Silver State have been stuck on hold for the past few weeks after a cyberattack on multiple state agencies, and there’s no telling when the state’s background check system will be back online.

Hannah Miles, owner of Guns N Ammo in Gardnersville, Nevada, tells Bearing Arms that she currently has more than 20 background checks pending; all from customers who’ve paid for their firearms but can’t take possession because of the outage. Miles adds that she’s heard it could be a couple of months before the problem is rectified, and the state has offered no alternative for FFLs to conduct the checks while the system is offline.

The cyberattack took place on August 24, so it’s already been more than two weeks of frustration for gun buyers and sellers. Individuals who hold a valid Nevada concealed carry license are exempt from the background check requirement on gun sales, but the outage is impacting everyone else.

Gun store owners told News 4-Fox 11 the outage has affected gun sales, but they were more concerned with the cyberattack affecting Nevadans’ Second Amendment rights.

“The state’s priority should be the constitutional rights of the citizens,” said Michael Alaimo, owner of Rightful Liberty Arms in Reno. “When you go to the state website, it doesn’t say anything about the firearms. Everything says about payroll and DMV, and those are not rights. You know the right to bear arms is in our constitution.”

Alaimo said roughly half of his sales are to people that require a federal background check, while the other sales are to concealed carry permit holders.

Meanwhile, Marcus Hodges, Reno Guns & Range’s assistant general manager, said he has a table ‘piling up with firearms’ that cannot be given to customers.

“There are some people that are foregoing the sale at this point in time. Unfortunately, it’s affecting everybody in the state,” Hodges said.

Nevada is what’s known as a Point of Contact state, meaning Nevada FFLs contact the state’s Department of Public Safety’s Records Bureau instead of going to the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System directly. According to the state, “the advantage to this is that the Point of Contact Firearms Program has access to Nevada criminal history records.”

The disadvantage, of course, is that an untold number of Nevadans are now unable to exercise their Second Amendment rights because of this cyberattack. That’s a real problem, from both a practical and constitutional standpoint.

A right delayed is a right denied, and at the moment the right to keep and bear arms is being denied to every first-time gun buyer in Nevada who doesn’t hold a valid carry license. There is no way for them to legally acquire a firearm unless they can find a seller who fits in the state’s narrow exceptions to its universal background check law, and that’s not going to be possible for many residents.

The effects on gun sellers are equally profound. Most people aren’t going to spend money on a gun if they can’t actually take possession of it until some unknown date in the future, and the inability to process background checks for weeks on end will certainly have an impact on the finances of many FFLs. It’s possible that some shops will have to cut staff or even close entirely if these delays last much longer.

I’m honestly not sure what it would take to allow FFLs to go directly to NICS itself, but unless there’s a provision in state law that allows for that in the case of a system failure it would most likely involve litigation, and the prospects of any legal relief are slim. I’m not aware of any lawsuit that’s been filed over the delays, but even if gun stores or gun buyers were to sue it would take some time to get before a judge, and even longer to obtain injunctive relief. By then the system may once again be operational, and my guess is that most FFLs don’t want to spend the money hiring an attorney and suing the state if there’s a chance their lawsuit will be mooted by the time they get their day in court.

At this point, though, it might be worth the effort. If nothing else, lawmakers need to revise or amend the state’s background check law to allow FFLs to go directly to NICS if and when the DPS Records Bureau is unable to conduct background checks in the future. That won’t fix the ongoing problems, but it would at least prevent them from re-occurring the next time the state gets hit with a cyberattack.

How ‘Ghost Gun’ Rules Are Running Slap Into Reality

Privately made firearms, billed in the media as “ghost guns,” have been part of the fabric of America since before this country was a country. You often had to buy all of the parts, then assemble it yourself with a bit of woodworking.
Now, those days are back, and lefty politicians hate it. Sucks to be them.
See, today, the technology is different, but the principle is the same. You buy some parts, make some other things, and in the end, you’ve got a gun. Only now, with technology, while some are trying to ban “ghost guns,” they’re running straight into the reality that the digital landscape isn’t playing well with their hopes and desires.

“ There is a ghost in the shell, and authorities are attempting to exercise it before it becomes what radicals are calling the “new Second Amendment.”

According to law enforcement sources, 3D-printed ghost guns are one of the fastest-growing threats to public safety. In just three years, the ability for any New Yorker to produce a killing device in their own home has grown exponentially. In 2022, police said the lower receiver of a handgun could be made using most 3D-printers, leaving would-be gun manufacturers only to have to order the additional parts. Now, in 2025, about 96% of a firearm can be made in any home, leaving only screws and springs to be added to make it operable.
Police say this rapid progression of the deadly tech is being spearheaded by fringe groups through online chat rooms, open-source file-sharing websites and video platforms like Odysee. Cops say these gun aficionados are sharing their own designs on these pages, not necessarily because they are dangerous trigger-pullers themselves, but because they are looking for glory from their peers. However, once these schematics hit the web, anyone and everyone can access them.

The ‘New Second Amendment’

Dubbed “3D2A” and ”3D Printing For All communities,” these groups not only aim to share information with one another over the net but also to help perfect their designs, with the aim of making the weapons more durable, effective, and easier to use.
“I started this group due to too many people who want to control the actions of others. Free speech is encouraging, and like minds prosper. If you want to post about 3A stuff also, feel free. This group doesn’t restrict any topic; all I ask is no bashing members,” the description of one 3D printing Facebook group read. ”
The moment it became viable to 3D print the receiver of a firearm, any hope for gun control evaporated. Anyone with a few hundred dollars and an Amazon account–and some of them are unscrupulous enough to use someone else’s few hundred dollars via identity theft–can get the means of creating firearms all their own. The other parts needed are minor repair parts that not only aren’t serialized, but really can’t be.
Plus, if you somehow restrict those, someone out there will come up with designs that use off-the-shelf springs and screws.
Of course, lawmakers have banned “ghost guns” in a number of states, but how has that worked out for them? About the same as what we see when they banned felons from buying guns. It’s almost like criminals break the law as a matter of course, and that gun control only impacts criminals.
Whoops.
Then again, it’s not like these people can comprehend cause and effect. If they could, they’d have stopped being progressives years ago. Instead, we have this inane bunch running things in far too many states.
If it were just their proggie fellow travelers, I’d be fine with it, but there are good people trapped there who get caught up in this fiasco, and that’s a major issue, which is why they need to get this smacked through their thick skulls.

An online acquaintance often toys with AI to see how it ‘thinks’.

I tried this out with Bing’s Copilot to see what it would produce about the legal view that a $0 tax on NFA guns could be used in court against the NFRTR registry. My text is in bold black blockquote. It so happens, Copilot has similar views to many of the greater legal minds out there. (Not really surprised.) Also note it’s flattering tone.

Continue reading “”

Generation capacity hasn’t kept up.
Besides building more nuke plants, maybe they shouldn’t have shut down all those coal fired ones.

TVA urges power conservation as temperatures climb.

The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) is asking all electric power consumers, including Hartselle Utilities customers, to voluntarily reduce electricity usage beginning today as extreme heat continues to strain the power system across the region.

The sustained high temperatures have created significant demand on TVA’s power grid, prompting the call for energy conservation to help ensure system reliability across its seven-state service territory.

Ty Chancellor, general manager of Hartselle Utilities, said customers can take several steps to help reduce demand. He encouraged residents to set their thermostats to 78 degrees or the highest temperature they can safely and comfortably tolerate. He also suggested turning off lights and unplugging electronics in rooms not in use, and delaying the use of large appliances such as washers, dryers and dishwashers until after the request is lifted. Additional measures include taking shorter showers to limit hot water usage and sealing windows and doors to keep cool air inside.

“These steps are vital to maintaining power system stability, avoiding service interruptions, and ensuring a reliable supply of electricity during this period of high demand,” Chancellor said.

“These procedures are precautionary measures to ensure the grid continues function appropriately during peak usage times,” he added. “TVA is continuously working to get additional generation online to assist with peak demand during this hot weather period.” 

The request applies to all residential, commercial and industrial power users in the region. Additional resources for saving energy and lowering electricity bills are available on TVA’s EnergyRight Solutions website.

“By working together, we can help safeguard the power system and minimize the risk of outages for everyone,” Chancellor said.

So, basically China’s version of our Nitro Zeus.
What really does interest me is whether or not they had an actual ‘Nitro’ (Direct Action – do not ask) part of that.

US Officials Find ‘Rogue’ Communication Devices in Chinese Power Inverters

Remember “Volt Typhoon?” That was the name given to a group of Chinese hackers who were identified last year by Microsoft. Volt Typhoon was a state sponsored effort to gain access to US infrastructure including communications and utilities. At the time, FBI Director Christopher Wray said this about the effort.

“The fact is, the PRC’s targeting of our critical infrastructure is both broad and unrelenting,” he said. And, he added, the immense size—and expanding nature—of the CCP’s hacking program isn’t just aimed at stealing American intellectual property. “It’s using that mass, those numbers, to give itself the ability to physically wreak havoc on our critical infrastructure at a time of its choosing,” he said.

Here we are just over a year later and US officials are now expressing concern about another element of our energy infrastructure: solar power inverters. Solar panels generate DC power but the electrical grid runs on AC power. A solar inverter converts the DC power into AC power compatible with the grid. Many of these power inverters are made in China and now officials are finding evidence that some of them have “rogue” communications devices built in to them.

While inverters are built to allow remote access for updates and maintenance, the utility companies that use them typically install firewalls to prevent direct communication back to China.

However, rogue communication devices not listed in product documents have been found in some Chinese solar power inverters by U.S experts who strip down equipment hooked up to grids to check for security issues, the two people said….

The rogue components provide additional, undocumented communication channels that could allow firewalls to be circumvented remotely, with potentially catastrophic consequences, the two people said…

Using the rogue communication devices to skirt firewalls and switch off inverters remotely, or change their settings, could destabilise power grids, damage energy infrastructure, and trigger widespread blackouts, experts said.

“That effectively means there is a built-in way to physically destroy the grid,” one of the people said.

So, how this might work is the US finds itself in a conflict with China. Say, for instance, China invades Taiwan and the US attempts to stop them. Suddenly, power grids around the country start misbehaving or fail completely. This is clearly the kind of attack on domestic infrastructure that Volt Typhoon was aimed at as well.

The unnamed US officials don’t name and names but we have a pretty clear idea which Chinese companies could be involved just based market share.

Huawei is the world’s largest supplier of inverters, accounting for 29% of shipments globally in 2022, followed by Chinese peers Sungrow and Ginlong Solis, according to consultancy Wood Mackenzie…

While Huawei decided to leave the U.S. inverter market in 2019 – the year its 5G telecoms equipment was banned – it remains a dominant supplier elsewhere.

Though discovered in the US, the presence of unregistered equipment has raised alarm in Europe.

The European Solar Manufacturing Council (ESMC), the body which represents the interests of some Europe-based PV companies, said that: “With over 200GW of Europe’s solar capacity relying on these inverters—equivalent to more than 200 nuclear power plants—the security risk is systemic.”…

Last week, PV Tech spoke to a leading European inverter manufacturer at the Intersolar Europe trade show in Munich, who said that the risk of cyberattacks to cut power supply from solar inverters was “real”, and that “it’s very clear inverter companies could switch off the grid if they want to.”

All Chinese companies are legal required to cooperate with CCP intelligence services, giving them anything they ask. So it’s not really a shock that this would happen. China has shown for years that it will attempt to exploit every opportunity to spy, steal our technology and gain control of our networks. At this point we really should just assume this is happening everywhere, all the time.

Still out of commercial power, this early Thursday morning, as is a large section of the western part of the city, as of the time of writing this. The sounds of gas generators can be heard in the neighborhood from several different direction.

Mere low Earth orbit in a space station? It’s too bad we haven’t taken up asteroid mining yet

What’s it like to be 70 years old in space? “All those little aches and pains heal up.”

Not many people celebrate their birthday by burning a fiery arc through the atmosphere, pulling 4.4gs in freefall back to planet Earth, thudding into the ground, and emptying their stomach on the steppes of Kazakhstan.

No one has ever done it on their 70th birthday.

Perhaps this is appropriate because NASA astronaut Don Pettit is a singular individual. His birthday is April 20, and when the Soyuz spacecraft carrying him landed at dawn in Kazakhstan, the calendar had turned over to that date. John Glenn, then 77, was older when he went to space. But no one as old as Pettit had spent as long as he had in orbit, 220 days, on a mission.

On Monday, a little more than a week after returning from orbit, Pettit met with reporters at Johnson Space Center. “It’s good to be back on planet Earth,” he said. “As much as I love exploring space, going into the frontier, and making observations, you do reach a time when it’s time to come home.”

Flying in space at 70 years old

Pettit first went into space at the age of 47 for his first of three long-duration missions to the International Space Station. Since then, he has flown a shorter shuttle mission and two more space station increments. All told, he has lived in space for 590 days, the third-most all-time among NASA astronauts.

“I’ve got a few creaks and groans in my body, but basically I feel the same as I did 20 years ago, and coming back to gravity is provocative,” he said.

After every one of his missions, Pettit said the readjustment to gravity for him has been a challenge. He added that the surprising thing about spaceflight is that it’s not so much your large muscles that ache, but the smaller ones.

“A week ago, I was on station, and I was doing really heavy squats, I was doing dead lifts, I could float around with the greatest of ease, even though I had no trapeze,” he said. “I was at the peak of my game. And then you come back to Earth, and it’s like, God, I can’t even get up from the floor anymore. It’s humbling. But it isn’t about the large muscle groups. It’s about the little, tiny muscles that everybody forgets about because they’re just there and they work. When you’re in weightlessness, these muscles don’t work anymore. And they take a six-month vacation until you come back to Earth. And now, all of a sudden, they start groaning and talking to you, and it takes a while to get all these little muscles tuned back up to being an Earthling.”

In terms of aging, Pettit said, like a lot of older people, he wakes up after a night sleeping on Earth with a sore shoulder or a stiff neck. That’s just part of the process. But microgravity took some of those aches and pains away.

“I love being in space,” he said. “When you’re sleeping, you’re just floating, and your body, all those little aches and pains heal up. You feel like you’re 30 years old again and free of pain, free of everything. So I love being on orbit. It’s a great place to be for me and my physiology.”

The space station isn’t old, either

Pettit has visited the space station on all four of his spaceflights. He lived there, near the beginning of the station’s lifetime, as part of Expedition 6 in 2002. More than two decades later he said the station is operating at full capacity, delivering on its promise of robust scientific research, studies of long-duration spaceflight, and much more. Asked if he felt nostalgic about the station coming to an end in 2030—NASA plans to de-orbit the facility at that time—Pettit said the laboratory should live on.

“I’m a firm believer we don’t need to dump the space station in the ocean at 2030 if we don’t want to,” he said. “If we as a society decided to keep [the] space station, we could keep it like a B-52. I mean, how many years is it they’ve been flying? It’ll be flying close to 100 years by the time the Air Force finally retires the B-52, and it’s basically the same airframe with the same aerodynamics, but everything else is new. There’s no limit to what we can do to [the] space station, except for our will to keep refurbishing it and having the funding necessary.”

And maybe that’s because he wants to go back. Pettit did not rule out flying into space again. For now, he wants to take a few weeks to allow his body time to re-adjust to gravity. He wants to enjoy some time with his family. But soon, he knows, space will start to call to him again.

“I call it the explorer’s paradox,” he said. “When you’re back in civilization, you want to be out there wherever your wilderness happens to be; and then when you’re in your wilderness, it’s like, wow, I need to be back with my family. I think it’s probably gone on for as long as humanity has had people who go off into the wilderness. When the flight docs say I’m ready to go back, I’m ready to do it. And I know John Glenn flew at age 76, something like that, and I’m only 70, so I’ve got a few more good years left. I could see getting another flight or two in before I’m ready to hang up my rocket nozzles.”

We actually have one of, if not the, largest known deposits of these strategic minerals right here in the U.S. We’ve just been too politically lazy, letting the foreign controlled econutz and business owners overly motivated by the bottom line to develop the mining

China’s New Weapon Isn’t a Missile. It’s a Magnet.

On April 4, the Chinese government issued sweeping new export controls on critical rare earth elements in response to the Trump Administration’s reciprocal trade plan. And while the categories of rare earths included — samarium, gadolinium, terbium, dysprosium, lutetium, scandium, and yttrium — are unknown to most Americans, they are embedded in everything from smartphones to stealth bombers.

These new restrictions are not just a new volley in the ongoing back-and-forth between Washington and Beijing. For those paying attention, this is a strategic maneuver that puts pressure directly on the backbone of U.S. national defense and the broader high-tech economy.

While the move is couched in the language of national security and non-proliferation compliance, its timing and scope are not accidental. China is leveraging its near-total dominance over the global rare earth supply chain to shape geopolitical outcomes and force the U.S. to respond.

To better understand the government’s options, it’s helpful to know more about what these rare earth elements do. Dysprosium and terbium are used to produce high-temperature-resistant magnets essential for electric motors in guided missiles, aircraft, drones, and naval propulsion systems. Samarium-cobalt magnets power everything from F-35 jet actuators to targeting systems. Gadolinium is a key component in military-grade sonar. Scandium-aluminum alloys reduce weight while maintaining strength in aerospace structures. Lutetium is increasingly used in advanced radiation detection and positron emission tomography (PET) systems.

These are not luxury materials. They are irreplaceable components in mission-critical systems. It is impossible to build an advanced hypersonic glide vehicle, a submarine-launched cruise missile, or a battlefield drone swarm without them.

China dominates the pipeline for these materials entering the rest of the world, controlling approximately 70 – 85% of their global production and processing capacity. In many cases, such as with dysprosium and terbium, China is not just the dominant supplier, it is the only economically viable one.

The implications of the new restrictions extend far beyond defense. These same elements are foundational to industries that define modern civilization: consumer electronics, factory automation and robotics, health care, electric and hybrid vehicles, wind turbines, medical imaging, semiconductors, appliances, and more. Now Beijing is threatening to block them from those it considers its adversaries.

China has a history of leveraging their advantage in this sector. In 2010, China restricted rare earth exports during a territorial dispute with Japan. In 2023, it imposed curbs on gallium, germanium, and graphite (important in semiconductor production) in response to U.S. chip export bans. Last year, it strengthened restrictions on gallium and germanium and added antinomy and superhard materials.

This latest move is most expansive yet. It targets a broader array of elements, and the regulatory language is sweeping, covering metals, oxides, alloys, compounds, magnets, and even mixed-material targets used in thin-film manufacturing. China is proving that it is willing to endure economic blowback to assert long-term strategic control, and as tensions with the U.S. rise, the boundaries of a new materials Cold War are being drawn.

The Trump Administration is watching this carefully and has already begun taking aggressive steps toward putting the U.S. in a greater position of rare earth and critical mineral self-sufficiency. But American progress in this area over the past 20 years has been sluggish. Building rare earth processing plants is capital-intensive and geopolitically challenging.

Fortunately, the U.S. can access its own rare earth resources within its borders. The Mountain Pass deposit in California is now scaling up production, although it still sends a substantial amount of its mined ore to China for processing. It also largely lacks the heavy rare earths dysprosium and terbium. Another very large resource, located in Nebraska, can produce these defense-critical rare earths in additional to establishing global U.S. dominance in production of the rare earth scandium. That project could move to construction immediately, given adequate financing.

But China’s dominance in midstream processing, the chemical separation and purification that turns mined rock into usable materials, remains unrivaled.

To address this challenge, the U.S. must treat rare earth independence not as an industrial policy footnote but as a core national security imperative. That means accelerated investment in mining, extraction, refining, and recycling capacity, all backed by government dollars, loans and loan guarantees, and streamlined permitting. Importantly, as President Trump’s recent Critical Minerals Executive Order proposes, the Defense Production Act should be fully leveraged to jumpstart rare earth projects on U.S. soil.

Further, any domestic investment must be met with greater cooperation between Washington and allied nations that can counter China’s monopoly. Japan, South Korea, Canada, and Australia should be part of a coordinated, supply-secure bloc for critical materials.

The wars of the future may not start with missiles, but with minerals. And unless the U.S. invests in securing access to the elements that power our technologies, we may soon find ourselves on the wrong side of a digital and defense divide.

The Idiocy of Trying to Ban Possession of 3D Printer Files

I’m part of the last generation to grow up without the internet. That didn’t really happen until the 1990s, and much of the popularity that followed was well after my high school years. Yes, I’m old.

I was still young enough to embrace this new technology. I remember the early days when it was difficult to find stuff on the internet, especially with the terrible search engines we had available, but then stuff changed. We had Google make it easier to find whatever you were looking for–it sucks now, for the record–and then we got social media where it was easy to connect to folks and build relationships.

So I understand the internet and how it works about as well as anyone who doesn’t get into the technical aspects in and of themselves probably can.

Which is why the push from some anti-gun states to prohibit the files for 3D printers that allow people to make their own firearms and accessories is absolutely idiotic.

Proving that some folks aren’t sure how the internet works, several states are striving to make it harder to make firearms and firearm components privately.

In recent news from California, New Jersey, and New York, blue state prosecutors and lawmakers are making an extra effort to curb the availability of digital gun plans and devices that can help legally produce home-built guns, which are allowed under federal law.

In New Jersey, the Democrat-controlled state Assembly passed A4975 last month in a 50-26 roll call along party lines. The bill makes it a crime to possess digital instructions to manufacture guns and gun components, including receivers or magazines. Under the proposal, a person who is not licensed or registered to manufacture firearms but possesses any digital firearm instructions is guilty of a fourth-degree felony, which is punishable by up to 18 months in jail and a fine of up to $10,000.

Meanwhile, in New York, Manhattan’s Democrat District Attorney Alvin Bragg has penned a letter to Creality, a Chinese 3D printer maker – one of the largest in the world – to urge the company to do more to block its machines from having the capability to make gun components. Further, Bragg wants Creality to police its cloud community for such CAD files.

That first sentence, though, says it all.

Let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that the Constitution doesn’t apply for a moment. In such a case, you can make anything you want illegal. You can prohibit anything at all.

What you can’t do, though, is stop people who don’t respect the law.

Now, here in the real world where there is a Constitution and the right to keep and bear arms is supposed to be protected by the Second Amendment, there are major problems with such laws beyond the fact that they don’t work, especially since making your own gun has been legal since well before the founding of this nation. I think one would be hard-pressed to find a law from the time of the founding that would serve as an analog.

So there’s that.

But we also have to acknowledge just how ridiculous the law is with regard to preventing criminals from doing anything. I mean, this is the era of the internet. People can find whatever they want.

Even sites that try to prohibit people from IP addresses in those states–which may impact people living just across state lines or others who have IP addresses that may not accurately pinpoint their homes–will run into an issue because VPNs can be set to make it appear you live in a completely different state.

You can’t stop the signal.

Yeah, the law will allow prosecution of people who happen to have these files, but so what? How are they going to enforce it unless they’re tipped off that someone has these files? They’re not. How will they most likely get tipped off that someone has them? They’re using them to print gun parts and likely selling them.

By then, they’ve already broken the state laws against printing the guns in the first place, so the damage is done.

Yes, this is idiotic.

But then again, considering which states are looking at this, nothing at all should be shocking about the idiocy.

SpaceX launches first-of-its-kind human spaceflight mission around Earth’s poles.

Mission commander and cryptocurrency billionaire Chun Wang and his three crewmates — Jannicke Mikkelsen, Rabea Rogge and Eric Philips — are now safely in orbit, tucked inside their 13-food-wide SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule.

The group is expected to handle more than 20 science experiments and research studies during their time in space, most of which focus on their health and response to the disorienting environment of microgravity.

All told, the Fram2 crew will spend three to five days in space. They’ll try to capture unique footage from their windows as they lap the planet end-to-end, passing over Earth’s poles for the first time in human spaceflight history.

Manhattan DA calls on 3D printing companies to deter creation of ghost guns

With crimes involving ghost guns on the rise, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin L. Bragg, Jr., is calling on a 3D printer manufacturer to put more safeguards in place to prevent the spread of 3D-printed guns and gun parts.

Bragg penned a letter to Shenzhen Creality 3D Technology Co., Ltd. (Creality), which produces 3D printers available to individual consumers, to install their printers with an available 3D-printing software program that detects the shapes of common gun parts and blocks their printing. Bragg also called on Creality to take down any online blueprints, also known as CAD files, from its cloud platform, and to ban the creation of illicit weapons in the company’s user agreement.

The letter comes after the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to uphold federal regulations, which the DA’s office filed an amicus brief in support of last summer, requiring ghost gun parts to have serial numbers and compelling background checks for prospective buyers of ghost gun home-assembly kits.
“We are calling on companies that sell 3D-printers to work with us to stem the flow of dangerous weapons into our communities by implementing targeted, commonsense fixes. Too often, gun violence tragically takes innocent lives and tears at the fabric of our communities. Over the past several years, the number of illegal, 3D-printed firearms and ghost guns has increased significantly. We have an aggressive and holistic approach to combatting gun violence alongside our law enforcement partners but we cannot do it alone. We are hopeful that we can partner with these companies and make a meaningful impact on public safety,” said District Attorney Bragg.

Creality printers have been previously seized during searches by law enforcement in New York City, including recent cases; the DA’s office cites the cases against Luigi Mangione and Robert Guerrero, which are still in progress, as well as Cory Davis and Cliffie Thomspon, both of whom plead guilty to manufacturing ghost guns.

Since 2020, the DA’s Office has been cracking down on use and possession of ghost guns and illegal firearms, creating the Ghost Gun Initiative with the NYPD. Between 2021 and 2024, homicides decreased by 20%, and shootings decreased by 45% in Manhattan.

In 2023, Bragg introduced legislation to close loopholes in New York’s gun laws to make manufacturing 3D-printed and ghost guns and gun parts a felony. The legislation would also make it a misdemeanor to share, sell or distribute files containing blueprints for 3D-printed firearms components.

Bragg will be sending similar letters to other leading consumer brands of 3D printers in the coming weeks. Click here to read the full letter.

I won’t connect my dishwasher to your stupid cloud
March 24, 2025

Jeff Geerling:

This weekend I had to buy a new dishwasher because our old GE died.

I bought a Bosch 500 series because that’s what Consumer Reports recommended, and more importantly, I could find one in stock.

After my dad and I got it installed, I went to run a rinse cycle, only to find that that, along with features like delayed start and eco mode, require an app.

Bosch dishwasher Home Connect logo

Not only that, to use the app, you have to connect your dishwasher to WiFi, set up a cloud account in something called Home Connect, and then, and only then, can you start using all the features on the dishwasher.

Video

This blog post is a lightly-edited transcript of my latest YouTube video on Level 2 Jeff:

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That phone in your pocket is a spy and a tattle tale. The goobermint has long known, and long used this knowledge for its own purposes. The demonscraps are so stupid,  they think we’re so stupid, they can sell their BS as fresh clean cattle fodder.

‘Inorganic’ – GPS Data Reveals Bernie Sanders, AOC Anti-Oligarchy Rally Was Full Of Serial Protesters

The Democratic Party launched a full-scale propaganda blitz in a desperate attempt to sway public opinion as its favorability ratings plunged to record lows. True to form, the party of leftist radicals prefers to bend reality—relying on rent-a-protesters or, in this case, inorganic crowds—to create a false perception of popularity. And that’s exactly what unfolded on Friday in Denver.

Drone footage shows a large crowd as U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont, spoke at Denver’s Civic Center. The outspoken socialist wrote on X: “34,000 people out in Denver. Largest political rally there since 2008.” 

Sanders attempted to explain that the large turnout reflected what voters are saying: “No to authoritarianism. No to oligarchy. No to Trumpism.”

However, leftist corporate media failed to fact-check the socialist for misinformation or disinformation. Others did—using a sophisticated algorithm to analyze data from all smartphone devices at the event—and found the numbers were severely overinflated. 

Many of the attendees were probably bussed in and had a history of participating in Antifa/BLM, pro-Hamas, and pro-Palestinian protests. The Democratic Party is known for bussing activists through NGO networks to events to fill seats—a tactic repeatedly used throughout Kamala Harris’ 2024 presidential campaign trail to create fake hype.

Data analyst Tony Seruga exposed just how staged the latest Democratic Party rally was, revealing their ongoing attempts to manipulate public perception with inorganic crowds made up mainly of DEI activists rather than genuine grassroots supporters:

GPS—Here we go again, there were 20,189 devices. Still a large crowd but not even close to the 30,000 quoted in Denver newspapers nor the 34,000 quoted by Bernie Sanders and AOC.

84% of the devices present had attended 9 or more Kamala Harris rallies, antifa/blm, pro-Hamas, pro-Palestinian protests, 31% had attended over 20.

For more insight into what data we also look at in addition to GPS location data would be demographic and psychographic data using over 6,000 different databases, i.e., like the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), Pew Research Center, market research firms like YouGov, Experian, specialized tools like ESRI’s Tapestry Segmentation, consumer surveys, social media platforms like 𝕏, Facebook, Linkedin.

Demographic data includes basic characteristics like age, gender, income, education level, occupation, marital status, family size, ethnicity, and where people live (e.g., city, state).

Psychographic data dives deeper into people’s lifestyles, values, attitudes, interests, personality traits, social class, activities, and how they make purchasing decisions. For example, it might show if someone values sustainability, enjoys outdoor activities, participates in community activism.

While demographic data is straightforward, psychographic data can reveal sensitive personal details, like beliefs even life goals.

Additionally, by cross pollinating each device with other devices regularly within close proximity to the target device we are able to build a detailed profile for each target.

90% of those in the above 84% were likely working with one of these five groups and is the reason for their presence.

Once again, this is based a very sophisticated algorithm that looks at the behavioral metrics for each device, including the physical 1:1 proximity to leaders and paymasters from these groups in the past.

Disruption Project, Rise & Resist, Indivisible Project, Troublemakers and the Democratic Socialists of America.

Each receives money from ActBlue and at least three, via USAID.

Disruption Project: Legal status is unclear, likely operating illegally. Rise & Resist: 501c4 non-profit Indivisible Project: 501c4 non-profit Troublemakers: Legal status is for profit. Democratic Socialists of America: 501c4 non-profit

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Space Force General: Chinese Satellites ‘Dogfighting’ in Orbit.

The vice chief of the U.S. Space Force said Chinese satellites have been observed rehearsing “dogfighting” maneuvers in low Earth orbit, a display of the communist nation’s ability to perform complex maneuvers in orbit.

The maneuvers, referred to as rendezvous and proximity operations, involve not only navigating around other objects but also inspecting them, the Air Force Times reported Tuesday.

“With our commercial assets, we have observed five different objects in space maneuvering in and out and around each other in synchronicity and in control,” Vice Chief of Space Operations Gen. Michael Guetlein said Tuesday at the McAleese Defense Programs Conference in Washington, D.C.

A Space Force spokesperson told the Air Force Times the observation occurred in 2024 and involved three Shiyan-24C experimental satellites and two other Chinese experimental spacecraft, the Shijian-605 A and B. The Shijian-6 systems were believed to be on a signals intelligence mission, which could be used to determine the geolocation of a signal’s origin, which helps in identifying the location and movements of adversaries, according to the American Military Institute.

Guetlein’s comments came as the Space Force intensifies efforts to establish dominance in space, both by defending its satellites from enemy attacks and through offensive measures of its own, according to the Air Force Times.

“The purpose of the Space Force is to guarantee space superiority for the joint force — not space for space’s sake,” Guetlein said. “Space [operations] guarantee that, just like all the other domains, we can fight as a joint force, and we can depend on those capabilities.”

Guetlein used the satellite dogfighting demonstration among other concerning activities from “near-peer” U.S. adversaries. That included Russia’s 2019 demonstration of a “nesting doll,” during which a satellite released a smaller spacecraft that then performed several stalking maneuvers near a U.S. satellite.

Such operations indicate the space capability gap between the U.S. military and its closest adversaries is shrinking, a concern Space Force leaders have been raising for years, the Air Force Times reported.

“That capability gap used to be massive,” Guetlein said. “We’ve got to change the way we look at space or that capability gap may reverse and not be in our favor anymore.”

Elon Musk Drops New Info About Massive Cyberattack Against X

There were some major outages on the social media platform X on Monday, with X owner Elon Musk saying it was due to a “massive cyberattack” that went on throughout the morning and afternoon.

“We get attacked every day, but this was done with a lot of resources,” Musk explained. “Either a large, coordinated group and/or a country is involved.”

He went on to say they were “tracing” the attack.

Musk later appeared on Fox Business with Larry Kudlow where he was asked about the cyberattack and about whether it was “foreign sourced.”

“Well, we don’t we’re not sure exactly what happened, but there was a massive cyber attack to try to bring down the X system with IP addresses originating in the Ukraine area,” Musk said.

Now it should be noted that IP addresses showing as Ukraine doesn’t necessarily mean Ukrainians did it when the people behind the action might be using VPNs. Would Ukraine really leave a trail back to themselves if they did it? That would seem a bad move.

The folks who truly have a lot to lose from Musk’s actions are the people whose power he is disrupting here in the U.S. Those are the folks who want him out of government. But Musk may have more information and he’ll likely find out even more as he continues to look into it. Chances are they will run these characters to ground when they make such a huge attack.

The day before, some were spreading a false story that Musk wanted to cut off Starlink to Ukraine. Both he and Secretary of State Marco Rubio scotched that story. But that further hyped the “Ukraine anger” against Musk.

 

A lot of people faced outages, and there still seem to be issues with such things as embedding tweets and things.

Meanwhile, a group called Dark Storm Team claimed credit for the attack.

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Undocumented commands found in Bluetooth chip used by a billion devices.

Update 3/9/25: After receiving concerns about the use of the term ‘backdoor’ to refer to these undocumented commands, we have updated our title and story. Our original story can be found here.

The ubiquitous ESP32 microchip made by Chinese manufacturer Espressif and used by over 1 billion units as of 2023 contains undocumented commands that could be leveraged for attacks.

The undocumented commands allow spoofing of trusted devices, unauthorized data access, pivoting to other devices on the network, and potentially establishing long-term persistence.

This was discovered by Spanish researchers Miguel Tarascó Acuña and Antonio Vázquez Blanco of Tarlogic Security, who presented their findings yesterday at RootedCON in Madrid.

“Tarlogic Security has detected a backdoor in the ESP32, a microcontroller that enables WiFi and Bluetooth connection and is present in millions of mass-market IoT devices,” reads a Tarlogic announcement shared with BleepingComputer.

“Exploitation of this backdoor would allow hostile actors to conduct impersonation attacks and permanently infect sensitive devices such as mobile phones, computers, smart locks or medical equipment by bypassing code audit controls.”

The researchers warned that ESP32 is one of the world’s most widely used chips for Wi-Fi + Bluetooth connectivity in IoT (Internet of Things) devices, so the risk is significant.

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