Modern high technology strikes again
It’s no secret that the Internet of Things is full of insecure gadgets. All you need is one high profile incident to be flooded with terrifying headlines about how everything from robotic vacuum cleaners to smart sex toys can be hacked to spy on you. However, apparently some devices like Smarter’s IoT coffee machine can also be reprogrammed to go haywire and demand ransom from unsuspecting users.
This week, Martin Hron, a researcher with the security firm Avast, reverse engineered a $250 Smarter coffee maker as part of a thought experiment to potentially uncover an important flaw in the infrastructure of smart devices.
“I was asked to prove a myth, call it a suspicion, that the threat to IoT devices is not just to access them via a weak router or exposure to the internet, but that an IoT device itself is vulnerable and can be easily owned without owning the network or the router,” he wrote in a blog post detailing his methods.
His experiment was a success: After a week of tinkering, he effectively turned the coffee maker into a ransomware machine. When the user tries to connect it to their home network, it triggers the machine to turn on the burner, spew hot water, endlessly spin the bean grinder, and display a pre-programmed ransom message while beeping incessantly……..
The new anti-Semitism
Ocasio-Cortez withdraws from Rabin memorial event after backlash
Democratic congresswoman pulls participation from Americans For Peace Now commemoration for assassinated Israeli premier, after pro-Palestinian activists call move ‘disgusting’
Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Friday withdrew her participation from an event commemorating former prime minster Yitzhak Rabin on the 25th anniversary of his assassination.
The decision, which came after backlash from pro-Palestinian activists, was confirmed to The Times of Israel by a spokeswoman for the congresswoman, a rising star in the progressive wing of the Democratic party. Continue reading “”
BLUF:
The cops came out repeatedly, answering not just my calls but those of my neighbors. Time after time, the police apologized for the fact that they couldn’t do anything to alleviate the abuse, explaining that they’d been neutered by the mayor, with the support of our local city councilman, Mike Bonin……
An hour and a half after I’d called 911, officers arrived. And it was then—noon, on Thursday, August 20th that I had an upsetting revelation: We citizens can no longer rely on the police to show up. And then the thought hit me: I need to get a gun………..
You’ve got to love the irony. It’s the Democrats who push for gun control, yet it’s the Democrats in power in my city who are leaving me with no choice but to arm myself.
L.A.’s Failed Homeless Policies Turned My Home Into a Prison
I never wanted a gun. In fact, I wanted to never own one—until around noon on Thursday, August 20th. Continue reading “”
They clutch that necklace and have a case of the vapors over that .50 cal rifle, then completely disregard the guy in the pick-up holding an M60 machinegun right behind it.
You don’t find those at your local gun store, so the stupidity of the people making this piece of propaganda is readily evident.
Ohio lawmakers pass bill making gun stores an ‘essential business’ even amid a pandemic
COLUMBUS, Ohio (WSYX/WTTE) — The Ohio Senate recently passed a bill that would ban the closure of licensed firearms dealers, even during a pandemic. Gun store owners are now behind the legislation and hope it reaches the governor’s desk. However, other groups against the bill now worry about the bill saying it could do more harm than good.
Eric Delbert, the owner of LEPD Firearms, says in the eight years he’s been running the store gun sales have never been higher.
“At the height of COVID and at the beginning of the civil unrest, we went from selling 10 firearms in a day just in a day just some days selling over 100,” said Delbert.
Governors of several states excluded licensed firearms dealers from the list of “essential” businesses. Recently, passed Senate Bill 360, backed by Republican Senate President Larry Obhof, would ban any public official from closing down gun stores, even during a pandemic……..
#1, Gun violence is an issue no one can avoid any longer.
This is why I carry a gun!
#2, Would Lanza have ever come up with this disgusting, perverse courage to walk into that school if he didn’t have an AR-15?
Murphy is attributing an ability to the rifle to have influenced Lanza. This is the old medieval superstition of The Deodand, where a thing, an inanimate object has moral responsibility and the capacity to exert mental and physical control over people.
As we see, there are people who today still believe in crap-for-brains BS, or think they can pander to those who do.
Sen. Chris Murphy: Gun Violence Is An Issue ‘No One Can Avoid Any Longer’
Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy spoke with Boston Public Radio on Friday about his new book that examines what he says is the American failure to address gun violence. Murphy was elected to the U.S. Senate a month before the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012, when 20 children between the ages of 6 and 7, and six adults, were shot dead by Adam Lanza.
“This easy access to weapons of mass destruction is probably the simplest and most accurate explanation of the mass shooting epidemic,” Murphy said. “Would Adam Lanza have ever come up with this disgusting, perverse courage to walk into that school if he didn’t have an AR-15?”……………….
— Schoen Photography (@SchoenPhotog) September 26, 2020
Seen on Buk de Face
Insanity? Pure political hackery, I say.
At Pentagon, Fears Grow That Trump Will Pull Military Into Election Unrest
Defense Department officials said top generals could resign if Mr. Trump ordered the active-duty military into the streets to quell protests.
General Mark Milley of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and President Trump at the White House in May.
I wish
Some Senate Democrats Consider Boycotting SCOTUS Confirmation Hearing
At least two Democrats on the powerful Senate panel that will soon oversee the confirmation hearing for President Donald Trump’s forthcoming Supreme Court nominee remain on the fence about whether they’ll attend the televised meetings.
Senate Judiciary Committee members Chris Coons (D-Del.) and Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) told Newsweek they’re uncertain if they’ll participate in the several days of public hearings expected for mid-October, signaling they may boycott the confirmation process in an apparent snub to Republicans moving at breakneck pace to fill the vacancy on the nation’s highest court before Election Day.
“We’ll see,” Coons said. “My gut inclination is this is the shortest time in American history, the closest to an election—ever—that there’s been a nominee, and we’re given just two weeks to do what should take a month
???????
Anybody want to tell her? https://t.co/w921XCdjPH
— Candace Owens (@RealCandaceO) September 26, 2020
What part of “the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” did the left think was optional? Hmmm. I’ll take “All three” for $500, Alex
President Donald Trump promised to sign an executive order for the Born-Alive Infant Abortion Survivors Act.
The legislation requires medical care for babies who survive abortion. Continue reading “”
There’s no ‘anonymous sources’ for this
That is right from the horse’s ass.
Bull. Every time some leftist, proggie opens their mouth and inserts their feet and then gets taken to task for their insults, they again open their pieholes and so often use the ‘it was just a joke‘ excuse that anyone with more than 2 functioning brain cells should realize that they’re lying again. And insulting us again by thinking we’ll believe their BS.
.@JoeBiden: Clap for that, you stupid bastards pic.twitter.com/0LV5oVONs8
— Joel Fischer (@JFNYC1) September 25, 2020
‘Utterly baffling’ Really? Are you kidding me, or do you think we’re stupid?
You introduce -intentionally, or even otherwise – the bug into an elderly populated nursing home environment and you’re ‘baffled’? Now, of the same attention can be paid to the Gubbernor of New York state and the mayor of New York City…………
‘Utterly baffling’: 76 vets die of Covid at soldiers home
They stormed the beaches at Normandy, liberated Nazi concentration camps and fought the Cold War in Korea and Vietnam only to die in their beds from a virus that infiltrated the veteran’s center in western Massachusetts that was their home.
But on Friday the loved ones of the 76 veterans who, starting in March, died from the coronavirus at the Holyoke Soldiers Home, received a measure of belated justice.
Former Superintendent Bennett Walsh, a Marine, and the home’s ousted medical director, Dr. David Clinton, were each charged with five counts of “wantonly or recklessly” causing or permitting bodily harm and five counts of neglect or mistreatment of an older or disabled person, Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healy announced.
“My heart goes out to the families that lost loved ones at the Holyoke Soldiers Home,” Healy said. “They risked their lives from Normandy to the jungles of Vietnam and to know that they died under these circumstances is truly shocking.”
Walsh, 50, and Clinton, 71, are accused of making the “disastrous decision” on March 27 to mix patients already displaying symptoms with healthy patients and accelerate the spread of Covid-19 through the center.
But the charges Healy announced stem specifically from the decision by the pair to place five asymptomatic veterans into what had been a dining area “a few feet apart” from four other vets who already had Covid-19. Continue reading “”
I’ve got this one beat. I hate licorice. All licorice.
A 54-Year-Old Man Died From Eating Too Much Black Licorice
A 54-year-old man in Massachusetts suffered cardiac arrest after consuming too much black licorice, a new case report from the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) says. The patient was in a fast-food restaurant when he gasped suddenly and lost consciousness, according to the case report. His whole body began to shake, but he remained unresponsive even after those movements stopped.
First responders arrived about four minutes after the man lost consciousness and started doing CPR; they also shocked the patient’s heart four times and administered multiple medications, including naloxone, which is often used to treat opioid overdoses. The patient’s “mental status” returned, but then his pulse stopped, causing first responders to resume CPR.
He arrived at a hospital half an hour after he’d gone into cardiac arrest, still unconscious. “The patient was an unresponsive, middle-aged man who had undergone mechanical CPR and had no external signs of trauma,” the case report says. Doctors intubated the patient and performed an electrocardiogram (ECG), a test that tracks electrical activity in the heart and allows doctors to find and diagnose heart problems.
Doctors noted that the patient didn’t have a history of experiencing chest pain or heart failure. “He had a poor diet, consisting primarily of several packages of candy daily; [three] weeks earlier, he had switched the type of candy he was eating,” the case report says.
It turns out, the patient stopped eating his usual fruit-flavored soft candy and instead switched to eating licorice-flavored candy. The licorice-flavored candy contained glycyrrhizic acid, which is converted to glycyrrhetinic acid after consumption. Glycyrrhetinic acid, in turn, inhibits the enzyme needed to convert cortisol into cortisone, along with the metabolism of other corticosteroids, leading to increased levels of cortisol in the kidneys, which can set off a whole slew of problems in the body.
Requests for gun permits soared this summer
There may be snow on the ground before Euric Rutherford can even submit his application in person for a new permit to carry a firearm.
“Getting a permit to carry right now — it’s ridiculous,” said Rutherford after speaking with someone from the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office. “And they tell me it’s going to take four months to turn in my paperwork.”
The Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office hasn’t yet replied to an MPR News request for comment. However, a spokesperson for the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office said high demand and the need for spacing out in-person visits due to COVID-19 have led to long wait times. A person seeking an application appointment this week in Hennepin County will have to wait until December before they can turn in their paperwork. Continue reading “”
Is an unexpected October Surprise on the way?
They think it’s a bad thing, but I give The Nation credit for reportorial digging. The hard-left magazine has discovered that federal law enforcement agencies (though not the FBI) have been tracing whom the mobs in Portland have been communicating with. The apparent lead role in utilizing hi tech and classified electronic means is being played by the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Intelligence and Analysis (I&A), while the U.S. Marshals Service is dispatching street-level personnel. This bypasses the FBI, whose director, Christopher Wray, is on the record in sworn testimony, dismissing any such superstructure:
“It’s not a group or an organization. It’s a movement or an ideology,” he said, explaining that “folks who subscribe or identify” with antifa do not operate at a national level, but instead organize “regionally into small groups or nodes.”
The Nation reports: Continue reading “”
First it was Florida. Now Texas
Texas Gov. Abbott Announces Proposals For Harsher Penalties To Those Involved In Riots
DALLAS (CBSDFW.COM) – Texas Gov. Greg Abbott was in Dallas Thursday to announce legislative proposals that give harsher penalties to people involved in riots, which includes mandatory jail time.
Speaking at the Dallas Police Association headquarters, Abbott proposed legislation that deters peaceful protests from becoming riots as residents continue to call for change, stemming from recent police shootings of Black residents.
The governor proposed that causing injury or destroying property during a riot would be considered a felony. Assaulting a law enforcement officer during riot would lead to a mandatory jail sentence of at least six months, according to Abbott’s proposal.
Protesters or rioters who block hospital entrances and exits would be charged with a felony under the new proposal. Continue reading “”