IEEE Spectrum’s 2019 Gift GuideTechie gifts for all budgets
Pinball machines, musical Tesla coils, computer kits for kids and more.
When you want to get something for that geeky relative that doesn't like any normal presents you don't want to settle for a gift card or cash.
For quite some time, my computer at work has exhibited many signs of a malware infection, but none was ever to be found.
More specifically, at random times (usually when quickly typing a URL into a web browser) I would end up on the wrong page - usually a page trying to convince me that I'm wanted by the FBI, or trying to sell black market Viagra ('scuze me, "V1@gkr4"), or other kinds of annoying spam.
Of course, when you see something like this, you immediately assume you are infected by a virus or have some kind of malware. And I did all the right things - boot from a known-good recovery disk and run all kinds of scanners. And none of them revealed anything.
So what was going on here? The answer is that I got hit by a perfect storm of coincidence.
Warrantless searches of devices at US borders ruled unconstitutionalA federal court in Boston on Tuesday ruled that suspicion-free, warrantless searches of travelers’ electronic devices at US border entry points are unconstitutional.
Great news. While most people would agree that Customs has the right to search baggage in order to make sure no prohibited items are being brought into the country, there is no law (as far as I know) prohibiting the importation of data of any kind, which pretty much clobbers any alleged "right" they may have for searching the content of electronic devices.
Of course, if some other law enforcement agency presents them with a warrant, that's a different story.
Yes, I know you can't import child pornography. But that's a law enforcement issue in general, not a Customs issue. Just like police and FBI can't search your computer without a warrant, neither should Customs be allowed to. And that's just what the court ruled.
Warrant let police search online DNA databaseDetective Michael Fields of the Orlando Police Department in Florida ... successfully used GEDmatch to identify a suspect in the 2001 murder of a 25-year-old woman that he’d spent six years trying to solve. So, because Fields didn’t want to stop using DNA records – he was searching for suspects in the case of a serial rapist who attacked a number of women decades ago – he took his disappointment to the court.
As Fields reportedly announced at a police convention last week, he won what he was after: a warrant to search GEDmatch’s full database. As the Times reports, he’s now working with the forensic consulting firm Parabon to try to find a DNA match that will lead him to that rapist.
Legal experts told the Times that overriding a site’s policies in this way is a “huge game changer” for genetic privacy. The newspaper quoted Erin Murphy, a law professor at New York University:
The company made a decision to keep law enforcement out, and that’s been overridden by a court. It’s a signal that no genetic information can be safe.
I've been telling friends and relatives for years that submitting DNA samples to geneology databases is risky, and now we're seeing why. Courts are now deciding that law enforcement should have complete access to the databases. This sets a precedent that will, in short order, be used to justify use and abuse of this data by every law enforcement employee, government agency and elected official that asks for it.
