Link tags: crime

The Handwavy Technobabble Nothingburger

Any application that could be done on a blockchain could be better done on a centralized database. Except crime.

This resonates:

I’m not alone in believing in the fundamental technical uselessness of blockchains. There are tens of thousands of other people in the largest tech companies in the world that thanklessly push their organizations away from crypto adoption every day. The crypto asset bubble is perhaps the most divisive topic in tech of our era and possibly ever to exist in our field. It’s a scary but essential truth to realise that normal software engineers like us are an integral part of society’s immune system against the enormous moral hazard of technology-hyped asset bubbles metastasizing into systemic risk.

The crooked timber of humanity | 1843

Tom Standage—author of the brilliant book The Victorian Internet—relates a tale of how the Chappe optical telegraph was hacked in 19th century France, thereby making it one of the earliest recorded instances of a cyber attack.

The Mob’s IT Department | Bloomberg Business

You just know that this will end up being made into a film one day. It’s like a downmarket Mr. Robot.

“Nope, You’re Dead Now” — Matter

Ant told us this harrowing story in the office two weeks ago. I honestly can’t imagine what it would be like to be in this situation.

If San Francisco Crime was Elevation | Doug McCune

Beautiful mapping visualisations of crime data.

Localization Problems: A Cellphone's Missing Dot Kills Two People, Puts Three More in Jail

When localisation attacks. This is like a more morbid Douglas Adams vignette.

A Postmodern Crime at TED2009 - James Duncan Davidson

Someone tried to mug James Duncan Davidson to get his TED pass.

BBC NEWS | UK | Designs for taking on criminals

Making the link between good product design and discouraging crime.

Police In Knife Standoff Up For Awards (from The Argus)

Yet more on the events I blogged about down the street, again from the local newspaper.

Hero PC Tackles Knife Man (from The Argus)

Here's the local paper's take on the happenings on my street that I blogged about.

BBC NEWS | England | Sussex | Man attempted to stab policeman

The somewhat lightweight BBC report of the incident I blogged about earlier. "Reports of a man with a knife threatening and chasing people": that's me (the reports, I mean).

Create an e-annoyance, go to jail | Perspectives | CNET News.com

Unbelievable. Annoying someone via the Internet is now a federal crime in the USA. Bye, bye, whistle blowers.