The Mercury News reported on a case in the Silicon Valley that was solved due to a memory-chip sale gone bad. Apparently a man was commuting all the way from Vegas, stealing hardware from large tech companies, and then selling the goods online:

An irate woman traced two faulty $75 memory chips she had been sold on eBay to a seller and complained to the chip makers. Police with the Rapid Enforcement Allied Computer Team traced the name. Using a search warrant to go through the logs of an airline passenger clearinghouse service, they found Young had been flying in and out of the Bay Area for three years around the times of the thefts. They also saw he was scheduled to fly into the San Francisco airport two days later. He was arrested on the jet bridge.

I guess even the common thief needs quality control…

We all think it’s polite to hold doors open for people, and some insist that a failure to follow this tradition is a sign of rudeness. However, on the other hand, our politeness becomes our weakness as attackers find it a convenient way to “skate” their way into secure facilities without hassle.

As Emily Dickinson once said:

“Remember me” implored the Thief!
Oh Hospitality!
My Guest “Today in Paradise”
I give thee guaranty.

That Courtesy will fair remain
When the Delight is Dust
With which we cite this mightiest case
Of compensated Trust.

Of all we are allowed to hope
But Affidavit stands
That this was due where most we fear
Be unexpected Friends.

Expect the unexpected?

Update: I soon found myself pondering in/out access points in the Silicon Valley. Where have the designated “in” and “out” doors gone? That would at least cut down on the folks skulking around or trying to find a common exit to exploit, since they would be obviously acting spuriously unless entering through an “entrance”. Virtually every door I have seen lately, even in some “high-security” datacenters, has been bidirectional. Odd.

Cheesy title, I know. Perhaps I’ve been watching too much of the Jon Stewart show. This is really a post about a British economist, Emilie Rutledge, who recently wrote that the US Administration has put itself in an awkward position as a self-proclaimed free market advocate that is at the same time highly protective of its trade and investment relations:

Sultan Bin Nasser al-Suwaidi, the UAE’s central bank governor, said that “trade and investment relations with the United States must now be viewed from a new perspective�. Many analysts, including some from the US, have said that the DP World affair may set a damaging precedent and deter investors, particularly from the Middle East, from investing in the US.

[…]

For example, another Dubai government-owned company, Dubai International Capital, is in the process of buying Doncasters, a UK-based aerospace manufacturer, for $1.2bn. The takeover is relevant because Doncasters has various interests in US military weapons programmes, including the Joint Strike Fighter.

Dubai International Capital’s takeover of Doncasters has yet to receive much media attention in America, but if it does and the attention is similar to that DP World received it will further tarnish America’s free-trade reputation and the US will be seen as increasingly hypocritical.

Wow. Dubai will own a company that develops US weapons, including the Joint Strike Fighter? How will the free market advocates handle this?

Living in the US is starting to feel like being a passenger in a taxi that has just been carjacked and is careening wildly out of control at the hands of a less-than-rational or talented but enthusiastic driver who says “trust me, they’ll never catch us”. The meter is ticking, the ride is getting rougher by the minute, and I’m not even sure an actual destination is part of the discussion anymore.

I haven’t read this book by Sam Apple yet, but it certainly looks interesting. The following quote by Honor Moore caught my attention:

“[A]s self-deprecating as a poetic version of Woody Allen.”

And here’s the synopsis on the website, which indicates that a shepherd used a form of rhyming verses to help fight ignorance in Austria after WWII:

Hans Breuer, Austria’s only wandering shepherd, is also a Yiddish folksinger. He walks the Alps, shepherd’s stick in hand, singing lullabies to his 625 sheep. Sometimes he even gives concerts in historically anti-Semitic towns, showing slides of the flock as he belts out Yiddish ditties. Born in 1954, Breuer spent his childhood in Vienna fighting the lingering Nazism in Austrian society. His performances are an attempt to educate his fellow citizens on the people their parents and grandparents had helped to wipe out of Europe.

I always said rhymes were the best way to help educate, since they are memorable and often contagious. “Ctrl-Alt-Delete when you leave your seat” has been the most successful I’ve found so far…