On this day in 1862, 150 years ago, Robert Smalls commandeered an armed American Confederate ship in Charleston in order to emancipate himself and several others from slavery. Smalls was hired in 1861 as a deckhand on Planter, the transport steamer serving Brigadier General Roswell Ripley, commander of the Second Military District of South Carolina. … Continue reading This day in history: 1862 Robert Smalls Pilots the Planter to Freedom→
The Wall Street Journal just ran a cover story with the title called “U.S. Outgunned in Hacker War”. Run for the hills! No, wait, let’s take a closer look. My first reaction was to look for details on who is out gunning the U.S.. My second reaction was to look for definition of a “Hacker … Continue reading Chinese Crackdown, U.S. Outgunned→
Jane Yakowitz has posted an interesting study and analysis of smells detected by dogs as related to privacy/segmentation concepts in American law. In Florida v. Jardines, the U.S. Supreme Court will determine whether the sniff of a trained narcotics dog at the front door of a person’s home constitutes a Fourth Amendment search. This is … Continue reading Segmentation, Privacy and Dog Sniffing→
A tip by one of my readers has uncovered a fascinating report from 1910 in the Journal of the American Medical Association One of the first breaches made in the defenses raised in the interest of the public by the passage of the national Food and Drugs Act, was that secured by the manufacturers of … Continue reading Breaking the Law with Corn Syrup: 1910 Edition→