Bill would give president emergency control of Internet

Translation: If your company is deemed "critical," a new set of regulations kick in involving who you can hire, what information you must disclose, and when the government would exercise control over your computers or network.

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How to Create the Perfect Fake Identity

Let me start off by saying that I'm making this whole thing up.

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Call it "identity farming." You invent a handful of infants. You apply for Social Security numbers for them. Eventually, you open bank accounts for them, file tax returns for them, register them to vote, and apply for credit cards in their name. And now, 25 years later, you have a handful of identities ready and waiting for some real people to step into them.

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Here's the real question: Do you actually have to show up for any part of your life?

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I've Seen the Future, and It Has a Kill Switch

Microsoft is doing some of the most creative thinking along these lines, with something it's calling "Digital Manners Policies." According to its patent application, DMP-enabled devices would accept broadcast "orders" limiting capabilities. Cellphones could be remotely set to vibrate mode in restaurants and concert halls, and be turned off on airplanes and in hospitals. Cameras could be prohibited from taking pictures in locker rooms and museums, and recording equipment could be disabled in theaters. Professors finally could prevent students from texting one another during class.

The possibilities are endless, and very dangerous. Making this work involves building a nearly flawless hierarchical system of authority. That's a difficult security problem even in its simplest form. Distributing that system among a variety of different devices -- computers, phones, PDAs, cameras, recorders -- with different firmware and manufacturers, is even more difficult. Not to mention delegating different levels of authority to various agencies, enterprises, industries and individuals, and then enforcing the necessary safeguards.

Once we go down this path -- giving one device authority over other devices -- the security problems start piling up. Who has the authority to limit functionality of my devices, and how do they get that authority? What prevents them from abusing that power? Do I get the ability to override their limitations? In what circumstances, and how? Can they override my override?

Oh, the roads we travel.

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Security scans will show sex organs

SECURITY scanners that can see through passengers' clothing and reveal details such as their sex organs, colostomy bags and breast size, are being installed in 10 US airports.

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While it allows the security screeners - looking at the images in a separate room - to clearly see the passenger's sexual organs as well as other details of their bodies, the passenger's face is blurred, TSA said.

The scan only takes seconds and is to replace the physical pat-downs of people that is currently widespread in airports.

Read more, then just go to the airport in your birthday suit.

Five tips to ensure the TSA doesn't steal your stuff

Taking. Something. Always.

That's what TSA means to airline passengers ...

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Thieving TSA? You might be forgiven for thinking so.

Since it was created in 2001, the agency has fired about 200 employees accused of stealing. Although the TSA has taken steps to discourage these government workers from helping themselves to our personal effects — including background checks on new hires, video cameras in screening areas and rules forbidding backpacks or lunchboxes at checkpoints — more and more passengers like Fleiss are coming forward to say they've been ripped off by the very people who are supposed to protect them.

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You don't need a travel columnist to tell you this agency has a problem. The evidence speaks for itself.

But here's what you might not know. The stealing isn't as random as the TSA may want you to believe (www.tsa.gov/blog/2008/02/tsa-our-officers-public-and-theft.html). Fleiss visited an optometrist for a replacement pair of glasses, and learned that since the TSA was created seven years ago, he'd seen a "marked increase" in patients requesting receipts for insurance claims relating to security-related thefts. "He said there is a huge market for stolen designer eyewear frames in the New York area," he added. "You put it together."

One aviation insider I spoke with believes stealing is a systemic problem the federal agency is unable to control, particularly at problem airports like New York's LaGuardia Airport and Philadelphia International Airport. Not all of the screening areas in U.S. airports are under surveillance, and the TSA's rules have a big loophole that shifts liability for stolen baggage claims to the airline when luggage is delayed, he told me. In other words, there's little incentive for the stealing to stop. "It's the 800-pound gorilla no one wants to discuss at TSA," he says.

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Bottom line: if you want to see your valuables again, don't let a TSA agent near them.

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Police concerned about order to stop screening

Security details at Barack Obama's rally Wednesday stopped screening people for weapons at the front gates more than an hour before the Democratic presidential candidate took the stage at Reunion Arena.

The order to put down the metal detectors and stop checking purses and laptop bags came as a surprise to several Dallas police officers who said they believed it was a lapse in security.

Dallas Deputy Police Chief T.W. Lawrence, head of the Police Department's homeland security and special operations divisions, said the order -- apparently made by the U.S. Secret Service -- was meant to speed up the long lines outside and fill the arena's vacant seats before Obama came on.

So, the SS's function is to make sure that every seat in the house gets filled?

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Montclair State Unveils Mandatory 'School Phone'

It includes just 50 peak voice minutes a month, but unlimited text messaging to any carrier, unlimited campus-based data usage, and student activated emergency GPS tracking.

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Top general urges Brazil to develop nuclear weapons

“We should be technologically prepared to produce a nuclear device,” said the general. He added, “No country can feel safe if it doesn’t develop technology that enables it to defend itself when necessary.”

Barros Moreira said that Brazil’s resources made it a “target” for foreign aggression. “The world lacks water, energy food and minerals,” he said. “Brazil is rich in all of these. For this reason we must put a strong lock on our door.”

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'Over the top' security sees pilots revolt

One pilot said: "When dealing with the police one has certain rights and a well-defined procedure if you are not treated correctly. This is not so with airport security who seem to be a law unto themselves using the knowledge that you are on a tight time schedule to ride roughshod over any rights that you might have."

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The Bushites have outsourced our government to their pals

THE SPRAWLING $43 BILLION HOMELAND SECURITY DEPARTMENT (HSD) is known chiefly for being the agency in charge of America's color-coded terrorist-threat alarm system ("Good morning, Americans. Today is Yellow. Be vigilant. Report all suspicious people.") It's boogeyman nonsense, of course, doing absolutely nothing to make our country safe. But such falderal helps those in charge obscure HSD's real mission: to serve as a giant federal cookie jar for corporate America.

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