"Bro we are in big trouble," said Callum Picari, 23, from Hornchurch, in East London, after infosec reporter Brian Krebs mentioned OTP Agency in a February 2021 investigation related to a separate phishing kit operation.
"U will get me bagged [sic]," Picari went on to say. "Bro delete the chat."
The perps in question look pretty much like you would expect them to look.
Ulbricht was the guy who set up the "Dark Web" site The Silk Road. I am a little conflicted about this.
On the one hand, he made money on each drug deal that went through his site. There's no question that this was dirty money.
On the other hand, his 2 life sentences without the possibility of parole was hideously excessive. People have pointed out (rightly) that drug dealers convicted of using the site to sell their wares got much less time.
And on the gripping hand, a place where people can spend their money without the 24/7 government surveillance of everything sure seemed like it was a good thing.
I wonder if Trump would have issued the pardon if he hadn't been railroaded through the legal system himself. All in all, the "Justice system" here has taken a huge credibility hit.
Secession is the talk in California these days. Newsweek Magazine reports that California is California is collecting signatures to put the issue on the ballot. They are calling it Calexit.
I doubt it goes anywhere, but it's an interesting thought exercise. California is a huge place, certainly large enough to be a country. It has an enormous economy. It could continue to trade with the United States and has the harbors and ports to trade with the world.
My first response would be to let them go peacefully. Establish borders. Wish them the best.
The last time some States left the U.S. sent in troops and it was devastating. The casualties accounted for 2.5% of the population. The economic effects in the South are still being felt. Why subject the country to an internal war?
Losing California's reliably Democratic Senators and Congressmen, along California's 54 votes in the Electoral College would be benefit enough. It would ensure Republican victories in the White House and Congress for decades.
And here's why it won't happen.
There is a pipeline that draws water from the Colorado River and diverts it to California. From Parker Dam water is pumped up over four mountain ranges before it flows into California. This pipeline, built as a public works project in the 1930s provides most of the water to Southern California for agricultural and home use.
How much water? Up to 4.4 million acre-feet according to the agreements between the western States and Mexico. An acre-foot of water is 325,851 gallons. 4.4 million acre-feet is on the high side of 97 billion gallons. Most years California doesn't get all of it's allotment, the available water is apportioned by percentages. But even in drought conditions, California's share is 29% of the available water in the Colorado River.
If California seceded, how long would it be before the United States turned off the pumps?
Tacticus took up the offer to suggest new blogroll additions. The first one is a site I already visit and just hadn't thought to add. It's called WWII after WWII. The posts are themed around WWII weapons and equipment that continued to be used after the war ended.
It's now in the blogroll under Other Blogs I Read.
I went back to a recent post to use as an example. The topic is the post war use of P-51 Mustangs by the U.S. Army. Yes, the Army. RTWT.
It's a small thing, but when I look at some blogrolls, they are full of dead links and blogs that haven't been updated for years. So, once or twice I year, I prune our blogroll. We only lost two this year. There were three more that had moved to new sites and I updated our links. One got moved to Sadly Missed.
I also removed the Presidential walker from the sidebar, as Pr. Biden has left office. I like the idea of the having something in the sidebar, but unless I decide to commit to keeping it current, it's better off gone.
If anyone has suggestions for blogs we should visit and consider adding to our blogroll, drop them in the comments.
I was going to post the great Miller Lite commercial with him, but Dwight beat me to it.
I can heartily endorse his book about his baseball career, Catcher In The Wry.
Rest in peace, Uke.
This keeps coming up over and over. The latest example is GoDaddy:
GoDaddy has failed to protect its web-hosting platform with even basic infosec tools and practices since 2018, according to the FTC, but the internet giant won’t face any immediate consequences for its many alleged acts of omission.
As one of the world's largest web-hosting companies, and a registry and registrar with about 82 million domain names in its care, one would assume GoDaddy would be adept at applying software updates and monitoring security-related events in its hosting environment to protect its millions of customers and the visitors to their websites from online threats.
But according to a Wednesday statement from the FTC, “GoDaddy has failed to implement reasonable and appropriate security measures to protect and monitor its website-hosting environments for security threats, and misled customers about the extent of its data security protections on its website hosting services.”
So what triple-propellorhead security tech did they miss? Basics like security log analysis tools, multi-factor authentication on login, missing security patches, and not maintaining an inventory of their systems. This is all Security 101. Actually, it may be Security Pre-K.
If you use GoDaddy's hosting you might want to consider an alternative.
The Civilian Marksmanship Program has a limited number of M1 Garand rifles chambered in 7.62 NATO. They have both the Mod-0 version for $900 and the Mod-1 version for $1200.
You probably don't want the Mod-0 because it doesn't do well with standard ammo, and in fact the CMP categorizes them as unservicable. The value is all historical.
The Mod-1 versions are safe to use with 7.62 NATO.
Musk has been vocal on X over the past week concerning the grooming gang scandal, which was covered up by the Labour government from the 90’s onwards for a period of over a decade.
Yesterday, Prime Minister Keir Starmer accused Musk and British politicians who support his call for justice for victims of grooming gangs of jumping on a “far-right bandwagon.”
According to BBC Newsnight, there is “absolute horror at the highest levels of government at the incendiary language we have seen from Elon Musk.”
Huh. So Elon's statement of facts - that hundreds of thousands of british girls were systematically gang raped by Pakistani immigrants over the span of decades - imperils our special relationship? Weird.
What actually seems to be imperiling the special relationship is the UK Labour government selling out our base at Diego Garcia:
Last ditch negotiations are underway in London as Starmer attempts to ram through his Chagos sellout before Trump’s inauguration. Earlier today Guido revealed how the deal would see UK nuclear options sold out as part of the giveaway…
...
Trump advisers now say the President is beginning to see Chagos as one of the same issues. “If Starmer sells out UK sovereignty disabling the US base and nukes, it’s going to make Trump as furious as over Panama” says one well-placed Trump team member.
Huh. My guess is that Trump refusing to shut Elon up about the UK.Gov mass rape scandal is the least of His Magesty's Government's problems.
Germany is revoking firearms permits for AfD party members. AfD is likely to be the biggest party in the coming March elections.
Biden quietly bans gas-powered tankless water heaters.
These are the most efficient design, so Democrats obviously hate the environment. People will use less efficient models and burn more fuel.
And these are the least expensive models. Manufacturers expect the ban to add $450 to the price of new water heaters. The poor and elderly hardest hit.
Holy cow, the Democratic party really sucks.
It's a new year, and the surprise here is that everything new is old again. Well, some things in country music are new but sound old. With Byonce trying to break into the country charts, this song is a breath of fresh air.
So 2024 closed out with almost 1.6M views, and yesterday the odometer here turned over 15 Million.
Happy 2025 to all, and many thanks for stopping by. This place wouldn't be the same without you.
