quite a few cisco routers (not the junk plastic home routers) run qnx, too, btw.

a large wooden badger was considered, but then rejected.

tl;dr: only carry burners (burner phones, burner laptops, burner audio players).

gotcha.

done and done.

you can't be serious, can you?

don't you realize that cops have magic usb cables to unlock data on any commercial phone sold in the world in the last 5+ yrs?

your little 'lock screen' gets laughed at. calea also laughs at your 'concept of privacy' that you THINK you have, but really don't.

one poster did have a semi-good idea: keep your phone turned off and locked in the trunk inside another item that is locked. if its on on you, its under a different catagory (if I understand correctly) and so the threshold of them just barging in is higher, for such things.

"no, I do not give consent to a search of my locked trunk."

that's all you say. of course, they will do what they want, but if there is a dash cam watching them and it happens to NOT go 'missing' later on, this will help you once you get to court.

remember: 'you may be able to beat the rap, but you can't beat the ride'. you cant fight with the guy there, but hopefully, you may have evidence that will help you later, once you are in public, inside the 'safety' of a courtroom.

and.... we're done here.

(yes, this is obviously the motive; get people used to handing over their phones to cops, already unlocked.)

they must think we are all stupid.

(and I guess, with over half of us, they are probably right) ;(

except: in modern times, the bad and good guys have sort of switched roles!

I consider most authority figures to be bad-guys or soon-to-be bad guys. power corrupts. period! so much power today for authoritarians, its guaranteed they will turn bad. no doubt at all in my mind. and look what we have, today, in our 'law enforcement' word! just read the news for a few weeks and you'll get a sample of the topsy-turvey world we now live in.

"dont talk to cops" is a modern thing. it never used to be that way when I was growing up, but it sure as hell is a 'thing' now!

that's just one example of the 'new normal' we find ourselves in.

I really don't worry about terrorists or other boogeymen. but I do worry about thugs with deadly force and some random thing that would cause them to put MY LIFE at risk for some utter bullshit reason or power-trip.

I don't need protection from the so-called bad guys. I would, however, like protection against the so-called good guys. and that's what our body of laws USED TO BE ABOUT.

checks and balances are non-existant, now-adays.

(unless you're rich and powerful, of course).

there's no brute-force needed.

the carriers and phone makers are all REQUIRED by calea (in the US) to have backdoors on anything that has a 'network' aspect to it.

plain and simple. they have magic usb cables that get into your phone. if you bought your phone (and not built it) then they have backdoors into it. this is pretty well known by geeks, is it not?

for a long time, this IS what I did. I left mine at home and chose not to risk having my privacy invaded by thugs-with-badges.

any commercial phone that you buy, the thugs can connect a 'magic usb cable' to and get into your phone. the carriers and vendors all succumbed to the LEOs and allow this.

but - I've seen some diy arduino (very minimalist) phones using some off the shelf gsm modules. you could, very likely, be able to create one and make it so that if there is a 'tamper' trigger, it would delete all local data (or simply just not KEEP any local data, ever).

how much do you want to bet that if you did such a thing, they'd be so pissed off, they'd synthesize a fake reason to arrest you over it? maybe 'interfering with an investigation' or 'destruction of evidence' or some other bullshit. it would really piss them off and they would want to throw as much book at you as they could. but at least, they would not get the keys to your kingdom, so to speak.

way too much info is stored on phones, these days. I wonder if we should really reconsider this idea. the bad guys (with badges) are the enemy in the war on privacy and they have all the power they need to fuck you over, if they so choose. I'm really not sure I want to hand over all my personal data for, essentially, no reason at all.

maybe its time to get rid of the smart phone and go back to bone-stupid dumb phones.

the very idea of some low-IQ thug going thru my personal info on a fishing expo - such a thing could not be more against the very concept of a free society!

I know this is about canada, but we have seen countless examples of LEOs going thru your property without any valid legal reason other than 'they can get away with it'. this is NOT what the creators of our free society (and theirs) had in mind!

"look, we have the might to do what we want, and we WANT to invade your privacy. for power-mongers like us, this is what we live for and thrive on. its why we, as bullies-with-badges, got into this field! don't take our fun away. plus, well, THINKOFTHECHILDREN and BEAFRAIDOFTERRORISTS."

that's it, in a nutshell. the elephant in the room that no one wants to bring up.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/produ...

$15 or less, plays audio at up to 96k (does not support 88k, though, but does support 44/48/96 and full 24bit). what's cool is that its driverless (UAC1 mode) and has opto digi out!

screw hdmi audio. full of drm. go with spdif and free your audio stream! ;)

I work on both arduino and the pi.

the arduino is IP-less. its not good at ipstack things. its great at fast looping for device control.

pi can do the looping on devices AND has a good ip stack with webserver, ipchains, etc.

neither have much cpu but both have their place. when I want to play with IoT stuff and web-serve sensor data, the pi is the best thing for that.

I also have a pi being a stratum-1 gps/pps timeserver. cost very little and yet I have a very highly accurate ntpserver at home, just for fun and grins.

except: 99% of the american citizens are blameless in this!

we don't own our own country anymore. corps have more rights than people and they control the government. the government fights for corps and for itself. it cares nothing about us. NOTHING!

and so, you would blame the citizens who don't even have any control over their out-of-control government? how rational is THAT?

I understand you are annoyed and upset by this. I am too - and am a born-and-raised US citizen. this makes me sick, but I realize its not the people who have done this but those in power. you know, the psychopaths.

solution: throw the psychos in jail, stop trying to police the fucking whole planet and maybe over the next few decades, people will stop thinking that the whole US is fucked up.

you really can't blame the people of any country. almost always, its the psychos who rule the country that are to blame.

please keep that in mind.

I always thought a hot stake was much better than a cold chop...

(*nyuk* ^3)

well, there's always mastercharge and bank americard.

(wait - what year is this, again?)

I know that in the bay area, employment is HARD to get (if you are not an h1b, not young and you were born here). they really look for any reason to not hire you, at that point. and if they did do some research on your name and a suit came up against a company, for any reason at all, I'm 100% sure that you'd not hear the reason, but you'd be marked as 'not a cultural fit' and you would not get that job. or the next. or the next.

is it worth that risk?

do you want to leave your field? I don't. I'm too old to start all over again and have too much invested in my field.

they have us.

the simple fact that we are not union and we have no collective power means we are at their mercy.

if you don't see it, its because you are probably still a 'golden child' and are in demand. once you get over 35, things change and you are no longer the GC. if there is any dirt on you, you won't get the jobs you want.

they know this. most of us know this. and it won't change for as long as we stay independant and refuse to be a collective (ie, union). I understand unions have a bad rep but the alternative - in the IT field - is having essentially no power.

I was cocky when I was young. boy did I learn, though! wish I knew then what I knew now (isn't that always the case?)