Bonehead Security

According to a recent article in The Los Angeles Times, "Investigation of Angelides Campaign Continues," California's governor continues to assume that his political opponent, who was defeated in November at the polls, somehow "hacked" into what were apparently open audio files with embarrassing conversations with aides. As someone who has often backtracked in a URL to find the parent directory on a section of a government website, I would hardly call this "hacking," even if there is often plenty of idiotic content to be found.

Speaking of security and open access, today The New York Times ran a piece about the "Theater of the Absurd at the TSA," which editorialized against the government's attempts to prosecute the Indiana graduate student who created a website that could generate realistic-looking boarding passes for Northwest Airlines. It has lots of juicy quotations from security guru Bruce Schneier, who has been an advocate of procedural realism and good police work for years. Of course, if you don't want to go to an airport terminal, you can have the experience at home in front of your computer playing Airport Security from Persuasive Games.