Experiencing The “Life Tax”
Shankar Sharma experiences one of the ad-hoc existential toll-booths that pop up on open transportation networks where the Naxalite/Black economy nexus is active.
We were driving back from a sales trip into the (further) interiors in the stockist’s car when a bunch of gray boys, in their mid teens, formed a human chain across the road to block us…It did seem a primitive toll tax booth but when we stopped, the stockist actually started negotiating the toll amount with them..they came down from 100 bucks to 70, but started getting agitated when pressed further. Suddenly the leader of the gray pack shouted angrily “Pay up 100 now nahi to bhaiya will visit you personally tomorrow.”
This bhaiya ,I found later, is the local self styled naxalite who does the ‘collection’ to keep the wheels of agitation well oiled.
Why Russia Spawns Malware
SSN –
A dismal economy and lax law enforcement is fueling the problem, say two well-known security researchers. It has helped nudge Russian computer programmers into an underground market where easy money can be made creating programs used to steal credit card and Social Security numbers.
He explained that many Russian programmers compare themselves to weapons manufacturers — they build the technology but are not the ones using it. In other words, they’re not responsible if someone else is pulling the trigger. Meanwhile, Kaspersky said, the Russian economy is still shaky enough that people are looking for ways to make a steady living, and building malware for online gangsters is one way to do it.
Zenpundit On Innovative-Intersectional Idea Society
Mark does a great bit of thinking here. I am letting it digest, but it didn’t and shouldn’t go unnoticed.
Explosives In India
The 25% of 22,000 explosives facilities that were inspected by the government of India report the following has gone missing between 2004 and 2006 – likely absorbed by the black economy and available to the highest domestic or foreign bidder –
- 86,899 detonators
- 20,150 kilograms of slurry explosives
- 52,740 meters of fuse
- 419 kilograms of gelatin sticks
International connectivity plays a major role in driving the theft of explosives. Explosives bound for India’s Border Roads Organization, which builds connectivity into rural areas of Afghanistan, were stolen some 20 miles off the coast of Mumbai. 61,000 detonators were found by the Sri Lankan Navy on a vessel falsely marked as a gulf oil company transporting oil.
At the same time, the illicit explosive RDX, formerly a driver of the illicit trade network between Bangladesh and eastern India is being supplanted by the open-market alternative of ammonium nitrate (used as fertilizer and in the mining industry) which is making it tougher for the security establishment to trace and react.
Valve’s Portal = Smart Game
Normally not one to post about video games, but this looks like a blast –
The upshot is that Portal, perhaps inadvertently, makes for a hell of an educational game — because you’re constantly mentally calculating the vectors of force and direction you’ll generate by falling through and out of strategically placed holes. Physics teachers could have an absolute field day with this thing — using it to help kids grasp, in a really visceral way, how Newtonian laws of motion work.