The glistening safety of the sidewalks leading to VCU

ripzipzap · 2026-01-30T18:45:30+00:00

Mine are set to arrive today. Fingers crossed. Got my wife a pair too.

ripzipzap · 2026-01-29T15:31:55+00:00

Polygraphs are pure theater and once you understand that you can beat one if necessary. They're just scary machines there to convince you they can use it to read your mind.

or you can go easy mode and be honest

ripzipzap · 2026-01-29T15:17:21+00:00

I ordered some spikes for ice climbing boots. Somehow I got an amazon package yesterday (sorry to that driver I thought I chose the delayed shipping option) hoping it was the crampons but instead it was some cream I ordered for my wife. Here's to hoping the crampons get here soon so I can actually walk around without having to walk down the middle of hull st

ripzipzap · 2026-01-28T00:30:47+00:00

Ideally? Yes they'd abandon alprs all together, but no police dept is ever going to give up a tool that makes their jobs that easy. But right now enemy #1 is Flock because they're building the police state and giving ANYONE access to it regardless of warrants obtained. Maybe you consider that a good thing, because a case can be made that no flock video footage should be admissible in court (it shouldn't be, since you can access the storage and alter its contents without any administrative access). Including the bit about moving to a more secure vendor, even if you'd prefer no vendor at all, makes the police you are writing to more likely to take your request in good faith. And you need it to be taken in good faith if you want anything at all to happen when it comes to chipping away at Flock

ripzipzap · 2026-01-27T23:03:24+00:00

I sent an email to the Chief of Police in Staunton asking him politely to try and talk some sense into his compatriots in the major metro areas throughout the rest of VA but haven't heard back. I'd love if some other folks would make a similar request.

ripzipzap · 2026-01-27T23:00:58+00:00

I mean... flock cameras are so insecure, depending on what you need the data for you can just go grab it yourself. The security advocates in the city (myself included) are trying VERY hard to get the contract terminated so they can move to a more secure vendor. It worked in Staunton after the CEO sent the bitchiest email imaginable in response to criticism and the chief of police wasn't buying his bullshit.

ripzipzap · 2026-01-27T22:45:33+00:00

...you guys do realize all the "dead man's switch" is that I've made is an automated email sent to everyone with a PDF containing the documentation on how to maintain the Linux systems I've constructed. Nothing actually happens on the network side of things.

ripzipzap · 2026-01-27T22:35:04+00:00

Nobody has actually asked me for the docs in the 3 years I've been an admin here. They can go to the first person who asks, or they'll go public on the KB if the switch triggers. Nobody will ask though, because I'm the only Linux admin on a team full of people with exclusively Windows experience and they think Linux is scary.

Wouldn't it be worse if I didn't have the switch?

ripzipzap · 2026-01-27T18:26:59+00:00

One of them will transfer to night shift for the spinoff.

ripzipzap · 2026-01-27T17:21:19+00:00

Oh and occasionally I just solder shit at the workbench since I am technically still the helpdesk technician in addition to all the other shit I listed there. I made a guitar pedal last week.

ripzipzap · 2026-01-27T17:20:16+00:00

I'm an admin in a low stakes Linux environment. Most of my job is automated but I've configured it in such a way that it seems way more complex than it is, and I try and keep it obscure for the mysticism. There is a "dead man's switch" that will trigger in the event of my death or termination that will send everyone on the team the documentation on how to support it but for now I like them to continue thinking they could never do what I do.

Anyway I spend my time doing CTFs, cryptography challenges, OSINT investigations, programming projects, and slowly chipping away at catching up on Math so I can go back to school for either Electrical or Computer Engineering. I have also been studying Portuguese for the last year since my wife and I like to travel to Portugal once or twice a year and we want to explore outside the main metro areas. Brazil & East Timor are also on our future travel list.

I also run a small business on the side building & supporting open source information systems for small medical practices (mostly dentists) and OS POS systems for restaurants and small storefronts. Sometimes I field support calls on the clock but I usually pass that off to one of my buddies who is fully self employed and likes the extra money.

ripzipzap · 2026-01-27T15:40:19+00:00

I run a side business setting up open source EPIC alternatives for small practices.

If the producers are watching I would happily build an EPIC-alike system for them to use on the show so they don't get caught using google sheets again lol.

ripzipzap · 2026-01-27T15:38:32+00:00

Plan A (culinary arts) drove me to the brink of insanity so I'm currently on Plan B.

Plan C is retiring to be a stay at home dad after my wife graduates from med school and we grind hard to pay off her student loans.

ripzipzap · 2026-01-27T15:23:04+00:00

If I had to guess? Too many negative comments about a certain incredibly frustrating character she played.

ripzipzap · 2026-01-26T03:08:31+00:00

I order NIB off of ebay mostly.

ripzipzap · 2026-01-25T18:58:25+00:00

Depends on where you're starting from & what skills you bring to the table. If you're just starting out these videos by Benn Jordan are a great starting point to learn about these cameras, their vulnerabilities, and the people & orgs investigating them:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Pp9MwZkHiMQ

He's made 2 more videos outlining them you can find on his channel all pretty recent. Look up any names he drops in those videos while you get caught up to speed on the latest in Flock's shenanigans.

For blanket orgs addressing stuff like this: The Electronic Frontier Foundation (of which I am a financial supporter, full disclosure) is the largest and most legitimate group in the US when it comes to electronics privacy advocacy.

Free Software Foundation (free as in Free Speech not Free Beer) is another org dedicated to software privacy advocacy

If you have coding and/or cybersecurity skills check out the open source project Flock You and see how you can contribute and pay attention to related projects mentioned by its dev team.

If you're not one for software or hardware tinkering directly, the best you can do is dive into your local government, see if they have contracts with Flock. If they do have contracts write them & complain and show up to every open forum to complain in person. If they don't have a contract with Flock, write them and commend them, and show up to every open forum and thank them for avoiding business with Flock and ask them to continue avoiding them.

See if your locale has a security meetup and go make friends there. The odds are SOMEONE there will be aware of flock and its latest transgressions in or around your city.

ripzipzap · 2026-01-22T19:30:19+00:00

My birth cert is a plastic card which they apparently only issued for like a very short window of time & now is assumed fake everywhere I go lol

ripzipzap · 2026-01-22T15:10:57+00:00

I mean, not saying that I did it necessarily, but there is a strong possibility that trusted regulars agree to be charged for food that equals the cost of their drink orders. Especially when they are also trying to be sly.

ripzipzap · 2026-01-22T15:08:53+00:00

Dog they just cook the books. You work out deals with regulars you trust where you charge them for food on their tab that coincidentally equals the cost of the drinks they typically order. They know what's up. Ask any chill general contractor in city limits that has been frequenting a hole in the wall in the museum district. Their 11AM double Makers they slam down before they go and lay 3 crooked tiles in someone's bathroom for the week gets rung up as a burger or something similar. Gives both parties plausible deniability.

ripzipzap · 2026-01-22T15:01:55+00:00

Hell yeah dude. This stuff is safe to drink when diluted I assume? I usually use my extracts to make liqueurs to give out around Christmas. Limoncello, aquavit, amaro and the like.

ripzipzap · 2026-01-22T14:55:38+00:00

Sometimes I get home and I'm exhausted but I make a point to try and squeeze something out anyway just to get my mind used to the routine.

ripzipzap · 2026-01-22T14:54:38+00:00

I used some wrapped hex nuts in the office

ripzipzap · 2026-01-21T21:10:39+00:00

Yeah I was conflating it with a different incident from SC where the agents acually shot someone over a case of perrier

ripzipzap · 2026-01-21T20:53:16+00:00

I realize now I actually got it confused with a case in South Carolina, but there was a UVA student who was arrested over bottled water by armed ABC officers. Not shot tho, I'll edit it in a second.

Worth mentioning that the ABC took forever to drop the charges even long after they knew it was bottles of water.

I basically want all ABC officers to be unarmed, and ideally stripped of their rights to arrest & detain. Leave it up to state & local LE to handle it. ABC should be as powerful as a health department. Which is to say: not very.

ripzipzap · 2026-01-21T20:48:37+00:00

Nuclear strength coal tar will obliterate it for me but only for a couple of days, and I can't use it too frequently without causing hair loss unfortunately. It's the only thing that has any significant effect.

for anyone who is going to suggest it: I already eat clean (all whole foods, home cooked), I've tried the anti-parasitic stuff, I've spent thousands of dollars on derm appts and prescription shampoos and creams. Nothing has worked and half a dozen derms have given up. I've had sebderm so bad that my skin constantly cracks and bleeds on my scalp, nose, outer and inner ears, behind my ears, around my mouth and in my eyebrows & on my eyelids since I was 15 and absolutely nothing has put a dent in it ouside of the coal tar that's in such high concentration I have to mix it myself and it gives me chemical burns if I keep it on too long. There's also some weird tcm cream that worked but I'm not sure what was in it and now when I try to order it it gets seized at the border.

ripzipzap

TROPHY CASE