maxomai | Tuesday Miscellany! (Reply)

The CIA has promised to end the use of vaccination programs for intelligence gathering. Unfortunately, this might be a case of "too little, too late" as Al Qaeda and other groups have no reason to trust the US on this.

Wendy Davis is calling for six debates in the Texas Governor's race, probably because she's trailing Greg Abbott by double digits.

Chipolte is now Exhibit A in how Open Carry idiots hurt our 2nd Amendment rights. Fortunately, this has sparked a discussion that might end such demonstrations.

MRAs on why tattooed girls suck, because (A) every man likes exactly the same things about women and (B) every woman should conform to that standard that every man likes. Or something.

These guys came up with a general crack to the discrete log problem --- as long as it's over a field with a small characteristic. (More here.) Most cryptography is based on the discrete log problem --- over fields with much larger characteristics. So, this research could threaten most modern crypto, if someone can figure out how to generalize the crack. Bruce Schnier is skeptical that this can be done. I'm less skeptical, and more nervous. Then again, it's in my nature to be nervous about such things.