RFID, Security FUD, and the new US passports: My retirement-age parents are paranoid about carrying RFID enabled cards and being tracked, stripped, and having their identities stolen. The mass media sources they read (MSNBC, USA Today, et al) are inundated with sensational conspiracy stories. Besides "don't carry it," what advice can I give them? [more inside]
posted by SpecialK on Jul 12, 2009 - 30 answers

Is there a resource for finding information about topics popular with conspiracy theorists without catching crazy? [more inside]
posted by lattiboy on Jun 28, 2009 - 11 answers

Help me explain why the Large Hadron Collider doesn't spell our doom. [more inside]
posted by Navelgazer on Sep 11, 2008 - 34 answers

TinFoilHatFilter: So what's the most current info on cell-phone tracking? What can government/private agencies do nowadays if you own a cell phone? (Location? Coversation monitoring? Direct microphone feeds even when phone is off?) What *do* they do with any frequency? (Feel free to differentiate between agencies such as FBI, local police and private investigators) [more inside]
posted by anonymoose on Feb 17, 2007 - 11 answers

I'm writing some personal wiki software that I want to make as secure as possible. Think wiki software in the footsteps of Tinfoil Hat Linux. The software is intended to run as a CGI Perl script though Apache on the local machine, with data stored in encrypted XML files that will be decrypted for display by the Crypt::GPG module. So the question is, where could plaintext data escape to? More inside... [more inside]
posted by phrontist on Oct 17, 2005 - 27 answers