Even if you don't own a home, this fascinating glimpse into the world of terrible roofing contractors is worth a watch. This inspector says it's the worst he's ever seen, then shows a dozen reasons why. Read the rest

Dark State is the sequel to Empire Games, a reboot/latter phase of Charles Stross's longrunning, excellent economic science fiction/high fantasy Merchant Princes series.

Charlie Stross's longrunning Merchant Princes series are a sneaky, brilliant techno-economic thought experiment disguised as heroic fantasy, and with Empire Games, the first book of the second phase of the series, Stross throws in a heavy dose of the noirest spycraft, an experiment in dieselpunk Leninism and War on Terror paranoia.

If you're using an anonymity tool -- Tor or something like it -- to be anonymous on the internet, it's really easy to screw it up and do something that would allow an adversary of varying degrees of power (up to and including powerful governments) to unmask you. Read the rest

In 1984, the Stasi -- East Germany's notorious secret police -- searched the flat of an auditor to determine if he'd leaked files that put the country in a bad light to Stern, a West German magazine, published in Hamburg. They recorded the clandestine search for posterity, and used it as the basis for a training video explaining to other secret police operatives how to search a dissident's home without alerting them that they were under suspicion. (via Grugq) Read the rest