For many years, body armor that was fashionable as well as protective was a trope of cyberpunk sci-fi. The ever-present black leather jacket lined with kevlar, dusters and drovers coats with trauma plates stitched into them, and even capes and cloaks which could turn bullets or the blade of a knife graced the pages of many a well-thumbed paperback book. Now it would seem that fashion designers have taken inspiration from these stories and helped make body armor, or at least the appearance thereof fashionable. It would seem that some subcultures have taken body armor as a fashion statement of …

A basic maxim of information security is that when someone has physical access to a machine, all bets are off. If someone can touch a box, they can do pretty much whatever they want to it: if the console is unlocked they can poke around at whatever the access privileges of the logged in account will allow (how many of you configure your screensavers to require a password to turn off? how many of you walk away without logging out?), and possibly copy data to a removable storage device, such as a USB key. An intruder can also power the …

I first saw this on CNN last Saturday while waiting at the car dealership while the TARDIS was undergoing its yearly inspection: A company called MJ Safety Solutions is hawking bulletproof backpacks for kids and travelers to protect them in the event that someone draws a firearm and starts shooting at people. The backpacks weigh about 1.25 pounds and are meant to either stop the wearer from being shot in the back, or they can be used to provide a measure of protection to the head and torso if the backpack is removed and used as a shield. A …