I saw them at a coffee shop in Field, BC a few years ago and asked the owner about them, as I thought at first they were maybe pasta or some kind of starch-based bioplastic (the holder was just labelled 'biodegradable straws'); they felt just like a good sturdy plastic straw. The ones I saw were translucent beige, but websites I find them on show opaque green straws so I don't know what the difference is there.
It may become the duty of every software engineer at this time to offer their services to those who need security, to make custom solutions for those who require it.
Good questions, and important that we crowdsource verification of this. I saw some other posts on bsky that other people have received these emails, suggesting it is not a single instance. Implication is that it's a new automated effort, perhaps "by AI", to intimidate people en masse. But it could be fake, so the more examining it, the better.
I was trying to sound the alert that this might be a thing -- BUT if it turns out to be fake, please by all means shout to the hilltops that it is bunk.
You bring up a good point, but I'm not sure enough Americans are ready or aware, or desperate enough, yet, that civil disobedience is a thing. I hope they progress to using it very soon.
Bananas in ICE vehicle tailpipes. Not paying taxes. Jamming ICE 'snitch' phone numbers with spurious reports ... that sort of thing.
If you go to New Zealand, you'll have to deal with the shithead billionaires there who will have moved there a few days ahead of you, (since they'll get extra warning of course), who will have moved already into the fortress-bunkers they've been making for a decade or so there.
It should be a life mission of anyone in New Zealand, when the time comes, to find out where their air systems reach the surface and throw a few grenades down the ducts. For the good of humanity (whatever's left).
Damn, I wish someone would make a 68k based version of this.