Schneier on Security

Clive Robinson • September 11, 2020 5:01 PM

@ Bruce, ALL,

The most important paragraph in the magazine article is,

Squid should either be cooked fast over high heat or low and slow. Anything in between will produce overly tough results (which, unfortunately, is all too common).

Just before they get into dish descriptions…

Speaking of which…

In a heavy cast iron pot fry off chorizo and onions and a little smoked cayenne peper and garlic. Stir in a good helping of diamond cut squid mantel and cross cut tenticals. Then add a good quantity of choped tomatoes and red “bell” pepers and a handfull of finly chopped seasonal green herbs. Then put in the oven on a low heat.

After a couple of hours make bread dough up let it rise and knock it back and set it to prove and take the stew out to rest. When the dough has proved make a flat with it and put a couple of sheets of garic buttered filo pastry layers on it. Add a generous measure of the cooled stew and then fold the bread dough around it. Add rock salt and your choice of bread topping then bake as you would a large loaf.

The result can be served hot or cold, either way enjoy.

Clive Robinson • September 12, 2020 1:59 AM

@ WmG,

Marvelous recipe. What are it’s origins?

Believe it or not experiments in the kitchen to recreate food history.

Historically we made bread by building a fire in a brick oven and waiting for it to die back to embers that were then swept still burning into the sides of the oven and the bread dough just dropped onto the hot base stones. The result of this was nicely baked bread that unfortunatly had cinders embeded in the bottom. Thus the bottom of the bread was cut off and used as a “trencher” that is effectively a plate to serve a meal on. It was possible to eat the trencher soaked in the food juices and grease but it could be unpleasent due to the cinders. Thus a person who was hungry enough to do so was a “trencherman” a term we still occasionaly hear today.

The chances are the Pizza developed from this idea and the Italians worked out how to stop the cinders getting in the bottom.

But going back even further in history clay cooking pots were a bit of a hit and miss affair when it came to the lids making a good seal to keep moisture in which is essential when slow cooking. So an unleavened dough was used to stretch across the top of the pot. This technique is still used in Indian cooking for making the likes of biryani. Because it’s unlevened bread that drys out during cooking whilst it is edible it is little different to “hard tack” in consistency on the top side and kind of heavy dumpling consistancy underneath.

Some think that dumplings as in “stew and dumplings” may have started this way with the dumplings acting as a starter to fill hungry people up to make the valuable meat in the stew go much further. You can in fact recook stew almost indefinitely by adding water and vegtable and meat scraps even if they are cooked as long as you bring it up to a simmer for an hour or so a day, which can be done in a “dutch pot” that if put on a fires embers also acts as a kind of storage heater (infact stew realy only gets a good flavour on the third day…).

In Jamaica and other West Indian islands there is a variation recipe that does not use a “dutchy” pot for stewing but as an oven. They make a goat or mutton stew by putting the ingredients in the middle of unleaven bread balls and just cooking them slowely in what we would call a “dutch oven”. This progressed to using pre cooked stew and leavened bread on a metal plate and you end up with “lamb bread”.

In a way the Italian calzone is the same idea except the bread is rolled thin after being knocked back and not alowed to rise that much.

In a calzone tomato sauce is not used inside as it stops the thin bread cooking in the base. Thus nearly all calzone incrediants are low in moisture but high in fat. That is the bread base becomes like a thin pastry on it’s top where the fat cooks in the bread and this stops any moisture getting down into the base.

Well if you’ve ever made “Beef Wellington” you will know that the same process applies but often fails because you don’t get the beef cold enough before baking. Thus the “cheats trick” is to wrap the beef and duxelle in a sheet of filo pastry.

And that is the logic behind the recipe that gives us “squid bread”.

Which like calzone can be eaten with a good herb and tomato sauce as a condiment.

Oh pies started out the same way as biryani but somebody used pastry not unleavend bread thus the lid was edible after cooking[1]. Likewise the cornish pasty is like a calzone but made with pastry. So you could call it a “search for the missing link” recipe rather than an original recipe.

Oh and for those who want to experiment further, don’t try using hot water (pork pie) pastry with fish the lard has a habit of getting into the stew and it also needs a different oven regime that would I suspect make the squid a little tough.

[1] Pies started out being “top crust” only and a flaky pastry is often the best to use. However the bottom crust in the likes of fruot pies is better made with a sweet pastry and you need to have both apples, acid and sugar in the pie mix, because this makes a form of jam when cooking that holds the flavours in and alows the pie to be eaten cold or just “warmed through” with cream or icecream (made from an egg custard and full fat milk mix).

Clive Robinson • September 12, 2020 2:57 PM

@ Boris,

You might find this intetesting,

https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2020-03-21-coronavirus-exposes-who-britains-national-security-industry-is-designed-to-protect-not-the-public/

Oh one thing there is a picture of an empty school playground with a fairly well known tiled mural you can see.

The caption says,

“Edmund Waller school in south London”

Which is actually wrong. It should be,

“Edmund Waller Primary School, Lewisham in South East London (SE14)”

This is not the only news site to make this mistake, “The Guardian” newspaper in London made the same mistake which is quite surprising as one of the people who works at the Grauniad has children that were there as far as I’m aware. Also a member of the board of Governers at the school mentioned to me in the past at a Lewisham School Governors workshop that the “south London” irked them and their fellow governors.

Clive Robinson • September 13, 2020 3:32 PM

@ Singular Nodals,

Re: is there a difference between calamari and squid

It rather depends on how you look at it…

The word “calamari” is Italian for “squid” not “cooked squid” or any other mollusc such as cuttlefish fish or octopus, shell fish, or even semi aquatic snails and false worms.

But you then need to remember a second important fact, Italy is in a nearly closed sea called the Mediterranean that due to it’s aquaculture can not support large squid species. Further intense fishing in the Mediterranean over millennium has had an effect on the evolution of squid there.

Thus yes there is a difference between the squid species used in the Med region and other squid species else where.

The species concerned are firstly smaller, their “wings” go the full length of the mantel and because of the speed they are fished out they are basically eaten almost before they are old enough to breed.

When you buy them as “wet fish” it’s fairly easy to see the difference. Also in price as well, they are upto 20GBP / kg more expensive than other species of squid. Because other countries especially Mediterranean and South and East Asian countries value the particular squid spieces more highly than others.

Look on it as being like the difference between “wagyu beef” from Kobe Japan and best 42day or more “dry aged Grade A Prime Black Angus Beef” (from the Scottish low lands breed) and other beef. Few can tell you why the two different species of cow attract vastly different prices from others but they do and believe it or not one report blaims American women with smaller teeth and weaker jaws who chose to work[1]…

https://www.straightdope.com/21343359/what-s-the-big-deal-about-aged-beef-and-angus-beef

I kind of hope that puts the calamari debate to bed. That is the real answer it’s squid, but young squid from a Mediterranean species that some people want to pay more for than other species…

[1] No I don’t subscribe to the idea women can not chew… but yes considerably fewer families have only one parent working these days that’s a fact that can be found on census data. It’s something that should be noted but for other reasons such as, choice, different life styles, devaluation of wages, or the increase in the cost of living etc or that people have smaller families and live in flats smaller than ranch kitchens of pre WWII. But I suspect it might have something to do with the fact that for some strange reason people realy don’t want to wrestle with half a cow upto eleven hours before they have sunday lunch when there are many many more enjoyable things they could be doing with their time.

Clive Robinson • September 14, 2020 7:14 AM

@ jcb,

We simply need to be become more competitive with the underlying base architecture

I see no real evidence that US industry is in any way deficient in technical knowledge when it comes to anything below the CPU level in the computing stack. The fact that managment and those above them see it as “unproductive” thus leaving money on the table etc etc is the reason that it’s use is scarce in the US.

Thus what is clear is that there is a great deficiency in anything other than very short term thinking, investment or political will power, to use the technical knowledge. Perhaps worse is that more recently there is a strong desire by the executive to steal technology from others and when it can not gain it that way[1] to threaten others when they use Chinese or other nations technology.

Might is not right, it’s thugish, boorish and very child like behaviour you see in playgrounds where bullies are not dealt with promptly and determinedly.

The neo-con economics of “slash and burn” and “rigged market places”, has this century brought the US down in many respects to worse than second world living standards for increasing numbers of US citizens. The health and education systems that are the bed rock of societal continuance has been gutted and turned into what are little different from “Hedge Funds”. The primary aim being to turn the US into a haven for “rent seekers” as a secondary taxation via legalised tithe, not for society but those who have purchased the law through capture of legislators. But unlike times past where 1/10th was the tithe that was considered sufficient, the rent seekers want all income such that nobody but they can have assets and thus the US citizens become little more than surfs who must kow tow to those who believe they have entitlement above all others.

The entitled do not want disruptive abilities in the populus, they want “the bend of the knee” as they pass by so that they can look down on others. That is above all they demand status for no reason other than they are in effect criminals.

Thus they do not want any more “disruptive technology” to arise outside of their control as this diminishes their status, thus their entitlement.

The same nonsense that is happening in the US has happened in the past in India, and you only have to look at what is currently going on their to realise what is heading towards the majority of US citizens. Do you realy want a legaly enforced “cast system” in the US? Because that is the way it is heading bit by bit. Do you realy want the modern equivalent of “The Kshatriya in his Castle / Palace” and “The Brahmin in his Temple / Palace” with the Vaishya being petty Bohemians grubing around for the crumbs of patriarchal favours from Kshatriya and Brahmin alike? In turn the Vaishya treating the majority of citizens as Shudras to be abused worse than donkeys and ground into the dirt, working each day not knowing if the Vaishya will pay them at the end of it so they can feed a pittance of food to the their family[2]…

This is the sort of society that the self entitled want, to have their status above all others implicitly be obvious. You can read more about how this can be made to work in the writings of George Orwell. Who realised not only was Briton one of the wealthiest nations in the world, but the one where the distribution of wealth was amongst the lowest and documented it. What is seldom taught in schools is that the British Government ended up in effect fighting two wars. The first the obvious fight with the Axis Powers the second which it capitulated in was the fight with the working class and lower middle class who had had enough of being treated the way they were.

There was an interesting development the other day a group who see themselves as standing up against the likes of crony-capitalism have been accused of writing the word “racist” on Whinston Churchill’s statue. The fact that even by the standards of the time Churchill was at best xenophobic is more than self evident. But the UK leadership has turned around and called these protestors “Terrorists” for “stating the obvious” but more importantly “myth-busting” the cherished but false notions the self entitled have…

I doubt it would be difficult to find the equivalent or worse in the US governmental systems.

Remember making clear that the cherished beliefs of the self entitled is in their eyes a form of heresy and will be treated worse than any blasphemy imagined in a zelots narrow mind. Such is the “cult of personality” those who believe they are entitled engender in their authoritarian followers.

[1] Have a real look at what is going on with 5G and now Tik Tok, in both cases the technology is well in advance of that in the US, so the policy is claim it’s stolen, well that was disproved, claim it’s dangerous, well that’s been disproved, claim it’s for spting well that is no more true than it is for US techbology, now as the other attempts have failed try and force the technology to be given up at “fire sale prices” by the misuse of “eminent domain” which is obvious naked theft. Which has so far backfired and one of the worst preditors Microsoft has been told no, and the Chinese Government has anounced reluctantly that they will have to take action against the US Executive etc.

[2] This behaviour towards those that actually do the work that keeps India functional at a foundation level are often of smaller or slighter stature than the casts above. This is as a direct result of this policy to keep them in near starvation such that their lowly position is self evident.

Clive Robinson • September 15, 2020 12:35 AM

@ lurker, jcb,

Oracle confirms deal with TikTok-owner ByteDance to become “trusted technology provider”

It would appear to be a “nothing burger” deal on the National Security issue, and less than that for US Tic Tok users personal security (yes the two are significantly different). It now reeks of “grift” as,Donald Trump getts his mancrush fan Larry Ellison a “cloud deal” he could not otherwise have got, and the future of which is very uncertain (ie as far as we can tell so far Oracle are a third party supplier in reality nothing more and could thus be dropped at any conveniant time),

https://www.theverge.com/2020/9/14/21436035/tiktok-oracle-deal-bytedance-president-trump-safety

The reality in the executive is Trump walks away the losser and looking weak and there will be down stream waves washing up and causing problems.

But then the deal was going to go bad the moment China anounced the algorithms and other tech –that Microsoft so badly wanted and the USG were trying to get for them via some perverted form of eminent domain theft– would not be part of the deal ever.

The upshot is it was a trap of Trump’s own making in effect it was a “dodgy deal” or at best a “punt” in the first place and mostly a bluf. So when the going got a little tough and Trump got a little adverse publicity he folded and effectively walked away.

Thus he’s as good as told China he’s not even a “paper tiger”.

But more importantly it gave China the excuse to put in place legislation that stops any US company buying Chinese technology companies and getting the technology. Thus a stratigic door that the US tech industry needed badly to remain open has been closed by Trump’s stupidity. No doubt other nations will see this and put similar legislation in place and things will actually get worse for the US tech industry.

One knock on effect is likely going to be that the WTO is going to loose credability as well, which as many see them rightly or wrongly as a US lacky is going to cause other downstream issues. Likewise the World Bank is going to get to feel a draught from the East as well, I suspect China will now up it’s various forms of “assistance with strings” in competition, not at all something the neo-cons would want.

It will be interesting to see what the next US Executive step is but hopefully they will take advice about betting on an empty hand when trying to steal others technology.

@ ALL,

But you have to work out who the bigest loosers in this whole mess are, and it’s the US Tic Tok users.

Why, consider this, would Microsoft have been a safe pair of hands any way? I would say on past performance they would do as they did with Skype and put the equivalent of a back door in it for the US SigInt, IC, and LEO’s to feast upon.

The latest security issue with MS Domain Controlers is to trite and gives way to much power, thus people will nodoubt think about it and some will no doubt decide this is one error too many and is thus a deliberate backdoor.

So the personal security of US Tic Tok users would definitely have suffered greatly in MS’s hands. Something that will probably now happen through Oracle instead as they will have the US users traffic etc on their servers as “third party records”. So as with the NSA getting into Googles servers they will be getting into Oracle’s servers to keep building their collect it all time machine. Unless of course Tic Tok’s owners decide to encrypt everything that goes on Oracle’s servers, something that could be done quite legaly depending on how they go about it.

Clive Robinson • September 15, 2020 7:03 AM

@ Winter, lawrence,

Thanks guys it confirms what I suspected which is “A big fat question mark” still.

I had hoped that they could with genetic testing work out where the strain had come from and then “join the dots”.

The last time I posted about it of the four likely sources the most likely two of Inbound Passenger and Ember Flare up had been eliminated. Thus Zoonotic Reservoir and Trade Imports were the most likely. With fingers crossed it was not a zoonotic reservoir in vermin such as rats/mice or other wildlife, or domestic pets / livestock.

I must admit my money all be it a very small bet would be on Trade Imports such as chilled or frozen foods. Due in the main to the limited source outbreak and only one apparent source. That is if it was zoonotic infection from a reservoir you would have expected more sources and for them to have appeared earlier.

@ ALL,

There is good news via Germany in that the death rate in Europe is dropping in all age ranges even though it looks like we are in a second wave.

Why the death rate is dropping is not known but various guesses could be made the most likely being mask wearing significantly cuts the viral load thus likelyhood of immune system overload followed by clinical shock. That said the rising infection cases are mainly in the 18-35 year age range that has a very low mortality rate any way. This appears to be due to not social distancing and to try and put it delicately “swapping body fluids” in casual ways. I think the message is “Avoid young adult extroverts as they are likeky to be sick puppies”.

Now the schools are going back and in the UK school children are exempt from social distancing on busses, other public/private transport and it would appear in classes as well. I think it highly likely that as they are as easily infected as anyone else over five the infection rate will rise fairly quickly (apparently most of the 150 odd US Uni Campuses now have comunity outbreaks with something like 80,000 sofar testing positive).

I guess the real question is will school children become “granny kilkers?” Which if what happened in Italy and Spain in the first wave happens again is quite likely. Thus it might account for why the UK Bubble Rules about dependent households have been brought in.

In other news Dr Fauci the face of reasonable reporting in the US has indicated that he is taking both Vitamin D and Vitamin C. In the 1-2g range for the latter, and that whilst he advises everybody who are not babes in arms to have a flu vaccine, he said he would get his in October. Which probably means he thinks it has a quite limited immunity time.

But as he indicated whilst you can not improve your immune system above it’s optimum for your age range etc, most people have quite sub optimal immune systems anyway. Other sources suggest that this is mainly due to lifestyle issues… So time to sort yourselves out in the North before Winter gets here.

As for the south, “get out in the sun” apparently being out in the Sun when it’s around 45degrees with your shirt off for about half the time it takes you to get sun burn is wirth around 20,000IU of vitimin D. This natural dose is many times the 400IU or less most countries recommend… Which is odd as it would appear to be 1/50th of what nature gives you. I take rather more than that, but I spoke to my doctor first which is what everybody should do. That said trying to find actual data on what might be a too higher level is actually not that easy to do as it appears signs of toxicity are fairly silent, and it’s not been well researched.

About the best information in one web page is,

https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/how-much-vitamin-d-is-too-much.

Clive Robinson • September 16, 2020 6:09 AM

@ JonKnowsNothing, Winter,

… or have a stashed-overnight-junker car in the parking lot …

As I understand it more and more people are “car/van surfing”.

That is they find it less expensive and less stressful to sleep covertly in cars or small vans in parking lots or even side streets. In the morning they go to the gym in sweats with gym bag etc looking like they have jogged then use the showers[1] and coffee bar to get ready for the day.

A small van and folding pushbike gives you about the most flexability for this sort of lifestyle and gives further excuse for sweats and gym bag.

You can get 220W solar pannels that can be put more or less unnoticeably on a van roof. This will charge a battery during the day enough to run a microwave for a few minutes or run a camping “electric blanket” you can put inside a sleeping bag in winter etc.

You can also run a smart device via mobile phone or if you know what you are doing with a high gain antenna use the WiFi in a coffee shop or store like in Wallmart’s car park.

This way they can buy a house in a rural area with land to get on the property ladder or eventually “work from home” as a contractor/consultant.

Unfortunately “city councils” are wising up to this and stopping overnight street parking and the like, but with care you can park up in other places without hassle.

[1] A few years ago I experimented to find just how little water you need to take a shower with. Call it a “lean Navy Shower” but it’s a little less than a quart/ltr including washing long hair… You can do a “lean sink wash” of the “face and pits etc” with less than 1/5th of that (just don’t use deoderant as it takes a lot of washing to get off unlike natural secretions and perfume). In either case you use a pump spray bottle used in greenhouses or for indoor plants (though those cheap Walmart etc 1$ 10once spray bottles work). You first lightly spray on to put just enough soap on then spray into your rub off hand/cloth[2] to remove. If you start at the head and work down gravity helps you use less water overall as used water from above can be used to moisten lower parts.

[2] Unlike “face cloths / flannels” “baby wipes” don’t need very much water to wash with and don’t need to be dried or laundered. Laundry is a bit of a problem to do in a car or small van even if you use an electric camping washing machine. The water used to do a small load such as five t’s[3] boxers and socks is about five gallons from start to finish. However the thing to remember about water efficiency is “rinse and spin water can be reused as pre wash / wash water for the next load”.

[3] Wearing tee shirts and boxers help keep sweat and odor down considerably which is why people in hotter climates wear them. Thus it also alows you to wear office wear shirts and suits etc for more days before you need to wash or dry clean them. Oh and remember in some gyms the showers are in cubicals with doors that close, so you can take your underware and a plastic bag in and as they used to teach soldiers to do wash your underware whilst you are showering. Wring it out put in the plastic bag dry off and put clean underware on and just pretend your shy if anyone asks.

Clive Robinson • September 16, 2020 7:34 AM

@ SpaceLifeForm, Anders

Only works properly if not powered.

Then wrapped in rebar and set in the middle of a cubic foot of fire escape grade concrete and dropped of the back of a boat that is lost at sea somewhere about 125miles South West of Guam[1].

Once upon a time that was considered secure, but not only have we now been there it appears there is all sorts of life down there that need to get told about the security risks from above…

So maybe the Lord of The Rings Option would be better.

But ‘then I want my code name to be “Glorfindel”‘[2].

[1] Challenger Deep can be seen marked on,

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Marianatrenchmap.png

[2] Mars has bigger volcanos and deeper trenches than Earth though no oceans these days. The back drop scenery in “The Martian” nerdy as it is, does not realy get that across. Though it has added the much approved “I’m left with only one option, I’m gonna have to science the shit out of this” phrase to the English language.

Clive Robinson • September 16, 2020 8:17 AM

@ lurker, ALL,

I forgot to add the more “Fun From Auz” link,

https://www.smh.com.au/technology/backlash-after-oracle-it-security-executive-mary-ann-davidson-pens-nutty-3000word-rant-mocking-customers-for-trying-to-find-its-security-flaws-20150811-giwymy.html

Remember the Sydney Morning Herald is an ordinary MSM outlet, not a trade journal, so you can tell how much of a ruckus her blog post caused over half a decade ago.