Friday Squid Blogging: Sperm Whale Eating a Giant Squid
As usual, you can also use this squid post to talk about the security stories in the news that I haven’t covered.
Comments
Clive Robinson • October 11, 2025 1:40 PM
@ Bruce, ALL,
Nasdaq looses 3/4 Trillion on Trump Tariff announcement.
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/10/10/tech-megacaps-market-cap-mag-7.html
But the Corps that plummeted are also all upto their necks in the AI hype bubble.
Which raises a question,
“At some point the AI bubble is going to get burst / deflated, the question is what will be the pin that causes it?”
But as increasing numbers of people are commenting these same companies are worth a significant fraction of the US Economy. The article notes,
“Nvidia, Amazon and Tesla all fell by about 5% on Friday, pushing the Nasdaq down 3.6%, its worst day since April.”
The Corps dropped ~5% but the Nasdaq dropped 3.6% that is a very significant influence from just 3 Tech Corps. Not stated is the effect on other US Stock market indicators and more importantly the US Economy.
Thus the next question to ask is,
“What would be the tipping point into a significant US, if not First World recession?”
A look at precious metal bullion prices suggests that others are thinking that thought…
Gold price / gram, $84.2 Jan 1 2025 to just under $130 by this weekend. If that continues it’s going to be double by the end of the year.
Platinum ~900 at the end of the first week of April to ~1700 a couple of days back so is on the way to being three times by the end of the year. Silver between two and a half and three times…
Even non bullion but industrial use metals are going up and up.
So the knock on to consumer, and commercial prices a little down the line is going to have at least the same change magnitude.
So unless your income goes up by double or triple you are going to be poorer by quite a bit.
lurker • October 11, 2025 1:44 PM
“The Bank of England’s Financial Policy Committee has warned of the dangers of a sudden correction in the financial markets, owing to the value of tech and AI stocks, and has compared the risks to the dotcom bubble.”
Back in the day Gartner gave reasonably factual tech reports, but now they are saying there isn’t an AI bubble but there will be extinctions of some AI models …
‘https://www.theregister.com/2025/10/08/boe_dotcom_bubble_ai/
‘AI Images Send Roman Historian Mad’
Honor Cargill-Martin reacts to AI-generated images depicting ancient Roman life. Here in the video she reviews an AI depiction of the Roman senate. Think weird togas. She is currently studying for a doctorate at Oxford.
From her video @ancienthistorygirl: Do All Democracies Have to Die?
“I’ve just posted a substack [ @allancienthistory ] on the ancient theory of the cycle of constitutions. It is this Greek and Roman idea that every form of government has this intrinsic tendency to degenerate and then to destroy itself. We’re asking how this is thought to happen, why it’s thought to happen, and whether the Greeks and the Romans believe that there is any way to avoid it.”
deleted by moderator with no reason • October 11, 2025 4:51 PM
The new AI arms race changing the war in Ukraine
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cly7jrez2jno
=It was no ordinary drone either, he discovered. Assisted by artificial intelligence, this unmanned aerial vehicle can find and attack targets on its own.
Unlike other models, it didn’t send or receive any signals, so could not be jammed.
Russian and Ukrainian forces have both been testing AI in this war, and in some areas
they are already using it, for finding targets, gathering intelligence and de-mining.
“Our military gets more than 50,000 video streams [from the front line] every month
which are analysed by artificial intelligence,” says Ukraine’s deputy defence minister,Yuriy Myronenko.
“This helps us quickly process this massive data, identify targets and place them on a
map.”
Ukrainian troops already use AI-based software so that drones lock on a target and then fly autonomously for the last few hundred metres until the mission is over.
Jamming is impossible and shooting down such a small flying object is not easy.
Ultimately these systems are expected to evolve into fully autonomous weapons that can
find and destroy targets on their own.
All a soldier will need to do is press a button on a smartphone app, explains Yaroslav
Azhnyuk, chief executive of Ukrainian developer The Fourth Law.
The drone will do the rest, he says, finding the target, dropping explosives, assessing
the damage and then returning to base.
“And it would not even require piloting skills from the soldier,” he adds.
But Ukrainian developers are cautious about fully making use of defense systems that rely entirely on AI, with no human involvement. The risk is that AI may fail to
distinguish a Ukrainian soldier from a Russian, as they may be wearing the same uniform, says Vadym, who declined to give his surname.
His company DevDroid makes remotely controlled machine guns, that use AI to
automatically detect people and track them. Because of concerns over friendly fire, he
says they don’t have an automatic shooting option.
How do you stop a “swarm of drones” when jamming or using jets, tanks or missiles is
rendered ineffective?
Ukraine’s highly successful “Spider Web” operation, when 100 drones targeted Russian air bases last June, was probably assisted by AI tools.=
not important • October 11, 2025 4:58 PM
REPOSTED!!!!
Tech billionaires seem to be doom prepping. Should we all be worried?
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cly17834524o
=I once met a former bodyguard of one billionaire with his own “bunker”, who told me his security team’s first priority, if this really did happen, would be to eliminate said boss and get in the bunker themselves. And he didn’t seem to be joking.
Current AI tools are trained on mountains of data and are good at spotting patterns:
whether tumor signs in scans or the word most likely to come after another in a
particular sequence. But they do not “feel”, however convincing their responses may
appear.
Ultimately, though, no matter how intelligent machines become, biologically the human
brain still wins. It has about 86 billion neurons and 600 trillion synapses, many more
than the artificial equivalents.
“LLMs also do not have meta-cognition, which means they don’t quite know what they know.
Humans seem to have an introspective capacity, sometimes referred to as consciousness, that allows them to know what they know.”=
Lurker • October 11, 2025 7:26 PM
@Clive Robinson, ALL
The gold price has been influenced by what some might call hedging; others call it a “Machiavellian virtuous cycle that has benefited Russia.”
‘https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/10/08/russias-big-bet-on-gold-pays-off-as-price-tops-4k-for-first/
Ian Stewart • October 12, 2025 3:44 AM
How subvert or bypass AI:
Sonic • October 12, 2025 4:39 AM
A few days ago, Discord had revealed that one of its customer service providers had suffered a data breach. It had resulted in photos of government-ID photos being stolen by the attackers.
In its initial report, Discord had said that the hackers had gained access to “a small number” of government-ID images. However, an update to the statement says that about 70,000 photos of government-issued IDs were exposed. Sure, that’s a small number.
VX Underground, which is known for its repository for malware samples for cybersecurity research, alleged that the Discord data breach was significantly larger. They claimed that attackers had targeted Zendesk, and compromised it, thus gaining access to 1.5TB of age verification related images. The total number was said to be 2.1 Million, more specifically, 2,185,151 images. This included driver licenses, passports, and may also have included an unknown number of email addresses. More importantly, the report claimed that Discord was being extorted by the attackers.
[…]
This security mishap has highlighted that age verification laws such as the U.K.’s Online Safety Act could not only pose privacy risks, but also expose user data to hacks. It only took a couple of months for hackers to gain access to a database containing images of personal identification documents, which was never supposed to exist in the first place. Discord had claimed that its support services would verify the age of users and immediately delete them, which, if it were true, would not have led to such an incident.
ResearcherZero • October 12, 2025 4:43 AM
Pulp mills and printing presses are closing in many regions around the world.
‘https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/9/21/2344725/–We-ve-never-seen-anything-like-this-magnitude-of-shuts-as-paper-mills-close-to-raise-prices
The closures come as markets are reshaped and demand for cardboard boxes has fallen.
https://www.paperadvance.com/blogs/resourcewise/how-will-trumps-reciprocal-tariffs-impact-pulp-and-paper-professionals-and-how-can-they-respond.html
Timber mills have downsized or closed as a pulp mills remain idle or shutdown permanently.
https://apnews.com/article/international-paper-georgia-closure-savannah-2b8bc6a99e4ca42de5ceb114c1ee2e0e
In some regional communities conditions are tough and the situation is not improving.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/nz-news/360840478/small-communities-suffering-after-losing-big-business
“It is when a thing is beginning to disappear that the concept appears, thus the real vanishes into the concept.” ~ Jean Baudrillard
‘https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/14648849241308677
Sue Victoria • October 12, 2025 4:23 PM
good news. courtesy of naked capitalism. Germany revokes support for EU ‘chat control’ legislation thus cancelling an EU bill that would have required access to private encrypted communications.
https://www.euronews.com/next/2025/10/11/chat-control-on-hold-europes-eastern-flank-remains-passive
ResearcherZero • October 12, 2025 10:43 PM
Governments are pushing mobile drivers licenses and national ID to be widely rolled out by the end of this decade. Phone home capability means that on every occasion a digital ID is used, it contacts a server for verification and creates a record of who, where and when the ID is used.
Server retrieval functionality (phone home) has been included in many Digital ID standards at the bequest of states. The standard REAL ID utilizes, contains phone home capability and REAL ID is being pushed for use for drivers licenses and right-to-work ID. Digital ID has already been implemented in some countries for education, taxation, health or border control. It is also being suggested in other areas like online shopping. Companies want to deploy electronic ID systems for every imaginable service and scenario.
Digital ID allows for detailed analysis of an individual’s life when the ID can be easily linked to user behaviour. Online shopping transactions is one obvious area this can occur.
‘https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/u-k-wants-mandatory-digital-164424460.html
https://cdt.org/insights/digital-ids-must-be-safe-secure-and-accessible/
Methods to mitigate fraud can entrench surveillance and abuse when poorly implemented.
https://www.biometricupdate.com/202510/sophisticated-industrialized-fraud-demands-proactive-identity-defense
Just a comment • October 13, 2025 1:08 AM
Something to be PQ-Worried?
ResearcherZero • October 13, 2025 6:21 AM
NSO group has been purchased by STX Entertainment owner Robert Simonds.
‘https://techcrunch.com/2025/10/10/spyware-maker-nso-group-confirms-acquisition-by-us-investors/
Flock was used to surveil people living in a small town in Virginia. The data was intensely scrutinized by outside agencies who made more than 6 million inquires about the townsfolk.
https://vcij.org/stories/state-of-surveillance
By removing data silos, American’s data can now be fed into a master database.
https://www.snopes.com/news/2025/06/13/citizens-palantir-surveillance-database/
Clive Robonson • October 14, 2025 3:22 AM
@ ALL,
75th Anniversary of Alan Turing paper at the Royal Society Video
The other day I mentioned that the Royal Society in London –probably the oldest society on science in the world– was having a day devoted to what many call the “Turing Test”.
The number of tickets was very limited and likewise the OnLine Viewing numbers.
However although “not listed yet” the five hour event is up on YouTube.
One of the more interesting parts from my point of view was a talk by Garry Marcus,
https://www.youtube.com/live/GmnBTCKocZI?t=5977
If you only watch one part of the video it’s the one I would say watch, because it debunks much of the “Current AI LLM and ML Systems” nonsense, and warns much as I’ve done the very real dangers that are almost immediately ahead of us.
Although he does not explicitly say the intent of these systems is,
“Surveillance on everything you say and do”
You can hear that he is very much aware of it.
Also what I’ve called the Silicon Valley MegaCorps of Alphabet, Apple, Microsoft, Oracle and more “business plan” of,
“Bedazzle, Beguile, Bewitch, Befriend, and BETRAY”
Though I’m starting to think that “Bewilder” and “Befuddle” could usefully be added with Beguile.
Clive Robinson • October 14, 2025 5:38 AM
@ ALL,
The beging or the end question
The Dutch government have kicked the management out of a Chinese owned and run business,
What is not mentioned is that the Dutch Government has a fairly bad reputation of running anything let alone a country or International business.
Many view it as being a tipping point into disaster for many good reasons.
Not least is you can bet that management of nearly all Global and many National large companies will see this as “theft” and will take steps to limit or prevent it.
Such steps will have knock-on effects that in short will lead to significant loss of productivity and share value. Thus the chances that it will fan the smoldering coals of recession into a wild fire or worse fire-storm.
Because all economies are in effect a “Game of Debts” we call “investments”. When people think their investments are at risk they “cash out” and put the funds elsewhere. Without those funds nearly all organisations would fail. Because,
“You have to buy, before you can make, and then sell to pay the incurred debt.”
The often unstated step that comes before this is “You have to borrow” thus incur debt of some kind.
When you can not incur debt your economy basically seizes up, and ceases to function due to productivity failing. And recession is one of the more obvious results happening fairly rapidly and becomes difficult to pull out of once a tipping point is reached.
There are even “latch-up” mechanisms. On such is semi precious industrial metals. The price rises as people move their investments over into what they see as a safer investment. This means manufacturing debt has to rise and shortages occur as a result. Because the investors having pushed the price up, won’t want to see it drop as that would be a loss for them. So they don’t sell to maintain the perceived value or even drive it higher. This causes a shortage of value added goods which initially has a similar price rise, thus the latch gets reinforced.
Eventually there is a crash and the price of the metals comes down because manufacturers have gone out of business for several reasons and the bottom drops out of demand beyond the ability of investors to maintain the fiction.
Oh this might re-enforce the point that the wind is on the change, some see it coming as a “slump they can profit by”,
But others think that it’s helping make the tipping point…
My view is that politicians should keep out of “fighting war” by “beggar thy neighbor” through economics. It rarely works the way they want, and others profit at entire nations prosperity.
lurker • October 15, 2025 11:04 PM
“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”
Funny (odd) story of the week from our local library,
They’ve removed WPA2 and now have Open WiFi
The kids love it.
3 out of 4 of my browsers won’t even connect to their “log-in” page:
“This connection is insecure.”
Firefox puts up a tiny notification that allows me to access the Accept Conditons notice and auto-register my MAC address which then allows the other browsers to see the internet. But Thunderbird mail just sits there wheelspinning, no error messages …
The old WPA2 SSID & password was on big notices all round the walls. I s’pose it’s too hard in Windows to enter SSID/password in WiFi Settings, and I s’pose Windows doesn’t care about the (in)security of Open WiFi …
ResearcherZero • October 16, 2025 12:16 AM
US law firms representing sensitive clients targeted by series of intrusions.
‘https://edition.cnn.com/2025/10/08/politics/williams-and-connolly-law-firm-hack-chinese-hackers-suspected
Email accounts were exploited using a zero day. UNC5221 has been conducting intrusions into US legal services and tech firms for long-term information gathering. The group used a persistent backdoor to scope security services and explore source code for vulnerabilities that could be used to conduct further operations against downstream targets.
https://cyberscoop.com/chinese-cyberespionage-campaign-brickstorm-mandiant-google/
BRICKSTORM may have been used to steal F5 Inc source code and configuration files.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-10-16/potentially-catastrophic-breach-of-cyber-firm-blamed-on-china
ResearcherZero • October 16, 2025 12:52 AM
@lurker
Local libraries generally require a VPN to make any kind of service operate properly. The admin person might come in occasionally on a Thursday if there are any problems. The kids have the network to themselves for the rest of the week, some with a higher skill set than the admin. The police once showed up out the front scratching their heads and completely baffled.
In an unrelated matter, the local police did arrest this one young chap who was attempting to hack POS terminals at the local shops. He was lurking around looking really suspicious which did not help.
–
Australians can be held on extradition requests without charges for years via a legal loophole which allows detention without conviction for alleged crimes in another country.
‘https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-10-16/us-marine-pilot-dan-duggan-appears-appeal-extradition/105898850
Australia approved extradition for something that is not considered a crime in Australia.
https://www.sydneycriminallawyers.com.au/blog/dan-duggan-makes-final-appeal-against-trumped-up-us-extradition-request/
ResearcherZero • October 16, 2025 12:56 AM
The Australian government has decided to limit scrutiny of its decision-making process.
The Australian government is about to make Freedom of Information requests a whole lot harder. The government’s claim that this will save taxpayers money, stands in contrast to a the large increase in the cost of administering individual FOI requests and delays in having requests approved. The real problem and cause of the added expense seems to be with the administrative process and a lack of frankness and willingness to turn over information about the decision-making process within government departments and their administration.
‘https://www.oaf.org.au/2025/09/08/2025-foi-amendments/
The government has other excuses for the rise in FOI costs which smell a lot like bulls–t.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-10-10/freedom-of-information-foi-liberals-transparency/105858416
Government transparency has declined along with the number of FOI requests approved.
https://australiainstitute.org.au/post/proposed-changes-to-freedom-of-information-scheme-dont-add-up/
The move will prevent Australians from properly scrutinizing many government decisions.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-09-02/labor-plans-to-weaken-foi-laws/105723992
lurker • October 16, 2025 1:13 AM
@ResearcherZero
“The admin person might come in occasionally on a Thursday”
We actually have a “Digital Assistant” on Thursday and Friday, which is a human being who helps the elder population find stuff on their home screen. I tried explaining the problem, but it was the first time he had seen Linux with his own eyes
ResearcherZero • October 16, 2025 1:52 AM
@lurker
Microsoft releases a zero day with every one of its products. Which is handy for conducting
operations in foreign lands and sometimes our own lands, if someone had wanted to do that.
For stealthy operation the Microsoft Graph API and the Microsoft Console Debugger can be extra handy when needing to exfiltrate data from inside service provider’s networks. China doesn’t just hack into US systems, it shares the love with neighboring networks.
‘https://www.security.com/threat-intelligence/jewelbug-apt-russia
ResearcherZero • October 16, 2025 6:32 AM
Inventory records, banking transactions, flight data, cellular backhaul, infrastructure management, internal communications and scheduling within organizations all in the clear.
Researchers discovered that $750 worth of retail equipment can get you texts, calls and internet data all leaking unencrypted from geostationary satellites. Other data included military communication and industrial control signals. Many providers have failed to implement standard encryption protocols leaving their services vulnerable to eavesdropping.
‘https://www.theregister.com/2025/10/14/unencrypted_satellite_comms/
Clive Robinson • October 16, 2025 9:35 AM
Harvard economist : AI investments nearly 92% of U.S. GDP growth
Yup have a read of,
Most US Growth Now Rides on AI—And Economists Suspect a Bubble : A Harvard economist says 92% of U.S. growth now comes from AI spending. The Bank of England says we’re one “pop” away from pain.
https://decrypt.co/343441/us-gdp-ai-economists-suspect-bubble
Have a think on what that actually means and what it will do when it inevitably goes wrong.
Whilst all the noise is about,
“Current AI LLM and ML Systems”
That are now known “can not deliver” on the promises / speculation made.
The question that arises is,
“What about Future AI can that deliver?”
Well the first point to note is that without a suitably strong economy their can not be “Future AI” of the type we think will need to be developed (not that we know how to do it at all).
Secondly if the LLM&ML Hype bubble bursts rather than deflates gracefully then the likelihood of future “AI Investment” for the level of research required –even in academia– will get nixed for a generation or three, maybe more.
Does this mean,
“AI is dead?”
Actually no. As I’ve indicated I’ve worked off and on in AI and Robotics to develop what some might call “Embeded Controllers”. Which are in effect “Industrial Control Systems”(ICS) and similar “on steroids”.
Importantly such systems “don’t reason” and their behaviour modes are sufficiently known such that they can be used in “Safety Systems”.
There is a strange belief that “Reasoning” is essential to AI. Sorry to burst that myth bubble it’s not, and as far as I’m aware all successful AI systems “Don’t Reason”. Also when we try to get “Current AI LLM&ML Systems” to reason the results are fairly disastrous, in that they can only do badly what is in their input data set and otherwise “Soft Bullshit” upwards of 30% of the time. With badly being a maybe 5% just about acceptable functionality. With the real downside being it requires upto 10 times the time it would take a reasonable professional to develop the system, just to debug that the AI generated…
What many do not appear to realise is “Current AI LLM&ML Systems” are not really deterministic in behaviour. They are as I’ve noted before an adaptive filter which means their function is almost entirely based on two things,
1, Input data (training and queries).
2, Random perturbation.
Many can not get their heads around the implications of this.
Thus the likelihood of things going badly is a lot higher than most realise.
Which is why this quote from the article made by the chair of Rockefeller International, Ruchir Sharma is so important to note,
“AI better deliver for the U.S., or its economy and markets will lose the one leg they are now standing on.”
KC • October 16, 2025 10:49 AM
So much going on at the Bank of England
The Bank of England’s approach to innovation in AI, DLT, and quantum computing
https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/report/2025/the-boes-approach-to-innovation-in-ai-dlt-quantum-computing
Time for a nice cup of tea, or two ☕️
Ever so simply scanning the publication for recent AI activity, which is only (very much less than) half of it …
- In April 2025, the FPC published its Financial Stability in Focus (FSiF): Artificial intelligence in the financial system, which explores financial stability-related risks in detail.
- In May 2025, following on from the AIPPF, we launched the AI Consortium. Co-chaired with the FCA, it is a group of AI experts, providing a platform for public-private engagement to gather input from stakeholders on the capabilities, development, deployment, and use of AI.
- In August 2025, we published our internal AI strategy, The Bank’s artificial intelligence (AI) strategy.
‘Our approach supports the UK Government’s vision for the UK to be the world’s most technologically advanced global financial centre.[1]’
lurker • October 16, 2025 6:33 PM
Astronomers feared that StarLink would harm astronomy. In this photo of Comet Lemmon[1] it appears Mr. Musk is weaving a Tholian Web[2]
[1] https://spaceweathergallery2.com/indiv_upload.php?upload_id=226683
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tholian_Web
Clive Robinson • October 17, 2025 1:20 AM
You thought you uberstood the AI hype.
There is without doubt a lot of “Tricky Dicky” behaviour in the “Current AI LLM and ML Systems” world.
One such is just how fast the chips die and what that does to “Availability”… But that was to be expected for various fairly well known reasons
But there is other almost dark web shenanigans going on that entirely Beggars belief.
Not least is the Nvidia and OpenAI hype spiral. Where each company some how gains value by giving the other “promissory notes” that are very very unlikely to turn into actual value. Likewise Oracle is getting into the same game.
The reality is outside of Nvidia, none of the companies are making money from AI, in fact they are hemorrhaging money faster than if you had chopped their head off.
So what is going on?
Well this does amuses me on that front…
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0TpWitfxPk
Oh and for “Political Reasons” the UK’s “Bank of England” knows AI is a disaster waiting to happen, but can not directly say so because the UK Senior Politicians see it as a way to a new economic prosperty…
Whilst others see it as a new “black Tulip” market or technology crash out bubble[1].
I’m not saying this is what the “Current AI LLM and ML Systems” companies are doing, but generally the only way you “can make a hole with spin”, is by “pulling the plug”…
But,
What of “Non LLM and ML AI Systems”?
Well as I’ve said the commercial ones I’ve worked on since the 1980’s have all turned a profit or at least not a loss. But they were all for what can be viewed in overly general terms as “Embedded Industrial Control Systems”.
Likewise there are some Deep ML systems that have shown success/profit. But they are like Alpha Fold. It is not “Generative AI” nor does it “reason” and it’s not “general” but strictly “constrained”. So it’s not really part of the “all things to all people” nonsense of “Current AI LLM and ML Systems”.
[1] Those that study industrial history are aware that nearly every new technology from Canals onwards have suffered “bubbles” of “hype” to get the “mug money”. The reason is a form of “Network Effect”. A single canal is mostly worthless because the cost of carrying goods between point A and B usually can not cover the cost of “digging the ditch” in any reasonable time frame. To make money people have to want to use your stretch of canal as part of a much wider journey. This generally only happens when there are lots of canals that interconnect so from point A you have a whole alphabet of destinations you can reach. What happens is speculator “mug money” via shares and such like pays for ditch digging but those issuing the shares know it’s all highly likely to go “belly up” and their trick is to separate the actual assets from the investment company. Many of the investment companies go bankrupt, and those that backed them loose everything. But the assets still exist and those who have “planed ahead” get the assets for next to or less than nothing. So after the “Hype Bubble” has built the base infrastructure, they have those assets and a fair chunk of money to move forward unencumbered by debt, thus actually make profit.
One such trick was to “buy the land and rent it to the investment company. When it goes belly up it defaults on the rental thus those that “own the land” get the asset of the dug ditch “free and clear” to “rent again” etc. Such tricks can be done with leases as well.
ResearcherZero • October 17, 2025 1:27 AM
Key to the CIA Kryptos sculpture was laying in the Smithsonian’s archive for 35 years.
‘https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/16/science/kryptos-cia-solution-sanborn-auction.html
Clive Robinson • October 17, 2025 10:06 AM
How robust is a memory card?
It’s a question I get asked from time to time, to do with “Safety Systems”. It is kind of the other way around to the more normal questions I get asked about destroying them or their contents for “Security Systems”.
I suspect many will remember the “carbon fiber mini-sub, the OceanGate Titan that imploded on the way down to the Titanic. That was in the news for days.
At very shortly after the tragedy there were quite a few posts on the Internet about the destructive effects of what some described as “explosive implosion”.
So a valid question is,
“Would you expect recording media to survive that which had crushed just about everything to much smaller dimensions?”
Well it appears the answer is “yes”, sufficiently to get stills and video off of it,
Obviously this has implications for both “Safety” for the likes of “black boxes” and “Security” for confidential and higher classified data, that has an attached “Duty of Care” for “Non Disclosure.
It’s one of the reasons I generally advise “high level encryption” of file prior to them being put in modern semiconductor based storage.
Experiments in the past using “field piece” very high velocity shells have shown that likewise if properly mounted semiconductor storage will survive the highest of G-Forces we can generally generate. Even fairly high levels of thermal energy can be survived…
So whilst not entirely explosion proof if mounted correctly they can be fairly robust to most accidents or attempts to destroy them.
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Sidebar photo of Bruce Schneier by Joe MacInnis.
all out of bubblegum • October 11, 2025 12:56 AM
JPMorgan requires staff to hand over biometric data to access new headquarters New York bank is imposing eye and fingerprint scans amid heightened security concerns at corporate offices
JPMorgan Chase has told staff moving into the US bank’s new multibillion-dollar Manhattan headquarters they must share their biometric data to access the building, overriding a prior plan for voluntary enrolment.
Employees who have started work at its 270 Park Avenue skyscraper since August have received emails saying biometric access is “required”, according to a communication seen by the Financial Times. This allows people to scan their fingerprints or eye instead of ID badges to get through the lobby security gates.
https://www.ft.com/content/d5351d3d-d64f-4a90-a3da-d1ef8e8bea66