Schneier on Security

Clive Robinson • September 19, 2020 5:51 AM

@ Matrix

I think its no suprise to most of you but I think it’s worth point out this article of Dr. Neal Krawetz on the achiles heel of TOR

Be careful what you say about “Tor” various people have said the same thing on this blog for years. Whilst some take note and actually think about just how bad an idea Tor actually is in reality and ways to fix or replace it so that it is more secure. There are “Tor disciples” out there who basically try to portray Tor as “the one solution” and therefore target those who raise questions about Tor. In effect they have silenced debate here and in other security discussion groups, and that is very bad.

But onto your non Tor question,

What I find interesting in the article is the claim that there are “private companies/group of individuals” with a god eyes view of the Internet.

Well some Companies with that ability are those like CloudFlare etc that impliment various very large parts of the the base networks that form the base backbone and interchanges that make the Internet and on which it is built.

Something you might remember the likes of Alphabet/Google and Amazon are getting into at the backbone with undersea cables and satellites and at the “on ramp” as ISP’s based on drones and mobile network technology such as LTE and if they can 5G. But remember their input is to give them “sensors” by which they sample not just users but the world around. Those satellites and blimp like drones will have oprical and other sensors on board and will individually be very much more powerfull than the highest tech of Spy Satellites of the 80’s and 90’s that cost the likes of the US NRO and other IC entities billions of dollars of tax money.

It’s not inconceivable they might do what Microsoft are currently doing, which is making spin-offs to pick up a big slice of the LEO market along with the likes of Palantir[1].

Palantir in particular which is looking to capitalize on “COVID and Trump” by kind of “going public” whilst “keeping control in a trust”, has recently been “burning” what it calls the Silicon Valley Monoculture,

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-09-18/palantir-embraces-government-abandons-big-tech-as-it-prepares-to-go-public

But Palantir has a series of skeletons in the closet,

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/sep/04/palantir-ipo-ice-immigration-trump-administration

But whilst ICE think Palantir is “mission critical” they’ve missed the bigest danger of Palantir, which is their “Drug Pusher business model”. Put simply Palantir have decided to turn any kind of agency public or private that has investigatory needs into a state of high dependency. One of the reasons Palantir has been loosing money is it’s “been selling it’s crack below production cost”.

Thus the likes of sherifs offices have had the choice, recruit and properly train Detectives and other investigators or pay for Palantir’s systems that get more expensive the more they use them and employ cheaper “data entry operators”. Becauce the real trick Palantir is upto is taking all the data being typed in analysing it for those who typed it in, but then repackaging that data as supposed “Gold Standard Intel” to the next tier up in agencies who likewise pay for Palantir systems by laying off or letting waste away inteligance analysts and so on up the hierarchy. Apparently the US President gets fed Palantir inteligence, what is not known is what it costs directly or indirectly at the moment. But one thing is becoming more apparent is Palantir intend to replace LEO Detectives and IC and above Analysts with their databases typed in by those agency “typists” and run it through supposed AI analysis. Thus become the “investigative heart and soul” of the US and any other nation it can get it’s “crack products” into. Whilst Palantir’s AI will have control over millions if not billions of lives it will be “Big Brother, without any humanity” oversight or control from anyone other than “Those of the secretive Trust”.

Yup I know “You couldn’t make it up” but those trust members have and they fully intend to be “watching you” in anyway they can. Thas the likes of Alphabet, Amazon, Facebook, Twitter and others “grabing it all” with “PII for Marketing” Palantir are doing it for “control of the people by the machines” with no responsability, oversight or humanity. Even Stalin would have balked on this one.

[1] A plot device from Tolkin’s “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy. It’s an indistructable viewing device to see objects and thoughts, past present and future. However all uses of palantíri influence the actions of the viewers through deception or misreading of what is shown[2], with only those of “true power” being able to gain understanding from them[3]… Which in essence is a good description of what Palantir the organisation is aiming to do, that is be the holders of the,”true power”. But the books carry a warning in that even Sauron the great and powerfull sourcerer was brought down in part by their use.

[2] It’s actualy in part a lesson about the use of SigInt and ElInt and other telemetry data, that often fails, no matter how many sensors you have deployed (law of diminishing returns). Yet “boots on the ground” with “eyes an ears open” more usually succeed as they feel their way through reality.

[3] The great big hope of Hard AI was to replace the individual power of human minds with the unlinited power of electronic minds. Which so far is no closer today than six or more decades ago. What has happened is the growth of Soft “rule following” AI, backed by statistical inference engines that “dynamically build rules”. The problem being that such rules can not be “exposed and explained” and are strongly influanced by training data. Thus data used from past systems inherits all the failings of the past system such as racism and other “isms” of discrimination along with using the style of the old “isms” to come up with new “isms”. Thus current AI is effectively “meta-GIGO” which is fine if you want to keep the bigitory and other failings behind the “isms” as the impenatrability of the dynamic rules gives new life to “the computer says” excuses and systemic failings of control systems[4]. Worse when applied to objects of not just freewill but the ability to use it intelligently the ability to “game the system” increases exponentialy even when injecting small data sets into the inference engines.

[4] Systemic or holistic failings are as Aristotle observed of many things millennia ago, “greater than the sum of their parts”. This is actually highlighted in official standards and guidence used in “safety system design” that aims to achive “intrinsic safety by fail safe mechanisms”. But as with Aristotle’s observation has much much broader scope in life,

https://www.iadclexicon.org/systemic-failure/

Something many designers of security or information handeling systems realy should take to heart as a fundemental part of the process from before day zero[5].

[5] All projects start and finish and appear to have three main phases,

1, Setup.
2, Operational.
3, Teardown.

However no project starts in a vacuum thus there are two additional phases that in effect form a rolling circle.

0, Knowledge from previous project history files.

4, Lessons learned and documented in project history files.

As has oft been obbserved, “Those that do not learn from history are condemed to relive it”. I know people “hate to document” but unless history files are created then the lessons of history are lost in times past. An affliction that is painfully apparent not just in the InfoTec software industry, but especially so in ICTsec, where things move fast enough that you can see those “failed to learn from history” cycles almost every day. Not just from lessons that happened in easy living memory, but often from the last project an organisation worked on and even within a current project. In fact the way some people use the likes of scrum, extream, agile, refactoring, even UML and other OO techniques it’s almost guaranteed to be “built in”[6].

[6] You can only progress in life by method and journey, that is by fundementaly understanding of where you have come from, where you are now and where you are trying to get to. No method in the world will help you except by pure chance if you do not know past, and present direction and intended destination or how to use the nethod correctly. Life is a journy and so is wandering aimlessly in a wilderness, if you do not know how to use methods of navigation correctly you can not expect to reach a destination or even have direction in your life. A lesson we all should learn irrespective of what we do or why.

Clive Robinson • September 20, 2020 2:34 AM

@ Singapore Noodles,

I feel it is worth noting that Aristotle never said this.

The trite answer to that is,

“True, because he did not speak English”.

But therein lies the problem of translation.

How do you extract meaning from one language and time and translate it to another language 60-120 generations later?

Especialy when the meaning is about what meaning is?

Depending on who you listen too you will find that it is believed that Aristotle did actually use the words in his writing in two sepwrate places,

https://www.incose-cc.org/blog/who-said-the-whole-is-greater-than-the-sum-of-the-parts

When you say,

. A part is a part of. The “of” is prior to the part. It’s not a part if it’s separated, if you cut off your hand, the cut off is no longer a hand or a part.

You have fallen into a trap of infinite reductionism of,

“A whole divided becomes two wholes not two parts of a whole.”

An argument that gets to the point of

“What happens when a whole can not be divided?”

That arguably was not solved untill Newton and others put together the notion of infinitesimals. Which over simply means.

“Ignore the question and just look at the rate of change and project that instead”.

But ask yourself the question how do you measure a part of something?

By the pound, or by the inch?

In a one dimensional measure it’s realy all you can do, thus under that view a chain of weight ten pounds when divided the two parts when “heaped together” still weigh ten pounds. Similarly the length.

But what about two dimensional measures?

Well first you have to find an example of where a two dimensional not a one dimensional measure is required and where division might make a difference, sometimes that can be difficult…

But hear is an example,

Take an imovable beam and hang from it two chains that are identical then hang them side by side from the beam and attach a single weight to the free ends of both chains.

It is easy to see if you pull up on the chains the weight rises proportionately to the length of chain pulled up, no matter from which part of the chain you pull up from.

Now consider pulling not up but pulling the chains appart…

The movment of the weight is not linear any more with respect to how far you pull the chains appart nor is the resultant table invariant with the place you chose to pull the chains appart.

Thus as far as the movment of the weight is concerned the simple sum of the movments of the parts not only does not match the it’s movment it changes with both the movment of the parts and the place you chose to make the movments from.

This issue was not just known but exploited usefully before Aristotle was born, thus I assume was known to him.

The problem was solved in part by the Ionian Greek philosopher and the eponymous founder of rhe school of thought named after him. Of Pythagoras of Samos little is known directly about him other than “Pythagoreanism” his school of political, philosophical, and religious thought was extreamly influential and was known and later written about by others including Plato and Aristotle. This is because as far as we can be, that as Pythagoras chose not to write but think and teach, mainly about the ideas or metaphysics[1] behind numbers. Both Pythagoras and Aristotle were seeking to find answers through “qualatitive difference by thinking about quantative measure that could be used after a test” unlike modern science[2].

Thus Aristotle should have had the required knowledge to think of and also know there was a reason why the parts could be different to the whole. And copies of his writings certainly show he was aware of the problem.

Anyway it is now late, or should I say early, and my brain is telling me a horizontal orientation is currently preferable to verticle.

[1] Aristotle’s work was written down by him over his life, and a later editor of these works made a series of folios of them. One was titled “Ta meta ta physika” which effectively means “the ones after the ones about nature”. Hence this later became just meta-physika or metaphysics. The roots of metaphysics certainly go back to Pythagorean thinking and probably earlier.

[2] The usual example given would be “If a mold had cast in it a statue of gold, if you melted the statue and re cast it in the same mold, is the first and second instance of the statue actually the same statue?”. That is Aristotal was asking if you were unaware of the recasting was there a observable or qualative difference you could have applied to show the difference or change in the statue now direct comparison was nolonger possible. Thus was looking for philosophical measures. Modern science has quantative physical measures and uses these to look for and find qualatitive differences in general not specific thus has a much broader meaning to metaphysics. It’s the same difference as between science and forensics. Forensics measures an effect and tries to reason a cause and the inputs to it, science measures the inputs to a know cause (experiment) and determins the resulting effects. Science is controled and repeatable forensics is the opposit.

Clive Robinson • September 20, 2020 5:20 PM

@ JG4,

an unexpected preoccupation for the Vikings who erected it: Climate change.

Ever wondered why “Greenland” is not that green?

Other than a “marketing tactic” the “little ice age” around 1400 and soil erosion are backed by science, including archeological evidence that the Greenlsnd Nordic diet changed over their hslf millennium occupation from Cattle and Hogs down through sheep and goats untill it was about 80% sea food at the end.

When Viking’s first visited Greenland had “shrub and tree” cover on poor soil. But although the Norse settlers chopped dowb a fair few trees, over time the trees died almost completely. Untill someone says it’s easy not to realise that much of Viking life was based on the need for good wood and live stock as they were farmers rather than hunters.

Thus opening up the scrub to grow hay and grains etc caused the poor soil to erode, so first pigs and cattle went then sheep then goats as the growing seasons shrunk due to the colder climate which also exacerbated the poor soil errosion.

So yes the Vikings as Nordic farmers in Greenland either died out or left due to climate change over half a millennia. Which as they actually traded a lot with Europe initially and kept good records would have made it obvious to them that life in Greenland was less and less tenable due to a shortage of wood, grazing, and fodder to over winter live stock.

Clive Robinson • September 22, 2020 4:21 PM

@ Sherman Jay,

According to most privacy experts I have read, palantir is one of the most insidious of spyware surveillance organizations.

Whilst I can not attest to their ise of “spyware” I can say what their business plan is. To say it is “insidious” is perhaps a gross understatement.

The secretive “trust” that owns and will continue to control Palantir no matter how many or for how much shares are sold for in the up and comming refinancing, consists of a group of people who can not in any way be trusted, and as a side note make Facebooks little tricks look simplistic.

Put simply the reason they need money is they are pulling the old drug dealer trick of selling it cheap to get you hooked, and when dependent the price is going to go up and up. In this regard Palantir is not alone various companies try this nasty little trick in various ways.

The way the Palantir Trust plan to do this is to replace law enforcment investigators and intelligence analysts with Artificial Inteligence they solely control… The problem is they do not yet have the technology to do this.

Thus the second part of the plan. To use the system you have to type in all the reports and statistics for your area. Supposadly so that the algorithms have data to work on.

However Palantir is mainly “repackaging” what is being typed in and make it available to unknown others at a significant profit as they are actually not paying for it.

Thus the aim is to get Law enforcment and Intelligence agencies to spend their budget on Palantir, rather than on training and bringing on staff as detectives and analysts. Obvioisly when a tipping point that is effectively no return the price will go up and up.

Atleast one Sheriff’s department has realised what the Palantir Trust’s game is and have chosen to withdraw from Palantir and it’s systems and stick with what they know works longterm rather than faux bells and whistles that Palantir are pushing.

Hopefully other people will wake up to the Palantir Trust’s plans and stop sleepwalking into the addiction they are selling…

Otherwise the little tiff we have just seen with the DoD JEDI cloud server contract will be as nothing compared to Palantir’s plans.

Clive Robinson • September 23, 2020 6:42 AM

@ Winter,

About the Dunning Kruger effect.

Yes it can be “emotive” as others like “The Peter Principle” once were. Such things can make “good mud in a slinging match” as knowledge of the name of the effect / principle / law in what one might call “certain circles” is deemed to be worth “brownie points” from similar minded people… Hence just knowledge of the name alone suffices to pass their tests (much like some modern online student testing where buzz word knowledge is marked but actual usefull knowledge is downgraded).

But as you note,

What I have seen is known experts admitting they probably would suffer from the Dunning Kruger effect outside their area of expertise.

As well as within…

Many do not realise that the effect has a flip side, where an expert makes the mistake of downgrading their expertise along the lines of,

“Well I know that as second nature, thus I asume those around me do to.”

Which obviously can cause cognative dissonance at often the most awkward of times.

Which has a follow on effect, where the expert having being bitten badly, then over compensates, and ends up explaining minutiae, thus causing others to think they are “lording it up” “over bearing” “don’t trust them” etc.

Some years ago when the effect was effectively “new by name” as a sort of joke I re-wrote it using control theory to present at one of those “Meet your colleagues in other fields” events Universities put on for their staff. The result was, light hearted as it was, that it could be reduced down, and it came out as not a nice safe stable “negative feedback” model but a highly unstable “positive feedback model” where “crashing the end stop” was almost a given unless you added an additional control loop that had a response time several orders faster than the positive feedback loop.

The two lessons to learn from it are firstly, the people who are seen alternately as “fascilitators” / “passivators” like Diplomats etc have to be extrodinarily quick witted to remain successfull. With the follow on of secondly, don’t go into any new situation without a “wing man” or other who acts as a fascilitator / passivator, unkess of course “risk taking” is a major hobby…

Clive Robinson • September 23, 2020 4:54 PM

@ JonKnowsNothing,

… there were conflicting views on the value of face masks and face shields.

And the CDC goofed over the weekend…

Apparently on Friday they updated their advice and said SARS-CoV-2 was “airborne”. (which everyone with half an eye on the actual science has known for around six months and for which unsurprisingly the evidence is steadily growing)

Several scientists congratulated the CDC for finally getting into the real world (unlike WHO of which more in a minute).

Then on Monday the CDC said that the Friday post was a draft posted in error…

Which obviously has stoked the fires some what about “interference”, “conspiracy”, and “Little hands medling in things they ought not”. But is in reality incidental to health of people and thus a major and unwanted distraction, thus playing into vested interests advantage.

I guess the real reasons or vested interest is the US Health Care System that many should now have realised would be better named “Death taxation Incorporated”.

Due to legislation of the current and previous administration the US has probably the worst health care outcomes per unit of currency payed into it. Thus people should ask where the money is going too, as obviously it’s not on keeping those who pay, either alive or in good health (US had falling average age of death long prior to COVID unlike any other First world Nation I’m aware of).

So I’ll let others join the dots on any profit motives involved with proper COVID prevention (YES “BOTH” N95 masks and Positive filtered Air Preasure face shields are required stat for hospital staff, it’s what the science actually shows without doubt).

As for the “riot shield” type face coverings without positive air preasure their real protective advantage is not against airborne dropplets but from projectile larger droplets from people not wearing any face mask, and from physical contact infection. In effect they stop people “gobbing on your face”, you rubbing your eyes and give any airborne particles a slightly greater distance to travel.

Back long long ago on this blog I went through discussing the size of an RNA virus and the size holes in a mask filter for you to actually be able to breath through it. Since then “the medical biological view has moved to the physical science view” that is the distinction made since around the mid 1930’s was very out of date and the reality is a “continuum” or “broad spectrum” of droplet sizes ranging upwards from the size of the RNA virus to something getting on towards filling a fifth of a teaspoon if violently sneezed/coughed out.

I won’t go into all the science because it quickly gets complicated, but certain things are obvious to anyone who has compleated high school. Such as the effect of gravity, air resistance and distance.

That is gravity pulls down at a near uniform rate (feather and hammer experiment). Whilst air resistance acts against it. Mass of a droplet is related to it’s radius cubed r^3 (volume) and air resistance to r^2 (surface area) so the smaller the radius r is the more of an effect air resistance has and the longer the smaller droplets remain airborne and the grrater the distance they can travel. But also the smaller the droplet the less viral load it had, and as the droplets spread out the less viral density per given volume of air there is thus viral load is inversly proportional to the distance cubed (1/d^3) from the infectious person.

Thus if the constants can be determined a first order model can be constructed, but the obvious take away is “distance and dilution” reduce viral load significantly. And we know that your ability to survive the infection is in part due to initial viral load. So,

“Survivability is high order proportional to distance and density”

When you add a face covering you obviously limit the range of the larger droplets significantly, provided they go through the mask not around it… Smaller dropplets will go through or around masks.

But what of the mask material, obviously the looser the weave the larger the holes, and the less the layers the less chance there is a dropplet will hit the mask material or be subject to velocity and distance reducing turbulance.

But the science is quite complicated and the upshot is for any given air flow the looser the weave and the more layers the more effective the filtering. And as importantly the less initial velocity any given particle will have due to flow disruption in the filter.

It’s one of the reasons the Nuclear Biological and Chemical(NBC) mask canister filters issued to soldiers tend to be an inch or more thick and the respirator seal to the face broad and tight. Oh and why the canisters are so darn expensive and only good for about 100hours.

Obviously those “riot shield” type face protection without positive preasure filtered air are not of any use in “filtering” if the virus is “airborne” and “Persistent”… But they do increase the distance factor and thus if the area is well ventilated the dilution factor as well. So something is better than nothing.

After all whilst a “splash guard” does not stop the iron behind going rusty but it does slow the wetting and weathering processes.

But idealy both mask and shield would be worn at all times. The shields main purpose is not to stop airborne infection but to stop “contact infection” (hand to eye etc) and “projectile ejector” (spittle and the like).

So on to the World Health Organisation(WHO) I feel sorry for any scientist working there… What they are trying to do, to save lives, by improving understanding appears to be surpressed by managment acting like a political cover over. Thus like a heavy blanket it is smothering what they say and I assume the scientists as well. The number of times the WHO senior managment have “dropped the ball” or even “failed to pick it up” is astounding. Let’s be generous and say it is some form of neurotic timidity due to fear of funding loss. Well it’s alowing people without any understanding of science or wishes to ignore the facts to push political or fiscal viewpoints that are “Killing People” and will kill more and more as time goes on, way more than if prompt action had been taken (see Western Australia, demonstrating that you do not have to be an island like New Zeland to get a grip on border control thus get on top of COVID).

Whilst people can argue the cuss out of mask or face shield wearing interfering with their personal right to be ignorant, two things are proved without any doubt about face masks and shields,

1, They reduce viral load in both directions.
2, They significantly reduce the distance the virus can travel.

So they increase the “dilution factor” and effectively increase the “distance factor” both of which significantly improve your chance of survival if your path should cross that of an infected person.

Anyone who argues otherwise can go and do it well away from me and my loved ones. Preferably as close to those of like mind to them as possible, as an “evolutionary experiment” to future generations (not sure if they would pick up a Darwin Award on the way though, one can but hope).

Sadly though such idiots are “Turning children into Granny Killers”.

Clive Robinson • September 23, 2020 8:08 PM

@ Faustus,

The UK has a higher per capita death rate than the US, per John’s Hopkins

For COVID-19, yes, and I’ve been calling the UK the “Dirty man of Europe” over COVID on this blog repratedly.

However that does not change the fact of the price of Health Care in the US to the UK and the general outcomes rated per dollar (which is why I clearly indicated it was outcome by cost).

With regards,

with the most vulnerable already dead,

The “most vulnerable” is a statistical measure and they will exist as long as there is a population.

That is two obvious things apply,

1, None of us are getting any younger, so slowly but surely we are becoming “the most vulnerable” on the age front.

2, Having had one mutation of SARS-CoV-2 and survived is no guarentee you will not be much more susceptible to another mutation.

But less obvious is that we know too little to say very much especially as things change,

3, Even babies, children and young adults do not just get COVID some are disabled by it and other have died of it. Whst we also now know is that over the age of five whilst they may be asymptomatic they are more significant virus shedders.

4, The infection rate at the begining of this European Second Wave is now worse than the first wave. Why is a matter of debate. However the 1918 flu pandemic mrasured by fatalities had a considerably worse second wave than the first, and the third was almost as bad. We don’t know enough currently to make wild guesses let alone predictions on how things will go.

Which is why the reality is “Herd Immunity Policy” is a bust in probably our lifetime or possibly any life time. But then we know this from the likes of flu, the common cold, chicken pox, and polio. The only way we know to stop SARS-CoV-2 will be by eradicating it by effective world wide vaccination, something we learnt from small pox.

But one other thing of note, is certain leading Dr’s, epidemiologists and similar are doing what many Western Countries recommend against. Take Dr Fauci, he’s admitted to taking 1-2grams of Vitamin C and 6000IU (150ug) of Vitamin D daily. Look up your own countries “recommend daily dose” and it’s very likely to be less than a tenth of those doses… As they are “over the counter” thus fairly inexpensive and do not require a prescription you might want to chat to your own Dr about them.

Clive Robinson • September 24, 2020 4:34 AM

@ Winter,

A number of countries were unable, or unwilling, to enforce a lock-down, and they suffer badly, e.g., Peru, Brazil, the USA, Sweden. The UK wavered too long and ended up at the top of the charts.

In the case of the UK please do not mistake the “bumbling act” of the current Prime Minister as “wavering” he was given very clear scientific advice back in January, and then personally chose to do what he wanted, potentialy nearly killing himself as a result.

There is a very clear common thread running through the alledged “unable, unwilling, and wavering” which is “money behind politicians” and the very short term thinking of those that hold the money.

The result of which is the worst of all worlds, with protracted cycles of lock downs that do neither the citizens or the economy of a nation any good.

Clive Robinson • September 24, 2020 8:41 AM

@ Winter,

I was trying to be polite.

The person concerned is without doubt ill suited to democracy or social existance of any recognisable kind. Thus politness is not something they are deserving of.

Their “act” of “Oh whst a silly toad I am”[1] might have worked when “Wind in the willows” was originally written more than a century ago but the person is more loutish and oafish and is venal than most would realise. Without a doubt they are as much of a disgrace to the national image as drunken football hooligans rampaging through foreign cities are. Whilst we can in theory ban football hooligans from traveling, the same can not be said for the lout in the blond quiff.

Which makes,

Is this not a description of a lot of UK policies in the last decade?

More than a fair point.

[1] see, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr._Toad

However unlike Mr Toad there are no redeeming features to love, he deliberatly takes buffoonery to new lows or should I say highs,

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jul/16/stuck-zip-wire-boris-johnson-london-2012-olympics

Sensible people fairly quickly rerecognize the lesser shelled terrestrial gastropod mollusc [2] like behaviour and thus treat it at best as “road crash entertainment”. Except in the eyes of some very odd women who apparently find his buffoonery some how atractive…

[2] The lesser shelled terrestrial gastropod mollusc, as it’s name suggests is both a shelless and spinless dirt dwelling creature that has a soft wrinkled body and no feet even of clay to stand on. Instead it slides around on it’s enlarged stomach leaving an unpleasent mess in it’s wake where ever it goes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slug

Clive Robinson • September 24, 2020 6:08 PM

@ Faustus,

People die. And death is good.

Each death is a cessation of a unique life, that can not be replaced, only remembered in part. Therefore if possible it should not be before a full and rich life has been attained, not just for the individual but with those around them.

Whilst it can be argued that death by disease is a natural death, is it a timely death? I would say “no, it’s a life stolen from society and it’s culture”.

In fact when you look at the top ten killers in the world they are all “preventable diseases”. This should be a big red flag indicating there is something wrong with the way we currently lead our lives.

Interestingly newer research suggests we might actually be killing ourselves with our over use of healthcare.

One of the things that is known is that if you are “too clean” when young your immune system not only remains immature it can turn on you via a multitude of auto-immune diseases only a few of which we currently have real knowledge on.

As it turns out, apparently some “worms” are not exactly parasites, they do give back by being immune system modulators, that can and do put a damper on things like autoimmune diseases and cytokine storms etc. In effect they have a “self interest” in ensuring their host lives.

This has come to the fore most recently due to COVID. The death of those in Africa –where infestation with worms etc is normal– is apparently very small compared to those of very similar racial ancestry in Western societies where infestation with worms is very small. That is it’s been suggested that there is an inverse correlation between worm infestation and auto-immune disease.

That is the lack of worms has removed benificial immune system control.

Whilst I have no desire to be infested with worms it does appear that they have a symbiotic relationship with their hosts immune system. Thus making the host less likely to die an untimely death…

Clive Robinson • September 25, 2020 2:11 PM

@ Faustus, Winter,

At least people have stopped talking about “the science”, because very little of the science supports what is going on.

That is factual incorrect.

The Science has actually very much been correct within the parameters tested.

It is unfortunate especially in the case of the World Health Orgsnisation that above the science layer there is a political layer. And they have certainly twisted the results of the science beyond recognition to apparently support their paymasters political whims.

If you make the mistake of not actually reading the papers then you can not have any idea if what they are,saying or not matches reality.

And I’m making a guess that you have not read any of the science papers about masks, closing borders and sinilar, that were all proved with the 2003 SARS but various western poliricians very deliberately chose to ignore in prefrence to the very short term shouting from their backhand paymasters.

Hence we have gone into a yoyo mode which is the worst possible outcome not just for the citizens but the economy as well…

But we know this from a science paper that modeled the various out comes whilst both the UK and US Governments still had time to stop SARS-CoV-2 in it’s tracks…

But very short term thinking by various “industries” did a faux “sack cloth and ashes” routien and as a result cut their own throats and thus have had to have massive bailouts that they would not have needed.

That’s the facts of it and you can go and look them up either on past pages on this blog (assuming they have not been “lost in transkation/transit”). Failing that you can search for the original papers and read them.

Clive Robinson • September 26, 2020 11:46 AM

@ Winter,

I am close to people working in municipal health testing over here.

I’m aware that like me you have people close to you working in the healthcare space and have been for some time.

Unfortunately “municipal” is not the sort of “Corporate” we have here with it’s zero hours contracts, minimum pay and “any warm body” policies[1]. Which brings us to your second point,

I cannot talk about the corruption in the Anglo Saxon world…

And there you’ve almost certainly put your finger on the problem, if you consider their previous behaviours and the adverse judgments / findings that have arisen.

What is clear is that the employees involved are by no measure experienced in the work required, and in all probability have little or no ability to improve the job / role, not that they are even going to be doing it in the near future judged by previous staff turnover and lack of engagement.

[1] One such corporate entiry I’ve already mentioned had “50,000” on the books employees but… Only made 50,000,000GBP. Or just 1000GBP/employee/year… That indicates one, some, or all of the following,

1, The employees are not realy “employed” by the usual definition.

2, The company is grossly mismanaged.

3, The company is using questionable financial engineering to avoid paying taxes.