Schneier on Security

Clive Robinson • November 7, 2020 3:47 PM

@ Anders,

however this change will bring stability and (geopolitical) security for all of us

One can but hope.

However from my point of view the faster the 20million jobs that were lost are replaced with ones paying the same or better, the faster there will be real stability.

Two financial crises and an uncontroled pandemic, have made things tough on many ordinary everyday Americans. Who basically just want to have a roof over their heads, food on the table, and decent healthcare, education, opportunities and the ability to retire moderately comfortably. You think it would not be too much to ask for, after all other nations offer their citizens that.

Clive Robinson • November 8, 2020 5:18 AM

@ Anders,

Are you aware of the three classes of “propaganda”?

They are, “White, Grey, Black”, According to Czech/Vritish academic historian Zbyněk Zeman[1],

Propaganda is defined as either white, grey or black. White propaganda openly discloses its source and intent. Grey propaganda has an ambiguous or non-disclosed source or intent. Black propaganda purports to be published by the enemy or some organization besides its actual origins”

But the idea is not new to Zeman, “Political warfare” goes back to before the “Art of War” was writen back in China. But in more modern times it applies to the use of “Broadcasts” with our host @Bruce mentioning what was the worlds most powerfull transmitter when built by RCA that was purchased by the British Government at the beginings of WWII, and became under the control of the Diplomatic Wireless Service (DWS) and due to a Gracy Fields Song popular at the time got named “Aspidistra”. As I mentioned before it came into use for “Black Propaganda” now reclasified as “Black Political Warfare” or “Psychological Warfare” under Sefton Delmer who had been a foreign Corespondent in Germany for a British newspaper.

In such “wars of the radio broadcast” you have,

WHITE : Tx’s overt propaganda comes from a known source such as the BBC and says what is known to be true and verifiably so about ehat is going on in thr target audiences countries. The purpose is to counter the target nations leadership “misinformation campaigns”.

GREY : TX’s “semiofficial amplification of a government’s voice” to a target nations population. During the Cold war various stations such as Radio Free Europe, Radio Liberty, Voice of America, etc.

BLACK : TX’s both real and fax news and comment, and is frequently portrayed as comming from either disidents in the target nation or adjacent nation where they have formed encampments ets, or as a disinterested third party (which it is most certainly not). The important points are it appears to not be “from the enemy” and the use of hard verifiable truths are used to give it credability whilst puting a slant on it with innuendo and soft truths subject to more than two view points, and false accusations that can not be disproved.

Similar “white, grey, black” distinctions transfer easily across into “Cyber-Space” with few variations required. In effect, with WHITE bring fully legal in host nation and publicaly attributable (what MicroSoft has being doing). GREY beying questionably legal in the host nation but effectively anonymous. Black being illegal in the host nation and designed to look as though it has come from a third party.

It struck me as funny that you linked to a “Cold War Grey Radio station” Voice of America (VOA) news item that is about “Grey cyber-space” operations.

[1] As quoted in Mark U. Edwards 2004 book, ‘Luther’s Last Battles : Politics And Polemics 1531-46’, ISBN 978-0-8006-3735-4

[2] https://www.psywar.org/delmer/8420/1001

Clive Robinson • November 8, 2020 6:00 AM

@ SpaceLifeForm,

but the 25th amendment remains operative during transition

Specifically “Section 4”.

Which as far as I’m aware has never actually been used, but should have been when Ronald Reagan was gravely wounded and in ICU after being shot with an exploding bullet.

But it appears that deputy AG Ronstien had serious discussions about invoking section 4 on Donald Trump, back when he sacked FBI director Comey…

A fate that could have been equivalent of leaving the frying pan for the “Hells Fire” of Mike “Religion befor god, party and people” Pence.

Some people including Journalistd have indicated that Section 4 could be used and a National Crisis created, such that Pence can not just assume office but can somehow retain office after January 20. I don’t follow their logic on the second part, but with Trump doing his “they’ve stolen the ellection” rants and lies invoking section 4 would not be dificult on say “Diminished mental capacity”…

Clive Robinson • November 8, 2020 4:25 PM

@ no.name,

You are goalposting.

No, just showing in short form that your attempt at casting doubts on the voting system was probably a “complete load of horse apples”

Call it a play on “Reductio ad Absurdum” you made an absurd proposition and I showed that by reducing it to an improbable conclusion.

The fact you then tried to play dumb and got called on it, just highlights the deficiency of your argument further.

The thing about “conspiracy theories” is generally they use “chosen truths”. That is the originator of the conspiracy takes a simple relationship, (lets say “stale white and male”) and gives it a false bias that can not be easily disproved as is normally the case with trying to prove a negative (lets say “Satanic ritual abuse”, or “rape” how do you prove you are not guilty?). The accusor then gets lots of people to repeate it and it becomes what some chose to call “a common belief”, that’s how people make “mud stick”.

But the conspiracy usually gets over complicated and they invent things without actually checking things. So they talk about some place the targets of their accusation might have been seen at, and pretend it’s the nexus of some organisation. The thing is some one says that can not be right, so the accusor embelishes and say’s it’s happening out of sight, and when somebody say’s “Where?” the accusors realise that it’s a single story building so they say in the basement and underground passages… Then someone points out “there is no basment” at which point the whole conspiracy colapses[1] and is shown for what it is…

It’s one of the reasons I talk about requiring evidence to criminal court standards, when people make assertions, not even circumstantial evidence (which is what most forensic evidence is at best).

But the problem with such accusers is generally they are not exactly “all together there”, they not just want to believe it’s true they do believe it’s true. So they don’t stop their now entrenched cognative bias makes them claim other things thus they find each other and form a knew group and send out statments devoid of an real meaning like “watch the water” that other idiots find a whole bunch of unrelatrd stuff on the Internet (like “smartwater”) and then they amplify (“watermarks” and the “EURion constalation”[2]) and through in some compleate nonsense about the “National Guard” and the next thing the far right nut-bars are saying is that all the people they despise in their embeded cognative bias are going to be rounded up and their glorious leader is going to be triumphant… Yeah right on sister, at which end of the lead is the greater IQ when you take the dog for a walk…

It’s curious you use “Goalposting”[3], I suspect you don’t know where it comes from unless you are a “Norf.FC supporter” but then again you might be the equivalent for another team that wears red…

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pizzagate_conspiracy_theory

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EURion_constellation

[3] https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/norf-fc

Clive Robinson • November 8, 2020 5:56 PM

@ xcv,

You mention David Souter, who is actually also the name of a reasonably well known artist in the UK who now lives in Kent.

I have some of his prints[1], one of which is the lighthouse and pilot pub[2] (I’ve mentioned before). It’s right on the South East tip of Kent in a place called Dungeness which is an SSI, Bird Sactury and a place of “outstanding natural beauty” (despite the two nuclear reactors).

For those who get the chance to visit Dungeness it’s a strangely surreal “quiet but noisy” place where the noises of nature get amplified but filtered, and whilst at first glance it appears desolate and wind swept actually on second glance is filled with bits of nature you rarely see anywhere else[3].

One of the reasons it sounds surreal is it is one of the quietest places in the UK mainland, which is why you find the very strange looking “Dungeness Ears” in the bird sactury. They are concrete sound reflectors designed as a passive aircraft early warning system at the begining of WWII. Whilst they sort of worked they were nowhere near as good as the active RADAR system that eventually formed “Chain Home” and along with Enigma intercepts made it possible to win the “Battle of Britain”. Why the German Air Force did not bomb the “Chain Home” towers[4] is still a bit of a mystery at several hundred feet tall (upto 360ft) they were a hazard to air navigation).

[1] http://www.davidsouter.co.uk/

[2] https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/55aa69b4e4b0a0d1a2fd63f3/1553771960244-9KO1X2ZU7I0NREOMFISY/ke17ZwdGBToddI8pDm48kNjSdJ-Qv8iSPWRZHSUoJld7gQa3H78H3Y0txjaiv_0fDoOvxcdMmMKkDsyUqMSsMWxHk725yiiHCCLfrh8O1z5QPOohDIaIeljMHgDF5CVlOqpeNLcJ80NK65_fV7S1UcW58WdbDhH_ax7TBmudCm6apEP9XlGGdYmm9FFN-_2g1trlVMuTSyYUsJBPcSHLtA/IMG_4504.JPG?format=1000w

[3] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dungeness

[4] https://www.radarpages.co.uk/mob/ch/chainhome2.htm

Clive Robinson • November 9, 2020 4:31 AM

@ SpaceLifeForm,

In other news, I like the codename ‘Celtic’.

Hmm,

SoftC : “sel-tick” sounds like a clock merchant.

HardC : “Kel-tech” that could be a heavy cross to bare. Might make a good mega-corp MIC name though.

Celtic actually means “of the Celts” or slightly later,”in the style of the Celts”.

The Celts have a somewhat interesting history and prior to 500BC much is disputed, and later records from the Roman’s who called them Gauls indicates they caused the Roman’s many problems. The original language(s) can be found in parts of Portugal/Spain, and up the Western coast of Europe into Scotland. People have argued from this that they were a seafaring culture, rather than one pushed Westwards by those from Southern Europe and North Mediterranean.

Two things to remember about Celt’s,

1, Don’t talk religion or politics.
2, Beware the strength of their drinks, they are not imbibers of “small beer”.

Oh and above all never alow the two to mix, as they have a fiesty and tenacious reputation even though they are said to posse the mystic and romantic hearts of dreamers, poets, and balladours.

Clive Robinson • November 9, 2020 4:59 AM

@ SpaceLifeForm, Anders,

Hoping that Parler can scale.

Though is Parler a “Watering hole” or “Tar pit”?

Apparently you have to give not just your phone number but image of your drivers licence…

The speed some people have been chucked off, suggests that Parler are “profiling” via the use of third party political reputational services, much as Cambridge Anslytica did and Palantir still does.

So personally I’m thinking it has the potential to be a massive “tar pit” for ultra conservative, and further right folks ranging up and beyond Qanon style posturing to full on nutbars.

So Parler should be a happy hunting ground for the likes of the FBI and DHS amongst others now that “white supremacy terrorism” is getting better “promotion brownie points” than “fundamentalist Muslim terrorism”.

So based on past behaviours by the likes of the FBI and DEA keep your eyes open for “stopped just in time” acts of terrorism. That when you dig in have hallmarks of “created by certain facilitators” that actually turn out more like grooming and entrapment “fund raisers”…

Clive Robinson • November 9, 2020 10:29 AM

@ Winter,

Quite…

Clive Robinson • November 9, 2020 3:12 PM

@ Winter, no.name,

That is never evidence in itself and is used to deceive people.

Most forensics are not “evidence” because they are generaly not science[1] but use science as a smoke screen to cover the fact that they are at best supposition and certainly not even up to being “circumstantial evidence”.

How can truth hope to be distilled from a chaotic environment when those tasked with doing so hide the truth of what they are being paid to do?

It’s why I mentioned said,

“It’s one of the reasons I talk about requiring evidence to criminal court standards, when people make assertions, not even circumstantial evidence (which is what most forensic evidence is at best).”

To @no.name above.

[1] Science works in a sensible direction, from cause to effect. Forensics take an effect and by supposition claim what the cause is. The problem is that many causes can cause the same or very nearly the same effect. The classic example of this was the so called “pour patterns” that it was claimed was proof positive an accelerant had been the cause thus it must be atleast arson. Many people were convicted of arson or murder just on this claim. Then somebody did an independent test an opps it was not proof positive but a load of horse apples. Similar with micro analysis of bullet fragments to identify their composition thus claim they came from a “known batch” again turned out to be a load. Oh and Cocaine traces in bank notes indicating a drug abuser or dealer. Somebody did tests on US currancy issued from banks, terns out eight out of ten notes had traces. Turns out if you have a note with cocaine on it and you put it in a wallet with clean notes the warmth and persperation of being in your pocket cause the cocaine to move through all the other notes in there. There is a very very long list of such Forensic incorrect suppositions, and I’ve no doubt there are very many more that will be made and some will be debunked only after someone who is innocent has died in prison one way or another. Such happened with those who it was alledged were part of the IRA and bombed Guildford in Surrey south west of London. The sole evidence against them was that celulose nitrates were found on peoples hands… Turns out playing cards they had used were coted in celluloid that was breaking down… Anyone who had played with them would have had traces of nitro cellulose etc on their hands. Apparently the prosecution knew this but ommited to mention it when the forensic evidence was given. One of those convicted died in prison… So from my view point all Forensic evidence is highly suspect untill shown independently not to be, and in many cases that is not possible because the premise behind the forensics is a false one, not that most will admit it, and judges just look the other way as long as the “paperwork looks OK”…

Clive Robinson • November 9, 2020 5:03 PM

@ xcv, no.name, winter, ALL,

Benford’s law is a probability distribution.

Yes but probability distributions can be difficult to intuatively understand.

Take the “normal distribution” or “Bell Curve” the maths behind it are somewhat complicated and involve the use of serieses that few ever want to get to grips with.

However if you have the sum of two digits of uniform / flat probability the result is a triangular or pyramid shaped distribution which is a crude approximation to the Bell Curve. When you add three digits the start of the normal distribution becomes clear as the top rounds and the tails start to spread out. For each additional digit there after the curve becomes a better fit to the normal distribution curve. That is it builds out from the middle and it’s the tails that get progressively more accurate.

So anyone knowing the above can make up a normal distribution curve to what ever accuracy they like[1].

Physicist Frank Benford was not the first to discover in 1938 the distribution in that carries his name[2]. Back in 1881 Canadian Astronomer Simon Newcomb noted it nearly a half century earlier, but as is often the case he got ignored (see Stygler’s Law)…

To be quite honest the distribution curve was just sitting there waiting to be discovered…

Insted of summing digits as for the normal distribution, multiply them instead. If you do it for the digits 1-9 then just look at the leading digit bingo you see a crude approximation to the Newcomb-Benford distribution [3]. Keep multiplying by additional digits and you get to see the distribution “fill out”. Thus again using a flat distribution random number generator you can make distributions that match the required distribution.

So great news if you want to generate fake figures etc, possibly Twitter did not want people to know this, but anyone who has read Donald Knuth’s “Art of computer programing” from cover to cover including the footnotes and examples[4] would have found out this information in the section on random number generators and usage.

There are obviously other tricks to make distributions by these simple processes. In fact when you think about it trying to find a “natural” distribution that can not be well approximated by these methods is going to be difficult. Importantly it means you do not have to use lookup tables and some kind of curve fitting between the points, that you have to do for things like sin/cos log etc (though they can be a lot faster in some cases).

[1] This has real world uses. If you are doing modeling and your random number generator has a flat distribution, you can make the numbers generated follow a normal distribution quite simply. Just take six or more successive outputs, add them together and normalize to the required maximum value.

[2] In his paper Frank Benford gives the approximation as,

Fa = log ((a+1)/a)

Where Fa is the frequency for digit a in the first digit of the used numbers.

[3] If you multiply the digits 1..9 by themselves and record the first digit. You get the following table (if my mental maths is upto it at this time of night),

|123456789
-x———
1|123456789
2|246811111
3|369111222
4|481122233
5|511223344
6|611233445
7|742234456
8|812344567
9|912345678

If you plot these as a simple frequency graph, you can see the probability curve emerging all be it crudely,

1|*****************
2|***************
3|***********
4|*************
5|*****
6|*******
7|****
8|*****
9|***

[4] Yes Bill Gates did say that anyone who had read it entirely should give him a call. However I met Billy-boy before I heard he had said it. For various reasons I was not much impressed, so I would probably not have told him I had read the then three volumes, which probably saved us both some time.

Clive Robinson • November 9, 2020 5:14 PM

@ SpaceLifeForm, Moderator,

Log another two “markdown annoyances” in my above post.

The first and second lines of the first digit multiplication grid have been altered.

The backslash is missing from the start of the first line, and in the second line it’s replaced multiple minus chars with other chars.

Clive Robinson • November 9, 2020 5:38 PM

@ SM,

Completely off topic, how is your toe?

Improving, thank you for asking, but it is doing so slower than the vote count 😉

I suspect the problem is not the counting but the observers, I don’t think I would want some “mouth breather type” huffing and puffing god alone knows what germs over me, as well as trying to psyc me out by staring, agressive posturing and likewise with movments in my eye line.

Likewise having people screaming and shouting banging on windows, doors etc and in other ways making a bl@@dy nuisance of themselves like turning up with openly displayed guns would I suspect unnerve the best of us.

I feel realy sorry for the ballot counters, they are just trying to do a rather tedious job accurately. And on top of that they are in effect “being victimized in the work place” by a bunch of ***** who’s main task appears to be to make the ballot counters feel intimidated and thus make mistakes that the ***** can then use opportunistically.

Maybe the “observers” should post a thousand dollar “good behaviour bond”. If they misbehave in any way not only do they forfit the bond that then goes to the counter(s), they also get prosecuted for harasment or equivalent.

At the end of the day being an “election officer” is not a glamours job, but people give up their time to do all the necessary functions with the minimum of human error. It would appear that nobody ever thanks them or even says “well done”… Perhaps it’s something people should remember, and it would be nice if the MSM etc gave them a thumbs up.

Clive Robinson • November 9, 2020 6:43 PM

@ xcv,

If 8/10 bills have “traces” then it’s probably a given that their equipment is dirty and contaminated with traces of cocaine

No, they went to some considerable lengths to ensure their “scientificaly found” results were not contestable by the DA’s and their alledged forensic “experts”.

Others have carried out similar studies since in other countries and within expected margins due to note structure and materials confirmed the result.

The problem is a corelation does not mean causation. So having notes contaminated with say beer residue does not mean you drink beer, only that the note has come into contact with beer at some point prior to it being tested, likewise many other substances. For instance many bank notes are contaminated with nitrates of the same sort that are used in making home made explosives. Does this mean that the person has been making a bomb, of course not they could have cooked bacon at home in the morning or eaten anyone of a hundreds of “preserved meat” and other foods that have come into contact with “pickling salts” also called Pink or curing salts. If you eat real corned beef, what do you think those corns are made of?

Nitrates even those that are considered explosives such as nitrates of cellulose are realy very common[1]. Fake ivory used for piano keys were made of nitro cellulose, so were the handles of knives, forks and spoons. The best one of the lot was the “exploding billiards balls” back in the late 1800’s nitro cellulose or “celluloid” was used like we use petro chem based plastics today. Because nitro cellulose was considered better than the boiled milk and vinager solution that made casein (which is still used industrially today for making buttons). As anyone who has worked with celluloid will know it is highly inflamable, as the molecule has both a fuel and oxidizer component, some have more than one oxidizer component such as Tri-Nitro-Cellulose used as a smokeless powder (explosive) in gun cartridges. What less people know is the molecules are not exactly stable. Bash a nitro cellulose billard ball around for long enough and it will explode or atleast go “bang” like a gun shot[2]…

[1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/chemical-engineering/nitrocellulose

[2] https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/once-upon-time-exploding-billiard-balls-were-everyday-thing-180962751/

Clive Robinson • November 10, 2020 9:12 AM

@ Winter,

But that did not happen. It was denial everywhere. And I do not understand why?

In part it’s a form of inertia, it’s why we had the banking crisis.

If people do not change course they can argue amongst themselves but know that none can be blaimed because all are to blaim. Likewise other use the wake to get a free ride, they do not want a change of course because that costs them personally.

So whilst a change of course gets talked to death none want to take a risk without everyone else all agreeing, which they won’t because their income depends on the illusion of division and segregation. Without divison nobody has need of their services…

Whilst such behaviours can mostly be ignored because it’s all faux behaviours raised over matters that lack importance, occasionaly they do. Then such inconsequential people actually have to show leadership and act decisively without fear of the potential risk of being wrong.

Which goes against their basic quarrelsome but profitable behaviours.

So they revert to what they know, and stay within their comfort zone. Which means no personal risk thus no change of course.

Thus they also deny their might be rocks awaiting that will sink them all. But they will all continuously rearange the deck chairs bickering and quarreling amoungst them selves all to get a better appreciation of the band playing “Nearer my God to thee”…

Clive Robinson • November 10, 2020 7:04 PM

@ no.name,

How can Biden be president-elect even before all the votes have been counted and verified?

Easy, when he has a majority of electrol college votes.

From what has been said, the remaining votes are less than the disputed Florida Votes back in 2000. So spread across atleast three states, they do not Maont to very much except as political noise.

Trump has behaved sufficiently rashly that no doubt conversations about §4 of the XXV Amendment are being held…

Either way I suspect Trump is now Toast, and the majority of Americans will no doubt sigh with relief once the secret service drop him off at the bus stop with a box and a carrier bag.

Clive Robinson • November 11, 2020 3:16 AM

@ SpaceLifeForm,

How is that Intel Microcode working for you?

Thankfully worse for others than it is for me…

The S3 Sleep Mode fault, is one of those I’ve talked about long in the past when designing the “C-v-P” –as @Wael named it– system.

It’s a “below CPU Level” in the computing stack and Intel has little excuse for it’s existance as it’s been known from the very early days of Direct Memory Access(DMA) and later Memory Managment Units(MMU) used so that you can have fast I/0 and Easy task switching respectively.

That is the CPU “Does what it’s memory tells it to do, not what it’s designer thinks it should do”. So to stop “code not from the designer being loaded” we use that wonderfully unreliable “Code Signing” that is a major security curse by “loading then checking” because code signing as we currently use it does not work on partial blocks of memory. In C-v-P I used a hardware hypervisor thst would halt the CPU and “walk the memory” checksum/hashing it to ensure it had not been changed[1] by either malware or programing mistakes. As this ran independently of what the software designer did it was very much less susceptible to the vagaries of “code signing” as they would implement it in their design process.

The article you link to, more or less says it all with,

“During a normal boot the firmware validates the contents of the SPI flash are signed by the OEM, but this step is skipped on many platforms during resume from S3. This allows a local attacker with physical access to substitute their unsigned code in place of the official firmware and take control of the system very early in the resume process, without disturbing the contents of the main memory.”

The two points I highlight indicate first the mistake and second the consequences.

Which begs the question was the mistake Deliberate or accidental? I’m voting for deliberately done. Not as a backdoor as such, but as a speed up in “Marketing driven” “specmanship” or “Go faster stripes”.

The article goes on to list a whole load of other “Change the memory change the CPU ownership” attacks, highlighting the truth I’d realised more than a third of a century ago.

<

blockquote>Checking memory integrity is very dificult if done at the CPU level or above,
as it has to be inyegrated CORRECTLY at ALL stages by the software developers. Thus the only way to do it reliably is not by software but by HARDWARE and BELLOW the CPU level.

<

blockquote>

I had actually looked into what would be required in a DMA style device to do this and found there were problems, so I looked at using memory encryption that sort of works, but has issues above that of “key leakage”.

But the thing to remember is checking memory is a slow process, which is why when the price of memory fell people started looking at “memory tagging” at the address word level (see CHERI amongst others) as an extension to ECC Memory parity checking. But it’s insufficiently secure against a below CPU level or sleep mode type “Change the memory, Change the ownership” attack as the tags have little or no entropy…

Basically memory changing can be detected by parity or CRC checksumming provided the attacker can not change either the parity tag bit or the code block checksum. Which because neither is even remotely secure means you have to overlay such methods with checking that is secure and normally this relies on high levels of entropy which means a field size of 128bits of memory as a minimum these days for both the data and the tag.

[1] The hardware hypervisor did this “stop and check” of a “prison CPU memory” randomly and at a frequency selected by the SysAdmin. Whilst it is not going to be 100% secure, –nothing is,– it brings a very high degree of probabalistic security.

Clive Robinson • November 11, 2020 11:00 PM

@ vas pup, ALL,

New Yorker fires Jeffrey Toobin for exposing himself on Zoom

Reported that way it sounds like he had gone nuts or was some kind of deviant…

If instead it was reported as,

“Invasion of home privacy by employer causes man to be unjustly fired”

People might get the actual point faster. His home and privacy was invaded by others without his consent…

The thing is what we do in the privacy of our own home, provided it does not harm others should remain private[1]. In some parts of the world we have legislation to that effect.

His employer by forcing him to use zoom at home technically invaded his privacy without acceptable cause…

What has happened is a clash of expectations. He had the expectations of privacy in his own home and others had other expectations they were not legally entitled to.

This is not the first nore I expect the last time people get embarrassed by even apparently simple technology[2].

The recent cases of Amazon’s Ring home security being used to spy on people, is bad enough. But it’s made worse by the fact Amazon think reselling what comes off of the Ring cameras should be made freely available to Law Enforcment etc…

The simple fact is “technology is agnostic to use” thus an electronic camera is a camera as long as it is powered up. So unless you 100% control the camera power and where it’s video output goes then it can and almost certainly will invade your and others privacy.

Society needs privacy to function, privacy is like a steam boiler pressure relief valve, it allows people to safely vent off their emotional states without harming others. Thus invading somebodies privacy is like tying down the safety valve, thus causing the boiler to explode[3] which is an act of violence or tourture against them and others.

One of the lasting evils of the COVID-19 pandemic may be how it was used as an excuse to destroy society, not least by normalising the invasion of our privacy in our homes by the “might is right” argument of the power imbalance between institutions and individuals.

[1] As far as I’m aware what he was doing inside the privacy of his home was not illegal these days, and those that apparently saw what he was doing were technically tresspassing. Because by pushing the mute button he had signified he wanted privacy in his own home and that should have been fully respected and was not by the technology, his employer and other employees.

[2] When working in a room with fine net curtains or thin cloth blinds, it can be easy to forget what gave you privacy mid day when the sun is high in the sky and it is bright outside, does not give you privacy when it’s dark outside and you turn the lights on in the room. Likewise there have been cases of people adjusting “Venetian Blinds” for what they thought was “privacy with light” to discover that due to the angle of the blind blades people could still see downwards into the property. More recently we have a trend of people using mobile phones as “mirrors” they have no idea nor can they realistically that the “mirror app” might just be taking pictuters and sending them back to Amazon, Google, some noname company in Indoa or China etc (yes some apps do this for various reasons due to the likes of Google and Facebook and others assumed right to “collect it all”). We even laugh when we hear about supposadly elite Russian technology users getting the cameras on their laptops being remotely accessed by EU intel agencies, likewise supposadly secure phones that EU law enforcment hacked into. But how many of us have been talking on our mobile phones and ducked into a rest room etc for privacy, not even thinking we are draging surveillance equipment accessable from any where in the world with us, invading not just their privacy but the privacy of others who almost certainly would not agree to such an invasion?

[3] We’ve known this for way more than a couple of centuries, look into the horrors thought up by Jeremy Bentham the founder of what is currently University College London(UCL) and his Panopticon (oh and why his head is still kept in a safe)… Orwell’s book “1984” uses this idea of a panoptican through technology and Foucault’s book, “Discipline and Punish” discusses the Panopticon and it’s evils from a slightly more modern perspective, but the fact technology has brought it about so quickly and universaly I think would have shocked even him.

Clive Robinson • November 13, 2020 12:07 AM

@ vas pup,

in the past I was so naïve to think that legislation could provide protection.

Think of legislation in the same way as locks, their purpose is realy “To keep honest people honest”. Which leaves you with the “dishonest” and those that believe themselves to be “exeptional” for some reason.

It was taught to me when I was quite young that “exceptions” were a necescity because “Laws are for the guidence of wisemen and the blind obeyance of fools”. It’s why some legislation comes with “lawful defences” and others are considered by judges that try to think “as a man on a Clapham Omnibus” might[1].

Unfortinatly as has now become glaringly apparent some consider a crack an invitation to drive in a wedge and split things asunder. Thus reasonable exceptions have been broadened in scope beyond any definition most would even remotely consider reasonable.

But such things generally do not happen in a single bound, more usually they occur in small steps, thus at each step appear reasonable when seen from the previous step, but not when seen from the start of the journey.

When you have tax payer money behind you and no real punishment for failing, you can “try and try again” with no personal cost. Thus pushing an unpopular or even illegal agenda in baby steps is a working strategy.

If you think back to the FBI and DoJ case against Apple, they tried to do something in a single bound because they were over confident. Thus their attempt to get favourable “case law” back fired. So rather than get an unfavourable finding they “pulled the rip cord and bailed out”. The financial cost to Apple was large, but probably less costly than fighting small case after small case would have been.

The FBI and DoJ have by know means given up on their quest, but are now seeking out other paths to their desired destination. What they do not want to acknowledge is that their desired destination will be doubly detrimental to the US. Firstly it will destroy the safety valve of privacy that society needs to be healthy and survive. Secondly it will drive inovation and jobs out of the US as corporates see it as a risk minimization strategy. That is “legislation avoiding” will become as important as “tax avoiding” to corporates only simpler to do[2].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_man_on_the_Clapham_omnibus

[2] Whilst avoidance and evasion acheave the same end, the former is seen as legal whilst the latter is not.

Clive Robinson • November 13, 2020 12:52 AM

@ JonKnowsNothing, name.withheld…, vas pup, ALL,

More on the quasi-religious “Witch Finding” creeping into politics,

https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/18834930.humza-yousafs-hate-crime-home-bill-deranged—opinon-kevin-mckenna/

As was once pointed out but derided at the time all political “isms” tend to fascism.

But there is a more fundemental reason, which makes nearly all organisations head towards fascim, and that is “hierarchy”. The minute you implement a hierarchy you are creating a power structure. Such structures give power to those who should not be given it. However some know this thus they practice guile to first obtain power then build structures around themselves to stop them being removed from power, usually but not always before they reveal their true intent and behaviours.

If you look up the practice of “Witch finding” you will realise it is nothing what so ever to do with “driving out evil” infact it’s the antithesis. In short it is evil reveling in power to create terror and thus compliance in the population.

Such “tools of the trade” are very much in practice curently with tyrants, dictators, and police states. The usual way it starts is by creating division and hate. It’s the reason why people should understand,

“First they came…”

And the process of “Witch finding” is being brought into legislation on a daily basis.

One thing people forget or do not get taught about the rise of fascism in Europe in the 1930’s is that everything they did was by the consent of the majority, people voted for the leaders, who then passed the legislation that made the sickening behaviours lawful. But worst of all was that because those that were divided out then vilified were minorities in some way, the majority actually thought the ensuing persecution acceptable…