Fantastic video of a giant squid hunting at depths between 1,827 and 3,117 feet.
This is a follow-on from this post.
As usual, you can also use this squid post to talk about the security stories in the news that I haven’t covered.
Read my blog posting guidelines here.
Dink • June 18, 2021 5:13 PM
Snowden’s new blog: https://edwardsnowden.substack.com/
vas pup • June 18, 2021 5:18 PM
How market research reveals what you really think
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-57399780
Many interesting points involving AI.
My attention was caught by this segment:
“The scale of data that can be manipulated in the cloud has grabbed the attention of the whole market research industry. Jon Puleston analyses online material for consumer research giant Kantar and revels in this new element: “We are producing oil tankers of data and the cloud is allowing us to refine it.”
By plunging into the cloud with its own software Kantar confirmed that we are incapable of being truthful to market researchers trying to establish what really floats our boat.
“Talking to a camera is a very effective tool, but
==> what people say is often miles apart from what they feel, there are so many unconscious factors at play.”
!!!!Specialist software pointed at filmed responses taps into these unconscious factors via clues such as tone of voice and facial expression. This tells Mr Puleston we are very hard on ourselves over our guilty pleasures, such as watching a rom-com.
==>When we are asked to rate a film our natural instinct is to mark down a lightweight movie although we’ve really enjoyed it and lie about how we liked one with intellectual content. We might be giving the serious show a four star rating, but in truth we only got emotionally involved with the rom-com story.
Kantar applies AI to a bank of human emotions recorded on film and assembled in the cloud and demystifies our real sentiments. This unlocks the ingredients of a Hollywood crowd-pleaser.
Market researchers may have given up knocking on our front doors with their clipboards, but technology is allowing them to get inside our heads.”
name.withheld.for.obvious.reasons • June 18, 2021 5:30 PM
18 JUN 2021 — Conspiracy Theories in Counter-Terrorism
SATIRICAL EXAMPLE — Background
In conspiratorial tropes that are part of political action or authoritarian propaganda is a model that does one of two things; in the political realm the need to sway perception in the face of truth, in maintaining a authoritarian governance organization is required to maintain the hold on power.
I offer a counter-conspiracy conspiracy that targets a current series of efforts that are affecting the polity in the U.S., here it is (both as an example response and dual-use satire:
PREFACE TO CONSPIRACY
Where or what is the origins of the Marjorie Taylor Greene’s of the U.S. (Matt Gaetz for example) is explained by the following facts (wink/dog whistle).
UNDERLYING ORIGINS
Over thirty years ago; From a press release in Taiwan, from an article published in a Hong Kong newspaper that is a subsidiary of the Economic Times: From the desk of the editor:
ROOTS OF CONSPIRACY
After years of biological research in producing organic synthesis of human organs, a secret research groups has published a paper discussion the success of synthetic human organ production from generative DNA manipulation. The secret Wuhan Laboratory details a process that is described as:
OPERATIONAL COMPONENTS OF CONSPIRACY
Using high powered space-based multi-spectral lasers with phased pulsing emitters of significant power outputs (above 10KW). The power is PV array as a charged bank (Soros corporate logos are visible on the outside of the observed satellite) which is reflected coherently on a mirrors mounted at pizza parlors across the United States.
The source emission is then columnated by an array of Italian satellites in the final phase of the input energy to the fabrication process. After the columnated beam is focused, the beam(s) pass through a slotted series of containment vessels onto an organic plasma which is excited and emits gases that are ionized and passed to connected vapor deposition vessel that holds human DNA stems cells.
CONSPIRATORIAL OBJECTIVE/RESULT
The DNA affected by the deposition process mutated by the prescribed masking prior to the deposition. The resulting DNA produces pre-viable fetuses with a genetic disposition described as paederast and a proclivity to enjoin republican causes, with a noticeable genetic mark–no facial features. This is known, not believed, as this reporter is familiar with the text of the only book that needs reading (and the only book this reporter reads).
PRESS RELEASES AND PUBLICATIONS
TBD
D-503 • June 18, 2021 5:44 PM
@SpaceLifeForm: “Are we sure there are none around here?”
If you live in the same country as Area 51, you’re surrounded by Aliens. For many years, I was classified as an “Alien” myself!
This peculiarity of U.S. legal terminology has been a source of amusement for decades.
vas pup • June 18, 2021 5:47 PM
How fraudsters exploited our fears during the ‘scamdemic’
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20210611-how-fraudsters-exploited-our-fears-during-the-pandemic
“The field of psychology is now catching up with this problem, with various studies analyzing the contents of these attacks to reveal some simple rules of deception.
The first is superficial: they’ll try to use some familiar elements – like the name or logo of a famous brand – to gain your immediate trust. Most scams will then try to elicit a strong ==>emotional response that stops us thinking logically. That might be the promise of an immediate reward, or a potential threat. (As I found, scam artists can get meta – warning you of an impending fraud that needs immediate action, accessible only with your bank details.
In some of the most dastardly schemes, fraudsters pretend to be a lawyer or doctor, representing a family member or colleague in need of urgent financial help. “Often negative emotions are most effective,” says Cleotilde Gonzalez, a professor of decision science at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Thirdly, most scams present a “time limited” situation that demands an immediate response. This is essential, since it ==>increases the chance that you will act before you engage your critical thinking skills. You are in such a rush not to miss the opportunity, that you forget the possibility of deceit.
Many scams involve a potent mix of all three factors. Consider the calls purporting to be from a local tax authority or national crime agency, warning that you will face a fine or court action unless action is taken urgently (which usually involves handing over bank account details).
==>Faced with that immediate threat, it’s very hard to think clearly.
“Your guard automatically drops in those situations, and your emotions will override rational decision making,” says Gareth Norris, a psychologist at Aberystwyth University in the UK, who recently reviewed the scientific research on phishing for the Journal of Police and Criminal Psychology.
Worryingly, our smartphones may have made us even more vulnerable to these attacks. For one thing, the screens are smaller, making it harder for us to scrutinise the details. Secondly, we spend so much time communicating on our phones that we may be more likely ==>to read and respond to a message, compared to emails arriving on a desktop PC, which are more likely to be ignored, at least initially.
[NB!!!]One researcher even went as far as to describe a “Pavlovian behavioral loop”, in which the sound of a new notification triggers a small mood boost followed by the itching desire to respond. And we are less likely to give something deep thought if it provokes a habitual behavior. Social media like Facebook seem to raise particular risks, with phishers enjoying a much higher hit rate – perhaps because they can glean more information to personalize their messages, and because we are so keen to build our friendship group. Quite simply, the more you use a particular social network, the more likely you are to fall for a scam on that app.
To make matters worse, we often use our smart phones when we’re ==>feeling distracted – either because we’re on the go, responding to someone else, or consuming media. It’s not uncommon to scroll through our phones while we are on the bus, watching a film or even talking to a friend, after all, and we often switch between apps and tasks, without really focusing on what we’re
doing.
Thanks to the lockdowns and lack of contact with our friends and family, many people have been feeling a mix of uncomfortable emotions that make rational thought more difficult. Fear, for example, has been shown to muddy our ability to make decisions.
Our low mood and loneliness might have also rendered us vulnerable to many other schemes that appear to be only tangentially related to the pandemic.
While there are no fool-proof ways of protecting ourselves, Norris and Gonzalez both suggest that we should start by weaning ourselves off the habit of responding immediately to every message we receive. “Just give yourself time and think, is this real?” says Norris. And if there is a link within the message, we should type it out manually, rather than automatically clicking. That will help us to spot any anomalies in the URL.
Ultimately, we need to have constant vigilance – and to remember that the scammers will always be one step ahead of us with a new ingenious scheme.”
Peter Piper’s Pecks • June 18, 2021 7:07 PM
One researcher even went as far as to describe a “Pavlovian behavioral loop”, in which the sound of a new notification triggers a small mood boost followed by the itching desire to respond.
Turn off all notifications. You’ll feel better. If it’s urgent, they’ll call.
echo • June 18, 2021 8:07 PM
Snowden’s new blog: https://edwardsnowden.substack.com/
I agree with most of section two of Snowden’s first essay. I disagree with the bit where he goes off like an American libertarian wingnut on “free speech”.
The Human Rights Act and Equality Act work in tandem. They stop one person using their rights as a bully stick to infringe on another persons rights. They stop hate speech and other discrimination. These laws bring into force obligations under the European Convention which itself is a legal container for UN human rights obligations. I suggest Snowden read up on this before running his mouth off again.
Substack is well known for platforming hate speech. No thanks.
Clive Robinson • June 18, 2021 9:24 PM
@ vas pup,
How fraudsters exploited our fears during the ‘scamdemic’
First rule,
Do not put apps on your phone, so many do an ET and “Phone Home to the Mothership” you can not trust any of them especially in Google or Apples “Walled Gardens”. Which people realy should realise by now are nothing what so ever about your safety or security, but everything about tying you into their revenue streams… The scammers know this which is why they always try to get their crud into the walled gardens the unwise foolishly trust…
Second rule,
Do not have personal email it’s a major time sink for little or no return. Also any email that comes in on your work email that is “personal” just deleat immediately. If it’s from your boss or other work person and they face to face you over why you did not respond say,
Staff training says personal use of work resources is not alowed and that it’s probably a “phishing attempt” so I deleted it immediately. If they get arm wavery say you know my desk phone extention phone ne and tell me it is from you. Or better yet “OK I’ll phone your number to get confirmation and wait untill I get it before actioning the email”. It robs them of “fire and forget” mode of operating which tends to stop those awful “group Emails”.
If they get insistant about having your personal email details, tell them you don’t have one. If they get upperty say tou do not have personal Internet at home for security rrasons (true in my case). If pushed use one of those free services with random difficult to remember user names where emails get deleted automatically in 24hours. Tell them that they need to tell you personall if they have sent an Email as you very rarely if ever look and they get auto deleted in 24hours.
I genuinely do not have personal Email nor home internet and have not done so for many years. The last email account I had was a GMail account I’d set up back in last century when Google were experimenting with voice calls I accesed it from either the “social alowed computer” at work in the common area or via low cost dial up (anyone else remember that?). People moaned I’d say “waste of my time you pay for it if it’s that important to you” they never pay so I don’t play. Life is quieter that way, as they do actually tell me face to face if it’s important or send me a letter…
If I wanted to use it I do have Email by “WinLink” over HF radio based system using a PACTOR modem that I can access, it’s the same as “day boat sailors” use but without the eye watering fees[1].
There are also APRS gateways and now similar for JS8Call.
They are all very low bandwidth so no graphics, attachments or anything other than 7bit ASCII (or less). So of zero use to a scammer.
But you can use them just about any where on earth and off if you can see the ISS or certain satellites (no I’m to old to put the effort in to be an astronaut, I’ll stick to designing “payloads”).
If you know some simple basics you can pirate some early generation US Navy transponder satelites quite securely likewise a number of geostationary satellite transponders. There are various South American drug-lords doing this currently and you can “tune in and listen” ifvyou want to[2].
Third Rule,
Never ever give your personal mobile phone number (if you have one) to anyone at work EVER or any other Personal number or contact detail to any organisation such as tour Dr, Dentist etc. Go buy a scrapper if they get insistant with one of those SMS only SIMS if you can. If not turn on VM and then leave the phone at home like we used to once do with “answer phones” or turn the phone off before you leave the house and during work hours. Only ever access the VM by phoning in from another “land line” number with caller ID blocking (if you can make it a premium rate dialback so much the better) don’t speak at all whilst accessing the VM use the touch tone pad only.
There are now “fun systems” that alow you to make the number you call from look like a number from abroad or similar. If they call back from their number you called then it forwards it to the number you called from. Otherwise it gives them a bogus “call menu” system so they pay the premium rate forva few minutes (it’s a business idea that I wish I’d thought off 😉
Or setup a VoIP system that uses the most expensive of premium rate numbers for dial in, where you get a cut of the inbound call fees. If they want to call you, they might as well pay you, you can forward it to VM anyway.
There are several other tricks you can do. Back when “Asterix” was new a friend worked out how to make a new codec that added a long lag time, similar to that you get on international or satellite phones it made having your “call transfered” to a different time zone sound quite authentic thus sounding “tired and grumpy” acceptable when you say “Do you know what time it is in XXX?”
Yes it’s social engineering but then that is what they are trying to do to you…
[1] http://www.hackingfamily.com/Jon/radio_email.htm
[2] Whilst you can hear these Pirates,
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=RyxheXG9APo
The us of certain “Spread Spectrum” techniques with wider bandwidth transponders gives not just privacy it is no where nearcas noticable to the genuine owner/operators of such transpnders as you effectively just “raise the grass” slightly and don’t noticably interfere with them.
Similar techniques used in early “White Space” systems alowed you to hide under terestrial analogue TV transmitters and if you used low data rates, below FM Broadcasters including the traditional illegal “Pirate Radio Stations”… Which presents a some what ironic situation.
Clive Robinson • June 18, 2021 9:27 PM
@ SpaceLifeForm,
Are we sure there are none around here?
Speak for yourself,
My neighbours are “for now” legal aliens…
name.withheld.for.obvious.reasons • June 18, 2021 9:47 PM
Attempting to overthrow the government, stopping one branch from carrying out its obligation to proclaim the duly elected person to the office of President (wait, that sounds like means, motive, and opportunity) by the current office holder? Oh, it’s probably just a conflict of interest or some misunderstanding, right?
A group, lightly armed, a paramilitary force, attempts (which was planned by the former National Security Advisor and U.S. general that had given a speech the night before to pump up the crowd) to forcibly overthrow the government, you have grade A TREASON on your hands. Well, the condition that existed then persists today. Does anyone see a problem here? This rolls up two different political criminal concepts, terrorism and sedition. January sixth was the terrorist acts, and the treasonous behavior. The plotting and preparing for another act of treason using the tools of terrorism and sedition is ongoing…
The ironic thing is what someone had continued to say on the campaign, signaling from the White House lawn on the last day of the RNC event in 2020–with Kool-Aid served to everyone.
name.withheld.for.obvious.reasons • June 18, 2021 9:52 PM
@ Clive
There are also APRS gateways and now similar for JS8Call.
That’s a bit sneaky, or is it a bit like sneakers?
Secondary referential pointer, back to you.
SpaceLifeForm • June 19, 2021 12:21 AM
@ D-503, Clive
I was referring to traditional aliens, not terrestrial based.
My question still stands.
Clive Robinson • June 19, 2021 4:37 AM
@ SpaceLifeForm, D-503,
I was referring to traditional aliens, not terrestrial based.
Well I was being half serious.
Ask yourself the all important first question which is,
“Would you know an alien if you saw one anyway?”
The odds are you would not for a couple of basic reasons.
Firstly it they are here the odds are that they have not turned up recently, but hundreds of thousands or millions of years ago. Our “memory records” only go back a few thousand years at most.
Thus if aliens are here we would not know they were aliens they would just be another of the very many life forms there are around.
Now the important “energy question” Einstein’s equation of the energy to mass and vice verser conversion tells of E=MC^2 tells us something. Basically moving matter over any distance needs a lot of energy even if the work (power) is spread out over time (Power is Energy against Time). The only advantage of moving very fast is that localised forces have a smaller effect on a body in motion.
So from most respects the Aliens would do best if very very small. And we do get Alien invaders every day by the billions we call them “photons” they effectively have zero mass and can move at about as close to the speed of light as you can. We are sending of “inteligence aliens” all the time by the use of coherant radiated photons mainly in the low frequency end of the EM spectrum. Just think how much energy gets radiated at 50 or 60Hz all the time.
I could go on to describe the four fundemental forces,
1, Gravity,
2, Electromagnetic,
3, Strong Nuclear,
4, Weak Nuclear,
And how they effect all objects but to be honest only the first two are of interest in even human scale distances. Gravity works on mass so large mass objects like anything you can pick up right up to black holes get affected by it Newtons laws apply to objects in human scsle masses and speeds. However a photon which has effectively zero mass only gets minimally effected by gravity because of the relative speed it moves at (the maths gets a bit funky so so lets not do it).
French physicist Charles Coulomb described the force of electrically charged objects and in 1785 published his findings, and it has the same formular as gravity but with different constants. So it to has infinite reach and effect inversly proportional to the square of the distance between any two charges. Thirty four yers later Danish physicist Hans Christian Oersted published that in his view electricity and magnetism were very much related and thus charge moving as an electric current created a magnetic field. Twenty years later Englishman Michael Faraday demonstrated that a moving magnetic field created a current and it had to wait untill the 1860s for Scotish mathmeticion and natural philosopher James Clark Maxwell to produce his funky equations of the fields interactions with each other. But not on how they effected charged particles, that little problem was cracked by Hendrik Lorentz in 1892 when the Dutchnsn calculated the resultant force on a charged particle in an electromagnetic field. But are photons charged particles?
Well… According to Quantum Electrodynamics (QED) it’s complicated… That is photons transmit electromagnetic force both macroscopically and microscopically and we also get into the are they a particle, force or both…
But it was not untill the 1950′ we kind of worked that forces have associated particles now called “guage particles” that in effect transmit the force effects between other particals. The photon is the electromagnetic guage partical, as for gravity we hypothesized the graviton for gravity and British theoretical physist Peter Higgs along with four others propposed back in 1964 a partical for mass. We now call it the Higgs Boson and it’s an elementary particle in the current SI model. which we may or may not have found back in 2012, people are still crunching the dat 😉
The practical upshot on the macro scale is that photons can be thought of as particles with minimal or non existant charge and no mass. Thus the photons are minimally effected by either Gravity or Electromagnetic forces means we can see back relatively clearly for several billion years with them. Whilst they diverge they in effect remain cohearent, which is what you want for transmitting information. Especially as you “fire and forget” that is all the energy goes in at the launch site and off they go, they either keep going in more or less a straight line or they “hit something” either reflecting or being absorbed and giving up the energy they carry and any information that is impressed on it. The down side is they “radiate” which means that the resulting electromagnetic fields get spread out over the surface of an ever expanding sphere, so the energy drops as 1/(r^2) which is actually rather fast all things considered. Eventially they can not be detected above background noise that they become part of.
But what of something more solid more life like than a photon?
Well science fiction talks of “seed ships” and “self replicating robots”. Science does not realy differentiate between biological or mechanical self replicating objects it just comes up with figures.
Well arguably again you want the smalest size possible and for the self replicant to be able to remain dormant for indeterminate but very long periods of time.
There are several chemicals that will be produced by the actions of electromagnetic forces and surprise suprise they can be used for the building blocks of organic life…
If you sprayed self replicating chemicals into space you could get them to spread wildly and with little energy.
It’s why some think we may be the result of some such chemical hitting the earth a few billion years back. And as they say “it all followed on” so we very well could be part of a continuing alien invasion by designed self replicating chemicals, or maybe they just came about due to a lucky lightning strike…
But if we were such alien invaders we would have bo real way of knowing it, unless a large amount of information followed up to tell us.
Hence you get back to phorons or gravitons again, and we know we are gettjng bombarded by photons all the time..
It would be the “minimal cost, maximum spread” option if the speed of light can not be exceeded and so far we have good reason to believe not. Because things get way more than funky if you can…
Fake • June 19, 2021 5:29 AM
Interesting conversation about design and deployment considerations
Starlink dishes go into “thermal shutdown” once they hit 122° Fahrenheit (arstechnica.com)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27526074
Backbiting be damned.
ASPIE • June 19, 2021 6:45 AM
If autism is just a difference, then what are the problems that neurotypicals face as individuals that autistic people do not struggle with, and not how they act towards autistic people?
Originally Answered: What are a list of problems neurotypicals face that autistic people don’t?
In my opinion, Neurotypicals suffer from what I’ll call Masking Dependency Syndrome. MDS sufferers are on a spectrum, just like ASD (Autistic Spectrum Disorder). Symptoms of MDS include:
Susceptibility to Peer Pressure (SPP). This first manifests in early childhood but becomes a serious problem as MDS sufferers enter puberty. Giving into Peer Pressure of ANY kind is a sign of MDS, but in its most extreme form, NTs abandon their moral code for social acceptance. Smoking, drinking, drugs, driving while intoxicated and bullying are all symptoms of an NT struggling with SPP.
But, SPP doesn’t begin in nor end with puberty. You can see it in extremely young children who abandon their play-style to mimic the play-style of others in an attempt to belong to the group. And you can see it in adults who pursue careers they have no interest in or passion for simply because it is “what society tells them is valuable.” From the Autistic point of view, these people lack autonomy. They’re the second-and-third-tier popular kids in high school and college, conforming to the wills and whims of the sociopaths who run the “popular clique.” They’re the middle managers who do things they know are morally wrong but don’t want to anger their boss. They’re the people who get “squeezed in the middle,” often uncomfortable with what they’ve been asked to do but unable to resist doing it.
Subconsciously Generated Masking. Unless it is made explicitly clear to these people, they are unaware that they consistently wear a mask. They spend more time trying to look good than be good. In its most toxic form, this is how someone convinces themselves that they’re a good and decent human being while doing absolutely terrible things; a priest who molests children, a police officer who harasses citizens, a politician who takes bribes. One can argue that these are all sociopathic traits. That’s true! But, they are not exclusively sociopathic. And because NTs lack the self awareness to see themselves accurately, they don’t understand how they all appear somewhat sociopathic to ASD members. (Ya’ll a little dangerously cray-cray from my point of view!)
Emotional Thinking. NTs value emotions above logic. And, without education, NTs do not naturally identify fallacies of logic. They are highly susceptible to Group Think and Propaganda. This is why advertising techniques work on them but not on ASD members.
There are exceptions; NTs who go into the sciences or study math tend to be more logical (but never as logical as an ASD member.) NTs can be trained to be more logical. If an NT joins a Speech and Debate team, studies law, goes into a career in physics then they tend to think more rationally and logically. But, from my personal experience, they need rigorous training and must always be vigilant about their tendencies to “feel” rather than “think.” As a whole, they resist statistical thinking, they resist fact-based assessments, they tend to rely on the opinions of experts (which is a logical fallacy) and they struggle with paradigm-shifts (which is why they resist adopting new technology and need marketing manipulation in order to adopt something that is in their best interest.)
As always, this is a spectrum and there are exceptions. An NT who naturally thinks logically is, for their part of the MDS spectrum, a genius who should be celebrated for overcoming the disabilities so prevalent in their part of the species.
4: Because there are so many on the MDS spectrum (approximately 98% of the human race) they do not perceive their mental disability as a disability. They tend to dismiss it as “the human condition.” When MDS derails their lives, they often say “Well, that’s just the human condition.” It isn’t the human condition. It’s their condition. The Fallacy of Large Numbers blinds them into thinking their way is the only way and our way is the defective way.
It’s worth noting that this is only my observation. And I don’t speak for all Autistic people. I’m an Aspie or “High Functioning” Autistic Person (a stunningly offensive term. We really do need to give ourselves a better label.) My experience is dramatically different than someone who is a Non-Verbal Autistic Person (and that’s assuming we actually belong on the same spectrum; it is NTs who lumped us all together. Currently, there is no genetic basis for lumping us together. It is only the NTs crude form of categorization that lumps us on the same spectrum. It’s a bit like saying hippos and elephants are big, grey and live in Africa so they must be part of the same species.)
But, let’s assume that my personal observations are grounded in provable facts. What does all this mean?
It means that the ASD brain “evolved” to favor accurate heuristics at the expense of social skills and it means the MDS brain “evolved” to favor social skills at the expense of accurate heuristics. So, which is better than the other? Neither. It depends, mostly on what the individual is trying to solve.
If you need to survive and procreate in an ancient world of dangerous predators, then MDS is preferred. If you want to put a human on the moon or solve climate change or build computers, ASD is superior.
MDS is prone to racism, sexism, “hatred of the other,” group think and a struggle with perceiving complicated, science-based systems because the heuristics of MDS are faulty.
ASD is prone to social isolation, at least in an MDS-dominant culture. But, as society became technologically advanced, ASD members were better suited to cope, adapt and thrive.
We all walk around with super computers that fit into our pockets. We could all use them to teach ourselves to code. We all have access to vast amounts of knowledge on Wikipedia, YouTube and the Web. Most of the world has inexpensive Maker Spaces which enable people to quickly teach themselves a wide variety of advanced technical skills.
And yet, most people use their super computer to surf Instagram, they don’t watch educational videos on YouTube, they don’t default to “let me google that” when asked a question they don’t know, they don’t self-teach, they aren’t skilling up for 50 bucks a month at a Makerspace, they are living their 19th century life with 21st century tech in their pocket.
That’s an NT. That’s not an ASD member. From our point of view, NTs are cavemen. And now that the modern world has given us a way to out-earn NT members, we can more easily meet mates and procreate. Like it or not, we’re the future of the human race. Right now, we’re 2%. Give us another 50 years and we’ll be 3–4%. Give us a century and we’ll be 8%. And then, even though we’ll still be a minority, we will be able to fight for our civil rights and make it very, very clear to NTs that we are just as valid a branch of the human race.
The ultimate irony of this? NTs do not like the world they’ve created. They hate the sociopathic nature of corporations, they complain about corrupt governments, they rail against racism and they rally for gender equality. They hate every aspect of the world we live in…but they fail to recognize they created this world, not those of us on the Autistic Spectrum. This world represents the very best of what an NT mind is capable of. And it sucks. And they know it. But, they can’t think of better because they can’t do better.
In the meantime, NTs will continue to blithely delude themselves into thinking we’re the broken ones, we lack executive function, we’re damaged and when they screw up it is merely “the human condition.” Sigh.
White Power • June 19, 2021 6:46 AM
The argument is that “white” people are overrepresented in positions of power.
Yet it’s taboo to mention the overrepresentation of Jewish people in the higher echelons of society and corporations which is where the oppression is coming from. It’s rarely mentioned that Sephardic Jews from Amsterdam had a significant role in the transatlantic slave trade, if not the leading role, which black carribean professor Tony Martin has researched and discussed:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MIH9GESHJpI
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=g5SsGfZubKA
Oddly enough, modern capitalism started in the exact same context: in Amsterdam, with the VOC (first multinational corporation), and these colonizers created the multicultural societies of today by displacing people all over the world, which is why in Dutch colonies like Suriname you have Indian people from the subcontinent, people of African descent etc. The VOC would literally sail around the globe and at every point pick people up and drop them off at the next colony.
So this was the pandoras box that created modern racism and racial tension and inequality in the first place — there was never such a comprehensive forced mass displacement of people before this, and it’s the reason for the racial makeup of countries like Brazil and much of the Carribean.
So you would think that if people truly wanted to get to the root of racial inequality and racism they would look honestly at these crucial historical facts. The complete avoidance of true historical fact by the narrative promoters should tell you all you need to know about the agenda.
Now the next step is to look at any current racist colonizing happening in the world today, where it’s happening and who is doing the racist apartheid and oppression of indigenous peoples.
That colonizing and displacement of people and racist oppression is clearly happening in Palestine today, and the perpetrators aren’t “white” Christians, yet this very real ethnonationalist racist apartheid is happening right now and it is ignored by the same race theory pushers. It’s obviously the logical conclusion for people opposed to racism and race based oppression to find solidarity with the Palestinian people, and yet any time BLM groups or others have tried to make that connection they have been shut down, and the BDS movement is being censored and attacked.
So this same race theory tries to paint these racist colonizers as victims while pinning the blame solely on under melanated people who have a pale skin tone, based on the colour of skin
There are some truths in this theory, mixed with lies and distortions and bigotry to muddy the waters. But it’s the historical record that they purposefully ignore which is what you need to look into.
Critical • June 19, 2021 6:49 AM
@ White Power:
Critical Race Theory was conjured up by the elite in order to focus our eyes on race (create a race war) so that we don’t focus our eyes on them (and create a class war).
The elite are aware of the massive inequality they have created, but that is the last thing they want you focusing on, so they have engineered a race war: put the blame on whitey for causing inequality. They are giving to blacks while holding their noses, and the blacks are running with it.
The elite have control of the media (social, print, TV) and they have framed the narrative this way. They are censoring everything through their filters, twisting and rewriting history, destroying the country in order to save themselves.
Winter • June 19, 2021 6:54 AM
@Clive
“Thus if aliens are here we would not know they were aliens they would just be another of the very many life forms there are around.”
I have heard two stories of where aliens live on earth.
Based on a few assumptions:
1) Aliens are disguised as humans, trying to look as humans, but not quite succeeding
2) They use an incomprehensible language
3) They are rich
4) They are not attacked in war
Best choices for putatively aliens:
1) The Swiss
2) The Japanese (the war thing is a weakness here)
For the challenged:
[/humor]
Cumloader13 • June 19, 2021 8:17 AM
Oh, as can bee seen the censorship adoring mental exhibitionist is calling for the virtual equivalent of targeted eliminations of free and independent thinkers again, how is it going you mentally deranged schizo, huh?
You know, always follow the herd, always do what you are told and never ever dare to think or question authority like if you see something say something, you brave and courageous dung fed cattle!
White Power • June 19, 2021 8:20 AM
Not at all, you’re just arrogant and narcissistic and think you understand every aspect of the universe despite still not even discovering most of our own ocean.
You have literally zero possible methods in disproving or proving my stances as they are mutually discussed between scientific and religiously scientific communities as plausible theory and maintain relevancy as such.
In fact ID, is in my experience, a perfect meeting place between the scientific method and religion when discussed objectively.
What you seem to be coming from are the types of indoctrination where people misuse the phrase “Believe in the science” as an equation to “obey their authority”
Ironically, science is a process, not an authority, and its entirely part of the scientific method to create “Theory” and also be completely wrong as well.
Science is and never will be, an authority.
Indoctrinated types like yourselves aren’t taught that it’s a process, instead you are led to think that science is a counsel of bishops (peer review) and authority (government led) when in fact science is open source to any and all experts or PhD involved within a given field of study.
Many times credible theories and scientists are often dismissed because they are not funded or sponsored by the government to create the science the government wants as a means implement laws that are nonsense. See: 36 genders, men have periods, hcq was ineffective, etc etc.
Independent Voter • June 19, 2021 8:25 AM
Is there another country on this planet where fossils such as Pelosi, Schumer, McConnel et al are allowed to marinate in office for so long? Besides the former Soviet Union and places like North Korea. Why do we put up with this gerontocracy of decomposing corpses, their trembling hands unsteadily but desperately clinging to the reins of power? See also Maxine Waters, Dianne Feinstein, Bill Pascrell, Grace Napolitano, Alcee Hastings, Pat Roberts, Eddie Bernice Johnson, Jim Inhofe, Chuck Grassley, Don Young , Richard Shelby (all in their 80’s) both presidential candidates of the Officially Allowed Parties from 2020, etc etc. It’s called retirement; it’s neither a new nor a difficult concept.
But if I was drying out the American utters for the last century (some of them look like the crypt keeper), I wouldn’t leave until they carried my remnants out of Washington DC. What other profession can you turn a 6 figure salary into a 9 figure net worth? Good work it you can get it as they say.
Cumloader13 • June 19, 2021 8:30 AM
I’m sick and tired of all the bullshit. I’m tired of a select few running this country / world and deciding the narrative. I’m fed up with money being what drives everything in this world. I’m done with letting the elite and government run my life and tell me how to live and try to punish me if I don’t live that way. I’m just done with all of it.
The problem with “money” is that all of it is borrowed from central banks at interest. So, while GDP should be in indicator of relative productivity, what it ACTUALLY is, is a measure of how much debt each country owes.
The national debt can NEVER be paid off, regardless of how productive the country is. It’s mathematically impossible, due to the fact that all of the interest payments must also be borrowed from the central bank at interest.
Curious Reader • June 19, 2021 8:32 AM
I have a serious question that I’ve been trying to find the answer to on my own but can’t quite get it. Why is it that we even used mRNA to be used in these vaccines? Why didn’t we just make the vaccine like all other vaccines are made? With inactive virus material to expose and stimulate the immune system? Why even mess with this mRNA stuff instead of going with what we already know? These questions really worry me. If someone could please explain it , I’d really appreciate it. I don’t understand enough on my own I guess and trying to research it I just can’t get a definitive answer on the why we chose to mess with mRNA in first place and to use the lipid nanoparticles which I have heard are seeming to concern some in CDC and other doctors professionals. I was actually about to link the source for that and I see now that it has been deleted. So… Please. Can someone just explain that part to me. Why we didn’t just make a vaccine the way we’ve made previous vaccines?
Sergey Petrov • June 19, 2021 8:34 AM
“They” will tell you that one can develop mRNA vaccines quickly and it wasn’t until “recently” that they figured out you to get it into your cells.
But I think you’re right with what you’re implying/getting at: Why use a vaccine technology that has never been used at this sort of scale before? Especially for one that has a relatively high survival rate? I mean if we were dealing with something on the level of smallpox, polio, etc. maybe I could see the justification. Personally, I would have only offered mRNA to older folks as they were the ones at risk and wait for a standard vax for everyone else.
Not to mention Australia who has so much capital and resources, large Health care governance and institutions is dragging their feet so hard on the vax’s its now become obvious it wasn’t out of incompetence but a decent decision for its population, until last week only people aged 60+ were allowed it and now only 50+ are allowed to get the jab.
They could have bought 20mil doses months ago, I see now why they didn’t.
Winter • June 19, 2021 9:47 AM
@Moderator
comment-381969 [C•13 • June 19, 2021 8:17 AM]
comment-381974 [ Sergey Petrov • June 19, 2021 8:34 AM ]
Assorted conspiracy theories regarding vaccines, Democrats, racism. Abusive and insulting content.
It seems our Troll-tool has risen again.
Dancing On Thin Ice • June 19, 2021 10:24 AM
A general observation that may risk antagonizing others that use the phrase:
Is claiming something is a false flag when it is not in itself a false flag?
echo • June 19, 2021 11:33 AM
These two articles are interesting with respect to endurance performance and how attire and monitoring equipment effect performance. There is also the issue of “male by default” environments and how it may not necessarily be barriers but attitude and ecosystem which impacts equality.
It goes without saying all three domains have military as well as civilian ramifications.
https://www.runnersworld.com/uk/news/a36749947/sabrina-verjee-breaks-wainwrights-record/
Sabrina Verjee has broken the Wainwrights record, successfully completing all of Cumbria’s 214 Wainwright peaks in 5 days 23 hours 49 minutes.
Verjee, a 39-year-old vet from the Lake District, beat Paul Tierney’s record of 6 days 6 hours 5 minutes to become the fastest person ever to complete the gruelling 325-mile route. The peaks involve 36,000m of ascent in total, equivalent to four Everests. It also includes Scafell Pike, England’s highest peak at 978m.
Recent research by Joanna Wakefield-Scurr and her colleagues at the University of Portsmouth found that running in a poorly supportive bra shortened women’s stride by up to 4cm – which could add up to an extra mile over the length of a marathon.
[…]
Optical sensors attached to Lorraine’s gun suggest that her accuracy has improved, as a result of the new bra. She also feels more comfortable wearing it during shooting. “It’s not only the support and how it flattens me, I just feel better in it,” she said.
[…]
The bra also features cutaway areas at the back, where women often feel hottest, plus zoned support in the areas where this is most needed.
[…]
Clover created a bespoke encapsulated bra, which incorporates a pocket for her tracking devices, as well as pushing her breast tissue forwards, to provide a greater range of movement for her arms, reducing chafing.
https://theconversation.com/women-in-jazz-still-face-many-barriers-to-success-new-research-160732
Rather than there being explicit barriers to entry, scholarly attention has focused on gender differences in preferences and socialisation: men seeing concerts as a male space, and male musicians more likely to be encouraged to continue following early experience of playing with others – particularly in terms of learning improvisation and taking a solo from a young age.
It’s a cliché that music is a meritocracy, in which success is seen to arise from a combination of talent and effort. If women are not present in jazz, it is often assumed to be because they cannot play well enough, play the wrong instruments, or simply prefer other musical genres and the cultures around them.
It is likely, though, that some female musicians find the professional environment hostile. In recent years, we’ve seen extensive reporting about sexist assumptions in the jazz industry, as well as accounts of sexual harassment. Clearly, changes are still needed on the industry side. But what about the audiences? Are they helping to shape the sexism that is being reported in jazz?
Winter • June 19, 2021 12:31 PM
@echo
“These two articles are interesting with respect to endurance performance and how attire and monitoring equipment effect performance. ”
Not exactly new, isn’t it?
Ultimate limit of human endurance found
ht tps://www.bbc.com/news/health-48527798
The research, by Duke University, also showed pregnant women were endurance specialists, living at nearly the limit of what the human body can cope with.
Your other examples are just telling us that women are not smarter than men. But we knew that too. These high endurance events (death marches) are very unhealthy and utterly pointless.
echo • June 19, 2021 12:56 PM
UNODC
United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime
Handbook on Gender Dimensions of criminal justice responses to terrorism
MarkH • June 19, 2021 1:58 PM
There has been plentiful discussion here — and vituperation — about the “lab leak hypothesis” for the origin of Covid-19. [For the record, I’m agnostic on this matter, and have said so in this forum.]
Here’s a thoughtful discussion from two authors who describe themselves as biosecurity experts:
https://slate.com/technology/2021/06/lab-leak-theory-international-investigation.html
My TL;DR: First, even a definitive yes or no is unlikely to add much to what is already known about prevention and mitigation of epidemics; and second (most of the article’s text), no adequate legal framework exists for the monitoring of infectious disease research, or the investigation of possible biosecurity failures.
In a sickeningly familiar pattern, the U.S. has repeatedly torpedoed international agreements which (for example) would have required the government of China to provide transparency and investigative access helpful in examining the lab leak hypothesis.
Anders • June 19, 2021 2:30 PM
@Clive @SpaceLifeForm @ALL
Indian strain causes havoc.
hxxps://www.themoscowtimes.com/2021/06/17/moscow-says-new-variants-driving-covid-19-cases-to-record-level-a74246
Soon it will be here 🙁
Our govt just cancelled mask wearing requirement,
we have massive heat wave here (+30C and up), people
are getting careless…
echo • June 19, 2021 3:17 PM
There are also more subtle benefits when more women invent. Female inventors are more likely to identify how existing treatments for non-sex-specific diseases like heart attacks, diabetes, and stroke can be improved and adapted for the needs of women.
Indeed, women are more likely to test whether their ideas and inventions affect men and women differently: for example, if a drug has more adverse side effects in women than in men.
In our study, we found that even within narrow disease areas like atrial flutter, women are still more likely to see opportunities to target their inventions for the specific health needs of women.
Our results suggest that increasing representation should address these invisible biases.
[…]
Increasing the proportion of inventors who are women is important for improving women’s health care, but simply increasing the number of female scientists isn’t enough.
It’s also the case that female scientists are 40 percent less likely to commercialize their research ideas than male scientists. The causes of this gender gap are myriad, from differences in mentoring to biases in the early-stage feedback women receive when trying to commercialize female-focused ideas.
No matter the underlying causes, the result is that while nearly 33 percent of published scientific discoveries were produced by majority-female research teams in 2010, only 16.2 percent of patents were invented by majority-female inventor teams in the same year.
As with invention, we found that scientific discoveries by female scientists as measured by published research papers are 12 percent more likely to benefit women than discoveries by men.
At least in the short term, helping female scientists commercialize their current research should boost the number of female inventors and the number of female-focused inventions.
More generally, our findings highlight how demographic inequities in who gets to invent lead to demographic inequities in who benefits from invention.
I do not see why security is no different than other fields of invention. Speaking for myself I have a broader view of security than most have on this blog. That may just be me but I feel things like structures and relationships and how things go together matters as much if not more than the straight line performance technical issues which dominate headlines.
National Statistics
Women and the Criminal Justice System, 2019
Published 26 November 2020
A high proportion of “security” topics are usually some form of kenetic or technological action in usually “male by default” environments with men attacking other men, by and large. How the Covid-19 pandemic was handled is one example where by and large countries with women leaders did better than countries with male leaders. This isn’t to make a statement about one side or the other but there do seem to be skews worth examining and how these may determine situations and outcomes.
Clive Robinson • June 19, 2021 3:35 PM
@ MarkH,
There has been plentiful discussion here — and vituperation — about the “lab leak hypothesis” for the origin of Covid-19. [For the record, I’m agnostic on this matter, and have said so in this forum.]
Oddly I’m not agnostic on the matter.
The reason is simple, all the arguments I’ve seen for it are not based on logic, maths, reasoning, or evidence.
Could it have been a lab leak, yes it could but you need to walk through the process.
First off evidence? What is there, as far as we’ve been told publically there is no circumstantial let alone indicative evidence of anything… Just “there’s a lab it must have been that” because the arguers want with religious conviction for it to be the lab…
Is their reasoning sound not at all it’s basically “Wet market or lab” followed by “no evidence for wet market QED it’s the lab”. Not exactly going to get you through any very basic reasoning class taught to preteens.
Ok lets look at the probability. Well first you need a little logic.
The logic is for building up a probability table, which means you have to produce a Venn Diagram that includes all possibilities only when you have that can you start assigning probabilities…
I’ve produced a partial list of a suitable Venn diagram before. It turns out the lab has to be about the lowest probability of all…
So whilst not ruling the lab out, it is the least likely consideration.
The only way you can make the lab more likely is by excluding every thing else AND giving unequall weighting to the lab.
Hence the argument boils down to,
1, “It’s the LAB or Wet Market”… immediatly ruling out by far the majority of other potential sources/causes, which is wrong and unjustifiable by any measure.
2, “No evidence for Wet Market so it must be LAB”… But that is silly reasoning. I could say “No evidence for LAB must be wet market” but you would be right to say “but hey there’s no evidence for the wet market”. But why ignorethen that there is no evidence for the LAB either… So arguing either way is not just “unreasoned” it’s totally wrong…
As long as unsound arguments like those are used we are never going to find out what happened…
But then that’s not what a true believer cares about, they believe it was the lab with all their worth. So they start from there and argue from what they believe… That is their desired “effect” to a “cause” which is not scientifically, logically, mathmatically, or rationally valid.
They then turn it around and try and present it as argued from “cause to effect” which it actually is not… Thus they hope if they argue it loud enough and long enough it will become “the one true way” which it is most definately not…
In short their dishonest arguments need to be roubdly rebuked…
SpaceLifeForm • June 19, 2021 3:53 PM
@ Clive
If you sprayed self replicating chemicals into space you could get them to spread wildly and with little energy.
Bingo!
Most people that learned of E=MC^2 did not learn that that equation is a simplification that only applies to mass AT REST.
Cosmic rays can be accelerated to relativistic speeds by blackholes, supernova.
I see no reason that it can not apply to a more complex molecule. That it only can happen to an individual atom.
Yes, a more complex molecule may be stripped apart due to the forces or radiation that it is exposed to.
But, I bet some percentage can survive the road trip. That may end up as part of a comet or asteroid. That can survive crashing into a planet at the optimum distance from the star.
Panspermia.
echo • June 19, 2021 4:46 PM
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/electoral-commission-boris-johnson-flat-b1868407.html
Boris Johnson is to strip the Electoral Commission of the power to prosecute law-breaking, just weeks after it launched an investigation into his controversial flat refurbishment.
The watchdog has been threatened with curbs ever since it embarrassed senior Tory figures by fining Vote Leave for busting spending limits for the Brexit referendum.
Now ministers have announced that a new Elections Bill will remove its ability to prosecute criminal offences under electoral law – arguing it “wastes public money”.
Presumably the “not corrupt” police and “not corrupt” Crown Prosecution Service will field prosectutions instead?
Channel 4 could be sold off as soon as next year, with the government planning to launch a formal consultation into the broadcaster’s privatisation within weeks.
Last month, the culture secretary, Oliver Dowden, confirmed it may move to privatise Channel 4 by the end of the current parliament to “provide a sustainable future for the broadcaster”, but on Thursday the Financial Times reported that a decision could be made by the end of this year.
John Whittingdale, the culture minister with responsibility for broadcast policy, will oversee the consultation.
Boris Johnson has confirmed he is planning to sell off Channel 4, senior Tory MPs have claimed.
The prime minister believes that privatising the publicly-owned broadcaster is a “great idea”, according to a report in the Sunday Express.
His alleged remarks come in the wake of a series of rows between Downing Street and Channel 4 over its coverage of the election campaign.
Mr Johnson appears to have boycotted the broadcaster since its head of news Dorothy Byrne described him as a “proven liar” in August last year.
And so after months of speculation the government is engineering the offloading of a critical broadcaster to one of its friends.
Anders • June 19, 2021 4:56 PM
@ALL
Covid is not the only “fun” Moscow has…
hxxps://www.euronews.com/2021/06/19/helicopters-called-in-to-massive-blaze-at-moscow-fireworks-depot
hxxps://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/blaze-moscow-fireworks-warehouse-injures-78377555
“A warehouse holding a reported 15 metric tons (16.5 tons) of fireworks in central Moscow caught fire on Saturday, sending a huge cloud of smoke and a fusillade of explosions over the area”
MarkH • June 19, 2021 5:03 PM
@Clive:
You accurately depicted what we might call “popular logic” — or more aptly, populist logic — in which effect precedes cause!
All data must be rigorously selected and revised, to fit the hypothesis.
Symptoms are felt only after pronouncement of diagnosis.
“I hope to God I’m right, because I’ll never change my mind.”
SIC SEMPER EX ASINIS
(Apologies for my incompetent Latin)
SpaceLifeForm • June 19, 2021 6:01 PM
@ MarkH, Clive
All data must be rigorously selected and revised, to fit the hypothesis.
http://www.sci-news.com/othersciences/geoscience/geologic-activity-earth-cycle-09777.html
[27.5 million years]
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nemesis_(hypothetical_star)
[26 million years]
My theory: A wobbling quasar.
It fits within margin of error, right?
Anders • June 19, 2021 6:15 PM
@ALL
hxxps://www.reuters.com/world/moscow-covid-19-surge-probably-due-infectious-variants-mayor-2021-06-17/
“”A new mutation has arrived, a new strain is active. It’s more aggressive, it’s harder to recover from, it spreads faster. It’s much more likely to penetrate a person’s immune system,” Sobyanin said”
lurker • June 19, 2021 8:36 PM
@Clive
The logic is for building up a probability table, which means you have to produce a Venn Diagram that includes all possibilities only when you have that can you start assigning probabilities…
Emphasis added, because I suspect one of those old Greek guys is going to ask where you got them all and are you sure you didn’t leave any behind. I’m staying agnostic with @MarkH because I don’t have special powers and can’t see enough of the missing pieces.
MarkH • June 19, 2021 9:40 PM
@Clive, lurker:
The definition of “agnostic” is “without knowledge.” I don’t know the answer.
I consider the “lab leak” explanation to be sufficiently plausible, that I cannot exclude its possibility.
However, I have an opinion on the question: the consensus of subject matter experts seems to be that the hypothesis is very unlikely, and I respect their expertise.
Further, the few credentialed people who claim “proof” of laboratory origin via trashy right-wing outlets — because 5 positively charged amino acids in a row can’t occur naturally (provably wrong), or a certain sequence of 6 nucleotides proves gene editing (very doubtful) — don’t appear to be doing valid science.
I think it likely that this matter may never be conclusively resolved in the eyes of reasonable observers, for lack of dispositive evidence.
In the eyes of conspiracy theorists, the hypothesis can NEVER be disproved, no matter how much evidence may be discovered.
========================
I saw a televised talk by a defender of atheism — and former Christian preacher. I found his categorization most helpful. Quoting imperfectly from memory:
“My attitude is skepticism.
My method is free thought.
My conclusion is agnosticism.
My opinion is atheism.”
To clarify his meaning, he said that though there is no God in his opinion, he can imagine hypothetical evidence (for example, witnessing a miracle in the manner of the Old Testament without any alternative explanation) that might cause him to revise his opinion.
This stands in contrast to religious faith, or adherence to conspiracy theories, which require zealous indifference to contrary evidence.
Freezing_in_Brazil • June 19, 2021 10:32 PM
@ MarkH
for example, witnessing a miracle in the manner of the Old Testament without any alternative explanation
Of course I understand what you mean. However, I point out that merely witnessing a phenomenon would not be enough to establish a truth about it. Independent observations/measurements would still be needed. I would never believe my own eyes. 🙂
@ Clive
Interesting idea about the ‘early’ arrival of hypothetical ETI, As to gravity, you must have heard of this experiment:
htps://www.sciencenews.org/article/physics-gravity-measurement-smallest-object-mass-gold-ball
Observations of that gold sphere tugging on another similarly sized sphere confirm that gravity behaves as expected even for extremely weak gravitational fields, physicists report in the March 11 Nature.
Regards.
Jon • June 19, 2021 11:13 PM
@ Clive Robinson
Doing business work over amateur radio frequencies and satellites is highly frowned upon. Yeah, you can probably get away with it for awhile – but it’s about as socially decent as taking a shit on a public sidewalk.
@ AL
Yeah, some of the cases have no detectable connection. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Moreover, you’re cherry-picking data – There’s an awful lot more evidence that it wasn’t lab-created that you are cheerfully ignoring.
Have fun,
J.
SpaceLifeForm • June 20, 2021 1:15 AM
@ MarkH, Clive, lurker, name.withheld.for.obvious.reasons
The definition of “agnostic” is “without knowledge.” I don’t know the answer.
That is not completely the philosophy (as I understand it). It’s not just the “without knowledge”. It also says that the answer is “unknowable”.
I consider the “lab leak” explanation to be sufficiently plausible, that I cannot exclude its possibility.
I consider the explanation to be insufficiently plausible, yet I still cannot exclude the scenario.
As you noted, those pushing the narrative can lead to be one being more doubtful or to reinforce what they believe.
Philosophically, I would describe myself as a “Agnostic Atheist in a Quantum State”.’
I’m a Purple Cat.
My philosophy is that it does not matter and I do not care. It’s a waste of your time and energy to even argue over it. The only thing that matters is acquiring knowledge. Only with knowledge will there be progress.
SpaceLifeForm • June 20, 2021 2:31 AM
@ MarkH, Clive, lurker, name.withheld.for.obvious.reasons
Open Source is good for security reasons.
I am agnostic on this:
hxtps://www.softwareheritage.org/
Concept good. Implementation?
SHA1? Seriously?
SpaceLifeForm • June 20, 2021 2:52 AM
@ Clive, ALL
Rack mountable 24 qubits. Hmmm.
https://phys.org/news/2021-06-compact-quantum-server-centers.html
Clive Robinson • June 20, 2021 4:35 AM
@ Jon, ALL,
Doing business work over amateur radio frequencies and satellites is highly frowned upon.
Yup, and it should be discoraged, no argument there.
That’s why I did try to distinguish by saying “personal” and “work”, and also mentioned there was a commercial Service for day boat sailors at a cost.
Also I hope “Drug lords” and “Pirate” got the message across that using US Navy satellites was not with the owner/operators consent.
But the fact is you can “tune in” and “listen”. Is it legal or not to listen? Well that’s a subject that is different in nearly every jurisdiction, and as far as I’m aware not covered by international maritime law and actually most judicial law, as the “broadcast” is external to the jurisdiction and does not respect juresdictional legislation.
I’m of the security view point, that if people can see an advantage to them in doing something they will take a calculated risk, and some will see reward outweighs risk for them and go ahead regardless, of legislation, regulation, etc. Thus it’s going to happen unless other measures are applied.
In law there is the principle of “an atractive nuisance” the usual example being a swiming pool or trampoline someone leaves unatended and “to easily” accessable. Thus if someone gets hurt then the owner/operator of the pool or trampoline has liability under law.
The US Navy put the satellite transponders up and leave them “unatended” and all “to easily” accessable. Thus they must be aware that they would be a
“an attractive nuisance”. No doubt when they planed them they assumed that the technology needed would act as a “barrier”…
It’s a security lesson in raw tooth and claw. Which boils down to a simple fact,
“If you broadcast information capable of being heard, then people will listen at some point, so it’s by definition not secure.”
Thus the simple lesson is if you want to keep the information “secure” don’t broadcast it “unsecured”.
As for people actually using your broadcast system the same or similar logic applies from a security perspective.
Those who do not realy think problems through argue “Property rights”… From a security perspective that’s about as silly as you can get. History teaches us that if you leave your “property” “unattended” or “to easily accessable” people will ignore what you think are “your rights” and “help themselves” in many Western cultures. Thus the onus is on you, “You own it or loose it” it’s down to you to protect what you see is yours and any rights you feel accrue from that ownership.
Under what many call civil law there is the notion of “vacating a title” to an object or idea which is effectively “own it or loose it”. You will find people make that claim all the time and judges are persuaded by it… Remember that the judicial system in the UK and US is based on the idea of “mortal combat before god” which is the old “King Game” in play as excercised by every tin pot tyrant ever to walk, as an excuse to do as they please unless you “cut them down” in some way.
So the security reality is “people will do what they want” in some cultures, and the only way to stop them in those cultures is “Might has Rights” and “You must excercise those rights” to keep them. Which when you analyse it is a pretty clear indicator there is something wrong with the system. That is from the security perspective for what ever underlying reason the system is flawed.
From a security perspective a flawed system is a dangerous system as it is inherently untrustable. Thus your only course of action is to apply mitigations that are trustable, ie not based on other flawed untrustable systems.
But here’s the rub, you can only mitigate something you are aware of prior to taking mitigations. There are only three ways you become aware of the need of a particular mitigation,
1, From a study of attack history.
2, Because you are attacked.
3, You think up how to attack others.
Normally in life things get mitigated by “learning from history” and whilst that is certainly true of the “Physical Security Industry” for some strange reason in the “Information Security Industry” the opposit is true. We do not study or learn from history unless we are planning to attack others. Then others learn from the attacks made at the time, but not those of the past (Go figure…).
What is currently playing out with ransomware clearly illustrates the issue[1] even though ransoming ICT systems has happened for nearly two consecutive working lifetimes and has been documented in the public press going back to the 1960’s for computers and back into the mid 1800’s for telegraphs and later communications systems people do not take even the most minimal mitigations. Some because they have not been taught histories lessons, others because they make bad risk analysis or choices for various personal reasons[1].
So I figure I can not help those that chose to make poor life choices and probability eventual “culls them or cures them”. But I can make information available to those who want to behave in a more normal way and thus take “sensible” mitigations when they are aware of the need for them.
The thing is “sensible” is not just a scalar variable, it’s a multidimensional vector and differs for just about every particular situation. Thus asside from basic generalised rules, people need to be “situationally aware” and that means they need knowledge of how they might be attacked so they can plan for it in their mitigation strategy and practice.
So as a practice I give people sufficient information to be aware of how things can be done and how easily within a rapidly changing technical environment, but not the actual specifics of a recipe to carry out such activities some object to this for their own usualy selfish reasons[1].
Why do I do this? Because again history shows what happens if you do not, the current pandemic is just one of many down the centuries, and over time lessons taught us that defence is important. Though others think otherwise[1] we now have “health care” that though meger and expensive is clearly working where it is in place and not saturated, and sadly bodies stacked liked cordwood where it is not in place or saturated.
Making people aware in general saves very many lives from ruin and untimely cessation of existance. The so called “Dark Ages” were as much dark due to information being witheld from people for centuries as it was for any supposed natural reasons. Why was the information withheld, well history shows it was due almost entirely to the “King Game” of acruing money, power and above all status, no matter how much harm it caused not just to the majority but even the minority with “status” who died after short brutal lives needlessly because of their pointless cupidity and averice they carried on with the lunacy.
Even those who are considered “poor” and without “voice” or “representation” in the modern West live longer less brutal and healtier lives than Kings and others of high status less than a couple of centuries ago. Why, because lessons learned widely act as a tide that lifts all boats that are sound and society progresses mainly for the betterment of all because of it being traded and creating churn profitably. But obtaining even petty status becomes harder much much harder which is why over the centuries some[1] have always tried to inhibit the spread of knowledge and thus the lessons that provide it.
I guess that’s the real first lesson from the security perspective, and it just does not get taught, in fact people try to keep it covered up so security stays in it’s very own “Dark Ages”.
[1] The current reason for this sad course of events is neo-con mantra. Which boils down to the old “don’t spend money on defence, only attack”… Anyone who has studied history knows what happens… In effect you “Over extend your front, you are attacked from the flanks, surrounded / cut off and now “dead in the water” with very high probability you will not get out of the trap you created for yourself. It’s normally seen “as a really really stupid rookie maneuver” for good reason… But never ever let good thinking get in the way of psychopathic or narcissistic activities. So to ensure this stupidity happens for you, you must ensure more normal people are not taught what you see as “inconvenient truths”. A stance which is exemplified by the Chicargo School of economics, World Economic Forum and many others where stupid stupid risks of almost impossibly low probability of succeeding are seen as the only way to run activities… Esentially because in the very short term you get away with it and move before probability hits you with reality, it is in essence a realy bad gambling strategy and you would quickly loose everything. The only reason it works at all is because of “the hidden hand” dealing them from the bottom to the “favourd few” who are used as evidence that the system works. In reality it’s a “rigged game” where the house always wins and the house is jealously guarded. When you look at the rules of the “free market” you see it’s not “free” at all. The “house” gamble with others money and take a fat fee win or loose, as well as a big share of profits but never losses… You are never alowed to play except through the “house” and thus by their rules. You are alowed an occasional “taste” to maintain the illusion and thus keep you hooked, but in reality you keep loosing money unless you to cheat in some way.
Clive Robinson • June 20, 2021 5:22 AM
@ MarkH,
SIC SEMPER EX ASINIS
If my brain is functioning,
“It was ever from the blood”
Mind you asinis is a bit ambiguous, it can mean “blood” or rage as “in the heat of blood” or even a donkey/ass.
A. Foul • June 20, 2021 6:48 AM
What’s sad is, pretty much each one of us have our own authoritative positions on this crap.
You are not an official, I am not an official, the spammer is not an official… Well he may technically be an official but only he/she knows and it’s also very likely that any official status as being an official is officially not an official in the respective positions we would be seeking official input from.
But you’re diverting too, both sides made mistakes.
You refuse to acknowledge anything but.
Sides being a reference to the American response,
You have a chipped tooth, some of your output is underwhelming.
Consistently, you are definitely missing teeth.
Tõnis • June 20, 2021 8:17 AM
Terrific book review:
From the link:
“Technocracy is inherently a technological society run through social engineering. Fear is but one manipulation tool. The focus on ‘science’ is another. Anytime someone dissents, they’re simply accused of being ‘anti-science,’ and any science that conflicts with the status quo is declared ‘debunked science.’
“The only science that matters is whatever the technocrats deem to be true, no matter how much evidence there is against it. We’ve seen this first-hand during this pandemic, as Big Tech has censored and banned anything going against the opinions of the WHO, which is just another cog in the technocratic machine.
“If we allow this censorship to continue, the end result will be nothing short of devastating. So, we simply must keep pushing for transparency, truth, medical freedom, personal liberty and the right to privacy.”
Here is a link to an Android security issue related to covid-19:
https ://thenationalpulse.com/breaking/massachusetts-massnotify-app-consent/
(deliberae insertion of blank space to prevent auto-loading…)
The claim is that the ap is self-installing without user consent.
Clive Robinson • June 20, 2021 11:00 AM
@ lurker,
I suspect one of those old Greek guys is going to ask where you got them all and are you sure you didn’t leave any behind.
What do you remember about Venn diagrams when taught them at school?
More sprcifically what is in the areas outside of the “circles” you add?
So if some old Greek Guy did turn up I’d give him a book to read so he could get upto date.
Put simply the “empty page” or the area inside the outer perimiter box represents all the probabilities or entities in the “world” (and sums to one). As you add a circle you are effectively issolating from everything else a group of entities –as a set of elements– that you know the probabilities of. So far the Venn diagram and Euler diagram are the same.
But they start to differ, as such sets of elements can have interdependence or “shared probability” so you overlap their circles and sort the probabilities to the respective parts. In the Venn diagram a circle has to have shared overlap with all other circles, so all possible relationships have a mapping even though there may be no elemebts or zero probability. In Euler diagrams you only have overlaps for “known” dependencies thus there are no empty or zero probability areas.
Obviously the diagram evolves as you find new interdependent groups or issolated singletons. Or find a singleton has interdependance etc.
So by definition everything is in the Venn diagram as are all possible dependency relationships, but not all of it is known. thus it is almost always “a work in progress” and probabilities in known groups can change as other groups are identified or interdependence found.
Clive Robinson • June 20, 2021 11:39 AM
@ MarkH, ALL,
… or a certain sequence of 6 nucleotides proves gene editing (very doubtful) — don’t appear to be doing valid science.
I actually find that argument they present funny at the level of ignorance it displays…
Most computer programmers and communications engineers implicitly know why, they’ve probably not made the “cross knowledge domain” connection but will say something like,
“Oh… That’s bl@@dy obvious”
When it’s pointed out.
It happens for exactly the same reason “C strings” are used in prefrence to “Pascal Strings”.
Pascal strings have three major deficiences,
P.1, They use out-of-band signalling (of string length).
P.2, Out-of-Band signalling is inefficient.
P.3, Out-of-Band signalling puts artifical bounds on the string length.
C obviate the Pascal strings limitations. However they add there own sometimes akward limitation.
C.1, C strings use in-band signalling which means one or more ellements in the alphabet set have to be reserved for signalling not used for transfering information.
When you cut and splice RNA or DNA there can not be out-of-band signalling, only in-band signalling.
It’s a point that those making the “6 nucleotides” argument are either totally clueless about or are quite deliberately assuming “their audiance” is totally clueless about, thus alowing them to be not just intellectually but actuall dishonest about for personal gain.
You first have to realise that researchers need in-band signalling to make their work substantially easier. Natute however has no need for the inefficiency of in-band signalling it does not it’s self use.
Thus researchers needed a “marker” that was not common in nature and had little or no effect on the way nature uses nucleotide sequences.
So theyclooked for a sequence that was both low probability and had low potential impact. Whilst nature has no need of “markers” that humans need it does have a use for quite a bit of redundancy. Thus findingva six nucleotide sequance that fit the requirment was not as dificult as it could have been.
Thus that six nucleotide sequence,
1, Can appear in nature but has minmal impact
2, So can be used by humans as a marker for research.
The important point to note is that the two options are not mutually exclusive.
It’s why researchers have to “double check” for that sequence before thay use it for a marker so they know what to attribute it to. In somr cases it’s easy because an extended nucleotide sequence can be incrrasingly unique thus identifiable, but in most cases six nucleotides are sufficient.
Communications engineers are familliar with the use of a Null Charecter as well as using extended sequences which they often call “escape codes”. The use of which actually precedes the 5bit ITU-2 teletype code many call Baudot, with it’s “figures shift” and “letters shift”.
Clive Robinson • June 20, 2021 12:02 PM
@ AL,
No it isn’t. It is a lab leak or “natural emergence”.
No it is not.
Sorry but those determined to prove without evidence and by denying other evidence that it is some “Chines Plot” or similar nonsense, do not use logic or reason in their arguments just as you have have there.
If you turned you brain on you would realise that two hypothesis can have four relationships under any given two input logical construct like the “Exclusive OR” construct you are actually implying. The actual OR logical construct alows three true outcomes not two. That is it alows A AND B as well !A AND B and A AND !B.
So you are failing at step one, as do all the arguments that come out of the “It must be the lab” conspiracy theorists that you appear to want to align yourself with.
And that’s befor you get further into it with the points @Winter has indicated are not ruled out.
echo • June 20, 2021 12:03 PM
Reflecting on Enigma and cryptanalysis “Conditional sequential baysian probability banbarismus technique”. Say that in one go a dozen times without tripping up! Thinking on this as well as how AI may be applied to both law and none structured language I’m wondering what kind of work may be going on at GCHQ with regard to automated analysis and threat identification and tracking.
Going by publicly available information the French definition of terrorism varies quite wildly from the US definition of terrorism with the UK being somewhere in the middle. Other countries have their definitions too. Perhaps because of their Napolionic Civil Law heritage the French also codify the kinds of assets they use. It’s quite interesting how they use spies who may not even know they are spies. The UK and US might indirectly refer to this using different language such as “open source intelligence”. The Foreign Office has for economic not security reasons tried it on from time to time and been told to hack off.
By admission none security none state actors from marketing to banking use exactly the same kinds of tools albeit phrased differently.
All information systems leak and tools can be used both ways.
Moving on…
John Bercow, the former Tory MP and Speaker of the House of Commons, has delivered an extraordinary broadside against Boris Johnson and the Conservative party as he announces he has switched his political allegiance to Labour.
In an explosive interview with the Observer, Bercow says he regards today’s Conservative party as “reactionary, populist, nationalistic and sometimes even xenophobic”.
Bercow, who stepped down as Speaker in 2019 after 10 years, says he joined the Labour party a few weeks ago because he now shares its values and sees it as the only means to removing the current Tory government from office.
“I am motivated by support for equality, social justice and internationalism. That is the Labour brand,” he said. “The conclusion I have reached is that this government needs to be replaced. The reality is that the Labour party is the only vehicle that can achieve that objective. There is no other credible option.”
I didn’t see this one coming but it isn’t without precendent.
Bercow was a figure of derision for his own team because he stood up for the rule of law and decency. His assessment of the UK media as the worst in Europe is largely correct and backed up by surveys which may explain why after his leaving the role of speaker he gave his first major interview to the mainland European media. I’m not a huge fan of any of the majopr parties for lots of reasons but broadly speaking believe Bercow is correct in terms of where he wants to plant his political feet and the need to remove the current regime from office.
Keir Starmer has been urged to take “urgent action” after a senior Labour official claimed antisemitism amongst Muslims was responsible for the party’s bad polling.
[…]
In comments posted on social media after the original publication of this article, Sir Keir’s deputy, Angela Rayner, said: “As deputy leader I want to make clear publicly that these comments that are being attributed to a member of Labour Party staff in a newspaper today are not a Labour Party response or statement, are completely unacceptable and are not condoned or sanctioned in any way by the party.
“I will be ensuring that the party investigates this reported comment in line with our party’s rules and processes. Anybody who has made these comments should and will be dealt with in line with our independent disciplinary procedures, which I have no role in as deputy leader.”
Without commenting or favouring any particular “protected category” over another Labour does have a leadership, management, and legal problem with respect to the Human Rights Act and Equality Act. The party, including Starmer, have been very weak or slow to take positions to eradicate “canteen culture”. It is also a known known that the official parliamentary and party discipline processes are “inadequate” in law. I’ll just say I’m not convinced official puffery is matching action where it matters.
Until I see proof otherwise I view Starmer like the kind of tennis coach who is a “C” grade tennis player. Good enough and with just the right kind of lounge lizard good looks and easy charm to impress ladies at the local tennis club but not good enough to win a tournament.
I’m also not fooled by staged for the camera shots of Starmer with his wife aping carefree and romantic 1960’s Paris.
We still have “Starmer: The Movie” to look forward too. Oh, my heart flutters, not.
Clive Robinson • June 20, 2021 1:51 PM
@ Tõnis,
you’re afraid that free thinkers might get another point of view.
If you were a “thinker” free or otherwise you would not have posted that link.
I’m rather tired of pointing out the lack of logic, reason, sense and evidence in such things.
So either wise up or realise you have a cognative bias issue you need to work on.
Winter • June 20, 2021 2:07 PM
@Clive
“If you were a “thinker” free or otherwise you would not have posted that link.”
The problem is not that they are free thinkers, but fact-free thinkers who have also freed themselves of logic and sense. They think that emotions and wishes are valid sources of opinions.
Winter • June 20, 2021 2:13 PM
@intind44
“At this point in time, how important might you think it is to get to the bottom of finding out how COVID occured?”
It is important because it might help find the next dangerous SARS/corona virus before it actually jumps to humans.
I do agree that expecting such a find does lead to preventive actions is likely a pipe dream.
Clive Robinson • June 20, 2021 2:24 PM
@ intind44,
Does anyone know if this article has any merit?
Apparently little or no merit what so ever, it has all the hallmarks of another “US Special Forces raid servers in Germany” story.
It’s been picked up by ultra right wing web sites and “cut-n-pasted” by click-bate operators at News International and other right wing MSM outlets where they cross quote each other.
With searches on just his name he pops up on several Asian media outlets having one of his more normal rants this week in the same sort of style as “Reds under the beds” nonsense the US used to have back in the 1950’s
Other quick searches show it’s improbable he defected back in Febuary so…
Oh and as for all the stuff he supposadly brought with him, it’s unlikley he actually had access to some of it…
Anyway if you can not be bothered to do your own Googling and OsInt analysis that a junior level journalist would be expected to do.
For a “new handle” that poped up to day your “batting average” is suspiciously low…
@ ALL,
This might atleast give people ammusment,
hxtps://www.moonofalabama.org/2021/06/debunking-a-chinese-defector-story.html
intind44 • June 20, 2021 2:41 PM
You are welcome to remove that link if you like. I wasnt trying to upset anyone. I just happened to have come across it right when the subject was being brought up. However, with all the drama surrounding the subject it was probably a poor choice.
Clive Robinson • June 20, 2021 2:43 PM
@ echo,
Is this Clive’s personal forum? I ask because this is getting boring.
Is your favourit song from Walt Disney’s Snow White?
I only ask because you just keep dig dig digging
As for boring how about your posts, inuendo heavy, link lite, and lacking in information that could be used for fact checking or follow up.
Anonymous • June 20, 2021 2:49 PM
@intind44
“Does anyone know if this article has any merit?”
There’s no way for the layman to evaluate this kind of information.
I expect that in time, it will become clear whether a high-level defection happened but another question is: how will information about the Wuhan lab be presented?
Maybe we won’t be told anything.
But even if USA makes a case that it was a lab leak, they won’t want to release anything that points to Western nations playing at God with viruses in a lab.
I doubt it’s just the CCP have been doing questionable or perhaps even military research in virology.
JonKnowsNothing • June 20, 2021 4:07 PM
@intind44, Anonymous, Clive, Winter, All
re:
“Does anyone know if this article has any merit?”
There’s no way for the layman to evaluate this kind of information.
There is an unrelated but similar case in Australia. A rather nasty business Down Under. You might be able to find out a small amount of information searching on
A former spy was charged over his role in exposing Australia’s 2004 bugging of impoverished ally Timor-Leste. The charge stems from Witness K’s role in exposing Australia’s bugging of its impoverished ally, Timor-Leste, during negotiations to carve up the resource-rich Timor Sea in 2004. Prosecutors say Witness K disclosed some of the details to the Timor-Leste government.
It was only by accident, that the issue was even made public, primarily because the Aussie’s have charged the person’s lawyer under similar laws. That is also under Perfect Security – well near perfect security ’cause it got out to the press too.
Much of this was done in complete secrecy and with nearly no one “in charge” knowing jack-all about what their security services were doing, especially when it came to ensuring Australia got their trade agreement for a pittance by undervaluing the desired resources.
But then who knows what anyone’s security services are actually doing?
Certainly not the average Possum, Bear, Panda, Donkey, Elephant, or Lion.
===
ht tps://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/jun/17/witness-k-speaks-for-first-time-in-open-court-as-he-pleads-guilty-to-breaching-secrecy-laws
ht tps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dame_Edna_Everage
(url fractured to prevent autorun)
Clive Robinson • June 20, 2021 4:08 PM
@ intind44,
You are welcome to remove that link if you like. I wasnt trying to upset anyone.
It’s not up to me, nor should it be, contrary to what has been implied this is not my blog.
I was trying to gently give you a word to the wise, due to some recent behaviour from what appears a Russian time zone, people are a little touchy right now and as you can see “fact checking” is a matter of “positive action”.
As a rough rule of thumb if peer reviewed papers in recognised journals are a source, then people will generally but not always take them at face value. Pre-Prints used to be acceptable as well but they’ve tended to go down the drain in some places and subjects. Use care with even Wikipedia, some areas there are quite dubious in recent times and are getting worse.
As for Main Stream Media it depends on the subject a lot, especially with certain outlets. For instance Rupert Murdochs online outlets are atrocious and even make the worst of his Fox Broadcasting[1] look rational and unbiased. So best give all of them a mis or do as I do, hang a health warning on them.
The usual rule of thumb for MSM is try finding two indipendent sources that do not share common aims or slant. As indicated this is not easy in some places like Australia, which is awkward, because their time zone often puts them first with breaking news from dawn police raids etc in other parts of the world.
The other thing is look for mistakes oddities or what appears to be missing information in articles, for several years the UK Financial Times used to be highly reputable. But for inexplicable reasons they decided that publishing company PR pieces as though it was news was the way to go and it’s circulation tanked. It’s behind a rediculous pay wall these days so I can not judge what it’s like. But other newspapers are heading that way the Uk Guardian has been doingva little of it, and I would not trust them in any way when it comes to UK Inteligence Service articles, they appear to have “Owned the Editor”. Likewise I’ve had doubts about the WasPo and NYTimes for a while now and I always double check any NYT pieces (the WashPo has an access policy I don’t agree with so no longer see it’s articles so for me atleast it has “Died in Darkness” of it’s own making).
But I do have one rule of thumb I do go by, any “New Tech” stories I run by the laws of physics. If the laws of physics alows and the journalist has understood the technology I often accept it without to many qualms. I also look at the logic and reasoning, it sometimes amazes me how some journalists appear incapable of applying either or getting to grips with concepts youl’d expect last year of high school kids to understand.
But if you are not sure of a piece but think it news worth say clearly that you have doubts or could not fact check it. And if you can give two unrelated source links. People understand that as they can then make their own judgments.
For instance the other day there were those Australian / FBI encrypted smart phone app raids. I’d seen one or two almost word for word identical articles including mistakes on two Australian outlets, that looked like they were very click-bait written. I passed it over as I could not find any other source at the time. Not long after somebody else posted it and I joked they must be in Australia… Well I got it wrong it did turn out to be a major story, but it felt wrong at the time I found it… Sometimes you can be over cautious.
However at the moment as I said people are a little more suspicious due to certain behaviours. If I chalange some one I’ve usually given my reasoning and it’s generally about the information not the person.
If you want to grab a few Brownie points “backdooring” apps or OS’s usually grabs more than a few people as does increasingly failures in CPU designs or other low level hardware vulnerabilities.
[1] Some people say Murdoch pulled Fox out of the UK hours ahead of a finding that would have seen it baned.
But it might also be that the UK regulator is going to block Murdochs plans to get more control on media outlets in the UK so that he can pull the sorts of stunts he’s been puling in Australia where he’s been acxused of killing journalism and geting the current administration to give him the equivalent of taxation powers over other major corporations. As a matter of historical record he and his children only narrowly avoided being turned from crooks to criminals. In the case of Rupert by acting as though he was senile, in the case of some of his children by staying out of UK jurisdiction.
It’s clear he has a malign influance the “vaccine blood clots” story that was very heavily biased originated from three different Murdoch outlets one of which is Sky News. He is also by undetcuting other news agencies pushing out right wing opinion and lobbying on many supposadly independent radio stations in the UK.
Perhaps it’s not surprising it’s been said numerous times the James Bond arch villain “Elliot Carva” was based on Rupert Murdoch, but had to be “toned down” to be believable even in a fiction film series noted for unbelievabley evil arch villains.
Little Slugger • June 20, 2021 4:16 PM
MarkH • June 20, 2021 4:38 PM
@echo:
As far as I am aware, this is not Clive’s personal forum.
His looming presence reflects the prodigious time and energy he has invested here over many years, which in turn reflects his abundant generosity in endeavouring to instruct blog readers on topics both useful and interesting, and to answer questions be they naive or sophisticated.
I might say that from time to time Clive’s a cantankerous old curmudgeon … but as I am myself a cantankerous old curmudgeon, my legal counsel has advised me that making such an accusation would not tend to my benefit.
Clive Robinson • June 20, 2021 5:02 PM
@ JonKnowsNothing, Anonymous, intind44, Winter, All
There is an unrelated but similar case in Australia. A rather nasty business Down Under.
It’s difficult to tell what’s been going on. Because of rather bad Australian legislation to “protect the guilt” government entities from oversight by wrapping them in a “national security” flag.
I would not be supprised to find out in the due course of time that a lot of corruption was involved with “the favoured few” of the Australian Government Depts getting well paid advisor positions etc in the companies that have benifited from the “rape” of one of the poorist nations on earth, by Australia which is one of the richest per capita in the world.
To quote one of the very few news items from last year when Witness K’s legal representative Bearnard Collaery who also faces a jail sentance, was given an international free speach award,
“The charge stems from an episode during which Collaery, who frequently acted for intelligence officers, represented an Australian spy known as Witness K, who had grown increasingly concerned about a 2004 mission to bug the government offices of Timor-Leste during commercial negotiations with Australia, an ally, to carve up the resource-rich Timor Sea.”
It blows the lid off of the “Five-Eyes” pretence to be the “Good Guys” when it comes to espionage, and proves that they are just the usual thugs hiding behind “Might is Right”, when they should be doing time.
We’ve had good reason in the recent past to suspect the US used espionage for commercial reasons over Oil and Lithium resources in South America.
Here we have Australia with an insider become whistleblower to an international tribunal where the Australian government was lying worse than a cheap watch to an international court.
Having been caught red handed they’ve spent eight years persecuting Witness K and his lawyer because they had been caught being not just hypocritical but immoral thieves and like any unrepentant villain they tried not just to keep it covered up but went into not just victim blaiming but all out persecution.
And people wonder why Julian Assange does not want to go back to his native country Australia, for fear he might be shipped off to the US before his feet touch the ground…
I guess we are going to have to wait for more information.
MarkH • June 20, 2021 5:11 PM
@intind44 et al:
Though it’s now a badge of “political virtue” to disparage major news sources (especially for extremists, left or right), there are very important distinctions which you can find documented, by doing a little research.
A minority of news sources have policies requiring intensive verification of what they publish. Because the error rate cannot practically be reduced to zero, some sliver of incorrect information slips through … and is generally corrected when better info is obtained.
When a news story likely to be of wide interest appears in low-rigor outlets, but the “majors” don’t pick it up, this is often because either (a) they are aware of the story and unable to confirm it, or (b) they are aware of the story and concluded that it’s garbage. When this happens, the conspiracy theorists will scream “the MSM are CENSORING this vital truth!”
I hope that the foregoing cautionary note may be useful.
I also observe that stories about “a defector from [insert evil country or organization here] telling a sensational tale of [insert really bad stuff here]” are a classic pattern.
Such information might be valid … but often either (1) the defector is an independent fabricator, (2) the “defector” is a planted source of disinformation, or (3) the “source” is some random migrant hired by politically motivated operatives to spread a fraudulent story.
A painfully apposite example of case (1) is Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi, code name CURVEBALL, whose falsehoods about Iraqi WMD were swallowed whole by the governments of the U.S. and U.K. in their quest not for the truth but the predetermined “right answer.”
Louisville Slugger • June 20, 2021 7:32 PM
intind44 • June 20, 2021 9:35 PM
@Clive, echo, MarkH, JonKnowsNothing, Anonymous
Thank you guys for the lessons. I have been visiting the site for a couple years or more now and Clive has always stood out to me as “The Elder”. Incredibly Wise and knowledgable always taking the time to educate those looking to learn. Even when they probably werent using thier own brains. Im still learning and sometimes I get a little excited and speak before I think. I do mean well though.
SpaceLifeForm • June 20, 2021 10:42 PM
@ Rj, Clive, ALL
The phone is ET, and it is calling home. It is providing telemetry to the mothership.
Note that no SIM is required. These actions can occur over WIFI. I know this because I have seen it using N devices (N > 1) sans SIM, but that can connect over WIFI.
If there is a cell modem, then there is telemetry even without a SIM.
The mothership, based upon the telemetry, tells the device what to download and install.
At least iPhone provides a notification to the user to download and install.
Android doing this behind the scenes from the users perspective is not acceptable, as that means one could be specifically targeted.
That this so-called app has no icon, and is supposedly not enabled by default, is no excuse for this kind of behaviour.
I would be very upset if this happened to me when I am low on storage space.
And because it requires BlueTooth, this is a non-starter. I do not want BT active when I have no need for it, and it will be wasting my battery. And guess what else happens when BT is active? Your WIFI/BT radio is active. Seeing nearby WIFI APs, collecting the SSIDs. More telemetry.
This action has nothing to do with contract tracing.
hxtps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27558500
[find megous comment. He knows that of which he speaks]
SpaceLifeForm • June 20, 2021 10:56 PM
@ Rj, Clive, ALL
Typo. This action has nothing to do with contact tracing.
Actually, that is incorrect. It is about contact tracing, but not regarding Covid-19.
JonKnowsNothing • June 21, 2021 1:16 AM
@Clive, Winter, MarkH, SpaceLifeForm, All
re: Another COVID-19 Mut soon to be near you … LAMBDA
While folks in UK, EU and USA are focusing the COVID-19 Variant Delta (aka B.1.617.2 aka Variant 2 found in India), in South America they are dealing with a variant newly designated as Lambda (aka C.37 aka Andean/Peru) is causing huge problems in Peru, Chili, Argentina, Uruguay.
There are several interesting aspects to Lambda (C.37)
Items 2 and 3, mean that the current iteration of PCR tests do not properly identify Lambda variant. Indications are now that it was in circulation much longer because it may have been incorrectly marked at Gamma P.1. (1)
C.37 and P.1 share the ORF1a: 3675-3677 mutation and would (in principle) give the same result in this PCR test. In other words, it is possible that many of the samples identified as P.1 by INS are actually C.37
Item 5, The immune escape effects listed from a March 2021 Study
L452K causes resistance to neutralization
L452R is predicted to increase affinity to ACE2
L452Q is currently only found in Lambda C.37
===
1, note: There have been some previous posts regarding PCR tests and accuracy that maybe found on the archives or Way Back Machine.
ht tps://www.archyde.com/andean-variant-circulation-grew-and-there-is-concern-in-the-government/
ht tps://www.revyuh.com/news/lifestyle/health-and-fitness/who-reports-a-new-strain-of-covid-19-which-has-already-attacked-29-countries/
ht tps://www.archyde.com/c-37-the-new-variant-of-covid-19-that-spreads-in-peru-and-chile-coronavirus-ins-upch-peru/
ht tps://europepmc.org/article/MED/33961632
With the emergence of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) variants that may increase transmissibility and/or cause escape from immune responses, there is an urgent need for the targeted surveillance of circulating lineages. It was found that the B.1.1.7 (also 501Y.V1) variant, first detected in the United Kingdom, could be serendipitously detected by the Thermo Fisher TaqPath COVID-19 PCR assay because a key deletion in these viruses, spike Δ69–70, would cause a “spike gene target failure” (SGTF) result. However, a SGTF result is not definitive for B.1.1.7, and this assay cannot detect other variants of concern (VOC) that lack spike Δ69–70, such as B.1.351 (also 501Y.V2), detected in South Africa, and P.1 (also 501Y.V3), recently detected in Brazil. We identified a deletion in the ORF1a gene (ORF1a Δ3675–3677) in all 3 variants, which has not yet been widely detected in other SARS-CoV-2 lineages. Using ORF1a Δ3675–3677 as the primary target and spike Δ69–70 to differentiate, we designed and validated an open-source PCR assay to detect SARS-CoV-2 VOC. Our assay can be rapidly deployed in laboratories around the world to enhance surveillance for the local emergence and spread of B.1.1.7, B.1.351, and P.1.
ht tps://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/rmv.2231
L452R is predicted to increase affinity to ACE2 since position 452 belongs to so-called 443–450 loop epitope (aa 443–452 and 494–501) a. L452R causes resistance to LY-CoV555 (bamlanivimab), while the related mutation L452K causes resistance to neutralization by COVA2-29 mAb.78 L452R is the is the only Spike mutation found in CAL.20A [99] (B.1.232, which also infected gorillas in San Diego zoo) and the most concerning and recently acquired mutation in the CAL.20C (B.1.429) strain which caused a peak in cases in Southern California since November 2020.99 L452R is also found in A.21, A.2.4, B.1.1.10, B.1.1.130 and C.16, while a single B.1.74 strain harbors the L452Q mutation.
(url fractured to prevent autorun)
RealFakeNews • June 21, 2021 1:59 AM
@JonKnowsNothing:
Delta (B.1.617.2) or Kappa (B.1.617.2).
Typo? They have the same identifiers.
RealFakeNews • June 21, 2021 2:01 AM
There may be a new varient in Russia. No details as yet.
hxxps://www.reuters.com/world/moscow-covid-19-surge-probably-due-infectious-variants-mayor-2021-06-17/
Clive Robinson • June 21, 2021 4:06 AM
@ SpaceLifeForm, Rj, ALL,
[find megous comment. He knows that of which he speaks]
From little seeds,
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SyncML
Do great oak trees grow, and cast dark shadows across the land.
The reason SyncML started oh about a quater of a century ago was a problem that was plaguing those who “held contracts” on peoples mobile connectivity. What actually pushed it was the idea of making money on $5 ring tones and other intangibles that were effectively worthless (nothing gets attention like the idea of ‘free money’ does).
The “contract” holders wanted ways to easily download “their code” onto “your phone” for “reasons” one of which became clear when the CarrierIQ debacle blew up.
Thus they needed “a common” method “that would work with all mobiles” better than “SMS Type 0″[1] where “phone peculiarities” did not need to be known just the SIM or Phone electronic ID’s.
Which is also what those who wanted to sell expensive intangables also wanted.
As I pointed out later to a friend who was still in that part of the industry,
“It’s what Repo-Men, Crackers, extortionists, and worse want as well”.
With the “worse” implying amongst others,”authoritarian prod noses” such as all Guard Labour no matter who they are payed by be they governments or banks[2].
But as I’ve mentioned before the Five-Eyes were very good at getting usefull features[1] put in international standards for “health and safety” reasons if you look at another comment by “fragileone” you will see the result of just one of their little games (E911) referenced.
Few realise when they talk of Google having “Remote root” over Android realise that is nothing in comparison to what the standards and the way they get implemented make the SIM… Effectively the equivalent of Intel’s Ring -3 Managment Engine, that due to design deficiencies in many SIM cards can give such power to many people.
[1] SMS Type 0 messages also known as “Silent Messages” are interesting examples. Supposadly used for “Network engineering and managment” all phone SIMs must be able to receive them at all times and a user must not be able to turn them off or get indication they have been recieved… They are so used by Guard Labour for tracking and worse these days…
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Short_Message_Service#Silent_SMS
[2] My friend had worked for a small “data recovery” company that was on the rise, but got taken over by a very unpleasant set of undesirables Kroll Associates and she had understandably left. My friend moved into the telco side of the industry via someone else I knew and recommended them to, and was on the rise and had got involved with “standards”. The chat we had happened in 2004. I remember it well because Kroll was being talked about extensively in the Tech News for causing the defenistration of an uncooperative private citizen who was an IT person. It happened at Abby National HQ and Kroll were trying to make it look like “a guilty person” committing suicide.
https://www.standard.co.uk/hp/front/abbey-embroiled-in-suicide-riddle-6959644.html
The interview was carried out by two Ex-Police officers working for Kroll at the time who used the now strongly disapproved of “Reid Technique” with apparently their own enhancments. The Reid technique is known to cause significant mental health issues in ordinary innocent people (think depression PTSD and suicide),
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reid_technique
Possibly why it’s still very much in vouge in US Guard Labour, “as nothing says guilty like a suspect committing suicide”, so case closed quick, a celebratory beer, and onto the next one…
Clive Robinson • June 21, 2021 4:43 AM
@ RealFakeNews, ALL,
The arguments AGAINST this ignore the fact that there is overwhelming evidence showing the US funded research into “gain-of-function”
Your reasoning is flawed and clearly biased, perhaps you should consider dropping the “Real”…
The “funding” has been a subject of lively debate that goes nowhere and for good reason. It’s been denied then it hasn’t and all sorts of other nonsense.
But even if it is true, there is a significant “missing link” more so than what you are insistant is ultra inportant of,
No evidence to this day of naturally-occurring zoonotic transmission
Which by the way is not true, the issue is a “missing link” of an animamal that has not been YET identified. However natural animal-human and human-animal transfer of SARS-2 has been demonstrated with both wildelife (mustelids) and domesticated (Felidae) animals. Likewise other animal corona viruses that are being investigated as a possible cause of the wide disparity in how badly or not people respond to SARS (it’s suspected a feline corona virus may activate human immunity). So the likelyhood of zoonotic transfer is of a way way way greater probability than “man-made” by a factor greater than most can comprehend.
But the “missing-links” you are ignoring are that between the “alledged funding” through to a “lab leak” in a Level Four fascility.
You are making several unfounded assumptions for which no evidence has been produced….
So your argunent fails on each one of those missing-links.
I could go on and shoot holes in you other unreasond assumptions, but I know you are not going to take them on board and will just look desperately to find other unreasoned arguments to support your cognative bias…
You have the next stage of “Throw mud at the wall syndrome” which is “If no mud will stick make it pile up so high it appears from a distance like it’s stuck”. Remember,
“Appearances are not reality they are illusions, that show men and fakers have exploited for entertainment and religious control in the gulible for as long as man has existed”.
It’s one of the reasons rational science exists, it exposese fakes. Especially those that hide their real identities and plans as crooks frequently do.
name.withheld.for.obvious.reasons • June 21, 2021 10:16 AM
@Clive
But as I’ve mentioned before the Five-Eyes were very good at getting usefull features[1] put in international standards for “health and safety” reasons
There is a proposed system that has seen partial deployment in the U.S., it is a program under the FCC, FirstNet. It does not disclose what was obvious at the time of the proposals, it has to do with bistatic, FM, and Spread spectrum, physical density measured on the continent as per-meter and better, along with an SDR for repurposing. Taken individually, it looks innocuous, as a system–not good.
Winter • June 21, 2021 10:22 AM
One student can indeed make a difference:
Final guidance on Schrems II ruling: Data from EU could be held up if a third country lets authorities access it
ht tps://www.theregister.com/2021/06/21/final_guidance_on_schrems_ii/
In “third country” read “USA”, or UK.
Clive Robinson • June 21, 2021 10:56 AM
@ name.withheld…,
Known by some as the “AT&T Subsidy”
From what I’ve heard it is going to be another “TETRA” type boondoggle, promise the earth and deliver the worlds most expensive manure pile.
The first sign of this was agressive behaviour by AT&T against other probably more effective information distribution systems. That is they adopted the classic dug in “Our way or no way” position that got the original AT&T broken up into the “Baby Bells” and the liberalisation of the communications market that they have been fighting back against every which way they can (see what they are trying to do to stop indipendent or community mobile and data networks and the eye wateringly over egged prices they charge for services that some third world nations have better, way better).
But if you want a fun read think about what is between the lines with this curious page,
https://current.org/2019/12/in-fcc-proceeding-apts-makes-case-for-aiding-firstnet/
They are of course right what they propose would be of significant advantage, but there is no way AT&T are going to willingly work with it, that would stop their monopoly hike the price and bleed them dry plans.
ADFGVX • June 21, 2021 11:11 AM
@ Clive Robinson
agressive behaviour … that got the original AT&T broken up into the “Baby Bells” and the liberalisation of the communications market that they have been fighting back against every which way they can
Just like the railroads under the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890. That was a Democrat act of course, but even back then there was plenty of Red Communism creeping into the Republican Party.
Railroads and telegraph lines were originally built on that principal of Communism as community property of unclear ownership throughout the “Wild West” or namely the lands constituting the Louisiana Purchase.
Various transportation and communication companies — even after the breakup — “use” the infrastructure and facilities and pay to maintain them or have them maintained under various contractual arrangements, which are made more on the basis of a handshake or a wink and a nod than on any sort of law or equity.
SpaceLifeForm • June 21, 2021 3:24 PM
Is Chase Bank pwned?
Are they testing in prod?
Should I hurry up and open an account to receive the $50B?
Even if I have to wait until 2099-12-31 to access those funds?
hxtps://nosafebets.com/2021/06/21/chase-bank-users-report-50-billion-dollar-balance-changes/
Clive Robinson • June 21, 2021 3:37 PM
@ Winter,
… few Americans have ever seen or heard a Communist or even know what a Communist actually believes.
Which is why they have probably met one but neither of them realised it…
Most Americans get told it was Karl Marx that started Communism in the reading room of the British Library.
But that was Marxism which subsumed some of many faiths / belief systems in it.
For a couple of millennium prior to that “communism” was a tenant of many Christian sects and still is to this day, and thus found all over the US. Prior to that Ovid, Seneca and similar espoused communist thinking, but it is older far far older and was and still is in some places an equitable way of living within an environment by small often mobile groups of people. In a sense they have an ethos of custodianship not possession, responsabilities not rights.
Generally communism fails with people with European heritage, especialy Norman. Also generally it fails else where when population density rises beyond small groupings and the number of “Dark Triad” non neuro typicals can start to rise beyond a very very tiny fraction of the population. Those of the Dark Triad afflictions don’t generally get to survive into adulthood in very small societies where mutual dependence is a very high priority survival trait (the “common good” tends to drive them out and they tend not to be able to survive let alone find mates).
But elsewhere what were once called indigenous natives or bushmen frequently practiced a form of communism as they live in harmony with their suroundings and each other.
@ ADFGVX,
That was a Democrat act of course, but even back then there was plenty of Red Communism creeping into the Republican Party.
US politicians are very definately not “communists” that is true. However they are not even “capatalists” either. Whilst they do appear to have affinity with fascism and nationalism they are actually mainly proto-monarchists, pretty much all republicans –with a small r– are, they also exhibit dangerously high levels of conservatism –with a small c– hence the societal stagnation and decline they cause.
History shows that republics come about because no one person or family can gain sufficient power to become the godhead and thus divine representative on earth or monarch. So republicans do however definitely believe in an appointed divine ruler (President) and courtiers (two houses and judiciary) and have no affinity for democracy what so ever despite what they claim.
Prefering the “estates of man” societal model with a ruling cast and clergy of high status, similar to those of France in it’s pre-revolutionary times that gained it’s hight in chivalric times of a millenium or so ago. In what would be called the areas of Normandy-Picardy down to Nouvelle-Aquitaine regions encompasing much of North Western half of France and home to the descendants of “North-men” we would call Normans. It was societally stagnent and only realy got changed by social changes caused by successive wars and plagues.
As for the notion of “property” and “property rights” yes that’s a very definite attribute of a Norman monarchist Estates of the Realm model. That is hierarchical status based on land and patrimony, as lords they own all by divine right and have “eminent domain”. By all, they mean the land, what lives upon it the sky above and what lies under it. So you had enforced fealty and surfdom, like cattle you were owned from birth, and survied by your lords grace. It was why for lords banishment was the second worst form of punishment, with only excommunication above it. Your duties loyalty and life were governed by two rigedly and violently enforced hierarchies that of inheritance and that of the church. Both of which still hold significant sway in the US today hence “old money families”, “political familes” and fundementalist strongly political and familial religions.
Both the “lords” and the “church” lie to keep people in line, with the corporeal “Great American Dream” and the discorporeal “Life eternal”. Both compleat and utter bunk but pushed into childrens heads before they have the intellectual capacity to see them for what they are, thus most have life long cognative bias, much to the benifit of lords and church.
What is realy scary is that the “founding fathers” knew you had to keep the two hierarchies of “lords” and “church” seperated. It was the rising of the bourgeois class through trade and craft that upset the balance of power. As others have noted “church” and “lords” have in recent times become more unified and thus the balance has been upset and history suggests chaos and decline are the two most likely paths.
But I can guess what you are going to say, but before you do consider this… You have a bone of contention with both the lords and the church who you feel have stripped you of one of your cherished rights. You do realise that neither will give you your right back, but true communists would, they would in fact see it as a necessity for group survival. Just a thought for you to consider.
JonKnowsNothing • June 21, 2021 4:40 PM
@RealFakeNews
re:
Delta (B.1.617.2) or Kappa (B.1.617.2)
Typo? They have the same identifiers.
Yes typo, Thank You for catching it.
Delta (B.1.617.2) or Kappa (B.1.617.1)
eastman • June 21, 2021 5:42 PM
vas pup • June 21, 2021 5:48 PM
Germany arrests Russian scientist on spying charge
https://www.dw.com/en/germany-arrests-russian-scientist-on-spying-charge/a-57982238
If interested read the article and watch two short good videos inside.
vas pup • June 21, 2021 5:58 PM
Autopsies in the digital age
For more than 2,000 years, the methods used to conduct autopsies have barely changed. Now, a team of forensic scientists in Zurich have pioneered a new way of examining the dead: The virtual autopsy.
https://www.dw.com/en/autopsies-in-the-digital-age/av-57955718
6 min video
RealFakeNews • June 21, 2021 8:31 PM
@Clive Robinson:
>> No evidence to this day of naturally-occurring zoonotic transmission
Which by the way is not true, the issue is a “missing link” of an animamal that has not been YET identified. However natural animal-human and human-animal transfer of SARS-2 has been demonstrated with both wildelife (mustelids) and domesticated (Felidae) animals.
Yes. Reference Mink in Netherlands and Denmark.
What I meant was: there has been zero determination after 18 months of a zoonotic source that could be the source of the original outbreak. The wet market theory is the closest anyone got, but there was zero evidence of the virus in any of the animals taken from there.
The original source of the SARS-CoV-2 virus is from bats, but even there, there is no evidence of a version tat can pass zoonotically. They do not have the required mutations.
I may make abbreviated points, but I’ll be writing essays all day long if I explain every tiny detail.
Anonymous • June 21, 2021 9:07 PM
@RealFakeNews June 21, 2021 8:31 PM
He has no time for dissenting perspectives.
It’s interesting to speculate why … such loyalty …
Fake • June 21, 2021 9:36 PM
“Loyalty” is borderline slander, there could be legitimate reasons outside of personal beliefs.
Keeping a site open and neutral over borders could be one for example and that’s certainly with merit in such and such a case.
SpaceLifeForm • June 21, 2021 9:45 PM
@ Clive, ALL
Seems like we’ve seen this movie before. My bold.
hxtps://eprint.iacr.org/2021/839 [ 8 page PDF ]
Abstract—From June 2019 to March 2020, IETF conducted a selection process to choose password authenticated key exchange(PAKE) protocols for standardization. Similar standardization efforts were conducted before by IEEE (P1362.2) and ISO/IEC(11770-4). An important hallmark for this IETF selection process is its openness: anyone can nominate any candidate; all reviews are public; all email discussions on the IETF mailing lists are archived and publicly readable. However, despite the openness,it is unclear whether this IETF selection process has presented a successful model. Several important questions that were raised during the selection process had remained unaddressed even after the two winners (CPace and OPAQUE) were announced. We reflect on the IETF PAKE selection process as a case study, and summarize lessons in a set of principles with the hope to improve security standardization in the future.
JonKnowsNothing • June 21, 2021 10:00 PM
@All
re: Zoonotic Virus Jumps
While it may not change anyone’s particular stance on Viral Jumps Between Species, it happens quite regularly. Some virus families have better affinity to jump to humans than others.
The Avian influenza virus has a long list of cross overs. (1) The list is divided into 2 sections:
Both sections are fatal to all birds. HPAI versions are what cross over to humans most often. Recently a report of a LPAI that had never previously crossed over to humans, did.
There isn’t any particular reason why that LPAI crossed over, no smoking in the labs, or open windows or firing biological warfare canisters from US Naval ships in San Francisco Bay; just proximity and mutation chance.
HPAI/LPAI causes billions of dollars damage yearly. Flocks of domestic chickens, ducks, geese are frequently culled causing not only loss of income, but loss of food resources. Huge areas and countries are affected globally.
So, if you are interested in how a virus makes The Leap, you might want to spend some time looking at animal viruses that do just that.
An extra benefit is, that you will find your food supply might not be as resilient as you think it is. There are more empty shelves globally than you realize and those same empty shelves can show up in your cosmopolitan area pretty fast, particularly if you consider the relevant Mathematical Function for Disappearing Loo-Rolls .
===
1, Avian Flu and African Swine Fever Virus have been discussed on the blog before. Details can be found in the archives or Wayback Machine
Influenza (flu) and Coronavirus (colds, COVID-19) are different.
ht tps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avian_influenza
ht tps://www.oie.int/en/disease/avian-influenza/
ht tps://wahis.oie.int/#/events?viewAll=true
(url fractured to prevent autorun)
SpaceLifeForm • June 21, 2021 10:01 PM
@ ALL
Ditching OpenPGP, a new approach to signing APT repositories
hxtps://wiki.debian.org/Teams/Apt/Spec/AptSign
Over the past few years, it has become clear that OpenPGP is a major disappointment for repository signing, the interfaces around being the cause for multiple security vulnerabilities; and limited development speed and deprecation of algorithms and key sizes causing uncertainty about long term safety of LTS releases.
This document outlines a new approach to signing repositories. For the time being, one algorithm is being used: Ed25519 with SHA512, also used by signify-openbsd, minisign, and OpenSSH (ssh-ed25519).
Winter • June 22, 2021 12:51 AM
@ADFGVX, Clive
“You know there is such a thing as private property.”
That is an 18th century invention sacralized in the 19th, for men. Before the 18th century, With few exceptions, most people were not allowed to have property of any kind, and if they had it, it came with many restrictions and limitations. Before the second half of the 20th century, women had little or no say in the management of property, even if it was nominally theirs.
The idea of communal ownership was, and still is, the basis of monasteries and most tribal societies. As Clive wrote, there is absolutely nothing new to that.
What was new from Marx was the idea of the state as a cooperation with no private ownership of the means of production (which is not the same as no private ownership, sec).
PS, remarkable how Libertarian and connected right wing extremists are stuck in the 19th century and idolize a state of affairs that limited rights of any kind to 1/3 of the people.
Clive Robinson • June 22, 2021 1:30 AM
@ vas pup, ALL,
Germany arrests Russian scientist on spying charge
A thought to consider…
Back in the last half of the last century, it was felt that the stockpile of nuclear weapons had made a war between the two dominant superpowers of the US and Russia inpossible due to MAD[1].
But both of the major super powers were idiologically “them or us” imperialists hell bent on expanding their idiology by what ever means was open to them and forcing neutrality or other idiologies out. Basic aberant mental behaviour in both leaderships.
Well MAD nolonger applies there are more than two nuclear armed super powers and always has been, and the nuclear response is not likely to happen, and this has been recognised as such by ideologically belligerent super power leaderships.
The result was “hot proxie wars”, “buffer zones” and “spheres of enforced influance”. Whilst proxie wars do continue the middle east being the main example currently, they tend to require those countries to have certain aberant leadership styles that can be easily manipulated. Or attract no sympathy if “bombed back to the stone ages” due to Orwellian propaganda tactics used on the home citizens.
Orwellian propaganda only realy works if there is “one clear message” which used to be possible for a super power leadership to achive on the home citizens. But as with the recent “hate on China” Orwellian propaganda having failed it’s become clear that proxie wars have a new “war space” we call “cyber” for no good reason. Being a non tangible information space it is not limited in the way conventional warfare is by locality, distance, and resources. As Qanon and Anti-Vax have clearly demonstrated as little as a dozen people or even less can make the “Army of One” ethos a reality.
One of the new proxie wars is the US set out to “Destroy Europe” in part that is what the hot wars generated in the Middle East are all about. The US has developed a policy of economic destabalisation by driving ME refugees into Europe and applying information warfare about them. Thus Russia has adopted a response which is to make raw resources which it has in abundance available to Europe thus not just in part negate US policy, also gain increasing influance and eventually it hopes considerable control by controling the “power of” switch.
The US response to that Russian German pipeline can thus not only be seen but the reason for it. This includes US influance on the House of Saud to bring oil prices down to a point where the Russian pipeline would not be economically viable.
More interestingly it makes Germany a location for a new form of hot proxie war in the new “war space” of “cyber”. Thus I suspect things are going to get one heck of a lot more “interesting”[2] over the rest of this year, with other European countries getting similar treatment in the near future.
[1] MAD more correctly Mutually Assured Destruction, was and still is a series of assumptions. That “BOTH” sides having sufficient nuclear “WARHEADS” and sufficient “DELIVERY” systems would if either attacked the other produce a “RESPONSE” that would cause “both” sides to be “DESTROYED”, thus “both” would “BEHAVE” in an “AVOIDENT” manner. It sounds beguiling simple but I’ve highlighted the questionable assumptions. The first and most important of which is it is a “two player game” which it is clearly not any longer. The second is that the behaviour will be “avoident” history shows that no matter how bad the probability is some people will feel they can “beat the odds” that is they are “not rational actors”. It applies to both sides launching with low probability of success for attack and low probability of survival. Actual testing showed that “the two key” policy fails badly, which called the whole MAD rational into question. Put simply it had an underlying logic that fails, in that it assumes those allegedly in control are rational actors not psychopaths and that those who’s fingers are actually on the trigger will be psychopaths or automatons not independent entities and pull the trigger only on a faceless order. Humans just do not work that way and can not be seperated out to do so. The simple fact is all command structures are hierarchies and power accrus at the top and that power attracts psychopaths, narcissists and sadists all of whom are unlikely to behave rationaly.
[2] Interesting as in the ancient Chinese curse of,
“May you live in interesting times”
Winter • June 22, 2021 1:53 AM
@Clive
“Thus Russia has adopted a response which is to make raw resources which it has in abundance available to Europe thus not just in part negate US policy, also gain increasing influance and eventually it hopes considerable control by controling the “power of” switch.”
Things are much messier than you describe. I suspect:
1) Russian economy is going nowhere, and the nightmare of Russian politics is the death of Putin. There is zero plans what to do after Putin leaves. And the current Russian autocracy really, really need the European money to stay in power. Germany is already on a crash course to de-carbonizing its economy. They simply bet that they will be able to laugh at any Russia demands when they dare to make some.
2) Europe, Russia, and China are aging societies. The USA only little less so In a decade or so, their work-force, and economies, will start to contract. India, Africa, and South America have large, growing work forces. Their economies will start to grow very fast. The Northern world will have only two options: Moving industry to the South, or letting people from the South into their countries. A hidden third option is to move older people from the North to the South as a Global Florida.
3) The ME is a mess only because of the USA propping up unproductive tribal Arab fiefdoms. The biggest powers are Israel, Turkey, Egypt, and Iran, all solid nation states. The rest are tribal areas that have to import all of their work-force to get anything done at all. If de-carbonizing the global economy works, the whole card-house that is the Arab peninsula and the Dollar hegemony will tumble down.
Winter • June 22, 2021 4:23 AM
@Not So Anonymous
“It’s interesting to speculate why … such loyalty …”
Loyalty to reason, logic and empirical evidence tends to run high in STEM practitioners and other honest people.
Many others are loyal to other causes, but they are only good at creating problems, and very bad at solving them. The pandemic made that very, very clear at the cost of millions of lives.
Clive Robinson • June 22, 2021 5:00 AM
@ JonKnowsNothing, ALL,
Both sections are fatal to all birds.
Which indirectly brings up the real scary elephant in the room,
“Disease reservoir”
1, What is it?
2, Where is it?
3, Why does it persist?
The longer SARS-2 persists the more likely it will develop a “disease reservoir” thus become a “persistant threat”.
Though the odds of it being an “Existential threat” are probably low, as a virus it is markedly different to most other viruses and looks like it is following a new evolutionary advantage path that is due to social changes in mankind that are maybe a half century old… (yup think on that for a moment it’s within many readers here life times).
Essentially the change is to do with when an infected person is infectious and when they are symptomatic.
The “traditional” primate virus approach is you get infected and as you start to become infectious you develop symptoms that make you seek out other humans for warmth / comfort / assistance / sympathy / etc so bring fresh viable hosts to the virus you are then shedding.
But due to the increasing numbers of “singletons” in Western high density living, and that being seen to be ill is very distinctly frowned upon in the work place[1] or socially, having symptoms effectively forces you issolate instead[2] these days. Thus any virus you may be sheading does not find a susceptible host before it becomes non viable.
SARS-2 though has changed the order around, you become infected and shed virus before you become symptomatic if you even do. Thus close quarters working and gregarious social activies in close quater environments brings SARS-2 into contact with way more viable hosts thus the R0 number is higher and as we’ve seen super-spreaders a rather more common issue.
But it has a secondary and rather more worrying evolutionary issue. The older primate virus infection model actually caused viruses to become less leathal/hatmfull as they mutated in part because it was a slow process. The new SARS-2 infection model is very fast in comparrison (apparently not uncommon in bat viruses). This means it is designed to overwhelm immune systems rapidly, which in primates makes it much more harmfull if not leathal. Also it means it does not depend on survivability of a host thus there is no real downwards preasure on it to become less harmful or leathal…
[1] Apparently according to union employment advocates / representatives and legal staff I’ve spoken to, people are known to have been sacked for being ill at work. Though I’ve yet to find “solid proof”, in part because other excuses that appear “legal” are not difficult to invent by an employer. Such as failing a coincidentily timed performance review, in a case I was helping someone with (in the UK discriminating against disability is illegal, but disease and illness even if shown to be caused by an employers work practices is apparently not illegal).
[2] This does happen in non primate species, for instance some pack animals that hunt have very keen senses and do drive out sick individuals.
Easton* • June 22, 2021 6:15 AM
And the other shoe, is places that willfully expose others. The cops can’t even effect the drug trade, what effect do you think they have on the blind eye?
This bug is a whole different ballgame as you illustrate.
That’s great for unionized environments where the “well off” can find a sympathy check. Come work with me for a week /bra/.
Winter • June 22, 2021 6:16 AM
@Clive
“he older primate virus infection model actually caused viruses to become less leathal/hatmfull as they mutated in part because it was a slow process. The new SARS-2 infection model is very fast in comparrison (apparently not uncommon in bat viruses). ”
All zooonoses start out virulent. But viruses are parasites, they thrive as long as their hosts are alive. Like with other pathogens, the evolutionary pressure is to increase infections and the period their host is infectious.
This means that the pressure is to delay all symptoms that do not help spread the virus. There are already 4 other CoV infections in humans that are considered “common cold” viruses that very well could have started out like SARS-1, MERS, or COVID-19 but are currently almost harmless.
Note that this is a lot “long-term” behavior, and as we know, in the long term we are all dead. This will not help us in the next decade.
However, after everyone has anti-bodies against SARS-2, be it by having been infected or vaccinated, the disease will finally get a more “flu-like” appearance and circulate like a seasonal respiratory infection mainly affecting children. And as we know, children hardly notice the infection. New mutants might break through the immunity, but the course of the disease will still be relatively mild due to cross immunity.
This was also the classical course of the old “childhood diseases, e.g., measles, mumps, chickenpox, which tended to have a rather high morbidity (and mortality) when they infected adults, and less so when infecting children. After childhood infection, re-infection was rather rare (it does happen, e.g., in chickenpox/shingles).
Fake • June 22, 2021 6:34 AM
The older model is based on assumptions, those ‘cold’ viruses if they did evolve through the methods your describe came upon us at a time when international travel took weeks not hours or days.
Your antique model errplane is broken bud, quit sniffing the glue.
I have a company telling others I’m an mbzlr for not wanting to expose my family to theirs.
Hopefully, I’m anonymous enough. So quit calling me right wing.
Weather • June 22, 2021 8:06 AM
Sha256 probability program update. The values at the finish of the program run give clue’s to what the password input length is and its complexity, if the value is low its a short basic password, if large up to 100 times it long or compelex. These were from six tests ranging from upper and lowcase 8 in length, too 32 in length with 32 unique chars spread over the 255 byte range.
All password from 28-32 in length found 22-29 out of 28-32. Plotting the values on a line chart you can see a pattern were a input char has a low value or drop one too three places after and before the input char, with another pattern were two too three low value side by side shows 3-10 chars in front a input char.
Clive Robinson • June 22, 2021 11:30 AM
@ JonKnowsNothing, ALL,
With regards : physicist Michael Meyer-Hermann discusses the successes and mistakes,
“it would make sense for us to develop a culture of wearing masks and complying with the basic hygiene rules for a long time to come.”
There he and I are on the same sheet of music, and hopefully many others will be so for the next decade or so.
If we do we might be abke to say good by to certain other winter diseases as well.
I must admit though, I’m waiting for my second Oxford-AZ shot at the end of this week. Then in four weeks I’m going to mask up, pack up a rucksack, hop on hopefully an empty train with my crutches, and head out to a little railway station I know. Then take me, my popup tent and chair, food, water and my radio gear up the top of a near mountain and call SOTA DX to Europe and see who replys. Might even sleep out under the stars again.
Yup I’ll probably be on my lonesome, but to look out and see South Englands rolling downs and villaged valleys with sweet summer breezes will be heavenly compaired to the past year or so…
while+I+was+away • June 22, 2021 2:43 PM
While someone’s vagaus nerve stimulator, or cardio pacemaker, or insulin pump, or life support system was being hacked….
https://www.ecosia.org/search?p=1&q=%22class+action+lawsuit%22+%22Norplant%22
keyword search (with quites for precision) “class action lawsuit” “Norplant”
Not to be confused with “dental implants” (cosmetic surgical procedure)
The correlations are not fully explained here to minimize invasions of privacy.
hacker algorithmic buzzwords to avoid:
annuity
backup
centralised; cetralized
DNS
SpaceLifeForm • June 22, 2021 4:00 PM
@ JonKnowsNothing, MarkH, Clive
Of course, it’s not just a Flu.
Nasty side-channnel – Long Covid.
hxtps://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03710-0
While a systematic analysis yields no molecular traces of SARS-CoV-2 in the brain, we observe broad cellular perturbations which predict that choroid plexus barrier cells sense and relay peripheral inflammation into the brain and show that peripheral T cells infiltrate the parenchyma.
SpaceLifeForm • June 22, 2021 5:05 PM
@ intind44
I do mean well though.
That is all what one can ask of themselves.
JonKnowsNothing • June 22, 2021 5:37 PM
@Clive @All
re: If we do we might be able to say good by to certain other winter diseases as well.
A recent MSM human interest article described how the journalist in the USA, after the “COVID-19 Masks Came Off” in New York, got a “summer cold” from an offspring. They correctly went to get a COVID-19 test which returned Negative and some MD saying it’s just a common cold and as everyone’s been cooped up our collective immune systems have not been under continuous challenge so there are more colds happening. The journalist then had to take a GiGDrive to somewhere and had to explain to the PickUpDriver that the runny nose and sniffles were just “a little cold”.
It is interesting that some people have not yet “connected the dots” about infectious diseases. We have universally been indoctrinated that “a little cold” is nothing and we should all just carry on with sending kids to school and going to work and passing on the infection because “it’s just a little sniffle”.
RL Anecdote: tl;dr
Some friends with a distributed family, often have get togethers and enjoy visiting and being with their 2d generation decedents.
At some point a light bulb went off.
Whenever the small stuff showed up with snotty noses, they left behind 5-10 days of sickness, that as the friends got older became more burdensome.
Finally they had had enough and told their 1st generation:
Do not come if the kids have snotty noses…
We are tired of being sick afterward.
The journalist clearly didn’t connect the dots, because they exposed a tonnage of folks all around them to whatever they were carrying and was focused solely on their own personal need to go oot-n-aboot.
Then there is the problem of the new variants primary presentation is Sniffles/Runny Nose not Loss of Smell, and the PCR tests not catching all the bugs in the petri dish.
I think @Clive, you might want to take a pony and cart with some supplies and stay up on the hill as long as you can.
sidenote: The Gruyère effect is happening again: gaps and holes but no Onion Soup.
ADFGVX • June 22, 2021 6:12 PM
@ while+I+was+away
Not to be confused with “dental implants” (cosmetic surgical procedure)
We have to call Moses on the medical quackery.
Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth.
That is, the restitution of a seeing eye for a blind eye and a living tooth for a dead tooth is required, because nothing short of perfection is acceptable before God.
echo • June 22, 2021 6:27 PM
UNODC
United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime
Handbook on Gender Dimensions of criminal justice responses to terrorism
Following on from this comment I made this other day The Intercept is digging a little deeper and now making a thing of training manuals.
https://theintercept.com/2021/06/22/socialists-counterterrorism-political-terrorists-navy-antifa/
A Navy counterterrorism training document obtained exclusively by The Intercept appears to conflate socialists with terrorists and lists the left-wing ideology alongside “neo-nazis.”
“It’s just ineffective training because whoever is directing the Navy anti-terror curriculum would rather vilify the left than actually protect anything,” said the military official, who is not authorized to speak publicly. “Despite the fact that the most prominent threat is domestic, right-wing terror.”
And
Both the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security have identified white supremacists as the deadliest terror threat to the United States. In October 2020, the Department of Homeland Security issued its first annual “Homeland Threat Assessment” report, stating that white supremacists were “exceptionally lethal” and “will remain the most persistent and lethal threat in the homeland.” In September, FBI Director Christopher Wray, in testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, said that white supremacists “have been responsible for the most lethal attacks over the last decade” and that they comprise “the biggest chunk of our domestic terrorism portfolio.”
See: Homeland Threat AssessmentOctober 2020
https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/publications/2020_10_06_homeland-threat-assessment.pdf
There are some real problems with US law at the constitutional level, down through Federal law, and at the state level. The US does not properly recognise UN resolutions which include human rights resolution. In contrast the European Convention is a container for these resolutions and the European Court of Human Rights is the judicial mechanism which applies. EU member states are required to sign up to this.
Only this past week US courts ruled one state was not behaving in a neutral way towards a religious organisation which provided education services. This caused the law to flip. Legal opinion says it is only a matter of time before it flips again and this will keep happening because of the failure of US law to give primacy to human rights. It’s this kind of failure of law which is torturing the people drafting policy yet as can be seen by a “plain reading” of the documents the policy is absurd. It simply does not make any form of sense based on logic and the facts which is why undue favour is being granted to a religious group and undue hostility is directed towards what is largely a protest movement standing up for peoples rights in the face of far right aggressors many of whom openly brag about accepting violence as a primary tool and who do not shy away from advertising their intents behind their political allegencies and funding patterns.
I suspect this failure of law is why the Pentagon refused to fly the Pride flag during Pride month (because that would set Confederates off) while embassies, apparently, are allowed to fly the Pride flag whenever they want within the context of “local conditions”.
Echoing Kline’s concerns about constitutional rights, a senior Defense Department official familiar with the development of the military’s domestic extremism program said that defining “extremism” in a way that respects First Amendment rights was proving exceptionally difficult. An internal Pentagon draft document proposing language to define extremism, reviewed by The Intercept, is three pages long, the tortured language reflecting attempts not to violate First Amendment rights, according to the senior Defense Department official.
The Pentagon appears to be aware of the constitutional risks. A separate internal Pentagon document about the definition of extremism states: “As appealing as the concept of a one sentence definition may be, this would carry both practical and legal risks. A single sentence definition, crafted too narrowly, might fail to prohibit actions that threaten the Department’s ability to carry out its mission. A less specific definition, on the other hand, risks being so vague as to prohibit or chill Constitutionally protected conduct by servicemembers.”
I strongly suspect if the US got over its Not Invented Here Syndrome and glanced at the European Convention and consulted a few European human rights lawyers they would make better and fast progress on defining what they need to define in law and policy instead of twisting themselves into knots. I’ve read these documents and they’re half way there and given the US steals everything else when it suits them so it’s not beyond their abilities which robs them of one excuse. The current absolutism and bias makes uncomfortable reading and I’m not convinced the documents as is are adequate which does rather put on the onus on the US to justify their position.
Or you could, you know, just pass the equality act… That would put the mockers on a fair bit of current far right activity.
Freezing_in_Brazil • June 22, 2021 8:28 PM
@ Winter
Regarding population trends in LA
I agree with your arguments, noting that there are exceptions in the region. Brazil is missing the open demographic window, as its population is actually shrinking. Among the various estimates of its Fertility Rate, I take the one from the World Bank[1], which puts it at 1.7, significantly bellow the reposition rate. This represents a terrible liability. Without a drastic course correction, the country will go into decay before reaching the apogee of its civilization.
[1] https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.TFRT.IN?locations=BR
SpaceLifeForm • June 22, 2021 11:32 PM
@ Clive
LOL.
Recall that I suspected ransomware payoff could actually be money laundering.
Now I know why I saw the idea floated recently that the ransomware payoffs should be a tax writeoff.
Company says: We paid $50B in ransom. We want out $50B tax writeoff.
IRS: You never had that kind of money, you are lying. We tracked the payoff, you only paid $5K.
Nice to see SEC is paying attention.
hxtps://www.reuters.com/technology/us-sec-official-says-agency-has-begun-probe-cyber-breach-by-solarwinds-2021-06-21/
WASHINGTON, June 21 (Reuters) – The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has opened a probe into last year’s SolarWinds cyber breach, focusing on whether some companies failed to disclose that they had been affected by the unprecedented hack, two persons familiar with the investigation said on Monday.
Clive Robinson • June 23, 2021 12:26 AM
@ SpaceLifeForm,
Company says: We paid $50B in ransom. We want out $50B tax writeoff.
IRS: You never had that kind of money, you are lying. We tracked the payoff, you only paid $5K.
The moral,
“Give a Capatalist a ‘thou’ and they will demand the Earth”
For those who use those French Reveloutionary Measures that scare Imperialists,
SpaceLifeForm • June 23, 2021 1:44 AM
@ Clive
Looks like a USB to SIM path. Parse the list of options.
hxtps://www.vice.com/en/article/k7835w/how-to-brute-force-iphones-graykey
Kevin • June 23, 2021 2:53 AM
@Oliver:
My favorite is when they deny you for a loan because you are to “High Risk” but they are more than happy to suggest some finance company that works with troubled credit with insane interest rates. Then you find out it is the same bank that denied you from getting the decent loan with good interest rates but they are more than happy to approve you for the loan with interest rates 6 times higher which drives up the payment pretty much trying to set you up for failure.
JonKnowsNothing • June 23, 2021 3:06 AM
@Clive @All
re: COVID Futures updated 1,2,3 (1)
1, The problems of “fleeting contact” are getting official recognition as Australia attempts to batten down the hatches on their COVID-19 escapees. New Zealand has tanked the Bubble Planes from Australia after an infected person went travel-about by plane from AU to NZ, did a walkabout in NZ, and returned to AU. NZ is not waiting for PCR tests to begin their hunt, they have had 100 days of COVID-Free since their last go round at whack-a-mole.
The Queensland chief medical officer, Dr Jeannette Young, said the decision had been made out of concern about the transmissibility of the Delta variant of the virus.
“There’s well over 120 exposure venues and unfortunately, with the Delta variant, we’re seeing very fleeting contact leading to transmission,” she said.
“If you remember at the start of this pandemic, I spoke about 15 minutes of close contact being a concern. Now, it looks like it’s five to 10 seconds that’s a concern. So it’s just the risk is so much higher now than it was only a year ago.”
2, The Bank of Mom and Dad has had an Official Death Count revision from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General Data Snapshot June 22 2021, OEI-02-20-00490, report on COVID-19 in Nursing Homes 2020.
Summary of findings:
Mortality Rates Increased in All Age Groups
| Age | 2019 | 2020
| 85+ | 23% | 30%
| 75-84 | 16% | 21%
| 65-74 | 12% | 16%
| -65 | 8% | 12%
3, Feeds and Feeding (AG Class 101)
EU to lift its ban on feeding animal remains to domestic livestock
Allowing processed animal protein feed for pigs and poultry
It is not a good idea to feed animals destined for consumption Odd Stuff. This goes for both for human and non-human foods.
Lots of foods have “improvements” like extra vitamins or concentrated proteins however, the original sources of such additives needs careful consideration.
Eons ago, when things were primitive the fallout from getting it wrong was somewhat restricted in scope. In modern times, the scope is far greater and the results may take a good long while to be noticed or as in the case of the UK students given injections of known tainted blood products from the USA; the survivors are still fighting for recognition of events from 1970-1980.
In this case it seems the EU has decided that feeding other animal byproducts to Pigs and Fowl is OK.
At the least this is a poor farm feeding program and hazardous due to the many possible complications from feeding rendered dead animals or recent kill offal, to other animals even when “sanitized”.
There is an entire sub-industry that non-farmers may not be aware of:
It’s a big problem and in many cases the by products can make their way safely through the food chain:
There has been growing pressure in recent years, however, for a rethink. The last case of BSE in cattle in the EU was in 2016, and 24 of the 27 member states are now classified as having “negligible BSE risk status”.
This year Bruno Menene, a policy adviser of the Copa-Cogeca, the leading farmers’ union in the EU, said the use of PAP was an “important source of phosphorus rich and highly digestible proteins” that “many pig and poultry farmers” were “looking forward to having access to again”.
Pigs in particular should not be fed any Odd Stuff. Pigs already have significant problems with diseases (like African Swine Fever Virus) and Birds are susceptible to all sorts of problems (like Avian Flu LPAI/HPAI).
To be sure, there have been on-going experiments to “test” outcomes, so the farm supply chain may already have these products “on trial”.
It is not clear how the Organic Food Industry in the EU will respond but the new rules will be in effect August 2021.
===
1, Gruyère post, an Aussi mouse ate it.
ht tps://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/jun/23/nsw-covid-update-greater-sydney-hit-with-new-restrictions-as-state-announces-16-coronavirus-cases
ht tps://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2021-06-22/nursing-home-deaths-rise-32-percent-2020-covid-pandemic
ht tps://www.oig.hhs.gov/oei/reports/OEI-02-20-00490.asp
ht tps://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jun/22/eu-to-lift-its-ban-on-feeding-animal-remains-to-domestic-livestock
ht tps://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/jun/21/blood-inquiry-turns-focus-to-school-where-dozens-were-infected
ht tps://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/jun/21/infected-blood-scandal-ex-pupil-tells-inquiry-he-did-not-know-he-was-in-a-trial
(url fractured to prevent autorun)
tomb • June 23, 2021 10:54 AM
@Clive, lurker, MarkH et al,
the problem is that degrees have become phenomenally easy to get and expertise has become watered down by excessive specialization and the difficulty of developing adequate theories or apparatus for measurement. Just as often as not, the experts as good as dart throwing chimps at the more difficult tasks like forecasting events. Worse, in the modern era even expertise is politicized with the political Left obviously dominating university lecture content and discouraging speech that does not fit specific narratives on specific topics. Beyond even this are the “noble lies” that experts tell us that may kill you for some abstract “greater good”.
Can you really even trust the experts have your best interest in mind let alone that they know what they’re talking about?
There were subject matter experts on the Intelligence Matters podcast back in Sep 2020 saying that they had ruled all other conclusions than “lab leak” as highly implausible based on a combination of classified and unclassified reports. but they were largely ignored by a news media paranoid of “racism” accusations and afraid of being “agents of misinformation”. Suddenly the criteria for establishing “truth” in reporting met with a gigantic time lag while incontrovertible evidence was collected. meanwhile, everyone else continued to insist “no lab leak” based on the outdated information they had early in the pandemic.
“This virus is nothing like we’ve seen before” was used as evidence it could not have come from a lab. Uniqueness is an obvious indicator or design.
Winter • June 23, 2021 11:06 AM
@tomb
“Worse, in the modern era even expertise is politicized with the political Left obviously dominating university lecture content and discouraging speech that does not fit specific narratives on specific topics.”
Which is utter nonsense. A virus does not care about political ideologies. And if you have no evidence, none, and no historical parallel, there is absolutely no reason to take your opinions as anything other than figments of the imagination.
Until there is anything beyond “we did not see this before”, which we also said about AIDS and SARS1, there is no reason to listen to politically motivated slander.
Clive Robinson • June 23, 2021 11:53 AM
@ tomb,
Worse, in the modern era even expertise is politicized with the political Left obviously dominating university lecture content and discouraging speech that does not fit specific narratives on specific topics.
Oh you mean just like the neo-cons and libertarians with their “Personal Rights Trump Social Responsability” who have through their financial control of the Chicago School of Economics and similar churn out MBS’s and Economics majors who zombified parrot inane mantras that got us so far into this cess pit mess it will take four or five generations to get our heads above the surface not out, that may never happen.
In the mean time that eyewatering “stimulus debt” that went only to certain favoured people is now being used to buy up property to force a more massive and worse “rent seeking” economy, that will make medieval serfdom look good, on the entire population. Except for the favoured few, who by then will own the politicians as indebted vassals, obediant to their dictates of the favoured few.
They are currently desperately using any Orwellian play book excuse to stop those citizens at home looking at just what they are upto.
You mean that “political Left”?
God you must think we are a lot dumber than you are.
Grow up before your children find you sold them out for a handfull of nonsense mantras. Believe me they won’t be calling you a “tea bagger” it will be a lot lot worse.
Fake • June 23, 2021 12:04 PM
Clive, you’re absolutely right about the long game if covid kills people. It’s what I was telling people when btc dropped to 4k.
One big game of engineering.
Tatütata • June 23, 2021 3:18 PM
Of peripheral interest:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jun/23/john-mcafee-dead-spain-prison-extradition
======
John McAfee: antivirus entrepreneur found dead in Spanish prison
McAfee’s extradition to the US on tax charges had been approved hours earlier
The antivirus software entrepreneur John McAfee has been found dead in his cell in Spain, hours after the country’s national court approved his extradition to the United States, where he was wanted on tax-related criminal charges that carry a prison sentence of up to 30 years.
Let’s hope the former guy gets his own day in court.
Meanwhile we are treated to yet more inept sphincter modulations by the resident troll(s). Get a life.
SpaceLifeForm • June 23, 2021 11:31 PM
No Modems?
hxtps://shufflingbytes.com/posts/wardialing-finnish-freephones/
Clive Robinson • June 24, 2021 12:47 AM
@ SpaceLifeForm,
No Modems?
There are (FAX) and there probably are ones for data, but won’t show up to silence.
The normal ones in PC’s for years now start off with FAX tones and if you send a data modem warble will switch over.
Others sit their “listening” to stop easy “War Dialing”. With one or two interesting ones that when you dialed in gave you FAX or Silence and when you sent modem warble cleared the connection waited for a predetermined period then dialed you back on the Call ID number you presented.
But reading the article made me smile when reading,
“I was very surprised to hear this bizarre message about the end of the world and a zombie apocalypse when listening to the recordings.”
I would not have been, usually you find “joke lines” dotted around.
Often but not always they are non-obvious premium rate numbers. The usual one is designed,for women to hand out to “bar-pests” that give a message that in effect tells the bar-pest to “drop dead”…
Others are “rant lines” where when you call a normal voice says hello or who’s calling in an informal way and just a few seconds after recognising “voice on the line” changes to a scream of “You!!! You maggot how dare…” and launches into an uninterruptible tirade for 30 secs and then hangs up. We used to haze newbie tech support people with those.
At one point you could find a service for just about any type of wind-up you wanted, but with the advent of “SMS thumbs” in the “outh” such services died back as the money was not there any longer.
Which is why anyone younger than late thirties does not realise such things existed.
Oh fun fact, the little picture at the top of the page has two figures in it, the one on the right is a “Moomintroll”[1] who is a “curious but worried” type. Sir Terry Pratchets daughter Rhiannon who amoungst other things writes “kick-ass” scripts for the “Tomb Raider” and other female lead protagonist fiction, was very very fond of Moomintroll when young and a little less young,
SpaceLifeForm • June 24, 2021 1:06 AM
@ Tatütata
hxtps://siliconangle.com/2015/06/16/a-cyber-world-in-crisis/
SpaceLifeForm • June 24, 2021 2:42 AM
@ Clive
Yes, dial-back is definitely a good security choice.
Acoustic couplers. Cool tech.
SpaceLifeForm • June 24, 2021 3:28 AM
Climate change.
All time record high for Portland Oregon this Sunday. I’ll go with 112F.
And in about 7-10 days, a very good chance of a major hurricane developing. Cat4 or cat5 level. Get out your Sharpie, it’s going towards Alabama.
This is all a lie, there is no global warming.
Clive Robinson • June 24, 2021 2:37 PM
@ JonKnowsNothing,
You might have noticed that things are on the rise in the UK. With a sudden test spike caused by Scottland and Wales.
Apparently there have been 41 cases of K417N changed Delta, so now called Delta Plus. Apparentlt K417N is associated with avoident behaviour seen in S.A. Varient.
Speaking of Delta apparently ~20% of new in US and doubling just under every two weeks so expected to be dominant half way through next month. Apparently issolating at home gets every occupant and even front door visitors from reports else where so kids are going to be a major spread vector during summer.
I guess the question of just when Delta gets into Europe and starts rampaging, it’s not going to be long befor “back to school” and damp cooler weather from the West starts moving things forwards…
Whilst a skirmish may have been successful the battle has yet to get into full swing and the end of the war is most definately not in sight.
SpaceLifeForm • June 24, 2021 2:47 PM
Lexer crash.
Deutsche Bank taps Oracle to simplify its IT, cut costs
hxtps://www.reuters.com/technology/deutsche-bank-taps-oracle-simplify-its-it-cut-costs-2021-06-24/
Grima Squeakersen • June 24, 2021 2:52 PM
@SpaceLifeForm re: travel to galactic “sticks” – Homo Habilis will only travel at sub-light speeds. Has to do with both safety considerations and limitations on Bussard ramjet technology…
SpaceLifeForm • June 24, 2021 3:55 PM
@ JonKnowsNothing
Why would the sequence data be deleted? Maybe it did not fit the narrative.
hxtps://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.06.18.449051v1
SpaceLifeForm • June 24, 2021 4:21 PM
@ JonKnowsNothing, MarkH, Clive
As has been said before, “You can’t fix stupid”
Nearly all COVID deaths in US are now among unvaccinated
hxtps://apnews.com/article/coronavirus-pandemic-health-941fcf43d9731c76c16e7354f5d5e187
[We may need a gofundme so that Charles Darwin does not run short of popcorn]
SpaceLifeForm • June 24, 2021 4:43 PM
Silicon Turtles
hxtps://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/06/zyxel-scrambles-to-thwart-active-hacks-targeting-customers-firewalls-and-vpns/
SpaceLifeForm • June 24, 2021 5:07 PM
Silicon Turtles
Just pull the plug on Windows.
Oh, can’t remove battery? Never mind.
hxtps://mobile.twitter.com/freezydorito/status/1408135244235034637
i’m checking if my tablet can upgrade to windows 11 and it was bluescreened in the middle on an update bc of course and anyway i have discovered this neat feature where it will beg for its life if you try to force reboot it
Screenshot shows:
‘Please release the power button. We just need a few more seconds to shut down’
Clive Robinson • June 24, 2021 5:49 PM
@ SpaceLifeForm,
Silicon Turtles : Zyxel
“Based on the vague details available so far, the vulnerability sounds reminiscent of CVE-2020-29583, which stemmed from an undocumented account with full administrative system rights that used the hardcoded password “PrOw!aN_fXp.” When Zyxel fixed the vulnerability in January, however, the account was listed as “zyfwp,” a name that doesn’t appear in the email Zyxel sent to customers this week.”
Sounds like, somebody did the dirty over at Zyxel. Either they pulled just the one known about account in the CVE leaving the orhers… Or they pulled the known one and added a few more of their own…
Either way who want’s a cheap Zyxel?
Moving on to,
“anyway i have discovered this neat feature where it will beg for its life if you try to force”
You and I both know that the way you “terminate a zombie” is a double tap to the lizard brain to “disconnect the computer”, lest it put the bite on you…
Hmm transmigration of the silicon soul by reincarnation and death by Theophany, at the appearence of “WinDruze 11 the zombie up rising”, brought to you from Gilgamesh by Bill and Satya… Sounds like it has the making of an epic tale of conquest comming to a screen near you real soon now, wether you want it to or not…
JonKnowsNothing • June 24, 2021 9:28 PM
@ SpaceLifeForm, MarkH, Clive, All
re: Missing or Omitted COVID_19 Sequences
disclosure: Lots of the information referenced is way over my pay grade …
I read several articles that claim the missing or omitted sequences are Nothing To See Here, but I find the paper to have some interesting details. I’m not sure what to make of those details but it’s interesting.
This actually dovetails into some discussions here about The Early COVID-19 Days or Daze and the hunt for the source of some of the sequences. These are sequences are not the ones being sought but are still of interest.
If I understood the paper, the omitted sequences are from bats and more closely align with some of the genome data from early COVID-19 patient samples than some previously proposed sources.
As you indicated:
Universal • June 25, 2021 3:11 AM
That’s an interesting, take. I had a similar view, only instead of bubbles, it was pockets of consciousness in a giant tree like structure. Yeah.. I really can’t explain it ant better than that. Lmao it was a vision I had of the universal construct of consciousness.
But in principle, I view you, and everyone else, as extensions of my own psyche. The hell of the vessel I’m speaking through now is just a special kind of fuc-ked, because I’m one of the lives where I’m truly aware of the reason for my torment. It also gets really fuc-ked when you consider that most of the pain in the world is me causing pain to myself. Also.. it’s really not humble either.
Best example I can give is this. As the above suggests, from my perspective as being everyone, I was also Jesus & when I realized this, I also realized that I constructed Jesus not to save anyone, but to purge my own psyche of self-doubt, which requires entirely too much psychobabbling to explain how I came to the conclusion that Jesus was effectively the “real antichrist” in that Chris lead a third of the world astray.
👆 When I had this epiphany, my first follow up thought “that sounds exactly like what the Antichrist would try to say.” And then I laughed maniacally at the irony of it all.
Craziest part of all this madness. I don’t even think I’m evil. And I’m not super immoral either. I’m just autistic and suffer from a peculiar form of solipsism. Strangely I’ve found that a lot of others with autism have similar relationship to their perception of their consciousness not belonging on Earth.
Winter • June 25, 2021 5:09 AM
@Lurker
“Why are you double posting?”
They are cumulative. I add new issueas on top.
Fake • June 25, 2021 6:27 AM
@Tool,
It’s not my blog, but could you use less filler?
The 1s are turning my thumb into a big toe.
I agree something is funny here you know that, but there are more incideous ways to be disruptive and more targeted ways to reach your objective that won’t piss off what is currently collateral damage.
Personally I thought the resurrections were apt and could’ve been done better but remember there’s a subchannel you’d need to duplicate.
Just please stop with the 1s, my toe hurts.
Thanks.
Ps, if anyone thinks that comment isn’t security related. Every last one of us is capable of enjoying various solutions to filter out the current stuff.
Various scripts, html injections, maybe a custom browser… But none of it addresses the public facing site only limited client side Impala.
@Tool, no more filler please it’s very important to be able to see their brainwaves. Better to illicit interaction it’s the princess and the pea.
Winter • June 25, 2021 7:06 AM
@Fake
“The 1s are turning my thumb into a big toe.”
In general, using the link to the latest 100 comments will bring you up to the latest.
https://www.schneier.com/blog/newcomments.html/
Fake • June 25, 2021 7:24 AM
@echo,
Interesting Nuremberg ref/appl.
As I’ve said, I believe they’re (the vaccines) a good idea but that there may be legitimate reasons to avoid them not counting religious.
The Nuremberg ref is asking the lines of what several of my African American customers have referenced.
Tuskegee.
Etc.
I also believe the mRNA technology is a game changer, we may not need GoF legally with mRNA response time.
😉
Joe Biden • June 25, 2021 8:02 AM
Holy shit, are you surprised? This is the biggest conspiracy (no theory) of all time. The biggest mass hypnosis event. The greatest eugenics push. The greatest viral (yeah!) marketing campaign ever seen in the universe. It’s all to:
Sell vaccines for which they’ve never invested so little in testing for safety and efficacy, and,
Have a foot in the door of every human body vis-a-vis mRNA technology – Once it’s in you, so are their meathooks. Now you’re a customer for life (or death – they don’t care)
Freezing_in_Brazil • June 25, 2021 12:01 PM
Regarding Covid-19
How much time do we have until an immunization-escaped variety materializes? Would anyone have some take on this?
Winter • June 25, 2021 12:07 PM
@Freezing
“How much time do we have until an immunization-escaped variety materializes?”
That is currently impossible to predict. There is simply not enough known about SARS. Some vaccines have never been “escaped”, e.g., smallpox, polio, measles. But the common flu has so many variants that there is a new one every year.
Simple population genetics predicts that the probability increases markedly with the number of infected people.
But I would suspect we will need a bi-yearly boost.
Clive Robinson • June 25, 2021 3:20 PM
@ Freezing
How much time do we have until an immunization-escaped variety materializes? Would anyone have some take on this?
It depends on what you mean by “immunization-escaped” arguably it’s already happened[1].
To see why you have to consider there are two sides in the game of virus mutation in the presence of one or more vaccines (which is unusuall any way).
1, The evolving virus
2, The fixed in time vaccine.
The “efficacy” of a vaccine is usually marked at 50% of the population injected with the vaccine.
In effect if you have a trial and the numbers in the control group that get infected are the same or less than the test group then the vaccine has no efficacy of merit. Whilst in theory this can happen with small trials, but not in the wider population, it’s generally treated as a bad sign unless it can be accounted for in some recognized way.
Now the world and his dog have been brewing up vaccines for SARS-CoV-2 which is very unusual. Some are claimed to have good efficacy some not so good and one or two have been down at not much better than 60% to the second strain (the one that got out of China).
Some mutations have been reported to have escaped some vaccines[1] in “in vitro” (in glass/lab) testing. However the results have been subject to interpretation and qualification.
You also have to watch out for how the virus mutates… Whilst the rate is linked to the “prevelance” (number of people currently infected). There is some significant variability in this due to various apparently random coincidences (ie having two sufficiently similar infections at the same time). We also know it is more likely to happen in an “immuno compromised” person than a healthy person. But when an immuno compromised individual gets infected -if they even do– is subject to a large number of factors, it appears random when taken on mass.
Will SARS-2 escape all current vaccines?
Simple answer is,
“With sufficient time and prevelence” highly likely”.
The outer bound reason is simple,
“The vaccines are static the virus evolves”.
However there are assumptions in there one of which is an endless supply of hosts that can be infected. If the virus can not find a susceptable host in the relatively short time it is viable –a few hours– then it fails to reproduce. Likewise humans fight off the infection or they die so they are only actively shedding virus for a relatively short time (a few days).
It’s why if the world had had a sensible hard lockdown policy of about 5 weeks back when China had it’s Wuhan lockdown we would not be in this rotten profiteering mess neo-con politicians have inflicted on us, and would most likely be talking about COVID in the past tense… But…
The Politicians were clearly warned if we did not lockdown properly then we would just end up in cycles of lockdowns. Some politicians listened and their economies and social lives within their regional quarantine areas are as near normall as makes little or no difference. However in the countries run by mindless mantra following idiots, we have decimated economies and far from normal social lives.
Take the UK the Delta varient is rising fairly quickly, and close on it’s heels it has a varient of it’s own the “Delta Plus” that has the mutation that allegadly made the SA varient escape vaccine generated antibodies… It’s considered more than twice as infectious as the varient that escaped from China and has this “near zero infection time” issue. Where you get infected in seconds not minutes so there is not the illusion of “safe time” (there never actually was, but it’s complicated to explain). So if the youngest in the house gets it, the whole house will get it as will many of those they know, it’s why R0 has been said to be upto 8 and the infection doubling time down well below two weeks. Worse it’s apparantly got a much increased lethality in younger age ranges which is why they are actively encoraging those who are 18 and above to get atleast one shot of vaccine as quickly as possible and spot testing in Scotland and Wales has been increased very significantly.
But a look at the trends shows the UK is “the dirty man of the North” again with rising COVID cases… The Delta VoC is apparently about 20% of US cases[2] and is almost certainly going to rise fairly rapidly and be not far off being the most prevelant varient by the middle of next month. Thus expect R0 to go up thus an increase in prevelance to rise fairly rapidly.
I guess the real question is are the dumb ass mantra following politicians going to wise up, or are we going to have to round them up and put them outvof our missery they’ve inflicted on us by their cupidity and lack of social responsability and societaly acceptable morals.
[2] It’s almost certainly “under reported” for political reasons, but that effects mainly infection rates not the ratios of infection variants which are effected more by regionality of “community spread”.
Fake • June 25, 2021 4:54 PM
@Richard Holters,
I know you’re a fake but let’s respond anyways,
You forgot about the multiple republican bills trying to absolve businesses from employee safety where exposure to covid may have been basically negligent and or intentional.
We’re getting it from ALL sides.
Freezing_in_Brazil • June 25, 2021 6:59 PM
@ Clive
I guess the real question is are the dumb ass mantra following politicians going to wise up, or are we going to have to round them up and put them outvof our missery they’ve inflicted on us by their cupidity and lack of social responsability and societaly acceptable morals.
Right to the heart of the matter. I’m afraid an escaped variant will appear in South America. Apologies in advance.
Great post, Thanks. I really appreciate. Thank you too @Winter.
Regards
Clive Robinson • June 25, 2021 8:51 PM
@ Freezing_in_Brazil,
I’m afraid an escaped variant will appear in South America. Apologies in advance.
It’s not your fault, so you should not be the one apologising.
The person who’s fault it is, and their backers are the ones who should first be apologising to the people of Brazil, who in no way deserved what has befallen them.
JonKnowsNothing • June 25, 2021 10:00 PM
@Freezing_in_Brazil
re: I’m afraid an escaped variant will appear in South America.
Unfortunately, there are 4 variants in South America of significance.
These you may be familiar with:
The one you are asking about is
It has all the extra bonus mutation items, plus it by passes vaccine immunity.
It is common in Peru, Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Ecuador and 29 other countries.
It went undetected for a long time because Lambda does not have one of the key genome sequences used by the current set of PCR tests. It is similar to the Beta Variant B.1.351 South African which also does not have that sequence. It was incorrectly classified as Gamma Brazil Manaus P.1 .
Delta B.1.617.2 India v2, is also on the rise globally.
===
ht tps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SARS-CoV-2_Lambda_variant
(url fractured to prevent autorun)
Fake • June 25, 2021 10:44 PM
@Clive,
RE: the world and the dog
Actually, I don’t think…
It’s wholely unusual that a technology once only available to a somewhat fixed set of countries has seen a much larger contingent of attempts at engineering a potentially life saving technology both for their own accord and for any monetary gains that might be had.
What is unfortunate is the apparent disinformation and cloud involved with any given facet.
Chocolate is best
Vanilla is better
Sherbet will give you vitamin c
But sugar will kill you
SAD FACE
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Sidebar photo of Bruce Schneier by Joe MacInnis.
SpaceLifeForm • June 18, 2021 4:45 PM
Life in the galactic rural areas
Aliens Wouldn’t Need Warp Drives to Take Over an Entire Galaxy, Simulation Suggests
hxtps://gizmodo.com/aliens-wouldnt-need-warp-drives-to-take-over-an-entire-1847101242
Are we sure there are none around here?